Jenny's Random Thoughts

This web page has thoughts about the research process, things that happened to me, explanations, etc. This will be in reverse chronological order so that people who want to know what's going on can just read from the top.

10/29/09: I meant to write about this earlier, but apparently forgot. I recently started writing a draft of my thesis. It's an early draft...very, very early. Anyhow, I thought of writing about active learning. I either thought of the term or saw it somewhere in the reading. Then I googled it and found a number of websites on the topic. The first hit returned was an amazing resource that I ended up printing entirely. It is www.cat.ilstu.edu/resources/teachTopics/active.php, and I am in the process of reading those pages now.

If I had never started writing, I would never have gone through the process through which I found this web resource, and I would have missed out on all the information that I am learning now. I find that scary and amazing.

This resource covers motivation and learning, a topic I researched quite a while ago. I am eager to read what they have on that topic as I expect it to include valuable resources that I never found before.

Like I was telling Hilary, I feel like a kid on an easter egg hunt who found a stash of chocolate eggs a mile high. I am going to be busy for a while just mining this resource. It will keep me so engrossed that I am thinking, "Why continue searching for more material when I have found something so rich?" I actually said, "If I found a pyramid full of riches, who cares about finding more pyramids at this point?" and it's true. I have found quite the pile of riches, and it is going to take a while to go through it. Is this what archaeologists go through when they find something? They don't worry about not finding more pyramids, at least not at this point. Instead, they throw themselves into discovering all the riches in the current pyramid they have found.

I guess that's obvious, but it points to the constant sense of searching that you pick up when you do research. Is this resource good enough? Is it outdated? How much value does it provide? Do I need to keep on looking? It's a bit of insanity, but I assume it's par for the course.

In the end, I am forever grateful for finding this resource at all. It is truly a gold mine.

10/10/09: This is an excerpt from an email I wrote to a friend today. I thought it would be a good addition to the blog:

I've been eating, or overeating I should say, simply because recovering from a breakdown and learning to understand and deal with depression has been a bigger task than I could handle most of the time. I knew I was abusing food, but for lack of another outlet, I just did it anyway. It's hard when you are not getting the right meds, and you're struggling with the daunting task of wrapping you're head around all the loose ends in your life. That was me for forever.

Actually, come to think of it, back in college, I still didn't like to eat, but I was miserable and I chose to wreck my life by overeating because I didn't want to get into booze or drugs. I was just angry and decided to choose the way I acted out. Sounds strange, but I do remember that moment. And then I started gaining weight, and, unfortunately, I got used to eating when I wasn't hungry.

Two decades later, I must say I am totally addicted to this awful habit, and what I'm doing now is trying to return to some healthier thinking habits, as I believe that getting in shape mentally will go a long way towards me getting myself in shape physically.

The easy pound loss is done. All I did to lose the first 20-30 lbs. was eat better. Now I have to change my attitude toward food, shed the "I just don't care what happens to me" attitude, and just strive for strength and a positive basis for life in all aspects.

It used to be so, so easy for me to face a goal and accomplish it. That was back in high school. I was just so focused and so driven that it was really easy to pull things together and accomplish anything I set my mind to. So what I want to do now is pull myself into focus and focus my energies on positive lifestyle habits and thinking. I feel like if I feel strong mentally and I feel good about myself, I will end this bad habit and bad attitude that leads me to overeat for basically no good reason at all.

I mean, I eat when I'm not hungry. It's illogical as anything, and I tell myself it's because I like to eat. But I never fill my car's gas tank past the full mark, so why do I feed myself when I don't need food? I feel like I need to stare my bad self down and get totally focused on building ONLY good habits for myself. You can't be partially self-defeating just like you can't be partially pregnant. So, I am working on guiding my brain back towards a 100% positive, healthy, and pro-active lifestyle. I can feel myself improving steadily, though slowly. But I feel this transformation in attitude will save me in the long run, whereas just exercising until I reach my goal weight will get me to my goal but won't keep me there.

10/9/09: I just want to take the time to cheer for myself, for accomplishing two tasks I kind of dreaded, but managed to complete on my own anyway. They were a twiki programming task and a software installation task. I always underestimate my programming abilities because...well, just because. I don't feel confident about my programming abilities, but that's not to say that I can't do a decent job. My accomplishing two programming-type tasks in two days demonstrates that. Now, I did spend a lot of time on each task, because there was a lot of trial and error before I made things work, but so what. That's the nature of the beast, and I don't blame myself for going through that process. What matters is I finished the tasks, and I feel just a wee bit more competent for it all. Yea for me!

10/8/09 (d): Okay, now for some truly random thoughts...

For the longest time, while being in Hilary's research lab, I felt so sluggish. I kept blaming myself for being not motivated. Then recently, I went to the doctor to complain about not using my CPAP machine (for sleep apnea), and my doctor prescribed a nasal steroid to treat some very swollen nasal passages. The swelling went down, and suddenly I found myself more alert during the days. I asked the doctor if the new energy level was because I was finally getting oxygen to my brain, and she said 'yes'.

That's interesting because there was a biological basis for my sluggish feeling, yet I kept blaming my psychological self for my lack of energy.

Now, my problem is a lack of progress in goals I set. I'm thinking of both weight loss goals and research work goals. I feel like I'm just not progressing at a good rate with research, and I'm starting to lose ground again on the weight loss front.

How to address this?

It seems to me that at one point in my life, I couldn't learn how to relax. I worked hard and often wondered how people could stand to have nothing to do.

Now, after having struggled with depression for so long and learning how to cope with having less to do (I haven't been employed for a long time), I now am in the opposite situation, having learned to relax and not quite knowing how to be productive again.

Of course, that's not really a problem. All you do is up and do something, one thing after another. But I think my perception of this problem must change.

I have been telling myself lately that I overdid it in my youth, and that that was why I ended up like this. There may be some truth to that situation, but now that I have read "Trauma and Recovery" I realize that what happened to me would have happened no matter how hard I worked. My mental illness was a response to my environment, not to the fact that I liked to work hard. Maybe had I started the work of dealing with my demons earlier, I could have avoided some of my mental health past, but that's not something I can ever have an answer to. The point is that it wasn't my hard work that ruined my life, but the abuse. This is a very important point.

That means I don't have to fear working hard again. I just have to save time to stay healthy mentally by working on my issues and such. Meanwhile, I am free to take on a large task list and go have fun working hard again. I say 'fun' because I know I'm happier when I have things to do and I complete them. For the longest time since I was hospitalized, I had a hard time getting back into that mode because I felt that my mental health issues were largely a result of working too hard and paying too little attention to myself. It's clear that that kind of behavior can exacerbate my mental health issues, but the primary thing to understand is that I was abused extensively in my life, and that my mental health issues derive primarily from that problem. The overwork exacerbated it, but didn't cause it.

This realization makes it possible for me to move back into a more dynamic existence. I know that if I exercise regularly and work on research on a more ambitious level, that I will make progress on that goals I care about. Working hard will not throw me back into poor mental health. I do need personal time to take care of issues. I have a therapist and a lot of self-knowledge to better address that, better than when I was in high school and wasn't even sure if I could call my problems real. With the incredible knowledge I gained from "Trauma and Recovery," I understand that my emotional issues derive from abuse and not overwork. It's like I have permission to work again. I need that to return to a happy and productive existence.

I am glad I understand this now. It changes my life completely and in a very good way.

10/8/09 (c): Oh, one more thing to blog about. I think I'm having crises such as the one below because I have too much "free time" on my hands. I am basically working on my thesis, and the way I spend my time is highly unstructured. I don't feel like I'm handling it very well.

On the other hand, when I am working on library school, there is so much work to do that I feel stressed and that my life is out of my control. That isn't so hot either.

I just really want to get done with school and start working again. My worries about being a librarian are legit, but right now I think my mind is wandering simply because I don't have any deadlines looming over me.

I think the way out of this rut is to be more disciplined. I need a sense of "I need to go from here to there" in order to not fall into this kind of thinking and panicking. It's worth a shot. I really don't like thinking that my life as a student for all these years is going to amount to nothing. That's very discouraging.

10/8/09 (b): I think I am having a bit of an existential crisis. Well, I use the word "existential" because it's fancy. Whether existential or not, it feels like a crisis. I am worried about working for several more years completing my master's in library science and then discovering that I don't like working in a library. Can that happen? Well, of course it "can," but will it? That's what I'm worrying about today.

I care enormously about the goals of a librarian, but I wonder if actually manning the reference desk or assuming any of the other roles of a public librarian will really make me happy. I know when I visit public libraries, I don't really like the hyperactive "shush" mode of the people there. But then I've only been in a public library for an extended period of time when I am working on a project, and I have a deadline to meet. So there's some stress factor there.

I'm worried that I'm spending all this time (and my dad's money) on an education only to fall back eventually on being a secretary to earn a living. The thing about being a secretary is that I actually enjoy the work. I did it for many years in my twenties after I got laid off from my second job. My first job was as a testing analyst at an insurance company. I hated that with a passion. My second job was as a research assistant at an epidemiology company. I didn't like the environment there. What I learned in my travels as a temporary office worker is that finding a company with good people basically makes or breaks your feelings about a job. I was lucky to meet many good people in my travels as an office temp, and I even got job offers. But I was too fussy about being labeled a "secretary" so I never took anyone up on those job offers. But work is work, and I need medical insurance. In the shape that I am in now, I would no longer pooh-pooh any label. I would just want to find a job (secretary or librarian) among people that I like. I know I like the people in Oakland Public Library and that I do not like the people at Contra Costa County Library. That's from some interviewing experiences for library assistant positions that I had with both systems a while back. If I can't get a job with a library system that I'm happy with, I know I have a fall-back option of becoming a secretary. But if I'm willing to do that at all, why am I spending so many years getting a library degree (and cs degree)? Why not just be a secretary?

I know this is my dad's voice inside my head, but it is a reasonable question. My answer is that librarianship fulfills a sense of mission, and that that is so very, very important. I realize that. But from a practical point of view, it almost seems silly to do all this extra studying at my age, and to lose the income-earning potential of those years spent studying. Sigh.

I'm lucky I'm able to have this crisis at all. Some people would not be able to even reflect on it. They would just have to find any work they could find. But I am not in that position because my dad is able to afford to pay my living expenses while I seek a higher calling, if you will. Maybe I need to stop with my "rich girl" problems and do the work that's in front on me. Sounds good to me.

End of complaint.

10/8/09 (a): Heavy sigh! I just spent three days backing up my email data. I created a new Yahoo account and then forwarded all some 2000 emails to that account. I learned that there is a Yahoo error 999 that appears when there is too much email activity coming from your computer. You can't get rid of the error. You just have to wait for some time to pass, and it disappears. Thankfully, for me that time was only 30 minutes to 2 hours. The wait could have been up to 24 hours according to some posts I read on the Internet when I was researching the error.

What's frustrating about this, besides that I had to spent THREE DAYS backing up data, is that this was not my chosen method of backing up data. Many months ago, I wanted to just download the emails from Yahoo and store them on a hard drive. I could not figure out how to do that. Neither could my techno-savvy brother. So I just left it as a single copy on my email account for many months. Actually losing the data brought back sufficient incentive to find a solution to creating a backup copy of the data, and creating a dummy account and forwarding the data was the only thing I could think of.

The problem with doing this is that it masks all the emails. Now, at the top level, all the emails are from me (my personal email account) to me (the dummy account). The time stamp on the emails are not the actual time and date the emails were sent during the quarter. Instead, they are all stamped with the date I sent them from my email account to my dummy email account. It's a small sacrifice as opposed to losing all the data, but I would have preferred to be able to download the emails to my computer and preserve the data in its original form (time/date, sender).

Hilary said "Welcome to the world of technomethodology". What an introduction indeed.

Anyhow, I am not going to dwell on this situation any further. I've got plenty of other research tasks to take care of.

10/4/09 (b): I must say, all this data loss happening has gotten my head out of the clouds, and I feel like I can focus quite well on research work. I have to. It was cloudiness of mind that allowed me to lose the data in the first place. Now, I am in a much more sober mood, and I have to work only under those conditions. Clarity of mind, and a well-rested body. No more working when I am frustrated and tired. I can't afford to delay graduation. This was a major incident, and I have to be extra careful from this point forward.

10/4/09 (a): I may as well document this day as the day I lost part of my data. I lost winter 2009 email data. I still have the first two quarters I ta'ed, spring 2008 and fall 2008.

I just phased out. I was cleaning out my email mailbox, and was completely unaware that I hadn't stored winter '09 data in the appropriate folders. I was deleting like crazy, and realized too late that I can gotten rid of raw data. It seems so stupid and undoable, but unfortunately, I did do it.

It has been a lousy, lousy day.

10/1/09: Okay, I noticed this yesterday, but I am screaming about it today. Half my blog disappeared. It got deleted, so now I have to go to version 140 to read anything before August 20th, 2009. What a royal, freakin' pain in the butt.

What's irritating is that I can't restore the old version and copy the new stuff into it.

Well, okay, I can copy and paste everything before 8/20/09 into this version. Yes, that's doable. It's also humongous. I'll have to set aside one evening and take care of that.

9/29/09: Ahh...life just gets more and more interesting. I'm 14 pages short of finishing "Trauma and Recovery," and I have so much to say about my observations about my own life as informed by this book. I thought learning about the "cycle of abuse" was enlightening. Well, in that case, this reading this book was like a two-hour fireworks display. Truly amazing how it retold the story of my life. And I don't even know the author! (haha...bad inside joke)

So many of my thoughts were repeated in this book. Thoughts I had as a young girl growing up in a family of people who I felt were not nice to me, all the way through to thoughts I had as an adult trying to make sense of the world after I had a psychotic break.

It was really gratifying to see that my experience was the normal response to an extraordinary situation, and that my life was more like a typical case study than the abnormal blip I tend to think of it as.

It made me feel more normal and ordinary than anything else, and I think that's what I needed, unbeknownst to myself. It is incredibly gratifying to see that my life, however unfortunate, is duplicated all over the species and that my reaction to my circumstances is also duplicated all over the species. In other words, my life is a normal reaction to all that has happened to me. I didn't "ask for it" or make it happen by certain choices or thoughts I may have harbored. Instead, I was reacting as I am expected to react as a member of the human race, and all the things that I've been through are typical of someone in my situation.

Though I don't know anyone personally who has gone through exactly what I've gone through, that's not the point. The point is that I went through a traumatizing childhood that led to a traumatizing early adult life, and the recovery process, however long (and I mean loooooong), has gone exactly the way it should. I like that. Otherwise, sometimes I feel like my circumstances were my fault and my recovery is way off base in terms of time and quality. But now I have learned otherwise.

9/26/09 (b): Another thing I wanted to note was that I recently noticed how I am in a new, more positive phase of my life or in my recovery from depression. I used to be totally flustered when it came to the process of healing. I just didn't know where to start. To keep things from being overwhelming, I would sometimes type out a list of what I wanted to improve in my life. Then I'd try to pick one thing on the list and work on it. The trouble with that is that each item was so huge that I didn't know how to start even for a single item.

Now, in so many ways, my life is progressing so much better. When I consider the topic of career, I know I have chosen my dream career--librarianship. And I was able to choose it based on the generosity of my parents. One reason I did not choose it when I first considered it in my twenties is that it is not a lucrative career, and it also lacks prestige. In fact, I sometimes didn't understand fully what a librarian did myself. Now, because of a great deal of financial support from my parents, I don't have to worry about how I will house myself or retire. I can choose what I want to do versus what I might have to do just to afford to live. That is a huge gift.

When I think about my future, I think about what I will do as a librarian. I have an answer, and that is hugely comforting. I don't find myself thinking upon a blank slate as I did 10 years ago when I hadn't discovered my dream career. I don't find myself beating myself up for not choosing to be an engineer. I know I wouldn't have been happy, but at least I'd have a career and the trappings of a working life.

I have made many strides forward thanks to a lot of people, including myself. I have proved to myself that significant weight loss is possible. I am now 216 lbs, down from a high of 235. I know based on my rate of weight gain that had I never set out to lose weight, I would weigh almost 250 by now. That's a given.

I have the enormous reassurance from Hilary that resurrecting a career that is not just enough to pay the bills but that is interesting and challenging, is not only possible but a very real thing. I am so relieved that I have a choice: to take on a challenging career or to work simply for a paycheck (if my health doesn't hold up). That makes me feel stronger and liberated from the chains of depression.

My health issues have been getting better, not just because of some significant weight loss, but because I have a really good doctor at Kaiser who is helping me solve my health issues one at a time. Not all Kaiser doctors are proactive, but mine is. I am forever grateful that she is my physician. I feel like I have someone who is on my side, and that is an important thing to have when I feel otherwise so disempowered by the events of my life.

And I have an incredibly friend in Hilary, who has stood by my side and rallied for me for four years. It's not just her incredible knowledge about a lot of the significant issues in my life, but that she constantly reminds me that she cares and that she's here for me. That's one thing I didn't grow up feeling...that I could really depend on anyone. I could sit here and blame my family for this, but I think it's better to understand that they did the best they could under the circumstances, and they didn't understand that some of their actions could lead me to feel isolated as I did. I know if they knew their actions would harm me so much, they would have chosen differently. I know they cared. They were just unaware and uninformed that what they were doing could mess me up so badly. I know they're good people who made some bad decisions. We, as a family, are tighter now than we've ever been. And I am a whole lot less bitter about everything...probably because I now have someone leading me out of the darkness in the form of Hilary. I see the end of the tunnel, so I am not so frightened by the walls surrounding me now. I know I am on my way out, and stewing about the past is so unproductive and unhealthy that I don't want to do it.

I am also fortunate about having reconnected with a friend from high school, Maurice. First of all, I was only googling his name along with a dozen other people just for kicks. That was several years ago. Then I happened upon his CV and couldn't resist attempting to contact him. I figured that if it wasn't him, I lost nothing, so I emailed him and it turned out to be my friend from high school. Quite a funny coincidence. Well, the timing of me getting in touch with him was in line with me trying to re-establish my sense of myself back in California. I had been back for a number of years, but had been literally hiding from old friends. I was so ashamed of how things had turned out for me. But then I started to reclaim my life by applying to grad school, getting a dog, and moving out on my own. I was ready to move forward, and I was lucky to get back in touch with a friend who I cared dearly about and who, to my surprise, was willing to put up with me at that point in my recovery. I found out what he has been doing since eons ago when we were in high school. I found out he has been married since forever and has a young daughter. I found out he has gone through his own tough times...such as spending 16 years getting an MS and Phd (via two Phd programs actually, one failed and one successful), and that, unlike me, he faces his experiences with confidence and a positive attitude. I think that's why I like to continue to communicate with him. He's got the same passion for life that I used to have before I succumbed to depression. And this is someone I have a lot of faith in, someone I trust, so it's almost like I can learn to be stronger just by looking at his example.

I've also gained new friends like Mary Ellen. She also has a mental health history. In her case it is manic depression. She has gone through so many things in her life, but she lives her life in the present and has never shied away from all the trappings of a normal life. She has kids and grandkids. She's old enough to be retired...I think...but until recently has been a fulltime student at DVC and also a fulltime employee at a law firm. She tires me out just thinking about her schedule, and yet I am a full generation younger than her. It's simply amazing.

It's the friends who I have strong connections with who I am most grateful for. I think that's because I've learned that many of the friendships I had earlier in life were not strong enough to survive my life experiences. A lot of people are afraid to associate with someone with a documented mental health problem. I also feel that since I am no longer on a fast track to high achievement, that they simply don't want to hang around me. I must admit that that has disappointed me at times, but I've always been interested in knowing who's here for the long haul, and now I know. It doesn't hurt so much as I am grateful for knowing that I at least have a handful of people on my side right now. I like to have a lot of friends, but I've discovered that, at least for myself, I only need a few strong connections in life to make me feel like I have a reason to get up in the morning. I do feel I have too much alone time right now, but things are getting better all the time, so who knows? Maybe in the not so distant future I won't be spending so much time with my dog and a few good books. Maybe that's my next goal. (ha!)

9/26/09 (a): I'm in the midst of reading "Trauma and Recovery," by Judith Herman. It is such a remarkable book that even though I haven't even finished half the book, I feel compelled to write about it.

First off, this is the probably my new bible for recovery. It is a powerhouse of a book that describes how the human species responds to trauma, and what individuals need to heal. I know it's on target because it has dredged up so many memories of my own recovery process, which has been in the works for as long as I have been suffering. And that is almost the extent of my natural life.

I see myself at many different points in my life, as I have responded to a myriad of traumas that have happened to me. The severest trauma, in my opinion, is depression, but the trauma of depression has been in the developmental stages all my life. I see now WHY I fell to depression based on many different things that have happened in my life. And, for once, I do not blame myself for being depressed. This book presents depression as one possible response of the species to adverse conditions. My reaction is one of many natural reactions to adversity. That puts my suffering in a whole new perspective. One that is almost a rule of nature: action and reaction as opposed to assigning blame.

I really appreciate this book, and, yes, it was recommended to me by Hilary. She and I have surprisingly parallel lives, and I never knew that until we started talking a lot recently about our own experiences. I keep wanting to think my mom sent Hilary my way. It's like my mom couldn't stay on earth any longer, but she wanted me to have a good life, so she sent me an angel in the form of Hilary who became a new best friend and who has helped me through my experiences in a way few others could.

(ugh...tears welling up)

Anyhow, back to this book. I'm only on chapter 4, and yet I have so much praise for it. What's amazing about it is that it isn't written from the first person. It isn't a survivor's book for survivors. Actually, it is an extremely well researched book that studies people who have suffered trauma, and it analyzes the various means by which people have or haven't recovered from their traumas. It's like reading a book about birds that describes all phases of a birds life, but in this case the topic is people who have experienced trauma in their lives, and the discussion is about the effect of trauma on the human species and what people need to recover their lives, to the extent that that is even possible. I'm such an academic-y, nerdy type of person who likes to study and learn. Now, finally, I am learning about a topic that helps me enormously--the traumatized person. This is such a finely written and well researched book that I know I will read it again.

9/24/09: Something amazing happened today. I got an email from Entry Point, an organization that provides internships for students with disabilities. I got an internship through their program 4 years ago.

I had been avoiding them ever since my internship because it did not go well. I didn't complete my project and one co-worker chewed me out so bad I just wanted to forget the whole ordeal.

Well, I had ignored enough emails, and this time I went ahead and gave them a response to their inquiry of how I am doing now. I discussed the negative experience at the company where I interned, and they wrote back saying that it was the duty of the employer to provide an environment where it was safe to ask for help.

When I thought about it, I realized they were so right. I had a bad experience, but I also know that my cousin, who works at Yahoo! has had employees cry because they couldn't get up to speed quickly on their assignments. And my cousin, the manager, was instructed to provide better help. That's a far cry from how I was treated, and I always had this information. I just didn't process it in a way that was kind to me because it never occurred to me that I might not have been wrong and the employees at the company might not have been right.

This is a major breakthrough because this negative experience has haunted me regularly up to and including the present. Now, I feel like I've been set free...vindicated and excused. It's a great feeling, and I'm glad things have finally reached a point of closure.

This is a good day.

9/21/09: I've just finished reading "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin deBecker. It was a good read. It was recommended by Hilary after I described a situation I was having with my next door neighbor. After reading the book, I understand the importance of paying attention to your interactions with people you don't know well. That is, in addition to the common sense activity of paying attention to your interactions with the people you do know well. It's easy to want to ignore people you don't know well and to assume that that's going to eliminate any headaches you may have with such people. But the book explains why that is a bad policy. In fact, if the possibility exists that a confrontation with a virtual stranger can occur, it is all the subtleties in your encounters with such people that can lead you to conclude whether these people pose a threat to you or not. I have learned a lot from reading the book. Forewarned is forearmed.

One point made in the book made me sit upright due to its truthfulness: Men worry about women laughing at them. Women worry about men killing them.

I recognized myself in a lot of the situations described in the book...the situations, but not the end results. I noticed that I have been very foolish about putting myself in risky situations and not being fully alert to potential dangers. Things like jogging at night in Boston. Letting a stranger into my building, someone who offered to carry a very large duffle that I was struggling to carry myself. And seeing my current neighbor as a pest, rather than a potential threat which is really what he is. Sheez. I think I was more careful when I was younger. The longer time passes and nothing bad happens, the more I have gotten used to a false sense of security where none really exists.

I'm glad I read this book just so I could get the dose of reality I needed to straighten up my bad habits. I've been through so much in life already...I do not need bad situations that I can otherwise avoid.

I'm also considering moving at some point back to Walnut Creek to a condo near the shopping center and neighborhood park where I spend a considerable amount of time, even now, even though I have moved to Concord.

Life just never ceases, does it. I sure could use a break from this endless ride. I think I'll take a mental health day today (Monday). I'm getting a little worked up.

9/8/09: I've rediscovered a very good point about health, and that is that you need sound physical health to have sound mental health. I just switched gyms from Curves For Women to the local YMCA. The Y has much longer hours, and no enrollment fee to boot (thanks to being a member of Kaiser health plan). Today, although it's just past noon, I've already done two workouts, and I feel so invigorated. I needed two workouts this morning to feel fully awake, and now that I do feel fully awake, I feel ready to take on my pile of research tasks today. It occurred to me that I've been sloughing off because I just never really felt right, and that feeling better can be achieved through exercise. What a great discovery. I kill two birds with one stone...more exercise gives me better physical health and better progress on my thesis.

8/28/09: I've been putting a lot of thought into this, and I've decided that if I don't get my thesis approved by the department, instead of hanging around for another 6-12 months to try to pass the comprehensive exams, I'm just going to leave CSUEB and continue with my library school studies.

I am doing the thesis option right now...or thesis project or whatever you want to call it, because it relates to education and librarianship as well as computer science. It's something I can really get into, and I want to work on it regardless. But when it is done, I want to move on. I am so impatient about getting started with a library career that I just don't want to delay things any longer. And if I stuck around to do the comprehensive exams, I'd be slowed down by 1/2 to 1 year. I just don't want to do that.

I know I want to be a public librarian, that that's the setting I am most passionate about working in. An extra master's in computer science, that is, getting the actual diploma, doesn't really do much for me there. I would do better to spend those 6-12 months getting involved in library-related activities. It would be more relevant to getting a job, and it would engage me a hell of a lot more.

It's like Aline says, "follow your passion, and opportunities will follow." That's exactly why I want to get back to my MLIS after I'm done working on the current project with Hilary. If the department likes the work enough to grant me the degree, all the better, but I don't want my future to hinge on a decision by the powers that be in the computer science department at CSUEB.

To make this decision makes me feel way more fluid and more present to work on this thesis project. I don't have to have a department approval weigh heavily on my mind and get involved in all that political stuff. That's only going to slow me down in my work. And it's a complete waste of time. This department is not worth getting all tied up over. They do their thing their way, and that's fine. If they decide my work isn't worth their approval, I really don't care. The value of this thesis project is in the experience it provides and the opportunities it may open up. The department's opinion of my work won't lessen or increase the value of the work to me.

Okay, I'm starved. Time for lunch.

8/20/09: What a week...I have to finish reading today what I intended to finish this past week. The week was spent feeling really lousy...I lost my sense of taste, which was freaky. And then it came back today...even weirder. I read all about the cycle of abuse and realized that it describes my entire life. Now I can't get away with blaming myself for various psychological and emotional phenomena when they are attributable to the abuser in my life. It's quite an awakening, and frees up a lot of energy I have been burning up in self-blame. I feel lighter and more hopeful about the future. Less of a screw-up, and with a whole new narrative for my life. It's interesting, refreshing, and it's all good. Hilary reminded me today to not beat myself up just because one week wasn't as good as the others. I can do that, but I do want to get back into the reading. Research is starting to get more interesting.

(see version 140 for the rest of my earlier blog)