The World is Just Awesome

A nasty cold last week turned me into a semi-permanent fixture on my couch.  Not typically how I’d like to spend my time, but I caught this commercial on Discovery a few times as a result.

This is the 2009 version, and the 2008 version is great as well.  I saw this and just…grinned.  I loved the Boom De Yada song as a kid.  But more than that, this commercial reminded me that there really is so much to discover.  I get away from my wanderlust and curiosity sometimes.  This semester I’ve been discovering so much, but mostly in libraries and hunched over my computer at odd hours of the day and night.  My job right now, certainly, is to be a student, but this commercial was a good reminder that I shouldn’t neglect injecting a little discovery and wonder into my day to day activities.  Why does it seem so easy to forget how awesome the world is?

It’s a good time to re-commit myself to my Life List and to consider what else I might like to put on the list.  Fun ideas always welcome.  Field trips highly encouraged.

I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills…

Dusting as Prioritizing

This year, like the last several, I have not traveled for Thanksgiving.  And this year, like the last several, I’ve spent Thanksgiving with friends.  I also spent this year’s feast with a nasty cold.  My head is still congested, but I’m thankful that it was nothing more than a cold.

I tried to be a little more productive today than I’ve been the last few days.  My thoughts are still a little loopy for an intense session of term paper writing, but I’m getting some things done.  I noticed that some objects on a shelf in my bedroom were long overdue for a good dusting.  So with the music of the wonderful Tony Furtado and a cup of licorice tea, I set forth to dusting, which turned into a much larger meditative cleansing process.  The room doesn’t look terribly different now than it did an hour or so ago.  But in the process of dusting, I started to ponder the following things about my “stuff” and the placement of said stuff.  I don’t think any of this is revolutionary, but perhaps it will help other busy folks who are trying to keep some sense of balance in the rush of life.

I stored, moved, or put into a donate pile things based on the following:

• Does this object/picture/book represent what I value or enjoy right now?  What purpose does the object/picture/book have?
• Does this object/picture/book represent what I want others to know about me?
• Is the placement of this object/picture/book helping or hurting the flow of my work/life?  Is the object/picture/book in a neutral location if it is not actively used?
• When I look at the placement of things, is there a sense of balance?
• Are the things that I actively use readily available?  Where can I decrease the amount of effort it takes to perform simple tasks?

As I said, nothing revolutionary, and I’m sure others have spoken much more eloquently on the subject.  But I believe this meditative dusting tonight will help me get through these last few weeks of a very busy semester.

Honey, Jump Right Up And Show Your Age

Lately I’ve had unwelcome desires to belt out Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.” I’m sure the folks around me might find that unwelcome as well.

It’s crunch time at the end of the semester and I’m not happy with some of my choices for research papers; it would be nice to hit reset on the semester and choose new topics. C’est la vie, I suppose. I am certainly learning from the experience. It’s been a while since I had to sit down and conduct this type of research and write up heady academic papers; I am not as quick as I once was (but hopefully more thoughtful with age? I’m sure the stuff I pulled out of thin air in my undergraduate days was crap…hopefully compared to what I’m writing now!).

Saturday night brought birthday parties for some friends, and as I’ve been learning, I’m getting too old for this stuff. OK, not actually too old, but it’s true that I am more tired and less tolerant of alcohol.  In short, I’d like a good night sleep and to arise the following morning feeling more human than less.  That didn’t stop me from admonishing a friend’s younger cousin to live it up and not squander her youth.  (And, yes, in just under two weeks I celebrate a birthday, and yes, I will still be in my 20s. I’m feeling a little melodramatic right now.)

There are certainly things I regret not taking advantage of; I take those things as lessons and try to incorporate them into how I live my life going forward. It doesn’t always work out the way I think it will, but I’m an optimist, so I’ll keep trying. I find myself wishing I could tell a younger version of me some of these lessons, particularly as I navigate graduate school. I’ve found freedoms as a graduate student that I didn’t feel the luxury of having as an undergraduate. I believe these come from age. For example, as undergrads, we were less snarky and more accepting of others than we were as high shool students, but I still felt that sometimes there was pressure to hang out with the “cool kids” and that there was consciousness of who you were seen with, who you sat with, etc. I love that I can walk into an situation with my graduate school colleagues (they are also friends) and sit with any one of them, converse with any one of them, and never feel any sort of social anxiety.  I hear my students, all freshmen, talking and I can feel some of the social anxiety bubbling up.  I admire them, though, because they are in a unique situation on our campus that seem to help break down some of the social constructs that sometimes thwart efforts at feeling confident and good about yourself.

I was at the library on campus the other day, standing in line for a caffeine fix. I inadvertently jumped ahead of a young student who was there before me. After I placed my order, I apologized and felt bad about the situation. He looked at me and said, “Oh, no worries, ma’am.  You look like you are busy.”  Ma’am?  I was ma’amed?  I don’t live in the South anymore; why am I getting ma’amed?  Probably because I look (and often dress) older than his fellow students.  I didn’t take offense.  I thought it, to some extent, another freedom that came with age.

And I’m not even old.  I always think about age this time of year.  Perhaps in 30 or 40 years I’ll ruminate on what “old” is.

Weekend Edition

Here are a few snippets of things I’ve been thinking/reading about:

Living without cash: I was reading about Mark Boyle, who has carved out a lifestyle that does not require cash.  It’s certainly a reminder to me that I need to continually be thinking about living more simply.  One particular piece of his story tugged on the string: …we no longer have to see the direct repercussions our purchases have on the people, environment and animals they affect. The degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have increased so much that we’re completely unaware of the levels of destruction and suffering embodied in the stuff we buy.

I teach college freshmen.  Right now they are reading Tuesdays with Morrie, in which Morrie advises Mitch Albom that “you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”  In my class, we speak about the challenges to our ideas and beliefs that we face as we navigate through life.  As much as my students are learning about themselves, I (in part through them) am also continuing to learn about myself and to challenge my ideas.  I don’t see myself becoming like Mark Boyle, but he certainly raises poignant questions for me.

Steamrolling local efforts: I’m in a microeconomics class this semester, which is challenging many, many thoughts I’ve had about the world.  I don’t feel that thinking microeconomically comes naturally to me, but I am enjoying the synapse formation as a result of this class.  In studying markets and efficiency, I do end up wondering, is local better?  In my heart, I think that buying local is critical, and I don’t imagine that I’d stop promoting local economies any time soon.  I shouldn’t be surprised that corporations are co-opting the local movement.  Like I’ve told students with whom I’ve worked before, there are good and bad reasons to patronize every business; the important thing is to consider if the parties to whom you give your money are acting in a way that upholds your values and fosters the kind of world in which you wish to live.

Healthy as a Horse: Given trends in recent years, I should have been sick at least a few times this fall.  Not majorly sick, but lightly plagued.  In fact, this time last year, I had a constant feeling of ill.  Not especially ill, just a dull, lingering sense that I wasn’t fully well.  Now I’m working with college students who share germs at the same, or higher, rates as preschoolers, I’m slightly sleep deprived, and my diet consists of an ever-changing mix of plenty/healthy and not enough/total crap.  Yet I feel great.  My health is not a concern.  What gives?  I suspect, like many researchers have found, that the fact that I’m significantly happier is making the difference.  It’s literally life-changing to be out of a situation that seemed quite toxic.

Be well.

Even if you’ve got the money, honey, I ain’t got the time

Woke up this morning and noticed that most of the leaves on the tree just outside my bedroom window were knocked off in the rain and wind of the last few days.  Time is passing.  Time has also been on my mind a lot these days.

I’m having trouble articulating what I feel about time, but it seems to be a running theme tugging on my string, so I’ll try to explain it through some observations.  First, since beginning graduate school full-time (four classes plus a 20-hour a week graduate assistant position = a whole lot of research, not a lot of sleep, and a heaping pile of crazy), I’ve found oodles and oodles of time that I don’t think I would have ever found before.  On Tuesdays, for example, I typically get up (well) before the sun, do some reading and research, go to campus, hold office hours, teach a class, and only then, at 4pm, do I actually begin attending my own classes.  In the realm of my previous job (life?) where I squandered more time than I feel comfortable admitting, that puts Tuesday at being more like three days in one.  When you have no time, it’s amazing how much you can find here and there. (See also: I should be researching, but have “found” time to write…)

Second, I’ve started to feel guilty about taking time for things like, oh, I don’t know, sleeping past 6am.  Mind you, on days when I have class, I often don’t get home until after 10pm, but boy do I feel guilty when I take care of myself.  Time feels so precious, and I fight resenting things that seem to waste my time or try to take up time that I’m not always willing to give up.  Sometimes I catch myself and think, “My God, who have you become?”  Is this the nature of the beast?  I hope not.  I’m still working out that balance thing.

Third, I’m more convinced than ever that taking time away from everything is good for the soul.  I managed to go backpacking overnight and not think constantly about all the work I could be telling people I’m doing but really just procrastinating and freaking out about.  It’s like hitting the reset button when I reduce the things I’m concerned about to food, water, basic safety, shelter, and not getting eaten by a bear.

A world in yellows and browns. It was good to get away for a night.

So as I look at the leaves fluttering away off of my tree, I’m struck by concepts of time.  It’s hard to believe that two months ago, I was in orientation for my graduate program.  Two months before that, I was frantically finishing projects at my old job.  At various times over the last year, a period of two months has seemed to run on forever, with nothing significant demarcating the time.  Now, with the cold air rushing in through my open window, I hardly remember the heat of August, and feel like I’ve learned and done so much new stuff that my head will surely implode on or about December 17th.