Monday Monday

Even in the summer when there aren’t any classes and I really don’t have a schedule, I dislike Mondays.  Today is even more fun because I have an ultrasound stuck in the middle of it.  Nothing like having someone push on your bladder after making you guzzle 32 oz of water.  At least there’s no anxiety wrapped up in this appointment.

Now that we’re getting so close to the end of the summer I find myself feeling a bit more productive.  Nothing like crunch time to get you moving.  This morning I finally submitted the manuscript that’s been ready to go for longer than I care to admit – why is it so hard to press submit?  At least it’s done now.

Other things I’d like to get done today include finishing reading the chapter I started this morning, some writing on my lit review, and some reading for a section of my comps.  Non-academically, I’d love to clean the bathroom and do some laundry.  Yes, I said love.  That’s how badly those two chores need to be done.

I also have some peppers out in the garden that are ready to be picked, and some weeds that need to be pulled.  The glads in the front yard need some water but I’m worried the shade from the giant sycamore tree might have done them in.  We’ll see.  There’s also a random pumpkin vine growing out front (thanks to the squirrel that pushed the pumpkin off the porch last October) but it isn’t looking so healthy, either.

Then of course in the evening it’s time for an exercise class and a run on some local trails.

There aren’t enough hours in the day.

On the casual reading front, I finished Sookie #7 last night.  Thinking I might not allow myself to go get #8 until after comps…

How Not to Get Anything Done

1. Get yourself an old-lady disease that requires you to wake up 2x/night to take anti-virals.  This will ensure that you never actually get a good night’s sleep.

2. When the alarm goes off at your actual planned waking time, tell yourself “just 10 more minutes” for the next hour

3. Stumble out of bed and waddle to the kitchen, cursing your running and tight achilles all the way, and realize you’re out of coffee.

4. Beg The Boy to drive you to the grocery store to get coffee because you just can’t face the day without it…let alone driving yourself to said store to get it.  And you could walk to the convenience store up the street for it, but then you’d wind up buying a donut too and no one wants that.

5. Wander around the grocery store wanting to buy something for breakfast and not knowing which aisle the coffee is in (WHY was it not signed??)

6. Go back home, realize the tomato plants look very wilty and water them, but not before going inside to start the coffee.

7. Catch a glimpse of the washing machine on your way outside, remember you need to do laundry.  Take your time with this one.

8. Pour coffee, pick up muffin you chose for breakfast (is this somehow better than the donut?) and sit down at your desk.

9. Email, facebook, running forum, etc.

10.  Start lit reviewing.  Get nowhere.  Repeat x like 4 hours.

11. Drive across town to meet running friend, run 4 miles.  See other running friend in parking lot, chat for a while.

12. Drive all the way to the other side of town, lift weights.  Realize you misjudged how long all this would take by, oh, an hour, and sit in the athletic club watching TV while waiting for yoga class.

13. Go to an hour long yoga class

14. Drive back home, arrive famished.  Take the dog out, return, stare at the refrigerator, decide on dinner, call mom to chat while preparing dinner.  Finish preparing, put dinner on a plate, head to home office.

15. Eat dinner while checking email, facebook, and running forum.

16. Write blog post.

17.  Finally resolve to actually get something done….if only for the reward of watching one hour of trashy TV before bed.

Then get up and do it all again tomorrow….

Paralyzed

Y’all should see my to-do list.  It’s long.  Nothing on it is particularly difficult or unpleasant, but there’s a lot on there.  I just keep sitting here staring at it.  Then I flip to my gmail, facebook, the running forum (which is down!), and back through them all again (yep, forum still down), and then back to my list.  It’s still there, nothing has been crossed off.  I’m gingerly sipping my coffee, hoping that the toothpicks to hold my eyelids open are in there somewhere.

Nothing that’s on this list is really stimulating, I think that’s a large part of the problem.  There’s formatting a paper according to the journal’s specifications and sending it off to co-authors, studying for comps, and a random pile of busy-work.  There is my lit review, and that’s interesting, but I think what I’m missing is contact with actual, physical people.

To that end, I’m actually starting a part time job next week.  Nothing serious, just a customer service type position at a local athletic club.  The majority of my time will be spend sitting at the front desk checking people in, so I’ll be able to do some work while I’m there.  I’ll also get free access to the fitness center, pool, tennis, and all the fitness classes.  My bank account and body will both appreciate that.

We’ll see how teaching, dissertating, working, and running all fit together come September.

And on that note, toodles.  I’ve got to get some work done.

Vacations That Aren’t

First of all, I don’t think either trip I’m about to go on would ever be classified as a vacation by anyone who a) ever has family drama (that’d be everyone!) or b) knows anything at all about academic conferences.  But in any event, I’m going to be away from my house for the better part of 10 days beginning tomorrow.  That means the to-do list for tonight and the portion of tomorrow that I’ll be in town is quite long.

Tonight:

• Laundry (1 load in the dryer, 1 in the washer, 2 waiting in the wings)
• Dishes (hey, I’ve partially loaded the dishwasher, it’s a start)
• Put group n’s on poster graphs
• Print poster
• Analyses for boss-lady (need to be fixed because I chose the wrong variables earlier)
• Yoga (please please)
• email colleagues from other universities to arrange coffee/whatever at conference

…I suppose putting laundry on the clothesline at 7:30 is probably not going to be very effective, even though it’s light here until after 9 PM, it certainly isn’t sunny.

Tomorrow:

• clean house
• figure out what clothes to wear to conference
• pack at least for the weekend
• find time to run
• MAIL RENT (don’t forget!!)
• print out trail map for state park in destination city
• drive, drive, and drive some more

My bus ride home this evening was spent running these lists through my head and trying to figure out how in the world I’d do it all (and how I’m going to use all that asparagus I bought yesterday) and I was really feeling stressed out.  About 30 min after I arrived home I realized that I ran this morning, removing one thing from my to-do list.  It’s sad that my morning run seems like it happened yesterday.

Flood Gates: Open

It seems once I start blogging I can’t stop.  It’s Saturday morning.  The (second) post I wrote yesterday is scheduled to be posted in just under 2 hours and I’ll be scheduling this one for tomorrow.  Is that like time travel?

This morning, I’m thinking about my work load and relating that to years past. It’s a topic I’ve thought about a lot lately as I realize that the amount of work that made me cower in a corner during undergrad is a refreshing break now.  Friday night, a friend called as I was driving home from the gym (yes, I went to the gym!)  We chatted as I drove home, with a brief stop at Chipotle, and continued for quite some time after I arrived home, as I gazed longingly at my dinner.  Finally, at 10:30, I said I needed to hang up, eat my dinner, and get back to work.

That’s right, get back to work at 10:30 PM.

I commented that I’m sick of having to work all the time (I mean really) and my friend said “Welcome to the Real World, where we work.”

Umm.  Friend, I love you.  Really I do.  But…what?

I replied “Oh, I’ve been in the real world.  Where  I worked 8-5 and when I was home, I was home and not working.”

“Oh yeah.” says my friend.

So today, now that I’ve done my morning run and eaten my post-long-run breakfast burrito, it’s time to buckle down and do some more work.  I go back and forth daily between feeling like this is a manageable amount of work to feeling like I want to just throw it all out the window (quite literally) and quit.  But to sit here and look at the pile of papers – the ones I printed yesterday on the left of my desk and the ones from another day on the right – and think about synthesizing all of those into a review of the literature on Very Important Measurement Piece of Dissertation is shocking to me.  I bet I didn’t read this many actual peer-reviewed papers in all of undergrad.  Of course, my courses weren’t designed that way, but you get the idea.  Now I read half of them in a day, take a few notes, jot down a quick outline and a week later – there’s a whole chunk of the Fit Academic Dissertation Lit Review.

I think we should get to go all “Freaky Friday” with our undergrad selves, so that our grad-school selves can have a refreshing break and our undergrad selves can find out just how good we had it.  Sound good?  Let’s do it.

Oh Jamie Lee. If only you knew!

But first I have reading and writing to do (no ‘rithmitic today, though).

(Can I mention that right now, after having run 8 miles, making and eating breakfast, and putzing around online, I’m trying not to get annoyed that The Boy is still sleeping?)

Fitness vs. Research

It’s been one of those weeks.  We’re in the throes of data collection for a school- and community-based intervention and the schedule is nuts.  I collected data all day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week.  That means rising before 5 AM, off to big city by 6:30 AM, and back home around 4:30.  Then there’s unloading the van, organizing files, and of course getting home.  By the time I’m home I’m absolutely starving, the dog needs to be walked, and I still have actual work to do.  You know, work for my assistantship (aka the stuff I’m paid to do) and work for my classes.  Where’s the time to run?

Not that it matters, you see, because my left foot is still quite angry with me.  I guess it’s inflammation of the extensor hallicus longus tendon but I don’t know for sure.  I am relatively certain, though, that it isn’t a stress fracture.  That’s good.  Normally on busy days like the ones I’ve had this week, I would run for about 30 minutes.  The dog needs to be walked anyway, so if I take her on a run it’s like killing two birds with one stone. When my foot is all messed up, though, that means I still have to take the time to walk the dog and can’t take the time to, say, drive to the pool and swim.  Especially considering that I have to swim for more like an hour to feel like I get anything out of it.

But today, since it’s Saturday, I’ll be driving to the pool for a little quality time with the upper body muscles I’ve been neglecting.

Happy Saturday!

Onward!

Today the summer work started up in earnest with a long day of data collection.  The morning began when my alarm went off at five (and I hit snooze until 5:07) and woke The Boy for a ride to campus at 6:15.  We were loaded into the vans and off to The Big City by 6:30 and measuring kids by 8:30.  Whew.  I don’t know the exact count, but we had somewhere near 100 today.  That’s a lot of blood pressures.

I also found out that a paper I submitted many moons ago has been accepted and will go to print sometime in the near future.  But the biggest news of the day?  I got a perfect score on my biochem final!  Who ever would have thought I’d do that?

Then it was off to an exercise class (and my injured foot cooperated) and the grocery store.  Now…I’m sitting down to work.

After I walk the dog one more time.

To-Dos

On again, off again.  That seems to be the trend with this blog.  I’ll try to do better, though I’m not sure anyone is reading this anyway!

The semester is drawing to a close and of course that means my schedule is insane.  There are papers to be written (for class and for research), exams to be taken, and plans to tie-up.  I’m so looking forward to summer, even knowing that I’ll be spending the entire thing studying for comprehensive exams.  Hopefully I’ll also be living up to my “fit academic” tagline and getting in a lot of exercise, really capitalizing on the wonderful Northern weather I didn’t get to enjoy last year.

First, The Boy and I must plan a trip down South to attend a wedding.  Or, according to the wedding website, to participate in it.  We’re trying to plan exactly how we’re going to do this, on a holiday weekend, quite far from home, and allow me time to get to a conference the following week without spending an arm and a leg.  We also want to spend time with some friends we have seen very little of since moving to the GWN (Great White North).  So, The Boy keeps coming to me with these questions.  Maybe we should camp.  Maybe we should stay in a hotel.  My mom can’t watch the dog, can your friend?  Maybe we can take the dog.  But if we take the dog, what do we do with her during the wedding?  We should get a hotel room.  No, maybe we can board the dog.  We’ll camp, and board the dog.  But what if it storms when we’re down there?  And it’s a holiday weekend, maybe the campsites are all booked.  We should check into whether any reservations are still avaiable.

Of course, you understand, “we” means “me.”  As is ME, not him.  I can’t seem to explain that I.DO.NOT.HAVE.TIME. without causing big drama.  Somehow it always falls to me to organize it all, with our rental car, our lodging, our friends.  I don’t want to do it.  For once, I want him to do it.  My suggestion that he email our friends about all of this went over like a ton of bricks, so that seems unlikely.

There we go, another thing for the to-do list.

Getting Back into a Groove

Every. Single. Semester I struggle with getting back into a good, productive work routine.   Why should this semester be any different?  Here’s an example:

Midnight, Sunday: Head to bed, set alarm clock for some reasonable hour (say, 8 AM) with plans to do a lot of work on Monday, a holiday and thus a day without class and official work.

8 AM, Monday: The alarm sounds. I sit up and reset it for 8:30.

8:30 AM: The alarm sounds for the second time.  I hit snooze.

9:30 AM: After hitting snooze for an entire hour, I finally get out of bed and waddle to the bathroom.  As I waddle, I realize that I have GOT to start stretching after my runs.  This can’t be healthy.  From the bathroom I waddle to the kitchen where I grind some coffee (Fasig’s Vanilla Nut and Creme – yum) and grab a donut, thankfully the last donut, for breakfast.  This is when I remind myself that I’m supposed to be following a low-fat diet and donuts do not fit into this plan.  My muscles have loosened up some now and I’m not waddling any longer.  And so, I promptly forget my resolution to stretch.

10:45 AM:  I realize that I’ve been sitting at the dining room table, putzing around online and sipping my coffee, for an hour.  This, of course, is an hour that I’d meant to spend on school work.  I really need to get started.  So what do I do?

I come here and start blogging about my inability to stick to a schedule and getting into a productive routine.

You see where I’m going with this?

I’ll get over this eventually, I always do.  But by that time I’ll be frustrated with myself for having wasted all this time at the beginning of the semester, or having wasted an entire Saturday when I could have been working (or skiing!), or some other such regret.

Part of my problem, I think, is that there’s so much to do!  Again we’ll use today as an example.  It’s MLK day and the county parks all have free admission and free ski rentals for the day.  Neither of those things matter to me – I have an annual pass to the parks and my own skis but that isn’t the point!  The county is practically BEGGING people to ski today!  Sure the snow is bad, sure the park will be packed, but I want to go anyway.  So I sit at the table gazing outside at the (crappy, slushy, icy) snow and searching the web for information about cross country ski technique because let’s face it – mine blows.  Then I make a stop by the running forum I frequent, and people are discussing their garden planning.  How fun!  I need to discuss mine too, because I’ve never had a garden before but I’m all sorts of gung-ho about it this year.

In between all of this I’m thinking about my running and how I had two fast runs this weekend, wondering what that means for my goals for this year.  Somewhere mid-thought, work jumps in and I make a mental note of how I need to work on the methods section for this paper I’m writing.  See, it just happened again.  And there’s a random thought about my IRB application, too.

You know what I think we need?  Alternating weeks of work and weekends.  Work 7 days, then 7 days off.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Now who do I call about this?  Obama?