Howdy.
I’ve decided to move my posts to a new blog as a way to distance myself from 2009 – a truly bad year. I haven’t written anything for the old blog in weeks and I’m truly amazed to see that at least one person still checks in on it. The end of the semester was rough for me, leaving little time for blogging. When it was all over, I needed to step back from everything and truly take some time to rest. I’m feeling much more refreshed now (though I have to admit, still not 100%) but just over a week out from starting up again, I need to get back into some sort of productive routine.
Journaling is a common New Year’s resolution and I hadn’t given it any thought until today, when I pulled out an old, unused journal and started to write. The thing is that I despise my handwriting and I don’t think journals are made for lefties. So, I think I’m going to keep an electronic journal this year. It’s doubtful that I’ll write every day – I am a graduate student, after all – and in time I might decide to move it offline, but I’ll start this way. Until fifteen minutes ago I thought I would delete the old blog entirely and just keep a private journal, on paper or on my computer. I hadn’t been writing and have been short on topics, anyway. It’s still unclear to me how detailed I want to be on a public blog, and that’s why this may eventually go offline. For now I’ll do it this way.
When I sat down to write on paper, I wondered what my goal is, what I hope to get out of keeping a journal. Honestly, I’m not really sure. Perhaps I just want to vent some thoughts, or perhaps it will help improve my writing. I’ve struggled with writer’s block a lot lately. However, my writer’s block always has to do with scientific writing and although I’ve done a good bit of that, it still feels new to me. In any event, maybe writing about anything will help get words flowing. Or, maybe taking a break to come here and write about whatever moves me will be a nice break.
Looking ahead, this is going to be a busy semester. It’s interesting to me how I measure my life in semesters. That probably isn’t unusual for people in academia but it’s entertaining to me nonetheless. It is nice to have life split up into nice sections with little breaks thrown in, I can’t say I’m disappointed that the majority of my life will probably follow this schedule. We get sixteen weeks or so of work – starting off crazy and moving gradually, or quickly, towards absolute hell – and then we get a break again. So as I prepare myself to reenter the craziness it’s time to get back to writing. This semester will include a lot more writing than just this blog. There are several papers I need to submit, along with finally finishing up an IRB submission and getting a study off the ground…only to analyze the data and write that one up, too. All of that work will wrap up in August, when I take my comprehensive exams – more writing. Major writing. And after that, the dissertation proposal – even more writing. I definitely need to break the writers block.
Through it all, it’s also time for me to return to running and a good fitness routine after being derailed for cancer treatment last summer. My running goals for this year are conservative, much more so than what they would have been had I been able to avoid the C word. It’s time to rebuild the strong aerobic base I established in 2008 and so I’ve set a (conservative) mileage goal of 750 miles for the year – a weekly average of 14.5 or so miles. This should be very achievable and truly I hope to exceed my goal but want to go easy on myself this year. In addition to that aerobic base, something has got to be done about my core strength. The boy received a Wii for Christmas and chose to spend his birthday money on Wii Fit, so this will work into my fitness routine nicely. The fitness professional in me can’t help but nitpick over details but overall I think the Wii Fit is a good tool. As I learn the ins and outs of the program I’m improving my routine (step 1 – learning that it’s possible to program routines) and I think it’s going to work out to be a good motivational tool, keeping me accountable when I don’t want to do it. Core work is torture to me, I hate it with a passion, so motivation and accountability are very helpful.
My mind is always going and as a result my writing is sometimes more stream-of-consciousness than anything else. I’m still not sure what I personally want to get out of this blog and I’m not sure if it will ever be helpful for anyone else (or if anyone else will even read it) but maybe it will. We’ll see where it goes…
