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Stuff!
+ I gave a talk in the pre-Talbot-workshop seminar where we all try to obtain a clue as to what this workshop we're going to over Spring Break deals with. Except for those of us who have a clue and are just humoring the others. And those of us who are just first-years who like learning way too much. (Guess which camp I fall into here! Also, why am I so bitter and old?)
So, this talk, yesterday afternoon I was still freaking out about how I didn't know anything about the material, despite the month or more I've had to prepare it. But then I actually sat down and tried to write out a talk, and in the process I had a revelation about the material. And felt much better. Plus the fact that this was yesterday meant today I could be mostly still happy about what I had understood and not worry about the other stuff so much.
There's a lesson here, and it is: try to write out summaries of the material you are meant to be learning whether you think you understand it or not. Someday I will learn that lesson.
Anyway, besides being ridiculously pleased about having understood even some of the material, it was just a nice audience to give a talk for. Friendly and non-intimidating and basically I felt comfortable saying that I didn't understand things. Which is often hard for me. And I guess many of us have given each other a lot of talks (Like in that class in the fall! Or even currently, except I've stopped giving talks in that class as I'm no longer enrolled because it was too much work and some of it had calculus in it, which I'm still working on understanding. This week I learned about the gradient! Whoo!) so we're a little more comfortable with asking questions and being asked questions and derailing the discussion but not too much...
Anyway, it was kind of nice material and really a very pleasant talk to give. Plus now I have really nothing left to do this term. I guess maybe an exam. And some grading. But nothing that should be difficult or scary.
+ Snow is a good present, this time of year.
+ But so is warm weather.
+ Singing tomorrow, and dinner with Katie.
~ Madison Saturday to see this guy. Who I should stop seeing in a romantic sense, I'm afraid. This is twofold. I've been ambivalent perhaps this whole time. He's much more interested than I am, and sometimes not easy to talk to. But sometimes very good to talk to, and... other things? My default is so much to stay in a relationship, even a thing that's not really a relationship yet, that it's scary. So alone this might not be enough of a reason.
Part two is maybe more compelling? That I'm feeling I really need to have some time to be quite single, deliberately celibate. I'd like to learn what that's like, and how to be healthy and happy without this romance business. Precisely because of the sort of thing I just mentioned, my tendency to cling to things even if I know better. And just out of how unknown it is, for me. I'm so inclined to grab onto a person and place my emotional health far too much in their hands, and that isn't safe or healthy, and maybe I can learn to not do it. To balance that out better, or leave things more in my own hands.
+ Ahahaha, I think I gave my awkward situation to Mike. Hilarious.
- Kind of sick.
- Yesterday I carried 40 pounds of cat litter home from the grocery store. So heavy! Especially on the stairs, of course.
+ Chocolate coconut ice cream.
+ I got an invitation to a radical faerie event in the mail, and it makes me happy. Both because it makes me feel like Kale likes me (which I knew, guys, I totally knew that but I forget) and because it's funny. It says things like "The current Chicago Faerie Circle Pronouncements could be changed within the existing structure by a colorful, dramatic, and potentially fabulous coup d'etat that forcibly ejects either said annoying nit-pickers or said chaos-creating jerks." Potentially fabulous!
+ There was something else... oh! Rachel Ries now has on her myspace page that song I keep trying to memorize when she sings it at concerts. Awesome! It is "for grandma, untitled".
I guess I feel talkative today.
So, this talk, yesterday afternoon I was still freaking out about how I didn't know anything about the material, despite the month or more I've had to prepare it. But then I actually sat down and tried to write out a talk, and in the process I had a revelation about the material. And felt much better. Plus the fact that this was yesterday meant today I could be mostly still happy about what I had understood and not worry about the other stuff so much.
There's a lesson here, and it is: try to write out summaries of the material you are meant to be learning whether you think you understand it or not. Someday I will learn that lesson.
Anyway, besides being ridiculously pleased about having understood even some of the material, it was just a nice audience to give a talk for. Friendly and non-intimidating and basically I felt comfortable saying that I didn't understand things. Which is often hard for me. And I guess many of us have given each other a lot of talks (Like in that class in the fall! Or even currently, except I've stopped giving talks in that class as I'm no longer enrolled because it was too much work and some of it had calculus in it, which I'm still working on understanding. This week I learned about the gradient! Whoo!) so we're a little more comfortable with asking questions and being asked questions and derailing the discussion but not too much...
Anyway, it was kind of nice material and really a very pleasant talk to give. Plus now I have really nothing left to do this term. I guess maybe an exam. And some grading. But nothing that should be difficult or scary.
+ Snow is a good present, this time of year.
+ But so is warm weather.
+ Singing tomorrow, and dinner with Katie.
~ Madison Saturday to see this guy. Who I should stop seeing in a romantic sense, I'm afraid. This is twofold. I've been ambivalent perhaps this whole time. He's much more interested than I am, and sometimes not easy to talk to. But sometimes very good to talk to, and... other things? My default is so much to stay in a relationship, even a thing that's not really a relationship yet, that it's scary. So alone this might not be enough of a reason.
Part two is maybe more compelling? That I'm feeling I really need to have some time to be quite single, deliberately celibate. I'd like to learn what that's like, and how to be healthy and happy without this romance business. Precisely because of the sort of thing I just mentioned, my tendency to cling to things even if I know better. And just out of how unknown it is, for me. I'm so inclined to grab onto a person and place my emotional health far too much in their hands, and that isn't safe or healthy, and maybe I can learn to not do it. To balance that out better, or leave things more in my own hands.
+ Ahahaha, I think I gave my awkward situation to Mike. Hilarious.
- Kind of sick.
- Yesterday I carried 40 pounds of cat litter home from the grocery store. So heavy! Especially on the stairs, of course.
+ Chocolate coconut ice cream.
+ I got an invitation to a radical faerie event in the mail, and it makes me happy. Both because it makes me feel like Kale likes me (which I knew, guys, I totally knew that but I forget) and because it's funny. It says things like "The current Chicago Faerie Circle Pronouncements could be changed within the existing structure by a colorful, dramatic, and potentially fabulous coup d'etat that forcibly ejects either said annoying nit-pickers or said chaos-creating jerks." Potentially fabulous!
+ There was something else... oh! Rachel Ries now has on her myspace page that song I keep trying to memorize when she sings it at concerts. Awesome! It is "for grandma, untitled".
I guess I feel talkative today.
Sarah of course, who else who go on like this....
(Anonymous) 2009-03-13 02:08 am (UTC)(link)But stopped before it loaded. HAD to listen to Valentine NE. That's my town. I mean, not where I live, but where I do grocery shopping. Where my pastor lives. Where some of the teachers in my school live. Where.....
Hee. Yeah.
Re: Sarah of course, who else who go on like this....
But, yes, I remember you talking about Valentine, and I think of you when I hear the song.