So!
I'm truckin' along on this paper which is finally started (I've got four and a half pages written and quotes ready for another three or four), and I contacted my adviser and asked about a due date, so D-day is now
MAY 10TH
Y'all ready?? Ready for some serious STRESS WRITING????
Actually, I'm feeling a lot calmer now that I've started. When I'm out in class or something and thinking about it I can feel myself get tense, but I'm learning to be aware of it and let it go. When I DO sit down to work, I feel like I don't have to worry as much because I'm DOING something about the problem, so this translates into me having my paper up on my desktop most of the time in case I think of anything to write. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that this paper has taken over my life. But only for another 10 DAYS OH MY GOSH ONLY TEN DAYS
Ok. Breathe.
In other news, I've been doing yoga at least once if not twice a day for the past week and a half to two weeks, and I'm getting mighty flexible! Yay! Also, Tai Chi is going well, and I've almost got two sessions memorized.
I woke up this morning thinking about how to describe myself right now, and I remembered something that Anne Shirley says when someone asks her how she's doing: "I am well in body, but considerably rumpled up in spirit, thank you." Remembering it made me laugh, and also made me feel better about feeling like I have to describe two things about myself right now; mind state and body state. So currently, I am well in spirit but rumpled up in body, as I seem to have caught the weird cold Mom had last weekend. Here's to lots of tea and hot showers!
So how are you doing today?
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Exorcising Fear of Failure
So, I'm working on a course of awareness training right now. I don't really want to say more about it than that right now, but I'm sure I'll be expanding on it in the weeks to come.
Right now I'm sitting in Espresso Royale trying to write my senior thesis, and I'm just as blocked as usual, except that because I've been sitting here trying to be aware of my thoughts and feelings and the reasons behind them I've suddenly realized WHAT is blocking me. Fear of failure. Fear that this thesis will be just terrible. And that fear is keeping me from getting started at all, which is entirely counterproductive. So, thanks to my new awareness training materials I now have a few resources to get past this, and I'm gonna try them out right here!
Step 1: Try to imagine the best possible result
The BEST thing that could happen is that I'll write this thesis, turn it in on time, feel totally proud of my work and confident that it is a good representation of me and my ideas, and have my professor give it an A.
Step 2: Try to imagine the worst possible result
The WORST thing that could happen is that I'll type up something that is too short, not up to snuff, I might not get it turned in on time, I'll feel that it's a terrible representation of my abilities, and my professor will give it an F, failing me for the course and keeping me from graduating on May 16th.
Step 3: Try to determine how the situation could be salvaged if you fail
If the worst possible situation does happen, I'll talk to my professor and either take an incomplete, go to work in Fergus Falls as planned while I re-write the paper and graduate at the end of summer, or get out of my job in Fergus to live at home and re-write it with the same result of end-of-summer graduation. Either way, life goes on and I graduate.
Step 4: Realize that in reality your situation will probably fall between the worst and best possibilities. Allow yourself the freedom to be imperfect.
Ok, I can do that. I can still aim high, but I need to be ok with writing something that isn't perfect. Working on that last bit.
Step 5: Breathe, and consider your problem a challenge that you are capable of overcoming
I am capable of writing a paper synthesizing information on what corn has done to rural America. I have the information, I have the ability to formulate sentences, I am passionate about changing the things that are detrimental so I have a drive to write. The only thing that is holding me back is the fear that I don't have ENOUGH of these things to be perfect. But I have SOME, and I just need to get those DOWN on paper!
"Do, or do not. There is no try," as Yoda would say. :-)
GO!
Right now I'm sitting in Espresso Royale trying to write my senior thesis, and I'm just as blocked as usual, except that because I've been sitting here trying to be aware of my thoughts and feelings and the reasons behind them I've suddenly realized WHAT is blocking me. Fear of failure. Fear that this thesis will be just terrible. And that fear is keeping me from getting started at all, which is entirely counterproductive. So, thanks to my new awareness training materials I now have a few resources to get past this, and I'm gonna try them out right here!
Step 1: Try to imagine the best possible result
The BEST thing that could happen is that I'll write this thesis, turn it in on time, feel totally proud of my work and confident that it is a good representation of me and my ideas, and have my professor give it an A.
Step 2: Try to imagine the worst possible result
The WORST thing that could happen is that I'll type up something that is too short, not up to snuff, I might not get it turned in on time, I'll feel that it's a terrible representation of my abilities, and my professor will give it an F, failing me for the course and keeping me from graduating on May 16th.
Step 3: Try to determine how the situation could be salvaged if you fail
If the worst possible situation does happen, I'll talk to my professor and either take an incomplete, go to work in Fergus Falls as planned while I re-write the paper and graduate at the end of summer, or get out of my job in Fergus to live at home and re-write it with the same result of end-of-summer graduation. Either way, life goes on and I graduate.
Step 4: Realize that in reality your situation will probably fall between the worst and best possibilities. Allow yourself the freedom to be imperfect.
Ok, I can do that. I can still aim high, but I need to be ok with writing something that isn't perfect. Working on that last bit.
Step 5: Breathe, and consider your problem a challenge that you are capable of overcoming
I am capable of writing a paper synthesizing information on what corn has done to rural America. I have the information, I have the ability to formulate sentences, I am passionate about changing the things that are detrimental so I have a drive to write. The only thing that is holding me back is the fear that I don't have ENOUGH of these things to be perfect. But I have SOME, and I just need to get those DOWN on paper!
"Do, or do not. There is no try," as Yoda would say. :-)
GO!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Essence
I was reminded the other day about the story of the Scorpion and the Frog. For anyone who doesn't know it, it goes like this:
One day a scorpion meets a frog on the bank of a river. The scorpion asks, "frog, will you please carry me across the river?" The frog answers "How do I know you won't sting and kill me for my troubles?" and the scorpion says "because if I sting you we would both sink and I'd die as well." So the frog agrees and they set out. Suddenly, in mid stream, the scorpion stings the frog, and as they begin to sink the frog asks why the scorpion would do this. The scorpion replied "it is my nature."
So anyway, I've been thinking about this idea of "nature," and then compounded on that came Maddie's comment on my last post about not knowing what to do with myself, which said
"have FUN. be happy and love babies and chickens and old people. love your SISTER and wash the CAR! make pasta and cruise to tunes. hug julia. laugh your silly huge laugh. dance around with little arm movements. And be calm sometimes."
So I've been posing these questions to myself: What is my nature? What am I? What do I want? What do I value (as Maddie asked in her last post)?
Generally I don't like to broadcast my introspection because I feel selfish talking about myself and writing "me me me" all the time, but hey, this is my blog, right? I get to do these streams of consciousness every once in a while.
I've just been so caught up in my own head lately. And I've found myself drifting back to parts of myself from high school that I've almost forgotten. I think of that former self as so naive in so many ways; filled with this bright hope in the future and in love. Those were the two things I used to be so sure of; that tomorrow or next year would be better, full of adventure and possibility, and that the whole world was just full to bursting with this penetrating all-encompassing love.
Now I'm not so sure.
One of the things that's bringing me back is music. I think I've said before that music is my timeline. I can hear a song and remember exactly what was going on in my life when I first heard it, and those memories are called up and in many cases are just as fresh and real as they were then. So anyway, old music + living in my own head = introspective Alison.
What is my nature?
Right this moment I feel jaded, which is a sad thing to feel at 22. Sometimes I feel like my best days are behind me, which is 180 degrees away from how I felt at 18. And yet I feel closer to 18 year old Alison than I do to the adult I try to present to people lately.
I am still full of hope. I came out of the gym today feeling like I could take on the whole world. Gotta love those exercise induced endorphins!
I am still full of love. I woke up this morning feeling like I had so much love in me that I could explode into pieces. The more I experience in life the more I'm convinced that there are innumerable different kinds of love, and if I had to give shape to this love I feel full of it would look like fire. Most of the time it just glows inside me waiting for some breath of wind to stir it up and give it a reason to burn brightly, but sometimes, like this morning, it screams through me like a wildfire and I feel like you could set anything in front of me and I'd freakin' love it to death! I'm not sure how to explain it, except to say that I've recently started to understand that I'm one of those people with an "addictive personality," meaning that I'm very easily fixated on one thing and I pour all of myself into it at the risk of ignoring the rest of life, and without an outlet for this I feel....useless? Purposeless?
I am a hopeless romantic. Enough said.
I am a believer, despite attempting to be a skeptic.
I am an optimist, despite believing myself to be a pessimist for most of my life.
I am a night owl. I do all my brilliant thinking after midnight. I went to sleep at 5am this morning and slept until 3pm. Case closed.
I am a seeker. I kind of thought this section of my life ended in high school, but it's becoming increasingly clear that I'm always SEARCHING. The object changes, but I have an insatiable (so far) urge to see what's over the next hill.
I'm 99.9% sure I'm destined to be a mother someday. Can't tell you why exactly, but I really want to have kids. That ol' bio clock must be kicking in.
I am afraid. I wish there was some way I could take this part out of me. It's a cage that I can't seem to escape, and it holds me back.
I have a really strong desire to fly. Not in a plane or anything; I'm talking fly like Superman or Peter Pan or a bird. I have flying dreams all the time. Perhaps this will lead to a career in cliff diving? Not likely considering the last comment on fear, but you never know.
I feel like the only way to justify my existence is to do something that matters. I just don't know what that thing is yet.
I have a fascination with duality. I'm one of those people who tends to see the world in a yin and yang sort of dichotomy, and yet argues the continuum of gender, right and wrong, etc. Maybe it's just that seeing everything in black and white is easier. Maybe it's more correct to say that--
I believe in balance.
I have the spirit of a warrior, a poet and a mystic. How I ended up in this century is beyond me. :-)
I'm pretty sure my eyes tell people everything about me. That's one of the reasons I had bangs for so long; easier to hind behind!
I have more self control than I credit myself for. I need to remind myself of this a lot.
Anyway, I may add to this later, but for now I just needed to get some of this out. I'll let you know if I come up with any answers to all of these questions. :-)
One day a scorpion meets a frog on the bank of a river. The scorpion asks, "frog, will you please carry me across the river?" The frog answers "How do I know you won't sting and kill me for my troubles?" and the scorpion says "because if I sting you we would both sink and I'd die as well." So the frog agrees and they set out. Suddenly, in mid stream, the scorpion stings the frog, and as they begin to sink the frog asks why the scorpion would do this. The scorpion replied "it is my nature."
So anyway, I've been thinking about this idea of "nature," and then compounded on that came Maddie's comment on my last post about not knowing what to do with myself, which said
"have FUN. be happy and love babies and chickens and old people. love your SISTER and wash the CAR! make pasta and cruise to tunes. hug julia. laugh your silly huge laugh. dance around with little arm movements. And be calm sometimes."
So I've been posing these questions to myself: What is my nature? What am I? What do I want? What do I value (as Maddie asked in her last post)?
Generally I don't like to broadcast my introspection because I feel selfish talking about myself and writing "me me me" all the time, but hey, this is my blog, right? I get to do these streams of consciousness every once in a while.
I've just been so caught up in my own head lately. And I've found myself drifting back to parts of myself from high school that I've almost forgotten. I think of that former self as so naive in so many ways; filled with this bright hope in the future and in love. Those were the two things I used to be so sure of; that tomorrow or next year would be better, full of adventure and possibility, and that the whole world was just full to bursting with this penetrating all-encompassing love.
Now I'm not so sure.
One of the things that's bringing me back is music. I think I've said before that music is my timeline. I can hear a song and remember exactly what was going on in my life when I first heard it, and those memories are called up and in many cases are just as fresh and real as they were then. So anyway, old music + living in my own head = introspective Alison.
What is my nature?
Right this moment I feel jaded, which is a sad thing to feel at 22. Sometimes I feel like my best days are behind me, which is 180 degrees away from how I felt at 18. And yet I feel closer to 18 year old Alison than I do to the adult I try to present to people lately.
I am still full of hope. I came out of the gym today feeling like I could take on the whole world. Gotta love those exercise induced endorphins!
I am still full of love. I woke up this morning feeling like I had so much love in me that I could explode into pieces. The more I experience in life the more I'm convinced that there are innumerable different kinds of love, and if I had to give shape to this love I feel full of it would look like fire. Most of the time it just glows inside me waiting for some breath of wind to stir it up and give it a reason to burn brightly, but sometimes, like this morning, it screams through me like a wildfire and I feel like you could set anything in front of me and I'd freakin' love it to death! I'm not sure how to explain it, except to say that I've recently started to understand that I'm one of those people with an "addictive personality," meaning that I'm very easily fixated on one thing and I pour all of myself into it at the risk of ignoring the rest of life, and without an outlet for this I feel....useless? Purposeless?
I am a hopeless romantic. Enough said.
I am a believer, despite attempting to be a skeptic.
I am an optimist, despite believing myself to be a pessimist for most of my life.
I am a night owl. I do all my brilliant thinking after midnight. I went to sleep at 5am this morning and slept until 3pm. Case closed.
I am a seeker. I kind of thought this section of my life ended in high school, but it's becoming increasingly clear that I'm always SEARCHING. The object changes, but I have an insatiable (so far) urge to see what's over the next hill.
I'm 99.9% sure I'm destined to be a mother someday. Can't tell you why exactly, but I really want to have kids. That ol' bio clock must be kicking in.
I am afraid. I wish there was some way I could take this part out of me. It's a cage that I can't seem to escape, and it holds me back.
I have a really strong desire to fly. Not in a plane or anything; I'm talking fly like Superman or Peter Pan or a bird. I have flying dreams all the time. Perhaps this will lead to a career in cliff diving? Not likely considering the last comment on fear, but you never know.
I feel like the only way to justify my existence is to do something that matters. I just don't know what that thing is yet.
I have a fascination with duality. I'm one of those people who tends to see the world in a yin and yang sort of dichotomy, and yet argues the continuum of gender, right and wrong, etc. Maybe it's just that seeing everything in black and white is easier. Maybe it's more correct to say that--
I believe in balance.
I have the spirit of a warrior, a poet and a mystic. How I ended up in this century is beyond me. :-)
I'm pretty sure my eyes tell people everything about me. That's one of the reasons I had bangs for so long; easier to hind behind!
I have more self control than I credit myself for. I need to remind myself of this a lot.
Anyway, I may add to this later, but for now I just needed to get some of this out. I'll let you know if I come up with any answers to all of these questions. :-)
Sunday, April 18, 2010
I'm Having A Crisis
What the heck do I really want??
The future seems so open but everything feels so impossible. I want to change the world. I want to leave this place better than I found it. I need to do something MEANINGFUL with my life! I can't handle the idea of sitting in a cubicle or dying before I've made this life worth while. I want to DO something!
And does farming constitute this thing I want? Will it fulfill this need? I have this drive to fix problems and help people and save the world, and it seems like such a waste to not use it for something powerful. But WHAT??
Ach. What am I supposed to be doing with my life?
The future seems so open but everything feels so impossible. I want to change the world. I want to leave this place better than I found it. I need to do something MEANINGFUL with my life! I can't handle the idea of sitting in a cubicle or dying before I've made this life worth while. I want to DO something!
And does farming constitute this thing I want? Will it fulfill this need? I have this drive to fix problems and help people and save the world, and it seems like such a waste to not use it for something powerful. But WHAT??
Ach. What am I supposed to be doing with my life?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Kicking Ass and Taking Names
What I wouldn't give for the ability to wander around the countryside fighting baddies with martial arts, riding horses and camping out every night. How the heck did it take me until my 22nd year of life to discover Xena?!This stupid show has managed to devour my life for the last week or so, since I discovered that the whole series is on Netflix instant play. It's got comedy, action, adventure, romance, deep theological discussion; everything you could want in a TV show from the late '90s.
I mean, I have enough problems becoming addicted to fiction as it is (remember the summer between Junior and Senior year of high school when I watched all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? And a few months ago when all I did was read the Kushiel's Legacy books?), and this series meets all my requirements for "mythical world I can spend a lot of time day dreaming about."
So that's my life at present. Wishing I was born in a time where I could run about in wool and leather and kick ass with my trusty sidekick. Am I too old for this kind of thing? Possibly. Could I run around in the woods pretending and fighting with sticks for a good part of my life? Heck yes.
In the meantime, I guess I have to graduate.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Today Was Awesome In An Ordinary Way
I'm in good spirits!
So here's an update on my birthday, and today, my first full day of being 22.
Yesterday was a pretty quiet day overall; I hung out, did homework and walked Cricket. BUT THEN, at 7:30 I went to go pick Maddie up from school and we headed downtown to THE MELTING POT, which is the coolest restaurant ever, but is also very expensive, so I've only been there once. The deal is that you get four courses, three of which are fondue, so the courses went like this:
1) Veggies, bread and apples fondued in cheese (we had a pot of Wisconsin Trio and a pot of a variety of Swiss)
2) Salad course. I had DELICIOUS lettuce wraps. I've never had them before and they were great!
3) Main course: entrees of choice fondued in one of two cooking-oil-type-things (we had a Merleau based one and a veggie broth based one). My entree was the vegetarian plate which had stuffed pasta, asparagus, artichoke hearts and other things, and also a side of salmon, which was SO GOOD.
4) Desert, which was fruit, cheesecake, brownies and marshmallows dipped in a choice of three chocolate sauces (we had a dark chocolate with amaretto, a white/milk chocolate swirl, and a banana's Foster dip).
Oh my gosh, I left there stuffed full of the best food ever, and with Lance and Dad to thank for footing the hefty bill. Yay dads!!
AND, on top of that there were presents! Dad gave me the awesome pasta maker I really wanted (I'm on this new thing about making all (ok, maybe most) of my own food), Mom got me the box set of Long Way Round and Long Way Down, and Joel Salatin's book You Can Farm, and Julia got me an awesome Barnes and Noble gift card! They were all totally great!
So, I got back from this dinner full to bursting and worked on a take-home exam that was due today until 3, then went to bed and slept in until noon.
I woke up this morning all rested and lazy and feeling awesome. Up for a grapefruit and I got ready for class, then biked on over to campus, went to lecture and then had a sandwich and hung out at Espresso Royal for a while. Then a work out at the gym and over to the Bell Museum of Natural History for a look at the food exhibit and a viewing of "A Farm For The Future," which was totally inspiring.
I know that doesn't sound like a super awesome day, but I feel productive for doing a good job on the exam, eating well, biking, working out and discovering the coolest museum on campus!
That movie was seriously inspiring. I've been stuck in a major rut in my thesis, wondering how I'm supposed to solve all of agriculture's problems in one paper, not wanting to write something that just moans about all of the aforementioned problems without offering something of my own. But it all seems to make sense now! This movie started out talking about the problems with agriculture in Britain, mainly in that without fossil fuel large scale food production in the way we've been doing it is impossible. But instead of just stopping there like so many do, this movie went on to suggest several different ways of farming that provide as much as or more food than we're producing with our current system in totally new ways. I feel like I've got my faith in the future of agriculture restored!
So now I'm gonna try and get this paper started. We'll see what I can come up with!
So here's an update on my birthday, and today, my first full day of being 22.
Yesterday was a pretty quiet day overall; I hung out, did homework and walked Cricket. BUT THEN, at 7:30 I went to go pick Maddie up from school and we headed downtown to THE MELTING POT, which is the coolest restaurant ever, but is also very expensive, so I've only been there once. The deal is that you get four courses, three of which are fondue, so the courses went like this:
1) Veggies, bread and apples fondued in cheese (we had a pot of Wisconsin Trio and a pot of a variety of Swiss)
2) Salad course. I had DELICIOUS lettuce wraps. I've never had them before and they were great!
3) Main course: entrees of choice fondued in one of two cooking-oil-type-things (we had a Merleau based one and a veggie broth based one). My entree was the vegetarian plate which had stuffed pasta, asparagus, artichoke hearts and other things, and also a side of salmon, which was SO GOOD.
4) Desert, which was fruit, cheesecake, brownies and marshmallows dipped in a choice of three chocolate sauces (we had a dark chocolate with amaretto, a white/milk chocolate swirl, and a banana's Foster dip).
Oh my gosh, I left there stuffed full of the best food ever, and with Lance and Dad to thank for footing the hefty bill. Yay dads!!
AND, on top of that there were presents! Dad gave me the awesome pasta maker I really wanted (I'm on this new thing about making all (ok, maybe most) of my own food), Mom got me the box set of Long Way Round and Long Way Down, and Joel Salatin's book You Can Farm, and Julia got me an awesome Barnes and Noble gift card! They were all totally great!
So, I got back from this dinner full to bursting and worked on a take-home exam that was due today until 3, then went to bed and slept in until noon.
I woke up this morning all rested and lazy and feeling awesome. Up for a grapefruit and I got ready for class, then biked on over to campus, went to lecture and then had a sandwich and hung out at Espresso Royal for a while. Then a work out at the gym and over to the Bell Museum of Natural History for a look at the food exhibit and a viewing of "A Farm For The Future," which was totally inspiring.
I know that doesn't sound like a super awesome day, but I feel productive for doing a good job on the exam, eating well, biking, working out and discovering the coolest museum on campus!
That movie was seriously inspiring. I've been stuck in a major rut in my thesis, wondering how I'm supposed to solve all of agriculture's problems in one paper, not wanting to write something that just moans about all of the aforementioned problems without offering something of my own. But it all seems to make sense now! This movie started out talking about the problems with agriculture in Britain, mainly in that without fossil fuel large scale food production in the way we've been doing it is impossible. But instead of just stopping there like so many do, this movie went on to suggest several different ways of farming that provide as much as or more food than we're producing with our current system in totally new ways. I feel like I've got my faith in the future of agriculture restored!
So now I'm gonna try and get this paper started. We'll see what I can come up with!
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