Joyrides

I took it for granted that entry into honours involves some sort of magical endowment of secret knowledge which enables you to rock at it. 3 months after the ‘you’re in!’ phone call, nothing. Had a superbly productive day last Friday, and then spent the rest of the week watching TV. There is no patting on the back for a day well spent or even a month well spent. It just keeps going. I’m only just beginning to realise it.

Motivation is a luxury. You don’t wait around for things to ‘feel’ right, you have to just bloody do it.

So, here is my plan for the next 6 months (except for a 3 week holiday to Colombo in July. (CANNOT WAIT)). Oh god. 6 months. So short. Oh god. Okay focus.

9am: wake up.
Internet/ tumblr/ facebook/ blogs/ etc

10am start work.
After this point there will be no more faffing on the internet.

Lunch at some point - MAX 1 hour probably at 1pm.

Dinner for varying lengths of time depending on whether its an ON day or an OFF day.
    ON - study day, minimum time spent on dinner
    OFF - every second day or so should involve an evening off - social time evenings.

Midnight :Bed.
This shouldn’t be a problem, we’re all old now.

Motivation was a happy member of our family until 2 weeks ago when she got frightened by a mediocre exam result. We love her and miss her very much. If found please convince her to return to our distraught and now failing at life existence. As Motivation is very valuable, feel free to name your reward.

Thank you.

Two months in. Last weekend, I relaxed. This may appear on the surface to be a trivial statement. It carries with it a depth of satisfaction and relief which is difficult to describe. It blew my mind, feeling relaxed, in the middle of all kinds of mayhem.

I’ve taken it for granted before, being stereotyped early in life as the chilled out, easygoing person, it become very easily a guiding characteristic. Chaotic situation? I could be relied on to, well, almost not care very much and give people perspective (it is so very rarely the end of the world. It clicked for me as a child that people’s memories are short and hypocritical. Rant for another time).

So the last few years have been super stressful, either volunteered for or self inflicted. Damnit, I dislike not being able to blame other people for my discomfort. This year has so far been overwhelming (again, there is complexity in that word which the word does not communicate) and exhausting (oh god, so exhausting). So when I spend the Easter long weekend guiltily watching lots of TV (New Girl is AWESOME) and furtively napping on the couch with no textbooks in sight (Gasp!), there was a large part of me that was fully prepared for all kinds of stress on Tuesday.

But no, there was an executive decision that Tuesday evening was to be a Night Off. And it was successful!! First time this year I felt complete calm about not panicking. First time this year I feel relaxed about my ability to overcome the overwhelming demands and DO this shit. It was like exhaling deeply and only then waking upto the breath I’ve been holding in. Finally recognising how much counterproductive tension has been there this entire time. Aaaa!! Just breathe, basically.

This is my attempt to document and thus hang on to this feeling. It will be essential to have some guilt free downtime. And I’m only just figuring out how.

Erm.. now to stop myself from getting addicted to it and indulging too much.

Learnt a couple of important lessons this week:

1. When professors tell you their honours year was the hardest of their life, listen.

2. Don’t just listen, adjust life accordingly.

3. When things are sliding downhill, scramble back up. The quicker the better.

So, the journey to get here has not been easy. At all. My transcript clearly shows that there is a tale to tell, thus everyone who sees it looks up at me puzzled, and asks for the story. 

It isn’t particularly new and perhaps not even particularly interesting. It is about a girl who was happy and loved without having to think about it. Take said girl out of sparkly bubble, place in an alien landscape without beaches, tropical weather, coconut trees or any other support structures. Watch girl stumble bewildered and hurt, learning how these aliens communicate, hoping that one day she will get it right and they will love her too. Perhaps if she wore the right clothes or gave the right compliments. 

Girl, unfortunately, has too much pride to acknowledge that she is struggling and that sleeping 15 hours a day and crying inexplicably for the remaining 9 hours is not normal. Her dog dies. Each day of doing nothing, she becomes a bit more of a nothing. It takes about 18 months of lows and lows with a higher altitude before she wakes up and realises that somewhere along the way, she found a few people who see her as not nothing. And life has started to fill up with things that are worth being awake for. Including the ability to change from a degree she hates (Finance) to something more meaningful (Psychology). 

Being a nothing shrunk down to occasional weekends of not being able to get out of bed.

And so the Girl become a functional adult. Most of the time. Enough of the time to get drastically better grades, just in time to scrape into honours.

For a beautiful description of the process read this.  

Such a stressful game for children. Everyone has a different strategy, going faster or going slower and of course this involves constantly bumping into each other. Why was overtaking not allowed?!?

Reason to be an adult #3 (Its a short list) You get to avoid music chairs and similar annoying games. Except when searching for a supervisor at the department of psychology. Seriously guys? I detect some misplaced nostalgia. 

Losing this game results in additional pain, tears over a 10 month period at the end of which the rest of your life might be shyte (need a first class to get a scholarship for postgrad study). 

WHOO indeed.

The process is about as graceful as a walrus navigating a hamster maze. You send e mails asking for meetings, have said meeting, formal request for supervision, formal acceptance by the Potential then confirmation by poor low status, completely overwhelmed and lacking in self esteem honours student. EVERYone has a different preference for when to play this game, so its like musical chairs but without the music and different people jumping in and out of the game at unpredictable points. Apparently some supervisors were lining up their little lambs months ago :S

What a start to the year.

Anyway, I got lucky - a mere 6 e mails, 4 days and 2 meetings later I have a potentially very good supervisor. He’s Russian with long black hair tied in a ponytail, nicknamed Borat by some kind friends but we will waltz over that for the meantime. 

I have the writing bug again! I suspect it bit me because I updated google reader and began to systematically follow my favourite blogs again. Briefly visited my earlier blog and its full of spam comments?! What is with that? 

The craziness began on the road. 

So I’m in the car, being driven back from Melbourne. Phone rings, honours supervisor’s number comes up. 

Panic attack. 

There may or may not have been some terrified throwing of the phone onto the next seat and putting a pillow on top of it. 

Ahem. 

Fast forward through 2 hours of rumination (The university loves me, it loves me not, but maybe it does love me, oh god it definitely doesn’t love me) and l refuse to call back. The Boy, no stranger to these tormented mental journeys waits patiently for some sanity to return. You can make plans once you know he says. Annoyingly rational. Then, finally I am ready. Yes, I can handle the rejection. It will be okay. 

And the phone line is faulty when I returned the call. Of course, right? Of blooming course.

Anyway 12 hours later I found out I got in! Hooray! 

A celebratory evening of friends, wine, pasta and Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog ensued. 

Watersport has tended to draw me. I think more than the football/ netball type stuff, it has a certain lifestyle around it, and with that lifestyle comes being practical, helpful and easygoing.

Spent most of this weekend Sailing! Saturday was unintended, but a friend messaged and said that he is going to go, and invited me along! Exactly what I had been waiting for… Rushed like a crazy person to get gear and to the clubhouse.

It was amazing! Super gusty day with strong winds and on this lake the wind changes direction every few minutes (or so it felt like). We learned, through trial and much error how to rig the Taser, a two person boat with a jib (second sail) and off we finally went!

I stuck mostly to dealing with the jib, letting Ricky sort out the main skippering but it was so much fun! We were on edge most of the time and got to have a nice catchup at the same time :)

Sunday was boat maintenance and the intermediate sailing course. Phew. It was really fun - soldiering iron, needle and thread, super strong glue, dismantling and remantling (is that even a word) powerboat propellers and fixing leaky toilets. This is not a dull sport :) I love looking after boats. Gives you insight into how it works, where the weaker links are, where the small but critical bits are etc. Builds the relationship.

I improved drastically over the 4 or so hours we were actually on the water, it felt really good. There was much dry capsising and a wet one, to the point where I didnt take heed anymore - it was merely jump on centreboat, turn it upright, clamber on and keep going without missing a beat.

It does accumulate to delicious tiredness though :) Ah a good nights rest!

I”m getting the hang of it - its a point between total focus and denial.

Today I felt incredibly rejected. So I ran away and am now staying by myself for a few days. Night One and it feels good, some much needed breathing space and solitude.

I could get used to this.

So, I think I feel like I’m surrounded by people I cannot trust and that I havent chosen them. I guess its a culmination of this year being full of people I’m forced to interact with, and having intrusive phone calls all the time as well.

I need to slowly regain my sense of balance and feeling safe with boundaries.

I think when I’m feeling better I’ll make a list of each person, and what exactly makes me feel like I cant trust them.

One of my most vivid memories is as a 17 year old, turning to writing as therapy. Of course I didn’t know that at the time, ours was a culture where intense self analysis was the exception, not the norm.

I was in school. School is incredibly beautiful, with big stunning trees and green spaces intermingling with old open colonial style buildings. The previous night had been spent having sex with my ex-boyfriend, who had just arrived in the country. It was pretty bad, as all early sex tends to be and he was in a terrible emotional place and I wanted to connect with him and tell him that people still cared about him. I was no longer in love with him, but I did love him a lot and him me, except something wasn’t quite right.

Emotions are murky. I was not surprised to hear that one of the key issues that psychology as a discipline prefers not to discuss is that it is uncertain whether the measurement tools are measuring the variable they wish to measure. No wonder. How do you measure sadness? What is it? How is it different from loneliness or feeling rejected or feeling unsafe?

I didn’t know. And to this day I am not entirely sure. Walking in to school that morning for some reason there was a line from a Norah Jones song in my head on repeat (the kind of repeat that says I will not stop until you attend to me):

‘Tell me darling true, what am I to you?’

So I sat down with pencil and paper and wrote 3 pages of poetry. Non stop. The same sort of unrelenting energy, very specifically targeting towards creating using language that I feel right now. I couldn’t stop. I had no real idea what I was writing about, these feelings bypassed the conscious part of my brain and went straight onto paper. 

Once I had finished, I read it and realised that I was feeling very much unacknowledged. Cannot remember the details. That feeling of emotional resolution and awareness is vivid, though. 

I want to go camping, alone, by the beach after exams are over. Just me, no laptop, no phone, no books even. Pencil and paper only. Maybe I will write some stuff, maybe I wont. Either way I will have a solitary adventure :) 

The last 3 years or so of high school for me involved a lot of sleeping and minimal classtime. I had a spinal injury, that was one big reason… but looking back now I suspect that merely provided the justification for processing time, I took that resource and ran with it. What was it that was getting resolved subconsciously? Or perhaps it was merely contained rather than properly addressed.

Anyway, now (thanks to my psychology degree and G) I am more acutely aware of some of the inner/outer turmoil occuring. I am incredibly grateful for this, it has added an element of sanity where there was haze and murky, unattended feelings. 

I thought psychological triggers would appear in some form of rainbow flavoured burst of understanding: X event occurs, M emotion is felt, Y association is made and it is all beautiful. A walks away with insight into her psychological makeup and reactions and is strengthened by this experience.

Fuck.

Want to know what really happens?

X event occurs, there is emotional withdrawal, the conversation/event continues as per normal, there is some superficial resolution in that situation enabled by said emotional withdrawal.

A walks away feeling good, then, a few minutes later realises there is murky something happening: is it M? is it L? is it OULJDF? A talks to G, uncovers some stuff, feels much better. A says ‘oh, I am too busy to resolve this with said person just yet but I am ready’. A wanders off and occasionally thinks about X, feels more emotions too unrecognisable to assign an initial to, let alone a name.

One month later, while A is taking books out of her car, she realises that X actually triggered λ a significant event/emotion from a long time ago.

A feels empowered but now is physically exhausted and wishes all this could happen after her exams instead of just before.

When I write an essay for uni, I actually want to write poetry. Something beautiful and moving, which will make the reader cry and laugh and change their career in a moment of ecstasy. 

Of course, after weeks of panicking, I eventually research and write said essay in a day, lacking time to edit it and hand it in because the sleepless, irritable, disillusioned me has given up on attaining even mediocrity. 

Sigh. 

This particular one [on Bayesian statistics] is going a bit better, but there are still remnants of this mismatch between desire and task requirements.

There’s totally nothing wrong with writing about titbits which do not necessarily have context. Sometimes, the background is best left blurred, like a macro photograph. 

I’m bored. Haven’t done any work ALL DAY. And I do not have this desirable commodity named time to begin with, so there is much self reproach, stress and sleepless nights waiting patiently around the corner for me. 

In more cheerful news, www.etsy.com has some beautiful things!