9.24.2007
Done!
The very very last piece of mail that I needed to send for med school apps is USPS priority mailed (with delivery confirmation!). Did I go to all of that trouble for the rest of the apps? No, but these last ones seemed more urgent. Besides I didn't have envelopes so they're wrapped in pages from my HSCESMLC alum magazine. And they seemed safer put inside of those special priority window envelopes. And then maybe they'll get closer to the top of the stack when they come through the admissions office doors. You just never know.
9.21.2007
Nude Yoga, Hot Corners, and Casper
Whew! My last two weeks of frequent early mornings to scramble a few hours of work before 8 or 9 am meetings are officially over. Tonight was the official public forum to discuss the state of Poor Casper with the local watershed residents and some folks from other watershed groups in the county. Five of us spoke, with me playing MC and "save the whales" promoter. Making a PowerPoint with five people who refuse to get together all in one room at one time until the day before the presentation blows goats. That's all I have to say about that.
It's over, it went well. I've already gotten email from some folks who want to jump on board.
There were really just a couple of hang ups. Due to PowerPoint and every other dern product that microsoft produces, we decided to use my computer to make the presentation and to present it. This would have been a good idea if, well, if I hadn't left my laptop charger in Seattle last January. DHM has the same Mac that I do, and she is too gracious for words, so sharing has been pretty much fine for the general evening and weekend use that my laptop experiences.
But the really overly-wonderful DHM gave me free use of the charger this evening, so that wasn't really the hang up. The first problem arose about five minutes in when I discovered that gmail notifier is so very determined to notify you that you have a new message that it's ghostly ten second window appears even in front of an ongoing slide show. So the audience got to read the subject and first lines of any and all email I received during the presentation. Ooops.
The second hang-up revolved around my dear colleagues inability to keep away from the corners of my screen with the mouse. Granted I should have warned them, because I do have the corners set to do all sorts of wooshy things with application windows. Maybe the wooshing helped folks stay awake through the darkened room/comfy chair shebang.
About half-way through, the hang-ups had happened and they weren't much of a big deal. Two emails had shown up. One from The Nation, confirming my change of address and the other from MoveOn. Seeing as how it was an environmental science presentation, I doubt there was much shock at the revelation of my political tendencies.
And then I remembered that for the last few days Turtle and I had been exchanging emails with the subject heading "Nude Yoga?" And we have been known to exchange several emails in a day. I became convinced that at any second the next email that popped up on the screen would not only obscurey dramatic photos of raw sewage spewing into the stream, but also would scream "NUDE YOGA!!" It was a slow thirty minutes that followed, I assure you. Turtle came through, and did not send any ill-timed emails.
Well, it's off to sleep with me. I'm waiting impatiently for my darlin to return from an exciting excursion to see "Roller Derby: the Musical." Yeah. Read that again. I can't wait for the report.
It's over, it went well. I've already gotten email from some folks who want to jump on board.
There were really just a couple of hang ups. Due to PowerPoint and every other dern product that microsoft produces, we decided to use my computer to make the presentation and to present it. This would have been a good idea if, well, if I hadn't left my laptop charger in Seattle last January. DHM has the same Mac that I do, and she is too gracious for words, so sharing has been pretty much fine for the general evening and weekend use that my laptop experiences.
But the really overly-wonderful DHM gave me free use of the charger this evening, so that wasn't really the hang up. The first problem arose about five minutes in when I discovered that gmail notifier is so very determined to notify you that you have a new message that it's ghostly ten second window appears even in front of an ongoing slide show. So the audience got to read the subject and first lines of any and all email I received during the presentation. Ooops.
The second hang-up revolved around my dear colleagues inability to keep away from the corners of my screen with the mouse. Granted I should have warned them, because I do have the corners set to do all sorts of wooshy things with application windows. Maybe the wooshing helped folks stay awake through the darkened room/comfy chair shebang.
About half-way through, the hang-ups had happened and they weren't much of a big deal. Two emails had shown up. One from The Nation, confirming my change of address and the other from MoveOn. Seeing as how it was an environmental science presentation, I doubt there was much shock at the revelation of my political tendencies.
And then I remembered that for the last few days Turtle and I had been exchanging emails with the subject heading "Nude Yoga?" And we have been known to exchange several emails in a day. I became convinced that at any second the next email that popped up on the screen would not only obscurey dramatic photos of raw sewage spewing into the stream, but also would scream "NUDE YOGA!!" It was a slow thirty minutes that followed, I assure you. Turtle came through, and did not send any ill-timed emails.
Well, it's off to sleep with me. I'm waiting impatiently for my darlin to return from an exciting excursion to see "Roller Derby: the Musical." Yeah. Read that again. I can't wait for the report.
9.19.2007
Contentment
I'm always thinking that what I really want out of life is to acheive something or make the world a better place or inspiration or or or, something.
My new friend Turtle told me that he neither believes in nor understands ambition last week. I met him a couple of months ago and am gluing our lives together as best as possible because our bubbling friendship is feeling like the kind that pop up few times in life. This little comment of his, which was attached to why he dislikes DC, really gave me pause. I think that in many ways the last five years or so of life have been a big process of detaching myself from the confused ambition that I mistakenly picked out of family encouragement toward academic pursuits, which was amplified by the three years at snotty prep school.
That time in college when I went abroad and wrote hundreds of pages in my journal, I thought I learned the important lesson related to this. At the time, it was "it doesn't matter how long things take in life" and "make sure you enjoy life now, dude." But I never framed it in terms of questioning long term ambitions.
Enter med school applications. I am afraid that I might not have stopped to make myself really confront how much of this doctorly driven desire is based in 1. fear of financial difficulties, 2. ambition toward respectability, 3. it makes my mother happy.
Anyway, what I said to Turtle today is that I keep realizing that what I'm really after is contentment. All those other things are just what I do because I think it will get me there. As much as 1, 2, and 3 play some part in me wanting to be a doctor, so do a whole heap of other things. I do have to work hard to become a doctor. I don't have to be miserable I don't have to get the best grades or be the most cutting edge. I want to take care of people. I want to help them be healthier. I want to be good at it and I want to work hard at it. But I also want to do other things and this doctoring path doesn't have to consume me.
These thoughts are jumbled, I apologize. Well, back to Casper. Connections are the thing. Casper=Health.
My new friend Turtle told me that he neither believes in nor understands ambition last week. I met him a couple of months ago and am gluing our lives together as best as possible because our bubbling friendship is feeling like the kind that pop up few times in life. This little comment of his, which was attached to why he dislikes DC, really gave me pause. I think that in many ways the last five years or so of life have been a big process of detaching myself from the confused ambition that I mistakenly picked out of family encouragement toward academic pursuits, which was amplified by the three years at snotty prep school.
That time in college when I went abroad and wrote hundreds of pages in my journal, I thought I learned the important lesson related to this. At the time, it was "it doesn't matter how long things take in life" and "make sure you enjoy life now, dude." But I never framed it in terms of questioning long term ambitions.
Enter med school applications. I am afraid that I might not have stopped to make myself really confront how much of this doctorly driven desire is based in 1. fear of financial difficulties, 2. ambition toward respectability, 3. it makes my mother happy.
Anyway, what I said to Turtle today is that I keep realizing that what I'm really after is contentment. All those other things are just what I do because I think it will get me there. As much as 1, 2, and 3 play some part in me wanting to be a doctor, so do a whole heap of other things. I do have to work hard to become a doctor. I don't have to be miserable I don't have to get the best grades or be the most cutting edge. I want to take care of people. I want to help them be healthier. I want to be good at it and I want to work hard at it. But I also want to do other things and this doctoring path doesn't have to consume me.
These thoughts are jumbled, I apologize. Well, back to Casper. Connections are the thing. Casper=Health.
9.11.2007
Of Chaos
So who knew I would start off as such a hiccoughing blogger? Well, I'll try to be better, I swear. This is a mighty whirlwind of a week. Every time I think that I'm finally starting to be on top of things at work, I discover that, no, actually, I'm not at all. My laundry list of what I want to do is so long!
Poor Casper is being neglected. The BMIzz are so far from being counted and some of the time dependent lab work is far from finished. Egad!
This would all be easier if professors were easier to find. They could do this in several ways:
1. Move into their offices.
2. Respond to my emails immediately, ignoring others if necessary.
3. Carry a pager to which only I have the number, or a cell phone.
4. Rearrange their schedules to attend meetings that I call.
Not so hard, eh? On the up side, they are hard to find because they are all working very hard to educate the future and other vaguely important work.
With one exception, ahem, Chemistry who up and disappeared to Cape Cod on me. To be fair, he is on leave this semester....
They are quite fabulous as a bunch, and I'm lucky to have them. Just difficult to coordinate. Well, all that said, and I'm just going to leave you haning for actual content and head home for dinner.
Poor Casper is being neglected. The BMIzz are so far from being counted and some of the time dependent lab work is far from finished. Egad!
This would all be easier if professors were easier to find. They could do this in several ways:
1. Move into their offices.
2. Respond to my emails immediately, ignoring others if necessary.
3. Carry a pager to which only I have the number, or a cell phone.
4. Rearrange their schedules to attend meetings that I call.
Not so hard, eh? On the up side, they are hard to find because they are all working very hard to educate the future and other vaguely important work.
With one exception, ahem, Chemistry who up and disappeared to Cape Cod on me. To be fair, he is on leave this semester....
They are quite fabulous as a bunch, and I'm lucky to have them. Just difficult to coordinate. Well, all that said, and I'm just going to leave you haning for actual content and head home for dinner.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
