A Little Room to Breath
Mar. 8th, 2009 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthWell, I've got a few minutes to update, finally, and the energy to do so, so here goes!
Puerto Rico was amazing. I think that I couldn't have survived the past month if I hadn't spent the first two weeks of February there. I don't really know how to describe it, though, so I think I'll wait to do a full post until I've uploaded some pictures to go with it. The super short version, though, is that the majority of the time was spent in our resort, the Intercontinental, eating Italian food, enjoying the sun, wandering the Isla Verde beaches, and generally not worrying about anything. Beyond that, a few days were spent wandering around Old San Juan, including taking in a museum, visiting both El Morro and San Cristobal and taking zillions of pictures of colonial Spanish fortresses juxtaposed with incredibly blue water, and shopping. Other than that, the only other adventure that I had was a visit to El Yunque. I'd never been in a real rainforest before (when I was in Singapore, there was a pretty wild, rain forest section of the Botanical Gardens that was neat but very small, and there was a genuine patch of rain forest but I got lost trying to find it and so didn't end up going there) and it's really something. Of course, it rained, but that was fine, if anything it completed the effect, the forest-covered mountains swathed in billowing cloudy fog...yeah, it was really something. But as I said, I'm not gonna write too much about it without being able to intersperse pictures. I've been trying to get up all my photos in between all the work, so hopefully I'll be able to do that relatively soon.
Work has rather sucked. Before this weekend, I hadn't a day off since I got back from the trip. We ended up writing four proposals for the Teaching American History RFP. Two of them are officially submitted, one should be submitted on Monday and is mostly done, and the last we were denied permission to submit by the DOE. This was very, very upsetting, and pretty much ruined Friday, but I've accepted it and moved on because there is simply nothing I can do. But when I think of the almost 30 hours of work I put in, plus all the many hours that those working with me put it, it's just so awful that petty politics could stop such a fine proposal. Sigh.
Meanwhile, we've got 5 more grants, all for the 21st CCLC proposal, which will be due on the 27th. That's why I'm posting a little bit about life now, because I'm going to disappear again shortly.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with how the work has been going. Not only did I get everything I needed to done while taking a lot of the pressure off of my mother, but for the first time I was able to keep on top of EVERYTHING - I didn't lose track of all of the important, ongoing stuff just because I was absorbed in writing grants. I hope that I can keep that up, because there's some important stuff that I need to make sure starts in the middle of the month, so that I'll have all the focus groups and site visits I need to do in April and May scheduled well ahead of time.
Strangely, I rather like being busy...though maybe not THIS busy. I think this is the first time I officially broke 60 hours of actual, honest-to-god work in one week - though I've been very close before. Anyway, I don't care enough to go back through all my old time sheets and check, but I know that it was a lot this time. ;)
Interestingly, after all of that, when I look now at my free time and wonder what I want to do with it, increasingly the answer is I want to go out and do something cultural. This is partly financially motivated - with all my memberships and such, I can go to a lot of places for little or no cost, which is always pleasant. It's more than that, though - I find it relaxing. I like the opportunity to take pictures. It's a good excuse to get out of the house. All in all, it just makes me happy, and in the end that's what really matters. Take yesterday - my first almost-day-off (I only worked a couple of hours), and I went to the American Museum of Natural History, the New-York Historical Society, and then met my mom at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Okay, looking at that list, maybe part of the reason I like going to the museums so much is simply that I'm in NYC, and with access to so many world class institutions I'd be out of my mind not to go. ;) One of my only other part-days off, I went to the Met, and before I left for PR I went to the Frick for the first time since I was a kid, and it knocked my socks off (I actually found a Vermeer that I liked! I almost never like Vermeer, which is frustrating, cause everyone acts like it's the shit, but I'm about as underwhelmed by them as I was by the Mona Lisa when I saw it...) Anyway, yeah, museum love.
My health has, thank god, been pretty good, and so have my spirits for the most part. Still, I think if I hadn't had the trip to PR I'd have lost it. January was pretty rough, and then the past three weeks have been endless (or really, really fast, depending) but the 10 day interlude was absolutely perfect - nothing to do but read Cadfael mysteries, swim, exercise, and get massages (okay, I "only" got two of those...)...and eat unhealthy food.
I planned it specifically - due to the amount of work I've had, I've stopped taking the dog for her hour walks - it's just too frustrating cause she's not very well behaved, and when I'm tired I can't work up any enthusiasm at all. Also, I don't like to do it first thing in the morning, but I can't spare an hour in the afternoon. And now that's she's older, her energy isn't overflowing, so it's no big deal. However, this was causing problems, cause I was still eating as if I was eating 4 - 5 miles a day, when I was only walking 1 - 2. I knew the resort would have a gym, so I decided to try to start up a workout routine while I was away, with the assumption that if it went well I'd join a gym when I got back.
This morning's trip marked the successful completion of 5 weeks of gym going. I've been keeping it pretty low impact by my standards - an hour on a treadmill or elliptical, and then home - but I've been getting better quickly. I had to stop treadmill for a couple weeks cause I was getting shin splints; today was the first day back on there and it didn't go well, but other than that I've nothing to lament. I haven't gained any weight, either - as of this morning (weekly weighing) I'm still 159 pounds, which suits me fine - I've been eating healthy food in much-to-large quantities cause of the stress, so maintaining makes me very happy. All in all, I'm very satisfied. I haven't missed a single day I planned to go (two days on, two days off) despite a few VERY early mornings that this necessitated, and a few "oh my god I can't do this" days.
Speaking of early mornings, up until this morning and the damn day light savings time, I'd gotten myself on a very early schedule, waking up generally between 6 and 6:30 (without an alarm clock). I found this surprisingly agreeable, but I'm worried it's ruined now - usually it's the light that wakes me up and, of course, now the light is going to be an hour later. I've been trying to decide if I should set an alarm...
There hasn't been much other stuff. I've been thinking about writing but not even attempting it right now. I've been thinking about studying Japanese, and I'm hoping that doing so will be one of the things that takes over some of the time that'll be freed up in April. I've been thinking about the things I was thinking about before - photography, drumming, and Judaism - but I haven't really made any progress. But that doesn't bother me at all. I've been reading a lot and watching less TV, both of which make me happy, though my brain power has been low, and so a lot of what I've been reading is manga - which also makes me happy, since I was starting to feel that I was seriously neglecting my manga collection, and I was missing it.
I've been binge spending a little bit this last week, which is a little distressing, but I think it's past - I hadn't gotten myself much recently, and so I got myself a new purse so I'd have something (slightly) more professional to bring to meetings, but I only partially succeeded, in that I love my new bag, but it's a Tokidoki bag, and so not really any more professional. Whatever. :) I also have started to fill in a collection I haven't been able to afford - I wanted very much to start buying the art exhibition catalogs for exhibits that I see and like, and now I'm mostly caught up with the exhibits that I saw last year and liked - only one or two more I want to get - and am getting the ones for this year, too. So often I'm not allowed to take pictures at temporary exhibits, and once I've seen them, it's over and I never get to see them again once they leave, and in many cases those items are then put into storage, or returned to far away countries, and I want to remember them, so I'm going to get the catalogs. I like them a lot, they're very pretty.
As for today, I spent the day cleaning my apartment from top to bottom, and putting stuff away, and the result is that it's in the best shape it's been in since I moved in three months ago. There's nothing quite as relaxing as coming home to a clean home. And tomorrow, I can pick up my car from the mechanic - it's been there two weeks cause of the over heating problems that started last summer - and now it's hopefully all fixed, which is such a relief!
That's all for now. Back to the hard work of taking the day completely off, before I go back to the hard work of not getting any time off at all. ;)
Puerto Rico was amazing. I think that I couldn't have survived the past month if I hadn't spent the first two weeks of February there. I don't really know how to describe it, though, so I think I'll wait to do a full post until I've uploaded some pictures to go with it. The super short version, though, is that the majority of the time was spent in our resort, the Intercontinental, eating Italian food, enjoying the sun, wandering the Isla Verde beaches, and generally not worrying about anything. Beyond that, a few days were spent wandering around Old San Juan, including taking in a museum, visiting both El Morro and San Cristobal and taking zillions of pictures of colonial Spanish fortresses juxtaposed with incredibly blue water, and shopping. Other than that, the only other adventure that I had was a visit to El Yunque. I'd never been in a real rainforest before (when I was in Singapore, there was a pretty wild, rain forest section of the Botanical Gardens that was neat but very small, and there was a genuine patch of rain forest but I got lost trying to find it and so didn't end up going there) and it's really something. Of course, it rained, but that was fine, if anything it completed the effect, the forest-covered mountains swathed in billowing cloudy fog...yeah, it was really something. But as I said, I'm not gonna write too much about it without being able to intersperse pictures. I've been trying to get up all my photos in between all the work, so hopefully I'll be able to do that relatively soon.
Work has rather sucked. Before this weekend, I hadn't a day off since I got back from the trip. We ended up writing four proposals for the Teaching American History RFP. Two of them are officially submitted, one should be submitted on Monday and is mostly done, and the last we were denied permission to submit by the DOE. This was very, very upsetting, and pretty much ruined Friday, but I've accepted it and moved on because there is simply nothing I can do. But when I think of the almost 30 hours of work I put in, plus all the many hours that those working with me put it, it's just so awful that petty politics could stop such a fine proposal. Sigh.
Meanwhile, we've got 5 more grants, all for the 21st CCLC proposal, which will be due on the 27th. That's why I'm posting a little bit about life now, because I'm going to disappear again shortly.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with how the work has been going. Not only did I get everything I needed to done while taking a lot of the pressure off of my mother, but for the first time I was able to keep on top of EVERYTHING - I didn't lose track of all of the important, ongoing stuff just because I was absorbed in writing grants. I hope that I can keep that up, because there's some important stuff that I need to make sure starts in the middle of the month, so that I'll have all the focus groups and site visits I need to do in April and May scheduled well ahead of time.
Strangely, I rather like being busy...though maybe not THIS busy. I think this is the first time I officially broke 60 hours of actual, honest-to-god work in one week - though I've been very close before. Anyway, I don't care enough to go back through all my old time sheets and check, but I know that it was a lot this time. ;)
Interestingly, after all of that, when I look now at my free time and wonder what I want to do with it, increasingly the answer is I want to go out and do something cultural. This is partly financially motivated - with all my memberships and such, I can go to a lot of places for little or no cost, which is always pleasant. It's more than that, though - I find it relaxing. I like the opportunity to take pictures. It's a good excuse to get out of the house. All in all, it just makes me happy, and in the end that's what really matters. Take yesterday - my first almost-day-off (I only worked a couple of hours), and I went to the American Museum of Natural History, the New-York Historical Society, and then met my mom at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Okay, looking at that list, maybe part of the reason I like going to the museums so much is simply that I'm in NYC, and with access to so many world class institutions I'd be out of my mind not to go. ;) One of my only other part-days off, I went to the Met, and before I left for PR I went to the Frick for the first time since I was a kid, and it knocked my socks off (I actually found a Vermeer that I liked! I almost never like Vermeer, which is frustrating, cause everyone acts like it's the shit, but I'm about as underwhelmed by them as I was by the Mona Lisa when I saw it...) Anyway, yeah, museum love.
My health has, thank god, been pretty good, and so have my spirits for the most part. Still, I think if I hadn't had the trip to PR I'd have lost it. January was pretty rough, and then the past three weeks have been endless (or really, really fast, depending) but the 10 day interlude was absolutely perfect - nothing to do but read Cadfael mysteries, swim, exercise, and get massages (okay, I "only" got two of those...)...and eat unhealthy food.
I planned it specifically - due to the amount of work I've had, I've stopped taking the dog for her hour walks - it's just too frustrating cause she's not very well behaved, and when I'm tired I can't work up any enthusiasm at all. Also, I don't like to do it first thing in the morning, but I can't spare an hour in the afternoon. And now that's she's older, her energy isn't overflowing, so it's no big deal. However, this was causing problems, cause I was still eating as if I was eating 4 - 5 miles a day, when I was only walking 1 - 2. I knew the resort would have a gym, so I decided to try to start up a workout routine while I was away, with the assumption that if it went well I'd join a gym when I got back.
This morning's trip marked the successful completion of 5 weeks of gym going. I've been keeping it pretty low impact by my standards - an hour on a treadmill or elliptical, and then home - but I've been getting better quickly. I had to stop treadmill for a couple weeks cause I was getting shin splints; today was the first day back on there and it didn't go well, but other than that I've nothing to lament. I haven't gained any weight, either - as of this morning (weekly weighing) I'm still 159 pounds, which suits me fine - I've been eating healthy food in much-to-large quantities cause of the stress, so maintaining makes me very happy. All in all, I'm very satisfied. I haven't missed a single day I planned to go (two days on, two days off) despite a few VERY early mornings that this necessitated, and a few "oh my god I can't do this" days.
Speaking of early mornings, up until this morning and the damn day light savings time, I'd gotten myself on a very early schedule, waking up generally between 6 and 6:30 (without an alarm clock). I found this surprisingly agreeable, but I'm worried it's ruined now - usually it's the light that wakes me up and, of course, now the light is going to be an hour later. I've been trying to decide if I should set an alarm...
There hasn't been much other stuff. I've been thinking about writing but not even attempting it right now. I've been thinking about studying Japanese, and I'm hoping that doing so will be one of the things that takes over some of the time that'll be freed up in April. I've been thinking about the things I was thinking about before - photography, drumming, and Judaism - but I haven't really made any progress. But that doesn't bother me at all. I've been reading a lot and watching less TV, both of which make me happy, though my brain power has been low, and so a lot of what I've been reading is manga - which also makes me happy, since I was starting to feel that I was seriously neglecting my manga collection, and I was missing it.
I've been binge spending a little bit this last week, which is a little distressing, but I think it's past - I hadn't gotten myself much recently, and so I got myself a new purse so I'd have something (slightly) more professional to bring to meetings, but I only partially succeeded, in that I love my new bag, but it's a Tokidoki bag, and so not really any more professional. Whatever. :) I also have started to fill in a collection I haven't been able to afford - I wanted very much to start buying the art exhibition catalogs for exhibits that I see and like, and now I'm mostly caught up with the exhibits that I saw last year and liked - only one or two more I want to get - and am getting the ones for this year, too. So often I'm not allowed to take pictures at temporary exhibits, and once I've seen them, it's over and I never get to see them again once they leave, and in many cases those items are then put into storage, or returned to far away countries, and I want to remember them, so I'm going to get the catalogs. I like them a lot, they're very pretty.
As for today, I spent the day cleaning my apartment from top to bottom, and putting stuff away, and the result is that it's in the best shape it's been in since I moved in three months ago. There's nothing quite as relaxing as coming home to a clean home. And tomorrow, I can pick up my car from the mechanic - it's been there two weeks cause of the over heating problems that started last summer - and now it's hopefully all fixed, which is such a relief!
That's all for now. Back to the hard work of taking the day completely off, before I go back to the hard work of not getting any time off at all. ;)
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Date: 2009-03-08 10:42 pm (UTC)Thanks for the postcard, btw!
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Date: 2009-03-09 01:02 am (UTC)Glad to hear you're weathering the busy-ness well (though that does completely stink about the last grant) :(
Yay for museum love! :)
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Date: 2009-03-09 11:42 am (UTC)