awash in fervent dreams
today was a particularly lonely day. i think i overcommitted a bunch of good mood to last week, or something.
i seemed to fall into the following pattern: (1) decide i want to have dinner socially. (2) probe around for people to eat with (starting with the lowest levels of extending myself; e.g., "want to order jimmy john's?"). (3) unluckily find everybody to have other plans, and grow increasingly dependent on somebody-anybody responding. (4) stop asking around the instant i start being afraid i'm going to be bitter or resentful to the next person who says no. (5) be no longer content with having an evening to myself. (a while after having written that, it seems like i'm doing passably with this one, at least.)
i envision being able to say "look, i'm not blaming you for not spending time with me, but i'm having a bad day already so being turned away hurts anyway" and being met with sympathy, but all the guilt that's been growing about being a burden on my friends leaves me no longer confident enough to try.
in any case, despite having plenty of options, i still feel like i never have enough time spent socialising "saved up" to be equanimous whenever an evening-to-spend-alone comes around - and it's taking its toll on my ability to get work done, too. i don't know if i'm failing to appreciate enough what i've got, or what... when in a good mood, i'd say i'm doing fine, but it's always like i'd better hold on to that for dear life because it's such a tenuous thing to have.
speaking of tenuous, i think my classwork/research is a huge contributor to emotional instability. learning to handle research and reading and independent projects all at once is solidly in the category of "i feel great or awful about it depending how the rest of my day is going", which is going to wear me out in a hurry. call it a growth process that leaves me fragile if you like, but... i'm already fragile, and another source is only exacerbating. the last time i faced this dilemma the solution was "drop a class", but that technique isn't going to work here, so i'm not sure what to do.
one of my oldest ways for dealing with being upset in the middle of the day is to curl up for a nap, and let myself drift off instead of trying to fight anything. it always comes with this extremely weird sense of "what world am i in again?" when i wake up. i may never get tired of that.
i am making a concerted effort to avoid arming myself with second-darts when having a bad day (and especially so while typing this post). successfully doing so seems to involve not thinking at all, only feeling, which... is possible, at least. also, no letting myself get frustrated at this effort not working immediately. c.c.
i got my old cs alumni jacket back today, and wearing it and my winter scarf and gloves on the way home listened to music i used to only listen to several years ago when super-depressed... perhaps as a reminder of how far i've come. (i'm kind of wary of listening to any newly acquired music while upset lest i tag it with bad associations.) it was oddly comforting and refreshing.
to end on a high note, 799 paper readings are winding down in favour of project 4 (which for a while i've been telling myself i'd better get a head start on so i don't end up swamped in both it and p3 grading), and today i both came up with an idea and wrote a project proposal - i'm gonna try to implement this idea and make it work on 410 student kernels. this should be especially great (assuming it gets a go-ahead), because it's already been kicking around in my head, and i won't have to come up with yet another project i'm not excited about. i think i get bonus points or something for writing up a proposal immediately.
i seemed to fall into the following pattern: (1) decide i want to have dinner socially. (2) probe around for people to eat with (starting with the lowest levels of extending myself; e.g., "want to order jimmy john's?"). (3) unluckily find everybody to have other plans, and grow increasingly dependent on somebody-anybody responding. (4) stop asking around the instant i start being afraid i'm going to be bitter or resentful to the next person who says no. (5) be no longer content with having an evening to myself. (a while after having written that, it seems like i'm doing passably with this one, at least.)
i envision being able to say "look, i'm not blaming you for not spending time with me, but i'm having a bad day already so being turned away hurts anyway" and being met with sympathy, but all the guilt that's been growing about being a burden on my friends leaves me no longer confident enough to try.
in any case, despite having plenty of options, i still feel like i never have enough time spent socialising "saved up" to be equanimous whenever an evening-to-spend-alone comes around - and it's taking its toll on my ability to get work done, too. i don't know if i'm failing to appreciate enough what i've got, or what... when in a good mood, i'd say i'm doing fine, but it's always like i'd better hold on to that for dear life because it's such a tenuous thing to have.
speaking of tenuous, i think my classwork/research is a huge contributor to emotional instability. learning to handle research and reading and independent projects all at once is solidly in the category of "i feel great or awful about it depending how the rest of my day is going", which is going to wear me out in a hurry. call it a growth process that leaves me fragile if you like, but... i'm already fragile, and another source is only exacerbating. the last time i faced this dilemma the solution was "drop a class", but that technique isn't going to work here, so i'm not sure what to do.
one of my oldest ways for dealing with being upset in the middle of the day is to curl up for a nap, and let myself drift off instead of trying to fight anything. it always comes with this extremely weird sense of "what world am i in again?" when i wake up. i may never get tired of that.
i am making a concerted effort to avoid arming myself with second-darts when having a bad day (and especially so while typing this post). successfully doing so seems to involve not thinking at all, only feeling, which... is possible, at least. also, no letting myself get frustrated at this effort not working immediately. c.c.
i got my old cs alumni jacket back today, and wearing it and my winter scarf and gloves on the way home listened to music i used to only listen to several years ago when super-depressed... perhaps as a reminder of how far i've come. (i'm kind of wary of listening to any newly acquired music while upset lest i tag it with bad associations.) it was oddly comforting and refreshing.
to end on a high note, 799 paper readings are winding down in favour of project 4 (which for a while i've been telling myself i'd better get a head start on so i don't end up swamped in both it and p3 grading), and today i both came up with an idea and wrote a project proposal - i'm gonna try to implement this idea and make it work on 410 student kernels. this should be especially great (assuming it gets a go-ahead), because it's already been kicking around in my head, and i won't have to come up with yet another project i'm not excited about. i think i get bonus points or something for writing up a proposal immediately.
