stress: why I hate it, why I need it.
I have been playing RPGs since I was 10, and over most of that time, they have been a major source of comfort when I was stressed and unhappy, which was almost constantly in my childhood and adolescence. So, I'm not surprised that I have been thinking about gaming a lot these past days. Sometimes it's the creative, interesting game-thought, like wondering if Jordan Melhedan would be able to connect the dots enough to ask Sabbath what happened to his father, and what would happen if he did. When I'm really struggling with my feelings, I shut them down, and then I wind up just crunching game stats in my head, over and over, like Humphrey Bogart with the ball-bearings. This often impedes my ability to concentrate and, in this case, work on the school project that is the cause of my stress in the first place.
Today, things are a bit different. I also have to finish my comps, and that means an exam and an oral defense, a meeting with three professors that depends upon all of us being there in the room together. John, it seems, can't do it at the end of August, and I can't do it earlier, because I'll be away. It must be done by August 31, however, because my eligibility ends that day, and it's too late for to try to extend it, aside from the hoops that would involve. Larry, however, seems to have already set the wheels in motion to get me another semester. This is a great weight off my mind, and I feel good about that.
The problem is it's 1:30 in the afternoon, I have been up since 9 am, and this post is the most useful thing I have done today. (OK, I re-read Mona Lisa Overdrive and a bit of Neuromancer. Wow, what a difference 20 years makes. Then, too, remember what computers and the net were like back in 80s?) It's hard to get my shit together without a sting of fear to drive me.
So, I'm going to go out, have breakfast, go to UMass and see if I really can get this extension, and then come home and write an intro to the fucking paper. No therapy tonight, so I should have enough time.
Happy things: Feisty has taken to sprawling across the table between keyboard and screen. She's so beautiful and happy to be with me, it really makes my heart catch a little.
OH, and Syd, I found the hedgehog you gave me. He's perched, too. Yay for mascots!
Today, things are a bit different. I also have to finish my comps, and that means an exam and an oral defense, a meeting with three professors that depends upon all of us being there in the room together. John, it seems, can't do it at the end of August, and I can't do it earlier, because I'll be away. It must be done by August 31, however, because my eligibility ends that day, and it's too late for to try to extend it, aside from the hoops that would involve. Larry, however, seems to have already set the wheels in motion to get me another semester. This is a great weight off my mind, and I feel good about that.
The problem is it's 1:30 in the afternoon, I have been up since 9 am, and this post is the most useful thing I have done today. (OK, I re-read Mona Lisa Overdrive and a bit of Neuromancer. Wow, what a difference 20 years makes. Then, too, remember what computers and the net were like back in 80s?) It's hard to get my shit together without a sting of fear to drive me.
So, I'm going to go out, have breakfast, go to UMass and see if I really can get this extension, and then come home and write an intro to the fucking paper. No therapy tonight, so I should have enough time.
Happy things: Feisty has taken to sprawling across the table between keyboard and screen. She's so beautiful and happy to be with me, it really makes my heart catch a little.
OH, and Syd, I found the hedgehog you gave me. He's perched, too. Yay for mascots!