this is not the story of me carrying home 13 bags of groceries and vast quantities of T.P. at 1am.

[laurenhat]

If you want to hear ridiculous stories about me emulating a pack mule for probably not particularly good reasons, ask some other time. This here is about my plans for this semester.

I don't tend to make new year's resolutions. I think this is mostly just contrariness on my part; I may do similar things sometimes, but I won't call them by that name. I have been trying to take some time at the beginning of each semester to evaluate how I'm doing in terms of general happiness and health and to try to figure out how to sustain or improve those things. I'm currently facing a semester with no structure at all (no classes to take or TA -- just research from here on out), and I am particularly worried about lacking structure to my days and what that will lead to (the fact that I'm posting this at 6 am is a pretty good indicator that my schedule has already gotten ridiculously off, and I'm a lot less productive than I should be when my schedule is this wacky). So I am seeking for ways to better structure my time and make sure that I get out of the house and actually do stuff. The resulting plans look suspiciously like new year's resolutions:

1. Start off my weekdays by getting up early (8 is my tentative goal), having some cereal, and heading to the gym. I like going to the gym, and the reason I don't do so more often has to do with poor scheduling skills rather than gym avoidance. So that's not too unrealistic, I think -- once I'm up. The getting up early (and not getting sucked into the internet immediately) will be the real challenge. But I know I can do an early schedule (I managed for a while last year) if I can just stop being so obstinate about going to bed at a semi-reasonable time. While that's mostly my own problem, one continuing issue is that I like chatting with B. late at night (damn time difference). Also, I get frustrated too easily when I can't fall asleep immediately. Still, I'd really like to manage this. We'll see if having some gym buddies helps at all with sticking to a good morning schedule.
   
   I rejoined Healthworks (the women's gym I used to belong to). I realized that I really want to start my day with a workout, and the gym at MIT that I use doesn't open until almost noon, so I keep procrastinating about going in in the mornings. Healthworks is on my way to work and therefore also convenient, but it's about a hundred times nicer than the MIT gym. And it has free classes in various interesting and amusing sounding things. I think I'm going to try Forza, which is some kind of sword-based workout class -- relax, people; they're wooden swords with dull edges, and I don't think there's actual combat. Though I'm sure I could still hurt myself if I tried. Anyway, the sword class is only offered on Tuesdays and Saturdays; mostly I'm going to alternate between running and weights. Oh, and signing up through their new year's resolution deal (grr) gave me two free sessions with a personal trainer, so that's pretty cool too.
   
   
2. From the gym, go right to work. Once I've gotten out of bed and made it to the gym, the hardest part of starting my day is done. And afterward I'll be all energized from my workout and theoretically ready to actually work.
   
   
3. Work. Just put in hours every day without panicking about whether I've fallen behind in the overall scheme of grad school or whether I spent too much time earlier this week procrastinating. Any time I start to freak out about my lack of productivity, stop and write a list of small tasks I can do, and do one. No panicky flailing!
   
   
4. This one's really necessary for my currently tight budget, and the only way I could justify re-joining the gym: drastically cut back on money spent on food. Pack a lunch most days. Eat out a lot less when I'm by myself. I've been pretty successful for the past couple weeks; we'll see if that holds. Hopefully A. and I will start cooking for each other again when she gets back (also yielding tasty leftovers), which will help. Oh, and speaking of leftovers -- I eat very small meals, so when I do eat out, I should get leftovers more often and then actually eat them later. That's more cost effective, even if I'm inexplicably biased against eating most restaurant leftovers.
   
   
5. Finish rereading Outlandia and actually share it with some people, even though I'm getting bashful about it and overly-critical. Schedule some time for writing/editing regularly (this partly involves figuring out what schedule makes sense).
   
   
6. Take Saturdays off from work, and from the internet. Go do something fun. I felt much happier when I managed this for a while last semester, but it didn't last all that long.
   
   
7. Don't exhaust myself being too social. Skip most of the parties and large gatherings. Hang out one-on-one with good friends, and make sure to leave lots of time for being hermitty when I need it.
   

Hopefully I can make progress in all of these directions. I'm willing to tweak some specifics of the goals after I see how things go for a bit. But for the most part they're already based on a few semesters of experimentation, and I feel pretty confident that I'll be happier the more closely I can stick to these plans.

It would help if I could start by falling asleep now. It's been another long insomniac night. Yesterday I ran 5 miles and walked 2 in an effort to induce sleep at a saner hour, but it hasn't helped (which is, at least, a sign that I'm way more fit than I used to be). Well, I'm dragging myself out of bed in a few hours anyhow and going back to the gym, with my packed lunch in hand. It's a start!