Various Variouses: tree-feels, teaching, patience, complaining, things read & unread, writing
It looks like all of my recently life entries are turning into Various Variouses entries, but I guess, with 1) my life being what it is and 2) the frequency with which I update being what it is, that is no surprise.
~:~
They're cutting down another tree in the neighbors, and I am surprised at how little I feel about it. I heard the saw and immediately stepped down on feeling about another tree-cutting, because I am so fuckin tired of being angry and sad every time this happens. So I don't have any more to say about that.
It's a birch.
~:~
Work. Teaching. Not easier than in HRB, but at least I keep busy, which lets me write. And that's what matters here!
I am so ready to not be teaching anymore. I am so ready to not go into work and have to pysch myself up everyday for 5 straight hours of classroom management and Exercising Authority Over 13 Other Personalities. People tell me "oh, you must be so patient! I can't imagine being as patient as you!" I stop myself from replying "I'm not patient" because it's not technically true - I am, going by the definition, patient. ("the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.") I don't get angry because I don't allow myself to get angry, and I don't get upset because I don't allow myself to get upset. This is why:
1) students are people, and they won't change. getting angry at that don't do nothin good.
2) students are people, and it's not courteous to show your anger to people.
3) students are people, and when people see an authority figure upset, that authority figure loses authority.
4) it takes too much effort to get angry or upset.
5) it takes too much investment to get angry or upset, and I don't have that much investment in this.
6) it's not professional to get angry or upset.
7) if I'm irritated/angry/upset/displeased, it bleeds out and makes class not pleasant to be in. and to layer unpleasant-to-be-in on top of already-don't-want-to-be-doing-this ... well, it's bad shit, I don't mind telling you.
I prefer to manage a classroom by being, as I term it, aggressively helpful. You don't get a thing? let me help you with it. You're bored? let me pull my chair up across the table from you and ask how I can help. You're texting around on your cellphone? let me relieve you of it and put a textbook in your hand. You're speaking not-English to others? please, translate for us, and I will use that to kick off a discussion that should help others understand the thing you guys are complaining about.
This I can do.
This is not what I want to do.
This is exhausting, mentally, and at the end of the day I need a few hours of "please do not get within twenty feet of me and also please make no noises at me because I'mma not talk right now okay". It ain't 9-5 - it's 'only' 9-2 - but add an hour's lesson plan to either end and consider the amount of emotional energy, and it's a serious job.
(And it's not even considered full-time.)
~:~
So I'm sending out applications for internships in the summer. For right now, I'll stay with this, because I'm able at it and because I have writing I want to do and because I am sick and tired of my schedule being unpredictably disrupted as t's been for the last three months.
I don't want to talk about applications and internships. I have spieled this spiel to so many people and people always ask and they always give me suggestions and I am tired of reexplaining everything.
~*:~ IN WHICH PICO COMPLAINS SO MUCH ~:*~
I don't care. This is what personal journals on the land of the internet are for, right? whinging about things you generally don't whinge about because it's childish to complain about things that are going pretty well for you so shut up.
yeah, they're going pretty well. I also don't know what I'm doing with my life eleven weeks from now. "this is a time of transition." "you're just going through that period in your life." "everyone goes through this."
yeah, I know. but still wharrgarbl.
~:~
I should update my Media-Consumed list. I read many books. I also did not read many more.
Things I've not read:
- I got out of the library the whole Sandman series, because I had been thinking about it and because a month or so ago I'd been reading several Gaiman books. But: when I started reading a bit into the Sandman books, I found the drama overwrought and predictable, and I decided: I don't have the patience to slog through all these again. So I stopped.
I think it's because, while the author might find this story told in this way all well and good, I lost patience with it. I asked all the WHYs, and when a book answers with "that's just the way it is", I nope right out of there.
Also, the art style was fugly as hell, and I cannot stand reading a story whose art style I don't like.
Things I did Read:
- recently I reread the four Queen's Thief books. as usual I was all ♥ about them, but: unlike usual: I did not have the "I want one" feeling.
I have grown confident enough in my writing and characters that I feel like I can produce characters are vibrant, belove-able, and fantastic as the characters in a favorite series of mine. I've reached a level where I no longer go all mope-mope-wish-I-could, but instead, go "damn, the amount of love I have for this makes me want to get back to my writing, because I want people to have this amount of love for my own writing."
It's a good change, and I appreciate it.
Also, they're awesome books.
Also also, today at 3pm I'm going to be at a meetup that discusses the series, and I will be :Ding all about the books and so I look forward to that.
~:~
Made a major breakthrough in my writing this last week. Possibly more than one.
The obvious one: I figured out how the physics of the world can allow for the type of city I have set many of my stories in. This sounds unimpressive but actually isn't. It's cool, because it's a problem that has bothered me for years. Now that I have a possible solution for it, I am pleased but also much back to thinking, because I'll have to retool some old stuff to make it all consistent.
(As long as we're complaining and whinging here, I'll put in the obligatory wishful-thinking wish that I could write as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted, but obvs that's neither sustainable nor workable with my brain. ~*:~ IN WHICH PICO COMPLAINS SO MUCH ~:*~ So I'll just continue trying to find a work I like that lets me write.)
The possible-breakthrough is this: I wrote a scene that I've been having trouble with for, well, years. That's not the breakthrough. The breakthrough is that I wrote it, almost forced it to be written, accepting that it wasn't going to be Good, it just needed to fill this in so I could go on. And but, when I finished, I had enough of an idea for how to fix/edit it that I will be able to go and do that this week, and, if things go right, return to canon within either the week or the two weeks.
It's been so long since I wrote this book that I almost worry I won't get it right, going back to it. But, hell's bells, I've been leaving-and-getting-back-to-and-dropping-again-and-getting-back-to it so often and so much in the past few years that, hell, what's another change? It'll just be going all through a final edit anyway, so I may as well slog on as per usual.
As I said back then:
Mostly fuck it because ... just shit, man, I'm fed up. I'm fed up and sick and tired of not being able to get done what I want to get done. So I'm going to hurl myself at it until I get it done right. Whee, Pico Problem-Solving!
~:~
I think I'm done complaining. Let's end this post on a happy note. Finito!
~:~
They're cutting down another tree in the neighbors, and I am surprised at how little I feel about it. I heard the saw and immediately stepped down on feeling about another tree-cutting, because I am so fuckin tired of being angry and sad every time this happens. So I don't have any more to say about that.
It's a birch.
~:~
Work. Teaching. Not easier than in HRB, but at least I keep busy, which lets me write. And that's what matters here!
I am so ready to not be teaching anymore. I am so ready to not go into work and have to pysch myself up everyday for 5 straight hours of classroom management and Exercising Authority Over 13 Other Personalities. People tell me "oh, you must be so patient! I can't imagine being as patient as you!" I stop myself from replying "I'm not patient" because it's not technically true - I am, going by the definition, patient. ("the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.") I don't get angry because I don't allow myself to get angry, and I don't get upset because I don't allow myself to get upset. This is why:
1) students are people, and they won't change. getting angry at that don't do nothin good.
2) students are people, and it's not courteous to show your anger to people.
3) students are people, and when people see an authority figure upset, that authority figure loses authority.
4) it takes too much effort to get angry or upset.
5) it takes too much investment to get angry or upset, and I don't have that much investment in this.
6) it's not professional to get angry or upset.
7) if I'm irritated/angry/upset/displeased, it bleeds out and makes class not pleasant to be in. and to layer unpleasant-to-be-in on top of already-don't-want-to-be-doing-this ... well, it's bad shit, I don't mind telling you.
I prefer to manage a classroom by being, as I term it, aggressively helpful. You don't get a thing? let me help you with it. You're bored? let me pull my chair up across the table from you and ask how I can help. You're texting around on your cellphone? let me relieve you of it and put a textbook in your hand. You're speaking not-English to others? please, translate for us, and I will use that to kick off a discussion that should help others understand the thing you guys are complaining about.
This I can do.
This is not what I want to do.
This is exhausting, mentally, and at the end of the day I need a few hours of "please do not get within twenty feet of me and also please make no noises at me because I'mma not talk right now okay". It ain't 9-5 - it's 'only' 9-2 - but add an hour's lesson plan to either end and consider the amount of emotional energy, and it's a serious job.
(And it's not even considered full-time.)
~:~
So I'm sending out applications for internships in the summer. For right now, I'll stay with this, because I'm able at it and because I have writing I want to do and because I am sick and tired of my schedule being unpredictably disrupted as t's been for the last three months.
I don't want to talk about applications and internships. I have spieled this spiel to so many people and people always ask and they always give me suggestions and I am tired of reexplaining everything.
~*:~ IN WHICH PICO COMPLAINS SO MUCH ~:*~
I don't care. This is what personal journals on the land of the internet are for, right? whinging about things you generally don't whinge about because it's childish to complain about things that are going pretty well for you so shut up.
yeah, they're going pretty well. I also don't know what I'm doing with my life eleven weeks from now. "this is a time of transition." "you're just going through that period in your life." "everyone goes through this."
yeah, I know. but still wharrgarbl.
~:~
I should update my Media-Consumed list. I read many books. I also did not read many more.
Things I've not read:
- I got out of the library the whole Sandman series, because I had been thinking about it and because a month or so ago I'd been reading several Gaiman books. But: when I started reading a bit into the Sandman books, I found the drama overwrought and predictable, and I decided: I don't have the patience to slog through all these again. So I stopped.
I think it's because, while the author might find this story told in this way all well and good, I lost patience with it. I asked all the WHYs, and when a book answers with "that's just the way it is", I nope right out of there.
Also, the art style was fugly as hell, and I cannot stand reading a story whose art style I don't like.
Things I did Read:
- recently I reread the four Queen's Thief books. as usual I was all ♥ about them, but: unlike usual: I did not have the "I want one" feeling.
I have grown confident enough in my writing and characters that I feel like I can produce characters are vibrant, belove-able, and fantastic as the characters in a favorite series of mine. I've reached a level where I no longer go all mope-mope-wish-I-could, but instead, go "damn, the amount of love I have for this makes me want to get back to my writing, because I want people to have this amount of love for my own writing."
It's a good change, and I appreciate it.
Also, they're awesome books.
Also also, today at 3pm I'm going to be at a meetup that discusses the series, and I will be :Ding all about the books and so I look forward to that.
~:~
Made a major breakthrough in my writing this last week. Possibly more than one.
The obvious one: I figured out how the physics of the world can allow for the type of city I have set many of my stories in. This sounds unimpressive but actually isn't. It's cool, because it's a problem that has bothered me for years. Now that I have a possible solution for it, I am pleased but also much back to thinking, because I'll have to retool some old stuff to make it all consistent.
(As long as we're complaining and whinging here, I'll put in the obligatory wishful-thinking wish that I could write as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted, but obvs that's neither sustainable nor workable with my brain. ~*:~ IN WHICH PICO COMPLAINS SO MUCH ~:*~ So I'll just continue trying to find a work I like that lets me write.)
The possible-breakthrough is this: I wrote a scene that I've been having trouble with for, well, years. That's not the breakthrough. The breakthrough is that I wrote it, almost forced it to be written, accepting that it wasn't going to be Good, it just needed to fill this in so I could go on. And but, when I finished, I had enough of an idea for how to fix/edit it that I will be able to go and do that this week, and, if things go right, return to canon within either the week or the two weeks.
It's been so long since I wrote this book that I almost worry I won't get it right, going back to it. But, hell's bells, I've been leaving-and-getting-back-to-and-dropping-again-and-getting-back-to it so often and so much in the past few years that, hell, what's another change? It'll just be going all through a final edit anyway, so I may as well slog on as per usual.
As I said back then:
Mostly fuck it because ... just shit, man, I'm fed up. I'm fed up and sick and tired of not being able to get done what I want to get done. So I'm going to hurl myself at it until I get it done right. Whee, Pico Problem-Solving!
~:~
I think I'm done complaining. Let's end this post on a happy note. Finito!