Merry Christmas

Was reading about how millenials prefer saying "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" and all I could think about was this incident at the grocery store around this time last year:

Cashier, after handing me my receipt: Merry Christmas!
Me, in a frazzle trying to put away card and receipt while grabbing the groceries: Happy birthday!

. . .

Mourning the loss of work

There are apparently still some websites whereupon text is entered and it is not auto-saved.

I mean it makes sense when it's like FB or something where a comment is lost (I would imagine this happens... I'm a lurker and if I do comment, they are usually quite short, so I've never had this happen to me).

I was grading someone's work on Canvas (a course management site) and they've saved the comments I've made before, but for whatever reason, it did not save, and I am still processing the loss of work that this has caused.

Yes, I'm being overdramatic.

Yes, it isn't a big deal.

But yes, it is also a minor inconvenience, especially because I felt like those comments would have greatly helped the student and there was quite a bit that I said that I probably won't remember, so I am a little peeved. Just a little.

And I feel like I'm going through the five stages of grief:

Denial: Is it really missing? Where did it go? It couldn't have just disappeared...
Anger: How could I have forgotten to save it? Always save somewhere else first... Why didn't Canvas save it?! Stupid course management system... I am a fooool >:(
Negotiation: Maybe I can recreate the comments without having to read through the whole assignment again. It won't be so bad... will it?
Depression: I don't want to do this again... I'm a terrible teacher...
Acceptance: Okay, okay, I'll get back into it. Just gotta do what I gotta do.

Bah.

Simplify

I've always struggled with time management. I feel it more because I have what feels like an infinitely flexible schedule.

I realized that it's so easy to fill one's life with the useless. There's a lot of static and noise that we fill our lives with.

I've been (re)reading Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit, and the first section of the book mentions habit stacking so that one can maximize one's time with all the planning that one must do, for home, for work, for family, etc. All of this to "maximize productivity" and "feel productive" throughout the day.

I understand and for the most part agree with his approach, but as I was reading it this time around, I found myself reflecting on the busy-ness that we all seem to have as we get older. Why have we put ourselves in such a position to have to be productive all the time? If I'm on my morning commute, why can't I spend that time reflecting on the beauty of the day (I have the fortune of driving by some beautiful mountains when I go in for work)? Or why can't I just sit and be still for a bit? I suppose one could fold that into one's stack of habits, but the approach seemed so... busy.

My friends and I are all busy working (or something like it) and we're always busy, but I'm beginning to wonder, what are we all so busy with?

Does cleaning and cooking one's home really take up that much time?

Where is this elusive free time that the previous generations worked so hard to achieve?

I wonder, if I cut out all of the "distractions" in my life, the things that I consider unworthy of my time, how much free time will I have?

Sometimes, with all the things that I've put in my life, all the things I want to do and accomplish, will I ever feel like I can truly relax?

But then, I wonder if it's really a matter of mindset. I can relax as I do whatever it is I set out to do.

My fingers itch when I listen to Bach's Partitas

I think the first Partita that I heard was adapted for viola. It was beautiful. I tried to find a channel for this on Pandora, but they only had Bach's Partitas (and Sonatas) for violin. Still beautiful, but not the same.

I was so moved by this music that I was inspired to buy the sheet music (again adapted for viola). However, it turned out that years without practice had created too much of a disparity between the beauty I had heard and what I was capable of playing.

The idea is to practice practice and practice again until I am not ashamed of the sound I make, but I pick up my viola once every year or couple of years, only to forget that I have such a luxury.

I think that I need to cut down on my hobbies. Keep the one or two and jettison the rest. Keep things simple so that I can breathe and enjoy the simplicity that life without clutter can be.

Publishing and privacy

I was reading a facebook friend's blog, and I realized that I'm a pretty private person. I think about publishing, or at least becoming known (somehow) through my writing, and it's daunting. I don't like people prying into my life, into who I am, into my inner thoughts.

And yet, here I am.

There's something alluring and cathartic about writing. I like sharing my thoughts, usually to a future me, because I can look back and remember or even pick up the strand of thought that I was having, or look back and think to myself "huh, that's a pretty interesting thought that the past-me had."

But I think the core of writing is as a form of communication. It is meant to be read, meant to be shared. Even this very act that I am undertaking, I am writing, knowing that it will be out there in the Interwebs, for others to read (though I do know how buried this blog is and how limited my audience is).

Conflicting with my desire to remain private and perhaps even anonymous is my desire to publish and become known. I think somewhere deep inside, I believe that the things I write that come out of the things I think about are worth reading. I think that I believe I have something valuable to contribute to the body of writing out there that we call literature, that more broadly, we call writing.

Perhaps somewhere, I believe that because my thoughts and words have value, I want to be published and be known.

But I have yet to reconcile that with my very deep desire for boundaries that I call privacy or perhaps the freedom that comes with anonymity.

A year and a half later...

Dang, I forgot about this blog.

Actually, it's not that I forgot, it's that I haven't felt like I've had anything worthwhile to say that isn't deeply entrenched in any kind of literary/narrative theory that I'm up to my ears in.

To trying to keep in line with the more ideological aspects of this blog (rather than the personal), I keep thinking that I've stifled myself in graduate school.

In some ways, graduate school has taught me to write in a certain rhetorical style that I may not be altogether comfortable. I think this kind of training is good, but I think that in trying to learn the foundations of good scholarship, my thoughts and what I like to think of as my creativity have become stifled.

It's an odd place to be right now.

In trying to become someone that I aspire to be, I think I've forgotten who I am at my core.

I write to process, and I process (life) to write.

Amidst all my struggle, I've forgotten why I do this at all. To write, explore, and most of all, to meander. I love the meandering.

Another word comes to mind: wanderlust. Do I still have the spirit to travel? The spirit of adventure? I do and I don't. I think the uncharted territory for me has become the habits I need to break in order to succeed in this thing called graduate school. It's over for now, but I realize in all of this struggle, it's still something I want to do.

I see that glimmer, and I want more of it. I want to contribute and grow thoughts that influence society. It's so crazy how influential all the things I study are.

Gotta do what I feel like I've been meant to do. Gotta take steps to become the person I aspire to be.

Excellence doesn't happen overnight. Excellence is habit. Let's go and be good (I got the inspiration from the following video):