5 Steps Out of a Quarter Life Crisis

A Xanga post made me think on this...I think I've mentioned before that I've been in a omg-what-am-I-doing-am-I-even-good-enough-for-this-ahhh! state on and off since the beginning of the school year. And I'm not certain I can actually answer all the questions it entails. However, I have been taking steps that have made me feel much better about my situation. And here (some of them) are:

1) Talk about it. I've vented to at least 5 friends, and my mom. Each of them heard virtually the same story every couple of weeks...I kind of felt bad about it. Also certain thoughts/feelings took a while to breach because with friends and family you worry about how they see you. I've thought about going to the counseling center several times due mostly to these things: I didn't want to burden my friends and family with my emotions and I didn't want to seem weak. However, it seems that it has taken a turn for the better before I psyched myself up to do that, so I think I'll continue with friend-therapy. Perhaps make them cookies to make up for it. :)

2) Sleep. Eat. On a regular human schedule. These things have amazing effects on mood, productivity, outlook, energy levels, you name it. As a corollary, watch the vitamins (nutrient deficiencies can make you tired, who would have guessed?)

3) Do work. Sometimes you get into this mindset that you have all this shit to do, and you're not doing it, and you're a terrible person, and it just escalates into omg-why-am-I-even-alive?-ness. You know what? This is your run-of-the-mill temper-tantrum, adult-style. Kick yourself in the butt and do SOMETHING. ANYTHING that you would consider productive. Take an hour, but FINISH that homework problem without opening Facebook. You can cry. It's okay. You know what happens at the end though? You get this sense of accomplishment. Of conquering yourself (as well as the task at hand). And that builds on itself.

4) Develop or maintain your social structure. Make new friends--study groups, people you meet in the hallway, all of these are valid. There's a great feeling--something to do with being liked and being needed, perhaps--that comes from a new friendship :) Study groups also help get work done and give you perspective on where you stand.

5) Forgive yourself. This one was particularly hard for me...letting go of all those lazy evenings in front of the TV with a frozen pizza in hand. Sometimes, it's my willpower that needs a break, and that's what happens when it takes one. Breathe. Relax. Sleep in. Start the fight anew. :)

It's Tea!

Today, I have for you a story.

One fine day, I was sitting in my office. Except it wasn't terribly fine because it was the Friday before spring break and I was working on engineering drawings that weren't being terribly fun. And waiting for a friend (V) who was about to get there. But it was ok.

Suddenly! A head appeared over the cubicle-divider walls in front of me.

"Hi!" The head said. "Do you mind if I go through your office to get to mine?"

"No, go right ahead," I replied, suppressing giggles the whole while. It wasn't easy. Because he proceeded to climb over two cubicle walls; not that I could see it. (My office has two halves; he went through the other half, behind a wall from me.) You see, the grad student 'offices' are really one giant room divided into cubicles of various sizes. Sometimes with their own door and sometimes without. Anyway, after he was gone I signed on to Facebook and immediately informed the world that someone had finally jumped/climbed the cubicle walls. I had been waiting for it to happen for months.

I thought the story was over.

Monday (after an awesome weekend :) ) I arrived at work and went to check my mail; I was waiting on a fax, which did not arrive. However, my mailbox had a small box with a card attached. I read it. It said:

Dear Galina,

Thank you for letting me go through your cubicle. I have seen you making tea several times so I hope you will enjoy this tea. I am also of course willing to return the service you have rendered me, should you ever be locked out of your office.

Signed,

The tea was Ahmad. I was impressed, to say the least. Also, anyone with a taste in tea is OBVIOUSLY a good person. I was going to write him a card, but frankly, I'm just not awesome enough for that. So I said thanks for the card next time I saw him in the hallway. :) Next time after that I asked when he was stopping by for tea. He said sometime. The next time I made fun of him for being at school on a Sunday night (note: I was necessarily also there, also on Sunday night :\ ) Apparently we were both on the way out, because he offered me a ride 5 minutes later when I was at the bus stop. I refused because my bus was pulling up and it wasn't that close to him anyway...but it was nice :)

So, that's the story. I made a new friend :)

Real men (and women!)

I have been judging some of my friends on some of their qualities lately. It was bothering me. Why did it bother me that said (male) friend was uncomfortable with dirt? Or spiders? Or smells? Then it occurred to me, these qualities bother me in women just as much as men. The only difference is that society gives women a 'pass' when it comes to 'macho' qualities; just like men get a 'pass' when it comes to 'prissy' qualities. So, while I realize that this is one of those types of posts that shows up all the time, I feel I have a unique take on it, so here goes: What Real Men (and Women) Do!

By the by, this list is idealistic. No one can possibly have all of these qualities 100%. There are legitimate illnesses, phobias, etc. I'm talking about qualities that society has generally found admirable in men (or women) that women (or men) should also have.

Real men (and women!)

1) Control their emotions, within reason.

Men have traditionally been expected to be stoic. But the thing is, we as a society are so over women swooning and crying and fainting over everything. We're also (or at least we should be) over bitchy women going off the handle; same for men. You're an adult for goodness' sakes! Just be civil!

2) Do not fear.

Men do the dirty work around the house, crush bees and spiders in their bare hands, go camping for fun, and come home smelling like a week of sweat and dirt. Well, honestly? There's no reason women can't...and should, do the same things! Granted, I feel crushing insects is unsanitary and (in the case of bees) unsafe, so grab a tissue. But don't have 'the man in your life' do it for you, ladies! More fundamentally, as my mother taught me, there is nothing wrong with getting dirty as long as you get clean again when socially appropriate. Shower for an hour after a week camping, wash your hands after digging in the garden or fixing your bike (or car).

3) Take charge of their life.

Colleges no longer offer an MRS. degree. Even if you end up as a stay-at-home-mom, you should have a career. You should have interests. You should get an education (to whatever level is appropriate). Nothing is wrong with staying home with your kids for their formative years ; but even as a stay-at-home-mom, one should be striving to keep up with the state of their particular art. Every woman should be able to provide for herself if things with her man go south, or in any other contingency. Shit happens in life. No one should be powerless.

Real women (and men!)

4) Take care of themselves.

Shower. Brush teeth. Eat good, proper meals. Do all those things your mom reminded you to do until you moved out. There are men and women both that miss the mark on this one, but stereotypically it's men.

5) Develop and exercise taste.

XL stained white t-shirts when you're a size medium? Tasteless. As are grubby saggy jeans, torn up dirty sneakers, etc. Dirty anything, really. I'm not above a sweatshirt day once in a while (or even often), but when you're trying to impress someone, grubby doesn't cut it. Girls are known for 'cute outfits,' but guys have just as much responsibility for their appearance, demeanor, and vocabulary as girls do. They just get away with infractions much easier.

6) Cook and 'keep house.'

First of all, cooking is a life skill. It's like dressing yourself in the morning. Second, nothing is hotter than a guy with laundry detergent. Or a broom. This connects with the need for men and women to be in control of their lives; essentially, it comes down to being an independent, self-sufficient individual. Society doesn't need people that need to be taken care of.

So, that's my incomplete list of qualities we all need to have. :)

A culture of the free

I love free stuff. I got a free chai latte from Panera the other day. I think it may have been more delicious than the usual chai latte. :) You can also get free stuff off craigslist..sometimes it needs some work, but you can get lucky. And it's awesome that people post their stuff and go through the trouble of contacting receivers and setting up meetings instead of just throwing things out. This is great.

Along with free physical stuff, I love free software. LaTeX is awesome for writing reports, and there's multiple free environments out there for it. I recently downloaded TeXnic Center, which is great for learning (it has buttons for common commands so you don't need to look them up). Pidgin for chat. OpenOffice (though at the moment I have no need for it). Wesnoth.

I like that these things are possible because there are people willing to give up their time to create them and share them with others. Maybe they just wanted them for themselves...but once they had it, they recognized that it would take them minimal effort to share it. And then others helped them build their 'product' (I hate to call it that since it's not sold) up.

I love the culture of 'free' things for students; I love Autodesk for making virtually all their software available to students. The concept of site licenses is great, too, but ultimately comes out of your pocket in tuition and other charges. I mean free, direct, from the company.

They have a point. You have no (or little) money as a student; you're not going to purchase a $300 software package, much less a $1000 one, even if you want the software. But, give it to you for free, you get 'hooked'. No, that's a bad choice of words. Accustomed is better. You become accustomed. Once you do have money, you don't look for a better option; you stick with the one you know how to use. Awesome long-term business sense.

So, producers of free software: I salute you! Purveyors of free goods: I salute you as well!

I'm one big medical condition

So...cramps again. I've decided that monthly periods, frankly, suck. Why did I want them back? Oh yea, that whole "health" "hormone balance" etc. thing. Right.

In other news, I seem to have sprained my left foot/ankle area and routinely find pain in my left knee.

However, I am also waking up (mostly) on time and am on my second productive week. Yea...

And now, homework :(

As Windows installs...

Had a strange episode last night...went to bed at 9PM due to headache, then woke up at 2AM. Brushed teeth, got a drink, went back to bed. Tried to get comfortable. Felt weird pains in various parts of my body. Got nervous. Couldn't fall asleep. Tossed and turned. :\ Finally, read a chapter in a book and calmed down. 4AM finally got back to sleep, but plans of waking up at 7 were foiled. Still nervous about how I felt during the night, I let myself sleep in until 10:30. Actually woke up around 10:15. Got to campus around 12:30. Spent virtually all day setting up my new computer :), while having an 'I overslept today' headache. Bah.

Maybe I needed that, though. Something crazy to break up the monotony of every day. That said it didn't make me feel terribly good.

I've started looking into personal training and metabolic rate analysis. It's probably worth it to remove the guesswork from my eating and workouts and really give me something to work toward. Also, a guiding hand would not be amiss. It's pricey...looks like with my current plan I can look forward to spending about $200 over the semester; $100 on the analysis and $100 on the training--around 5 meetings with a trainer. That's on top of the $50 unlimited class pass that I have already bought. Kind of a pricey endeavor, but if it helps, it's worth it. My health is worth it, after all.

Finished my first HW early, woot! And started the 2nd assignment the day it was assigned! Granted, I got stuck on the 2nd problem. I think tonight I'll skip it and go on to the later ones. Managing 2 classes is much easier than managing 5. or 4. or 3. Now, thesis research...*sigh*

I need to start reading more papers. I'm thinking about taking off early (say, on Mondays and Fridays?) and doing this in a pleasant atmosphere...MEL, coffee shop, library, my bed...etc. Perhaps this will be a motivator.

Overall, I would say things aren't going badly :)

More to life

I'm not judging today on productivity. I had a good day. I woke up decently, had a good breakfast, came to work, sent an important email, had my own lunch but went out for coffee & pita bread with friends (they were having lunch), had friends sit in my office for an hour talking about randomness :), installed new Inventor and the Autodesk simulation software (Algor) on my computer.

Cleaning out freezer and cabinets/reorganizing the kitchen with my roomies will probably be my most productive contribution to the world today. But it was pleasant :)

There's more to life than graduate school.

Resolutions: I'm getting better at waking up. I took an hour today, but was fully awake for about half of that. And I was slacking cuz it's Friday. Hope?

Today, everything is annoying.

I've had stomach cramps for 4 days. Come on body. Not cool.

Last night was pizza & ice cream night for that reason.

Engineering doesn't seem so much like a "man's world" until these moments...

Now, back to lunch, then work.

Obnoxious people

I'm usually pretty easygoing...I like it when people on buses or trains with me have lively conversations with each other, when kids are, well, kids, when instead of awkward silence there's a sort of life in there.

But for the love of God, shouldn't people have manners?!

This girl, who was wearing grey leggings with purple flowers on them and a short jacket, by the way, started off by making ridiculous and ridiculously loud sneezing noises. Well, weird noises happen to the best of us. Except that from that point forward, for the next hour, she and her boyfriend got progressively louder and louder and more obnoxious. They squealed, they screamed, they snorted, they drummed on the tray tables. And then they started cussing loud enough for the whole car to hear. What the HELL?

I was this close to telling them to shut their rude asses the fuck up; not sure why I didn't (even in a non-confrontational way, since confrontation is what they would expect...)

So, that's the experience for the day.

Resolution news: not getting any better :\

New Layout!

...aaand that's about all I can say on that subject. However...

Resolution: failed almost miserably; 1 hour snoozing isn't as bad as 2, right? Try again tomorrow.

On the other hand, I think I got some good stuff done today on getting ready to build my apparatus! Woot! However, I seem to be working somewhat weird hours; it appears I enjoy my work more when I do it after 5 PM. Huh? I'll see if that changes as I get Life under control.