Where do you get your energy?

I recently found this blog called The Document, and its fairly entertaining for a more journal-type blog. (So you know, don't go there to find recipes.) Her most recent entry details how she finds her energy (hint: it's not caffeine) and how that affects her life.

Apparently, this blogger (bloggette?), named Jenna is one of the rare breeds who "derive[s her] excitement and energy from everything [she] do[es]". (To be honest, I'm not sure whether or not to be jealous or puke a little bit.) And I find the concept interesting -- it got me thinking and I realized just how different I am.

I don't derive pleasure, excitement or energy from the things that I do -- doing them requires energy and I derive a sick sense accomplishment over getting things done. I enjoy having research on a particular subject done and filed away. It means less work when it comes time to write. My laundry and dishes get done because I enjoy having the freedom to sit around and marathon Dexter Season 4 (which is excellent, by the way) and I only ever hit the gym in the morning because I feel almost disgustingly self-satisfied knowing that I won't have to do it later.

It's sort of sick and twisted. As is my relationship with caffeine. See, I like the taste of coffee and there is no better way to start the morning (at least in my humblest of opinions) than a pot (or two) of coffee. During winter, there is no better afternoon beverage than a hot cup (or two)(or twelve) of coffee. It's problematic, I know, but very rarely do I use caffeine to "get" my energy. It's just a tasty beverage that runs through my veins.

But how do you get your energy, readership?

On Sleeping Alone.

Sleeping alone has been a bit of a hurdle for me. I don't mean that in the clingy "ohmygod, I need to co-sleep" way either. There just comes a point in time where you spend three-plus years crawling into the same shitty bed with the same person that you come to get used to it. And when that sense of normalcy goes away, it can be a bit of an adjustment.

I have two beds in my apartment. Well, one's a pull-out. I could go sleep in the little one by myself, but I don't like the mattress as much. Meanwhile, the pull-out feels so damn empty when its just me. It's been a bit of struggle. An internal one, really. But one on which I'm working.

Adult Milestone: Caring for an Ailing Parent.

This is not a place from which I ever wanted to write. At least not for the next 15 to 20 years. But here I am, in the hospital, the primary "adult" responsible for my mother's care and keeping for the foreseeable future.

The role reversal is weird. I keep the family informed, she focuses on being healed. Doctors talk to me, she quietly receives treatment. Meanwhile, she fights to establish that she is, in fact, "the adult here." Whatever you say.

I don't yet know what's going on, or how long our lives will be on hold here in medical limbo.
But I do know that I'm not old enough for this shit.

It's been too long.

I am well aware that the end of the summer has brought on a period of suckitude in blog-land. Don't worry, as the school year kicks up and I spend more time at a computer, the bloggerific world of Anonymous College Graduate will get up to speed.

In the mean time, what have I been doing? Well, there's been full-time work and full-time play and an epic mad rush to get enough research to face Keanu (that's the thesis adviser) without shame. There's been lots of food and the perils of living in an un-airconditioned apartment, too much caffeine, too much nicotine and entirely too much alcohol.

...it's been great.

This week, I've been down visiting the Significant Other in his new state of residence. I've used this week to really ramp up for the coming year: I finally finalized my fall schedule, ordered some of my text books and have managed to condense a shit load of research into not a lot of time.

Expect great things in the near-to-immediate future.

So go to Hell and build a snowman, girl.

I have a complicated relationship with Eminem. When I was in middle school, back in California, and the Slim Shady first came out, my family hid from the fact that we hailed from Detroit. Parents on the schorol yard held my mother personally accountable for the fact that Marshall Mathers existed and while other 7th-graders jammed to the sweet sweet beats of Eminem, I was forced to listen to Bob Seger and Delbert McClinton in order to reinforce a positive musical image of the place where I was born.

Suffices to say, that when I first discovered Eminem during my second year of Catholic high school, my mother was not pleased. But how can any high school sophomore resist "Lose Yourself"? I jammed my way through "Hailey's Song" and "Cleaning up my Closet" and managed to find a real connection with Marshall's white-boy-in-Detroit struggles all the way through my fourth-year-of-high-school-in-Korea.

Then, I promptly forgot about my homeboy Eminem.
...Until he came out with Recovery, his newest album.


Recovery will stick you in the gut, in the best possible way.

Tell me that you weren't sucked into that...

That's right, you can't.

What are your favorite guilty-music-pleasures-that-your-parents-never-approved-of?

Exciting things!

1. My savings account has hit the $2,000 mark! Helloooo post-graduation financial solvency!
2. The TeachforAmerica application has gone live!
   

Mistakes Made Junior Year

I think we've all been there. When looking back on a certain period in our lives, we recognize that mistakes have been made and that now is the time for change. For sure, I realize that my third year of university was one of mistake after mistake -- bad habit after bad habit -- solidified.

But I recognize it now, and fully intend to work towards a newer, better, ready-for-the-real-world me.

I've pinpointed some of my major junior pitfalls and will document them here for posterity:

1. I didn't prioritize right...especially in terms of my work-life/school-life balance. It was too easy to focus on what I could execute to perfection constantly (that being my low-level service job) as opposed to what needed constant incremental work in order to hit less than perfect results (that being school work). Beyond that, I spent entirely too much time lapping up the drama that a close-knit staff breeds. It was distracting, stressful and entirely unnecessary (and these things showed in my semester-ly results).
2. Speaking of drama: last year was full of it. From all angles (except, ironically, my love-life). I had close friends break up, close friends need near-constant emotional support and a family that needed me. The emotional toll was exhausting, but I often felt that those people needed me more than my studies needed me. (Of course, sometimes that was absolutely true...but a lot of the time, it was not.)
3. Monetarily speaking, I screwed up last year. My paychecks/savings would easily cover my fixed monthly expenses (read: cellphone, cable, groceries and cigarettes), so I gave myself a blank check to go out and have fun. This problem was only compounded by my turning 21 (I essentially went on a four-month bar-bender). I've documented my financial hole ad nauseum in previous entries, so I don't really need to go further.
4. I lost myself and I lost my connection to God. This is an ongoing issue.
5. I compromised my study-habits and motivation to spend time with the one I love. And this is the one mistake for which I feel no need to apologize. But this coming year, I need to really buckle down.

So there you have it, a brief compendium of my third year mistakes. Have you ever looked back on a period in your life and said "Wow, I really screwed that one up"? How did you move past it? What are your biggest shortfalls and how are you working on them?

Photo credit: InternetGenerated.com

Returning. Actually.

This time, I mean it.

The past few weeks have been extremely busy. Lots of working, getting set up for the coming year, and really sitting down to think about who I am, what I want, and where I'm going. Plus, the full-time work schedule has left surprisingly little time for dicking around on the internet. Suffices to say that shit's getting real and its really insane.

As a negative by-product of this insanity, I've really felt adrift/not really collected. Which is why I'm going to make a huge effort to keep things up here. I feel better when I have somewhere to talk to myself.

So what's been going on?
-I finished the dreaded thesis book more than one month before the start of classes. It ended up being to dry and/or self-explanatory to document here, but the real good news is that it's done and I no longer need to worry about it.
-Me and Keanu finally hammered out the direction my research needs to take over the course of the summer. That's not to say that near enough research has gotten done.
-I've worked. A lot. And almost-but-not-quite gotten myself out of the financial hole.

And that's really it. We've also had some really weird weather. (As seen above.)

But seriously.
Expect great things in the very near future.