Misc. Chat Thread - Jan. 2015

TravelsWithHuckleberry

Sometimes you just want to chat, and it's not about anything in particular and it's not a form question and it's not a story about that dude at the gym with t-rex arms and it's just whatever. So, figured I'd start a random chat thread for these types of posts.

Thanks to all of you who were so kind to me yesterday. I'd like to say that I'm feeling better today, but that would be a bit of a lie. I think the combination of a new year with so much potential and so many hopes and expectations, getting home from Hawaii, two empty weeks ahead of me before school starts, a freezing house (which honest to god makes it hard to get out of bed), maybe some lady hormones, missing a friend who is still on vacation, and those effing measurements just have me hanging with Milo in the doldrums for the moment (A "Phantom Tollbooth" reference for anyone who has no idea who Milo is). I'll survive.

But big x's and o's to all of you for your constant support and all around awesomeness.

xoxox
C.

canadianlbs

idk why, but i never got around to the phantom tollbooth. swear i've read every kid's book from that era that anyone has ever heard of and probably a bunch that nobody has, but not that one. we even had a copy of it around the house somewhere and i knew it was there . . . and still. weird little blank spot in the middle of my field of vision.

on the subject of mark rippetoe and bumping the guy-who-took-your-arms off the cliff, i went out especially just to find this. yay national film board of canada!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PcppEOE66Q

TravelsWithHuckleberry

How wonderfully odd.

Sumiblue

I love The Phamtom Tollbooth! I can't wait to buy it for my daughter. She won't be ready for it for quite some time but I think I will buy it to read again. I often think of that book when I feel I am in the doldrums. It will get better, Crabada!

Sumiblue

And I don't mean for that to sound pithy. I suffer from depression and that doldrums/waiting-for-something-to-happen feeling is the worst. It's especially bad during TOM because apparently I have PMS a now,too. It's awful, everything just feels like it's *kitten*. I find I feel better if I do something concrete toward my goals. Shop for healthy food, make a healthy meal, go lift. Those endorphins really can help. Hugs!

TravelsWithHuckleberry

Didn't sound pithy -- not even a little.

And @Canadian -- Get ye to the library for some Tollbooth. I have a feeling you'd love it.

canadianlbs

i'm reading the robber bride by margaret atwood (again). speaking of books i have a feeling you'd love . . .

TravelsWithHuckleberry

I am ashamed to day I've never read any Margaret Atwood. She's on my shelf though.

canadianlbs

some of atwood is really dank and dispiriting - surfacing almost put me off for life when i read it in grade 11. bodily harm always struck me as really grim. some is just fluff imo, where she seems to have been just pissing around and writing a slightly more-improving-than-usual calibre of pulp fiction (i'm looking at you, alias grace and blind assassin). and some is terrific, but she's always funny and always pitiless when it comes to people watching. there's a couple that fall somewhere in between those two extremes, like cat's eye and i guess the robber bride. but i really really really do like the robber bride. i seem to read it again every year or so. it's so hugely expressive and so perfectly done in that way.

but honestly, really, now that i think about it . . . the edible woman, and lady oracle. i really do have this feeling that you would love both of them.

Sumiblue

The Handmaid's Tale is almost required reading these days. I discoved M.A. In my college years, read everything I could get my hands on. Since we are talking books, if you like good fantasy/sci fi check out China Mieville's work. Perdido Street Station is crazy. In a good way :-) I just finished reading the Southern Reach Trilogy, also great. I guess I need fantasy as an escape from the everyday.

canadianlbs

i only managed h.t. once. it was required for a lit course and think that was my re-introduction to her after being scorched by bodily harm and surfacing when i had no clue of the dynamics that she was talking about in those books. i still wasn't really ready for handmaid, but even so i remember being struck by how funny she was even in the midst of such a grim book. she's funny the way j.d. salinger's funny - she gets you from sideways, but with a needle so fine you can't even work out what nerve she just hit.

i was reading iris murdoch in college

MissHolidayGolightly

I'm pulling for you, @crabada!

I read Phantom Tollbooth and was in a play of it in 5th grade but I can barely remember anything about it. Do remember the doldrums reference though

@Sumiblue I get depressed right before my period, too. It helps me to attribute it to that knowing I will just have a bad day or two. I also tend to have a negative outlook that dips down into depression intermittently. I feel bad about taking them but "mental health days" are necessary sometimes. I know what you mean about the waiting for something to happen feeling. Similarly, sometimes I feel like I have nothing to look forward to and I have to remind myself how fortunate I am. Feeling like this can be crippling because then I can't find the energy to make things happen (I'm currently trying to get up the energy to revamp my resume and apply for a professional certification so that I can improve my career potential and change things up a bit). I am constantly playing mind games with myself.

Sumiblue

^^^ this, exactly. I also tend to have a negative outlook. Have anxiety, too. Fun. I never really had PMS in my 20s or 30s but now that I'm in my 40s, wow. Probably stored it all up to be a really bad menopausal case. I'm definitely talking to my OBGYN when I go next. I really wish I had family close by so I could take a mental health day or two from being a SAHM, but no luck there!

MissHolidayGolightly

We're twinning! I definitely have some anxiety issues and I'm going to bring it up at my annual doctor appointment because it's been escalating. The negative attitude is rooted in anxiety for me - if something bad/unexpected happens, I assume that the worst possible consequence is definitely going to occur. Anxiety and depression are closely related and though I wouldn't say I have clinical depression, I definitely have some lows. I'm sorry you can't always take a break when you need it. Sometimes simple things seem impossible when you're in one of those ruts.

Anyway, sorry @crabada for turning your misc chat into depression chat Does your courseload look interesting this coming semester?

krokador

I am at a total loss when it comes to all those books you guys have mentioned. Never was a big reader and am from a french-canadian culture, so we used to read more french and french-canadian material when I was in school.

However, the depression thing I can definitely relate to. Which is why I'd like to share this with you guys: http://www.fiveminutejournal.com/

I've been doing the daily journaling thing every day since the 2nd I think. I didn't buy the actual journal, I just write down the lines and #s ahead of time and fill out. Doesn't take much more than 5 minutes a day either way. And so far it's really helped me 1- put things into perspective, 2- Have a good start of the day by possibly structuring it towards a positive goal rather than letting the negative pull me in, 3- finish the day off with a recap where I get to put down what I didn't like about the day so it can be put to rest and not bother me all night. And also find all the silver linings of the day so that I don't feel like I haven't been doing good things during the day.

There's an IOS app, too, for those of you with an iPad or iPhone. It,s definitely worth checking out, IMO, even if you're not too down on yourself right now.

MissHolidayGolightly

Thanks @krokador! I like that there's an app.. I might try it out.

The daily affirmations section made me think of Stuart Smalley's Daily Affirmations skit on SNL. It's funny because sometimes in the morning when I don't want to be up and I'm dreading work, I'll recite, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!" The cheesiness makes me laugh and humor helps my spirits.

Sumiblue

Hmm, maybe I should try daily journaling, too. My brain is such a jumbled mess. If I write stuff down it helps me focus. I never really thought of journaling before. Thanks for the suggestion, Krokador! I only read at night before bed. Sometimes it's only a page or two before I pass out. I find it helps settle my overactive mind so I can sleep. Of course, if the book is really good I end up reading half the book and can't sleep at all!

TravelsWithHuckleberry

Journaling definitely helps me. I've been trying to get back into the habit of doing Morning Pages (from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron), which is basically just three pages of non-stop free writing daily. It helps so much, even if you just write "I don't know what to say" for half a page when you're stuck. I'll look into the five minute thing, too -- thanks, @Krok.

I certainly struggle with depression too. I've been off anti-depressants for a few years, and am glad of that, but sometimes I get smacked pretty hard with it. Does anyone else have that issue where they chalk things up to laziness, lack of motivation, just being lame, and/or not trying hard enough, even though those moments when you *just can't* are very likely influenced by depression? I almost never think of it as a factor, when obviously it is. Working on this.

@MissHoliday -- first, no need to apologize. This thread is for whatever we want. And I'm actually done with coursework. My only real job this semester is to write my thesis, though I will probably sit in on a couple of courses. Not sure exactly which ones, but looking at:
- Intro. to Islam
- Atheism & Secularity
- Gender, Body & Sexuality in Early Christianity
So, they should be interesting, and the benefit of sitting in is that you can just sit and listen, without doing any of the work. I try to do at least some of the reading when I do this, but it's not required.

I'm actually kind of worried about this coming semester. I do much, much better when I have outside deadlines, so to have all my work be self-directed will be a real challenge for me. Which is why I need to get into a really good routine early on. If any of you have suggestions for how you've conquered this type of schedule, I'd love to hear them.

Love you gals to pieces.

xox,
C.

bruerin

crabada wrote: »

I'm actually kind of worried about this coming semester. I do much, much better when I have outside deadlines, so to have all my work be self-directed will be a real challenge for me. Which is why I need to get into a really good routine early on. If any of you have suggestions for how you've conquered this type of schedule, I'd love to hear them.

Love you gals to pieces.

xox,
C.

Ugh--I completely understand. I decided to pursue my J.D. and M.A. simultaneously. I had one semester where I was clerking, writing my thesis, and had law classes in the evenings. I'm a super-routine, schedule-driven person. I also happen to be an early morning person, so what worked for me may not work for you (if I'm remembering correctly and you are more of a night owl). All of my research was completed and approved by my department the previous semester; everything was organized into the order I needed it to be; all I had to do was to write the stinking thing. I woke up at 4am and wrote every morning from 4-7 for a few weeks straight. Once I had everything written, I began the editing process, using the same hours of the day.

I think if you make a schedule for yourself and block out time for specific things, it will be easier. At least that was my experience. Good Luck! Can't wait to read that you finished it!

krokador

crabada wrote: »

Journaling definitely helps me. I've been trying to get back into the habit of doing Morning Pages (from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron), which is basically just three pages of non-stop free writing daily. It helps so much, even if you just write "I don't know what to say" for half a page when you're stuck. I'll look into the five minute thing, too -- thanks, @Krok.

I certainly struggle with depression too. I've been off anti-depressants for a few years, and am glad of that, but sometimes I get smacked pretty hard with it. Does anyone else have that issue where they chalk things up to laziness, lack of motivation, just being lame, and/or not trying hard enough, even though those moments when you *just can't* are very likely influenced by depression? I almost never think of it as a factor, when obviously it is. Working on this.

My therapist actually suggested that exact book and method to get my writing mojo back. Which I have adapted to 2 pages just before bed (let's face it, I get up at 5:30 to go to the gym, I don't have time to write in the AM xD And 3 pages is by the time i seem to start hitting a stride, which is something you don't want when about to go to sleep, lol).

And I went to her with "I feel like I'm not doing anything productive" the last time around, then she asked me what my daily routine looked like and i said "I go to the gym or exercise, go to work, do some chores and make dinner and then spend the rest of the night playing games or watching tv shows" to which she replied "so you workout and make food and go to work every day?". That really put things in perspective right there. I felt lazy when I was doing more than most people ever do. It's okay to cut yourself some slack from time to time, especially when you need the "off" time. At least that is what I am trying to let myself believe. It helps a little. (Otherwise it's a downward spiral of "I'm lazy and not worth crap, I just waste all my time, so might as well waste it all anyway" which makes me feel worse which leads to doing less and oooh, yeah, trying to avoid going there.

mymodernbabylon

I'd love to suggest an app for anxious people - I'm hoping its available all over (I'm in England): mindshift. My clients really like it - it has a bunch of things that are useful for anxiety.

Sumiblue

I have this weird circular thinking that gets me nowhere. I am an artist, I need to create. But now I am a SAHM and I have no time to create. I did a lot of commissioned work before, like mosaics, and kind of need the impetus so a commission to get going. I recently got 3 commissions out of thin air. It took months but I completed 2. The last one is massive-an entire wall. I love that I have a commission but have had trouble getting started. Things have to be lined up completely for me, or everything else has to be cleared (like the holidays) to start. I procrastinate, in other words, and create more stress for myself. I will likely have to work nights to complete this thing over several months time. Goodbye, sleep!

MissHolidayGolightly

crabada wrote: »

Journaling definitely helps me. I've been trying to get back into the habit of doing Morning Pages (from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron), which is basically just three pages of non-stop free writing daily. It helps so much, even if you just write "I don't know what to say" for half a page when you're stuck. I'll look into the five minute thing, too -- thanks, @Krok.

I certainly struggle with depression too. I've been off anti-depressants for a few years, and am glad of that, but sometimes I get smacked pretty hard with it. Does anyone else have that issue where they chalk things up to laziness, lack of motivation, just being lame, and/or not trying hard enough, even though those moments when you *just can't* are very likely influenced by depression? I almost never think of it as a factor, when obviously it is. Working on this.

@MissHoliday -- first, no need to apologize. This thread is for whatever we want. And I'm actually done with coursework. My only real job this semester is to write my thesis, though I will probably sit in on a couple of courses. Not sure exactly which ones, but looking at:
- Intro. to Islam
- Atheism & Secularity
- Gender, Body & Sexuality in Early Christianity
So, they should be interesting, and the benefit of sitting in is that you can just sit and listen, without doing any of the work. I try to do at least some of the reading when I do this, but it's not required.

I'm actually kind of worried about this coming semester. I do much, much better when I have outside deadlines, so to have all my work be self-directed will be a real challenge for me. Which is why I need to get into a really good routine early on. If any of you have suggestions for how you've conquered this type of schedule, I'd love to hear them.

Love you gals to pieces.

xox,
C.

It's comforting to know that so many of us are dealing with the same issues and are not alone! I think those things certainly are related to depression. It's like the "loss of interest" symptom that's always mentioned. I think I'm an ambitious person and a high achiever overall but sometimes I just can't get myself going. This then get's me down on myself for being lazy... it's a vicious cycle.

Those courses sound really interesting, particularly the last two. I wrote an undergrad thesis over my last year and a half of college. Do you have an adviser for it? That helped motivate me to get my work done (in benchmarks) so I wouldn't show up and waste their time with a lack of progress. It also helps me writing in general to set partial deadlines on a schedule and follow it. For example, find 10 sources of information by X date, write Y section by Z date, etc. Might be good to set aside a day in the beginning to format your paper. Theses usually have a lot of format rules so that they can easily upload them into a program and bind them if they're printing them. It's good to get these set in from the start to save you a lot of hang ups during writing and rework after. Formatting also gets me a little bit excited about writing the paper.

It's challenging and daunting but it's such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when you're done.

MissHolidayGolightly

bruerin wrote: »

crabada wrote: »

I'm actually kind of worried about this coming semester. I do much, much better when I have outside deadlines, so to have all my work be self-directed will be a real challenge for me. Which is why I need to get into a really good routine early on. If any of you have suggestions for how you've conquered this type of schedule, I'd love to hear them.

Love you gals to pieces.

xox,
C.

Ugh--I completely understand. I decided to pursue my J.D. and M.A. simultaneously. I had one semester where I was clerking, writing my thesis, and had law classes in the evenings. I'm a super-routine, schedule-driven person. I also happen to be an early morning person, so what worked for me may not work for you (if I'm remembering correctly and you are more of a night owl). All of my research was completed and approved by my department the previous semester; everything was organized into the order I needed it to be; all I had to do was to write the stinking thing. I woke up at 4am and wrote every morning from 4-7 for a few weeks straight. Once I had everything written, I began the editing process, using the same hours of the day.

I think if you make a schedule for yourself and block out time for specific things, it will be easier. At least that was my experience. Good Luck! Can't wait to read that you finished it!

That's quite an accomplishment! It's weird, I really dislike waking up in the morning and am generally useless.. and mean. But I got into this routine in college where I'd write as much as I could whenever I had time then I'd wake up early the next day with a fresh mind and start editing. It was like an "A-ha" moment when re-reading what I wrote and the paper just flowed. I'd sit there undisturbed for two or so hours straight and get the papers pretty well drafted or finalized. I think this had something to do with the lack of FOMO (fear of missing out) in the mornings since it was a ghost town until about 9 or 10 am that helped me concentrate.

MissHolidayGolightly

It looks like the mindshift app is available for Android. I'd like to see what it says for the situational anxiety.

Llamapants86

On the topic of anxiety, my wedding is in less than 4 weeks and I keep on having terrible crazy dreams about things going horribly wrong. One of them, we totally forgot that it was the wedding day until my mom called us wondering where we were. Blah I'm not overly anxious during the day, but man, I go to sleep and my brain just goes "here's everything that can go wrong, and somethings that couldn't go wrong but I am going to make you worry about them any way". I miss restful sleep.

MissHolidayGolightly

It's normal, llama. I kept having dreams before mine about forgetting to wear my dress or with ratchet hair. I also dreamt that it rained and we had to go inside except inside was dirty and gross. I wasn't a bridezilla either. Was pretty nonchalant about the whole ordeal but my brain still ran amok at night.

canadianlbs

crabada wrote: »

Does anyone else have that issue where they chalk things up to laziness, lack of motivation, just being lame, and/or not trying hard enough, even though those moments when you *just can't* are very likely influenced by depression?

rheumatoid arthritis. it kills my energy and i never get the memo since i'm lucky enough not to get a lot of overt inflammation which would at least tip me off (touch wood). but twelve years since they diagnosed me, and it catches me out every.time. 'maybe it's a flare' is always fourth or fifth on my self-troubleshoot list.

i'm gonna commandeer this thread. so there's this guy where i work . . . he's one of the two developers. and this is a very weird setup compared with yer standard for-money software vendor, because they're just an in-house 'business services' development team and there's no real format or leadership. basically, he's one of the devs, i'm the qa, and since there are no grownups in this setup we're like a quartet of kids squabbling in the back seat of a driverless car (there's another dev who occasionally speaks but never ever ever makes eye contact, and there's a business analyst who i quite like).

i wouldn't mind any of this if this one particular guy hadn't been mutated by years of isolation from real-world practices into something like one of those prehistoric fish they find alive off the coast of mauritius with ears on its fins and no eyes. because this place basically hired me to come in and bring them a breath of the real outside world, but now that i'm in there he does nothing but nit-pick and carp and obstruct . . . and not even to any constructive purpose. not even about relevant stuff, either. EVER. it's always some random weird-*kitten* no-relations-to-anything thing that even he knows - and i know that he knows because it's become clear - has nothing to do with anything in the real world. it's just how he does. just because. because that's the peculiar way his strange-*kitten* mind works. and he doesn't know from qa.

sample conversation, translated into weightlifterspeak. for these purposes, pretend he's . . . oh, i dunno. a cross-country skier or something. someone who doesn't do what i'm doing but certainly ought to have been around it enough to have some kind of clue that there's special knowledge involved. which he does not have.

him: just wondering . . . why are you wrapping your hands round the bar?
me: o.O
him: wondering if there's some specific reason for it.
me: ... um well, because . . . holding onto the bar makes sure that when i straighten up the bar will come with me, you see.
him: no yeah, i get that part but. i'm just curious as to why you would do that.
me: ... do what? lift the bar, or wrap my fingers round it?
him: i just don't see the point of using your fingers . . . why don't you use your thumbs?
me: ... my thumbs wouldn't be strong enough.
him: well, they could be, if you -
me: they could be in theory, if i spent fifteen years building them up i suppose. but they're not. so i use my fingers as well as my thumbs.
him: [silence] well, i dunno, i just think it seems weird to me.
me: [silence]
him: i mean, just wouldn't it make more sense to use your thumbs?
me: why?
him: *twitch* well, i dunno, i just think so. it's just what i think. but it's what i think. you know better of course, but that's what i think.
me: okay well; i probably do know better and it's not what i think.
him: i mean, you're trying to get stronger, right? so why wouldn't you use your thumbs in that case? i mean, using your whole hand like that just doesn't make sense. it defeats the purpose.
me: are you serious? what purpose?
him: getting stronger.
me: ... i'm getting stronger
him: *triumph* but your thumbs aren't.

for you @crabada. because if i have to suffer, then other people will have to suffer with me.

also, this. pretend i'm your, um . . . pretend i work at your gym, right? and let's pretend i'm like the gym's personal-trainer-at-large kind of thing. now pretend that this individual uh . . . [tact mode] individual [/tact mode] has specifically asked me to critique a specific set of lifts that he's trying to do. it doesn't totally translate since this has to do with me reviewing use cases he wrote for test-case-a-bility, but whatever. and let's pretend that i did it, and i gave him a nice coherent written report detailing all the small changes and additions and such that he needs to make in order to give him a more complete full-body workout, and a safer one too.

now let's pretend you guys get to see his reaction when he's done reading it. here it is.

HEY GUYS. HEY ENTIRE GYM AND EVERYONE IN HERE AND ALL WHO ALSO DON'T KNOW A WHOLE LOT ABOUT GOOD LIFTING FORM. CANADIAN HAS BEEN REVIEWING MY WORKOUT AND SHE'S GIVEN ME A SET OF SUGGESTIONS, AND I'D LIKE TO SCHEDULE A MEETING IN WHICH WE CAN ALL SIT AROUND AS A GROUP AND DECIDE WHAT WE THINK OF THE FEEDBACK SHE GAVE.

i know i don't swear very much, in here at least. but has anyone ever experienced the opening lines of tim minchin's pope song? because that's what i've got in my head atm.

/edit to warn you: i personally think it's a terrific song but minchin ain't exactly a hardcore catholic and it's a um, fairly secular-humanist theme

TravelsWithHuckleberry

@Canadian -- I'm terribly sorry for you that you have to deal with this neanderthal, but I'm so wonderfully happy for me (and the rest of us) that we get to read about it. Ancient fish and thumbs and tact mode and all caps make me SMIIIIIILE.

canadianlbs

i'm not even sure that he HAS any opposable thumbs.

threnjen

Heeeeey ladies! So I inadvertently took December off. And ate all the things. Whoops

So, I missed you guys! Crabada I'm sorry to hear you've been feeling depressed! That blows. I've had depression issues (like a lot of us it seems). It was really bad after I had each of my kids and a good reason why I never want any more. Also anxiety....

Krokador thanks for that journal link I am going to check it out too. Sometimes I feel lame and directionless and maybe I need to be more self-affirming.