Sunday, April 23, 2006

So, it's been more than a week...

All I have to say about last Monday is this: It's April, people, we should not have HAIL.

And moving on...

My sis and bro-in-law bought a house 40 minutes from where I live. They'll move here the first week of June. And I couldn't be happier. :) :)

Lessons learned this week of no (read: very limited) blogging and gchatting:

  • I CAN set limits for myself. Even if it just to set my gchat status with the red dot instead of the green dot.
  • As people have been telling me for, uh, quite some time now, it WORKS to reward yourself for getting a certain amount of work done. Like Thursday night when I stayed in my office on campus until almost 9:30pm because I knew I was going to get to go to a movie with a good friend at 10. I DID IT! I sucked it up and stayed in my office, which I had already been in much of the day, and worked on the thesis. And made progress, caloo callay. I do think, however, that my rewards need to be attached to specific things with people. Much of what I LEAVE the thesis work for is to spend time with friends, so to use something specific like that as a reward was really good.
  • Since I had already stated that I was not going to be blogging all week, I didn't feel pressure to make sure I was staying up on other peoples' blogs (all 6 that I read regularly :) ), and, obviously, didn't feel any pressure to post. It was an interesting freedom, and made me think about why it is that _I_ blog. I think I'll write more about that later.
  • I need to exercise. I have been trying to eliminate peripheral things from my life so as to focus on my thesis, but if those peripheral eliminations, if NOT eliminated, could actually CONTRIBUTE to my peace of mind, and hence to my ability to get stuff ( i.e., thesis) done, then they should perhaps not be eliminated. What I am trying to say is, I went running again this week, and it was nice (afterwards), and I need to do that more often.
  • Relationships are really important to me. People are really important to me. And it's cool to me to see my friends becoming good friends with each other. I feel like, "Hey! See how those guys are all friends with each other now? I helped do that!" :) I have just been reminded lately that forming connections between people is one of the purposes of this life, and one of the main things that, to me, makes this whole thing worthwhile. And that's a good lesson, I think. A distracting one, at times, but a good lesson. :)

Other big news from this week:

  1. Justin, blessed friend that he is, mowed our lawn. The grass / weeds / mini-crop of grain was about a foot and a half high, and one wheel broke off the lawnmower part way through. And he finished anyway. WHAT A GUY!
  2. Justin changed the oil in my car.
  3. Justin changed the blinker bulb on my car.
  4. Apparently it's all about Justin this week.

I MADE PROGRESS ON MY THESIS! *happy sigh* Not a ton, and not "enough," but "some." And that feels good. And this week will be better! :)

I have begun to write down the names of the people who casually mention that they'd be willing to help me move next weekend. Don't make offers on which you are not willing to follow through, people. :)

I am reading the Old Testament, and am about to cross the Red Sea with Moses and the children of Israel. It's fun to read straight through all these stories. It's been a while since I've done that.

And I think that's it for today, folks. Blog out.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am SO glad you're back (and glad to be one of your six blogs :P). Good for you, thesis writer. I can't wait to have the move over and done with so I can be a lean, mean, focused machine. It totally amazes me what I can do when I put my mind to it -- whether it's grad school related or running related or God related.

Anonymous said...

You better be taking names. I expect you to follow up on that list.

< insert standard Janell rave about the coolness of the OT here >

Yay you! Way to set limits! Way to be yourself! Thanks for the update, its good to know you're doing well.