Spring angst

Spring is usually my favorite time of year here, barring allergies. This spring has been cold and miserable, though, and I've been stressed out. I picked up a poison ivy rash from some plants growing in the front rosebed. Lovely, huh? It's the third time I've had poison ivy in the last 12 months. Ever since I found out aloe is a good remedy, it's been easier to deal with, because I have a lot of aloe plants, and it really does work immediately. But last weekend I was so itchy and apparently, extremely whiny, that my dear husband quite pointedly told me to go to an urgent care place and get it treated.

I'm better now, but I've realized that I was under a lot more stress than I realized. March and April are budget-planning at work, which is the biggest part of my job, so I have a ton of meetings and there's a lot of data, and a lot of work to do. Plus, two statistics courses at the same time in grad school. Then there's been a lot of drama at work, including getting a new V.P. and having to deal with some questionable art in the student gallery. And the parking lot is being redone and they cut off the water to my building three times in two days. I had a paper due this week for one of my classes, and had no idea how I was going to accomplish it with the time I had, so I got permission to take a couple of vacation days in order to work on it. I go back tomorrow much more rested.

The past couple of weeks has been rough. I'm watching a Netflix show set mostly in a beach house and it makes me want to move to the beach. I miss the Caribbean. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the overarching goal of a comfortable retirement to a beach house, but then realizing that's a long way from now. What am I doing today that makes me happy? I can't just spend the next 15 years waiting. It wasn't until I had a couple of days off that I realized that all that angst was just stress kicking my depression into gear. At least I know how to deal with it. Getting older may be hell physically, but it's worth it for the knowledge and experience.

Two weeks until class starts

School (grad school, at least), doesn't start for me for another two weeks, so I'm trying to finish as many books as I can. I'm in the middle of a whole bunch. Reading for pleasure is going to be unlikely for me for awhile. I have a lot of stuff that's good, but a lot of stuff that I've kind of been slogging through for awhile.

We went to Hawaii over the New Year, and for months I didn't read stuff I planned to take with me on the trip, so I could read it then. Of course, I packed too many books (better than too few!), and didn't finish any of them, actually. Now I'm racing for the finish line. Well, that and writing, apparently.

I managed to make As in all three classes I took last semester. I think my Analytics professor may have padded my grade a bit, because I was really on the edge. One of our assignments was tough for everyone, though, so maybe he decided to curve it.

Grad school has been a fantastic decision. I had a week at work where I was pretty frustrated by what I saw as some bad decision-making. I have to remind myself that, traditionally, we haven't paid enough to attract top talent. Well-meaning, yes. Best at what they do? Ummm... Perhaps not. Or maybe, like an old boss once said, I hold people to standards that are too high. Not everyone has the intense insistence on perfection that I do, and if they do, they still may not have the means to achieve it.

Anyway, being in grad school gives me the patience to deal with less-than-stellar performance at work (by other people), because I am working toward a goal, and achieving that goal will give me the means to compete for a job outside my organization. I really love what I do, and I love what we achieve at work for society-at-large. But it's nice to be able to tell myself that when I finish my degree, I could go somewhere else, and maybe even make more money, too.

Hawaii was lovely. Now the husband and I are planning on saving up enough to take his parents, and my mom, too, maybe, if I can ever get her to take time off. His parents will probably offer to pay for themselves, but I really want to be able to take them all as a gift, so it might be summer of 2019 or something. I know my mom-in-law really wants to go, and I think it might be fun. They're really wonderful to us, and I think it would be really awesome to be able to do one of those grand gestures. Travel is expensive, but also priceless. Even after going to paradise, I'm still really happy to be home.

Grad school gets more expensive

I bought a fancy brand-new laptop (it's super light! it's blue! It has a backlit keyboard!) because I'm going to need to download software for my grad program. I was excited to get to use it for tonight's online class chat because it meant I didn't have to bring my work laptop home, and I didn't have to use the ancient Dell I have (yes, ancient by like 6 years or something. that's ancient for laptops, amirite?). Joke's on me. The program we have to use doesn't work with Chrome, and my laptop doesn't have Internet Explorer. If you even try to activate IE on it, it tells you you should really be using Edge, the new browser designed specifically for Windows 10. Of course, I tried Firefox, but it turns out that the new versions of Firefox don't support Java. What. The ever-loving. Fuck.

I had to turn on my old Dell and plug the dang thing in, and strain a bicep carrying it between rooms to avoid the barky dogs. And it's slow. Really slow. But it worked, and I was only about 5 minutes "late" for the chat session. Kudos to me, too. I answered a question asked during the session, and because I have hella cool typing skillz, I was the first to answer and got the bonus points. It's really scary how much I felt validated by the praise. I maybe should look into doing something about that.

Last week, I was certain that I would sign up for the upcoming 8-week class that fulfills another pre-requisite I have. Let's get this dang degree over with! This weekend, I decided I would definitely not do that after all. I miss spending time with my husband! Now today, I'm thinking maybe I actually should sign up for the class... Things at work may change for the worse and I might want to get out quick. I guess I can always apply for something with a master's degree in progress, though, right?

Someone at the office told me grad school is all about time management. Well, I can totally see that. I have been slacking off way less since I started classes. I don't sit around on the weekends anymore, I study. I'm going to try to limit myself to no more than 2 hours studying on weeknights, though. I miss my husband, and I think he misses me, too.

I started grad school

I decided to get a Master's degree. It's mostly my boss's fault, actually. I had considered it before, but I'm interested in some kind of business field and my B.A. is in English. That's not a natural transition, and I just didn't think it was feasible. I also didn't feel like I could afford the tuition. Now I'm making enough money, though, and M.B.A. programs are accessible to anyone, no matter what you originally went to school for. My boss made a big deal about telling me about a lot of other people with non-business degrees that went on to something more applicable to what they do now, so that made me feel like it was possible. He's very encouraging, and assured me I could handle it and I should do it. Personally, I realized that the reality is that if I ever want to make significantly more money where I work now, I'm going to need to get a Master's degree. And if I ever want to leave and do the same thing somewhere else, my experience alone will not make me competitive.

So I started grad school, and found a program where I can get an M.S. in Business Analytics. Now I'm just trying to figure out the pacing. I signed up for two classes this semester, one of them only 8 weeks, because there's another 8-week class starting in October I could take, too, and then three fourths of my prerequisites would be done.

I'm three weeks in, and pretty stressed out about it.

One of my instructors is not a very good teacher, and does not provide very detailed information about assignments, instead asking everyone to log into a live chat session every week. Some of my classmates can't, because they work. People have had trouble with the technology. Also, he's just not very good at this. Someone will type something in response to what he's said, but by the time he looks over at the chat box, he's moved on and he thinks they're talking about something else, then wastes time telling them it's not applicable to what he's talking about. He doesn't really provide any new information that's not in the book, and he doesn't really contribute to my actual learning of the material. He just talks about it.

Conversely, the math-based course I'm taking is a lot better. Each week I have a one-hour recorded lecture, and the instructor is using slides from the book, just like the other guy. But this guy is so much better. He really understands the material, and he explains it in a way that makes it so much more easy to understand. The book seems aimed at math majors, and I can't even remember my College Algebra class. (The reality is that today, you can do so much with Excel that you just need to know what to click. Yes, you should have a basic understanding of the concepts, but you don't actually need to be able to do the math yourself. Whew!) The instructor does a great job of explaining it without dumbing it down, but using his own knowledge to elaborate on the text in a way that really helps me understand.

I think I'm going to take three years to do this degree. That's two courses each long semester and 1 each summer term, and I think I can make it work. I miss the free time to read, do jigsaw puzzles, nap, and play logic games, but I am really enjoying the intellectual challenge. I just need to make it through the tough 8-week class with the cruddy instructor.

My office is too cold

It's 100 degrees in North Texas this week, but it's only about 72 degrees in my office. Our whole floor is always cold. Getting dressed every morning is a pain in the ass. I have to find something I won't be sweltering in as I'm walking in from the parking lot, but warm enough to keep me from turning on my space heater during the day in the office. Seasonally-appropriate is always a challenge, too, and then there's the matter of whether I have any big meetings for which I might want to cover my tattoos.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I would just wear the first thing I put on, as long as it was clean and it matched. I figured I'm really the only person who cares that much about what I wear. As long as I'm meeting a minimum standard of presentability, nobody really notices. I made a rule that if, after I get dressed, I want to change, it better be because something is stretched out, too worn, has holes, or doesn't fit, and therefore I can't keep that item of clothing anymore. It was a good choice. My closet is getting pared down to just the stuff I actually wear, and I've decided I have enough clothes that I really don't need to buy anything unless I need to replace a staple (like a black, short-sleeved shirt).

I love the weekends, because I get to hang around in shorts and tank tops, and I don't have to wear shoes. Really, I don't think I've ever stopped living like a college student at home, even to the point that the husband made fun of me last week when I said I really needed to do laundry this weekend because I'm out of clean underwear. I love that we can laugh at each other. He makes me feel so accepted.

I guess that's the whole point of this musing -- needing to feel accepted the way I am, and the frustration that you can't just go to work in pajamas. I know, right? Who says I ever have to grow up?

Impending trip "home"

Though I've lived here for almost 16 years, when I think about heading back to the place I grew up, I still think of it as "home". It's not because my family is still there, it's because I belong to the place. In fact, I've been thinking about it a lot during the last couple of days, because I fly back tomorrow for my niece's graduation. I'm a little anxious about it, and I think it's because I don't feel like I can be myself around my family; I'm uncomfortable. I think most people feel the opposite -- like around their family is the only time they can really be themselves -- but maybe that's wrong. Maybe a lot of adults feel that way about the family they grew up with. My current family, the one I made with my husband and our pets -- that's where I feel most comfortable, and the only place I feel like I can truly be myself.

I often feel like I'm not a very good family member to my original family, the one I was born to. I think about my family and I love them, but I don't express it well. But I am taking great comfort in knowing that at least I'm not the worst there is.

When I graduated from high school, I remember asking my Dad if he was going to be there. He had no idea when my graduation was and wanted to know why nobody told him. I was pretty upset and shocked, though I shouldn't have been -- parenting was really not his forte. Hello, your daughter is in her senior year. The end of the school year is coming up. You should probably find out when graduation is and plan to go.

My niece is a senior and is graduating this year. I'd been thinking about it for months, and it occurred to me a couple of months ago that it would probably mean a lot to her (and my sister) if I flew home for it. It's the kind of thing you do for your family, when you love them. It's a way to show that you care about their lives, even when you're far away. I hadn't even thought about my dad not going to mine until a few days ago, though, and I immediately felt better about myself. Hey, at least I remembered! At least I'm going!

I suppose I should use this experience to give my dad a break and let go of some anger I apparently still have. Oh well, maybe later. For now I'll just try to feel better about myself.

Meds working better, but maybe mania?

I booked a trip to Hawaii a few weeks ago. We had been talking about going for Christmas, but I said to Jon that I wanted to go sooner, maybe over spring break. Then, without even talking about it anymore, I was bored at work, looked up trips on the website we use when we book our cruises, and emailed Jon the details. He said he was a little too busy at work to respond but I should book it if I wanted. It was a lot of money -- $3500, and that's not going to include meals -- but I really wanted to go. We both have the time off. We have money in the bank. We want to use it for traveling. So I couldn't think of any reason not to do it. So I booked it. I can't wait to go!

But I'm a little worried it was an issue of mood disorder. Impulse control? Hypomania? It's kind of a big deal. We usually talk about trips for a while, look at different options, and decide together. Even a few nights ago, when I was looking at cruises for Christmas and I knew Jon and both wanted to go, and we had talked about different destinations, staterooms, etc., I couldn't do it.

The only research I had done was look up Hawaii resorts on the Cruise and Vacation Desk site and read a few of the reviews from TripAdvisor. I looked at what days might be cheaper to fly. Then I booked it. I apologized for stressing Jon out, but he said he can't really complain about going to Hawaii.