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five more weeks of uni.
as much as i'm enjoying these classes- and i am, i really am- i'll be SO glad not to be obligated outside the house 7 days a week. i really really like being home.
that said, i'm getting itchy feet again. my spring is going to be devoted to getting my finances and my body in even better shape. i've been working and saving, and i'm proud of what i've accomplished, but now come my student loans to pay off and that's going to be a change. also, i've been eating MUCH better than i have in years and years (and i was eating pretty ok, the last 3-4 years) but it's time to get regular exercise, find out what's going on with this hip, and work on being fit and having decent stamina by my 60th birthday (god, am i going to be 60 in 2011? hand me that calendar, will you? *stares*).
i ALSO have a bunch of non-uni reading to do, a rather large storage of useful-but-no-longer-necessary-to-me things to go through and pass on (yes! freecycle.org) and a garden to get going on.
i ran into one of my favorite instructors from the nursing program today. it seems i will have the record of taking the longest- maybe second-longest -length of time to graduate from the RN-to-BSN program at my uni of any student in its history to date. she said today she REALLY wants me to invite her to my graduation. i've been on the fence about walking graduation, but something she said gives me the confidence to do it.
funny, how the right word from someone i respect and know cares about how i do can change everything.
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so sleepy today. two more nights of work for this week.
paper due tues on the border documentary as genre and as an expression of Chicano/Latino postmodernism, contrasting Chulas Fronteras (clips here and here) with El Mojado (The Wetback) (more information here ).
so.
will be either reading/taking notes, or sleeping, today, tomorrow, monday, and tues before class.
take care of yourselves.
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ok. 8 weeks- no, 7 weeks, i think, of uni left. *whew*
class let out early today, so had the hip x-rays done. should find out within a week what's next, and if they show what's hurting. added fish oil and chondroitin/glucosamine/msm (which i now recall helping me with my knees some long years ago) (and thanks to ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) stormatdusk who reminded me of them), so we'll see.
in the meantime, the same-old same-old- work, uni, trying to get enough sleep. which i'm gonna go try and do right now. xoxo until later.
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MIA a bit because of reading for uni, and fighting off a sinus infection with sleep, hydration, nutrition, and Zicam. damn viruses.
however. by my count, 8 weeks of uni left, and the two papers for Critical Thinking (which, it seems, will just need to wait until i have two well-rested, not-arrogant brain cells to rub together), and, all other things being equal, i'll be able to graduate.
and then it's just all about getting healthy, as best i can. even better nutrition. appropriate exercise, as much as i can fit in around work and sleep. saving money, to cut down worry over travel and getting older. writing! oh, writing, and beading, and gardening! and sewing! and reading for fun!
so i DO have a plan. but for today, it's probably to finish work, go home, rinse my sinuses, have a nice hot bath, rinse my sinuses again, take my meds, and curl up in bed with the laptop and my uni reading until i crash.
and if I wake up in time and feel rested enough, catch the late (8:20 pm) show of Appaloosa before work at the lad's house tonight.
and that's the news from here. how are all y'all?
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may not have 'net at the lad's house for a bit (that'd affect Weds nights/Thurs mornings, and Sun nights/Mon mornings). no way to know until i get there, but his family's having a spot of bother with the bills, so...
anyway. will do uni reading if no 'net there. always a bright side, eh? text if you need me, i'll have the cell.
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well, that's sad.
i have two things, longer posts, unfinished, that meant to be the 12th, but they're not up where y'all can see them so they don't really count. i meant to be working on them and get them up, but work and uni and sleeplessness and sleep kind of stole the time from me.
moving on, hello, there.
been enjoying all the good interviews and photos to come out of the Toronto Film Festival. Also, found that I can watch Man of La Mancha uninterrupted on FanCast, which is, to me, amazing.
have almost caught up on sleep from the days in San Francisco. not on studying, mind you, although i did get very much more clear in my mind what we know of the interwoven and parallel time-lines of different Native American populations around the continent and how those relate to the time-lines of British, French, Spanish and Russian colonization with which I was somewhat more familiar.
I spent a lot of time here, at the University of California's Traditions of the Sun site. this is one of the things that thrills me about the 'net- that all these bits and pieces of people's experience and knowledge and so forth are not only in one place, but where i can (even if it's only online, even if it's only in a little QuickTime movie) learn from them.
life's complicated, innit? how we're all someway or another interconnected, even if we don't know about it?
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5 hours broken once is not the same as 10 unbroken, but by God it works well enough to carry on with.
I would have made not such a good watch-standing sailor here in my middle-age. *sigh* *laugh*.
SO. off now to fee the household's cat, stop at the market and get greens and pita bread, buy gas, and head off to the lad's house. Have schoolbooks and study stuff packed and ready.
Catch you on the flipside.
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Native American Studies class is good, too. Interesting professor, lotta history of his own, plus engaging. *nods*
but what this all means now, is, not so much time in YIM or AIM (as if i spent much time there before, but yanno-), more time concentrating on the coursework -reading AND writing- and finishing up Critical Thinking. (I've figured out, I think, what i need to do with the paper I'm supposed to diagram and dissect for arguments. I will have to rewrite it by hand, sentence by sentence, to /feel/ where the writer was going with it. tedious, but then i will be done.)
so. Home. bag packed for work tonight. will take meds, take a bath, and in theory i have from now (just 4pm) until 10pm to sleep. we'll see. then bring the books and lappie to work tonight, and mostly read/take notes if possible (no table there, only two really oversized uncomfortable recliners, so note-taking not always do-able). come home in the am, garden while it's cool, and then go to bed. *nods*
and then we just see. good classes, though. glad i'm taking them. *kiss* g'night, all.
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I'm working on a small project: pretty much completely redoing my room (one room, in which i conduct business, uni-work, write, keep my daily stuff like clothes and linens, and my longer term stuff like cards and books and music, and where i also make tea and plan my travels and meditate and so forth and so on, oh, and occasionally, sleep).
This requires pretty much getting everything out (sound familiar, FL? thought it might *grin*) and lucky for me this week my housemate's gone so I can use her office room for a staging area.
Am finding many occasions to notice my reaction to small annoyances: things kept past their prime, past their usefulness, past my interest in them waning. Anxieties related to anticipating situations that may never come, but half-planning for them, stocking odd things in fear of them. Things I enjoy and would do well to be using (brushes, pencils, needles and thread and beads) put away 'for later'- when, after the catastrophes?
So this time i'm also taking a moment with each heavy sigh and eye-roll and moment's depression to make a note of what the reaction was, what (if I can tell) it was in reaction to, and what worked to step away from it, to shed it. Deep breath? stretching? change of location? quick decision (trash/freecycle/second hand store/storage/keep)? And then going on until i hit one of those 'suddenly dizzy' moments that signals 'too much input, not enough disc space to process'.
That's when the tea comes out, and the music gets put on, and I step back and see how much has gotten done already.
Two weeks til uni starts. CPR renewal tonight, Breakfast club cook tomorrow. Then it's just work and sleep and room and friends and beloveds until Sunday, when I need to have the room done and my stuff out of my housemate's room.
One step, one breath at a time, yeah? *nods* yeah.
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One of the things I've not done much of this trip is map study- looking at the map and planning my trip.
Partly that's because I've not been under my own steam much- I'm not usually in the position of letting others decide much for me, and it's been good for me (though work for them, which I really do appreciate) to let someone else pick where we're going and how we're getting there.
But my last two days are in London where there's just no shortage of things to do- and even though one of the things I KNOW I'm doing is going to Greenwich Naval Observatory with ainsoph15 on Saturday, with the help of tweedle_'s London A-Z and her laptop, I've found out something really, really fun for myself.
The hostel I'm staying at, The Generator, is walking distance both from Friends House (which I just want to see- sadly, I won't be able to go to Meeting because my flight leaves too early to work that out) and The British Library, where I will, weather permitting, go see the Royal Rarhi Chhau Dancers do The Story of Rama.
I've learned a number of things from this trip that make me feel brave to take other trips much more independently.
1) map study.
2) find the library/library website and check its hours (email the librarian if possible).
3) reputable hostels.
4) the local paper.
5) the local historical society.
6) but not least important, friends! if not staying with them, asking them for information/advice/help in planning/executing my trip- and make sure to plan in both exlusive time together, if coming along on a family trip, and some time apart, if traveling together and being used to a certain amount of solitary time.
Graduation's in June. If I can manage it, I have a list of people I want to come, people on LJ and IJ who've sat with me while I wept and tore up papers and sorted registration and exulted over successes. And then, after graduation- well. Who knows. But for sure, it involves travel. Up and down California, around the US, and back to Europe.
Map study.
It's a beautiful world.
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in general, in pediatric medicine, we say that "kids have good hearts."
sometimes there's an inborn problem that's apparent at birth; sometimes there's an inborn problem or an infectious process like rheumatic fever or Kawasaki's that leaves behind damage that doesn't show up until adolescence (my grandson had Kawasaki's- he's got an annual appointment with a pediatric cardiologist until he turns 18.)
but mostly, kids have good hearts. so, as in 'my' girl's case, they're ticking along pretty well right up until the last minute, because the heart just keeps going.
she was awake all day yesterday, occasionally smiling; slept all night [very shallow breathing, but regular] and woke this morning stil smling for her sister.
if this were in a PICU with all the monitors, i would be slowly seeing the numbers of various thing change, but there are no machines to distract us- just a comfortable chair with a footstool and a warm blanket between their two beds, and [for me, when i get there] the slow procession of the earth under the stars toward dawn.
last fall, when her sister was so ill and in hospital. we had a morning routine- we'd listen for the lawnmower men over at the golf-course next door, and read Walt Whitman's poem.
Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.
In Cabin’d Ships at Sea
1
IN cabin’d ships, at sea,
The boundless blue on every side expanding,
With whistling winds and music of the waves—the large imperious waves—In such,
Or some lone bark, buoy’d on the dense marine,
Where, joyous, full of faith, spreading white sails, 5
She cleaves the ether, mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night,
By sailors young and old, haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,
In full rapport at last.
2
Here are our thoughts—voyagers’ thoughts,
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said; 10
The sky o’erarches here—we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,
We feel the long pulsation—ebb and flow of endless motion;
The tones of unseen mystery—the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world—the liquid-flowing syllables,
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,
The boundless vista, and the horizon far and dim, are all here, 15
And this is Ocean’s poem.
3
Then falter not, O book! fulfil your destiny!
You, not a reminiscence of the land alone,
You too, as a lone bark, cleaving the ether—purpos’d I know
not whither—yet ever full of faith, 20
Consort to every ship that sails—sail you!
Bear forth to them, folded, my love—(Dear mariners! for you I fold it here, in every leaf;)
Speed on, my Book! spread your white sails, my little bark, athwart the imperious waves!
Chant on—sail on—bear o’er the boundless blue, from me, to every shore,
This song for mariners and all their ships. 25
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Thank you all for the good wishes and good thoughts for 'my' girls and their family, and for me.
I'll update again when there is something to say- I need to respect the family's privacy- will only say that Hospice is involved, and with luck she will be at home when the time comes.
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| 2008-03-22 04:02 |
| Random postage (combine to make full postage) (or not) |
| Public |
| fun, health, life, uni, work |
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1) there is no point to this post except that i need to stay awake the next three hours, and this might generate some comments, which will give me some stimulation.
2) i want very much to be dancing. unlikely at 4am when i'm at work and every one is asleep.
3) maybe I will have the energy to go swimming this morning. i hope so, even if it's only for 20 mins.
4) writing a paper on attribution in fanfiction for my critical thinking class is a good challenge. it forces me to focus on the logic of my arguments, not on the feelings swirling behind them.
4a) writing a paper on attribution in fanfiction brings home to me how vulnerable any act of creativity is, to any fault or foible, especially the artist's. i need to go back through The little AU - i know there are some things that i've not attributed. i'm just not sure where.
4b) writing a paper on attribution in fanfiction is making me cry. *sigh*
5) tomorrow i go to visit my son for two-and-a-half days. this is good. very very good. we'll go to Friends' Meeting (which i hope is a Silent Meeting. I could use 40 mins of silence-in-company). we might go to the Asian Art Museum, too, which is generally made of win. i will, however, like a good junkie, take the laptop with me (mostly to work on my paper at odd moments, like on the bus if i'm not sleeping).
6) there was more, but now it's time to get busy with meds and stuff for 'my' girls.
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Laptop is glorious. Feels safer, somehow, to have access at work when my Europeans are up. Feels more practical, too- can do writing for uni, research, while I'm in a more alert state.
Tickets for Europe are bought. That's the bones of getting there and back again- the inside of the trip, and the making my way from Manchester to London [and perhaps as far as Southampton- just need to work that out-] remain to be filled in.
Uni is settling in. I don't read as much as I should, or spend as much time on my actual coursework as I should, and I'm hoping to reverse that trend with my new schedule. But it's fun- not grueling and tedious, but fun.
I need more exercise. Just need it. Want it. Will have it. Have joined the gym for swimming- that'll start this weekend, swimming. Also will be walking more, now the weather's better [yes, I'm a big California baby. I like it above 40, not raining, and not windy as hell before I go for a walk].
Finances are- for the first time in years and years, and mainly thanks to Your Money or Your Life, in reasonable short-term good order. I feel like I can start taking deep breaths about money, and build up a little something to live on as I get older.
I guess that's all. Still updates in The little AU from time to time as the fellows come by and talk to me. I've a MonaBoyd simmering, a bit of Firefly, and some PotC, but nothing really ambitious or exciting.
Hope you are all doing ok. Blessings on your heads.
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| 2007-11-26 05:29 |
| Monday, monday... Can't trust that day.... |
| Public |
| life |
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N'ah. Mondays have been very very good to me, recently.
Today I'm breakfast cook: scrambled eggs with chorizo, bacon, toast [sourdough bread toast, yum] with butter & local jams; clementines; juice, coffee, tea.
Then after [so in about four hours from right-this-minute-posting-time] I need to run by the hardware [iron chelating agent, to get the iron from the water at the old house out of my clothes and linens]; chemist [benadryl], and post office.
Then I'll be home.
AND I had 6.5 hours of deep good sleep in my own bed in the dark, last night. Sooo good.
So, catch you all on the flipside, eh? be well. be careful. be excellent to one another. and blessings on your heads.
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computer continues to play up. self-diagnostic indicates HD needs repair, but i can't keep it on long enough to do anything for it.
software guy is out of town until 28th. cryo, boy, do i wish i could fly you out here!
so. will see if hardware fella can back up data for me, then will try rebooting from disk. if that don't work, well, it'll be uni before and after work, and getting behind on email, lj, and everything else except packing to move.
mixed blessings.
OTOH, inspiredlife, PARCEL OMG perfect timing, honey. perfect timing.
poetic_self my wishes for you to have a wonderful time with company and travel, continuing your adventures.
pferde, sorry. freaking bad timing on my part. text, email, leave me notes here- my love and support. let me know what happens eh?
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