A technological love affair

Can I tell you about this time I was utterly and amazingly surprised by a gift? Let me rephrase that: I'm going to tell you about this time I was utterly and amazingly surprised by a gift--the most phenomenal, incredible, and perfect gift. I'm going to tell you about that.

I am not really one to like surprises, and I tend to understate the surprises I do experience. Frankly, surprises frighten me (they actually just frighten my anxiety): what if I react incorrectly? what if I fail to be surprised enough? what if I burst into tears (as has actually happened)? It is, admittedly, a fear based in the awareness of being in the spotlight and the awareness of my own absolute awkwardness. I don't like people focused solely on me when I'm not wholly in control of the situation (so rarely, and gee, don't I sound like a complete and total control freak...). I am an introvert. Teaching presents a problem in this regard, thus, the reason I get sick literally every day I have to teach in front of an on-ground class. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, non-reasons, and the other many times gifts are given can exacerbate this strange anxiety in me. Compliments can do the same--a verbal surprise--that "Oh, yeah...yay?". It's kind of terrible. It was, also, a source of strain when I was growing up. I didn't sit with the kids at Nickelodeon Studios shows or at Disney World because I didn't want to be called on since I never knew what they might literally throw at me. Romantic gestures can be a bit like this, too.

Anyway, I digress.

When I finished graduate school, a strange, surreal experience in and of itself, some of my family and Scott's whole family came to visit us in Chicago to watch me walk across a stage and get handed a diploma (again, I fought my stomach the entire time I waited and then stood in line and then crossed that hard-earned and damnable stage). This was one year after I had completed my (rather overly drawn out) undergraduate degree. I was humbled that everyone wanted to be there to celebrate this accomplishment with us (or even just to see Chicago, which is an amazing city) for which we had both worked so hard to make happen.

I had been warned by Scott a few days ahead of time that there was a large-ish purchase coming through the bank account and that he would keep an eye on finances since my checking would possibly reveal the secret he was working on. I agreed, and actually stuck with it. It probably helped that I was so busy wrapping things up at school, job hunting, readying for family, and other things that I had no time to check in on the accounts.

Graduation happened. I waited around that day, I walked the stage, I met the family after, I celebrated with friends, and it was a happy time all around. Once we finally found ourselves back at the apartment,it was a celebration of me. All eyes on me. Robes were discarded, congratulations given, floors and couches flopped down upon in utter relief and exhaustion. And then the presents. There was a box, larger, squarer, and very present in the living room.

Scott handed that box to me, and I think the paper was halfway off before I squealed and launched myself at him, bear hugging him and that box, and asking, "For real? It really is?!"  It was a raw reaction, without hesitation.

The family sat perplexed. It was a white box in the shape of a book with gray lettering.

"Well, what is it?" my dad asked.

And in my reverence, I breathed, "A Kindle. It's a Kindle."

Nestled inside, perfectly pristine in all its technological glory was a first generation Kindle. They had released only a month before, and I was now the proud owner of one.  This was THE KINDLE! I was so enamored and amazed that I took it to the bar that night to show off. Amid the beer, the exhaustion of post-grad school, the others handled it like we had just been given the Holy Grail. It was that new and held so many promises.

It was, and still possibly is, the best gift. It spoke of love, of late nights, of words and promises. It was a gift that was from the heart. I love books, their smell, their feeling. But I love my Kindle (now on my second one after I wore out the first one), and its capacity to store, to save, to hide. I could live without my phone, but not my Kindle.


**I love print books, and we still frequent independent bookstores. We are constantly building our physical library with these books. I do buy physical books after reading them on my Kindle so I have a copy always (in the event that it all ends or the information goes away or I no longer have access to my Amazon account).

Is this my life?/This is my life

I send out email blasts to my students that are original or come from the school. I love tidbits about writers or poets, comics that speak to our topics, or artwork that strikes my fancy. On this last Thursday, after a night of little sleep and a very long week and at the behest of one of my schools, I sent out an email to my humanities students (dear self, it is not humanitites as your typing insists upon, although this typo does wonderfully highlight the predicament I am about to elaborate upon). 

The message was innocuous in and of itself, simply a message that my students had been selected to participate in a diagnostic survey. Easy enough. All I had to do was copy the message (ctrl c, self) and paste it into a Word document (ctrl v, edit)--something in the new Blackboard prevents me from directly copy/paste into any area--and then into Blackboard announcements. Fantastic. Copy, paste, set dates, click "Send email" message.

And then...oh shit.  I felt myself melt into a puddle.

Note: it is always a good idea to check work before hitting the stupid send button. Secondary note: button is only stupid relative to errors made by self.

So, the work unchecked, I sent along without my usual signature of "Best, Anna."  Granted, I was crossed eyed and bleary from exhaustion, but that is truly no excuse for a veteran writer.

Instead, I failed to change the original messaging from the template message I received to this signature, so all of my students received a message signed "Professor X."

That's right, kids. I can now officially open my own school for mutants, for I am officially, and in print, Professor X.

I'm going to continue to sit in the corner here, sip my beer, and consider the (only in my head) amazing implications of this.



**I did send out a revised version seconds after this, but still...

The Spring Fugue

I lied. I'm not posting pretty pictures this time because I don't have my phone/camera nearby and that is where all of my photos are presently stored (or on instagram and I can't do much with those to this, I guess). I do have photos of trips we took in 2012 (Seattle, Alaska, Canada, and probably other places I am completely spacing on at the moment) to post before 2013 gets too far behind me.


Instead, I'm going to tell you a story that is a bit sad. Life is full of disappointments, isn't it? It is also full of joy and random bits of happiness and amazing-ness threaded through. But today's story is a confused, emotionally tangle of a thing because, quite frankly, I haven't fully allowed myself to come to terms with it. Le sigh.

I do have a number of posts in draft mode that I hope to get kicked out for you all soon, too. These lags are terrible, but my writing has been requested elsewhere (thank you, work!).

If you followed the flurry of posts through that rather dreadful spring funk, you know it was low. And for me, low means quite, quite low. Throw a heap of anxiety on that bit of depression, and I was a tangled, mangy mess of a girl. Like stare-off-into-space, existential crisis mess. A mess that, I think, had my mother concerned (hi, Mom!).

big breath

So. Here's what that was a bit about. I had planned to apply to a PhD program--a single, solitary program. It was (may still be) the dream if-I-got-in-I-might-die program. I told some people about the plan. I had application readers. If I were accepted, I would have started this summer. People asked what my summer plans were, and I smiled and told them I wasn't sure yet because I had a little secret, and these kinds of secrets are dangerous. If they get out and things don't go as planned, they hurt over and over again as you admit that things didn't work out. I always felt like an ass when this happened when I was a kid, so I began not talking about it as much, clutching it closely.

I had my ducks in a row, and I was saving my pennies because for this (amazing, incredible) program, I had to put down a deposit of a few thousand dollars. I was diligently working away at the application with two readers who were offering very helpful feedback and were very excited about this prospect of more education (and travel! and things to study! and yay!). I had my rec letters requested and sent in. It was going swimmingly.

And then work slowed to a trickle, and a month later so did my income. My savings went to ensuring we could pay rent, make the car payment, bills, and the other banalities of life. And I agonized over the decision to apply to the program. I held on and held on to it, like the string to a balloon that kept wanting to whip away in the wind. There was a night, I think I was washing dishes, staring forlornly out the window, when I realized that I had to let go of that string because it simply wasn't practical (how I despise practicality), and, oh my heart broke. It broke, and I cried. I wept. I let myself feel that pain acutely. I hurt fiercely. I wanted this, and I had let myself hope and dream. And it was the blasted money--always the damn money, isn't it?--that got in my way.

I worked on other projects, some work shifted and I took on new duties and tasks I hadn't done previously, and I began some new enterprises that I'm still trying to figure out. It wasn't a total loss.

I don't know. Maybe this weird roadblock that was The Taylor Spring of 2013 made something shift in my life. Maybe there is an unseen that only years down the road will I think "that was an interesting circumstance that led to this more amazing, incredible turn in life." Perhaps I'll apply again once the finances even out; at the moment, I don't know. We'll see.

Ineffectual interpretations

There are drafts sitting in my draft folder off here to the side, but I'm going to ignore them for the moment. I'm not ready to deal with them.

I think this...let's call it a sabbatical because that seems more to save my sanity than perhaps "state of unemployment" does and it's a bit more technically correct since I haven't actually lost my jobs or been released from my employers. My classes simply didn't fill this term. So for the moment, I am going to pretend that I'm not concerned with mundane things like finances.

What this is, rather, is a chance to reassess some directions. Obviously the goals that would have required money are put on the back burner. Side note: a lot of things I want to do require money--rather frustrating. And for the last two to three weeks I have obsessed and worried and freaked out over this because the control was wrested from my grip. And there was a lot of moaning and sighing and frantic job searches and a lot of not sleeping.

And then...well, then I just decided to quit doing that. Now when I go to bed, and once I'm done recreationally reading (because I actually have time for that), I breathe--slowly in, slowly out--and I let my thoughts empty out. I think this is meditating? I don't really know because I've never really been good at that. My mother was wary of meditation when I was younger because when you empty, something has to fill it (aka demons?); in yoga I couldn't wait for the shavasana because I could just lie there and yoga was over, except I couldn't be still and would hop up a moment later. I don't chant or hum--I've never cared for the affect of this (sorry to those who are really into chanting and humming)--and I'd probably wake up Scott who would wonder what was wrong.

I guess I am centering myself and just being in my skin, which is something else altogether uncomfortable usually. It's me finally saying "Okay, universe, let's figure this out." And then trying to interpret the things around me.

God, I sound so new agey and ridiculous.  Essentially, it's this: I'm a person who makes things happen, and right now, things are most decidedly not happening the way I expected. So I have to figure out how to make them happen in other ways or figure out what I'm supposed to make happen from this, but I'm also trying to listen (very hard) to what is being said around me, to catch the little pieces to figure out what is going on. It's like a cipher without a key or hearing an unfamiliar language. It's damn difficult, but comprehension is just beyond my grasp. If I keep at it, I'll have it.

I'm going to post some pretty pictures in my next post, and you will all be saved from more of my whining.

On waiting

I don't wait well. I am impatient, ready for whatever it is (vaguely waves hand around to indicate the ethers) to happen. I, like most people, I imagine, have always been like this. I couldn't wait to grow up, to do the next thing. I often tried to force things to happen before their time, or I sit in the present and obsess over the future.

This is where I am now. Scott reminded me the other day, as I was again apologizing for fretting and worrying, that this down time is obviously for a reason. I admit that it's probably true, but I'm ready for it to be over and to have learned the lesson and/or gained the experience and move on.

I keep mulling over the various phrases I have uttered over the last few months, and I fight the urge of thinking "I was so stupid to have said that; I take it back!" to the "Well, what's said was said, so let's ride this thing out." The scariest is just not knowing what's on the other side. I feel like I have been walking (at a rather fast clip) and suddenly chanced upon a very high, large wall. It stretches up, and I cannot see over it. It stretches for miles in either direction, so I cannot see around it. I can always backtrack, but what is the point? I will come again to this wall and will have to figure it out later if I don't face it now. I'm going to have to climb the damn thing or figure out the magic phrase to let me pass through. I am not a fan of heights, but I'll brace myself and deal with them if necessary. As far as the magic phrase, perhaps I just need to find someone to help me through. I keep imagining a figure like Gandalf at this point for some reason.

And so, I wait and try to perfect the art of that. Waiting doesn't necessarily mean patience is required. It is more of finding ways to occupy oneself until the waiting is over. Maybe it is time to face down those stacks of projects I have been putting off because of work. Maybe it is time to commit to the vague promises and ideas that float into my mind and get tucked away. Maybe it is time to hit the job markets again and to seek other things.

Pauses

That moment when it's all just gone to hell in a hand basket? When the rug's been yanked out from under? Light at the end of the tunnel is quite dim (if it even glows)? Welcome to my spring term.

Plans? On hold. That last post? Ugh. I can't even think of it at the moment because I am so overwhelmed by the fact that I am suddenly finding myself rather underemployed. That's the life of the adjunct/freelancer, I suppose, but, good grief, it's uncomfortable. I suppose all great change starts with discomfort. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway. I had a friend back at holiday tell me that I had some major karma coming from the gods of academia, but at the moment I feel smited (usage?) by them. And, yet, my little Sagittarian nature, the damn little engine that could that it is, just won't believe that. We Sags can be so ridiculously optimistic even when being pessimistic. It's annoying, even to us.

It's simply a shift, a change, I keep telling myself. Up, down, up, down. So, things have been put on hold for a bit until the bank account finds a bit more equilibrium. This is infinitely frustrating, and poor Scott has to deal with my nail-biting, broody, moody, fretting self for a while. Maybe it means that our plans need more time to incubate, marinate (see, that Sagittarian optimism coming through). Fingers crossed that this is very, very temporary!

On new things

I have been working on courage and throwing myself out into the ether even more to see what happens this year. I have shadowy dealings and secrets--which aren't nearly as diabolic as they sound, sadly. Let me try this again.

When I am facing down changes, big, life altering changes, I have to fight the very Sagittarian nature to talk about them, to share the details and the hopes. Scott has helped to quell this tendency a bit, thanks to his particularly secretive Scorpio nature (this is not meant as a disparagement, but as a general truth). Part of the reason is because life just doesn't always pan out the way we hope, and if I must be miserable, sad, and disappointed, I would rather it be mine to deal with and come to peace with. When things do pan out, then I can celebrate with others and they can say the usual "Oh! I had no idea you were doing that. Yay for you!"

There are only a few who know things/plans from the beginnings, and then there are others who find out from drunken nights. Give me alcohol and all the secrets come out. I would make a terrible, terrible spy. Spy: "Here's vodka drink; tell us your secrets." Me: "Ok!" What I imagine, though, is probably much less romantic than dark corners, silky dresses and sharp knives and more along the lines of Chunk's confession to the Fratellis in The Goonies. Yep, that's about right.

Courage I have in odd ways: I've thrown myself out of a plane, I've moved with no reassurance I'll land on my feet, I venture into different adventures not knowing the outcome, and more. But the soul-deep courage I falter on a bit. Also the things that may require big money and a longer commitment of time. Those scare the bejeezus out of me. But it's all part of the bigger plan, the bigger picture. We know where we want to end up, but it's going to take some huge leaps like this to get us there. I'm not always the best with slow and steady, and I never really have been. There is a lot of wrestling with my nature to keep this in check and to shore myself up for the long haul. There is a lot of assessing, reassessing, checking, rechecking involved, and I imagine more of this over the next few years as we work toward those goals we have.

I'd answer the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question with a similarly puerile answer: Can't tell you (yet). *smile*