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the clock is ticking
Well, it was a productive week, but not less stressful. I feel like part of the problem is that my trip home was less relaxing than I had hoped. Don't get me wrong, I had a wonderful time. The weather was amazing, I went hiking with my parents in the Cascades, I ate ramen and sushi and pizza and dim sum. I saw Pacific Rim and had ALL my buttons pushed (giant robots and AI interfaces and a woman who can kick your ass at martial arts while being quite sensible in workout clothes and fighting style). I went to the gym with my mom and bought a new phone and new laptop and went to the farmers market where I had falafel and lumpia and crepes and sat outside on the deck in the sunshine with a cider and a book that I picked randomly off the shelf at B&N.
But I couldn't stop myself from spending too much time configuring electronics or tinkering with code for work or thinking about material I should be studying or stressing myself out over Sheila and her schedule. She was the only one of my friends in town that week, and I did enjoy seeing her - she and Safi and I had a long talk about feminism and Why Guys Are Like That and we drank an entire bottle of fancy champagne that her boyfriend sent her for her birthday. But she also declared at the beginning of the week, "I don't have anything to do! Let's hang out ALL THE TIME" and then proceeded to have other commitments when it would have been most convenient for me, or wanted me to come visit while she packed (I've tried that, she can't multitask and it's miserable for everyone), or couldn't figure out if she would be free for a particular afternoon until the very last minute. So that was frustrating, and I didn't catch up on sleep as much as I should have either.
So going from that to arriving in C-U at 2am thanks to a delayed flight and then launching myself into full-on work mode starting with a noon meeting the next morning (no time for jetlag) and then pushing myself nonstop for the next week while moving everything I own ... yeah, by the time Friday rolled around, I was absolutely burnt out (while also feeling that I didn't deserve to be burnt out because I'd just had a vacation!).
I was trying to decide if I could justify a night in to myself - P was trying to organize a game night and I really didn't think I could work up the energy to go - when I got an email at 5pm from my advisor asking for a detailed report fleshing out the results I'd sent her the day before so we could start thinking about what we're doing wrong and what we should change. And though she didn't ask for it explicitly, I knew I had to finish the writeup that night to get it to her before she got on her flight back to the US the next day. So I gave my excuses to P, sent Y a message "is it sad that I'm glad your advisor sent me an email asking for more results so I don't have to be social tonight?" and we had a commiserating conversation about that, and stayed up till midnight writing the report.
After that, I felt justified in taking the weekend off. Okay, that's a lie, I kept feeling guilty about it. I went to jujutsu practice, adjusted my bike gears, bought fresh fruit and veggies at the farmers market, organized my computer files and explored some keybinding shortcuts in Emacs, watched some algorithms videos (really, really bad at this "day off" stuff), read two books, and listened to a couple episodes of Welcome to Night Vale (*ships Carlos/Cecil/mundane weirdness into the sunset*). And I'm really glad I did, because I did need to relax and chill out a bit. Last week I found myself staring at the ceiling while waiting to fall asleep and wondering, "What would my life be like if I hadn't gone to grad school and weren't a ridiculous tangle of stress all the time?" Which is a sign that I need to slow down and get some perspective back. I'm still very happy, I love what I do and I can't believe how much my life has changed for the better in only a year, but I do need to be kinder to myself.
Now Daphne is back from her weekend away and my advisor should be in the office tomorrow and it's back to the grindstone! Two weeks left until the semester starts...
But I couldn't stop myself from spending too much time configuring electronics or tinkering with code for work or thinking about material I should be studying or stressing myself out over Sheila and her schedule. She was the only one of my friends in town that week, and I did enjoy seeing her - she and Safi and I had a long talk about feminism and Why Guys Are Like That and we drank an entire bottle of fancy champagne that her boyfriend sent her for her birthday. But she also declared at the beginning of the week, "I don't have anything to do! Let's hang out ALL THE TIME" and then proceeded to have other commitments when it would have been most convenient for me, or wanted me to come visit while she packed (I've tried that, she can't multitask and it's miserable for everyone), or couldn't figure out if she would be free for a particular afternoon until the very last minute. So that was frustrating, and I didn't catch up on sleep as much as I should have either.
So going from that to arriving in C-U at 2am thanks to a delayed flight and then launching myself into full-on work mode starting with a noon meeting the next morning (no time for jetlag) and then pushing myself nonstop for the next week while moving everything I own ... yeah, by the time Friday rolled around, I was absolutely burnt out (while also feeling that I didn't deserve to be burnt out because I'd just had a vacation!).
I was trying to decide if I could justify a night in to myself - P was trying to organize a game night and I really didn't think I could work up the energy to go - when I got an email at 5pm from my advisor asking for a detailed report fleshing out the results I'd sent her the day before so we could start thinking about what we're doing wrong and what we should change. And though she didn't ask for it explicitly, I knew I had to finish the writeup that night to get it to her before she got on her flight back to the US the next day. So I gave my excuses to P, sent Y a message "is it sad that I'm glad your advisor sent me an email asking for more results so I don't have to be social tonight?" and we had a commiserating conversation about that, and stayed up till midnight writing the report.
After that, I felt justified in taking the weekend off. Okay, that's a lie, I kept feeling guilty about it. I went to jujutsu practice, adjusted my bike gears, bought fresh fruit and veggies at the farmers market, organized my computer files and explored some keybinding shortcuts in Emacs, watched some algorithms videos (really, really bad at this "day off" stuff), read two books, and listened to a couple episodes of Welcome to Night Vale (*ships Carlos/Cecil/mundane weirdness into the sunset*). And I'm really glad I did, because I did need to relax and chill out a bit. Last week I found myself staring at the ceiling while waiting to fall asleep and wondering, "What would my life be like if I hadn't gone to grad school and weren't a ridiculous tangle of stress all the time?" Which is a sign that I need to slow down and get some perspective back. I'm still very happy, I love what I do and I can't believe how much my life has changed for the better in only a year, but I do need to be kinder to myself.
Now Daphne is back from her weekend away and my advisor should be in the office tomorrow and it's back to the grindstone! Two weeks left until the semester starts...