School Daze

I'm finally getting the hang of this school thing, at least it's not so difficult to get motivated and keep up. I do a little each day before class and a little in the evening. I'm procrastinating now, just a bit.
It's a drippy, dreary day outside and my soul wants nothing more than to crawl back in bed and sleep for another couple of hours. Hope the coffee kicks in soon.
So I'm taking three classes this quarter, a diverse little grouping of engineering classes, Fluid Power, Digital Electronics and Advanced A+ Certification.
Fluid power has possibly the worst-written text book I've ever had to wrestle with, could they not afford an editor? It reads like a rough draft. A very rough draft. Another challenge is keeping a straight face when the instructor starts talking about extending and retracting rods and pistons. The nomenclature is very phallic. Pressure, pumping, relief valves, etc., maybe it's my own bent mind, but the giggle factor gets really high during some of the lectures. At least I amuse myself. As is the norm I'm the only woman in the class and giggling must be kept to a minimum so I spend a lot of time with my eyes wide open grinning, I hope the professor thinks I'm just very attentive and not a little nuts.
Digital electronics is a lot of review, I had self-taught a much of the material at work. I'm now learning boolean algebra which is fascinating stuff. Did you know that your computer can't subtract? Not really. It uses a complex method of adding ones and zeros that makes it think it's adding but comes up with subtracted totals. Behind the slick interface that you are looking at are thousands and millions of tiny signals that have only two values - 0 & 1.
The last class I'm taking is A+ certification. Yes, I will be fully qualified to trouble-shoot computers and networks. It's already coming in handy, I've set up the wireless access for our computers at home and have helped my sweetie chase down some problems with his system at home. I'm thinking of buying a computer to tinker on, but don't want to spend the money just now.
Ah, the coffee is kicking in -- back to work.

School Daze.....

So it's been even longer this time, I have a great excuse. Really, I do.
Honest.
I am now a full-time engineering student. Surprised? Me too. I wish I could take the credit for this being a part of a grand scheme that came together just the way I had planned, but alas, I'm not that slick. In fact this is a serious case of lemons transforming into lemonade.
Raspberry lemonade.
Sparkling raspberry lemonade.
hmmmmm, now I'm thirsty.
Anyway I've been a tad busy with the whole homework thing. Actually I thought that if I could take 10 credits while working full-time I could carry 20 when unemployed. I did it for one quarter and will cheerfully never try that again. I'm not sure how, but I managed to pull a 3.58 for the quarter. With electrical engineering courses, and crazy lab partners, and more books than any book bag could hold. Oi.
I'll try to update whenever I can, in the mean time feel free to send me good study karma.
;)

Ok - so I've been neglecting this little corner of my world, I admit it's been a little too much to maintain this summer.

Summer definitely started out in low gear, I had mono. Yes, mono. Who knew old farts like me could get mono? That was a rhetorical question - I just thought I was run down. Just not enough energy to go around. I worked full-time, started dating again and managed to get through the season without too much stress. My energy is finally coming back. Just in time to start school.

So the goal is to actually finish my degree, but the method has changed a bit. There is a general lack of engineering programs available to those of us who have to work full-time. In a perfect world I would take the next three years off from work and finish school. In the real world I'm planning on about five years. The next two-two and 1/2 years will finish a pair of associates degrees/certificates. The first will be the Engineering Technology Certificate and the second will be a general transfer degree. The next two-three years will finish an English degree with a focus on Technical Communications. There are two options, one is an evening program through UW, the other is an online program through WSU. I like the UW program better - so that's plan A. Wish me luck.

I also started seeing a counselor - one of the symptoms of mono is depression. Between that and the high-stress year I'd had some outside help was definitely needed. It took some detective work to find someone that I can work with, and Joanne fits the bill nicely. Kind, compassionate, she understands that it's hard for me to trust and has the patience to help me connect and open up. She's given me some great tools for my coping toolbox. Which is exactly what I needed. It feels good to finally clear out some of the crap from my past. To recognize where my issues come from and to set them aside. One of the things that has come up in my counseling sessions is that I tend to live with a certain amount of the 'fight or flight' reflex up and running in the background of my consciousness. I'm not nervous or anything like that, just a tad detached. I tend to react on a intellectual level long before I react emotionally. I do have emotions, lots of them, they come into play a day or so later. Good in a crisis, I usually have a Plan B in place, though I rarely need it. It's at the root of a couple of my health issues. So, as I address the emotional my physical body is healing. Pretty cool.

It's been a good summer all-in-all. I'm seeing a very kind and gentle man, he's got a great sense of humor. And I truly relax around him. It's been a long time since I've been with someone that I could connect with like that. I actually miss him if I don't see him for a couple of days. We both work at Philips though not in the same department, so no conflicts there.

Flights of Fancy

The circus is in town - Cirque de Soleil that is. I was given a ticket as an early birthday present and with Annika and her pals from Germany (Tini and Heiko) spent a truly amazing evening. I had seen the videos before and was enchanted - but live is a totally different experience. For one thing the venue was surprisingly intimate - there isn't a bad seat in the house and everyone is close enough to feel a part of the show. Breathtaking doesn't even come close to describing the beauty of the performance. Everything was simply perfect. It left me with a sense of wonder and inspiration that I haven't had in a very long time.
A second healthy dose of inspiration came during my weekly massage. As Jeff worked his magic on my neck and upper back I dozed off - partially. Images began to form, of artwork and how to do it, complete with step-by-step instructions. I sketch -nothing too elaborate - mostly faces and figures. I'm not great at it, but every once in a while something comes out that isn't too bad. These images were different from my normal fare. With a faded, desaturated look they showed texture and depth far beyond what I'm currently capable of. It was a complete art class with everything from what types of exercises to do in order to learn the techniques to what materials I need to pick up and how to use them. Wow.
So I spent the evening sketching with a combination of colored pencils and graphite. Blending the two and practicing the shading.
I just hope that I can hang onto the knowledge from those visions long enough to learn the techniques.

Of Froggy Choruses and False Springs

Rather poetic, that - at least as far as alliteration goes.

Spring made a brief but enthusiastic appearance this weekend, bursting through gloomy weeks of cold wet rain and bumping the temperature up to almost eighty degrees. Sunshine for the Dali Lama, I think someone up there likes him. It also gave us poor Washingtonians just enough hope and vitamin D to make it through the next couple of months until summer. At least I hope it did. It's true that we generally get through the winters by ignoring the rain. We hike in it, we bike in it and a few of our more eccentric souls even wear shorts and sandals (with socks) in it. I didn't even own an umbrella until last year.

Speaking of water...our duck pond is full again, and the ducks have arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Howell, a handsome mallard couple, make a daily flight from their nest, up the length of the back yard, around the north side of the house (at eye level to the top floor) and splash down on our humble, over-grown, mud puddle a couple of times a day. At which point I open the front door with a squeak that they have come to recognize, and they waddle across the yard, muttering just like the Howell's from Gilligan's Island, to collect the crackers I've saved for them. Hopefully, later this spring, they will be joined by the rest of the crew, a group of rowdy male ducks I've dubbed the bachelors.

And the frogs are awake. During most of the year there is a single, sullen bullfrog. He sounds so lonely out there, calling for his friends. In late January the rest of the froggy chorus wakes up and joins him. From dusk 'till dawn they sing a different song every night. There must be dozens of them. Spring is definitely here, and if it's a tad wetter than normal, at least the neighbors don't seem to mind.

Breathe

I wake up, groggy and out of sorts. The sky is gray, the house quiet and the mat is calling. How will my body respond this morning? Do I drag my ass out of bed or do I turn the first alarm off and get an extra 45 minutes of snooze time? My body is craving the movement, my mind is craving sleep - which one wins?
Movement.
I add baggy pajama bottoms to a t-shirt and stumble into the living room. The TV is turned on mute 'till I find a mellow music station. I can't abide commercials before coffee.
I dig through a drawer to find a stick of incense - something light and spicy. Once lit it gets tucked into a holder on the mantle.
I unroll the mat. Face the window. I sit and breathe. Slowly the movements come, each one building on the last, each one in concert with the breath. My breathing accelerates and threatens to run away with the movement, my heart pounds. I slow down and let my breath catch up with the movement.
The movements have evolved, in the beginning it felt like there were bits of fishing line holding my joints back. Now the larger tendons and muscles feel the stretch. I try for the perfect expression of the pose, but I take whatever my body will give. Ever grateful. Patience, while not a virtue I normally possess, is something I've learned to live with here. If I go to fast, push too hard, I will loose what I've gained.
Distractions tiptoe through, a cat that wants to show me how to properly stretch and assumes that my hands near the floor are available to scratch ears. I pause. I find the joy in the distractions. It's the universes way of saying enough.
I breathe.

3 things and 21 days

I was reading the other day about habits - both good and bad - and how it takes 21 days to develop a new habit. As the owner of many less that desirable habits and not quite enough good ones, I found this fascinating. Three weeks, I can make or break something in three weeks, and maybe keep it up for life. hmmmmm.
Being an overly analytical sort, I began envisioning my life as it stands and my goals. I decided that I want to achieve a few things in this life and that starting NOW I'm going to achieve them. That is not to say that I'm making radical changes, but I'm taking the little steps. You see I also read an interview with a rather well-known trainer and she pointed out that people who have much weight to lose often get discouraged by looking at the total amount and how hard that would be to achieve. She suggests that those folks set aside that large figure and focus instead on loosing that first pound. Baby steps.
I've often been discouraged by books and success stories that tout making long-term goals and, with a singular drive, reaching those goals months and even years in the future. I've set those long-term goals before, but my life has a great deal of serendipity in it. I spend a lot of my time living on plan B, or C or even D. Those long-term goals shift fairly regularly and when they do I feel a sense of disappointment and loss for them.
Instead I'll have ideals - and take little steps every day to achieve them.

• Radiant Health - I so admire people that have health, I have enough health challenges that setting specific goals here is frustrating - but I do have a vision of what that means and what healthy people do and feel. So every day I will do three things to be radically healthy, maybe not the same three things every day, but three little somethings to move myself along the path.
• Friends and Family - I used to be painfully shy, combine a soft voice with a childhood where my family moved at least once or twice a year and my social skills are still a little rough around the edges. My heart is in the right place, but I sometimes try too hard, or not hard enough. I will do three things every day to nurture those around me, to grow the relationships I have and develop new ones.
• Material Mastery - I've often struggled with finances, what it means to be responsible and accountable for my success. Quite frankly, for many years, success scared the hell out of me. I was very good a stabbing myself in the foot and walking away from a good situation or staying too long in a bad one. Three little things each day to build my confidence and new positive habits regarding work, finances and my physical world.

Nothing too radical, for instance today I had watermelon for desert instead of baking a cake. I did fifteen minutes of yoga before work and got my teeth cleaned. I also followed through on a couple of projects at work, gave away an old TV, tidied up the kitchen before bed and got the trash out to the curb for pickup in the a.m. Finally I dropped a line to a couple of friends and posted to by blog. Would I have done these things anyway? Perhaps. I think by making a conscience effort I'll try a little harder.

Piece of Cake -

Try this for a couple of days - let me know what you think.