Posted by alexandra_k on March 9, 2014, at 0:09:34
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on March 7, 2014, at 22:41:47
i am.
i am truly happy.from the little things...
there is a beautiful garden on my way to work. well, a slight detour, the scenic route, and it is pretty and peaceful and calming.
the sun is lower in the sky as the weather gets cooler and the sunlight is angling in my room heaps better. need to shut my curtains mid-afternoon because it's blinding. i'm not sure what the depths of winter will bring... but i'm cautiously optimistic. and the wind comes through... i'm not going to have humidity (potential mould) problem...
things are a bit noisier now with more people about... but not heaps. seems that this whole floor is full of studio's actually and that... people want to live in studio's because (like me) they value their own space. i think others do have people over occasionally and you hear them a bit... but not for more than a couple hours... and not all the time... it is fine. people just do their own thing and... it is fine. even old stompy upstairs just amuses me... i think it is a little girl flinging herself about the place. that is actually more what it sounds like... a gymnast bounding about the place. so few people turned out for the social thing... they do market this hall as the place to go for 'more independence'. it is... perfect for me. yeah.
i have found my spot at the top of the information commons. right at the back... tucked into the corner... there is a wonderful view of everything... and a firm couch for me to lay on... and no supervisory people to tell me to get my feet off... or tell me my coffee isn't allowed...
people are using the space. quietly. amazing. people actually... working. quietly. it is... wonderful.
i'm enjoying chemistry. the concepts are fun. the equations are... well... i can do the problems (thus far) no problem. any problem (so far) comes from me trying to do other things... thinking that we might need to understand things this way and that way and the next way... probably any problems come from me complicating things unnecessarily... and there is this older (as in about my age) guy up the front who was like 'does that mean it is 2.5x the density of water' and so i might try and be his friend... and i've found that sitting off to one side people seem cool (happier even) about sitting in every second seat so we don't need to be all squished together like sardines... people who can diffuse into the environment instead of clumping. yay.
the gym was nice today. it is mostly. i just need to accept that there will be times where it is better for me to... do something else. there is no shortage of things to do. it really is very well equipped. so sometimes guys want to bench with the women's eleiko bar (not knowing it is the women's bar, clearly). just... leave them be. there are other things i can do. i'm not really training anymore... just exercising and moving about. its okay. really. it is okay.
i do feel scared that i'm going to lose all this... which is... something that i'm better not dwelling on overly.
i'm so happy that the only work i've got to be getting on with... doesn't feel like work. i remember when i first arrived in australia and i was having a ball and producing. until i got so demoralised that what i was producing wasn't any good and then i got stuck. then it wasn't any fun any more. feeling hopelessly inadequate and powerless to change it... perhaps the people too dense / with too high an opinion of themself do turn out to be the better academics at the end of the day. as judged by posterity i mean. perhaps it is better that the people who aren't robust enough to persist with the whole of the academic community... not against them exactly... but... agnostic about them. about their value... perhaps it is better that they be weeded out. i don't know. whatever. it doesn't matter. there are things where... the solution is clear. whether you got it or not, i mean. instead of... what? at some point people decide to say 'not bad'
?
whatever.
i'd doing some editing for a friend who is close to finishing. it is... it reads really well, actually. i'm impressed. she was terrific with giving an estimate of about how long it should take (based in word length etc) and providing instructions of the kind of feedback she was looking for. wonderful way of doing it, actually. it makes me feel... happier about doing the task. that i'm doing something the way it should be done... that i'm making progress on a finite project with end in sight. i can sit myself down and just focus on that for a couple hours. then put it away and go do something else. doesn't sound like much but that kind of... doing a task to schedule (feeling good about making progress on it) and then moving on to do something else is something that seemed to have... fallen out of me. or eluded me for so long. glad to rediscover it. or discover it. basic time management...
my phone is growing on me, rather. as i get used to it. it is... tiny. tiny screen. i don't mind. i wanted portability / pocketability as the most important feature, honestly. i have a laptop... i like the gmail layout. that is important. and it is SO VERY USEFUL INDEED for the chemistry website. to have a pocket portable thing for that. and to have textbooks (next year's admittedly - couldn't get the chemistry one) for that. so if i need to look something up. i'm near the end of my billing month and have heaps of data left, too... i don't think i'll need to worry about data, actually. emails and text based websites (like this and the chemistry one and google search and even the documents i read as the result of google search) use next to nothing. i don't use it for youtube or whatever... the battery life honestly is awful... free wireless about campus... i can use my computer (cable)... but i don't think i'm going to have a data problem with it. so... that is terrific, really. i'll get a lot more use out of it than i thought.
things are okay. things are going to be okay. i am so very happy here.
:)
i love my compression tights. still.
i have a little grading work for next semester... so that will be a little more money through for odds and ends... other than that... i have everything i need. except for a sheet of graph paper for the lab - but i have the means for that... the ante will be upped a little then with an extra class... but for now... ticking along. i need to schedule in math practice and keep up with that. perhaps not waste so very much time on stats and stuff i don't need... but really trying to move through to the scientific notation and exponents... the ratio stuff... decimals and percentages... functions... graphs... algebra. proper equations... that freak me out just by the way they are set up... balancing equations stuff... more practice with my times tables... more confidence... practice practice practice. at least 1 hour per day. and i should still be doing the 3x5minutes of times table practice...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20140129/msgs/1062085.html