Would ya look at you grow

Would you check out my meyer lemon tree? You may recall I bought it while in Baltimore and it has been as yet unsuccessful at producing any fruit.  Last year I was donated a massive pot when someone left  town and through the winter it started growing flowers which I cross-pollinated.  From those flowers, five small fruit are growing.  The poor thing gets a bit banged around in this wee apartment during the winter and I'm always glad when it gets warm enough to be able to keep it outdoors.  I don't know what we'll do next winter.  Perhaps I'll get a winter covering for its' trunk and pot and leave it below the overhang outside our apartment.  Or ask a friend to store it in their garage.  

Since I've had it outdoors again this year, it has been thriving.  There are loads of flowers and more baby fruit developing.  A few of the fruit are yellowing before they're even nearly big enough so I suspect they won't make it the long-haul.  I think the tree is probably too busy growing to provide its' whole system with the nutrients it needs.

 

Relaxing to improve

I had an epiphany in the pool yesterday.  I realised that when I try to swim fast I start to tense up, my stroke shortens becoming less strong, and I end up being slower and quickly running out of breath.  To avoid this, my focus has become any tension in my body.  I try to concentrate on relaxing this tension and trying to utilise each stroke as much as I can while that arm is under water.  

I wonder how many things in life this could apply to.  For example, if I'm trying to cook dinner in a hurry I stop doing things efficiently.  The pasta is ready long before the sauce and vegetables are.  Or I forget a vital step like adding salt to the bread dough.  When I used to perform to people on either the violin or piano, I would think too hard and lose my place in the music, making a massive glitch I wouldn't normally have made had I been playing at home alone without the pressure of an audience.  Or my bow would start to shake and my left hand fingers would play out of tune.  I'm forever trying to get through to my adult students that being relaxed is the key to most of their technical issues.  I think I need to start taking my own advice. 

Somebody give me a deadline

It seems that as I feared would happen without the pressure of a deadline, I am posting less and less frequently.  Lacking a deadline, I am less able to choose one thought for that day.  The ones I consider never seem to be <interesting/good/thorough> enough, or they feel plain repetitive, and so I put them off and they are quickly forgotten.  

I'd like to overcome this but I don't have a strategy for how to do so.  Any ideas?  Recently my life has been full of good intentions for improvement in so many areas.  But the weeks zoom by with many quietly spent, seemingly unproductive grey days and the odd sunny happy day.  Thank goodness February has been and gone.  March brings with it the promise of spring.

A small convenience

We don't own a t.v.  We do have two laptops and for a long time, we'd watch the movies I borrow from the library on these.  The sound wasn't great and our dvd players don't always work as they should, especially in hot weather.  Last year we bought a desktop computer with a nice big flat screen and some great speakers off a friend for Christmas which Jbird set up as our media centre.  The computer has all our music on it so we no longer need to fuss around with hard drives and plugging in speakers.  Our viewing and listening experiences have improved considerably.  I often sit and watch movies alone and for a while I was in the habit of using Jbird as my remote: can you turn it up?  It wasn't ideal.  Even if I was close to the computer, the keyboard and mouse sits behind the screen so we'd have to kind of turn the screen and reach around, using the mouse left handed to work it.  For Christmas this year, Jbird bought me a wireless mouse.  My life has changed again for being able to pause a movie or change the volume or choose some different music all from the comfort of our couch, and always in front of the screen.

The notebook

I recently lost an A4 (letter size) notebook.  It had a black cover and was spiral bound with blank thick cartridge pages.  Losing this notebook gave me a tight feeling in my chest.  I started using it at the beginning of the year, a time when I was trying to get my head around all that I had to do.  I used it to write notes for school, plan my weekly schedules, and write 'to do' lists.  As well as my weekly reminders, I had written three important lists in it: 'to do before I finish my study', 'to do with my parents' and 'to do post-study'.  I found the notebook today, six weeks later, having completed all those deadlines and had the visit from my parents.  Annoyingly it was exactly where I had expected it to be but my eye must have glanced over it in my  searching.  

I have a sense of relief in finding it, as though the notebook keeps me together in one piece and I'll be able to accomplish more because of it.  I don't know if I've alluded to the feeling I have about my sudden freedom.  I've had this freedom before - where I was a housewife, with nothing much going on.  It didn't turn out so well.  My self-esteem was crippled by being purposeless and I wasn't happy.  With nothing much to do and in cold weather, it can be difficult to get out of bed.  It can also be difficult to stay out of bed once you've gotten up.  After all, what is there to do out of bed?  Tasks which can feel important or unimportant depending on the sun.    

I have been known to enjoy this strange, unexpected life through accomplishing small daily purposes.  Staying in bed is the worst possible remedy.  So my notebook, my lists, and having a schedule are important to me.  They keep me going, keep me sane, and keep me accomplishing.  They all amount to getting Jbird through these degrees, loving him, and not resenting him for bringing me here.  Right now I'm also riding on a bigger accomplishment of my own: finishing a degree I had left partially completed for nearly a decade. 

Fun news

I have been dying to share some news for a really long time now and here we are, at the end of the first trimester, and I finally can.  We're expecting a baby!  We are 12 weeks into the pregnancy.  I wonder if any of my previous posts gave it away...I spoke about napping often, eating a lot.  I'm not sure what else, though I avoided any mention of nausea.  Falling asleep around 9pm - as mentioned yesterday - has become a common theme in my life too.   Are you even more impressed at my valiant effort to finish my degree?  It was hard at times but at least my morning sickness wasn't so bad that I ever threw up.  

I was surprised to learn that during the first two weeks of gestation, we're not even pregnant so that our gestation is actually 8 1/2 months instead of 9.  A friend of mine pointed out that someone could be 9 days pregnant without having yet ovulated...It felt like such a weird thing to learn this late in the game.  I mean, I'm 31!

Mum and Dad arrived yesterday, a day late after missing a connecting flight.  They've brought bags of baby clothes from my sister, as well as nappies and a nappy bag.  Mum and I are planning all the knitting we want to do for the baby too.  We're looking for a midwife and have finally found a lead.  That was the 'hard thing' I'd been putting off which I wrote about the other day.  Jbird and I are very excited and now that we're three months through, it's starting to feel a little bit more real.

The truth behind my excuses

When I don't really want to do something, I often use my favourite cultural barrier excuse: They won't understand me when I approach them because even though it sounds like we speak the same language, there are so many nuances that are different, it feels like a completely different language.  It's my favourite reasoning to not doing many things and it sits on the tip of my tongue many times a day.  Pathetic, huh?  I use it more here than when I was living in Bangladesh and people legitimately came from a very different culture and spoke a very different language.  When I was in Bangladesh, everything felt like an adventure and I loved opportunities to throw myself at them.  Catching the local bus, for example, which many expats never attempted.  I would have to cover my head with a scarf and practice the little bit of Bangla that I possessed, sitting up the front with the ladies, or just squeezing in where ever there were two centimetres for space, nervously watching out the window and wondering if we were headed in the right direction.  I take that back; others were far greater adventures than I.  They understood more of the culture, were far more fluent in the language, and were more willing to get to know the locals.  But compared to some of the expats, living in their expat world, I was Tarzan.

Have you ever put something off for so long that when you finally went to do it, you realised you didn't really want to do it at all?  That in fact, all your sensible reasoning was really avoidance?  I'm currently putting something off.  This time, my verbal reasoning {what I tell people} is that I've been too busy and I have been waiting to finish school to get to it.  My inner voice reasoning {what I tell myself} is that this is a cultural thing: I'm not sure how to go about it here in the States.  If I were in NZ, people would do it in a similar way as I want to, and it would be easier.  But I realise now that the true reason is that I'm just a tiny bit nervous.  Actually, I'm significantly nervous.  But.  Others have done this before me so surely it can be done.  Plus everyone tells me now is the time!  And I will do it.  First thing in the morning.  You catch me if I don't.

A change in status

For the first two years that we lived here I was obsessed with my label, with being something {somebody} more than I was.  When we met someone new, the conversation would often start with how Jbird was here in the States to play the piano.  But then the person would turn to me and ask the big, sad question: "and what do you do?"  I grew to hate that question. 

When I pondered on what to answer, I tried to mix it up a bit.  Sometimes I'd start with: I go to the library multiple times a week, I've taken up crocheting, and I cook a lot.  I've put on 5lbs since we got here.  Or...I watch reruns of [insert current favourite show].  Because in that first year, I watched a lot of TV.  It was disgusting.  We haven't had cable TV since then and my life has been all the better for it.  I did often say I'm a teacher. But that was my least favourite answer because then I'd have to add on the visa pointers: but I'm not working at the moment because to get a job, I need to be sponsored by the company for a work visa...No, there are two types of international student visas, Jbird's doesn't allow me to work.  The other visa, the one he didn't get, allows a wife to work. etc. etc.  I made it too complicated because it was too important to me. 

Since we arrived in Bloomington last August, this hasn't been an issue because I could answer I'm a student.  It was a much more satisfactory answer to give and it also reflected how I felt about myself.  I have been doing something that helped my career and it has been great.  From last Wednesday, I'm no longer a student - so long as I pass everything.  However, I don't think I have the same anxiety that I had about who I am.  I kind of like just being me in the here and now.  At least, I hope I do.  I suppose week-one of my big status change is quite early on in the game and it's easy to be optimistic right now.

Maybe I will get some pointers by watching Jason Segel on the Five Year Engagement again.  Have you seen it yet?  You really must.  I know I've talked about this movie before but it really is my favourite.  Jason had to learn how to be himself away from the context he thought made him happy for his fiancée.  And he got really good at it, except that he didn't realise so he didn't let himself be happy.  Anyway, they work it out, and I think we've worked it out too.  Right now, I'm going to enjoy the sudden lack of deadlines with sleep-ins and not really very busy busy-ness.

Nearing the end

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my currently rather dull existence.  Since then, I've been camping, baked some, and bought more fruit.  I am guilty of promising myself that I'd spend at least thirty minutes outdoors everyday but this didn't happen.  It got cold and I couldn't be bothered.  When I think of my life right now, despite little respites, it has been worse than ever.  I wear the same clothes every day and my days are spent watching t.v., playing computer games, eating, and studying.  In other words, NOT MOVING.  I have become a sloth.  There are days when I only leave the house to get the mail.  Sometimes that is the most disappointing part of my day because it's then that I realise what a lovely day it is but I have no incentive to stay out.  Yesterday I got up and got dressed for church but decided I would stay at home to work.  It was a surprisingly productive morning so I was happy despite my lack of human contact.  The eating seems especially bad because it involves my whole day.  I am a hobbit with morning tea, and elevensies; lunch, and second lunch.  

But the end is REALLY CLOSE.  I can TASTE IT.  I handed in the first assignment two days ago.  I can hardly believe it.  I am finishing a draft of another today and then I will be writing just for the last (and most stinky) class.  And that's it.  Between now and becoming a Master, we're driving to Baltimore and back for Marie and Jeff's wedding.  It will be a lovely crazy week. 

Buying fish

Our first three fish: Fish, Chips, and Ketchup, have all gone to fishy heaven and are buried under the lemon tree - unless a critter has smelt them and dug them up for an unusual garden snack.  The poor things suffered shock because of poor water changes or a lack of a water change, though Fish himself lasted a good seven months.  We are a fish collector's night mare.  Our tank is a vase.  It doesn't have a filter or a heater.  And we have no plans to upgrade. 

After scrubbing out the vase, replacing its water, and leaving it to sit for twenty four hours in the hope that any added chemicals would dissipate, we went to the local pet store to buy a new fish.  Every time we go in there we see a different person and I know they have to refrain themselves from shuddering visibly when we describe our 'tank'.  This time the lady told us she couldn't guarantee our fish in such a set up, but she did give us some helpful advice on their individual characteristics.  They didn't have any more guppies like the ones we're accustomed too.  We like them because they are really active and have nice colours.  Instead we bought a shy little tiger barb, named Hobbs, who would prefer a school of at least three.  Unfortunately he's all along because our tank's not really big enough and we're not sure he'll survive the winter without a heater.  He's pretty cute but very sedate - I don't watch him swim round and round, I watch him chill.  He's not very interested in food so far.  Maybe one day we'll go for a proper tank and all the hook ups and they'll guarantee our fishes.

Pressure

So here's part of my issues: I have three huge assignments to do and they're due in...a little over a month.  Oh gosh.  I thought I had a bit longer.  My plan is to write and write and write.  But I've been really slow about getting started so it feels like the pressure is on.  Hopefully I have learned enough this year that it will be easy.  Unfortunately if I've learned anything this year, I've learned that writing takes me a lot of time, a lot of drafts, and a lot of rereading.  I am putting up heavy socialising boundaries until November as they are due between the 14th and the 24th of October.  So overwhelming.  I hope aneverydaythought.blogspot.com survives the crunch.

The rest of the crisis is unimaginable, I literally don't know how big it is myself, but I will know on Thursday when I hope it will all be done and dusted.  I will (probably) spill the beans about it then.  The thing is, on that side of things, it will either still need a lot of working out, or it will still be super uninteresting for all those not going through it.  Sorry to be so vague.  Just know that if you never find out, you can probably ask me in person and I'll tell you.

Just get some sleep

I have struggled with insomnia on and off for as long I can remember.  It's only rarely stay-awake-all-night insomnia but I go through phases for several nights in a row where I don't sleep well at the beginning of the night, and then I will wake up with the birds at 4:30 or 5in the morning.  I'm stuck in one of those phases right now, and haven't slept well for the passed three nights.   I often feel very jealous of Jbird who sleeps deeply whenever he wants to and often when he doesn't want to.  I don't know why it happens, I'm barely drinking any alcohol or caffeine, and I don't do anything exciting before I sleep.  With the exception of my Irish band which had me singing this song in my head all night on Friday night.

I have some techniques that I do to help me sleep.  I try to lay really still,  listening to my breathing, or to Jbird's breathing, and try to get in a slow rhythm.  I try to stretch every muscle in my body, individually*.  I never get very far with that one before I forget what I'm doing.  I try to think of all the people I love and pray for them. Before I got married, I would play a quiet CD and the music distracted me from my thoughts.  Last night I put some lavender essential oil drops on my pillow and had some rescue remedy. Tonight I'm going to drink some chamomile tea before I go to sleep.  The girls I babysit for tell me warm milk helps too so perhaps I'll try that tomorrow night.  Do you have any suggestions?

*at high school I was in a psychology class and our teacher did some meditation with us.  I don't know what it had to do with psychology but he instructed us through this while some relaxing music played.

On handing in some work, being a klutz, and motivation

I'm handing in an essay today.  There was a point when I was proof reading this essay that I was in tears because I thought my writing was so awful.  My encouraging husband told me it's because my writing has improved a lot but so have my expectations.  My feelings of frustration come because I want my writing to be better than it is, but he tells me it's already better than other things I've recently written.  Good teaching on his part, teachers have to be motivators. This is an example of wanting to be able to do something straight away, wanting to avoid the inevitable klutziness of developing a new skill.  My lecturer had me read something about that just this week.  It seems obvious, right?  Yet if we don't have motivation, good guidance, or know how to progress, we reject these feelings of klutziness and give up.  

Back to the essay: I finished it last week but a wise sage (a.k.a.: Jbird) once said to me when I suggested I might hand something in early: Annabel, think of it as a piece of art, keep working on it for as much time as you have because it will never be perfect.  He then went on a spiel about his piano playing.  He does like to preach and he says some pretty good stuff.  Unfortunately, I'm not always patient enough to listen.  So I've read and reread this tedious piece of work for the last few days and today is 'D' day.  It's a funny journey.  Now that I'm handing it in, I'm less sure than ever that I'm on the right track.  It seems that my writing has been whittled down to the simplest terms and I've begun to wonder whether it has enough depth.  I probably know it too well. 

Only three more of these to go and I'm done with this degree.  Hooray!

Crazy internet usage

I have previously briefly described my journey surrounding closing my facebook account.  This week I read an interesting article about internet addiction.  I'm not sure how hyperbolic the author is but, offering several citations to back his thesis, he points at all of us as addicts.  Are you an addict?  Do you use the internet 35+ hours a week?  I use the computer that much at least, and the internet comes hand in hand with computer use these days.  The author talks about the dopamine* we get each time we interact.  He describes the changes in our brains the more we use it, which are supposedly looking more like drug and alcohol addicts' brains. 

My friend and I were discussing how it can be hard to even watch a whole movie without checking facebook or our email account during lulls in the story lines.  Since I closed my fb account, I've been trying to do one thing at a time and I think I've been semi-successful.  My addiction to the internet hasn't exactly gone away though, I don't think.  It might depend on how tired I am.  Today I'm really tired, and it's easy to surf, hard to get onto some real work.

I'm planning to limit more than just facebook from now on.  I'm not sure how to do this, though, as I work on the computer most of the day.  I might turn off the internet on my computer while I'm working, giving myself particular hours of the days when I have it on.  At the very least, I want to become more focussed in my use, less likely to dawdle through favourite spots.  Best intentions, anyway.

*a natural drug which gives us happy feelings

Endless cups of tea

I have met a lot of people who are working on their masters and around the middle of it they have made me think glad it's not me! They don't seem to be anywhere near the end, and they hate what they're doing.  It's part of the reason I chose course work instead of writing a thesis.  That huge, unachievable outcome seems like too much.  

I'm around the start of another assignment writing mania and I have so many books out of the library, I can't keep track of them. So many downloaded research papers, I don't know what I have.  So many ideas, they don't seem to mould together.  I get up every morning with the potential of a new day but it slips away under my fingers and I don't feel as though I've achieved anything.  It's overwhelming. 

I think, hope, that it's a good overwhelming.  One that I'll eventually see the other end of.  Right now, I can't see how that could be.  But in a month, I'll be over the moon and will potentially breath a little bit easier again.

I received a grade back this week and my lecturer had written something like: One of the best, most reflective, I have read of this kind in years...etc.  Every single column in the marking grid had the word exemplary.  I mean, have you ever?  I have not.  It sent me into a spin of euphoria but I'm coming out of it with the thoughts: these (new) assignments are so much harder, bigger, longer, how can I ever compete with that?

Watching The Hours last night did not help things.  If you have not seen it, I recommend it.  Except, maybe, if you're in the middle of writing anything.  Merely considering the writer and her outcome.

Reflection on a grow-lamp

I met some hippies at a market recently.  They offered me a free watermelon plant, heard my accent, asked where I came from, and wondered if I could give them access to some specific Tasmanian plant they wanted to grow.  I told them probably not, as we belong to different countries, but we got talking despite their slight geographical confusion.  

Our conversation ambled around gardens, growing, indoor growing, hydroponics.  I even learnt a thing or two about transplanting (light shocks roots, do it at night time).  I asked them about the lack of Vitamin D offered from growing indoors.  Apparently the indoor lighting provides enough that it's even noticeable in their own lack of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) which I have become familiar with during my time in the States.  They then suggested I buy a water-bed as it is a pre-lined container perfect for growing indoor plants, or at least set up a kitchen and bathroom garden.  They obviously haven't seen the size of our bathroom but I told them I'd talk to Jbird.

There are many reasons to grow indoors: containers can be made to self water so that water is reused efficiently, you can grow year-long without worry about frost and snow killing your plants, and now I hear SAD is all but wiped out from your own feeble human condition.  These things aside, I love the hardiness of an outdoor plant, and the reliance on natural conditions which allow it to grow.  We finally had a good rain last night and this morning all these tiny little wild flower seedlings, and larger more dramatic bean seedlings, are unfolding from the earth of a new bed I planted just last week.  Rain always seems to bring 'em out.  I'm not convinced, but I may consider putting a growing lamp in my study, for my own winter blues and perhaps to help the meyer lemon. 

A busy silly week

This week is a busy week.  I'm simultaneously 'at-home-mum' to two little rugrats and writing two assignments (I handed the first of three in last Saturday).  They are at daycare for a few hours each day but I can't write while they're awake and with me.  It's my job, after all, to care for them and entertain them.  These work hours popped up out of nowhere so I thought I should take them, even though I'm busy with school, as our work will probably diminish considerably over the summer.  How do you mums do it?  I guess I'm used to the quiet life style, where my own procrastinating ways are the only thing standing in my way.

Democracy in life

Two of my classes are focussing on democracy in schools.  I guess it's the go-to phrase at the moment.  I think it's been a popular idea for years now, I feel as though I am very slow to catch on.

It's all about being accepting of student's viewpoints, really hearing what they have to say, taking it on board, and even portraying it in our own actions.  I was worried that it was a tad humanist, as some of the authors portray it in their humanist educational models, but I have been able to place it into my Christian world view through James' teaching of a foundational lesson in favouritism.  It's easy for us to 'look up' to certain people and to 'look down' on others too.  We don't even have to say anything to do this, we can merely think it.

I have been reflecting on my reactions to my most beloved (Jbird) and realise that I'm not always very democratic in our marriage.  It's a pretty helpful insight.  Just because I don't like something, doesn't mean it's wrong and that I need to convince him of my point of view.  I can tell him, but I ought to listen (really listen) to his point of view too.  Plus, get this, he shouldn't have to tell me what his viewpoint is, he can choose to keep it to himself.

Yes.  It took me three years to realise this. <sigh> I'm just a baby! I'm not saying I've been a dictator in our marriage, either!  Though some of you may sometimes wonder.

No More Coffee

You must know of my addiction to coffee from earlier posts, here or here.  I've also taken the liberty of tagging every post where I mention coffee and there are a fair few.

There have been a few instances in my day to day life recently where I have reacted more anxiously than I needed to, leading to some sleepless nights and needless tears.  I have also recently had a few coffees for which I had perfectly executed their preparation that I just didn't enjoy.  Because of these two factors, I have decided it's time to take a hiatus from my daily coffee(s).  Time to lower the anxiety levels and regain my love for that brown, mellow liquid.  I don't want to quit altogether, but will start having only decaf or half and half (split the beans from decaf and caffeinated) less than once a day.  

Icy Winter Wonderland

I know I have been posting about the weather a lot recently but it kind of rules my life at the moment!  The passed two days have been still, heavy sky days.  Snow was forecast constantly but never came through, it was just cold.  So cold I couldn't go out without mittens on.  Then last night it rained and froze.  The pavements are frozen over, our bikes have icicles hanging off them, the grass snaps when we walk on it.  Soph had to go to a rehearsal and she spent ten minutes trying to get up a little hill outside her house.  She kept sliding down so she gave up and went back inside.

It's kind of a bummer for Jbird and I as this is our busiest work day.  We normally have students in the morning and this afternoon I'm babysitting.  Unfortunately, our students had to cancel - they couldn't get here safely.  I don't know if I'm more disappointed about the loss in income or the fact that my little one practiced, a lot, and might have had a great lesson.  

Here's hoping for a slight rise in temperature so that everything can defrost, and life can continue.