The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I don’t know what to write here, but I’m worried about work, so I’m going to write about that. I have quite a backlog of things to grade. This is just not a thing that has happened to me in the past. Sure, I have a lot more classes to teach now, so I have more work, but I don’t feel like that’s the problem. Focus is the problem.

In a lot of ways, I feel like I am stuck in a cycle. I work very hard to get things done, which spawns more work. I have burned myself out, and I can’t make myself focus on that work, so I take a break. Then comes a point where I must get that work done! I must! I work very hard to get things done, taking things to the extreme, really going at it. Then I’m burned out again.

I think it really comes down to the fact that I hate working out of my house. I really wish I had an office that was not in my house.

Seriously, the level of “now is the time for work” that I get from simply being in a different place cannot be overstated. Sure, I can’t focus forever when I’m in a different place. But simply going elsewhere primes me for 3 or 4 hours of schoolwork, easy. I know what I’m supposed to be doing there, so I do it. I get things done.

When my work desk is also my fun desk, like it is here at home, this just does not work. I can’t focus. I take constant breaks. I burn out much quicker. People talk to me, and I take the time to talk back. It’s just… not optimal. And while it hasn’t gotten me in trouble yet, it’s to the point where I need to really do some fixes here.

I think today, I am going to try a different strategy. Today, as I work, and grade, I am going to do everything that does not need to be done on the computer on my dining room table. I’m going to see how much this helps me plow through what I need to do. Once I start it all, it won’t be that bad. Once I get over these big mountains of papers and actually work on clearing them, it will not take THAT long. I mean, it will take time. Clearly it will. But it won’t take weeks. I can knock this shit out in a few hours, or at least make such a significant dent that it gets off my shoulders. I can do two classes, at least, today, and at least one more tomorrow, if not both. I can finish this shit off, and then I will have much less stress in my life. I can then focus on better stress. Cooler shit. Yeah.

Anyway, this whole blog is basically me shaming myself into getting enough stuff done tomorrow. I’ll see you on the other side of grading hell, a hell I have built for myself.

On Talking Time, someone said this simple phrase: “Twilight is pony Hermione Granger.” While not completely inaccurate, and certainly a decent shorthand, I, overall, disagree with this statement. Twilight Sparkle’s character is quite different from Hermione’s, and because I have a blog where I can write and post completely silly things, I am now going to explain to you why Twilight is not pony Hermione Granger.

First off, let’s just talk about how they’re similar, because they are, in many ways. Both characters study magic, and extensively. It is, in many ways, their entire life. They both love books, to the point of people around them thinking maybe they are a bit weird for it. They’ve always read something esoteric and are surprised when others haven’t looked into the same sorts of things. They’re also both insanely good at magic. They work hard to be the very best at what they do, spellcasting, and it shows. They are at the top of their game in that regard.

However, outside of that “professional” side of their life, they really split as characters. It really comes down to the fact that Twilight is clueless about social interaction, while Hermione is not.

Hermione understands dating, relationships, and how to interact with people. While she certainly puts her academic life above being popular, she understands what’s going on with the other students around her, and has insight into why they’re acting the way they do that Ron and Harry often miss, being stereotypical school-age boys. She is hurt by social conventions carelessly broken (Ron waiting forever to ask her to the dance, like she didn’t have other prospects) and just generally “gets it.” She’s not outside of social actions. When she does show a level of cluelessness about how social interactions work (her idea that SPEW is a thing that people will want to get involved with), she does not realize it. She knows she knows this stuff, and thus her errors are not immediately apparent to her. She’s confident in her social prowess.

Twilight, on the other hand, knows absolutely nothing about social interaction. We see this all the time, whether having to follow a checklist to have fun at a party or trying to be helpful in an episode like Baby Cakes in about the worst way possible, and getting shut down for it. In fact, her cluelessness is so bad that her mentor and teacher, Princess Celestia, basically went “look, enough with the magic, go make some friends!” and forced her to try to integrate into society at large. She just does not know what’s going on in social circles.
Still, she realizes that, which is a key difference. She knows she knows nothing, and is super, super excited to figure it out. After being shown the benefits, she is not about to stop trying to learn, because she loves learning, even this sort of learning. She’s willing to admit her mistakes and improve upon them, and she does with every silly letter to Princess Celestia she writes.

It’s this eager cluelessness to social situations that, in general, endears Twilight to me and makes her my favorite pony. She is a character that knows it all, like Hermione, but unlike Hermione, she also knows nothing, and embraces it. Personally, I just connect with that better. I’ve been the person with all the answers, quite often, but so often I feel like I have no clue what I’m actually doing. I can feel that struggle in Twilight, and that’s why there’s a connection there. It’s more well rounded and real, especially when compared to Hermione, who so often just kind of becomes the source of magical plot devices in the Harry Potter novels. When Hermione does show a weakness, it mostly is of the “I am a woman with emotions” stereotypical school of weakness. In general, she always has the answer. Twilight does not. Hers is a generally humble genius. She knows her Intelligence is much, much higher than her Wisdom and Charisma, and those are stats she needs to work on. She’s willing to listen, and willing to admit she’s wrong, but she’s never going to stop trying, even when she does it incredibly badly. Practice is how you learn, after all. Her weaknesses are not weaknesses to her, but rather ways she can improve herself. When you find yourself in similar situations, having someone to look at who gets back up, smiles, and learns from complete failure is refreshing. It makes failure something that’s okay, instead of the worst thing. I like that. I like Twilight Sparkle.

Today I had this amazing moment where I’m like “WOAH, I was thinking about this housing problem all wrong! The solution is so stupid simple!” so now I know how to move Aesa into the house without issues! Although it still requires some remodeling and building, though nothing as insane as my original plans. So that was cool!

But then I was back to just being alone in my house.

I have been so overwhelmingly lonely. It makes me feel amazingly and stupidly lame. I have so many wonderful people in my life. SO MANY WONDERFUL PEOPLE IN MY LIFE. But I never see them. My schedule sucks, and it’s never in sync with anyone. I rarely do anything social. I talk to my boyfriends and online friends all the time, and that’s nice. I wouldn’t give that shit up. Never, never. But let’s face it. It’s not the same. It’s a good substitute, but I can only run on that for so long before I want something more substantial to supplement it. And when you had this wonderful time with one of those people in real life and see how much better that is, it’s just… ugh.

Just feeling like that feels so defeatist. I am being pretty darn successful at life. I should be able to plan things, and make things happen, right? I should be able to make all this work. Right? Probably? I’m not doing a great job at it, though.

Ugh. Going to sleep. Going to try not to worry about it.

Because you are an avid reader (??) of my blog, you’ve probably been noticing that my blog posts have been going up later than they used to. I mean, you still get one incredibly stupid blog post a day, but it’s not up at like 1 AM! Crazy. How can this be?

This is due to Project Since I Wake Up Early Now I Should Sleep Like A Sane Person.

When Aesa visited, he was flipping to a day schedule from a sort of heavily nocturnal one. He made the transition to my schedule without much problem, but it also made him tired pretty early in the evening. We turned in at quasi-decent hours every night he was here. It wasn’t until after he left that I realized something.
I felt so much better having gone to sleep early than I normally did.
Thus, I decided I should probably continue that. I don’t hate my body anymore, and life is pretty great. No reason to feel like shit every day, especially without caffeine to power me through as I used to have. I kept going to bed at around like 8:30 or 9 when I could. My body instantly jumped onto this routine in an “Oh thank god” kind of reaction, and started making me feel real drowsy at that time as a cue. I also started going straight to bed after work instead of getting on the computer for an hour. Once again, my body thankfully obliged to make that a viable strategy.

The only way this whole Project Sleep Some More So Days Go Better would work, though, is if I was willing not to write a blog every night, but let it transfer over to early the next morning. So often, why I stayed up so late after work was because I still had a blog I needed to bang out, and that would get me all woken back up, you know? By letting go of that pressure, still making myself do a blog a day but not requiring it to update right when the day flipped over, I was able to get to bed faster, and get some sleep. I thought that would bother me, but it didn’t end up bothering me near as much as I thought it would. Writing a blog just transferred to a “just got out of bed” routine, which was a nice thing. I’m down with that.

Anyway, if things are late on here, that’s why. I don’t think that’s going to upset anyone too much? I mean, I’ll try to write things ahead of time when I can. Like this one! But overall, I am getting old or something, and I really have started seeing the value of actually getting enough rest. I think I’m going to keep up with it.

They link you to things. For serious.

Videos?! In my linkdump??
Here’s a funny skit I just now heard about. Maybe you’ve seen it.
If you ever wanted your heart warmed by a politician, I have the video to do that for you.
Are you afraid?
I love this Mega Man. Too bad I will never get to play as him. But seriously. Just look at him.
Relive this most wonderful James moment I recently rediscovered.

Anyway, let’s move on to Pony Corner, shall we?
This tumblr has caught my attention recently. I dunno why I find it so fascinating.
Since I know you all are dying to know, here’s my results for the pony personality test. Try to act surprised.
I don’t even know what this is.
Hmmm. Intriguing.

Finally, here’s just some other shit. Like an animated gif of a puppy. Puppy!
It has begun. The ultimate QWOP battle.
Is Idle Thumbs coming back? Please tell me this means Idle Thumbs is coming back.
Here’s an actual lesson I have given my students.
This is one of my favorite chainsawsuits of late, because it’s the sort of thing I would actually say. I am that lame.
I once wondered what my kind of victorious game of Starcraft would look like. Now I know.

Finally, just read this. Read it. Read all of it, and keep reading it. Read this.

See you tomorrow with more links! (Just kidding. I’ll write something for then. I’m all linked out.)

And after two days of emotional breakdown bullshit, I’m going mostly silent!
Yay?

Seriously, though, I’m picking up Aesa today. I need to sleep now so I can do that, as well as be awesome at my job interview tomorrow morning, and while he’s here, I’m just not going to be taking much time to blog. I have priorities! Of some sort, anyway. So, you know. Not going to be much blogging.

I am still going to post something, but I’d expect it to be mostly little autobiographical snippets of what I did with Aesa that day. Nothing truly interesting, I guess? But it’ll be something. I can’t stand the idea of posting nothing. I’m easily bothered by stupid things.

Anyway, that’s something to look forward (?) to this weekend. I’ll try to get this blog back to normal as soon as possible, promise.

I’m going to write about what happened, because I still don’t really know.

Basically, my boss e-mailed me saying that my syllabi were not up to the guidelines they have at the college. There were some crossed wires, and I didn’t do them right. He did not paint this as a big deal, but just laid out what the guidelines were to make sure I fixed it. I e-mailed him back, apologizing, and saying I’d fix them as soon as possible.

Then I freaked the fuck out.

For whatever reason, this bit of information caused me to panic so badly that I couldn’t work, couldn’t sleep, and still feel emotionally exhausted and taxed as I write this right now. I could not handle the fact that I had let my new boss down, who I feel has done a lot for me and put a lot of faith in me, on something so trivial that caused him to waste his time chasing me down. This minor setback, in the grand scheme, was, in my head, a herald of how terrible a teacher I am and how I can’t cut it. This is not true. I’m a great teacher, and I know it. I make mistakes like everyone, and I’m learning these new classes, but I am a great teacher. But in that moment, I was convinced. I had wondered if I was doing those right, and had decided that it was fine, and that turned out wrong. I was a failure.

I called people. I freaked out. It took me hours to calm down so I could sleep, and again, I’m still shaken. I can’t remember the last time I have fallen apart like this. It’s literally been years since I had such a downward spiral where I was convinced of my own worthlessness. I’ve been getting help. I’ve been transitioning. These aren’t thoughts I have every moment of the day anymore. But here we are.

Brer says I’m under a lot of stress. I agreed to this trip, which I’m worried about planning. I’m working more than ever before, with classes I’m unfamiliar with and a sleep schedule I still haven’t totally gotten the hang of. I’m running this Mafia game, which takes a lot of work and I take probably way too seriously than I should. I’ve got a lot of plates spinning. He says that for whatever reason, this just ended up being the thing that opened the floodgates. I guess I can understand that. But that doesn’t leave me with much knowledge of what to do about it. None of these things are things I’m willing to let go, and I’ve got this job interview Wednesday which, if I get it, means even MORE stress for this semester. Plus, Brer moving in, waiting and figuring all that out… I don’t know what I can do to relieve that pressure if that’s really what’s going on.

I just… I wonder if that stress is why I’ve been feeling sick to my stomach all the time. Not like, enough to throw up or for it to stop me? But just a general feeling. I don’t know.

I’m going to get what I need to do done. I’m going to let Aesa visiting help relax me. I’m going to survive. That was never in question. I’m no longer in the ending it all business. I’m going to survive.

I just hope stupidity like last night doesn’t happen again.

It’s so weird that this seems so late now, but it does. Goodness, getting up early will do that to you. I am exhausted.

I didn’t really want to do two rambling blog posts in a row. I try to vary shit like that so that I don’t annoy people or whatever. Try to write “content” sometimes too. But I can’t seem to get started on anything, and the best solution to that is to write. I know this to be true. I told my students that the other day, probably.

Basically what’s going on is that Aesa just booked a flight to visit me next week. This is insane. I mean, it’s insane in a nice way, and it’ll be a nice if at least at the beginning awkward time. I’m looking forward to it, totally. That’s a VERY GOOD THING. But it still, at this moment, seems unreal. It was so out of nowhere. It’s something that, if I wanted to do it, I’d worry and plan for weeks to be able to do it, and even then, I might decide it wasn’t “optimal.” He just went for it. I hope I’m as special as he thinks, so it’s worth it for him.

Really, though, now I’m worrying about what I need to plan. What do we do? Do I plan activities? Meals out? Meals in? How am I going to take care of my teaching duties with him here distracting me? Do I need to work very far ahead? All these are things that I would have planned far in advance usually, but all this just kind of happened. And now that it’s locked in, I can start freaking out about it, I suppose.

I’m just not a spontaneous person in general, I don’t think. I mean, I can speak that way. I can interact with people socially that way. But outside of just talking, such things worry me. It’s an unsure situation. I don’t know the outcome. That’s the fun of it all, I guess, but I just rarely find it that way. I want to feel the path beneath me.

But then again, if I had waited, and planned forever for a “perfect” moment, this nice thing that’s happening wouldn’t have happened. I’d have worried about asking Brer about it, and worried about setting it up… instead we just picked a date that looked okay in my work schedule, and just did it. And now it’s going to happen.

Best prepare to enjoy it.

I’m worried about this job interview. It’s for a job I really want, and am completely qualified for, but if they’re already interviewing, which I didn’t anticipate when I applied, that means they probably need someone RIGHT NOW, and my current teaching contract is going to prohibit me from taking up that offer, at least on a full-time scale, until the end of the semester. I worry this will knock me out of the running, but I also feel like that would be really damn unfair. They can’t blame me for trying to get the best job I can. I can’t just fucking wait around with a shitty job while they twiddle their thumbs and think vaguely about hiring me. But still, I bet if I don’t get the job, that’s why. Sigh.

I’m worried about the crazy plans Aesa and I keep accidentally concocting. They sound like such fun! But I’m not stupid enough to make stuff happen without making sure there won’t be terrible repercussions. I can do that, though. But even after I do check, double check, and triple check, I’ll probably still worry about it.

I’m worried about the fact that I am always going to be late to my 3:45 class because of how they scheduled me. It’s not my fault, I can’t help it, but I don’t want all that to reflect on me. Still, I’m not going to drive like 200 mph on the highway just to make it on time. It’s not worth THAT.

I am worried, pointlessly, that friends, okay Essner, is slipping away from me. I mean, I understand you have to make life changes when you can, and that’s cool. But shit, him moving out caught me by surprise. I felt very distant in that moment. Not by any fault of his. It just made the amount of time between the last time we talked seem… gigantic. We used to waste time together all the damn time. Now life is fucking that up with all it’s “scheduling” and “work.” Bleh.

I am worried it’s going to take Brer all goddamn year to find an opening down here. It’s not his fault. But waiting for Wal-Mart to just magically decide they have space for him down here is becoming maddening. I don’t know what kind of planning I should be doing anymore, or when to expect him, and I don’t really appreciate that. I’m kind of a planner.

The standard joke finish is “I am worried I worry to much.” But it’s not that. I worry because I care, deeply care, and I wouldn’t get rid of that for anything. I’m worried I will somehow forget how to push through worry and still get things done. I am worried that I will revert back to being able to do nothing when I’m worried. That would be terrible. I don’t think I’ll do that.

Today I took like a four hour nap. That hasn’t happened in… well, forever! I had been waking up super early to do all my teaching all week, and the times when I went to bed hadn’t really adjusted. I laid down for a nap, thinking I’d only be out for like an hour, and suddenly I was late for my brother’s family dinner thing. Me taking a nap! Me getting rest! It was just odd. An odd occurrence! I’m all tired again now. Maybe I’ll sleep some more! YOU NEVER KNOW!

Speaking of sleeping, Q really likes to do that with me. He’s learned that it’s warmer under the covers now, so when I get into bed he DEMANDS I let him into my blanket and then he curls up right beside me. This is a danger to me being able to get out of bed at a decent hour in the morning. He’s so warm, so cute, and so happy. I don’t want to ruin that, and it’s not like I want to get up out of bed either. Surely it would be better just to stay in bed with him a little longer, right? Damn warm dog, loving me and wanting to stay close to me. Such problems I face in life!

Speaking of puppy dogs, Q is also trying to steal my My Little Pony blanket that my brother got me for Christmas. Like, seriously, Q! You have a blanket to lay on right there! But if I drop mine to the ground for a moment, he’s right on it. Then, like, I can’t get him off, because of the previously mentioned cuteness and stuff. I bought you your own blanket for Christmas, puppy dog! I mean, I know that’s in the other room, and you want to lay in here, but…
He’s just a blanket-thief, pure and simple.

Speaking of stealing, I’ve been stealing class time from my students! (Okay, that one was a stretch, I admit.) But seriously, I can’t make it to class on time. I have 30 minutes to drive to Sikeston after one of my classes and teach there, and it takes me at least 35-40. I either have to let the class before out early every day, or have the other class be shorter than it should be. Nothing I can do about it. I wish we would have caught this schedule problem sooner! I mean, I’ll make it. It’ll be alright. But it’s just kind of frustrating. Because I’m required to not let students out early and such, and I really have no choice in the matter to do what I’ve been hired to do. Oh well.

Speaking of oh well, I guess this blog is over. Oh well.