Under the Skin

As per tradition, it's time to check in and update on all of the New Year's Resolutions! How are we doing.  What resolutions do I need to remember and do better on.  What is going well? Health Eat a meal a day AND have a 100-200 calorie snack once between each meal: I am doing better at the meal thing, but the snacks are failing. I'm getting better at having snacks with me though, so when I get super hungry because I forgot about food for awhile, I have something to solve that problem. Carry around a water bottle : When I'm on campus, this goes well. When I'm not...I could be better. A big problem I have with it is that I empty it and then don't refill it, so it still isn't enough water.   Writing Finish first edit of War To End All Wars: I am making progress on this.  I think it needs to speed up just a little bit, but at least I'm fairly consistently doing it. Finish first draft of Legend of Jael: For after the first is done. Do NaNoWriMo 201...

When I was a child--even when I was a teenager--I knew that both of my parents have engineering degrees.  I knew that both of my parents have completed graduate degrees.  I knew that my mother had a master's in engineering.  And I just figured that some people's mothers have master's degrees in engineering.  Basically, I didn't really think there was anything unusual about a woman getting an engineering degree in the early 1980s.  Because it had never been a big deal--my mother just had a degree. Just like my dad.  Then, I was in my twenties when I realized that my mother is a freaking feminist.   Women didn't just get masters degrees in engineering in the early 1980s.  It wasn't a thing women did.  My mother is a feminist. Here's the other interesting part:  my mother doesn't fight with people.  She doesn't argue with people.  In fact, she'd really rather not talk to people.  Maybe, hence the engineer thing. As such...

I'm tired of the conflict.  I mean, I like a good argument as much as the next former American Heritage TA.  And if I didn't really like conflict, I wouldn't have argued three entirely different positions at different points in time in the Research Ethics discussion session today.  But I'm done.  I'm done with all the hate for Muslims.  I'm done with all the hate for those who hate Muslims.  I'm done with Donald Trump.  I'm also done with those who are under the impression that if I don't march down the streets I love Donald Trump.  I recently told someone that I didn't march in the women's march, mostly because I don't really feel the need to protest for nothing in particular other than the fact that my candidate didn't win.  This person literally told me to "have sexual relationships with myself." Not in as kind of words.  Just because I don't want to protest doesn't mean that I agree with him.  And even if I did...

I have a plan.  My New Year's Resolutions have been narrowed.  Have been made manageable.  Will happen. I realized that a lot of my goals were either things that I wanted, but so many of them, that I don't need them to be all done today; or they were things that I wanted because I wanted to do them for other people (or because I wanted to be seen as able to do something that I either don't like or don't need to know how to do).  Health Eat a meal a day AND have a 100-200 calorie snack once between each meal Carry around a water bottle   Writing Finish first edit of War To End All Wars Finish first draft of Legend of Jael Do NaNoWriMo 2017   Reading Read 75 books 5% of all books read should be non-fiction 7.5% of all books read should be classic or "great" Family History Arbitrate or index 600 names Find 12 names and prepare them for them temple Academic 3.85 GPA this semester (my last semester of full classes ever...) Professional Renew AS...

You know that moment when it's time to admit that you didn't do something?  It's time for me to take responsibility for my absolute failure to follow-through with the year 2016.  I could give you all the reasons that I didn't reach hardly any of my resolutions, and there are quite a few reasons.  For one, I moved across the country and completely changed everything about the way my life is.  I went back to M-F weeks, I quite night shifts.  I cut my income in half.  I became a student again.  I left healthcare. For another, I had a concussion in 2016, which is surprisingly much more draining than I had ever realized.  It's probably three weeks before you don't want to very little other than sleep deeply all day every day.  It's probably about two months before you don't do emotionally bizarre things like cry at an episode of Baywatch.  Yes, that really happened.  I was afraid that they weren't going to be able to get the little b...

I’m going to upgrade the yearly book post this year by including some more elements.   Namely: discussions of appropriate age groups, and which books I recommend for who. But first, the complete list and their star values: https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2016/3666825 (Much easier than listing them all!...use the Goodreads) Five-Stars Books I Read This Year 1.        Catch-22 2.        When Did You See Her Last? (All the Wrong Questions) 3.        Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights? (All the Wrong Questions) 4.        Shouldn’t You Be In School? (All the Wrong Questions) 5.        All the King’s Men 6.        The Ghost Map 7.        Austenland 8.        Doublecrossed: Spies and Thieves ...

I did not vote for Donald Trump.   I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, either.   But, I was pretty much 100% sure she was going to win. So, on Election Day, I found myself in the same state of shock as most of the country.   In the weeks that have past, we have come to accept it, and the parallels with Nazi Germany are being thrown left and right.   I do think that we’ve had a repeat of history.   But it’s not Nazi Germany. You see, what we really had was a very toned-down version of the French Revolution (and probably the only reason we didn’t have a full-fledged one is because we have a democratically elected government).   When I was young and first learned about the French Revolution, I simply didn’t get it.   How could they have just sat there and let the people starve?   In fact, I sort of felt like the Aristocrats maybe deserved it a bit. Perhaps the Scarlet Pimpernel wasn't doing a good thing. The fact is that Marie Antoinett...