Handy Polymath

Some days you're in Close Encounters; other days you're in Jaws.

Wish You Were Here

This place started as a gardening journal of sorts, as I approached my life the way an urban farmer looks at an abandoned lot. Then two things happened; I got into a mental snarl regarding the depth of my pseudonymity which torpedoed many half-written posts, and life exploded in a manner thoroughly encompassing the good, bad and ugly.

I filled out a life stress scale for shits and giggles, and anything over 300 indicates a major crisis with great risk for subsequent health effects. I scored 734, and would have gone higher if you could check items multiple times. I racked up 581 of those points in the last two months.

Though I must say, I hope the current scale has been updated not to speak solely to married het men–there’s no way in hell pregnancy is less stressful than a personal injury or illness. A comfy pregnancy is far better than chronic pain or a debilitating condition, but in my experience an average pregnancy is more to handle than, say, the average bone break.

A New Machine (Part 1)

Three months ago:

worked full time in cubeville
lived in the burbs with my spouse, kid and ancient cat
no school schedule
spouse in unstable job

Today:

dad’s had surgery for a minor bout of cancer
grandma passed on and I spoke at her memorial
started 9 credit hours of physiology and chemistry
quit job in cubeville and worked full two weeks notice
spouse took job four states away
culled, sorted and packed a small house full of stuff
kid started preschool
had a going-away party
moved a U-haul full of appliances to parent’s house
set up camp for kid and I in parent’s stuffed unfinished attic
said goodbye to spouse and cat for 70 days
spent my 13th wedding anniversary on a leaky air mattress with a four-year-old lodged in my armpit

A New Machine (Part 2)

Meanwhile I’ve been trying to salvage this term after spending half of it checked out academically, focusing instead on dismantling my life and cobbling together a series of temporary solutions. For the first time in my various careers as a student, I went to a prof’s office hours and threw myself on her mercy. I felt like a jackass, but I did it, and it seemed to have helped–I know where I stand and what I need to do, instead of flailing in a pit of loathing and self-recrimination.

I got the feeling very few students who come to her like this also sobbingly proclaim, “but I really like chemistry!” It’s this disconnect between interest and achievement that makes struggling harder, even though I know I’m only struggling because I’m making up all that study time I didn’t have earlier in the term. And my life exploded. Objectively I should give myself major credit for actually asking for help–this is a huge uncomfortable step for me even if I need to repeat these classes later. Old habits don’t simply die hard, they die messily with ruptured buboes.

Outside the Wall

This weekend features chemistry, laundry, a trip to the Ohio woodlands to scatter ashes, and–with the accompanying hotel stay–the chance to sleep on a real mattress.

In a little over a month I’ve got a 12 hour road trip to my spouse, my ancient cat, my new home and this new life we’re making out on the east coast.

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Employees are required to power down brain before clocking in.

What’s becoming readily apparent is that running in high gear is not nearly as difficult as constantly shifting from high to low. In fact, the time spent running in low gear is the principle cause of frustration. It’s exhausting to spend eight hours a weekday in a role that not only doesn’t fit, but like a glass slipper made for someone else, requires one to sever a few toes to wear.

Thing is, I could easily complete my work duties in half the time if I could simply then move on to my homework until the phone rings again. Or leave and hit a coffee shop to crank out a few chapters of math before heading home at the usual hour. If I were actually held accountable for results and given the authority to produce them. But in my current role the appearance of work is far more important than results, because honestly there are very few metrics in the cube farm to begin with, and I’m not even close to a level that would require them. There’s little else to judge performance on than whether I look cheerfully busy until 5pm.

What if Bruce Wayne really worked in the secretarial pool of Wayne (no relation) Enterprises?

School has been a tremendous boon in this respect, because I now have marks to hit, a reason to work hard, material that engages my brain, and goals to meet that I give more than a passing damn about. Intrinsic motivation, baby, it’s what makes the world spin. The downside is that I can no longer deny the hours and weeks of wasted time waiting for each shift to end, saving each mindless task until its very deadline because once it’s complete I’ll have absolutely nothing to do.

Work expands to fit the time given to complete it. Currently I’m shoving 8.5 hours of college work into the niches and cracks of a 40 hour workweek that has, at most, 5-10 full hours of busywork in it. Without being able to do any schoolwork during business hours (save for a half hour lunch). The constant adjustment of time dilation is surreal.

I do not get paid nearly enough to waste time that could be spent getting closer to where I want to be. This has always been true, I admit. But now that I’ve cleared through the mental baggage and know that this goal is real, this is the path I need to take, and success needs only my hard work to make happen, the absurd reality of where I’m stuck is painful. It’s like volunteering for a lobotomy each morning and trying to shake it off on the drive home. It’s like working in a crawlspace all day and then trying to run. I’ve got to figure out better methods of self-care.

Endure, Grasshopper. Then snatch the pebble and run like hell.

I’ve got at least a year of this, probably two. A different job might help but between the economy and the fact that I’m not technically qualified for any job of sufficient complexity to engage me, have no interest in most of the types of work I am qualified for, and only in the last handful of years have I even thought myself capable of year-round sustained effort in any field–honestly even if I didn’t have this vocation burning a hole in my chest I’d be a great candidate for total career re-boot.

In other words, figure out some good self-care so I don’t burn out, check out or flake out. This is the new normal and the reason it hurts is that the anesthesia is wearing off and the stretching and exercise must begin. Work it, let it hone your purpose, and don’t let the cognitive dissonance define who you are or what you do.

“When Alexis Arguello gave Boom Boom a beating
Seven weeks later he was back in the ring
Some have the speed and the right combinations
If you can’t take the punches, it don’t mean a thing”
–Warren Zevon, “Boom Boom Mancini”

There’s a short list of traits I can point to that have served me extremely well. Some of them are native to my personality, like stubborn perseverance and a logical bent. Others are the result of conscious study, like not taking failure as a final answer. Fragile new skills like applying the power of aggregate futzing, are far from instinctual traits, and therefore they take a moment to kick in. Considering the work and aggravation involved in changing a habit, a trait, or an ingrained response, only a conscious appreciation of what’s at stake will keep a person on track.

It’s easier to scramble back onto the wagon when you know that your rest in the mud will soon be interrupted by the next wagon bearing down on you. Going fetal with your arms around your head is not an option. What do you do then? Roll onto your feet and try another tack.

So it’s been a while since the last update but I’ve been busy. Unlike your average apologetic blogger I won’t wax hysteric about how crazy it’s been and how I’ve had no time to write. I won’t ever waste your time with that, or with filler posts when I’m low on content.

I’m back to catch you up on the results since my last post.

Learning to Fight Hamster-style

I’ve gone from swimming 100 meters with clicking shoulders and feeling like I’m dying, to swimming a full kilometer without clicks and feeling spent but good afterward. My new driver’s license documents the vast improvement I’ve achieved in my shoulders in the last three years, which no longer slope up and forward to my chin, but spread out lateral and level and even with each other. I’ve started shedding some of the padding I’d acquired since breaking my foot last November. And for the first time since I sprouted this stupendous rack at age thirteen, my midback is no longer the bane of my posture.

Trudging up the Mountains to the Temple

I’ve applied as a post-bachelor to Wayne State, much earlier than I had planned in the Science Upgrade It turns out I may qualify for loan aid, and if I can eliminate the headache of transfer equivalencies then hell yeah. This doesn’t change the fall semester of math and chem at two other community colleges, paid for and starting in two weeks–but those are cheap, mainly online, and simply ramp me up to college level anyway. Partner is also considering school of some stripe, a mental retooling for the new economy we’re all expecting to come off backorder one day.

Right now we’re like Roadrunner, walking across air because we’re too focused to look down.

It Takes Years to Become Batman, yo

In other news, we got the beater car back. It now starts with a bottle opener (partner’s key) and the Leatherman large screwdriver tool (my key). Grandmother is having more lucid intervals, which totally rocks. Mom is dyspeptic and will likely have her gallbladder yanked soon, but our muddling through is infamous and so we keep on truckin’.

So there’s the update. Currently on the docket:

* finishing my review of beginning algebra, before intermediate algebra begins
* getting the second chapter chemistry under my belt before class begins
* revising the Science Upgrade plan: no longer a personal document, but a vital part of my financial aid application
* sharing birthday cake with the kiddo, who is three today

I hope to finish her present by this weekend, which is technically late. But after 43 weeks of pregnancy and 48 hours of labor, I think taking a few extra days to make something for her is simply par for the course.

Storyboarding as Project Management

I’m untrained in the bureaucratic voodoo of Project Management, the business practice of herding cats through red tape. But I know these are the folks who have a spooky handle on both petty details and grand workflows. I’ve got goals up the ying-yang and am in danger of losing my balance of yin and yang as a consequence. I don’t have to corral a staff, but I need a handle on petty details and grand workflows. In lieu of traditional Project Management, I’ve been using PM tools to craft a narrative.

Except There Is No Second Draft–Ha!

The Happy Ending (keeping in mind that beginnings and endings are always arbitrary points in time, only meaningful because of what they bookend), the Happy Ending of this narrative is a parting shot of me, in the fall of 2010, with everything in hand for a great application to my favored PT program. However, like a novel, I cannot keep all of this straight in my head for any length of time. Frankly, at any given point in time the vast majority of it is fore- and backlog I can (should! must!) forget while completing the task at hand.

Yet too much focus and deadlines can (and will!) go whizzing by without even leaving a manly bullet graze on my temple to make me look heroic.

You know those dreams where you have to take a test and you forgot you even had the class? In my version, I have to go back to elementary school in order to get credit for my high school diploma, in order to get credit for my bachelors. I’m wedged in a tiny desk with fifth-graders trying to do ten chapters of social science homework before the bell rings. I’m getting a flop sweat just typing this.

This creates the need for a solution: How can I move through this period of time and this mountain of work so that I have prompt delivery of the necessary ingredients–and tasks–to begin tackling each piece as I need to?

Another Tool for the Utility Belt

In the past, this would be a job for Office Supplies! and her trusty ambidextrous sidekick Hours N. Hours. Alas, they’ve been downsized and replaced with a virtual assistant in the form of “what free software can I load on a USB and stick in my pocket?”. Not a good superhero name. Which is why I named the USB “Bat Cave”. That way I get to be the superhero. That is, if Bruce Wayne is a wage slave in the white collar ghetto, married to a devious combination of Alfred Pennyworth and Lucius Fox.

Back to the Bat Cave. For someone who grew up with a Smith Corona and graph paper, open source software is almost like having a keycard to the sublevel labs of Wayne Enterprises.

I’m using a copy of Open Project, a free open-source project management program that’s been friendly so far–after I figured out how to set up the calendar to calculate constant time, instead of 8 hour days, 40 hour weeks, and 20 day months. If nothing else, I like the ability to link tasks sequentially and see them marching across the screen in a Gantt chart like a choreography of relay racers.

Deadlines are Useless if You Don’t Know When to Go Live

I will never be able to properly estimate time, which leads to the following given: I will never be punctual. The choices are to be either tardy or wildly early–wildly early being the result of accounting for every possibility that could make me late, and having only one or two of them happen. This plan for a happy application ending is an exercise in choosing wildly early, and so it’s not focused on a single deadline for anything. Instead, each item or deliverable has an organic ripening described in a series of dates:

when’s the earliest I can start this?
when’s the latest I can start this?
when should I have the bulk of this done?
when’s the earliest this can be done?
when’s the latest I can finish this?
when is this actually due?

At any given point I can clearly see what I need to get done, what I can work on if I have extra time and mental capacity, and what I can put out of mind until the time comes. I also have dynamic timelines that give scope, can motivate me if I’m lethargic–or can be ignored if I’m anxious without shooting myself in the foot.

Even if it doesn’t output a pretty graph, it’s helped me organize my thinking ‘on paper’ so I can indulge my natural ability to focus without risking a Rip Van Winkle incident of, “Holy crap, I forgot to take physics!”

“Robot! Commence Science Upgrade!”

Last week I began the Science Upgrade, enrolling in Chemistry and First Aid & Lifesaving for the fall term. More classes to follow as cash flow determines.

I think I’m still in shock that I’m actually doing this. Or perhaps I’ve dithered so long that I’m simply relieved to finally get moving.

This is my hammer. There are many like it. This one is mine.

If it’s true that insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result, then it follows that when you decide to ditch insanity you’re also deciding to try something else instead.

Presumably something difficult and/or daunting, or you’d have been doing it already. Especially when the rewards are not immediately forthcoming (and they won’t be, or you’d have been doing it already), this feels like borrowing trouble.

In truth, it’s more like exchanging a rock for a crappy hammer; you still need to swing it, and you’ll get splinters in your palm, but it sure beats driving nails with your knuckles.

The situation cannot stand, so let’s stop pretending it can and get this going, shall we? It’s going to suck. I’m losing time with my family over the next few years, in hopes of gaining far more flexibility and time with them in the long term. I’m greatly increasing my workload right now, with the aim of changing the very nature of my contribution. I’ve set a time bomb on the cube job, and it’s going off in 18 months.

In a very real sense the mortgage is a bet placed on our earning power, and grad school will double that bet.

Grad school will also bring me into my vocation. And I’ve waited for that far too long, it’s time to make it happen.

This is going to change everything.

Another Good Idea Bites the Big One

I’ve become unconvinced about the interim step of becoming certified in massage therapy. It’s intriguing, but I doubt it’s the best method for leveraging myself into the place I want to be.

Needed: Escape Hatch That Doesn’t Lead to Space

I figure I have a year (two tops) of being able to handle the cube farm without collapsing under burnout. Every day is a struggle to keep engaged with the menial business of being an underling with no career path and no real added value. There’s no question I will wig out if I stay, if the only parole I can look forward to is a lateral shift to a different paperwork stream.

In this year or two I could jam several classes. Massage certification totals 35 hours. The prerequisite classes I need to enter a program for physical therapy (the Science Upgrade of math, chemistry and physics) total 40 hours. The proposed pathway for using massage therapy as a launch vehicle for physical therapy would still require the Science Upgrade. As they do not overlap at all, this becomes 75 hours.

This would be worth it if massage therapy was sparkly and exciting, but the more I read the paler the colors get. It’s doesn’t go deep enough into the biology, and it only rarely addresses the root causes of pain and dysfunction. It’s great icing, but I want the cake.

Upon Catastrophic Failure, Disassemble for Spare Parts

As a failed plan it still has great merit. The feeling of momentum the idea gave me has jumped tracks, making great progress on the Science Upgrade instead. I’d registered with the school that has the best massage program–but they also offer a slew of Science Upgrade courses in off-hours and have a bazillion short and online terms each year, aimed at the non-traditional student.

The Science Upgrade: How I Learned to Stop Fearing Math and Became a Polyamorous Student

I used to have math anxiety, in part due to bad math teaching (endemic in the US) and binary thinking (if I’m really good at verbal skills, it makes sense to be bad at math–never mind that I also rock at spatial relations and scientific reasoning). I had an epiphany during a required Statistics class where I realized math was simply logic in the language of numbers (why did no one tell me this before?!), and have never been the same since.

Alas, the knowledge was too new and tender to influence the course of my BA. When I started back-filling algebra into my brain it wasn’t just the lack of anxiety that surprised me, but the moments of sheer joy. Understanding many of the concepts felt like finally putting into words something I’d been puzzling over forever. My brain was thirsty for the language and tools of math.

And so I embark on the Science Upgrade at two different schools, not only a non-traditional student but also a polyamorous one, negotiating transfer credits like emotional baggage between four different institutions (Ye Olde University where I got the BA, two community colleges, and the eventual grad school).

Wheee!