Unscheduled weekend days have been my downfall as long as I can remember.   I think it stems from being constantly disappointed, as a child, that unplanned days never turned out to include anything I thought was fun.  Usually, an unplanned day meant waiting around, in hopes of something fun happening, when in fact nothing happened. 

Of course, I'm more than old enough to make my own fun.  In fact, when I lived alone, I did so.  I'd take an unscheduled day and act on all the whims that struck me.  I'd do whatever I wanted. But somehow, when I live with others, that ability gets paralyzed.  In fact, I usually can't figure out what I want to be doing, even if I'm asked.

I admire my life partner -- he always knows what he wants to do.   Today, after picking up a friend at the airport and visiting another in the same neighbourhood, he wanted to nap.  We dim-summed, and then he napped.  When he awoke, he not only knew he wanted to watch a video (of which we own 300), he even knew which one: Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  I was still trying to decide whether I wanted to read, or work, or restore some order to rooms that had been emptied for painting earlier this week. And he just knew.  Damn him, sometimes!

There was a time when I was better at knowing what I wanted. I   worked hard at it for three years, after leaving the "other" husband (as I call my ex), and finally, I almost always knew what I wanted to be doing with my time.   But, when I went away to school, at 40, my life was filled with school events for a year.  The next year, I was in love, and dedicated to surviving financially while spending every possible moment in cyberconversation with my new love over the Atlantic.    And then we were marrying, and then my mother was dying.  And then were getting used to living our lives, and I was rebuilding a business.  And then...   Well, you get the idea.  I forgot how to know what I want to be doing.

While the time over the coming eight weeks is largely spoken for, as I prepare myself for the comps, I am still committing myself to learning how to find out what I want to be doing.  I bet I knew how to do to this more than 40 years ago.   Surely, if anything, I'm smarter now, so I'm determined to regain this valuable skill. Wish me luck!

June 25, 1999 - Beginnings

Where to start.  I've been reading so many on-line journal entries, but none of them first entries.  With forty-seven years behind me, there's no hope of catching up, even if it were sufficiently interesting to warrant the effort to write or read it. So, let's start with the immediate thoughts.

I'm excited to be doing this -- writing an on-line journal.   I'm excited about the possibilities that lie before me, and about what I might learn as I understake this new venture.  I'm hoping it's a stress-reducing activity, rather than a stress-adding activity: I'm anticipating enough stress over the next ten weeks, without intentionally adding more.

Why the anticipation of stress? Well, as a part-time doctoral student (in public policy), I get to write comprehensive exams this summer. And, as a part-time doctoral student, it's been more than a year since I've read some of the material we're required to master. And, as a part-time student, I'm also a more than part-time consultant, who is madly trying to clear a seven-week window of opportunity to focus on preparing for these exams.

There are, of course, opportunities lost when others are undertaken. What's burning me up today is that I had to say "no" to a fat contract writing a report that I've already done much of the research for, and for a new client at that.  It's the reasonable thing to do, and the right thing to do.   But as all consultants know, it's dangerous to say "no" at the best of times.  And it's even more dangerous when there are debts to be paid, and expenses mounting.

Maybe they'll hire to me to write other things after I've done the comps. And maybe they won't.  Maybe I'll feel relieved and vindicated in clearing the time to train the mind for this intellectual marathon.  Or maybe it will just annoy me more as I spend time preparing materials I've already been examined on, so that those who were tortured as doctoral students can get their revenge by torturing a new generation of doctoral students.  Isn't the academy grand?

Welcome to my world!

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