Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Make your own kind of music, sing your own special song....

Today was probably one of the most unproductive days I've had at work in a while. I just had no motivation to do anything. It didn't help that I have therapy at 2pm on Wednesdays, so that cuts my day short, unless, of course, I decide to go back to the office after therapy, which some days is necessary. Today wasn't one of them. Then there's the fact that I can't drag myself out of bed before 8am, so I usually don't get to the office until 10am. Now, you might be wondering why it takes two hours to get to campus. Well, first of all, I don't jump right out of bed in the morning. Then I have to eat a little something, shower (which takes a longer time for me than for most guys), get everything together to go to campus. So, I usually leave between 9:15 and 9:30. Then I drive to the BJC and park my car, which takes approximately five minutes total, depending on how quickly I can find a spot. Then I catch a Loop or Link to go to the other end of campus. This part of the trip is usually highly variable. It all depends on how quick the buses come or if they wait, because there's no way in hell I'm running to catch one, and then which one I end up taking, usually a Link because it seems quicker. The ride to wherever I can get dropped off can take 20 minutes depending on how many people are getting on and off at each stop.

So, today I had less time on campus anyway, so I knew productivity wouldn't be high. I didn't think it would be this low, though, either. I did manage to register for a class next semester. It's a modeling course, which should be helpful, or at least practical in case I end up not passing the candidacy exam again. We'll see.

After therapy today I went to Ben & Jerry's. It's become a ritual now, sort of a treat for myself. No matter how rough the session, I go there. Usually I get the same thing, too. A raspberry cream smoothie. Geez, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Anyway, the point I'm making is that I went in today, and the guy that works there actually remembered what I usually get. So, that was very cool. It's nice to know I make an impression on people.

Therapy was kind of rough today. Lots of things going on in my life. I know they say (and who this "they" are is beyond me) that one should take one day at a time, or at least one thing at a time, but it always seems like the things that go on in my life gang up on me and attack all at once. And today wasn't even talking about my past, which is sordid and juicy and if I changed some names, I could probably write a best-seller. Today was more about the present. I'm not going to go into detail quite yet because I need to find some things out first. (I like to keep anyone that reads this on the edge of their seat.) It's a big, hard, scary thing (I hope no one's mind is in the gutter). I've been doing an incredibly good job of downplaying it to my mom and myself. Almost too good. I even almost convinced myself that it's not a big deal. But during therapy, my emotions got the better of me, and I realized how huge it really is. It's the kind of thing that I need the support of my mom, physically. I know I have it, but it's not the same thing when it's coming from around 750 miles away.

Well, that's quite the cliffhanger for the few of you that read this often. I'll go into more detail in future entries. I won't just leave on the edge of your seat.

In other news, I impressed myself today. I actually started studying for the candidacy exam. Well, sort of, anyway. It's more that I cracked open a notebook and starting jotting stuff down to hopefully keep it in my memory. So, that's a major development. I've started studying about two months earlier than I did last time. Hopefully that's a good sign.

Of course, it didn't last long. I wanted to check in on Lost to make sure it was a repeat. It was, but I still flipped back and forth between that and the World Poker Tour. Today's episode of Lost featured the Mama Cass song again (anyone that watches it should know what I'm talking about). It always gets stuck in my head. So, it'll be there now for several weeks, going on in the background, "Make your own kind of music....."

I think I'm starting to have withdrawals of poker. The meteo department hasn't had a poker night in ages. I'd host one, but even with as large an apartment as I have now, it doesn't really seem big enough to hold two tables of six to eight people. We'll see, though. Maybe one day I will. I've been so eager to play that I signed onto Party Poker this afternoon and played in a couple single table tournaments. The first one I came in 7th on. My downfall in that one was losing to a higher full house. The second one I came in 2nd, so that totally made up for it. The one hand I clearly remember was that I had A/Q in the hole and the flop came A/A/Q. That hardly ever happens for me. I was quite excited. The last tournament I played took a rather long time, too. I think about an hour. Most of the time it was the last four of us, none of which wanted to be fourth because there's no money gained for that. But it was definitely fun.

On that note, I should probably get to sleep soon. It's going on 11:30 and I'm getting sleepy. Plus tomorrow is a slightly busy day, capped off with colloquium, so I should try to be refreshed tomorrow. Otherwise I'll probably fall asleep during the talk, and that wouldn't be a good thing.

No comments: