It's going to be a happy spring

This is a picture of my new little toy! Well, not much of a toy, I guess, but a cute thing on my desk. I got it as a thank-you gift from the professor of a graduate course I TA-ed last term, Biological Oceanography. It is so cute!

So, the Winter quarter is over, and the Spring quarter started just this week. Things just feel different around here. I am TA-ing for an undergraduate course this term, which feels very different so far, even though it's just started. The sun peeks out more frequently now, and the rain is not quite so cold (although I did run in sleet yesterday morning...). I am feeling pretty positive about the upcoming spring, and I think a lot of it has to do with Project Resolution, which is still going strong. Well, Project Resolution and the promise of sun in our future. (SUN!)
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March resolution success and progress:
This month was tough for me. I struggled a bit, especially at first, with the work writing. The gratitude journal, as well as the creative writing, were fairly easy to keep up because they were what I wanted to do. I also think I did a decent job of keeping the blog updated, which, believe it or not, has contributed some to the formation of a writing habit, regardless of how much the quality of writing might fluctuate. (Last week's posts were... erm... less-than-poetic.)

But maintaining the writing habit has been challenging because I don't always want to do every type of writing I set out to do. The original idea was to cultivate a writing habit that would help me with my work; my slower-than-ideal progress with my research and dissertation has been a major factor in my chronic unease and stress. When I realized that I was letting the small tasks that come up every day get in the way of tasks that would put me on track with my long-term goal of earning the PhD (read: WRITING), I understood I needed  to get serious about a daily writing habit or I was going to be forever spinning my wheels, wearing a rut deeper and deeper under my desk chair. I would become more and more unhappy.

My struggle to establish a daily writing habit is part of an ongoing internal battle. I have tried to get it started for about two years now, but never as seriously as this time. I always had good enough reasons to want to write, I just didn't have the follow-through. (It really is amazing -- you think you're such a motivated, self-directed person, and then you take away all deadlines, accountability, and direction, and you realize you are little more than a slow-moving, non-energetic slug. At least, that's what I feel like at this stage.)


Ah... but this time, I had a very specific challenge, and a measured way to succeed. By setting aside 30 minutes every weekday, I have actually been writing. It's not all stuff that I will use in the dissertation, but it's all practice material, at least. And it's the action of writing. Today I finished the methods section for a chapter I haven't finished the introduction to yet, which is generally really challenging for me. (I tend to go through the paper chronologically, but I like to know my conclusions before I write the intro, so I end up wasting a lot of time that could be spent writing.) By making time every day to write, I always had that block of time available, though sometimes the material wasn't ready in my mind. During those times I forced myself to move onto writing about things that weren't finished yet, and that often made me reconsider how to best do some part of the modeling that I'd been stuck on, or (more likely) was trying to avoid thinking about altogether.

As I wrote in a previous post, I skipped a week of work writing (vacation!). Which means I can't say that I was completely successful with this month's resolution. But I was very nearly so. On the bright side, I have incorporated an important element for my job-related happiness into my regular workweek. And seeing the benefits of getting my writing done and checked off my list every day, not to mention the satisfaction I feel when I know, have concrete evidence, that I am making progress, I am confident that I will be able to continue working on this habit, with good results.

In addition to setting a very specific goal for work writing, I further tried to establish writing as a habit by adding in other types of writing that I was more likely to want to do, so that I actually sat down to write more frequently. Thus the creative writing component of March's resolution. And the creative writing outlet has been fantastic! I've generated a few short stories (very short) and might even submit one somewhere. The blog has been really fun for me, even though I'm pretty sure only two people read it. I think my favorite benefit of this month's resolution, behind the forward progression I can see in my work writing, has been the gratitude journal. It is such a simple task, done daily, that it is not hard to keep up but really forces you to reflect on the bright spots of your day. If you haven't tried it yet, I suggest you experiment.

January resolution update:
I have still kept to my budgets, though this month was the closest yet... I've upped my debt paydown and have let myself get a little more lax, so my month-end total has been creeping back toward the number on my paycheck. While I am very pleased with my progress, and haven't put a red cent on a credit card in three months now, I will need to be a bit stricter with myself again next month. No early pats on the back.

February resolution update:
I am still running 3 times a week. There was one time where I did a couple of runs together right at the beginning of the week, and then the last one way at the other end of the week, so I ended up having a gap in my running schedule. I did the right number of workouts, but there were more days between runs than normal. Boy. I paid for it when I did that third run -- it was much harder than the previous runs. So a regular schedule is more important than I thought. But anyway, I am still going strong and look forward to runs. I even, as I mentioned above, don't worry so much about the weather conditions. In fact, sometimes I prefer running in the cold, or in the rain, because I feel like a super bad ass when I finish and I am soaked and icy and smiling like a maniac. I love running! I am thinking about entering a 5K this May or June. I've never done one, and I think entering a race will keep the pressure on to push myself each time I go out. Don't want to get complacent.

Well, that's my progress so far this year. I am really pleased with how things are going. If I can keep improving myself at this rate, I am going to be in really good shape, both mentally and physically, by the time I turn 30 in October. I can't wait to see what happens next.