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I haven't done a general life update here for some time. In brief life has been busy, social, mildly overcommitted, exhausting and I'm just getting back on top of things again or be it with a long list of non-urgent deferred tasks. (Like this post.)
Overcommitted
Between Hall, my writing muse kicking in (see the spate of long posts here over the past month), spontaneously starting up a D&D campaign at SAGA while still trying to shake the kinks of of a one-off with weekly playtests, and trying to to keep/up my hours at work some things have been having to give. Some of that has been in game prep, some of it has seen me spending more money eating out than I ought to be, some of it has seen very late starts at work.
Hall
Mostly the Hall has been quiet on the alarm front recently; except this weekend where we've had 3 alarms in the space of two nights one (1:30am) leading to a police callout and 3 arrests. However I've been putting in quite a bit of other time there - last weekend I spent the bulk of both days mowing the lawns and cleaning up some of the motel units while a team from the 48 Hour Film Challenge and another photographer used the site. I got a lot done (as I do when working by myself without interruption) - but I had put the entire weekend out as a working bee opportunity where people could turn up as suited them/small groups and was disappointed that absolutely no-one did so. One person who couldn't make the weekend did come in during the week and pick up rubbish from the gardens for which I was quite grateful.
Had the weather been better this weekend I probably would have spent another day.
Work
On Thursday after arriving late due to student film-makers at the hall in the morning and leaving unusually early because the washing machine had broken and the repairman was coming between 3 and 4 I got an email from my manager questioning whether I am still enjoying working there and expressing doubts about how productive I'm actually being. It's a testament to my improved state of mind that this did not knock me for 6 and I was able to send back a coherent and hopefully reassuring response.
Apparently I've seemed to not be there very much and distracted - in fact I've been (or be it barely) keeping my hours to/above target (my target which is higher than my minimum contracted hours) and I've felt that my focus is relatively good and I've been turning out good code. There hasn't been much to "show" for it because it's only that the system I'm building has only in the past couple of weeks reached the point of having a front end; also I've spent some time going down dead ends and having to throw away hours of work in great part because of my own inexperience in some of the techniques I'm using and in project planning for something this size. I may also have spent more time on the arcade machine in the break room the past week as the weekly competition game was one I was interested in playing (Ghosts and Goblins anyone?) and I'll rein myself in on that. This project *has* taken much longer than expected and they *do* need me to finish up on it so we can start using the system and I can ease the day-to-day load on our other programmers since hiring someone else doesn't seem to be an option.
Ironically Thursday was also the last day in my calendar I was unable to do a "full" day at work. Friday I did a full 6ish hours writing code, which took a bit of pushing and exercised my brain in much the same way that 6-7 hours pushing a lawnmower has "exercised" my body the previous weekend. I was able to do this knowing that I had very few commitments this weekend and didn't need to be at my sharpest. Now I need to be able to consistently replicate that which leads me on to a recurring problem - (not) getting out of bed in the morning. As I've noted previously although I enjoy work it's not what gets me out of bed - what gets me out of bed is having something else to get done before work (eg Hall visitors, blog post) or something else to get done after work combined with a determination to still get X hours done at work (and that's a bit flaky if my hours for the week are already high enough or otherwise look achievable).
It's quite clear that I can't just stuff my calendar full of morning/afternoon commitments; that turns things I want to get done into *chores* and that's a sure road to a) not longer enjoying them (thus the lose he get-out-of-bed appeal) and b) overloading; crashing and burning. I know one friend who gets out of bed in the morning to play computer/console games so she is getting out of bed for something fun and "work happens later". I haven't reliably found anything which sufficiently fills that criteria for me.
I am going to try and work on this with a brick (*at least* once a week I will get out of bed early enough to be at work by 9:30) and internalising a changed storyline - "what I am working on right now is important/urgent enough to put in a proper day's work every day". Setting deadlines on completing subtasks hasn't actually helped much because of chronic underestimation of time required and depth of functionality, although setting daily goals on what micro-functionality I'm aiming to complete has helped.
D&D
My GMing muse struck with an idea for a short campaign just before SAGA started for the year so I've wound up running a D&D3.5 game for 6 (out of 8+ interested) mostly novice players (new to gaming &/or new to D&D). I've since had a couple of ideas for follow up scenarios so we'll see how long it really goes. But it does mean committing an evening or afternoon a week to prep as well as the SAGA night to running the game. The other SAGA night I am still boardgaming - although becoming increasing fed up with the time it takes a critical mass of people to decide on a game at the beginning of the evening. I've recently bought Biblios as a very short game to play in this space while other people wait for X or Y person to turn up before making a decision but haven't yet had a lot of luck with this strategy.
Social
The past few weeks I've had a houseguest - F is finishing up a year of OE in NZ from Germany and was pointed to me by a mutual friend as someplace to stay for a few nights while in Chch. It's been a bit linger than that but eh, I wasn't using that corner of the house (the dining room) for anything. And I really do enjoy having someone to cook dinner for and eat with for a change, as C & I have very different eating habits. She is also a gamer and with an assortment of other geekeries has slotted perfectly in to the social circles I've introduced her to here.
There have been quite a number of parties and other gatherings so far this year which have mostly been good and of course have come with their co-commitment of photos. I'm getting better at the casual physical contact thing although I'm no better at asking for it explicitly (or getting the xplicit type).
I'm still feeling the lack of someone to cuddle up to / make out with but I've been so busy with other things that I haven't had time to really notice it much - except nights waiting for sleep and mornings waiting for the motivation to get out of bed (making breakfast for someone would be excellent motivation).
~~~
A stray but important disappointment from last month - went into my psych appointment feeling that everything was good and without much to talk about. At the previous session I had given the counsellor printouts of the Cutting to the Core series of posts I wrote over January in hope that he would pull some threads out of there to address but it turns out he just prefers to talk about things until I raise a pain point organically rather than "risk influencing what we should be working on with his own bias". That came as a big disappointment to me after all the effort I went to getting all those thoughts and feelings out for examination (although he did compliment me on my ability as a writer to express things well and clearly). As I had nothing much else I wanted to bring up we finished early and I left my mood changed to the exact opposite state to which I went in and I spent much of the next hour basically "holding it together". (Then I had to be together to show people around the Hall or I might have just given up for the afternoon and fallen to pieces at home).
I was able to identify the causes - partly that unexpected emotional blow; partly the sudden certainty that this avenue has come to an end *without* delivering the results I was looking/hoping for which as stated was the opposite of what I had been feeling going in and that turnaround was a second emotional blow - and a loss (for lack of a better word) - for which I was not prepared.
I still have a next appointment - in may, but as I said to him my aim going forward is to reach the point of just touching base every say 6 months to talk about anything which has come up in my life.
Overcommitted
Between Hall, my writing muse kicking in (see the spate of long posts here over the past month), spontaneously starting up a D&D campaign at SAGA while still trying to shake the kinks of of a one-off with weekly playtests, and trying to to keep/up my hours at work some things have been having to give. Some of that has been in game prep, some of it has seen me spending more money eating out than I ought to be, some of it has seen very late starts at work.
Hall
Mostly the Hall has been quiet on the alarm front recently; except this weekend where we've had 3 alarms in the space of two nights one (1:30am) leading to a police callout and 3 arrests. However I've been putting in quite a bit of other time there - last weekend I spent the bulk of both days mowing the lawns and cleaning up some of the motel units while a team from the 48 Hour Film Challenge and another photographer used the site. I got a lot done (as I do when working by myself without interruption) - but I had put the entire weekend out as a working bee opportunity where people could turn up as suited them/small groups and was disappointed that absolutely no-one did so. One person who couldn't make the weekend did come in during the week and pick up rubbish from the gardens for which I was quite grateful.
Had the weather been better this weekend I probably would have spent another day.
Work
On Thursday after arriving late due to student film-makers at the hall in the morning and leaving unusually early because the washing machine had broken and the repairman was coming between 3 and 4 I got an email from my manager questioning whether I am still enjoying working there and expressing doubts about how productive I'm actually being. It's a testament to my improved state of mind that this did not knock me for 6 and I was able to send back a coherent and hopefully reassuring response.
Apparently I've seemed to not be there very much and distracted - in fact I've been (or be it barely) keeping my hours to/above target (my target which is higher than my minimum contracted hours) and I've felt that my focus is relatively good and I've been turning out good code. There hasn't been much to "show" for it because it's only that the system I'm building has only in the past couple of weeks reached the point of having a front end; also I've spent some time going down dead ends and having to throw away hours of work in great part because of my own inexperience in some of the techniques I'm using and in project planning for something this size. I may also have spent more time on the arcade machine in the break room the past week as the weekly competition game was one I was interested in playing (Ghosts and Goblins anyone?) and I'll rein myself in on that. This project *has* taken much longer than expected and they *do* need me to finish up on it so we can start using the system and I can ease the day-to-day load on our other programmers since hiring someone else doesn't seem to be an option.
Ironically Thursday was also the last day in my calendar I was unable to do a "full" day at work. Friday I did a full 6ish hours writing code, which took a bit of pushing and exercised my brain in much the same way that 6-7 hours pushing a lawnmower has "exercised" my body the previous weekend. I was able to do this knowing that I had very few commitments this weekend and didn't need to be at my sharpest. Now I need to be able to consistently replicate that which leads me on to a recurring problem - (not) getting out of bed in the morning. As I've noted previously although I enjoy work it's not what gets me out of bed - what gets me out of bed is having something else to get done before work (eg Hall visitors, blog post) or something else to get done after work combined with a determination to still get X hours done at work (and that's a bit flaky if my hours for the week are already high enough or otherwise look achievable).
It's quite clear that I can't just stuff my calendar full of morning/afternoon commitments; that turns things I want to get done into *chores* and that's a sure road to a) not longer enjoying them (thus the lose he get-out-of-bed appeal) and b) overloading; crashing and burning. I know one friend who gets out of bed in the morning to play computer/console games so she is getting out of bed for something fun and "work happens later". I haven't reliably found anything which sufficiently fills that criteria for me.
I am going to try and work on this with a brick (*at least* once a week I will get out of bed early enough to be at work by 9:30) and internalising a changed storyline - "what I am working on right now is important/urgent enough to put in a proper day's work every day". Setting deadlines on completing subtasks hasn't actually helped much because of chronic underestimation of time required and depth of functionality, although setting daily goals on what micro-functionality I'm aiming to complete has helped.
D&D
My GMing muse struck with an idea for a short campaign just before SAGA started for the year so I've wound up running a D&D3.5 game for 6 (out of 8+ interested) mostly novice players (new to gaming &/or new to D&D). I've since had a couple of ideas for follow up scenarios so we'll see how long it really goes. But it does mean committing an evening or afternoon a week to prep as well as the SAGA night to running the game. The other SAGA night I am still boardgaming - although becoming increasing fed up with the time it takes a critical mass of people to decide on a game at the beginning of the evening. I've recently bought Biblios as a very short game to play in this space while other people wait for X or Y person to turn up before making a decision but haven't yet had a lot of luck with this strategy.
Social
The past few weeks I've had a houseguest - F is finishing up a year of OE in NZ from Germany and was pointed to me by a mutual friend as someplace to stay for a few nights while in Chch. It's been a bit linger than that but eh, I wasn't using that corner of the house (the dining room) for anything. And I really do enjoy having someone to cook dinner for and eat with for a change, as C & I have very different eating habits. She is also a gamer and with an assortment of other geekeries has slotted perfectly in to the social circles I've introduced her to here.
There have been quite a number of parties and other gatherings so far this year which have mostly been good and of course have come with their co-commitment of photos. I'm getting better at the casual physical contact thing although I'm no better at asking for it explicitly (or getting the xplicit type).
I'm still feeling the lack of someone to cuddle up to / make out with but I've been so busy with other things that I haven't had time to really notice it much - except nights waiting for sleep and mornings waiting for the motivation to get out of bed (making breakfast for someone would be excellent motivation).
~~~
A stray but important disappointment from last month - went into my psych appointment feeling that everything was good and without much to talk about. At the previous session I had given the counsellor printouts of the Cutting to the Core series of posts I wrote over January in hope that he would pull some threads out of there to address but it turns out he just prefers to talk about things until I raise a pain point organically rather than "risk influencing what we should be working on with his own bias". That came as a big disappointment to me after all the effort I went to getting all those thoughts and feelings out for examination (although he did compliment me on my ability as a writer to express things well and clearly). As I had nothing much else I wanted to bring up we finished early and I left my mood changed to the exact opposite state to which I went in and I spent much of the next hour basically "holding it together". (Then I had to be together to show people around the Hall or I might have just given up for the afternoon and fallen to pieces at home).
I was able to identify the causes - partly that unexpected emotional blow; partly the sudden certainty that this avenue has come to an end *without* delivering the results I was looking/hoping for which as stated was the opposite of what I had been feeling going in and that turnaround was a second emotional blow - and a loss (for lack of a better word) - for which I was not prepared.
I still have a next appointment - in may, but as I said to him my aim going forward is to reach the point of just touching base every say 6 months to talk about anything which has come up in my life.
