2011 has been a year of many changes for me and my family. One especially interesting change for me, personally? This is the first time in my adult life, really since I started preschool a good 26 years ago, that I have not functioned primarily on an academic calendar. Preschool, Kindergarten, grade school, middle school, high school, college, grad school, working for a school district - 26 years of academia included 26 years of winter breaks (well, they were still Christmas breaks when I started!), spring breaks, summer breaks...I didn't know how good I had it, that's for sure.
So now I have a "big girl" job - aka non-academic, management position - and that means no more academic calendar. Very confusing to my brain and body, which are used to pushing themselves hard for a limited amount of time, then having a week or more off to recover before jumping back in again. I'm still trying to figure out how to gauge my use of energy at work when there are no pauses on the horizon. Sigh. Today marks Day 13 of the great viral bronchitis of 2011 (...as it will be known in my biography. You know, the one that will be written after I am famous and dead) so self-care is definitely on my mind. Clearly, I haven't gotten the hang of it with my new job and new living situation yet.
I love the picture above, clipped from some magazine back when i was a teenager. I've always been a bit of a magazine freak, it's true - thank goodness for the advent of the internet and scanners so I can keep all those images without physically keeping little pieces of paper from decades ago! I think it actually depicts a scene from a play, but to me it always looks like a snapshot from someone's fabulous New Year's Eve party. How do you celebrate that particular holiday? Honestly, for the past few years, I've either watched the ball drop on TV with my son or we've gone to bed as usual. My husband generally goes to church for what's known as Watch Night Service. As far as I can tell, it consists of praise/worship to usher in the new year, followed by a big pancake breakfast. I'm not sure I can handle pancakes in the middle of the night but hey, if it works for you, go with it. Personally, I'm getting too old and tired to pull an all nighter, even with the promise of pancakes to get me through it. Oh well, at least I'm becoming a more interesting person as I age, even if I am less flexible in my sleep/wake cycles!
So now I have a "big girl" job - aka non-academic, management position - and that means no more academic calendar. Very confusing to my brain and body, which are used to pushing themselves hard for a limited amount of time, then having a week or more off to recover before jumping back in again. I'm still trying to figure out how to gauge my use of energy at work when there are no pauses on the horizon. Sigh. Today marks Day 13 of the great viral bronchitis of 2011 (...as it will be known in my biography. You know, the one that will be written after I am famous and dead) so self-care is definitely on my mind. Clearly, I haven't gotten the hang of it with my new job and new living situation yet.
I love the picture above, clipped from some magazine back when i was a teenager. I've always been a bit of a magazine freak, it's true - thank goodness for the advent of the internet and scanners so I can keep all those images without physically keeping little pieces of paper from decades ago! I think it actually depicts a scene from a play, but to me it always looks like a snapshot from someone's fabulous New Year's Eve party. How do you celebrate that particular holiday? Honestly, for the past few years, I've either watched the ball drop on TV with my son or we've gone to bed as usual. My husband generally goes to church for what's known as Watch Night Service. As far as I can tell, it consists of praise/worship to usher in the new year, followed by a big pancake breakfast. I'm not sure I can handle pancakes in the middle of the night but hey, if it works for you, go with it. Personally, I'm getting too old and tired to pull an all nighter, even with the promise of pancakes to get me through it. Oh well, at least I'm becoming a more interesting person as I age, even if I am less flexible in my sleep/wake cycles!
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