Quick Fix for Feeling Low

Alright, so I figure that it's not so interesting to read about people's issues that make them feel down. So here's something that has totally picked me up, just thought I would blog about it because for the moment I'm feeling peppy. Before this I was feeling really low and worried about everything and totally feeling like nothing was conquerable on my "master worry list".

It's Winter and my legs always have plagued me in terms of being dry skin. So for years I have always sworn by my Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melow body moisturizer. It's always worked. Honestly, I think I've been using this stuff since High School! Anyway, I now live in a much drier climate where I am additionally full of allergies. My legs have been itching me non-stop for the last few months and it makes me feel horrible. So initially I thought maybe it's because I'm allergic. Then I bought Noni Juice and have been drinking that everyday, which seems to definitely have helped. BUT my legs were still itchy and I mean really really painfully itchy. So I noticed also how dry they seemed to be and that I never can get a good shave. EXFOLIATION is the key! I put a lot of time into figuring out what would solve my itchy legs. So everyone said to exfoliate, which I totally totally don't do. The best concoction out there seems to be baking soda and water. Second best is salt and some olive oil or sugar or even coffee. So I was going to go to the store and get baking soda, and then I was gonna buy olive oil. And then I just got it in me to just use what I had, which was salt and almond oil. Then I shaved and put on my regular moisturizer. Wowie Zowie I feel so good and my skin is so unbelivably soft and totally not-itchy!! I did it on my face too and right now I'm feeling really super good. Too bad that I've blown and wasted so much potential writing time though...

I guess somehow I'll finish all of this. I'm really really looking forward to not having so many problems in my life. I want to be able to talk to my husband better. Our relationship is very rocky right now. He annoys me a lot of the time. And I know that my life will be more flexible if I stay married to him, which is why I am working to see if we can get past our issues. But it's just draining and so tiring after a while. You just want to throw in the hat and be done with it all. But it's not possible like that because then you've thrown it all away before you've really tried. I think that if I was able to devote the time to it and know that I had really given it my all in trying to make it work and then still couldn't make it work then I would be more satisfied in the decision to throw in the towel. I really really don't want to be divorced. But I also really really DO want to be happy. So unfortunately I have to put the PhD first and get my deadline done because it has a deadline. And then after that I hope to have the real time to just devote to my relationship with him. But honestly, he'll be working too...so when will we ever have the time like we should have taken before we got married to decide and work and make things good between us? I hate the whole back and forth of it all and knowing too that my parents just wish to not have the problem in our lives anymore and deep down they probably would just advise me to dump it all and move on. But the life that will come afterwards as a result seems soo unbelievably limited and I feel like I will forever regret the decision and would rather be with him then not in that situation and in that location because I am not willing to desert my daughter.

Ugh. tough decisions that I wish I didn't have in my life. I wonder who else can relate? who else is in a marriage and considering all of this too?

A New Day, A New Schedule

Alright, so I confronted the fact that I was behind schedule and that for all the hours of sleep I was trying to not get so that I could work and get my stuff done on time and catch up some how just wasn't working. So, I made a new schedule to get this PhD dissertation wrote! This time I actually built in time for exercise that was realistic, in addition time to eat (!) and to play with my daughter. I was silly trying to make a schedule like what I would do during my Undergrad days when I only had my needs to fill each day and who cared if I slept or ate and who needed my attention more than my books? Well, now I'm a mom and I have a responsibility to maintain that relationship with my daughter and play with her after her not seeing me all day at Nursery school. I also have a responsibility to pay attention to the relationship with my husband and make sure that I actually talk to him when he gets home. I was trying to ignore these responsibilities in place of the finishing of the dissertation. Well, obviously I don't have that option anymore. What was happening is that because my daughter is frankly more fun than writing the dissertation is she would come home and we'd have fun and then I would get more and more behind and feel guiltier for not working on my PhD when I should have. Sooo, all that said, I've made a new schedule that at least takes care of those needs a bit better. Now I have to manage to just stay focused and not get distracted looking up new interesting things when I really should be writing!

I have found that I'm very good at procrastinating. For example, I'm procrastinating right now by writing this blog! Anyway, I've run out of time for this allotted slot. More later!

A particularly frustrating morning

Well, I'm in my last weeks of my PhD and I'm scrambling to write my dissertation. On top of that my husband is putting all this pressure on me to get life worked out. Geez how I hate how all of these things are on top of each other. I hate the emotional roller coaster that waves in and out of my life. I hate then trying to compare myself and my situation to other people and trying to see if maybe someone else has it worse and that I should maybe curb my unenthusiasm and just do what would make him happy. I feel like I'm constantly trying to figure out how to make him happy and he just keeps beating on me (mentally). It's tiresome. I just want to focus and get this dissertation written. I sooo want to take a break after all of this and just be for a while. I never took a break after my first degree. I had planned to take a year off and figure out what I wanted to do. I had planned to get my mind together and just work and make some money. Instead what ended up happening was that I got rushed into a doctoral program. I had planned to go into the doctorate anyway, I just wanted some time before I started to rest. 6 months? 9 months? Instead because of the nature of academia I rushed into a program. And then I rushed into this program that I'm in now. Technically I'm glad that I did what needed to be done. But right now I'm just so on the verge of cracking. But there isn't any time to crack, there isn't any time to break down. There isn't any time to just be. I would probably enjoy taking a year off after this PhD is finished and have a kid and get a job doing something sort of related, and make some money. But that's not what's in the cards for me. Instead I'm working my tail off trying to organize a Post-doc for myself, manage to deal with the relationship with my husband so we don't fall apart (we're hanging on threads right now), and manage to get him a visa, and manage to get him a job, so that maybe he'll be satisfied enough to actually do what is needed now. No, do I really want to spend another few years on a shitty amount of money working to get a post-doc line on my resume so that later on I'll get a good job in a university. And then on top of it my husband doesn't even want to go to the states really because he wants to get his certification in engineering so he can provide for the family. yes, life is very stressed and frankly I don't get enough satisfaction out of it most of the time. I made promises and committments that I can't nor do I really want to get out of. But given that I'm now married to this man who has so much control over my life I am forever needing to somehow explain to him how life looks to me and forever fighting wiht the fact tha the just won't understand. and it's a constant drain on me. Do I want to divorce? No, not really because given that we have a daughter together and I will not desert her, I will be forever stuck in this location until she is 18 and I am able to go back to the states to be with my family. meanwhile one of the reasons I got married and had a child so quickly was so that my family would benefit. and here I am on the other side of the world from them and they aren't getting any of the good stuff and we're constantly eating a bitter life. Ugh. That's what I can say for the moment. Definitely a hard period to get through and I sure hope to hell I get something good out of it at some close point.

Music that keeps you going

Hello hello! I've realized that this blog, while eventually I hope will have readers, at the moment is just for myself...that is, no audience except myself. But I do write this in the hopes of sort of improving my writing ability later on, and because I hope that I will have readers soon(er than later). SIGH, for now I write for my future readers, I guess.

So, I bought the new album by Jason Mraz and I have to say it's my "go-to" album for the moment. I've heard people say about some musicians that they feel they are talking to the listener, to them personally. I have to say that Jason's "Details in the Fabric" completely and totally speaks to me. Right now in my life I am making really really hard decisions and I in general really try to make sure that my decisions in my life for what is good for me ALSO are good for my loved ones around me and the people I care or respect in the world that my life affects. So, this song simply says to make your choices and it'll be ok. "It'll be fine". I was listening to the CD as I was driving home today on the freeway and all of a sudden things just welled up inside. I want to make the right decisions and there isn't any chance for mistakes. Plus, the choices that I'm up against aren't even my top choices in the first place. So, it's a difficult time for me.

Meantime I'm in the last weeks of when I need to finish writing my dissertation...and that's enough pressure minus being a rocky marriage and wanting to be a good loving mom to my beautiful daughter, and stay happy for her and stay patient. Maybe I worry too much. I can't help trying to figure out the details. It's what I have done my whole life.

Gotta run and keep getting work done. Have a lovely day.

A little more about me

A lot of the tastes about who I am are listed in my interests above. I am an incredibly hard worker, but lately have felt a bit burnt out. I usually put myself last and enjoy seeing others happy after my own work to make them happy, I like to feel satisfied and accomplished in my life and know that I am actually doing important things in my life that affect the world. I have a love of history and love of understanding and knowing how others see the world. I am interested really in how the world functions in its spiritual, physical, and historical aspects. To me, archaeology and geology are the same thing, just one is the history of people, the other the history of the planet. I'm a very detailed person, one of my weaknesses and one of my strengths. I always offer good advice to people, so I'm told, but never can really take advice from anyone but my parents. I try to keep my expectations down in people that I don't involve myself in, but wish that those people I am close to will come up to my expectations. After all, I don't expect them to care any less for me than I care about them. I guess I just must be particularly sensitive to feelings and how I think about other people. I wish people would sometimes think more of me in my similar way as I think of them. This last year has been particularly rough in my life and I feel I've grown a lot and have been forced to come head to toe with a lot of realities I wish were not realities. So I'm going through a phase of disappointment as I grow up and becoming more introspective because of it. And because I don't want to lose the optimism and enthusiasm that has been my strongest and proudest qualities in myself. Thus, I am here. Read my first post and you'll see more. Hopefully we'll get to know each other more as time goes on.

Just Started

Hi Everyone. I'm new to this. I'm fighting the urge to tell all my friends that I set up a blog, but honestly, I feel like I'm gonna use this as a tool to annonymously find out from the world of you bloggers out there some realistic realities on life. I personally am an incredibly educated young woman (27.5 and am weeks to submitting my PhD dissertation) and know that I've had it better than a lot of people in this world. And I'm completely grateful. I have considered myself as a strong person who knew young in her life what she wanted to do. I was lucky enough to have the support and love of my parents in growing up and have benefited greatly from their advice in life. I truly respect and love my parents and think that they are amazing people, lots of other people would agree with me :) After my first degree I decided to move to the other side of the world to pursue my PhD. I didn't take any break and I've been working strong. I've done amazing things in my PhD studies, and it has been a fast-track 4 yrs. I will tell you that truly getting a PhD is one of the hardest things you can do in your life. It hasn't really been fun at all and I have totally spit blood for this. So all you non-academics out there please don't think that I think I am above you or something silly like that. I am an incredibly humble person and always put myself last. But I have managed to do great interesting and exciting things with my life until this point and I have many doors open to me. And in that sense I'm so excited to be finishing this period of my life and having the chance to really be happy again. within the first year of moving to this other country I met a guy. I decided that I loved him and he really loved me. I wanted to get married anyway, I felt that I was ready and I wanted to have kids. So we got married. And nine months later we had a beautiful baby girl. And let me tell you, she is so wonderful! I have poured all of what is good and right in me straight to her. She is a strong person that I truly look forward to being a friend to like my Mom was to me. She is now 2.5 yrs old and it hasn't been an easy four years what with raising a daughter, working non-stop full-time on a PhD, having relationship problems with my husband and then realizing finally that I'm the one that I have to rely on, most suddenly in life now that I am here on the other side of the world. My husband is from here. He doesn't have the world view I have and it makes things difficult. I have found that many of the ideals I had for relationships and realities of what people are able to give and what other people live with in life are really very different from what I always thought were true. So while professionally I am really in a fantastic place in my life, and that as a mom I have a fantastic child, my own personal life is just a mess and it makes me jealous of those who have simpler lives with their husbands and they are truly happy. I want to be happy. I want to learn about the world. I want to understand my husband more, but more importantly, I want him to understand me more and be more sensitive and open his mind. I'm open to him, I'm sensitive to him, why can't he do the same? So, this blog is most likely going to be an incredibly personal thing and I hope I can learn from this global world of bloggers to get some perspective on my own life situation and gain understanding from you guys out there, all without letting on to the world around me how much things aren't the way I wish they were. Smiles to the outside, furrowed brows inside. On top of all of this I've always been an incredibly outgoing and optomistic person! I want to return there. Someday soon I hope. Thanks and happy blogging.