A post before Carb loading

I think the Gemologist should just be officially shelved. It's been almost a month since my last post and I'm not about to write about the gemologist.

I'm in Hermosa. Actually WE are in Hermosa. Emmie, Richy, Marie and I. We are doing the race tomorrow as a relay. I'm doing the swim, Marie the bike and Ricky the run. There is a very strong on shore wind, and I'm a little worried that the swim could be cancelled. Maybe the wind will die down tonight. I was very excited to try the swim "bare back"...that's the best term I could come up with instead of just saying "without a wetsuit". Long open water swims are usually without wetsuits, so if I'd like to start doing those, I figured I should start with a nice 500M sans wetsuit.

On another note, I am looking foward to leaving UCLA. Just about 8 more weeks. It is so exciting to think that I maybe have a little time to start writing, or cleaning the house, or cooking...even exercising. Even if I find work, I probalby won't be commuting 15 hours a week, so that will give me a little time to do other things.

Ok, it's off to dinner. Carb loading time.

No gemologist yet

My first day back at my blog and I'm sitting in the hospital with Marie. She had a bad day (week). I was working on my technical writing class assignment and did the Left brain/Right Brain test. I'm mostly right brained (7 pts for left, 9 pts for right). If you are at all interested, here it the link.

So someday I will have to revisit my gemologist and his box of money.

Lately I've been working on getting some resumes out. Initially I wasn't planning on working, but there are some great opportunities out there that I really want to try for. As I said to my mother, what have I got to loose? I'm leaving UCLA anyway, so I might as well see what else I can do. That is one of the reason I'm taking the technical writing class. It turns out that I've done a lot more technical writing than I thought I had done. Lots and Lots of protocols. I'm always writing protocols so that I don't have to keep telling people how to do things.

I will try to get to that gemologist next time. And Marie is doing ok. It was a bad week capped off by a pump malfunction.

Browser Emergency and a Chinese Menu

Whoa, that was close. I almost thought I'd be up shit creek without a paddle because I couldn't open my browser of choice (I'm a firefox gal). Luckily it was just giving me trouble because I was supposed to be using the new version...so using IE for the only thing it is good for, I downloaded the newest version of firefox and I'm ok now. That was close!

On to today's (tonight's) prompt. I went and found my copy of "Pen on Fire" and will choose an exercise from there. I will attempt to get out a nice coherent piece, but I only have about 30 minutes left on my laptop battery, so we'll see how this goes.

After perusing the exerciesed in the book I've decided to set up the "Chinese Menu exercise". This consits of three columns: Character, setting and situation. Under each column I will write 4 items. Then I will pick item from each colum I will pick one of each and next time I will start writing. Maybe that will take up my next few peices...just working through the menu.

Character

• bus driver
• gemologist
• stay at home mom
• mountain climber

Setting

• dentist's office
• Alcatraz
• bedroom
• sewing class

Situation

• found in compromising position with boss of same sex
• looses wedding ring over side of boat
• finds box of money
• sits down on a cactus

So now I have to figure out how to choose without bias. I'm throw darts at my screen and see what I come up with. Hold on I'll be right back.

OK, with out damaging myself of my computer too much I came up with

A gemologist in a dentist's office finds a box of money.

Actually, I got lucky and Ricky showed up.

The next post will be me trying to write a little piece about what we've just put together. I hope I can sleep tonight though! We have swim practice tomorrow morning at 8am and it will take over an hour to ge there. I am so looking forward to getting my weekends back!

"When I take care of myself..."

it will be with a few dozen pills. Or maybe a big big gun. But pills would be cleaner. I won't leave as much of a mess. OH, that's so like a woman and mother, not wanting to leave a mess, even when I decide to take my life.

I"m not dipressed, it's just that I'm watchin Kitchen Nightmares recap and they are all set in NY or NJ, therefore "take care of [somebody]" means to take care of them...maybe with concrete boots.

I'm not very inspired to write today. I can't even work on my resume. This was a tough week coming back after vacation and having to take my sister to school every morning by 8am when I was barely getting dressed at 8 am just 2 weeks ago. It's a little tiring. That's one of the reasons I need to leave UCLA because I'm overwhelmed with taking care of family and commuting and working. I need more time for myself, and for my family and to be able to dedicate time to work. I don't have that right now and I'm not sure how long I can continue to function at this level. I'm running at 3000 rpms.. All the time.

"The one time I was really surprised was..."

"The one time I was really surprised was..."

when I got 777 at the New York New York. I love slot machines and Las Vegas. But I'm not always that great at figuring out combinations. That's why I don't play poker. Slots are much easier to understand, except when you get some crazy combination. I had no idea what I had gotten that night, except the bells were ringing and then a fancy "777 Statue of liberty" attendant came over and gave me a pin! I still didn't get it until my husband showed me that the combination of symbols was not just 777, but more like a 7, a wild card and a doubler. Well, that was just fine by me. I think I wound up paying for the whole vacation that night.

You can ask Ricky, but I'm not easily surprised. For sure, he can't surprise me. I read him to well, and have this little habit of figuring things out way too soon. Movies rarely surprise me. TV shows, books...I guess it just has to be accidental for me to be surprised. Sometimes it feels llike a bit of a curse, because I can't feel the joy of a pure surprise.


OK, that was my second attempt at my writing prompt post...not all that creative, but at least I tried!

One thing you must accomplish today is...

The Imagination Prompt Generator Prompt for me today:

One thing you must accomplish today is...

…everything. That is not a good answer, I know. But I can't think of anything else. Initially I was very enthusiastic about this prompt; I thought it might be serendipity. I was so excited this afternoon to find a job announcement at a really cool sounding place. All I wanted to do was come home to work on my resume. But once I got home, I lost steam. Dinner, and bills and kids and hubbies took over and sapped my energy. Then I read the prompt and though the answer should be “updating my resume” and within 20 seconds it was gone. I was left with everything else.

I’m trying to stay more creative and trying to write at least a few times a week, so I’ve decided to use online prompt generators for encouragement. I have about 3 books with different exercises, but I can never make the time to pull those out and sit and do a writing exercise for 10 min. So, today, I saw the link and thought I should put the exercises in my blog. Maybe I will wind up documenting my progress. Maybe down the line I might inspire somebody else. Maybe knowing that this information is in the public it will keep me motivated.

So after writing this today, I find that my goal was to accomplish writing a little something and posting it. Baby steps.

By the way, I’m proofing and editing today’s writing exercise, but in the future, they may be more freewriting and may not be polished (even a little). I apologize in advance for anything that is really bad.

one last thing

I just decided to change my blog address from Junieh to Juniehildebrandt. I figured I didn't need my blog address to be a town in Lebanon and it would be easier for people to google me and find my blog if it had "hildebrandt" in it. So I successfully googled my blog as a test. Though I have to admit it is a little scary knowing that people I know could look it up. Well, I'll see how this goes and then deal with it later.

My week as a single stay at home mom

For this last week I have pretended to be a single stay at home mom with a 4 year old and a teenager. Boy, it wasn't all that easy. I didn't think it would be easy (that's why I took a vacation from work so that I could stay home while Ricky was away). Most people that have never attempted this don't realize that you have to plan you day out with specific blocks of time for specific activities and can over book yourself if you are not careful! I think I have gained a greater appreciate for what Ricky goes through on a daily basis. I really didn't have any work responsibilities (except for those few hours that I promised I would check in on one day), but if you are trying to work and get all the other shit done that you need to do, it's not all that easy.

There were a dozen things that I really wanted to accomplish (some stuff has been on this list for about 2 years!) but really none of it gone done. Although today, on my last day of vacation/single-stay-at-home-mom-ness I did manage to get one of them done.

But enough complaining. This gave me a great week with my daughter and sister. I think my lab survived just fine without me, so that is encouraging. It's proven to me that they can survive without me and I don't have to feel guilty about leaving.

There are so many things I'm looking forward to doing after I leave work for good. I wonder if I will get any of them done though. This was the first time since Emmie was born that I really felt like a decent mom. I enjoyed waking her up and getting her ready for school, dropping her off and picking her up , talking to her teachers, and making dinner and giving her a bath and putting her to bed.



So, now I'm off to go pick up Ricky. We had a good week without him, but I'm happy to have him back.

Specificity, Proactivity, Happicivity

It's one of those days where I should be working, but since I've managed to finish up some really big projects, I'm taking a few minutes to NOT think about work...ok I'm think about work if I'm trying to not think about work, but you know what I mean.

My boss is having the whole group read "Time Tactics of Very Successful People" by BE Griessman. I think he didn't read the book carefully enough, because I now want to stop working here more than I did before I read the book.

Successful people do things that they enjoy. They have goals that they want to meet. It is not a goal of mine to stay at UCLA as lab manager. I don't see where that will get me. I had already figured out that I didn't want to have my own research lab years ago. So, I only was here until I figured out what I wanted to do. I haven't figured it out yet, but I know I don't want to be here.

One of the habits of highly successful people is to write down their goals and to BE SPECIFIC. This was recently exemplified by Michael Phelps winning his 8 gold medals. There was talk about th piece of paper that he had written everything down on and he said that he had met his goals. That's how successful people do it. I've been thinking about writing down my goals. They may show up here, but I think I'm afraid to do it because I might fail. As long as I don't write them down they aren't real...but as long as I don't write them down, I will never meet them.

The other scary thing is: what if I do meet them? I'm not sure if I'm ready to accept that I am successful. The other day I was meeting with a therapist to help work though some issues for dealing with the stress of my new family situation (having to be responsible for my sister who is living with me). And the therapist referred to me as "successful". I was floored. I had never thought of my self as successful. But not that I'm thinking about it, I've had a pretty good track record.

I wanted to get a PhD and I did. I wanted to marry Richard and I did. I wanted to complete a triathlon and I did. I wanted to have a baby and I did. When I was little I wanted a better looking Christmas tree and I got one. Am I spoiled or am I just goal oriented and proactive?

BE PROACTIVE is another one of those things that successful people do. Actually in this case I'm talking about "Effective People" (7 habits of Highly successful people SR Covey). I'm reading (or listening) to this too. I'm not to crazy about the role of "a higher power" in being effective, but otherwise it's a pretty enlightening book. I find myself applying the tools that Covey talks about. Today I deleted a whole e-mail because I was going to shift the blame for something and complain, but decided that I didn't have to. It was fine to just drop the issue.

So there it is...I'm working on being successful and effective and not working on my assigned job. But in the long run I think I will be better off. I will BE HAPPY.

P.S

I just realized that in Feb I said I gave 12 month notice, and now I've said I've given 6 months... For clarification, I did give 12 originally.  The I got a notice from my boss (along with 3 other people) saying that we should pursue other options because he'd like to let us go in 6-9 months.  So I'm going with the 6 month option and I CAN"T WAIT!!!

In case you are wondering:

Pride and Prejudice (one of the first soap operas in print)

Flipping Confidential (for my new career)

Time tactics of very successful People (one of my bosses wants every one to read it and bought us copies...it will help in my new career too)

Under stress under duress under a mattress

Ricky just reminded me that it's been two months since I last wrote anything here.  I've been busy with work, and family, and trying to find a few minutes for myself.  

Somehow I've gone from one of the most stressful periods I've had recently to finding out time to read 3 different books at the same time, cook a little, go to the beach, and get my hair done.  But I think that's because I really needed to find time to do these things or I would have gone crazy.

Well, maybe I am going crazy.  I 've decided to see a therapist after the craziness of the last month or so.  I'm hoping she will be able to help me work through this mess.  Maybe it will just be good to walk away from work for an hour.

I'm looking forward to the end of the year...I am going to leave my job and it feels really good.  I would be a little sweeter if I hadn't given 6 months notice but it is a relief.  And I don't really have much planned for after I leave.  I'll probably take off a few months!  

So, maybe in a few months I'll update again.  Ya know, the whole reason I put this together was so I could have a convenient place to write shit.  But I keep forgetting. Oh well.

the second post

I guess it's been over a week since my first post. I haven't gotten much better at being creative (especially since I haven't been taking the time to write anything).

Ricky is reading descriptions on movies that are at the LA Film festival this month. He just read one for "Mirage Man" a story of a Chilean superhero. Go figure.

Marie was just throwing a tiny paper airplane at me and the computer. If there are any random typos it's her fault.

"Paper or Plastic" follwos grocery plastic bagging champions! And a man and a sheep live happily ever after!

So guess what. I quit my job last week. I gave my bosses 12 months notice. I know that's a long time, but it's a fair amount of time considering I will need to train a replacement and I'm so special that there's no miraculous way that we will find somebody that is prêt-à-porter.

I hope that my husband is satisfied with my post for tonight. He complained that I needed to post again. So World (and hubby), here it is.

take 2

Ok, the first post I just tried failed to post...what a way to start this.