Perpetually Unfinished
Sunday, March 06, 2005
So what's new with me?
On the stressful-crazy-overwhelmed scale from 1 to 10, I'm down to about a 6, from a 9.5 earlier in the week. But work is going to stay intense and demanding for the next month or two at least. This Monday and Tuesday, I'll be down in Springfield (the state capital), and on Tuesday, I'll be one of the people fielding questions from journalists at a press conference. This scares the crap out of me, because even in small and silly situations, I'm constantly worried that I'm going to say something wrong which will have dire consequences; now that the situation actually is a Big Deal, I'm rather petrified. I know intellectually that it will likely all be fine, but still, nervous nervous nervous. I really need to develop some self-confidence sooner or later, because I can tell that in life I'm going to need more of it than I've got.
It's really odd how much it varies whether the Peace Project stuff I do feels like work or like fun, and the distinction is much more evident when I'm already in a high-stress, overwhelmed state. The week before last, I came home from a long hard day at work and went straight to a SEJ meeting, and I was practically hopeless by the end of it. My mind was shot, and I was feeling emotionally panicky, and it was just awful. And last Tuesday, when I came home from work (after working for about 25 of the previous 32 hours, plus two or more hours lying in bed trying and failing to sleep because I'd had too much caffeine), I just collapsed and could not bring myself to go to SEJ-- my body and my brain couldn't handle it, I desperately needed to relax. But the other day at the Protest meeting, it was more like a bunch of people hanging out and laughing and enjoying eachother's company, and the "working on the Protest" part just happened to be why we were there. Even though it theoretically should've been a stressful thing since we were aiming to get the whole issue finished that night, it felt much more like a social, fun time-- a break and a relief from the stresses of life-- than more work. And that happens often at SEJ meetings, too. So, I don't know. Sometimes it just seems pretty random. I feel like this is something I need to think more about as I decide how involved I'm going to be next year.
I've been reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States on the El for the last week, a heavy, fat book that is broad but not deep. It's great, because almost every chapter brings up one or more events or stories that I want to learn more about; this one book will probably prompt me to find and read at least a dozen more. I do really love history, and I'm glad to be digging into it again.
I want to go out and take some more pictures, now that I know that I can share them. More of the traditional "pretty ones" (like most of what I've done so far), but also trying to take interesting and unique photos, taking advantage of my unlimited "film" and seeing what happens. I'm tired of winter, I hope it warms up soon.
On the stressful-crazy-overwhelmed scale from 1 to 10, I'm down to about a 6, from a 9.5 earlier in the week. But work is going to stay intense and demanding for the next month or two at least. This Monday and Tuesday, I'll be down in Springfield (the state capital), and on Tuesday, I'll be one of the people fielding questions from journalists at a press conference. This scares the crap out of me, because even in small and silly situations, I'm constantly worried that I'm going to say something wrong which will have dire consequences; now that the situation actually is a Big Deal, I'm rather petrified. I know intellectually that it will likely all be fine, but still, nervous nervous nervous. I really need to develop some self-confidence sooner or later, because I can tell that in life I'm going to need more of it than I've got.
It's really odd how much it varies whether the Peace Project stuff I do feels like work or like fun, and the distinction is much more evident when I'm already in a high-stress, overwhelmed state. The week before last, I came home from a long hard day at work and went straight to a SEJ meeting, and I was practically hopeless by the end of it. My mind was shot, and I was feeling emotionally panicky, and it was just awful. And last Tuesday, when I came home from work (after working for about 25 of the previous 32 hours, plus two or more hours lying in bed trying and failing to sleep because I'd had too much caffeine), I just collapsed and could not bring myself to go to SEJ-- my body and my brain couldn't handle it, I desperately needed to relax. But the other day at the Protest meeting, it was more like a bunch of people hanging out and laughing and enjoying eachother's company, and the "working on the Protest" part just happened to be why we were there. Even though it theoretically should've been a stressful thing since we were aiming to get the whole issue finished that night, it felt much more like a social, fun time-- a break and a relief from the stresses of life-- than more work. And that happens often at SEJ meetings, too. So, I don't know. Sometimes it just seems pretty random. I feel like this is something I need to think more about as I decide how involved I'm going to be next year.
I've been reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States on the El for the last week, a heavy, fat book that is broad but not deep. It's great, because almost every chapter brings up one or more events or stories that I want to learn more about; this one book will probably prompt me to find and read at least a dozen more. I do really love history, and I'm glad to be digging into it again.
I want to go out and take some more pictures, now that I know that I can share them. More of the traditional "pretty ones" (like most of what I've done so far), but also trying to take interesting and unique photos, taking advantage of my unlimited "film" and seeing what happens. I'm tired of winter, I hope it warms up soon.
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