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Done last week (20160515Su - 21Sa)
2016-05-22 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdlbearHmm. Interesting week. Mostly in the Chinese sense.
My boss seems to be somewhat more confident in my abilities than I am. It is not clear that this is entirely a good thing, especially if it tempts me to become complacent. But, yeah. Low self-esteem. I haz it.
I think I've managed to spend a few minutes noodling on the guitar every day this week. Mostly minor and suspended chords, but still. Music. It does tend to confirm that my mood is mostly minor and suspended.
My home hacking continues to be centered around xnomad. I've pretty much abandoned gnome at this point. Xmonad is blazingly fast, lightweight, works beautifully with a varying number of monitors, and seems to help me concentrate on the task at hand.
I've also upgraded a couple of netbooks to Ubuntu 16.04; not entirely successfully, but the one with hardware problems is the smaller of the of the Dell minis. The keyboard was crap when I started, and has not been helped by the fact that the hard drive is underneath it. Swapped the 16G SSD for a 100G hard drive pulled out of something a long time ago. That, and getting through a couple of boxes of shredding, has at least given me some sense of accomplishment.
The most "interesting" day was Friday, though, when I got home and it finally occurred to me to research burnout. Um... yeah. Nearly a perfect match for the problems I've been having at work over the last year, not to mention the depression, dysthymia, occasional sleep problems, and the fact that I lost ten pounds over the course of a month or so last year. (Not that I'm going to complain about that! But...)
Anyway.
I actually teared up reading, in Ten Questions for Meaningful Career Development, "2. Am I willing to believe that my efforts matter, at least to me?"
I think what I need to do, over the next year or so, is semi-retire. I can't afford to fully retire, and probably wouldn't want to for years. But something less stressful, maybe part time, ... yeah. The hard part will be finding it. There aren't really a whole lot of low-stress jobs for an ageing computer curmudgeon. If you spot one, let me know.
Notes & links:0515Su * up 9:50; W=193.6!; laundry, dishes, bath % no back pain. @ Madeleine LeBeau, French actress who sang ‘La Marseillaise’ in ‘Casablanca,’ dies at 92 - The Washington Post : bath before bed. 0515Mo * Up 1:30, back to sleep ~3:30; ; laundry * up 6:20; W=194.4; laundry, dishes % major hurdle cleared at work. $BOSS seems more confident in my abilities than I am. : By experiment: if you run: while : ; do date; sleep 1; done | dzen2 -xs 2 -geometry -0-0& you not only get a clock at the bottom of monitor 2, but it will still be there after you undock, go to a meeting, and come back. Hmm. 0517Tu Vacation day (mostly at home) * up 6:30; W=194.4; laundry, dishes * 1:30 Shoreline Clinic - testing. Vacation, though I will probably work anyway Turned out to be pretty worthless. Not the sort of diagnostic test I was expecting. * Replaced broken turn signal light on the van. ~ totally failed at replacing the rollers on the screen doors -- neither was one of the five types I found at Home Depot -> ordered from Amazon 0518We * up 5:30; W=196.6; laundry, dinner @ African Superhero Film 'Oya: Rise Of The Orishas' Debuts Online Okayafrica. * finished the latest bag of shredding. * Some hacking: putting bottom bars on screens. Not entirely satisfactory, but with weather, uptime, and date it's not too bad. xmobar could do more, but this is lightweight. 0519Th * up 5:00; W=196.6; dishes * Hotel | Westercon 69 Pref: Fri 7/1 - Mo 7/4 800-996-0510 conf# 86963013 Arrive Sat 7/2 There may be no rooms available; check for arriving Saturday and leaving Monday Arriving Friday would be preferable; phone. There may be rooms outside the block. * Productive at work % in the early afternoon I noticed a general feeling of malaise. Not quite dizzy, not quite upset stomach, not quite a headache, not quite like being strung out on caffeine, but definitely not firing on all cylinders. Slightly difficult to concentrate. Still there, though more like a headache, at 7. Not much fun. % It wouldn't surprise me if I was suffering from burnout. I'm not sure how one tells. & a little noodling. mostly-open chords; minor, suspended, and beyond. 6/8 * C wanted me to hang out, so now have xmonad configured on Purple. xmonad is a real win on small screens. As one might expect. * the new apt command is convenient. Combined front-end to apt-get, apt-cache, etc. Unlike aptitude, it doesn't get in the way or try to be "helpful". % nearly 10pm. sleepy 0520Fr * up 0616; W=196.4; * Productive morning; meetings from 1pm onward to 4. & researching burnout. Um... yes. @ The Tell Tale Signs of Burnout ... Do You Have Them? | Psychology Today " Burnout is a state of chronic stress that leads to: * physical and emotional exhaustion ... check * cynicism and detachment ... check * feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment ... check. Mate in two. Three at the most. Oddly enough, the best strategy is the same in both cases. @ Preventing Burnout: Signs, Symptoms, Causes, and Coping Strategies The most effective way to combat job burnout is to quit doing what you’re doing and do something else, whether that means changing jobs or changing careers. But if that isn’t an option for you, there are still things you can do to improve your situation, or at least your state of mind. @ Job burnout: How to spot it and take action - Mayo Clinic ! feeling somewhat accomplished for having figured this out. Doesn't make it any less of a problem, but at least it's a *known* problem. @ Career Thriving for Gifted Adults: Moving Forward not clear whether it will help : Colleen made chicken, Turkish style. Ticia took two (admittedly small) pieces that I fed her by hand. @ Ten Questions for Meaningful Career Development | Psychology Today Teared up around "2. Am I willing to believe that my efforts matter, at least to me?" So there's that. See also: " Go back to question #1—if your career isn’t working for you, maybe it’s because the reason you went into it isn’t valid for you anymore. Or maybe your career choice is fine, but you’re not doing enough for yourself. You might have taken a job in journalism because you love to write, but now you’re only writing what others want you to write. When/how do you find time to write for yourself? " % losing 10 lbs in a month or so last year should have been a clue. 0521Sa * awake 3ish; laundry % although a split-sleep pattern is not unknown, it probably does indicate a disturbed sleeping pattern when I do it. Depression? Burnout? Who the hell knows. I don't. * Up 7:30; W=197; laundry, shower, dishes @ Master of Tides - Lindsey Stirling - YouTube flash music in a shopping mall @ Using Affirmations - Stress Management from MindTools.com " Note: There has also been research that says that the higher your self-esteem, the more effective affirmations can be. This research also found that affirmations can actually have a negative effect if you have very low self-esteem. " Oh. Check. & basically continuing a dive into stress, burnout, and time management, mostly via helpguide. Mindtools is pretty good but some content is behind paywall. : My computer was frozen. Totally unresponsive to keyboard or mouse. Turned out that Ticia had stepped on my KVM switch. Silly cat. Silly bear. * 1:50ish Kitchen screen door fixed! Seems to have been sized incorrectly; it doesn't engage the top rail but sits in the groove behind it. Anyway, works now. * 2:20 deck screen door "fixed". It's stable, but needs new bottom rollers before it can actually slide properly. : Given how long it takes gnome-panel to start up after I log in, I think I've pretty much abandoned gnome for xmonad. An xmonad/gnome session still has advantages, but I wouldn't be depending on the panel to get work done. * Some good time down with N putting up curtain-rod supports, then hunting all over the house for a picture. Which was, of course, in the last possible place it could have been -- in a box in our room. & Managed to make Barnard unbootable trying to clear some space on its tiny ssd. That's ok; I need to install something lighter-weight, like xubuntu or debian, anyway. Hmm: How to remove hard drive from Dell Inspiron Mini 10 | Inside my laptop OK, that was painless. Getting a usb stick to boot turns out to be much less painless. Correct way to make one is to skip all the GUI apps and just cp xubuntu*.iso /dev/sdb :P & apparently I'd never gotten around to upgrading Cygnus. : apparently I damaged Barnard's keyboard. (the disk is accessed by removing the keyboard) Oops. Install went fine, though, and Cygnus seems to be doing ok so far. : some nice youtube videos about math. * xubuntu is a really fast install compared to unity.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-23 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-23 03:58 am (UTC)go you
Date: 2016-05-23 05:24 am (UTC)Re: go you
Date: 2016-05-23 05:35 am (UTC)I have problems recognizing my emotions, and sometimes even noticing them. This was a pretty standard example. Tears, for me, are usually a strong hint that there's something there to notice.
Re: go you
Date: 2016-05-23 05:47 am (UTC)Re: go you
Date: 2016-05-23 02:12 pm (UTC)I know all about being blind to other peoples' emotions, too. Tears aren't exactly fun, but I treasure them because they'vee been so rare. I think last year when we put my cat down was the first time I can remember actually crying since I was three. (See mdlbear | Entries tagged with curio.)
Re: go you
Date: 2016-05-24 03:32 am (UTC)Re: go you
Date: 2016-05-24 04:08 am (UTC)Echar De Menos (tr. to miss someone; lit tr. to make smaller)
Date: 2016-05-24 05:29 am (UTC)Have you read the story "Border Guards", by Greg Egan?
Re: Echar De Menos (tr. to miss someone; lit tr. to make smaller)
Date: 2016-05-25 02:12 am (UTC)Even though I know intellectually that the Rainbow Bridge story is pure fiction (and, heck, I've written my own version, so I should know), it's just as comforting as if it was real. I'll take it.
Re: Echar De Menos (tr. to miss someone; lit tr. to make smaller)
Date: 2016-05-25 03:22 am (UTC)Re: Anderson
Date: 2016-05-25 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-27 02:59 pm (UTC)From here, you look as if you have so very many strengths and graces.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-23 09:24 am (UTC)Embrace the decision. It sounds like you need some time to recharge.