Monthly Archives: December 2015

10 on Tuesday

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Carole over at Caroleknits.net posts a regular column every Tuesday where she enlists people to blog about 10 things.  I’m new to her blog so I am not sure how it is organized but today’s list is: 10 Things I Did in 2015 That Made Me Feel Proud.  So here goes…

  1.  I survived rejection…LOTS of rejection.  One paper submitted for review was rejected three times and another twice.  I learned a lot from the experience and will attempt to reconcile all the constructive feedback (and ignore the ridiculous).
  2. I lost 30 pounds.  Actually I lost more but the holidays have enabled a few of the shed pounds to reappear.  I’m in it for the long haul, however, and am motivated by health so I feel secure that I will continue on this VERY SLOW PATH.
  3. Although the semester was a bear and I never really felt like I caught up with myself I had some pretty splendid teaching moments this time ’round.  One particular highlight was the very successful Genealogy project my History and Systems in Psychology students completed.  In small groups they interviewed every faculty member in my department and traced their academic lineage back to the “fathers” of modern psychology (either Wilhelm Wundt or William James).  Along the way they met reference librarians (THE MOST important people to make friends with while in college) who fought one another over who got to help with the project.
  4. I discovered a new musical enchantment: Balinese Gamelan!  My friends Janelle and Dan play in an orchestra at my local college and I attended two concerts.  I was so taken that I begged to be permitted to join the group.  I start rehearsing with them in January and hope to journey with the orchestra to Bali next summer for a festival!
  5. Listened to some fairly remarkable audiobooks on the 2015 commute.  Notable among them are: Station Eleven, (Emily St. John Mandel), Being Mortal (Atul Gawande), and a re-listen to The Wee Free Men (the late Sir Terry Pratchett).
  6. I exercised with great regularity, despite a bum knee (that is currently in real need of a cortisone shot).
  7. Oh…and I started this blog.  I’m not a frequent post-er and my content spans both my professional life as well as my personal life, but I am pretty satisfied with it overall.
  8. I cleaned out the linen closet (which had been on my to-do list for more years than I am willing to reveal).
  9. I knit just about every day and twice a month with some of the best darned knitting friends a person can hope to have!
  10. Kept up with social media: got an Instagram account
  11. Whoops…I just remembered!  After a very splendid trip to the Shenandoah Fiber Festival with Janelle (with a meet up with Laura and Janet) I hatched a plan to make a real effort at reducing my stash yarn.  I pulled an assortment from my many bins, paired them with patterns, and had my husband put them in paper bags and staple them.  As soon as I clear the 2015 deck (I have one pair of socks to finish and a log cabin afghan to seam) I will plow into the project bags!

Currently listening to…

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“If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.” – Miss Tick, in the late Sir Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men

I don’t remember how I discovered the Tiffany Aching series, imagined and penned by Terry Pratchett, a knighted genius who was taken from us far too soon (he suffered early onset Alzheimer’s disease).  Nevertheless, this series is so completely enchanting that I re-listen to them every other year or so.  Because a fifth book, The Shepherd’s Crown, was just published posthumously I decided to start from the beginning and will spend the winter break deeply submerged in “the chalk.”

Wee Free Men Hat Full of Sky I shall Wear Midnight  WintersmithThe Shepherd's Crown

The first book features nine-year old Tiffany Aching, an introverted, smart, stubborn girl who wants to be a witch.  She will eventually enjoy the tutelage of Miss Tick (quoted above) and other more seasoned “hags”.

“It doesn’t stop being magic just because you know how it works.”

While the books are astonishing and lovely, they are made MAGICAL by the narration of Stephen Briggs:

Stephen Briggs

I think these stories should be heard, not read.  Do yourself a favor!

Self-Control as a Limited Resource

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Over a hundred publications have found support for the notion that self-control is a limited resource (Association for Psychological Science).  I think my behavior today is a poster-child demonstration of that idea:

After PROMISING myself I would not purchase more yarn until I finished the dozen or so stash/pattern paired projects I have waiting for me, I walked out of The Mannings (my local yarn shop) with 19 skeins of yarn.  Oh the shame.

In my defense (watch me rationalize here) The Mannings IS closing at the end of the month (sob) and the yarn WAS 40% off.

And I know this bad behavior on my part is fueled, at least a little bit, by the approximately 7,000 papers and exams I still have to grade.  And the two empirical papers I have to rewrite and resubmit for possible publication over the break.

I think I need a doughnut.