unemployment

I’m going to spend today and tomorrow assessing how everything went last week, in terms of both my personal and employment related goals.  Today I’ll be focusing on my daily schedule and how well I’ve been keeping it.  If you look back a few posts, you’ll see where I laid out how I wanted to organize each of my now completely empty days.

As far as my morning block, I’m sure no one will be surprised that I’ve managed to drink tea, eat oatmeal (or whatever) and read a book for about an hour every single morning!  You know what?  I haven’t really been talking about this so much, maybe I’ll dedicate a post or two about it, but it is really really hard for me to maintain a positive self-image even when I am gainfully employed.  In my current situation, it takes every ounce of my being not to fall into intense self-loathing.  That being said, yes, I am going to take unironic pride in any success I have in keeping to my schedule, even if that means being pleased at eating a healthy breakfast.  And I’m still reading Lolita - I didn’t read comic books all week, that counts for something!

As for the exercising, I’ve found the biggest obstacle to this has so far been the weather, which is not something I can do too much about, but I have been a pretty big wimp about it.  I did go running 3 days last week, but excused myself for even the slightest bit of rain, rationalizing that I’m only just getting back into this after half a year hiatus, and I should be a bit careful getting started.  There is definitely something to this.  In the 3 days I did go running, I nearly got hit by at least as many cars, so I’m going to try to stick to optimal conditions at least for now, to mitigate as much risk as possible.  I think I’m going to order a yoga video to be an indoor alternative to my running, and perhaps a mid-afternoon break, sort of thing.  I’ve never done yoga, but I have horrible joints and I really think it could help me focus and to center myself.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

Otherwise, as predicted, the job search portion of the days often becomes incredibly consuming, and often stretches well beyond it’s boundary.  It’s easy enough to stop for lunch - when I do go running, I have a ridiculous appetite that sneaks up on me and tears me away from anything I might be doing, but it’s pretty hard not to want to come right back to where I left off on Craigslist, or wherever.  Unfortunately, this does not mean that I’ve been terribly productive with it, for various reasons.  I’ll discuss some of this in tomorrows evaluation of my job search, and I really just need to dedicate an entire post to all the ridiculous distractions that wreak havoc with my productivity (I’m looking at YOU, gchat!)

As for my Productive Leisure and writing time, this has been entirely absorbed by this very blog.  I think this is problematic, but temporary.  I started this to help me get more comfortable writing, but the completely casual and unaccountable nature of it makes me think that it doesn’t improve it any.  This is fine for now.  It does do other things - this is the best job I’ve ever done of keeping up a journal, and they say that that can have as positive of an effect on your mental health as therapy - but I’m worried that it is taking too much of my mental energy that I should be dedicating to my other projects.  I do think this is temporary, though.  I think I’ll start falling into a rhythm with this that allows my to keep it up with the thoroughness and quality that I would like, without sacrificing the time and energy that I want to be putting into my more important projects.  I have had a tendency in my life, though, to take on too many projects at once, preventing any meaningful progress with any of them.  I think it might be a defense mechanism.

I really should start actually TIMING these things, though.  I don’t know how long I actually spend on this blog, or any of these things that I have so carefully plotted out into hours through the day.  Maybe I need to get a watch, or that program that helps you organize and account for your time that I saw on one of these blogs.  He actually has some interesting advice on ways to make money from the internet, which I might want to try myself, but would probably just be another unnecessary distraction in my life.

So, for keeping up with my schedule, I’m gonna give myself a high B - maybe an 87 - not quite a B plus.  Hmm…. actually, maybe I don’t want to go down that route.  Grading myself?  That might be a bit much.  Tune in tomorrow to see how I did applying to jobs, and to see whether or not I end up approving of the idea of grading myself.

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