RedJen's Rearview Mirror

I was awake this morning to greet the beginning of May. It was by choice, if slightly under duress. Work has been crazy for the last few days. I’ve really gotten into this project and I’m fighting an internal battle of when is good enough, good enough to stop. I’m too much of a perfectionist to be happy delivering sloppy or half done work. I know that I can deliver a fully coded solution, but since I was given the project late, I don’t have as much time as I would like to architect the solution and as a result, I have to code it on the fly. Granted it’s fun to be coding, but the debug process takes a lot longer to complete and correct.

The good news is that my requirement is to have a 90% automated verification rate, with the other 10% being flagged as needing manual verification. I’ve hit that point, but I know I can get it closer to 95%. It is just a matter of tweaking the code, so I’m not satisfied with 90%. I guess technically it is good enough for the requirement, but it isn’t yet good enough for me to be happy with the results.

Given that my life since Sunday has been sleep, short trip to the gym, work, repeat, I’m really looking forward to the weekend. Friday and Saturday night, I’ll be out with friends. Saturday and Sunday, I’ll be continuing the phased cleaning in preparation for my roommate’s arrival, but then I have a date with a book and some sunshine.

I’m trying to decide if I’m going to drive up to Ohio next weekend or fly. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that fly or drive, it will take up about as much time with all the hassle of the airports, plus having to either get picked up or rent a car for the weekend. I’m seriously leaning toward driving up. The weather should be pleasant and since I just had my car tuned up, it should be up to the task. I’ll have to make sure to pack some music for the trip.

At noon tomorrow, I am officially clocking out, not working again until Monday and completely without guilt. Our offices are being moved tomorrow (Friday) afternoon, so I need to get my office packed up. The rate I’m going now, sorting will have to wait until the next move because I’m not going to try and sort things out after my self-imposed end of the week.

TGIF!!! Work is done for the week. I just got home from the spa. I’m meeting some friends in a few hours. Tomorrow morning, I have a date to write an email to someone who deserves for me to spend some time writing back. I’ve felt a little guilty about not writing back sooner, but I didn’t want to just give them surface smiles instead of a thought out response. Then I need to do a little cleaning, followed by some sunshine and a book. No work until Monday!

Dragonfly will find this post similar to an email I just sent. Hopefully they can forgive my reuse. : )
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Where there is mutual love, to regret its existence would be tragic. I would hope that where such a positive emotion exists in our lives, it would leave us enriched, even when it is a part of something that is (as a friend of mine has said) a chapter in the story that is our lives.

I don’t regret the time I was with my former fiancé. I learned a lot about myself during that time and I’m thankful that I was able to take that knowledge away with me. About a year after we split, he moved in with some people on the very fringe of people I see and we were completely out of contact for some time. From what I can tell, he finally had the “college-like” experience that he felt he had missed out on and has since moved on with his life. When I saw him last fall, he was so much more the person I always suspected he could be. The only way I can describe it is to say that he seemed comfortable in his own skin. He wasn’t playing a part any longer. The person he was projecting matched the person inside.

We’ve talked a few times since then. The strong bond that we once had doesn’t exist. When things happened, I needed to cut my ties with him; he needed to be forced toward more independence. I miss the connection we had, but the person he has grown into is more complete. There are definitely some things that I could have done without, but I think even those things were necessary.

It seems in life that we pay more attention to the negative things that happen and as a result, we learn faster from those things than from the positives. While the memory of physical pain remains with us, time will blunt the intense pain that we felt at the time into a memory of being in pain. Letting us remember the event, even being in pain, without reliving the actual agony itself. It doesn’t seem fair that our memories are less kind when it comes to our emotions.

When I think about volleyball, I remember that I’ve seriously injured my ankle multiple times and broken my hand. I remember the length of time they took to heal and rehab, but I also feel the rush of remembered competition and joy in pushing my body toward its limits. Intellectually I know that I’ve experienced intense pain, but my emotions aren’t keyed on the pain, they are keyed to the positive things I’ve experienced while playing.

Conversely, when I consider inviting people into my personal life, I don’t immediately seize on the positive memories of past experiences. Instead, I am drawn into all the negative reactions I’ve ever encountered. With such a deluge of negatives beating into my head, it’s not much of a wonder that I am wary of putting myself forward for people to see. There are very few people that I allow to see me without makeup: real or metaphorical. I’ve managed to build strong defenses against people who would cause me hurt, whether intentional or not, but I’ve never been able to “toughen my hide” where a personal barb hurts any less. I’ve gotten good at masking any external reaction to the hurt, but that doesn’t make it go away, it just puts it into a place where I have to deal with it when the audience is no longer watching.

Enough of the rambling…

And thus begins another chapter…

Last week I spent the coding like crazy to meet work deadlines. This week I get to spend my off hours cleaning like crazy to get my spare room ready for its new owner. I’m still at work and it’s time to go home if I hope to get any cleaning done tonight before I pass out from exhaustion.

Note: The movie X2 – rocks!

"If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.

If I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.

If my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.

If I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.

I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offsping, your friend, or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right -- for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences."

Excerpted from Please Understand Me II
Copyright © 1998 by David Keirsey

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t real clear on communicating that my plan changed at the last minute and I flew up to Ohio instead of driving, but I did end up at my parents house when I said I would from the beginning (sometime Friday night). As a side note, the convertible that the rental car place upgraded me to is sweet.

I met my best friend from college Thursday night and spent all day Friday shopping and catching up. We always end up shopping, which may explain why I only packed two outfits for a three-day trip. Not to worry, I have once again filled my suitcase and will not be forced to borrow clothes or do laundry while I’m here. To avoid any real changes when I’m typing on the couch, I have exchanged my cat Neko for my brother’s dog Skeeter. Thus, I continue to type with a single hand. Rugrat is still abed, Dad is taking a shower, Mom has gone to pick up Grandma and I am sitting with the two dogs currently in residence (Pepper being one of my dad’s birthday presents from last year). It is funny how slipping back into having these people around seems. Granted I know that I’ll be heading back to North Carolina tomorrow, but it’s nice.

So far so good…

I was able to “meet” my nephew this weekend. My brother and sister-in-law have about 2 more months to decide upon his first name. He will share his middle name with my brother and father. I have not had a lot of time to get to know my brother’s wife, but it was incredible to feel their child moving within her. It surprised me how different it made me feel compared to when my mom was pregnant or when friends of mine have had children. The little future soccer player felt like he was doing flips. :)

This weekend was probably one of the most enjoyable trips home that I’ve had in a long time. Granted I was only there for about 36 hours and I didn’t get a chance to see one of my brothers, but it was nice. I was able to take a lot of pictures, hopefully some of them will turn out well.

I have a new roommate. I picked her up in baggage claim on my way home from the airport, after flying back from Ohio. No one else may find it funny, but it makes me chuckle that I picked up my roommate at baggage claim. We’re in the process of doing the initial dance that happens when two people start sharing the same space. So far so good, all three of the cats have come out to say, “Hello” to her.

She loves the beach and is looking forward to taking day trips. This is a very good sign.

Now that thing have begun settling down again, I suppose it is time to take the next step on the improve Jen’s Quality of Life list. Of course it would probably help if I made up a real list, but I recently got a kick-start from a friend.

Career - To find and acquire next position at work
Why: I’m ready for a new challenge. I want to take my skills to another area where I can be challenged and grow.
How/Tasks:
Networking
Search corporate job listing tool
Update/rewrite resume
Determine if classes at NCSU fit into my schedule

Health - To work on my weight/health
Why: I’m down to a size 12 (from 18), but I’d like to get to a size 10. I recently had a physical and my cholesterol levels are high (good & bad)
How/Tasks:
Eat better
Drink water
Exercise outside of gym

Finances - To work on my money situation
Why: I want to be able to buy my own house and make it into a home.
How/Tasks:
Proactive budgeting
Reduce debt
Control miscellaneous spending

Personal Growth - Develop creative outlets
Why: I have an artistic side that gets pushed aside too often in favor of being practical. This obviously hasn’t worked out. I didn’t realize until a few weeks ago that I didn’t feel like me. I had forgotten what “me” felt like. I need to work on all of me.
How/Tasks:
Creative writing project
Continue working on this website
Finish book club books
Write more poetry
Get outside more often

How can you forget what the real, internal you feels like? Over time does it slowly slip away? What happens if you aren’t careful? Does it happen that you are you just doing things? Are you at that point doing, just to do? Is it a habit to continue rather than turning around to face not knowing what to do next? Did I somehow convince myself that by letting myself become so tired and drained that I wouldn’t have the energy to worry about other things? If that is the case, it didn’t work. It may be I only managed to tire myself out to the point where I stopped doing the things that make me feel whole.

I can count on one hand the number of times I went to the beach last summer. On reflection, that is shameful. The beach is good for me; it is calming, refreshing and full of renewal. The minute I smell the ocean air or hear the water against the shore, it is like a cool shower flows over my body. My breathing deepens, my heart rate slows, and I feel lighter and more carefree. Why did I refuse myself something that is so healing? Part of it is that I would have felt guilty for going alone, but even going with others is healing for me.

Five pages of pictures involving kids, pets, paint & friends:
* Page 2
* Page 3
* Page 4
* Page 5
* Page 6

Six pictures from my trip to Ohio:
* Page 7

"Did you think that I would let you forget me?
Did you think that I would just lie on the floor?
As you walked into you future did you think I
would give you control?
Well, you don't know me
Did you think that I would simply forgive you?
Maybe you think I'd just lay down and die
As you walked away, didn't you think I'd survive?
Well, you don't know me"
- Meredith Brooks, 'You don't know me'

I missed getting to see the Lunar Eclipse the other night. We were having an impressive thunderstorm, so the sky wasn’t clear.

Does everyone go through the seemingly crazy self-doubt that I feel plagued with? In their own minds, do they constantly second guess themselves? Does it just feel like it is a constant occurrence, when it is really much less frequent than that?

When dealing with people, I often just know if there is something they need. It can be a word of encouragement, a touch, a bit of acknowledgement or praise, even time apart. Sometimes in my life when faced with a decision, I get a flash of insight that a certain option would lead to a negative result. Whenever I’ve ignored that insight, the negative result has happened. This isn’t something that has happened once, it happens on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be anything big. For example, this really happened:
Decision: Turn left or go straight and take a later turn, where both directions are relatively equal in distance and drive time.
Insight: Go left and I’ll probably end up arriving late.
Thought: That’s crazy, I like the scenery along the road if I go left.
Action: Take the left turn.
Result: There is a 3-car accident about ½ a mile down the road, which blocks the entire road. There is no way to turn around to double back or go around. I’m late, just like I was warned.

Either I had a crazy dream this morning about posting concerning my site accidentally being blocked by the Websense filtering software or the post I made is now missing. I’m going to assume it was a dream at this point, but if this one disappears, then I’m going to be pissed.

The issue: My site somehow got blocked as containing Adult Content. (Sites that display full or partial nudity in a sexual context, but not sexual activity; erotica; sexual paraphernalia; sex-oriented businesses as clubs, nightclubs, escort services; and sites supporting online purchase of such goods and services.)

My response: I sent an email to their tech support asking that my site’s restriction be lifted.

The resolution: I received a very polite email in just over 3 hours (very nice response time in my opinion) saying that because my site has a virtual host and the IP address is shared by a site that does qualify, my site was inadvertently blocked in what they called an “unintended overblock”. I was also told that my site has been added to their database as a personal website and the update will be included in the next release of the database.

I’m ready for the weather to make up its mind and get warm. I’m ready for this week to fly by, but only to seem to, so I can get everything done at work. I’m ready for my favorite long weekend of the year. If the weather stays nice, I’ll be heading to the beach on Monday. The best thing being that the schools around here are all in school, so the beaches should be fairly deserted.

I have a feeling that this week and the coming weekend will be filled with interesting thoughts running loose through my head. I’m not yet sure how I feel about this birthday. I should probably figure that out soon, it’ll be here before I know it.

Work – too much paper pushing (okay so it is electronic paper), the minute we get close to being able to meet our deadlines, someone heaps something new on top of what we’re already doing to expands the scope to include another site to bring up to speed. Let’s not mention that the new sites are about 3 months behind where we are now and have no idea what is going on. Let see, three months behind us, we weren’t sure we would be done on time, deadline of June 30, 2003. Three months behind, one and a half months to deadline, yeah, looks like we’re screwed.

It wouldn’t be so bad if this happened occasionally, but this describes my last two projects. Okay, so the one last year about broke my sanity, but I’d really like to have the chance to succeed once in a while. I’m a perfectionist. This type of non-direction doesn’t work for me. I’m going to have to start seriously looking for that next position before I get pulled into any more of these crazy-go-nuts projects just because I’m good under pressure and I make sure things get done.

That’s it, so what do you think? Should I…

1. Join the circus
   
2. Reactivate my Lifeguard certification and move to the beach
   
3. Hide under the covers in my room and hope no one notices
   
4. Move to Mexico
   
5. Become a professional Mime
   

There are days when I find my instincts to be scarily accurate. This is one of them. I told something to a friend about a week and a half ago. She received the same message from another source this morning. Maybe someday I’ll understand what it is…

I’ve added a wish list link to my site. This is in no way a solicitation, but my friends and family may find it of use, random people may find it interesting and if I keep it up to date, I won’t have to make a new list of suggested Christmas presents for my Mom to give to my family members every year.

So the weekend begins. I’ve a little bit of coding to get done today, but even that will be nice to do, as I’m hiding out and working from home, rather than the office.

As much as I bemoan my job at times, it really has some nice perks and I really do get a kick out of it. I have a hard time imagining working somewhere else and being able to do the things I do. I don’t work with external customers, but some of my projects have thousands of users around the world. I get to talk to people all over and introduce them to different techniques to enhance how they approach their jobs. It is a really neat feeling to realize that while I may not personally touch each product that the company creates, the work that I do has a very small part of making that product happen. Explaining what I do comes close to needing a slide presentation. I get a lot of satisfaction from seeing my job done well and contributing.

The biggest perk for me is flexibility. In order to make sure that I can get my workouts in, I go to the gym in the morning before work. I am NOT a morning person and I don’t go to the gym at 5:00 AM. I head to the gym about 7:00 AM and then start my workday between 9:30 AM and 10:00 AM. Most Fridays, I work from home. This is really a small part of fact that while my job is important and I need to be able to meet my deadlines, I get to work around my life. If something big is happening in my life, I am supported.

So the bottom line is I really do like my job, even if it drives me crazy at times.

Today should be a day filled with new beginnings and changes.

My roommate has decided to cut her stay in North Carolina short and is returning to Arizona later this morning. I’m sorry to see her go, but she has plenty of good reasons to be returning. She seems to be happy with her choice and I expect it will be for the best as there is so much going on for her right now that being so far from home must be hard. It was fun having her stay while she was here.

I’m looking forward to seeing friends this afternoon. An outdoor birthday party at one of the public lakes will be fun. The weather is supposed to be nice. After so much rain as of late it will be fun to be outside. All my favorite little people will be joining us and being outside they will be free to run ragged without tearing anyone’s house apart.

I suspect the evening will include a new beginning.

I shall be beginning the day as the end of a slumber party among friends, then spending the day among people I care about. As much as I like time to myself, I like the idea of being with people on my birthday. There is something about birthdays that make me want to be with others.

For now, I need to catch some sleep before taking my guest catch an early flight at the airport. And it looks like I won over the car. :)

Birthdays should start early and end late. It was a really nice weekend. I have some new pictures to add to the photo album, but I haven’t put the new pages together yet.

I think my favorite things this weekend all happened on my birthday.
- A long talk with a friend in the morning
- Playing Frisbee and laughing freely in the afternoon
- A walk outside, while reconnecting with an old friend in the evening
- Laughing and talking with friends into the early hours of the morning
- Getting email from a friend and laughing before going off to bed

Laughter

...it may drown out everyones' voices, but I've been home for over four hours and it is still drowning in my head. Time to remember to take the advil into work...

I’ve never been one to sleep in a silent room. When I was growing up, if I listened closely, I could always hear my dad’s radio playing in my parents’ room. In the summer, we either had fans running in the windows or the windows open and I could hear either crickets or trains rumbling across the tracks on the other side of the alley and field behind our house. If I was very quiet and still, I could feel my heart beating. Sometimes it seemed like I could hear my heart beating if it was quiet enough. I could tell you who was walking up the stairs by the sounds they made as they moved. I wanted to stuff cotton in my ears when my one brother started grinding his teeth in his sleep.

When I went to college, I always had a small fan running or a radio playing softly when I went to sleep.

Now that I’ve moved away from Ohio, I find I sleep most deeply at the beach. There is something soothing about the sounds of the surf and the tide.

When at home, I don’t sleep in a silent room. I have some incredible CDs of tonal sounds that I play when I sleep during the weekends, when I don’t have to be awake at any specific time. They are very basic and I sleep very deeply when I play them. I’m not sure if they are music, but they are relaxing and soothing. During the week, I have continued to use a fan or soft music. When I replaced my alarm clock (the last one was too easy to turn off the alarm in the morning), the new one came programmed to play four different sounds (wind, brook, surf and rain). I like the wind sound for a while now, but it sounds exactly like the white noise that is now being pumped into the open landscape area I am now working in. Not a good mix, my sleeping sounds in the same place I’m trying to work. I’m going to have to find something else to sleep to, because the fan noise doesn’t work either. It has the same problem, too much like the white noise.

The good news is that the white noise at work, it is too loud to sleep to; it just sets my brain into neutral. People keep telling me that I’ll get used to the white noise and soon I won’t notice it. I’m not sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. It would be good/nice to leave work without a headache. To me the white noise sounds like a toilet with a leak between the tank and the bowl, so it is constantly running. That is a sounds that sets my teeth on edge, which may explain why I keep getting headaches.

It may be that I’m getting headaches in response to feeling isolated in the new working environment. We’ve been moved out of our offices, which we each shared with another person and into single almost Dilbert-like cubes. The thing about our work areas is that the layout pretty much forces us to face so that we have a wall to our left, right and directly in front of us. The entrance is behind me when I sit down. So I feel like I’m sitting in a box with an annoying humming sound drowning out any other sign of life from outside my box. Is it any wonder I feel trapped in there? Not to mention I HATE having people read over my shoulder when I don’t know they are there. (I already added a mirror to my desk.)

They call the new layout “Open Landscape”, but it doesn’t feel open to me. It feels confining. When we were in our offices, you could get up, walk down the hall and see if anyone else was restless without intruding on them if they were busy. Now it feels like you are spying on someone if you peek into their area to see if they are interruptible. I don’t like feeling like I’m in a cage. Heck, replace the 6-foot walls with bars and it would probably feel the same at this point, except that at least with bars I would be able to see out. I’ve been tempted to remove part of the “wall” that faces the hall I am on, just to be able to see human beings occasionally. I wonder how extroverts are handling the isolation. Maybe they don’t feel it the same way I do. Maybe being an introvert, I like the idea of having people around and just knowing they are there is enough to keep me going. By removing the evidence of the existence of other people, I feel more distracted than I did when sharing my office. I feel cut off. I think that’s the biggest issue I’m having right now. There are people all around me, but I can’t seem to get a sense that they are there and that disturbs me.

...and determination lead to results.

There's something about laughter, it may even substitute for sleep to an extent. I've been laughing for the past 6 and a half hours and I feel good. Okay, it's 4:30 AM and I'm getting tired, but I feel good. So far being 31 feels a lot better than being 30 ever did. I'm not sure I'm ready for a purple hat yet, but I may be getting there.

I'm not feeling really creative this morning. For some reason, I feel strangely motivated to clean things up. Usually cleaning is almost therapeutic for me. I've had roommates run away before when I hit a cleaning frenzy. And frenzy pretty much describes what happens. Furniture all but flying around, no talking, just move, scrub, dust, clean and repeat until the negative energy has spent itself on an otherwise dreaded chore.

So, I'm not throwing furniture, I did clean up my Wish List and put it into what I see as a more logical order. I also added some birthday weekend pictures to the photo album. I think next I'll tackle the kitchen before taking a nap.