Wonder

Today’s #reverb10 prompt: Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

First, let’s define wonder: to be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe; marvel. I would say that we look at Gromit with admiration, amazement and awe, or rather, awwwwwwww. Instead of writing about how much we love and try to better understand Gromit or about how often we find ourselves watching him sleep or play with his toys, and we smile, here is a picture that gives you a glimpse of how Gromit cultivates a sense of wonder in us.

 
Yes, that is Gromit resting under our Christmas tree.

Moment

Today’s #reverb10 prompt: Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

Wow. One moment from this whole year when I felt most alive… This took a lot of thinking and looking back through the year. I realized that I have done a lot of really cool things this year. I left the only real job I have ever had since I graduated from college, started a new job, took a trip to California, went on many a fun camping trip, celebrated my third wedding anniversary, went ice blocking and was scared out of a haunted cemetery, among many, many other things. It is hard to rank all of the wonderful things we have done this year, but if I look at when I felt most alive, it is when I’m in a club listening to music I love.

I LOVE clubs. Although, I could do without the all of the other people there. Ha! I love electronic music/techno/trance/house or whatever you want to call it and to go to a club to watch it performed live is just one of the best thrills of my life. The only time that Dave and I have been able to go clubbing this year was in March to see BT when he was at Club Beta. Ahhhh… so amazing! Here’s the scrapbook page I made from that night.

More than anything else about clubs, I love feeling the connection to the music being played. I love to feel the music through the loud bass and speakers - how it almost becomes the beat of my heart. I love to watch as the performer flips a switch, turns a dial or hits a button and then hear how the music changes - and then watch them rock out to the changes they just made. I love to close my eyes, throw my head back and sway to the music; taking in the feeling of the music through my body, the smell of fog machines and sweaty bodies (Ew! But it’s all a part of the experience, I guess) and experiencing the feeling of the world slowing around me and there being nothing else but me and the music. No, no I have never done any sort of drug. It’s just a fantastic feeling I get being in the club, listening to music I love. We really need to make it a point to do this more often…

The only thing that could make a club better? A pass into the DJ booth to really watch how the music is being put together. Maybe one day I’ll be lucky enough to experience that! Perhaps in 2011? We’ll see.

Novembeard - Day 24

I know, it’s December. But since Dave started Novembeard late, we’re still going!

 
Dave’s neck got a little itchy so we allowed him to shave his neck area. His beard hairs are about 6 millimeters long. I’m not sure if that a good or bad thing… Anyway, Dave is going to keep this going for a little while so we’ll see how long he can stand it. He did say it was nice to have a beard after he biked to work in the 50 degree December weather so I wonder how long he will actually keep this going. I guess we’ll see!

Writing

Today’s #reverb10 prompt: Writing. What do you do each day that doesn't contribute to your writing -- and can you eliminate it?

I don't blog professionally (as a part of my job or as a way to promote myself in the business world) and I mostly talk about my life, what we do in life (activities, fun, family, etc.) and weird stuff that happens to us. So really, what doesn't contribute to my writing about my life? Work. Ha! Guess I can't eliminate that!

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my job, the organization I work for, the people I work with and what I do here. And for that, I'm really thankful. 

You could argue that work is a part of my life and I could write about that, but really my work life activities are not nearly as interesting as my personal life activities (not that what I do is that interesting to some people anyway). Plus, working for a nonprofit organization that serves low-income clients limits me to what I can talk about due to privacy issues.

So, until we strike it rich and retire at an early age, I’ll still be going to work and writing (mostly) about what I do and think about in my life outside of work. Lucky you ;-)

One Word

This month I am attempting to participate in the #reverb10 - “an open online initiative that encourages participants to reflect on this year and manifest what’s next. It’s an opportunity to retreat and consider the reverberations of your year past, and those that you’d like to create in the year ahead”. So, I’m going to give it a whirl…

Today’s prompt is to encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

My word to encapsulate 2010 for me would be acceptance.

The last few years have been crazy waiting for Dave to graduate with his PhD. Each new semester brings new hope of graduation and moving forward with life - buying a home, having kids, having enough money to start my Master’s degree… but each semester has ended in disappointment and an extended timeline. This cycle got really old after three years. In the past year I began to dig deeper to understand the graduation process and to better understand what Dave was going through trying to finish school. It turned out that this process really sucks for him, too, and I certainly wasn’t helping his stress by constantly asking when he was going to be done.

In my learning adventure I discovered that getting a PhD through research has no definitive timeline. Experiments don’t go as planned, equipment breaks, other people in the research group are using the same equipment to do different projects and all of these things contribute to the delay of graduation. There is no step 1, 2, and 3 to being done. It is all about getting the results you said you would, contributing to scientific knowledge (as evaluated by a committee of highly esteemed faculty), and getting other scientists to accept your research. This takes time - an indefinite amount of time.

So this year, through better understanding, I have come to accept that there is no certain finish line for this PhD and that I need to get comfy where I am, because I could be here for a while, and that is OK. I accept that every day is one step closer to the unknown finish line and that my husband is doing all he can (within his power) to be done as soon as possible. I have stopped feeling sorry for myself, stopped asking when this will all be over and have tried to encourage my extended family (also anxious for Dave’s graduation) to also stop asking about when this will be over - Dave doesn’t need the stress or pressure from any of this, because this is hard enough on him already. I accept that this is my life right now and I’m OK with it.

One year from now I would love for the word to encapsulate 2011 to be progress. I would love for Dave to graduate, for Dave get a job that he will love, for us to buy a house and start planning for a family. If we’re not there by this time next year, it will be all right. Our time is coming. But for now, we accept where we are and are excited for progress… eventually.