Doing Readings

I've got plenty of reading to do by tomorrow at one. Good thing it is only 5:22pm. I've already taken multiple breaks, eaten twice, and shopped online at Nordstroms--pasting a little wishlist onto a word doc.

But I've read most of what needs reading by tomorrow. I still have not gotten to much of the class readings for Tuesday. That is a big stack and on a different vein then I've been following, whereas the narrative studies on faith and politics are right down my alley.

I've been able to change the temperature of the A/C so that it reflects my preference. I am really looking forward to living within my own climate zone. I've tried to focus on all the positive parts to autonomy (and they are numerous) as a buffer against the inevitable loneliness. I'm choosing more of a stoic stance, too, rather than just letting my emotions go wild. I've learned that I am not required to feel what other people think I should be feeling and to let go of those expectations......a big one is missing your children. That was the first one I learned early on. Whereas other mothers often torture themselves with guilt about taking vacations, I was determined to enjoy myself to recharge for better mothering.....and it always worked for me. The time we dropped L off at college, however, was a shocker. It overtook me as an emotional Tsunami, mainly because I wasn't expecting to feel like that, and I cried for nearly 45 minutes straight!

With this situation, though, I easily anticipate plenty of angst and potential regret, so I am not bothering with creating any. I know that I know that I know I miss my husband and children and worry about how they will fare in my absence. I know that I know that I know that I derive much pleasure from seeing them and from involvement in their lives---they are great people and I just love interacting with them and feeling that I am doing them some good by my love and affection and encouragement. So being here all by myself working on my own stuff will undoubtedly feel horrendously selfish and misguided at times (not an inkling of that yet, though!) and not only THAT, but I am going to want some HELP! and there won't be my usual resources available.

I'm hoping the web cam works, but it hardly satisfied me concerning S. I talked to her twice.

I wanted to talk about how I met with Cindy's son on Friday night and Dani and her husband on Saturday evening, but maybe more about that later.
I went to church today, a Vineyard, and as I was worshipping (they were very low key in regards to expressiveness), one of my fellow grad students appeared beside me! I hugged her spontaneously (we were at church, I know her, and I was happy to see her) and let her in to sit on my row.
She works for my advisor and I will be working with her coding faith and politic interviews. She will extract episodes from 2 hour long interviews into discreet events such as high point memory, low point memory, turning point memory, etc.....and I will be coding those along with a newly hired research assistant. I talked to her about it on Friday when I went up to get my office key.

This is very coincidental---therefore I can only believe it must have larger implications in the scope of both my life and hers. I look forward to being able to converse freely on topics of faith!

Off to more work.
I took too long of a break.
:-)