Managing stress

Dag--

I understand your aversion for the touch of a stranger. I had to work to overcome that.

You are meticulous about Other Peoples' Deadlines. Can you make an equally binding contract to devote November to yourself and your quirks?

i sure would like to. i certainly worked enough to get a week off and not count it as vacation (weekends, 14 hour days...). so i'm gonna get that and get a big kick forward to my dissertation.

Dag--

Tackle your disertation, by all means--but tackle your disertation like a human being with physical and emotional limits.

November should be restful--not just changing vocational stress for academic stress.

yes, it will certainly be easier. just writing, nothing else... but i can't take time off completely, the Diss monster has to be submitted and approved by April... but writing will not be stressful, it's all lined up, i just have to sit down and do it.

Dag--





What about regular sleep, regular meals and regular exercise? If you were treating a dog the way you treat yourself you could be prosecuted for Animal Abuse.

i swear i will have that in november! not in october though..

rewards?

Is there something that you can promise yourself as a reward when all is said and done?

YES! Small one - i'll get a week to myself (though i'll spend it on the thesis, but that's ok), i get to go home for christmas (ok, that should be normal, i suppose), i 'get' to go to india - but that's for work, and after my graduation in may, i will have my parents over and we're going to do the around the USA tour again. 13 years ago we did the southern states - NC to CA and back, this time we'll go Boston to Seattle and back. A month long trip. My boss doesn't know it yet....but, my father is 76 and I am going to take this trip with him no matter what.

Wait --- baby steps.

What can you do to treat yourself with an appropriate reward at the end of the next two weeks?

Beer is one treat she's been doing without.....

Dag, you could get a haircut. You could get a massage.

beer and haircut! how well you know me!

I think I'll get a haircut while i'm in NYC, that's indeed a fabulous idea (one of the scary public events is there, at the Yale Club, for 'important' people...ack.)

You'll get a haircut in NYC just before a big Yalie event? Or after?

after, i think. though i may have time before, too.

Great! Something to look forward to (forget the scary people, this is about you!) What kind of beer (think special occasion)?

Something fruity, I'd guess.

Lambic- Framboise...but of course! (raspberry flavor)

I have left my bicycle unlocked, just leaning against the fence on BU campus where I work for 13 hours today. I have NEVER done that before. There is nothing above my bicycle in the material world. I must have had a guardian angel hovering over me. It was so easy to just take -it was literally begging to be ridden away. Poor Univega.

Dag--

The idea is that you exploit time rather than allowing time to exploit you.

Do you want a haircut for confidence among the eggheads or as a reward for surviving the eggheads?

At that time my work will mostly be done. I don't have to speak at this event, just shmooze with the eggheads. I think I'd like to get it before, yes, so that I don't feel like a poor relative from Eastern Europe.

Very good. Make your treats happen on your schedule for your convenience and you'll come across like an elemental force of nature with a Slavic soul.