Slow Going and Turning a Corner
Anyone who knows me, or has seen me in the past couple of months, is probably aware that I have been struggling with depression for some time. It is not really a big deal anymore at this point because I finally have accepted the whole medical/biological side of the whole thing. Yes, there have been some outside circumstances that have contributed to my condition, but for the most part, I am figuring out that the real deal is internal. And on that front, I have been changing quite a bit. I'm not going to say everything I have been doing to make things better, but I will say that I think it is starting to work a little bit.
Sunrise
The evidence for this has been the past couple of days. After a significant relapse of depression that was more intense than usual, I turned myself around. I spent all Sunday cleaning my apartment. That may not sound like a big deal, but the months' worth of clutter I slowly let accumulate was significantly out of control. Today, I went grocery shopping, took a twenty minute plus long walk (to the grocery store), and did a lot of research for one of my overdue papers. I also made myself breakfast and balanced my checkbook. (Of course, I am running out of cash, but I am not going to let that bother me just yet.) While this might seem like a normal day for the average graduate student, it was quite an accomplishment for me. As cornball as this sounds, I am going to be proud of myself. Tonight, I have planned a few more things that should clear the way to getting more work done on my papers. It may be too late to make a difference in the money department, but this next week is also an opportunity that I am not going to let slip away.
Sunrise
The evidence for this has been the past couple of days. After a significant relapse of depression that was more intense than usual, I turned myself around. I spent all Sunday cleaning my apartment. That may not sound like a big deal, but the months' worth of clutter I slowly let accumulate was significantly out of control. Today, I went grocery shopping, took a twenty minute plus long walk (to the grocery store), and did a lot of research for one of my overdue papers. I also made myself breakfast and balanced my checkbook. (Of course, I am running out of cash, but I am not going to let that bother me just yet.) While this might seem like a normal day for the average graduate student, it was quite an accomplishment for me. As cornball as this sounds, I am going to be proud of myself. Tonight, I have planned a few more things that should clear the way to getting more work done on my papers. It may be too late to make a difference in the money department, but this next week is also an opportunity that I am not going to let slip away.
27 March 2006
Hippies and Chimps
This was a little photoshop experiment that I was fooling around with instead of working on some homework. Yes, it is silly. Yes, it is meant to be. It's in reference to someone's categorization of bonobos chimpanzees as primate "hippies." You can see an article about these free-spirited chimps here. And the above picture is my poor attempt at a humorous take on a somewhat sad story. I learned a few things about GIMP, so it wasn't a total waste of time.06 March 2006
Animal Games
Part of the dilemma that I have been having about posting here on my blog has been that I have not really taken very many pictures lately. I feel that, since I can, I should at least post a picture or two, right? Well, the picture of bamboo to the left here is from March of last year. I will definitely need to charge up the batteries for my camera and stop spending so much time indoors. The other part of the dilemma is that I don't exactly know what to say. The things that have mostly been on my mind are either too trivial or too personal to mention.
Therefore, I suppose I should say something about Animal Crossing. (Trivial) Yeah, the game has been out for a couple of years already on the gamecube. Now, I myself don't have a gamecube and if I am vegging out with a videogame, it is probably something on my Playstation Two. But I heard about it, and I thought my sister would be interested so I bought it for her. Long story short, I think I created a monster. She played it, and she liked it. In fact, she bought her own gamecube console ($99) just to play that one game. Since the game is played in real time, and because a pixelated Turtle asked her to, she had to "visit" her town each day for a whole week to turn on a lighthouse.
I have to admit that the game is sort of fun in that there seems to be new stuff to discover every other week or so. I created my own character to play my sister's town. Consequently, my sister and I have been speaking a weird language which, if overheard by others, sounds rather absurd. I might be saying something like: "I gave another fish to the owl at the museum and there is a shovel for sale at the store, but you really have to write that duck a letter or she'll move out of town." Anyway, so much for that. I hope to post more often, but maybe I won't.
