My Yearly Update I Guess
Jul. 1st, 2019 02:17 pmSo it seems like I update about once a year. Mostly because I'm not good at things, and keeping any kind of journal updated is among that list.
Biggest news: I am Dr. Bouchey now. Despite graduate school being, possibly, my most serious regret I am now done with it. I can now continue to do literally the exact same stuff that I was doing before I finished, but now I can select something new in drop down menus for name prefixes. Really, I expected to feel relieved, or at least a sense of victory. But I just feel bad. I almost don't like that I'm a doctor. I hated so much of graduate school that I wish I could make the whole experience disappear, and even the congratulations just make me feel sick to my stomach. It takes active restraint to not send my diploma through the shredder, because I just want to destroy anything that is even remotely related to graduate school or academia. I hate it. My partner is so openly proud of me, but even that makes me feel so angry I just want to scream at her, which in turn makes me feel awful and ashamed. Whenever I think about I feel literally nauseous. Not really a point to this, just needed to get it off of my chest because I don't feel brave enough to admit this directly to another human, and typing it feels more like just sending it into the void even though I knew exactly who is going to read it :P
Actual good things that are happening: My partner and I joined an adult soccer league through her work. I am very out of shape and that makes me pretty sad, but at least the rest of the team isn't that much better than me, so I just have fun playing.
My partner has been very involved in the local caving grotto. She has been involved in some volunteer restoration work at Carlsbad Caverns as well as mapping, exploration, and restoration at Ft. Stanton cave. She wants to help out with a mapping project for the lava caves at El Malpais, but there just isn't enough time. I've been doing the restoration work at Carlsbad with her, and was just invited to take a trip to do some mapping in Ft. Stanton, which is pretty cool. I enjoy caving, although I would say that if I had my choice of hobbies/pastimes and also the motivation to actually pursue them I would probably spend the time doing something else. However, if I just left caving to her, I wouldn't do something else. I would sit around at home doing nothing and beating myself up over not taking advantage of the time to do something I enjoy. So I let her drag me along and have fun doing stuff with her, which is pretty good!
The xeriscape in the front yard turned out really well. We are situated kind of on the sides of the Sandia mountains, so to account for the slope, our backyard has an upper and lower tier. Our upper tier was already pretty well landscaped. We're mostly just going to add some nice details and finishing touches. The lower tier, however, is most weeds. It is totally overgrown. So my next major project, which will be a lot more work than the front yard was, is to redo this lower tier. I want to plant two fruit trees and put in a compost bin on one side, add a pergola and a fire pit at the bottom of the stairs which lead from the top tier, and put some raised beds and a chicken coop on the other side. I think it'll be really nice when done, but I first have to clear out all the weeds. A note about New Mexico plants: if they can grow here without human assistance, they will almost certainly try to stab you. All the weeds have thorns, needles, or stickers. Just walking down there can be painful, much less weeding. I was planning on taking a fairly long time to get it done, but my partner's father is giving us some stone which I would like to use, so now I would like to try to get it done sooner rather than later.
Lastly, I've coauthored an article for a science and technology magazine. The editors have contingently agreed to publish it based on the pitch, but they reserve the right to reject the draft still since I'm a first time author for them (or any non-academic publication). I'm really excited about this, so I'll try to write an update when I find out about it.
Biggest news: I am Dr. Bouchey now. Despite graduate school being, possibly, my most serious regret I am now done with it. I can now continue to do literally the exact same stuff that I was doing before I finished, but now I can select something new in drop down menus for name prefixes. Really, I expected to feel relieved, or at least a sense of victory. But I just feel bad. I almost don't like that I'm a doctor. I hated so much of graduate school that I wish I could make the whole experience disappear, and even the congratulations just make me feel sick to my stomach. It takes active restraint to not send my diploma through the shredder, because I just want to destroy anything that is even remotely related to graduate school or academia. I hate it. My partner is so openly proud of me, but even that makes me feel so angry I just want to scream at her, which in turn makes me feel awful and ashamed. Whenever I think about I feel literally nauseous. Not really a point to this, just needed to get it off of my chest because I don't feel brave enough to admit this directly to another human, and typing it feels more like just sending it into the void even though I knew exactly who is going to read it :P
Actual good things that are happening: My partner and I joined an adult soccer league through her work. I am very out of shape and that makes me pretty sad, but at least the rest of the team isn't that much better than me, so I just have fun playing.
My partner has been very involved in the local caving grotto. She has been involved in some volunteer restoration work at Carlsbad Caverns as well as mapping, exploration, and restoration at Ft. Stanton cave. She wants to help out with a mapping project for the lava caves at El Malpais, but there just isn't enough time. I've been doing the restoration work at Carlsbad with her, and was just invited to take a trip to do some mapping in Ft. Stanton, which is pretty cool. I enjoy caving, although I would say that if I had my choice of hobbies/pastimes and also the motivation to actually pursue them I would probably spend the time doing something else. However, if I just left caving to her, I wouldn't do something else. I would sit around at home doing nothing and beating myself up over not taking advantage of the time to do something I enjoy. So I let her drag me along and have fun doing stuff with her, which is pretty good!
The xeriscape in the front yard turned out really well. We are situated kind of on the sides of the Sandia mountains, so to account for the slope, our backyard has an upper and lower tier. Our upper tier was already pretty well landscaped. We're mostly just going to add some nice details and finishing touches. The lower tier, however, is most weeds. It is totally overgrown. So my next major project, which will be a lot more work than the front yard was, is to redo this lower tier. I want to plant two fruit trees and put in a compost bin on one side, add a pergola and a fire pit at the bottom of the stairs which lead from the top tier, and put some raised beds and a chicken coop on the other side. I think it'll be really nice when done, but I first have to clear out all the weeds. A note about New Mexico plants: if they can grow here without human assistance, they will almost certainly try to stab you. All the weeds have thorns, needles, or stickers. Just walking down there can be painful, much less weeding. I was planning on taking a fairly long time to get it done, but my partner's father is giving us some stone which I would like to use, so now I would like to try to get it done sooner rather than later.
Lastly, I've coauthored an article for a science and technology magazine. The editors have contingently agreed to publish it based on the pitch, but they reserve the right to reject the draft still since I'm a first time author for them (or any non-academic publication). I'm really excited about this, so I'll try to write an update when I find out about it.