Today was very tiring. Must admit, I did not look "inside" the translation when it came in and just left it until this morning when I was supposed to start work on it. Turned out it was 16 pages instead of the 12 I figured it was (and was told about originally). That threw me for a bit of a loop, because it meant I had to average 8 pages instead of 6 to get it done by tomorrow evening (deadline Wed morning). I managed 8.5 pages today, so I'm on track but it wasn't necessarily a pleasant surprise. Well, it shouldn't have been a surprise at all, because I'm supposed to know those things and the only explanation is that I was too preoccupied with the research bit, and also confident without clear reason that it's going to be 12 pages. But, I'll take the "I'm on track" from this and hopefully finish it tomorrow.
I've been slogging it for the second half of the day today, and I'm so sleepy now after dinner (pork chop and a mountain of salad) that I could literally just collapse to sleep and it's not even 9pm yet. I also slept until about 10am after going to bed at 2am. For some reason, the past 3-4 days my bedtime has been later than what I'm used to. I'm quite sure tonight will remedy that.
Since today is Monday, it was also weighing day. The scale and the conversion calculator told me I'm now a total of 4kg / 8.8 lbs lighter compared to when I started the regime. I'm good with that.
What I wasn't "good with" today was the negative response from the journal I was supposed to get a reply from by Aug 1. Truth be told, it wasn't necessarily the fact that my proposal didn't get picked that bothered me - it was the ego twinge I felt when reading the email. Thus far this past year, I've done fairly well at keeping my ego out of things. This has allowed me to move away from my "old drinking ways", which mostly included just thinking about doing something and then imagining the so-called glory that would undoubtedly ensue. I could also call it "glory hunting", be it imaginary or real. Real glory hunting, of course, can only occur when you're actually able to do something, which means it wasn't a true possibility when drinking anyways (because nothing, aside from getting plastered, got done whilst on the drink). However, recently I've noticed that I've let my ego back into where it doesn't belong. About a week ago, in an email exchange with my professor, she forwarded me an article that just got published on the topic we're going to be submitting on in a month (normal process of keeping up with the latest writing on any subject). Up to that point, I had been kind of dragging my feet on the data analysis and just couldn't get going. But the article my professor sent in the email was from an author I recognise by name, and that person is always involved in very well-written and substantively relevant (and interesting) articles that usually belong in my field of activity and interests (easy way would be to just call it competitive jealousy lol). It's like my ego got slapped across the face and suddenly "woke up". Where before there was almost no energy, there was an abundance of it after reading that other person's article. And I told my professor something along the lines of "well played, madam" (not that she knows too much about my personal and imaginary competitions with random people from a field my professor isn't necessarily active in :P), because it got me going for a while on the data analysis. The energy, of course, died down soon after, because ego can't maintain consistency, it just "reacts" to stuff it finds arbitrarily offensive somehow and gives a short-term boost. Now, back to today, I felt the same small twinge ...along the lines of a secretive, under-the-breath "oh, I'll make them regret their decision and write the best paper ever for ....some other publication!". In human child terms that's the equivalent of screaming in the shops for being told no with respect to a lollipop.
That's what I struggled with and thought about today. From a practical and utterly rational angle, the "cannot include your proposal" message was a blessing - it means I won't have to double- or triple-time any other obligations, the piece I'm currently writing will indeed be the last one before I complete my thesis, and I can continue on with whatever other plans I had for the autumn (e.g. the trips and the book translation). Over the past year, I've come to realise that even before drinking, I was always engaged in glory hunting of one form or another - going to the gym, losing weight, getting the best grades etc. I never had a healthy understanding of personal boundaries. Or, for that matter, an understanding that "it's actually alright to just be", and "just do and be involved", and not try to constantly outplay or outmanoeuvre people who were never in any type of competition with me to begin with. My lack of that understanding is clear in retrospect, because I refused to give myself breathers, and I refused to plan breaks into whatever thing or goal I was currently aiming for and moving towards - it was never enough until I was "there".
I've been trying to do that, the giving breaks part (successfully, every now and again, too) in sobriety, but the two ego twinges let me know that I must pay more attention to this aspect of my existence. I've also realised that the positive payout from a successful glory hunt is, in absolute measures, always somehow less potent than the negatives from an unsuccessful one. As I'm currently writing this, I'm coming to a conclusion that my dopamine system has been twisted at least from my early teens -- that's why I revelled in those glory expeditions so much, that's why the positive outcome was never as positive at the end compared to what I'd imagine it would be, and that's why the negatives always hurt so damn much... To the outside world, before the drink entered the picture, I must have looked like an incredibly disciplined and detemined young person as far as goals and certain specific responsibilities were concerned. Little did they know of the internal chaos and turmoil so characteristic of such a death train heading full-steam on a one-way track "towards glory". That's why the word "quiet" is always the main descriptor of my first time being drunk. Those voices, the "locomotive driver", fell completely silent as booze entered the room. Essentially, boozed helped me until it didn't. And I never bothered to figure out why I was the way I was, and to fix it. Instead I relied on an incredibly dangerous chemical to find the quiet again, and again, and again. It's kind of like ...booze cleared the room just so it could yell and shout all by itself after a time.
See? All it takes for me to go on an 'epic' rant is an email, which told me that I was one of the 90 people who got told "sorry, not this time" (there were about 100 applicants, and only about 10 get the opportunity each time). The majority of those people who also got the 'no', unlike myself, must be established researchers, heck throw in some professors while you're at it. Which makes this email and the rejections just a small bump in a very long road. <--- That's the real me thinking. The previous essay was written as a description of a place where the ego dwells. The difference is night and day, and I like the real me better. No need to get my boxers in a bunch (I'm sure this is the Oxford dictionary male gender equivalent of "panties in a twist", right :P?).
Felt good to get this writing off my chest
Thanks for reading to the end if you managed
PS: yesterday evening, I listened to a podcast on YouTube (SHAIR was the name) which featured Sarah Hepola, who wrote the book "Blackout". An incredibly open, honest and insightful story from her. I felt so similar to her, actually, because she kept repeating how important "stories" are in recovery and as recovery. Made me realise that I haven't really been too focussed on the run-of-the-mill (and, unfortunately, often dry) research reporting anyways, I've just been collecting and analysing data to write stories that these data tell and simply doing it in an academic setting. Which, for me personally, is the best way to be and the best and easiest way to express myself, too
End of Day 448. I did not drink today.