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March 08, 2010
New Habits in a New Year
For large portions of 2008 and 2009 I often felt like I was in a bit of a rut. I felt like while I certainly knew a lot of people, and probably had a lot of friends in the modern American definition of the term, but that I didn't have many actual friends. You know, people who you'd spend a good deal of time with and often call up if you wanted to hang out. I felt kind of disconnected from people here at PSU, and that led to me not being nearly as social, and spending lots of nights at home, not really doing a whole lot. I don't know quite how to explain it, but life just wasn't as much fun as it had been my first 2-3 years here.
There were several contributing factors to life not being quite as enjoyable, or being frustrated with how my life was going. Many of these factors are related. One factor was quite a few of my friends from Meteorology, with whom I'd often hang out quite a bit, had graduated and moved away. That's just a fact of life when you're a fifth-year grad student, I guess. A second factor was that I've been trying to focus more on my own work, resulting in less "wandering the halls" to go talk to people (or maybe I've wandered the halls less because I know fewer people here). Right along with that, I've been spending increasing amounts of time working not in my office in Walker Building, but in my office in the ARL-Water Tunnel Building, where most of the time I'm the only person in my small, windowless office (for several weeks now I've worked almost exclusively in the WT). Another reason that can't be discounted is that my research has been really slow-going for most of the last couple years, and running into constant problems that have often been beyond my own ability to solve, thus forcing me to rely on other people's schedules to get help. When research isn't going well, it really affects my mood in a negative way. When I'm not able to be progressing as much as I wish I were, I get a serious case of "grad student guilt," and don't feel like I deserve to go have fun on evenings or weekends. For whatever reason I've also felt kind of disconnected from Penn State Christian Grads, even though I'm the president of the group. I just wasn't taking nearly as active a role in leadership or in the group in general as I previously had. There were other factors contributing to my general dissatisfaction, too, but I think you get the gist.
So I decided that I needed to shake things up to try to change my attitude. I decided that I'd be more open to invitations from people to go do things (basically, to be more social). And I feel like I have done a better job of that, and that that's one reason why I haven't blogged nearly as frequently so far in 2010 (I haven't been spending quite as many evenings at home). I've been much more open to saying yes to last-minute or spontaneous invites to dinner or bowling or hanging out or whatever. (And taking up the invite to go bowling with some of the first years back in January allowed me to have quite the set of scores: 73, 99, 137 and 172. Guess I just needed to warm up a bit, haha. It felt great to beat my previous high score of 156 and get my first-ever turkey to start out the fourth game!)
I decided that I'd start working out at the gym, both to improve my health and strength and to improve my mood (hooray endorphins!). So I worked out at the hotel in Atlanta with Andrew one night at AMS, bought a spring semester PSU Fitness student membership for $52, and since AMS I have worked out basically every Tuesday and Thursday morning at Rec Hall (less than a 5-minute walk from Walker or the Water Tunnel, so it's really convenient). I usually lift weights for 40-60 minutes or so, and then ride for 20 minutes on the exercise bike to get some cardio work in, since it's been too chilly for my liking to run outside. I convinced Walter to come start working out too, though the last few weeks I've mostly been going by myself, while he's been either too busy or going in afternoons by himself. With the weather starting to get warmer, I'll probably mix in some running a couple times a week too.
I also decided that I'd start taking ballroom dance lessons. Yep, ballroom dancing. Kinda surprised myself with that one, too. I figured that'd teach me some useful skills (I do have at least four weddings to attend this year, for example), and also help me gain more social confidence. And maybe I'll be able to meet some new people, who knows. (A few months back, Alex, trying to get me to think about taking ballroom, told me [mostly] jokingly, "If you take ballroom, you'll be married within a year," haha.) The Penn State Ballroom Dance Club has beginners ballroom lessons every Tuesday evening (almost every night they have lessons for some type of dance or level of difficulty, too). I've been there every week this semester except for when I was at AMS in Atlanta, and we've learned the rumba, cha-cha and waltz so far, spending 2-3 weeks on each one. I don't have particularly great coordination (and often find it hard to simply relax!), so it's often a bit of a struggle for me at first to put everything together and get my body and feet to do what they're supposed to, but I've always been able to notice quite a bit of improvement, especially on the second week of learning a particular dance. I'm not taking ballroom lessons with anybody that I know, but I'm genuinely enjoying them, and look forward to them every week.
So are all these new habits and mindsets helping me out so far this year? In my opinion, definitely. I do feel much more positive in general, and am enjoying life a bit more this year. And I really have to thank Alex for that in large part, because he's the one that really encouraged and inspired me to try and do all this to help change my attitude this year. Am I totally satisfied with how everything's going in my life currently? No, far from it. But I am much more satisfied than I was late last year, and it feels great.
Posted by Jared at March 8, 2010 11:42 PM