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Existential Midlife Twitch

~ Change is Good

Existential Midlife Twitch

Tag Archives: time

Running Revelations: A New Kind of Clock

10 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by elbodans in Uncategorized, What I Learned

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

change, musings, realizations, time

My neighborhood is interesting.  Some homes are owned by older couples or single retired people, others by small families, yet more by young, childless professionals.  And this time of year, our differences are expressed in our yard work habits–or lack thereof.  On my run this morning, I passed yards freshly shorn and gardens recently mulched. I passed overgrown gardens, under-pruned gardens, and several front lawns practically overrun with dandelions.  Much to my horror, I also witnessed several homes that had ‘planted’ fake plastic flowers in pots about their yard in some clearly misguided attempt to celebrate the spring holidays (when really, I can’t think of any worse way to celebrate the resurrection of one’s savior than by adoring anything with dusty, petroleum based ‘tulips’).

But whether well-tended or sorely neglected, all of the homes and gardens in my part of Pennsylvania are saying the same thing–spring is well under way.  And, as I’m sure you all know by now, that completely freaks me out.

But that freak out is not my point.  You see, as I ran, freaking out about the daffodils and dandelions as I was, I realized something–I’ve finally started measuring time like a normal person.  I can see that the days, weeks, and months are passing because the seasons are changing.  That’s normal.  That’s what I wanted, way back when I started thinking about taking some time away from teaching.  And it happened–but it took me until now to notice.

I guess I shouldn’t be shocked that it took a while to adjust my concept of time.  After all, I did spend eighteen years as a student and eight years as a teacher measuring time by class periods, quarters, and semesters.  I broke my days up into 44 minute chunks and only looked forward to the next chunk (or, more accurately, to the end of that next chunk).  I knew that if there was this fund raiser going on, it must be fall; if it was time for the yearly musical, it must be spring.  September meant stress, December a flurry of chaos followed by a week of peace. The winter thaw was less about a groundhog seeing his shadow and more about a marathon of state testing.

But not this year.  Not for me.  This year spring means budding trees, baseball, and the yard work that I should be doing.  What a strange but wonderful way to tell time.

 

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Time: What I Can Learn in 13 Minutes

18 Monday Jul 2011

Posted by elbodans in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

computers, education, learning, photography, time

Between 6:33 pm and 6:46 pm, I figured out how to…

  • properly upload photos from my awesome new camera to my crappy old netbook, even though I can’t install Nikon software on said crappy netbook.
  • organize said photos.
  • sort-of edit said photos online in Picnik.  This included creating a Picnik account.
  • save the newly edited photo back to a new folder on crappy netbook so that I can upload it here…

It is now 6:51–and I paused to pour a glass of wine.  Maybe this crappy netbook will work out after all!

Career Break Universal Truth #1

30 Thursday Jun 2011

Posted by elbodans in What I Learned

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Tags

career break, money, time, universal truth

Today went well.  Sort of.  I managed to upload all of my relevant iPhoto albums to Picasa and then to Picasa web.  I figured out how to link photos directly to wordpress posts.  I even managed to post one from my netbook–which is what I’m doing now.  The above photo was taken almost a year ago–in Amsterdam, on my iPhone.  It was uploaded to iPhoto, uploaded to Picasa Web, and then edited and posted here using my crappy little netbook.

But why did I take an entire day to do these things?  To save money of course!  You see, I really (really) feel like I need a Macbook.  Or at least something other than this tiny little netbook.  I have a mac desktop, but obviously that’s not going to be coming with me on my various trips.  So I needed a way to easily do word processing, photo uploading and a bit of photo editing from my netbook.  Which I can now do.  However…

  • It took me nine and a half minutes to go from netbook off to able to surf the web.
  • It took me an additional ten minutes to fiddle with the above photo in Picasa and upload it here.

Do I want to spend twenty plus minutes just to get to the point of being able to post, upload, or research something?  The answer, unfortunately, is yes.  Which brings me to Career Break Universal Truth #1…

You are going to end up spending more time than money, simply because you are going to HAVE more time than money. 

What that means to me today is that it has to be ok that I’m typing this–and writing my whole book–on an eight inch keyboard.  It has to be ok that it take twice–or three times–as long to do everything.  I cannot get frustrated with it.  Because no matter what, it is better than what I was doing before. 

If I think of any more Career Break Universal Truths–and trust me, I will–I’ll be sure to share them with you.  Stay tuned!

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