tela

Bought snow tires instead!

Yesterday was the first session for my class on backcountry skiing. Not only was it a beautiful day, but apart from some icy areas, the powder was great. So happy – I’d forgotten how much I love skiing!

I just made appointments for visiting two of the schools I’ve been thinking about, the Monterey Institute and the Garvin School. Both focus on international trade/affairs and offer decent scholarships to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. The visits will be in February and April. Plus I’m also looking at the Drucker School for two reasons: 1) it sounds like they follow the same Oxford/liberal arts model as my undergrad and 2) A friend sent all three of her sons to the Clairemont Colleges and has said that they had better luck with scholarships/financial assistance at that school than if they’d gone to a state school.

It’s a little exciting and a little scary. My reasons for getting more serious about it are realizing that I need more skills/training to make the transition from libraries into work that is more satisfying/challenging and ideally better paying. I really have a lot of admiration for people who’ve managed to parlay their MLIS experience into doing something else, but I just need to deal with the fact that I’m going to have to go back to school to make it happen.

Screw the chains, I LOVE my new studded snow tires! Everybody else was skidding around during the latest snow storm and I was perfectly fine. Of course that’s probably also because I went slow and everybody else tried driving like it was normal conditions. But studded snow tires? I LOVE YOU!

Actually basic fluency is probably too ambitious. I’m going to Brazil for 3 weeks at the end of April. Don’t speak a word of Portuguese and I was confused by the Spanish spoken in Venezuela. So I need to at least learn some phrases and start to understand the accent.

Really need to pick a date and call both Thunderbird & the Monterey Institute about doing a site visit/ asking questions about the applicability of my MLIS and background experience. Do this before committing the time/money to the GMAT.

At least one thing I realized from the preliminary of the 40 year vision and 7 stories exercise is that I probably should focus less on large (e.g. Skoll Foundation or Room to Read) groups because of the level of competition/expectations that they have. What I should do instead is identify smaller groups and figure out how to do informational interviews. I should also talk to UCD about the class they have on Social Entrepreneurship, such as talking to the professor.

Spent the afternoon practicing with the chains I currently have for my car. While it’s works in theory, I think the hardest part is going to be:

a) Hooking the chains on the other side of the tire, that I won’t easily be able to see.

b) Doing this when it’s dark/freezing out and without gloves on.

Another thing I realized is that I need to update the emergency kit in my trunk – get a new case for it, a new flashlight, and also stock up on things like water/food.

I looked at the two main exercises this week – the 40 year vision (where you right down what you’re doing every 5 years) and the 7 stories inventory of experiences you did well/enjoyed/gave meaning to your life. It’s a little intimidating to really think about the next 40 years and put it into writing, so I haven’t quite brought myself to doing that. But it did make me realize that I need to do more research and to also think about doing some informational interviews

Another reminder at work that I really need to do this.

I finally bought a lamp for this winter. Not the large one (which almost $200), but a smaller version of it to start out with.

I’ve thought about applying to the programs at the Monterey Institute and Thunderbird for a long time now. What’s always stopped me was the thought of how much it would cost, how long it would take, the student loan debt/interruption of saving into retirement, and feeling like 3 degrees is just too many. I was thinking about it again last night and realized a couple of things:

1) Just because I apply doesn’t guarantee that I get in. But not applying because of the excuses is just wrong.

2) The Monterey Insitute does the Master’s International option, so I don’t have to get locked into spending all of my time in school.

3) Both schools offering scholarships to RPCVs. Again, doesn’t mean I would get it, but not applying is just wrong.

4) I remembered two friends of mine who went back to school for a 3rd time and are now doing what they really want out of life. One friend had a BA and MA and worked in environmental advocacy for a long time before finally deciding to pursue his JD. Last time we talked, he’d landed in a situation where he was studying environmental law and it seemed like he had finally moved forward to his real calling in life. Same for another friend I caught up with over the summer. When we were in Peace Corps, she had just got her degree and license to be a speech therapist. She didn’t enjoy it and left after a year to get married and train as a massage therapist. Once she got through that program, she got hired to work with rehabilitation clinics and hospitals, which led her to decide to become a physical therapist. Now she works with amputees and absolutely loves it. Her comment was “This is so much more results based that what I was doing with speech and massage.” So I need to remind myself about those two friends and not beat myself up about how getting a 3rd degree means that I’m a loser.

As with buying snow tires so I don’t feel stressed/trapped by the snow this winter, I think I’d like to buy a light box and try to have a season where I’m not in the hole from SAD. We’ll see – I’ve always felt sluggish/down in cooler weather. I even remember learning about hibernation in the 1st grade and thinking “Damn, why can’t I do that until it’s Spring?”

Okay I may end up cheating and just spend the money on snow tires. It’ll be a pain storing the regular all season tires during the winter, but I’d be so much more motivated to go out and actually enjoy the snow if I didn’t feel so anxious about driving in those conditions. Plus I can’t see trading in my car quite yet for something with a 4 wheel drive, so this is a cheaper solution.

Sent it off yesterday with the $67 renewal fee. I thought about spending the extra $60 for expedited service as a guarantee of avoiding the chip. So fingers crossed it doesn’t come back with one in the 6-8 week turnaround time :/

1) I asked a regional NGO that works with libraries if they’d be interested in being the subject of a journal article and they agreed!

2) First meeting of the Intl. Affairs Committee on Thursday. I just sort of got asked if I was going to the alumni association dinner on Thursday that’s a lecture by the former PM of Pakistan. I don’t know if they can swing me a discount on the ticket, but it was atleast nice to sort of be asked.

The times I’ve travelled abroad with friends or family, it’s sort of been a pain in the ass. When I do travel by myself, I almost always end up meeting and befriending people who become my travel partners in crime. So it’s not like I’m travelling alone, just that it would be nice to have somebody with the right qualities (multi-lingual, open to new cultures, flexible & adventurous) who could be a travel partner in crime.

...and learn how to put on and remove snow chains without getting frustrated. Either that or cough up $500 for snow tires.

Signed up for class through community college & REI. I’m determined that this winter is not going to be about SAD or always being sick with a cold. Now all I need to do is figure out how to put on chains.

Spent part of the afternoon e-mailing with an old coworker who just got forced out from a really toxic sounding work environment. Besides suggesting the 5oC’s website for some suggestions on how she should handle severance and job hunting, it made me think about when we used to work together. That was over 7 years ago and part of me started to feel really down about how much I have or have not progressed in that time. So good kick in the pants to get started on it.