Old friends

An old friend is trying to contact me. We spent 2 years together at undergraduate education at Lund University, 2000-2002. I lost many superficial contacts when I fell ill for such a long time, and could not engage in anything but myself. She is one of them. She sent me a christmas greeting-postcard during the holidays, and I thought about maybe sending a letter or something back. But I didn't. Then I thought about her again a couple of days ago for her birthday, I thought about calling her up to congratulate her. But before I reached for the phone, my courage was lost again. Yesterday, when going through the schedule for my current compulsory PhD course, I noticed that her sister would actually hold one lecture for us next week. And then today she sent me a very nice and short e-mail, asking if that address was my current, and how she longed to get in contact with me again.

I feel bad for not instantly replying. But I can't help but think what could happen if I actually did reply. Do I really want that contact back again? If I start it up now, it will be hard to let it go again. Will answering make me feel even more bad, maybe I feel pressured into meeting her and talking to her more often, and what if I don't want to? And after those thoughts I can't help but to do the classical mistake, feeling stupid for having those feelings? Putting another burden to my worries, instead of just accepting that I have those worries, and instead figuring out why I have them. Maybe I really do have a reason? Maybe I actually think it is a bad idea to get involved in that again. And maybe I should trust myself and my spontaneous feelings more, at least enough to let them leed me to understand why I feel that spontaneously uninterested in making contact. Instead of feeling that I always am such a hassling person, always having to think so much and be so strange, thinking that everyone else wouldn't have hesitated even a second replying and meeting up with an old friend.

I will accept my feelings, think them through while cooking lunch Soup. I am home instead of being in class, I couldn't push myself into doing it. But this afternoon I have one compulsory activity, which I intend to attend. Then going for a hard workout, that is often the solution to everything!

Brilliant!

"Brilliant", that is one of my favourite words in the english language. I use it often in Swedish too, "strålande". It is a pretty word that has a very positive breath, with a feeling of something being beutiful, clear, magnificent and generally very good. Today, or to be more exact; now, I have just that. A brilliant feeling.

Today I sat in class for the second day (out of two weeks). The classes were in general on a low level, and quite slow, but had these small particles of extremely interesting and/or useful information. What I did was to read 3 papers and 7 abstracts, while listening to the lectures, and as soon as the talk got interesting I somehow processed this, and moved my focus from the paper to the lecturer. When the piece of gold had been delivered, I automatically could switch of the conscious presence in the lecture (although still processing the information somehow, ready to listen when something interesting came along), and continue reading about some of the latest findings in neuroscience. This is something I have more or less always been able to do most of the time, but while beeing ill my stress tolerance and ability to focus in general has been reduced, and at times even disabled. To be able to work 53 hours again one week without getting more than sleepy (not absolutely fatigued, borderline unconscious and generally not present in the present), and also being able to switch full focus between two things (even just for a shorter while, like 2 hours or so!) makes me so happy. This is not something I strive to do all the time, parallell processing, because it is very demanding, but the fact that I am able to do it when "necessary" makes me so happy. I am back. The old me is returning! Not that I want to continue all that my old me did, since much of it was sometimes destructive (like over-working etc.). But it gives me hope! I really think that I soon can be officially "well" again. Really soon. Even sooner than I thought even a month ago! The recovery has been exponential the last month, I just can't believe it.

And no, I won't continue my 53-hour weeks. That is part of what brought on my depression in the first place, I believe. So don't you worry. I am smarter now.

Or... at least I hope so.

I did go...

...to the PowerYoga and StepStrength. 7.15PM to 9.25PM! Impressed? I am!

(to understand why I let you in on this information, please read 'Crazy working' below)

Crazy working.

Last week I worked like an insane person, i.e. like your general scientist. I spent no less than 53 hours in the lab, and that is a lot. Especially for someone like me that is supposed to be on 50% sick leave, and not work more than 20 hours per week. But most of you know me, and know that I want to try things to see if they work. Challenge myself, and work enthusiastically when something very exciting comes along. The wish to challenge myself coincided last week with an energy supply, and very exciting work. So I went for it. It worked. I felt tired, but not fatigued and stressed by it. This morning it was hard though. I woke up at 7 and felt: 'Awwh, today it is saturday, relaxing finally', only to within seconds thereafter realise that is was actually monday morning, and that I was soon bound to get up if I wanted to make it on time to my compulsory PhD course. So now, I am very tired. I want to sleep, but fear that will reduce my chances greatly to make it to StepStrength and PowerYoga later tonight. And I really want to work out. I guess I will find out how that goes.

So this week I am on PhD course again. Compulsory, of course, otherwise I would not have been there. The course is about how to handle animal used for research-purposes in a correct way. Or in a "humane" way as some lectures have pointed out today. But what does that mean really? How do you kill a mouse in a humane way, when you don't kill humans legally at all (apart from insane death penalites, but let's not get into that too). Or how do you "store" your living mice in a humane way? Do you put your 5 mice in a huge family house? Or does it mean it is ok to put 5 humans in a 30x50cm? Although I of course understand what the lectures mean by using that expression, I still think removing the word "humane" from would be a good start. It just makes me sit there and think of how 5 mice would enjoy their house, and how the 5 humans would enjoy their plastic cage (I made some preliminary sketches of the latter in my notepad, as a comic relief for an otherwise comic deprived day).

A shower

I really love to shower. Or take a nice bath in my old, and therefore short but very deep, bathtub. I often use showers and baths as a treat for myself. One of those treats you know my psychologist has taught me about that are good to have on an everyday-basis. Showering is especially nice when very hot. And even better when after working out. And EVEN better when after having done boring grocery-shopping on an endorphine wave after working out, like today. Then I feel really great about myself, and feel like I deserve a good treat after having been good. Also, it is best to have a shower after having worked out 2.5 hours. I didn't smell of raspberries, if you know what I mean? I don't think it is actually an expression in english, but corresponding sentence is an expression in swedish at least. For when you/something don't smell good (as you propably figured out!).

But now I smell of raspberries. Or at least of Herbal Essences conditioner. The worst thing about taking a shower is rinsing the drain of hair. I have fairly long hair, which likes to fall off when I take a shower. It doesn't just fall off. It slides down along my back and gets caught between my buttocks, and collect there. After a while the collection of hairs have formed a small hair ball, which I then have to remove repetitively while showering. Sorry about the details, but does anyone else in the world have this problem? And finally, when I am done, I have to collect all the hairballs and throw them away. I absolutely loathe hair lying around, especially removing it from the drain. It makes me gag. I can take a lot; blood, pain etc., but drain hair I just can't take!

...and now also back in writing

Well, I have been back from Kalmar for a while now, as you know. But I have been too focused on first arranging the party for my 25th birthday, and thereafter on work. My party arrangements went excellent; cakes were nice and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. At least I did, and I guess that was the main aim of the party! People brought real nice gifts too, which made it even better.

I have been working hard the few past days. My own paper has been accepted for publication, so now I am helping out co-authoring on two other projects that are both in the final stages. I am trying to push myself up to working 75%, and so far it has been good. If I work 5.5 h tomorrow I will reach 30 working hours this week, and thus 75% work level. And that I feel is quite feasible. But I am not trying to draw to advanced conclusions from this attempt, since even if I will manage work my last 5.5 h tomorrow, it will none the less still be the first week attemtping to reach 30 hours. And this after two weeks of vacation. If I can be able to keep this up for another few weeks, then maybe I can start celebrating that I am feeling that much better, as I am able to work 75%.

AND I have sent in an application to go to a conference 6-11th of August this year! Epilepsy and Neuronal Synchronization it is called, and seems really cool. Only 135 participants, and 42 lecturers, so there'll definitely be time to get to know and talk quite a lot with many of the other scientists. It is held in Waterville, Maine. Just north of New York, apparently. So I think I will combine the trip with a visit to New York too, it seems like an excellent city. I have long wanted to go to MOMA, and Guggenheim, maybe see a Broadway Musical (just because you are supposed to), and just walk around a bit. If the Conference Board now think I have enough brilliance to contribute with to attend their conference, we'll see. I have absolutely now idea when I'll find out about that. Soon I hope, but that is probably just naïve thinking.

Time to stop eating cookies, and blabbing, instead getting ready for working out. Tomorrow I will let you in on something strange!

Back!

I am back home from Kalmar and my boyfriend's parents now. New Year's was excellent, and I have continued my relaxing. We didn't get to do any of the things we had planned, like going to the glass factory Kosta-Boda, because it was snowing heavily much of the time. My back is sore from shovelling snow. But how lovely it is, snow! We rarely get snow in those amounts down here in the very south, so I tried to play as much in it as possible. Snowball fight, snow wrestling, snow kicking etc. The only thing I forgot to do was to make a snow angel. Well well. The winter isn't over yet, there's still time for also the south to get plenty of snow.

First thing I did coming home was to go work out again. I have missed it so much. Especially since I bought my new workout trousers. It is nice to be back home, and to be back together with cute cat. I missed him so much those few days we were apart. Yesterday he did a really funny thing. Boyfriend and I had been working out, so we took a shower when we came back. Cute cat also wanted to play in the shower, and was constantly present. When we were finished, cute cat was balancing on the ledge of the tub, trying to catch the towels as me and boyfriend were trying to dry ourselves off. He got a firm 'all-claws-in' hold of boyfriends towel and refused to let go. Boyfriend struggled to get his towel back, and when cute cat couldn't hold on any longer he caught eye on something else more interesting. Just hanging there within his reach, attached to boyfriends body. And so cute cat thought to wonder what it was, and to investigate took a swing at boyfriends "thing".

Lots of fun.
For me at least!