Taking stock

     Over the past couple years, I have officially tested my skills in both French and Russian, and got a good enough score to officially use them for work. Two years ago, I started Japanese, because it's a fascinating culture that's very different from the other two, and someday I'd like to go visit without being a rude tourist. I'm nowhere near as fluent in Japanese as in the other languages (33 years studying French and 12 studying Russian), but I can pick things up when I watch anime or read manga. Each language is pretty heavily compartmented in my head, though, so I don't think about the aggregate of my skills, I just think "Oh, I speak other languages, a common thing." (Ironically, the word language is one I constantly mistype and need to use autocorrect for.)

     Due to conflicting schedules, I ended up taking two separate Japanese classes for two weeks recently, thankfully in the same book, but on different chapters. Inevitably, that meant I dropped the ball on one of them, since I knew I'd re-do that chapter in the other class in a month or two. To my great surprise, I still managed to pull off a decent grade on the final exam, and I mentioned this to a friend who also speaks other languages. Their response, while supportively over-the-top, made me pause and reassess where I am. (The next part may sound like bragging, but it's truly me being surprised at how my life looks from the outside.)

     I speak, with varying degrees of skill, four languages. FOUR (I tend to forget English because everyone speaks it, right?). Four wildly different cultures, grammars, and lexicons. I recently met someone who speaks three languages fluently and I was blown away at the idea, yet never once turned that lens inward. Add to that the other hobbies I dabble in, and I see why someone recently said "Of course you know how to do that. Is there anything you don't do?" And while the answer is yes, quite a huge number of things, it's probably good to stop and give yourself credit for what you do do every now and then. 

Gaslighting recovery

     If you're not familiar with the phrase gaslighting (lucky you), it's a psychological control mechanism where the controller makes the victim doubt their own perception/ memory/ judgement, so the victim comes to rely on the controller's version of reality - to their own detriment. I ran into this phrase toward the end of my first relationship, in my mid-20s, and realized I'd fallen into it. There were too many occasions to count where I'd get upset because he didn't do something he said he would - or did something he said he wouldn't - and he'd convince me I was wrong, that never happened, we never agreed to that, whatever... and now he was hurt because I came at him with false accusations. It had been going on for so long that I inevitably backed down, apologized, and internalized that I had a terrible memory.

     Eventually, he made a mistake and tried to tell me I was wrong about something I had an outside witness to; that and some other occurrences gave me the strength to get him out of my life, but I carried that now-familiar doubt of my own memory into other relationships, and fell back into the same trap. Even as I went through my BA and got solid grades while working part-time, I still believed I had a horrible memory - my brain never picked up on the doublethink there.

     I finally started questioning and rejecting that self-doubt when a couple things coincided: my gentleman has pointed out several times that I'm pretty good at keeping mental lists of things, and the concept of "mental load" became vocalized and acceptable to talk about in public (somewhat, but that's another topic). It's taken a couple years, and finishing an MS with great grades while working full-time, but I've gotten to the point where I no longer doubt my memory or interpretation of reality.

Well... much...

Impostor syndrome... or maybe not

     I've been reading a book titled Influence: The psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini lately, about various methods by which people - typically unscrupulous ones - get us to agree to do or buy something we didn't initially want to do or buy. I wouldn't classify myself as a pushover, per se, but I do have a tendency to give people too many chances to make my life difficult and I figured this would hep me to at least be aware of when I fall for fallacious entreaties.

     While I'm only about halfway through the book, it has already been eye-opening and informative. One section talks about what the author calls the fallacy of pluralism: nobody wants to appear flustered or at a loss, so we constantly side-eye what others are doing and take our social cues from what seems to be the status quo. In most cases, this is perfectly fine: you can judge how to interact with a new ticket counter by how others approach it, or that a clown getting in your personal space at a work party is funny rather than something to be offended at, that sort of thing.

Thor cosplay: Mjolnir

    On January 17, 2018, I started work on Mjolnir, what I figured would be the easiest or at least most forgiving part of a female Thor cosplay. In and around various other projects, I built an external framework, filled it with foam, and watched it explode awkwardly out badly-joined seams. On March 26, I gave it up as a bad idea.

 

     Version 2 started off on May 27th, using a solid core this time: two yoga blocks. I carved a channel for the handle, used a butter knife blade to ensure it would all stay together (this was before I knew about contact cement), and filled in the gap with caulk and extra EVA foam strips.

Being strong

      When I first got the urge to get in better shape, I searched to see what was available nearby. The first thing that caught my eye was parkour, because it encourages free movement, running, jumping, and generally being a kid again, playing out in the woods. At the time, parkour gyms were less prevalent than they are now, but there was one in my town, and offering adult classes. I contacted them, and they said the prereq for doing parkour was to show I could do: 50 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 50 pull-ups at one go. So that was right out (hint, I still can't do that). Instead, I joined Irish dance, and had a wonderful time getting in better cardio shape and kicking my shins black and blue.

     Unfortunately, when I graduated and moved to the east coast, I was unable to find another Irish dance team that I really liked. I mooched around feeling sorry for myself for a while, then I stumbled onto this website called NerdFitness, which attempts to break down exercise and being healthy into gaming and "nerd" concepts. The posts were awesome, bridging the nerd/jock gap, the community was hugely supportive, and I was frankly sick of doing more and more cardio workouts with less and less result, so I gave it a try. When I first tried the beginner's bodyweight workout, I could barely do two sets of a few squats, lunges, knee push-ups, dumbbell rows and planks. Nevertheless, I persisted, and was very proud when I was able to do a third set, and then started adding weights.

     In September of 2015, I managed to fracture my ankle while ungracefully walking down stairs. For two months, I could not work out at all, and then pushed to get into physical therapy (pt), get walking, and try to better than before. I've always brushed off my bruises and running into walls as just clumsiness, but pt taught me that it was poor flexibility and strength that made me clumsy. Here I was, 35 years old, and injured walking down stairs because I was too out of shape to avoid damaging myself. If I'm aiming to live past 100, this is not a sustainable plan.

     Although strength training at home through an online forum is great, it's not the same as getting in-person training and social time, so once again, I looked around to see what was available. This time, I found a parkour place not too far away that had zero pre-reqs: come in and try it out. I stalled for a bit, looking for someone to go with on the scary first endeavor, but once I finally went... I was hooked. Since so very many things can go wrong in parkour, the focus of training is safety first. First you learn how to fail out of a move, then you learn the move. Can't do the move yet? Here are the steps to work up to it. Everyone get in line, do the variation you can do safely. Go.

     I've been doing parkour now for a little over a year. When I started, I was doing one hour, every other week, and barely able to do a lot of the moves. Now, I'm doing 3 hours, every weekend, and holding my own on quite a few of the moves. Still lots of room for improvement, but I've come a long way.

Move	February '16	May '17
Precision jumps	-	Tweaking form
Cat hang	A few seconds	Working on cat hang pull-ups
Cat leap	-	Tweaking form
Quadrupedal movement (QM)	A few seconds	30 seconds, balancing a bar on my back
Easy vault	2.5' vault box	3' vault box
Safety/speed vault	2.5' box, climb over	3' vault box, working on speed vault
Kong vault	-	Standing jump onto a 2.5' box
Parkour rolls	Working on form	Still working on form
Kip-up	-	Can kip-up into back bridge
Handstands	Against a wall	Hold for a few seconds, free-standing
Running laps	Less than 1	2 laps without stopping

     One of the classes that I take there is like a full-body pt course - we do flexibility and mobility work, and if something doesn't work right, the teacher explains why it hurts, what's probably going on in your body, and how to do exercises at home to fix it. In winter of 2016, I learned I have a partially torn rotator cuff. Between regular pt and the stuff we do at parkour, it is not an issue, and I'm still doing crazy-fun things that, two years ago, I wouldn't even consider doing. There are still some aches and pains of getting older, but I can touch my toes, run laps, do back bridges, fall and roll in any direction, climb up and jump down from 6' boxes, hop over railings, and just generally have fun with my environment. 100 years old, here I come. 

When not to apologize

     You often hear the advice, "learn when to say no," regarding ways to uncomplicated your life and be happier. What they don't mention is the aftermath of that: saying no and not feeling badly about it. I've learned to say no to things like overtime, people who will drag your life down with drama, errant ex-boyfriends, horrible job offers, and invitations to events I really don't think I'd enjoy. The problem is that then I agonize over the decision, trying to decide if it was justified or just selfish and rude.

     Segue for a moment: this past week, I started a new job. It's the first full-time job I've had in five years, and it seems like a really good fit for me. The people are crazy (the good kind of crazy though), the work is diverse, and I'm not watching the clock every day, waiting for 5:00 to get there and free me. There's a lot to learn, but I'm enjoying it. So it stands to reason that this is the week that I get contacted by my translation internship to ask if I want to be involved in possibly opening up a branch office in my location. Had they asked before this job was on the horizon, I would have unhesitatingly jumped at the opportunity. But now, well, I have a better prospect, so I said thank you, but no.

Scaring myself

     For those of you who are familiar with the Meyers-Briggs test, I am an INTJ, though a number of the criteria are close to balanced. For those of you not familiar with it, that means I tend to be introverted, intuit things and see the big picture, value objectivity, and plan things well in advance. One of the habits of INTJs is that we tend to have only a few close friends, who are often INTJs themselves.  So it came as no surprise to me that, when I took a job that required making collection calls (phone communication being typically anathema to INTJ folk), the response was overwhelmingly along the lines of "Holy crap, WHY would you do that???"

     For what it's worth, I even asked the same question of myself, because I hate talking on the phone.  It's impossible to use or gauge reactions to nonverbal communication, such as body language, facial expressions, gestures, and the like. Instead you have to rely on tonal inflections, which are very easy to fake. There is also the problem of communication lag, or feedback, or bad connections, which make conversations awkward and halting, situations that INTJs typically avoid like the plague. Last but not least, you're talking to people you don't know (awkward), about fairly personal issues (money and medical history), and there's a good chance that, once they figure out who you are and why you're calling, they're going to hate your guts and be rude just to get rid of you. Why would someone choose to do that?

FTP 56 - Learning

And yet society has taught us, these days, that we should fear failure. There is a difference between striving for success, and being so wary of someone else finding out that we fail- an integral part of reaching successfulness- that you don't even try. 

Buck society, try new things, fall on your face, pick yourself up, and keep going. There is more shame in stagnation and backwardness (in my opinion) than in trying and failing until you make it happen. Cheers!

FTP 55 - Weird

     Remember Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland? While it wasn't quite faithful to the book (what movie ever is?), I remember being amazed at how many little details of weirdness they put in it, and wondering why Alice didn't want to stop and check them all out.

But realistically, when life gets weird, sometimes all you can do is keep going, try to keep your head above water, and hope that you reach the end before your ability to deal with it all runs out. Accept that life is bizarre, shake your head that it's happening to you, and keep going. Eventually, things will return to normal, and you'll have some fantastic stories to tell. 

Job search, part 2.

     Last week, we talked about the frustration of finding jobs to apply for, given financial considerations and employer expectations. Regardless of what you are looking for, however- with the possible exception of an "I'm a millionaire and just need something to pass the time" situation- I think that having to look for a job at all is a rather depressing situation. Because let's face it, what you're trying to do is sell yourself and your past to someone who has a whole slew of people clamoring to do the same. And while you know that you're awesome, intelligent, and a much better choice for that position (you hope) than anyone else, they don't. For those of us who aren't natural-born salesmen, that's a problem.

     Despite my ability to describe other things fairly well (and the fact that I write a blog about myself on a regular basis...), I abhor the whole "talk yourself up" thing. Part of this is that I hold myself to some pretty high standards, but since I've done it for so long, what is "normal" to me (and therefor not worth mention) is worth mentioning to others. I've gotten compliments at various workplaces before about "Wow, you got that done well before it was expected!" or "Why did you admit to making a mistake? No one wanted to deal with the cleanup there?" and stuff like that. The thing is, those are just standard for me: doing things ahead of schedule- or on time at the latest- and owning up to your mistakes (so you can learn from them and help the people who were affected by them) are standards, baselines, ordinary things that are done everyday just because they're the right thing to do. But how do you get that across?

FTP 48 - Worn down

     Ran across this the other day on the internet, and it's sad how true it is, and how often it happens, not just on the internet.

Credit, I think.

Don't let the naysayers and jerks get you down. If you have an idea, do what you can to make it work. If you give it your best, and it doesn't quite fly, well, at least you tried. It's better than becoming another naysayer and shutting down someone else's creativity, and the more you work to make things happen, the more likely it is that at least one of them will!

Thank you, brain

     I was putzing around the house this week, getting chores done, cleaning up, and generally minding my own business, when this happened:

For some reason, even though I do my best to keep a general schedule in mind to ensure I don't miss preparations for major events, my brain has a tendency to suddenly realize the immanency of random things. It doesn't even have to be something big- I'll occasionally have a moment where my brain forgets what day it is, and I'll be dead convinced that I'm late for work or class or something... only to realize that no, that's tomorrow, calm down and keep doing whatever it was I was doing.

FTP 37 - False motivation?

     Is a lie still a lie if the telling of it makes it true?

Now, I'm not talking about lying to get around things or get out of trouble, I'm talking about those little white lies that you tell people to motivate them to improve themselves. If someone is really struggling with a concept/ move/ routine/ whatever, and you say things such as, "I know you can do it!" or "You're really improving!" (even though they may have hit a plateau), or "I have faith in you!"

     Even if you don't really believe those things, if saying them makes the person more positive and self-motivated, and they do break out of a rut and start getting better, is it still a lie? Is it a white lie, in that it does no one any harm? Is it a justified lie, in that you got done what needed done with no negative consequences? Is it not even remotely a lie, because by saying it, it became true?

     Regardless of the answer, I'm still going to keep doing it, because helping others succeed is a wonderful goal. Every now and then, though, in the small hours of the night, I feel guilty for being not completely truthful...

Winter break

     Huzzah! Finals are done, grades are coming in (all As so far), and I'm about to set off on winter break with family and friends on the east coast. In light of the next few weeks being a vacation, I've decided to put updates on hold until I get back, so that I can focus on relaxing and relationships instead of making sure updates get posted in time. So here's a quick post for the holidays, and I'll see you all when I get back, on January 14th!

     One of the things I've been working on this semester is self-acceptance. I have never been one to follow the crowd, but lately I've been doubting whether what I'm doing is the "right" thing to do. I'm in my thirties, in college, broke as heck, and facing the absolute unknown of graduation and entry into an extremely sluggish job market and economy. If you'd asked me 10 years ago- heck, even 5 years ago- where I'd be at this time in life, this would not be it.

FTP 36 - Ego vs learning

     Earlier this week, I finally finished my Russian paper. I was pretty proud of the fact hat I managed to get 5 pages of coherent Russian written, considering I've only been studying it for three years. Despite that sense of accomplishment, though, I knew that I should probably have a native speaker (or at least someone with more experience in the language) take a look at it before I turned it in. It's possible to make stupid mistakes in English when writing that much, and Word doesn't really have a good spellcheck for Russian, and zero grammar check.

     Feeling somewhat confident, I printed my paper out and took it in to dance class for Rita to look over. After class, she took out her glasses, sat down, and immediately said, "Hmmm, this first sentence isn't really how a Russian speaker would say it." Wow, ouch. Can't even get a first sentence right, and it didn't get any better after that. Over the course of the next hour and a half, during which we got thrown out so the teacher could shut the studio down, she proceeded to rip my poor little paper to shreds, most based on "that's not how a Russian speaker would say it."

FTP 31 - Excuses or action

     Something to think about over the weekend:

     Which one are you? (Here's a hint, if you looked at this and said, "well but that's because...!" then it's the former.) Now the real question: which one do you want to be, and what are you willing to do to make it happen? Cheers!

FTP 24 - Beginner's gap

     This has not been the best of weeks for me, so I'm cheating and offering up someone else's words of wisdom for consideration today. This one has helped me a lot over the last few years:

Drawings will return, at some point, I promise. I'm just fighting my way through some other stuff at the moment. Cheers!

FTP 23 - Results vs effort

     This is something I have to make myself remember a lot. Really, it does get better. Keep going...

Limbo

     This is just a short post, because having gotten back from Russia and in trying to get back into the swing of things, I've decided to tear my house apart and revamp everything. Add to that the fact that classes start today, and my schedule still isn't nailed down yet for school or for work, and I'm a little bit out of sorts. I mentioned to a friend of mine this past weekend that I felt like such a slacker because I'd been back for almost a complete week, and still didn't have everything caught up, finished, and in place. She wasn't terribly sympathetic, as (according to her) that's just me being a perfectionist again.

     So rather than posting a scatterbrained dissertation on a random topic, here's something to consider:

1. Despite Todd Akin's recent comments about "legitimate rape," he still has the support of 41% of voters in his area. (Think about that, 41% of the voters polled think there is such a thing a "legitimate rape" vs. "illegitimate rape." Sad.)
2. Women who are raped and choose to keep the child have no legal recourse in 31 states, should the rapist try to get visitation or custody rights;
3. Studies have shown that about 6% of men will admit to being a rapist- even being a repeat rapist- as long as the term "rape" isn't used. 
4. "Rape culture," a term coined in the 1970s, has only recently grown in usage, and the US is recognized as being a rape culture. 
5. Police and hospitals in America still treat rape as illegitimate, either by charging the victim for a rape test, denying rape tests if they think the victim knew the accused rapist, giving the victim incorrect information, refusing to enforce their own laws, flat-out not bothering to file a report, or pressuring the victim into recanting their story. 

Comforting, no? So much for America being a beacon of shining liberty. This is kinda a sore topic for me, but I'm not going to apologize. I kept my own silence too long, time to work with others to change that.

Edit: Also, take a look at the VP candidate's view on rape as a "method of conception." I'm sure that's not quite how he meant it, but he made darn sure to dance around the topic...

Pollyanna

     As my father is (inordinately) fond of pointing out, there is nothing in life that you learn that does not come in handy at some point down the road. Yesterday was an excellent example of that, in a myriad of ways. Monday night was insanely hot, and I decided (at 3 am as I finally started to drift off to sleep) that I was only going to go in for the second half of Russian classes yesterday, if my sinuses had cleared up by then. They're not 100% healed, but I felt like I'd been a slacker for long enough, so off I went to school.

     Well, off to try to go to school anyway. When I reached the elevators, the button was already lit, but no one was around. Odd, since they're usually fairly fast. After a while, however, it became apparent that the elevators were simply not working, so I had to find stairs. Russia, of course, does not bother with such niceties as "Emergency Exit" signs or "Stairs are this way" placards or anything like that. I put my "let's keep trying things until something works" skills to use, and found the stairs after a bit of searching. You had to go through the room where you dump garbage, out onto the balcony behind the building, and back into the building on the other side of the balcony, through a door that looked like it had last been used back when the Romanovs were still in power.

Not creepy AT ALL...