Pay To Make it Happen

Everything about a graduate education feels right. I’ve been sitting on my hands for the past seven and a half months in preparation for this. And I’m not a patient person.

A graduate degree, someone who’s also heading there told me recently, is a way to bypass working your way up through the ranks of an organization. It’s a way to fast-track your career by five to seven years. That sounds like what I want, I think. After five years of working ‘jobs’ and ‘gigs’ since graduating from undergrad I feel very ready for a ‘career’.

School also feels right; it feels like a proper re-centering as I shift careers and shift priorities in my life. It feels like an appropriate way to focus my energies away from “crazy-making” behavior and onto myself. Drawing up a five year “Must Have and Nice to Have” list, I found that I’ve built up a real desire for financial stability, which I estimate can only come from taking increased responsibility for my own life.

It all seems to fit so well. Enter panic.

What if I can’t make it work? What if I can’t afford to make it work? Do I put all this rightness on hold and reassess, fearing that not moving will push me into depression? Or do I forge ahead with the hope that what is right will work itself out?

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FML: Knee Pain

Turkish folk dancing successfully annihilated most working joints in my body. There are few places on me that haven’t, at one point or another, been inflamed, torn, aggravated, agitated or otherwise broken. My knees were my last saving grace.

Last night, about 10 minutes into my 5.5 mile run, I developed the sensation that my left lateral kneecap and surrounding muscle was contracting into a tight fist, squeezing tighter with each footfall. I’d stop at a light and the pain would subside. The second I resumed my run the pain would be back. By the end of the night I was barely able to walk without limping and bending my knee to get into bed made me cringe.

Yes, I iced it. And yes, this morning I sent a frantic text message to my personal trainer friend and an email to my massage therapist begging both for help. My half marathon is nine days away.

I also did a little research online, and apparently any of the following could be the problem:

Runners Knee (Iliotibial band syndrome) An overuse injury caused by the iliotibial band rubbing on the outside of the joint Lateral Meniscus Tear / cartilage tear Torn cartilage or meniscus towards the outside of the knee. Caused by internally rotating the knee with the foot, over bending the knee backwards or forwards, or from over use. Lateral Cartilage Meniscus Abnormality Knee injury involving pain similar to that in Iliotibial Band Friction syndrome. The lateral meniscus becomes inflamed or has degenerated.

Osteoarthritis of the knee. Osteoarthritis (also called degenerative joint disease) is the degradation and degeneration of this articular cartilage. As the disease progresses, the cartilage itself becomes thinner and in some cases may wear away altogether. Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome One of the most common knee injuries with pain originating from the patella or kneecap. A common overuse injury and running injury.

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Update: My Life

It’s been a while and much has changed since I last posted to my blog. Plans for the next phase of life are in full swing and I wanted to share them here. To be totally honest, I don’t know if I’m running to, from, or parallel to situations that have taken shape. But I’m trying to take it in stride.

Events, they are a’comin’:

• April 1, 2011 – Pack up the rest of my apartment and move it into storage. Hop in a car with my best friend, Rachel, and head to New York where I’ll drink myself stupid, run my first half marathon and see a show I’ve been dying to see for ages. (Not all at the same time, nor even on the same day.)
• April 5th – Fly to Chicago where I’ll spend two and a half days checking out Columbia College (accepted, but no scholarships).
• April 7th – Fly to Raleigh, NC where I’ll spend three days with a devilishly handsome Turk and haul out to Greenville to visit the long lost Curt Klump, a dear friend from Boston who’s relocated South.
• April 11th – Bypass Washington DC and American University (also admitted, and offered a bit of scholarship money, but have decided this isn’t the program for me) and fly on to Pittsburgh where Carnegie Mellon lies. (Admitted, and again, offered some scholarship money.) (As a separate parenthetical remark, you’ll notice Yale isn’t on this list. Not admitted. Meh.)
• April 13th – Fly back to Boston. Couch crash. Re-arrange suitcases and prepare for…
• April 18th – Fly out of Boston for Istanbul… via Paris!
• April 19-26 – Return to Paris for the first time in two years. See if I can retrieve the stuff I left there, see a bunch of friends, and do some of the touristy things I skipped the first time around.
• April 26 – Leave Paris for Istanbul via a god-awful nine hour layover in London. (But it was all booked using frequent flyer miles!)
• April 26 – Back in Antalya for the next 90 days (that’s how long my tourist visa lasts). I’ll be working at Gloria Serenity, the hotel I stayed at the past two years with the dancers, but working directly for the hotel in the entertainment department. Think “Dirty Dancing”. Engaging guests and generally lots of fun and tanning.
• July 26th – Back to Boston on Aerosvit airlines, the horrendous, but rather decently priced Ukranian airlines I flew back with the last time around.
• August – Move cities, re-establish and start grad school!

Catch me if you can!

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Flexibility to Succeed!

I’m taking on Fitness Magazine in the hopes of becoming their next cover face (amateur to be sure). I’ve submitted my picture and a damn good blurb, and now all I need are your votes. Help me show the world what I’ve accomplished!

VOTE HERE!

You can vote every day and you don’t have to sign up for anything to do so. Takes just 10 seconds!

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What to Do Instead of Getting Mad: Get Productive (?)

I found out yesterday that the apartment in which I’ve been residing for the past four months (yep, that’s is) is no longer going to be mine come April 1st. My roommates – a couple in their mid-20′s – have decided they’d like to live alone again. Apparently now they can afford it.

Yesterday, when they told me, I was shocked and sort of hurt. I felt rejected. Like I was somehow an inferior human being slash roommate. Today, however, I feel mad.

Really? After I bought paint for the walls and spent the time painting them you’re going to ask me to leave? After I spent money on curtain rods? And finally changed all my personal mailing info to this address, you’re going to ask me to leave? After I finally started to get comfortable here, and thought, “Hey, I can hang in Boston until grad school in the Fall,” you’re going to make me reevaluate if Boston is indeed the best place or if I should just spare myself the headache of moving again and move straight to wherever I’m going to grad school? You’re going to make me rent a truck and bribe friends and spend all that time and energy moving again, before I was ready, changing plans with little advance warning? You’re going to do all this? Man, that makes me mad.

To be clear, this has been coming for a while. It’s too bad neither them nor me was willing to just ask if everything was alright, and, if it wasn’t, see what could be done to remedy the situation, though. None of us likes confrontation though. I guess this is what happens when three people who aren’t terribly compatible as roommates get together.  Problems arise and, instead of working through them, we just avoid them. — I’m much more social than they are. I require less planning. (Who knew that was even possible?) — And then shit hits the fan and I find myself with a month to figure out what comes next.

But anger isn’t productive. Neither is feeling bad for myself or victimized. Yes, this sucks. I have very little time to make a very big-ish decision, and I’ve got to take finances and logistics and my own happiness into account. But, this isn’t the time to dwell on hurt or rage, because that’ll just take away from productivity, which I need really badly right now.

So, at the very least I’ve made up my mind not to be angry or bitter. Now I’ve just got to figure out what comes next and try to balance myself in another state of limbo.

 

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Where You Spend Your Hours: Don’t Settle

A great new Twitterer I’ve started following regularly directs me to a personal branding website – PersonalBrandingBlog.com – that I’ve found really interesting. The below is an excerpt from that site’s sister-site, StudentBranding.com, (link to full article). It puts into words quite well some of the feelings I’ve experienced while making the shift to Arts Administration from performance.

When the pressure to boldly enter the “real world” post-college presents itself, too many of us settle for less than what we really want and are completely capable of getting. Even in the midst of the current less-than-ideal job market, I still believe that it is imperative to do exactly what you love- and nothing short of that. After all, you will spend a majority of your waking hours doing whatever it is you choose as your career. So, unless you want to feel drained, uninspired and underutilized most of the time, NEVER SETTLE!

I went to the theatre last night and ran into a whole bunch of industry professionals that I hadn’t seen since I last fled the country. There were a lot of questions about what I was doing and a lot of grad school explanations. The explanations, however, often felt like excuses to me. As if I had to account for my “failure” in the performance realm.

“…[Y]ou will spend a majority of your waking hours doing whatever it is you choose as your career…”

As a performer I spent half the hours I was working, working a job to make money and support the work I was doing the other half of the time. In the end, that meant I was only experiencing about half of my career. The other half had become nannying and cleaning and all kinds of other things that I didn’t hate, but didn’t love the way I love theatre either. I wanted to be surrounded by my career 100% of the time I was working. And so I decided to shift my focus.

Now when I think about what I’ll be doing for work in the next couple of years I think about a 9-5 job. Or at least a 40 hour/week job. But all 40 of those hours will be in a profession I love. I’ll no longer be working 25 hours at nannying just to work another 25 at acting. I’m happy with that decision. I’m happy that I’ve finally decided not to settle.

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Cloud Nine and My Positive Energy

Remember those 100 days of happiness I was all about a little while back? I haven’t given up on them. In fact, I’ve been doing a better job than ever at just incorporating happiness into every day without a lot of extra thought.

Why the past 12 hours have been remarkable:

I spent an hour on the elliptical last night at the gym. It was a bummer that I wasn’t running because my ankle (the same one that was booted for inflammation and impingement last winter) has been bothering me again lately as I’ve been increasing my mileage getting ready for my half-marathon in April. But I tried to take it easy on myself, figuring that if I wasn’t dedicated enough to icing it nightly, I could at least be dedicated enough to not overwork it when it was already cranky. Doing that little thing, and getting a good workout in regardless, was the starting point.

I spent last night with a friend. “Friend” is a euphemism. He made a Turkish dinner and we drank French wine and listened to Turkish music. We talked. And, even though it didn’t need to be said, we both agreed that we really appreciate each others’  honesty and openness.

“I know one thing,” he said. “You’ve got a pure heart.” And I was thinking the same thing about him. I don’t know what this “friend” is to me exactly, but I know he’s special. I spent last night feeling exquisitely close to another person – mentally, emotionally and physically – which we all really need more of in our lives.

I headed home in the early hours of the morning, tired but energized. I caught two perfectly-timed buses, one after the other, and made it into and out of the shower before my roommates were up. I put together a great outfit for work. I shaved my legs.

I put in my iPod (Note to self: confused as to why WordPress’ spell-check still hasn’t added “iPod” to its list of recognized words yet.) for my walk to the T. I was rockin’ out to some Arcade Fire when I passed my newest Prospect Street friend.

(Another note: I have another “Prospect Street friend”. He’s a guy I know visually from my gym who was sweet enough to adjust a finicky machine for me each time as we worked our sets around one another’s one night. Now we smile at each other every time we see each other at the gym and every time we pass each other on Prospect Street. I discovered he lives about a block from me when I saw him coming out of his apartment one morning during a snowstorm.)

Now I have another Prospect Street friend. I saw him yesterday on my walk to the T for my current work assignment. It was the first time I’d seen him on a morning commute because of the new time frame. I felt like I had seen him before, and he’s beautiful and tall, which increases the odds I’m remembering correctly; who could forget? We smiled at each other… shyly.

Today, as I was already on Cloud Nine, we smiled broadly and he said hello. Tomorrow I’m debating having a card ready that just says, “Hi. I’m Hannah.” and slipping it to him as we pass.

“I’m a communicator,” I told my friend last night. I love to make connections with people, no matter the circumstances or the intensity. I just always feel great when I’m interacting and getting to know another person.” So, it just feels right to try to start something with the tall, beautiful man who smiles at me on my walk to work. Maybe he’s married. Or maybe he’ll be totally freaked out by my unorthodox approachability. That’s okay. I’m still on Cloud Nine, so I think I’ll take the chance.

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Runners’ Cult

Hooray for taking part in often cult-like pastimes with their own special gear, jargon and initiation rights. (I’m talking about running of course!)

Today I bought a Nike+ SportBand™. It’s a little gadget like a watch with a tracking device that I sync to my computer and that logs my distance, speed, calories burned and can even track my damn route! I can annoy everyone on Facebook and Twitter with updates on how many miles I ran and how fast, all with the help of a little pod tracker-device-thingie that goes in a tiny bag, which hangs on my shoe. (If I ran in Nikes, which I never would, no matter how stoked I am about this new piece of running paraphernalia) my shoe would even have a little holster for the pod. Coooool.

Now I’m a member of Nike’s online running community, which is really just another way for me to waste time talking about stuff I’ve done or am doing or want to do with other people online. But, really? I’m sort of pumped about it.

When my mom and I were at City Sports today I also found myself enthralled with a couple of other pieces of running cult gear: exoskeleton tights and compression socks (without feet) for the shins and calves. At nearly $40 a pair the socks are going to be a hard sell (even if I’m wildly curious). The tights I’ve been hot on for a while. I’d still like to try a pair even though my PT friend says they’re unnecessary. ‘Cause I’m curious and ’cause they look cool. Fifty-eight bucks though. Maybe as a treat for when I make it to half marathon week… <squeeeel> (!)

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Moving onto the Next

I’ve been lucky enough to have had seven weeks of constant employment. A couple of years ago I think I would have weighed this differently and not been so grateful for the opportunity to plant my butt in an office chair eight hours a day. Tomorrow, this placement will come to and end, and I’ll be back out in the world of unemployment.  I’ve learned a couple of things from my three months of mostly not working, followed by these seven weeks of lots of work:

Life is about the whole picture, and I’m more adaptable than I thought. Working 9-5 means shifting schedules and being really clear about priorities, but I can do it and not want to kill myself. That being said, working 9-5 is almost always categorized as working hard, but not smart. The money comes in, but I’ve certainly been selling my daytime soul for it. There’s little time left for anything else, and it seems sort of silly to work this much for this little when there’s life out there to be lived.

I know a guy with a great job that pays him great money. He likes me – I suppose – because I’m impassioned about life. He calls me a Bonnie, as in Bonnie and Clyde. I wish I had a machine gun like I’ve seen her with in pictures…

I told him on Friday that Tuesday would be my last day at my current temp. assignment. I told him I was a little upset and scared of the lack of a paycheck, but that I was really happy to be moving onto something that I enjoy doing more. His gears started turning and he started quoting the figures of ‘asset to cost ratio’ or something like that. And he smiled with wide eyes and told me that I blew his mind because I was so happy about the whole situation. Because I’m not scared of what comes next.

I realized – as I’ve done a thousand times before – that I’m so lucky to live my life the way I live it. I have a full appreciation of freedom and desire and destiny. I’ve never been bound for very long to something that doesn’t excite me.

One year seemed like such a long time when I first started looking for work back in Boston in September. Now I’ve made it through five months and it doesn’t seem so daunting anymore. Because jobs always come when they need to, and in the end my bills get paid and I make it on to the next. It keeps me on my toes and it keeps me grateful.

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Ego Boost

Thanks to this guy from Turkey (leave it to the Turks) for sending the following private message to me via an online dating site. Although I shan’t respond, my ego has been boosted!

Hi sorry for disturbing but i just was passing on your profile.and i saw your photos,you know,i couldn’t go without a message. i wanted to say hello to you

you have got so different style.i think this charm from in a fairy tale.Or you must be from family of kings.Like a princess.In my opinion,every man must call you as my lady.did you see your hair,or skin,or have you ever looked at your nose and eyes? they certainly aren’t from here.no no,it cant be from this earth.maybe they are from angel’s things…wow wow wow… i hope i didn’t disturb you but I’d wish really able to meet you

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