Happy Quitiversary

Last Saturday marked 1 year since my last day at my old job. It seems a little silly to remember such an anniversary, but it's an important day for me to remember.

I was talking to my mom, on Saturday no less, about my anxiety over an upcoming test. I mean this was a doozey, which included sun-up to sun-down studying, several study groups with beer to lessen the anxiety, and discussions about vomitting both pre- and post-test. (Vomitting is also a somewhat accurate analogy of what most of us did with the material on the test as well.) Anyway, after patiently listening to me whine, she concluded, "Well, I bet they would have you back at (old job)..."

I have joked about this in the last year, but it was her seriousness that really took me off guard. For a half second, my imagination ran with it: sitting at my desk feeling beyond bored, working on strategies that felt personally compromising, getting through painful weekly team meetings, feeling like most of my brain was slowly melting while the time management and politicking centers worked at full steam. Ugh. I'm trying to think of a word that captures this unhealthy combination of boredom, paranoia, disatisfaction, depression, apathy and longing that represents my old career. Maybe...bordepathetism.

The fact is, as I told my mom, I love school. Even at the most daunting part of the quarter, I absolutely love it and the direction it will take me. And as for my old job...well, in hindsight I realize it's 3 times as horrid a fit for me as I thought when I walked out of there my last day. Horrible fit. Simply awful.

Today I sat in class and thought for the umpteenth time: I will take phase-locking to fundraising any day. The period of a time waveform is far superior to a cultivation strategy form, period. I'd rather spend an afternoon trying to understand single voxel comparisons than schmooze with strangers on some view patio. And even when I'm struggling to remember the point of the temporal modulation transfer function, I'll take it over that old slurping sound of my soul being sucked away.

So happy quitiversary or whatever you'd call it. I am very happy to be here.