Reberb 10 - Let Go

Remember how I said I was going to be flexible with my commitment to this? Well, this was actually yesterday's prompt. I didn't get to it because my day was jam packed with preparing for my Chanukah party and studying for finals. It is a good one though - so I'm going to go for it today.

What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

When I first read this prompt Sunday morning I was immediately taken by the question. I'm obsessed with letting things go. I like nothing better than to go through our house and make a big pile of all of the things we don't need/don't use/don't want. 

I don't want to be defined by things. I don't want to be overrun with things. I don't want to hold on to material possessions just for the sole purpose of having things. And so I purge (my stuff). I tear my closet apart and purge the dress I will no longer wear, the jean jacket I've had for two years and never worn, and old jeans that don't fit. I tear our cabinets apart too and ask myself questions like "Can we survive with only 1 spatula?" and "What is the minimum number of mixing bowls we need?" I argue with my husband and try and tear his things apart too.   

Reverb10 - Wonder

So I've already messed up with this Reverb 10 challenge - I missed yesterday! oops. But that is the way life goes sometimes. I'm giving myself permission to be flexible in my commitment to this project. If I miss a day here and there it is because other things took priority.

Here is the question for today

How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? 
(Author: Jeffrey Davis)

To prompt my thoughts on this I looked up the definition of "wonder." As a verb, wonder means "to think or speculate curiously" or "to be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe." As a noun, wonder means "the emotion excited by what is strange and surprising; a feeling of surprised or puzzled interest, sometimes tinged with admiration."

After mulling over this definition, I must conclude that I don't have much of a sense of wonder in my life. I tend to be a bit cynical and it is hard to cultivate a sense of excited interested when you're too busy making snarky comments.

It is a shame too. I'm in the lucky position of getting paid to learn and do research. Looking at the first definition I provided, you could argue that it is actually my job to wonder. In my previous line of work this wasn't the case and I missed learning new things. Now, however, I've slipped into viewing learning as a chore instead of something to relish. 


While I don't think I'll ever stop loving snarky comments, perhaps it might make sense to try and cultivate just a teensy bit of wonder into my life. But, I'm not sure if I even know the first steps to doing this! How do you cultivate a sense of wonder?

 

Reverb10 - Writing

December 2 Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)

I'm currently working on my thesis right now to get my master's degree in clinical psychology so that I can move on to working on my Ph.D. A lot of different kinds of work go into a thesis, but at the end of the day it all comes down to writing. It doesn't matter if you become an expert in your topic through countless hours of research, design an elegant study, collect data, or have interesting conclusions. If you don't write it, it doesn't count.

I'm at the "approved proposal" crest

Last year, when I started my project,  professors suggested that I make time to write everyday. They advised me to schedule a small amount of time every day that I could devote just to writing, even if it was just half an hour. It sounded so simple, so easy. Thirty minutes a day and before you know it - a thesis! But, you know what? I never was able to follow through.

Not only did I want to take mental breaks from my project, but I found it very hard to get geared up to only work for 30 minutes. Thoughts like "I won't get anything done in just thirty minutes so why even start" made it hard to get motivated. Of course I didn't write everyday - I kept telling myself it would be a waste of time! 

There are lots of other obstacles to writing everyday, but most of them I can't control. Negative thinking, however, is something that I can work on changing. The truth of the matter is, 30 minutes is enough to: edit a few pages, read two or three articles, or write a couple of paragraphs. Focusing on what I can accomplish in the time I have will help me meet my goal of finishing my thesis by June*.




*Whether or not this happens by writing everyday or just once or twice a week, I don't care. I just want to be done already!

Reverb10

Psss. Guess what? I've decided to sign up for Reverb 10 as a way to reflect on this year and make some goals for 2011. Each day I'll be answering a prompt as part of this project.

The prompt for today was written by Gwen Bell.

"Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?"

I think my word for 2010 would have to be "planning". Neill and I planned a wedding as well as, more figuratively, a future. 2010 was also my first full year in graduate school. Not only did it take a lot of planning to get there, but the first year includes a lot of planning for things to come. In general, I think a lot of my energy in 2010 went to laying the groundwork for what I hope to accomplish and what I hope life will be like in the future.

I hope 2011 can be captured by the word "celebrate." I'd like to celebrate anything and everything possible in 2011 with good friends, good food, and good wine. In fact, I'm already getting a jump start on this by making a commitment to celebrate all 8 nights of Chanukah this year! 

Happy Chanukah!

Happy Chanukah everyone! Neill and I lit the candles, sang the Chanukah song, and now he is making dinner. I might have sneaked a few pieces of Chanukah gelt too :) Do I have it good or what?

For those of you who may not be as familiar with Chanukah, chabad.org provides a nice little summary of what Chanukah commemorates. They write:

More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of G-d.
When they sought to light the Temple's menorah (the seven branched candelabrum), they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks; miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity. To commemorate and publicize these miracles, the sages instituted the festival of Chanukah. At the heart of the festival is the nightly menorah (candelabrum) lighting: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, and so on till the eighth night of Chanukah, when all eight lights are kindled.

So basically it boils down to the same thing a lot of Jewish holidays celebrate - They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat!