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deliberately

go go go*

@deliberatelyagain

i’ll go back to this URL one day maybe?

*or don’t, choose your own adventure.

deliberately

I scheduled this post to rebagel at 9am this morning since it initially went up in the weeeee hours of the morn — but that didn’t happen I guess. Wonder whose little piece of the internet it wound up on? Great cool awesome.

Anyway, I did a thing. :)

#and i’m keeping it this time

go go go*

@deliberatelyagain

i’ll go back to this URL one day maybe?

*or don’t, choose your own adventure.

#hurry before time runs out!#just kidding nothing will happen ever #but that's where i am/will be for now- i have a few thousand blogs to pack up over here #brains are so dumb you guys

I am thinking about maybe starting over here. I have that other blog on Wordpress (I think I posted it here?) but I haven’t updated it in two months and there’s no community at all there.

I think, honestly, what keeps me from posting here is the weight of how much is in my archives and how different life is now. Fitting for a new year, I guess? It just feels like I’m drawing out an old story when I want to be writing a new one, and I realize that’s 100% in my own head. 🤷🏼‍♀️

If I do start over, it will probably be with the exact same URL- just no history. Deal?

I am graduating in July.

Once and for all, without question. I will finish my Ph.D. by the end of April (maybe? June latest if copyediting is a nightmare, but I will be done writing in April regardless), and I will walk in the July ceremony.

I defended my proposal last week, on Thursday, and passed without revisions. I was expecting to pass, but I was also expecting to need to make some edits. Nope, fully clear. My chair asked how I made my slides, asked how I taught myself, asked if I’d teach her. My committee said they wish they had recorded my presentation because it should be the standard for all students’ proposals in the future, and they are so excited for my study and for my final defense in the spring.

I cried a lot of cries. All good ones, and none in front of anyone that day.

Funny thing: When I worked at the school, I noticed the heels on people’s shoes became significantly shorter for more advanced degrees. At this point, I will probably wear flip flops.

I’m going through my #gradschool tag and, like, Jesus. Remember when I freaked out about possibly not graduating in 2017? All the shit I gave my chair to push me through to be done in 2016?

L O fucking L

Who cares. Dr. Ali starts in like 6 months*.

Fucking finally.

#*i can start 'dr.'ing people before the ceremony tysm #my degree will ideally be conferred in april sooooo 😬😍#what is the appropriate emoji?#grad school #dissertation

an update

I just want to let you know that despite last night’s shenanigans, I got to work at 7:56 this morning. (This is a very good thing. Fuck you, time.)

Also I talked to my good friend in HR who wants to murder my boss over yesterday. (Not literally, but you know.)

And immediately after that, I gave a run-through with my boss, my good friend in HR, the VP of HR, and my coworker on a training I’m doing next week and I fucking killed it. Zero constructive feedback.

So things at work are much better today. Thank you for rallying for me in the wee hours of last night. I woke up pretty pissed once I thought through it all again, which is a good sign. We are working together fine and I’m not harboring any bad energy, but the reminder that I am not The Worst™️ is always appreciated. Truly. My HR friend I need to not be so hard on myself and I said it would be easier if my boss didn’t put me in positions where I say those things out loud and she reinforces them (or doesn’t, which is worse).

Once again I find myself surrounded by great people and I’m so grateful. ❤️

Dear reader,

I’d like you to know two things. Okay no, three.

I’m a little drunk.

(Okay 4 things.)

I saw Nine Inch Nails tonight. It was amazing. (This is #2.)

(#3.) I’m eating re-fried rice right now, which is one of my favorite things, and I added just the right amount of soy sauce. It is perfect.

(#4.) I don’t know if my boobs are okay. I had a mammogram yesterday and they weren’t able to tell me that everything is fine.

My mom now knows about this, but my dad doesn’t. I’d rather tell you than him, because I’m going down there in like 2 weeks anyway so who even fucking whatever.

Between Monday and Wednesday, I got a combined three (3) hours of sleep. I had a mammogram on Wednesday (do not recommend), which is when I slept for one whole hour, because I figured it was just a doctor appointment and I’d be hanging out with my mom otherwise.

I was mostly right. Except this morning, after my body could finally get a lot of sleep (Matt came over and I/we? went to bed at 8:45pm), I blew right past my alarm and was about 30 minutes late (“late”) to work. I had a “””talk“”” with my boss when I got in, and overall had a terrible day.

The results from my mammogram/ultrasound on Wednesday are “probably benign”. That’s what the sheet says, next to the box they checked. So it’s not the worst news, but it’s also not NOT the worst news and it also isn’t confident good news, and also I need to go back in 6 months for another mammogram.

I am legitimately worried, and the reality of all of this didn’t settle in until I was talking with my boss this morning. My father has stage IV prostate cancer. Everyone who has passed on my mom’s side of the family has had some sort of cancer. The last time I dealt with my thyroid (which is what I keep saying to everyone, including you--“I’ve been through this before and it ended up being actually nothing, so I’m not worried at all”--and it was never a lie but I won’t be saying that anymore), no one was as sick or had been sick. Or, at least my dad wasn’t.

This is fucking me up, which I hate admitting, and it is showing, which I hate more.

I got ~3 hours of sleep before last night because I had a dissertation draft due and entirely too much work to do on it. It wasn’t for lack of trying and it wasn’t a matter of time management, because I’d been hacking away at it since I first got the feedback. If I’d left it all to the last minute, it would be on me and I wouldn’t even be writing about it here -- but I gave it my all, truly, and I still turned in an incomplete draft. (I’m told that it wouldn’t be a dissertation if it was easy, and it wouldn’t be a Ph.D. if everyone got one. Or whatever. I am still incredibly frustrated with myself.)

I was late to work today because I slept past my alarm. I got in around 9 am and I was so busy obsessing over sending the “perfect” text about being late that I never actually sent anything before she texted me and asked if I was coming in today. Of course I’m coming in today. I’m just having a really fucking hard time this week, which is (1) impossible for me to admit at a place like WORK when I’m already ashamed that I’m running late, and (2) tough to quantify in a text because I missed my alarm. She knows what’s going on with me, I sat her down as soon as I made the mammogram/ultrasound appointment because it fucked me up.

I was embarrassed that she beat me to the punch, and I apologized sincerely for not being in my right brain and that I realize now completely that I should have texted her before I even left my apartment but I have had a cloudy brain today, and she told me--after I cried in front of her about what happened at the hospital yesterday and she asked, “have you had a chance to cry about it yet?” and I said, through tears, “no, and I’m sorry it’s happening now; this is not in your job description and I realize that” and she said nothing--that she feels that I’m unreliable.

I have never missed a meeting or anything, with anyone for any reason. I have been late maybe too many times but only ever when I have literally nothing to do that morning (which is not meant as an excuse; I’m a grown ass woman and I do know better), and I reiterated that I have never missed a commitment and she said something to the effect of, “so your job isn’t a commitment?” and I immediately said, “that’s not what I said at all, I completely respect being here and the commitment I have to my job, which I think shows through in every other aspect especially now,” and she just nodded but didn’t acknowledge anything. And then we talked some more and I cried and I cried, and I poked fun at myself to try to lighten everything and she eventually laughed.

As someone who has managed people before (including people who were unreliable), I do not understand the fixation on time--if only because it disagrees with so many others I know at the company and our culture as an organization, honestly. I am never one of the last ones into the office; people come in after me all of the time. But she is my boss, and I ultimately need her in my corner to do well and move up and stay there a long time. It would be easier for me to comply and get my shit together than it would be for me to do anything else (like rally some troops and try to convince her that this is not nearly as big of a deal, which I idiotically think is feasible sometimes) -- and that even if I got in before 7:30am everyday and fucked around all day long, that it wouldn’t make me a better employee. (But! I could try this, maybe? Jkkkkk, jk jk jk.) Also of note, I have stopped fucking around all day long (thank u Adderall); the feedback has been phenomenal otherwise and yet here we are again.

She said she is concerned about how people perceive me, that when people don’t see me at my desk in the morning that it’s a bad look. What about when I’m in meetings or leading a training? What about when I’m off site visiting people on the job and I don’t get in until 11?

She also said the third person on our team has started to come in late (he gets in at like 8:15 every few Mondays, that’s it; 8:30 is her bad time) and sort of attributed that to my time, as though it was something I fucking recommended to him. As though I didn’t fucking crying in front of her the last time we had a talk about this. Cool thanks, great awesome.

But I get it. I have also reapplied my makeup four (4) times today.

She asked me if I have “too much going on?” and I sort of laughed but I didn’t mean to. I am writing a fucking dissertation and not communicating well with my advisor despite my best efforts, I am volunteering which hasn’t cut into anything (yet, thank GOD) and just now, within the past 24 hours I’ve gotten not-good news following some weird boob stuff and my dad is still battling his own cancer so yeah, yes, yep, there’s too much going on right now. Thanks for asking!

She is a couple of years younger than me and this is her first time managing people, ever. I have gotten a tremendous amount of really great feedback lately, about how on my shit I’ve been I’ve been for external events (I presented/trained at a fucking CONFERENCE on behalf of my entire company last week and people are still talking about it) but the morning after a scary exam that I have no answers about for six (6) months or so, we have this talk. It’s not that I didn’t text her, it’s the time in general so we would have had the talk anyway.

I have had a bad week. Not bad like, “oh man all this frustrating shit happened,” but bad like, “I am having a tough fucking time,” and I hate that. I had been flying so high.

Nine Inch Nails was what I needed tonight, and two 10% Cherry Cordial imperial stouts + a double vodka red bull (someone I know calls them voodoo’s, I love it) are what I needed tonight too.

Will I make it to work by 8am tomorrow?--the time I desperately/impulsively committed to arriving by from now on? Because I was caught in my own guilt and because I cannot ever admit that I don’t have my shit together so I overcompensate at my own expense?

An 8am arrival requires me waking up before 6am. Earlier is better, but 6am if I decide a rinse is sufficient and I don’t feel like I need to wash my hair.

L-O-fucking-L. Wish me luck. (Please.)

I am giving myself a month. One because if I can do it for a month then I’ll have gone a month without fretting about fucking anything probably, and also because habits are formed in 28 days or whatever the fuck.

Guys, En Lai in Edgewater has the best fried rice I’ve ever had.

Thanks for letting me put this here. One of my coworkers reads my instagram/blog? now and so I can’t write this there because I need to sort out my thoughts. I need to get them out and I need to figure this out and I need to either get over myself and my attitudes as a former manager or get my shit together, because I am fucking miserable right now.

#i considered just yelling in my car when i got home from work this afternoon but traffic was terrible and i needed to get to my friend's to #have beers which i thought was more important #i need a cry and a yell real bad #also my period showed up today #life is grand #euthanize me please

I'm just a girl, standing in front of her dissertation chair, asking her to approve these last few revisions.

Oh, hi.

I started a new thing over there ( ^ ) and I think I’m going to be living there from now on, for the most part. I’m eventually going to share that link everywhere, so I’m keeping this space open here in case I need to vent about my family again or something--which is very possible. I’m spending 5 whole days with my dad and his wife in Florida in a few weeks.

But anyway, in the meantime at least, I’ll be over there.

#can you follow people there?#do you have one? i'll follow you!#i know you can sign up for emails at least #that's what my mom did every time i posted something from japan (which was a different wordpress blog)#it was adorable #and made me feel cool #anyway bye

i went to the doctor today

I’m going to start another blog soon. It’s going to be something I post in places where my mom can see, etc., because I miss the old tumblr days. Even though I know a new blog won’t feel anything like them, I still keep going back to the idea that it’s something I should do.

I was going to do it tonight but then realized I didn’t feel great about starting with a big doozy of a post (especially since one of my coworkers will probably read it), and so here we are.

I went to the doctor today. I have new insurance and opted this time around for the kind where I can go almost wherever I want. I needed to get my annual lady doctor visit out of the way, so I scoured the internet for the best OB/GYN in the range of places I’d feel like driving to on a given day. My previous one was fine, but she’s in Skokie and that’s too far for fine. I found someone with hundreds of 5-star reviews (her average is 4.9), and called for an appointment. That was eight weeks ago, and today was my appointment. She was, is, amazing and I’m so glad to be one of her patients.

I remember the feeling I got about halfway through today’s appointment from 7 years ago, almost exactly. There is something weird happening in my boobs and I need to have them both checked out. (I could be more serious and say “breasts” I guess, but my blog my rules, etc.)

If I said I wasn’t worried, I’d be lying. One of the things she felt is a lump that has been there for a long time. Previous docs have felt it and dismissed it, but I’ve never had it looked at. There are other, smaller ones on the other side that I haven’t ever felt before and considering my family’s medical history, she suggested I get in for an ultrasound within the next month. I made an appointment as soon as I got back in my car, called Matt next and used my brave voice. He said he was sorry and that I shouldn’t have to deal with this and I never think of things that way, so hearing it was a relief.

I’ve been through this type of thing before. In 2011, really almost exactly, I started having a growth on my thyroid examined. At the time, it was only a slowly building threat to my good looks (lol) until several visits and tests and biopsies and more visits later when it became “we aren’t able to say it isn’t cancer” so whatever appointment I had yet to schedule for one-day-when-it-really-is-a-cosmetic-nightmare suddenly needed to happen within the next two weeks.

Everything has been fine ever since, but I’m not unfamiliar with the threat of something that could be real scary. I remember telling people how indifferent I felt, to the point that I believed it was just, you know, whatever. I also remember how I wrote about it and how different my delivery of the information was in person. But my memory of the whole thing is of being super blase, which is funny today.

This feels a little different though, emotionally and mentally. I am on the verge of tears and sort of at an impasse with myself:

( a ) I know, completely rationally, that it’s okay to be worried and scared and to see those feelings through, but

( b ) I also feel, truly, that there’s no benefit to being any of those things right now, at this current point, because I have experienced my body being a fucking weirdo elsewhere -- and it literally ended up being nothing bad, just a lot of anxiety and worry in the two months leading up to the procedure where half of my thyroid was removed so maybe my body’s just being a wackadoo again, and

( c ) I intentionally scheduled the ultrasound for Saturday November 3 even though I want to get in sooner and there’s an opening next Tuesday but the figurative cost of missing work at any point over the next 3 weeks is not worth it; I have so much going on between now and 11/8, when I leave to see my dad in Florida, that it isn’t worth the added stress and additional time I’ll have to put in to stay current with all my shit right now -- especially if whatever’s going on isn’t immediately urgent, according to my doctor.

This is why I couldn’t start my new blog tonight. I needed to get this out. And less importantly, I guess, I also need to come up with some sort of URL for it. Wherever it is, ‘notalison’ is #1 right now only because it’s my instagram name. Where do I go? Wordpress again?

Oof.

I turned in a second draft of (the second chapter of) my dissertation tonight. I think -- I think?? -- I am supposed to defend my proposal this semester, which will be a huge thing, and then I can (and fucking will) change my name to Ali Whatever, Ph.D. (ABD) wherever I can. This matters to probably no one, but I did a lot of research on when/if “(ABD)” is ever acceptable and as it turns out, no one gives an actual shit about it. I can’t wait. And then I’ll have data shortly after, and then I should (hopefully???) be done, done, done in less than a year.

!!!

It’s a little upsetting that my company doesn’t include masters degrees (all 3 of us on my team have them) and I won’t include (ABD) on a professional signature, but no one is ever going to get me to leave Ph.D. off of anything in writing, ever. The thought of someone saying “Dr. Whatever” out loud isn’t great, I just want it to be seen.

I’m going to include Neptune in my dedication. Have I mentioned that here? I know others who have included pets, and I would have had a significantly tougher time if he wasn’t part of the picture, so. Then I’ll just need to figure out how to get him in for graduation. Do I try to sneak him across the stage with me (I’ve still got connections at my school, come on) or does he hang out in the audience with my folks and hopefully meow just at the right time? I’m getting ahead of myself.

Other than *gestures vaguely*, life is good. I’m grateful to not only have a job to immerse myself in completely lately, but also to have the ability to actually do that now. (S/o to my psychiatrist!!) I’m already pretty fucking exhausted as it is. I cannot imagine keeping up with everything right now. I just check in and go as I can, and that is plenty.

Last Tuesday, I led a 6-hour training after redesigning all of the materials. I was in front of a room of 27 men, some younger and some way older (#construction amirite? but also there were a few ladies who signed up and then didn’t show, thx for nothing), got great feedback, and am going to do it again in November. Hopefully not the same type of crowd, but whatever. Right now I’m building a training from scratch focusing on generations at work, but specifically at our company, and tomorrow I have to kind of pitch it to my boss again now that I have a full presentation, and then the VP of HR a few hours later. Eeeeee.

I’m barely on social media and gchat during the day anymore and I’m almost? enjoying getting up earlier by the day. Tomorrow I’m going to try to get to work sometime between 7 and 7:30 just because I wanna, and my commute is about 45 minutes. I don’t go to concerts much anymore because the commute back into the city is hell after work and so is thinking about staying up later than 10pm on purpose. I couldn’t have imagined choosing this life day after day two years ago. And who knows long-term right? I’d love to be downtown again. But for now, aside from getting older and lamer at an exponential rate, things are good.

Anyway. My boyfriend and my cat are asleep on my couch (I just saved Neptune from getting squished under Matt’s arm), and I’m still here wondering what I should write about next.

I’m going to go join them. <3

So, meds are fun. I've never been able to even make a list like this AND make sense of it, let alone carry any of it out. 💊✨

#also these are my favorite notebooks on earth just fyi psa abc 123 #it says friday but there's more from today on the back

It only took a year and a half (or 20, depending on how we're counting really), but I finally got an adderall script. I don't even have the words to describe the relief I feel. Reeeeeally looking forward to being good at my job again.

#whew

also 🗣

I turned my asks back on. I don’t know how they were off (yes I do) but in case that was like, ever a thing you were hoping for, now it’s there again.

#anon is always welcome #corgi gifs notwithstanding

Oh hi. How’re you?

I got in trouble at work a couple of weeks ago for being late, even though I was told there’s no eye on specific hours/time in/time out (I’m salaried) -- so I put some things into practice in the hopes that they’d make me a morning person.

L O fucking L.

I’m also doing a whole30 because I’m insufferable it’s been carbapalooza 2k18 all summer long and I needed some fucking help. This is week 3 and while I’m being more strict than I was last time I did one, I’m still being realistic -- eating whatever I can that’s closest when going out, etc. It’s been going well, and waking up earlier (or in general) has been noticeably easier the past few days. Cool. A lot of this feels more sustainable this time around, too. I still have cravings for shit food (I miss ice cream something awful) but I think it’ll have been long enough when I’m done that I can have one of the “healthy” or whatever types and it’ll scratch the itch for a while. I also feel like actual dog doo-doo when I eat certain things again (mostly dairy, sob) which is motivating enough. I however haven’t lost as much weight as I would’ve wanted by now, but hopefully I’ll continue to lose because I plan to go mostly paleo even after day 30.

The last time I checked in here for real was the night before my birthday. Writing feels so foreign to me now. I remember in college, when I switched to a non-creative major, the feeling of losing that spark with photography. I felt it a little while ago with music (making creative playlists, wanting to go to shows) and now I think it’s happening with writing, which really bums me out. It could also be these fucking almond nails that I can’t get enough of, still, somehow still. They make typing so irritating.

Matt and I have been together for over a year now. We had a particularly rough patch in May/June, but we are solid now. A lot of things I thought I was sure on are changing. Therapy has been fun.

I saw Beyonce this weekend! (I didn’t get fake tickets this time. 🙃) The show was so good, but it didn’t change my life like I was hoping it would. I think I overhyped everything in my head and have seen too many close-up clips of other shows that somehow being there in person fell short. For a while though at first, I couldn’t wrap my head around sharing the same space as her at all, so there’s that.

WHAT ELSE? I have a first-chapter-of-my-dissertation draft due in September. That’s weird as hell. My job is cool, but I’m navigating a lot of unexpected ambiguity and my boss and I are clashing more than I anticipated. That leather jacket I ordered for myself ended up having to be returned, but it felt nice to even temporarily own something I wouldn’t have been able to justify buying for myself six months ago. But I’m about to make myself a giant ribeye for dinner (it was on sale for $6, drool), so I have to get to that.