summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2013-12-30 11:27 pm
summercomfort) wrote2013-12-30 11:27 pm
2013 in review
I had a really good day today for my birthday! Tomorrow and Wednesday will be pretty busy with taiko and friends, followed by a few days for grading and prepping for the return to school.
But hey, I'm 30 now. As Jono says, I'm now "in his age bracket." In Chinese terms, 30 is the year when you "stand." It comes from Confucius' description of his life, which I'm ad hoc translating as: "At 15 I set my ambitions to learning, at 30 I stood. At 40 I was no longer confused, at 50 I knew the mandate of heaven, at 60 nothing I heard disturbed me, and at 70, I can do whatever I want without trespassing propriety." So, the year of standing. I interpret it to both mean "know where you stand in the world" and "standing for yourself". I think I'm getting there.
This past year has not been kind to me, nor to Jono.
- A lot of job stress in the first half of the year
- Multiple miscarriages (Mar, Aug, and possibly Nov)
- Multiple moves (Jun, Aug, Sept)
- Jono's depression went to very extreme depths. (several times a month until about October)
The month of August was particularly bad, since all three of the above happened. There was a moment when I was dealing with the loss of a pregnancy while simultaneously worried about losing my husband. It's gotten a lot better since then, but August was a dark month, and it was a lot of things that I didn't feel comfortable talking about, not even here.
This year has been a year of transitions and adjustments.
- I was really stressed and over-worked in the last school year, so after the March miscarriage, I decided that I needed to slow down. I told my principal that it's a "self intervention," because without hard rules to restrict myself, my natural inclination is to keep taking on more work. So I imposed a flying moratorium from April 2013 to April 2014, not because flying is inherently stressful, but to serve as a reminder to myself that travel, especially across long distances, *is*, and to take it easy. I also went down to part time teaching this year, once again a hard-set reminder to take it easy at work.
- Jono has been going through a series of transitions and adjustments -- he's had 4 jobs in the past year, and was happy at none of them. I imagine him as the Monkey King, caught in a bind and trying to shift his way out of it, and lurching to and fro in the process. The places that he's worked has ranged across the Bay Area, and the places we've lived has done so as well.
- My family, too, has been going through a transition -- my grandmother passed away, my father's health is deteriorating rapidly, my brother will be graduating from college next June, and my mother is finally finding the right balance in her 2 careers. (Combined, my parents have gone back to China 6 times in the past year.) These family changes will also be leading to some major transitions in our Chinese School
Despite everything, this year had some successes and instances of "standing".
- I think I am now kinder to my body. I've lost weight (back in normal BMI range), I'm eating healthier and I feel healthier. After the August miscarriage I've decided to stop taking my Basal Body Temperature every morning, which has greatly reduced the stress. And hey, this year I ovulated 5 times, which is MUCH better than the 0-2 times in previous years! The anticipation and anxiety around the baby-forming process has been hard, but in the last 2 weeks I've mostly come to terms with it -- I'll keep on truckin' until April, but after that I'll start traveling again and drinking alcohol again.
- I think I have a clearer idea of where I stand re: Chinese school and curriculum development and coding. My experiences this year of writing a Mandarin textbook for school, working with Jono on Legends of Hanyu and attempting to work with the Mandarin teacher over the summer has taught me that (a) it's something that I think I can make contributions to, but (b) it's something that I need to do alone.
- I now feel more confident about comicking. Mind you, I don't think I'm good at it yet, but I feel like I have the time and potential to reach a stage that I'm happy with. When I ended China Comics and started trying my hand in narrative comics, I felt like I had something to prove -- that I'm not just the "China person", but that I had stories that I wanted to tell, too. After getting mired down in Brambles last year, I almost gave up and started branching off into other hobbies. The beginning of Tisquantum was also rough -- the comic storytelling process was so much harder and more confusing than I expected, challenging in unexpected places, and in others, I didn't even know what I was doing wrong. But over the last month or so, I think I've hit a stage where I can see the way forward. I'm starting to figure out the right questions to ask myself when things feel "wrong", and I can also kind of see the end of this chapter -- it's a mere glimmer several months away, but it's something that's real and reachable now. Hopefully by June I'll be done with Chapter 1, which ends with him taking on the name of Squanto. You can tell I'm feeling more comfortable by the fact that I'm allowing myself to make non-narrative comics again.
Other things that happened:
- Gave talks at conferences!
- Gave an iPad workshop!
- Hosted a Chilean teacher!
- Moved to downtown Mountain View! I love our apartment, both its location and our super-tidy landlord and our adorable 1 bedroom-ness. My only frustration is that we've gotten used to being loud and obnoxious in a sound-sealed house, and that doesn't really work in the new place.
- Sold about 50 of my China Comics, including 5 copies via the internet!
But hey, I'm 30 now. As Jono says, I'm now "in his age bracket." In Chinese terms, 30 is the year when you "stand." It comes from Confucius' description of his life, which I'm ad hoc translating as: "At 15 I set my ambitions to learning, at 30 I stood. At 40 I was no longer confused, at 50 I knew the mandate of heaven, at 60 nothing I heard disturbed me, and at 70, I can do whatever I want without trespassing propriety." So, the year of standing. I interpret it to both mean "know where you stand in the world" and "standing for yourself". I think I'm getting there.
This past year has not been kind to me, nor to Jono.
- A lot of job stress in the first half of the year
- Multiple miscarriages (Mar, Aug, and possibly Nov)
- Multiple moves (Jun, Aug, Sept)
- Jono's depression went to very extreme depths. (several times a month until about October)
The month of August was particularly bad, since all three of the above happened. There was a moment when I was dealing with the loss of a pregnancy while simultaneously worried about losing my husband. It's gotten a lot better since then, but August was a dark month, and it was a lot of things that I didn't feel comfortable talking about, not even here.
This year has been a year of transitions and adjustments.
- I was really stressed and over-worked in the last school year, so after the March miscarriage, I decided that I needed to slow down. I told my principal that it's a "self intervention," because without hard rules to restrict myself, my natural inclination is to keep taking on more work. So I imposed a flying moratorium from April 2013 to April 2014, not because flying is inherently stressful, but to serve as a reminder to myself that travel, especially across long distances, *is*, and to take it easy. I also went down to part time teaching this year, once again a hard-set reminder to take it easy at work.
- Jono has been going through a series of transitions and adjustments -- he's had 4 jobs in the past year, and was happy at none of them. I imagine him as the Monkey King, caught in a bind and trying to shift his way out of it, and lurching to and fro in the process. The places that he's worked has ranged across the Bay Area, and the places we've lived has done so as well.
- My family, too, has been going through a transition -- my grandmother passed away, my father's health is deteriorating rapidly, my brother will be graduating from college next June, and my mother is finally finding the right balance in her 2 careers. (Combined, my parents have gone back to China 6 times in the past year.) These family changes will also be leading to some major transitions in our Chinese School
Despite everything, this year had some successes and instances of "standing".
- I think I am now kinder to my body. I've lost weight (back in normal BMI range), I'm eating healthier and I feel healthier. After the August miscarriage I've decided to stop taking my Basal Body Temperature every morning, which has greatly reduced the stress. And hey, this year I ovulated 5 times, which is MUCH better than the 0-2 times in previous years! The anticipation and anxiety around the baby-forming process has been hard, but in the last 2 weeks I've mostly come to terms with it -- I'll keep on truckin' until April, but after that I'll start traveling again and drinking alcohol again.
- I think I have a clearer idea of where I stand re: Chinese school and curriculum development and coding. My experiences this year of writing a Mandarin textbook for school, working with Jono on Legends of Hanyu and attempting to work with the Mandarin teacher over the summer has taught me that (a) it's something that I think I can make contributions to, but (b) it's something that I need to do alone.
- I now feel more confident about comicking. Mind you, I don't think I'm good at it yet, but I feel like I have the time and potential to reach a stage that I'm happy with. When I ended China Comics and started trying my hand in narrative comics, I felt like I had something to prove -- that I'm not just the "China person", but that I had stories that I wanted to tell, too. After getting mired down in Brambles last year, I almost gave up and started branching off into other hobbies. The beginning of Tisquantum was also rough -- the comic storytelling process was so much harder and more confusing than I expected, challenging in unexpected places, and in others, I didn't even know what I was doing wrong. But over the last month or so, I think I've hit a stage where I can see the way forward. I'm starting to figure out the right questions to ask myself when things feel "wrong", and I can also kind of see the end of this chapter -- it's a mere glimmer several months away, but it's something that's real and reachable now. Hopefully by June I'll be done with Chapter 1, which ends with him taking on the name of Squanto. You can tell I'm feeling more comfortable by the fact that I'm allowing myself to make non-narrative comics again.
Other things that happened:
- Gave talks at conferences!
- Gave an iPad workshop!
- Hosted a Chilean teacher!
- Moved to downtown Mountain View! I love our apartment, both its location and our super-tidy landlord and our adorable 1 bedroom-ness. My only frustration is that we've gotten used to being loud and obnoxious in a sound-sealed house, and that doesn't really work in the new place.
- Sold about 50 of my China Comics, including 5 copies via the internet!