The things I think when my brain hamsters

I grew up ... not poor, I guess, but definitely working class. My mom's a secretary, and my dad drives an 18-wheeler. (They divorced when I was about 9.)

This informs a lot of my insecurities and greatly affected my career path. Rather than study something I really enjoy (German language and literature), I took a rather more mercenary approach: there are jobs in chemistry, which pay decent money. Then after I went to grad school & learned that I suck at research-oriented things, I went into pharmacy.

This is definitely not to say that I don't enjoy pharmacy. Far from it, really. How drugs work in the body is pretty darn cool. I really don't like working in pharmacy, which is rather more problematic. (Interacting with the public? No. Working shifting hours in a hospital? Hell no. That sort of limits my job opportunities, there.)

But after I quit my job last year, I was much happier, even if I stress out over money frequently. Or at least when I haven't had a contract in months and could really use some income.

Where was I going with this? Hell. One problem with hamster-brain is that it goes in weird directions that don't always make sense.

In my quest to be financially stable and the like, I've become ... bourgeois.* I'm a fucking yuppie. I have a 4-bedroom house on 1/4 acre in suburbia. We have 2 cars in a 2-car garage. We shop at the co-op, and are owners. We buy locally-grown produce. We feed our cats the best cat food (made from actual meat).

But there's this part of my brain that worries that someone will figure out that I'm just a prole in bourgeois clothing.

*Technically speaking, petit bourgeois, since I don't own the means of production, just the knowledge inside my brain, which I use to generate income by contracting with those who own the means of production.

Meh.

So, I finished the first pass thingy. Have some notes and some highlighted bits, which I'll begin tackling on Tuesday. I need to Get This Shit Done by the end of March, which is already a month past the initial date I wanted to have it finished (thanks to this contract, which had better fucking end this week or Imma go postal.)

If it isn't too late to register (I just emailed Dr Jay about it) I'm probably taking the san shou intensive next weekend. I won't be able to make the 4-day intensive, because I'll be in Berlin. Seriously, tai chi intensives are NUTS and awesome. By the end of the 4-day last year, my head was so spinny I could barely think. But I learned the proper stance to knock people over with the back of my arm, which is cool.

("my head was so spinny I could barely think" hardly sounds like a ringing endorsement, eh? But it rocked!)

Which reminds me, I need to ask Britt if she's going to the Baltimore tournament and see if she wants to share a room. And see if there's any sort of gopher-age needed to cut my fees. (I haven't gotten my form to the point where it looks like taiji yet. That's on my to-do list for the upcoming year. Perhaps the first 100 days of metal rabbit I'll get intense and go for yellow sash. Ought to start doing prep work in fall, then.)

Oh, hey, it's 6:00. Ought to get some dinner.