Cutting losses

I decided to withdraw from my current semester for my M.Sc. program. It was a hard choice but as I sat there in the dark at 7pm tonight (last night now), I was completely and throughly exhausted, so much so I physically had a hard time getting up and moving around. The training trip had completely drained my reserves, it would seem. Even the mere thought of having to do more work, more studying provoked an involuntary physical shudder through me.

I've been exhausted at least twice in as many weeks. I can continue to pretend that I can but that way lies madness, especially this close to surgery when I absolutely have to be healthy.

Something's got to go. I can't drop my family and in fact, I've been quite derelict in spending time with them as well as helping out at home. I'm sorry, sis - I'll do better. :( I can't drop my work - we need the money, at least until I find a better workplace. So I started looking at other things, and the course was the most expensive (I've already paid for tuition) but would take the biggest stress load off me. The kicker was that I had to have my research project in by the night before I was due to be admitted into the clinic for surgery - I usually bleed off stress from projects for days afterwards and that is not a good way to start off major surgery.

There are other areas I need to cut off as well. I feel like such a failure as I'm doing this - I hate quitting. :( Having said that, I've received nothing but caring support on all this from everyone, even as I'm pulling back, cancelling or delaying my commitments.

I'm getting the distinct feeling that out of everyone in my life, I'm probably the person who underestimates the impact of surgery the most. I keep getting responses like, "You're crazy, that's not enough time to recover" and other similar remarks. That's not good, and I need to go reexamine my position. Joys. :(

It is now T-30 days to surgery. I'm scared but impatient - promises of being finally whole are tempered by the sobering reports of excruciating pain during the months of healing.

Prestige class

I have just returned from an exhausting trip to Somewhere in the US for a course. Upon completion, they declared me Certified to be the work role I've held for the past half a year. Or certifiable, I'm not entirely sure on that count.

I've learnt a lot and I shall be applying all of it to my work role, which I'm quite excited to do over the next few weeks before surgery. I figure that getting Certified is rather like getting a Prestige class as I certainly don't feel too different other than wanting to keel over from exhaustion. I was hoping for new Feats like Smarter-Than-Thou or Jargon Dazzle, which I actually did receive, both of them as a matter of fact. But I can't bring myself to use them. Yet.

Knowing what I know now, I'm starting to understand how my current company got itself into the situation we have now. I had described our difficulties broadly (without compromising the company reputation) and my two very senior instructors gave me some very interesting advice that I intend to follow. Should be fun.

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Quite recently, I attended the kids' annual spring concert at their school. They gave a wonderful performance as always - the school has a surprisingly good music program and a very dedicated and enthusiastic teacher. I'm glad the kids are having the exposure and attention I never really received when I was a child.

When I was at the concert, there were legions of toddlers running. As in, literally running around while their distracted parents tried to discover the maximum storage capacities of their digital cameras. It was really distracting until I realized one thing I never noticed before.

The toddlers all looked like the generic townspeople in handheld console games. You know the type - small microbodies, plain faces, cutesy hair for the girls, large liquid eyes. Honest. I kept having to resist the urge to click on them for more information or to receive side-quests. It was...surreal, especially since I'm very sleep-deprived right now and stressed to boot.

Ugh. T-45 days. Who knew Einstein could be so right about relativity?