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Foreshortened cat
Maybe this isn’t the best example of foreshortening but give me a break, it’s late and my brain is already shutting down for the night.
Today was my 7th anniversary. W. is really great and I hope she knows that I think this of her. We’ve been through a lot…and by a lot, I really mean a lot. Through all this shix we have managed to not hate each other. That’s something. It isn’t over yet but we both know that it takes maintenance and focus…yada yada. Yeah, who really cares about this anyway?
W. got home early today, so early that I hadn’t had time to clean up the house like I had intended. Didn’t matter though. We went to breakfast at a local joint then worked together doing our normal chores. Vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, cleaning floors, laundry, etc. Once our house was in order we relaxed and watched some Tiger’s baseball.
At one point when W. had dozed off I wandered back into my office to check my email and such. Being relaxed and sort of tired, I put my head back and dozed off myself. Next thing I know W. is standing next to me. Freaked my zoids. See if I nap in my desk chair again…
For dinner tonight I made a pasta dish that I haven’t figured out a name for yet. Inspired by “off the shelf cooking”, I made this one other time and we took a liking to it. I cook some garlic in olive oil and butter, add some chopped up marinated artichokes, chopped mushrooms, a can of white crab meat, and some grated parmesan cheese. After a bit of cooking, I add some linguine and frozen baby peas. Once heated through we chow. I forgot to add toasted pine nuts tonight but did that the first time I put this together. Yum Oh.
It’s almost eleven pm and I should have gone to bed awhile ago. Staying up this late on a Sunday doesn’t bode well for the week. Not to mention I’ve been battling a cold…though I’m feeling considerably better. Not that you can hear my congestion in a blog entry, but trust me when I say I sounded like shix yesterday.
Image: I took this picture of my independent-minded-yet-needy-at-times cat, Bailey. He likes to take over my desk space regardless of what happens to be there at the time.
Pushing the pencil around
Today was terribly uninteresting. I spent most of the time sitting at my desk pounding on my keyboard or pushing pencils and pens around. Sure, I got up from time to time and wandered around upstairs with my cats. The house is big and empty when W. isn’t around. I made myself a list and worked on crossing things off.
I didn’t get through all the homework I have to do though. Nor many of my list items. There are only a few things do this week so I focused on those. My sketchbook is due this week so I spent some time wrapping up my drawing assignments. Forcing myself to draw makes me better at drawing. Fancy that. I scanned some of my sketches. As the semester progresses we’ll see if I get any better.
One assignment required that we “channel” the style of a master. Matisse was an example in the text book and has a nice clean style that I like. I channeled him and Cassat at the same time here. Then I drew one of my favorite pictures of W. while channeling Matisse again (the main image for this post). I did this in the quick sketch style and this one as an exercise in controlling tone. To show that I can draw freehand and focus, I did this sketch.
It’s pretty late and I’m SO ready to crash. My horoscope warned me about reacting in an extreme way today so I took that as a suggestion to avoid contact with other humans as much as possible. But I did chat with W. a couple times. She’s a scrappin’ fool.
Tomorrow is W. and my 7 year anniversary (note that we’ve been together for about 17 years..but who’s counting). We won’t celebrate properly until next weekend when we spend some time in Charlevoix for a friend’s wedding. We’re batch processing this getaway as an anniversary vacation and wedding. It’ll be fun. I’ll take a bunch of pictures. You’ll see.
Performance Review
A little later today I’ll be sitting in my manager’s office for a performance review and to talk about my objectives. While there isn’t much I can say about it, I will say that as time goes by I find that these really help me understand the rules of the office game and that I just might have an objective. But if you ask me where I want to be in 10 years I’d say “ask again later”.
W. will be away this weekend, spending time with her friends scrapbooking until the wee hours of the night. I have tons of homework to do and will have to focus on that. Even though the house will be quiet, it’s to quiet when she’s gone.
Image: This is Bailey. He loves hiding is grocery sacks. Snapped this about 15 minutes ago when W. was stretching after working out. Bailey often follows us around and hangs out wherever we go. And if a paper bag happens to be where we are, all the better.
Push, pull, resist, concede
The last couple days have been…well…par for the course. It’s easy to say how crazy things are. That seems to be my default assessment most often so I’ll shed some light.
Once again, it is almost midnight. W. has also been in “leadership” training the last couple days so we are both out of our normal routine. If there is such a thing. We chatted like crazy for a spell then I came downstairs to watch one of my favorite shows, “House”, that I had recorded last night. This didn’t happen. Faced with the choice to catch up on email and blog about my life, I decided I’d delay watching House a day or two.
My leadership training illuminated areas where I haven’t been applying the most effective leadership style when needed. This understanding and awareness should prove useful and was delivered in a way that made it easy to digest. Thanks Nancy (the teacher).
The group project that has consumed so much of my time lately is going well. Check out our progress here. The professor in this class posed a question to me tonight that has left me thinking. He asked me what my biggest challenge was. When he asked me this I naturally assumed it was in relation to our group project, as he had asked other groups the same question. Turns out he was asking me what MY challenge was. He tells me that he is aware that I have a certain “expertise” in the things he’s trying to teach in the class and he is wondering what I’m focusing on as a challenge.
This question made me aware of a couple things. First, he recognizes that I’m not terribly challenged by the assignments. Besides being time consuming, he’s right. The other thing was that he took the opportunity to call me out. The fact that he is concerned about whether or not I’m recognizing and addressing things that challenge me gave me some hope. I’ve been skeptical about this guy since day one and am a little concerned we might square off at some point. I know myself, and I know I’m often too willing to enter the cage for a vicious round or two. When I understood what he was asking I paused for a second and gave him an honest answer, “My biggest challenge is learning to work effectively with others.”. He seemed satisfied with that answer, said “good, good”, and commenced to shut me out like normal. Okay. This is progress. A bit of educational aikido, but I respect it.
Crap, it’s one minute to midnight. AGAIN.
Today has been about finding the balance between being too direct and not being direct enough. This is something I know I need to develop a better awareness of…and in an eerily coordinated fashion, both work and school are forcing me to focus my attention on it.
Image: Wired magazine described a way of applying a filter in Photoshop this month so I practiced on this picture I took during one of my classes. One benefit was that it protects the identity of those in the picture while allowing enough for those that know to know. How is that for finding that razor’s edge?
Learning stuff for work…
The next two days I’ll be attending “situational leadership” training in Ann Arbor. This is something arranged through work and I understand the program is very good. W. has gone through it and found it very helpful and enlightening. I’m optimistic about it. I could use some help in that regard…maybe it’ll help be less “Jack”.
Had a group meeting in town today that went alright. Still too early to tell about this one, but we’re working things out.
I watched the Tigers lose tonight (again). Now it’s later than I wanted to be up and I always have more work to do. Drawings for class, articles to read, lessons plans to review. This semester is going by fast. It’ll be October in a week.
Image: This is a church I drive by on my way to the parking garage when I have meetings and classes on central campus. The architecture in Ann Arbor is pretty impressive.