Month: November 2003 (Page 1 of 2)

Sunday mornings I wake up at 6:20 so I can leave the house by 7:00 to get to my riding lesson. Getting up that early on the weekend isn’t a hardship; I’m usually awake by 5:30 anyway. Must have something to do with falling asleep between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. every night. I’m well trained.

I always feel a bit of tension when I check into the riding school office to see which horse I’m assigned to ride. Some horses I really enjoy riding and others are harder for me. Fortunately I was assigned my favorite mount, a very cute, big chestnut gelding, who goes by Washington. I’ve probably mentioned that this stable calls all their school horses after a state.

Washington definitely has his little quirks but for the most part he’s agreeable and strong. My favorite thing about him is that he’s not lazy but doesn’t run around like a maniac either. He also yields well to the leg. He can spook at things but not terribly seriously. His one annoying habit is that he pins back his ears, like a mare, when asked to canter. Then he offers a faster trot. That’s not acceptable so if I can, I half-halt him then ask again, He trots a couple steps then canters. If I don’t have time, say I’m approaching a jump, I kick him hard with one or both heels. That always does the trick. He requests perfect positioning of the rider in the canter. If I’m leaning too far forward, he uses the excuse that I’m over his shoulders to not canter. If I sit too deeply, he pretends I’m asking him to slow down with my seat. So I ride his canter in a half-seat position, my seat is a few inches above the saddle, which is tiring to my back and legs after a while. Still, I love riding this horse. He has never refused a jump. I aim and he goes.

We jumped a series of cross-rails and oxers, which is essentially a rail level between two standards. The fences I jump are only a couple feet off the ground for the most part, maybe between two and three feet. I’m getting very comfortable jumping that height now. I don’t have to look down to make sure the horse is going to clear it (a rookie error) but look straight ahead or around to the next jump. First we trotted over poles, cantered over a cross-rail, turned right jumped an oxer, cantered around the arena to the far corner and jumped another oxer, went over the poles, jumped the cross-rail, turned left then jumped the two oxers again. That seems like a lot to remember. I’ve sat in the audience at jumping shows and was not able to figure out the sequence after watching numerous horses make the same pattern. It’s easier from the ground though, I guess. I won’t really know until I show someday.

I’m back in business with Internet at home. However, we had to buy a new computer. Turns out our Compaq wasn’t upgradeable, even though on a big red sticker on the front of it read that it was upgradeable and expandable. Liars.

The reason for this mess was Microsoft, of course. MSN stopped providing DSL service in our area and suggested Yahoo. I thought, sure why not. Yahoo sent me their stuff but when I put in the installation cd, it said we didn’t have enough RAM. Okay fine, we’ll upgrade our RAM. Then we found out the everything in the computer is proprietary with Compaq. Don’t buy a Compaq. I have learned about the innards of a computer, though, and am no longer afraid to take it apart and have a look inside.

We went to Fry’s this morning to see if we could just replace the motherboard in the Compaq. Of course not! So we bought a refurbished emachine with lots of RAM, a faster processor, Windows XP, etc. The only thing it doesn’t have is a zip drive, which I didn’t realize until we were on our way home. Not a big deal since it does have a writeable cd drive.

I do have to hook the old computer back up to take my 10K word novel off the zip and put it on a floppy so I can work on it this weekend. But what else was I going to do with this long lovely weekend?!

Yes, I’m working on my novel again. Yay!! I have two drafts that have been sitting for quite a while because I thought they had lots of overlap and could be combined to make one cohesive story. I don’t have a title for it yet but I’m referring to it as “The Masterpiece”. So I tell Dave I’m going to go work on The Masterpiece. hahahahahaha!

I made my first Thanksgiving dinner ever. The previous night I brined the turkey in almost 2 gallons of water that had soy sauce, sugar, salt, cumin, allspice, fennel, 8 cloves of garlic, and several slice of fresh ginger. The free-range turkey brined for about 14 hours. I have to say, the result was delicious! The juices made such a rich, brown gravy. Oh yummy! There were only 4 of us for Thanksgiving so Dave and I will be “enjoying” leftovers for quite some time. Tomorrow I pluck most of the meat off and start the process for turkey frame soup.

I’ve been applying for jobs lately so apparently I’ve made the decision that I’m going to stop at the Master’s degree and go back to work. This is all contingent, of course, on my getting a job. If not, I may as well continue with the Ph.D. since the university pays me to be a teaching assistant. The pay is not great but absolutely better than nothing!

The interesting thing about this is that my actions indicate to me that I’ve made a decision, not that I actually made a decision then set about to applying for jobs, which is the way things should work. I guess…. The reason I say this is because if I’m leading with my actions and not my head, am I trying to hide something from my brain? My brain won’t notice that my eyes are reading vacancy announcements and my fingers are updating my resume, putting the application materials into an envelope, writing an address, then putting a stamp on?

However, what I do like about the way I’m going about this decision is that I’m taking these actions because it feels good, right, to me, not because I think that this is what I _should_ be doing. Part of my goal with counseling is to get away from the should’s and go toward the feels good and right actions. Evidently I’m getting the message.

Last week a series of events conspired against my posting. Perhaps I should take this as a sign that my writing is trivial. Ha, like a little thing like that would get me to shut up!

I started a yoga class twice a week, on Monday and Wednesday mornings, which takes away from my word-letting first thing in the morning on those days. Also last Tuesday, instead of coming to campus I had to go on a half-day research cruise into Santa Monica Bay. I do this once a month. Those days require that I leave the house at 5:45 a.m. in order to get to the dock in plenty of time. I’m always the first one there, which is far more acceptable to me than being last. We leave the dock at 7:00, motor out to a mooring site that’s nearly due south of Pepperdine, collect water samples for a couple hours, then motor back. I bring our samples back to the lab by 1:00 p.m. or so, then the lab tech and I filter water all afternoon. Afterward I go home and crash from exhaustion, induced by seasick prevention medication. Sometimes we see marine life out there, which makes the trip more enjoyable. Otherwise, if it’s a nice day, it’s not bad to be out there but if it’s cold and bumpy, it’s not much fun at all.

Those are my excuses for Monday through Wednesday last week. The rest of my excuses are good ones too. Wednesday night I came down with the stomach flu. Again. I had it in September. Not fair. I tend to think if I’m ill, I’ve done something wrong. For example, maybe I’m working too hard and need to slow the pace. I don’t think this is the case. I think that if you’re in a place like a university where you accidently contact random people nearly every day, you’re going to catch whatever is going around. Yuck. By Friday afternoon I was better and Saturday, I felt fairly normal.

My final excuse is that our internet service at home is in transition. This has been a nightmare actually. MSN doesn’t offer DSL in our area any more so we switched to Yahoo, per their suggestion. Fine. Except Yahoo requires more memory than our computer has. Fine. We bought a new memory card from Fry’s…only after hours with various unhelpful tech support people did we find out that our computer (Compaq) doesn’t have upgradable memory. So we’re stuck with the RAM they gave us. Even though we installed a 128 MB RAM card, the computer will only recognize 48 MB of it. So no we’re thinking of getting another mother board. I’ve been asking myself whether having internet at home is worth it. I’m not sure.

In any event, I’m limited to posting when I’m here on campus so have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

What a lovely weekend it was! It rained on and off Saturday, which is such a rare treat for southern California. We mostly puttered around the house all morning then decided to go on a mountain bike ride in the hills near our house. The trails were nearly deserted, except for a few solitary walkers with their dogs. We rode all over this park, through the dry grasslands, up and down a few steep trails in the chaparral, and down a trail in a fire scar from last July 4. That fire has long been out but the smell of char is overpowering in some places.

I haven’t ridden my mountain bike in quite a while. The last time was either last spring or the spring before. I don’t even remember. Nonetheless, I felt quite cautious on some of the single track trails. Once I panicked and nearly caused a wreck. I probably would’ve made it down the little hill safely if I had just relaxed. Confidence only come with practice. Maybe next weekend we’ll go again.

On Sunday the clouds cleared out so I had an 8:00 a.m. riding lesson under sunny but cool skies. Rachelle was going to have me ride Polly again but apparently she had a sore foot. I was assigned to a chestnut gelding called Washington instead. He was really cute when he opened his mouth to accept the bit when I bridled him. Normally horses need a bit of encouragement in order to accept the bit. He opened his mouth when I approached him with the bit.

Washington is a flexible horse. It seemed like he had spent a fair amount of time going in small circles because when I asked him for a little bend around my inside leg, he gave me a lot of bend. He’s very sensitive to leg yeilding so it was a pleasure to bend him in both directions and to cue him back to the rail. I only have two complaints about him: he doesn’t go into the canter right away when signalled but extends his trot instead. And you have to ride in a modified two-point at the canter because he slows down to a trot if you put your full weight on his back. Other than those two things, he’s a smooth and willing ride. He jumps very nicely too.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Macy’s so I could spend the $50 gift certificate Dave won at his office’s Halloween costume contest. I bought a roasting pan since I’m hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year. The mall and the mall parking lot were both a madhouse. We were surprised at all the shoppers, this being a regular weekend, not a holiday weekend. Shopping was about as much fun as being in a traffic jam. Even though we were only there for a short time, I ended up with a tension headache that lasted twice as long as the shopping trip. Something is out of whack there.

Tomorrow I won’t be posting as I have to take a short boat trip into Santa Monica Bay to collect water samples for my advisor’s research. The boat leaves the harbor at 7:00 a.m., which means I have to leave the house by about 5:45 a.m. We return to harbor around 1:00 p.m. Then I bring all the water samples to the lab and we filter water for a couple hours. Then I go home exhausted because of the anti-seasick medication. It’s fun when we see dolphins and ocean sunfish. Sometimes we don’t see any wildlife at all except for the usual hordes of seagulls.

I’ve been reading a book by Claude Steiner, called “Scripts People Live”. The book explains transactional analysis, which is fairly technical but necessary to wade through. More importantly the book describes where we get our scripts to live our lives. Often those scripts come from our parents, or our reactions to our parents. Their scripts came from their parents and so on.

I’m still not certain what my script is or that I even have a script. However, I doubt that. What has been clear to me is that I have been trying to live by other people’s scripts, especially if I think their life is interesting. Somewhere along the line I find that a particular script doesn’t work for me any longer so I look for another one. My goal right now is to discover my own script. I continually remind myself that so-and-so’s script is not necessarily my script but parts of it might be. It’s also important to realize that my script might continually change. That should not be a surprise to me. I’m getting more and more comfortable with this idea, instead of looking for one answer.

Like RedondoWriter, I have to “word let” before I can get going on my day.

Today I’m having sensations of incompetency. I don’t think this is uncommon for graduate students. One reason is that my advisor told me yesterday that I may not have enough time to complete a well-prepared presentation for an oceanography conference in February. She’s right, of course. I don’t have all my samples analyzed. I’m not even 25% done. Then I have to make some sense of them, write an introduction, methods, and discuss what I’ve found. February isn’t far enough away. Then she went on to say that if I wasn’t going into academia I shouldn’t torture myself with formal presentations, because they’re very difficult. Knowledgable audience members ask tough questions.

Right now I’m not sure I want to go into academia but I’m also not sure that I don’t want to. Like I wrote yesterday, sometimes I just want a government job back. I fit well into the organization, am a big-picture thinker, and I tend to like the mission of the big land-owning agencies. Academia is about investigating the details, the small part of a larger picture. When I first thought about going to graduate school, I wanted to know more about the details, the science behind the larger picture. Well, now I do and I’m not satisfied with that either. There has got to be middle ground somewhere. And I keep wondering how the answers to my questions are going to present themselves. I guess I’ll find out.

Normally I ride on Thursdays but because of Veteran’s Day, the university had an administrative holiday. I just traded Tuesday for Thursday as my day home then rode at 4:00. When I arrived for my lesson, I was the only rider. Apparently the instructor thought he was going to be late coming back from a horse show so he cancelled everyone. I’m not normally his student so I assume he forgot about me. Not a big deal and I still got to ride!

Had a great lesson on Wembley. He’s a well-trained black Thoroughbred with white socks and has smooth gates. At first it’s hard to convince him that I want him to have a forward walk and trot. Then it’s hard to convince him that I want a 3-beat canter, not a 4-beat (which isn’t really a canter). After a lot of leg work against his sides to move him forward and bend him around turns, he actually responds quickly to the leg cues. Wembley is a lot of fun to jump to because he just goes over the jump, doesn’t stop in front of it unless the rider doesn’t have him going forward enough. After the jump he canters very nicely, doesn’t run around like a maniac. Also, he jumps straight, doesn’t dive to the right AND act like a maniac like Rainy.

We warmed up at the posting trot on a couple low cross rails then cantered a series of low cross rails that required a flying lead change before the last jump. I’m not accustomed to asking for flying lead changes so it’s kind of a big deal to me but not for Wembley. It feels like he crosses in front then in back. I think to do it correctly, both ends are supposed to change at the same time. Once, I was concentrating so hard on asking for the lead change that I forgot to look at the upcoming jump. Fortunately I looked up in time. Also I’ve been having to work on not jumping ahead of the horse (the horse comes up to you!) and also not being left behind, otherwise the saddle bonks you in the butt. The timing is kind of tricky and it’s easier on some horses than others. I got it right with Wembley when I concentrated.

I’ve learned a great deal from the days when I was numbering my lessons as I wrote about them, back when I was riding at Mill Creek Stables. I have no idea how many lessons I’ve had now. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ll bet I’ve had about 25, give or take a couple. Devilyn says soon I’ll just need some polish. I wish I felt that confident in the saddle. I still don’t feel entirely secure in the english saddle. It’s just so little and the stirrups so floppy compared to a western saddle. Every time I finish riding and managed to stay in the saddle the entire time, I’m grateful. Some day I hope to take it for granted that I’ll stay in the saddle. But I suppose that’s when accidents happen.

Sometimes I just want my old life back, where I go to work four or five days a week then come home and ride my horse. Wait. I’ve never had this life before. For the last nine or ten years I went to a job that took all of my time so I never had time to ride a horse. When I had horses back in the late 1980’s, I wasn’t working full time. What I want to do is incorporate a time when I did work full time but it didn’t take up all my time and the time when I had horses. So I want to put two old parts of my life together to make a new life.

It’s funny how all the pieces are right there, right in front of my nose but I think I need to invent something completely new for my life. Feeling compulsive I applied for a forest service job up in Frazier Park, about an hour away, against rush hour freeway traffic. The job is for a recreation program manager. It would mean dealing with the off-road vehicle people, the horse people, the mountain bikers, the hikers, the conservationists, the hunters, and others. The first three types are real pains in the arse. I say this as a horse person and a mountain bike rider. The first three types are the most organized and most vocal and seem to have the most money, which buys them attention. I’m not sure that this is the type of job I really want but I can’t say no if they don’t ask me, and they won’t ask me if I don’t apply. This is also an exercise in shaking out my resume.

I feel as though I’ve been waiting for a sign or omen to not finish my Ph.D. program at UCLA. No sign is going to spontaneously appear in the sky that says, “Corrina, you are not meant to be an academic. Do something else!”. But that is what I seem to be waiting for. Even if such a sign were to appear, I wouldn’t have any alternatives, like a job, so I would have to continue. If I really want a sign, it needs to be in the form of a viable job offer. Hence, I must apply to some viable jobs.

If the right job came along, I’d probably take it. I doubt this recreation lands manager job is the right job but it pays well enough I’d take a chance, knowing that I could leave in two years if it truly wasn’t right. I could still finish my Master’s since my research would be done in February — the closing date of this job isn’t until December 22. No one will start looking at resumes until after the holidays, they won’t make any decisions until February. The earliest anyone would start the job would be around April. Perfect. My research would be done. All that is left is the writing. I can do that on weekends and be done by the end of summer. I’d probably still have time to ride horses twice a week (and more money to do so!). Ha! I act as though I already have the job while the truth is they probably won’t even call me since I don’t have any recreation management experience — just a lot of fire management experience. Sometimes the personnel department sees management skills as transferrable, sometimes not. Now I only have to wait. I can work on my research in the meantime. And ride horses twice a week.