Poeple Who Make Me Sad

There are a lot of people in my life who make me happy. I remember a couple of years ago, at the beginning of a new academic year one of these great people mentioned to a new graduate student that the only way to survive grad school is to surround yourself with people who make you happy. I do that. And for the most part, I am happy. I appreciate all these wonderful people in my life. But they are not the topic of this post. I am thinking of the people who make me sad. The people who without trying, intentionally or unintentionally make me sad.

I talked to one such friend a couple of weeks ago. This is a friend from college. I would describe her as a hard working, motivated, ambitious go-getter. She completed college in three years, with high honours and took a great job with one of the biggest financial firms in the country. Within three years she was VP and making close to a quarter of a million dollars. She is someone I greatly respect and admire.

She lives far away from me now and so I never see her any more, I keep in touch by phone. But now every time I talk to her I leave the conversation with a weird feeling. A feeling I can best describe as sadness. There is the fact that I always seem to be the one doing the keeping in touch, she doesn’t always respond to calls or always has to stop talking to do something (more important?). That’s OK really. I understand having a life and being busy. But our conversations always seem to be about why I am still in grad school (yes it has really been five years, and I will probably be here for at least another year), will I ever make enough money (probably never as much as I would if I was doing what she does) and the all important why are you still single/not seeing anyone.

I always leave these conversations feeling really inadequate and insecure. Of course I wish I was done with graduate school. I didn’t plan to spend this long here. You reminding me everyday is not helping me; neither is it going to make me finish any sooner. Do I ever doubt my choice to go into the sciences instead of finance? Sure, I do. At least once a day, and even more on days when stupid reactions are even stupider; even more so knowing that the two of us started out in the same path but went different ways after the first year of college. I will never make as much money but I will probably (I hope) work fewer hours and be happier in a job with less risk. And no, money is not all. As for the relationships, it’s too long a story to talk about right now. Maybe if you were nicer, I would let you read my blog.

I had decided that I am not going to talk to her for a while. It does me no good to. But then she sent me a sweet text message to see how I am doing. And now I am feeling guilty about all my angry thoughts.

Ok, the end.

A New Year, A New Beginning

It is the beginning of a new year and with it comes the obligatory resolutions made. This year, I resolve to:

Update my blog regularly. I haven’t updated my blog in a long while. It isn’t because I haven’t felt like it or that I haven’t had anything to say. I have, on both counts. I have had a lot of interesting (to me at least) issues/topics/randomness I have wanted to blog about. If nothing else, I still have the majority of the 26 things I listed when I started this blog. Usually, these ideas come to me at work and I don’t want to blog at work. Somehow, I don’t remember or don’t feel like it when I get home. This year, I am going to be better. I am going to be aiming for at least one post a week. Maybe more if I am inspired.

This year, I am trying to be vegetarian, more precisely, Lacto-Ova vegetarian. I am eating dairy products and eggs. Since I moved to soy milk a few years back, milk products are included here because I want to allow myself to eat cheese, mainly pizza. And I eat eggs, usually used in baking but I do like a good omelette every once in a while. This decision is a part of my bigger goal of living a healthier lifestyle. Let’s see how long I will last. I am fairly certain I will be fine doing this. A couple of years ago, I tried this. However, I craved meat so much during that time that after that year, I went back to eating meat. Maybe this time, I will do better. So far, it has been about 21 days and counting.

And a few other random resolutions like:
- I won’t let people who don’t matter get to me.
- I will get out more and meet new people.
- I will be a better graduate student – work harder, longer, be more motivated and dedicated.
- I am taking charge of my own happiness. I can’t/refuse to let others determine/control my happiness. It is all about me.

And finally, I resolve to keep my resolutions this year. Like most people, I always make resolutions at the beginning of each year. Like most people, these resolutions don’t last past the first month. I will keep you (you know, you, the lone reader of my blog) updated on how these resolutions are holding up.

Here’s to a wonderful new year. A year filled with joy and happiness, love and laughter, successes and accomplishments, wonderful research and great results, papers written/read and theses written, graduations and jobs found. And even a few bruises and tears, because it is only when we experience all the ups plus the downs too of life can we fully appreciate all the good. Here is to being happy.

Go, have a drink on me.