Welcome 2016!: Resolutions Edition

WOO!

I hope 2016 has already offered you pleasant new stuff and things!

I'm actually feeling pretty excited to continue our grand tradition of revisiting last year's resolutions before setting new ones for the new year.  So let's talk about resolution-y stuff!

First!  Last year's resolutions!

1. More Buddhist readings.  More!

So my Plan A was to read "The Tibetan Book of the Dead."  I got about this far:

...Yeah it was pretty challenging.  I got stuck in a list of gods of various colors holding various weapons and my will gave out on me.  I can imagine revisiting this book at some future time, but after I got a bit stymied I decided to switch strategies.

Which is why it's good I had this as my Plan B:

I've already read it but it's been a while since I've revisited it.  It's a deceptively short little thing, as each passage feels dense and demanding of thoughtful reflection.  Even so, I've just about finished it by now after reading a paragraph or three each morning for a few months now.  A few weeks ago I got to my very favorite passage, which I find immensely comforting.  Take a listen if you're interested!

2. Reduce mindless and aimless screen time.

I think I've actually been somewhat successful with this resolution, too.  Although I still spend plenty of time distracted by phone/stupid Internet stuff, I've also been able to gobble up many articles and actually substantive things through device time, so it feels much less like a drain of my life force.  

There's definitely some more work to be done here, though, especially when it comes to doubling up on screens (i.e., on phone while watching TV)--that feels as close to actively rotting my brain as possible, so I'd like to actively stop that.

3. Let more objects go and enjoy what we keep.

Bought this:

Read it, sticky-noted it, made Husband read passages from it.  I'm sure it'll be great to use it eventually and I'm actually excited to execute the strategies within.  But Jesus it sounds like it'll take a lot of time, and weekend down time feels like a desperately scarce resource to expend on contacting the potential joy derived from my sweaters.  Maybe next weekend...?

4. Facilitated by our beautiful new food apparatuses, I want to cook more and learn to cook new stuff.

I get home at 8:30/9 pm most work nights.  Better luck next job.

We have gotten better at eating more vegetables, though.

5. More learning on the agenda: Study for and kick the shit out of the licensing exam, and otherwise learn voraciously.

After an exceedingly reasonable and painless* process, 100% resolution success attained.

Otherwise, my repurposing of screen time, continued mentorship by some really amazing supervisors, and periodic self-directed at-times-frenzied manual reading have generated much new learning across a variety of areas.  Which is very satisfying.

* = Lies.

6. Remind myself to love all living things each day.

I love you guys but I'm not trekking out to my car to document this, however: I promise I made myself a little notecard thing that I taped to my dashboard with a quote from the Dalai Lama reminding me to "treat everyone as a friend."  It has not cured my road rage, but I do think it's helped it abate.

...In addition, to be 100% honest, I also... um.... broke my car horn.  Possibly by honking it too much.  Safety issues aside, this has actually provided me with an unexpected opportunity to (be forced to) practice distress tolerance and radical acceptance as people drive like freaking maniacal idiots in my immediate vicinity.  I honestly think it's been good for me, because on average I have felt much less angry now that I can't actively communicate my displeasure to people in the futile hopes of changing their behavior.

I have also gotten really good at flashing my high-beams to compensate.  Because seriously YOU CAN'T MAKE A LEFT TURN AGAINST TRAFFIC IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIGHT TURNS GREEN YOU'RE GOING TO GET SOMEBODY KILLED.

7. Watch 52 movies!

Just barely but yes!

Okay!  I was actually generally much more successful in completing last year's resolutions compared to recent years, and that honestly feels pretty nice.

So let's think about resolutions for this year.  I have a few goals:

• Not seven.  Seven is too many and it's just a little stupid to have that many.
• Still kind and achievable for future-me's sake.
• But also still a gentle push to make me do stuff that's important to me.

Okay.  So:

1. Write more.

To reiterate my last post, I am definitely re-committing myself to writing this blog.  It brings me too much joy and serves too important a purpose in extending my identity beyond my career to let this practice fall apart.

The main thing that needs to change to facilitate this is my rigidity about what posts need to look like.  This means that I'm going to let myself write posts that maybe aren't as over-decorated and thorough and "sufficient" by whatever arbitrary quixotic standards I have for myself.

More concretely speaking, that means I'm going to let myself write really short stuff sometimes.  That also maybe means there won't always be pictures.  Or maybe just not multiple pictures, because I find myself avoiding writing posts when I anticipate having to shuffle through google image search results even though it's really not that hard.

I also may need to put a little more faith in my distress tolerance abilities, especially after I've spent the last few months practicing them in my horn-less car.

2. Learn Swedish.

Wild card resolution!

My brother learned Swedish and requested that I learn them so we can gossip in group social situations.  There is clearly literally no good reason not to fully comply with this request.

I will be supported in this endeavor by this delightful (and free!) owl-based language learning app.

3. Read stuff and learn things.

This means reading articles instead of tooling around on social media.  This means reading books instead of watching more TV than I actually want to watch.  This means prioritizing learning stuff because I have a hungry brain and I feel happy when I feed it.

Also this podcast series is awesome for these purposes if you're interested in similar pursuits.

4. Watch 60 movies.

Okay, in kindness to my future self, really the resolution is 52.

But a) I really felt crappy about only watching the bare minimum last year, and b) that fact is illustrative of imbalance between work versus all the other things that must be continually worked on.  If I watched two-extra-months-worth of movies, that would signal things are a little more in balance in my life.  So I'll accept 52, but I'm shooting for 60.

And that's it for today!  I'm hoping I'll get to the 2015 Round-Up tomorrow, so stay tuned!

And again:

{Heart}

Closing 2015: Re-evaluation Edition

Almost New Year's Greetings!

I've been reflecting on the fact that, in spite of anticipating having more time and more brain space to like have a life and an identity outside of work/training and stuff, that has not in practice actually been the case. 

This is evident in many things, not the least of which being that this year signals the smallest number of blog posts I've written in a year since beginning this little blog, and the first year since its inception that I have ever-so-barely hit my 52-movies-per-year goal.  I watched my 52nd movie last weekend after somewhat-frantically realizing that if I didn't aggressively step up my movie-watching game this month, I would fall short; as a result, I watch 9 movies this month.  Obviously in some ways that's great, because that's a lot of movies... but it's also a cue that something is going on here that needs my attention.

My post in July definitely signaled a turning point for me, although where that turning point is leading me I'm still unsure.  In spite of a very strong, rational, personal values and self-care-driven commitment to movies and writing about them, I sat to write that post and just didn't want to.  With regard to this particular writing endeavor, I've been feeling strikingly blah and uninspired to varying extents ever since.

I've entertained the possibility that this is just something I've--what? outgrown? lost interest in?--but that doesn't feel right at all when I really sit with it.  I would certainly have a hard time giving myself permission to opt out of something I've committed myself to, but that's not why I'm rejecting that potential explanation.  It just doesn't sound right to me.  And for that matter, if movies and talking about them in this forum is something I've lost interest in, it's the lack of interest that's a problem rather than the endeavor itself.

I think the more honest and difficult explanation is that I still have not figured out how to find a healthier and more livable balance in my life.  To the contrary, I now get home later than I want to almost every work night and feel frenzied most of the time by all the things I am under-attending to when I'm not at work.  That is in part because I have to find a job after my postdoc ends in a few months, which is of course a demanding exploit that has involved time off work with compensatory over-scheduling of clients on my non-off-work days to avoid disrupting their treatment while I'm away.  It's also because my commute is way too long.  It's also because I don't like saying no to things at work because I like my work.  It's also because I have definitely not yet figured out how to set and adhere to boundaries that empower me to have a life with room to breathe.

Sometimes I despair because it seems like the era of my life in which I can actually have that breathing room will never come.  There are certainly basically no people I can think of who seem to have that room, so the lack of role models is deeply disheartening.  There's always another thing to hustle for, another thing where you tell yourself it'll just be like this for another few days/weeks/months/years and you can make it work.  For godsakes, I don't even have kids yet (should I be lucky enough to have them at all).

Aside: The first person to tell me the era I'm longing for will come when I retire will be pinched.

ANYWAY.  My lack of a sense of inspiration about this project, I believe, is a direct by-product of this imbalance, anxiety, frustration, exhaustion, and losing-battle struggle.  It is therefore a thing I must fight to win back.  Consider this the first of however many resolutions for 2016.

That, of course, and my vow to watch 52 movies.

Enjoy a wonderful evening tonight and a peaceful and happy New Year!

{Heart}

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! 2015 Edition

Hihi,

In the grand and somewhat irregular tradition of this blog, I belatedly extend to you well wishes for an excellent Thanksgiving.  I hope you all enjoyed abundant delicious things and pleasant time with loved ones!

Husband and I are just returning from where-I-grew-up home after an excellent week.  We ate many Thanksgiving- and non-Thanksgiving-themed things, such as:

Do not be deceived by the styrofoam: dangerous amounts of deliciousness contained.

Hurray for holidays and time at home!

Looking back at my other post-Thanksgiving posts, I'm glad to report that this fall-to-winter transition hasn't been as difficult as previous years when I was sick and/or overworked and/or overtired and/or pretty much miserable.  Although the last two months or so have been very busy, that has generally been due to positive things.

Por ejemplo: I took a trip to a beautiful city for an exciting convention, during which I presented a poster based on findings from my dissertation and enjoyed bonus quality time with friends.

Fun times notwithstanding, like many/most people I imagine, I find it hard to fight the FOMO* whenever I have the opportunity to go do stuff, especially when the stuff includes traveling to nice places, seeing people I love, and/or doing things that are exciting.  Those opportunities are very difficult to turn down.  On the other hand, I am hoping things slow down at least a little for the next month or two.  I could use some more at-home time and less rushing around time, knowing that the chance to see wonderful people and things is ever enticing.

On that note: part of what was so pleasant about our recent trip home was that it was, facilitated by soaring airfare prices, longer than we initially intended.  Instead of what has typically been a glorified long weekend, Husband and I were where-I-grew-up home for a little over a week (because flying there and back on Mondays at exceedingly early hours is an excellent strategy for eluding Thanksgiving-induced airfare hikes).  

Being in one place for a while with only a moderate agenda of things to do was pretty glorious, not least of which because it enabled us to balance the need to do stuff and the need to do no stuff.

Somewhere nestled spectacularly in the middle of these two dueling needs was the "task" of watching two of my favorite comedies with my family.  In continuation of my advocacy for the importance of humor, I would love to share them with you, as well!

Comedy #1:

"Drop Dead Gorgeous" (1999)

I've previously made brief allusion to my adoration for this film.  To summarize the reasons this movie is awesome:

• It boasts an excellent lady-dominated cast including a sparkling Kirsten Dunst, hysterical Ellen Barkin and Allison Janney (CJ!!!), an as-yet undiscovered Amy Adams, a sweet and weird Brittany Murphy, and a maniacal Kirstie Alley.  
• Denise Richards is also pretty wonderful.  I like to take bets with myself as to whether her lack of a midwestern accent was an intentional choice to make her character stand out as a snooty posturer, or whether... accents just... aren't a part of her skill set.  Either interpretation is delightful!
• It came early in the growing mockumentary genre and set the bar unfairly high.
• The plot takes multiple unanticipated twists that are equally surprising and hilarious.
• The story focuses on the heroine's drive to fulfill her career goals and therefore is a wonderful predecessor for other (still annoyingly rare) lady-driven comedies that don't reflexively and often unnecessarily include a romantic subplot.
• It is line-for-line one of the most humorously dense movies I've ever seen.  Every word is golden.
• It contains one of my favorite out-of-left-field lines of all time, immediately following this little outburst:

If you haven't already, SEE THIS MOVIE.

Comedy #2:

"Some Like It Hot" (1959)

I've already discussed my deep love for Marilyn Monroe, which I appear to have successfully transmitted to my little sister via this incredible film.  We watched it together when she visited Husband and I a few years ago, and to my delight requested that we re-watch it over our Thanksgiving visit.

I'm sure there are plenty of comedies from this era about which we've all forgotten, so who knows if this one is at all illustrative of the standard of the day.  That being said, I watch movies like "Some Like It Hot" and get mad at the crap we put up with in the comedy department today.  Nevertheless, there are so many reasons a film like this one has endured; it glitters and pops with incredible writing and intoxicating performances by legendary performers.  

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are so much fun to watch as they experience firsthand the perils and indignities of womanhood in prohibition-era America, including negotiating unwanted advances from hands-y men and breaking themselves of the habit of leading whilst dancing.

In lots of little wholly unexpected ways, this is a remarkably progressive and even feminist film in how it forces men into a woman's perspective.

But of course we're ultimately watching Marilyn.  She is absolutely electric in her beauty, sweetness, and vulnerability.  

And her dresses!!  They're jaw-dropping by any era's standard!

Yow!

If you haven't yet, SEE THIS MOVIE TOO.

It's about time for me to start getting ready for bed since I must make the transition back into the post-vacation work routine tomorrow.  I hope you enjoy the movie recommendations if they haven't made your acquaintance already!

{Heart}

* = Fear Of Missing Out, an at times chronic and debilitating condition.

A Halloween Sampler for All Souls: 2015 Edition!

Halloooooooooooooooooo!

It is time for the treasured tradition of reviewing the movies I've seen so far this year and offering up the creepiest selections in celebration of this spooky time of the year! Yay!

To continue with Halloween Sampler protocol, each of this year's frightening films will be rated not only according to my usual 1 - 5 rating scale, but also with the scary/intense rating system of 1 - 5 exclamation points (e.g., ! = not at all scary, !!!!! = so scary!).

Let's dive in, shall we?

"The Omen" (1976)

Rating: 3.5   Scary Rating: !!!

This year's throw-backy entry!  This classic "bad seed" tale has many delightful and unexpected twists and turns, including but not limited to a trip to an Italian cemetery, spooked giraffes, infuriating outdated psychobabble, and awesome dun-dun-DUNNN moments in a photography darkroom.  Drawback: it's possible this movie was a player in the freak-out over Rottweilers whose present-day manifestation is the freak-out over pitbulls.  But the dogs, for all their forboding and ominousness, look beautiful?

"Nightcrawler" (2014)

Rating: 3.5   Scary Rating: !!!!

In an earlier post, I already mentioned how over it I am with the now-quite-tropey character piece centered on a soulless male psychopath.  That being said, "Nightcrawler" makes for a pretty potent creepfest from beginning to end, thereby making it perfect for Halloween.

Jake Gyllenhaal does a deeply disconcerting turn as Louis Bloom, a reptile doing its darndest to impersonate a human.  Not actually, but that's really what he seems like.  He's actually an off-putting screw-up with delusions of grandeur whose aim is to be the best carnage documenter for the local news.  And by "best" I mean "most sociopathic."  It's a charming, breezy romp!  (In case it wasn't clear: sarcasm.)

"The Blob"(1958)

Rating: 4   Scary Rating: !

This year's even throw-backier offering!

Also: STEVEN McQueen??!!!

This film was this year's superb selection for our viewing-whilst-jack-o'-lantern-carving pleasure.  It is a completely absurd delight.  The effects become increasingly desperate as the movie progresses.  The movie appears to periodically forget that it's telling the "chilling" tale of a gelatinous, carnivorous interstellar being possibly bent on world destruction while it instead postures as a dreamy little romance.  THAT THEME SONG.  WHY IS IT SO PERKY?

Perhaps the only truly spooky part of this movie is the oddly prescient final quip that the world will be safe from the eponymous blob "as long as the Arctic stays cold."  And all this time I was thinking the blob was communism, it was actually catastrophic global climate change!

"Let the Fire Burn" (2013)

Rating: 5   Scary Rating: !!!!

This year's documentary offering!

This film tells the harrowing story of the slow-brewing, ultimately disastrous and deadly conflict between MOVE, an increasingly cornered and radicalized African-American led activist group, and Philadelphia police and elected officials in 1985.

Although the film isn't set up to be a horror story, it is nevertheless disturbing, frightening, and chilling just as much as it is also sickening and heartbreaking.  The title of the movie refers to then-mayor Wilson Goode's instructions to firefighters on the scene after police dropped an incendiary bomb on MOVE's occupied headquarters.  The aftermath is not only an indictment of City leaders' overly militarized response to a fringe group, but also its willingness to destroy and never rebuild the otherwise-not-involved surrounding community.

"A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" (2014)

Rating: 4   Scary Rating: !!!

This year's contemporary offering!

"A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night" is truly a movie after my heart.  It's like "Let the Right One In" (2008) and "Sin City" (2005) had a baby that was raised by "Persepolis" (2007), but with an awesome soundtrack.

And skateboarding.

It's visually stunning, beautifully and hauntingly atmospheric, intoxicating and transfixing.  I've never seen anything truly like it, but I hope to see a hell of a lot more.  Ana Lily Amirpour, I've got an eager eye on you!

Also there's a cat.

Really, what more could I ask for?

I hope you all enjoy an expertly titrated mix of spookiness and fun this Halloween!  Happy Hauntings!!

{Heart}

Passed!, or: How to Conquer EPPP in 67 Easy Steps

Greetings,

I am so exceedingly pleased to inform you that I passed the Examination for the Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) this week.  That means, once I've completed some pretty straightforward remaining paperwork, that I will finally, FINALLY be a licensed clinical psychologist.

In plainer language, that means I'm finally a real, live, full-blown professional psychologist.

Since I've made it through this most recent and possibly final gauntlet of training in clinical psychology, I am proud to make available to you, dear readers, the Psychocinematic Licensure Study System,  or PLSS (as in PLSSsssssss let this be overrrrrrrrrrrrr).  The system boasts a 100% success rate, based on my sample of one.

To pass EPPP according to my system, just follow the exceedingly torturous steps below!

• Ambivalently acquire study materials, maximizing the number of free things
• Read through the entire study guide you got from a colleague, underlining an absurdly high proportion of the text as if that's somehow going to help your retention
• Meet with said colleague for "study sessions," and by "study sessions" I mean "friend dates during which you eat good things, gossip, and half-heartedly answer 3-5 practice questions"
• Take first practice exam
• Fail utterly
• Feel like a fraud
• Question how you earned a doctorate while evidently learning so little 
• Question everything
• PANIC
• Avoid studying for 4-6 weeks
• Feel justified in avoiding studying because the whole thing is bullshit anyway
• Toy with the idea of taking exam 3 months ahead of time
• Spring for $30 flashcard iPhone app during a brief pendulum-swing from righteous avoidance into overcompensating hysteria
• Attempt to use flashcards
• Get angry anew about how little you know after reading that ENTIRE GODDAMNED STUDY GUIDE
• RAGE ADDITIONALLY ABOUT I/O* BEING ON THE EXAM
• Return to flashcards
• Gripe endlessly to colleagues about: 
• how stressful the test is
• how much it sucks that everyone finds the test so stressful
• how it's stupid that everyone finds the test so stressful, as we are all smart and you only have to get a 75!!
• how DO THE TEST MAKERS NOT UNDERSTAND THAT PROFESSIONALS HAVE ACCESS TO GOOGLE.  I DON'T NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE KUDER-RICHARDSON FORMULA IS IN MY EVERYDAY LIFE.
• how if I'm going to be expected to know all this shit about psychiatric medications, does that mean I'll be paid commensurate with psychiatrists after I pass??  No??  Then fuck you.
• how aforementioned rageful oppositionality to the stupidity of the test makes studying emotionally impossible, and finally 
• the agonizing realization that the myths that we will ever, EVER be done proving ourselves and that the endless hurdles of graduate training do in fact have an end, those myths are lies, LIES (sob!)

• Come to terms with maybe being a nanny or waitress since passing exam might be impossible
• Wonder if one could ever earn enough tips to pay off student loan debt
• Consider possibility of skipping town to be a waitress in a foreign land where debtors could never find you
• At recommendation of one griped-at colleague, begin system of reinforcement for short intervals of testing
• Invest in a high-quality sticker chart
• Be embarrassed at how motivated you, an adult, are by stickers
• Supplement sticker chart with additional reinforcers (e.g., white cheddar popcorn, Facebook time, and depressingly, paying bills)

• Rapidly devolve into a time spent in study:reinforcement ratio of 1:5
• Discover that you don't even know the names for therapies you *DO*, apparently
• Take second practice test
• Seemingly impossibly, do WORSE on second practice test than you did on the first one
• Lapse into brief period of inefficacy-induced malaise
• Get a studying-stress-induced cold that refuses to vacate your body for ~3 weeks
• Scuttle plans to take exam 3 months early, settle for taking it right on time
• Grudgingly begin sacrificing significant portions of weekends to studying, but still refuse to find time to study at work--except during exceedingly boring meetings
• Observe steady, predictable decline in self-care as studying inexorably takes over your life
• At least, continue to accumulate stickers on sticker chart?
• Become embarrassed anew at the sense of accomplishment you experience in counting the number of stickers you've accumulated
• Finally cease avoidance and sit down to "schedule" (translation: "pay $700 for") exam
• Discover that there are literally no testing appointments available for the next month in the entire major metropolitan area in which you live
• Don't even freak out because the freak out parts of your brain have died
• Do, however, discover that the rage parts of your brain are still quite alive and well when you learn that the company that runs the test prompts you to anxiety-purchase practice tests as you're waiting to schedule your exam?!?!
• Apply for extension of limited permit so it doesn't expire 10 days after your now-behind-schedule test date
• Start an at-work sticker chart
• WHAT EVEN IS MORITA THERAPY SERIOUSLY
• Finish going through all the iPhone app's flash card tests twice
• Create an iPhone app flash card deck of only the extra special hard flashcards--feel like a badass for pushing yourself so hard
• Contemplate what you have become
• Make reference to material you studied and learned a hot second ago in sessions as if you'd known that stuff all along
• Shift focus to again taking practice tests, considering this move both a) a logical next step in your study strategy and b) exposure to a deeply triggering stimulus

NO.

• Become filled with feminist rage that questions regarding the cultural universality mens' preferred waist:hip ratio in women are in your study materials because WHAT RELEVANCE COULD THAT *POSSIBLY* HAVE TO THE PRACTICE OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
• Suspect that the most assuredly male writers of the test include such questions for the sole purpose of subtly oppressing their female colleagues because the patriarchy reigns always, even where you least expect it
• For the first time ever, pass a practice test (by narrowest possible margin)
• Get ridiculously cocky
• Take more practice tests
• Continue to score within passing range on subsequent practice tests
• Become insufferable in your pridefulness
• Write the majority of this post in the days leading up to the exam as one final bid for more avoidance
• Arrive at day of exam
• Arrive at predictably anonymous-looking building to take exam
• Provide two forms of identification, multiple palm scans, a photograph, a blood sample, a hair sample, fingernail clippings, and a pinky promise that you will never ever break the precious secrets of the exam before being admitted to take the exam
• Struggle miserably, constantly fending off panic and despair, for four and a half hours
• Stagger out of the testing room feeling as if you've been struck by a large vehicle
• Get handed, alarmingly perfunctorily, a folded piece of paper with your results IMMEDIATELY after all that staggering--on just a NORMAL PIECE OF PAPER like it's NOTHING
• Numbly assess precisely how far away you would need to be from the waiting area to avoid disturbing people with your wails and moans should you have failed
• Decide the bathroom down the hall is good enough I guess
• Nervously check results
• SUCCESSFULLY PASS EXAM

• PROFIT!!(??)

To anyone with this terrible exam in their future, good luck and may God have mercy on your souls!  To everyone else, just be grateful.

{Heart}



* = I/O is industrial/organizational psychology, for which one has to get an entirely different degree if one wants to be an industrial/organizational psychologist.  You cannot be an industrial/organizational psychologist if you have only gotten training as a clinical psychologist.  There is literally no reason I/O should be on the credentialing examination for CLINICAL psychologists.