Friday, January 29, 2016
Location: Comet Coffee, 5708 Oakland Ave, St. Louis, MO 63110
Those who know me personally, also know that academic writing gives me major anxiety, so much so that at this time my Master's thesis is still in progress, while most of my classmates had finished theirs by June 2015. Seven months later, and it doesn't feel like I've progressed much. No one can avoid writing projects quite like I can. For the past few months, I have been working part-time as a kennel worker at a doggy daycare/salon/boarding place. Why didn't I decide to do something related to what I studied in dance/movement therapy & counseling? I think I needed the break to do something completely outside of the academic world I had been in, to dip into the work force, and to earn at least a little income for myself. I've been in the formal education system as a full-time school/non-working student for nearly 2 decades, which means that I have spent a majority of my life in school. Unlike some, I never tried to work while in school (shout out to my financially supportive parents who allowed me to do this). Therefore, I needed to immerse myself in the world of work. However, this Wednesday is my last day at Yuppy Puppy Pet Spa, my place of employment. I made the decision to discontinue my time there, because while I had attempted to work and do thesis during my off time, I failed to do the latter. While the work there wasn't all that stressful, my brain can only handle one major thing at a time right now. So I say farewell to the working world for now, and hello again to thesis, thesis, thesis! In order to help cope and combat this thesis difficulty of mine, I am making a conscious effort to make this experience as fun as possible, which is why I am visiting different places in St. Louis to not only get myself out of my house (I associate my home with resting, so not much gets done there), but to keep the process fresh and not too stagnant.
Side note: Shout out to my art therapy friend Debora, whose thesis is also still in progress, because she contacted me yesterday, which helped to motivate me to work on it today. Having people to hold me accountable helps me immensely.
Location: MoKaBe's Coffeehouse, 3606 Arsenal St., St. Louis, MO 63116
As of this week, I'm officially done with my job at Yuppy Puppy in order to get back into the academic life and hit my thesis harder than ever. In order to keep myself fairly accountable, I am scheduling occasional study dates with people. Shout out to my friend Jeanne for being one of my first friends in St. Louis to join this initiative. I am somewhat tired from the past couple days, since they were fairly eventful socially and physically, so my progress today is extra slow. However, even a little progress is still progress.
Location: Cafe Ventana, 3919 W. Pine Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108
Even though I went hiking this afternoon, I still somehow managed to get myself to a cafe to do a little thesis work. I dig the ambiance at this cafe and I love all the windows. I thought it was appropriately named, since 'ventana' is window/opening in Spanish. I've had at least two meetings over Skype with my thesis advisor this past month, which has greatly helped to keep me on track. She seems to think that I'm doing pretty well so far, all things considered, so that's encouraging, right?
Location: The Mud House, 2101 Cherokee St., St. Louis, MO 63118
I had to cave and pick up a few shifts at Yuppy Puppy, since I'm financially a little wonky right now, but at least I'm not working the 38 hours or so that I was working, so I'm not too drained with that. It's been a bit of a struggle, but thankfully impromptu meetup with my friend Taylor pushed me to chip away a bit at the thesis.