Day 65: 6/4/2018
I got up with a plan and nothing went as planned at all.
Today was another day I had my day planned out ahead of time, hoping it would be as what I visualized. The reality was in fact comparatively different. After getting up at 7.20 (20 minutes later than planned) Failure #1, things were pretty okay. After having done some stretching, checking my phones, and making myself some coffee, I started working around 8. Failure #2. Instead of blaming myself and feeling bad about what had happened, I graciously left that guilty feeling behind, moved on and stuck to my plan hoping that it could still be a good day.
I worked on and off for the rest of the morning and was greatly productive. Thanks to my husband who kindly offered to go grocery shopping so that I could stay in working. I did not want to work on my proposal revision this morning as planned. Again, there was a wrestle between my own thoughs, and my disciplined self won again. The work went well with a few breaks and breakfast time intervals. (I took breaks for mental and physical reasons- I often got up and did some stretching throughout the working hours).
At the same time, I literally put a mark everytime I picked my cellphone up as a way to track on the use of my phone. (This was part of my plan today.)And the total was unsurprisingly as high as 10 time. Failure #3
The epic failure of the day was when I realized there was an infamous lawsuit case in Thailand , 30-Million Baht Lottery. Failure #4. Without any hesitation, only after looking briefly at my plan once, giving myself a justification of a decent amount of work I had done this morning, I stopped everything.
As a novice conversation analyst, I have been interested in this particular case for the past few months and have always had fun analyzing talks and interviews of different people involved including both lawyers, several judges, many TV hosts, the plaintiff and last but not least the defendant. To me, this is an ongoing case study that is fascinating in terms of language and gesture use of all parties involved. Given all these reasons, today was a D-Day to have fun and play around with my evolving hypotheses.
Still, in attempt to stick with the plan, P’Gluay and I went out for a tea break in the afternoon. Though it was another gloomy, cloudy day in York, the weather was not too cold to enjoy being out a bit. Deciding between city center options and our favorite cafe close to our apartment, we went to the latter.
We very much enjoyed being out and having a casual relaxing time together although our hot teas got cold in no time. This is something I have been very thankful for--being able to enjoy tea/coffee breaks anytime and any day of the week. We spent a good hour at Gatehouse Coffee before heading to Waitrose for a quick grocery shopping for some pastry we did not have at the cafe.
As soon as we got home, I was glued to the screen binge-watching anything I could find on YouTube about the flavorful lawsuit. I literally spent two or three hours watching and falling as sleep in between. Failure #5
Fortunately, I was able to wrap up the day a bit more nicely by spending 1.5 hours reading Mercer (2000). YAY! Some accomplishment FINALLY! Also, I kept thinking about my study along while reading the book pondering how it can help me with my proposal revision.
Despite 5 failures I made throughout a short day today, I am happy with my progress today. The morning hours were devoted for some serious thinking for and editing my research proposal whereas the evening hours were spent on productive critical reading. This lesson teaches me that ‘It is okay when things don’t go as planned. Relax and do your best for the rest of the time you have.’ Like today, there is no use looking back at your failure, wasting even more time blaming myself and eventually getting not much done for the day.
Tomorrow is another day I will continue to work on my research proposal and readings. I truly hope that it will be a better day. Again. :)
Lesson Learned: Always be hopeful!
6/4/2018 11.28pm.
