Blogroll

When I'm not here, you may find me wandering the pages below. (If I'm a regular visitor to your site and I've left your link off or mislinked to you, please let me know! And likewise, if you've blogrolled me, please check that my link is updated: thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com. The extra (a) makes all the difference!)

Archives

For posts sorted by date or label, see the links below.

For posts on frequently referenced topics, click the buttons to the right.

To search this blog, type in the field at the top left of the page and hit enter.

Body: in sickness and in health

I won't lie; this body and I have had our issues with each other for many years. Body image -- sure. Physical and mental overextension -- comes with being a Type A kind of girl. I still struggle with these things, so they show up from time to time in my writing.

More recently, illness, pure but not simple, has added itself to the mix in a multi-system sort of way. And the challenges in figuring out exactly what's gone wrong are many. As problems have revealed themselves in the last few years, beginning with reactive hypoglycemia in late 2008, I've documented them here, partly to gain a little clarity on managing complex conditions but mostly to give voice to vulnerabilities I feel but don't normally share with anyone face to face. Better out than in, they say, right? (Oh yes, humor is one way I deal.)

The links below cover the different angles I've examined (and from which I've been examined) within that experience.

Travel: neither here nor there

When the person you're married to lives two time zones away, you log a fair number of frequent flier miles. And if you blog about commuter relationships, you log quite a few posts en route too.

Since we're no longer in separate places, I blog less often from airports. But we do travel -- together now! -- which is much more fun to write about. So in addition to thoughts on our years of commuting, the links below cover the places we've been as a pair and, in some cases, the adventures that have happened on the way.

Writing: the long and short of it

Why do I do it? Good question. Maybe it's not so much that I like to write but that I have to write, even when the words refuse to stick to the page. Believe me, I've tried doing other things like majoring in biochemistry (freshman fall, many semesters ago). Within a year, I'd switched to English with a concentration in creative writing and wasn't looking back.

After graduating, I taught English for a few years and then worked as an editor, which I still do freelance. In 2007, I applied and got into an MFA program at a place I like to call Little U. on the Prairie. I finished my degree in 2011 and have been balancing tutoring and writing on my own ever since.

The following links cover the writing I've done about writing: process, content, obstacles, you name it. It's not always pretty. But some part of me loves it, even when it's hard. And this is the result.

Heart: family and friends

I'd have a hard time explaining who I am without being able to talk about the family I grew up in as well as the people I've met beyond its bounds. But even with such context, it's not easy! In the simplest terms, I'm a first-generation Asian-American who has spent most of this life caught between cultures. That, of course, doesn't even begin to describe what I mean to, but there's my first stab at the heart of it all.

That's what this group of posts is reserved for -- heart. The essential parts of my life whose influences I carry with me, for better or worse. The links below cover what I've written as I've learned how these forces work within me, for me, against me, in spite of me. They anchor me even as they change me, and they keep life interesting.

Recommended reading

What do I do when there's too much on my mind and my words won't stick to the page? I escape into someone else's thoughts. Below is a collection of books and articles that have been sources of information, inspiration, and occasional insight for my own work.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Alternatives

The hazards of heavy deadlines: a heavier Troubadour.

Not by much, but I can feel it in the way my clothes fit and I know exactly where it's coming from. I wish I could say it's just the excuse and abuse of a few irresistible restaurant menus from celebrating our birthdays earlier this month (both D and I had them). But really, it's days of an extra spoonful of this at lunch, an additional morsel of that at dinner, straight-up standing in the kitchen with one's head in the pantry in search of something to take the edge off all the stress, the kind that builds up in between those outings I wrote about last week. Salty or sweet, this girl has been going after snacks that sate her inner child who is long past tired of being told just one more page, hell, one more sentence ...

And I need to, um, scale that back.

But I also need alternatives. Because I still have a month to go before the defense -- Chapter 7 is heading off to my advisor tomorrow, after which we will do a broad assessment of the project for the purposes of revision -- and mental resources are running thin. I'm still five pages short. There are other unbloggable things going on that are making me crazy in my downtime. And my habit of medicating with food, while a tried-and-true (tried-and-false?) quick fix so I can get back to the so-called degree-finishing plan, is not working in my favor.

I'm holding myself to this by writing it here -- a plan to help me deal with my other plan. To wit, instead of sticking my head in the pantry, I will ...

  • stick my head in a book, even if only for fifteen minutes. And if I don't like the one I have on hand, I'll go find another one. Who says you have to read books one at a time? Different moods, different texts. To make this work, I'd better pile a few choice items in one place. It's ridiculous, but the endgame of thesis writing increases personal inertia some thirty fold. Don't ask me about the laundry that hasn't been done.

  • do something nice for somebody else. Small things that don't take a lot of time, like looking up and e-mailing a recipe that someone asked you about. Because if you're thinking about other people, you're not thinking about yourself, and that is EXACTLY what I need when I'm trying to get away from my own stress.

  • work on plans to go to Hawaii. Yes, travel preparations come with their own stress, but what's fifteen minutes of reading about where I might stay/sunbathe/swim in a lagoon fed by a natural waterfall/forget I ever thought this degree was a good idea/reward myself for getting done?

  • indulge in some TV via Hulu or Netflix. I usually save this exclusively for when I'm working out on the elliptical machine, but since January, I've been writing while on it (a funny picture, I'm sure, but it works). So I have a backlog of shows I keep telling myself I'll get to. Such entertainment without accompanying cardio may indeed lower my resting metabolism further, but at least it's not more calories in, just fewer calories out.

  • look up potential bike trails in our area. Summer is coming, and D and I want to try a few local outings once all of this thesis business is out of the way. It's not skiing, but we need an outdoor physical activity during non-snowy months that we enjoy together. We've figured out it's one of the better ways we bond.

Okay, I think that's enough for now. Take that, thesis! I will get done with you yet.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Feelers

I've been quiet here, I know. It's a mixed silence, some of it imposed largely out of respect for the devastation in Japan. What sorts of things that I normally write about here have any importance in the face of the aftermath there? I've watched the headlines, counted my blessings. Inched forward with writing elsewhere -- thesis, primarily, and other notes to self.

I'm on the home stretch, despite my advisor's rejecting my most recent plan to get my page count where it needs to be. We don't do analysis in this program, she said; it's not required. By which she meant, no, I don't want a report. I want more of the story.

So I went back to my draft. She'd looked it over and sent good comments, so I had new ideas on how I might make Chapter 6 grow. Early last week, I forwarded a revision to her. Now, with Chapter 7 under construction, I have just nine pages or so to go.

It's a relief -- April 1st is my goal for the final chapter -- but it's also meant a certain amount of living under a rock (beyond reading the online news). I'm taking it in stints. Each weekday, a morning session, an afternoon session. Nights off. At the worst part of the struggle to get Chapter 6 started, I was staring at the screen at all hours, still getting nowhere.

To counter the feeling that I'm turning into an earwig, I've imposed mandatory outings that involve interaction with people. To get lunch with new acquaintances during the week (a girl has to eat). To peruse an art exhibit on a Saturday afternoon, to attend the symphony with D on a weeknight, even to ski. For that last one, I took the thesis with me and nearly got carsick working on it while D drove into the mountains, but it was worth the effort. I wrote until I was nauseated and then skied until my legs threatened to buckle. Went back home with a clear head, which, above all, is what I need to keep my writing brain moving.

It's not what I expected my writing process to be, but it's true that you can't write well if you spend all your time with your attention turned within. So I'll take it, even if the workaholic in me keeps tapping my shoulder and pointing at the time.

Nine pages. The end's in sight.

Addendum 3/22: Airline tickets for the defense have been purchased. No turning back now!

Friday, March 4, 2011

Creative writing?

Another week, and still not much progress. My thesis is trying to write itself in the best way it can, but there's no brain behind it. Or rather, no heart. The paragraphs I've strung together have technical finesse, but the words feel hollow and directionless, like a blurry facsimile of the real story I want somehow to tell. And the writer in me knows it. After letting the thesis grow so many lines of text, like mutant tentacles searching for a place to catch hold, my own brain balks. This just isn't going anywhere, it says.

I've hit the point in the narrative where the story is too big for me to see its arc again. Unfortunately, this isn't a block that can be solved by reading the words of other writers for reinvigoration. In a way, it's like I've been trying to work my way out of the center of a bull's eye. The tiny circle in the middle was the first chapter; the next ring out, the four that followed. Finding a vantage point from which to see that second group of chapters took months -- from last February to last August -- and I don't have the luxury of time anymore.

I have some twenty pages to fill and two years' worth of research. Even if the story isn't falling into place, my process of seeking answers is certainly well documented. So my plan, which I've now e-mailed my advisor, is to use all of that to write an afterword. It'll give voice to a lot of questions that haven't yet been asked within the narrative and reveal the as-yet-unaddressed pieces of the story, rough as their introduction there might feel to me.

It's not the way I want to finish this. But finished is what this needs to be.

Addendum 3/6: My laptop fried a portion of its hard drive today. First the adapter cord, now the disk itself? I'm not liking this trend.

Posts by date

Posts by label

Air travel Airline food Allergic reactions Astoria Awards Bacteremia Bacterial overgrowth Baggage beefs Bed and breakfast Betrayal Blues Body Boston Breastfeeding British Columbia California Canada Cape Spear Clam-digging Colonoscopy Commuter marriage Cooking CT scans Delays Diagnoses Dietitians Doctor-patient relationships Doctors Eating while traveling Editing Endocrine Endoscopy ER False starts Family dynamics Feedback Food anxiety Food sensitivities Gate agent guff GI Halifax Heart Home-making House hunting Hypoglycemia In-laws Intentional happiness Iowa Journaling Kidney stones Knitting Lab tests Little U. on the Prairie Liver function tests Long Beach Making friends in new places Malabsorption Massachusetts Medical records Medication Mentorship MFA programs Miami Monterey Motivation Moving Narrative New York Newark Newfoundland Nova Scotia Olympic Peninsula Ontario Ophthalmology Oregon Oxalates Pancreatic function tests Parenting Parents Paris Pets Photography Portland Prediabetes Pregnancy Process Professors Publishing Reproductive endocrine Research Revision Rewriting Rheumatology San Francisco Scenes from a graduation series Scenes from around the table series Seattle Sisters Skiing St. John's Striped-up paisley Teaching Technological snafus Texas Thesis Toronto Travel Travel fears Traveling while sick Ultrasound Urology Vancouver Victoria Voice Washington Washington D.C. Weight When words won't stick Whidbey Island Why we write Workshops Writers on writing Writing Writing friends Writing in odd places Writing jobs Yakima

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Alternatives

The hazards of heavy deadlines: a heavier Troubadour.

Not by much, but I can feel it in the way my clothes fit and I know exactly where it's coming from. I wish I could say it's just the excuse and abuse of a few irresistible restaurant menus from celebrating our birthdays earlier this month (both D and I had them). But really, it's days of an extra spoonful of this at lunch, an additional morsel of that at dinner, straight-up standing in the kitchen with one's head in the pantry in search of something to take the edge off all the stress, the kind that builds up in between those outings I wrote about last week. Salty or sweet, this girl has been going after snacks that sate her inner child who is long past tired of being told just one more page, hell, one more sentence ...

And I need to, um, scale that back.

But I also need alternatives. Because I still have a month to go before the defense -- Chapter 7 is heading off to my advisor tomorrow, after which we will do a broad assessment of the project for the purposes of revision -- and mental resources are running thin. I'm still five pages short. There are other unbloggable things going on that are making me crazy in my downtime. And my habit of medicating with food, while a tried-and-true (tried-and-false?) quick fix so I can get back to the so-called degree-finishing plan, is not working in my favor.

I'm holding myself to this by writing it here -- a plan to help me deal with my other plan. To wit, instead of sticking my head in the pantry, I will ...

  • stick my head in a book, even if only for fifteen minutes. And if I don't like the one I have on hand, I'll go find another one. Who says you have to read books one at a time? Different moods, different texts. To make this work, I'd better pile a few choice items in one place. It's ridiculous, but the endgame of thesis writing increases personal inertia some thirty fold. Don't ask me about the laundry that hasn't been done.

  • do something nice for somebody else. Small things that don't take a lot of time, like looking up and e-mailing a recipe that someone asked you about. Because if you're thinking about other people, you're not thinking about yourself, and that is EXACTLY what I need when I'm trying to get away from my own stress.

  • work on plans to go to Hawaii. Yes, travel preparations come with their own stress, but what's fifteen minutes of reading about where I might stay/sunbathe/swim in a lagoon fed by a natural waterfall/forget I ever thought this degree was a good idea/reward myself for getting done?

  • indulge in some TV via Hulu or Netflix. I usually save this exclusively for when I'm working out on the elliptical machine, but since January, I've been writing while on it (a funny picture, I'm sure, but it works). So I have a backlog of shows I keep telling myself I'll get to. Such entertainment without accompanying cardio may indeed lower my resting metabolism further, but at least it's not more calories in, just fewer calories out.

  • look up potential bike trails in our area. Summer is coming, and D and I want to try a few local outings once all of this thesis business is out of the way. It's not skiing, but we need an outdoor physical activity during non-snowy months that we enjoy together. We've figured out it's one of the better ways we bond.

Okay, I think that's enough for now. Take that, thesis! I will get done with you yet.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Feelers

I've been quiet here, I know. It's a mixed silence, some of it imposed largely out of respect for the devastation in Japan. What sorts of things that I normally write about here have any importance in the face of the aftermath there? I've watched the headlines, counted my blessings. Inched forward with writing elsewhere -- thesis, primarily, and other notes to self.

I'm on the home stretch, despite my advisor's rejecting my most recent plan to get my page count where it needs to be. We don't do analysis in this program, she said; it's not required. By which she meant, no, I don't want a report. I want more of the story.

So I went back to my draft. She'd looked it over and sent good comments, so I had new ideas on how I might make Chapter 6 grow. Early last week, I forwarded a revision to her. Now, with Chapter 7 under construction, I have just nine pages or so to go.

It's a relief -- April 1st is my goal for the final chapter -- but it's also meant a certain amount of living under a rock (beyond reading the online news). I'm taking it in stints. Each weekday, a morning session, an afternoon session. Nights off. At the worst part of the struggle to get Chapter 6 started, I was staring at the screen at all hours, still getting nowhere.

To counter the feeling that I'm turning into an earwig, I've imposed mandatory outings that involve interaction with people. To get lunch with new acquaintances during the week (a girl has to eat). To peruse an art exhibit on a Saturday afternoon, to attend the symphony with D on a weeknight, even to ski. For that last one, I took the thesis with me and nearly got carsick working on it while D drove into the mountains, but it was worth the effort. I wrote until I was nauseated and then skied until my legs threatened to buckle. Went back home with a clear head, which, above all, is what I need to keep my writing brain moving.

It's not what I expected my writing process to be, but it's true that you can't write well if you spend all your time with your attention turned within. So I'll take it, even if the workaholic in me keeps tapping my shoulder and pointing at the time.

Nine pages. The end's in sight.

Addendum 3/22: Airline tickets for the defense have been purchased. No turning back now!

Friday, March 4, 2011

Creative writing?

Another week, and still not much progress. My thesis is trying to write itself in the best way it can, but there's no brain behind it. Or rather, no heart. The paragraphs I've strung together have technical finesse, but the words feel hollow and directionless, like a blurry facsimile of the real story I want somehow to tell. And the writer in me knows it. After letting the thesis grow so many lines of text, like mutant tentacles searching for a place to catch hold, my own brain balks. This just isn't going anywhere, it says.

I've hit the point in the narrative where the story is too big for me to see its arc again. Unfortunately, this isn't a block that can be solved by reading the words of other writers for reinvigoration. In a way, it's like I've been trying to work my way out of the center of a bull's eye. The tiny circle in the middle was the first chapter; the next ring out, the four that followed. Finding a vantage point from which to see that second group of chapters took months -- from last February to last August -- and I don't have the luxury of time anymore.

I have some twenty pages to fill and two years' worth of research. Even if the story isn't falling into place, my process of seeking answers is certainly well documented. So my plan, which I've now e-mailed my advisor, is to use all of that to write an afterword. It'll give voice to a lot of questions that haven't yet been asked within the narrative and reveal the as-yet-unaddressed pieces of the story, rough as their introduction there might feel to me.

It's not the way I want to finish this. But finished is what this needs to be.

Addendum 3/6: My laptop fried a portion of its hard drive today. First the adapter cord, now the disk itself? I'm not liking this trend.