Been There, Done That in Trichotomy

Company Man

I have not written much because nothing much has happened. I think, after the wedding, there really isn't anything new to look forward to. My routine these days are pretty monotonous - wake up around 8, leave house around 8:30, take the train into work and breakfast, get to work by 10, and work till 6:30, get back to train station by 7:30, after dinner we'll get home around 8:30 or 9. I'd practice and/or play with the rats for an hour, and then veg in front of the TV till 11, then shower and check news and e-mail at the "man cave". And I would watch snooker or star trek or starcraft before heading back to bed.

Even my job is getting monotonous. After designing a component at the heart of the rewrite of our project, I'm now helping out with incrementally adding more and more functionalities to our pipeline. The work is not as interesting - it is largely derivative - but is just as demanding. So it's getting more difficult to be motivated. In addition, these new parts are going to require domain knowledge that I don't have and don't particularly care for, so motivation-wise it's going to be a tough quarter.

That's a problem with not having a challenge - knowing, intellectually, that you are capable of doing something makes you less motivated to actually do it, because the act of achieving it becomes a chore.

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In good company

We have an active social life. Every weekend, it seems, we have some social function to do. La Professeure's childhood friend came to visit two weekends ago, her college roomate came to visit New Hip Company a week ago, we went to see her work friends yesterday, we helped another work friend move her carpet to her new condo two weeks ago, her college friend came over with his kids yesterday, and I'm supposed to schedule something with Wise Young Friend and her family too. The flip side is that our alone-time becomes more precious, but we are already doing so much with friends now, when we do have alone time we just want to veg.

Part of growing old, I suppose.

Part of it has to do with living in the suburbs. I suspect if I hadn't lived in New York, what we have now probably would have felt like a busy life. But compared to what I used to do - football every week, performance and rehearsal in the opera group or art song group or the amateur musicians group, visit with the Flautists, concerts, movies, etc... this isn't a lot.

We got a second rat two weeks ago to keep our rat Henrietta's company. They seemed to get along okay when they were in the pet store (we took Henrietta to the store to make sure they'd get along), but once we got back, Henrietta keeps trying to kick the new rat's butt. I think that's because we're in its territory now. So now they are being kept in separate cages. Even though it didn't stop Henrietta from climbing up her cage and hiss at the new rat. And she did it so much that she sprained her ankle on Thursday, and she's been hobbling on three paws since then. So she had to be put in her little cage and rest a lot. The new rat is slowly warming up to people, but most of the time it cowers in a corner to try to pretend we don't exist. It will be come more friendly in time.

We hope.

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Can't be bothered, musically

It is 4 weeks before my Carnegie Hall concert, and I've started to feel the pressure. But by this time I have the "reference performance" nailed down so it will just be a matter of practising everyday to get it into my head and make sure I have it secure. I don't even aim to be expressive or have it be beautiful or anything - I must say that this time I am much less enthusiastic about performing at Carnegie Hall as a soloist. Probably because I've done it before, but also because I'm not as enamoured with the repertoire as I was last year. I think next year somebody else should take the spot.

Our instructor at the dance studio is urging us to take the test that would "graduate" us from our current level to the next. I like it that there is a notion of how far along we are, but it also added pressure. It reminds me of when I was taking piano lessons when I was little and had to take ABRSM tests to get to the next grade level. I suppose giving us something work toward is a good idea. The problem?

I don't want to practice.

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