Now what?

Things are not right. Finally, after 3.5 years of constant slaving away, I now have some free time. How many times over these past years have I said, “Oh if only I could have a little bit of time to catch things up or have some time to do something I want to do.” Well, here it is. NOW I have time. And guess what? It appears that there’s nothing I want to do anymore. I don’t want to clean house, or cook, or bake cookies, or go anywhere, or do anything at all. I hate my job, there’s nothing good to watch on TV, I’m not in the mood to sew or paint. Maybe I should try working in the yard and see if that sparks anything. I sat down at my piano the other night and just sat there…completely uninspired to try and play anything. I’ve had no desire to take my guitar out of its dusty case now that I have time to play around with it.

Maybe I’ve just become a very boring person. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I’ve heard it a million times and maybe it’s true. This is completely unexpected. It’s not that I’m bored, but more that I feel lost without something to be working on.

I wanted to start running again. I used to go to bed early, get up at 4:45, and go for a nice long run before work. I like running in the early morning when it’s dark and few people or dogs are out. I’ve been going to bed by 11 (ok, not as early as I used to go to bed) and when my alarm clock goes off at 5:15, it’s like no way in hell am I rolling out of bed this early.

For some reason, I just expected things to return to normal once I had some free time. This is nothing like normal. The whole point of getting this degree was to get a job where I have more free time. What happens if I have more free time and there’s nothing I want to do with it? I never gave that any consideration at all.

I do have good news.  I got notification that my proposal passed the forms review and has entered the next phase - quality review.  I was told to expect feedback sometime within the next 15 days.  After the quality review (after passing the quality review), the IRB gets a chance to pick it apart.  For now, I'm pleased with the status of things.