25 Apr 2017 - Training
Meh. Evening or whatever.
Day 61 on Lexapro.
Mood: 5, +/- 0.5.
Today, I spent an hour and a half training one of my team members for the pollinator inventory on the fine art of bee pinning. He's an enthusiastic learner, picking up and improving rapidly. Since I'd completely forgotten that I said that I'd teach him, and thus had no specimens in the lab that were unmounted, we went out to the Japanese garden on campus to collect a few eastern carpenter bees and honey bees, two species that are extraordinarily common and easy to work with. At the end of my little lesson/workshop/thing, he'd pinned a total of nine bees, including handwritten location tags. Surprising me more than a little, he asked me to "grade" his work - overall, I'd have to give him an A.
The sense of satisfaction I had at the end, once he'd left the lab, reminded me of the love of teaching I've always had, the burning need to share the information that I've accumulated about the things I love. An academic position, as a professor that also does research, is definitely something that would bring me lifelong happiness.
In other news, I've noticed a decrease in suicidal thoughts/ideation. However, that decrease has been accompanied by the sense that I should still be suicidal. I don't know why, but it's there - whenever I note the absence of a desire to be dead, or if I remark that it's been a while since I imagined myself killing myself, that thought is immediately followed by a well, I should still be feeling that way! and a wave of...not quite confusion, but something close. It's pretty bad when feeling like ending yourself has become so routine that it becomes the baseline state of things. Other than that, though, my mental state has been...I won't call it good, because it's not, I won't call it normal, because it's not...less concerning? I think that that's the best way to put it. The improvement, if you can call a two day deviation from a four week plus pattern improving, is welcome, but it likely won't last very long.
I doubt that anyone cares, and it's probably a touch strange, but I had a very strong urge to snuffle Favorite Person's hair/skin today, just kind of out of the blue. A rather acute sense of smell is one of the more useful things that run in my family, at least on my mom's side, so I pay more attention to the scents around me than a lot of people do, remember those scents easily, and am strongly drawn to smells that I like. As a result, the way a person smells tends to get lodged in my memory, right along with faces, names, and voices, and certain people just smell...really damn good to me, Favorite Person being high on my list of pleasantly scented humans.
Nothing in particular brought it on, I don't think, but I must have inhaled something that's a component of Favorite Person's bouquet, and it just brought on this particularly strong desire to breathe in her scent in the least creepy and/or weird way possible. If I'm being honest, she'd probably let me if I asked, but I....I don't know, the thought of asking makes me feel weird. I'll just draw on the memory until the feeling passes, I suppose.
I've read some explanations as to why some people smell good to some people, but I'm not entirely comfortable (read: not at all comfortable) with what they imply in context.
Anyway. That happened. Nothing else of note occurred today.
Until then.
Sometimes, life's not fair
I correct myself, I mean
All the time I feel like complaining
But it only bothers you
The things I do
They make your blood run cold
25 Apr 2017
Day 61 on Lexapro.
Mood: 5, +/- 0.5.
Today, I spent an hour and a half training one of my team members for the pollinator inventory on the fine art of bee pinning. He's an enthusiastic learner, picking up and improving rapidly. Since I'd completely forgotten that I said that I'd teach him, and thus had no specimens in the lab that were unmounted, we went out to the Japanese garden on campus to collect a few eastern carpenter bees and honey bees, two species that are extraordinarily common and easy to work with. At the end of my little lesson/workshop/thing, he'd pinned a total of nine bees, including handwritten location tags. Surprising me more than a little, he asked me to "grade" his work - overall, I'd have to give him an A.
The sense of satisfaction I had at the end, once he'd left the lab, reminded me of the love of teaching I've always had, the burning need to share the information that I've accumulated about the things I love. An academic position, as a professor that also does research, is definitely something that would bring me lifelong happiness.
In other news, I've noticed a decrease in suicidal thoughts/ideation. However, that decrease has been accompanied by the sense that I should still be suicidal. I don't know why, but it's there - whenever I note the absence of a desire to be dead, or if I remark that it's been a while since I imagined myself killing myself, that thought is immediately followed by a well, I should still be feeling that way! and a wave of...not quite confusion, but something close. It's pretty bad when feeling like ending yourself has become so routine that it becomes the baseline state of things. Other than that, though, my mental state has been...I won't call it good, because it's not, I won't call it normal, because it's not...less concerning? I think that that's the best way to put it. The improvement, if you can call a two day deviation from a four week plus pattern improving, is welcome, but it likely won't last very long.
I doubt that anyone cares, and it's probably a touch strange, but I had a very strong urge to snuffle Favorite Person's hair/skin today, just kind of out of the blue. A rather acute sense of smell is one of the more useful things that run in my family, at least on my mom's side, so I pay more attention to the scents around me than a lot of people do, remember those scents easily, and am strongly drawn to smells that I like. As a result, the way a person smells tends to get lodged in my memory, right along with faces, names, and voices, and certain people just smell...really damn good to me, Favorite Person being high on my list of pleasantly scented humans.
Nothing in particular brought it on, I don't think, but I must have inhaled something that's a component of Favorite Person's bouquet, and it just brought on this particularly strong desire to breathe in her scent in the least creepy and/or weird way possible. If I'm being honest, she'd probably let me if I asked, but I....I don't know, the thought of asking makes me feel weird. I'll just draw on the memory until the feeling passes, I suppose.
I've read some explanations as to why some people smell good to some people, but I'm not entirely comfortable (read: not at all comfortable) with what they imply in context.
Anyway. That happened. Nothing else of note occurred today.
Until then.
Sometimes, life's not fair
I correct myself, I mean
All the time I feel like complaining
But it only bothers you
The things I do
They make your blood run cold
25 Apr 2017
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