Solar Energy

[Outside Upper Crust on Newbury St, while waiting for takeout pizza; 5pm, 5/16/10]

After a couple of days of clouds and cool drizzle, the sun is expected to return tomorrow to warm the air and pavement, and no doubt lift spirits as well. It's really been a very nice spring, with generally mild temperatures and a goodly amount of sunshine. On Monday, I walked home from work and opened all the windows in the apartment to the fresh air and birdsong. It was lovely.

As I go about the process of rethinking my work life, I'm using various tools and questionnaires, and some of them ask me to look into what charges my engines. Because if you don't have enough of that in your workday, it's like going without sun for five days a week, every week, for years on end. Which isn't to say that's how it feels every day at my job, but the engines keep grinding to a crawl, and evenings and weekends are never long enough.

So what charges my engines? I've thought back on past work experiences that I felt energized doing, and I'm thinking about those with regard to career steps. But let me get to off-work topics...

D will testify to the fact that food is major buzz generator for me! I can get inordinately cheerful in grocery stores, but going out to eat is equally restorative! Wandering around photographing things is also a great pleasure. So it's fun that D and I can do both of those together on weekends. Creative writing is also satisfying, when I have the mental bandwidth for it. The bits of things I tweet about, and formulating the tweets themselves, are little nuggets of fuel for me. That's just a few things, and I could probably go on.

So what charges your engines? What are the solar generators in your life?

Comments

[Relatively Retiring]

You have such a gift for spotting shadows and reflections. These are lovely and will have been quite different a few minutes later.
A pen in the hand and earth under the fingernails are what galvanise me - sometimes both at the same time!

[Lorianne]

I love these photos: very nice! Any chance of career-switching to something that involves food, cooking, and/or food-writing? Seems like a perfect fit.

I've gone to two faculty development workshops in Keene this week, and I find talking to other professors about what we "try" to do in the classroom very energizing. Teaching can be very isolating: it's just you and your students, and too often your students just don't seem to be "getting" it.

It's always a huge relief at the end of a grueling semester to have a chance to "talk shop" with other folks facing the same challenges. It's more than the usual water-cooler venting; it's a chance to try to brainstorm new approaches.

[Leslee]

Thanks, RR. Pen and earth, good combination!

Lorianne: Thanks! What I'd really like to do is writing on healthy food and lifestyle. It seems to be an increasing focus, and even big insurance companies are becoming more interested in it because it saves them money if people stay healthy. So that's a possibility...

[Lorianne]

Yes, that sounds like a promising direction, both in terms of something that you'd like AND in terms of something there's a societal need for.

It strikes me that right now, with all the emphasis on preventing childhood obesity, Type 2 diabetes, etc, might be the perfect time to make that step. Your need for a change might perfectly align with society's readiness to make a change, too.

[maria]

I think your idea to write about food and health rocks! I still remember your wonderful blog for the sensitive traveler, which I think is int he same neighborhood of things.

I have few solar generators in my life these days, apart from yoga and Pilates (and Italian class), and the friendships, of course. Even the sun, normally hanging out in my part of California on a daily basis this time of the year has been playing hide-and-seek and letting the rain have it's say past the season.

[beth]

You'd be wonderful at that! It seems like the perfect combination of the things you've gravitated to and written about here with so much interest for a lot of years. In Hanover NH there was a food co-op with a newsletter full of articles just like that, and someone was paid to write them. The trick would be to get a bread-and-butter writing gig for someone like the insurance industry, in addition to freelance work for places like women's health centers, hospitals, in-flight magazines, or consumer/health-oriented websites...

[Leslee]

Lorianne: Hope you're right - we'll see what pans out.

Maria: You may be the only person who actually read my sensitive traveller blog, but I'm glad somebody enjoyed it! I'm thinking of starting up another side blog with focus on healthy food and lifestyle, partly as a marketing tool and also to explore that area.

Beth: Thanks. I'm only looking for full-time work with full benefits such as a decent health plan. I didn't survive well as a freelancer and need more financial stability. But hopefully something will turn up if I go in that direction