i need to write, i need to plan

. . I can't believe I haven't written since October, but on the other hand, I think that makes a good point at where I am in my stay here in Korea. Things are ramping up - work is getting harder and longer and the leadership knows just how to get you. I am happy and busy, but I'm also letting my quality of life slip and little things bother me that shouldn't. When did I stop running again? And when did I find meetings and excuses to skip PT? I had been doing so well yet I allow this to disappear, don't even notice it even.
. . I had previously decided not to join the praise and worship choir at the church here, though I knew all the songs and love to sing, because there were other things that I had planned at the times of the practices and even the performances. I had goals. I wanted to teach little 3rd through 5th grade Korean children English every other Saturday and spent the off weekends exploring Korea. I wanted to learn Korean so I dedicated 3 hours every Monday and Wednesday night to classes, and many hours in between to homework and studies. These events ended in Oct and November, but for the life of me, I've let my priorities slip until I'm at the office from 0700-2300, running in for an hour or two on the weekends when I'm not sleeping straight through. Yes, I can always sing later. I can always attend another church service. But doing it now is so valuable as a time I can schedule to be away from the office. It is something that I love doing and being able to sing now certainly won't inhibit me from singing later. It also helps me be more productive at work. When I know that I can stay late I am not efficient. I may spend an entire day visiting my different shops and putting out fires, putting my actual job on hold until after hours, then working my full day from there... when I can really work that time into smaller productive segments with my troops and still get my job done during the day.
. . I'm starting to feel as if I'm running from my job all day long, which is disheartening. I love my job and I love working things for and with my troops, but tiny little incidents, little pieces of my job that are all situational/personal, are starting to poison it. I hear a name and I cringe - to catch them walking towards me makes me dread the next self-centered, unnecessary, possibly illegal demand they are going to propose. I am malpracticing them before they even open their mouth - yet, in that I'm not disappointed.
. . I need to change my focus. I refuse to give one person the power to ruin My day! (for the rest of today at least) I need to focus less on the impossible and more on what I can do, regardless of if its just redirection instead of the straight and narrow "approved progress." While I can't change the demands, I can accept them for the challenges they are to think outside the box - both in answering the demand and in not letting it affect me. I can refuse the repeating ideas and arguments that I would make if I could make them... and maybe get a few more hours of sleep each night. I can stay positive and have goals again, however small. I can achieve those goals.
. . I need to lay out my plans and execute! ... or watch them slip by and become overcome by events, because they will. I need to make time for SOS. If not now, when? I made the same mistake by not accomplishing my masters earlier, and while I found the perfect program for me, it would have been a lot easier to have started years earlier and even finished at the same time. I have a limited amount of time because I started officially back in August, but its not that. I could probably wait until the last quarter and crank it out in a new place where I don't have any friends yet. I have no excuse not to do my studies. I'm just tired of pushing, always working the overtime at work and still trying to get the extra credit at home too.
. . I thought I just needed a break from overloading classes, but I've had a month off and I'm not feeling excited to start this program at all. Its almost having the reverse effect such that I feel it will almost have been too long again, so long that I worry I'll forget how to study and write again (since it was actually very difficult in that for me coming back to start my masters after taking almost 4 years off). I can do the work - yet my mind is just refusing to budge because I haven't been able to work myself around the issues previously mentioned... yet I know having this focus will help me overcome and rise to the challenges of said issues. I have plans... unrealized. I plan to write more - because though it also takes time, it helps me orgnaize my thoughts, such as they are, and allows me to not rehash them. In a few weeks you'll know if I'm reaching for the sky again (you'll read it here), or if I've lazily let the world fly by.

*Pictures and notes pending from my amazing Thanksgiving trip to China. I'll probably post date them to be found on the side bar, but if I'm feeling energetic I'll link them from here too ;-)