(Mandatory) Analog Mission Week 5 – Starting to Get the Hang of This!

Sunday April 19, 2020

Sleep: 4 hours 37 minutes (score: 76)

Weight: 102.6

Exercise: no

Overall: stressed, busy, positive

PT: yes

Fun Fact: It is Hubble Telescopes 30th Birthday today! Yaaaay! Thanks Hubby!

There is your space update. Now for your Bailey update! Got next to no sleep last night while means I am going to sleep insanely well tonight. I hope. I also added a new category... My PT exercised for my foot. Since I stopped going I have done them... maybe half the time? And my foot is starting to hurt. So I need you all to hold my accountable. If you EVER see "no" in that category, I need you to harass me until I am crying. I need to do those. It is for the good of the foot.

In other news today was a pretty productive day too! It was nice to have a productive weekend. I think I have talked about my unnatural dislike of the weekends because I feel lazy and I don't like the lack of structure. Well here, where structure is a key component of isolation that I am trying to maintain, my weekends are getting easier. Well not actually, they are more busy than ever. But I feel better about myself.

I got a start on my paper(s) for my new PoSSUM class on citizen science. The first one is an example of a citizen science project (I chose TreeSnap, I will explain later) and the second is to design your own citizen science experiment. I decided (inspired by all my tracking) to do mine on a sleep study. Got a lot of planning ahead of me to make that happen but it should be fun! Stay tuned as I work through it.

I also presented my PoSSUM Social Media 101 presentation! It was so good! We didn't get to it all because they were asking such great and in-depth questions. I think I got them inspired (I hope) and it felt good to know all those hours I spent digging into social media and thinking through how to make it work wasn't just to benefit me, but an entire group of INCREDIBLE women who SHOULD be recognized across all the social media platforms. I am trying to help them unleash their strong, amazing voices on the world. AGHHHHHH I'M SO PUMPED! It was amazing. Really enjoyed that. Much empower. Very excite.

Then I did homework for school. Once again I felt really empowered and pumped about it because I was really getting it. I think I put it into a good format. It was really stressful because I was trying to go as fast as possible while still giving good work. Shhhh don't tell Jeffrey. After that I went live on my A Space Story page to talk about... space. Weird right? Got on another SpaceX rant... again... why do I keep doing that? Overall it was good but nothing exciting.

Wrapped up my day with dinner at my parents' house. It was good to get out and to see them. We also get into these weird discussions. My mom made a perfect Bailey casserole and amazing brownies. Just what I needed.

Very busy day. Worked on a lot of things and have about 10 things I didn't get to. Here is to the start of a new week!

Monday April 20, 2020

Sleep: 6 hours 29 minutes (score: 85)

Weight: 102.0

Exercise: yes

Overall: negative

PT: yes

A short post today. And yes it was negative. Sad face. I finally hit my wall. I was tired all day. I was unmotivated at work. I felt like people were annoyed by my questions or comments both in work and in my other areas. I felt dumb. I felt like I shouldn't be doing the webinar tomorrow (side note I am doing a webinar tomorrow, tune in to that!) because compared to all the other people, I am just a crazy young girl with a voice that is louder than she can manage. I really need to find the mute button sometimes...

Yeah I guess in general it was a hard day. The hardest day I have had in months, well before the quarantine started. I think I took on too much, didn't sleep enough, and my usual outlets are not there anymore. Which it wasn't a huge deal when I wasn't stressed for the first month. But now that I am stressed, I am feeling that hole. Guess I need to find internal stress reliefs. I have found I am snapping at people online. Like almost seeking out arguments. I mean they are all still me and my voice and I am still coming at it with the same morals I hold myself to when I am not stressed... but why the heck do I care what random internet people think. What is going on. I guess it is getting my stress out and feeling like I am doing something productive even though I am not. I understand internet trolls now. But goodness I hope my life never getsĀ that bad.

Okay. I am going to bed super early and with melatonin. I hope it helps! Tomorrow is a new day. And it will probably be rocky because of my horrible day today. But it still has the potential to even be one step above today. So I am excited.

Tuesday April 21, 2020

Sleep: 7 hours 50 minutes (score: 88)

Weight: 102.4

Exercise: yes

Overall: average

PT: yes

Still tired. Still stressed. What else is new? Today was better though! I got a lot more sleep than usual. Still relatively low sleep score for the amount of sleep I got but hey I will take it. I did the last PoSSUM webinar today. It was on team diversity and communication. And I was 1/2 of a keynote speaker! We had two of us do it... I think Shawna realized how vastly under qualified but generally excited I truly am... secret's out! So she teamed me up with a girl (Morgan) with tons of analog experience. It was fun. But I didn't feel the same flow as usual and I felt silly whenever I said anything. Like my point was either too out there or too naive... I don't know. It was hard to explain. But my parents finally got to tune in. I appreciated them being there. Even if it was a bit weird since like... literally nobody else had their mommy and daddy watching. But I think they are so used to supporting me on literally everything it was weird to have them not allowed in. So it was nice to have them there.

I had some cool career stuff happen today. More to come later possibly. After work I spent WAY too long making a little video for STEM instagram girls... why do I do this. It isn't me. I don't like those videos. I don't like feeling like I have to compete to be pretty. I just want to go on lives and talk about my vulnerabilities until I cry in front of a hundred people. Is that too much to ask? I probably won't be focusing too much on that stuff any more. I know it is how to grow your social media presences but it just isn't me. And I have been preaching about being true to yourself and your message when it comes to social media.

Anyways it was a good night. Got to relax, even though I shouldn't have... now I am behind on homework AND my PoSSUM papers. Ugh. It never ends. Oh but I did find my pen! Very few people know what this means to me. I have a Surface and I used OneNote like NO other to plan everything out. The pen is super helpful and a fine tip to keep everything organized and clean. MY CAT freaking stole it last week. Probably about 3 AM I heard her playing in the main room. Not uncommon. But the next morning I discovered she had been playing with my surface pen and it got lost. I FOUND IT TODAY UNDER THE LEG OF MY COUCH. Believe me when I said I looked under there but that sucker was HIDDEN under the couch. I joked that was literally the reason I had such a hard time this weekend. Now that balance has been restored to the force, I expect my life to go back to smooth sailing. Ha. Okay maybe not....

Wednesday April 22, 2020

Sleep: 6 hours 59 minutes (score: 81)

Weight: 102.0

Exercise: yes

Overall: average, overwhelmed

PT: yes

You know what is funny? That I titled this week "starting to get the hang of this". You know why that is funny? Because I am not.

Today was fairly average. At least to start. I felt pretty productive at work. Fairly tired but I am really going all in on this data flow stuff I am doing. I like that. And I gotĀ almost 100% on my last econ assignment so that made me feel really good too. Especially because it was so confusing that almost nobody got it right. So go Bailey.

And then... the career stuff happened. I don't want to get into it too much on such a public platform but oh my goodness. Today it really hit hard... I am not doing what I love. I mean it is a job and I enjoy it well enough. But I need to jump into my passion now. I think it is time. I think I have spent the last two years honing in on how to "be passionate." If that makes sense. I know how to love something so much and dedicate myself to it and how to integrate it into my life and make it part of my identity. And my job is not part of that identity right now. It is just how I pay for my passions. I got really overwhelmed this afternoon and I just have so many options. And they aren't necessarily in the cool space stuff I want to be doing. And I don't know what to do about that. Like seriously, imagine me just... jiving with a job I loved with all the cool side projects I love and just being... me. My PoSSUM 13 girl squad helped me out a lot. They gave me good advice and Sian just called and talked me down. She completely changed her life direction and decided she wanted to become a college professor (and a B.A. one at that). She told me to just... chill. To refocus on what I want and to go freaking pursue it. To stop waiting for the opportunities to come to me because the right ones aren't coming. So I am going to go figure out what I want. I am going to go network. Sian might have even talked me into going for a PhD.

I think I decided I want to focus either on the human factor side of space or (the one I am more likely to enjoy) space infrastructure, specifically lunar infrastructure.

So there ya go universe. Let's see what you do with that. Until then I am going to bed. Here is to tomorrow.

Thursday April 23, 2020

Sleep: 6 hours 26 minutes (score: 80)

Weight: 101.8

Exercise: yes

Overall: average, overwhelmed

PT: yes

You guys. I am so bummed. I had a GREAT post last night but apparently it wasn't saved. Ugh. I will have to do my best to try to recreate it. I am so sad right now!

Basically what happened was I had a decent day at work... but then I had a rough night. I went live to talk about F.O.M.O on my Instagram. I was feeling really confident because I had some tips about choosing what matters, learning to say no, the whole nine yards. It was an area that I knew I needed help but I felt like I could give advice on it. Then literally five minutes before, I got some news that really... just shook me up and threw me off for my live. It resulted in me having this like existential crisis with a bunch of people watching on my live. It honestly felt like a dream and when I try to think back on it now, it feels like I am watching it from a different perspective. Like I am watching me as a viewer but I also am feeling everything. Weird stuff. But basically I realized I need to start picking my direction and going for it. I feel kind of trapped and unsure of what to do next. But I need to change something.

I promise it was a much more eloquent last night. Maybe what I typed was SO right and SO self realization that the universe decided it couldn't be put on the internet and they had to delete it. I felt better and more understood after last night's post. And there was a lot more thought process. But it stupidly didn't save. I blame technology.

Friday April 24, 2020

Sleep: 6 hours 41 minutes (score: 88)

Weight: 102.2

Exercise: yes

Overall: average, positive ish, tired

PT: yes

After whatever the heck yesterday was... I needed a day like today. I started off having a productive morning at work. I did my "Success After College" presentation for Mines. It always feels good to do that. I get to talk about things I really like and I feel like I help engineers realize there is a lot more to careers than just engineering. Then I did a good team meeting... then I had an iffy team meeting for the fun initiative I am doing... and then I presented for the customer today. That was pretty cool. Good job Bailey. It was a LOT of talking today. And a lot of presenting.

Then I ended up going to the store. In all honesty for COVID-19 talk... it was weird. Almost everyone was wearing masks. And I got multiple dirty looks for not wearing a mask. I am sorry guys, am I missing something? You wear a mask if you are sick to keep the disease internal to you. That is how they work. Workers I can understand because they come across so many people they don't know if they are infected or not and that is why they are wearing masks. As a safety precaution in case an earlier customer infected them. Do people not understand the point of the masks? Or am I missing something huge? I had hand sanitizer with me so before I got in the car I cleaned my hands... so I just... I feel I am missing it. But logically I feel like all of them are missing it. I don't know. Someone explain it to me.

But it was fun to go out. Finally... I had my last day of ground school! I did it! 12 classes with 3-4 hours each. It was insane! I can't believe I did it. I feel like I learned a lot and know how to go about getting my pilot's license... but there was a lot I still don't understand so it will take a lot more work before I am there. But it feels SO good to be done. Ugh that was a rough one to sit through.

Anyways... it was an average day with a lot of little wins. And that is exactly what I needed. I hope to be more productive tomorrow and by the time next week rolls around, I might be back on a somewhat normal schedule!

Saturday April 25, 2020

Sleep: 7 hours 4 minutes (score: 81)

Weight: 101.8

Exercise: no

Overall: unproductive but positive

PT: no

Well. Today did not go how it was supposed to. I was hoping to have one of my PoSSUM papers completely done. Annnnnd it is only about a page in. *sigh* AND my washing machine broke. I had done one load, started the second, and it just never drained. I don't know what that's about but I am not happy. And the maintenance guy didn't end up showing today. I hope they come tomorrow.

I did have a PoSSUM 13 meeting... and to be honest? I felt out of place. I absolutely loved it, don't get me wrong. I love those women so much and I love feeling like a team. But so much of it was just... not me today. I didn't feel like I could contribute and when I did I felt like a first grader asking the sixth graders if they wanted to play tag at recess. If that makes sense.

Had some positive social media stuff today though. Released the picture I have been working on for the PoSSUM 13, got some publicity with STAR Lab since I am going live with them next week, stuff like that.

Overall? I am feeling better. I think I am getting out of my funk. And I feel like quarantine will end soon. I still won't be going out like I used to, but it would be nice to not feel completely trapped at home. I am honestly a little worried to return to normal life again. Like work? I feel so much better working from home... I don't know if I want to go back. Even if I do miss my friends and stuff... I just feel better working from home. I don't know... is that just me? Is anyone else feeling a little anxious about getting OUT of quarantine?

I did get to go on a mountain drive today. Colorado is absolutely gorgeous. I don't ever want to leave this state. Saw some goats and pigs and donkeys... it was pretty great. I think getting out and just... relaxing was why I was okay with today being a less productive day. Means I have to hit it hard tomorrow... and I am up WAY too late as is to do that. Oh well. It was a good day and that is what matters.