Boredom

I told my boss yesterday that I was bored.  I am tired of teaching the classes I am teaching.  I need a challenge.  And then today I got to thinking about boredom.  What is it?  Is it necessarily bad?  And is boredom really what is ailing me?

Dictionary.com defines boredom as

“the state of being bored; tedium; ennui”

but that isn’t very helpful.  At least I don’t think so.

So I checked wikipedia, which says:

“Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is left without anything in particular to do, and not interested in their surroundings.”

That seems a little closer to what I am experiencing.  I don’t have to think a lot about my classes; I just design a few new activities from time to time and then let the students work on the computer software the rest of the time.  I answer questions and help with problems as they arise.

So I decided to read on.  Under the heading of Psychology, wikipedia goes on to say:

In positive psychology, boredom is described as a response to a moderate challenge for which the subject has more than enough skill.

Now that is more like it.  I am bored at work because it isn’t fully utilizing my skills and abilities.  I was doing OK with that until I read:

Although boredom is often viewed as a trivial and mild irritant, proneness to boredom has been linked to a very diverse range of possible psychological, physical, educational, and social problems.

So maybe I am not so enamored of wikipedia’s Boredom page after all!

But I am still not sure if I think boredom is a bad thing or not.  It seems like it might be, and it surely feels like it on many occasions, but is it?  It seems to me that when I am bored, I am often led to start a new project.  This is especially true at work.  I want to develop more classes, work the kinks out of them, and then turn them over to someone else.

Oh, that sounded very egotistical!

I think I am suffering from boredom.  I have always hated to sit around with nothing to do.  I thrive on a challenge.  Now I just have to find a way out of it, to come up with a new challenge in my life.  Anyone who knows me would be fairly certain that I have about plenty of challenges in my life right now, but obviously I need another one — maybe one I can do something about for a change!

Homemade Samurai Armor

My husband sent me a link to an article about a guy who made his own samurai armor.  Real armor.  Cool armor.  It seems a little extreme to me, but what the heck?  Why not?

Brian Ashcraft the author of the article, explains:

With the help of a metalworking craftsman friend, books, and the internet, Danny began work on a suit of samurai armor. The process was long and taxing: The small metal plates were hammered by hand and then strung together by over 700 feet of rope.

He also made weapons and a flag to complete his outfit.  It looks just like something out of a Kurosawa movie!

The guy does cosplay so he really wears the armor – all 80 pounds of it — on a somewhat regular basis.  That in itself takes dedication!

If you are even remotely interested in samurai or cosplay or armor, check the article out!

Slow going

I have had a hard time getting going on writing again — despite my good intentions and unbridled optimism.  I wrote for several days in my journal and made a couple posts here and then nothing.  I was busy.  I was lazy.  I was not home.  But most of all, I just didn’t write.

Today, though, I journaled a little.  I found some information about Japanese trees for the novel, and now I am posting here.  Maybe there is hope!

Belonging

“Places possess an emotional significance that contribute profoundly to our identity as individual human beings; we all must belong somewhere to be complete persons.”

I read that today in the book I picked up from the bookshelf in my classroom, The Human Mosaic by Bychkov, Domosh, Newmann, and Price.  (It was on page 1, if you are interested.)

And since I read it, I have been unable to get it out of my mind.

Where do I belong?  I was born in northern Illinois but have not been back there even for a visit in almost 20 years.  I have lived in many countries and in many states.  Where is it that I truly belong?  What place makes me a complete human being?

Would it be presumptuous to say that I am different, that I don’t need a physical place?  Probably.  And yet that is how I feel.  But maybe I am fooling myself.  Maybe I am missing something.  Or maybe I really do feel that I belong someplace.

I think that, for me, my husband has taken the place of a place.  I belong with him.  I think that is part of what has been so difficult about this last year and a half with only seeing each other every 3 or 4 weeks.  I feel incomplete.  Not in a “You complete me” kind of way, though.  It isn’t that corny.  But I think that, because we have lived so many places for so long, he is the only real constant in my life.  And I am OK with that.

But the quote also made me think about my kids.  I think a couple of them have suffered from that lack of place, that lack of belonging.  And I am only just now realizing it.  Too late, in many ways.  This is something I am going to have to ponder for a while.

A Start

Well, I filled my fountain pens yesterday and actually did some writing practice.  Nothing remarkable, but it is a start.  Of course, it remains to be seen how long I can/will sustain it and how that will translate into more blogging and more work on the novels.

Writing Practice

I have totally gotten away from writing practice.  I am not sure why it happened, but I can tell you when.  It was when I started my current job January 3, 2012.  I need to get back into regular practice — either here or in my notebook.  I cannot expect my writing to improve if I am not writing.

That being said, my son it adding a bit more to two fight scenes in the novel, and then we will do a semi-final edit.  This novel has been a long process, but it has been worth it.

May Reading

Taking a road trip where I didn’t have to drive much and then taking another few days off work have allowed me to read more this month than usual — or at least more than I have been reading lately.

The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux was an old mystery.  Until I just looked him up on Wikipedia, I had no idea he was the author of The Phantom of the Opera. The Mystery of the Yellow Room was apparently his first novel.  It was quite good.

Berserker Throne was the first book by by Fred Saberhagen that I have ever read.  I have seen his widow at conferences and always said I would get around to reading some of his stuff, but I never had.  This was one I downloaded from Baen’s Free Library.  Or at least I think that is where I got it from.  It no longer appears there, so I cannot be sure.  It was a good book, though, and I will acquire more of the Berserker series for sure!

The Year When Stardust Fell by Raymond F. Jones was written in 1958, and it shows its age.  It was a good story, though.  I was not familiar with Jones’ work before this.  I will probably try to find more.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster was on the shelf in my classroom, and I have been reading at it off and on for some time.  It gave me some ideas to think about in terms of the novel my son and I are still writing.  While Foster is a professor, the book was very easy to read and did not pretend to have all the answers about literature.  I enjoyed it.

Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George is the latest of her Inspector Lynley books.  It is the first one I have read electronically.  I don’t know how/if that affected my experience with this book, but somehow or other I didn’t get as into it as I had expected to. It was still a good book, though, and I find I am already looking forward to her next one, which is due out this year.

Whose Body? is the second book I have read by Dorothy L. Sayers.  It was her first Lord Peter Wimsey novel.   I was glad to learn that because he was a much better character in the second one, Clouds of Witness, which I read first.  In this one, Wimsey recites poetry and is more playing at being a detective than he is in the other.  I would be happy to read more of her work if I can find it.

So I have read six books this month.  That’s a little bit better than some months!

Home again…

Yes, we have been home from our trip to Kansas for a long time.  But I am taking a few days off work and am “home” again in Portales.  It’s where my husband, my dogs and my books are, so it feels like home.  

Funny thing is, this is only the second time I have been here since I left at the end of December, 2011.  

New Theme

I wasn’t doing much better this month than last in terms of writing here.  But I posted a book I had finished reading to my 2013 reading list, and I decided I was bored with the theme of this blog.  I hadn’t looked at options for ages, and I was pleasantly surprised by some of the new options.  I tried on several before finding this one.  It was love at first sight!

Will I write more because I have a new theme?  It’s worth a shot!

Traveling

My husband and I are taking a road trip.  We left Grants yesterday morning and are currently in Winfield, Kansas.  It will be a quick trip, I’m afraid, as I have to be at work Monday morning.  It’s OK, though, because in addition to the business we are here on, we will get to see an old friend.  It’s great!