MIA

So yeah, I've been missing in action on the blog front. I've been so very busy lately, and while part of me hates to be so "go, go, go" all the time, anther part of me knows that I go nuts when all of a sudden I stop and bam, I've got nothing to do, nothing planned, nothing scheduled. I've found I thrive on having my life planned out weeks to months in advance. I've gotten to the point where I find it hard to be spontaneous, partly my own doing and partly because if I wanted to be spontaneous, all the people I'd want to be spontaneous with are busy with other things because I didn't schedule things in advance. *sigh* heh

Part of why I haven't blogged in a while is decompressing after Sweeney and adjusting to new job responsibilities. After such an intense schedule for Sweeney there was a lot of things in my life that I had neglected that needed catching up on. Additionally I've come into new responsibilities at the office.

One of the server administrators left to go to another institution and since I was in the process of becoming the backup administrator for the online course management software that we run at WPI, I ended up by default as the most knowlegable person on the systems. Now, don't get me wrong, I am happy to have gotten more responsibility and am looking forward to the challenges but its very stressful to suddenly be dropped into a position that you know very little about and have to run with it. The good news is that I'm flying down to DC for training next week and that should alleviate some of the feeling of flying blind.

Another reason for lack of posts is not for lack of things to write about. In fact there have been several times I've thought of posting something. The problem is that every time I got to that point the mental filter went through its checklist and vetoed the post. When I started out this blog I swore that I would do my best to not use this as some sort of passive/agressive method of complaining about issues that I wouldn't do otherwise. I have a few key things that I use as checks and balances on my posts. If the answer to the question is no, then I don't post.

• If I'm complaining about something, have I dealt with the issue directly yet?
• If I talk about someone in particular, would I say the same to their face?
• Would I be comfortable if a person involved read the post?
• Would I be comfortable if my mother read the post? (very appropriate since she and my aunts do, in fact, read my blog)

When I hit those areas I either deal with it and then post or talk to a friend (or several friends) directly about it and don't post. Also for those things where I just want to write it out I'll usually just write it in my diary.

Finally, it all comes down to an excerpt of Netwon's First Law (yes I'm a geek) which states "An object at rest tends to stay at rest...". What this essentially means is that the longer it is between posts, the larger the effort it is to post again. Hopefully that means that now that I've begun posting again I'll keep it up.