(no subject)

"Conditions of Enoughness:" I got my Monday's (day off) and Tuesday's goals done. I note that I am a very very easy grader on meeting my daily goals. Someone was once trying to suggest i drop my expectations for targets: currently i have a list of walking, talking microbreaks, journaling, and some other self care goals. These are behaviors i want to turn to habits, but rarely do i do them all, so a weekly review invariably finds me short. This doesn't bother me as much as the idea of not trying to make those all daily habits. None of them are competing goals: i never have a competition between journaling and walking as one is a morning habit and the other is an evening habit for me. Thus, i don't see what dropping one to focus on the other would do to "help" me.

Setting (and meeting) "Conditions of Enoughness" -- limited and specific daily goals -- is another self care practice. I generally use these for highlighting things i would procrastinate in doing. Oh, if i could set aside a chunk of time at the *beginning* of my work day! Instead, the time for these is after 2pm. (Which is when i would prefer to have meetings!) The "easy grader" thought came to mind because one of my COEs for yesterday wasn't completed, but it more than doubled in scope between when i put it on my list (two familiar change write-ups) and when i started (plus two less familiar, plus a three unique write-ups). Still, i worked on it all afternoon, so yay me.

Google's contact harvesting: Wow, what a lot of contacts. And strange ones - there's one for my grandmother who died before Google existed. Is that from some photo label? I'm deleting it, anyway. I don't know what i'm breaking, but they need better metadata if they're going to intertwingle details this way.

Media Wednesday

Video:
* Finished Morse. So so very sad, so we are starting Inspector Lewis over (at least until i start remembering how they end).
* Netflix recommended Royal Pains. I skimmed the first episode. Um, no.
* Watched Romancing the Stone (1984), last watched ages and ages ago. I think i like "Action Adventure Romantic Comedies." There's Crocodile Dundee, African Queen, and ? I guess many Kathryn Hepburn films? Recommendations for Netflix available Kathryn Hepburn films always welcome, any other recommendations? Anything more recent than the 80s?

Listening:
* Raising Steam (Discworld) by Terry Pratchett - started during the summit week as i thought i needed a diversion, not more thinking. Not particularly excited. I've seen some of the Discworld videos on Netflix and enjoyed those, but the full narrative, listening, misses the power of the skim to edit and the video editor's sharpening of the story.

* Still loving Biology: The Science of Life. At 36 hours plus, i am listening at 2x speed.

Courses: I am happy to discover Coursera has an iPad app that downloads the videos. I've sketched out a series of fall courses for myself. The first is four weeks (20140801-0831) "Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects." This seems rather light. The first week introduced me to a number of techniques i already knew, although it was useful to hear that the number of "chunks" has been reduced from the "four to seven" guideline that was espoused in information architecture menu design to just four.

Next, with a slight overlap, is (20140823-0914) Preparation for Introductory Biology: DNA to Organisms. I think this one will be tough, as it will involve memorization. The audiolecture will have undergirded the conceptual understandings i need, but this will force me to learn language and labels.

I'm not sure whether i will stick with the next, (20140915-1110) Sustainability in Practice. It is, however, buzzword rich. I may spring for a certificate and list it on Linked In, if i think i can keep up.

Finally, the exciting one: (20141026-1214) What a Plant Knows. I think this is Biology for Physicists and Poets: it looks pretty light in the time commitment. There's a Nature episode, What Plants Talk About, that is similar.