(no subject)

I dreamed i was depressed which was ... unnecessary. I've been feeling the blues over the past several days. While it may be associated with grief, i suspect it has more to do with hormonal changes and the hot flashes i've been experiencing. Caffeine does help.

This morning, my director said, "I thought you[r] point was on target, but I think you could have been more effective. Remember the audience doesn't understand the [subject matter] implications. You could have started with some context, rather than dropping a bomb, awkward pause, then some context."

After i admitted it was a "blurt," he concluded "No big deal, but you are THE authority on this stuff / You get it inside and out / no one else does."

I focussed a bit more on his critique than his constructive advice, and got myself in a dither about how i may have ended up in some whirlpool of being judged never appropriate for communicating about our project to others and became overwrought. I reread it now and still wonder at the impression i have made: i sometimes feel like i am judged as the awful subject mater expert dragon.

I'm going to talk to a colleague in HR about it, and at that time also follow up on what financial implications follow if we move to Ohio (or North Carolina).

...

Re moving - i must say that the native plant society in North Carolina seems FAR more lively than that in Ohio, and the recent Smithsonian Magazine has a claim that the southeast has some of the most critical biodiversity areas in the United States. I raise my eyebrow at that, so heavily coached in the wonders of California, yet i know that North Carolina is the other hot spot for discovering new mosses, and my memories of the many southeastern landscapes leave me certain that there are a large and diverse number of ecological communities in the southeast.

...

Retraining us and Edward goes on fairly successfully, although communicating "no" to the cats doesn't seem ... possible.

Tomorrow is another early morning meeting...