What's on your mind today?

[Tank]

I'm feeling burnt out, like I need to take a break from everything. I haven't been posting much here and haven't been socialising much irl either. Mostly just keeping to myself a wallowing in my own negative thoughts. 

What sort of negative thoughts? You have a LOT to be proud of. You went back to school when a lot of people would've thought that they were too old. You are successfully building a career in your field as a published scientist. You are gaining experience as a lecturer and teacher, and if your own assessment is accurate you were pretty good at it out of the gate.

If you need to take a step back and recharge, do it but don't stop moving forward or let yourself become your own worst enemy. In addition to being proud of yourself and what you've managed to achieve you should know without question that there are others who are very proud of you as well. I can't be the only one. The membership of HAF can't be the only ones either.

Hear hear!

[xSilverPhinx]

I'm feeling burnt out, like I need to take a break from everything. I haven't been posting much here and haven't been socialising much irl either. Mostly just keeping to myself a wallowing in my own negative thoughts. 

Relax and do something you like. Dig out your games consul!

Yeah, I've been wanting to do that since I got the thing, but as with everything I kept putting it on hold.

[Dark Lightning]

I'm bummed out. Our family rescued a dog almost a year ago from the local animal shelter. It has occasionally bullied one of the other dogs. Not a big deal, just growling. But today she attacked the little dog and I had to take it to the vet. Fortunately the little dog just has the doggy equivalent of a black eye. But it is swollen enough to required steroids, and pain medication as well. This dog was chosen to be a companion for my son, who is depressed, among other things. We have noticed that the little dog (Chihuahua) has been mostly staying in the master bedroom. Two days ago she left there, and the big dog growled at her. My son and I both scolded the big dog. In talking with the vet and my wife, we have decided that the dog has to go back to the shelter. The part that bothers me the most is that we were told that the big dog (a beagle/dachshund mix) was taken to the shelter because she "growled at the kids if they tried to take her toys". Well, duh, of course she would, so what would we suspect? I am convinced that we were underinformed, whether by the people at the shelter or the surrendering family not giving them the whole truth. No telling what the chain of events was with those conversations, but this time the shelter people will be fully informed. If it had been a child, the dog would have gone back at the first instance. But we would be watching a child all day, not leaving it alone for a few hours like we would a pet dog. Interestingly enough, it doesn't give our other dog any kind of grief.

That's a rotten thing to happen. And as you are well aware dogs can be complex and do react to in different ways to different situations. It could be that in a previous dynamic the dog had not reacted the way it does in the dynamic it finds itself in now. All that said I would have done exactly what you did.

Thanks! We're still trying to figure out what to do. My wife thinks training may help. Last resort will be to take the dog to a no-kill shelter. It's true about it being a different situation, too. The dog may not have done such a thing to a child, I just don't know. For now we are keeping them apart from each other at all times. We'll likely end up using the side yard as a dog run with a dog house in it for day use. The dog sleeps in my son's room at night, and the door is closed.

The swelling is going down nicely on the chihuahua, so that's good. There appears to be no nerve damage.

[Sandra Craft]

I'm feeling burnt out, like I need to take a break from everything. I haven't been posting much here and haven't been socialising much irl either. Mostly just keeping to myself a wallowing in my own negative thoughts. 

What sort of negative thoughts? You have a LOT to be proud of. You went back to school when a lot of people would've thought that they were too old. You are successfully building a career in your field as a published scientist. You are gaining experience as a lecturer and teacher, and if your own assessment is accurate you were pretty good at it out of the gate.

If you need to take a step back and recharge, do it but don't stop moving forward or let yourself become your own worst enemy. In addition to being proud of yourself and what you've managed to achieve you should know without question that there are others who are very proud of you as well. I can't be the only one. The membership of HAF can't be the only ones either.

Well said, and I second every word of that.

Thanks Hermes. Just typing that rant made me feel better, that you guys read it is a huge plus. I apologise, however. I don't want to 'contaminate' anyone with my negativity. It will pass. I'm sure it will.

Maybe I should start a journal. Putting my thoughts somewhere helps.

I third all that.  And the journal sounds like a very good idea -- I've found putting nagging thoughts down on paper sometimes helps me get rid of them, or at least be able to think them thru better.

[xSilverPhinx]

I'm feeling burnt out, like I need to take a break from everything. I haven't been posting much here and haven't been socialising much irl either. Mostly just keeping to myself a wallowing in my own negative thoughts. 

What sort of negative thoughts? You have a LOT to be proud of. You went back to school when a lot of people would've thought that they were too old. You are successfully building a career in your field as a published scientist. You are gaining experience as a lecturer and teacher, and if your own assessment is accurate you were pretty good at it out of the gate.

If you need to take a step back and recharge, do it but don't stop moving forward or let yourself become your own worst enemy. In addition to being proud of yourself and what you've managed to achieve you should know without question that there are others who are very proud of you as well. I can't be the only one. The membership of HAF can't be the only ones either.

Well said, and I second every word of that.

Thanks Hermes. Just typing that rant made me feel better, that you guys read it is a huge plus. I apologise, however. I don't want to 'contaminate' anyone with my negativity. It will pass. I'm sure it will.

Maybe I should start a journal. Putting my thoughts somewhere helps.

I third all that.  And the journal sounds like a very good idea -- I've found putting nagging thoughts down on paper sometimes helps me get rid of them, or at least be able to think them thru better.

Yeah, I'm going to give that a try.

[Buddy]

So a customer at work just gave me an ostrich egg

[xSilverPhinx]

So a customer at work just gave me an ostrich egg

[Tank]

So a customer at work just gave me an ostrich egg

Full or empty?

[Buddy]

So a customer at work just gave me an ostrich egg

Full or empty?

It's full. He has a farm and his ostriches unexpectedly laid some eggs. I'm going to put it in my mom's chicken coop as a joke.

[Tank]

So a customer at work just gave me an ostrich egg

Full or empty?

It's full. He has a farm and his ostriches unexpectedly laid some eggs. I'm going to put it in my mom's chicken coop as a joke.

Love it!

[Dark Lightning]

So a customer at work just gave me an ostrich egg

Full or empty?

It's full. He has a farm and his ostriches unexpectedly laid some eggs. I'm going to put it in my mom's chicken coop as a joke.

She's going to be looking for one damaged chicken!

[xSilverPhinx]

I should probably go sleep but I just don't feel sleepy. I know I just know I'm going to regret this tomorrow morning though.
Tomorrow the alarm's going go off at 7h30 (in less than 7 hours) and I'm going to stagger out of bed like this and I mean literally like this.

Does anyone else take a while to fully wake up? A couple of days ago I got out of bed and was searching in for my flip-flops with my feet when I tripped on nothing because brain.exe could not be found. 

[jumbojak]

Waking up isn't a problem. Getting moving is. The legs don't Ben well early on.

[Icarus]

Some of us are not happy waker uppers Silver.  I count myself as one of those who is  not good at shaking the sleep out of my carcass in the early morning.  I am bright eyed and bushy tailed at 1 AM however.  There is much more to the circadian rhythms than is accounted for by a damned clock.

[Tank]

I am one of those people who is pretty much 90% functional when I wake up.