So, Internet, it's been a pretty okay summer. I've been working hard, in more ways than one, and it is starting to pay off in small, incremental ways, although it is a hard road to hoe, not to mention slow going.
The business is coming up, even if it is at a sluggish pace. I finally feel fully confident in my skills, and my ability to sell those skills to just about anybody. I haven't gotten any aghast reactions to my rates in a while, which means I'm selling to the correct market, at last. Now I just have to find the time to seek out more of that market.
I joined a gym a few months ago. I pour lots of time into walking briskly on a treadmill, and once a week I see a personal trainer who kicks my ass. My first week, I had personal training sessions on both Monday and Wednesday, and on Friday morning I was slowly waking up when I asked my half-awake self, Was I in a car accident?
Nope, I realized. I'm just that sore. Read More »
I had a terrifying nightmare last night, disturbing enough to cause me to not even want to write about it now. It woke me up in the middle of the night, but I had already forgotten it and didn't know why I had woken up. Being the geek that I am, upon waking I wondered over to my computer to check my email. I was in the middle of surfing Consumating five minutes later when awful flashes of it suddenly started coming back to me, and I immediately opened up Notepad and typed out the details as they came back. Then I couldn't sit in the dark at my computer anymore, and I got back into bed, curling into a ball under the covers to wait for dawn, when things hopefully wouldn't be so scary. I fell into a restless sleep, and when I woke up at 6:30 I watched some Sopranos and stayed bed until the sun came up.
After all that, when I started to work this morning, I was tired and couldn't concentrate, not to mention sort of traumatized by what my brain is capable of producing. So I took up my long-dead habit of drinking coffee. Four cups later I'm wired and can't concentrate, not to mention sort of traumatized by what my brain is capable of producing. I drugged myself into mania and nervousness.
I think I miscalculated.
I had a strange dream last night where my old supervisor called me up and asked me (more like begged me) to come back to work for him. I only had to come in 20 hours a week and I could do it around my own schedule, even though my hourly rate had not changed. This new schedule basically gave me the freedom I needed to run my own business. The dream was hyperreal, insofar as when I woke up I had a pretty hard time sorting out if it had actually happened.
In the dream I went through a whole working week, but I never seemed to get any work done. My new-ish job seemed to involve lounging at my desk a lot with my feet up, bellowing orders at the others in my office, and laughing in a menacing, threatening and non-friendly way.
In essence, I think I was in management.
You are reading the life, times, and general musings of Jenna Tollerson. I am a web developer and consultant living in downtown Athens, Georgia, USA. [read more]