Month three, or is it four? Self-refection with SWOT Analysis

I managed to get myself back on track, slightly, during March with my self-refection efforts. Then I wound up sick for the first two weeks of April--cold and flu stuff, but still, it's sucked. I'm rarely sick enough to warrant my taking time off work, but I had to take a day off from both my jobs. Yuck. Anyway, my being sick derailed my efforts to complete my review of March's efforts to consider my life.

For March I opted to use SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis. I realize this is a method for businesses to make decisions, but I thought the different way of looking at my problem might be useful.

Strengths:
Strengths, Experiences, What makes you unique

• Creative*--I'm a writer, reasonably artistic, a half-decent eye for what looks 'good.'
• Reliable--I almost never miss a day (the last week excepted), never show up late.
• Independent worker--I don't need constant reminders, or a hovering supervisor to get my work done.
• Researcher and librarian--10+ year experience in academic research, with involvement in various stages and various roles of the research.
• Small group fitness instructor--2 years experience in teaching aerial circus skills, speaking in front of small groups, class management.
• Baker and cook--need baked goods?
• Seamstress

After some discussion, Andrew told me that: "You are very good at doing whatever it is you need to do for the job in front of you."

I'm not quite sure how to sum that up, maybe: Gets Shit Done?

*I always say I'm creative, but what does this mean, really? How much of a strength is this? Why do I always think of myself as creative? I'm beginning to wonder.

Weaknesses:
Areas for improvement, resources needed, education required

• Initiative--This may seem kinda of weird. I'm really good at doing tasks assigned to me and completing them on time. What I'm not so great at is, when I'm told something general needs to be done about this huge thing, figuring out what I should do about it, or where I should start. Being presented with an overarching or generic problem with no specific requests on how to fix it stresses me out.
• Timid/Conflict Adverse--I almost always prefer to handle things via email if I can. Please don't get in my face.
• Jealous--I constantly struggle with feelings of jealousy, especially when I see someone have an awesome opportunity open up to themselves, to which I have no share (but wish I could).
• Insecure/Lack of Confidence--Seriously, my head is a mess.
• No business sense--Hence why my self-published novels have sold very little.
• No specific goals--I tend to think in generalizations...

Here's a thing I learned from doing SWOT: I've always been a dreamer. I've spent a lot of car and bus trips daydreaming. I used to spend a lot of boring nights as a child and teenager wishing something random and amazing would happen to me, at my house in the countryside.

Dreaming doesn't translate into success. At least not directly.

I have dreamed of being a writer for about at long as I can remember. I have three full novels sitting on Amazon Kindle doing only slightly less than nothing. I have failed to do anything about this. I haven't learned how to market myself. I haven't learned how to make a better cover for my novels to make them more attractive. I haven't learned how to use a Kindle marketing campaign. I haven't even stood on street corners handing out flyers for my books.

(I have, in fact, spent years sending my first to novels [Cimwai's Bay and The Cure] to agents and publishers, to mostly no avail.)

If I choose to take the artist's route for the rest of my life, I have to learn how to do this. Yes, I love to write, it makes me feel good when I've completed a (in my opinion) particularly delectable scene. HOWEVER. I would also like to make a small sum from my efforts.

I have to take initiative to make my dreams come true.

Ciao,

Andrea

P.S. I'll finish the last 2 points of my SWOT Analysis next time...this post got long.

Photography by Alexa Baker--because she is awesome and makes me look awesome.

Staycation 2014: Yes we did, and it worked pretty well

For some time Andrew and I felt that we were in desperate need of a vacation. I kept throwing out: "Why don't we go away for Christmas?" But Andrew wouldn't go for it. Personally, I have no problem with the idea of palm trees and no snow at Christmas time, but Andrew (probably rightly) felt we were better off to go home and visit family and friends.

At any rate, and as is often the case, when we got back from the holidays, the feeling of exhaustion only continued to mount (I never sleep, nor eat well when we stay at either of our parents homes). Eventually we agreed we had to take some kind of proper vacation, but we couldn't decide on what. Being a port city, lots of cruises go out of Boston, so that was one option. We could go for a packaged beach deal (something we've never done before), I was even toying with the idea of flying to England or Scotland for a week.

There was one teensy, weensy problem. Aerials classes. I know, we could have just missed a week, except I'm already going to miss a week when I go to NECCA mid-February, so that left us trying to cram something in between Thursday of one week to Tuesday of the next. That's not really enough for a relaxing vacation. After much discussion (and probably a lot of moaning from me) we decided we could do a staycation. Sleep in, visit museums, eat out or do take out, take things slow and do whatever we want, and I'd say for the most part, it worked.

I'm not going to give an in depth recounting of our activities. That would be long and boring for everyone, but I'll give a brief overview of what we saw and did. Most of the places we went didn't allow pictures, and the weather was generally cold, which isn't conducive to outdoor photography either. So...

Saturday, Salem: Phillips House, this was great, we pretty much got a personal tour (January isn't exactly the height of tourist season in Salem). In the afternoon we went to the Peabody Essex Museum and saw an interesting exhibit on Japanese Haute Culture.

Sunday, Normal Day: Sunday was aerials practice and class, which was standard order for Sunday.

Monday, Boston: We were going to go for breakfast at the Neighborhood Family Restaurant, it's very popular around here, but as it was actually a holiday in the US on Monday, there was a sizable line by the time we arrived. Instead we went to S&S Restaurant, in Inman Square. We spent the afternoon in the Museum of Science, which was pretty fun and we also went to the planetarium. I haven't been to a planetarium show in ages, and it was awesome (all about moons)!

Tuesday, Cambridge: Tuesday was MIT day. We took a tour of MIT, which was interesting, but not quite as historical as we might have liked. It was also pretty cold that day, so the outside bits were kind of uncomfortable. In the afternoon we went to the MIT museum. It had a collection of cool robots and interesting art exhibits.

Wednesday, Boston: We went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which is a super cool art museum, created by well,...Isabella Steward Gardner. She collected all kinds of art (wide ranges of ages, styles, etc), built a building to show her art, and arranged it as she wished (she was very rich).

Thursday, Our Apartment, and Boston: We were going to go to the Boston Symphony on Thursday, but we were getting kind of pooped out from the walking and appreciating culture by this point. Instead, Andrew slept in, while I watched the Lizzie Bennet Diaries and knit--he joined me once he got up (all told, we watched, roughly, episodes 35-100). Afterwards (around 2:30 pm) we went to the Museum of Fine Art, which was enormous. We saw maybe a quarter of the museum.

Friday, Cambridge: Friday was kind of wonky. I had an appointment at 12:30, which made it difficult to make plans. Instead we went shopping for the afternoon (and both got trench coats from Banana Republic--they were half price).

Saturday, Revere, Cambridge: We decided to go to a movie matinee to see Frozen. Probably due to my on going health questions (see previous post) I was extra emotional throughout, but I think we both really enjoyed the movie. In the evening we went to a beach themed party (and a got to whip out my trusty Hawaiian shirt from high school).

Sunday, Normal Day: The last day of our holiday, was pretty much a normal day, except we went for a big expensive dinner in the evening. Unfortunately, I ended up super sick to my stomach in the middle of the night, which was something of a damper.

I think our staycation was fairly successful. Andrew and I both felt pretty rested, and by Sunday we were both feeling that we were ready to get back to normal life.

Ciao,

Andrea

The one place we did take pictures was the Boston Museum of Science. This is kind of the 'back' window, looking out at the Charles River.

The front window, with a kind of nifty art installation, where the pink things actually changed colour.

Us playing around in the math discovery area. This one was looking at fractions and multiples, as each of the 3 chairs were replicas of each other, but different dimensions.

Tiny chair.

Big chair.