November Is Gone: Thanksgiving, Burnout, and More

2021-11-30

Where did it go?

Thanksgiving holiday

Did the usual dinner with mostly immediate family this year. It's nice like that. Less of a social gathering and more genuine catching up. The weekend was the highlight of the past several months, but it definitely went by too quickly.

Food-wise it was pretty standard fare. Turkey, ham (a good Thanksgiving has both), potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, etc. We have one dish that we make every year which I think we call cranberry salad. I jokingly refer to it as a cranberry lasagna. You just fill a large bowl with repeating layers of cranberry jelly, cool whip, and graham cracker crumbs. It's simple but we all like it, and I think it's the dish I most equate with Thanksgiving since we don't make it any other time.

Radiohead made something really, really neat

Most of my family are pretty into Radiohead, so while we were all together over the weekend we took a look at their recently released Kid A Mnesia Exhibition.

It's a first person virtual art exhibit commemorating the 20th anniversaries of the albums Kid A and Amnesiac. Let me just say that the amount of detail and effort that has gone into this project, both visually and musically, is astounding. I haven't experienced anything quite like it and it feels as if I've just discovered these albums for the first time again. You'll for sure want to check it out if you're at all fond of Kid A or Amnesiac.

There's a new covid variant I guess

I'm not worrying myself over it. We have to bring things back to some degree of normality eventually, and it seems people in my circles I've talked to feel the same way. I've already been fully vaccinated (defined as two doses at the time of writing) and have caught covid all within the past 6 months anyway.

Thankfully I haven't heard anything indicating that this new variant is more transmissible or that it has any worse symptoms. But information like that changes by the day, so take it with a pinch of salt. If it somehow does turn out to be the super variant that the media wants it to be, I'll be supporting the necessary measures we need to take to slow it down.

Burnout

It's been a slow build up ever since a few weeks after classes started, but I've finally reached near-zero levels of motivation. Missing over a week of classes to covid at the start of the month certainly didn't help, but it wasn't the cause of the problem.

I'm not quite sure what to do. If it was work-related burnout I could pretty easily take some time off, switch to a different project, or look for a different job altogether. My options with school seem a lot more limited. I could try to trudge through to the end taking a heavy toll on my mental health, or focus on my mental health and just accept this semester as a loss.

The short break for Thanksgiving seems to have helped a bit but I'm not sure if it's put enough fuel in my tank to cover the next few weeks. Writing like this gives me something to focus on and feel productive with, which I'm grateful for.

If anybody out there has experience dealing with burnout, I'd appreciate any advice I could get. I have contact info on my home page, or feel free to write some thoughts on your own capsule as I'd bet there's other people out there who'd benefit from it as well.

- moddedBear

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