back in the saddle again

Wow. Haven't done anything from here in a while. Not that I had a good reason. I spent the tail end of 2018 and all of 2019 in a tailspin from an increasingly-cramped living situation and a deepening illness. I quit school, I quit looking for work, I quit pretty much everything except sleeping.

It's taken me months to get out of that hole and a whole lot of work and talking to people. I've got a team of people I'm accountable to for my health and am pursuing both short-term and long-term solutions to my personal and professional problems.

1st among these solutions is another career change. Museums and cultural sites have a future up in the air - it is not known how many smaller institutions have folded from lost revenue due to the current pandemic. Therefore, I am in the process of switching careers to Project Management. Perhaps it'll get me work in cultural, nonprofit, or public service organizations, perhaps not. Project Management isn't as romantic as working as an archaeologist or a home restorer. But it is needed across the economy and demands traits that I possess, so here we go.

Of course, Project Management requires certification, and certification comes after education. So I'm watching lectures on Lynda and will be taking classes at a community college. Hopefully, I'll get my certification in a year or so.

To be ready for school again, I must be disciplined and productive, things I forgot during my illness. For several days, I worked an hour more than the day before until I was working for more than eight hours/day. Of course, my partner works more as a grad student, but I'm currently the cook and cleaner for our household, so that's additional time that doesn't count as part of the eight hours.

This approach of gradually upping my workload seems to have paid off, as I'm generally approaching the tasks I've given myself with dedication, if not always enthusiasm. We'll see what happens once the coursework becomes official and must be graded.