I realized over the course of the last week that I may have been just going through the paces for a while now. My anxiety level has been creeping up and I’ve started to lose interest in things that I do for fun. I needed to put some intentional thought behind self care, or we were going to be down a familiar path to burn out.
- I’m increasing my therapy sessions to every week or every 2nd week.
I had dropped down to once a month. I think it may have been a pride thing. That if I was really getting better and more able to manage my mental health, I should be going less often. I’m very lucky to have great1 coverage, it’s ridiculous to leave a portion unused because I have some vague notion of what it means to be “done”.
- Although we’ve always known that there’s a chance Zan never recovers from Long Covid, but after 2 years, we need to put more thought into what life looks like in the long term.
We had always planned for Zan to be a House Spouse, but this moved up our timelines significantly and at a much reduced capacity. Zan can’t always manage to do everything that needs to be done around the house and it’s not for a lack of trying. The solution to date has been for me to take it on or help with something. And I think we’re at a point now where, if I’m being honest, I’m tapped out. I have to keep pushing at work, to perform, to chase after promotional opportunities because even a great2 single income is stretching to cover our expenses. We can’t keep drawing from two empty wells.
- I’m going to need to let some balls drop.
There’s some situations right now at work for which I’m playing the backstop because I care about my colleagues, because I care about excellence. However, sometimes not letting those things hit the ground means lessons are never learned, or problems are not exposed to their full intent.
- I need to find a way to decrease energy expenditure in other areas of my life to prioritize my French class.
I had my end of module evaluation this week which required a pass mark of 90% to proceed to the next class. I got 85%, which in the grand scheme of things is not a bad mark, but disappointing because I only have training funding until the end of fiscal (March 31). I am targetting my B oral levels right now and I have gotten a C in reading and B in writing already.
I’m in module 9 which is roughly the bottom of the B3 levels and I am trying to get as close to the top of the B level, module 12, as possible before taking my official evaluation. I think it’s possible that I could scrape the B I need today, but issue with the Oral evaluation is that it’s almost 100% mental. In my previous end of module evaluation, I had gotten a 95% and the evaluator complimented me on a pretty decent regional accent. I managed it because I started to immerse myself in French beyond my class. As a result, I was able to formulate answers in French directly using my existing vocabulary. After I got back from my vacation, I’m barely able to find time to finish my homework between classes, let alone do the extra revision required for improvement. So I completely blanked on some questions because I was trying to limit my formulation in English4 while staying within my very limited French vocabulary and brain short circuited.
Ok. That’s it for this week. It was a bit of bummer.
Next week should be funner tho: it’s time again for the GC Data Conference 2026. I’ll be in person on day 1 (Feb. 18) and I’m helping organize a little social gathering after. I love the reunion vibes of it every year, getting excited about things with fellow data peeps. I’ll be leading a group discussion with Chris Schultz on Day 2 virtually from 1pm ET on the topic of Data Maturity. I’m excited for it, I think it’s going to be a really fun discussion.
Footnotes
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Given that 1) I have an employer health benefit plan that has better than normal coverage for psychotherapy, at 5,000/year; 2) provincial coverage generally does not extend to therapy and need to be paid out of pocket; and, 3) typical employer benefit plans seem to be around 500 to 1,000/year. ↩
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Relative to the median income in Canada, $41,700. ↩
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So I had done an IQ test at one point as part of an ADHD diagnosis. Lots of thoughts and feelings about how bullshit this test is. However, one thing I learned from it is that my verbal comprehension was in the 95th percentile. I think it’s more reflective of my ability to communicate my thoughts in English than anything to do with intelligence. I would not get the same score in my mother tongue, Mandarin Chinese, or in French, because I can’t communicate as fluidly. I wasn’t asked any type of control question about my language levels, even though English isn’t my first language. ↩