Updates and Full Plates and Imposters

Oh friends, readers, and countrymen, what tales I have to tell you. I have returned from London and completed revisions on my first dissertation chapter. I have started writing using the research I did in London for my fourth (written second) chapter. I have been teaching a class and I have made a prototype for a new card game, which is not a thing I have ever done before. I have made hand-raised steak and ale pies for my gaming group, and shared the joy of Jaffa Cakes. My company has even just finished a successful Kickstarter for a new Chill 3rd Edition supplement -- Monsters. We not only met our very realistic (aka not lowballed) goal, but we exceeded it by 5k, and as a result will be adding extra content in the form of more monsters!

Closer to home and the present day, the weather is currently giving me fits as it yo-yos from 40s to 70s and back again, all of which triggers my migraines. Metatopia is this weekend, and I am not really ready, but I am likely as ready as I will ever be, and it will have to do. I am keeping up with my work hours, I just finished an uneventful bout of jury duty, and I gave a talk on using games in pedagogy to grad student TAs at my university.

When I list it all, it sounds like a tremendous amount of stuff to have happened in just a month, and honestly it is. At the same time, I feel like I get nothing done. Part of that is imposter syndrome, and part of that is my inability to judge time effectively. I am continually focused on trying to do something so that the thing I needed to have done does not become the thing that screws me over. I like to think of it as a healthy dose of mild fear, but probably it's just anxiety with a nicer name and a combover (see above).

For example, I just found out that next semester I'm going to teach the intro to lit course I'd previously proposed. I opened the syllabus and discovered that I wrote it for a MWF class, and I'm going to be teaching it TTh, and so I have to rewrite the whole thing. Gaaah. I also have papers to finish grading, rules to write up and print, books to read and take notes on and synthesize, and chapters to write. I could also list the things I'm behind on: getting job docs in place, job applications, and writing -- always writing.

If I can keep myself out of the fear hamster wheel, though, then I can actually get stuff done and seem to make a difference, even if it isn't always perfect or exactly on time. I wish I was the person who could be perfect and on time, but I'm not. If that makes me an imposter, then so be it. I cannot be other than who I am, and that's the most authentic I know how to be.