On withdrawal from networking and social interaction...

I'm not sure what happens to me lately, but I feel like having less need to interact with others. I know working from home 24x7, as Dilbert would have it, doesn't help. I communicate with colleagues, my boss, and external parties all over the wire, either in IM, or email, or phone. So, I hardly need to actually come face-to-face with people.

Quite recently I realize that I don't feel like spending the energy to socialize with the other parents in my kids' school activities. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an anti-social person. I can chat with people quite easily, if I want to. The problem is, I don't feel like it.

Maybe part of the problem is that, alot of those parents feel fake to me. The ones I feel least want to socialize with are the stay-at-home moms. I have no intention to discriminate against any social group(s), but I'm beginning (and this feeling has probably been brewing for at least a couple of years) to find it hard to think of topics to talk with them. While we all have the same kids worries, household chores and the like, what is a working mom to talk with a stay-home mom about, except the kids, and nothing but the kids?

I remember reading it somewhere an article which mentions that parents often encounter anxiety going back to school again. No doubt those were wonder years and every parent feels self confident about themselves. Thing is, I never felt that way when I was in school, growing up. But perhaps it's the cultural gap that I'm feeling? I don't know.

I was talking to my kid's violin teacher, who moved to Harvard Yard about a year ago. We're talking about Boston and the undercurrent of indifference and snobbishness. He's an all American, but he feels that rather acutely too. In fact, he mentioned that none of the neighbors bother to say hello or good morning, except one Indian family next door from him.

I know that I'm currently stressed out right now. There are things at work that I need to attend to. There are also lots of readings, assignment, and weekly quiz for my graduate study. There is also additional work that I've promised a professor I would deliver to him on a class that he's going to teach. On top of that, we're also preparing for the refinancing of our mortgage, while the economy is in the dump at the moment. And we need to spend the funding for our business venture while the economy is down and out right now. There are just so many things on my plate.

And I know I'm stressed out because I wouldn't sleep at night. Normally, I try to sleep late, so that when it comes time to sleep, I'll be very tired and I'll hit the sac with no dreams or worries. Lately that has not been the case.

Whenever I'm stressed out, I would find a good book, and I would spend all my time reading it (and enjoying it), rather than doing the other tasks that I'm supposed to do. I know I'm evading the eventuality. Well, but I just finished The Brass Verdict, and Michael Connelly never fails me as a writer (since his first book The Poet).

I do prefer being busy than idling around. The weekly activities for the kids, chauffeuring them here and there, distract me in a way that can be soothing sometimes. Those are the tasks that I can go on auto-pilot, without having to tax my brain too much. I hope I'm not stressing out my kids, when I'm stressed out myself.

Now that I'm done with the book, I think I'm ready to tackle the other tasks, starting tomorrow. I need to sleep early tonight... :)