IN THIS VERY ROOM
Hmm, I've been posting quite a lot the past couple months. (For me.)
I was talking with my parents tonight about the redecorating and additions they are doing to the house. To my great sorrow they've torn out the spiral staircase that lead to our basement and don't intend to replace it. I mean, c'mon!!! How many kids can say they had a spiral staircase in their basement?? Although I'm not sure if it technically qualified as a spiral staircase since it didn't even make it a full 360 degrees around. I mean, it was only going down about 7 feet, so it only managed, oh, I dunno, 200 degrees or so.
My room, growing up, had pink wallpaper. With white flowers. Not that you could see it for most of my youth, because I collected posters. (Maybe because my room was pink flowers.) And I literally covered my walls in posters. I even rearranged my furniture so that my bed and my dresser were back to back in the middle of the room, not touching any walls, so that I could have more room for my posters. Also I just like rearranging my room. I prided myself on coming up with endless variations - no small feat, let me tell you, since the big corner desk with it's shelves all the way up to the ceiling was stuck in the same corner.
But anyway, over the years since leaving for college I have slowly taken some of the posters down, and the wallpaper is reappearing. But I haven't been able to quite make myself take them all down. (And not only because of the wallpaper, which everyone agrees has to go. It's days are numbered.) It's also because I like color. When I walk into that room, it's this explosion of life and color - but not so much in an assault on your sense type of way as it is it just feels really *alive*. I've always considered my room to be an expression of myself.
But I was talking with a friend recently who was discussing how his parents had redone his bedroom into a guest room, basically, but that they had tried to cater to his sensibilities by decorating it in an Asian style. And right then in the conversation it hit me, "You know, I'm really ready for that room to look different."
It's not a complete letting go of the past. I'm still not ready to turn it over to my parents, relinquish all claim to that room, and honestly say "I don't care what the heck happens to it." But I also recognize that I am not living there now, that my parents' lives are changing and the house is changing to accomodate them (for instance, there is a baby crib in my room now for the grandkids.)
And so I don't want all my posters up. I don't want to walk into that room and have it be basically the living dead. Because as it is, even though I've taken some stuff off the walls, it's a little piece of highschool frozen in time. It used to be I liked it that way - when I went home I was falling into all my old haunts, doing all the same things with all my old friends. But their lives have changed just as much as mine has in the past 6 years. We don't do the same things anymore when I go home. The dynamics are different. After all, they're doing things like marrying, having kids or at least a dog, buying houses and so on. That isn't a sad thing at all - I'm sure some will read it that way. It's happy - most of them are quite happy with their lives, and that's really great to see. And I'm happy with my life, so we're all just a bunch of happy people. (Yeah okay there's those pesky real world responsbilities, but I'm glossing here, okay? Let me gloss!)
My point is, I'm okay with how things have changed. And suddenly instead of being comforting, the idea of going home to that room, which is frozen in 1999, is just . . . limiting. My room has always been an expression of myself. And so somehow, I want that room to be an expression of the realities of my life as it is now.
Part of that reality is that it's not really my room anymore. It's the room where the babies sleep when they come. It's the only guest bedroom, since renovations are in progress. It's the second room in a house of a couple who's last kid has been out of the house for a few years now, and who have moved on to a new stage in their life, doing things like running for office and (yet again) redefining their business.
So it's weird . . . it's like . . . I don't want anyone to tell me I have to give up that room. (Even though some people have, rightly pointing out it's not mine yadda yadda.) I want to let go of my own free will, to say "Hey, I've moved past this." After all, my room has always been an expression of myself. This is possibly why I reacted very poorly when my sisters double teamed me telling me I needed to take my posters down. It's not that I disagree. But this is something so much more personal than just a room to me - it's about the possibility that I may never live near my family again, to cut down to the heart of it. That's why I've kept it frozen in time. So the best way I can think of to say I've moved on is to redecorate it myself - in accordance w/ what Mom and Dad want done with it.
So I offered to strip the wallpaper and redo the room while I'm home over the summer. For some reason just taking all my posters down doesn't satisfy me. I'm reluctant to take them down until Mom and Dad are ready to actually *do* something with the room (not just talk about doing something.) It would be so bare and forlorn and sad . . . like the shadow of myself or something, all lost and lonely. I'd rather just have the whole thing redone in one fell swoop. An new creation, instead of a shadow of the old.
Unfortunately, Mom and Dad are pretty preoccupied with afore mentioned major remodeling and building of additions. So they didn't jump at the idea of repapering the bedroom at the same time.
But maybe I can convince them.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
So if I had to say there's one thing that I am a die-hard fan of, it wouldn't be Dark Angel, or Alias. It would be Country Music.
Many people do not understand this. So below are my comments on the CMA awards . . . if you read through them and follow some of the links you might begin to glimpse what country music is all about.
Comments on the Country music Music Awards:
(and upfront I'm giving credit to cowboylyrics.com and Amazon.com
Warning: ifyou're on IE cowboylyrics has a lot of pop ups. ON mozilla it's fine. Also I don't know / can't post direct links to open up the song snippets straight from here, so you'll have to select the track mentioned from Amazaon's list)
No mention so far of this year's Entertainer of the year (again) Kenny Chesney's unexpected wedding to Renee Zelleweger . . . guess that's the diff between country music and other forms of entertainment; there's still some respect for personal boundaries.
A number of the live performers have seemed a bit off key . . . I'm not sure if it's the influence of alcohol, the lack of the normal accompaniment that you hear on the radio, or a problem with the sound system . . . or nerves, since it's been some of the newbies so far.
Faith Hill, who's become a cross-over hit and has been one of the biggest of the "less country-ish country" type of music,(you probably know "This Kiss") had a role in Stepford Wives, and has an international following like Shania Twain, is decidedly changing her pace with the song "Y'all I'm still a Mississippi Girl!" Incidentally she seemed to largely avoid the pitch problems of previous singers.
Whoohooo!!! Tim McGraw!!! He won best song of the year for "Live Like You Were Dying" - an uplifting song about, essentially carpe diem. (A man recovered from something very serious but unnamed, like cancer, and found new meaning in life. This is country to the heart - some people would claim it's depressing, but any country fan would say it's uplifting, because it's about someone overcoming obstacles and gaining a new insight on life. That's what it's all about: sure hard things might happen, but human spirit triumphs!
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/mcgraw-tim/live-like-you-were-dying-13619.html
And now he's singing a song that really reminds me of Moberly in some ways. It's a song about "his" hometown, and how it's a town of extremes, "Drugs or Jesus". Moberly is around 14,000 people, but I counted the churches in the Sunday paper once; there's something like 75 area churches . . . I counted more than 90 actually but some of them are surrounding towns, so I'm downgrading it a bit. However there are also many many bars, and plenty of underage drinking. It's a song that's both sad and nostalgic, kind of about someone coming to terms in their own internal life with this struggle between religion and temptations.
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/mcgraw-tim/drugs-or-jesus-13620.html
But man, I really really wish Big & Rich would have won *something* this year!!! Two years in a row they've been snubbed both in the "Best New Artist" category and in the "Best Duo" category. (Country music has a lot of duos . . . dominated by Brooks and Dunn, of course, who won again. But anyway the point is there's enough to give it a category separate from Best Group.) If you aren't familiar with Big & Rich (and I expect you aren't) they broke onto the music charts with their song "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy", [thus my away message] and musically their stuff just sounds soo unique!! They've got some really interesting harmonies that take a bit to get used to, but are really cool. They've run their own open jam session in Nashville for years, dubbed Muzic Mafia, which is doing something really unique, really interesting, and really fun with country music! They've used their own fame to launch what could be country music's first African American star (if people go for it) Cowboy Troy, who is the leader of "hick hop" . . . i.e. country rap. It's interesting stuff . . . but while Big and Rich could make it, I think Hick Hop might not get so far. But for pete's sakes, B&R are great, Gretchen Wilson ("Here for the Party" and "Redneck woman") has won I think 3 awards in two years; she broke out at the same time as B&R. B&R have had a number of songs with lots of radio play:
(I'm not linking to the lyrics because with Big and Rich especially you have to experience the song, not just the lyrics, to really get how awesome they are.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00020H916/qid=1116385485/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-5012971-4953401
That's the link for their CD on Amazon - go listen to them!! Save a Horse, Holy Water, Big Time, Wild West Show are their major radio songs so far)
*sigh* Whiskey Lullaby won best vocal event . . . Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss. Musically it's very good, very haunting but it's sooooo depressing. I mean, if you look at the links for the other country songs I've been talking about here you'll see they represent a mix, from Wilson's and B&R's get-down-and party songs, to McGraw's introspective songs, to Sugarland's upbeat overcoming the odds song (see below.) But this one is just depressing!!!
However, Paisley and Krauss are wonderful singers, and Paisley really does a wide variety of songs. For those who doubt country music has a sense of humor (which is dead wrong), I would point you to his song "Celebrity", an amusing song (and an amusing video in which Jason Alexander appeared)
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/paisley-brad/celebrity-2118.html
and listen
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009YXGV/qid=1116386861/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-5012971-4953401
(btw, best musical event is loosely designed to honor performances which are unique to a time and place and often include special guest singers . . . for instance Nora Jones and Dolly Parton singing Creepin')
Whoohoo!! Sugarland singing "Baby Girl"!!!! I want to give this song to my parents somehow because it just sums up my relationship with them. And it sounds like they're having fun up there on the stage, and they're on key too! And again, it's one of those uplifting songs about going after your dreams and succeeding against odds.
to read:
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/sugarland/baby-girl-14081.html
and to listen:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000640XPW/qid=1116386788/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-5012971-4953401
I eventually want to make a whole website dedicated to convincing people that country music expresses the full range of human emotion and does so spectacularly, but for the moment this blog entry will have to suffice.
Many people do not understand this. So below are my comments on the CMA awards . . . if you read through them and follow some of the links you might begin to glimpse what country music is all about.
Comments on the Country music Music Awards:
(and upfront I'm giving credit to cowboylyrics.com and Amazon.com
Warning: ifyou're on IE cowboylyrics has a lot of pop ups. ON mozilla it's fine. Also I don't know / can't post direct links to open up the song snippets straight from here, so you'll have to select the track mentioned from Amazaon's list)
No mention so far of this year's Entertainer of the year (again) Kenny Chesney's unexpected wedding to Renee Zelleweger . . . guess that's the diff between country music and other forms of entertainment; there's still some respect for personal boundaries.
A number of the live performers have seemed a bit off key . . . I'm not sure if it's the influence of alcohol, the lack of the normal accompaniment that you hear on the radio, or a problem with the sound system . . . or nerves, since it's been some of the newbies so far.
Faith Hill, who's become a cross-over hit and has been one of the biggest of the "less country-ish country" type of music,(you probably know "This Kiss") had a role in Stepford Wives, and has an international following like Shania Twain, is decidedly changing her pace with the song "Y'all I'm still a Mississippi Girl!" Incidentally she seemed to largely avoid the pitch problems of previous singers.
Whoohooo!!! Tim McGraw!!! He won best song of the year for "Live Like You Were Dying" - an uplifting song about, essentially carpe diem. (A man recovered from something very serious but unnamed, like cancer, and found new meaning in life. This is country to the heart - some people would claim it's depressing, but any country fan would say it's uplifting, because it's about someone overcoming obstacles and gaining a new insight on life. That's what it's all about: sure hard things might happen, but human spirit triumphs!
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/mcgraw-tim/live-like-you-were-dying-13619.html
And now he's singing a song that really reminds me of Moberly in some ways. It's a song about "his" hometown, and how it's a town of extremes, "Drugs or Jesus". Moberly is around 14,000 people, but I counted the churches in the Sunday paper once; there's something like 75 area churches . . . I counted more than 90 actually but some of them are surrounding towns, so I'm downgrading it a bit. However there are also many many bars, and plenty of underage drinking. It's a song that's both sad and nostalgic, kind of about someone coming to terms in their own internal life with this struggle between religion and temptations.
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/mcgraw-tim/drugs-or-jesus-13620.html
But man, I really really wish Big & Rich would have won *something* this year!!! Two years in a row they've been snubbed both in the "Best New Artist" category and in the "Best Duo" category. (Country music has a lot of duos . . . dominated by Brooks and Dunn, of course, who won again. But anyway the point is there's enough to give it a category separate from Best Group.) If you aren't familiar with Big & Rich (and I expect you aren't) they broke onto the music charts with their song "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy", [thus my away message] and musically their stuff just sounds soo unique!! They've got some really interesting harmonies that take a bit to get used to, but are really cool. They've run their own open jam session in Nashville for years, dubbed Muzic Mafia, which is doing something really unique, really interesting, and really fun with country music! They've used their own fame to launch what could be country music's first African American star (if people go for it) Cowboy Troy, who is the leader of "hick hop" . . . i.e. country rap. It's interesting stuff . . . but while Big and Rich could make it, I think Hick Hop might not get so far. But for pete's sakes, B&R are great, Gretchen Wilson ("Here for the Party" and "Redneck woman") has won I think 3 awards in two years; she broke out at the same time as B&R. B&R have had a number of songs with lots of radio play:
(I'm not linking to the lyrics because with Big and Rich especially you have to experience the song, not just the lyrics, to really get how awesome they are.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00020H916/qid=1116385485/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-5012971-4953401
That's the link for their CD on Amazon - go listen to them!! Save a Horse, Holy Water, Big Time, Wild West Show are their major radio songs so far)
*sigh* Whiskey Lullaby won best vocal event . . . Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss. Musically it's very good, very haunting but it's sooooo depressing. I mean, if you look at the links for the other country songs I've been talking about here you'll see they represent a mix, from Wilson's and B&R's get-down-and party songs, to McGraw's introspective songs, to Sugarland's upbeat overcoming the odds song (see below.) But this one is just depressing!!!
However, Paisley and Krauss are wonderful singers, and Paisley really does a wide variety of songs. For those who doubt country music has a sense of humor (which is dead wrong), I would point you to his song "Celebrity", an amusing song (and an amusing video in which Jason Alexander appeared)
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/paisley-brad/celebrity-2118.html
and listen
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009YXGV/qid=1116386861/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-5012971-4953401
(btw, best musical event is loosely designed to honor performances which are unique to a time and place and often include special guest singers . . . for instance Nora Jones and Dolly Parton singing Creepin')
Whoohoo!! Sugarland singing "Baby Girl"!!!! I want to give this song to my parents somehow because it just sums up my relationship with them. And it sounds like they're having fun up there on the stage, and they're on key too! And again, it's one of those uplifting songs about going after your dreams and succeeding against odds.
to read:
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/sugarland/baby-girl-14081.html
and to listen:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000640XPW/qid=1116386788/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-5012971-4953401
I eventually want to make a whole website dedicated to convincing people that country music expresses the full range of human emotion and does so spectacularly, but for the moment this blog entry will have to suffice.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Calling all Harry Potter fans, calling all Harry Potter fans. :-D
I've decided to go on record with my predictions, since I'm expecting that the 6th book, which comes out in July, will begin to give definite shape to certain quandries. For instance, who will Hermione end up with?
My first inclindation is to say that Rawlings is leading up to Harry / Ginny and Ron / Hermione pairings. After all, Ginny seems to pop up places where there isn't a real need for her to pop up unless Rawlings wants to keep her involved for some reason. And let's face it, Cho Chang just isn't up to Harry's standards!!! He needs a much stronger, more down to earth female. Ginny fits the bill there. As for Hermione, while the movies leave some room to think there might be some HP / HG tension, the books seem to make it pretty clear that Harry doesn't remotely think of Hermione that way, and given how pragmatic Hermione is about Harry's involvement with Cho (compared to her and Ron's fit about the ball) I think it's clear Hermione is not meant to be with Harry.
Now, who's the half blood prince? This is trickier - or else much simpler. It seems like Voldemort is the likely choice as he's half blood and makes claims to nobility. But then it seems one book too early . . . Voldemort and harry's final showdown just about has to be in the last book (unless we are to be surprised, and book 7 is a happy post-climatic here's how life goes view) so why name the 6th book after him and not the seventh? She could name both after voldemort, of course.
Will harry be quidditch captain this year? I'm kind of inclined to think not yet - there is still one senior member, Katie bell, who's on the team. And wouldn't it be crazy if Ron got quidditch captain his senior year? I actually think that would be a neat twist, a way of bringing Ron into his own instead of just being pure side kick. And Ron would be fanatic about it in much the same way that Oliver was!
That's about as far as I'll go tonight I think. I reread the books earlier this spring and am very hyped for the next one to come out.
I've decided to go on record with my predictions, since I'm expecting that the 6th book, which comes out in July, will begin to give definite shape to certain quandries. For instance, who will Hermione end up with?
My first inclindation is to say that Rawlings is leading up to Harry / Ginny and Ron / Hermione pairings. After all, Ginny seems to pop up places where there isn't a real need for her to pop up unless Rawlings wants to keep her involved for some reason. And let's face it, Cho Chang just isn't up to Harry's standards!!! He needs a much stronger, more down to earth female. Ginny fits the bill there. As for Hermione, while the movies leave some room to think there might be some HP / HG tension, the books seem to make it pretty clear that Harry doesn't remotely think of Hermione that way, and given how pragmatic Hermione is about Harry's involvement with Cho (compared to her and Ron's fit about the ball) I think it's clear Hermione is not meant to be with Harry.
Now, who's the half blood prince? This is trickier - or else much simpler. It seems like Voldemort is the likely choice as he's half blood and makes claims to nobility. But then it seems one book too early . . . Voldemort and harry's final showdown just about has to be in the last book (unless we are to be surprised, and book 7 is a happy post-climatic here's how life goes view) so why name the 6th book after him and not the seventh? She could name both after voldemort, of course.
Will harry be quidditch captain this year? I'm kind of inclined to think not yet - there is still one senior member, Katie bell, who's on the team. And wouldn't it be crazy if Ron got quidditch captain his senior year? I actually think that would be a neat twist, a way of bringing Ron into his own instead of just being pure side kick. And Ron would be fanatic about it in much the same way that Oliver was!
That's about as far as I'll go tonight I think. I reread the books earlier this spring and am very hyped for the next one to come out.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
So for the past two days I've been having weird chest / heart discomfort things. Over the weekend Rob's grandfather had emergency open heart surgery (triple bypass - he's doing well) and I guess that's gotten me a little stressed and a little sensitive to heart concerns. But at the same time I was going "Am I becoming a hypochondriac?"
Yesterday i was feeling a little light headed; today pretty much all afternoon I felt anxious - that physical feeling of nervousness / anxiousness that until this evening I thought everyone experienced. Apparently not everyone does. But you know, generally feeling like your heart is beating to fast.
The thing is, past post not withstanding, there isn't really anything in my life to justify a couple hours of anxiety I don't think.
So finally this evening I called my Mom. She's been to the ER twice in the past six months; the second time turned out to be gallstones, but the first time it was for heart stuff. After talking to her, I think that what I'm experiencing is probably the same as what she's been having.
She said that the time she went to the doctor her heart was pounding for two and a half hours like she was really anxious, but that she's experienced the sensation often over the course of her life - heart pounding in situations when it didn't really seem called for. Like sitting at home watching nothing in particular on TV. The doctor said that basically her heart was misfiring. The left side of your heart beats and then your right, but in her case, the timing was off and the two beats were running into each other. They hooked her up to the EKG or whatever to test her heart rate, and detected the irregular rhthym, but also determined that when she exercised it went away. So the doctor's solution was simple: exercise more. He gave her some blood pressure medication temporarily and now she's not even taking that. He said it was largely a stress induced phenomenon.
It was an interesting explanation actually. He said that in days of yore, when a human was feeling fear / anxiety / worry it was because there was some physical danger in front of him - say a hungry lion. The appropriate response to such a fear was a physical one - i.e. spear the lion. So the body produced adreneline, which helped it respond faster and stronger. These days, we sit at desks and worry about intangibles, but our reactions aren't physical, so the producing adreneline rush causes problems.
It was very interesting to hear her say that, because I've felt for some months now this feeling of heaviness on my chest . . . very very faint, nothing major, just something that generally provoked in me the desire to go run or burst into some major cardio activity, because when I was active the feeling went away. I spent 7 years becoming a strong athlete, and then spent the 7 following years slowly becoming more and more inactive. Last year I still went to the gym some, went and roller bladed some, and I was playing with little kids - definitely a physical activity! But this year I've hit rock bottom, as far of an extreme from the highschool basketball player that I was as I can possibly get. So since the doctor's main prognosis was "stress and lack of exercise" being the problem for my Mom, it seems reasonable that I, having similar symptoms with similar physical attributes, also suffering from "stress and lack of exercise", would be having the same problem.
Especially since I take after my mother in a number of ways which, as I've come to learn more about women's health at the coaxing of my sisters, are very important. We're the same physical build and both have similar blood sugar issues, two factors which are very important in determining risk for heart disease. And we both tend to have low blood pressure.
Anyway I realize it can be dangerous to do this whole self-prognosis thing; I need to get Cornell's health form filled out anyway to get back on their health plan, so I figure I'll schedule a regular check up with my doc to get that taken care of and I'll bring this issue up with her at the same time.
In the meantime, I think sleeping so I can exercise in the morning is a good first step. :-)
Yesterday i was feeling a little light headed; today pretty much all afternoon I felt anxious - that physical feeling of nervousness / anxiousness that until this evening I thought everyone experienced. Apparently not everyone does. But you know, generally feeling like your heart is beating to fast.
The thing is, past post not withstanding, there isn't really anything in my life to justify a couple hours of anxiety I don't think.
So finally this evening I called my Mom. She's been to the ER twice in the past six months; the second time turned out to be gallstones, but the first time it was for heart stuff. After talking to her, I think that what I'm experiencing is probably the same as what she's been having.
She said that the time she went to the doctor her heart was pounding for two and a half hours like she was really anxious, but that she's experienced the sensation often over the course of her life - heart pounding in situations when it didn't really seem called for. Like sitting at home watching nothing in particular on TV. The doctor said that basically her heart was misfiring. The left side of your heart beats and then your right, but in her case, the timing was off and the two beats were running into each other. They hooked her up to the EKG or whatever to test her heart rate, and detected the irregular rhthym, but also determined that when she exercised it went away. So the doctor's solution was simple: exercise more. He gave her some blood pressure medication temporarily and now she's not even taking that. He said it was largely a stress induced phenomenon.
It was an interesting explanation actually. He said that in days of yore, when a human was feeling fear / anxiety / worry it was because there was some physical danger in front of him - say a hungry lion. The appropriate response to such a fear was a physical one - i.e. spear the lion. So the body produced adreneline, which helped it respond faster and stronger. These days, we sit at desks and worry about intangibles, but our reactions aren't physical, so the producing adreneline rush causes problems.
It was very interesting to hear her say that, because I've felt for some months now this feeling of heaviness on my chest . . . very very faint, nothing major, just something that generally provoked in me the desire to go run or burst into some major cardio activity, because when I was active the feeling went away. I spent 7 years becoming a strong athlete, and then spent the 7 following years slowly becoming more and more inactive. Last year I still went to the gym some, went and roller bladed some, and I was playing with little kids - definitely a physical activity! But this year I've hit rock bottom, as far of an extreme from the highschool basketball player that I was as I can possibly get. So since the doctor's main prognosis was "stress and lack of exercise" being the problem for my Mom, it seems reasonable that I, having similar symptoms with similar physical attributes, also suffering from "stress and lack of exercise", would be having the same problem.
Especially since I take after my mother in a number of ways which, as I've come to learn more about women's health at the coaxing of my sisters, are very important. We're the same physical build and both have similar blood sugar issues, two factors which are very important in determining risk for heart disease. And we both tend to have low blood pressure.
Anyway I realize it can be dangerous to do this whole self-prognosis thing; I need to get Cornell's health form filled out anyway to get back on their health plan, so I figure I'll schedule a regular check up with my doc to get that taken care of and I'll bring this issue up with her at the same time.
In the meantime, I think sleeping so I can exercise in the morning is a good first step. :-)
Thursday, May 05, 2005
It's been a . . . sad week. Monday morning at work a friend from home, E, called me on my cell, and as I was in the middle of something, I flipped her over to voicemail, thinking she probably was just hoping to catch me on lunch break and chat, as I occassionally call her on my lunch break. 30-40 minutes later it occurred to me that I better check, though. It was obvious from her voicemail that something was wrong.
The short version is that the father of our mutual close friend W had killed himself over the weekend. Put a gun to his head an pulled the trigger . . . and W and her sister had essentially been the ones to find him. I mean, they had called the police to report him missing, and the police went into the apartment first and covered the body, but still . . . it wasn't a pretty sight . . .
Even though I'm not there, except when I'm thinking about work at work, this tragedy has dominated my thoughts. Probably because I'm not there. It's hard to explain how important this friend is to me. W is one of my oldest, closest friends . . . we've known each other since first grade and been close friends since about 7th. She, E, B, and I have the type of friendship they make movies about, like Steel Magnolias or Ya-Ya-Sisterhood. (I think, I've never seen the second one. And sorry about the stupid letter thing but on a topic like this . . . ) We're all very different personalities, and our friendships have had their rough spots, but somehow, despite time, distance, and changing lives, we always come back together. They are constants in my life like few other things . . . no matter what I can always come back and feel right at home with them. Not "as if I'd never left", just as if it didn't matter that I'd been gone.
So when this happened, E and B were right there w/in a few hours of finding out. They live close by of course, making it easier, but still, I've been dealing with this terrible guilt about not going back. I feel like I should be there. It's the hard times that really show the test of friendship.
And I guess that's the inner demons I'm struggling with come out. Mostly I'm feeling sad for W, but another reason this is so hard is because I'm struggling with a lot of guilt. It isn't just this - it's also my sister having her baby, my grandmother turning 90 and not going to be around long, my parents remodeling the house and struggling to keep up with all their responsibilities and me thinking I should be helping them and instead I'm still depending on them to help me.
It's frustrating, not being there.
I wrote this for W, and I think I want to put it on here, too . . . there are two lines I wish I could change but I haven't come up with something better that works as well yet . . . it won't mean much to the people who read this most often, but it's evocative of some of the best memories I have of times with this set of friends.
Lingering
Can you remember back to the days
Of wacky nail polish and Greenday?
When adventure was a 30 mile trip to the mall
And romance waiting for that guy to call?
Remember evenings at a cabin by the lake,
All of us talking just for talking's sake?
The smell of brat's cooking on the grill,
The queen of spades going in for the kill?
Remeber back to the days when we were young
And life was a song that was still unsung?
It really wasn't that long ago
When I didn't know what I didn't know.
Time has passed and lives have moved on
But I never really leave the places I've gone.
~CS, May 2, 2005
The short version is that the father of our mutual close friend W had killed himself over the weekend. Put a gun to his head an pulled the trigger . . . and W and her sister had essentially been the ones to find him. I mean, they had called the police to report him missing, and the police went into the apartment first and covered the body, but still . . . it wasn't a pretty sight . . .
Even though I'm not there, except when I'm thinking about work at work, this tragedy has dominated my thoughts. Probably because I'm not there. It's hard to explain how important this friend is to me. W is one of my oldest, closest friends . . . we've known each other since first grade and been close friends since about 7th. She, E, B, and I have the type of friendship they make movies about, like Steel Magnolias or Ya-Ya-Sisterhood. (I think, I've never seen the second one. And sorry about the stupid letter thing but on a topic like this . . . ) We're all very different personalities, and our friendships have had their rough spots, but somehow, despite time, distance, and changing lives, we always come back together. They are constants in my life like few other things . . . no matter what I can always come back and feel right at home with them. Not "as if I'd never left", just as if it didn't matter that I'd been gone.
So when this happened, E and B were right there w/in a few hours of finding out. They live close by of course, making it easier, but still, I've been dealing with this terrible guilt about not going back. I feel like I should be there. It's the hard times that really show the test of friendship.
And I guess that's the inner demons I'm struggling with come out. Mostly I'm feeling sad for W, but another reason this is so hard is because I'm struggling with a lot of guilt. It isn't just this - it's also my sister having her baby, my grandmother turning 90 and not going to be around long, my parents remodeling the house and struggling to keep up with all their responsibilities and me thinking I should be helping them and instead I'm still depending on them to help me.
It's frustrating, not being there.
I wrote this for W, and I think I want to put it on here, too . . . there are two lines I wish I could change but I haven't come up with something better that works as well yet . . . it won't mean much to the people who read this most often, but it's evocative of some of the best memories I have of times with this set of friends.
Lingering
Can you remember back to the days
Of wacky nail polish and Greenday?
When adventure was a 30 mile trip to the mall
And romance waiting for that guy to call?
Remember evenings at a cabin by the lake,
All of us talking just for talking's sake?
The smell of brat's cooking on the grill,
The queen of spades going in for the kill?
Remeber back to the days when we were young
And life was a song that was still unsung?
It really wasn't that long ago
When I didn't know what I didn't know.
Time has passed and lives have moved on
But I never really leave the places I've gone.
~CS, May 2, 2005
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Since I'm on the nephew role, I figured I'd repost this link to my (pitiful) website, or rather a page on it which has pictures of Tamara's son and my first nephew Noah.
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/cs234/Noah.html
the webpage is just
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/cs234/index.html
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/cs234/Noah.html
the webpage is just
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/cs234/index.html
Monday, April 25, 2005
I'm an aunt! Again! And it's another nephew!!
But it's the first time we've done the whole pregnancy thing. "We" of course being a bit of stretch since I obviously had nothing to do with the whole pregnancy . . . despite my sister Andrea telling me that little Alex looked just like me because he had my flat eyebrows and dimpled chin. I had to remind her that lots of people in our family have the dimpled chin; we call "the Luth chin" because it's a dominant trait from my Mom's family, the Luths. Andrea however pointed out that I'm the only Sander girl to have inherited the Luth chin, a fact I hadn't ever thought about. But then the flat eyebrows, she admitted, could belong to Alex's father. ;-)
But yeah, I'm pysched! My nephew Noah (adopted from China) is adorable, but there's something about a brand new baby that just really brings out the maternal "oooh, ahhh, I want to hold him!!!" instinct - particularly since I'm a thousand miles away and missing out on all the family fun on this one. :-( I won't see little Alexander Carl until June. :-( My Mom, Dad, Grandma, and sister Andrea were all at the hospital when he was borng . . . they had to do an unplanned C-Section. "Little" Alex was 10 pounds 6 ounces when he was born last night - the size of a two month old!!!! Imagine that in your stomach - ouch!!
*sigh* Since Noah came around my family has been getting together as a group more often; it used to be we rarely got everyone together in the same room at the same time (a fact of life with 7 people with busy lives) but it seems that the grandchild - and now grandkids - are making people make the effort.
*shakes it off* but just focus on the good stuff. Like the adorable little baby in the family! You didn't think I'd not post pictures did you? Let's see if I can get this bloggerbot to work . . .
But it's the first time we've done the whole pregnancy thing. "We" of course being a bit of stretch since I obviously had nothing to do with the whole pregnancy . . . despite my sister Andrea telling me that little Alex looked just like me because he had my flat eyebrows and dimpled chin. I had to remind her that lots of people in our family have the dimpled chin; we call "the Luth chin" because it's a dominant trait from my Mom's family, the Luths. Andrea however pointed out that I'm the only Sander girl to have inherited the Luth chin, a fact I hadn't ever thought about. But then the flat eyebrows, she admitted, could belong to Alex's father. ;-)
But yeah, I'm pysched! My nephew Noah (adopted from China) is adorable, but there's something about a brand new baby that just really brings out the maternal "oooh, ahhh, I want to hold him!!!" instinct - particularly since I'm a thousand miles away and missing out on all the family fun on this one. :-( I won't see little Alexander Carl until June. :-( My Mom, Dad, Grandma, and sister Andrea were all at the hospital when he was borng . . . they had to do an unplanned C-Section. "Little" Alex was 10 pounds 6 ounces when he was born last night - the size of a two month old!!!! Imagine that in your stomach - ouch!!
*sigh* Since Noah came around my family has been getting together as a group more often; it used to be we rarely got everyone together in the same room at the same time (a fact of life with 7 people with busy lives) but it seems that the grandchild - and now grandkids - are making people make the effort.
*shakes it off* but just focus on the good stuff. Like the adorable little baby in the family! You didn't think I'd not post pictures did you? Let's see if I can get this bloggerbot to work . . .
Sunday, April 24, 2005
So I've really only posted rather serious thoughts and so forth, and I thought those of you who actually read this thing should be rewarded with some humor. :-) A joke first, and then a completely unrelated link . . . a computer programmer's unique resume.
And now the resume to appeal to a whole different type of humor . . .
http://213.186.36.10/~al/alstudio/cv/en.htm
The Pentagon announced today the formation of an ELITE FIGHTING GROUP called the U.S. REDNECK SPECIAL FORCES (USRSF) The boys of this unit, Cooter,
Bubba, BillyBob, Hoss, Buck and Boo, will be dropped behind enemy lines.
They will be given the following information about Iraqi Terrorists:
1. The season opened last weekend.
2. There is no limit.
3. They taste just like chicken.
4. They don't like beer, pickups, country music, or Jesus.
5. They are directly responsible for the death of Dale Earnhardt.
THE WAR SHOULD BE OVER IN A WEEK.
And now the resume to appeal to a whole different type of humor . . .
http://213.186.36.10/~al/alstudio/cv/en.htm
Monday, April 11, 2005
[btw, I didn't mean to delete this previously, just amend the one truly embarrassing thing and omit the one single last name which might have given away any details. There are after all a million law firms around.]
So the screw up at work turned out to not be a big deal, really. To be slightly clearer than I was in the last post, we've been transcribing incriminating phone calls from this mutual fund, and entering them into a database. The only source of dating the individual wav files was a printout of the wav file names with their dates, and the to / from on them. We the paralegals didn't actually have access to the original database from which this printout came - it was sourced at another firm - we just had the hard copy. Many of the dates which I had listed as 1-xx-xx should have been 11-xx-xx, i.e. november not January. However the printout I was given had listed them as 1, not 11. The deal was that somebody had not adjusted the column widths appropriately, so that it could only handle 5 digits. so November 3, 2001 was listed correctly as 1-3-01, but Noveber 23 2001 was listed as 1-23-01. The attorney had accused me of making "all these dates wrong" (about 20 or 30) when after double checking, I had only made two typos in the whole thing.
She rather yelled at me, actually, and then stormed out, leaving me to double check my work, which was just as well. Because with time to think, I drafted a brief, to the point email that explained what had happened, pointedly apologized for the two typos I had made (pointedly not apologizing for the rest of incorrect dates because they were incorrect on the sheet I'd been given.) And this attorneys, who have the habit of getting quite frosty and grade-schoolish when they're dissatisfied with your work, have been perfectly normal to me ever since. I actually think they kind of respect me more for standing up to them. (This is the second time I've had to defend paralegal work to accusatory attorneys; the first time was on behalf of all three of us though rather than just me personally.)
The catch is that I sort of noticed the problem when I was originally going through the transcriptions because October 23 2001 showed up as 0-23-01 which told me that some of the numbers were being cut off. I meant to check up and verify the January dates to make sure they weren't November, but it wasn't actually my case, I was just helping out one of the other paras, and so I didn't pursue it as relentlessly as I would have otherwise. That was the mistake that I actually made, but I simply didn't mention that in the email - I would have owned up to it immediately had any of the attorneys pressed the issue with me, but they didn't bother. So I kind of got out of that. And now Scott is tasked with reverifying the dates anyway so even that's being taken care of. Lesson in carefullness learned for me w/o losing too much face with the attorneys or causing major case hiccups - best that can be asked for I guess.
Interestingly enough, the only times I've felt the wrath come down upon me have been when I'm working on one of the other paras cases to help them out. It's kind of galling, because I hate getting in trouble and I hate messing up, and when it's not your own case you have a lot less control over, well, everything.
However, for me the tension at work disappeared when John, one of the associates, screamed down the hall that our senior partner, Mr. Elsen, was a "fucking cocksucker".
Ah yes, see, if you got this far, you actually have something interesting to read. ;-)
John is my favorite attorney because he's very calm, willing to explain things to the paras w/o coming across as the slightest bit condescending or annoyed like we should already know everything w/o any training, takes the time to really fill you in on what's happening, and generally treats the paras like equals . . . well not quite like equals, but peers if you will . . . treats us with respect. I've heard virtually every other attorney in the office lose their temper before then, but John has never raised his voice in anger or excitment except for that day last week when he yelled "On top of all this I have to take this abuse? Mr. Elsen is a fucking cocksucker! There, now the whole firm heard it!" and slammed his door, knocking plaques off the wall, and stormed out for the rest of the day.
And we had a brief that we had to get fed-exed to Chicago that day so local counsel could file it. Guess who the attorney on the case was? John. Guess who the para was? Cecelia.
I thought John was fired for sure. Strangely enough the partner on the case actually seemed in a good mood that day. And he and John talked it out the next morning - didn't even take very long, honestly - and everything worked out fine.
I mean how many jobs can you get away with behaviour like that?????
On the upside, it put me in a position to make a good impression with Mr. Elsen, because with the associate gone, he turned to the para to do one or two things that normally he'd ask John to do. (Honestly they're more appropriate for paras anyway, but Mr. Elsen has been known to call paras into his office and dictate an email to us, which we then type, print, he edits, we retype, reprint, he edits, we retype, reprint, he edits . . . )
So basically, with half the attorneys I feel pretty good about my work and my position with them. With the other half, I'm on tentherhooks every time they ask me for something because I'm afraid I'm going to screw up!
So the screw up at work turned out to not be a big deal, really. To be slightly clearer than I was in the last post, we've been transcribing incriminating phone calls from this mutual fund, and entering them into a database. The only source of dating the individual wav files was a printout of the wav file names with their dates, and the to / from on them. We the paralegals didn't actually have access to the original database from which this printout came - it was sourced at another firm - we just had the hard copy. Many of the dates which I had listed as 1-xx-xx should have been 11-xx-xx, i.e. november not January. However the printout I was given had listed them as 1, not 11. The deal was that somebody had not adjusted the column widths appropriately, so that it could only handle 5 digits. so November 3, 2001 was listed correctly as 1-3-01, but Noveber 23 2001 was listed as 1-23-01. The attorney had accused me of making "all these dates wrong" (about 20 or 30) when after double checking, I had only made two typos in the whole thing.
She rather yelled at me, actually, and then stormed out, leaving me to double check my work, which was just as well. Because with time to think, I drafted a brief, to the point email that explained what had happened, pointedly apologized for the two typos I had made (pointedly not apologizing for the rest of incorrect dates because they were incorrect on the sheet I'd been given.) And this attorneys, who have the habit of getting quite frosty and grade-schoolish when they're dissatisfied with your work, have been perfectly normal to me ever since. I actually think they kind of respect me more for standing up to them. (This is the second time I've had to defend paralegal work to accusatory attorneys; the first time was on behalf of all three of us though rather than just me personally.)
The catch is that I sort of noticed the problem when I was originally going through the transcriptions because October 23 2001 showed up as 0-23-01 which told me that some of the numbers were being cut off. I meant to check up and verify the January dates to make sure they weren't November, but it wasn't actually my case, I was just helping out one of the other paras, and so I didn't pursue it as relentlessly as I would have otherwise. That was the mistake that I actually made, but I simply didn't mention that in the email - I would have owned up to it immediately had any of the attorneys pressed the issue with me, but they didn't bother. So I kind of got out of that. And now Scott is tasked with reverifying the dates anyway so even that's being taken care of. Lesson in carefullness learned for me w/o losing too much face with the attorneys or causing major case hiccups - best that can be asked for I guess.
Interestingly enough, the only times I've felt the wrath come down upon me have been when I'm working on one of the other paras cases to help them out. It's kind of galling, because I hate getting in trouble and I hate messing up, and when it's not your own case you have a lot less control over, well, everything.
However, for me the tension at work disappeared when John, one of the associates, screamed down the hall that our senior partner, Mr. Elsen, was a "fucking cocksucker".
Ah yes, see, if you got this far, you actually have something interesting to read. ;-)
John is my favorite attorney because he's very calm, willing to explain things to the paras w/o coming across as the slightest bit condescending or annoyed like we should already know everything w/o any training, takes the time to really fill you in on what's happening, and generally treats the paras like equals . . . well not quite like equals, but peers if you will . . . treats us with respect. I've heard virtually every other attorney in the office lose their temper before then, but John has never raised his voice in anger or excitment except for that day last week when he yelled "On top of all this I have to take this abuse? Mr. Elsen is a fucking cocksucker! There, now the whole firm heard it!" and slammed his door, knocking plaques off the wall, and stormed out for the rest of the day.
And we had a brief that we had to get fed-exed to Chicago that day so local counsel could file it. Guess who the attorney on the case was? John. Guess who the para was? Cecelia.
I thought John was fired for sure. Strangely enough the partner on the case actually seemed in a good mood that day. And he and John talked it out the next morning - didn't even take very long, honestly - and everything worked out fine.
I mean how many jobs can you get away with behaviour like that?????
On the upside, it put me in a position to make a good impression with Mr. Elsen, because with the associate gone, he turned to the para to do one or two things that normally he'd ask John to do. (Honestly they're more appropriate for paras anyway, but Mr. Elsen has been known to call paras into his office and dictate an email to us, which we then type, print, he edits, we retype, reprint, he edits, we retype, reprint, he edits . . . )
So basically, with half the attorneys I feel pretty good about my work and my position with them. With the other half, I'm on tentherhooks every time they ask me for something because I'm afraid I'm going to screw up!
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
So I fucked up at work today. Well, more accurately, the mistake happened over a month ago and is just now bearing its sour fruit, as it were, completely blindsiding me. Hindsite is 20/20 and all that. But it did lead me to a useful insight to law. In my opinion, law is a stressful career because it requires you to do things both quickly and absolutely perfectly.
This is somewhat a "well duh" statement, I know. And yet when you think about it, at least in the academic world, speed and perfection are usually trade-offs. If the report has to be done tomorrow you sacrifice a little bit of quality to just get it done. If it needs to be absolutely perfect, the (good) student knows she'd better plan ahead and give herself plenty of time to check and double check. In the legal world, you don't always have the luxury of double checking.
That wasn't exactly the case in this instance - after all the mistake happened a month ago, I had plenty of time to go back and look it over. But it was a long term project, so once I finished the "rough draft" if you will I set it aside and moved onto other things. It wasn't even my case to be honest - that's why I set it aside. It was something I was doing to help out one of the other paras, and then a large project came up in my own case, so I immersed myself in that project, and never got back to tidying up the original project. Then this morning they want to see what we've accomplished so far, and well, this afternoon, problems ensued.
That's the thing about this job - almost every time I've screwed up in any significant way, it hasn't been because of stupidity or carelessness / thoughtlessness. Well, actually, I guess it depends on what you call carelessness. The point is, each screw up has come down to problems in the details, and each time it wasn't that I didn't think about those details, it was just that I made a decision to do something the faster way, or the "good enough" way, and it came back and bit me on the ass.
In a way this is comforting, because if I was simply totally oblivious, then that would be a bigger problem. This is just a matter of learning not to opt for the "good enough" way. The reason why this thing blindsided me today was a matter of changing circumstances. I had done the project in a way which meant that the small errors which are inevitable in any "rough draft" of mine shouldn't have been a big issue, given the way I thought the attorneys would be using the data I was assembling. At least not in the initial phases - when we got down to using them as evidence that would be a different story, but that is probably over a year away. But they apparently decided at some point to do things differently than originally planned, without passing along that information to the paras. Had my data been 100% accurate it wouldn't have been a problem at all. But the change in method magnified the errors to a much greater importance.
Anyway, this job has been a good learning experience precisely because I can get screw ups like that out of the way now when it's relatively unimportant, rather than when I'm in my first internship after law school. I am slowly coming to terms with the high expectations that one encounters in this field, and learning how to adjust my thinking to meeting them.
Every other job I've had has involved a certain amount of fudging, now that I think about it. We taught our refs that if you're officiating an intramural game and you're uncertain about a call, go with your best judgement but be decisive about it even if you're not sure. In retail like at Bath and Body Works - if somebody asks you a question about a product that you aren't sure about, don't lie to them, but you're supposed to know your products, so you can't always say "let me look that up for you." So you fudge it.
Political science: weak points in your argument? Fudge them a bit and try to steer the emphasis elsewhere.
But when you're a paralegal? Fudging is a dangerous dangerous thing!
This is somewhat a "well duh" statement, I know. And yet when you think about it, at least in the academic world, speed and perfection are usually trade-offs. If the report has to be done tomorrow you sacrifice a little bit of quality to just get it done. If it needs to be absolutely perfect, the (good) student knows she'd better plan ahead and give herself plenty of time to check and double check. In the legal world, you don't always have the luxury of double checking.
That wasn't exactly the case in this instance - after all the mistake happened a month ago, I had plenty of time to go back and look it over. But it was a long term project, so once I finished the "rough draft" if you will I set it aside and moved onto other things. It wasn't even my case to be honest - that's why I set it aside. It was something I was doing to help out one of the other paras, and then a large project came up in my own case, so I immersed myself in that project, and never got back to tidying up the original project. Then this morning they want to see what we've accomplished so far, and well, this afternoon, problems ensued.
That's the thing about this job - almost every time I've screwed up in any significant way, it hasn't been because of stupidity or carelessness / thoughtlessness. Well, actually, I guess it depends on what you call carelessness. The point is, each screw up has come down to problems in the details, and each time it wasn't that I didn't think about those details, it was just that I made a decision to do something the faster way, or the "good enough" way, and it came back and bit me on the ass.
In a way this is comforting, because if I was simply totally oblivious, then that would be a bigger problem. This is just a matter of learning not to opt for the "good enough" way. The reason why this thing blindsided me today was a matter of changing circumstances. I had done the project in a way which meant that the small errors which are inevitable in any "rough draft" of mine shouldn't have been a big issue, given the way I thought the attorneys would be using the data I was assembling. At least not in the initial phases - when we got down to using them as evidence that would be a different story, but that is probably over a year away. But they apparently decided at some point to do things differently than originally planned, without passing along that information to the paras. Had my data been 100% accurate it wouldn't have been a problem at all. But the change in method magnified the errors to a much greater importance.
Anyway, this job has been a good learning experience precisely because I can get screw ups like that out of the way now when it's relatively unimportant, rather than when I'm in my first internship after law school. I am slowly coming to terms with the high expectations that one encounters in this field, and learning how to adjust my thinking to meeting them.
Every other job I've had has involved a certain amount of fudging, now that I think about it. We taught our refs that if you're officiating an intramural game and you're uncertain about a call, go with your best judgement but be decisive about it even if you're not sure. In retail like at Bath and Body Works - if somebody asks you a question about a product that you aren't sure about, don't lie to them, but you're supposed to know your products, so you can't always say "let me look that up for you." So you fudge it.
Political science: weak points in your argument? Fudge them a bit and try to steer the emphasis elsewhere.
But when you're a paralegal? Fudging is a dangerous dangerous thing!
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
My parents are coming this weekend and I'm really excited. I just bought us tickets to see Fiddler on the Roof on Friday evening. My dad, who dislikes cities and therefore has been somewhat unenthusiastic about the location (although I know he's glad to see me), seemed a bit more enthused about the trips after I told him. :-) For myself there are a number of other musicals I'd rather see, but my parents really like Fiddler on the Roof. I hesitated because they've seen it performed by the local highschool and seen the movie plenty of times, they've sung the songs in choir and so forth, so it's very familiar to them. But this is the first time they're seeing something on Broadway. We're a very musical family and we enjoy musicals a lot, so I was remembering my thrill when I saw my first show on Broadway, and it had nothing to do with what I was seeing. Or actually - it was more that I was seeing something for real, in person that I'd heard the soundtrack to hundreds of times. (Miss Saigon) It was better that it was something I knew and loved. And when you add to that my parents' conservative ideas, (they walked out of Pippen at intermission, for instance) it was better to stick with something tried and true.
I'm not NYC expert by any means, but I have gotten used to working there. And while my grand total of 3 Broadway shows makes me a pretty novice theater goer, it's still just enough that the whole "it's Broadway" euphoria has chilled a little bit into just a "it's good theater / music." So I'm totally pysched to be giving my parents that first "woah, cool, once-in-a-lifetime experience" type feeling.
Especially my Dad. My mom actually visited NYC for the World's Fair in the 1960s. And she's been pretty excited to go see not all the museums but just the things New York is known for: Tiffany's, Bloomingdale's, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, etc. So I wasn't worried about her. But my parents work really really hard . . . they are two giant stressballs all the time because they work 7 days a week virtually all the time, and 10 hour days . . . although with their jobs (farmer and politician) you can't really define how many hours they work. I guess that's the thing - they don't have jobs, they have lifestyles. They live and breathe their work. Sure some people say that about people who work in office jobs, and I do not for a second intented to belittle what such professionals do or the effort they put in. But it's still different . . . a farmer never leaves his job, he lives there *literally* not just figuratively. That's not necessarily a bad thing. My Dad loves what he does, even though he doesn't love all the stress or the lack of money. But it's the only way he's ever lived his life. He grew up waking up in the wee hours of the morning to milk the cows before he went to school. And Mom, well, the whole State Representative thing is a relatively recent turn of events (sure she's in her 3rd year but wehn you consider that she is 55 years old, that's recent.) But it's a lifestyle too., a job that never goes away, that while it may technically have an "office" is really a job that happens everywhere she goes, be it the supermarket or the hog market.
So I guess knowing how hard they work, and knowing how stressed they are most of the time, I just really want this vacation to actually be a vacation for them. So it makes me feel good that I've given them something to look forward to.
I'm not NYC expert by any means, but I have gotten used to working there. And while my grand total of 3 Broadway shows makes me a pretty novice theater goer, it's still just enough that the whole "it's Broadway" euphoria has chilled a little bit into just a "it's good theater / music." So I'm totally pysched to be giving my parents that first "woah, cool, once-in-a-lifetime experience" type feeling.
Especially my Dad. My mom actually visited NYC for the World's Fair in the 1960s. And she's been pretty excited to go see not all the museums but just the things New York is known for: Tiffany's, Bloomingdale's, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, etc. So I wasn't worried about her. But my parents work really really hard . . . they are two giant stressballs all the time because they work 7 days a week virtually all the time, and 10 hour days . . . although with their jobs (farmer and politician) you can't really define how many hours they work. I guess that's the thing - they don't have jobs, they have lifestyles. They live and breathe their work. Sure some people say that about people who work in office jobs, and I do not for a second intented to belittle what such professionals do or the effort they put in. But it's still different . . . a farmer never leaves his job, he lives there *literally* not just figuratively. That's not necessarily a bad thing. My Dad loves what he does, even though he doesn't love all the stress or the lack of money. But it's the only way he's ever lived his life. He grew up waking up in the wee hours of the morning to milk the cows before he went to school. And Mom, well, the whole State Representative thing is a relatively recent turn of events (sure she's in her 3rd year but wehn you consider that she is 55 years old, that's recent.) But it's a lifestyle too., a job that never goes away, that while it may technically have an "office" is really a job that happens everywhere she goes, be it the supermarket or the hog market.
So I guess knowing how hard they work, and knowing how stressed they are most of the time, I just really want this vacation to actually be a vacation for them. So it makes me feel good that I've given them something to look forward to.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
So, I hit upon an interesting thought tonight that I feel like expounding. It occurs to me that this would be a particularly interesting conversation to have with my ex boyfriend, actually. But it comes down to the whole "question everything" philosophy.
People at times find me a real pain in the ass to try to teach something to. I come across as stubborn, willful, think I know it all, or something like that - even people who should know me well enough to understand me feel this way. It drives my sisters crazy. They are constantly talking about how I never want advice.
Example one: For some reason, one day, my uncle and I were messing around with some electronic equipment, and I wanted to plug the VCR or whatever into the wall, and he said "You can't do that." and I said "why not?" and he said "just trust me, you can't." and I said "why not?" and he said "okay fine if you don't believe me, try it yourself." and I said "I didn't say I didn't believe you, I just wanted to know why not?" and he said "because it's a three prong plug and a two prong hole." and I said "Okay." (I couldn't see the plug when I was asking this.)
Example two: Rob was trying to teach me how to do some simple maintenance thing on my car, I don't remember what. But I was questingin him as he showed me the steps, and he got really irritated with me. Afterward I said "But I just want to understand what you're doing" and he said something to the effect of that was fine but it was rude to ask all those questions when I had asked somebody for help, because it made it seem like after I asked them for help I was questioning their competence. So in his opinion I should wait to ask questions until after he was done.
Well that method of waiting to the end to ask has it's limitations. I believe part of Rob's point was that sometimes the answers become evident later in the process, and so one should wait to the end to see what one doesn't understand. I get that, but it doesn't work very well with the way my mind operates. If I don't understand a step in the process I won't remember that step.
And so this got me thinking that I guess this is just my general approach to life: question everything. It's not meant to be offensive to anyone . . . in my world view, if you're right, then you'll be able to put me in my place pretty quickly if I question you, and I'm the type of person who can usually admit it when someone else is right, so what's the big deal? But why should I take anything as gospel truth w/o at least thinking about it a bit?
But here's the key . . . it seems like a lot of people who wander around going "Question everything" usually end up believing that there aren't answers at all. I say "question everything", but I also believe there are answers.
People at times find me a real pain in the ass to try to teach something to. I come across as stubborn, willful, think I know it all, or something like that - even people who should know me well enough to understand me feel this way. It drives my sisters crazy. They are constantly talking about how I never want advice.
Example one: For some reason, one day, my uncle and I were messing around with some electronic equipment, and I wanted to plug the VCR or whatever into the wall, and he said "You can't do that." and I said "why not?" and he said "just trust me, you can't." and I said "why not?" and he said "okay fine if you don't believe me, try it yourself." and I said "I didn't say I didn't believe you, I just wanted to know why not?" and he said "because it's a three prong plug and a two prong hole." and I said "Okay." (I couldn't see the plug when I was asking this.)
Example two: Rob was trying to teach me how to do some simple maintenance thing on my car, I don't remember what. But I was questingin him as he showed me the steps, and he got really irritated with me. Afterward I said "But I just want to understand what you're doing" and he said something to the effect of that was fine but it was rude to ask all those questions when I had asked somebody for help, because it made it seem like after I asked them for help I was questioning their competence. So in his opinion I should wait to ask questions until after he was done.
Well that method of waiting to the end to ask has it's limitations. I believe part of Rob's point was that sometimes the answers become evident later in the process, and so one should wait to the end to see what one doesn't understand. I get that, but it doesn't work very well with the way my mind operates. If I don't understand a step in the process I won't remember that step.
And so this got me thinking that I guess this is just my general approach to life: question everything. It's not meant to be offensive to anyone . . . in my world view, if you're right, then you'll be able to put me in my place pretty quickly if I question you, and I'm the type of person who can usually admit it when someone else is right, so what's the big deal? But why should I take anything as gospel truth w/o at least thinking about it a bit?
But here's the key . . . it seems like a lot of people who wander around going "Question everything" usually end up believing that there aren't answers at all. I say "question everything", but I also believe there are answers.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
If you're wondering why your Christmas card has stickers sealing it, its because the humidity in my Providence apartment ruined the seal on the Christmas cards last summer. Now, I wasn't scooping up bargain priced Christmas cards after New Years 2004. I just had cards left over. Being a pack rat is a tradition in my family. But holidays have their own special pack rat tradition: the wrapping paper box.
I have two whole boxes devoted to Christmas stuff now, one for the fake tree and one for the ormanements, wrapping paper, cards, etc. It makes me feel like I've really gone somewhere in the world, because I now have holiday boxes. ;-) Of course perhaps this only makes sense when you understand that nobody ever, ever ripped the paper in my household. Our restraint was not out of natural inclination for tidiness, but because all wrapping paper was carefully folded and placed in the wrapping paper box, to be pulled out again next year. There is one steadily shrinking piece of Mickey Mouse paper that came from an aunt when I was in grade school that still resides in the wrapping paper box. We treat it with reverence, cutting from it only for the most special of gifts, and making sure it gets a nice safe place between the stiff, folded up JCPenny's boxes that also live in the big wrapping paper box.
Little poll? Anybody else's family grow up with a wrapping paper box? I'm genuinely curious.*turning to a less rosy memory and to a more somber note*
You know though it's occurred to me a number of times recently, when I have stories that almost but sometimes not quite come off the tip of my tongue, that I will really have that whole cackling "When I was young missy, we walked barefoot to school " routine down pat when I'm old. And the stories will even be true. I don't find it sad, I find it amusing. I like our wrapping paper box.
I did wear those crappy black plastic hightops to school for awhile with my big toe sticking out of them . . . . it rained one day . . . Adam Carter, or was it Nicholas Orscheln, teased me about them . . . and I finally told Mom it was time for new shoes, and she sighed that "I know" sigh . . . those guys were always teasing me in grade school . . . that's a true story, too.
Funny though, even that one doesn't really make me sad. Just kind of feels weird to realize that wasn't normal. My sister Tamara *HATED* being . . . poor. Poor-ish. Were we poor? Wearing shoes like that classifies as poor to me but I never felt poor. I just felt like we didn't have any money. Besides, it made me tough - not in that fake "I'm just putting up a front" way, but in a genuine "Hey I can survive anything that doesn't kill me" way.
And I'm rather fond of the wrapping paper box memory, after all. I'm even starting my own. :-)
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
okay, it's time for another confession. See, I sit around in the office all day, sit on the train to and from work, sit at home and watch TV . . . and so I finally gave in. Brenda (my housemate) has all these pilates videos . . . so I've started actually working out along with an exercise video.
Ugg. I feel kind of ashamed admitting that. ;-)
I mean it seems so cheesy. Good grief, I was a basketball player!!! None of the people likely reading this blog knew me back in the days when I could legitimately claim to be an athlete. It's sad - it's this whole part of my identity that I've completely lost. From fifth grade through high school, I played basketball competitively. Man, I miss how in shape I used to be. It felt so good . . . to feel your muscles stretched, exercised, the blood pounding through your body, tingling . . . awake, alive . . . that last part I think sums it up most. So ALIVE. I mean, when they say exercising gives you more energy, they really really mean it. And you feel so in control, so capable.
Actually I remember hearing that somewhere, a little snippet from . . . oh yeah, okay so it was from the book Sphere so who knows if the science was true . . . it was some pyschological study about something else. About people and how they react under stress. And one of the side effects they discovered was that people who were more athletic tended to do better under stress of all types, because they felt more in control, more confident of their own abilities, even when it wasn't a physical related task.
And now I watch these shows . . . Dark Angel, Alias, Buffy . . . some bad ass women that are as close to my heros as anything is and the thing is when I watch them I just groan about how much I'm *not* in shape. And I think about my "glory days" (at least as far as physical fitness goes) and I want it back, badly.
The gym membership for that brief amount of time last year helped. The ability to get outside and exercise helped. But now I'm heading into those dark winter months - no escaping to Groton to once in a blue moon at least get out bike riding.
Exercise videos always seemed kind of cheesy to me before. Like, that's not what real athletes did. And I was a "real athlete." *sigh*
But, I have to admit, I'm impressed . . . not with myself, I'm in pitiful physical shape, but with the video. It is a good work out . . . not so much aerobically but it's an ab video, it's not supposed to be all that aerobic. So until I can get around to getting certified to work as a basketball referee and start picking up extra cash that way, exercise videos it is. ;-)
Ugg. I feel kind of ashamed admitting that. ;-)
I mean it seems so cheesy. Good grief, I was a basketball player!!! None of the people likely reading this blog knew me back in the days when I could legitimately claim to be an athlete. It's sad - it's this whole part of my identity that I've completely lost. From fifth grade through high school, I played basketball competitively. Man, I miss how in shape I used to be. It felt so good . . . to feel your muscles stretched, exercised, the blood pounding through your body, tingling . . . awake, alive . . . that last part I think sums it up most. So ALIVE. I mean, when they say exercising gives you more energy, they really really mean it. And you feel so in control, so capable.
Actually I remember hearing that somewhere, a little snippet from . . . oh yeah, okay so it was from the book Sphere so who knows if the science was true . . . it was some pyschological study about something else. About people and how they react under stress. And one of the side effects they discovered was that people who were more athletic tended to do better under stress of all types, because they felt more in control, more confident of their own abilities, even when it wasn't a physical related task.
And now I watch these shows . . . Dark Angel, Alias, Buffy . . . some bad ass women that are as close to my heros as anything is and the thing is when I watch them I just groan about how much I'm *not* in shape. And I think about my "glory days" (at least as far as physical fitness goes) and I want it back, badly.
The gym membership for that brief amount of time last year helped. The ability to get outside and exercise helped. But now I'm heading into those dark winter months - no escaping to Groton to once in a blue moon at least get out bike riding.
Exercise videos always seemed kind of cheesy to me before. Like, that's not what real athletes did. And I was a "real athlete." *sigh*
But, I have to admit, I'm impressed . . . not with myself, I'm in pitiful physical shape, but with the video. It is a good work out . . . not so much aerobically but it's an ab video, it's not supposed to be all that aerobic. So until I can get around to getting certified to work as a basketball referee and start picking up extra cash that way, exercise videos it is. ;-)
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Farmers and Tree Huggers Unite!
In 250 Words or Less
By Cecelia Sander
Yale Law School application
Missouri farmers tend to see environmentalists as the enemy. Yet despite undeniable differences, the two groups share some interests. Environmentalists basically want the earth to be healthy. Farmers depend on healthy soil and stable weather patterns for good crop yields. The two groups have different standards for a “healthy world” as the on-going conflict about pesticides demonstrates, but it is worth recognizing that on some fundamental level both groups have similar interests.
Whatever theoretical similarities the groups have, however, the practical issues on which they can agree are narrowly defined. Yet one of these, alternative energy sources, is an important topic in current American politics. Environmentalists want our economy to switch to “greener” energy sources. Missouri’s corn and soybean producers stand to gain economically from increased demand for ethanol.
Alone, environmentalists have trouble overcoming certain corporate business interests opposed to a radical new national energy policy. While farmers themselves are a numerically miniscule portion of the U.S. population, their intimate social and economic ties with small town America significantly enlarges the number of people who could be motivated to support an alternative energy resource plan if it promised to improve the lot of U.S. farmers. Even though ethanol would only be one of several alternatives in a comprehensive new national energy policy, both environmentalists and farmers stand to gain by prioritizing achieving a new energy policy over other fundamental differences in a temporary alliance.
In 250 Words or Less
By Cecelia Sander
Yale Law School application
Missouri farmers tend to see environmentalists as the enemy. Yet despite undeniable differences, the two groups share some interests. Environmentalists basically want the earth to be healthy. Farmers depend on healthy soil and stable weather patterns for good crop yields. The two groups have different standards for a “healthy world” as the on-going conflict about pesticides demonstrates, but it is worth recognizing that on some fundamental level both groups have similar interests.
Whatever theoretical similarities the groups have, however, the practical issues on which they can agree are narrowly defined. Yet one of these, alternative energy sources, is an important topic in current American politics. Environmentalists want our economy to switch to “greener” energy sources. Missouri’s corn and soybean producers stand to gain economically from increased demand for ethanol.
Alone, environmentalists have trouble overcoming certain corporate business interests opposed to a radical new national energy policy. While farmers themselves are a numerically miniscule portion of the U.S. population, their intimate social and economic ties with small town America significantly enlarges the number of people who could be motivated to support an alternative energy resource plan if it promised to improve the lot of U.S. farmers. Even though ethanol would only be one of several alternatives in a comprehensive new national energy policy, both environmentalists and farmers stand to gain by prioritizing achieving a new energy policy over other fundamental differences in a temporary alliance.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
I sometimes regret that I did or said something at a particular moment, but I can think of nothing right now in my life that I regret. Meaning it's one thing to say "oops, I shouldn't have said that mean thing, and I'm sorry" and another to beat yourself up about it for twenty years. I don't go for the self-scourging thing . . . a strength and a weakness, because it makes me confident and sort of a "full speed ahead" kind a gal generally speaking, but then again I'm sure I could be doing a better job fixing my faults if I had a little guilt on my conscience. But Guilt isn't really my thing.
I meant this as a deeper reflection than all that though. Because I was talking with a friend again, about how lately I've been sort of consumed if you will by my latest TV obsession, Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. And how I've tried to remind myself of late, "this is real - this is your life - don't waste it w/ your head in some imaginary realm - pay attention and live it".
There are two parts to not living with regret. The first, the obvious one that everybody knows, is not being afraid to *do* things, to take a few risks, to not put life on hold, but really live it, in this moment. The second, well maybe it's obvious as well, who knows. And that is, to not second guess about what could have been. Sure, it sounds like the definition of not regretting - but it's an active choice, and a shade different. We'll never be able to do everything in life. We take one path and turn down another, and that's all part of what life is. This bugs the hell out of some people . . . some people even let it chew at them until they are incapable of making any major decisions with their life because heaven forbid it might be the wrong one. But even the most adventerous life, or even the life that's the best blend of risk and sensibility possible, will have some "might have beens". The trick is being happy with where you are, happy with the places you've been - even some of the less fun places you've been, because those teach you something.
I guess it's the chicken and the egg. If you're happy with where you are, with where you've been, and believe in yourself and where you are going, well, it should be easy to say "hey, so what if I could have done something different? I like the way the choices I've made turned out." And I'm trying to say it works in reverse too . . . that even after you've screwed up, even if you know you could have done something better, you can still say "Hey, it's not ideal, but it's okay. I learned from it. I came out okay in the end. I'm going to come out okay in the end."
As I think about it, this is a point of continuing misunderstanding between my boyfriend and I. It's not the way he thinks, so when I try to put the best face on some problem he's having, some fear he has for the future . . . in short, when I play my favorite cheer up game, the "how to survive the worst case scenario", he often gets upset with me because it seems like I'm belittling his concerns. (Even though we've had this discussion several times, but our thought processes are just naturally different on this point.) That's not the purpose at all though . . . my purpose is to try to show him how to live life w/o regrets.
I wonder if this is a technique that works for everybody?
I suppose it's a developed by-Cecelia for-Cecelia piece of pyschological pep rally.
That's probably one of the first times I've admitted that my way of solving things may not work for everybody w/o secretly thinking "but it would dammit if you would just see things my way . . ." ;-)
"Nice to see she's grown as a person." (Angel, Ep. 1-1)
I meant this as a deeper reflection than all that though. Because I was talking with a friend again, about how lately I've been sort of consumed if you will by my latest TV obsession, Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. And how I've tried to remind myself of late, "this is real - this is your life - don't waste it w/ your head in some imaginary realm - pay attention and live it".
There are two parts to not living with regret. The first, the obvious one that everybody knows, is not being afraid to *do* things, to take a few risks, to not put life on hold, but really live it, in this moment. The second, well maybe it's obvious as well, who knows. And that is, to not second guess about what could have been. Sure, it sounds like the definition of not regretting - but it's an active choice, and a shade different. We'll never be able to do everything in life. We take one path and turn down another, and that's all part of what life is. This bugs the hell out of some people . . . some people even let it chew at them until they are incapable of making any major decisions with their life because heaven forbid it might be the wrong one. But even the most adventerous life, or even the life that's the best blend of risk and sensibility possible, will have some "might have beens". The trick is being happy with where you are, happy with the places you've been - even some of the less fun places you've been, because those teach you something.
I guess it's the chicken and the egg. If you're happy with where you are, with where you've been, and believe in yourself and where you are going, well, it should be easy to say "hey, so what if I could have done something different? I like the way the choices I've made turned out." And I'm trying to say it works in reverse too . . . that even after you've screwed up, even if you know you could have done something better, you can still say "Hey, it's not ideal, but it's okay. I learned from it. I came out okay in the end. I'm going to come out okay in the end."
As I think about it, this is a point of continuing misunderstanding between my boyfriend and I. It's not the way he thinks, so when I try to put the best face on some problem he's having, some fear he has for the future . . . in short, when I play my favorite cheer up game, the "how to survive the worst case scenario", he often gets upset with me because it seems like I'm belittling his concerns. (Even though we've had this discussion several times, but our thought processes are just naturally different on this point.) That's not the purpose at all though . . . my purpose is to try to show him how to live life w/o regrets.
I wonder if this is a technique that works for everybody?
I suppose it's a developed by-Cecelia for-Cecelia piece of pyschological pep rally.
That's probably one of the first times I've admitted that my way of solving things may not work for everybody w/o secretly thinking "but it would dammit if you would just see things my way . . ." ;-)
"Nice to see she's grown as a person." (Angel, Ep. 1-1)
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