When George and I have caught up on everything that's happened in the day since we've last spoken, we usually turn to current events/history. I swear we could talk about this indefinately or at least on a long car trip. Last night's topic was: Is it 1929 again? I heard on NPR early this morning that 28% of American's believe we're in a Depression.
The mood on the train home from Manhattan is grim. I know for a fact there are a LOT of finance guys on my train and they are scared, really scared. I bet they wish now they'd saved a lot more instead of buying a fancy car or a second vacation home. But much like the Roaring 20s people, they lived in the moment and put EVERYTHING on the line.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Donna Nobis Pachem
John 16:33 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
33"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
For the last two days, God has blessed me with a lunch buddy and her name is Lucy. She is one of my co-workers at my day job. And since our office is right across the street from the park, and there's plenty of tables and chairs, that's where we went.
Yesterday we talked about stuff going on in the company and I had my suspicions that there was something familiar about her. So today I simply asked "Where do you go to church?" It turns out our NYC churches are sister churches and are studying similar issues right now.
Since Lucy doesn't have a second job like me, she's really been able to plug in and get involved. I did some volunteering at Journey over the summer after work and LOVED it! It was nice to have one part of my day where my skill set could be used for His Glory. George was also cool about me going (as usual- he doesn't hold me back from anything actually). So it got me thinking: is He calling me to be an admin. for Christ full time?
I have no idea what that will mean but I think I'm going to put some feelers out there and see.
In the meantime, I have been granted some peace through this new sisterhood and when I found out another co-worker is a SIC, I suggested we split up praying for our company in 3 :). We'll see how that goes, if God makes a way it will not be blocked.
EOM
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
33"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
For the last two days, God has blessed me with a lunch buddy and her name is Lucy. She is one of my co-workers at my day job. And since our office is right across the street from the park, and there's plenty of tables and chairs, that's where we went.
Yesterday we talked about stuff going on in the company and I had my suspicions that there was something familiar about her. So today I simply asked "Where do you go to church?" It turns out our NYC churches are sister churches and are studying similar issues right now.
Since Lucy doesn't have a second job like me, she's really been able to plug in and get involved. I did some volunteering at Journey over the summer after work and LOVED it! It was nice to have one part of my day where my skill set could be used for His Glory. George was also cool about me going (as usual- he doesn't hold me back from anything actually). So it got me thinking: is He calling me to be an admin. for Christ full time?
I have no idea what that will mean but I think I'm going to put some feelers out there and see.
In the meantime, I have been granted some peace through this new sisterhood and when I found out another co-worker is a SIC, I suggested we split up praying for our company in 3 :). We'll see how that goes, if God makes a way it will not be blocked.
EOM
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Stargirl
Book/Life Review:
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
I didn't read this young adult novel until I was in my mid-twenties and working as a children's bookseller full-time. It was one of those nights when the store was quiet, especially in my department, a Saturday night in fact. I was re-shelving or cleaning and picked up this book to read (when my boss wasn't looking of course).
It's about a girl who's been home-schooled but is now enrolled in public middle school. Umm yeah for all the times to get PULLED out of school to learn at home, this is the time I would personally choose. She is unique to be sure but has a heart for people.
One of the things she is known for early on is bring her bango into the lunchroom to sing "Happy Birthday" to one of her classmates. No one knows how she figures out when their day is and of course they are motified. However, nothing phases Stargirl. That is until the very end of the book, when the narrator Leo, who she's fallen in love, rejects her affection and leaves school.
More later... I have to read the sequel that I JUST found out was published late last year...
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
I didn't read this young adult novel until I was in my mid-twenties and working as a children's bookseller full-time. It was one of those nights when the store was quiet, especially in my department, a Saturday night in fact. I was re-shelving or cleaning and picked up this book to read (when my boss wasn't looking of course).
It's about a girl who's been home-schooled but is now enrolled in public middle school. Umm yeah for all the times to get PULLED out of school to learn at home, this is the time I would personally choose. She is unique to be sure but has a heart for people.
One of the things she is known for early on is bring her bango into the lunchroom to sing "Happy Birthday" to one of her classmates. No one knows how she figures out when their day is and of course they are motified. However, nothing phases Stargirl. That is until the very end of the book, when the narrator Leo, who she's fallen in love, rejects her affection and leaves school.
More later... I have to read the sequel that I JUST found out was published late last year...
Politics as Usual
I'm seeing it where I work, live, and play. Okay not where I play but still it seems I cannot get through a day without someone is making a deal with someone else. I have to cover the backs of a lot of people in my work life but as I learned last week, they certainly don't cover mine. I've been sold up the proverbial river simply because it's apparently in my job description. I won't go into any particular details but let's just say my eyes have been opened to a field of work to which I will never fit into as a career. It's my job, I do it, go out to lunch, come back to finish it and go home.
My career is teaching two nights a week and on Saturday mornings. It doesn't pay nearly 50% of my bills but it has more meaning than my day job ever will. It gives me joy and satisfaction, which is more than I can say most other people feel about their work. Maybe it's because I'm a control freak but being an adjunct is the best job I've EVER had. I have no one watching me expect my students and I don't need to brown nose to ANYONE just to make my day go smoother. As long as my students pass their exam at the end of the semester, I've done my job. I get paid whether or not my students attend class.
Being an educator will never pay well for me and getting full-time work is almost impossible in my field. Last year I applied for a one year position that over 180 other people applied for. This was a 1 year maternity leave yet it received as many applicants as a tenure track position. I read the message boards on CHE weekly and it's not looking to get any better any time soon.
So for now, I have to take my lumps or grief as it were and be grateful. EOM
My career is teaching two nights a week and on Saturday mornings. It doesn't pay nearly 50% of my bills but it has more meaning than my day job ever will. It gives me joy and satisfaction, which is more than I can say most other people feel about their work. Maybe it's because I'm a control freak but being an adjunct is the best job I've EVER had. I have no one watching me expect my students and I don't need to brown nose to ANYONE just to make my day go smoother. As long as my students pass their exam at the end of the semester, I've done my job. I get paid whether or not my students attend class.
Being an educator will never pay well for me and getting full-time work is almost impossible in my field. Last year I applied for a one year position that over 180 other people applied for. This was a 1 year maternity leave yet it received as many applicants as a tenure track position. I read the message boards on CHE weekly and it's not looking to get any better any time soon.
So for now, I have to take my lumps or grief as it were and be grateful. EOM
Friday, September 05, 2008
Is "Rent" Still Relevant?
George and I went to see "Rent" last weekend and the only thought that was running through my mind was- is this play still relevant? No offense to those groupies out ther (and in the theater with us on Saturday afternoon) but I found the issues raised in the play passe and contrived. The AIDS crisis has somewhat passed, with increased awareness and medicines available. I give the play TONS of credit for creating that awareness in the late 90s.
The one issue that I found facinating was regentrification. Call me a yuppie, but I had no problem with Benjamin's attempt to revitalize the neighborhood with a cyber studio- a business that is not past it's prime. He did see the tech. bubble expanding and thought in the long term it would be good for everyone.
The scariest thing about these characters is they are more or less in my age group- late 20-somethings trying to get meaning out of life and finding work that serves their passion. Unlike Roger and Mark, I do have a mortgage to pay so I don't have the luxury of pursing my dream full-time. Right now, it's more like a part-time gig 8 months a year...
The one issue that I found facinating was regentrification. Call me a yuppie, but I had no problem with Benjamin's attempt to revitalize the neighborhood with a cyber studio- a business that is not past it's prime. He did see the tech. bubble expanding and thought in the long term it would be good for everyone.
The scariest thing about these characters is they are more or less in my age group- late 20-somethings trying to get meaning out of life and finding work that serves their passion. Unlike Roger and Mark, I do have a mortgage to pay so I don't have the luxury of pursing my dream full-time. Right now, it's more like a part-time gig 8 months a year...
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Frist Day of School, Year 23
Yes kids, I've been "going back to school" since 1985. I've sharpened my pencils, rustled up some school supplies from my vast collection and got going last evening. This year marks the 3rd year I've been BEHIND the desk. Only one more semester and I qualify for some super special perks at the community college where I adjunct 2 evenings and Saturday mornings for the next 16 weeks. These include: tuition wavers for courses I may wish to take to enrich my life AND a waiver to use the gym for free (not that I seriously see myself taking advantage of that).
Last evening, I taught on one of our sister campuses for the first time. It's in an urban neighborhood. The faculty lot is surrounded by barbed wire, that's how urban it is. The campus police are actually quite better than the ones on our main very suburban campus. The air conditioning wasn't working in our room but I kept plugging along anyhow and only lost one student who couldn't take the heat anymore. Everyone else made it until 9:35 and George called me exactly as the last student was leaving.
He's been so supportive of this part of my life. Luckily it doesn't take ANY time away from the little time we do have to date. I made it that way on purpose, mostly for my own sanity and also out of respect for his limited personal time.
This semester I'm focusing on being a better instructor. That means I planned my lessons differently and I'm using internet technology that I'm familiar with, mainly Facebook. I'm not a big fan of BlackBoard so I decided to build my own platform instead of using the (in my opinion) outdated virtual classroom software.
Let the grading begin... (at lunch and on the train of course!)
Last evening, I taught on one of our sister campuses for the first time. It's in an urban neighborhood. The faculty lot is surrounded by barbed wire, that's how urban it is. The campus police are actually quite better than the ones on our main very suburban campus. The air conditioning wasn't working in our room but I kept plugging along anyhow and only lost one student who couldn't take the heat anymore. Everyone else made it until 9:35 and George called me exactly as the last student was leaving.
He's been so supportive of this part of my life. Luckily it doesn't take ANY time away from the little time we do have to date. I made it that way on purpose, mostly for my own sanity and also out of respect for his limited personal time.
This semester I'm focusing on being a better instructor. That means I planned my lessons differently and I'm using internet technology that I'm familiar with, mainly Facebook. I'm not a big fan of BlackBoard so I decided to build my own platform instead of using the (in my opinion) outdated virtual classroom software.
Let the grading begin... (at lunch and on the train of course!)
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
9021Uh Oh
This show (old and new) definitely did not define my life during my high school years. In fact, none of the TV shows about high school life produced thus far in my lifetime have not related to my experience.
As my ten year reunion has thus been recently announced for Thanksgiving Weekend at a bar in Hoboken (and George is NOT jumping up and down to escort me- with good reason), I ponder what exactly has changed in the last eighteen years since the Aaron Spelling drama originally aired on Fox.
Well, the show did not take into account any other part of the universe except the brightly lit stucco courtyard campus of West Beverley High and its fancy Rodeo Drive neighborhood. Anyone who's ever been to L.A. knows that outside of that 'hood, it's a ghetto that NO ONE with their daddy's credit card would venture out to.
As a life-long east coaster, I've recently been addicted to watching all sorts of shows set in Cali, mainly "the Hills"- now that truly presents a real picture of life on the West Coast. It's mostly ots of shopping and eating at beautiful restaurants and not a lot of working time. When my favorite peps, LC and Whitney, do venture to the big bad East Coast for work, they are ceremoniously eaten for a power lunch in the Fashion District of NYC.
Anyhow getting back to 90210, there are some tidbits from the new show I found particularly news-worthy. For the sake of keeping them straight, I shall laundry list them:
1. Laurie Louglin as "Mrs. Walsh"-mmm yeah we're actually suppose to believe she's grown up in Kansas... what do we look like Dorothy or something? In my mind, she's always that chicka who snagged Jessie in "Full House" and played cool pseudo mommy to the Olsen Twins. Watch out world if those two make a cameo in the new 90210.
2. Blow jobs before school in the student parking lot: mmm yeah, where are the rent a cops trolling the parking lots for those hygiene distasters in progress? I know my high school, probably a similar size, had those folks all over the place before, during and after school. The smart kids (i.e. seniors) went during 5-7th period lunch to their houses to get some snooky- I mean spooning.
3. Jeannie Garth as a guidance counselor- Sure she was always trying to deal with her odd up-bringing and getting assaulted more than once during her tenure on the original series. Now she's still solving everyone's problems by sticking her nose in their business. Her baby daddy is either Brandon Walsh or Dylan McKay, or maybe she's not sure. Either way, she's looking to help those who SHE thinks need it, whether they like it or not. Her baby sister, now a teenager, is especially prone to this TLC during her school days. Her character accepts it begrudgingly or maybe she's lapping it up because their mother has yet to win the PTA parent of the year award for all her -self-loathing...woe is I- bit.
4. Rob Estes as a principal- Okay maybe this dude's been getting a lot of TV work lately but he always plays a bad boy and NOW we're suppose to believe he's an upstanding principal who left LA for Dorthy-land because he was embarrassed that his mother made a fortune doing porn work time. Who on earth would recruit a principal in Kansas to work in LA unless he was born and bred there?: And oh yeah, he had a love child with this Wisteria Lane esque type Orange County housewife blondie.
That's all she wrote for now, kids... when's Gossip Girl gonna burn some Prada tracks over these California dreamers? All I can say is, as the Beach Boys said, "I wish they all could be California Girls" but then again they also said "The northern girls with the way they kiss, they keep their boyfriends warm at night".
Peace out!
As my ten year reunion has thus been recently announced for Thanksgiving Weekend at a bar in Hoboken (and George is NOT jumping up and down to escort me- with good reason), I ponder what exactly has changed in the last eighteen years since the Aaron Spelling drama originally aired on Fox.
Well, the show did not take into account any other part of the universe except the brightly lit stucco courtyard campus of West Beverley High and its fancy Rodeo Drive neighborhood. Anyone who's ever been to L.A. knows that outside of that 'hood, it's a ghetto that NO ONE with their daddy's credit card would venture out to.
As a life-long east coaster, I've recently been addicted to watching all sorts of shows set in Cali, mainly "the Hills"- now that truly presents a real picture of life on the West Coast. It's mostly ots of shopping and eating at beautiful restaurants and not a lot of working time. When my favorite peps, LC and Whitney, do venture to the big bad East Coast for work, they are ceremoniously eaten for a power lunch in the Fashion District of NYC.
Anyhow getting back to 90210, there are some tidbits from the new show I found particularly news-worthy. For the sake of keeping them straight, I shall laundry list them:
1. Laurie Louglin as "Mrs. Walsh"-mmm yeah we're actually suppose to believe she's grown up in Kansas... what do we look like Dorothy or something? In my mind, she's always that chicka who snagged Jessie in "Full House" and played cool pseudo mommy to the Olsen Twins. Watch out world if those two make a cameo in the new 90210.
2. Blow jobs before school in the student parking lot: mmm yeah, where are the rent a cops trolling the parking lots for those hygiene distasters in progress? I know my high school, probably a similar size, had those folks all over the place before, during and after school. The smart kids (i.e. seniors) went during 5-7th period lunch to their houses to get some snooky- I mean spooning.
3. Jeannie Garth as a guidance counselor- Sure she was always trying to deal with her odd up-bringing and getting assaulted more than once during her tenure on the original series. Now she's still solving everyone's problems by sticking her nose in their business. Her baby daddy is either Brandon Walsh or Dylan McKay, or maybe she's not sure. Either way, she's looking to help those who SHE thinks need it, whether they like it or not. Her baby sister, now a teenager, is especially prone to this TLC during her school days. Her character accepts it begrudgingly or maybe she's lapping it up because their mother has yet to win the PTA parent of the year award for all her -self-loathing...woe is I- bit.
4. Rob Estes as a principal- Okay maybe this dude's been getting a lot of TV work lately but he always plays a bad boy and NOW we're suppose to believe he's an upstanding principal who left LA for Dorthy-land because he was embarrassed that his mother made a fortune doing porn work time. Who on earth would recruit a principal in Kansas to work in LA unless he was born and bred there?: And oh yeah, he had a love child with this Wisteria Lane esque type Orange County housewife blondie.
That's all she wrote for now, kids... when's Gossip Girl gonna burn some Prada tracks over these California dreamers? All I can say is, as the Beach Boys said, "I wish they all could be California Girls" but then again they also said "The northern girls with the way they kiss, they keep their boyfriends warm at night".
Peace out!
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Enough is Enough
I just said no when my old self would've said yes without thinking. My co-worker just asked if I'd like to do some overtime in the coming weeks. It was nice of her to ask me first but the work is something I loathe doing so I said "no thanks."
This is my new school year resolution. I will say "no" to things I don't like doing and "yes" to things that make me happy or enrich my life. I'm more determined than ever to balance my life in a way that de-stresses me and increases my joy in the every day.
Part of this is slowly making a career transition into education full-time. I think it's going to take about 2-3 years. The only sticking point is health insurance. I can get it for an exorbitant amount from the teacher's union, because I am not a tenured employee. Otherwise, I think cutting the expenses of commuting into the city AND keeping a car will work itself out.
This "just say no" attitude is also extended into my personal life. I spend my days doing other people's bidding for a living so when I'm not working it's nice to have someone take care of me. So I've resolved to not just plan dates with George but to just give him ideas and let him run with it (or not). We have a growing list of potential date ideas now that cooler weather's in our future.
There are two things I think he's looking forward to: dance and skiing lessons for me. I wonder how that's going to go but I'm going to put my best foot forward and give it a real try because it's two activities that are important to him and I have no idea how to do either activity well.
This is my new school year resolution. I will say "no" to things I don't like doing and "yes" to things that make me happy or enrich my life. I'm more determined than ever to balance my life in a way that de-stresses me and increases my joy in the every day.
Part of this is slowly making a career transition into education full-time. I think it's going to take about 2-3 years. The only sticking point is health insurance. I can get it for an exorbitant amount from the teacher's union, because I am not a tenured employee. Otherwise, I think cutting the expenses of commuting into the city AND keeping a car will work itself out.
This "just say no" attitude is also extended into my personal life. I spend my days doing other people's bidding for a living so when I'm not working it's nice to have someone take care of me. So I've resolved to not just plan dates with George but to just give him ideas and let him run with it (or not). We have a growing list of potential date ideas now that cooler weather's in our future.
There are two things I think he's looking forward to: dance and skiing lessons for me. I wonder how that's going to go but I'm going to put my best foot forward and give it a real try because it's two activities that are important to him and I have no idea how to do either activity well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)