Counting down: 11 days

This is me today:

Because this was me all week/ weekend:

FTP 49 - Don't give up yet

    This has been an absolutely horrendous week. Everything has gone wrong, from food being spoiled to kicking myself with a hardshoe, from the trailer I ordered being lost by the shipper to having my computer mysteriously eat three hours worth of work on my final paper... Almost every single area of my life has had something go seriously wrong with it in the last seven days.

     And then, out of nowhere, my aunt and uncle- who have been like parents to me out here- call me up and tell me that a relative is selling their trailer, nearly the exact same one I ordered but with a floor and sides already built, would I be interested in buying it? Heck yes I would. A little later, I finally suck it up and get back to work on my annihilated final paper, only to find out that I'm typing better and more easily than I thought I would, and having to look up fewer words. My gentleman called and said he got a job lead from his chiropractor, and gave me his email address to get in touch.

     No, it doesn't change the fact that this past week has been absolutely horrible. But... things do get better. And if you choose to look at it from a different point of view, there are also a lot of things that could have gone wrong, but didn't. The old cliché that it's always darkest before the dawn isn't factually true (I stayed up one night to check), but it's a good adage to live by. 

Moving prep

     Let the countdown begin! I just realized today that there are only 19 days left until I leave this place for good and start working again, hopefully with something relevant to my degrees. This past weekend was taken up with putting a trailer hitch on my car, and rewiring the back end to add a plug for trailer lights. It took a little bit longer than expected, but I had a huge amount of fun with my (awesome) aunt, uncle, and cousin. The trailer itself didn't show up, so I get to go back up there next weekend and spent more time with them, putting it together. I've been selling stuff on ebay and craigslist, and pretty much everything superfluous to daily life is either sold, boxed up, or waiting to be donated, which makes the place rather bare. No worries though, because I have an 8-page final paper (in Russian!) due in less than two weeks, and I expect that to take up most of my time and attention.

     I won't lie, it's all a little overwhelming, and both my attention span and sleeping patterns have taken a hit because of everything going on. I've got an impressive number of lists going, and if something isn't on my calendar, well, it basically doesn't get done. Not because I don't care about it, but just because I only remember about 6 hours too late to do anything about it. As someone who is usually quite orderly, this is more than a bit disturbing, but I'm trying not to let it get me down. Remember those positive websites I linked back here? They're getting heavily used, trust me.

FTP 48 - Worn down

     Ran across this the other day on the internet, and it's sad how true it is, and how often it happens, not just on the internet.

Credit, I think.

Don't let the naysayers and jerks get you down. If you have an idea, do what you can to make it work. If you give it your best, and it doesn't quite fly, well, at least you tried. It's better than becoming another naysayer and shutting down someone else's creativity, and the more you work to make things happen, the more likely it is that at least one of them will!

Jury Duty, part 3 - deliberation and verdict

(continued from part 1 and 2)

     The first thing that we were told to do was choose a foreperson. The door had barely closed behind the Clerk when one woman stuck her nose up in the air and declared "I want to be the foreperson!" The rest of us kind of looked around and shrugged, because we didn't really care, but it wasn't really the best of starts. Continuing in her attempts to make herself unpopular, said woman (whom we'll call Patty- I have no clue what her real name is) declared, "Well, why don't we start out with a preliminary vote, just to see where everyone is?" Again, the rest of us shrugged and nodded. Patty asked, "All those who think he's guilty?"... and eleven of us raised our hands. She looked around at all of us, sniffed, and  said, "Well, I don't, and my parents taught me never to give in just because of what other people think, so this is going to be an interesting day, isn't it?" Ugh. 

     With twelve people in a room, there are obviously going to be overlapping conversations, so I won't even attempt to try to report everything that happened, or exactly who said what, other than me and Patty. I'd already decided I didn't like her, so I shut up for a good long while. In the mean time, following a moment of stunned silence at her declaration of whatever, here's a really, really rough outline of the main points:

Jury Duty, part 2 - the trial

(continued from part 1)

     After all- and I do mean all- of the applicable laws and considerations had been read to us by the judge, we finally got down to the actual trial. Since the burden of proof is on the prosecution to show that a crime had, indeed, been committed (remember that whole innocent until proven guilty thing?), they got to go first. The prosecuting lawyer stood at the podium and, in his best "I am a responsible member of society" voice, explained the police's side of the story. Here's a brief overview.

FTP 47 - Criticizing yourself

     This one took me a while to figure out, but once I did, the change was amazing. Go on, give it a try.

Jury Duty, part 1

     About two months ago, I received that dreaded form in the mail that said I had to report in for jury duty in my county. Normally, this wouldn't have phased me, as I've been a panel member on the student council for cheating and plagiarism at my college, and I'm a pretty firm believer in participating in our justice system (especially having been to other countries where justice isn't really a right). I was slightly concerned this time, however, because my jury duty day was set to start literally four days before I was due to get on a plane for spring break.

     Despite the timing though, I was pretty happy about the idea. It seemed like I was the only one who was, however, because with only one or two exceptions, every single person I told about it offered their sympathy at having to go in and contribute to what I feel is a reasonably fair justice system. After a while, I just stopped trying to explain that it didn't bother me, because people weren't listening. Only one other person- ironically, the only other person who had actually served jury duty- offered congratulations and reassurance that they'd work with me to make sure I didn't miss my plane.

FTP 46 - Negative news

     A friend texted me this week feeling very upset and angry at the world. After some conversation, it turned out that she'd been reading the news, and found an extremely disturbing new article on a topic she was very passionate about. I've occasionally noticed that I, too, get caught up in the media when issues close to my heart are at stake, and will click around multiple news websites to get every bit of information I can on what's going on. Unfortunately, all this really does is keep exposing us to the things that upset us, and we enter a nasty little downward spiral of finding things to feed that indignant feeling.

     Being a good friend, however, I did for her what I try to do for myself when this happens: google "good news," or "feel good news," and read and watch videos until you get a smile back on your face. (Some of my favorite sites are linked at the bottom, if you have a hankering for something to make your day brighter). Before you go saying that it's just a method of burying your head in the sand and ignoring the horrible things going on, however, I'd like to point out that horrible things are going on every second, every day... but so are good things. Why should we focus only on the negative?

     Another argument in favor of watching happy news is simply logic. I figured out a while ago that there are only so many things I can deal with in a day. If I burden myself with things that I truly, honestly have absolutely no way to influence, then all it's doing is making me feel bad. But if I focus on a few things that I can affect positively, and then fill the rest of my time with things that positively affect me, then a) I feel better, b) I have better energy to put into the things I can do something about, and c) people around me pick up on the fact that hey, life isn't all that bad. And then they in turn can perk up and pass that on to others. Not a bad way to live, really.

Good sites:
Feel Good News
Huffington Post's collection of positive stories.
Pictures, videos, and news articles from around the world.
The aptly named Optimist World.
And of course, no list is complete without Lolcats.

Enjoy!

Chatting with strangers

     I’ve never really figured out what the standards for my shyness are. Generally speaking, I don’t like talking to people from whom I need a favor, and I abhor talking about money (I am a horrible haggler). I’m not fond of socializing in large groups of people, and I have a low-level dislike of humanity as a whole. Yet, when I’m standing in a line, or waiting for a plane to take off, or just randomly passing people on the streets, I have no problem chatting with them and starting up a friendship. Perhaps it’s the level of engagement that’s involved, I don’t know. But I am continually fascinated by how much information and background you can get from a totally random person just by saying hello.

     This past week was spent looking for a place to live with my gentleman after I graduate. We looked at a couple different places, and finally settled on one that, while not perfect, is acceptable. After we gave the go ahead for the agency to hold it for us, we took some time, driving around the neighborhoods and shopping areas nearby, to get a feel for what there was. One of the things that I saw and really liked was what looked like a neighborhood pool, basketball court, and community center not two blocks away from where we will be. Curious, I asked Angel to stop in so we could inquire about rates and suchlike.