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: