Being Me

Why do we always think that we aren't good enough? We always wonder if we're good enough for our significant other, our jobs, our lives. Why can't we just say to ourselves and to the world, "I'm good at this, damn it, and I don't care what others think!"? I'm not throwing humility out the window. I just think that we should pride ourselves in what we do well.

I've been revamping my resume and writing a cover letter for a job opportunity that's come up. Before looking over my resume, I thought that I wasn't qualified enough--I'd never get the job because, although I know I'd be good at it, those little pieces of paper that people judge you on (resume and cover letter) won't be able to say all the great things about me. After changing some things and adding others, I realize that I'm a very marketable person. I have a Masters degree, I write well, I've held jobs with significant responsibility, and I've always proven myself in those jobs.

I know that I'm more than just my resume, but looking it over really opened my eyes. I am worth feeling good about myself...

Now it's time to get a Stuart Smiley book: "I am good enough. I am smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."

I've Got the Whole World in my Hands

I'm trying really hard to fill in this entire map...



create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Jane Eyre and Robots

Ian has been slowly buying me the Friends DVDs, and we are now on Season 5. We often watch an episode or two while eating dinner, and I almost spit my food out the other night when I heard the following lines from "The One With Ross's Sandwich" when Phoebe brings Rachel to her literature class with her:

Rachel: What struck me most when reading Jane Eyre was the book was so ahead of its time.

Teacher: If you're talking about feminism, I think you're right.

Rachel: Well, feminism, yes, but also the robots.

I know I'm nerdy for thinking this is funny, but I just can't get the idea of a movie version of Jane Eyre with robots...these days it would make for a box-office hit!

Wacky Websites

Today I give you a couple of strange websites. I hope that they are as procrastinatingly fulfilling for you as they are for me. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry, and some will leave you scratching your head.

Longmire Does Romance - This man has "revised" some romance novel covers...you know the ones: half naked woman in the arms of a man with hair that every woman envies.

20 Questions, Web Style - Think of something and let the computer guess what it is. My first "thing" was the golem (not from Lord of the Rings, but the Jewish golem). It got close by guessing "vampire" which in the scheme of things is really similar in conception.

Gnomz - Create your own comic strip! All kinds of characters--I made one with V aliens as the stars. You're supposed to be able to post them online, but I couldn't get it to work. Even so, it's still a fun way to kill a few minutes at work.

McSweeney's Reviews of New Food - Not as interactive as the last two, but just as entertaining. One of my favorite lines: "Kellogg's Disney Princess Fruit Snacks do not actually taste like princesses."

Found Magazine - Pictures of found items.

Well, that's all for now. Now that it's summer, work is less demanding than it usually is, so I'll have plenty of time to dig up more of these. And please let me know if you have any favorites of your own!

Crash

Ian and I went to go see Crash this weekend. I was pretty disappointed. It's basically a Magnolia rip-off that revolves around racial tensions. It even ends with something falling from the sky with a male version of an Aimee Mann song playing in the background. Instead of frogs falling, though, it's the just-as-unlikely snow falling in L.A.

Initially, I liked the commentary about race relations--really in-your-face. But the ending just ruined it for me. WARNING: spoilers ahead. Anyways, everything turns out well for most of the cast (except for Don Cheadle's character and his family**). The hispanic family survives a shooting. The Persian father actually shoots blanks at the little girl, so she doesn't die. The Persian daughter bought the blanks (intentionally or unintentionally, we never find out). The black woman who is brutalized and raped by the racist policeman in a cheesy and unrealistic turn of events has her life saved by said policeman. Her husband starts working out his ideas of being black. The white rich woman, who has verbally harassassed and abused her hispanic maid, ends up hugging said maid and telling her that she's the best friend that she has at the end. Her husband, who we assume is having an affair, forgoes his tryst to go home to his wife. The black teenage hood, who carjacks only white people, ends up with a van full of non-descript Asians who were headed for American slavery--he frees them and gives them the $40 in his pocket. Did I forget anyone?

For a movie that started out so realistically and so brutally honest about race relations and human relations, it really fell apart at the end. Maybe it was supposed to be uplifting. But if that's so, why was 3/4 of the movie so damn depressing? I didn't dislike the whole movie. In fact, I really liked most of it...it's just that the ending totally ruined it for me. Maybe my expectations that continuity is important in a movie, book, etc. are too high.

So, see it for yourself, but see Magnolia first. I think you'll be surpised at the similarities.

**Don Cheadle's character and family also irritated me. The movie really tried to address stereotypes and how those stereotypes are just people-constructed ideas. But Don Cheadle's brother is the only one to die in the movie (he was the other young, black carjacker)--and very violently, at that. And his mom is a crack addict. They are the only ones to not break the "stereotypes" that the movie sets up for each character. I find it rather disturbing that all of the other characters were able to break stereotypes in one way or another, but this poor black family was not.

Cruelty

This morning while walking to work, I spotted a clear plastic container (you know, the kind that you can put a couple of pairs of shoes in and then put under your bed) with a lid on it on the little patch of grass between the street and the sidewalk. It was on its side and looked like it had a t-shirt or a pair of socks in it. As I got closer, it looked fuzzier than a piece of clothing, but I passed it up. I don't know what made me do it, but a couple of steps later, I turned around and went back. It was covered in dew (so had been out all night) so I could see what was really in it. I nudged it with my toe, and the dark mass moved inside, but I couldn't tell if it was something alive or if the t-shirt had just shifted when the container moved. I asked Ian if he could see what it was from where he was at, and he could.

It was a baby racoon!

I moved over so I could see, and sure enough, a little masked face was staring lethargically at us. It had moved a little, so wasn't dead, but it definitely had been there for a while since it wasn't scrabbling to get out of the container. We didn't want to open the container because we didn't know if it was rabid or why it was in the container to begin with. I ended up calling Animal Control and asking them to come and pick it up. The woman there didn't seem to understand that the poor little guy would either suffocate or die of heat stroke by lunchtime...I had to explain to her that it had to be picked up in the morning.

What's wrong with people??? To put a little baby racoon in a plastic tub and leave it by the road??? And then for the animal control people to be so uncaring...I just couldn't believe it!

I'm about to walk back home in a few minutes, and I'm a little worried as to what I'm going to find...

***UPDATE: Well, when we walked home, the little critter had been picked up. I hope he's alright...

My Smart Sweetie

I am so proud of Ian today...yesterday he won a very prestigious teaching award at the college. He was honored with 5 other professors (none of which are visiting, as he is) for their excellence in teaching. He's so good at what he does, and every time I think I might want to teach, I look at him and think that I should just leave it to him because he is so good at it. He got a little plaque to hang on his wall and a hefty check as a reward...Berlin, here we come! He so deserves this award because he's worked so very hard the last two years--to the point that his own research has suffered so that he could make the program and students excel. It will be nice for him to have this summer for his own work and a little travel.

On another note, I might have a job lead. It's under wraps at the moment, but it would be something that I would love to do, and I think I'd be good at. And I'd be the boss. Keep your fingers crossed that this pans out because I'm getting really burnt out at the job I'm at.

The Beautiful U.S. of A.

Wow, I've been to a lot of states! I always wanted one of those maps that people put on the sides of their motorhomes--you know, the ones where you can buy stickers of the states that you've been to and then you add them to an empty map of the U.S.? Sometimes I'm just that cheesy. This will just have to do...



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Damn Cold!

So it turns out that my allergies weren't really allergies...it was a cold in disguise, and a really nasty one at that! I took Friday and Monday off from work, which is really unusual for me (at least when I'm really sick!). I'm back now, but still getting over it. Maybe I'll be up for some blogging by the end of the week.

Damn Allergies!

Although I absolutely love spring, I hate the pollens and allergens it brings with it. I take prescription medicine for my allergies, but this week it doesn't seem to be working. At all. It all started with a scratchy and sore throat. Now I have a cough to go with it. And to top it all off, I turned on my air conditioner in my office today, and my eyeballs almost popped out from the mold and dust that it was spewing! Ugh!

Happy, happy spring!

Being (or Not) Irish

Well, after complaining that people always think I'm Irish (see "Happy St. Paddy's Day!"), I found this computerized quiz that also thinks I'm Irish! And it didn't even know I have red hair!

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

Who's Your Inner European?

Cool Charity Site

I came across this great site called CharityGiftCertificates.com a while back, and I thought I'd share. You can buy a gift certificate for someone and then they get to choose a charity to give the money to. It's such a great idea, especially because, although I love getting someone the perfect gift, gift giving just gets so, well, materialistic sometimes. When I find a really great gift for someone that I know they'll love, I get really excited. But sometimes, I think we buy gifts for people because we feel like we have to give them something, even when nothing jumps out at you.

That's how I came across this site. I was trying desperately to find something for Heather for her birthday, but I wasn't having any flashes of brilliance. And then I thought, she really likes to give to charities and ministries. I didn't know which charity she'd want, though, so I googled charity gift certificates. This place turned out to give the most to the actual charity. This year I gave them as Mother's Day gifts, too.

Soooo...check them out next time you need to buy a gift!

A Cause

I'm a firm believer in getting involved in a cause--it connects us to something we love or care about and gets us to see outside of ourselves. A recent cause that I've gotten involved in is CASA. For those of you who don't know, CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate. According to CASA's website,

"The National Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Association mission is to speak for the best interests of abused and neglected children who are involved in the juvenile courts."

Now, I used to work with foster care teens in San Diego, and I would run into CASA workers every once in a while. I didn't really know what they did, but I did know that the kids always loved them and trusted them (and for a kid in foster care, that's a big step). When I moved to Kentucky, I wanted to get involved with something and I came across the local CASA chapter. I had originally wanted to be a CASA volunteer, which all people who work with the children are, but I found out that the local chapter wasn't up and running yet. I was asked to join the Board, and I did.

We're getting really close to starting to train volunteers, which is very exciting. These kids in the system really need someone who want to be there working with them and who will speak to their best interests. You can physically see the difference a steady and trusting adult makes in the lives of these children.

Part of the problem with the small local chapters is that they don't have enough money to train volunteers and run the program. If you'd like to learn more about CASA in your area, go to their website. If you don't have the time to volunteer, please consider donating to your local CASA chapter--all of them run on donations and grants. To support CASA at Woodlawn (the Boyle/Mercer counties chapter in which I'm involved), go here for contact information or let me know and I'd be happy to give you more information.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

From Harper's Weekly**:

"The Clovis, New Mexico, police locked down a middle school, closed off several streets, and placed officers on rooftops before discovering that what they thought was a weapon carried by a student was actually a thirty-inch burrito."

What was this kid doing with a gigantic burrito? Was he planning on using it as a weapon against bullies? Did his mom send it along with him instead of cupcakes for a birthday party? Or was he just one hungry kid?

All this talk about ridiculously giant burritos is making me hongry...

**You can get Harper's Weekly as a weekly e-mail. Just go here.