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Wednesday, February 9, 2011
with open ears and shut mouth...oh the things I hear.
So, I'm a blue.
What the hell does that mean right? During staff training this year I presented a session on "finding your color," basically a lot of hoopla on how to identify your personality and work habits based around four colors. Now, don't get me wrong, I am the type of person who generally finds crap such as this completely ridiculous. I go off, laugh, chucking at the shumks [oh man, chuckling at the shmucks, exhaustion doesn't suit my typing skills] who put stock in the self congratulatory language of the handouts telling them how different, special and unique they all are. However, I have found myself referring to the information I gleaned from this session on more than one occasion in the past couple of weeks, and every time I do it makes me almost cringe inwardly. 1) because I find people who quote frequently from emotionally stunting information like this annoying (i.e. my astrologer says I'm an Aquarius with a receding moon and star pattern, [wtf?] that's why I'm having difficulty with the chi you are sending across the room at me today) really? Please. And 2) I don't like trying to explain the intricacies of life with information that has been boiled down onto four sheets of paper. It seems a bit...impersonal.
Anyway, there is a point to this explanation. I have been having difficulty (being a blue, I know bear with me) recently dealing with the overwhelming desire to want to smack a few people I know in the face. Being blue means I apparently feel for others. I'm a caretaker, I like listening and supporting those around me. I hate conflict and thrive on making other people feel special. My god, I sound like a freaking martyr don't I? It feels that way sometimes, believe me. However, because I also have a lot of green tendencies (and yes, you can laugh at me for continuing in this vein of color spectrum worship) I sometimes get annoyed as shit at myself for totally lying on the tracks and letting people steamroll right over me. Being a good listener and such is fine, but sometimes I just want to tell people to shut the hell up and get over themselves. Is that so wrong? No, no it's not.
We had some hard decisions to make at work yesterday, but we made them, and, I thought, all felt pretty good about it. Well, turns out some of those tough choices we made are being turned on their head. I do actually agree with one of the reversals made, however, I don't with another. I personally feel like my coworker is pulling in a little too much care for others - which, to be frank, is not really in his nature. Not to say he doesn't give a crap about other people, because he does, a great deal, but it's not generally his style. Anyway, the green part of me want to smack him upside the head and tell him to stick with his gut and cut the proverbial fat. Some people just shouldn't be working for us anymore. The other part - the one that cares about others and wants everyone to leave with a delightful feeling of joy surrounding them (yup, that cheesy), is silently congratulating him for standing up for his students and making the unpopular decision. I'm totally bipolar today, it's awful.
In related news, work is sucking lately, I'm so busy I almost don't have time to think. Case in point, I discovered, quite by accident that I had left something rather important in my office over the weekend. What might you ask, did I leave behind? About a half pound of seafood that somehow got lost in a bag of crafts that I had sitting outside my door. Yup, came in on Monday after a day of it sitting there and was greeted with the most delightful smell. Sometimes, you just can't get over how dumb you are. Monday was one of those days. It also proved to me how easy it is to get stuck doing way to much and forgetting even the most basic of tasks...like unpacking your purchases to make sure you didn't leave anything important in them (like, say, an aforementioned bag of food, or, I don't know, your keys and cell phone which apparently you also left behind and didn't notice until you found them two days later amongst containers of glitter and cardstock), yup, that moron is me.
Tomorrow is another day...a busy one. But I am bent and determined to finally try my last batch of melting cakes. I want to try another one dammit, one that is cooked properly and actually sticky to the degree I want in the center. I swear, it's the small things in life that matter...like undercooked cake middles.
What the hell does that mean right? During staff training this year I presented a session on "finding your color," basically a lot of hoopla on how to identify your personality and work habits based around four colors. Now, don't get me wrong, I am the type of person who generally finds crap such as this completely ridiculous. I go off, laugh, chucking at the shumks [oh man, chuckling at the shmucks, exhaustion doesn't suit my typing skills] who put stock in the self congratulatory language of the handouts telling them how different, special and unique they all are. However, I have found myself referring to the information I gleaned from this session on more than one occasion in the past couple of weeks, and every time I do it makes me almost cringe inwardly. 1) because I find people who quote frequently from emotionally stunting information like this annoying (i.e. my astrologer says I'm an Aquarius with a receding moon and star pattern, [wtf?] that's why I'm having difficulty with the chi you are sending across the room at me today) really? Please. And 2) I don't like trying to explain the intricacies of life with information that has been boiled down onto four sheets of paper. It seems a bit...impersonal.
Anyway, there is a point to this explanation. I have been having difficulty (being a blue, I know bear with me) recently dealing with the overwhelming desire to want to smack a few people I know in the face. Being blue means I apparently feel for others. I'm a caretaker, I like listening and supporting those around me. I hate conflict and thrive on making other people feel special. My god, I sound like a freaking martyr don't I? It feels that way sometimes, believe me. However, because I also have a lot of green tendencies (and yes, you can laugh at me for continuing in this vein of color spectrum worship) I sometimes get annoyed as shit at myself for totally lying on the tracks and letting people steamroll right over me. Being a good listener and such is fine, but sometimes I just want to tell people to shut the hell up and get over themselves. Is that so wrong? No, no it's not.
We had some hard decisions to make at work yesterday, but we made them, and, I thought, all felt pretty good about it. Well, turns out some of those tough choices we made are being turned on their head. I do actually agree with one of the reversals made, however, I don't with another. I personally feel like my coworker is pulling in a little too much care for others - which, to be frank, is not really in his nature. Not to say he doesn't give a crap about other people, because he does, a great deal, but it's not generally his style. Anyway, the green part of me want to smack him upside the head and tell him to stick with his gut and cut the proverbial fat. Some people just shouldn't be working for us anymore. The other part - the one that cares about others and wants everyone to leave with a delightful feeling of joy surrounding them (yup, that cheesy), is silently congratulating him for standing up for his students and making the unpopular decision. I'm totally bipolar today, it's awful.
In related news, work is sucking lately, I'm so busy I almost don't have time to think. Case in point, I discovered, quite by accident that I had left something rather important in my office over the weekend. What might you ask, did I leave behind? About a half pound of seafood that somehow got lost in a bag of crafts that I had sitting outside my door. Yup, came in on Monday after a day of it sitting there and was greeted with the most delightful smell. Sometimes, you just can't get over how dumb you are. Monday was one of those days. It also proved to me how easy it is to get stuck doing way to much and forgetting even the most basic of tasks...like unpacking your purchases to make sure you didn't leave anything important in them (like, say, an aforementioned bag of food, or, I don't know, your keys and cell phone which apparently you also left behind and didn't notice until you found them two days later amongst containers of glitter and cardstock), yup, that moron is me.
Tomorrow is another day...a busy one. But I am bent and determined to finally try my last batch of melting cakes. I want to try another one dammit, one that is cooked properly and actually sticky to the degree I want in the center. I swear, it's the small things in life that matter...like undercooked cake middles.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Really world? Do we need more of this drivel?
So it's late. Really late anyway, for me. Being almost that unmentionable age where you suddenly notice you're "old," and still being awake at almost two-in-the-morning nearly makes my stomach turn. But also, in a weird way, makes me feel like I'm hanging on to my youth. Oh the irony. Actually it's probably not irony, but it sounds a whole lot better saying things like "oh the irony" as opposed to something lame like, "how bizarre is that?"
Currently I'm sitting on my couch watching "White Collar," which, I must say, is an excellent cable show. The need to mention this particular series is to offset it against the drivel that I just saw a commercial for: Face Off: where up and coming makeup artists compete to create "the next great face," with challenges like making an elephant man and the how-to of creating burns...really? What is the TV world coming to? Oh, I know, a place where they have shows like The Unpoppables. What, might you ask does that deep, meaningful television masterpiece cover? BALLOON ARTISTS. Yup, the same guys that twist inappropriately long balloons into misshapen dogs. I rest my case. We're getting dumber and more accepting of trash TV by the minute. I truly miss being young and only having Nickelodeon Kids and PBS to choose from.
Recently I have been dreaming of places like this:
And this:
Where I see things like this:
Winter in Baltimore is brutal. February especially makes me wish I could defect to somewhere that's warm all year round. It's like a cloud of depression just hangs over the city. We're supposed to hit 57 next week and I'm almost salivating at the idea of temperatures over freezing. I don't think my extremities can take any more subzero weather.
I'm going tangential here which means I'm really tired. So while I'm dreaming of beautifully warm beaches and European trees older than our own country I am going to share my desire to retest my melting chocolate cake recipe again. I'm so close to perfection, I just need to get the baking time down...hopefully tomorrow I can succeed on that task, because I'm pretty sure everything work related is going to get pushed to the side. Oh yeah...older doesn't necessarily mean wiser, OR better with time management.
Currently I'm sitting on my couch watching "White Collar," which, I must say, is an excellent cable show. The need to mention this particular series is to offset it against the drivel that I just saw a commercial for: Face Off: where up and coming makeup artists compete to create "the next great face," with challenges like making an elephant man and the how-to of creating burns...really? What is the TV world coming to? Oh, I know, a place where they have shows like The Unpoppables. What, might you ask does that deep, meaningful television masterpiece cover? BALLOON ARTISTS. Yup, the same guys that twist inappropriately long balloons into misshapen dogs. I rest my case. We're getting dumber and more accepting of trash TV by the minute. I truly miss being young and only having Nickelodeon Kids and PBS to choose from.
Recently I have been dreaming of places like this:
And this:
Where I see things like this:
Winter in Baltimore is brutal. February especially makes me wish I could defect to somewhere that's warm all year round. It's like a cloud of depression just hangs over the city. We're supposed to hit 57 next week and I'm almost salivating at the idea of temperatures over freezing. I don't think my extremities can take any more subzero weather.
I'm going tangential here which means I'm really tired. So while I'm dreaming of beautifully warm beaches and European trees older than our own country I am going to share my desire to retest my melting chocolate cake recipe again. I'm so close to perfection, I just need to get the baking time down...hopefully tomorrow I can succeed on that task, because I'm pretty sure everything work related is going to get pushed to the side. Oh yeah...older doesn't necessarily mean wiser, OR better with time management.
Monday, January 3, 2011
20WHAT?
2011, you came far too quickly. Though in all honesty I can't say I'm UPSET that you've arrived. 2010 kind of blew. So, what lies ahead in this fabulous new year, where I've already been able to date a card 1.1.11 (hee, sometimes it's the small things). I'm waiting patiently for 1.11.11 and 11.11.11 (I feel like luck will be dripping off me that day).
So for this year I have two real goals:
1) to run the Baltimore 1/2 marathon (the full would just be a ridiculous clusterfuck, I don't even want to entertain the idea).
2) to decide what to do next year. I have many ideas, and no way of choosing. Got to get on top of that.
In between all the madness that will be these two illusive goals I will be cooking, lots and lots of cooking. I have successfully made three Arabic cookie recipes over break, and I will take photos as soon as I unearth my camera from multiple packed bags and dirty laundry. Needless to say I have a lot to catch up on.
Best of all, I have a brand new (full-size!!) stove that was installed while I was gone. How, HOW did I cook for four years on something that only just approximated an easy-bake oven? Those of you with 32-inch cooktops don't know how good you have it! Self-cleaning oven, where have you been all my life!? I was closely acquainted with Easy-off for the majority of my 20s. I should have bought stock if they were a publicly traded company...
So for this year I have two real goals:
1) to run the Baltimore 1/2 marathon (the full would just be a ridiculous clusterfuck, I don't even want to entertain the idea).
2) to decide what to do next year. I have many ideas, and no way of choosing. Got to get on top of that.
In between all the madness that will be these two illusive goals I will be cooking, lots and lots of cooking. I have successfully made three Arabic cookie recipes over break, and I will take photos as soon as I unearth my camera from multiple packed bags and dirty laundry. Needless to say I have a lot to catch up on.
Best of all, I have a brand new (full-size!!) stove that was installed while I was gone. How, HOW did I cook for four years on something that only just approximated an easy-bake oven? Those of you with 32-inch cooktops don't know how good you have it! Self-cleaning oven, where have you been all my life!? I was closely acquainted with Easy-off for the majority of my 20s. I should have bought stock if they were a publicly traded company...
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
and then...there were cookies.
So, last day of work today. Someone upstairs was smiling at me. The day before vacation is always the worst. I spent an inordinate amount of time in traffic. Oh goodie. I drove and picked up my bestie and proceeded to spend the afternoon and evening catching up with old friends. There is something about reliving middle and high school moments that just makes all adults regress in age and maturity.
It's awesome.
This trip down memory lane concluded with a brief stop at said local high school where Christine and I wandered the halls AND GOT YELLED AT BY A TEACHER. It's like we never left!! How, at 29, can we still be yelled at? By teachers? FROM HIGH SCHOOL? It's comical.
Tomorrow is "wrap presents day," ick. And make ma'moul day, yay! First recipe I am attempting to make from my trusty ME cookbook. There will be a load of watching the master (read: my father) make his version. I came home and saw the beginnings out on the kitchen counter. Moulds, fillings, oils, nuts. I can see hours of pressing and banging of wooden mallets in my future. And yes, I promise to share pictures.
It's awesome.
This trip down memory lane concluded with a brief stop at said local high school where Christine and I wandered the halls AND GOT YELLED AT BY A TEACHER. It's like we never left!! How, at 29, can we still be yelled at? By teachers? FROM HIGH SCHOOL? It's comical.
Tomorrow is "wrap presents day," ick. And make ma'moul day, yay! First recipe I am attempting to make from my trusty ME cookbook. There will be a load of watching the master (read: my father) make his version. I came home and saw the beginnings out on the kitchen counter. Moulds, fillings, oils, nuts. I can see hours of pressing and banging of wooden mallets in my future. And yes, I promise to share pictures.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
And we trieth again...
The facts:
1) I am discontented with my life.
2) I need a change.
3) I'm trying to come up with other points, but I don't have any, so I suppose, it really boils down to that.
The reinvention of a blog is always an entertaining event. I've been writing online since high school. I cringe to think about some of what I wrote all those years ago. I think I'd rather not remember. Regardless, I realized that what I like most about blogging is the ability to just punch together lots of random bits of interesting stuff and call it a day. Do you realize that most people now DO blog? I would argue that it happens mostly on facebook. Think about everything you share, it's almost a daily retrospective of your life!
Hence writing here. My uncle just yesterday described me in an email to my mother as "percipient," as in someone who is good at perceiving things. Hilarious given that I rarely think I do that well at all. However, I did find it a bit amusing because he made this jump as a direct result of the tag line in my email, which is where the title of the blog came from. Good 'ol Jane Austen, she never fails me.
I am a day away from Christmas break and work is just sucking my soul dry. Students are gone and I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time cruising Amazon, even though, as of yesterday, I am completely done with shopping (oh thank you dear lord).
In other news, break is going to be spent making things: namely THIS and THESE, have you ever seen anything more delicious in your life?! I don't even like nuts all that much but I want to eat about 10,000 of these.
Also in the works? Well here's the thing. My family is middle eastern, and I've been trying, for years, to figure out how to cook good Arabic food. Not to say I can't, I can, but there are certain things that are just so elusive I have decided to sit down with this particular book that I intend to pinch from my mother (except hers is about 30 years old and in delightfully dog-earned condition) and cook obscene amounts of food. My students will be my guinea pigs, though by the way they completely housed the food I made for our holiday party, I'm guessing they're not going to mind too much.
1) I am discontented with my life.
2) I need a change.
3) I'm trying to come up with other points, but I don't have any, so I suppose, it really boils down to that.
The reinvention of a blog is always an entertaining event. I've been writing online since high school. I cringe to think about some of what I wrote all those years ago. I think I'd rather not remember. Regardless, I realized that what I like most about blogging is the ability to just punch together lots of random bits of interesting stuff and call it a day. Do you realize that most people now DO blog? I would argue that it happens mostly on facebook. Think about everything you share, it's almost a daily retrospective of your life!
Hence writing here. My uncle just yesterday described me in an email to my mother as "percipient," as in someone who is good at perceiving things. Hilarious given that I rarely think I do that well at all. However, I did find it a bit amusing because he made this jump as a direct result of the tag line in my email, which is where the title of the blog came from. Good 'ol Jane Austen, she never fails me.
I am a day away from Christmas break and work is just sucking my soul dry. Students are gone and I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time cruising Amazon, even though, as of yesterday, I am completely done with shopping (oh thank you dear lord).
In other news, break is going to be spent making things: namely THIS and THESE, have you ever seen anything more delicious in your life?! I don't even like nuts all that much but I want to eat about 10,000 of these.
Also in the works? Well here's the thing. My family is middle eastern, and I've been trying, for years, to figure out how to cook good Arabic food. Not to say I can't, I can, but there are certain things that are just so elusive I have decided to sit down with this particular book that I intend to pinch from my mother (except hers is about 30 years old and in delightfully dog-earned condition) and cook obscene amounts of food. My students will be my guinea pigs, though by the way they completely housed the food I made for our holiday party, I'm guessing they're not going to mind too much.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Pretty little elephants
So I thought this just too wonderful NOT to share. My mother recently returned from England and brought with her pictures of the Elephant Parade that is going on in London. Apparently in a bid to raise money and awareness for African elephants there are multiple elephant statues across the city, each designed by various artists which are to be auctioned off this week. One in particular is of special note, her name is Just Joey.
She's so pretty! Why is she of particular note you ask? Well, primarily because the rose after which she is named was created by my relative and bears the name (though is not named for) of my grandmother. Nifty huh? I wish I could bid for this beautiful specimen but unfortunately (or rather fortunately for those spectacular elephants) her current bid is £6,000! Oh well, I am content in the knowledge that her new owners obviously love her enough to spend a great deal of money on her.
Exploring the locations of many of these pretty elephants: http://www.elephantparadelondon.org/ just reaffirms my desire to travel this fall. I am continuing to seriously consider going overseas to study at some point next year. In my quest to figure out what I am doing with my life, as well as give myself some legitimate direction, which I currently feel I am sorely lacking, I have this nagging feeling that I need to make a change, and a big one at that. Since college I have, unconsciously I'm sure, found a way to stay relatively within my comfort zone in terms of where I went to school, where I took my first job, etc. I wouldn't say it was completely intentional. There were many factors that went into my eventual choices of where I ended up, and believe me when I tell you I tried hard to get out of Maryland, I always managed to end up right back where I started. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I spent such an inordinate amount of my childhood traveling overseas. I recall vividly wanting to spend a summer at the beach, or Disney World like all of my friends, but instead, found myself being trooped around the greater boroughs of London, the outskirts of the Jurassic Coast of England, all the way to tiny towns in Italy and the cacophony of colors and sounds that was my father's home country of Jordan. Don't get me wrong, I did love parts of these experiences, but some part of me thinks that this constant moving around set within me a huge desire to just be somewhere relatively permanent when I finally had the choice to do so on my own.
Regardless, due to the lack of movement I've had in the past ten years or so I feel myself almost itching to get out of my current rut of a city. I love Baltimore dearly but I do find myself wistfully thinking about living somewhere else; somewhere with a bit more culture, different people, smells, and sights. Whether this will come to fruition in the next year I'm not sure. I used to think a year was a really long time and I'm learning in my old age that is actually not the case at all. A year moves quick, so much so that there are days I wake up and I wonder where the month has gone and what the heck I've done during the past 30 days.
Despite my tendency to look much further ahead than I should I have narrowed the next task on my plate down to the completion of my first letter. I have decided that it is going to an old student of mine. She is currently traveling the world and perhaps that is part of the reason I chose her. I am happy to say that we have begun a travel journal of sorts that is being passed back and forth between us. The more amusing part is that this journal has been in my possession since high school (a frighteningly long time ago) when it was given to me by one of my best friends. I think at one point there were plans for us to use it, though of course that didn't really pan out the way we planned. The more amusing part is that this journal is constructed such that anyone over the age of about 12 would find it virtually useless after about three trades back and forth since it only has about 30 pages worth of paper in it. However, we are making a go of it with the intention of graduating to a much more adult version (moleskin anyone?) in the near (read: about a week) future!
Despite the lack of space on which to write, we have managed to accumulate quite the collection of scribbled bits of this and that and this round will be my first official letter in my quest to reach 365 before the year is out. And yikes, I am realizing more and more just how much writing that is going to be.
Best get to work I suppose.
She's so pretty! Why is she of particular note you ask? Well, primarily because the rose after which she is named was created by my relative and bears the name (though is not named for) of my grandmother. Nifty huh? I wish I could bid for this beautiful specimen but unfortunately (or rather fortunately for those spectacular elephants) her current bid is £6,000! Oh well, I am content in the knowledge that her new owners obviously love her enough to spend a great deal of money on her.
Exploring the locations of many of these pretty elephants: http://www.elephantparadelondon.org/ just reaffirms my desire to travel this fall. I am continuing to seriously consider going overseas to study at some point next year. In my quest to figure out what I am doing with my life, as well as give myself some legitimate direction, which I currently feel I am sorely lacking, I have this nagging feeling that I need to make a change, and a big one at that. Since college I have, unconsciously I'm sure, found a way to stay relatively within my comfort zone in terms of where I went to school, where I took my first job, etc. I wouldn't say it was completely intentional. There were many factors that went into my eventual choices of where I ended up, and believe me when I tell you I tried hard to get out of Maryland, I always managed to end up right back where I started. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I spent such an inordinate amount of my childhood traveling overseas. I recall vividly wanting to spend a summer at the beach, or Disney World like all of my friends, but instead, found myself being trooped around the greater boroughs of London, the outskirts of the Jurassic Coast of England, all the way to tiny towns in Italy and the cacophony of colors and sounds that was my father's home country of Jordan. Don't get me wrong, I did love parts of these experiences, but some part of me thinks that this constant moving around set within me a huge desire to just be somewhere relatively permanent when I finally had the choice to do so on my own.
Regardless, due to the lack of movement I've had in the past ten years or so I feel myself almost itching to get out of my current rut of a city. I love Baltimore dearly but I do find myself wistfully thinking about living somewhere else; somewhere with a bit more culture, different people, smells, and sights. Whether this will come to fruition in the next year I'm not sure. I used to think a year was a really long time and I'm learning in my old age that is actually not the case at all. A year moves quick, so much so that there are days I wake up and I wonder where the month has gone and what the heck I've done during the past 30 days.
Despite my tendency to look much further ahead than I should I have narrowed the next task on my plate down to the completion of my first letter. I have decided that it is going to an old student of mine. She is currently traveling the world and perhaps that is part of the reason I chose her. I am happy to say that we have begun a travel journal of sorts that is being passed back and forth between us. The more amusing part is that this journal has been in my possession since high school (a frighteningly long time ago) when it was given to me by one of my best friends. I think at one point there were plans for us to use it, though of course that didn't really pan out the way we planned. The more amusing part is that this journal is constructed such that anyone over the age of about 12 would find it virtually useless after about three trades back and forth since it only has about 30 pages worth of paper in it. However, we are making a go of it with the intention of graduating to a much more adult version (moleskin anyone?) in the near (read: about a week) future!
Despite the lack of space on which to write, we have managed to accumulate quite the collection of scribbled bits of this and that and this round will be my first official letter in my quest to reach 365 before the year is out. And yikes, I am realizing more and more just how much writing that is going to be.
Best get to work I suppose.
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