42 posts tagged “life”

Things have dramatically improved.  Did I mention that?  I'm still struggling to control my debt, but it's improving.  That's all I can ask for.  The full time job at the school library ROCKS.  I love it.  Even though I didn't think working with gradeschoolers would be fun, I've discovered I was incredibly wrong.  The people I work with are fantastic.  Now to get my schooling back on track for my own teaching career.  :)

I'm obsessed with my warcraft and jaiku, so that's why I've been quiet lately.  That and working my butt off with two jobs.  Joy.

My youngest sister's life is falling apart, she's either sinking into apathy, or deliberately following some trend for some strange twisted reason in her mind.  It isn't pretty to watch. 

Hmm. Enough rambling for now.

Apparently today was wear_your_drink day and no-body told me about it.  My supervisor at the coffee house broke the coffee machine.  Hmm... Coffee house + no coffee = wtf am I still at work for?!?!  But in the midst of the ensuing chaos, I managed to spill vanilla syrup (not the sugar-free kind, either) and espresso all over myself.  Wipes it all off, and was able to conceal the sticky_later_turned_crunchy bits stuck in my hair at my left temple.  Later on, I decide to hang out at Borders since traffic was a bitch.  Ended up dumping my ENTIRE Maple White Chocolate Mocha (yummy! try it!) into my lap.  Good thing I wore all black today!

So, not only did I smell like yummy coffee beans, I ended up smelling sticky and vanilla-y and maple-y and white-chocolate-y.  My poor car...  But hey, I didn't flip out, and I wasn't overly mortified, when it happened.  Slightly bummed that my I was gonna have to sit through the traffic and go home (because I didn't want to continue squishing in my shoes and pants while hanging out at Borders--so not comfortable!), but I was more amused at the sum total of events, rather than pissed off or angry.  This is a good thing.

I feel... suddenly life has come into focus.  Why it's taken me so long, I'm not sure.  This job at the school is a gift from the gods, I swear.  Now I just have to make the most of the opportunity. 

I'm in pain.  Yesterday was my trip to donate plasma that went horribly wrong.  The nurse was sort of distracted, that or she was pressing too hard while swabbing me with iodine, or she simply blasted right thru my vein.... or... that vein is done after a year of almost weekly donations.  I'm not sure what happened, but after two attempts to re-find the vein (one of which threatened to turn me green because it *looked* like the needle was fishing around in a 180* sweep, even though I know that that couldn't have been what was happening.. right?) they finally had to switch to my other arm (so as to not risk a clot building and getting into my bloodstream).  Joy, two punctures for the price of one.  Ugh.  The second arm (a different nurse) would have worked fine, but the machine wouldn't reset so we couldn't continue with the donation.

My first arm still is pretty sore, though I'm impressed I don't have a huge puddle of blood under my skin.  I guess that means she couldn't have been stirring up my elbow they way it looked like she had been.  But the pain doesn't reassure me.

Next week I don't think I"ll donate it, and then I can get back to a weekly schedule. 

On the job front, I'm pretty bummed.  The school in the west burbs that had a full time job for me in their Media Resource Center would have been fabulous.  But they haven't called me back yet.  And neither has Life Time Fitness.  Bummer. 

In other news, as I've sat here this morning, I've heard two car accidents on the major road two blocks away.  The squeal of tires followed by the solid crash/thud is pretty unnerving. 

I stopped at Life Time Fitness to make sure the front desk position was still open, since I applied for it last night.  Lucky me, I got to talk to the Manager herself, and give her name, so I'm thinking I made a good impression and will get a call from her on Tuesday.  Wow, I hope so.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get that job, it would make passing my PT test in October much easier!  The coffee job is progressing slowly, I sometimes feel bad because my manager is such a newbie.  But ah well.  He means well and it will get ironed out eventually.  I totally dig a free 1lb bag of coffee each week!

I really enjoy my weekly Sunday email from Astrocenter.com and this is why...

Your Inner World

Saturn has just moved into the twelfth house of your chart, ROX, where it will help you to get a grip on some of the issues that are located in your subconscious mind. You are partly aware of them, and yet may not know the full extent of these matters and how they truly affect you. This is a chance to understand how you sabotage your own best plans, and to begin to do something positive about this, including perhaps healing such matters over time. You will find that you have much more energy available to you as you do so. This week is great for reflecting on your life and on what you really want. But do be careful of those Freudian slips of the tongue on Monday, which could get you into trouble. Something you say quite innocently may cause offense, so watch your words. You may be tempted to jump on a plane and take a break as an antidote to too much boredom and routine. Do not leave other people in the lurch if you do this, and make sure that you deliver on your promises. Mercury moves into your sign on Wednesday, which will help you to express your feelings and share your thoughts.

Even the daily emails aren't bad, when I bother to read them.  (Note: make sure you know what time and where you were born, because it makes pinpointing astrological influences on a weekly basis easier. ;)  But I love Liz Greene's insights into astrology, and she's at astro.com and that's more for the serious-minded-astro-geeks out there.  Log In, go to Free Horoscopes, Liz Greene does the Relationship one and the current special Astrology for Lovers (a book which I have which I LOVE because its not afraid to be cruelly blunt.)  Make sure you don't just input your own data, though, because Liz Greene works off of a relationship dynamic.  Input someone else's (even a sibling's it doesn't matter) and then view the results when you combine the two (I did me and a good friend, then switched the position of our names, his first & mine second, and got additional information)

Wanna see what I mean?

Libra is the great perfectionist of the zodiac. You use the words "fair" and "equal" a lot. You believe passionately in fairness, which can cause you unhappiness, because life and people aren't always fair. You also believe passionately in equality, and here, too, you may encounter unhappiness, because finding a relationship where each partner gives and takes exactly the same amount and loves the other equally is like finding a unicorn.

No doubt you believe in unicorns too, and you're prepared to go on searching for that perfect companion, that perfect career, that perfect environment where no human mess intrudes. You're forever seeking the Good, the True and the Beautiful. And in your eternal efforts to change the world and make it a place where the Good, the True and the Beautiful can make their abode, you're likely to genuinely succeed in making life just that bit better and more beautiful.

No matter how many times you get out of balance, the path between the extremes will always beckon with its gentle light, and the search for perfect equilibrium will always ensure that your life never stagnates. And maybe you recognise a secret that lots of other people don't see: that it's genuinely possible for human beings to be more than they are: more Good, more True and more Beautiful.

Gads.. there's so much more..

If you enjoy tempestuous, violent scenes with slammed doors and smashed crockery and lots of tears and torn clothes, choose another sign. If you're big on heavy silent atmospheres, that's not going to go over well either. Although it's certainly possible to drive a Libran to the point of real explosiveness, it takes a lot of work, and afterward you'll find that, far from enjoying all that passionate intensity, your Libran partner loathes every minute of it, loathes you, loathes herself for reaching that disgracefully bestial level of behaviour, and never forgets it.

Yeah I saw that mentioned in my Astrology email this morning.  Pretty nifty.  Wonder if I'll be able to see it.

Good news!  I have a job!  I am officially a starbucks whore now.  Joy.  (And I say that the same way I say I'm a book whore so it's not really a bad thing).  Now I'm going to do my best to get a second job at Borders and I will be set and ready to go.  The only thing that could improve my year would be a new laptop and WoW. 

Rather sad that these are excellent things in my opinion.  I figure, after two years working at these places, with my degree finished or mostly finished, I will be ready to move by the time I hit 30.  Where to, who knows.  I feel torn:  I love Chicago.  Seriously.  The minute I step foot anywhere else I am drawing comparisons, and Chicago is almost always winning.  But I don't want to settle down yet, I still need to explore.  And once my military contract is up (if I don't re-enlist) I want to take advantage of the sudden freedom.  Maybe a cross country train trip will be what I need.  Who knows.  Let's just hope I get through these next two years...

Oh. My. Gawd. 

Well the good news is that I live.  But so much has been going wrong, I'm not always sure that is a good thing.

I thought I would post here to reassure my 'neighborhood' that I was alive, well, and not on my way to Iraq.  (That's usually the biggest worry when my online presence disappears).  In 2 weeks I am headed to Devens, Massachussettes (I think.. still waiting on a military email to verify this.. *sigh*)  and then when I return (mid-August) I will have a week or two off before I head for Fort Suck, Wisconsin (really, it's not that bad.. it won't be July, anyways, so that's something) to suffer through the class for Sergeants.  Let's hope when I return I can get a promotion, eh?  More money is a good thing.

Last night, er, evening even, massive storms came through.  I was stuck on the tollway trying to get home.  Scary shit!  The rain was coming down HARD.  Most of it I could still see the lines on the road right in front of me, and the tail lights of the vehicles ahead of me (about 50meters of visibility after each swipe of the wipers) so I was at least moving, unlike all the folks that pulled off the road near the overpasses and decided to wait it out.  Guess I should have waited it out. 

I dropped Jason off at home then headed out to donate plasma (if they had power).  In the process of getting there the roads had become rivers, which I didn't find out til I was tire-deep in water.  Panic and anxiety attacks ensued, especially when my car started to shudder and almost-stall out.  I managed to get to where I was headed and into a parking spot before the car died.  *Sigh*  Again, more frantic figuring of how I was going to get home if it didn't start when I was done, yadda yadda.  Well it did start, and I was able to get gas (the almost_empty-light had just popped on when it died.. great) and I made it home to park safely in my garage.

This morning the car wouldn't start.  Well it would, it turned over, but then it died.  After a few of those I was not happy.  But 4 hours later it did start again, though it quickly died, again.  So I'm hoping that some heat, sunlight and air will dry out the engine and everything will be a-ok.  Let's hope, shall we?

More storms are forecasted for tonight.  The heat and humidity of the weekend and yesterday didn't leave with last night's storm, so I expect this evening's storms to be of the same intensity.

Ugh.

Now.. to continue the job hunt.

One of my great friends posted something interesting last Saturday about St. Patrick's Day, something that made me pause and think.  (No flames allowed!)

"Today is a sad day. Today is not a day to celebrate. Today is not a day to drink, get shitty, puke, all under the guise of celebrating a man. One who condoned genocide."

I really don't agree with her sentiments, at least not all of them.  And because I didn't want to spam her journal, I saved the bulk for right here. 

I totally agree that St. Patrick should not be a celebrated hero (we're still trying to deal with the realities of Columbus, let alone Patrick).  But I also do not believe that America's St. Patrick festival, or at least the one that I celebrate in Chicago, has *anything* to do with that historical figure.  Which is why I feel completely free in celebrating it.  It actually is more a Spring Equinox bacchanal-like celebration for me.

But back to history and my own thoughts.. If we were to study history in great great detail, we would find it very difficult to find joy at any time of the year.  I agree that history has lessons that we must learn from, and I am *not* a fan of re-writing history, but I guess I also feel it is unhealthy to dwell, and unhelpful to ram down the throats of the idiotic Xtians their horrible history if they don't want to listen.  I have hope that they will eventually learn more of the truth of St. Patrick, and come to appreciate that their hero is my villain. 

March 17th definitely had a period of quiet and a period of discussion on the historical basis of it.  But then it was on with Spring Celebration, for me.  

Tonight I finally finished shopping! (Though tomorrow I must return a few things..) As I check out of the last store with the last gift, I smile and give the cashier dude a "happy holidays" farewell. Now I was not being insincere at all, and I'm pretty sure it came across as meaningful, too. I hope so at least.

However, when the cashier dude responded with a very fervent "Merry Christmas, to you" I couldn't stop the half-grin/smirk, and the giggles as I left the store. Obviously I had just run into one of THOSE that absolutely detest how 'Happy Holidays" has "taken over and continues to attack the Christmas (ie: Christian) spirit of the Season.

And then I realized I wouldn't have truly enjoyed that moment if I were at all like a majority of others my age: Clueless.

The Harpie Queen provided a link in an LJ post to miriams_well where there is a truly FANTASTIC poem to be read. Here is a hint.

Dear lord, deliver us from the idea
That things must be difficult to be real,
Must be arduous to be worthwhile,
Must be painful to be meant for us.

Let us find you in the mysteries of laughter,
The remembrance of connection,
The power of fearless speech.

Now, click on that link and read the rest. Because this is not even the best part!