Sometimes I love my job. I got to meet and hear from Minnijean Brown Trickey (one of the Little Rock 9) today. She was incredible. She talked about how pathetic it is that the same signs from the Civil Rights Movement are being pulled out by white supremacists today (asking if they couldn't be more creative and calling it profound intentional ignorance). She was funny and smart and heartbreaking. If you get the chance to hear her, go.
I work in a pretty conservative environment. I know our CFO to be reasonably liberal but only because of private conversations with him. Today, both he and our HR director talked about the need to stand up for measures to fix the gun problem in this country, that there’s a separation between gun rights and doing what we can do prevent mass murder, and that it’s not ok that this has become the norm. It was just really nice to hear leadership talk about this and bring it into the conversation.
I have an inflamed sciatic nerve and I'm pretty sure I've never been in this much pain. I went to the walk in this morning and they gave me a steroid and muscle relaxer for bedtime. I'm trying to work from home but I have no focus.
My company banned all smoking on site - even in private vehicles parked on site. I’m not sure if it is global or just in the US but I’ll be happy to walk into my next meeting in NYC without having to walk through the smoking court. Pushback is as expected but I’m glad to see this expanding out from the medical community (our local hospital network doesn’t allow smoking on their premises either).
My car is in the shop because the a/c isn't working (air blows thru the vents, but it isn't cold).
My car is also over 10 years old. I'm afraid the repair cost could exceed what it's worth to spend on the car. I was hoping to get 2-3 more years of use out of this car. And life is really unsettled at the moment. DH is out of work (recently retired from the military, so he has some income coming in, as well as healthcare coverage for us both, at least), and I work remotely part-time, so finances aren't great, either. The only good part of the whole is that if it turns out to be too expensive a repair, at least I've got all fall and winter to look for a new car, right? Maybe DH will have found a new job by the time temperatures get hot enough that I really need the a/c for me to functionally use the car.
I am frantically trying to get thru all the work things today and carve out time to practice my presentation with an actual projector to make sure all the things work.
I have off tomorrow, with which to try and get thru all home shit that needs to get done. I need to make a list because it's freaking me out.
Saturday evening we have a date to go to dinner and then see John Cleese (http://www.montypython.com/news_jchg2017/422).
And then I fly out early Sunday morning. Presentation is early-ish on Monday (sheldon-paper-bag-gif). And then I'm gone thru Wednesday night.
I'm sorry, meshaliuknits. I hope the day gets better.
I've been at a smart cities conference the past couple of days and it's actually sort of refreshing and encouraging. I usually go to tech-focused industry conferences, but here you get people seriously talking about, and telling other people to think about, equity and how to make government and services and city live-ability work better for people with fewer resources and opportunities; about being leaders on climate-related policy; about thinking about broader societal implications of different technologies, etc. They even had a session on how to think about using big data to address the opioid problem.
No wonder the GOP/state politicians want to rein in cities so much. There really are interesting and innovative things happening that cities are pushing/supporting, that state and federal forces want to quash (from minimum wage policy to smart vehicle testing rules). While I see the benefits of having a single set of federal rules for some things, it's sort of fascinating to see a very city-focused approach and how cities, even in red states, often have more in common than not and want to be able to try things out to differentiate themselves, to take some risks, etc. One of the most interesting speakers has been the CIO of Indianapolis, actually.
I had to laugh this morning, though -- a guy from the Australian embassy introduced himself, handed over his card and was like, "Let me know if I can do anything for you!" This seems like such a D.C. thing, lol.
I am also chuckling that I must really look like I know where I'm going, or I have super-friendly-resting-face because I've had like three different people ask me for directions while I'm out and about, since moving here less than two months ago. I'm about the worst person anyone could ask, I can barely get myself from place to place successfully at this point without Google Maps as my crutch and yet it's happened multiple times, including this morning.
Post by secretlyevil on Oct 5, 2017 12:35:48 GMT -5
I am sitting with a lacrosse ball under one cheek, the leg on the same side up doing weird circles all while eating butternut squash soup. It’s epic in its randomness.
I'm itching to go on a trip somewhere, but it's not in the cards for us for several more months.
Same here. Probably not until Spring. And then, only somewhere we can drive and only over an extended weekend.
DH's PTO builds really slowly for the next year and a half, like 6 hours a month. It's awful. But at least he has PERS2 and a county job. Counting positives here.
I am feeling really burnt out. We had a major disaster at work over the weekend that I am still dealing with. It may also result in my only work friend leaving because her supervisor is trying to place the blame on her. I also have personal life crap going on and feel like I have no one to talk to about it. I have a few people I could reach out to but it's marriage related and I don't really want to put shit out there when I think it will be resolved.
On top of all that, I have two exams this week and a very busy weekend. I really want to take a mental health day tomorrow but I can't.
that's all entirely more than a reasonable amount of stuff at once.
also...I can't find it on FB again, but I'm interested in that concert you posted about in Bethesda. it's in march, right?
Thanks.
Yeah, it's in March. Clearly I don't need an answer right this second but I have a terrible habit of waiting until the last minute and then not going. I saw them in Philly and it was a good time but this is multimedia show so it should be even better. www.strathmore.org/events-and-tickets/niyaz-fourth-light-project
Last semester a dude in my class plagiarized a big section of our group project. I had to rewrite it and noted this on our peer evaluation.
He's in both of my (online) classes this semester too. He just messaged me to see if I had taken the earlier exam yet and offered to "give me some advice about it." I wonder if he's hoping I'll return the favor for our other class?
I bought new tires and had them put on today. Did I already mention that? I can't remember. I bought the tires online, had them delivered to a local shop, and the shop is putting them on. Cost was ~$100 less than that exact same shop quoted me. Take THAT fuckers. Also, I managed to get them on before the first snow, which is supposed to be on Monday.
I bought new tires and had them put on today. Did I already mention that? I can't remember. I bought the tires online, had them delivered to a local shop, and the shop is putting them on. Cost was ~$100 less than that exact same shop quoted me. Take THAT fuckers. Also, I managed to get them on before the first snow, which is supposed to be on Monday.
Post by meshaliuknits on Oct 5, 2017 17:20:59 GMT -5
Watching Star Wars fans argue about theories cheered me up. I particularly enjoy the ones who walk in with comic/book cannon bomb to disprove a particularly loudmouthed commentor. Very satisfying.
Related: Captain Phasma, yo. Do not get between that chick and ANYTHING.
Sometimes I love my job. I got to meet and hear from Minnijean Brown Trickey (one of the Little Rock 9) today. She was incredible. She talked about how pathetic it is that the same signs from the Civil Rights Movement are being pulled out by white supremacists today (asking if they couldn't be more creative and calling it profound intentional ignorance). She was funny and smart and heartbreaking. If you get the chance to hear her, go.
Quoting myself, because I didn't share one of the best parts and was reminded by a news report -
Of the angry mob that faced the group on their way into school, Brown-Trickey said, “When they were yelling at me, they threw away their dignity. And it landed on me.”
(Also awesome, she met with students of color for lunch and stayed well over an hour after she was supposed to leave, clearly and happily ignoring any attempts to keep her "on time")
I just saw a news article that said that it could take another 5 weeks for the piles of hurricane debris to all be picked up in our county. The last map that I saw had us in the last phase of pickup, so that sucks.
Someone was asking about hurricane related stuff the other day, (as people do around here), and when he found out that we still have piles of debris (he doesn't-his was already picked up by his county), he asked if we had rats in the debris. It kind of freaked me out, since that was not something that I had even considered. We haven't seen or heard of that being an issue around here, but now that it has been put into my thoughts, I can't un-think it and I want the piles gone.