This is what I feared when I committed to NaBloPoMo. I am tired today. It has been a crazy and hectic day. Minnow is crabby and that means the whole house is on edge. It is Friday and we went to dinner with some friends. Not enough time to chat as aforementioned child wanted to climb onto and sit on the table and feed everyone chips and salsa. It was cute….but come on who lets their toddler sit on a table at a restaurant? Who? Someone who wants to quietly drink a beer.
Halfway or Day 15
I have made it halfway through this sadistic posting every day activity. It is hard as I don’t want to just post pics or little things. I like to post something that someone might be interested in reading. I write this blog for me first and foremost but I also take into account those few of you who tune in regularly to see what I am saying.
Today I got my shipement of “embrace imperfection” t-shirts/sweatshirt and messenger bag. Cafe Press does quite a good job, I have to say that I am happy with the product. It might be a little presumptous of me to think anyone would want a shirt the says The Dalai Mama on it, along with the tag line. But it is for charity and it doesn’t hurt to self-promote.
My little man is quickly becoming very stubborn and very demanding. He knows what he wants. He knows when he wants it and if doesn’t get it…watch out. I know it is only going to get worse and that the screaming and stomping will continue. I guess I should be lucky that he doesn’t hit, pinch, or throw himself on the ground. I think yet my be appropriate. I am looking forward to this stage ending and my happy boy to be here all the time. I know we were spoiled with him as a baby as he did’t often cry, etc. But now….WOW.
I start my doctoral work in January and I am starting to get a little excited and a lot nervous. I am not looking forward to years and years more school. I really would like to one day finish school as a student and get to just be a teacher. I have been in school way to long. I am just hoping that someday it will end.
As you can see this post is a bit of a hodge podge. I don’t have much to say as I am neck deep in a project for school that I really have no idea what I am doing for this project yet and well you know how it goes, I am suppose to have started on it already and am suppose to have something to take to class tonight to talk about. Well, here I am posting instead. I am certainly not a model student.
Tune in tomorrow for something more substantial…I will be talking more about value and what matters. Think about what really has value for you…
Virtual Value or Day 14
Who gets to decided you can’t put peanuts in Chocolate chip cookies? Who gets to decided a Kate Spade bag is better than a Liz Claiborne bag? Who gets to decided that Jimmy Choo’s are better than Nine West? Who gets to decided staying home is better than working or vice versa? Who gets to decided an ivy league education is better than a state school education?
These are the age old questions of value. I have done a great deal of thinking about what is imporant in life and why I think it is important. These thoughts have led me to then examine society as a whole and what we value and how arbitrary these values really are. The values that are put upon materials items are subjective. It is amazing to me that I can get a real all leather bag for relatively inexpensive, but if I want a vinyl or just plain non-leather bag with some letter plastered all over them I am expected to pay hundreds of dollars–only because people have decided that someone’s name is more valuable than someone else’s. It is quite laughable actually. How the media and popular culture have us all spending our hard earned money one something that is really insignificant. We work hard to buy things that don’t really matter and aren’t really worth what we pay for them. The value is completely arbitrary. The only things that really matter and have value in our lives and are worth time and effort are our relationships. Those are the things that we will carry with us forever. Those are the items that have a value more than a dollar amount could possibly measure. I have to remind myself of that as I dream of all the material and insignificant things that would so not really make my life any better but the marketers say I gotta have…
Where do you place your value?
Second Life or Day 13
Have you heard of Second Life? Don’t worry, I hadn’t either until this past week in one of my grad classes. We are reading a book this week titled Snow Crash.It is a futuristic tale and a large part of the action takes place in a virtual reality world much like Second Life.
Second life and the idea behind it amazes me. People actually buy and sell property. You can buy clothes–digital of course and made by other on line. There is the exchanging of currency, etc. I checked it out only long enough to learn how to change my appearance and am not really inclined to go back. I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised by this, as it really is just more advanced facebooking/myspacing. I have a hard enough time in my first life trying to take care of all I need to take care of that I can’t even imagine trying to live a second life.
So who out there has a second life? One that is computer related not one in which you like to dress up like the opposite sex and be dressed like a baby–that seems almost normal….
Courage and Strength or Day 12
I like to think of myself as being a strong person, a courageous person. But sadly, I don’t really know that I am. Last night I watched A Mighty Heart. It is the story of Daniel Pearl’s disappearance and the investigation that ensued as well as a close look at how his wife coped, dealt, and fought to find out who was behind her husband’s kidnapping, all while 5 months pregnant. I enjoyed the movie as I really felt like I was on this journey for truth and justice with her. It was a very personal movie based on her personal memoir about the tragic event. I know that Angelina Jolie–who played Mariane got to know her well during the making of the movie and by all accounts I have heard Mariane Pearl is very happy with the movie. I am in awe of this woman’s strength and courage as she spent weeks not knowing the fate of her husband and having to trust the Pakistani CIS (intelligence) and others. It is a raw look at what it is like to lose the one you love and to suffer a fate that no one could imagine. She eventually in the end decided to watch the video of her husbands beheading as she feels she must in order to come to terms with what had happened and to move forward. To be able to find hope. She wrote the memoir so that her son would know the truth of what happened. Her strength inspires me.
Another incident of a woman’s strength is that of Jocelyn who days before her court date for the adoption of her 6 month old daughter was told that the babies parents decided not to relinquish her. I do not know the details of how her agency receives children, etc. But I can only imagine how devastating this is. I don’t know what I would have done if days before Minnow’s court date something would have happened. I feel for her.
Where do we pull this inner strength from? How do we make sure that we have it?
Embracing Imperfection 