Shoes and the Issues With Them

The idea of "shoes" seems nowadays, to be one of those things so very "women's turf"-like, so iconically "female love and concern" they almost defy the whole gender. A woman and her shoes are like a man and his sports, a man and his beer, a man and his buddies. If anyone were to ask a woman about how many shoes does she have, she would probably answer "Not enough". There were a man has from two to five pairs of shoes, a woman owns at least 20, with no limit to the number she might end up having at one point of her life or the other. Then, like any male-brained woman, I didn't have that many shoes (around 26 pairs) but above all, I didn't think much of them. Actually, most of my shoes usually tended to fall into that unsightly "uncared" type. I just wasn't that much interested in them. I didn't spend hours shopping for them, they didn't seduce me, and I didn't dress for them, but I simply put them on. Recently, however, something terrible happened to me.

I was happily picking my clothes for the next day, thing I do every night before a working day, in order to save myself the pain of fighting with my closet for clothes to wear. I put up a nice ensable and the finishing touch was to wear to it some black shoes. That was simple, because I happen to have an overstaffing of black shoes. However, as I sat on the floor of my room, before my open closet, shoe after shoe emerged from the boxes, some so old and dusty I even forgot they existed, but all of them were broken. Broken soles, worn off heels, holed soles, ripped, worn, battered noses and straps.

I felt so hopeless! Was I going to be forced to wear pink, green, brown or red shoes because I had no black shoes left? My outfit simply couldn't have gone with other shoes. They had to be black. I gathered a plastic bag and started throwing away all the broken shoes cheking them before, saving that one or two pairs that maybe could be saved by a shoemaker miracle.

It was Monday night. I had to throw away five pairs of black shoes. The onslaught continued yesterday with four more pairs. Another one put on hold, but it seems it will meet the depths of a wasteland soon.

I'm not really up to spending on shoes, as I have had a few "major" expenses recently, and I want to start cutting back, saving and paying out debts, but this is an emergency, a real one. Today I have only 3 pairs of black shoes, and soemthing around 12 to 16 pairs of shoes in total, including three pairs of boots that need to be fixed and other three pairs of shoes that also need an intervention to survive. So, left out of choices, I went yesterday to Best Brands, a shoestore known for good shoes, good styles and good prices. Well, first of all, I saw three amazing pairs I simply had-to-have. The prices ranged from $3 to no more than $15. A bargain? You bet! Well, I believed that would solve all my problems.

Yeah, it would have. Two beautiful, stylish pumps I could use at the office, and one pair of short boots (or whatever they call them, they reach up to the ankle) simply perfect to wear with pants. And they were in 7, my size. Oh well, I'm a 7- 7 1/2, but 7 usually is fine. Yes, the key word is "usually". I don't know where do they do the shoes, but those 7s looked on me like Daisy's shoes. I put on the shoes and I still could stick two-three fingers in the gap. I tried the 6s, the 5s... and there were no 4s. Needless to say, I walked out without any shoes.

Today I'll give it another shot, and hopefully this time the price will be right, the style will be right, and for the love of Pete, make the size right too!!!

24

24 are the hours in a day. 24 could be the number of shoes in your closet, though I'm guessing that would be the number of black shoes you use to go to the office. 24 could be the number of freckles on your nose. 24 could be the day you were born. 24 the number of unanswered e-mails still sitting in your mailbox, though if you are Shota-Hunter, the right number would be around 24 000. 24 are the months in a two year period.

Today, from the news, 24 are the number of France Telecom employees who have commited suicide in the last 18 months. This gives a different sense to the number. 24 employees have seen in ending their lives the only way to get out of the conditions that the organization imposes upon them. 24 are the tip of the iceberg. How many else are there who don't commit suicide but are subject of the same inhuman treatment these 24 were? How many don't do it because they need the job to support their families? How many don't do it because they have been bullied into submission?

This is, on the other hand, a reality lived in many other companies, some even worse in the private sector, but people don't care. Unions are ignored, but then in the private sector unions are down right prohibited because "they cause conflict between the employees and the employers". Flash news: if the working conditions are good, trust me, the Unions won't stir any problems.

Then again, this is not a matter of unions or not, it's a matter of people, and how unreasonable some can be. What was France Telecom thinking when the first person commited suicide and blamed the company for the decision? And what was thinking when the second followed? Evidently that it was just a matter of people throwing a temper tantrum. Don't they get the complains? Or do they think that the well being of their employees is entirely irrelevant and grupmy, depressed people can produce the same as happy, motivated people? Well, they don't, and if they can't see the results, maybe it's time to check the company and see where all the inefficiencies are going. A bit of advise? Start with the upper hierarchies.

When I worked at the bank, there was a boss who loved to mistreat their people. Though there was no colocation quota settled, not quota would affect the workers' wage (which is fix), he loved to gather up everybody once a month and tell them how bad had they performed, signaled out people, berated them and let his mignions to call anyone out to be berated. A personal case of that was when I was sent for one month to sell credit cards, which everybody had to do for one month every year. We could not answer the phone, only make calls, because all the calls that entered had to go to our loan procesing workmates. We were given lists of people preapproved to call. The lists weren't nearly enough to keep us occupied, so I took my textbooks to study while the new lists arrived.

A mignion called me one day to berate me, saying that I wasn't allowed to read at the office.

"What should I do then?"
"Make calls."
"All lists are finished. I'm still waiting for the new ones."

Sometimes lists could take days on arrive.

"Then take calls."
"I'm at the Credit Card section. Can I really take calls?"
"No, you are on the Credit Card section! I thought it was explained clearly that you CAN'T take calls!"

(As you can see, the mignion was very clear with the procedures.)

"Then, if I can't take calls and I have finished all my lists, what can I else do?"

The mignion looked at me with a mighty air of superiority.

"Your productivity is extremely low. You should be concerned about it."

Two days later I was awarded for breaking records in Credit Card sales. And the lists I was waiting that day hadn't arrived.

Many of my friends and coworkers have been subjected to worse kinds of bullying, things you wouldn't see even in The Devil Wears Prada. Though the worse cases happen usually in places where the workers have lower levels of education, or places where a given degree, a specialty is not needed, often happens is specialized places that workers with high degrees and so are mistreated. The debasing of workers, screaming at them, keeping them after work hours against their will, bullied into staying with either paid or not extra hours, often making them work on something that will be either filed away or discarded as soon as it's finished, the pushing of irrational deadlines or irrational demands, minimizing their skills, hiring people from the street to better positions, internally denied to them, and then demanding them to teach the new ones the ropes are ways of bullying more and more common in our laboral environment.

But 24 suicides don't tell the company that something is going wrong. High levels of personal rotation tell nothing to the company. Complains tell nothing to the company. Companies care about the bottomline, the worker is just an annoying necessary evil. Well, two things:

1. How do they expect to reach the bottomline with no employees? Good quality workers will leave toplaces where they can be appreciated, and the constantly rotating base of lower quality workers will drag the company down slowly. There are not so many workers as the companies would like, certainly not many good.
2. Workers are also customers, so a deceptioned worker, sad and depressed will strike twice.
   

Polansky

One of those ironic cases in life is the arresting of Roman Polansky. After being indicted, and I believe, sentenced for rape (or was it statutory rape?) of a then 13 year old girl. This was in 1978. Some 30 years later the U.S. Government wants him back to process him and send him to jail for some 50 years.

On one hand, I don't know the circumstances within which the whole thing happened, whether Mr. Polansky was really tricked into it or not, whether he knew that the girl was only 13 or not. I do believe that it was wrong from him to feel the justice and not serve the time that then was imposed upon him. Tricked or not, if he commited a crime he should pay for it.

On the other hand, it has been 30 years, the victim already declined to pursue the case, why does the Government wants to keep pushing on it? Certainly the escaping of Mr. Polansky, him doing so many great movies and getting known around the world must have been a stain in their record, a very notorious one. For years Mr. Polansky must have been regarded as the "poster boy" for how to elude the American Law and live a long and successful life. Now, with many friends and many movies of great quality and awesome narrative, he has found himself a huge crew that will support him, or at least would do and say anything to keep him from jail so he can continue making movies.

I love his movies, and he's actually one of my favorite directors, along with Woody Allen, but I do believe that he must pay if he did something wrong, or at least he's entitled to a fair trial. However what strikes me as ironic is that not long ago there was an article in the Washington Post, I believe, saying that hundreds of sex offenders walk out there free with a poor parole follow up, or even no follow up. So, on one hand you have a celebrity, a notorious sex offender that commited one crime, how's been chased down and arrested, though he hasn't committed any other crime in 30 years, but then you have priests with criminal records raping children, dozens of them for years, protected by the Church, within the American soil, and the Govenment does close to nothing. You have Sex offenders abducting children, raping them, sometimes even killing them, fathering children with them, on American soil for years, and no one stops them. You have sex offenders that plead for liberty under parole, get it granted and then they go back to raping, and no one stops them. So what's the message? The Government only catches those who are easier to catch, no matter that these are no longer those making damage?

There's a serious need, not so much of a reform of the law, but a reform of the ways of thinking and acting of those in charge of law enforcement.

The Raging Maniacs

Hyne, it seems I'm in for constant attack now. One bad thing about the Internet is that you can't see the face of those talking to you, and that keeps you from reading what they really mean to say. It is tiresome to go over and over explaining that there are "first impressions", and there are "opinions" and not all of them mean "passing a judgement". Furthermore trying to understand why a blog is a "personal site", and another of the same kind becomes a "stand". All of them misinterpretations. But then again, like it was said, maybe some people do find their happiness bashing others.

Then again, the world seems to produce tons of them. Aside from the cybernautes that go around jumping ahead into conclusions and denting in skulls, there are people who do that often in real life. One of them is our dear coworker. I have not decided whether she suffers from som chronical multiple personality condition or if her problem is that she has none, and so replace the void with bits and pieces of temper, or it's a new breed in the perosnality dissorders' line, that could be called Multiple Stupidity Dissorder. On one hand she's the self proclaimed "most diplomatic person in the world" and Miss Touch, on the other, she's the self-proclaimed "I call things by their name". Sure, you can be both, but screaming from the other side of the office, for all to hear things like (and forgive my French) "you look too skinny, you've been fucking a lot with your boyfriend, haven't you", or "and the gynecologist said I have a very pretty vagina. want me to show you?" doesn't really fit either of the priorly self proclaimed labels. If it were up to me, I'd say the adjective that fits her better is "coarse".

People like her I don't get. They always give money to the homeless, but ask for money from the coworkers, get them to buy them things and never repay, or if you want your money back you pretty much have to go harrassing her four times a day knocking on the door, calling her by the phone until she finally pays back. Is it a Robin Hood kind of complex? She buys at these outlet stores and the discount warehouses where rats run around large piles of clothes dumped on the floor, which is fine. Hey, she has a daughter and living as a Mom is different, you gara do a lot of planning to make the money enough for all the things you and your family needs. Yeah, only she makes a whole show out of buying groceries only in the most expensive stores, doesn't go to certain restaurants and plays herself as this Hilton-like upperclass person.

Certainly a lot of people can't accept who and what they are and live with a mask on, but then again the lack of consistency in their actions and words is disturbing. Same happens with another guy. He's an excellent business man and a genious with money and finances. So he says. He always have some money, ready for a big business and lives comfortably. Well, that's good. Save that for more than six years his car sits in the garage and he makes his coworkers drive him to the office and then home. He never buys lunch or brings luch, like the rest of us mortals, but sits at the diner waiting for someone to give him left overs or share their meal. Things intensified now that he started builing a new house, which is humongus, and which got him in over $100 thousand in debt about the $600 K he already requested.

I'm not saying that people should be open about every detail of their lives, but when the mask is chiping away and you know it, and you know that everybody knows, why do you keep holding to the lie?

Finally, there's this girl. Married young, and married for money. Her life is going down the sewer, she is so visibly unhappy it shrinks everybody's heart. She has never really loved her husband, and even her wedding came with great dificulty, because she didn't want to marry. But she did. She hates her mother-in-law, and the feeling is mutual. Her husband doesn't care. Being around them is awkward because the fight hangs in the air, and they don't seem to mind berating each other or ridiculing each other in front of others, even total strangers. Nobody needs to hear, I believe, a friend's husband say: "she's so disgusting. She wears her socks for days, and even take them to bed. She nauseates me". To call that "hell" would be a crass understatement. I would understand her need to keep up walls and put up a mask to cover the mess of her life, but then, why does she preech about marrying only for money, for the assets as the only valid reason to marry? If it were so and the most stupid thing someone could do were to marry for love, then why isn't she happy?

There are things that, perhaps, we must accept as they are, and one of them is that people is strange. However, accepting the fact that people is strange doesn't mean that that's okay and we have to learn to love it. We may not be able to change it, but I do believe we can find the way to let it affect us the least.

Not All Dough and Gossip

Yes, I'm posting twice today. Sue me. However this topic couldn't really be mingled with the one before. Today I received a comment at my page in Political Voices of Women. First I thought it would be an answer to why I can't get my badge visible (which somehow got fixed in the mean time), but it was a member of the community berating me for "joining the group simply to bash it" here. O_O That was odd. Found it specially odd because it is part of the philosophy of the community to accept the fact that all of us think differently, belong to different ideologies, so let's live together in harmony under that flag.

At first I was utterly confused, because I love the group! The idea, the feeling, this outspoken diversity and respect, that's born maybe from the fact that we are all women and we do know what's like to belong to a group that has been repressed for so long, whose rights have been denied, reduced, trampled simply for a matter of a chromosome pair of which we are not responsible of happening, so why would I do any kind of bashing? So I checked out the pointed out entry, and I think I've found the offending thing: I said what I think about the first two blogs I read. So maybe, in order to clear the air a bit I'd like to add the following:

Both the blogs of A Brain Like Mine and American Princess are lovely, enjoyable blogs, written with refreshing, candid sense and delicious wording that would not mean any waste of time for anyone that would happen upon them. On their own way they both capture you and make you smile, make you frown and make you curious. A Brain Like Mine is homely and does go around issues that might be unknown for many, or at least unknown for me. I did thought that sourdough starter was a kind of pet, like an electronical pet-device or a new breed of hamster-like creatures. What would I know, after all? Not like I have ever done bread in my life, nor like I would (in the near future, at least, though making sourdough starter as an experiment sounds funny). Then, she does write a lot about plants and animals and Mom-things, like camps, meeting with other parents and so on. Ain't boring, au contraire, it kind of gives you a glimpse at the housewife life, and that can be very exciting. American Princess seems to me more like you Uptown, Gossip Girl poster Bloggerine. She does turn her attention to political figures, and let you know about things you didn't know or didn't acknowledged. Has a bit of flare, a bit of that "Sex and the City" quality to it that makes it a good quick, light read. However, realistically speaking, neither blog is really what you would expect from a "political blog".

If you read a bit carefully, I myself was wondering whether my blog is or isn't a political blog, and came to the conclusion that it isn't really a political blog, just a blog. If I am a part of Political Voices of Women now is because these two blogs, because both these ladies made me unafraid of becoming a member. They made me realize that I don't have to turn 100% political, that I can still blog about the things my job puts me through, or bitch about the "money is all that matter in man and marriage should only be by assets" policy some of my coworkers preach.

What's a political blog, for me? Well, for me it should be a blog where the blogger expresses his or her views about something that happens, and not simply passes over a link, copy-pastes an article, echoes a headline. In a political blog I would expect to see a mind working, questioning, comparing, bringing new ideas, bitching, and for Pete's sake, us women have all the words and all the tones and emotions to elevate bitching to a higher form of art. A political blog would say: "Congolese women, and now men too are living in fear of being raped by rebels and also by the militia. What can we do about it?/This is what I think about this..."

I answered to my commenter, hopefully the air between us was cleared, and then I went on browsing, checking stuff here and there, when I found veritable gold. Among the bloggers of the community there's Marcia G Yerman's page. Do you want to read about politics? Well, then you MUST read her. Fresh, fascinating, involved with women issues, social issues and an amazing perspective. If she were a book, she would be a "hard to put down" kind of book. I wouldn't say a "page-turner", because actually she's the kind of blogger that's so fascinating that keeps you going over and over the same lines as if trying to extract the most of each word. ^_^ I think I've found a new blog to check on everyday.

Bottom line is: the group is good, but just like any group, you can find many, many things, and in the process of discovering you can find all kinds of results. As they come, all these results feed you and build an idea, an opinion in you. You can express the impressions you have as you get into the process, which is what I did, or you can wait until you have enough samples to make a more generalized observation. Neither of them is wrong, they are simply methods.

Finding Marcia, though, won't stop me from continue scoting the group, reading other entries that catch my attention. I may find more odd things, I may find more awesome treasures, and I'll keep you posted about all of them.

However, when you read me, keep one thing in mind: this is not the absolute and undeterrable Truth, this is my Opinion.

The Places Help Has to Come From

Today I heard a good news in the radio. I was on my way to the office, early morning, as usual, when the news presentator said that a plea had been filed by the Nicaraguan Government to stop the mining project conducted by Infinito Industries at Crucitas, San Carlos. The plea contenied the expert opinion of environmental professionals from the Humboldt Center and the Fundación del Río, and indicated that the poisoning of the waters, product of the mining, would affect around 400 communities on both sides of the San Juan river, a river that separates Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Learning that the plea was accepted by our Representatives unanimouly made me smile: there's hope, a bit of hope for Crucitas. Won't go into fighting now for the destroyed lands, the cut threes that won't grow back again, the Green Lapa's that lost their home, their food, right now I just want to smile, smile for five minutes and life that sweet moment of victory.

But when the moment is gone, anger cames back for the injustice, for the demeaning of our Representatives, the disrespectful way our people is treated, the way our most sensible sectors, our most humble brothers and sisters are blackmailed for a loaf of bread they may or may not receive, the humiliation of buying them with trinkets, stepping over their dignity, mocking them, ridiculing them if they dare to speak up or even pose a question. It takes away hope when you realize that you don't need to be qualified about a topic to be heard, you have to agree, you have to have their sympathies, and then it doesn't matter whether what you say is true or a blatant lie, it will be accepted and celebrated.

When I was small, I remember we learned in school that though Costa Rica had some gold, some silver and a little of low quality brent, it wasn't worth mining, particularly because the richness of our forests, de huge biodiversity was far more valuable. What has changed since then? From what I know, another gold mine was set in Miramar, Puntarenas. The people of the surrounding villages were also bought into the lie of "job opportunities" and all kinds of development, but after a few months of functioning the mine was abandoned because a side of it collapsed and poisoned water sources. A landscape that could have produced a lot of income from tourism was permanently destroyed, water supplies destroyed, farming lands and pastures lost forever, for a project that benefited those who already have a lot.

Please, take a look at the latest picture I uploaded. The first was a picture of the remainings of an old Secoya three, this last one is a picture of the "State-of-Art", "top technology" Miramar mine that would bring prosperity to the communities around. The situation became more critical since then, with less places for those left behind to go. Ironically the Star Engineer and Planner of this ultra-modern and highly environment friendly mine is the Star Engineer and Planner of Crucitas, and though the catastrofic results of his job lay in plain sight, his "professional opinion" is far more important than that of tens of biologists and technicians from our universities, from recognized organizations.

I hope we can stop this horrendous violation of our land and our civil rights, however, unless our people wakes up and corruption is haltered somehow, I don't see how can we make sure to be heard next time.

The Political Voices of Women

I was browing around today (among doing other things) and I found this article/entry/Hyne-alone-knows that listed political blogs written by women. It is called "The Political Voices of Women". Naturally I felt driven to it, even started reading one of them. First of all, at least the ones I've tried so far are not 100% politically charged, though there's here and there a mention of political views. The first one I read was "A Brain Like Mine: Diary of a Feminist Housewife". Yeah, the title is catchy, but when you screen through plants and recipes, and you have to google what the hell is a sourdough starter, because, honest to God, it sounds much like a new kind of pet, such as a Tamagochi, or your regular Gizmo, well, you realize that not all of them are a journal into politics. Others, like "American Princess" are more about politics, but with a "flare", so to say. This one does roll around political figures and notes on them, though not necesarily performing a full blown autopsy on the political environment and situation, but more like a "Live from the White House's Red Carpet" kind of gossipy thing. Well, there are, after all 500+ blogs to browse from, so you may find just about anything, evidently, from "Michelle Obama's Guardrobe" to "Taking the children to the camp and sharing recepies with the other mom's".

It kind of, then, made me think whether my blog, this blog, is a political blog and whether I should or shouldn't enroll it in the list. Politics... yes, I like it, but I view myself more as an opinionated female, who likes to write in Technicolor and will rant just about anything, than a political blogger. Then again, why would I like to list my blog? Well, certainly the idea of knowing more people, people with a specific kind of liking and minding would be nice. A small group of political women, chatting over the internet, exchanging e-mails, comments and posts is charming, but how realistic is to get there? Probably all I'd get would be attention, undiscerning, gray, hungry, ripping attention, and I would hate that. Attention can be such a pestering, horrid thing. Not to mention I'm not sure I would really-really like (more) people reading about me bitching about work or my friends, with which I'm so freaking generous. Hey, it's the truth. Anonymity has its benefits.

On the other hand, could I get the kind of attention I'd like to receive? For my political posts?


Visit Political Voices of Women Community


A mail has been circulating lately, and I would love to find a way to lift it out of Costa Rica and give it to the world, in hopes that the world might do something with it. I've been thinking around to write to the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, Al Gore, Greenpeace... anyone, because this blog is just too small, too anonymous and too private to scream it out to the world.

The issue that gets me going is the Crucitas mine topic. The levels open corruption is taking are simply outrageous. Disrespect to professionals only because they don't share the opinion of the President and his brother, the Prime Minister (and BTW, our Constitution forbids relatives to work within the Government) and all their goons and syncophants, objectivity trumped for the benefit of a few, communities openly blackmailed to allow destruction in their land "or else", disrespect for our Representatives, but only those that do not agree with the President and his "Circle of Chosen Ones".

Heidi Murillo, a brave lady fighting to save the land, save the endangered species that live in the area, and save the community, the whole country, if you like, from the inminent cianure poisoning of the many water sources that feed lots of communities, took part of a commission sent to overlook the mining site and the activities of the mining company, Infinito Industries, only to be mistreated in ways that clearly go against the most basic civil rights and human rights. Pro-Government Representatives traveled in comfortable 4WD cars, while those protesting the presence of the mining company where forced to march on foot for miles, under the scorching sun, only to be silenced at the designated sites. More like a childlike attitude, it was open agressivity, open disregard of the voice of the people they no longer pretend to represent.

This country, that once praised itself about being the Land of Democracy, the First Latin American Democracy, the Land of Peace, ruled by a Nobel Prize, has chipped away. All the lying, embellishing varnish has peeled away under the pressure of the scum happening. What democracy lives in a country where the people is shamelessly mislead, tricked? Where elections and referendums are arranged? Where the President doesn't hide his satisfied smile at the begining of a Referendum because it was been arranged to favor his position? What democracy remains in a country where the people has no voice? Where a Presidential Candidate can ignore the press, ignore debates, ignore questions and still be elected in fraudulent elections? Someone tell me, please about the democracy living in a country where the president of a public institution can be removed because he dared to sue the brother of the President for not endorsing the funds the institution needs and the institution is entitled too, to work?

Democracy in a country where nothing was done against the companies that forced their workers to participate in the political campaings that favored them, firing those who didn't supported them. Democracy in a country where companies FORCED their workers to take a picture of their SECRET VOTING BALLOT to prove they voted for the party that favored the company, or be fired. Then be fired anyway because the company needed a law to pass to sell to a transnational. Workers get screwed by being stuck with a law that takes away their rights, and on top of that their jobs get taken to slavery-patronizing countries.

Democracy, finally, in a country where lands protected by international agreement are given away to a gold mine, permission to destroy and poison land, flora, fauna and water, and the communities are lied to and all manifestations are forbiden, all questions prohibited and even environmental activists murdered. Because it's so democratic to call the community to a "rally for environment" sponsored by the very destroyer of it, offer pity-prizes to the poor schools around if the bring the biggest percentage of students to the "pacific manifestation", and the same flyer also disclaimes that no banners, no signs, no t-shirts with anti-company messages should be brought, and no messages voiced.

Democratic, right? That's Costa Rican democracy for you working at Crucitas.

Please, don't let it happen.

Love and Marriage

There's a saying in English, and I believe it must exist in pretty much every language that goes like "you reap what you sow". In one hand, if you go around saying that there's no such thing as getting married for love, and those who do are stupid, and you are proud of yourself for marrying for money, then don't get depressed for being stuck in a loveless marriage. I mean, dude, that's what you were looking for, right? If you preach around to everybody that a boyfriend is only to be milked for money, because men are disgusting meatbags whose only worth is the wallet, and that has to be paid with sex, then don't complain and get depressed because the wallet dumped you. Besides, if you need that income to come steadily, don't get a man-wallet, get a job. Believe it or not, it has been working for generations.

Though I am against marriage, because I feel those are unnecesary chains wrapped around two people under the mask of "proving each other's love", which, really, if you feel it, what any other prove do you need?, I do believe that "love" is quite a valid reason to get married. Not because it proves that people are in love, but because that happens to be the way some people express their feelings for each other to others. Besides, truth to be told, a marriage with love is much better than a marriage without love, just like about everything in life. Living together with someone is much better if those who live together love each other, right? And here I do apply it to all kinds of love.

The reasons I find acceptable for marriage are:

1. Love
2. To legally and socially protect a family or a family project (last name of children, extend social security to children and spouse, to get better terms for a loan in order to build a common home or a family business, protect with insurance, ensure heritage for the descendants and make sure no outsiders take it away from them)
3. Political connections or political reasons
   
4. Friendship
5. To get citizenship, assuming both parties fully agree, and they don't go against the Law (though that seems pretty unrealistic, but I have heard a few quite plausible cases in countries where it isn't really a crime...)
6. Religious reasons
7. Personal conviction

Naturally ALL OF THEM with the full agreement of both parties. There ain't anything worse than one party marrying for one reason and the other marrying for another, none of them really agreeable. That's a recepy for a perfect storm. It becomes a mistake that time will make worse, specially if they get children out of the pressure of "having children".

Marriage and having children is, up to this daym still one of the biggest issues upon which society flexes the muscle of peer pressure upon individuals. A lot of people balk into it, which they shouldn't. Why to get married if you don't want to get married? Just like with drugs, "just say no". Nobody can really force someone else, so why to give in? Marry if you feel like it, and marry only for a good reason, something you can live with, something that won't trample your happiness, because, after all, it is YOU who will have to live with the consequences of you actions and decisions.

You can marry for love, you do, and if you understand that love is a living things that changes, mutes, and if you nourish it well, it will never stop being a sweet thing, they you are in for a very, very happy ending. ^_^ ♥

Ugly Lastnames

I guess everybody has gone through that phase of life where they would like to have a different name. Rose, don't like to be called Rose because that's such a peasant name, and wishes to be called by a more noble name, such as Patricia. Patricia hates her name because it sounds so stupid, particularly because the diminituve, "Tricia" or "Trix" sounds like a "trick". So she rather be called an more romantic name, such as Giselle. Giselle hates her name because sounds so ... giglish, so she would rather have a more serious name, like Olga. Olga hates her name because sounds like some ugly, fat woman, and she'd rather have a more feminine, sweet, beautiful name, like Rose.

Now a days is far easier to change your name, without really changing it, just by choosing a nickname online and making friends thought it. After all, how many of us are not called also in real life by our nicknames? Bunny, Dragonfly, Wolf, Dankenzon, Hunter, Witch, Mia, Fayes and so on, all to the point where you feel really stupid, when you can't say what's your friend's real name, or what he or she looks like, because, dude, all you know are the posts, the icons and the nick name.

Some people never grow out of hating their name, others do, and then others get to love it so much that they call their kids by the same name. However, one really, really unfortunate name some people have, is their lastname. I have a very nice, simple lastname, thanks Hyne, but some people have trully ugly or stupid lastnames that translate to something like "broom", "murderer", "slaughter", "donkey", "fat", "thin", "hate", "war" and so on. Others seem to spell bad words, or carry a very unpleasant double meaning.

Though name changing might seem like something frivolous, why people don't make these unpleasant lastnames disappear?

Mind and Mindlessness

I'm not sure if the word "mindlessness" actually exists, but I'm convinced it should in order to put a tag, a name, a sign, a label to a lot of the things, thoughts and actions that surround us daily. If the word does exists, I guess that should be the main topic of most of my posts: mindlessness of politics, mindlessness of people around me, mindlessness at work, global mindlessness.

The mindlessness that concerns me today is, again, about America and their politicians. Here I hear people talking against Universal Health-care and then rolling up on some tremendously incongruent "Anti-Obama" movement that leaves me petrified. First of all, I can't imagine a single person in his right mind that would go against Universal health-care. I mean, let's cut the "communist" baloney here for five seconds, and let's think about what would it mean for everybody to actually be able to go to the hospital and be received, taken care of and cured, and not having to worry about bills and being able to pay for the treatment, or cutting back on the medication prescribed because it can't be afforded and so on.

At the same time, Universal Health-care isn't by default a bad service, but instead it is as good as the Government orders and enforces it to be, just like education. If the Government puts money into it, makes sure that the Health care budget gets applied to health-care and follows closely the indexes of quality and satisfaction, then I guess there couldn't be no problem. I mean, in so many countries it worked just fine for so long, until, of course, the profit-seeking enterprises decided to get a slice of the business.

So, on the other hand, just as I can imagine sane people going against Universal Health Care, I can see why people don't see that the only ones losing with it are the companies. If you have universal health care, and it's good, why would you pay for an expensive health insurance? Why would you go to an insanely expensive private hospital to be treated? I'll tell you why: you wouldn't unless the private sector gives you something extra. For instance, better service, doctors with more experience, quicker reception, bigger rooms, private rooms and so on. The problem here isn't that this is a matter of "communism", I mean please, like Universal Health Care will suddenly revive the Red Menace? The Soviet Union will raise and poise it's nuclear weapons and Karl Marx on the U.S. again? Be realistic. The problem here is that all the private medicine market has it so well giving a so-so service, charging exhorbitant fees, then deciding whether you deserve to receive what you've paid for n-th fold, only to find ways to charge you more, give you nothing and keep you dying.

I mean, imagine to have a dental plan in the Universal Health Care, and get as much as 9% of your paycheck reduced for it, and you can get sick whenever you want --- well, you don't want toget sick, but that's the general idea --- and if more than one at home get sick, to be able to ACTUALLY take everybody to the hospital. Why would this be evil? Well, as you know by now, because that reduces the profit of the private sector, and what's worse, actually forces them to be better and give you what they promise you, and isn't that evil?

Minutes Away From Busting This Joint

This is one of those times when I have 22 minutes of work left and I have already done everything, filed everything, backuped all my e-mails (the important ones) and I hope no bos will call me to answer some lenghty question or just stay there "just in case I have to answer a lenghty question". I've not much to do, and what I would have to do I'll have to leave it for tomorrow, such as running this errand of the office, mostly because it takes me more time than what I have today, AND add to it I've decided to do some things myself. Oh yep. I dunno if you have the same issues I do, but for instance, there's this messenger service. Guys run up and down between the different buildings carrying papers so you don't have to do it yourself. The problem is that they come only once a day, so if you have to send a document within a deadline and the guy either came too early or came too late in the afternoon and will drop the documents only next day, you are fried. Also there's the case when you need PROOF that the documents were received, so you send an original and a copy to be stamped as received, but do the messengers bring the stamped copy back? Sure, like two months later, if ever.

So, since I've a rather sensitive duty here (one of them) I have decided that I will run the errands myself and deliever the documents and get my stamps all by my lil' self. But can I do that now? Nope. So I'll have to leave my paper-running-delievering-stamping routine for tomorrow. What else do I have to do? Basically nothing other than read articles in the newspaper or any other e-informative media. This is how I came across another article that, really, made me roll my eyes. Okay, okay, it had an attached article about "how to make killer presentations", but that's not the point. The article, though it was good, and I must give it that, was about how to become a manager. The funny thing was that it said that you've to grown up. Dude, really.

I know the general idea is right, but saying that what you need to become a manager or even more, a "successful manager" is a matter of growing up, is just as naive as pretending that Perfect Competition is possible in real life. You don't need to learn, nor work your ass off: you need to have friends in the right places, be ready to bend the laws so far you pretty much break them, trash them and screw it even by the Machiavellian principles, and have an escape goat to fall in your place. In these days, truth is that succeeding as a human, responsible person is just as hard as opening an business in Tokyo that's not under the asphixiating thumb of the Yakuza.

But the idea was nice. ^_^ You see, that's the good thing about theory: it allows you to dream.

Well, time for me to shut down the laptop.

The Principle of Peter

For those who have taken all kinds of Business Administration classes and got to the chapters of "Leadership" in the book, or "Motivation" and similars, you might remember something called the "Principle of Peter". The reason of the name escapes me, but the idea is that organizations tend to promote people to the level of incompetence.

he principle basically takes off from the assumption that people are promoted based on their skills at doing what they do, which, from my point of view, is the first crass mistake of the proposal. Anyway, you are good at what you do, and since you do it so well, you get promoted. For instance: let's say you are great cashier at a bank. You are quick, good with numbers, have an excelente memory and can foccus. You are so good that you get promoted to chief of cashiers. Okay, you can still do that, help your cashiers become faster, better, have less losses by the end of the day. You do that so well, that you get promoted again to platform chief. Here you gara do stuff and supervise activities you have never done before, so you start to fail. But maybe you are still good, and get promoted to office manager, only this time you really have no idea what are you doing or what are you supposed to do, because you know how to be a good cashier, but know nothing about the safes, the platforms, the accountants, about the conditions of a loan, the terms to file a foreclosure or forgive one and so on, so you start doing a crappy job and you don't get promoted anymore, but get stucked doing your work poorly.

Now, I'm tempted to say that this is all nice and cool but it is not, because in order to survive in the long term, organizations NEED to be efficient and work at their best. Add to it, this Principle basically says what we all already know: most higher positions are filled with incompetent people. In other words, a bunch of incompetent jacks are leading a bunch of competent to incompetent crew. What does that mean? That competency is not really taken advantage of, and it all balls up and wraps up into a big bundle of incompetency. After all, were could incompetency lead but to more incompetency?

The problem is that there are often organizations that defy even the Principle of Peter and promote their workers based on friendship, contacts, political favors, personal favors, sexual favors and so on. These people receive the position our of a favor, a gift, and so they don't really need to do anything there, just collect the paycheck, and therefore not only are they completely incompetent at it, but they don't care and even trumple other, more capable people's attempt at managing something, mostly out of the fear of being exposed as completely inadecuate for the job.

Those bosses who love the sound of their own voice and so launch into hours of boring monologues cutting everybody's chance to talk or explain. Those bosses that can't take five minutes to hear someone else explain them a problem, but talk for them, imagine the problem, and make the purpose of working on a solution when they have not even heard the real problem. Those bosses that shield themselves in business administration commonplaces and famous mottos, such as "don't bring me problems, bring me solutions" without considering that a subordinate might really have no idea how to solve something because it's beyond it's capabilities, it's knowledge, but the boss doesn't want to think and want someone else to give him or her the decision he or she should be taking and for which he or she is getting the big bucks.

The boss that gives more importance to the check in and check out time, to the time you spend at lunch, the time you spend at the bathroom, the number of meetings you attend, the clothes you wear, whether you eat or not at the office, how loud you play your music, where is the monitor of your computer pointing at, and so on. The boss that's always "so busy" jumping from a meting to another and doesn't have five to check on with his or her subordinates to really get involved with what his or her team is doing.

Then there's the boss that thinks that being a boss gives him or her the right to mistreat people, humiliate them, treat them badly, yell at them, scorn them publicly and don't apologize if they are proven wrong. Those who live to breath fear into their subordinates and discontent, those who live to break them, to demand their blind loyalty, to pledge to all their outrageous ideas, and then don't take the responsability for the actions they have taken, the actions they have demanded and happily place the blame on their subordinates.

So, an article in a paper talks about the Principle of Peter, but that's just some lame little tale, a pile of nothing compared to the things that happen in real life and the things that should be stopped. I'm talking about the Principle of Cascante.

Working in a small Hell

A pack of sesame seed crackers (not so bad) and a glass of coke. That was today's breakfast. No lunch brought, so I'll probably have to cook me up some oatmeal... again. I'm still angry about yesterday, particularly because I realized it was basically because the hag was to stupid to read and she thought I said that the thing she did "was useless" instead of "we can't use it". My Hyne, how mentally and intellectually handicapped must someone be to misread something like that and make a fuss out of it! But then again, she has always shown sings of a diminished capacity in the emotional, and cognitive areas... and this is one of those cases that makes you so sad about Darwin not being strictly right and law enforced.

Noon: lunch: apple and cinnamon oatmeal.

Have been all morning running around between meetings and fixing things, calling up people in the U.S. because nobody here seems to have the guts to call someone in the U.S.... why do they pretend to speak in English then? Hell, some people are unbelievable. Then had to juggle around a few things to put an end to some activities that have been ping-ponging for a while now, where a division (Dragonfly's division, actually) had the NERVE to accuse us of not doing our job when we have been doing our job, in time and then even theirs. This is the point where I turn to Dragonfly and say: "Honey, we work in Hell, but Lucifer took out vacations and left all the moronic demons to try to run the show".

There's a sudden meeting today at 13h, with some other people, to review some data. Thanks Hyne this time someone from the original project group will be with us, and so we don't have to invent the whole thing again. I never understook why do they do that and keep doing it. Hopefully, hopefully, we will be able to finish the meeting soon. Hopefully this won't reach too long... I hope, I hope.

I just wanna go home and smooch my boyfriend, cuddle with him and feel oh-so good with his arms around me. ^_^ He smells so yummy!! (Yes, I totally love him!)

Irrational "Helper"

So, I'm working with some data downloaded from this site, and something happens because the data is in an Excel file but it's ordered in rows and the info column by column is separated IN THE ROW by comas. Very annoying. Up to some 30 minutes ago, I didn't have the faintest idea about how to make it right, so I was going to do it manually for all the 5999 rows... of 9 columns each. I was mulling about it at lunch when a coworker of my comes and tells me that she can help me, she can make it right. Well, I was happy.

After lunch she sent me and to two of my coworkers an Excel file with the data totally alterated. She said over and over that she was so busy (because she didn't want to explain how to do it), but the data wasn't what we needed. So I sent her an e-mail saying:

"T_T we can't use this. we need the table with the actual data..."

The woman got pissed off and sent me another e-mail with copies to everybody saying that she sent me the data processed "is not that what you'll do with it"?

The woman is totally stupid, as you can see, so I just tried and explained again: well, we gara check the data first, we gara do this and that, and only after we gara process it. I don't see where could it go so wrong, specially because the stupid hag had the nerve to say a few minutes ago that, well, she wasn't mad with me anymore but the problem is that I have no "finesse" to say things. So, on top of it it was all my fault.

Let's nail a few things down:

1. I'm not getting "finesse" and "touch" lessons from an ordinary, vulgar hag that announces to the world that she has the body of Nicole Kidman and spends her day touching herself in the office, making dirty jokes.

2. I believe I was perfectly clear about me needing only to turn the data into a workable Excel file, which, as I discovered some 30 minutes ago entirely by my lil' self, you can do going to "data" and selecting "text to table" in "data tools". No biggie. She wrongly assumed to know what would we do with the data, not asking us, so sorry, but she should have either limited herself to convert the data to a table, or ask before. (Because add to it, she sent us the averages and sums, and counts, but not the original data.)

3. Nor I, nor my coworkers asked her, SHE offered.

Well, it seems that now we not only have to know from whom to ask a favor, but also from whom to accept it. That psychotic hag is not one of them. "Instructions and her" are not something that go together.

Hair Matters - Again

Today I took a small trip down Memory Lane while looking at old pictures of mine, most of them from the time I used my hair short. The whole things started with me trying to find a picture of Roo, Lau and myself posing next to a giant Hello Kitty. The picture is still missing, but instead I found a great load of pictures, most of which I posted already in my Hungarian blog. (So sorry, but I think I won't repost here. Well, maybe a few ^_^)

The point, as I brownsed through the pics yesterday, was to see a few of my hairstyles through... well, not the times, but actually my college years and a few years after. It was somewhat like a post Dragonfly did where she shone from black hair to blond to redhead. Well, I went from short to half curly chin lenght to blonde wig to long. Then I realized that I also went from bony not "thanks Hyne I'm healthy". Interestingly it was during my working years that I became short from skeleton.

There's this picture of me with a blonde wig (coz' I'll never do THAT to my real hair... well, I think), and my shoulderblade actually STICKS OUT OF MY BACK! I remember back then I was so selfconscious because if I as much as hunched my back, my ribs stuck out. I always found such levels to skinniness downright hineous. Well, thanks Hyne and the All Mighty Coca-Cola, I'm no longer a bag of bones. ^_^

When it comes to hair, I love, love, LOVE short hair, which is why the only kind of wigs I love to try out and love to buy (though so far I only have one) are the short ones, or max. shoulder lenght ones. I know I look better with long hair, and I like my hair long, save when it's hot ot humid and I can't put my mane on someone elses's head. Then, it's incredibly annoying when you are sleeping, particularly with someone else, because your hair seems to be EVERYWHERE!

Hair gives us a look, though it is important to say that hair doesn't give us a personality, but it sure allows some sides of yourself get more or less exposed. After all, your hairdo is an expression of yourself!

I've this particular thing about remembering parts of movies I either haven't seen complete or never cared enough to remember whole. Well, there's this movie with Darryl Hannah, some clear eyed handsome actor and a brunette girl that played a French girl. They meet at some vacations in Greece. Darryl sports her long beautiful blonde hair, and this girl has a shiny, stylish brunette hairdo that suddenly looks Darryl's hair look messy and plain, if not downright boring and peasant. Either they ask her about her hair or the French girl tells it by herself, but the point is that she says that she cuts her hair each time she breaks up with a boyfriend.

The idea somewhat stuck with me: let your hair express the changes you go through. If you have had long hair and cut is short, you must know that feeling of freedom, of breaking loose. It's a lost, a departure, but also freedom, independence, like breaking up from chains that have weighted on you for so long. letting your hair grow, though, after cutting it short for a long time carries a feeling of revolution, of starting something new, of investment, of a project: you embarch on something that will demand your time, your patience, your effort, like watching a three grow. The expectation of how long will it grow, how long will it take, what will it look like, what will you be able to do with it...

Then, when we look back in time, pictures in hand, we can smile and remember what it was like when we were that young and wore that hair and those clothes. ^_^

Irrational, the "Law of the Stupid" or Down Right Corrupted

When you think of a street, what do you usually think off? I mean, a street in the middle of the Capital City of a country. Well, that you have the street, the gutter (or sewer), the sidewalk, the buldings... right? And then the street is like wide enough for cars to run on both directions (usually), and the gutter is either lower than both the street and the sidewalk or covered, but still a bit low, and then the sidewalk is higher and wide enough for two to three-four people to walk and pass each other, and the buildings at the opposite side of the sidewalk and so on. Why am I getting into these stupid details and questions? Because here there aren't stupid at all. They don't even seem to be logical or part of the general conception of what a street should be.

I work close to a big park at the Capital City, called La Sabana. Our main offices are at the North side of the park, butr we are in a building at the South side. The South side is quite special because it has a tad more of commercial life and the street is divided in a small "boulevard"-like street lined with long branched trees, wide sidewalks with plenty of greenery. There was a separation where the railroad lines ran and then a wide highway-like-goes-into-a-highway slided away into the West. Life was good and nice until the Major decided to turn the boulevardy street into a three track street. That meant killing the trees and all the green because allegedly the extra track would come out of the sidewalk "gardens". So yeah, on peak hours that street could become very congestionated, but an extra track won't really make much of a difference.

Anyway, they went on with the destructive path. Trees cut out, sidewalks and street tracks destroyed. Right now I would like to remark that this is a SMALL 8 block street. The whole thing doesn't make 1 Km, which is almost 2/3 of a mile.

For a pedestrian like myself, the work in progress was the daily sight. At first averything seemed normal, until you realized that they planted new lamp post on the middle of the outer track, and dug and cemented protuding manholes 50 cm above the height the street should have. Loads of cement were mixed and piled un into the most horrendous and strange forms, and though I'm not a civil engineer, enve I know that a 1 meter high irregular cement dome has nothing to do with adding an extra track to a street. Then they brought big machines and broke down the recent job. Okay, they realized it was a mistake, but damned, after something as stupid as that, I would have fired the entire company.

The lamp posts were relocated now reducing the sidewalk in some places at a one-man track, and medium built man. Anyone overweight cannot walk on that sidewalk.

The middle of the street was then gutted out for HUGE cement cilinders to be laid under. Strange but probably okay, to run cables and sewer waters and so. These were burried, and then the asphalting of the thorn up tracks started. It was cool up to the part where the first two blocks from West to East were laid down. Then it happened that they realized that they miscalculated and at the Western begining of the street one of the tracks sported a very dangerous, probably over 45° angle slope right were cars turned. How could that happen is still a mystery. The slope wasn't there before the street was transformed, so how could have it appeared during the "improving" of the street? An Unsolved Mystery, I'm sure.

So they ripped up the whole asphalting (yeah, like the second time they have to undo something they've previously done on the street), DUG up the middle of the street, embedding a deep V shaped canal, though right under was the concrete cilinder, "leveled" everything, stripped the whole street and then built upon it concrete blocks that stand 25-30 cm over the original level of the street. All side streets, among them our office's sidestreet had been cut off this street, barricaded by a 1 m pile of debris. One can walk everyday next to this horrendous street, and now try to understand what's the point of it. In the best of cases the street is as tall as the sidewalk, but otherwise is taller, and that's just the concrete layer. It that will have an asphalt layer, it will be taller by far. The sidestreets will need a slope, hopefully not to pronounced, so that the bellies of the cars don't get scrapped each time.

With streets so high the floodings in the houses and buildings around will be inminent. A bigger rain would turn sidewalks into rivers, and Hyne forbids a car slips and run into the sideway. The damage will be taxing, both from potential lives, physical harm and property damages.

By now at least five blocks out of eight have been blocked up, on two of three tracks, but each block seems somewhat separated. They are tightly packed with thin iron rods, wire and solidly poured concrete, but the work is very, very badly done, so, if they are somewhat conscious, they will rip the whole thing up and do it again. The question here is a double question: a) Why do they doing wrong and undo it and do it again over and over and over? and b) Why is the Major's office and the Government in general letting them?

Honestly, the only answer I can think of is that I wouldn't mind fucking something up and doing it again if I knew I could get money and get paid for each time I do it. So, it's like getting the money worth for three streets (or more) out of one. Probably the last version of this street won't be an improved version, but probably a hineous monstruosity dangerous for everything and everyone, and it will remain because there's no more money to pump out of the Government to keep up the game.

Theory of General Observations

Let's fill our mugs with coke, coffee, tea, cocoa or your poison of choice. Lets sit back in our chairs, our puffs, our beds and theorize again a little about life, shall we? The ideas floating around my head are still hazy, formless but growing, rolling around, wrapping around a few solid ideas, ready to develop.

I think about this group from the Twitter, that has "taken off" among Costa Rican twitters. I have seen a few of their shows mostly at the insistence of my friend Shimmy Gin.

He has become quite a character in the Twitverse, and so he got himself a girlfriend from the same Elite. This girlfriend used to be part of this group mentioned above, but was removed a few shows away now for undisclosed reasons that range between the young ladies lack of responsability with the show and the jealousy eating up the group's Mother Queen's heart. The show itself offers no real value for the audience, save to include people into a "Sex and the City" kind of San José ambiented meeting, where five women, ages ranging from 20 to 40 sit around a table, talking about nonesense. Well, five women talking is much to say, for usually it's the Mother Queen talking, laughing and shrieking like some sort of banshee when a not-ogre-looking male crosses the room. Catcalling is then the requirement from the court or the "Queen's Pets", arranged to at her left and two at ther right. Their sitting arangements are previously dictated, so you don't mistake them, and so the chain of command is observed.

The idea of these ladies fighting over the show, who's in, who's out, who will speak, who will determinate the "topic of conversation", who will dictate the show it's senseless. You sit around a table with your girlfriends to talk: who decide this things? You just sit back and let it flow, don't you? Well, not when you broadcast your meetings and you are desperate to get as much air time as you can to launch yourself.

When I first checked the show I didn't realize that the ages of the women on the show were so abysmally apart. Not like I'd say a 20 year old can't be friends with a 40 year old or older, but the way they held themselves at the show (not to mention the terribly poor quality of the transmission) it's like they all came from the same background and the same generation. Well, this is what made me think, and this is what accompanies my mug of coke. (Which I'm changing right now for a mug of cocoa... I feel like cocoa right now and no more coke.)

The thing that caught my attention was the fact that there were these mature, adult women acting the way young women do. Mother Queen lowering to engage in "subtle catfights" displayed through the way she tried to supress the talking of the pets by raising her voice over theirs and pushing on her topic, her line, her thoughts. Such displays of immaturity I have witnesed at several meetings, where, well, a party tries to raise their position and arguments over that of the other party or parties. Sometimes, immaturity or not, that's the way it becomes at meetings and debates. It's not a good weapon to make an argument stick, but sometimes it seems to be the only way, and the argument really gara worth it because it shall be put to the test later. But to exercise vocal muscle for some banal topic? Totally senseless, and an adult woman should know that, don't you think?

And not only adult women, but adults in general. The problem here almost seems to be "who is an adult?". Back when I was just a lil' girl, an "adult" was usually a person over 25-30. Today that clear age limit has beel blurred. These "old children", a real shame for all normal adults, behave like kids and proclaim to keep "living their youth" or keeping their "inner child alive". Allow me not to say just how big balloney that is. Adults must behave like adults and leave kid stuff and young stuff to kids and young people. We are different. And sorry, having your own place doesn'tg make you an adult. Living alone doesn't make you an adult. Having children doesn't make you an adult. Living with someone doesn't make you an adult. The grown up stage, with which we all dreamed when we were kids is something that happens inside us, when we own up to who and what we are and take responsability for it.

The Internet has opened endless gates for many people well into their 30's, 40's and 50's and more, to strip from their adulthood and behave like teens, fight like teens and pass themselves for teens. Why do they do that? Because they couldn't fill the expectations of adulthood they had as children? Because they ignored all the way that "responsability" was part of the promotional adult value pack?

Thing is that acting like a child won't make you younger, and act like a teen or a young adult won't make you one. Mentally maybe, but physically you will still age, still wrinkle and still spring gray hairs all over the place. You can botox-up and diet, and dye your hair, change your voice and lie about your age, but that won't be you, so why to go through all that pain?

Truth is that youth is overrated and old age is underrated. I don't mind getting older, I don't mind my body loosing elasticity and firmness, and I love my only gray hair, and wait for the rest. I'm proud to say that I'm 33 and can't wait for all the other June 30th's when I'll be able to legally say that I am older. A Latin singer, Ricardo Arjona sang once that we shouldn't take years from our lives, butadd live to our years, so why don't we just live and enjoy the beauty that each year brings to us, live it when we are at that age. Live your 20's when you are in your 20's, and your 30's when you are in your 30's, and your 40's when you are in your 40's. Each stage of our lives is so fabulous and so wonderful and amazing! We just have to live it.

A Mug for a Raise

Unions are supposed to look out for the best interest of the workers, but that's hardly happening in our enterprise. Once upon a time this was a nice place to work. You had a chance for a good paycheck, a good job and be part of an institution that did so much for the nation. Now it's a bit different. Bosses are chosen to pay for favors, or for friendship, not for knowledge or capability. Add to it, interesting things are done, such as ordering frugal measures that go primally prohibiting any promotions or overtime hour payments and so on, but the CEO takes the institution's chopper on the weekends to drop to parties and his wife gets to spend buckets of money in publicity. Interesting publicity, by the way, when the papers fill up with articles written by tendentious reporters that don't even do their job, don't get the data right and so would be a piece of cake to answer back and clear the air, but do they? No, there's not a dime spent to do that, not a muscle moved. The Unions (because this institution has like 10) should have intervened there, should have been there and stopped it from happening, but they didn't.

The Government aproved a 1,2% raise for the public sector for the second semester of 2009, when the inflation is hitting the 8-9%. Where were the Unions? They sent e-mails telling us what a humiliation is this percentage, but did they do something? Nothing.

On Friday we received these mugs from the Publicity Department with the new logo, I guess to get us familiarized with it. It came with a bookmarker, which has always intrigued me as people rarely read at the office (and I believe I know the only 3 people who do read) and a small card with the logo and the new "motto", which, damned, it's so much like Tigo's!

Bottomline is, we don't get a promotion, but must watch people being hired out of the street to positions higher than ours, we don't get a decent paycheck raise, nor can we feel really proud of our institution, particularly knowing its dumbass heads, BUT we get a mug. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my mug and I love my job, my current job, but still, this mug came on the worst time possible. Why spend money in mugs when they could have done something for the workers?

I guess we will be getting some bitching e-mail from the Unions on Monday.

Letters

When it comes to stationary, I must say my aunt has the most beautiful stationary ever. Beautiful postcards and letter paper, and envelopes. If you have received letters from me, you'd know that I tend to move across the scope going from the beige paper with ivy design, to the personalized printed one to green, pink, red coloured and recicled, but usually all my envelopes are the standard red-and-blue stripped edge standard envelopes. I love colored ones, though, and sometimes, specially if my letter doesn't go outside the country (and it has been so long since the last time it did), I love dark colored, or bright colored envelopes.

You may start to wonder where's the begining of the entry. Well, here it is: since at the office we have the internet blocked here and there, and the Twitter is one of those blocked sites(they don't want people wasting valuable corporative time in microblogging), I had to resource to other ways to do so. Luckily I found out that I can tweet by sending e-mails with pictures to twitpic, so that's my medium of choice. (As soon as I find another way, I'll probably will take advantage of it.) Today's first tweet was about a small tragedy I suffered recently at the hands of a rather incompetent technician. He erased all my second-half-June, July and August e-mails. Yep, all of 'em. Sad story. The worst of the case was that the August e-mails are the first one's from my new boss and my new department, SO they contained very important data. The techie tried to "find" my e-mails, but truth to be told, unless he expected them to pop up back where they used to be, there was no way that opening the same folder more than onces would make them come back.

So, he lost me my e-mails, which I regreted so much for not saving, I requested my coworkers to send me back the e-mails they've sent to me and I've sent to them, so that I can rebuild my e-mail base. This also meant that today I devoted a good part of my day to save e-mails and properly sort them into newly made folders. The process is lenghty, for I don't know a single way to pick all emails and save them all at once in Outlook format, savable mail by mail in the computer or on a pendrive. Add to it that in order to keep track of them I rename them adding the date and the sender (for the mails received) or the receiver (for the mails sent). Now, you must understand here that I haven't received all my mails yet, but had around 30 mails to save and file from Sept.2nd and around 59 I sent to one of my coworkers. Yeah, I had it cut out for the day.

In order to tweet this glorious activity, I looked up the picture of envelopes and that was what brought me down to Memory Lane. I remembered the time, before the Internet and before the e-mails caught up so fast, when you wrote down your letters, when you poured your thoughts out on paper with the help of a pen or a pencil, and you had to put your thoughts in an envelope, write down the address and go tp the post office to send it. The time when waiting for an answer could take at least 6 weeks, when it was all about waiting, all about writing, all about finding your voice in a different media.

Did you had penpals? I did. A few kids my age, some from Hungary, some from other provices in here. You knew their handwriting before you met them, if you ever got to. Their parfume was the scent of the envelope, the paper in which they wrote, into which they crammed their letters. In a metal trunk I keep a lot of letters I received later, when I was in Hungary in the 90's. Letters from my friends, my Mom, my cousins. The flare of them was different. They were so great and so different from what they usually were when we were together goofing around. A girl I met at a camp, Seidy, used to page-compete with me, reaching outrageous lenghts (22 pages... written on both sides) filled with thoughts, gossip, jokes, secrets and so on. My cousin Szilvi (not that, I wish) who seemed to pick up on the lenghty letter-dare, writing part in English, part in Hungarian... to practice. Then there was Ale, who's handwriting requieres, up to today a PhD degree in cryptology. Her first words about what married life was like, her pregnancy, the decoration of her first home...

Then there are the letters from Jules, many, many letters dedicated to philosophy flowing between friends. Love, Life, Freedom, Independency, Beauty... his women, my men, his thoughts, mine... our bonding reaching deep into the soul, there where family is formed.

What people see when they see an envelope? Some expect it to be filled with money, or include a check. Others expect pictures, and others all kinds of presents, but all I want in an envelope is a letter from someone I love and I care about for.

Dis-a-point-ment

I don't follow many blogs, just as I don't follow many tweets and twitters (I'm just one of those "not really into other people's business" kinda gal), and even those I follow I don't really read regularly (except of Dragonfly's blog, mainly because she's just such a fresh breeze of tenderness in a sea of stale thoughts and rehearsed positions), but when I read, I do take my time, drink them in and mull over the message. May not comment, because there's nothing to comment, because maybe the process takes time, because something invite to reflection, silent meditation and not always the outspoken thought-flow, and because, believe it or not, sometimes I don't have anything to say. Then again, I believe this happens to a lot of people.

When you are a blogger, often you kind of feel this "pressure" to write about different topics, and you might feel a bit uneasy when you run around in circles about one single topic (which happens to me all the time, particularly when I have trouble letting something go), or you have recurrent topics, like you write about these unlivable people you know, or over and over, periodocally you talk about work, or love, or idiots, economics, rugby, NFL. sex, gay people... you name it. Might be boring, might be tiresome, but then again, it's your blog, like your journal, and you do as you please. People are invited to read or ignore. You blog, it's your way to express yourself, right? And in this spirit I would like to remain and see how every blogger has the right to write the hell they want and deal with the consequences. However, the thing is that a friend of mine, who has moved her old blog to a new one, has been repeating her entries, posting old entries as new. I mean, dude sure, I tried to do the same when I escaped the livejournal, and though I did reposted my old entries, I did it orderly, chronologically, and if I ever go back and fish more things out and repost them here, I'll do so orderly and chronologically.

I'd love, really love to think that she is just saving her old posts, because maybe she will close that account, and maybe she's not familiar with her new bloging environment (totally doubt so), and so she can place them orderly, but the truth is that the feeling I get (particularly by the amount of followers she has, and the fact tath she sings in a band and does have attention-cravings) is that she seeks to remain in the spotlight so when she has nothing to write, though she's prone neglect her blog, she throws in the "biggest hits". That then makes you think: is she original, did she wrote them, are these her, no additional ingredients, no retouching and photoshopping, airbrushing, revamping and marketing? Or is this maybe the limit of her originality, and aside from these entries, there's just no more of her?

I dunno, but I'm so disappointed. Feels like I hit a can against a solid surface and discovered it's empty and not full and wonderful, as I originally thought so.

A Slab of Cruelty

iPhones are exploding or are being prone to explode. Apple remains silent. No big deal? Well, I don't know. I don't have an iPhone and I'll hardly have one anytime soon, specially because I'm a SonyEricsson kinda gal, but even if I weren't, or even if it wasn't an iPhone issue, I wouldn't want my phone exploding on me. I guess that's a pretty rational wish: I don't want to be hurt by my things, particularly when I'm not suicidal, EMO or into selfmutilation.

We were talking about this today at the office, in one of those "breaks" in the middle of a workshop-meeting (called "encerrona" some years ago, and under the idiotatorship of a certain head), we mentioned Apple, and how the periferals and handhelds it produced had nothing to the computers. Joking, one of my colleague said:

"Oh come on, so it explodes? So what? Don't be so delicate."

In my eternally delicate and subtle and diplomatic way, I added:

"Yeah, because at least you are getting mutilated by an iPhone, not a landmine like so many children around the world."

However, this actually made me think. It seems to me like the crimes committed with landmines, what it does to people, now regardless of the fact that they are kids or adults or elderly, or civilians or militia, is far more worthy of charity and attention and movements and big foundations, than the harm done by companies to their customers and their environment. Lead poisoned toys are not such a big crime. Oh, I mean, wow, its so bad that babies die and it must be stopped, but it doesn't draw so much attention and not much is done to prevent it in the future. Same with poisoned food, same with the frozen meat the U.S. where trying to sell to Korea, which may or may not be contaminated with the mad cow disease. (Yeah, frozen for so many years, and yet in your fridge after a month is "garbage" all the way.)

I'm against landmines and every form or war and violence that sneaks up and kills people who haven't signed for it. Hell, I'm even against killing those poor soldiers! If war were about the politicians who set the entire thing up fighting against each other and killing each other, I'd say go ahead and kill'im good, but the idea of people dying because of someone else's stupidity, pisses me off. So just as I condemn and hate landmines, I hate all forms of terrorisom, I hate the guerrillas that hit on towns and kidnap people to get ransom from them, or kidnap children to turn them into child soldiers, I hate those who mutilate or kill or rape or make others live in fear and anger.

Hate the gangs and the maras and all those that polute countries in "peace" and rob, torture, rape, kill, kidnap. Those who think they can rob a child from a family and sell it to someone else, take a kid from the street and lock it up, those who trick people to sell them into slavery, those who think that they can get away with murder and think that human rights are only for them, and they can take them away from other for pleasure or profit. And all these are hineous things, and some is done, some isn't. Either way we generally agree that these are bad things and should be punished by the Law. But then, why do we let them go for the companies?

Companies can steal your money with a product that's not all it promised, and though you theoretically have the right to ask for refound, try to do it and you'll see walls and paperwork getting in the way. Banks can steal your house and your paycheck, just because they give you a loan they made you think YOU can pay. Companies can enslave you by taking your rights, such as the Right to Union, such as charging you for a health insurance plan that they will deny you once you get sick. They can fire you any time, they can find ways to reduce your paycheck, they can break the Law against you, and you will stand powerless and vulnerable.

Add to it they can harm you, poison you, mutilate you, handicap you and even kill you and what can you do? Honey, pretty much nothing. At least when you step on a landmine you don't have to prove it was a landmine and then be questioned about you had to step on that spot from all the spots available, but when it comes to product, the victim is believed to be the villain of the tale.

So, when your iPhone blows your hand off, remember you have no reason to complain because a) you bought it, b) you sure did something to make it blow up, and c) sorry, but you are not a kid mutilated by a landmine, so man up!

That's the world we live in.