Trip to Bratislava

Yes, this post was due a couple of days ago, but if you go to Bratislava, you will understand why I had taken me this long to write. I actually started to write the entry in my Blackberry, but later on I realized I have no idea how to upload things from my Blackberry to my computer. Indeed, smarphones are too smart for dumb people like me. And they are not helpful. Predictive features? Yeah, not for the smartphones. You seem to need a PhD on Artificial Intelligence so that you are worthy of interacting with them. (Okay, I know my BB wants me to sign up and do all this "protocol" so things can get synched up, but I would love if it would have done the simple stuff without all that electronical or digital red tape.) I'm currently at my favotite place in the world, about to run out of battery in my laptop, while nursing my second Black Magic. Boy, this cocktail should be available everywhere in the planet!

But back to Bratislava. Oh, and prior warner, this post won't be as complete and fabulous as the ones my friend Trish usually does. She's an expert in traveling, and I am not, so bare with me.

Anyway, in order to celebrate our aniversary - kinda, because everything was booked for New Year - my boyfriend and I decided to go spend three days (the usual extent of our holidays, as I tend to get bored too fast) in Bratislava. We did had other options in mind, but when it came to deciding on the destination, Bratislava was not only the most affortable, but also  the best place, considering that it wouldn't mean an extenuating trip, such as Munchen would have... which was the place I really, really wanted to go to (because Meise is too far, and I would have spend all my time with a friend of mine and not my boyfriend, and that wasn't the point of it). Neither of us knew much about Bratislava, so I did some research to know what was there to be seen, and quickly found something that caught my attention: the Grassalkovich Castle. By itselt if may say nothing to you, but for me - having visited the Royal Castle of Gödöllő more times than I care to count, I knew it was a castle that had been built by the noble family that had built the castle that later became one of the favorite places of Empress Sissi. So yes, I had to go there and see it.

Our trips usually don't involve much planning, as we go, get to the hotel, and either start with a nice, refreshing bubble bath or raiding the minibar (that would be me, of course). However I knew I wanted to go and see the Castle. And next time we did. Yeah... don't make that same mistake. The Castle seems to be the private residence of the President of Slovakia, so it's not open for the public, though they nicely fill the streets with informative signs telling you how really beautiful it is inside. Too bad you can't go in and see it.

Well, there are really nice churches, but they are all very, very small. Much like the churches in Sofia. Very ornated but only one small room, that would hardly make 20 square meters, to my rough calculations. You enter, pivot, exit, and you have seen the whole thing.

There is the Hrad Castle, a nice place where the ticket must be paid in cash, and the lady tending the cashier is really pissed at all the tourists. The walk to the castle is quite easy to be made, you can walk it in 20 minutes comfortably, going pretty much around the hill. Through the walk you notice that there's hardly anyone on the streets. Where are the Slovakians in the middle of the day? Not many cars and nrealy no people. Stores are empty as well, and many are strangely luxurious, like too luxurious to belong there, do you know what I mean? Like finding a Carolina Herrera store in a University District: it doesn't mean that there won't be people there with enough money to buy stuff in there, but rather it's not the place for such a store. To be more specific, you really don't expect to see a high fashion shoestore, with shoes that normal people would hardly use or even think of spending on right next to a Tesco or a Spar (or a Walmart, in American terms). Now you get what I mean? It was down right off.

But let's go back to the Hrad Castle. This castle is quite nicely mounted on top of a hill that looks over the Danube and Bratislava, getting quite a magical air through the day, either hued by the hazy lights of dusk and dawn, or sparkling in the crips light of broad daylight. If you are a silly Western child like me and you thought you could pay the entrance with a card, then don't sweat it - there's an ATM 50 meters down the road from the main entrance. But what do you get for your 6€? Well, three floors of... um. Well, there's one floor with big photo signs telling the history of the castle and also a little bit of Slovakia. There's like half a floor dedicated to historical documents where you can see all sorts of old, preserved documents, including old books and certificates (like wanderer certificates) complete with their many hanging seals. Then there's a floor with portraits of a whole bunch of people. Nothing but portraits, and then there's another floor dedicated to an exposition called "How time is measured" and includes calendars and all sorts of devices and old clocks. For many people, this part of the exposition could be terribly boring, but for a filofax enthusiast it's kind of exciting to check these old calendars, and wonder abotu what life could have been in those days when calendars didn't really had any space for you to write down any appointments. No to-do lists, no sections, no alarms set, no deadlines written in, no days divided in hours, no decisions about whether you need a "page per day" or a "week on two pages" to be able to keep all things going on in your life organized.

Then there was an exposition I didn't understand very well. It showed a collection of things, but non of them belonged to the castle or even to Slovakia, or there was any particular explanation at what they did there.

The souvenir store had nothing that would relate particularly to the Castle, save for some magnets, which I sadly lost somewhere. There aren't many souvenir stores, but even in then you hardly see much "typically Slovakian" stuff. Yes, you can get the t-shirt and the postcards, but if you wanted to get some embroidery, dolls dressed in typical costumes, or anything you could call "traditionally Slovakian" you would be looking for a long, looooooong time.

However, one GREAT thing that needs to be acknowledged is the food. Yes, it could be pretty much German, or quite Austrian or even very Hungarian, but their cuisine is FA-BU-LOUS! It's one million calories packed into a hearty meal, it's two years of severe dieting, but it worths it!

Bacon, sour cream, sheep cheese, handmade noodles, it's too delicious for words. And you'll need to bring a friend to help you eat the portions they serve you! So be warned, NEVER enter a Slovakian restaurant alone! This is a battle of Man vs Food where Food will always win, unless Man comes with reinforcements. And not only it never looks little  - it's almost as if a nuclear cuisine sized portion would be considered a national offense - but it doesn't matter how big the dish looks like, when you eat it you realized it's far bigger! For instance, we tried a dish of "samples". Samples won, because the two of us couldn't battle with it! But it was delicious :-D

So, what to do, what to go see in Bratislava? Well, try and find out how the tramways and trolley buses work, and tell us about it, because we couldn't figure them out. Also, go, look around, walk a lot and prepare all day for food.

Intense Envy and Hatred of Empathy

Everybody hits rough patches. Really. Some people have more rough patches along their way, or rougher ones, or ones that extend quite a lot, but in whatever measure they appear, everybody has them. Throuogh the life of a person, also these patches come in an array of shapes, sizes and frequencies. So what do we do with them? Well, we see through them. It's kinda like the basic Human 101: Take the Hardships and Deal With Them. And how do we deal with them? Well, two ways are to Solve them, or Lay Low and Wait For Them To Pass. Problems with a friend, you Solve, war breaking out in your country, you lay low and wait for them to pass (kind of). But you get the drill, right? Now, you would think that this simple rule is of common knowledge to all of mankind, but you would be surprised at howmany people seems to not have gotten "the memo". Those people act as if in the face of a rough patch, be it the Crisis in Europe or a zip in their face can only be solved through making it someone else's problem, or at least by creating problems around.

Googled Picture. Not Mine.

Someone feels bad because the company they work at seems like in the verge of bankrupcy. What do they do? Quickly! Find someone with job or a small company and trash them! Do that keep them from becoming unemployed? No. Then what was the purpose of it? Oh, just to make someone feel crappier than they do. Hn, curious, because rational people would say "Well, not only are you to become unemployed, but a) you just made yourself a worse person and b) may have lost a chance at being recommended at the place where that person works for a job". Then there's someone who's in a really crappy relationship, or simply has been "looking for love" and haven't been able to find any (wonder why?). Then they meet this new coworker, or this nice friend of a friend, or someone at a hobby gathering, and this person is so nice and so happy and lovable and has been in a very good relationship or is currently single but doesn't mind it because thsi person has a full life, with friends that love them and all. And what the Bitter Bug does? Rushes to say something nasty like "So many years together? Yeah, he/she must be cheating on you", or "That old and alone? Something must be wrong with you then".

When it happens it often takes us by surprise, as well as many other tiny little sparks of passive aggressive behavior, such as when you are suddenly made the butt of every joke, but when you joke back the reply is something in the line of "That was rude" - and I'm talking here about jokes in pretty much the same line, worse when you actually reuse one of the very jokes they have used against you or against each other! Yes, yes, yes, I know it rings a bell - or the (and this one has actually happened to me!) time when you are supposed to go to a lunch with them and then they happen to "forget" because they "thought you were going to eat with your friend". (Word of advise? Do try to look a bit hurt and don't reply with "Oh, it's okay! Actually better, because I really wanted to read my book undisturbed". Trust me, sounds like a nice comeback, but then the office-war goes worse.) However, after a moment, once the surprise for the attitude has passed one thing we must always remember is that this sort of behavior is often prompted by envy. Yep, envy.

People hurting you are often people who resent the fact that you are something they want to be, or you have something they crave. They will look forward to hurt you because they might perceive you as more successful than they are. They will hurt you because you seem happier than they are. Often also, they will try and diminish you because you are not struggling for the same goals they do, and yet you seem satisfied with your life and even happy! You are happy even without being a boss and you have no intention in being a boss. They must crush you. You are happy and don't seem preocuppied for getting married or having kids, and they are unhappy after rushing into marriage and dealing with children that give them more headaches than anything. They must destroy you. You go on happily eating carbs and whatever fancy thing catches your eye and enjoy it, while they try all sorts of restrictive diets and still stay fat. They must nuke you out of the planet.

We must understand something: when someone hurt you or insult you like this, they are actually telling you what they think about themselves. They know their jokes are out of place and born from ill feelings. They want your life, they are unhappy with theirs. The question still remains: why don't they look forward to tackle these things? Solve what can be solved? Well, that still remains a mystery. But meanwhile, if I may suggest something, you smile and picture in your head a little rag doll with their shape... and fill it with pins!

Blessed Samhain!

Where is the year? What has happened to 2013 and how come we are not two months away from saying good-bye to it and welcome the new year? Well, for once, I've been gone for a while, submerged in studies and work and feeling terribly guilty about all the letters that I haven't replied. I think I have officially earned my "Bad Penpal" badge. :-( Sorry girls! Not that I have forgotten about you - I actually think more about you than I probably should, yet still thinking about you seems to produce no letter for it's own.

I'm also painfully aware of the fact that I didn't post for Mabon, though I wanted to because I really like Mabon, but here I am - late - for Samhain, because the world might end, but I must have my Halloween/Samhain. I don't really feel about talking to you about job or about my studies, because they are currently my main sources of stress - and not for the traditional reasons, but for reasons that really get to my nerves and are product of things that shouldn't be happening AT ALL! so please forgive me if I just go another way with this for a moment.

Well, Samhain is a Pagan celebration also know as the Third Harvest. It's the final harvest of the year, when you clean the land, save up for the winter and sort of retire to rest, and also put the land to rest. It's the moment you stop working and make due with the results of your labor, or in other words, when you face the music. In this sense, what is the music I'm facing now?

That Music

Well, up to this point, I have realized that even the best plans can fall through, that when you go through a change in life - change your job, start studying again, get a new hobby, start a family - things also need to be settled in a different way. It would be delusional to think that you can take a new project, like starting a new business, and still have the same time to dedicate to the activites you pursued before.  I think I have been carrying around some of the projects and expectations I had when I was in Hungary and wasn't working, and filled my day with sending out job applications, and visiting movie theatres and museums. This Samhain makes me realize that I need to actually take my planner, review my current programs, my activities and the time I have to comply with them, and then start making arrangements for all the other stuff.

My creative vein has been kicking in too, with two smashbook projects and then some writing (fanfics mostly, as I'm using them to tone up my skills before hacking into a couple of original stories I have in mind), and also I'm rediscovering the experience of studying, and meeting again with Accounting, something that might stand closer to me that I had already imagined. Discovering the accounting side of me has been interesting. I still have some classes to take, and still have to finish the ones I'm taking now, but I look forward to get ahead with this project and add a second diploma to my CV. This is something I have forgotten, and something that returns to remind me that we are never off the loop whn it comes to learning.

This year I have let myself go in the sense of feeling more free about expressing myself, which hasn't been the best in many cases. Though I am a Christian, being surrounded by very radical Christians at my job, made me aware of other types of hypocrisy and social masks than the ones I was more used to. I also realized once again that since my trip to Hungary, I have severely lost my hard earn capability to be hypocritical and keep my thoughts to myself. My recovered sincerity has proven to be less than adequate in a world that craves and demands sincerity but can't stand it. I need to re-train my hipocrisy in order to properly navigate through 2014.

The Halloween aspect of the celebration has been revealing. I never expected my boss to be horrified by it and down right awkward and concerned. When she saw my Halloween stuff (thanks Hyne I didn't go Pagan and hung pentagrams and Horned Gods and Tripple Goddesses at the cubicle!), she had no idea what to do, and asked if anyone had said anything. Other than people saying I'm crazy, no, they have said nothing... in my face. (One of them was actually aggressive when I referred to myself as "witch" today. She was vehement in denying that I could be a witch, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that I see myself as one, specially because a witch is a person who dares to be different, who works on instinct, seeks knowledge by their own means, and feels drown to seek it in places other consider taboo or stupid.) She was quick to mention a costume party she attended once, where everybody dressed up as the thing they fear the most. She said it in a way where she wondered if that was what all the spooky things were about. I let her follow that line of thought, however this got me thinking about my fears. What do I fear? Poverty? Well, not really. Perhaps being vulnerable, though then again that's a temporal stage for sooner or later you grow confident and strong enough to be able and defend yourself. Death is not part of my fears. Of course I don't want to die, nor I want any of my loved ones to die, but I have no terror of death. If anything, death makes me curious. I feel drown to death.

So, my fear? I realized it might be commitment. But you already knew that, didn't you? :-)

Blessed Samhain!

Whine me a River

Ok, let's say it again: I hate whiners. I do. Yep, and there's nothing I can do about it. Sure, I could try to understand them, empathize with them, accept them, tolerate them... but I won't. They irk me, and they irk me to the core. Of course, you could say that this is just an outburst after something that recently happened at the office (oh, I'll go about that in a minute), but no. If you know me (and chances are that you do, but in case you don't, boy you are missing something that could make your life a tad more fun, or at least add a new flavor of "interesting" to it), you know that no, that's not the case. I'm deeply idiot-intolerant, and whiners are just another type of idiot.

So let's go with the classical "situation that triggers the bitching" case. (Note that bitching isn't the same as whining, because those who bitch have enough strenght in them to change cases, in case they can change something, and if they don't, bitching goes into "venting" and they are both ok in my book.) So there's this person who will remain unnamed to protect the innocent. This person - let's call him Kevin - has a little issue with something that has happened through the normal course of things. Let's pretend that it's an office issue. Let's say, just to give this cover story a little context, that Kevin have been working at this office and he likes to get attention, which is why he has normally tended to help out other people with their jobs, and he's good at it. Good for Kevin. Now, his superiors have noticed this and decide that since a lot of people is really lazy at what they do, and Kevin has been kind of slacking at his own job - as it often happens with people like this - to move him to another area and make him responsible of the kind of activities he's already working at. To put it more simple: Kevin is an accountant and should be working on registering the movements of the accounts assigned to him, faithfully registering purchases and expenses, but he has been working a lot with the budget people - by his own volition - allowing for registers to accumulate, while he does a good job helping people in budget at their job. So the bosses decide to move him to budget, and ask Pat to do his job.

And what do our Kevin does? Yes, you guessed it right: he whines. Booo hooo, they want to demote him, he's an accountant and not a financist, and Pat is really sucking up to the boss because she's an evil woman who wants his position, and blah, blah, blah. Now, the rational person would probably vent at first - if they don't really want to move to Budget, which is weird, because why would they help with budget in the first place (oh riiiiight! Because in their delusional mind they actually THINK that the others BEGGED them to HELP them! Not the other way around! Because they THINK they were asked and conveniently forget that they OFFERED!) - and then would go to the boss and tell them that they don't want to move to Budget. They would own the fact that they slacked at their own job and take the necesary steps to correct the situation and avoid a similar one in the future. Because let's be honest for a moment, if they were bored and helped out Budget, is because they enjoy Budget, so the move wouldn't be bad at all. But that's not the case of our Kevin.

So once Kevin does the whining, what steps he takes to solve the situation? And here comes the best part: None. Maybe Kevin's whining touched Jack's heart and he decides to help his buddy, and they prepare a not to send it to the boss, asking him to let Kevin stay at Accounting, and maybe even add a few suggestions of what could make Accounting better for Kevin, and also good for the company. Maybe Kevin's new understanding of Budget could make him ideal to work on a bridge project that would allow more realistic budgets, or a system for easier track of the real expenses compared with the budget. Hey! It's all in! And what does Kevin does? When it's all done, when Jack has invested heart and soul to help Kevin, Kevin says "Nah, I think I better say nothing, because they might think ill of me".

Now, a quick evil note: these useless whiners are the easier to manipulate. They are incredibly annoying, but if you use a pushing technique (meaning that you manipulate them by forcing them into a prepared scenario, like saying "Kevin, it's all arranged: tomorrow you'll give me your office"), or down right bullying, they yield every time. Naturally manipulating and bullying people is wrong, but so that you know that they are like this, so when they whine, beware, they might be being manipulated and might try to drag you in with them.

I have friends who vent with me, and we bitch for hours, but they actually do something about it. They either face the music and try to change it, and when things don't change (when they don't), they quit or dump the son-of-a-bitch/bitch and move on. In these cases the previous venting is a safety measure to keep a cool head and avoid running your car on the s.o.b. that's making your life miserable, or blow up the entire block - depending on what your favorite murder method is. But those who whine for the pleasure of it, because it's another way to get attention, those... well, those should be put away, perhaps in a whiners-prison. In solitary!

As for the case that has my inner murderer running around and climbing the walls, well, that one really got to my nerves.

You see, I have this coworker of mine who's a bit difficult to work with. He's the kind of person who loves complications, who procrastinates and signs in for everything so that he can say that he has a lot of things to do, who seems atomically unable to do anything efficiently and who has a visceral need to use as much flourish as he can. And then some. Of course this is annoying, but on top of that, his flourish-full language is full to the brim with spelling mistakes in even the simplest words (Say, where you and I would say "that's a difficult question" he would write "I belive we have arived at a connundroom" - all spelling mistakes are intentional!), he forgets the commitments he makes, and tries so much to please others that ends up complicating things and promising things that can't be offered.

Now, ever since I arrived to this department, I've been taking care of different projects and reports, and ruling with pretty much an iron fist. Those who comply and get with the program, receive public praises and my unquestioning support and defense. Those who fail, receive my much feared chasing, e-mail nagging and then - if they don't fall in line - my wrath, which normally includes escalating my complains up their bosses until someone answers, then as I go higher and higher I involve my bosses so that there's a boss-to-boss level of pressure, and I'm not afraid to take things all the way up to Ban-Ki-Moon if needed. (No, I do not work at the U.N., so yes, imagine how far would I go.) This has, naturally, earned me a reputation, where my bosses love me because my efficiency and commitment to the project, and those who get on the wrong end of my chasing instincts... well, they are probably trying to find out a way to burn me as a witch.

There's a Division that has be particularly lazy and this laziness has had very serious consequences with third parties. I had exercised my might on them, and since my boss is just as wicked a witch as I am, she helped me on our Bad Cop rutine, which ended up with them getting royally berated. Of course, now they hate me, because I've got them exposed, so they have been doing all they can to prove that they weren't the ones fucking it up, but we. Well, sadly I have tons of e-mails to prove otherwise, but that hasn't stopped them from indirectly hinting at third parties that we were the culprits. Naturally, due to common decency, we don't go exposing them before our third parties.

Now, the case in question is that we had this meeting on Friday with our most important third party. THE third party. Problematic Division was there, and they did their job at pretending that they were so good, so wonderful and did all in time, though have system limitations for which everybody should make allowances for them. My coworker - who had summoned the meeting - was a bit off all meeting, while I was armed with my wonderful livescribe and trying really hard not to snap at Problematic Division, but present a united front. By the end of the meeting, in a joking manner (but really in order to have my coworker do something or show he has payed attention), I suggested that he should prepare the minute of the meeting and send it to all of us. Too many meetings have gone by with this Third Party without a minute and that has been the source of many issues, so yes, we needed a minute. He agreed, and upon our Third Party's question, he promised to send it that same day, otherwise - in his own words - he would forget it.

Yeah well, after leaving me at the office, he took the company car we used to go to the meeting, to run his own personal errands. Oh, yes, let's note here that he always arrives late at the office, and my late I mean around 30 minutes late, and that Friday wasn't an exception to his rule. So anyway, he didn't pay attention to the meeting he summoned and took a company car to do his errands at the other end of the city. When I got off the car I asked him about the minute, whether he had all the notes or if he would like me to send him my notes, maybe build up the bones of the minute, so that all he had to do later was to complete them with his own notes. He said no, that he had everything under control.

30 minutes before the end of the day our Third Party sent us all an e-mail reminding us that they were still waiting for the minute, and kindly offered their input. My heart started pumping wildly, hoping my coworker were about to send a supreme minute. Instead, ten minutes later (and 20 minutes before the end of our work-day) he passed before my cubicle with his backpack and punched out. In absolute panic I called after him, but he was gone faster than people actually can. I called him on his phone and asked him what was the status with the minute, reminding him that it HAD to be send that day. He promised to send it from home once he got there.

I imagined he had the minute done, and would send it from his home. Today at the office I realized that a) today he was on vacations and never told me, and b) he never sent the minute. He, who can't let a holiday or a weekend pass without sending e-mails to prove just how hard working he is. I was boiling with rage. This, of course playede well for Problematic Division, who would use this eternally to prove how we are the source of all delays.

Quickly as I could I prepared the most detailed minute of the meeting and sent it to all involved parties, apologizing profusely for the delay. Not in his name, but in the name of our tiny department. All the parties reacted well - thanks Hyne - and there was much interaction, with additions and corrections to the minute, which is good, because that means that everybody read it and felt drawn to improve it. He was copied on the e-mail, but it wasn't until 11 that he actually dared to send me an e-mail with a simple "thank you". If he would have added his notes I would have gone cool about it, but his attitude of "thanks buddy for saving my ass" pissed me off. So I chewed him out. Told him not to thank me anything. It was him who should have done the job, that I had offered help and he refused, that all the way to the end he insisted he would do it and not even once told me to help him out, which ended in us taking a hit for his ineptitude, and that the next time he must talk to me if he sees he can't get things going, so that the both of us can find a way out.

I was so fired up, and since my e-mail wasn't the sweetest thing in the planet, I thought he might take it to the boss, so I wrote to her and explained her the situation. I admited that I might be too upset to see straight, but that I had to let her know what was going on. All up to the leaving early, save the compay car perusing, because that really didn't have direct impact on the matter. She replied to me that I did right in telling her, specially since she's taking vacations soon and someone else will take charge of the department while she's out, and that person (I know her and like her) doesn't take stuff like this lightly. Besides this type of issues must be dealt at once. She promised me she will talk to him.

Now, aside from the venting, why does this goes into here? To show you the difference between useless whining and venting. I was upset, and I dealt with the situation. I confronted him and informed my boss, so to make sure this type of situation doesn't arrive again. I have had similar situations in the past (past five months, that is) with this guy, where I haven't told my boss, though I have confronted him about it, and have decided that the next time he pulls another stunt on me I would tell the boss. This time I could have gone without it, but I felt his irresponsability and his shameless attitude have gone too far (This is the same guy who once asked me for a ride home and spent the entire trip - and we were in a traffic jam! - talking on the phone and making me feel like a cab driver).

I have also devised ways to deal with the situation and the past situations to avoid similar problems. For once, I'll either nag him constantly to get the minutes done, or I'll take charge of them from now on. The second option would be my last option as I don't want him to then shrugg off the responsability, and assume I'll take care of the administrative matters from now on, so pestering will be my first choice (and have a minute prepared just in case). Similarly, I have made sure to be on top of all my projects - not easy but I'm working my system - and try to know some of his projects, in case he suddenly takes vacations AGAIN on the deadline date and leave everything hanging, as he has done it already TWICE.

It can be tiresome and Hyne I wish he were more responsible! but I can't let the department sink because he can't do his job and is rather occupied with sending his CV to other companies and making flashy websites to promote himself and "his image". Yeah, because companies are more interested in the logo you create for yourself than showing up the actual work you do. Yeah, because my boss and my former boss and basically all bosses I've had (except the Moron Lady, who would never admit it), have fought bloodbattles for me just because I can braid my hair so prettily.

He's a liability, and a liability that can reflect poorly on my own job, as at some areas my work goes invisible, and seen only as a whole along with the rest of the input of the company or the department. Due to this, I need to minimize his action, his effect, and make sure he doesn't come and fuck up my work. Either he falls in step with my standards and my expectations, or I'll have to make sure to shun him. And that's how you solve things.

Chronodex

Pic from Google. Designed by Patrick Ng.

In the struggle to find better and better ways to keep track of appointments and have an easier glance at the time distribution of the day, some rather curious "contraptions" have been designed by very, very ingenious people. One of them is the Chronodex, whom I believe is Patrick Ng. So what is the Chronodex? Umm... it's the thing you can see there at the left. "But what is that?" That's where the fun starts! ^_^

Based on the idea of a clockface (you know, the old fashioned ones you see at different institutions, with three little sticks going round and round?), and it offers you a view of your day's activities at one glance. The way it works is as follows:

1. First, don't let the odd shape of "spikes" confuse you. No hour is "more important" than another. What it does is basically "mark" three concentric circles around the full circle at the core. It basically shows a 12 hour day, from 9h to 21h (or 9 am to 9 pm). The creator kept within the core 6h, 7h and 8h, but the idea is that people don't really use those hours (so much), however, if you need them you can use them too. The chronodex is actually really flexible, and easy to adapt to your schedule and your needs.

Pic found through Google Search

2. Now, assuming we really only need a 9-to-9 type of daily schedule what you do with the Chronodex is simply to color or shade in the segments of the clock where you have a given activity, task, meeting, appointment... you name it. You can color code if that's your liking, or simply shade it in any way you prefer. Using colors is quite pretty and visually nice, but if you prefer the more solid look, you can simply shade it with a pencil, a pen and separate different blocks that might touch by - say - changing the direction of the lines you draw into the shading, or the lightness-darkness of the shading. It's really up to you. 

Awesome but not mine. Pic found through Google.

If you color code, you probably don't need to add any comments, as you's know that blue is for your work schedule, yellow for meeting your best friend, pink is the book club, purple is time with the kids, red is some home chore related nightmare... and so on. Still whether color coding or not, with lines or arrows you can write around the Chronodex what the shaded block is about. If you print out a large enough Chronodex, or your handwriting is small enough, you could also  write into the time slots, or use codes, symbols or whatever you prefer.

Pic found through Google.

3. About the spikes, well, as I told you earlier, the spikes  work as markers that allow you to create up to three concentric circles, if you need them. Four, if you count the shaded inner blocks in the core. What that does it help you make the Chronodex more flexible and adapt to your needs. For instance, if your day starts at 7h or 8h... or 5h... whatever, you can use the spikes to draw an inner circle that will mark your a.m. hours, and leave the outer  portion for your p.m. hours... or the other way around. Really, whatever suits you. That way you get a 24 hour planning frame where you can add anything your want.

The concentric circles the spikes create also allow you to plan or keep track of simultaneous things. For instance, you could shade in a friend or a relative's program ("yoga from 9 to 12") in one circle, and in another you add the tasks you and your friends/family have to complete to prepare the surprise party you are planning.  And stuff like that happen often! Make sure you finish homework and send it while the teacher is occupied with another class, or the extra time you have to finish a project at the office, because the boss will be busy at a meeting from 2 to 4. Or stuff as important like mark in that TV show you can't miss, so you remember to set the recorder!

Honestly, the more you think about it, the more you wonder how come you ever managed to organize your life with a linear planner.

Pic found through Google. Design of Kent from Oz.

The beauty of Chronodex is that it drives people to think in a different way, but also to be creative. Kent from Oz, an Australian guy, took the Chronodex and designed his own version, taking out the spikes and creating an 18 hour spiral. The principle is the same, but this is a bit better for people with longer schedules. It's visually less "architectural", to call it someway, and it has the advantage of giving you an even flow through the 18 hours, as you don't have to break into a.m. and p.m. circles.

In this Chronodex, your day starts at 6h and ends at midnight, but additional hours can be drawn into as needed. Also, the simultaneous activities can be marked in simply by dividing the blocks in any way you prefer.

I've started experimenting with this system, and after the initial struggle, it has pretty much caught on me. I made myself a test page for my filofax fitting both types of Chronodexes on a week-on-two-pages format, and also checking three positions on the day slots: left, center and right.  The central position is pretty much the best, though that eliminates my task section.  From this test page some handmade Chronodexes have started spilling on ym regular pages, drawn all on the "appointment side" of the slots (and killing the task side), and by doing so my own Chronodexes have morphed to my own version.

Original picture, except from the small element pics on the corners.

It's a rather simplified version yet with two concentric circles with an inner a.m. and an outer p.m. disc. The point of it was to allow the potential use of a 24 hour Chronodex (by drawing in with plenty of space the missing time slots). Not like you'd use them all the time - which is why they aren't drawn into it permanently - but there are times when you need to schedule something at that time. Catching a plane, a game you don't want to miss that's being played at the other end of the world, picking up a friend arriving at an unholy hour or leaving to a trip. 

The flow isn't as smooth as Kent's spiral, and the general look isn't as neat as Patrick's, and I guess it will have to evolve some more, but I like it and so far it's working really well for me.

How about you? Would you Chronodex your schedule?

Filofax and What's All That About

So, what comes to mind when you think about planners? "Organization"? "Reminders"? "Brain Helper"? In the format and fashion you like, a planner is usually that calendar thing where you note down the meetings, appointments, dates and stuff you can't forget. It's a useful little tool we keep around - those who do - to help us in the future to remember the plans we've made or the bills we have to pay. However, from then on each planner-keeper usually adds, takes or modifies the planner tool to fit better their needs. For instance, people who work directly with clients and client cases often note the data of the case (in shorthand and using a lot of codes that would make no sense to others) in their planners, bloggers and videostreamers, or youtube posters also note info about their posts or keep track of their posts, and people into exercise or diets also make notes on their planners to keep track of their progress. A rather typical use of planners, common among women, is using it for keeping track of the menstrual periods, which as result has promoted the marketing of "planners for women", which are not only in colors normally asociated with women - such as pink - but also include planning and tracking tools such as a period calendar, birth control pill reminders, calorie counting tables and diet track sections.

For those who walk deeper into the land of planning - and by "deeper" I mean past the phone's calendar, the wall calendar or the pocket week-per-page little agenda, or the monthly planner thin booklet you get for free with your purchase around the back-to-school season or the end of the year, and way into the complex apps and/or expensive paper planners - the calendar feature is just one of the many sides of the planning itself. From the selection of the planner - and here we are normally thinking about something that would last for... ever -  or the app to the detailed planning of all the elements that the planner must include, planning fans out and reaches pretty much every aspect of life.

This fandom of the planning has grown to quite amazing proportions, to the point where blogposts are written and videos are made depicting the ways in which people organize their planners or build them up, sharing thus ideas with others, that help them plan the tools for their planning, or simply get new ideas and inspiration for their own planners.

Now all of this is nice and cool, but there's also something that must be considered in the land of the planning, and that's how the planning itself and intention of the planner changes. Though originally one can think of the planner as something with a much simpler layout and little eye catching elements - do you remember those old planners we used to have waaaay back then in the 80's and 90's? - with mostly practical and informative elements, today's planners are taking on more leisure and eyecatching elements with colored pages, quotes, inspirational and spirit lifting bits, designs and space+tools for personalization and decoration. It's not only a matter of paper flags and post-its or colored pens and highlighters, but also a matter of stickers and washitape, aimed to make your day, your week, your month pop up from the paper and invite you time and again to check it and use it.

Though pretty, after looking at some of the pictures shared on facebook with these artistic, crafty projects, as well as the many videos about it, I started thinking if it maybe wasn't deviating from the actual purpose of the planner, specially when the decoration seems to take a central stage and the planning itself comes second. Indeed, when you spend enough time making your planner pretty, it's a delight paging through it, and this way you make sure you don't forget anything, but what happens when the decoration is so in focus that there's no space for planning, or that you wouldn't write anything down so it doesn't ruin the decoration? Of course, no such worries with electronical planning.

Then, the beauty in paper planner is that I don't need to get it, but if it works for you, then you go ahead and make it! Paper planner certainly give you the space to go as wild or as conservative as you want to. It does keep me wondering though, about what others consider planning and how they view it in general.

Belated Blessed Lughnasadh

Very, very belated Blessed Lughnasadh! Wow, this time it has really taken me sometime to post! Then again, this Sabbath coincided  with one of the most rushed days of the office, with reports to be sent, and people to be terrorized in order to get those reports done. I had been a little spooked myself as well, as I heard word that my old boss is moving the threads again to get me back, though this time he and his team would be moving to the building where I work now, away from the Moron Boss Lady. There are things I don't like about my new job, like the fact that I do feel my skills being wasted and my mathematical logic (and I'm not the big NUMB3Rs in this) being swept under the rug, but now from far the mirage of my old boss is fracturing, and it does upset me to see how the quality has plunged, how little questioning is going around. I have lots to think about and lots to ponder.

My friend Dragonfly took the chance and resigned to the company in the most recent "resigning promotion", which is this program where the company pays people to resign. This is the second such promotion in less than a year, and rumor has it, there will be more until the company manages to reduce the size of its payroll to half. Other companies would simply lay off people, but our company seems to be unable to do that, thus the costly procedure. I was surprised to learn that Dragonfly was doing so, and later on even more surprised that up until the last day she hadn't told her family. Times are hard - really hard - and the crisis is gripping the country, with little chances to get a job, but the place she was working at was a true hell, so yes, either she resigned or she would have been carted to the looney house.

This Sabbath has received us actually as we are reaping what we sow. Lughnasadh or Lammas marks the first harvest of three, when we finally start to see the fruits of our labour. It's a happy time, as it is always when we see that our work has finally been yielding results. On this Sabbath we can start appreciating, seeing just how good or how effective all that meditating and careful planning and hard working has been.

Now, in the light of the recent events, Lughnasadh also call us to meditation. As it marks the first harvest - again, first of three, so lets not consider it definitive - it marks also a moment to reviwe what we have done so far in the light of the results. Are the results what we have expected? Well, this is a good time to ponder whether our planning was right, whether we lacked more planning or more hard working (maybe both), if we were counting too much on luck or something else. These things we can ponder and learn from them for the next year. However, we must also consider the next two harvests because maybe our labour was on the type of crop that blooms later.

There is, however, something else to consider at this point. Maybe we have planned well, and have worked hard and diligently and yet our results aren't the ones we expected. Believe it or not - and this coming from an existentialist like me might be a shock - but not always everything is (entirely) our fault. Then Lughnasadh is the time for us to ponder whether we want to keep working these lands or these seeds, or if we shall make a change in our lives that would really take us where we want to be. Does it worth to remain with someone who won't appreciate our effort? Does it worth it to stay in a job that offers a dead end and where doing nothing yields the same result as busting your ass? Does it worth to keep up with a project or a group that eats up your time, feeds on your effort but then yields nothing? A friendship that demands, demands and leaves you feeling empty?

There are two more harvests ahead, but sometimes it's good to start now, with the first results, reviewing if you should either improve or go for a Plan B.

Week in my Filofax

What a delight to know that my new filofax has already been delievered. Now all I have to do is go where my filofax is, which will happen by the end of this year. Yes, life isn't perfect - all the time - but it's good as it is. Now, truth to be told, I do am a wee bit disappointed in Filofax UK for what I perceive is a lack of customer care, regarding the time of processing the order and the shipping of the order, not to mention the absolute lack of means for the customer to track the order. Yes, it's not their money, it's ours, but now you can bet your socks I'll make sure to always check and double check the American site before I wander to the English site. Sorry, but I'm just that sensitive. My boyfriend is delighted with my new filofax, loves the scent, the feel... everything, and if it weren't because he specifically asked for a Kindle for his birthday, his lovely and smart and beautiful girlfriend would get him a filofax.

Well, this week has been pretty much packed for me, even though we had a holiday on Thursday, or maybe precisely due to that. Actually I was very little at the office, with a work "workshop" of sorts, which is basically a whole-day meeting where you are away from the office and concentrate on one topic and one topic only. It's pretty intensive, but sometimes it's needed to get something moving better and faster. This was on Monday, and it was a fabulous day. It wasn't in the same building I work, nor in the same district, but at one to which I could go on train. So yay! I left Sookie at home (also because traffic there is deadly, with world class traffic jams at peak hours), and took the train to go to the office. I love our interurban train! I would take it everyday if I could. Back home I've got a partial lift from by boss and a friend of hers, who is a hoot, and I've got the chance to meet her a little bit better. She's an amazing lady. We may not always meet eye-to-eye, but that's mostly because she's a lawyer and I'm an economist, and words and maths not always click together, but all in all we are really good together and work like an oiled machine. She's just amazing.

Tuesday I worked like crazy, pushing a couple of extra hours to get everything finished, because on Wednesday I had a meeting with my Union in the afternoon. First time at the Union building, which explains that makeshift roadmap I sketched on to find the place. Yep, there you can see, right there, one of the things you can't really do on a phone. Yes, by all means, you can now link a google map... but it isn't really the same, now is it? ^_^

Friday was a relaxing workday as a lot of people took it out for vacations in order to have an extra long weekend. Those of us who actually came to the office had a nice and relaxing day, with work getting done without the usual e-mail typhoon that usually flood us.

Then Saturday was Archery-day and Today was "Movies with the Boys" day. Tomorrow will be "oh fuck, I have to keeep wearing long sleeves" day, since guess who bruised her arm AGAIN at archery? This gara stop or I'll never, ever again will wear short sleeves! And a lot of shirts I love are sleeveless or have short sleeves.

I'm currently reading "The Secret Keeper" by Kate Morton, and so far so good. I'm really behind - AGAIN - with my penpals, and slacking with stuff here and there, but you know something? I'm feeling good, and that's all that matters. :-) Everything else can and will be fixed. 

The other day my Mom brought me a ziplock bag from a student of hers who knew I make jewelry from beads. She had seen some of my pieces on my Mom, so one day she brought this bag full of beads for me. It had a box with six compartments, with a huge array of beads mixed up in different sizes and colors. Yes, it looked like a nightmare. So today I decided to separate them all and put them in the box by color. The task wasn't small, and the picture you see here is, well, after half of the work was done (I didn't think of taking a picture of the bag or the way the box looked until after I was half way throught this, and I realized hoy much it reminded me of other things in life). Slowly but surely, I sorted out all the beads, put those in little number in small ziplock bags (there are tiny ones), and worked through the whole mess not letting the mess get to me, but concentrating in picking the beads in small groups and rather thought about how everything was looking nicer, how the size of the mess was diminishing by each bead I sorted into the right group.

After an hour and some, all the beads got sorted out, either boxed or nicely bagged. Now they are ready for stringing into something beautiful. Looking at them you feel inspired and you want to make something out of them, a necklace, a bracelet, earrings... you name it. Well, thing is that things in life are the same, and that's what I realied while I was sorting them: perhaps you are standing before a project that looks huge to you, and nearly impossible to tackle, or just so big and so labor consuming you are overcome with procrastination. Well, tackle it! It's okay, you don't have to lung the big chunk and conquer it in 24 hours, do it little by little, acknowledge the steps you take, the advance you make and enjoy it. Little by little you'll get there, so keep trying!

My next weeks is already looking really packed, but that doesn bother me either: slowly but surely, we will get there. I don't worry, I conquered the beads, I can conquer anything, and so can you.

Childfree: "To Save The World"

As I was driving home yesterday at the end of the workday, I heard a very interesting advertisement on the radio (yes, I'm one of those who must listen to the radio or to music while driving): It was an add about condoms, mainly directed to men, and it was sketched in the way of an opinion survey, where different men said why they used condoms. One of them, a happy, chirp, young man said:

"Because I want to save the Planet."

This hit me and got me thinking. It was in the very begining, loud and clear, and put in a way not only that it sounded reasonable, but it sounded noble. But how's that? How do you save the planet by using a condom? Well, you use a condom to prevent the transmision of venereal diseases, and also to prevent pregnancy, or in other, more simpler words: to avoid having kids. So, while, yes, saying that you save the planet by doing your share in stopping the propagation of sexually transmitted diseases, in many environments, with established couples that "not sample on the side", the function of condoms is to prevent the birth of children. Unless, of course, you think that condoms are only used by people with multiple sexual partners, most of which are casual, and that established couples use other means of birth control.

However, starting with the presumption that condoms are used by a wide range of people in a wide range of sexual partnership arrangements, then the purpose of these are double in many cases (avoid diseases and children) or serve to one purpose: birthcontrol. Now, from that message, could you think that "saving the Planet" would be in any way related with "not having children"? Well, actually, yes. Though in several developped countries the population has been aging - meaning that the number of elder people is larger than the number of younger people - in many other countries the population has continued to grow, and grow enough to keep our global population growing - thus not only compensating but surpassing the low in growth in those countries with aging population. 

Okay, that sounded too "technicist", so let me explain this quickly and simply: while in richer countries people have less and less babies, and they have more old people than young people, in poorer countries not only have they more young people than old people, but they actually have enough babies to compensate the lack of babies in richer countries, and then some.

To make things worse, the resources of our planet aren't well distributed, with less access to food, education, health, infratructure and so on in the countries with higher population growth rates, while those with a lower growth rate enjoy a surplus of resources they then transform into something else. Thus, the food needed in a poor country, it's converted into biofuel in richer countries that swim in food and other resources. In the meantime the prices of everything hike up and even the richer countries are developping within their citizens ample rings of poverty. The way things go - and there's an European Crisis that proves me right - soon we won't be speaking of "rich countries" only about rich people and rich corporations, which will float on a sea of poverty keeping the resources from the planet, for their own excessive consumption.

And what does that have to do with children? Well, the more children are born, the more pressure is put on the resources of the planet. It means more poor people, whether your baby belongs to one of the poor or one of the rich groups. It's another mouth to feed, another kid to put through school, another child to clothes and shelter, another kid who would consume toys and all sorts of goods, than then will put pressure on the job market, on the unemployment rates - either your kid gets the job or not - the demand for fuel, housing and so on. Let me see if I can say this straight and simple: a baby isn't "a baby": it's a person who will have to fight for a job, will need social insurance, healthcare, education, food, transportation, housing, communications, all sorts of infrastructure, and so on. A baby is a person in the future, with the needs of the future, living often in countries that haven't invested in any of these in ages!

Do you save the Planet by choosing to be Childfree? Well, you for sure don't put more pressure on the lean and ill distribuited resources of the planet, you have more time to dedicate to a job or different causes to seek saving the planet (yes, you can do that with a kid, but let's be honest, with a kid you SHOULD pay attention to the kid too, while the Childfree could invest the time you spend on the child either in more voluntary job, or resting to recover energies to be able to do more job than what a drained parent can, but it all depends on the parent and their view about what parenting is). So, the answer, I believe is "yes". You can save the Planet and have children, but you can also hot have children as your wait to aid into saving the Planet.

Being Childfree often isn't just about one reason: "I don't want a child because they would have no space in my life", "I don't want a child because I want to save the planet", "I don't want a child because they don't deserve to live in such a rotten place", etc.  Being Childfree more often than not is a decision you have gotten to through a series of elements. You don't feel like it, you worry what sort of conditions would receive your child, you believe that the last thing the Planet needs is another person adding to the contamination, you have decided to dedicate yourself to a project that means more to you, or you decided to work with other people's children, thus give that part of your time to them, or simply you know you can't stand children, you don't get along with them, thus you avoid them (the "but it would be different with your own children" conveniently hides the fact that children attract children, thus you may like your own children, but you will have to deal with their friends, their classmates, their birthday parties and so on), or simply that you like your life the way it is without children and you don't want to give it up.

As becoming a parent should be a decision made only on one aspect "I want to be a parent", "I don't want to be left alone when I'm old", "I like babies", "that's what adults do", "I want to 'consumate' and fulfill my marriage" - choosing to be childfree isn't also a one variable decision.

Finally, what also hit me from that advertisement of condoms was, how acceptable and natural it sounded coming from a man, but would have been the same coming from a woman? The Law can't force you, but society seems to believe that men are entitled to choose not to have children, while women must have children. A man can choose to protect himself, not to have children and even deny the children they have outside the wedlock, but in many countries women can't even decide to abort a child they don't want, not even if that child is the result of rape.

Childfree and Childfree women still have a long path to go.

Bitter Shells

Wasn't I supposed to tell you about my week last week? And I completely forgot, haven't I? Well, stuff like that happens more often than we would like to admit. Now, what was so fabulous last week in my life, that wasn't related to my filofax or my future filofax - which is already in delay, thank you for asking - ? Well, hn, (I actually had to check my filofax, because my memory is really that bad) lets see: last week was an interesting week. I made some progress in the office, got a new shelving unit for my cubicle, so now all my files no longer crowd my desk, and then had some really interesting project assigned, which have given me the chance to go back to the academic part of my career and investigate a few old matters.

I also met with a few old coworkers from the company, who have drifted apart through the years thanks to oportunities and circumstances. Two of them - Julie and Dew - were my coworkers at my last place. Dew didn't work in the same process as me, but Julie did, however Dew and I often lunched together and talked a lot together about the terrible environment and the office perils that hung over our heads. The other coworker - Pat - used to be our coworker a long time ago, but she managed to move to another department and stay there, where she's very happy. We met on Friday through very particular circumstances. I had to do some reseach at the Economics and Industry Ministry building, which is at the South side of the park that separates my current workplace (at North) from my old one (South). By the time I finished, it was closing lunch time, so I decided to walk over to the Southern building, and see if I can have lunch with my old friends. I still remember their lunch schedule, and their lunch habits, so I called Julie and asked her if she would like to have lunch with me. To my surprise Julie was rather unfriendly and cut me short saying she was going with her friends to have some Argentinian food. Sad, and wondering why could she be so strangely mad at me, I walked around trying to figure out what would I like to eat. Eventually decided to go back North and have my lunch there.

However, as I was walking towads the pedestrian bridge, whom I see but Julie and Dew! I went over to greet them and saw still how stiff julie was with me. Dew, however, was welcoming and nice, and quickly invited me to lunch with them and Pat, so I joined them. We went to an Argentinian bistro at West, really close, where we met Pat, and ordered our lunch. Then the ladies started talking about work and a lot of terrible omens were discovered. Plans to lay down people and also plans to reform our payment system to turn it into a less friendly system that cuts back many of our current benefits, such as seniority payments (we are paid extra for each year we complete at the company), academic and career point recognitions (extra payment for degrees and further education and capacitation you receive), and then the subsidy we would receive in case of being laid off, or when we retire would also be sensibly cut back (currently we have this system where you receive 66% of your monthly payment for each year worked up to eight years, and then 66% of your monthly payment for each two years worked up to 24 years) among other things. I was also surprised to know that Julie was deeply unhappy with my former boss - the good one - and had mentioned to Dew that she was looking to move to the very area where I'm working now. I was happy, though I know that my current boss wouldn't accept her, given the fact that Dew has twice made a very, very poor job replacing me at the Regulator Canon calculation project.

It was strange to me that she would have said something to someone about wanting to go work were I work now and yet acted so unkindly with me, who could have put a good work for her with my boss. Julie is strange in that way. She lives a very unique life, up in her mind, which blurs completely the border between fantasy and reality. Her word is a fantasy realm more than anything else, which feeds on the morsels of reality that would fit into her very personal soap opera. She has also been wronged many times, which has covered her in a thick and bitter shell, under which she tucks all of her soft spots fearfully protecting them and never considering the possibility of doing something to strenghten them. Her bitter tongue and bittering behavior had slowly leaked into her work, where resentment weights more than knowledge, slowly making her drift to a point where she has lost her valuable skills and now floats in a cloud of utter inability. Younger heads raise to teh challenge around her and she resent them, but that resentment grows so strong and central in her life that it unables her from applying the vast knowledge she has and handicaps her from further evolving. Her protests are shut down and handled as annoying temper tantrums, even though more often than not she has been very accurate, and thus pushed into human obsolescense. At 50 she's now a workforce burden, a totem, a stone paid huge sums only to remain tucked in a cubicle clumsily staring at her computer and forwarding corky e-mails with corny music, corny colors and commonplaces disguised as wisdom.

She might resent me because I fled, I've got free and I had arms wide open waiting to catch me and hold me. The battle to keep me was also epic, and it had to reach to her, which only rubbed salt into her open wounds, seeing how another newby was fought for like a modern Hellen of Troy, while she was being given away like the lump everybody is eager to get rid off.

This week I talked over some of these things with my good friend Gis, who confirmed some of my theories, and sadly said she had not only heard about the deconstructing plans and the wage modifying forecasts, but that these were supposed to be pushed through this year. Gis and I are starting to talk more about her son and about healthy cooking. We do talk a lot about work, but our topics start to falter, and sometimes it's like talking much about work annoys her a little bit. Indeed in some places too much talking about the office only adds to the foul mood.

I believe that's also the case at our office.

As time goes by I start noticing much resentment at the office where I work. It's a strange place where the bosses seem often to be battered by the subordinates, who tend to act like the world owe them just for the mere fact of breathing. This past week a few thorns were discovered, where people who had made whining and demanding their battle horse, ran finally to the end of their means. The incompetence and buyyling of some of these sacred cows became shamefully to light and they could no longer pull the wool over the eyes of the director with their fake aggravated tones. It must have been horrendous to find those cans of worms unlidded and spilling right in front of the whole office. Some watch these unveilings with malevolent pleasure, even when they hold in their hands their own cans of worms with lids that no longer hold the disgusting contents.

Perhaps I'm simple minded, but even after all I've been through, I don't understand why so many people choose "waiting for others to notice" instead of "doing it themselves". It's like attempting to go to the Grandma's house, and instead of taking the road to her house, taking the opposite route and expecting the whole town to move Grandma's place into your path.

There's a lot of bad blood in that place, and you can see many people already eaten up by their emotional gangrene. They are all becoming the new Julies.

So, How's the Filofax Doing?

Welcome to yet another filofax post. I should really go back to posting much often and more about my life, right? Like, the people reading this isn't reading it because they want to follow a given topic, but because most of you know me in real life (yes, penpalling actually counts for real life in this case, as letters do arrive to you... in real life ^_^), and well, yes, that. However, given that I've just posted in the Hungarian blog - where I write about real life - I don't feel like posting here again and repeating myself in a different language. Thus, filofax it is. (Okay, I'll post later on about how's my fabulous life going on, though I just drank the last of my coca-cola, so you may have to wait a tad bit more.)

Last week - after a really looooong and hard debate over whether I should get a new filofax or not, and if I do, which should I pick - I finally made a decision and ordered a Personal Identity Filofax Black from the UK site. They don't ship directly to here and I didn't want to have it sent to the US so that my "smart address" company can rip me off with the extra shipping and handling charges, so I sent it to my boyfriend - because there was shipping there - and he's going to bring it to me once he has it and the next time we meet. We are talking of different parts of the planet, so don't you think that Filofax UK works like cable complanies that give you the service up to the third house of the block and denies it from the rest. No, not that case.

 If you remember, I had ordered a Personal Chocolate Sketch Filofax last year from the FilofaxUSA site. I really loved it - though had some issues with the inserts, as you all know - but then after some use the base of the claps (or latch, really, at this point I can't figure out how should I call the closing thingie) started to rip.  I contacted the company and they told me to send it over to the US, and they would replace it with a Marron Personal Sketch. People, Marron! Marron that looks like red though people swear up and down that it really looks more brown that red... but still. Marron! So I said then "thank you but no thank you". Well, by now the clasp has ripped off and only the stitches are holding it into place. I've been forced to slim it down as much as I can, which included taking out basically all of the dividers (only six survived), and also all of the card holders and two of the three plastic pockets. It is thin now, though still if I put the whole contents to one side, I won't see the part where the rings meet, BUT, it's thinner.

By the end of the choosing process, I decided I wanted a filofax that had a pocket in the back for a notepad, NO ZIPPERS!, was available in brown or black (preferably brown, and I mean brown-brown and not marron), and no bunched up corners, but tucked under another layer of something. Elasticized penloop or more than one were a plus, since I'm actually planning on getting myself a frixion multipen, and an elasticized one would be dandy. Leather would have been nice, over PVC. I don't have any PETA afiliations or no-leather politics. I eat cow, so I might as well use the hide, right? So I checked the Holborn, the Guilford, the Cuban... even the Finsbury and none would do! The Malden won't do it for me because of the stitching and the detailing, and the other ones are textured and too... flashy for my taste, so no. I even considered the Metropol - as I have in the past - but once again the puffiness of it broke the deal for me. I was between the Fusion - which is a bit too juvenile for me - and the Identity - bunching up corners - when I decided to take the question to the big audience: Facebook. There I asked opinion over the Identity, and it turned out that the corners don't bunch up so bad, and the stitching in real life isn't as crappy as the amateur stitching in the cataloge. Thus the decision was made!

The Identity has two elasticized pen loops, a notepad pocket in the back and it isn't as puffy or shiny as the Metropol. And it was 27 GBS, so I would say it's a fair price. Now all I have to do is wait to see it in real life and give you a piece of my mind when I do. As usual.

While this happens, how's my current and only filofax doing? Well, after having to submit it to a forced slim down, I decided to move a couple of things around. One of them was to move my List of 13 to the front, right after my personal information and before my calendars. I haven't been doing so well this year, and almost on every list there are things that remain to be completed on the next list. For this moon's list, I actually made a mistake and put the same activity twice (that happens when you jot down activities not at once but some now, some others later and you don't read what you've written), but hey! Stuff like that happens! I also changed their order, so now the current one is on the top and the last ones go to the back. I also leave the space behind each list to write notes on what had happened and what I thought about that particular list.

My weeks are working well with the week-on-two-pages format, so I believe I'll keep it. Personally I like the panoramic view of my week it gives me, though truth to be told, I do miss the space a page-per-day format would give me.

I've been thinking on what format would I prefer and use from now on, but since my new filofax promises to come loaded with yet another Wo2P calendar, that decision has been left for 2015. I had my next inserts already planned - I posted about that a while ago - but recently I've been thinking about redoing my inserts - those inserts - since I had the day slotted in hours from 8h to 15h, and I actually would need it to go from 6h to at least 20h. That's nearly twice as much, I know. And I would really need the same for weekends. Could work with 7h to 18h, though, so I'll try to fit that in and see how it goes.

Another thing I've been thinking about is the paper type. The regular paper one can get at a paper store might be thicker than the paper filofax uses, and that could affect the general volume the filofax takes, so I've also been thinking about ordering blank pages. However, I have a bunch of pages cut to size, so I'll experiment on them first before making any other decisions and ordering like it's the end of the world.

One of the things that had really pained me has been removing my dividers. My 18 dividers. Things are messier nor inside, so I'm thinking about reinstalling my dividers, but I know that I can't use cardboard again for that, so I'll thining about other ways to sort this out. One idea has been to use magazine pages (there are art magazines with slightly thicker pages, yet not as thick as cardstock dividers) and somehow find and use tabs on them. Making the tabs is also a possiblity, but if you are acquinted with my handywork, you'll agree with me that buying them is better. Hey, each to their own!

Currently I've three large sections:

Calendars

This includes my monthly calendar, my weekly calendar and my Event Planner... which hasn't been working as well as I expected it, but that's still up for fixing.

Notes

Which includes my track and notes. These were two different Major Dividers at one point - thus the two post-its on it - and these house all my tracks (fuel, blogs, books, etc) and my notes and lists such as my to-do (which has nothing...), housed my List of 13, and all sorts of notes like info on shipping and handling, or stuff about the University God willing I'll be enrolling for again in August, some on Archery, German and whatever I decide to print out or write down and keep in there. I actually have a couple of poems I like in there! One of my most important sections is in there as well, which is the "How To" section. I tend to forget everything, so I map out there stuff like how to change message ringtones on my phone, how to create a new archive for Outlook and stuff like that.

Information

This is my final section. I call it "information" because it parks just about everything from addresses to the map with the timezones, and also stuff like lists of contacts, which I don't copy on contact pages but I either add on a page - like, lets say the names and numbers of all the people I need to contact about Fishermen Project under F, or all the contacts for Filofax under F, or the notes I need to remember for my penpals under their letters - or on post-its stuck to the dividers.

A lot of people like to pretty up their dividers with scrapbooking paper and pictures and washitape, but I've found that I like simple stuff as well. A simple divider with a post-it to personalize it works just fine for me. Now, don't get me wrong, I love using pretty things! And I have, as you can see in this picture, where I used a segment of a painting I found in a magazine (this gave me the idea) to cover up the unsightly side of the registration number page. However, the hard thing here is to find a magazine page sturdy enough with a good image on both sides. (I would personally go for cataloges, art magazines, architechture and Nat Geo, but that's me.) I tried using simply post-its and post-it flags but after a while that didn't do the trick.

If you have any other idea to deal with dividers, or any idea for super-thin dividers, let me know!