Stand in the Eye of the Storm

I've been falling off a little on my regular rhythm here. A lot of changes have happened, there have been a lot of things over which to think about, a lot to meditate on, and also a lot of things with which I sumply have to come to terms, accept them as they are.

This week I finished the first of two graduation seminars at the University where I study, with a less-than-satisfactory grade. Less than satisfactory for me, mind you, as I did pass and not with the lowest grade possible. The bar was raised much higher in this class than in others - regarding the grade you needed to pass (normally you pass with a 7 out of 10, but for this class you needed an 8 out of 10), which wasn't told to us  from the begining, but only in the last session with our tutor. Sadly, the actual tuition wasn't matched to these expectations, nor was the actual paramethers of grading any clearer than a picture of the monster of Lake Ness in a foggy night. I did spent a few days mulling over it quite upset, but then again I decided that it wsn't worth my time. Truth to be told, what matters in the end is the diploma I'll get and the knowledge I've gathered, and all the rest is simply "inmaterial" for me. In a weekwe'll be starting he second and last seminar, which will be on auditing. We are supposed to go auditing an enterprise, which will be interesting. I have no idea how people at universities actually think students can so easily find companies that will allow them to peek into their books and get information for school projects. That's just not the way it works.

In this week that passed, I have racked up my debt on my card due to an emergency: my previous laptop - well, my eight years old netbook, Nagi - died on me. He was having a lot of trouble of late, being incredibly slow to open even the simplest of things, like a word file, or a dossier, and then on Monday, it showed the "blue screen of death" as it crashed on Carrie and I while we tried to download some episodes of Hannibal. Nothing else to do, I had to buy myself a new netbook. This one, actually, an 11 inch Toshiba, Björn. I like Björn, but I'm at odds with it as I can't set the Hungarian keyboard on it, and the Latin American one (which I haven't used in ages now) is driving me insane. Choosing Björn was actually a long process in which I requested Carrie's expertise in computers. My only requirement at first was to get a 10 inch netbook, and not in an off color. However Carrie convinced me to look at other stuff like hard drive space - ok, I was considering that one too - RAM, and the processor's MHz measurement. Thus, after a long chase, and me outruling everything of 12 inches and I, I allowed myself to be convinced to choose an 11 inch netbook. I honestly consider it a commitment, because I do want something I can put easily in my bag and also something that fits in the folding table of a plane.

Setting Björn to work wasn't an easy task either, as Björn can't get on the internet with a cable, so you have to deal with in entirely on wireless connection, and have you tried to install Office with a wireless connection? It took me over nine hours to get it on with the trial version! I do bought a Home&Student Office - one of those perennial packs, because I'm not into paying loads for yearly licenses - but if I have the chance to get a trial, why not profit from it?

Anyway, this is how things are currently. Björn isn't as fast as I expected him to be, but it's ok, and I'm much happier now, feeling safe about my documents, knowing things won't just get up in smoke and disappear from my computer when I most need it.

I've now a couple of days of calm before the new seminar starts. I'm getting ahead with my letters and also took the chance to start reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" in Hungarian. These days of peace and quite should be savored. However, a damp spot just fell upon these perfect days yesterday, as my cat Hyperion came home in a pretty bad shape. He was salivating a lot and acting a bt strange, unable to walk well and generally looking bad. As we could, we took him to the vet, not knowing what had happened to him, whether he was poisoned or not. He started getting more and more aggressive until he was just crazy out of it. The vet said he was completely disoriented and couldn't recognize anyone. He was in such a defensive, out of his wits state that it was impossible to try and treat him, even after being shot with diazepam. The vet said he wasn't poisoned, but he suspects he had been hit hard and that the blow may have affected his brain, due to which he couldn't recognize anyone, making him rather dangerous. He has been kept at the vet over night, and today we will be told if there's any hope for him or if he shall be put to sleep. It´s kind of awful trying to imagine life without Hyperion. We have other two cats, but Hyperion was, really, like a ray of light, the one that made stuff more colorful around.

We now must wait.

Blessed Litha!

Today is Litha in the Pagan calendar, and that makes today the longest day of the year. Most of sunshine, I believe, but not here, since it's all dark and rainy in here. So, though the day is clouded, it's still the year's longest day, the one with most light. What do we learn of it? For me, Litha represents work, the hard work you do to get what you want. It's all that commitment, effort that goes into making your dreams come true. Also, on its own, this hard work isn't just a chore, but a joy in itself. Yeah, yeah, that sounds a little like those religious preachings about how sacrifice is a joy and yadda-yadda-yadda, but hear me out (though I have probably said this a million times just on this blog), hard work is - well - hard (it wouldn't be hard work otherwise, duh!), and though it isn't always joyful, there's a certain satisfaction you get when you are doing it, because you are doing it. Like when you are at the gym and you push through your routine, and though your goal is to improve your body, when you manage to nail some movements, or like in yoga, when after some weeks (or months, depends on your body) you manage to do that position that seemed so freaking hard.

A rainy Litha says to me that even though things might seem gloom, the joy of the effort is still there. So, it's still the longest day of the year, it's still the one with the most of light. What I take from this day is that circumstances shouldn't stop you. Things will happen and will pass, but what you do, the effort you make to make your dreams reality, in spite of all that piles against it, it's what matters. I think today is a wonderful, wonderful day for Litha... and an awesome rainy day for staying at home and curl up with a book and a hot cocoa. :-)

Reclaiming Freedom

Freedom, now that I enjoy it again, is so big around me! It's endless and suddenly I want to go wild and dive into all of it! Maybe I wasn't shackled before, but I often did feel that way. Little freedoms I wanted, I craved and yet I passed on because of a commitment I made, a requierment I didn't believe in, but which was expected from me - in an outspoken way - in order to make something else. Well, every sort of contract or community requieres members to fulfill requirements, so naturally, believing in the project, I gave up freedoms that may not be essential for my daily life, but which have always made me feel powerful. The restrain to that power, the cutting off of that freedom - though I voluntarily put a halt to it - made me resentful every time.

There was no happiness in saying "I resisted that", but rather always bile and anger and desire to hurt along with the thought "I'll murder you because of your insecurity I had to turn that down". It was never a pleasant feeling, it was never something that made me feel good in any way. Yes, I can feel good through restriction, like when I keep my diet, or I hold up on some fun in order to study or something like that, but there are freedoms, simple freedoms that are far more embedded in my that I thought I first. Freedoms I now recognize as galvanized into me, that maybe do not make me who I am, but are a reflection of the person I am: a free and independent person who chooses to live outside the "traditional norm", the social construction in some things, picking here and there, at will, the elements that make her life regardless of what others expect from people.

There's beauty in reclaiming back yourself, your whole self, your freedom, your independence, and that should always be defended.

Freedom extends huge around me, larger than the wings of eagles and angels, more obicuitous than air and land, far more precious than anything. It's overwhelming, teasing and wonderful and I stand here, before I make any moves, before I rush into it and gobble it all up, I stand here and watch and marvel and think: this is were I belong, this is what makes me happy.

It All Comes Back... Eventually

Yesterday my teammates and I finally finished the last part of our accounting paper. It was a really, really difficult paper where we spent days and days trying to figure out how to fit this company's accounting to the IFRS. Let me tell you this: it wasn't easy. We all chipped in, took chunks of the paper, worked them over, sent them to each other for reviews and completing, shouldered whatever needed to be shouldered in order to get ahead and, yes, with much sweat and effort, we did it. Hyne, Adri and I had already started seeing the company and the accounting issues in our dreams! Serge didn't tell us of dreams, but we know he got into serious problems at his job for working as hard as he did on this paper. But the due date was yesterday and yesterday at 11 hours whe finished it and e-mailed it to the tutor.

The thing is that our group is made of four people. One of us, however, has found it very easy not to contribute to the paper. All he has done has been nothing but pretense. Three times has he sent us a file no longer than two pages (last ones have been of one page each), but nothing of what he sent was usable. Each time we met, he would always talk about his job, what auditors he knew said, what he did at the office but never really mentioned anything about the paper we had to do. While Adri, Serge and I kept in contact every day, and kept up the work, this other guy simply vanished. He sent what he considered to be "his part" and then forgot completely about the whole thing. Didn't even bothered himself asking us if he could help with something, didn't bothered asking for the completed work... nothing. Half way through our paper Adri and I talked to him and told him to either get his act together or go find another way to do the job. He promised he wasn't like that, he would change, he would work, but that was also just words as as soon has he had to do his part, he once again did nothing, and whatever he sent, again, wasn't useful.

For this last part, again, this guy was absent. After all we had to work, after all we did and how hard it was, Serge, Adri and I got really pissed off at this guy (obviously), and so we have decided - this avanced the work - that he won't be any longer in our team. I don't know if he will have the points he needs to pass this class, but that's not our concern, it should have been his.

There's a lot of people just like that, people who find it very easy to lean on others and let others do the hard job for them. People who are constantly looking to leech on others, and have no qualms reaping the rewards, pretending they've earned something when they have done nothing for it. How can they live like that, is something I can't wrap my mind around. It just don't bother them that they get a diploma while having no real knowledge to back it up. It doesn't bother them to charge for a job they have never made, which they can't defend, which they can't explain. It doesn't bother them to pretend to have done or said something while well knowing they didn't, and it doesn't deter them either when it's evident others know they are lying.

Others simply want others to fix all of their problems, take care of all of their tasks and duties while using other things as excuse: they can't take care of this because they have a job to take care, they can't do that because they must attend their family, they can't be bothered with that other thing because they have health issued to be concerned about. It's easy for them and they feel entitled to take advantage of others, up to the point that they feel offended when someone do not bend to their desires. They actually consider it cruelty when someone says no to them, but it's not kindness when someone says yes.

These people are deeply irresponsible. They have many desires of many things they want in their lives, usually from a shallow point of view, and it never occurs to them to actually do the work for themselves, but they seek to take these things from others. They want a diploma, but they won't study for it, rather have others get it for them. They want money, but they won't work for them, but rather have others give them the money. They want properties, but they rather have others buying them for them. Not like it matters to them when they get what they want, because they seem to like the superficial element. They see others with a happy family and they want it for themselves, completely ignoring the fact that the happiness also comes from the hard work fo building what you have in life. They get things but those things mean nothing, and so is why they can't see the kindness of those who procure them what they want.

Yes, they need to move fast, from person to person, group to group because there's no way you can milk the same person or group for long. Because eventually everybody gets tired. We've got tired, this leech is can't milk this any longer.