Rainy August

Property of Stormberry

 I had a reading last month with Madi Murphy, an a-mazing intuitive astrologer, and I had a hoot at her reading! She has a podcast and I TOTALLY recommend it to... everyone?

Like I said, the reading was fantastic, but on a bit of a forecast she warned me about the period between mid October to mid December, as it was going to be a trying time. She told me, thought, that even though it would tax me, I should not worry because I had what it took to go through it, and that I should just let myself go with the flow. If you know me, that's easier said that done, as I am the flow. And, of course, it got me worried.

Well, this month things got a tad... unpleasant. It has been raining quite hard, and we even had hailstorms. And well, I found out that my windows have not been sealed as they should, and rain pours through the frames. But also, I found I also had some leaks on my roof. I was very worried because curretly my financial situation isn't the most comfortable, so I was quite anxious about the bill I would have to foot for the repairs.

Since this is a very important job and needs to be done well, I called a very responsible, trustworthy team, and they came yesterday and fixed my roof. And the bill was such that I could very much afford it. I was so happy because I didn't go over budget, that I decided to be  responsible person and save the unused part, and so I invested it. It's not much, and it will yield just a little of interests, it's a first step towards my future financial security. Savings always make me feel safe.

However, today the rain came and an old leak came back with vengeance. I felt like crying as I saw the water pouring down the ceiling over my staircase. It was far worse that before!! I quickly took pictures and called the workers, who had promised to come tomorrow first thing in the morning and fix with within the warranty of their job. Of course I'm still anxious about the leak, but I feel so much better now. Before them I had have issues with other worker teams that charged over and over for the same job, and in the end you had the feeling the problem wasn't so bad as much as they saw a chance to milk you for as much money as you were willing to fork over.

All the other leaks were solved, only this one got really bad, but hopefully, tomorrow this will be solved as well. I just hope my whammy period got scheduled earlier and this was all, because, really, I would rather not have to go through more worries for the rest of the year. (Or next year.) (Or the next ten years.) (Or the next twenty years.) (Or for the rest of my life. Yeah, that sounds about good.)

Defense: Why Are We So Afraid of It?

Reading Rush Week ended last week and this week many booktubers and bookstagrammers came out of it feeling a bit out of space and not knowing what to do with themselves. This was a very intense week for those participating, as many content creators and readers usually don't read seven books in a week. And if you throw into it also creating reading rush daily dare/tasks and publishing them, well, yes, there was no time for living.

When it was all done and finished, many posted how many books they managed to read and how many pages. One of these content creators is a friend of mine, and she succeeded in the Rush. Proudly, she shared with the world her reading statistics for this rush. Under her post, a hater started calling her a liar and telling her she cheated and probably didn't even understood the books for how fast "she read". She was clearly affected - because she's really such a nice girl - and so she let know her closest friends about it, and we went to see what was going on.

It was a case of a cyberbully, a troll, who likes to attack people in general on invented arguments. She has the blessing of having an entourage that went out like a swarm of wasps and dug up all the date on the bully, so we could understand his behavior better. We knew then that hewas harassing all sorts of influencers and people in the book community with similar comments: people can't possibly read that fast, it's biologically, mathematically and statistically impossible, and so on. Some of us replied to him - I was a meanie and blocked him, so I laughed because then I heard he attacked me, BUT I could not hear him, so I gave him what he hates the most: zero attention - and then we advised her to block him. She was uncertain because she feared he would go mad, but after a whole day under his attack - despite of her sustained silence - she decided to block him.

Source: taken from Black Witch Coven. Please give them <3 td="">

This got me thinking about what we do and how we react to harassment and abuse. Why is it that WE are the ones being harassed, being insulted, abused, AND still we do not want to offend our abusers? Yes, there is a measure of fear, because we think things could be worse if we "provoke" them.

In some cultures more than others, people tend to lean toward polite, non-confrontational or passive behavior, and they expect people to notice they are being mean and then stop doing it. We often think others are just like we are, and just because we would feel bad about attacking someone else, we think others would feel bad about it too. The thing is that bullies don't work like that, instead they profit from the tendency on people not to call them out because that allows them to keep abusing their victims. They thrive on the space you give them and abuse of your politeness and social expectations. But also, as you allow them to continue abusing you, they grow bolder and bolder, so by the time you finally reach your limit and decide to cut them off or stop them, it would be much harder than at the begining. They have worn you out, they have grown stronger and they know your weak spots.

It's kind of similar to when someone mistreats you, you cut them off and them forgive them, allow them back in and they resume their abuse, only the second time around it will be harder to stop because they know you how to get you to forgive them and receive them back. The longer you take abuse from a troll, the more they know how much are you willing to give and how much you are afraid of escalation.

Facing bullying online is "easier" in the sense that we can block the person. Just block the given person's user and all their access to you. Black list them, make yourself unreachable, report them... go the whole nine yards. It is harder in real life because we could be physically threatened or we could be in a position where our abuser have power over us through emotional, familiar, work or study related means. We can't block people in real life with a button, and sometimes we can't draw a hard line, but there are things we can do.

Online, let's defend ourselves not by antagonizing the troll (although I did that, just because I felt like ticking them and run), but by taking away their platform and block them. No need to explain, no need to reply, just block and erase. You owe them nothing and you don't need to give them nothing. Blocking them from your social media or your e-mails and chats isn't an attack on "freedom of speech". If they want to express themselves, they can get a blog or pay and add in a newspaper.

In real life, limit your interactions with them, avoid being alone with them, or alone with them and the people that get on their side. If you need to interact with them, don't give them explanations: be short and get away. Be not afraid of walking away the moment they start harassing you. And start looking for ways to either move or report them. Talk to others, create a support system around yourself, talk it out. Sometimes your friends can come up with clever solutions for your issues. Talk, listen and protect yourself.

There are no easy, quick solutions for harassment, but we must remember (or try to) that we can do something to fight it.

Thoughts on Manipulative Friends

Source: Tumblr
Shallon Lester's Channel

One of the vloggers I follow in YouTube is Shallon Lester, a former magazine editor, who now gives relationship advise online. I have seen several of her videos, and though I don't agree with all of her advises, I always enjoy her videos and her style.

Something she does in her channel is to psychoanalyze drama among celebrities and their private life. What she does isn't going for the gossip - though she does benefit from it - but also to teach people lessons about themselves and the people around them by using behaviors widely known through the media to pinpoint what people can also encounter in their lives.

The last video I saw touched on the current drama between beauty vloggers Tati Westbrook and James Charles, in order to talk about manipulative friends.

The topic of manipulative friends hits me close because I have had to deal with those. I mean, if you read my blog you probably know about those cases, right? Yes, it's not pretty but it happens and we need to be prepared to del with it.

I have a friend who is married and he's not very happy with his spouse. We talked recently - he has taken time to open up to me about his marital issues - and he said that though he wasn't happy, he was chosing to do the "right thing" rather than what he really wanted and what made him happy. I didn't say much - with words - but me being as transparent as a glass of beer, probably let him know what I thought: "you are being profoundly stupid". Now, judging and finding solutions from the outside is very easy, but it's not as simple when you are IN the situation. That's why it happens that you can be very good at giving relationship advises to others, but you still get yourself in all sorts of relationship jammies. Why is that? Because when we are IN a situation, we usually don't have the panoramic view people not involved in it have. When we are in the situation we find it hard to untangle, to be objective, to see the good and the bad, and we are subject to emotional pressure.

Now, the thing here is that we are also vulnerable to these same things with our friends, with the additional threat of us being less prepare and less suspectful since we think friendships are much safer than romantic relationships. Just think about that. In a romantic relationship you prepare yourself to suspect your partner of cheating, of being with you for your money, your connections, your looks, your status, or because you are just a device for them to fulfill a life goal: it's not you, but the ring you can put on their finger, or the ring they can put on your finger.

With friendships, we often tend to believe they are honest, serious, and when they are not, they tend to be scarce enough to be filed as "acquintances", so you don't worry. We also think that the "bad friends" are easy to spot, because they will pressure you for money, or ask you to bail them, be their guarantors for loand they then want to leave on to you and so on. We are not prepared for the manipulative friends that seek to leech on you in other ways.

Shallon Lester mentions as manipulative friends the people that are very self-centered and who talk only about their endless problems, and it's always the same issue. Here I want to make a distintion. There are friends who have a specific type of problem that is either eternal or cyclic, like issues with their job or issues with an illness or a family health problem. Yes, there are limits for that as well, BUT we can also understand when a person always talks about their problems in these topics.

What makes the difference - for me - is when the recurring issue is something the person can't really escape, and is bound to keep struggling with. An issue with a job can't always be fixed with resigning or looking for a change in positions, specially not when the market is in turmoil. People are also bound to their jobs because of the income and obligations they carry, like loans, mortgage, supporting their family, and so on. Health issues also take much of the attention and energy of the people. Being there to let them vent is important for them.

However, a friend who is going through these struggles will also ask you about your life, your issues and pay active attention to them.

By no means, a stressful job or a health/family issue entitles someone to monopolize the conversation.

Curiously, as a Childfree person, I have noticed this with some friends and acquintances who are parents: all topics are always child related, and if you try to go to a non-child related one either they veer from it, or just stare at you while you say your piece, and then go back to a child-topic. Now, 1) this is also a way of manipulation, by diminishing your topics and your issues, compared to theirs, and 2) beware because this is not a "parent thing", but a thing manipulative people do. I'd given you the example with the "child topic", because we all have had that new-parent friend who gets lost in parenthood, even though later they get out of it, but we know the experience.

So, when you are with someone and you feel like something is just not ok, you feel a bit bad or shamed, take a second to compare the situation with that "new parent" hype. If it fits, you are talking to a manipulative person, and they are casting their net on you.

Manipulative people monopolize the time, the conversation and/or the situation. It's always THEIR problems, THEIR issues, THEIR concerns, even when they are not presenting them as theirs. For instance, the friend that every so often comes to you crying about how much they are suffering by witnessing the suffering of someone else. Be it a family member, a close friend, a dear colleague... they pick someone who is close to them, or are portrayed as close to them, and then paint a gloomy, terrible situation (whether it is real or not), that makes the person a helpless victim, and they (the manipulative friend) is forced to witness it, wants so desperately to help BUT can't do anything. This last part is crucial because it ensures pity ON them, while looking at the same time so selfless and saint. There might be even a tear or two for dramatic effect and blocking logical thinking and trigger emotional response from the audience.

I used to have a friend who did this often, who used another friend to gain pity for herself. Curiously, when you talked to the martyred friend, they seemed to be absolutely ok. The cover of the manipulator? Oh, Martyr doesn't want others to know/notice. Does it ring a bell? You have no idea, how I wish it doesn't.

In other cases, the manipulator does use a real situation, a real problem of someone else - the Designated Martyr - in order to give their manipulation tools legitimacy. Here, the key one has to pay attention to is whether the issue can actually be fixed by the manipulator, and what is the manipulator doing to fix it. The issues manipulators pick are often the kind that can be milked for a long time. The longer they can exploit the topic, the longer they can command attention, earn pity/admiration and even get away with whatever they want.

Finally, here is the last element manipulators use to get their "reward": they often seek to push your boundaries. They get a boost, a victory when they can exert power over you by making you endure dissing, humiliations and other forms of disrespect. This is a way to state to you that they are more important than you: it sets a hierarchy among you, where they push themselves to a position - rather subtly - where they wistle and you jump. Part of the perk of these moves is that they are subtle enough to be easy to turn against you if you realize what's happening and complain.

What do I mean? For instance, the friend that's always late. Yes, we all are late from time to time, but there are people who seem to be chronically late and late by a lot. For me, the reasonable window to be late is five to ten minutes. I mean, consider traffic, finding a parking space, public transportation being late... A regular friend being late usually calls you to let you know they are going to be late. A manipulator won't tell you because part of their power trip is to keep you expecting, insecure. Manipulators also tend to make you wait for really long periods of time, often stretching into hours. It's usually a progressive thing, as they need to "train" their friends to just keep waiting. To "reward" the waiting friend, sometimes they shower them with excuses and copious amounts of apologies.

A rule of thumb here: someone who consistently makes the same offense or disrespectful action, and always apologizes for it, is placating you, not really apologizing. True apology is often followed by real efforts to correct the undesired behavior.

Now, being late and using tardiness to manipulate others is quite a textbook case, and easy to spot, but there are other, more conceited ways to bend other people's dignity and will to you, as a goal of manipulation. In this type of manipulation - into which chronic tardiness also falls - is about forcing others to accomodate to the manipulator. Instances can be the case of the person that always changes everybody's plans at the last minute, always dictate the whole program or part of it. A typical case would be that of the vegan friend with whom you always have to meet and go eat at vegan places. There are many excuses for this, such as "there are so little options for me in other restaurants" and "the menu says it's vegan, but they actually use animal byproducts in the dressing of the salad".

Again, I use a vegan individual in the example because this might be easier to spot, so it can be used as a template to discover similar behaviors, but think of the friend who always picks where do you go because "they can go to X place because there are so many memories there with their ex", or because "they have read the reviews", or "it's closer to their place, and they have so little time, since they have to take care of children/job/project/you-name-it".

This can also be the case of the friend who always picks the movie you are going to see, picks the seats, or picks where are you going for vacation and where are you staying. It's also the friend that orders for you at the restaurant quite often, usually disguising it as "you have to try this", or the friend that gives you tasks, or in any other way takes away your power of decision.

These forms of manipulation are particularly tricky, because if you react against them, the manipulator will always act surprised or offended, and turn the blame on you. They have a situation that's very difficult and you are not being understanding. They have so much work and they are trying so hard and you don't want to cooperate. They are trying to accomodate and make it good for everybody and you are being insensitive/spoiled/selfish.

Other forms to take power from you and manipulate you, is through making you suffer public humiliation or guilty tripping you. For instance, they can be prone to burst into tears at any thing, scream, throw temper tantrum... Things that are designed to make you feel bad, so that you will always do whatever there is in your power to keep these scenes from happening. If it happened once, rest assured it will happen again. Manipulators dose these incidents to keep the threat alive.

Ms. Lester gives a lot of good advise about how to deal with them, so I encourage you to look up her channel and check out some of her videos. If you ask me, I always go for the cut throat solution. Yes, I've been roped into these games, I have had hope my friends would enmend their ways and I have tried to minimize their antics. Experience has thought me that accomodating to manipulators and trying to softly undercut their antics only empower them more, because their realize you want them in your life, so they will keep playing on that and finding new ways to exploit you.

As I've grown older, my response to manipulators has been swifter, which as result has led me to lose those friendships. Then again, if I was being used as a toy for their instincts, was there really a friendship?

So here are my Cut Throat Advises:

1. You may allow the behavior once or twice, until you notice the pattern and can establish there is really a manipulative intent behind. Then, cut it.
2. There needs to be a facing of the facts with the manipulator. Ms. Lester recommends you frame your issues, when you confront your manipulator in "I feel" sentences. Here I tend to use two ways: the indirect one, where I answer behavior with behavior, and simply don't comply with the expectation of the manipulator, and the direct one, where I purposefully refuse to use softening phrases like "I feel", "I think" - which can be later used against you are a part of an argument of "everything is always about you and how YOU feel and what YOU think"- and rather state things in "you" sentences. Say things like "Don't talk to me like that", instead of "I don't like the way you sometimes talk to me", and don't fall for the trick of "What did I say?", or "When and what exactly did I do/say?". This is a favored trick of manipulators because memory is tricky, and they usually deal with subtext and tone, leaving their words purposefully open to interpretation. If they do that, don't answer, and if you are pressed reply something in the line of "don't add insult to injury", "I know you are smarter than that". The trick here turn their game: they want to make the problem about you, so you have to call them on it and place the problem on them.
3. If their game is tardiness, leave after 10 minutes and don't call them to let them know. If you call, you are opening a chance for them to keep you waiting. If they didn't call to tell you they'll be late, you have no obligation to call them to tell them that you are leaving.
4. If their game is changing plans at the last minute, you have to options: you stick to the original plan (and make previous arrangements to make sure you can go without the manipulator), or cancel them. If you cancel, don't go even if they set the original plan again. Show them there are consequences.
5. If their game is to take decisions away from you,  when the place is selected or the task given, tell them no. And stick to it.

Never be afraid of cutting a relationship with a manipulator person. Remember that you are in an illusion of a relationship, one where only you are. The relationship is a box, and you manipulator wants only to play.

New Year, New Starts

Property of Stormberry

It has come that time of the year, when we all make resolutions (or at least a significant part of the world that does celebrate the New Year around this time and adscrie to this type of rituals), and so, of course, I have made my own. One of them- which I fully intend to keep, because it's one of those I have more control over - is to post 52 posts this year. This translates pretty much to one post per week. No, of course you don't have to endure this journey with me or anything, so feel free to do as you wish, the same way you have been doing so far.

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I don't have that many resolutions either - I wrote some of them in my new bullet journal - and then I discussed some with my gods... which I should probably write down before I forget them. One of those was to considerably reduce my spending on physical books, mostly due to the plans to build my own house, and in light of the impending expenses and moving. I'll try and keep that one in mind.

2018 has been a wonderful year for me, full of achievements, successes and blessings, so I am happy. One thing I'm quite happy about is that I finished the year with having read 46 books! Awesome! :-) For a slowpoke reader like me that's quite an achievement. This had emboldened me, so I made it my resolution to read 45 next year (instead of my regular goal of 24 books per year). I actually made this resolution in the last days of 2018, when my count of books in Goodreads was somewhere around 41 or 42 books read. I decided to challenge myself - really challenge myself - and go for the kill. I mean, next year I have no classes planned, save for my German lessons, and only will have a thesis of marketing to write, which will rest mostly on groundwork than theoretical construction, so that should give me the time and space to gnaw my way through roughly a book per week.

Property of Stormberry

One added blessing from 2018 was the addition of a new client for my accounting private practice, which I appreciate greatly. As per usual, it's a relative of a friend, so someone with whom I have a previous relationship, and someone I care for a lot. Given the particularities of this case, I travel once a month to the location of this client to do some basic accounting, and oftentimes, after meeting them, I meet with my friend, who lives close by. Yes, it's a tad far, but I like driving, the road isn't challenging and I like the chance to meet with this friend, for otherwise we would hardly meet at all. So it's an absolutely positive situation for me.

My friend and I often meet at a Starbucks close by, or either I pick her up and go there for a coffee and chat. We are both big pen-&-paper junkies, so we have our raves and long, gushing chats away from people who do know us and who would never understand how can anyone get so excited about fountain pens and paper (or pay so much for it). I know, I know, but you know muggles: they just don't get the excitement of experiencing a smoothly gliding pen, or the delight of the right quality of paper, the comfort and joy of handwriting or... having access to text that does not depend on electrical power to exist.

We had our date, had great fun and then her husband came to pick her up and our ways parted. Before I went to my car to drive back home, I went for a coffee and a bottle of water for the road. As I stood there, a man came to order and noticed a frog shaped pendrive I have hanging from my bag... that was missing its bottom half. He told me about it (I had no idea my frog had lost its legs), and told me he had found the legs outside. I thanked him and thought that was it, and proceeded to turn away and make a mental note to go out and pick the legs up. The man, however, kept talking to me, telling me he would help me find them, which was odd, because the place isn't all that big and I had an idea where it could be. Anyway, we struck a conversation of sorts.

It turned out he's a physician, and works at one of our biggest public hospitals. That's impessive. He also has a private practice, so as an accountant (I felt no need to explain to him all of my career background as that can be compicated for anyone upon first meeting) I gave him a couple of useful advise. He was quite free telling me at once that he was divorced and got the custody of his children, which was hard to get, but he had a good lawyer and... why was he telling me all that? The man was being a typical Latin male, seeking to rope me into a formal relationship. He seemed nice, and his children also seemed nice, so I kept contact with him - not to mention that he could be further a source for more clients to my private practice - so I was nice and polite.

He started texting me a lot. A Lot. Daily. Ok, I wanted the friendship and the contact, but not any relationship. I am not looking for any kind of boyfriend or partner or anything. By the second day he was already asking me if I had a partner, so I told him that I wasn't into relationships. He did try to make his case defending relationships, but not in a too pushy way, but it did was... unpleasant. He clearly thought he would need to "work me" in order to convert me. Yeah... no.

We kept texting back and forth, me pushing longer and longer pauses, and him quite clearly trying to get into the space of intimacy in conversation that would help him leap closer to a relationship. He also started to unload a lot of personal stuff about himself that I've found... intrusive. I don't know him all that much, and I don't need a crash course about him either. The whole feeling about him was that of a person absoutely desperate to get a partner, like the kind of person that invites you to a date (not even starting with a non-date casual meeting for coffee after work), and by the time water is served states that they don't want to waste time with someone who doesn't want to commit for the long run. And I say this because, by the second day he was sending me a frog emoji and saying stuff like "your frog brought us together", and then saying the third day that he was happy to have met a woman like me, "with values". I was flabbergasted, because I acually doesn't know anything about me, and though I have values (actually everybody does), he doesn't know mine and if he did, he would probably not agree with them. It did sounded, though, like the kind of flattery you say to someone you don't really know, but with which you want to get into that person's good graces. Providing the person is clueless enough not to see through the ruse. Sadly, I do see through the ruse.

He did try to edge into asking me out on some promenade, but I cut into his attempts (he asked me what plans did I have for the day... on the second or third day) by telling him I was spending he whole day reading. Which I actually did. Next day? Yeah, I'm still reading. Oh, I read a lot. Yes, I want to spend every single available second of my vacations reading. Hey, this year I didn't travel, so I was going to use this exceptional occasion to do what I haven't done in ages: read, and read, and read non-stop. And you know something? Fuck, it feels like heaven!

Anyway, one thing he did learn about me was that I read a lot. He asked me what I read, I told him in broad lines (LGBT Romance, Crime, Politics, History, Philosophy), and he said "Great, crime!". O...k.

Property of Stormberry

Day... what would be today? Like... day five? He asks me what I'm doing. I reply that I'm reading. What I'm reading? Fire and Fury, and I send him a picture of the cover of the book, so he gets a better idea. I'm about to tell him about all the other books I plan to read after it (A Higher Loyalty, by James Comey; Russian Roulette, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn; Collusion, by Luke Harding; and Fear, by Bob Woodward), when suddenly he goes off track saying that history is often partialized. At first I'm taken aback thinking he might be a Trump supporter or something, though I actually think he has no idea about what this book is really about, or anything about the books written on Trump. But he goes on and on, fueled by himself, bringing the Second World War in his next text, and then how the Germans were painted as monsters only because the Jews wrote the history books (someone needs to see videos about the concentration camps), and from then on, and through some 30 texts he unleashed the most horrendous, ignorant, conspiranoic anti-Semitic views I have ever witnessed.

I was baffled that he thought he could unload such a hate speech on me. Not only he doesn't know me, but such intolerant views are preposterous! And no, those are not an "opinion" or a "humble opinion" as he wanted to portray his hate speech: it's intolerance and hate-mongering. In hs diatribe he called Jews a cancer and justified the many attempts throughout history to exterminate them.

This is a man with higher education, a good job, family and looking for a committed, stable, long term relationship. The first impression he makes is that of a catch, the best party anyone could have. Within five days he proved to be everything but.

I have held my turf, and I have come out convinced that social convention doesn't assure you neither happiness of satisfaction. By today, I could have found myself in a long term, committed relationship, mature and adult and proper in all superficial and socially meaningful aspects. I am free from it, happy, and have been able to discern good from bad.

I share with you this experience to let you know that patience is important, that looks deceive, that you need to see beyond the surface, and always consider your true needs, your true desires and your true expectations before those imposed by society. Pursue your own happiness and satisfaction, not the one society tells you you must chase.

Preying on Desperation

Property of Stormberry

Classes are about to start for me (again) next week - both in my German classes as well as with the University for the fourth and last (hopefully) career in Marketing. With that in mind, I decided to pick up on a well loved practice of mine, which is the Letter Writing Mondays. Instead of the usual Starbucks close to the office, I went to another closer to home. There I've got a cup of fresh, diced fruits, a bottle of water and a Pumkin Spice Latte. Yes, it's back in season and I want to make the most of it.

This particular store has a very unfortunate space distribution, because the single tables are all next to the waiting line, and in front of the door. These are always windy, cold, and offer no sense of privacy at all. Thus, when studying here or writing letters, I always choose the large table. Since there isn't much space available for working, this table is usually ocupied also by other people, and this was also the case yesterday.

All was good and dandy, until the clients of the other two girls occupying the table arrived. At first I thought the girls were simply university students working on some project, but then it turned out that they were salespeople for some sort of academy/business that offered some flash-not-so-flash course on FOREX (it's a virtual stock market for divisas), and also gave the students/investors an account with US$50 for them to try out and make money. (Cost of the bundle? Around US$216). They were right in front of me, so I was forced to listen to their sales pitch, and goodness gracious, it was textbook scam case!

The leader saleswoman started introducing herself and empathizing with the "clients" (I put that in quotation marks because instead of potential clients, I believe them to be potential victims). She claimed she also had such a hard time, and had also taken fake FOREX courses and seminars, but then she decided to put her whole unemployment compensation check (Note: in Costa Rica, by law, when someone is fired by causes other than their own fault, companies must pay the person a month of salary for each year worked - proportional too, for the months that do not add up to the month, up to eight years maximum. This is the compensation check I mean.) into this academy-thingie and has been doing great every since. Now, THAT is a lie: people don't really put all their money into one uncertain thing, not in Costa Rica. Yes, people lose money and get scammed, but Costa Ricans are cautious by nature. They could put all their money into a store, a bar... something that can be sold if it doesn't work, but not into an academy/business with such a high risk.

She followed her pitch with the usual "success cases" of people who allegedly made it. People you can't check on. It's worthy to note that Costa Rica has a very incipient stock market, and that's so because all big businesses are family owned and remain so. If I recall correctly, we have only three or so publicly traded companies, and then the usual, Government papers, brent and so on. I might be mistaken, but the general feel is that. So, if there is no big stock market culture here, how exactly can you point to credible "success cases"? Well, there was a couple, who are preachers and have four kids. Yes, preachers here tend to do really, really well. When they are charismatic they become millionaires by preaching that "Prosperity Bullshit" thing. So, FOREX? Nah, more like the power of their god moving their flock to shower them in money.

The came the third part of the pitch: "you make as much as you work for". Now, in other pyramidal businesses, usually you can easily sell the idea that you can make as much as you want it you apply yourself to it. The usual pitch in this cases goes like: "Well, if you make a $5 sell each day, you'd make $25 in a week, and how much would that be in a month? It's up to you." They deliberately choose a low number to make you think it's so easy. What they purposefully leave behind is that you can't sell something everyday, that the moment you run out of friends and family to sell, you are up to your own devises, stuck selling some product or some investment idea that will sound shady for many. Not to mention that you may lose family and friends in the process, specially if you are desperate and this is the only way out you've found. It also leaves conveniently behind the fact that more often than not, pyramidal schemes push people into expenses and debts they didn't have before, locking them up in a worse situation. And so, when the market turns against you, this very pitch turns against you and make you think that you are the failure, the problem, and not the scheme that was designed to scam you out of your money and the money of the people you could rope into this.

The leader saleswoman went on showering the guys with a long list of off the mark comments, like telling them that bitcoin were "fake money", or that Trump started his empire by investing US$100 in the stock market. (His father lent him one million. He has been bankrupt three or four times, and he doesn't let anyone check on his finances, not to mention that his children and his company apparently made some shady business with the money of their charitable foundation. So yes, he is not the right person to convince someone to invest.) Not once did I hear any of the saleswomen tell the guys that FOREX has very loose rules and basically stands unregulated. Basically there are no protections - as far as I know, from what I've read and learned - for investors and investments.

At one point the pitch became so infuriating, that even though I kept snapping my head up and frowning (and one of the "clients" saw me), I had to stand up and leave. Hell, I don't know if I did right, if I should have intervened, but I definitively couldn't stay there and keep listening to these women spooling their words and lies to these guys. However, I decided to come to you and tell you about it and give you a few advises on this regard.

1. If someone proposes you a business, always make sure they tell you right away what's about. Don't agree to any meeting if they tell you they will explain it then. No. If someone wants to propose a deal, they can tell you right up front, so you can do research ahead. If they do tell you, then jump on the Internet and research everything you can about the topic. That way, when you go to the meeting, you will know if they are lying to you, leaving stuff behind, and could also pose better questions.

2. Beware of the business deals where there is a pitch prepared. A pitch structured in a lenghty form like empathize with the client - success cases - you can do it - if you work hard you can succeed/little effort can get you anywhere are trademarks of shady deals. If it really were so, a lot of people would be millionaires or would not risk their necks with drug trafficking.

3. Do not trust in deals that want you to either put upfront a big amount of money, or want to rope you into a plan of payments or want you to make a decision on the spot. If they don't seem willing to give you time to think, they are not trustworthy. Run if they try to convince you after you've said no, even if it is a simple comment like "What a pity, you missing this great opportunity". They are after your money, they want to scam you and they are hurt that you (and your wallet) got away. If they give you the time, use it to research about everything you've heard and the company doing the offer. Also, take some time to cool down and see things clearly.

4. Don't trust any deal where the salesperson claims that they or someone they know made a risky move to enter. Anything like claiming to have taken a mortgage to get the money to enter, max their credit cards, invest all their savings, put in all their insurance money, put in all the severance money they've got from their last job. This is an attempt to normalize in your eyes a shady move, make you think that you are being stupid by not risking. This sort of stories fake, true or half true, are meant also to reduce in your eyes the perceived risk of the deal.

5. When a pitch includes any sort of line that puts down other honest jobs, or being an employee, run. Truth is that not all businesses are a success. Not all brokers make it into a millionaire lifestyle. Not even the majority of them. And the risk of falling and losing it all is there. If you are in a hard situation, look for employment. Jobs tend to be a less risky way to getting an income and doesn't require of any up front investments.

Any true deal and any true business is transparent and gives you time to think about it and research. Scams don't, because they need to get you confused and roped in before you get to see what you've done. Please be careful.

One for UBER

Taken from Google.com

Yesterday I had to run an errand. My dear friend Shimmy Gin is getting married and I had to get them a wedding present (which had been hinted to me quite a couple of times). The store where they had their Wedding List (or how are these things called???) was relatively close to my work, but not so close as for me to go there walking (I could, but really, that would have easily taken 45 minutes in each way to get there), so the sensible thing to do was to go there either by taxi or by UBER. I've been using UBER for quite a while now and have been very satisfied with the service. So, yes, I ordered a driver from UBER. Now, normally you don't need to mark into the app the pick up point (unless you want another) because the system knows where you are. So I entered the destination and requested the car. One was assigned, I went out of the building... and waited. There car was supposed to be there but it wasn't. Oddly the driver didn't call me. They usually do, when they arrive or are close to. This didn't and I had no way to contact him.

Then he called me and told me he was there, in an alley. There are no alleys here. I told him I was in front of the building, so supposedly he drove there but I didn't see him. It turns out he was at some other place. Ok. There is a park in front of my building, and the driver said he was at the other end of the park, that I must have typed down the address wrong. I didn't. Furthermore, he wasn't going to get around the park and come and pick me up. Unheard of. He asked me to cancel the trip. I tried to but the system wasn't letting me. Then I received an SMS from UBER telling me the driver cancelled my trip. Ok, that was unpleasant. I took a cab, went to get the present and on the way back I ordered an UBER, which came quickly to pick me up, and took me without any problems back to the building.

THEN I check my e-mails and there's a charge from UBER because I cancelled a trip 5 minutes into it. REALLY???? I tried to get in contact with them, but my app doesn't have the "Help" button the e-mail talks about, and the link to the site gave me no way to contact the company either. I got so mad, like you have no idea. Well, maybe you do. So I went on Twitter and ranted their heads off. A couple of hours later they replied, though I saw their replies only today. They got in contact with me, gave me an e-mail, I sent my complaint and they fixed it. They fixed it.

Yesterday I was so upset and was about to close my account, but today they solved it. It's still bad that they offer solutions that are not appliable. My phone is a Microsoft Lumia, and runs Android (as fas as I know), and if there is some particular problem with that... well, it's UBER's problem, not mine. The help site was also very unfriendly and sent me to those oh-so-Microsoft kind of pages where you are cut from anyway to place a complaint, but make you click through a list of "problems", none of which actually fit your problem, only to lead you to a dead end of "replies" that don't really do anything for you. That should be fixed as well.

I had to scream on Twitter to get attention, but once I grabbed hold of their attention, things went well. I just don't want to keep screaming my digital lungs out everytime I get wronged. They need to improve that.

About Bozos

Today I discovered what's a bozo. I have seen them before, I have had them in my life, but I didn't know what were they called. Normally, I just call them by the generic name of "idiot". Well, the thing is that a very,very good friend of mine - Shimmy Gin -  got a job a couple of months back at Intel. I think it was like in November-December or so, because we've met for a long overdue coffee... somewhere between Sabbaths (he's also into Paganism, like me, only more autoctonous, than me), and we promised we would never again allow a Sabbath to pass before meeting... and two have passed, so... it must have been sometime before the end of May. By that time he was head over heels with Intel and all the great things they had.

 

Shimmy Gin has always been employed in the private sector and has moved around a lot. He's a brilliant programmer who has had the chance to work with many companies, and who's reputation preceeds him. Seldom has he resigned a post for personal reasons, but usually, when he leaves a job is because he has been offered something better at another place and his current one can't equal the offer. He's that good. Then, normally he works several years at the same company, though it has happened that he has been snatched up from a company within months of having signed with it. I mean, come on, the man is a genius!

 

Well, he resigned to Intel. At first I didn't know what to think. I just got the message through facebook: "I resigned to Intel". I was worried. He's as word-profuse as I am, and such a suscint message boaded no good. "What happened, Sweetheart?" I asked him. Slowly - which shows he's deeply upset and trying to manage his anger - told me that he had no choice but to resign to his job. Not because he didn't like the company, but because he's boss was changed some 22 days after we've met and the new guy is a bozo. To explain to me what's a bozo, he showed me an article by Forbes titled Why Every Company Needs a 'No Bozos' Policy, by Eric Jackson. In short, a bozo is the kind of person (normally a boss) that has no idea about what they should be doing, but likes to pretend like they know what they are doing better than anyone else. Furthermore, since they really have no idea of the job, they ae exremely narrow minded and refure to take anyone's opinion that isn't exactly theirs. Dear Reader, whomever you are, I pray to God, the Gods and Goddesses, The Divine and the Universe that you've never, EVER have had any sort of encounter with this discusting type of... thing. I have and it isn't pretty (sadly, I must say that the public sector is sadly overpopulated with bozos. The private sector is too, but in there people tend to accept them more).

 

Shimmy Gin's run in with the bozo at Intel came in the shape of mobbing. This bozo started putting down Shimmy Gin's work, claiming that the guy that was there before did it better, and did much more in less time. Shimmy Gin had actually checked that guy's work and it turned out completely useless, so before he could even start his own job, he had to go on measuring up the damage hs predecesor did and then work from there, redoing stuff. Bozo wouldn't listen to that, but instead kept praising Guy and how Guy had made this many things and so on. All the while, Shimmy Gin's other superior would listen to their discussion and say nothing, inspite him knowing of Shimmy Gin's outstanding results before Bozo arrived. The final straw came when Bozo had Shimmy Gin's benefits removed because he deemed Shimmy Gin needs to improve his work. That was that. Shimmy Gin handed his job back to Bozo, again told him all the crap Guy made, how more than half of it was useless and the other half was incomplete and didn't stand the tests.

 

Weeks after Shimmy Gin entered Intel his old boss was still calling him back to his old job, which he loved, which sent him abroad often and where he had grown a lot. He moved to Intel because of the chance it gave him to grow in his field, and instead, it turns out that the company favours assholes who can't care less about the company, because all they want is to milk the company for their own and their friend's benefits. Nobody stopped Shimmy Gin at the door, there's no news on anyone taking a closer look at Guy's work, because as it is Bozo would have no idea what to look about in it - he sees only the number of products rolled out, not whether they work or not - and it seems Superior has no idea either about what should he be looking at it.

 

Bozos exist everywhere. They get to a place and they stay, like bubblegum on the sole of your shoe in summer. Bozos don't like smart people - really smart people - nor hardworking people. The reason for it is basic survival instinct: smart, hardworking people put them in evidence and so they can't climb up in teh company high enough so that their ignorance can be safely protected by a cohort of counselors - better known as the people that will take the fall for them. Bozos also exist in the form of counselors, and they misguide and pretend to be the bosses, and when things fail, they always have someone to place the blame on. It's never them.

 

The thing is, bozos are toxic, wherever they are. They are full of cheap wisdom - all of it pulled from business magazines, books from the "business" and "self help" shelves at popular bookstores (you will NEVER see a bozo digging in a used books bookstore or antique bookstore. No, they only go to the popular ones, and they go not because they like to read, but because they like to pretend they do). Recently - though then I didn't know this type of person was called a bozo - I realized that bozos also have a distorted concept of what being smart is.

 

There's this woman where I work - I won't even come up with a fake name for her, she will remain nameless - who is the ultimate bozo. Once we were having lunch with some coworkers, and she started talking about some local politicians who are very well known for their  corruption and shamelessness. It's people who have made a great damage to the country, ripped the National Treasury of lots of money and then escaped abroad, where they live in great luxury, giving conferences for huge amounts of money. This people, who have used trickery and more often than not, bullying to get their way, were being brought up by her as The Most Intelligent people of the whole country. Granted, she said, they "didn't use their smarts for good, but they were nevertheless incredibly smart". Any person with a working brain could tell you that you don't need much of a brain to come up with trickery to embezzle money from the government, specially if you have spent years in it, getting to know all the weak points. I mean, it only took me two months working as a teller at a bank to envision a perfect plan to put on an indetectable money laundry system. No, I never put it to use, but in two months I just saw through the system. Trickery isn't a matter of brains. Criminals do it all the time, everywhere, in millions and millions of levels. Being part of a pervasive political system, with agents already embedded in every level and power position, and then doing your shenanigans, paying off the right people and knowing that enough people is dirtied so that no one will talk about it, yes, that's not being smart. Then, when we talk about getting on with your way because you've used bullying... well, that's definitively not a sign of being smart.

 

The examples brought up by Bozo-lady, however, show something important about the nature of the bozo: they seek to trick and steal things, grab as much as they can from what they haven't earned, for as long as they can. I coworker of mine also told me of some acquintance of his, who used to steal from stores. This person when to stores with discounts, took something that didn't have a discount, mix it with the discounted stuff and then pick it again and go for with it to the cashier, then make a scene until the store charged him the undeserved discounted price. When my coworker asked him why he did that, the guy just said "You have to be smarter, because God don't like stupid people". So, as you can see, it's not really a matter of being smart, or a matter of using intelligence for bad, it's a matter of plotting to exploit others, to take from others, abuse the system and get away with it. Just as you wouldn't call smart people who beat their spouses because they know that if they frighten them enough they won't talk, so you wouldn't call smart someone who simply abuses the system.

 

Being intelligent doesn't mean you are good. You can be bad and be intelligent too. Being intelligent is about having the capacity to build something new - whatever it would be -, solve problems, improve things and so on. An intelligent person is reflected in the creation they are capable of. Bozos, however, can't see that, because their whole world is about abusing the system. Slow advancing, learning, hardworking is stupid for them, either because they feel uncapable of doing so, or because they "see" a way to get "results" faster, even though their mockery of results has no basis, stand no ground. You see, when someone is intelligent builds slow but over strong basis. They won't be known as corrupt, people would have nothing ill to say about their work. About them, yes, but never about their work. About bozos... the thing that gets more criticizm is their work, and that's because their either do nothing, or they do it so bad it's mindblowing, or because they stand in the way of others doing their jobs.

 

Not everyone can resign when they get to be under a bozo, so here are two of the best tips I can give you when you encounter one:

 

1. Look for another place to transfer to. Sometimes there are openings of chances to go work with other people, other bosses who might not be bozos or might be less bozos. It's worth trying.

 

2. If the first option isn't an option, then follow the protocol and BACKUP everything you do. And hold your ground. It can be a very taxing thing to do, but you must develop a thick skin for this. Do the job as you know it's well done. Refuse doing things you know you can't do. Like what? Well, if you are a lawyer in a building company, refuse to supervise and sign the job of the architects, because you evidently have no idea whether those are good or not. It's important to always hold your ground, and to do so, borrow some bozo-tools, such as not listening. You are asked something unreasonable, so you smile, say "sure" and repeat the task as you know it should be done. It might require several repeats, until the bozo understands that you won't do it any way other than the way you said you would. Then, as part of the back up, get all the commands of the bozo in written. If something is said verbally, you go to your computer and write it down in an e-mail, make your comments on it, all your observations and send it to the bozo. If the bozo calls you again, and again verbally go over their flawed view, you get back to the computer and put it in writing the same way. Your out of this is if they put it in written, then you have evidence against them. Proceed to save and print out the e-mail. in several copies.

 

Bozos normaly don't stay long in the same position, they need to move before their idiocy sinks the floor beneath them, and then they leave the mess for someone else to patch up. This is good in the sense that, if you can't escape the bozo, but you make their life hard enough for them to choose to ignore you, all you'll have to do is keep your head low and in a while they will be replaced with someone less of a bozo. It's mathematic, they'll actually need someone who can somewhat solve the crap. The bad thing is that enough bozos in the company can sink it.

 

Yeah, don't but that stupid liberal crap about how companies only keep their best workers in order to be the bests in the market and do profit. Please! That only exists in Economics and Business textbooks. In real life corruptions, lobbying and under-the-table contracts, often seasoned with gifts and bonuses are what keep companies seemingly making money. And companies seem to make money thanks to creative accounting based on a heap of estimations, that not necessarily need any basis on real life unless the company suddenly bankrupts or gets an auditing. Or what do you think? If successful companies were really that good by the service or the products they make, why would they need accounts for "representation"? Why would they need to assign their top salespeople with money for lavish dinners for clients? Why pay for trips, dinners, stays at fancy hotels, gifts and so on? I assure you, none of those play any role in those textbooks I told you about. Lobbying is excluded from any economical theory I know of (granted, I don't know that many of them, but still, none of those came up in any I was taught about in the five years I spent to get my degree).

 

Sometimes it can get really bad, sometimes you might be tempted to become like them, be a bozo yourself too. Hey, if it works for you and it helps you, well, who am I to stop you? But if you are like me, the sheer thought would make you vomit. To live knowing you have betrayed yourself? That you've sold your  integrity so you can get by? Unthinkable. Use tools like hypocrisy if you must - often it's the onl way to sail through the social surface of a sea full of bozos - but never, ever gve up what makes you you: the integrity of your work. And you must leave in the end, do it like my friend Dragonfly did, with your head up high, knowing people may call you bitch and unssuferable, but no one will ever have a bad word about the quality of your work.

Getting Ready

I'm a few hours away from starting my new work year. New Work Year at the old place, the company for which I've worked already eleven years. Wow, that feels good. :-) I know that, for some people, spending more than four years at the same company is synonymous of stagnating, being caught, swamped, but I'm from that old school of thinking that values stability, thus a long term job, years invested in the same company are meaningful. You don't want to be a job-hopper, after all, a high-churning-rate worker, someone in whom the employer can't trust because you might take off any time, wasting all the invested time and money of the company in further education. However, be it as it may - and allow me a moment to remind you again how grateful I am that I've a job, and such a good one - I really feel that two weeks off were short. I still want to be on vacation, I still want time to be lazy and stay at home, wake up late and wear comfy clothes. Oh well, I guess I'm only human.

My holidays have been spent quite fruitfully. I didn't go anywhere, as I usually do on my vacations, but rather stayed at home, slept - which is the best and most efficient way of spending any free time, if you ask me - got in touch a little with the more alternative side of my spirituality (yes, I've been dabbling into the Pagan, but in a way that maybe Pagans wouldn't approve, as I call in God), read a some very good books (from my Goodreads 2014 challenge, I've got to read 23 out of the 24 books I intended to read), and also did some cleaning and arranging in my room. That was funny. actually. Did I mention it already? That I dusted the whole room, because I wanted to change my bedclothes, and since I was dusting I rearranged my shelves? Yeah, one small thing becomes a big one.

I also made my monthly budget for 2015 and was quite... surprised at actually how tight my budget is for this coming year. Yep, lots of new expenses I didn't have last year (since I have a new car, Nate), but also due to the savings plan I committed to for this year. Well, I'm happy I can do it, so I'll do my best and try to stick to the plan. I'm trying to take these things more seriously, keep a tighter control on my wallet than what I have shown so far, so I don't face unpleasant surprises. I can tell you that I definitively hated receiving my credit card's balance every month and see it grow just because I always ended up spending my money on other things rather than paying my debt. Well, that was in 2014, and I won't let that happen in 2015. I want to be happy when I check my bank balances, I want to be happy at the end of the year, not horrified because I have to spend my saved up money on paying the results of my uncontrolled spending.

My desk.
After I took the picture I still changed a few things, got a new desk calendar on which I can write, perfect for penpalling.

One other thing I did was tackle my accumulated mail-pile. I'm proud of myself, because I managed to pretty much get back on track with all my letters. I've only four letters to answer, though these are from my chattier friends, so they might take a while. However, I no longer have a pile of unopened letters with accusing date stamps on them staring at me and making me feel guilty. I don't know how many of those penpals are going to still want me as their friend (I know of those who still do, and I'm so grateful for that!), but finally I'm going back to it. To each of them, in the very tone and spirit of our conversation, I explained to them what happened, and then answered their letters according to what I deemed still relevant. Lord, I had letters unanswered since 2013! But I'm reclaiming my life and the things I love to do, and hope this never happens again. or at least not again in the medium run.

Welcoming A New Year

Well, here it is 2014, and I haven't even been able to catch up with my new filofax, the segments and all the new plans and ideas one has as soon as December 31st becomes January 1st. I'm still on vacations, which is a big, big plus right now as I need time and patience to map out this new year. Already have some Resolutions, to call them somehow (wrote more in depth about them in my Hungarian blog), which could be quickly resumed as it follows:

1. Continue my studies to get my degree in Accounting.

2. Work harder at the office, which in this particular case is a Resolution more oriented to the organizing of my work, which I haven't been able to figure out just quite yet.

3. Keep working on my Filofax. Basically, it means to make it more functional to my needs, and this time add two (maybe three) definitive sections: Work and University (and Finances).

4. Keep practincing archery. My goal hear is to get to 2015 shooting at 70 meters.

5. Read 24 books.

6. Keep doing the List of 13.

Yes, it would have been magical to make 13 of them, but 6 is quite enough, wouldn't you agree?

In this spirit, I have spend my whole day trying to organize in some fashion the files I keep in my computer and erase everything I don't need... and the work isn't even finished yet! To my horror, I realized I had created similar folders for the same thing in different locations and none of them made any particular sense. That's also something I want to tackle, but I won't make it into a Resolution, because it could take years and years of my life. I just know the way I do things. Then worked on some templates and some inserts for my filofax, and haven't even finished and already realized that I've planned so much this new binder would be again bursting at the seams. Hopefully the paper I purchased from filofax will be thin enought to make it manageable.

January is pretty much a month of hope, of dreams, of energy, of plans, where the year seems full of attainable possibilities. Hopefully we won't forget about that. It is, indeed a chance to make things better, to try harder, to make something different, to change something, to get rid of something or gain something. As we have artificially created these cycles, we have in our hands a way to measure our actions and our efforts. What can we manage in a year? Well, let's try it out. It didn't work last year? Well, it could very well work this year! Who knows? Now we at least have the experience we gained in 2013, right? So let's use it!

Now, there's something I would like to take from last year, a little something, a comment really, that could work as a warning for all of us. By the end of the year I came across some people with whom I've had a sort of disagreement years ago - and whom I haven't seen since then. The dispute had been unpleasant, but nothing nearly mortal, or so I thought. They were - how should I say this - well, determinated to ignore my presence, but in a way that came a bit... childish. I was taken aback by their actual effforts to ignore me in a group where the rest of the people wasn't doing so, which, well, came out quite awkward. I did greet, did smile - don't like them at all, but you know, there's a certain level of "hypocrisy obligued by politeness" you must exercise from time to time - but they didn't. Oh well, that's them, life goes on, and everyone behaves the way that makes them feel better. More power to them. Anyway, the next day they talked to someone who was in the previous event and apologized to them (weird, right? Because that person wasn't even the host!), and said that they behaved the way they did because they couldn't forget what I posted about them maybe some five or ten years ago in one of my many, many blogs (actually, not in this, but in one that's hardly read).

Now, I'll be generous and assume that they came up with the first thing that came to mind to cover up some other, shameful reason for their behavior (got into a fight and didn't want to admit to it, had a terrible setback, are under a lot of stress, etc.). However, I must say that my first reaction was disbelief. Could it be that my simple, subjective, humble opinion is so powerful that it actually has the power to mark other people's lives? Because in order to do that, it would mean that my opinion has much more strenght than the opinion people have of themselves. Am I perceived as a sort of Guru of Life? Am I an Oracle of Personality? Or perhaps a Conjurer of Tempers? Actually, no, I am not, but you all know that. Nobody can simply talk someone into change, or alter their selves by simply speaking words. Some words can be hurtful at time, or astonishing, or flattering, or even surprising, but the effect they have on you depend only on you. People only have the power you give them.

They made me think of the Moron Lady, you know, the terrible Director I had in my previous department, the one that harrassed us all. When I was under duress, I did send all politeness out of the window and ignored her as much as I could, even refused to look in her direction when I wasn't speaking or spoken to, basically to be able to keep my composure, and got to the point where stress went to my jaw and I couldn't open it to talk or eat. However, now that I moved on and happy at my new department, I see no reason why not to greet her or smile at her politely. It doesn't mean I like her or that I agree with the way she manages her team - and as a unionist, I plan to work forward to help people under her and other bosses like her to get free of their reign of terror. You don't have to agree with some people or the ideas some people uphold, and you don't have to ignore the damage done to you, but that doesn't mean you must let that harm, those words or that episode take over your whole life. If you do, then that event, those words, that opinion, those actions will become your reality, and you will make them more true than they were ever meant to be.

Well, thing is that this happens all the time: we let publicity convince us and shape our lives in ways that take it out of our hands to become something that suits the needs of a company that leeches on us. We let magazines tell us what to think about our body, let them rearrange our priorities to their convenience, often going against what would be best for our own lives and our plans for it. Sometimes we hold so much and get hung up on something someone said and dwell in it. How many times had it hurt us when some acquintance or just anyone tells us something like "you are fat" or "your hair is quite messy" or "those clothes make you look ugly" or "your nose is too big"? Someone says we are stupid and we fall for it. Then person we have a crush on says we are not attractive (or start dating someone else) and we believe we are no good and nobody will ever love us. We tend to make opinions into inmutable, absolute truths, when they are not. They are simply a point of view of a person. Not true or false, simply a subjective, personal appreciation. Think of the following: just because I say blue is an ugly color, it doesn't make blue an ugly color. Blue is a color, just as lovely as any other color in the chromatic scheme, so my opinion of blue doesn't define the truth about it. Same with everything else. Same with everybody else.

In this sense, I'd like to call upon this curious situation for all of us to reflect on, to take a moment to analize those elements that seem to define us so much, and think of them, determinate if they are really such milestones, or if we have blown them out of proportion, giving them a power taht do not belong to them.

2014, sounds like a good year to recover our power over ourselves and our lives.

Yay!... Ow... First Filofax Fail Moment

Yesterday I finally got my Filofax. ^_^ Yay! I've been all giddy about it I could barely stay put all day. My first surprise was the size of the box: it was so tall. It was half filled with airbags, so that explained it and relieved me, because I really didn't want to figure out how to fit that box in my bag. So I took the box home and unpacked all the parts. I was surprised not to see the same box all other filofaxes come in - at least in videos and blogs -  but a simple "paperback" like sleeve, opened on the spine, which housed my Personal Size Sketch filofax. Chocolate color ^_^. Of course chocolate!

The inserts came all without any missing, so I was rather pleased. A black loose ruller came also along, which I didn't order, and I'm not sure what to do about it. If I knew that it's added by mistake for sure, I will return it - no questions asked - to filofax. However, unlike my brown ruler - which I did order - came in a pack, while the black one didn't. The puncher is nice but really hard to use - unless it's just me who needs to put more elbow grease into it, but I did tried it out on the page included with it and I was close to grab a hammer and smack the freaking thing close. Hopefully it's much easier to operate with thinner paper.

The filofax itself is beautiful. It came with an insert of Week on Two Pages calendar, which I pulled out because I use the Page per Day planner and the Month on Two Pages calendar. I've got monthly tabs to make the maneuvering of agenda. I had to make compromises as often months started on the left page, which ended up with me putting the tab between 1st and 2nd, though most likely as we get there I'll move the tab one page back, so I can still clearly seen 1st and 2nd at one glance. June and October start on the right, so I'm very happy about it. There were also some 2 or 3 To-Do pages and some 13 contact pages. Well, contact pages I would need more, that's for sure. Not because I keep my personal phonebook in my planner, but because I keep my penpal's addresses in my planner. It does makes sense, right? Track paper on paper.

There were also six colored, numbered dividers and also colored Two-Letter dividers for contacts. I didn't expect the contact tabs, which is why I ordered the colored Two-Letter dividers. A waste? Well, maybe not. As it happens, the colors of the numbered dividers and the Two-Letter ones is... well, it's not pretty. I don't know how to explain them, but they are... ochre colored. Do you know ochre? When I was little this colored stone powder was used un humble homes to color the floors. Anyway, the dividers come in the darkest, most somber colors of ochre red, and ochre green and ochre blue... and something else that might be ochre yellow, orange, brown or khaki. I can't remember. Then, the paper for the notes, which are far too little in number, came also in those dreaded, dark colors. There were a couple of sheets in white, but the other were in Nightmare Ochre. I haven't replaced them yet, but most likely I'll add the brighter colored Two-Letter dividers and then make my own for the other inserts from either scrapbook paper to maybe plastic, colored paper or whatever I come up that inspires me.

I'm not a "pretty" type of person, full of frills and glitter and rhinestone and shiny things. I don't do shabby chic either. I do... me. And me is more clean cut, straight lined, solid with the crazy packed in here and there. I do post-its.

The filofax in itself is just... wonderful. I didn't make pictures of it as I was burning to set it up. The Calendars come with these segments of personal infor and all sorts of things I don't really need. Yes, they are interesting, but they take space, and you know when will I consult them? On Never Day. Just let's be honest here for a moment: yes, it's nice to have at the tip of your fingers info such as the holidays in many places - specially if you have friends across the globe - and a list of holidays by religion (and I wondered why Pagan celebrations weren't included in the calendar, but oh well, and why wasn't Mardi Gras included, but there you go), and information about countries and all that... but how often are you realistically going to need it? Clothes sizes and conversions, yes, I could use that rather often, but I could take from the lists those I need more often, like gallons to liters and inches to cms. A post-it can do that for me. As for sizes, I can write down my own and be done with it, right?

It was bothersome that the Personal Information page came in four or five languages... one on the back of the other. If I wanted to use the less pages possible, and keep the info insert, I would have to keep the Italian one. No, I have nothing against Italian, and I can rather understand it from Spanish, but I'm not carrying stuff on Italian! Italian isn't a language that currently interests me, so... no.

Now, I could go around that quite easily, for instance by making my own page. After all, I already have the paper puncher, and cutting is easy and simple, right? Besides that way I truly control what information I want out there. For instance I'm not one to note on the Personal Info stuff like who's my doctor - not like I have one - or what's my insurance number and so on. However I've signed on my Driving License to be an organ donor in case I die in a car accident and there are still usable spare parts someone else can profit some. Well, personal information usually don't include that, so I included it.

This to the left is my first template. I love peacocks and peacock feathers, in case you haven't noticed. So, then on the back of this page you can add up all the stuff you need from all those other extra pages of useful and smart information you never really use. Just you know, have what you really need.

Now, so far so good. Is this the "filofax fail" moment? No, if it would have been only this I would have gotten over it and been a happy camper. The "filofax fail" moment came after I fit my Page Per Day planner in my filofax, and realized that It was too stuffed. But what did I had in in by then? Well, the Personal Information and added pages, the Month on Two Pages, the dividers, the Page per Day, the few note pages, the To Do pages and contacts. And that was it. You see that yellow notepad pad? Yep, that didn't make it in. The plastic envelopes? Only one got in. I was devastated! What about all my plans? What about my sections? I had it all very well planned: Fuel tracking, Office project tracking, Blog post tracking, List of 13, Other Lists, Notes, Literary Ideas, Economics Ideas... They were all to find a home in there! Was I supposed to now get another filofax?

I fitted the filofax into my smallest bag, and it fitted perfectly, so no, this would have to do it. Bigger rings? No chance, that would take up hangbad space I can't afford. Thinner paper? No chance, for the paper is of very good quality. Taking out the PPD and getting the Wo2P back in? Well, I don't have to admit it, I really don't, but it seems that that's the only solution if I want to add the rest of the things. But I don't want to! I really like the space PPD gives me... :-(  Taking part of the PPD and putting it back as I need it? Nope, I want the whole thing in one place. So what should I do? As it is, the last and first pages are really hard to reach and hard to turn.

What to do? :-( Do I really have to make peace with the Wo2P? Really? Even after I've already marked up the PPD with all my important stuff, such as birthdays, appointments, holidays and all the dates of Mercury Retrograde (I like being prepared for the communications and technology crash downs. We are now in a Mercury Retrograde, you know?)? That's not fair. Plus I really, really use up all that space. I would show you a picture of my planner right now - which is an A5, on thin, Bible paper, so you can see how I go filling up the pages to the brim, but I tend to write stuff that shouldn't be out there, such as the phone numbers I must call, account numbers I need to reference to, amounts paid and so on.

I had a small - really small - planner in 2010 which sported a Wo2P, and I somehow managed, so maybe, JUST MAYBE! I'd be able to make it. Oh hell, isn't it a blessing that I still have a month and a half to go over this?

I've just one question: how people who use PPD or Do2P do it?

I'll mull on it and when I've gone over it and settled with my filofax, I'll post you a picture of it. (However, anyone with replies and suggestions, please don't hold your tongue!)