A Question of "Girl"

Source: https://www.pexels.com/search/girl/

 Often times in our culture women are referred to as "girls". In documentaries about Playboy, for instances, the ladies who posed for the magazine or worked for the club are called "girls". They are legally adult women, but they are still called "girls". A group of women - almost regardless of their age - are often addressed as "girls", particularly if they are pretty.

In some online communities, also, women belonging to it are called girls, such as "planner girl", "bookish girl" and so on. Female power are also called "girl power", and there are a lot of expressions that describe perceived female capabilities (or lack of them) that make use of the word "girl" even when they are understood as expanded to all cisgender women. Here I think of things like "girl math" or "fighting like a girl". Yes, these are demeaning and stupidifying women (last time I checked maths had no gender and the hability of people to use them does not depend on their gender), but that's not my point right now.

One time I was at an online group chat and a lady made mention of something that "every girl needs". I was the youngest of the group (not of the females, but of the whole group) and I'm 48 years old. I felt odd because I'm not a girl and I haven't been a girl for... 36 years? I've lived more years being a woman than the years I lived being a girl, and all the other people who identify as a female were pretty much in the same situation.

At another time, in a podcast, I heard the two podcasters mention that they prefer to be referred to as girls, because "woman" is such a horrible-sounding word, and "girl" is much more nice. But why is that? What do people think of when they think of "a girl"?

Based on the references from media and social networks, online materials and conversations, girls are both young, female children as well as young women. Girls are pretty, innocent, playful but also sexualized. Women are coarser, antagonistic or broken into submission and possibly sexually savvy or frigid, boring. Girls are desirable, women are not so much. Girls are still youthful why women are not. Girls are fun, women complain.

The way we use language and the way language is being used makes "girl" to be the desirable word to be called, and "woman" becomes a label you do well to avoid. But to be called "girl" you must be a girl, or at least act like one and look like one: happy, pretty, fun... and dumb. Girls are not threatening, girls can be tricked. Girls can be manipulated, gaslit. Women would fight back, hard. The label "girl" takes power away from a female human. It diminishes her and make her complains a joke. And at the same time, it's sold as "girl" being a word of "care and tenderness". You are a girl, so I'll take care of you.

Would it be the same if we started calling men "boys"? What would happen if we made the word "boy" desirable and we would call pretty men "boys" and build up a social image that boys are nice, pretty, fun and innocent, while men are annoying, complaining and old (and thus, ugly)? What would happen if we laughed at a man that gets a calculation wrong and say "oh, it's boy math!".

I find the use of "girl" troublesome for the pushing of women into place where they are expected to be just-pretty-not-smart, and always deferential to others, accepting that they are lesser, always afraid of aging, and aging out of the "girl" label, but also because by mixing adult women into the "girl" name, actual girls become part of the same group and those open to be sexualized. Men stop being called "boy" clearly when their childhood ends, but women flow and remain in girlhood for years on end.

I personally don't like even being referred to as a "woman", and I prefer being seen as a person and referred to as a person, but if the situation or the conversation is so that my gender needs to be mentioned, then I am a woman.

I wonder how other people feel about this.

Budgeting and Achieving the Lifestyle You Want

Source: Forbes

 I was recently talking to a friend of mine (yes, I myself have noticed that most of my posts beings referencing a conversation with someone or something of the sort, but this is how my ideas for this blog happen to be born: through conversations or events in my life), and we were talking about budgeting, keeping to budgets and how people relate to that. My friend if a young lady still, and she's not in a very good financial position inspite of all her efforts and having a very good job. From what I see and what she tells me, she's the one working to keep her family afloat, as neither of her parents have a stable income, or a good enough one, and her one sibling is not working.

I insist: she's quite young, she's barely in her middle twenties (I met her some years back through a book club I used to be part of).

I believe her parents don't have higher education, and both struggle with some mild forms of handicap, which might limit their chances to access higher paying jobs. One of them also prefers to be an enterpreneur in an industry that's either seasonal or don't get much of a demand nowadays, and the other is currently unemployed as they were laidoff by the company in a "sizing down" strategy. Inspite of that, the family has a tendency of living day-to-day and are fond of hosting get togethers, parties or to throw special celebrations of holidays, birthdays and anniversaries, that all in all consume a lot of resources. She is, at a certain point, aware that her family's relationship to money may not be the best, and she tries to manage her own expenses and income in a better way, but time and again she ends up going into these big spending events, and then budgets and resources to loans in order to "break even". And this is what got me thinking.

My friend suffers a lot of stress and has health issues stemming from many sources in her life, and I can't help to wonder if part of it also comes from the weight placed on her young shoulders. She does have dreams that would populate a Pinterest-worthy moodboard, with achieving independence by her 30th birthday, living by her own, in another country and so on. But are these only dreams meant to stay in the moodboard of the year, or are these achievable dreams? And if so, how could she achieve them?

The capability to achieve our dreams depend on a lot of factors, and sadly not everybody can achieve them all, and in some cases people are not willing to take the steps needed to get on the road to achieve some of their dreams, for various reasons that make sense in their own realities. Setting aside the fact that nobody shall judge what others do with their lives just from what they see from the outside, these would be some considerations one could make when setting goals that one really wants to achieve:

1. Be aware of your resources and your commitments

It's nice to dream with being a millionaire or a princess or a super successful business owner, but where do we really stand? This doesn't mean that you can't dream with being rich if you are poor, but that you need to be realistic and consider what do you have at your disposal to achieve that goal. Sometimes dreams stay just as dreams because we think that just by dreaming things and manifesting them, they will magically come true. And be aware that I am a witch and I believe in magick.

Some dreams will take more time, more effort, and there is a chance that some dreams will depend on other people, and those we can't control.

Then, the other part of the equation is about what claims are on our resources. If you have debts, dependant family members, commitments that occupy your time, energy and resouces and leave you little space to maneuver or none at all. Sometimes it's not even something you could leave behind (in a sudden, self-centered, unemotional scenario), but it's something that goes along with you, like a condition or a sickness that requires treatment, or that keeps you from getting other sources of income to improve your situation.

This doesn't mean that, if any of these factors are present, you should give up your dreams, but rather that you must factor them to make better decisions.

2. Consider what you can actually achieve and how much time you would need for it

Once you have a clear picture of what your resources are and what are the claims on those resources, you can start moving around the pieces and deciding what would you need to achieve your dreams. The first step is a kind of reality check where we can actually see what do we have to work with to get what we want.

In the case of my friend, she tells me she wants to move out of her parents' home by the time she's 30. In order to do that, she should be considering things like where she wants to live, whether she wants a house of her own or to rent a place, where and how much could she spend on that, how much would she need for appliances, furniture and how much the utilities could dent her resources, but then also, she needs to consider if she would be still supporting her parents and her sibling, or if she's comfortable letting them go and allowing them to live within their means. In a cold fashion, many readers could think that yes, she should let her parents fend for themselves and maybe learn the hard way that they can't spend more than what they make, but if we are honest, that's not how families (or many families) work, and so, in the end, my friend could be struggling with supporting two households on one salary.

This should give her pause and make her consider what can she achieve, and which pieces can she move (say, talk to her parents that she does intend to move out, that she won't be able to help them anymore, so maybe they should start working on their spending priorities), which depend on her, which depend on others, over which she has control to change and which are out of her reach.

These calculations could help her design a timeline for her dreams. For example, let's say that she does talk to ger parents and her sibling and they agree not to burden her income up to an x%. She also realizes that she could do better if she has a degree in something marketable, or a particular certification, or maybe she would have a better chance abroad with companies that pay better her skills. If she decides to take that road, she would have to commit to getting that degree, enrolling into the academy to get that certification or start to apply to a work visa as well as to positions in companies in the country or countries she had found would pay her better.

3. Make a Plan

Finally, when the resources, the commitments and the possible requirements to get to our dreams are identified, and we can see what are our possibilities, we can start making plans. These plans include not only budgets, but also schedules and task lists of what we need to achieve our dreams. This is the point where we map out our road towards our dreams.

Now, plans can be the point where all comes crumbling down, if we make unrealistical plans. For this, not only do we need to have discipline, but we need to know ourselves and know not only how much leeway do we need, but also what do we need to stay motivated. Let's not make plans that assume we can save up the 99% of our income, that we will live from eating the grass of the park and will never get sick or have an emergency. Let's not pretend either that we can live a life that  consists constantly of days of 8 hours of work, 8 hours of study, 4 hours of side hussles and 4 hours of sleep.

To make a realistic plan you need to understand yourself. Watch yourself, check how much energy you have what can you realistically achieve in a week, how much you spend and how that changes for a period of time. Study yourself as you would study a research subject. Once you know yourself, your habits, your needs and your patterns, make pilot tests: try out different habits, the ones you have devised to achieve your goals, and see how you feel about them, how realistic, achievable they are. Don't worry, there's no failure there, this is just a test. Try it out six weeks, evaluate the results and tweek it, when you need to.

Maybe savings is easier to try out, but studying isn't. Well, check out some of the classes you intend to take, and do a mock-try. Go to the campus, stay there reading, maybe you can get into the class just to listen to it (ask the instructor for permission first!), and calculate the commuting time, and how tired you are after. To test out online classes, try watching videos on the subject of your interest, on the same lenght of the class, at the same time, and see how you feel. There are ways to run tests before you commit, all you need is a dab of creativity.

When you find a test-plan that works for you, recalculate your steps, how much resources you would need to invest, how much time it would take you, how you can take advantage of that time, and set it in motion.

To give you an idea, I recently decided that it might be time for me to move to another company to work. I do have a good income, but I feel that I could do more and that I could also be better paid for what I can do. Now, I still have some debts which I would like to pay off before I move to another job (as there is the chance that the entry level job of the next place I go to won't pay me as much as my current job initially). I made the calculations, and I came to the conclusion that, with a budget plan I have devised and I have already tried out, I could be debt free in two years. This means that I'll stay in the company at least two years (more if things change and a better position in here opens up). I won't use up that time just working and paying up my debts, but rather I decided to use those two years I have given myself to improve my CV. I'm checking jobs I would be interested in and looking at the skills they require. I write those down and I have started looking up free tutorials online to acquire those skills. Yes, I could go with paid courses, but why spend money on courses for things I could get for free to get the basics and then spend the money on more advanced classes? At least, that's my logic: now I place my priority on cancelling my debts, staying on top of my budget to be able to affort all my acquired commitments and then getting all the priming, basic knowledge I can on the things I want to add to my CV.

In two years, when I'm debt free and with a fuller, better equipped CV, I'll start the job searching process, hopefully allowing me to get to a position that would be higher and better paid than the one I could get right now. It could take me time, because I would get older and I'm already of an age that's not so desirable for many companies, or at least for certain positions, but I would be still, in a better position in two years, if I stick to my plan.

It could still end up in nothing, my plan could fail and I could remain where I am, with the same position, but this plan won't ruin me, won't require me to take risks I could otherwise avoid, and yet still it has a better chance to get me to where I want to go than if I sat on my butt mopping and dreaming of one day being in a better place.

End of Holidays

Source of the picture: Bionic

Today is the last day of my mandatory holidays, making tomorrow the first day of work of the year. Normally one does not look forward for the workdays, but I'm particularly bitter about tomorrow. I am angry. Tomorrow I'll probably have a chat with my boss because I'm not satisfied with the fact that I am being paid less than what most of my coworkers are being paid for the exact same job, specially after we went through a whole process aimed - allegedly - to order all job profiles, regardless of time at the company or degree (and I have more years than some of those who have the higher paychecks, and comparable degrees, not to mention the exact same career), and yet I'm being paid significantly less than them.

Well, the issue is not only for me, but also for another coworker... an Afro-descendent man, with equal degrees and more years than any of those paid more than us. And the exact same job description. I still remember the first time I mentioned the discrepancy, and I was asked in return "well, what were you expecting?". I just stared, trying to comprehend that someone was actually asking me that.

From a team of eight, I believe, this coworker and I were the ones paid less. Allegedly there was a "delay" or a "lapse" of sorts due to the previous ways of promoting people (people were promoted basically if they went to the boss and pleaded their cases, asking for a raise. It was dependant on how well you came along with your boss, and your lack of decency in asking for something regardless if your job merited it or not). The new ordering of job profiles was meant to put people in the cathegory they had to be in according to the tasks they actually did. It was through this process that my coworker and I realized that we all did the exact same job... sort of. Him and I did the job noted in the profile, the others may or may not, as I knew there were things I did that they didn't (but either way, you "only" need to surely complete at least 80% of all tasks), and we were assured that we would get a raise, we would all get the same wage. And we didn't.

I mean, sure, him and I got a "raise" of +$34 per month, but the difference between our wages and that of our better paid colleagues is $1000 per month. Him and I are $966 per month cheaper for the company than our other coworkers, and we do the exact same job. The excuse for this? So far I've heard "that's up to HR" and "well, your wages were already so low...".

After many years of this, honestly, I just got to the end of my patience. I am worthy, my capabilities and my skills are valuable. Not for my current company for sure, but they are valuable. And so I hatched a plan: I'll look for a better job.

The Plan

Now, my plan is simple but it will take time. There is a number of things I need to complete before I start doing my move:

1. I need to finish my MSc, so I can add that to my updated resume. Though my current "Lic" title is equal to an MSc, I prefer the MSc because it will have the emphasis in Innovation, and that could open better doors for me. ^-^
2. I'll work on my Excel skills. I'm checking up and taking notes on free, online tutorials aimed to improve and enrich my Excel skills, so I'll be better at using it. I've no experience with pivot tables or macros, and I want to add that to my skill "stock". If asked in an interview, I want to confidently be able to answer "you've got to be kidding me, of course I do know how to do that".
3. I want to learn Python, as well as get back on R and learn to use it fully.
4. I want to start reading a bit more financial papers and get better acquainted with the banking world, as that's one place where I want to go looking for a new position.
5. I want to cancel my loan with the workers' fund of the company, so I can retrieve the totality of my savings there, without anything being deducted from it.
6. I'll have to carefully plan and retrieve my savings, so the liquidation of my funds there won't be held up can caught up in the incompetence of HR when my resignation letter and job liquidation proceedings start.

I know, sounds like a lot and it is a lot. The cancelling of the loan can't be done just yet, as I have a previous project in plan, aimed to cancel my credit card debt. However, if all goes as planned, next year I'll be able to start working on cancelling my loan, and that might take me a tad over a year. That means that I'll probably have about a little over two years still in this company. Too much? Well, no. Aside from the insult of the wage, the job isn't all that horrendous, and we are (still) working from home. However, I will have 2+ years to work on the first four items of my list, and that's not only plenty of time to achieve those goals, but also to become really good and maybe even pick up extra skills.

It was quite sad to me to realize after over 20 years at the company, that this relationship is a toxic one. I relied on my work being noticed for its quality, and thus being recognized the way jobs recognize good work: with a raise. However, aside from one occasion - and even then the raise was less than deserved - all I have gotten fof my effort has been sporadic praise. But "praise" don't pay bills. "Praise" don't pay for school or travels. I'm done with praise. I can praise myself and know that the praise I give to myself is honest. From my job I want money because I no longer trust their words, and above all, I don't trust their praise.

Last Post of 2023

Property of Stormberry

 I'm finishing this year with:

1. A lot of plans for the next year,
2. Resolve to endure to get much closer to my goals throughout 2024,
3. COVID-19 for the first time in my life.

Yep, that last one is quite a thing. For me. I came down with what I thought was "flu" on Christmas day, but it wasn't until two days later, upon the insistence of my mother (she suspected it could be COVID), that I took the test (there was one kit at home) that I realized I, indeed, had COVID. Oh goodie. I managed to avoid it for three years, but in the end I became a member of the club.

I guess I have this new Eris variant, but if you ask me, it feels exactly the way flu feels like. The first two days were horrid, and now I'm stuck with the Runny-Nose-From-Hell. I'm pretty sure I've blown my weight in snot out of my nose by now. Isn't that lovely?

The advance on the thesis front is really slow, as the current task isn't very inspiring and quite time consuming. But it is, nontheless, moving forward. I just really hope I can finish it this year, as I'm aiming for that in one of my New Year Resolutions. I just want to be over with it, so I can start working on getting a PhD.

Both the MSc as the PhD are a matter of personal goals, and not a professional goal, as my current job hardly even recognized the actual work I do, much less my preparation I have for it, so the extra degrees are simply a way for me to accumulate and explore new knowledge. What can I say? Some people colect stuff, others like travel, others rather party or date or have sex, and I like knowledge. Now, this doesn't mean that I only read serious, scientific or philosophical things, as nothing could be farther from reality. I like stories, and my favoured type of readings are novels. I guess I like knowledge because I like the stories that come within the knowledge I seek: economics (my favored area) are full of stories.

I can't blame COVID for the slowing of the progress of my thesis, but I do intend to use the days of vacation (of which half is already gone) to work on it, and present my tutor with something of an advanced improvement by the begining of next year. I really need to get going, get all this small details hammered out so I can go on with the story behind my research: innovation policy's effect on labor.

By the end of this year I've made a couple of big decisions looking forward to 2024. I paid in advance the whole year at a gym, and so I intend so go, at least twice a week, to get in better shape. With that in mind I also ordered a new fitbit to keep myself motivated to exercise. My weight has been going up and I moved into the overweight zone, so I have to start making changes to get back to the normal weight, not only because that's healthier, but also because I want to fit back in my clothes again. It would be just too expensive to change my whole closet. And I like a lot of my clothes, so why change them?

Every year I also tend to make big budget plans to rid myself of debt - inspired mostly by the incredible success I had in 2011 when I whipped out  a staggering debt by the sheer power of my determination - and this year I have made that same decision with a small added trick: a more detailed plan and an actual commitment to get it done. I have two debts: the credit card and the loan from the FGA. The FGA loan works down in a constant fashion, but the credit card debt fluctuates as here and there I find myself in need of using the card. After much thinking I realized that the trigger for my card is always the same: vet expenses.

I've changed vets last year, as our old vet has become hideous with cats. The new vet is a place that actually specializes in cats, but I have been noticing that - under the guise of worry and care - they have been pumping out loads of money from me (my card, to be precise) for a lot of check ups and test my babies probably don't need. One of my cats -Woody - has costed me a fortune with citologies and a biopsy of an unhealing nose problem. It turns out that he has feline AIDS and on top of that a very serious skin cancer. The outlook for him is bleak and his chances to get cured are minimal, yet the vet was pushing for an appointoment with an oncologist and maybe start a chemotherapy treatment. That's where I hit the breaks. Goodness, no. I won't run myself into debt to torture my cat and make his last days a living hell.

I've decided to limit the vet visits to vaccines and that will be that. And to kill my credit card. So I sat down, mapped up all my forseeable expenses and laid out a detailed fortnight by forthnight plan. It came out quite a strick one, with nearly no wiggle room, but certainly one that needs to be implemented.

Something we sometimes forget to see is our own reality. By turning a blind eye, by not making a plan, not looking at our balance, we try to pretend that things are much better, much easier, or running much better than they are. I did not delude myself, these are my expenses, these are the things I spend on, and my only "wiggle room" are my groceries, where sometimes I run amok packing up the cart with things I end up throwing out as they rot on my shelves or my fridge (my waste basket eats more veggies than I do).

2024 is a year for me to take a hard look at things, work for my goals, carve a path for the future I want from here on and get on with the program. It's not going to be easy, I know that, but it's nothing I can't deal with. I have proven myself time and again that I can adapt and I can flourish in any situation. I am resilient, creative and I can stick to my own plans with astonishing stubbornness, as my recent Mock Lottery Project showed me this year. If I want it, I can make it happen, and I will make it happen.

2024 will be the year I'll step on the gas on to reach my goal to become the Aunt March of my story.

The Invaluable Wall Calendar

 

Property of Stormberry.
Calendar: Llewellyn's Witch Calendar, 2023
Spanish edition

Today I looked at my wall calendar, as I do often when I walk by it, and I noticed that some chips I have in the pantry will expire in three weeks. At that moment I thought I should be finding a way to consume them all because I still have a whole bunch of them (that's why these wholesale-like places like PriceSmart make no sense to small families or people who live alone). My mind went rolling on and I thought about getting a kitchen wall calendar to note there the expiration date of all the things I buy, so I can plan their use or consumption to make the most of them.

I imagined a conversation with someone, and how someone would argue in favor of a digital option, and I realized that the digital option may not be up to task for this particular thing. Or maybe won't work for everybody.

I do use daily my digital calendars and mostly my phone alarms, to program my meals, my pills and my wake up alarms. However, even with their extensive use, I know how easily you can ignore the alarm, snooze it or down right turn it off because you are otherwise occupied. Then, the alarm is gone and you may forget about it completely. Unless you have the habit of checking your calendar daily. unpropted, you may not be aware of things that may happen in the near future you should prepare for, such as expiring goods and services.

You may argue that an agenda or a calendar may not work because you are not in the habit of checking the agenda or calendar, and here I disagree. The trick with the agenda and the calendar is to have it always out, always visible. It might be hard to do with an agenda, but with a calendar - specially a wall calendar - the principle of marketing applies: if there is a picture, people will look at it. Just a glance, a passing glance and you might, within seconds, be reminded of subscriptions and bills that are coming due, a meeting or a get together, a doctor's appointment and so on. You may check your phone every five minutes, but how often do you check your digital calendar? Yes, alarms might help, but it's not much help if you have to prepare for an event and some of the things you need take time.

Penciling in a trip in a wall calendar may remind you to check for luggage, to pack, to make sure your passport hasn't expired, that you have your travel insurance, and so on. And it might be much easier that in your phone.

Think about it.

General Thoughts

Property of Stormberry

 Today I felt like writing here a little. I scrolled around the photos in my phone and I realized I probably don't have that many photos as a lot of people do. I mean, I do have a lot of picture - which I would like to tackle to reduce and "clean up" -  but not nearly enough to be able to retrace through them what had happened in a given day, if I don't write an entry in my journal (and I don't write everyday in my journal), or if I don't have anything noted for that day in my planner (which also does happen). Before I even opened the tab to write, I had some ideas of things I would have liked to develop in a post - as I usually do - but by the time I've got here, I forgot what I had thought to write about - as it so often happens.

However, this matter about the pictures stuck in my mind.

The idea came from a video I was watching, from this guy called Job, who journals beautifully, and who mentioned he, sometimes, "backlogs" entries. This means that he completes notes or entries from days past in his journal. I have seen videos of people doing this with their planners, where they not only write down things ahead of time, but also fill in the planner with things that had happened. The point of this is to give the planner a double use: as a future tool, to plan out our time ahead of time, but also to serve as a memory keeper or a record of how have we spent our time. This is quite useful in order to be able to reference things that had happened, without having to rely solely on our memory's strenght. 

I have done some "backlogging" here and there, both in my planner and in my journal, but it's not a regular practice of mine, and I only do it if it's something I definitively don't want to forget. In previous journals I have had even spent months recounting in detail a meeting or an event, and in some planners I have added annotations of meetings to which I had been called at the very moment, when I feel I need to write them down to have a better recollection later on, if I need it.

Now, this youtuber was mentioning the backlogging as a process he does in his journal sometimes, and here he mentioned that, when time has past and he forgot much of what had happened, he goes to his phone and checks the pictures he took that day to jog his memory. That's what got me thinking.

I remember the days when photos were made with a camera, using a film that usually gave you 12, 24 or 36 pictures. You had to use them wisely, and usually a roll lasted you a while before you carefully removed it from the camera and took it to a photo store where the film was developped. Pictures were like babies before ultrasound: you never knew what you would get. Pictures were precious and few. We kept them in photo albums. Years could go by without your pciture being taken. If you were a child, well, probably you could get your picture taken every year, on your birthday, and maybe on Christmas. Yes, some people could afford to take more pictures, but not everybody. You could certainly not backlog the events of any day based on pictures.

Now pictures are different. They are free and anyone can take as many as they want. They don't need photo albums or old shoe boxes to store them, but they stay in the same device that took the photo in the first place, and from there they can be sent and stored anywhere, and can even be printed, if one wishes so. Now you can chase the perfect picture by taking a thousand pictures of the same thing, then eventually going through every single iteration of the picture to use the one that looks better. The photo albums of a phone can look almost like a movie film, where rows and rows of pictures seem to look exactly the same, with only slight variations between one frame and the next.

It seems to me that pictures start to lose their value for us. The photo album can become a dumpster, or just a monotonous collection of photos taken, giving each moment the same value. How many times in a month do we scroll over all of our pictures, the way back in the day we would take out the family photo album and look at all the pictures, ask and comment the photos, ask about those old pictures of people we don't recognize of didn't get to see alive?

Checking in

 

Property of Stormberry

Sometimes one has ideas for a blogpost, but not the time or the energy, and other times you have the time, the desire... but just don't want to write about the topics you have already penciled up in a notebook or a notes app. One such a topic is "Opinions". How can you define an opinion and how to differentiate it from other forms of believes and communications, is something that has been consuming my thoughs. In a world so full of gaslighting, as we have today, where the truth is no longer true, and the biggest defendants of the "truth" are the ones that distort it and abuse lies the most. However, that's a topic for (maybe) some other time.

One other topic I've been thinking about is how people's communication skills seem to be shrinking. Maybe it's not everywhere, but where I live, the amount of people who can't stitch together the words for a decent sentence is mindboggling. Does it happen everywhere else? People speak Spanish where I live, and in written Spanish some punctuation symbols have an opening and a closing symbol. This way, you don't write "hey!", but you write "¡hey!". And it's similar with questions. You don't write "huh?", you write "¿huh?". I know it looks funny, but it's pretty basic. Or so you would think.

In "message writing", oftentimes people use only the closing sign, under the understanding that it's not to right way to write things. However, in the last couple of years I have found people closing exclamation or question phrases with the oppening symbol (what do you mean¿), which is disturbing, as these people consistently use the opening symbol at the end of the phrase as some sort of twisted trend. Then, there is the people who don't use any punctuation symbols at all. In a work setting this can be particularly problematic, as sometimes there's no way to differentiate between a question and a statement. And this grinds my nerves. And this doesn't come from young people, or people with lower level education, but often this sort of faux pas comes from managers or directors who are supposed to read many more memos and official communications than other people.

I don't really buy the excuse that "these people are too busy to type down a punctuation sign", because if they have the time to type down all the other signs, why would't they just press the question or the exclamation mark? If they are so busy, wouldn't it be better to get understood from the get go? Sloppily formulated questions also add to the issue.

"The invoice is in accounting".

Shall we understand that as a statement, that the invoice IS in accounting, or as a question? In the Spanish vernacular, the structure of the sentence allows for a question and a statement to be built up exactly the same way, being only the intonation the difference between one and the other. In a text, without an elusive punctuation sign, how is one to guess the correct intent?

What's happening is more than laziness, it's a trend toward the eroding of the written communications. People don't read, and much less write. Messages are mainly sent in audio format and received as audios. The reading exercise is reduced under the extent of a "tweet" of old, but probably no more than what you can fit in a traffic sign desiged for a highway. People don't read nor they care to read. People don't write either. And so, those who don't care allow their skills to fade, and even celebrate the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as a way to pass onto someone or something else the pesky task of taking the care to properly communicate. AI reads up for them, takes dictate and slowly but surely, writes the entire communication up. No, I don't envision a machine uprising, but I see a generation of humans degrading, giving up their intelligence, becoming little more than ruminating herds who lose even the hability to check if what the machine did is correct.

Human ennui, human disinterest, and the penchant for posturing as well as the penchant to leave every pesky task to anyone/anything else will lead loads of them to self fabricated problems due to miscommunication.

Language is a delicate thing, and there is people abusing it. Knowledge is the most valuable treasure, and yet many allow their fistful of knowledge to get poisoned, rot, fester and eventually fade out of their skulls, the same way a negligent person would leave an open carton of milk out on the kitchen counter (assuming this very person has no idea how to make cottage cheese out of it).

I'm disheartemed at how stupid people is allowing themselves to become. Because nowadays people can't care less about being intelligent, they only want to look like they are.

Finished Book #27

Property of Stormberry

 Today I finished reading Carrie, by Stephen King. This would be the second Stephen King book I've read in my life, the first being "Thinner". I have not been a fan of Stephen King, nor have I ever claimed to be, in case you wonder. Also, it worths to notice that I haven't been drawn to the horror or terror genre, mostly because I don't really get scared by books. I do get scared by movies - I guess that's due to the surprise effect in the visuals of the movie, or the way things can be hinted or partially hidden in the film, that can't be equally hidden in the text.

The first book was a gift from an old friend of mine, and I read that book back in the last millenium. (Yes, I'm that old). The text was interesting, but even back then I felt that the story was somewhat lacking. In those days I didn't journal as profusely as I do now, and I never thought about journaling about what I read. Internet was also quite incipient and I wasn't in a place where access to internet - how ever primitive - was even possible. The large majority of people didn't have mobile phones or cellphones, and computers were used - if one had access to it - to compose a text on "Word Star" or "Word Perfect", or play Solitaire. So yes, I don't have any records on reading Thinner and my impressions of it, other than what I remember. I didn't dislike the story, I found it interesting, but not really scary.

After that, I never really felt interested in picking up a Stephen King book or watching any movie inspired in his books, even though I have, though I did so often without knowing they were inspired in his books. And I did watch Carrie, with Sissy Spacek.

As time went by, I've got the book "The Shinning" given to me twice, once in Spanish and once in English. I ended up gifting one of them (the one in Spanish), and yet, I didn't feel like reading any of the books. Then, in a Book Fair I bough 11/22/63 book, not knowing that it was by him. Yes, the author was on the cover of the book, BUT when I am at a Book Fair I buy books in a trance, so I didn't know. I guess if I have noticed the author I would have put down the book.

I have some friends who love Stephen King to madness, and so the idea of reading him was percolating in my head. Even though I had two books (I have lost my copy of Thinner, but I won't replace it), I thought of buying some "entry level" books or something that might be closer to my liking. So I  bought Carrie because I have seen the movie and I have liked it, and I bought Salem's Lot because somewhere it there it talks about witches, and if a book has anything to do with witches, I'll read it. It's not guaranteed that I'll like it, but I will read it.

This year I've been burning through books up to the point where I reached my goal (24 books) early, and so I kept on reading (because, yeah, I like reading), and as I finished book #26 two days ago and this is Stephen King's birthday month, I thought I'll read one of his books, and so I picked Carrie. I read the book in two and a half days, or more like two days. I could have read it in one day, but... there were things that I didn't enjoy all that much to keep me glued to the book. The narrative didn't have such a good flow, as all the article and deposition inserts tended to break the rhythm, but the story was kept at a shallow enoigh level - a gossip level, or with a gossip feeling - that succeeds in keeping you hooked. It reads like an interesting mix, like a sort of scrapbook-like story, full of notes and papers interspersed with the story itself, as if it were a journal detailing the case, and peppered with all these clips and folded papers, yet still, the flow of the story was often broken.

I didn't enjoy many of the depictions of sex or abuse as they seemed to me to be told from a point of view that looked on things with either disrespect or disgust. It's not like Mr King was disrespectful, but the point of view from which it was told was one of someone with a mind full of disdain towards the characters, if that makes sense. That made it hard for me to read, and that halted me from burning faster through the pages. I actually had to put the book down several times to come up for air.

Another thing I missed was depth. There were no deep thoughts or glimpses of deeper thinking and philosophy from the writer. I did highlight things and did write on the margins here and there, but not nearly as much as on any other book. There was not much that I would have found memorable, and part of it - when I found it memorable - was under the influence of the book I have previously read.

I finished the book, closed it, put it on the shelf and picked a new one, almost hardly looking at it.

My next reading is "The Women's Room", by Marily French, and this one has me underlining and highlighting from the forewords on.

Motherhood

 I'm childfree, and happily childfree. I have nephews and a niece, and I love them dearly, but I have never felt the desire to have children for myself. Maybe when I was young I thought about it, tried to imagine myself in a mother situation and I never really connected. And it was never a matter of me "hating children", because I have nothing against children. Well, yes, like anyone else, I'm annoyed by unruly children in closed spaces like airplanes, public transportation, restaurants or waiting rooms. There, the problem is never the children, is the parent or guardian who should a) educate the children better, or b) should have known that the child or the children can't behave in places like that in a way that doesn't disturb other patrons.

As a childfree person, I have had the chance to live the life I want to live, in the conditions I want to live it and pursue my happiness. I'm conscious that children - no matter how lovely and adorable, as I am sure they would have been - would have been a burden that would have hindered me in my efforts to attain the life I wanted for myself, the one I have been able to build for myself and enjoy.

I am happy and sometimes I get this feeling, like a moment of panic thinking what would have happened if I had made a different choice in my life. If I had married, if I had not followed a career in economics, if I would have caved to social pressure and have had a children with one of my boyfriends of the time. Society and people around me who claim to care for my wellbeing have not made my path easy-breezy, as many other childfee people can attest, I'm sure. I had to fight for this life and I managed, I did it and now I'm enjoying it to the fullest. Of course, the people saying stuff like "you won't be happy/fulfilled unless you marry and have children" are not coming back to say "well, you were right all this time, you choice was indeed better for you". It would be nice though, but oftentimes people who meddle and try to order how others should live their lives not only don't know better, but they don't admit fault either.

Through the years, I have seen other people have children, deal with them as they are babies and then grow, and save for two exceptions, I have seen then same thing time and time again: anger, frustration, sacrifice and a weariness where they accept the fact that they won't access to things they enjoy and wanted and call it "commitment", what they gave up for the "joy" of having a family. But you look at them, who have been complaining of the multiple problems they have with their spouses, their children, and you can't stop wondering if that sacrifice, that commitment is worth it, if they would have not been happier if they choose not to have children, not to marry this person and instead would have become a digital nomad as they wanted, or would have gone abroad to study or whatever.

Then there are these cases, where you are privy to the way they parent, the way their children grow up, and you know in your heart that you would do it better. I have seen many such cases, with parents who can't be bothered with their children, can't care with fixing food for the children or even teaching them to fix their own meals, won't do the laundry, won't clean, won't care about their school chores or sit down with them to explain them things they don't understand. Watching this, yes, I can conclude that I would be a much better parent, and part of it is that I decided I won't be one. And I can't stop wondering with these people I see, if they became parents believing what society told them, that they should, that parenthood was a sign of being mature and a way to show love. And they got trapped.

But then, why the pressure to become a mother? Aside from pushing women to become mothers, tied down to their children, there is also the pressure from religious groups and all sorts of "conservatives" (I guess they are working hard to preserve patriarchy) that oppose to procedures like abortion, forcing women to bring to term a pregnancy - even if that costs them their lives, even if this is part of a traumatic experience, even if they have no resources to support the child or the child and themselves - and well, whatever happens to the baby once it's born, they can't care less. Has anyone wondered about that?

People against abortion impose their position on others - it's not like, if they are against abortions, then they themselves won't get one - and shame or accuse others of awful things if they procure and abortion or are in favor of letting people chose whether they want to keep an unwanted pregnancy or not. They talk about life, but it's mainly the life in the uterus, not outside of it. If the existence of a fetus or an embryo were so important for them, why have they made no effort to create artificial wombs where all unwanted embryos and fetuses can be implanted, so that people with unwanted pregnancies can get rid of them, and the anti-abortionists can be happy because that given embryo or fetus will now continue the process and maybe become a baby.

Oftentimes there is no aid for people having unwanted pregnancies to raise the children they have, and socially, people giving up unwanted babies continue being stigmatized and made feel "unnatural" or guilty for not keeping the child.

But if they keep the child, they are not out of the woods either. They may have trouble with their jobs, their bills multiply, they get tired and on top of everything, they are being told they are not good enough parents. No matter what they do, they are not doing enough, because being a mother means to be able to keep a spotless home, gourmet grade food on the table, play with your children and never worry about money because you provide them with all they need. If they cry, you are not a good mother, if they get sick, you are not a good mother.

So, there is this idea of motherhood, of parenthood. There are these expectations, which patriarchal societies tend to push heavier on the shoulders of women, where children and motherhood is used as a tool of control, to keep women in check, and oftentimes also men, as they are often expected to provide for the women and their children. Men might "escape" from this fate as they can walk away from any unwanted pregnancy, unless they are sued and forced to care for the child. And again, the child becomes a shackle.

I am childreee, and I see babies and children as people. People like you and me. Younger people, but still people. Mothers are people too.

Do we all see it the same way?

New Fountain pen

 

Property of Stormberry

After such a long time, I finally have a Kaweco Sport Brass fountain pen. This is one of those pens I have had in my hand before, in a store, but didn't buy it because at that moment I couldn't justify the price to myself. I actually received it last week, and though I haven't used it quite a lot, I'm slowly adding it to my pen line up.

Many years ago there use to be a Kaweco store here, and that's where I bought my two Kaweco Sports in plastic (a black one with golden nib and finial, and after that one went missing, a taupe one with silver nib and finial), and my Kaweco Student (yellow). I didn't like much my first Kaweco because of the golden elements, as I don't really like gold. However, after it got lost (eventually appeared in my dad's car, as it had escaped my bag and fell under the seat) I started missing it dearly, regretting not liking it just because it had gold, and so I bought the taupe one. That was, I believe, three weeks after the black one got lost, and it was an impulse buy. The day after I bought the taupe one, the black one reappeared. The Prodigal Kaweco.

In that store I had also seen the much coveted Brass and Steel pens, as well as the aluminium one and the Liliput. The aluminium one I didn't like because of how light it is, and the Liliput one I wanted to like, but it's so thin it feels wrong in my hand. And it's not like it's much thinner than a pencil or mechanical pencils I have used and used comfortably in the past, but there is something about the Liliput that no matter how I tried, I just couldn't hold it comfortably in my hands. I thought I would like the Steel pen better than the Brass because of the silvery color, but the texture given to the Steel pens again felt wrong in my hands. But not the Brass. The Brass felt perfect. It was just the price that was way too steep for me.

I pondered and pondered on that pen until the store was gone and the the pandemic hit and all was closed down. That's when I started to really, really want the pen. I watched videos of people unboxing it, using it and so on, and my desire for the pen grew. I put it in and out of my carts in JetPens.com and Amazon.com, waiting for the moment and the way to buy it.

And then, a friend of mine made a trip to Canada, and that was my opening. I asked her if it would be too much of me to purchase the pen and send it to her address in Canada and she said not at all. And actually, since she was staying with family, she offered me to use their account there, to get Prime rates, and I could repay her. And so I did that. I searched for the perfect option in Amazon Canada, sent her the link and was ready to pay her as soon as she gave me the go. The purchase was made, arrived, unboxed in a video message, paid and then she returned, we met, and I had to be so composed not to scream like crazy when I've got the pen.

I bought it with converters because I'm a converter kind of fountain pen user, not a cartridge kind, but the pen came - as usual - with one cartridge, so I popped it in at once to try it out. Or I tried to. The cartridge was a Kaweco blue cartridge, and it didn't want to pop in. It actually bent and deformed a little, so it was difficult to set. I managed to plop it in somewhat and get the pen writing, but by the the next day the cartridge was loose, so I used a needle to suck the ink out, pour it in a converter and use it that way. So far, it has been working well.

Property of Stormberry

I like having the pen in my hand, and it writes smoothly. I'm not using it currently to journal, as I decided that I want to journal only in green ink in this book - except for accent colors or notes that are better noted in a different color (for instance, when I'm "backlogging") - and the pen is still inked with blue. However, today I decided to use it in my planner as a tryout, and to my delight the F nib is as thin as a 0.3 mm pen, or at least a 0.3 Staedler pen. The blue color is light and agreeable, so I think I'll be able to use it for planning, giving it all the use I want, exposing it to my hand so that it ages well, with me, getting fair use.

I can say, I am happy with this pen, and it came to my life not a moment too soon.

Litha, Books and Stuff

Blessed Litha to all of you who celebrate it, and for those who don't, I hope you are having a lovely Wednesday. It's night already and I haven't celebrated my patron gods yet, nor have I done any ritual for Litha, but I plan to. As usual, it will be a simple thing, lighting candles and some incense, and meditating a bit. Just today in the morning, I thought how curious it was that, when I didn't have my own place, I used to set these makeshift altars, with loads of candles, on the floor, and do my rituals. The spread was quite large, took time to set and time to pick it up, and it had happened that a ritual took me up to four hours of just me talking to my gods. Now I have my own place, I don't have to take down my altar and now my spread is much smaller, much simpler, it's permanent and doesn't change much throughout the year, and my rituals are done in less than 15 minutes. I find that curious.

I've been lagging in my spiritual practice lately, and maybe that's due to the fact that one of my morning routines is to do a localized cleaning in my home, and somehow it feels that I can't possibly add any more things to my morning. Not like moving my daily ritual to the night wouldn't work, BUT my energy tends to be different at that moment. We shall see about that.

Property of Stormberry.

For this year, I've already bought my birthday books, and I've very pleased with them. Maybe "The Paris Apartment" may not be as good, but it still caught my attention. And I just realized all the books I've got have been written by women, and except by The Paris Apartment (maybe), all the books I selected revolve around women, with Olimpia, Fedra and The Lions of Fifth Avenue (Los Secretos de la Biblioteca de la Quinta Avenida) being of a more feminist cut. Also, all books save for The Paris Apartment are in Spanish. Normally I prefer to buy books in their original language, when I can read the original language, but oh well, in the end the important thing is the story, and not the language or the edition.

Currently I'm reading a novel by Jaume Cabré in Hungarian. I believe it was originally written in Catalan, but many things I find them in Spanish or similar to Spanish, and that does tend to irk me a tad. It's like when I was reading a Scandinavian noir novel in French and though I don't speak Icelandic, the interspersed Icelandic names and words with the French felt odd. I wonder if other people is sensible to the language the same way I am.

On book topics, recently I've come to a decision I've been pondering for a while: I'll stop supporting a friend's Patreon account. I have this booktuber friend who got a Patreon account where they offer bookclubs and different activities, exclusive content and so on, and I've been supporting them for years now. They are really creative and give so much that I often thought they were overcompensating, giving far more than what they charge. From the start I've got into the higher tier of the account. Also, though we knew each other from before, in passing and as part of the Costa Rican booktube community, I believe we didn't became really friends until after I joined the Patreon group.

From the start I wasn't participating in all the joint readings and bookclubs they held, but went to the meetings, watched all the videos and so on. It was nice and it was worth it. 

However, for a while now I have really been disconnected from the booktube world, I'm not watching their videos, not joining their reading session and haven't read a book with them in over a year. I hardly even go to the meetings, and when I do, it feels kind of pointless because I haven't read the book, nor am I interested in reading the book. Yes, the people in the meetings are friendly, and some of them tend to talk incesantly about other topics, which make the meting more inclusive, but that's not the point of these meetings. I kept paying my membership because I felt sort of like I "had" to support my friend, that I could affort to help them out, even though I wasn't profiting from it at all. I even ignore their chat, and just get into the chat to get the notification bubble disappearing. I don't read the messages nor am I interested in them.

I was in this point, not really thinking about what to do, just ignoring the whole thing, and sometimes checking something... at 1.75x speed. Then recently they posted a video that was quite... strange. It sounded defensive and bigoted, covertly attacking people who have different reading habits than theirs. Funny thing? Pretty much all the things they mentioned as "reading mistakes" are how I read. And this was what finally did it for me. This was the message, the signal I wanted, the one that said: this has stopped being for you.

The video shocked me, not only because it does felt personal, but because I'm not the only person who reads like that, and so it may get a bad reaction from their audience. It was surely a big flop, even though they clearly stated that "this was just their subjective opinion". (Except that, by the way it was worded it sounded like "it is my opinion, but people who do this are totally wrong". It wasn't an opinion, it was a series of judgemental statements, even though that wasn't probably the intent behind it.) After I decided to unsubscribe from the account, I started thinking about how to let her know, because I don't want to just disappear. I do believe that we are friends (maybe). And so I've been thinking about that. I just don't want to waste money on soemthing I'm not using, and there is not point in hanging in there when the Universe is showing me that our literary interests have grown apart. So, why bother?

I hate conflict, so I'm preparing, and I gave myself until Friday to broach the subject with them, and end my membership next month.

Property of Stormberry

Today, I have also been crafty. It wasn't planned, though I do have thought for a while about making a box of sorts to house my recipe cards. I always take recipe cards from my favorite market, because these often give me interesting ideas for cooking, baking or for fixing an interesting drink. I haven't tried them all, but I never fail to collect them. I rather have duplicates than miss a recipe. As result I have a bunch of them. I used to have them between the covers of one of my cooking books, but the book was already falling apart, so I took them out.

This year, as I was thinking about how to house the cards, I decided to classify them depending on the type of recipe, and then ordered them in a "lattice like" way to keep the cathegories separated, and held the whole bunch with elastic bands. Well, that wasn't very comfortable, but since I don't check them often, it was ok.

Today I thought about baking bread - Brötchen or Semmeln actually - and I was going to get my recipe when I looked at my cards and decided to fashion up a simple cardboard box out of a leftover cardboard piece from a calendar. You know, the type of cardboard used to stiffen the packaged calendars. And so with a piece of cardboard, glue, a ruler, scissors and a cutter, I made it. I also fashioned dividers for each section with colored flashcards, post-it notes, scotch tape and a fountain pen. The box turned out to be a little more snug than I expected, fitting the cards exactly, and not with the 2 mm marging I had planned on giving it. I would actually like to make the box in wood, and carve it with a pyrograph, but that's a project for the future.

Fix the Design

Property of Stormberry

Today, at the monthly Philofaxy Meeting, we discussed a little a small issue I have with the weekly inserts from filofax: the mini calendar. My issue with this calendar is that I don't use it, but I could use the space it is printed on. You won't see it in the picture I've enclosed because I have whited it out and written on top of it with a ballpen. So, you would say that it isn't really a problem, because I have already fixed it: I put white-out on it and wrote over it. Done. Well... yeah... but no.

The Mini Calendar

In this particular insert I'm using - this is the cotton cream week on two pages that came with my planner - the mini calendar is actually the smallest that comes in the weekly inserts offered by filofax, or so it seems to me. This calendar is presented in a vertical format, where each line is a day, so you get from five to seven columns in each little calendar (depending on the number of weeks each month has), while if the calendar had a horizontal format, with each day taking a column (plus a column for the week number) you will invariably have an eight column calendar.

Photo property of Stormberry.
Design by filofax

The calendar takes also the inner part of the page, where writing due to the rings is harder. So, technically, the design is sensible.

The thing is - for me - that I use this space to write up my weekly tasks, and I use two columns: one in black for work related tasks, and one in green or turquoise or some similar color, for tasks related to my studies. Each week I take the page out and migrate my unfinished tasks from the previous week to the new one.

I like writing each week the task list mainly to have a record also about my progress but also to see which tasks are taking longer to complete. It's not so much a productivity tracker as a way to measure the difficulty some tasks take, so that I can plan better for the future. However, my handwriting isn't as small as to be able to fit two lists in the remaining space, which is why the calendar had to be eliminated. The white out was my first option, but as it happens, it doesn't work well with fountainpens or my felt tip pens, nor highlighters. Then I started using post-its cut to size or planner stickers I could write on, but that threatened to add bulk down the road. I could also write over it, but it wasn't as readable as I would have wanted it to be.

I also made a list of the tasks in a separate division, but I was hardly looking at it, and the point of the list was to see it everyday, each time I glance at my planner - which is often - so that I remember what I still have to work on. I have also made post-its with the tasks, that travel forward each week, but they I can't look back to previous weeks to see what I've been working on.

Solutions, solutions

What I've come up, so far, is the realization that, most likely, I'll have to print out my own inserts... as I have been doing for ages. I know the current layout works for me, and I already have templates for it from previous years. However, I want to try out new layouts as well, which is why I have decided to create some adjusted versions of the plotter weekly and two versions of a vertical weekly to try them out. I've printed a test week, as I've been doing with some tests I have been running on other designs previosuly, and I'll see if I can fit my schedule and my requirements in them.

The of "planner peace" is quite an elusive one, and in a world so full of options, everything seems to be working to keep people away from finding their sweet-spot in anything. With planners, things might be a tad trickier because people change and with it their plans and how they plan, and that's ok. This is why I think that taking the time to plan, to be clear with what we need is important. This is also why I love ring binder planners, because I can still use the same binder and add into it the kind of insert that will serve me the best (hopefully) for a while, and I can change it, improve it, as time goes on.

Filling up the Calendar

Property of Stormberry

 I was thinking the other day about comfort zones and why on Earth would anyone willingly seek to abandon their comfort zone. Don't you want to live in a comfortable manner? It does rub me the wrong way when the phrase "comfort zone" is used to refer to a place of destructive, stagnant mediocrity. In my mind, a comfort zone is like that perfect spot in the couch or the sofa, where you like to curl up with a book to read, where the coffee table or the ant table is at that right angle for you to put your glass of wine, your cup of coffee, light a candle and put on a John Coltrane record.

I think that, if you are in a comfort zone, congratulations! A lot of people struggle to find a comfortable, livable life, so don't give up yours.

I am in my personal comfort zone, and I don't plan on leaving it.

However, in my confort zone there are also places that need work and organization. Part of my comfort zone is my studying, which currently is about working on my Master's thesis, so I'm working slowly and surely on that. I'm also trying to add some social activism, because in my comfort zone I also want to be able to do something for my community. Yes, that might not sound as "comfort zone" for some, BUT my concept of comfort zone is about feeling good, being able to relax and enjoy myself, and is not about being lazy. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't condemn being lazy, just as I don't celebrate hyper productivity. Allowing yourself spaces to enjoy laziness, and even have lazy days are something we all need. My comfort zone is about being happy, enjoying life and building a life where I can think that I actually succeed at this "life" thing (and I do!).

Next week starts with a holiday - May 1st, the International Workers' Day - and then I took Thursday off for a Thesis Day. I'll have a meeting with my tutor, so I'm really excited. And on Monday, if all goes well, I plan on joining the Workers' March in order to protest against a bill that would legalize 12 hour work days (12 effective work hours per day, where lunch and rest time won't be deducted from it) in the country. That's my activism, and I intend on seeking ways to get more involved in labour economics' activism.

Since I started my second YouTube Channel, planner and journaling videos have been a weekly task for me, but this weekend and the next are already covered, as I shot, uploaded and programmed the next videos. However, I already planned ideas for videos for the next weeks and up to September. I started already shooting some B-rolls and planning on how to do the rest.

At work I've also been pushing on my tasks and working to keep everything up to speed, and maybe even get ahead of some stuff. Just getting ready with everything. We are finishing April and I have still managed to keep a clean mail inbox, where the only three e-mails are about a seminar in two weeks, an in-person meeting next week and a notificatoion I keep as reminder that someone else has to finish something. And we are nearly in May!

Have I mentioned that we are in Mercury Retrograde?

I'm also amazed at how I have managed to keep my filofax "in line", with all the pages neatly fitting, passing the "ring test". I remove pages as needed, review what I have, what I need to take out, what needs to be included, and so I keep it manageable. I play in my mind with crazy ideas, such as buying a Filofax Heritage in Personal, just to try it out, but I seriously doubt that day will come (this year). I have also thought of getting a Personal Filofax Malden, but I must admit that I really dislike the leather penloops of the Malden's because they catch inside and the folded leather bunches up and makes it hard to use. Maybe I'm getting much into the "Planner+Journaling Content Creator"-mode there in that regard, or maybe my mind if flying ten thousand ways for some reason. Maybe I need to burn mind-energy. But be it as it may, I've been on a planner hype as of late, inspite of the Retrograde.

I write things down, I update my online calendars to make sure all my witchy rituals are in there, so I don't forget auspicious dates and so on, and they also get into my filofax, along with my cleaning schedule. And this is how I opened my filofax to check how my next week will look like, and Holy Mother of the Wenn, it looks full!

Should I take a page from the message of the Retrograde and go inside, introspect a little, retrieve into myself and stop filling my calendar to the brim? After all, in keeping my comfort zones, I also need to enjoy the peace and delight of them, of a life happy, relaxed and sans souci.

Thoughts and Such

 

Property of Stormberry
Witch Kit by Casa de las Lunas, Costa Rica

I have a gozillian disconnected ideas in my head right now, and so, I'm going to go with them as I type. And on the subject of typing, I still think from time to time that I would like a typewriter, to use here and there, to have that lovely sound in my home, and maybe to work some of my creative projects there, like a XX. century writer. I already have an ashtray, a coffee mug, so all I need is the typewriter and the space to place it. 

I may have a "thing" with keys, as I also wanted so much a piano, and now, FINALLY I have a piano in my home. Not a small, portable, electric piano, but a real, vertical Sohmer&Co, 88 key piano. It still needs some fixing and tuning, and then I can start in earnest to download piano lessons and rescue my old, incipient knowledge about playing piano. I know that will take a bit of time - dependant mostly on the available recources to pay for the fixing and tuning - but I'm confident I'll get there.

Update on My Life

So, things have been going quite nicely, quite smoothly as of late. After the Holy Week holidays, things seem to flow nicely. Sure, there are still plenty of "real life concerns", or shall we call them "adulting stuff", such as managing money in the short, medium and long terms, planning for upcoming payments and so on, but with all of that included, life is really nice. Adulting doesn't bother me, which is nice, since I'm 47 and it means that by now, I have spent most of my life being an adult.

Property of Stormberry

These days have been very productive for me, and I'm so very happy for that. :) I've gone back into working on my thesis with renewed enthusiasm, as I've got a better footing and a clearer idea on where I want to go, and most importantly how I want to go. I still had not feedback from my tutor, but I'm working hard reviewing material and preparing my next chapter, so I can fully tweek up my research instruments (those would be my questionaires), select my subjects and proceed.

Next week I plan a thesis day, so I took the day out from work, and will go to the University, request the MSc office and work there concentrating ONLY on my thesis. And drinking free coffee. I know, my life is just fabulous, and I know it! I also plan to help out the librarian by participating in a small forum about books that have television series or Netflix series. Not that I have read that many, but that's what they want to talk about for their Book Fair Week. And if there are books available, guess who has two thumbs and is going to totally profit from it? (Me!)

Random thought: Bags

As you may know, I love watching videos about planners, journals and related stuff. Well, one of those related things are bags, and I LOOOOOVE bags. I am the kind of person that gives more attention to bags than to shoes. I mean, sure, I have shoes and some are... pretty? but shoes are not a passion of mine. Bags are a passion of mine, specially leather bags. I know, I know, leather bags are heavier, so they may not be the smartest choice for carrying the unholy amount of things I tend to carry with me, but I love them. I also prefer leather planners and leather bound journals... when I can find them, and the amount and quality of the paper fits my requirements.

Property Stormberry

Anyway, as result of this, by feed in YouTube is full of videos about planners, but also of bag reviews and what's-in-my-bag videos. I have been checking some of them, and I must say I enjoy so much the sound of zippers being pulled on lofty, leather bags, or the way the leather sounds when you are rumaging inside the bag, pulling things out or putting them in. Invariably, as result of me watching these videos, I end up cheching online stores of these bags, and then being quickly disenchanted, because the prices of the products are high.

Today was one of those days, where I watched reviews of Fossil bags, and I was so in love until I saw the prices. Then this got me thinking, as I actually have plenty of bags but don't use them that often as I work from home. But even when I used to commute daily to the office, I tended to pick one bag and use it ad nauseum, until, for some unfathomable reason I changed my bag. Slowly, I'm going out more - and for instance, for the Thesis Day I will pack up a bag and go to the Uni - but then I have realized that I also tend to use totebags as bags. And I mean those bookbag totebags, or shopping bag totebags. These make no sound, are not to supple to the touch, but have hardly any weight and I can pack them chock full with more stuff than any other bag in town.

Evidently, bags have a functional side to them, but boy, don't we love them when they are also pretty? And one thing totebags have, is that they can be so pretty and so expressive. Like t-shirts.

Do we Owe an Explanation to Everybody?

Around February I cut ties with someone who, up to that point, I considered a friend. It was a person that turned out to be a narcissist, and I'm not just saying that because now it's "fashionable to call people narcissist", as some think, BUT because this person fits the bill to a T. I left you a link in the word "narcissist" below if you want to check the signs of a narcissist in more detail. This person in question did check all the points, and funny enough, it took me years to realize that.

By February I already wasn't feeling like going out with this person as their antics were going trully annoying, and no matter how I tried to bring their attention to the fact that they things they said weren't nice, or the things they voiced were completely false, they didn't seem to care in the least, nor even aknowledge them. However, as January was coming to an end, this person did something that created great tension with a lot of people, and put others in an awful situation. This sounds ominous, so I'll explain: this person claimed a friend in common was organizing a grill party at their place for an event in February, and that we were all invited to go. The truth was that no such even was being organized, and this friend in common didn't have the means to throw the grill party. 

When confronted with the lie, this person doubled down and claimed it was the friend in common who had made the party into a much bigger thing than what it really was, because "you know how they are". I do know how this friend is, and is not like that. This fall in to many traits of the narcissist, such as the lying, the demeaning of others, as well as the fantasy life they build for themselves, not to mention the clear sense of entitlement they have by putting others to rush and organize the party they wanted to have.

Clearly, others had to rush in and call of a party that had never really been called in, explain that there had been no ill intention in "not calling them personally, because there have never been a party organized", and so on. The trait present here is that if not taking any responsability, not accepting criticism

Anyway, I told this person how all their lies had caused a conmotion and that I wasn't up to be used to in such a nasty way. They still pretended to be innocent, have no idea what had happened, it was not them, and so on. So, I stopped talking to them. They still sent a message weeks after, asking why was I upset, they have never done anything with any ill intention, and so on. And in a narcissist way, they said that they would "give me time" to get over it. Since when is my time theirs to give or withhold? In case you wonder, this is a trait of entitlement, which is one of the most common with this person.

Anyway, I went on ignoring them, and with time I went and blocked them off all platforms. Or almost all platforms. Yesterday this person went on Twitter and sent me a message there. Honestly, I didn't read it, I just blocked them and erased the message.

One of my friends, who know about this whole situation, asked me if it wouldn't be better to explain to them what's the case, so that they can move on. I think I could, but... have I not already done that? And to what effect? They kept replying and coming back with evident lies. Do I have to give them a chance to explain themselves? Why? I gain nothing from their explaining, specially because through the years I have seen them lie away all the criticism that has been given to them. I have heard them belittle the advise others have given them. Why would my observations have any other effect?

I think it's not a matter of whether others deserve explanations from you, but a matter of whether You think explaining yourself would be worth it. In this case, for me, any other word to this person would be a waste.

I share this will all of you, in case you are in a similar situation, and you are pulled in over and over by a narcissist person who demands that "you explain yourself" so that they can keep destroying you, belittling you, and pretending that your reasons are selfish or invalid. They are not.