Month: June 2018

an absence of trust

I know it’s only a small amount of money for a transcript request, but I feel like the organization that feels that the individual applying and presenting his/her own information is not reliable enough not to have altered his/her transcript, such that it wants a copy directly from the college or university the individual attended, ought to be the one to pay for the transcript to be sent.  It is the one who feels that the student is unreliable, and yet the student is the one who has to pay for that?  Just seems a little too ridiculous.  If you don’t trust me, that’s okay.  But do your own research – don’t have me do it for you, when I’m already presenting you with the truth.  It’s along similar lines as saying someone doesn’t trust his girlfriend to be loyal, and so he has his girlfriend hire a private detective to follow herself around.  Sure, it’s a little drastic, but it’s the same concept…

Post-a-day 2018

Work your nerd

I found out today that my brother had felt unease about his nerdy knowledge on various topics.  Quite frankly, I had always admired him for said nerdiness.  Whenever he was interested in a topic, he’d do what he could to learn as much as possible in a short period of time.  And then, if it was something that he really enjoyed, how continued to learn about it in the years that followed, becoming ever more the genius on the topic.  Possibly the best part of it to me was that these often were topics that had almost nothing to do with his work or schooling – it was purely things that interested him.  Nowadays, he is still the same about it all, though he definitely has certain topics on which he could be considered an expert after so many years and hours of study and work dedicated to them.

I guess, growing up, I just didn’t know his world of friends and classmates and, eventually, colleagues, because I was so much younger than he was.  I had no idea that they didn’t know about his nerdy areas in his life, too.  They apparently only knew about his cool, chic, sporty side (from what I understand now).  He, it seems, was afraid of being rejected for his knowledge and studies.  Now, though, he has begun to embrace his nerdiness, and publicly so (think social media, etc.), and he has been discovering how much respect exactly that aspect of him; especially since he is cool, chic, and sporty, but loves knowledge and nerding out over certain things.  He is discovering that he had no need to be insecure about his interests and knowledge.  Plus, despite the fact that the public has been responding really well to his nerd side’s being exposed, he already knew that it doesn’t really matter what other people think of him anyway – that’s their own business, not his.  What matters is what he thinks about himself.  If he is happy with who he is, then there is no reason not to express that in his life.  So, he started finally expressing himself, nerdiness included.  Now that he has been doing that, he has also found that people are grateful to him for sharing himself and his passions with the world.  Super duper win-win, I say.  And I am proud of him doubly, for keeping up the nerdy knowledge, and now for sharing it with the world.  🙂

Post-a-day 2018

Sleepy time? Hardly

I feel like some people are just destined to sleep early at night, and some to sleep late at night.

I am one of the latter.

Tonight, as a fifth-day support – for I have had now five days in a row that have ended similarly late, though without previous expectation, and each with a different, outside-of-myself reason for it – for this belief, I spent three-ish hours (more than that, actually) on the phone with an old friend, who had reached out, somewhat out of the blue, in desire to talk for a while, despite the late hour.

Now, here I am, even later than the other nights, finally going to sleep just before three in the morning, even though I was prepping for bed at nine something this evening. 😛

I’m just destined to get to sleep late at night, it seems.

Post-a-day 2018

Friday

I took some pictures today, and I actually started to grasp what was going on with all the settings, to the point at which I actually preferred the fully manual mode.

I also found a spectacular spot to take some photos, and I was double delighted when that discovery was made today, too.

And, in a totally separate note, I have a fully functioning door handle on my car door again. 🙂

Good day of accomplishments, I say.

Happy Friday, folks, and Happy Birthday to one of my best friends from high school!

Post-a-day 2018

Marriage is what brings us together today

I had dinner with a friend last night, and we were talking about how we both still had to send in our rsvp for a friend’s upcoming wedding.  We discussed briefly what we each would do for our own wedding invitations, and I made a comment about how crazy it would be in the first place, if she were to receive an invitation to my own wedding.  ‘You, too, eh?’ was something like her response.  A conversation ensued about my views for myself on marriage.

It has been a recent discovery for me – meaning just in the past year or so – that I cannot quite see myself ever being able to marry.  To me, anyway, there is a sanctity to marriage that includes the line ‘no matter what’.  I do my best to say what I mean and to mean what I say in life.  And I do my best to correct what I have said, when I discover afterward that I have erred.  I believe that I could not honestly say and mean that I would be willing to commit to remaining in and working for a relationship no matter what.

To put an extreme example to this, I have read Jane Eyre.  (Have you?)  For those who haven’t read it, but intend to read it, and don’t want anything given away, ignore these next two sentences, and pick up at the bold font.  Essentially, Jane Eyre falls in love with the ward of the girl she is tutoring, and she wants to marry him, but then finds out that he can’t actually marry, because his mentally insane wife lives in his attic (or something very close to that).  So, she leaves him and is in shame for having loved a married man, the crazy wife eventually burns down the mansion and dies (I think in the fire she sets on the house), and Jane and her love are reunited years and years later, when he is old and blind (or, again, something to that effect) and legally single again.  Not that you needed so much detail, but it’s a ridiculous story, and there is no part I would be willing to play in it.  ‘No matter what’ includes ‘your spouse has gone mentally insane and tries to kill you’.  And I know that this is an extreme example, but it is merely an example.  There are a multitude of situations in which I would not want to find myself, if I couldn’t let a relationship go.  I know, too, that they are all incredibly unlikely.  But they are possible, and I would be lying if I agreed to staying together and loving one another no matter what.

This isn’t to say, of course, that I would be unwilling to share my life with someone.  I am definitely willing, should that someone come along.  I just cannot honestly say that I could ever marry that person.

Now, that is my recent discovery – one that really surprised me, when I discovered it – about marriage and myself.  As dinner was ready just as I finished explaining it to my friend last night, our conversation topic turned in the direction of food.  And so, recalling today that we hadn’t ever gotten to the ‘you, too?’ comment that began my non-marriage-details reveal, I sent the friend a message about it.  The following was exchanged between me and the friend, revealing her thoughts on her own possibility of marriage.

……………………..

H: Also, we never finished a certain conversation. I seem to recall that you had visions of yourself not ever getting married, but we never went into details on it

Friend: Definitely a conversation to be continued!
I think I’d like to find someone that I’d think about marrying. But my life is pretty great when I pull my head out of work and enjoy it! I don’t agree that there should be pressure to find someone to share your life with to make you complete. Also, I’m realistic about what it would take for me to get to that point with someone (a lot). I don’t trust new people that deeply very easily. And I don’t date a lot. But there ARE things I’d like to be better at fitting work around: horses, fitness, my dog, friend time, trips I want to take. So I’m focussing on that. If the guy thing happens, it happens. Sometimes I get a little down about it, but usually I just try to focus on all the good things and don’t worry to much about it 😁

H: Oh, my goodness.
Yes.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s perfection in words.
(Minus the missing o near the end)

……………………………..

And so, there you have two modern-day female views on marriage for themselves.  I hadn’t considered the topic in quite the words she used, but similar ideas have definitely arisen for me.  Yes, I want to share my life with another/others who are close to me.  No, it ultimately does not have to be a spouse.  I just don’t like living alone in the first place – I want loving people around me, supporting me and being supported by me in everyday life.  I want to share the joys and successes and failures of my own life with someone, and vice versa.  But it doesn’t have to be someone with whom I have romantic ties.  That’s part of why I loved so much how my friend listed the things she loves and on which she wants to put more focus in her life.  I believe that, when we do the things we want to do, and we go the places we want to go, we find the people we want in our lives.  (I even said something almost exactly to that effect in a video I did for a class in college, talking about one of my study abroad semesters.)  And so that is my goal in my daily life. Sure, I would love to find that someone perfect.  But doing the things I love to do, and going where I love to go, and spending my life with people I love and who love me… that’s the most important goal for me in my daily life right now.

Post-a-day 2018

We’re all birds, apparently

I always end up being awake really late at night, and can never seem to maintain waking early in the mornings.  At least, not waking up early regularly and being happy about it.  That categorizes me as a night owl (as opposed to all of the daytime owls I see all the time?).  People talk about how productive we are in the early mornings, and I know that I can be really productive with an early start.  I just can’t maintain it.  I can never get myself to go to bed early enough not to be totally exhausted after three days of it.  Listen: I know the early bird gets the worm…, but I don’t even eat worms.

Post-a-day 2018