Archive for November, 2008

What A Stupid Thing To Say

November 24, 2008 at 10:53 am · Filed under Angry, Cooking, Fam, Media

I spent the day making soup (and I just have to say it is THE best soup ever…seriously), and doing laundry, and cleaning. It was nice. This evening I thought I’d watch a movie before turning in.

For some reason, at some point (I don’t watch a ton of tv, I’m a movie girl), I was watching something on MTV and thus, it was on that channel when I turned the tv on. Sweet 16 happened to be on and for the most briefest of moments I was captivized by the ridiculous decadence taking place on the show. My Super Sweet 16 is yet another MTV-Reality TV phenomenon whereupon we lucky viewers have the opportunity to watch ’sweet 16′ parties belonging to celebrities, and various non-celebrities. The episode I was lucky enough to spot was TImbaland’s son’s party. It was ridiculous. There were tigers in cages, multiple rappers who took the stage to play blips of their most popular songs, belly dancers, and what looked to be 5,000 screaming teenage girls.

The segment that I caught featured various components of the 5,000 screaming teenage girls on camera verifying how “awesome” the whole thing was. One of the screaming girls actually said, on camera, “I wish my parents loved me this much!!”. Really? On national tv?

It bothered me because it was such a stupid thing to say. Had I been in her shoes and had said that I would have been mortified to realize what I’d said. I guess her parents don’t love her because they never made millions of dollars selling packaged rap to the masses and couldn’t throw her a party with tigers and belly dancers.

Ridiculous. I felt bad for her parents. I was pretty happy with my 16th birthday, I received a top of the line of quality flute and tickets to Pearl Jam, both of which I thought were “awesome”. I wasn’t sad that I didn’t have a tiger belly dancer party.

I was happy to quickly move on to the on demand free movies because the whole five minute experience was a horrid reminder of just how ‘out of it’ people are these days.

I made some damn good soup. Kait and bloody Andrew thought so too. :)

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How blind we can be

November 21, 2008 at 1:26 pm · Filed under Fam, Health, Men, Mom

It continues to amaze me. Even at the “wise old” age of almost 31, it amazes me.

The other evening Kait and I were talking about various things, this and that. Somehow we got onto the subject of people we both had dated recently. Long story short she said at some point, “I’m so excited to see who you will meet next”. I’m not sure what I said in response, probably because I was half lost in my own thoughts.

And all I could think after she said that was, “I’m not that excited about it, really”. I didn’t say it out loud, I know that at least. (To be fair I also thought, ‘wow, I have a great friend, who is excited for me’.) There are a few things I’m not excited about, and I know that it’s not healthy/positive/well-adjusted to think that way in some points of view.

It actually caused me to think about a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago. A surprising one. It was a conversation with the alleged “moron”. As it turns out, he isn’t such a moron after all. As it turns out I may have been incorrect about the conversations that took place prior to, and after, the offending incident as well. During the end result conversation that was had a few weeks ago this was all brought up…what was believed to have been said, what was said, and what was not said. Long story short, at some point I inquired about what I allegedly said by asking, “why would I say that?” (Really, the details are not that important, the whole point of it is important). His answer? “I don’t know…you’re scared?”

Oh.

And I can’t really recall if I responded directly to what he said (I get lost in my thoughts a lot), but if I did, it would have been simply, “oh”.

I often realize at various moments of humanity and interaction with others that we are completely see through, although we often don’t want to realize that we are. I think though, I had forgotten that applies to me as well as everyone else. It was when he said that…someone who really doesn’t know me that well at all…that I realized how obvious that fear was. It was humbling, this conversation. Much easier to blame others for supposed unrealized expectations than it is to take responsibility for the part we had to play in those unrealized expectations. It’s hard to swallow.

This is where the “I’m not that excited about it” thought comes from; fear, cynicism, jaded beliefs about relationships. It’s hard to fully realize that the possible root of the whole issue comes from not being okay with things when they’re not on my terms…my “terms” being painted with guarded thoughts. It’s easy to placate myself with thoughts that I can’t respect people that get intimate with me without (in my perception) any forethought to whether they care about me or not, or whether they have any real interest. All the while though I don’t think that deeply about my own actions and what they say to someone else. It’s convenient to decide that when someone makes the choice to date multiple people at a time, that that’s just ’more casual’ than I really want to be involved in, regardless of all the positive things about them. It’s even easier for me to end up not respecting someone for getting intimate and then (in my perception) feeling as if they claim too much of me, too soon. And all the while those jaded thoughts are most likely creating a veritable canvas of intrusion into what’s really going on.

What it comes down to is that it becomes very easy to push people away. It also comes down to I-thought-about-relationships-a-lot-after-I-watched-Sisterhood-of-the-traveling-pants-II. (I know…and I don’t care how it sounds). It made me think about relationship stuff and all that. (As an aside, it was nice to think about when I watched the first one…I bought it on DVD for my mom, I think for Mother’s day one year. No one else wanted to watch it with us, they all went to bed or did other things…but I stayed and watched it with her and it was a really good time.)

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The good stuff…

November 19, 2008 at 10:57 am · Filed under Fam, Health, Holidays, Managing, Tomfoolery, Work

And only the good stuff.

  1. Compliments: This evening while chatting outside with Kait for a bit one of our neighbors passed by on his way to his apt. He said, “it’s looking really good around here, compliments to you”. I almost cried. It’s one thing for friends to notice how hard one works, but for someone who isn’t obligated to notice it? Well, that’s just good stuff.
  2. Losing: Clients that is. After having a caseload of 100 or more for heaven knows how long, I was able to transfer 10 clients today to a new counselor that has started. To be clear, it’s not that I necessarily didn’t want to work with the particular clients transferred…being overworked is dragging, and it’s nice to finally get some reprieve.
  3. Addiction: I. Can. Not. Stop. Playing. PS2. I can’t. The addiction has been renewed. I know, PS2? Sounds lame I’m sure, but I’m certainly not going to go out and spend $300 (or is it more? I don’t even know) on a PS3. I haven’t messed with it for a long time, but for some reason I’ve been recently obsessed with it. I even think about it at work; sometimes I wish I could go home early to hide in PS2-ism. It’s kind of fun right now. Don’t judge me.
  4. Thanksgiving: It will be here in 8 days. I love it for a few reasons…first, I heart holidays with my family; we’re mostly happy/jovial, we joke around, we hang out. Also, I love stuffing. Also, I get a four-day weekend, and I get paid for not working the Friday after.

There’s some good stuff lately. I like it.

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Leaps of logic and what should have been done

November 13, 2008 at 11:06 am · Filed under Domestic Violence, Feminism, Governmentish, Violence

Today I illegally perused blogs while at work on my lunch break. I say illegal because technically it wasn’t work related and they’re (the infamous ‘they’) cracking down lately. I came across an entry in a popular feminist blog (Feministing) detailing a messy little situation that the Supreme Court is ruling on. Bottom line really, is that they must decipher and clarify what is said to be a poorly written law. 

As a result of the alleged poorly written law the current ruling could allow those who have been convicted of misdemeanor DV crimes to own guns:

Congress in 1996 sought to strengthen the laws against domestic violence. Before, only persons convicted of violent felonies in such situations lost their rights to own a gun. Going a step further, lawmakers adopted an amendment to take away gun rights for those who had a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” on their records.

Problem with that?

But last year, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia cast doubt on the law’s reach. Its judges decided the federal gun ban did not cover misdemeanor convictions involving assault or battery at home. Instead, it said the federal ban applied only to those convicted under a state’s domestic violence law. 

Not good. Most states don’t have specific misdemeanor laws re: DV. No misdemeanor laws + upholding the constitution = violent wife/husband (because yes, there are women that beat mean…statistically not as high, but it happens) beaters could have guns with which to do more harm.

Instead of focusing on these small facts, the website I read chose to verbally nail the judge in the case to a cross for doing his job. Choosing instead to paint him as a sexist a-hole who doesn’t care about women.

In this case the judge ruled per the law.

Justice Antonin Scalia was unswayed by that argument. “People are governed by the law that is passed, not by the law that Congress intended to pass,” he said…But during Monday’s argument, Scalia said possessing a gun was “lawful conduct,” and a wife-beating charge lodged against a West Virginia man was “not that serious an offense.” The government lawyer shot back that the defendant “hit his wife all around the face until it swelled out, kicked her all around her body, kicked her in the ribs. . . . “

“Then he should have been charged with a felony,” Scalia interjected, “but he wasn’t.” (emphasis mine)

The bottom line for the blog? Judge thinks DV is not serious and does not matter. Judge is dismissive towards DV. Reality? Judge does his job and rules on the law alone. Did he write it? No. Did the U.S. tell him he could just make decisions willy-nilly based on his emotions? No. By saying it’s “not that serious an offense” I might guess that he was talking strictly about the actual charge; the state decided it wasn’t that serious an offense.

This I think, is what is irksome about how some of us demonstrate feminism. Leaps of logic based on emotion. It sort of makes the whole thing look bad.


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144

November 7, 2008 at 10:36 am · Filed under Health, Managing, School, Work

It was fascinating to google that number. For example:

144: the 12th fibonaci number

144: the number of years that Nevada has been a state

144: also termed as “gross” which is dozens of dozens

144: the approximate number of contact ours I had for October. You might ask what this means.

At work there is a particular number of contact hours we are expected to have to show that we are being productive, serving clients, and not just sitting in our offices staring at the walls and picking our noses. Contact hours are made up of individual sessions, group sessions, intakes, case management (phone calls, probation reports, generally any time a client is spoken to by us), and preparation of court reports (drug court reports for me). The general number they want us to hit or at least be near is 100.

Since I started at THS I have never taken the initiative to run this report for my hours. Today with the help of a valued coworker they were ran (allegedly they are run monthly by supervisors). 144. This number would be even higher if I hadn’t missed a few of days this month (in my defense two of those days I was absent were the ones spent wasting away in Kent in a jury waiting room). It would also be even higher if I was perfect about documenting every single little interaction I have with clients; I’m pretty good at doing this, but obviously not perfect.

Good sweet heaven above, I am overworked. Officially.

After that number was added up today I recalled a recent issue that came up regarding the transfer of clients. One of the clients I had chosen to transfer was deemed to have case management needs that were ‘too high’ by a coworker. Really? You’re going to talk to me about case management needs that are ‘too high’ when I have over 60 hours total spent case managing? I don’t think so.

It all became crystal clear today after seeing that number on the calculator as to why I end up a few times a month screaming in my head “I can’t handle it”. If it was just work it wouldn’t culminate that way periodically; but I’ve added school and a second job on top of it. Not to mention trying to have a personal life jammed somewhere in there too. I’ve done this to myself, I know.

The other day my Kait sent me a text message that essentially said ‘I’m so proud of you that you have all these things going on and that you’re doing them, that you’re not quitting any of it’. I know, she’s sweet and thoughtful, it’s why she’s one of my best friends. It was nice to hear it because I often think of just giving up on things because it gets hard. It was also nice to hear it because it helped me realize that I need to spend more energy and foresight on actually taking care of myself because failing to do so will result in me giving up.

So, I’ve started actually thinking about making sure I eat during the day rather than hurrying off in the morning totally negligent of any of that. I’ve started trying to go to sleep earlier in general because when I’m tired I perform poorly at work and I’m just not as good as I know I am. I am not afraid to say that I am awesome at my job, but I know that if I am piling on all this other stuff in my life and failing to adequately care for myself I will end up quitting, and it will all be a result of my lack of foresight.

144. I am ever so fascinated to see what it will be this month.

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