posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
asato_muraki at 05:41pm on 21/10/2009 under a big ol' bag o crazy, geekachicas, video, youtube
asato_muraki at 05:41pm on 21/10/2009 under a big ol' bag o crazy, geekachicas, video, youtubeCouple things:
If anyone who reads this space speaks/reads Chinese, please let me know. We're trying to design a business card for a Tulane official, and it needs to be a bilingual card. We want to make sure it doesn't have any gaffes like Racist Park.
This video made me blubber like a loon:
***
Now, onto my self-discovery and personal growth. *sigh*
I've been through some big changes recently, and it has caused me to re-examine some priorities, and take responsibility for my circumstances and challenges instead of letting myself be limited by them. It seems that in the process I let one of my values slip a bit. Let me explain the origin of it, and how my recent mistakes have helped me evolve, or at least be more self-aware.
A couple summers ago, my niece came to stay with us, and brought a friend. I was actually excited to have a couple of tween girls in the house. I made pink lemonade and braided their hair, took them to the pool. I even let them go to the deep end without me hovering on the condition that if any boys, they were to introduce themselves by name and age (my 13 year old niece was already a D cup). I even drew pictures, for them to keep, of their heartthrobs at the time, Orlando Bloom and Avril Levigne.
One night we had chili for dinner, and when my niece's friend was getting seconds, the lid to the crock pot slipped to the floor and smashed. We went into crisis mode and cleaned up the glass asap. The girl (a friend had nicknamed her Agatha) was horrified and soon began to sob uncontrollably. I realized I had another glass lid that fit the crock pot (one I had saved from when a glass pot of that size had been broken). I put it on the crock pot and said, "See, no harm done." She couldn't stop crying, so I held her for a minute, and said, "[Agatha] honey, it's just a thing. People are more important than things. Always." Then I picked up the lid that fit the crock and offered to smash it, just to prove the point.
And when she saw that I really meant it, that I didn't care about the lid, just about her being so unhappy, well, then she stopped crying.
People are more important than things. It's something I remind myself of a lot, with two energetic and accident-prone boys in the house. So, Value mastered, eh?
Not exactly. This week I was reminded that it should apply to people I don't know, too. Maybe even to people I don't like, though I'm not there yet. So that girl who teased me unmercifully all through middle school? I still snigger a little inside when I remember running into her when I was 20 and she was 19 and pregnant with her second or third child, married to an unemployed man twice her age, and , upon seeing me shouted with unflattering surprise, "You're beautiful!" A lot of time has passed, and I'd like to think I'd be happy to learn that she was now happy and successful, but the vindication of that moment lingers with me still. Also, I didn't even mention my great job or anything. No, really. I wasn't that spiteful, even then.
But this week, I chose a nice juicy joke over the feelings of a person, because of injured pride. It was ugly, and not part of the person I want to be. Internet people are easy to dismiss as less than real, and the temptation to crack wise is immense, because the consequences, even for things much worse than what I did, are essentially nil. Still, that's not who I want to be, and I will attempt to be more mindful as I go along.
If I could go back in time and superimpose the teen mother on the dole over the queen bitch of 7th grade, maybe the slings and arrows would have been easier to bear. I don't know. But I will try to be kinder in the future, even if I have to imagine that the anonymous pedant making snide comments at GeekaChicas is actually a 50 year old engineer living in his dead parents house, who will one day die and be eaten by his cats before anyone misses him.
I'm hoping that eventually I won't have to write elaborate back stories for every troll we encounter just so I don't go all rage machine on them. For now, I shall settle for finding the least annoying way to modify my behavior.
One day, I shall evolve.
If anyone who reads this space speaks/reads Chinese, please let me know. We're trying to design a business card for a Tulane official, and it needs to be a bilingual card. We want to make sure it doesn't have any gaffes like Racist Park.
This video made me blubber like a loon:
***
Now, onto my self-discovery and personal growth. *sigh*
I've been through some big changes recently, and it has caused me to re-examine some priorities, and take responsibility for my circumstances and challenges instead of letting myself be limited by them. It seems that in the process I let one of my values slip a bit. Let me explain the origin of it, and how my recent mistakes have helped me evolve, or at least be more self-aware.
A couple summers ago, my niece came to stay with us, and brought a friend. I was actually excited to have a couple of tween girls in the house. I made pink lemonade and braided their hair, took them to the pool. I even let them go to the deep end without me hovering on the condition that if any boys, they were to introduce themselves by name and age (my 13 year old niece was already a D cup). I even drew pictures, for them to keep, of their heartthrobs at the time, Orlando Bloom and Avril Levigne.
One night we had chili for dinner, and when my niece's friend was getting seconds, the lid to the crock pot slipped to the floor and smashed. We went into crisis mode and cleaned up the glass asap. The girl (a friend had nicknamed her Agatha) was horrified and soon began to sob uncontrollably. I realized I had another glass lid that fit the crock pot (one I had saved from when a glass pot of that size had been broken). I put it on the crock pot and said, "See, no harm done." She couldn't stop crying, so I held her for a minute, and said, "[Agatha] honey, it's just a thing. People are more important than things. Always." Then I picked up the lid that fit the crock and offered to smash it, just to prove the point.
And when she saw that I really meant it, that I didn't care about the lid, just about her being so unhappy, well, then she stopped crying.
People are more important than things. It's something I remind myself of a lot, with two energetic and accident-prone boys in the house. So, Value mastered, eh?
Not exactly. This week I was reminded that it should apply to people I don't know, too. Maybe even to people I don't like, though I'm not there yet. So that girl who teased me unmercifully all through middle school? I still snigger a little inside when I remember running into her when I was 20 and she was 19 and pregnant with her second or third child, married to an unemployed man twice her age, and , upon seeing me shouted with unflattering surprise, "You're beautiful!" A lot of time has passed, and I'd like to think I'd be happy to learn that she was now happy and successful, but the vindication of that moment lingers with me still. Also, I didn't even mention my great job or anything. No, really. I wasn't that spiteful, even then.
But this week, I chose a nice juicy joke over the feelings of a person, because of injured pride. It was ugly, and not part of the person I want to be. Internet people are easy to dismiss as less than real, and the temptation to crack wise is immense, because the consequences, even for things much worse than what I did, are essentially nil. Still, that's not who I want to be, and I will attempt to be more mindful as I go along.
If I could go back in time and superimpose the teen mother on the dole over the queen bitch of 7th grade, maybe the slings and arrows would have been easier to bear. I don't know. But I will try to be kinder in the future, even if I have to imagine that the anonymous pedant making snide comments at GeekaChicas is actually a 50 year old engineer living in his dead parents house, who will one day die and be eaten by his cats before anyone misses him.
I'm hoping that eventually I won't have to write elaborate back stories for every troll we encounter just so I don't go all rage machine on them. For now, I shall settle for finding the least annoying way to modify my behavior.
One day, I shall evolve.
There are no comments on this entry.