The global marketplace in Wal-Mart October 28, 2007
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In the toothpaste isle in Wal-Mart today I heard Russian, Spanish and another language I did not recognize. If you count me as the Bulgarian contribution in the mix, I don’t believe there was a single native speaker of English in front of the Colgate shelves for at least a good 3 minutes, probably longer. All three of the other languages represented were spoken by families, two of those had kids who spoke with their parents.
It made me think about the global marketplace that store has come to be, and I am not even factoring in their global supply chain and merchandise made cheaply in China, Mexico, El Salvador, Poland or who knows where else. I love it.
I also love when a family discusses the merits of buying this or that latest electronic gadget in a mix of Russian and English, and I look at them with a bit of a lingering stare, my brows furroed a bit. I often catch a glimpse back that’s a tainted by a tinge of condecention – as though they’re thinking “huh, look at that puzzled stupid American… probably wondering what language this is.” And at that point, I look away, out of politeness, and I usually can’t help a smirk that perches on teh corner of my mouth. “Huh, I wonder if they know taht between the English and the Russian, I understand about 70 percent of what they are saying… I wonder if they would understand event 50 percent of my conversation if I was just now to call my sister on my cell.” (Bulgarian is not nearly as common and is probably sufficiently different that many people may not be able to distinguish what Eastern European language it is.)
Is that mean?
Well, it may be, but something similar plays out whenever someone speaks Spanish (Bulgarian is definitely rarer than Spanish). Not that I understand any minimal amount of Spanish, but I do recognize it and I also smile to myself wondering what Bulgarian would sound like to anyone else who is bilingual or more.
What’s worse, though, is once a while I’ve daydreamed about being in a public place where either I dissolve a dangerous situation by speaking Bulgarian (a kid being lost from his parents at an airport and not speaking English … though it is more likely that the kid would speak English and the parents wouldn’t… oh, well, I’d settle for helping lost parents); or I would embarrass someone who says something meanspirited to another who doesn’t understand them… I’d step in and respond with something really witty and then turn and walkaway with the person who was insulted, explaining to them what just happened that made the other person redden like a ripe tomato.
Yes, I know, I’m awful. ;P
‘Creative’ Halloween October 28, 2007
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Every Halloween part of me wishes I’d make my own costume. And the bigger part of me refuses to make anything creative or crafty or clever. Last year was a-OK, but my pirate costume was store-bought and in that sense boring and standard.
This year, thanks to Nate’s patience, barrage of ideas, and persistent coaxing, I think I may have arrived at something semi-home made and rather silly: Dorothy’s cousin Lucy. I’ll be wearing a white dress reminiscent of Dorothy’s blue one, a blue button up shirt with puffy short sleeves, reminiscent of Dorothy’s white one, and a pair of red shoes – not shiny, but flat and with small flowers on each. All clothing I already own and wear. The only thing I bought was Tito in a woven basket – yep, Tito. Tito will be Toto’s cousin, because Tito is gray, not black like the terrier from the movie. All I need to add is some blue ribbon for my pony tails. Maybe I’ll upload a picture, though I fully anticipate to lose the costume contest at work.
Nate came up with a very versatile costume for his part – a cloak and hood that, with the appropriate accessories, could be a Jedi’s solemn figure, a dark wizard, a monk, and probably a few more. 
Rainy days and bitter news October 28, 2007
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Grad school, Life, Reminiscing, Work.add a comment
How fitting? I am sitting in a Starbucks in the Pacific Northwest on a rainy afternoon, working… I am also taking a small break to blog this – probably to be finished later tonight…
On such a gray afternoon, I got an e-mail announcing a colleague has been laid off. How sad and unsettling. It is true our clients have been shrinking budgets lately but even if there’s an independent reason such as this, it is still very difficult to swallow. It shakes one’s confidence in their own value to the company and clients.
On a slightly uplifting note, which helped me get through the day without moping, I found a lonely neat napkin on the table I picked (out of all the ones, as the coffee shop was practically empty when I first went in) at Starbucks. On the back was a handwritten message in black pen with a squiggle as the underline and the ink bleeding slightly into the beige recycled paper. “what do you want from this life?” The question was a philosophical summary of what Nate replied earlier the same day in an e-mail to one of my blogs – or perhaps it was a “deep” e-mail I wrote to him while sitting with a cup of tea in front of my monitor first thing in the morning at work. *shrug* He basically wrote – as he has done before and I should heed his advice – that life is about finding a balance between planning and enjoying the moment and the key is to figure out what we want from life.
The signs have been overwhelming lately – I need (and desperately want) to get my grad school plans in active motion.
On the feeling of despair October 23, 2007
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Despair. It’s a strange sensation and I’m hating it. Work was going a little better lately, I was feeling like I could even kick procrastination out of my way and sustain the functionality that I was finding myself absorbed into. I knew it was too good to last. I knew that when we had our refresher course of efficiency training, things would just rain back into an overwhelming pool of monstrous amounts of work.
Incompetence is something I get a tinge of once in a while and I wondered about it again tonight as I worked until 10:30 p.m. on a project that was only supposed to take “not too much time this afternoon.” Instead, all of my pre-scheduled to-do items got obliterated because I stayed on a call for a half hour too long and too many ARs came from that I didn’t expect, then a staffing meeting that went way, way too long followed (and had the outcome of no substance), and finally I got wrapped up into the unforeseen project that should have been “easy and quick” and I don’t even know if I did it correctly – new client I’m unfamiliar with, plus the fact that I’m rusty on this particular document creation.
Ahhh! And the ranting and complaining here – I hate that. Sometimes I wonder why I can’t just handle a heavy workload and shine through it all. Perhaps I’m not cutout for this business of jobs and careers. 
Ambition, drive and perfectionism October 22, 2007
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Life.1 comment so far
Why is it that ambition fades and one can be left saddened by its departure? Drive fades and perfectionism becomes an object of others’ mockery. It is a strange and disappointing feeling after years of strength and potential to enter the real world and realize there is nothing that motivates anymore.
Once in a while there are flashes of excitement when something as silly and mundane as a song, or a book, or a familiar and cozy dream, sparks a hope that maybe not all is lost, there is still time and possibility for achievement, for a next step that leads somewhere deserving. It is more than cliche to imagine doing something so significant with one’s life to influence the world as a whole. There are those who do that, true, but there are so many people on this planet, it is humbling to think of the sheer number of minds and hearts doing amazing things every second. It takes an extraordinary person to do something noticeable, but it shouldn’t take that much to put a life in motion and to contribute to an overwhelming, all-inclusive, and self-rewarding action. So, unless ambition, drive and perfectionism revive and work together, there is going to be nothing but an uneasy feeling of ongoing failure.
(By the way, why is perfectionism an object of mockery? And why is it a negative thing – event/or perhaps especially for the perfectionist?)
When feedback is bitter October 15, 2007
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Writing.1 comment so far
Taking criticism well is an admirable quality. I have always been impress, and a little jealous, of those people who can take harsh criticism with a smile and turn it into a positive, productive learning experience for themselves.
For months, if not a year, now I have been doing little to now actual writing at work. Sure, I write dozens of e-mails a day and edit a fair share of technical papers, contributed articles, whitepapers, and who knows what other documents. Once in a blue moon, I’ve written an abstract, and that has taken a few revisions. I am rusty. I used to write 3-4 newspaper articles per week and when I was in school I used to write my papers first-draft only (no revisions, no edits… except maybe the occasional grammar or spelling typo that I fixed on a quick read-through).
It is true that on more than one occasion my writing has fallen rather flat. I also know that everyone, sometimes especially the best, need a good editor. Heck, I think I’m a better editor than writer.
It is also true that it has been a while since I wrote anything of substance. I did put a deal of effort into this most recent piece, though, and even though quite a bit about target audience and what the content, voice, and style of the narrative should be given the readership.
Yet, I fell flat. Very flat. It hurts when that happens in the professional world, but I’m sure it would have hurt more if it was in the academic, because I take that more personally.
What was particularly stingy about this snub, was the fact that all the comments were negative. Mind you, they weren’t purposely mean, but that only made me wonder whether I was being spared, given that I preempted sending the draft by speaking with that person about how out of shape my writing is.
When I was still relatively new at and tantalized by journalism, I did a feature story on the county fair – a school for food judges. I learned something there that I included in that story (and got praise for from the editor, who also used to rip apart my articles, though much more “nicely”) and that morsel of wisdom is with me – just like so many of the things I’ve been soaking up like a sponge, the way my math teacher in seventh grade used to say. The lady teaching the food judges’ course at the fair said that when they write their comments, they should do so using the Oreo cookie method: say something positive to start off, then provide the constructive criticism, and close off with another positive comment.
I’ve tried to live by this rule when I edited peers’ papers, when I taught ESL, when I’ve given pretty much any feedback on peoples’ writing. When my writing doesn’t get the same dessert treatment, I tend to block it out or recoil into infinite cycle of mounting self-criticism.
I wish I had an Oreo cookie method for receiving criticism.
Missing “home” October 13, 2007
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It’s a strange thing what you think of as home. I like to refer to the city of my birth (and first 15 years of my life – still more than 50 percent) as home-home. Then there is where I feel like home is now… and that’s where my boyfriend and I live together in a cozy, yet spacious (for us) apartment, with a park as a back yard, and a beautiful tree-lined street out front. It didn’t feel like that until recently, though. Portland has been growing on me slowly, but I am still drawn to Seattle – or at least the greater Puget Sound area – where my friends are and where my family and many of Nate’s relatives make their homes.
I wouldn’t call my parents’ home my home anymore, but it almost feels better now when I visit – it feels like a sanctuary where I am closed off from all of my daily worries and stress about work and life in general. It is as though I am in a quiet vacuum there, time almost freezes, it makes me feel sheltered again. It is a secure and relaxing feeling. I like visiting. If I stayed for too long, though, I’m sure I would miss home. The place I call home at that time, that is. The house I shared in Seattle with friends was a great place, a restful place, a fun place. But I’m not sure I ever relaxed enough in it to feel it like home. It was definitely homey. More so than Nate’s house in Tacoma. However, Nate’s house in Tacoma felt homey while I was still living at home and feeling under pressure and rather cornered with my “far away” from Seattle and Tacoma and tucked away where my parents were… I think at that time no place felt like home to me. Not even my parents’ home. Strange, really, what you think of as home. Thinking back to all of my “homes” – there aren’t very many, although I’ve lived in my share of “numerous” houses and apartments – it must be that home is where the heart is, where you feel most relaxed, safe, cozy and warm. Cliche, I know, yet I can’t help but conclude that.
Distractions and tiredness October 12, 2007
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As I’m yawning to tonight’s Simpson’s episode and savoring the smell of freshly baked peanut butter brownies, I’m wondering where my motivation went. It’s Friday evening and lately every Friday and Saturday evenings all I want to do is relax at home, do nothing and rest. Rest from what though? Why is it that even when work is not too stressful (or especially then) we get so tired from the week and all the plans we had for an invigorating weekend evaporate come the last evening of the work week?
Too few hours in a day October 11, 2007
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My boyfriend leaves for work just before 6 a.m. I roll over in bed and try to wake up at 6:30 a.m., because let’s face it, 5-something is just way too early! I end up snoozing my cell phone alarm until sometime after 7 … usually close to 7:30 a.m. (just about the last moment I can get up and still make it to work on time). At about 7 a.m. my iPod dock alarm starts going off as well and I am somehow not lured by the NPR news that fills the bedroom at a perfect tone… nope, I get up a few times and snooze that across the room as well. It feels so good to slide back under the warm covers. I alternate between the iPod dock and the cell phone alarms to the point where I don’t think I’m sleepy anymore, but I’m just avoiding the day by trying to stay semi-conscious for just a little bit longer.
And then I wake up and I shower and drink my vitamins and eat a banana on my way to the bus or tram and I wish I had gotten up an hour or more earlier so I would have time to read the news, as well as listen to them on the radio on my commute in… and perhaps even relax at a Starbucks with breakfast and a coffee or hot chocolate, reading a book and warming up to the day.
What’s the trick, I wonder, to ceasing the snoozing habit. I must make an incentive of some sort because I believe (and have on a rare occasion confirmed this suspicion) that when one wakes up early and starts the day with sit-down breakfast and gives oneself a chance to gradually pick up speed, then that self has a better start to the morning, more motivation and all of a sudden an overall more positive day.
It’s true that I feel well rested lately and have been getting through my days on decaf tea and hot chocolate without any sleepiness infringing. But I’ve also been feeling like I’m missing out on something – there are too few hours in the day to get all the things I want accomplished.
*yawn*
Food October 7, 2007
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Food, Reminiscing.add a comment
I love fall food. Pumpkins, asparagus and apples. OK, asparagus perhaps don’t really say “fall” to most, but Iron Chef is on and that’s the current secret ingredient. The tree crowns outside our third-floor all-wide and half-ceiling tall windows are still rich green but traces of rust visible on a few branches across the street. The sky has been gray and sad all day – and for many days before, for that matter. It’s raining again, or rather – still. Rain here is wetter, not like Seattle rain. Seattle rain is just for show and reputation.
When the weather is like this, it makes me want to cook. Not that I am good at it, but I do enjoy it. I master a few things only and keep shifting those through a short-listed menu for months. I used to be really good at cooking bean stew when I was in my early teens and my family ate a lot of that one fall. Another time, my mother taught me how to make a yummy coffee cake and though I was never a huge fan of it in large quantities, we ate tons of it in different variations – with extra coco, with walnuts inside, without walnuts, with powdered sugar on top, without powdered sugar on top, filled with raisins, without raisins, with the coco and vanilla swirled in different shapes inside, etc.
An added bonus of cooking when the weather is grim is that the heat from the oven and stove top keep the home cozy. But it is also the weather that hinders my plans.
If it wasn’t so nasty outside, I might actually have considered a trip to the grocery store this afternoon to get the ingredients for something interesting to prepare out of one of the vegetarian cook books we have in possession. Another deterrent too is how busy the store is on a Sunday afternoon. We also have tons of food at home (just probably not enough variety for someone as inexperienced as me in the kitchen to prepare a steamy home-made yum). Oh, and I’ve been snacking ever since I started watching Iron Chef an episode and a half ago – which makes for a content stomach and an unmotivated cook.
