Knit Wit Living

Reflections, Beading, Knitting, Life

Archive for the category “Musing”

25 Oct 2014

What happened with my generation?

Disclaimer: I do realize that children do not share all their activities with their parents and I am getting filtered reports.

  • The weekends started Thursday nights.
  • Panty raids and early morning parties, along with beer and Abe’s doughnuts, that started at 5 AM
  • Yes, we also studied, and we’re fully functional adults now, many are the breadwinner in our families

I visited my daughter up at college this weekend and couldn’t believe the differences between her college experience and mine. I drove off the campus wondering how my generation became so uptight!

Today’s Greek members (fraternities and sororities) seem to spend a great of their time in social engagements for their respective philanthropic organizations. My daughter had at least two to choose from on Saturday and another one or two on Sunday. I’m lucky I can even remember my sorority’s philanthropic affiliation (helping others with sight issues) from my college days. Also we rarely, if ever, spent time with other Greek organizations participating in efforts for their affiliations.

I only recall the Dance Marathon weekend which I think might have raised money for Muscular Dystrophy. I’m not sure if that was for a particular Greek house or just a university-wide event in which the Greeks participated.

No, we spent our time singing dirty songs on the university’s chapel steps. This was an annual competition during Greek Week. We changed the lyrics from popular songs to dirty words, dressed slutty, and provocative, and sang our hearts out on the university chapel steps.

Greek Week

We partied with other Greek houses, went to socials and formals in each other’s houses, and had a blast!

The chancellor of my daughter’s college (and my alma mater) has a reputation on campus of being against Greek affiliation. According to his bio, he graduated law school in 1981 so he would be roughly around 60 years old. I wonder if he’s been so uptight his entire life. But it’s not just him. It’s our generation. We are raising our children to be socially conscious, politically correct young adults. Was our upbringing disastrous? Were our “wild ways” so bad? It’s like our generation has a stiff, non-removable stick you know where.

Our children have enough pressure to succeed. The population is bigger, the competition is tougher. We also need to teach them how to relax every once in a while. Like we did!

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05 Oct 2014

Work to Live, or Live to Work?

I debated whether or not to post this, as it makes it look like I really hate my job.  I don’t, but I have definitely transitioned lately from loving my job responsibilities to a “work to live” mindset.  Of course, like many of you I’m betting, I have the naive, idealistic perspective that working in the knit/fiber/craft industry would be different, that transferring my current business skills to work that supports knitters would be a little more interesting.

Work to Live

Hyosung Textile Company, Seoul, Korea

Although if you throw me an infrastructure (computer servers) project in a knitting company, I think it would be just as boring to me as it is in the technical company in which I am currently employed.

Disclaimers noted.  Here are the observations I wrote down last week:

  • Internet Explorer Bookmarks at Work. They should have another name, accessing these internal work sites are not my Favorites.
  • If I work with people who are incompetent, does that mean that overall they are buffoons, or maybe that they’re just bad in their jobs? Or maybe they’re really competent in fields in which I have no interest?
  • Work to Live vs. Live to Work. Not being enthralled with my work responsibilities has allowed me to focus on being happier in my free time. Work to Live is not such a bad thing after all.
  • I’ve started listening to NPR and am getting hooked! I find myself sitting in my car in the parking lot to hear the end of a news story.
  • I’m starting to observe my own stereotyping – I find myself being surprised to have to spell out the name of an Indian co-worker’s name to another Indian contact, but I don’t have the same element of surprise when doing the same thing with American co-workers.
  • Why do I end up working late?
    • A. I am a heavy duty procrastinator?
    • B. I like to be busy so I save everything to the last hour(s) of the workday?
    • C. I think best when I have a lot to do? OR
    • D. All of the Above.
      • (D)
  • Even if the work is not interesting to me (i.e. mind numbingly boring) it is still important to the company, and being who I am, I can only do a good, no, an EXEMPLARY,  job in whatever role I am assigned.  The big fear I have from this is that I will keep getting these kinds of projects because I do so well to get them OVER WITH ALREADY.  Quite a conundrum.

Work to Live

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23 Sep 2014

Happiness Challenge

A friend of mine tagged me in the “Happiness Challenge” on Facebook where I was instructed to post 3 things that define my happiness for 6 days.  I’ve collected all the posts here.  In doing this challenge,  I found myself recognizing happy /  amusing / funny moments throughout each day.  That was the true reward.  Although, picking 3 and sharing them each day with my Facebook friends also made me happy.

Day 1
1. Happiness is being tagged for the happiness challenge. I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated Marcy’s posts and while I am more typically a voyeur than a participant, I am touched that she tagged me to do this.
2. Happiness is seeing my son growing up and settling into his new independent life.
3. Happiness is reading true life love stories in the NY Times In Memoriam section. One of my favorites is “I don’t need to visit you because you are with me every day.”

Happiness Challenge Day 2
1. Happiness is sleeping with the windows open.
2. Happiness is thinking of the next trip with my daughter. Barcelona? Milan? Paris? Florida?
3. Happiness is watching my daughter excel in and completely enjoy her college experience.

 Happiness Challenge Day 3
1. Happiness is transforming a ball of string.
2. Happiness is visiting my local library at 11 PM via my kindle.
3. Happiness is our weekly mah jongg game even if I don’t win and even if we have to miss a few weeks here and there.

An impromptu happiness post. Happiness is seeing Italian tourists at MY farmer’s market, glad to be able to share a nice American experience with them!

Happiness Challenge Day 4
1. Happiness is clearing out my garage and having a little extra cash in my pocket. (Thank you, Lois, for organizing the community garage sale, and thank you, Jill, for selling alongside me.)
2. Happiness is being able to go to bed early and sleep late after a long day.
3. Happiness is knowing what I need to do today, and fitting spending a long morning in bed (unfortunately by myself!) into the schedule.

Happiness challenge - a cleaner garage

A clean(er) garage!

 Happiness Challenge Day 5
1. Happiness is finally having the sense to turn my air conditioning back on and enjoying a good night’s sleep.
2. Happiness is knowing that I did not miss the canning season and will have fresh tomatoes in the winter. (I’m thinking creamy tomato soup on a cold winter day.)
3. Happiness is seeing my friends’ travel posts. Thank goodness for FB since getting together for slide shows like my grandparents used to do just would never happen these days.

Happiness Challenge

Ready for canning

Happiness Challenge Day 6, the final day of posts
1. Happiness is dragging myself out of bed, late, this morning, after having spent a wonderful evening catching up with an old friend.
2. Happiness is having the opportunity to review one’s life (while catching up) and being content with the decisions I’ve made in it.
3. Happiness is having a bright spot of color in an otherwise drab landscape (i.e. photo accompanying this post).
The tradition is for me to now tag other people to continue this practice of posting 3 points of happiness for 6 days. Only because it really isn’t painful, and it’s actually been nice to recognize points of happiness, I hereby nominate Christine, Gisela, Kathy (when you’re feeling better) and Linda. I look forward to reading your posts!

Happiness Challenge: a spot of color!

What are some of the things that make you happy?

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23 Aug 2014
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Sigil

LD lent me the book #GIRLBOSS to read. It is a hit with her sorority sisters, and LD has been reading these great business books, so I wanted to read it too. In one of the chapters, Sophia Amoruso, the author, speaks about the word Sigil.  Sigil is a real word, meaning a symbol, or a sign or word having power in the occult or magic, I suppose like “Abracadabra!”

#GIRLBOSS resommends using a Sigil as an empowering phrase to be used as passwords or other daily shortcuts as a reminder of your goals.

I’ve been transitioning my role in my job, against my wishes. I’ve really been fighting it (with massive complaining!) for awhile. While I am doing a good job in my new responsibilities, the tasks themselves are B-O-R-I-N-G (more than just Boring with a capital “B”) and, I feel, don’t take advantage of my more fruitful skill sets.

It is a Catch 22.  I’m always going to do my best and do a good, NO, a Great, job, but I don’t want to do so well that I get stuck with these tasks forever.

When I was first transitioned, I trudged to work each day, going later and later as the days went by.  I listen to NPR on my way in to work, and got little glimpses into the BBC World Report at 9 AM.  I like their style of reporting, so kept going in a little bit later so I could listen to more of it. Then I found myself leaving the house at 9 AM so it would be playing.  Not good as I should be in the office by 8:30!

I took a note from #GIRLBOSS.  I came up with 2 Sigils.

The first one was bcrtv85%. Be creative 85% of the time.  But then the rules started flowing: only when you’re awake, some things have to be done and don’t have to be creative (doing the dishes, the laundry, etc.). I stumbled across a blog post on wildcreativesoul about how it takes so much work to be creative.  Hmmm…back to the drawing board (pun intended)?

The second one is – Njwhtrdng.  Enjoy what you are doing.  So much better!  No need for parameters or rules.  And guess what?  The job got better.  I’m feeling happier.  More knitting projects on the horizon.

Njwhtrdng.

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24 Jul 2014

The (Online) Dating Game

online dating

Really? Is this supposed to make me want to use this site?

The Online Dating Site business is a tricky one. The companies really do not want their users to be successful because then they won’t need the online dating services anymore, but the businesses still need some success stories to gain new members.  They need to make each site user think that his or her match is out there AND using this particular site, but at the same time keep you looking for more so that you won’t leave.

There are all sorts of ways to encourage users to become paying members – no ads, more privileges, the ability to browse invisibly, the ability to send messages, chat, etc.

Each site has its own set of rules – what you are or are not allowed to say. Some don’t want you to mention anything that has to do with sex (we’re all chaste and looking for the same) while others encourage you to admit your fantasies and what you want to do to your partner or be done to you.

The most head-scratching experience is trying to determine if the other users are actual people, scammers, married, immature, uneducated, educated, etc.

What is most amazing to me is that I met DDSO on Yahoo Personals almost a decade ago.  I don’t really expect lightening to strike twice, but in the words of the NY Lottery, “you have to be in it to win it.”  I feel there is some power in at least putting my intentions out in the universe.

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10 Apr 2014

Kool-Aid Flavors

Kool-Aid  Life is all about choices.

Today, I got annoyed because I felt that some people I work with are choosing the wrong Kool-Aid flavor. The Kool-Aid reference is from the Jonestown Massacre, where the people believed in the cult so much that they drank the Kool-Aid laced with cyanide for their mass suicide.

The bottom line is that we all drink Kool-Aid in one flavor or another. We all believe in something – whether at work, in our food choices, our religious preferences or even the choice to not be religious.  We can all find some proof or arguments to strengthen our choices.

Last night I went to dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House. Throughout the menu, with fairly astronomical prices, they boasted about their corn-fed beef. Really? What corn? The kind they grew in the movie King Corn?  The kind that wasn’t edible to humans? And that they feed to cows? I cringed at the menu. Yes, I ordered some beef. It was the social experience that was more important, and one meal…is just one meal.

But still.  Are we supposed to be impressed that it’s corn-fed beef?

Man, if the menu said Pasture-raised beef, I’d be standing in line to pay more for the meal, ready to support a business that is interested in moving our food supply away from CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations).

So the Kool-Aid flavor I ate last night was corn-fed, which is not the usual one that I choose.

The Kool-Aid flavor that someone at work annoyed me with today was “strawberry,” while I usually choose “grape.”

Everyone makes her own choice. I just hate when someone throws their flavor at me as though it’s the only choice.

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