The core of my philosphy

When I was in elementary school and we were learning about pre-WWI American government, I learned the term 'Laissez Faire.' For those of you not in the know, it essentially means minding your own dang business. Here's a more objective defintition:

lais·sez-faire

ˌlesā ˈfer/

noun

1. a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering.

   synonyms:

   noninterventionist, noninterventional, noninterfering; More

   • ECONOMICS

     abstention by governments from interfering in the workings of the free market.

     "laissez-faire capitalism"

     synonyms:

     free enterprise, free trade, nonintervention, free-market capitalism,market forces "an agenda that embraces the concept of laissez-faire"

I thought to myself, "That's how it should be." I'm not sure how our basic philosophies get shaped, but I knew laissez faire to be the right path the second I knew about it.

It seems to me that there are three kinds of people. The laissez faire crowd, the nanny crowd, and the "I don't want to tell you your business, but..." (They are kinda between the two other ones.) I have never understood the nanny people. They believe that people need to be told how to live their lives. They are the ones who were on the playground telling you that you weren't playing right. They are generally silenting judging you even when they don't speak up. When I was in high school, I took a church class from 6-7am. School started after 8, and those of us who went straight to school would sit around in the hall catching up on home work, chatting, or sometimes dosing off. My philosphy? Doze if you need to doze! If you need the sleep, get it! If you don't wake up when the bell rings, I'll give you a friendly nudge. But the nanny ones, oh heavens. As soon as someone's head started dropping, it was, "Wake up sleeping beauty!" Why?!? Apparently, you're not supposed to sleep in the hall, and that's good enough for these folks. They're the ones who make laws that adults have to wear seat belts, who pushed prohibition through, and who want to make sure you never do anything you want to, ever.

The 'I don't want to tell you your business, but...' crowd only bugs me sometimes. They generally mind their own beeswax, except when they really feel it's their duty to speak up. (And I will be fair, sometimes there are situations where anyone should speak up. If I see evidence that a kid is being abused in any way at all, I am certainly NOT going to say, oh well, not my business!) These people are the ones that tell you that you are posting too many pictures of your kids on facebook. That you should really lose weight, or they might subtly offer to help you when you go clothes shopping next. These people are mostly harmless, but still kind of annoying.

Hey, guess what? You know what I do when a friend continually posts 14 pictures of their kid every day. I scroll on past. You know what I do when my insane conservative conspiracy theory friend posts a billion crazy posts? I scroll on by. (While shaking my head and contemplating blocking the person's posts.) You know what happens when someone does something I wouldn't do, but isn't harmful? NOTHING. It's NOT MY BUSINESS. I don't listen to that offensive radio show, I don't lobby to have it banned. I don't write an angry letter to my congressman that people are getting up too early and I think that's silly. I live and let live.

That's why I don't care if my son's room is a mess. Not my room. I only bring it up when he complains that he can't find something or his clothes are dirty. I don't care if you're 50 lbs overweight. I'm pretty sure in our society you've heard the dangers of obesity and I don't need to tell you about them. I don't care if you smoke, as long as you don't blow the smoke right in my face. Especially when I'm eating, I hate smoke in my food.

This Laissex Faire-ness of mine is why I'm a libretarian. I think the government has gotten far too out of control and is nit-picking every little thing ever. It's craziness! So there you go. Now please do what ever you want to do. No skin off my nose.

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This post is a straight up rant, so buckle up. I will be honest: I LOVE my job. I think my boss is the best, and I get along with my coworkers really well. The kids are so sweet, and I love the random hugs and cute little faces. Most days I come home in high spirits, and I am excited to finally have a career, not just a job that I trudge through. And then there's days like today...

So...you know how you feel kinda crappy when allergens are high? Well guess what! When you work in a school, those days suck hard. (So do full moons. Scientists say the moon doesn't affect us, and I say they're full of crap, but that's another post.) I don't have to check the weather to know when allergens are high. I just have to go work!

I am the school secretary for a very small school. That means that I am also the registrar, the (untrained) school nurse, the cafeteria moniter, and all around good American. What that usually means is that I have to do all those jobs while being interrupted approximately every five minutes, and I do it with a smile on my face and a chipper tone. Today was not only a high allergen day, it was something of a perfect storm of crapitude. Here's what went down:

I sent out lunch account notices on Friday, so today I had a huge crowd of parents in my office first thing in the morning either trying to pay on their child's account, or arguing with me about their child's account (They filled the paperwork out wrong, just fyi.)

On top of that, today we started a new bus route. There were two groups of angry parents for me to deal with: the ones who hate the new bus route, and the ones who didn't get the note somehow and so were angry because the bus wasn't when and where they expected it.

Thirdly, it's really impressive how much paperwork is generated by a child transferring schools. Guess who does all that! It's me! We had two students transfer in recently, and three transfer out. Of course, the ones transfering out want to get everything taken care of right now (understandably so, I mean it's their kid after all.) What that means for me is that they AND the new school each called me a minumum of three times per student today.

Of course, I haven't mentioned yet that the day started with one girl who threw up and then laid on the floor in my office crying while I tried to get ahold of her parents. (This was a girl who was old enough to know better.) When the mom finally calls me back, she reams ME out about how she can't be taking off work to pick her daughter up all the time if she's not really sick. Like I'm the one who's supposed to make that decision.

In the afternoon, a teacher threw up and had to go home! FUN! I had all the standard paperwork combined with a bunch of end-of-the-six-weeks paperwork and of course the afore mentioned transfer paperwork. And of course, with it being a high-allergen day, I had about a gizillion kids come in to have their temperature taken. (Not a single one had a fever.) Also with it being a high allergen day all the kids were cranky, all the parents were cranky, most of the teachers were cranky, and I was cranky. BUT I'm the school secretary, so like I said at the beginning, I have to smile and pretend that everything is awesome.

I came home exhausted. But the lady who lives a few doors down from me was getting baptised tonight, so I needed to go to that. Baptisms, for those of you who don't know, usually take about 30 minutes. This one took 1 1/2 hours. It was amazing and spiritual, but not terribly relaxing. Especially since I am fully aware during all this that my son has homework he's not doing.

So then I go home. I look at my son's homework. Algebra 2. Which to me might as well me ancient Hindu. My brother usually tutors my son, but he's gone out of town. My brother calls and tries to explain to my son what to do. My son hangs up and immediately has a melt down. I know that this homework is SUPER IMPORTANT because the six-weeks ends on Friday, so he won't have extra time to get it in. I finally send my son to bed, homework undone. I text my brother trying to figure out this math. He texts me more Ancient Hindi. Then he calls. And I lose it. It's 10 pm and I can't smile anymore false smiles or comfort anymore angry people (not that my brother was angry, but anytime someone tells me that math is simple I have a tiny aneurysm. So I guess in this instance I was the angry parent.) In short, I'm done. I have nothing left. You see, I have bad allergies, too.

So now I've ranted my rant, and taken my shower and I'll go to bed and believe that tomorrow will be better. It HAS to be.

Barbie Bru Ha Ha

I haven't been on here in a while, but I've had some thoughts percolating that I needed to get out and it just seemed too long for FaceBook. I'm gonna just lay it out. I am sick of people baggin on Barbie. No, wait! Hear me out!

Yep. I longed for this kind of body when I was a wee one.

When I was young, I would look at the women on TV and in the cartoons and I would see, in general, bodies that were stick thin. No boobs, no hips. Basically, it seemed to me, the perfect woman looked a little like a boy with just a few curves. Then there was my mom. She did not look anything like a boy. She had boobs till tomorrow and a ghetto booty that she practically needed a wagon to carry. Even when she was thin she had those dominant features. I was not stupid. I saw what my future was, and it was confirmed when I was out of my training bra and into a regular bra by the end of 4th grade.

Luscious and lovely was more my destiny.

Now, I didn't get my mom's booty, but (when I was thin, which I'm not right now) I literally had an classic hourglass figure. No matter how much weight I lose, I will never ever be model or even actress thin. The smallest I have ever been as an adult is a size 11 (size 12 is considered "plus size" in case you weren't aware), and at that point people started telling me I needed to gain weight. I'm not complaining, I love being a curvy woman (although at the moment I wish my belly didn't curve out quite so much. lol). Today there's a big ole "curves are beautiful" movement. My son tells me that I'm a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman). All over the media people are telling you to love yourself how you are, but I was living in the 80's. That message was nowhere to be seen at that point. Yes, I know that the women in hairband videos were curvy, and that's great and all, but I didn't have MTV. I was watching regular TV and looking at regular movies. And everywhere I looked, there were women who were thin and didn't even really need a bra to constrain the ladies.

Enter Barbie. Barbie was beautiful, successful (in her imaginary world), and could be anything, she wasn't tied down to traditional female rolls. I never heard any controversy about whether or not Barbie would change HER name when she and Ken married! But bigger, and far more important than all that was that BARBIE HAD BOOBS! Barbie was built the way I was destined to be built someday! I loved her for that. And people rant about her waist being so thin, but guess what happens when you make clothes for Barbie? The fabric is super bulky on her because she is much smaller than people. When you gather up the cloth, it makes her waist look normal sized.

Released in 1981

Current Barbie

 Now compare these Barbies. The first is the Barbie model that was actually my very favorite Barbie. It's because the curly hair was easier to style. What do you see? Ok, the neck may be a little swan-like, but other than that, when Barbie is wearing clothes, she looks like a woman, one who has boobs and hips. One who looks like (the ideal) me.

And then you have modern Barbie. The one that has been made "more realistic" to appease nay-sayers. You know what I see here? Yet another completely unrealistic stick-thin, boobless, hipless, gap between the thigh having example of why women like me are clearly lower-class than those fortunate enough to have inherited the stick-thin gene.

Way to go, Mattel. Good work "fixing" that situation.

Just in case you were curious, this was my other Barbie. Her outfit could change to make all these combos and more! I chopped her hair off so it was a cute chin length bob, though.

downer

I know the only person who reads this already knows, but for anyone who stumbles in here by accident: My mom died suddenly last week from an anuerism that exploded deep in her brain and immediately destroyed her entire upper brain.

I know that she's in a better place, and I'm actually doing pretty well, but this has had a surprising side effect on me. Well, maybe not so surprising when I think about it. I'm lonely.

You see, it's like this: when my last boyfriend dumped me, part of the reason was that I had gained some weight and he thought I was going to end up like my mom, who weighed over 350 lbs, was wheelchair bound, had type 2 diabetes, arthritis, severe kidney disease, etc. This has been a fear that every guy I've ever dated has expressed. When my brother died, I did put on some weight, and when I got dumped, I basically decided that there was no reason to even try because I obviously have such a horrible personality that I'm only desirable if I have an hourglass figure. I essentially decided that I have a fabulous family and school to worry about, so I would forget about dating and marraige and just be here. I then proceeded to put on a lot more weight. (Not as much as mom, though.)

Now that Mom's dead, I guess it's made me realize that my family won't be here forever. Dad will die, Ethan will grow up and move away, and who knows what Josh will do. OK, he might be here forever. :) I mean, I knew all this intellectually, but they were concerns for the distant future, not something to worry about. Suddenly, I feel like getting myself in order and finding someone. Not that I've had any success in the past, but still. Maybe if I start dieting and working out, I can be attractive again by the time I graduate. It actually makes me pretty angry that I apparently have to work like a dog to get something that almost everyone in the U.S. gets like 15 years+ before me, and that I just have to acknowledge the fact that no man will ever love me unless I'm hot. *sigh*

In other news, I got on facebook against all expectation. I just got friended by a guy who I totally thought was gay. Apparently he has a girlfriend! Weird. Maybe she's a beard.

No homework!

Well the semester has come to an end and I came out with 3 A's and a B, raising my overall GPA to 3.0. Considering how in the tank my GPA was after my drinking years, I'm pretty pleased with that. I was very surprised about the B because it was in Art History and I was expecting a C.

In other news, I have developed a nasty growth. I'm exaggerating. The 5 year old girl from next door has taken a liking to me and now comes over every single day. It wouldn't be that big a deal, but my dad HATES having people in our house and insists that I hover over her every single second that she's here, and if I don't jump on her fast enough when she does something he wouldn't like, he yells at her (literally) and gets upset with me. So it leaves me feeling like I have a particularly ill behaved small child and gets me all irritated. I wish that there were any little kids in our neighborhood for her to play with. Or, I wish that my dad weren't so angry. Either would work, really. Plus, my dad worries that she's going to bring her hoodlum 17 year old brother over, which I don't see happening, but whatever.

Ethan's favorite YM advisor got released, so Ethan is totally bummed. But then he got called to be our home teacher, so that's cool. But Ethan only wanted to go to scout camp because he likes that guy, so now he's trying to weasel out of it. It's not going to work. His dad is also sending him to EFY, so that should be exciting.

Well, my cat has decided that he simply MUST take a bath between me and my computer, so this is growing difficult. Hasta!

Lady Fortune Smiles

All my life, I have never been a winner. As a kid, I was always a finalist in the TWU wildflower art competition, but never took the big prize. As an adult, the best thing I ever won was a giant inflatable hot dog, which I immediately gave away. Suddenly, the tide seems to be changing. Last month, my technical editing teacher said that a few of us needed to go to the grad school expo and collect brochures. I was one person chosen to go, and of course, when I went, I entered the door prize competition. A couple of weeks later I got an email that I had won a free meal at McAllister's. I don't care for McAllister's cause I think it's too expensive, but if it's free, hey, it's free! So that's cool, but not world changing.

A couple of weeks ago, I randomly decided to go to Recycled Books and Records, and they said that since I spent over $20 I could enter a drawing for a $75 gift certificate. Today I got a call that I won! Now THAT'S a prize I'm on board with!

I can't help but wonder if the universe has been saving up all my luck for now. I could certainly handle winning some design competitions while I'm in school cause that would really help when it comes to job seeking. In technical editing, we've been split into groups and we had to design a brochure, poster, and give away item promoting the technical writing and linguistic department, and the best one is going to be used by the school. Tuesday we're presenting our design to the committee. Keep your fingers crossed for THAT win!

Comm Design and Me

I am taking my first class in the communication design program, which is called design thinking. I'm learning a lot, and that's good, but I am having some problems. The biggest problem is that it's a pretty exclusive program. I know that doesn't sound like a problem, but the thing is...well, I know it sounds egotistical, but I'm pretty used to being one of the most talented people in the class as far as art classes art concerned. In this class I am not amongst the best. I am pretty mediocre actually. It's pretty rough on my ego, and it has me questioning if I have any real talent for this stuff. But, we're only finishing the first project, so I definitely won't do anything drastic until I've gotten a few more projects under my belt. It's just got me feeling discouraged, but I'll get over it. To top it off, in my technical editing class, I was designing a brochure, poster, and mouse pad for a group project and this other guy decided to help, and whipped up a design that was way better than mine. *sigh* Maybe I should just quit and open up a cupcake bakery. :)