Ubi Caritas’ Neighborhood

but, I will keep showing up and blogging when I can.
2012 opened here today and you bet I was there for it.  Apocalypse? Yellowstone supervolcano? West coast falling into the Pacific? Poles swapping place, fake but plausible sounding science? Of course, I was going to be there. And I'm going again tomorrow because that's when my friends can go and when I can get popcorn.
Excellent way to pass two and half plus hours. 

spoil sport : 1930s

A curious sign on a gate in the countryside, reading: Please do not spit, or throw stones, etc. in field. No trespassers allowed'. Grange- over-Sands, Lancashire.

The world is going to hell in a hand basket. But it is no one's fault.

When we were building our house a few years ago, everytime we questioned a mistake or poor workmanship we were told that "the apprentice did that". They always blamed the youngest and newest member of the team. The last few days we have been trying to sort out financing and purchase of a company car. The excuse this time is that "we didn't get the fax". This is also an excuse I was given frequently from publishers when I worked in the Basement of Discontent. No one ever says "I made a mistake", "I didn't  notice" or "I can't locate it". The blame is always put back onto someone else, or back on you. The fax didn't arrive it must mean you made a mistake/didn't send it/whatever guilt they can apply to you.

Then you have to make a series of phone calls just to get someone to refax the damn thing. When you do, they tell you that you missed the cut of by 46 seconds and they can't do anything about it until next day. Sorry, even if it is heart transplant surgery and you are lying with your chest ripped open and your dying heart exposed waiting for the replacement, if you can't get off that table and refax your form then there is nothing they can do.

I hate being cynical, but it is all getting to much. The same people think that customer service is speaking poilitely to you, and being friendly and smiling, not actually doing their job in a speedy and efficient manner. Actually complete a simple task in the time available - they say no, no, no!

I have spent a long time in various service positions and I have always found that the easiest way to do my job was to do it efficently and as soon as possible. It actually decreased the stress in my life, and made other people happy. Win/win situation for all. Problems got attended to immediately and flexibility a given. From little things big things don't always have to grow.

So, I can't help but wonder when these same people all arrive to speak with the Big Whatever just what excuses they will give. Who will they blame? When they lie dying on their hospital bed, who will they blame for all the wrongs they did? Will the messes in their lives be thrown upon the shoulders of someone else? I suspect they will revert to habit and look for a scapegoat, but they will really know, won't they? They will know that they could have done better. And if there is any justice in the world, if the Big Whatever turns them away from the doorstep, I hope the Big Whatever just gives one shrug of the mighty shoulders and says "Not my fault, it was all up to you.".

Are you prepared in case of a natural disaster? What do your plan and preparations include?

oh crap no...

yes, i live in Florida, it's the Lightening capitol of the US.  We also regularly have hurricanes.  

I don't even have one working flashlight.  No extra food....nothing...

But lucky for me hurricane season is pretty much almost over, some rain from Ida and then the dry season will come on full force.

Is that a dragon I see before me?

Night 1:

Flamingo Dancer returns from the bathroom and Mr FD asks:

"Did you see any dragons?"

"Yes," said I. "They were bar-b-queing the yaks"

"I hope there are some leftovers for breakfast" he says and goes back to sleep.

Night 2:

Mr FD returns from the bathroom and I  ask:

"Did you see any dragons?"

"Dragons!" Mr FD exclaims. "I am sick of slaying dragons. Day in, day out, nothing but dragon slaying. At least they could keep it down to one a day." He returns to bed and goes back to sleep.

Dragons and yaks in our backyard...the neighbours are not going to be happy at all.

a lot of laundry got done, but unfortunately not so much progress on the dishes front.  Perhaps in the am.  I did get eggs hard boiled though.
Not going to the gym tomorrow.  Should actually check on FB to see what the topics are for pub quiz.  Hope everyone had a splendid Sunday!

Vox friends & readers:

I feel very bittersweet announcing that I'm another person jumping ship: I'm moving Books, the Universe, and Everything over to Wordpress.

My main three reasons for leaving Vox are:
1. The requirement for people to register to leave comments.
2. The inability to control how much of each post gets published in the RSS feed. (I hate that RSS subscribers can't see my full posts.)
3. The lack of formatting and style control.

As long as my Vox friends are still interested, I will be posting links on Vox whenever I have new posts on Wordpress. You can comment on Vox, or on Wordpress - whatever you prefer.  

Additionally, if you'd like to stay up to date on my posts, you can subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow Books, the Universe & Everything on Facebook. (Links to new posts will appear in your news feed.)

My new Wordpress blog is located here:
http://www.booksuniverseeverything.com/

I have moved all 407 posts from Vox over to Wordpress - and each post links back to the original post on Vox to read the comments.

And while this definitely isn't goodbye, I just want to take a moment to thank all my Vox neighbors. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and to read your wonderful blogs. I look forward to continuing to read & comment on my Neighborhood page, and will do so as long as there are posts there to read. 

I'm excited for Books, the Universe, and Everything's new home, but I'm sad to leave Vox as well. I hope that my neighbors on Vox will continue to follow me at my new location.
 

Links to my first Wordpress posts:
-October's Polysyllabic Spree
-New Home & Book Giveaway

There is a photo contest at my Job (for the entire 7 hospital system).  I'd like to enter, but I am not sure I have anything really great.  My choices are:

P1010542

P1010495

2 comments

P1000948

P1010240

P1010237

P1000787

P1000782

1 comment

P1000731

Last autumn, I started a distance learning program for my master's in children's literature.  The first classes I took were Critical and Theoretical Perspectives and Research Methods.  CTP made my brain hurt but in a good way.  I was always felt a little off, like I had missed a major memo and was constantly playing catch-up.  The papers made me incredibly anxious and a lot of the time I wondered how on earth I had been accepted to this program when it was so obviously over my head.  Nevermind that the professor who was my course tutor (it's a British programme, so the culture shock nearly killed me, talk about divided by a common language) was absolutely fantastic and gave incredibly useful feedback. 
When it came time to write the final paper, I actually got my collective self together enough to submit a draft.  That's probably a first for me since my junior year of college and it was a required part of hmmm, interestingly enough, that course was Research Methods. Anyways, I submitted a draft about two weeks before the due date and the feedback was essentially (but phrased much more diplomatically), "I'm so glad you submitted this with enough time to rewrite it".  It ended up that I was road-tripping through California with a very good friend of mine who was a lit major in college.  So, the day the paper was due (and I was going with a nine hour time difference NOT in my favor), we sat at our friend's gorgeous house in Napa (I was the world's worst houseguest that visit and made my travelling friend also be a lousy houseguest that day) and spent the day writing my paper.  I had thought enough about it, but I still needed TLA to help me focus and write and re-write. The paper got written, but oh boy, I do not want to go through that again.  We printed it out at our hostess' husband's office. I e-mailed it in by the deadline and posted the requisite two copies off in San Francisco the next morning.  Talk about a team effort! I got my results this past October.  I found this a touch annoying that I didn't get my results until after I had paid for and started my next courses.  Research Methods had a paper as well and that was due back in June and those results also arrived in October.  So, on a sunny day in early October (after re-routing to my school address) DHL delivered an envelope from my grad school. I was so nervous that I had one of my friends open the envelope.  She read the letter and let me know that I had passed both my classes.  I just about threw up I was so excited. And relieved. 
So, now I'm taking another class with this programme.  This one is Poetry for Children.  And I have been much more careful with deadlines.  I submitted my first assignment on the due date and got the feedback later that week.  The way the classes are set up is that you have three to four assignments that are ungraded and then one or two major papers that are.  Even though the assignments aren't graded, the feedback is really important because you are setting benchmarks for your work and letting the tutor know that you are keeping up with the readings or just have a clue in general as to what's going on.  I am still incredibly anxious about the papers, graded or not, so it took me (can I just say that the Classic Rock station I am listening to through iTunes rocks!?!?! It's one of those live365.com stations) until this morning to open the comments that the professor sent me on the 29th.  I have to get over the anxiety because the feedback was awesome!  At this point, I think the professors have more faith in my ability to this work than I do.  But, obviously, children's literature is my thing.  I know that I've got to do better on my next assignments because I wasn't proud of the work I submitted this go around, I was just happy to submit it on time, but hot damn, I do know what I'm doing.  Part of it is that this is what I do.  I am immersed in children's literature through my work and my own interest in it and have been for well over ten years at this point, so I should be good at this.  But, wow, I'm actually starting to have confidence in my opinions and views. And it's showing in my work at school (my job school, not my academic school), I'm doing more with my students and I'm excited about sharing with my students.  I'm bringing more poetry in and next week, I'm going to start introducing the reception children to French nursery rhymes. A lot of our reception age students are Francophone and sometimes I lose them a bit with the English language picture books, so I've been wanting to do more French with them. 
The other classes that I'm taking are First Steps Writing (required for all our teachers) and EAL (English as an Additional Language) for Young Learners.  I've already taken the generic version of this class, but this one is geared towards my students, so it will be more useful.  I like stretching my brain. And I hear it burns calories.  But it does mean that I am pretty absorbed by work and classes right now.  Good thing I like to read.

edited for paragraph breaks. hope it's easier to read. :)