(Taken at Shedd’s Aquarium in Chicago).
Category: Life
My First 5K, Meetings Suck, Color Change
Hold up, ya’ll … guess what I just got talked into …
Yep. My first 5K.
*high fives the monitor*
Oh yeah. I’m walking (cause who are we kidding, I don’t run, okay, maybe I run a little, and by a little, I mean about 20 steps) the 5K. Which, I just found out today, works out to be about 3.5 miles and NOT five miles like I first thought it was. Ha! (And you only THOUGHT I was an idiot!)
When I found out it was only 3.5(ish) miles, I was all like, “I’ll do it!” Cause I walk 3+ miles now whenever I do the treadmill thing.
Easy peasy.
So yeah. A bunch of us at work are going to do this and I can’t wait, actually. I don’t plan on hanging out with them the entire event, but it’ll be fun to start off with them and then talk/laugh about it later. And I LOVE walking outdoors. I’ll have my iPod playing some sweet walking tunes and it’s going to be fun zipping through all of the other walkers as I pump my arms and speed walk my way to the finish line.
(I’m one of those dorky walkers who pumps her arms … you know the ones I’m talking about. And don’t even tell me you don’t snort with amusement when you see them cause honestly? It does look pretty stupid. But it’s a GREAT workout for your arms).
Now I just hope it doesn’t rain cause this thing is a rain/shine sort of event.
I’m excited. I’ve been wanting to do one of these for a long time and now I have an excuse to do it. And it’s for a good cause. We’re raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network, a charity close to my heart (Dude was a preemie), and we’re raising money for the CARE mobile specifically, which is a mobile unit that doles out free health/dental care to about 10,000 children in surrounding areas every year.
Sweet!
I’ll be writing more about my experiences later. Stay tuned!
Yesterday was Administrative Professionals’ day. I had no idea. It’s not like I have that day clearly marked in red on my calendar and make a point of counting down the days until it arrives.
*ahem*
No really. I had no idea the day even existed until one of the nurses I work the closest with came up to me and said, “What type of topping do you want on your ice cream sundae?”
“Come again?”
“What do you want on your sundae? We have ….”
“Who’s paying for this?” I asked. (Cause nothing’s free, remember??)
She mumbled something, but I didn’t catch it. I learned from other people what day it was.
So, it was fun to be served by my boss.
I could get used to that. 🙂
I could get used to having free ice cream sundaes, too.
We had a meeting at 7:30 today. I wish they would get off the meetings kick. Meetings are okay, about once a month. But this bi-weekly thing is just annoying.
Especially when your boss calls in sick and doesn’t even make it in after she made a point of sending everyone a reminder email the day before.
And when we all sit around and stare at each other because there’s no one there to lead the meeting and we really don’t have anything to talk about.
TALK ABOUT ANNOYING.
Hey. I got an hour overtime so I’m not complaining … too loudly.
But still. I’m lobbying for monthly meetings from now on because I would rather sleep in an extra thirty minutes, quite frankly.
So we all voted on our next color. For those of you that don’t know, we wear different colored scrubs every day.
Olive on Monday
Eggplant on Tuesday
Teal on Wednesday
Lavender on Thursday (*puke*)
Wine on Friday
Olive was the oldest color, so that’s now out. And though I TRIED to rally the troops to get rid of that gawd-awful lavender color (seriously, it’s like we’re all at work in our pajamas – I DESPISE that color, i.e. Thursdays), I was out voted.
Olive is out and Charcoal Gray is in. (It’s technically called “pewter” in the Cherokee brand).
Now. If I can only persuade the girls to mix the colors/days up a bit so that we end up wearing that gawd-awful Lavender color (*puke*) on Fridays instead of Thursdays, because Fridays are our slow day and we rarely have a doctor in on Fridays, so there won’t be that many people who SEE us in our PJ’s …
I’m a rebel, people. I’ll have those girls eating out of the palm of my hand before very long, mark my words.
Should Students Be Required to Pay Back Their Student Loans?
What sort of asinine question is that? And how STUPID do people have to be to think they DON’T have to pay a loan back?
You borrow the money to go to school – you borrow someone else’s money to “buy” a product, in this case, that product is your education, you need to pay it back, dumb ass. It’s a loan. That’s what a loan means – you borrow money, you pay it back.
I mean seriously, people. DUH. You don’t want student loans? Then don’t borrow money. Get a job and pay for the classes as you go along. Sure. It’ll take you longer to get through school, but you won’t be $60,000 dollars in the hole after graduation. You don’t want $60,000 student loans? Then don’t go to a university where they charge you $60,000 – go to a cheaper school. But you want to go to a more expensive school? Well, I want to quit my job and travel the world.
You don’t always get what you want. You compromise and make sacrifices. It’s called real life.
“But it’s not fair,” you whine?
Tough. Life’s not fair. Get over it.
Stop being such a whiny ass and buck up. NOTHING IS FREE. GET OVER IT.
OMG, this stuff drives me bat-shit crazy. We have spent the last 100 years brainwashing people into thinking they’re entitled to crap – that some magic fairy is going to come along, wave his magic wand and *POOF*, you get everything you could possibly want. Screw the people you’re getting it from, they EXIST to serve you. They EXIST to grant your every wish … AAARRGGHH….
I’m sorry, but this entitlement attitude just really pushes my buttons.
Look. If you want something, work for it. If you need money to get that something and you borrow money to get it, pay your damn loan back.
It’s not rocket science. Stop acting like people exist to give you things. It’s insulting.
(Click the blue arrow to play)
Articles:
Obama missed votes on student loan bill he now wants to extend
Wouldn’t This Make a Neat Screen Saver?
Feel free to download this photo for your own use, if you wish.
I took this picture at Shedd’s Aquarium in Chicago.
We Have a Food Stamp President
I used to listen to talk radio every day, all afternoon, but now that I’m working, I only get a chance to listen to the local morning show while I’m getting ready for work, or Neal Boortz in my car at lunch.
I miss it. And I really miss not being anywhere close to my blog whenever I listen to these programs but I GET FIRED UP about this stuff.
So when I found out that the morning talk show I listen to, Nick Reed in the Morning, published segments of their show to MP3, I got excited – now I can listen AND comment when it was convenient for me!
Press “play” on the player below and listen to the segment and I’ll comment below. Skip ahead to the 11:07 mark to hear him talking about the food stamp issue.
(Click the blue arrow to play)
Can you believe we currently have 45 million folks on food stamps??? One in seven people are on food stamps. WTH??? Sure. There are some folks who really NEED food stamps and I’m glad the program exists for those people, but I’m betting the majority of people on food stamps don’t HAVE to be on food stamps and only are because they can be. In other words, they are taking advantage of our crappy system because WHY NOT??
Our social programs don’t exist to HELP people anymore, they exist to SUPPORT people and in essence, make them SLAVES to the system. How so? Because it makes people dependent on the government. Because once they get sucked into the system and start relying on these programs to live, it’s doubly hard to get off them and let’s face it, most are not even motivated to do so … it’s just so much easier to allow the government to take care of them …
Er, excuse me, not the government, THE REST OF WORKING AMERICA.
Let’s not forget that all-important little factoid there – THE GOVERNMENT CONSISTS OF THE REST OF US WORKING STIFFS TRYING HARD TO MAKE IT ON OUR OWN.
People who abuse the system are leeches.
That’s right, I said it!
This gives us really good insight into the different points of view when it comes to what the role of government is in our lives. Within the bureaucracies, and many on the left, when you have a government program that exists to assist those in need, the more people you have in the program, the more of a success it is in their minds. That’s how they view success. They’ll, at times, even brag about it, that we have managed to reach, to manage to cover, ten percent more people this year, and in their minds, that is a success. It is a success to them that our country is eroding to a point where more and more people are not able, or willing, to go on their own and to have assistance. That is a clear contrast to what it is that the successful, not only in this country but successful in their lives, view as what a success is. I mean, imagine that point of view for a moment … when your view of success is when the more people in your country are failing, therefore need you in order to supplement their income, supplement their pantry, that’s a horrible, horrible way of looking at things.
You know those old black and white movies where you see people in line to get soup? It would be like bragging that you have more people standing in line to get soup. That’s how the government views it when more people get on government programs today.
That’s a pretty sick logic, folks. I think calling President Obama the Food Stamp President is justified.
Don’t you?
That’s what he wants. That’s what the extreme left is all about. Their mission is to trick people into becoming more and more dependent on the government so that more and more people have no choice but to vote for them, and their dependent, social programs.
That’s a form of slavery people.
How, exactly, is that a GOOD thing?
Think about it.
Articles:
Food Stamp Rolls to Grow Through 2014, CBO Says
5.4 Million Join Disability Rolls Under Obama
On the Verge of Walking
Dear Diary: In the Middle of the Work Drama
Dear Diary:
I knew this was going to happen..
How could it not? You simply CAN NOT put a handful of women into one room, hour after hour, day after day, and NOT deal with the gossip wars. I’m trying so hard not to get sucked into the middle of it, but in not taking a side?
I’m each side’s confidante.
It’s incredibly awkward. Especially when I can stay objective enough to see both sides of the story. Each side has a valid point and though I understand the frustration and the resentment, it really does not do any good to get upset about it.
Everyone has faults, and quirks, and annoying things about them. (Except me – I’m pretty close to awesome, but that’s beside the point *ahem*). The trick, the true test of character, to me, is how you deal with all of these … erhm … complications. Me? I tend to just shrug them off because quite frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass. I’m there to do a job. And though it’s important to me that people like me? My life will not end if they do not.
*shrug* Such is life.
So when one of the girls I work with takes an hour and a half for lunch (we are only allowed thirty minutes), sure, I get annoyed, but I don’t go out of my way to snitch to my boss about it. Or when one of the gals I work with is so anal about doing things PRECISELY by the book and sees the world through black and white lenses (though we all know that the world tends to be a pretty shade of gray because every person/situation is unique and you can’t apply a “one-size-fits-all” label), sure, there are times I want to rip those glasses right off her face, but I don’t, because what’s the point? It might be immediately satisfying but I have to work with this gal every day – I’m more interested in keeping the peace.
I also get REALLY ANNOYED when my co-worker makes a POINT of picking up the phone to make a call at the PRECISE moment that a patient is ready to check out. She does this on purpose so she won’t have to help them and guess who ends up helping the patient even though this person has already helped 3/4 of the patient load that day and is UP TO HER EYEBALLS in things to do?
Yep. Me.
That probably annoys me most of all. Because I CAN NOT stand people who will not at least make an effort to do their job. It’s selfish, lazy and why the hell are they employed anyway? But still … I get over it. Because I’m a FIRM believer in what goes around, comes around. I’m fairly confident that my boss is intelligent enough that she sees what is going on. And I’m equally confident that my performance will speak for itself.
So I keep my mouth shut and I release my irritation in passive aggressive ways and I (im)patiently wait for karma to make her rounds.
But in the meantime, the drama rages all around me.
This past Thursday and Friday were particularly bad for one of the gals I work with. (I work closely with three of the other gals – let’s call them gal #1, gal #2 and gal #4 (because technically, I’m gal #3). Gal #1 has been there the longest. So she tends to bend the rules a bit, which just annoys the every loving crap out of gal #4. (Gal #2 is laid back, a sweetheart and makes an effort to stay out of the drama – which is why she’s my favorite, actually). So really, the war is between gal #1 and gal #4. Gal #1 is going through a lot of personal problems right now. She’s caught in the middle of an awkward love triangle with her best friend and her husband and well … suffice it to say, she has been under A LOT of stress because of it. (Which is THE NUMBER ONE REASON why I don’t have a best friend. I can’t STAND drama and I refuse to get sucked into someone else’s drama). She took an hour and half lunch the other day in order to try and get a handle on it. But because we were short handed (gal #2 was off that day), that meant I couldn’t leave to go to lunch.
Now honestly? I didn’t really care. Sure. I was a bit annoyed, but I was so busy that I just didn’t give it much thought. But it was simply too much for gal #4 and she complained to our boss.
Gal #1 got pulled into the office and reprimanded when she got back from lunch. Which did NOT help gal #1’s stressful situation, but to be fair, she should have said something about taking a longer lunch so we would have at least been aware of what was going on.
And gal #4 complaining about gal #1 not doing her job? Is a little like calling the kettle black because gal #4 helps the least amount of patients and the ones she does help, she tends to make it SO MUCH HARDER than it should be.
She’s exhausting to be around, quite frankly.
And this is just a small sample of the underlying currents that I have to swim against every day.
It’s the battle of the alpha females, I guess. And though I’d classify myself as an alpha female, I’d also say I’m a SUBTLE alpha female in that I bide my time and wait for the other alpha females to hang themselves, because it’s going to happen eventually.
It’s just all so … silly in the grand scheme of things. Women are so incredibly mean to each other and I’ve never quite figured out why aside from the obvious jealously factor. I’m amused by the games, actually. It’s sort of fascinating to watch women nibble on each other, like a school of piranhas attacking a meaty piece of flesh.
No. I prefer to sit back, observe, strategize and bide my time. I prefer to study my cards a bit more carefully before I play my hand. Because it pays off to be careful and patient.
Trust me. *sadistic smile*
Write From Karen 