the Take What You Need project

I came across a picture the other day on Pinterest, of course (originally here: http://aubrey-jo.blogspot.com/2011/12/take-hope.html) of a sign that said “Take what you need”.  On it was 15 tear off tabs with different qualities you may be in need of.  I loved it and wanted to do something similar where I work.  But as cute as it was, it didn’t really seem useful enough for me.  So to start with, I created four identical signs like this:

Argh! I can’t figure out how to get this in the right direction! But you get the idea.

And then…to the Interwebz for quotes!  I found 4-5 quotes for each of these “needs” and wrote them on the back, as sort of a takeaway thing to think about.  I’m hoping those quotes help to inspire the quality a little more than just the act of taking the word with you.  Here’s what I’m using; feel free to use or add your own if you’d like to do this project.

 

Love:

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Oscar Wilde 

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.
Thomas Carlyle 

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
Mother Teresa 

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.
Mother Teresa 

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you want to be loved, be lovable.
Ovid 

Faith:

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
Mother Teresa 

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
Voltaire 

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
Khalil Gibran 

Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.
Mahatma Gandhi

Patience:

Have patience with all things, But, first of all with yourself.
Saint Francis de Sales 

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
William Shakespeare 

He that can have patience can have what he will.
Benjamin Franklin 

A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.
George Savile 

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau 

Courage:

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney 

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela 

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Winston Churchill 

Courage is being scared to death… and saddling up anyway.
John Wayne 

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
Bruce Lee 

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Mark Twain 

Courage is grace under pressure.
Ernest Hemingway 

Kindness:

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.
Dalai Lama 

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
Joseph Joubert 

Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.
Princess Diana 

A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.
John Ruskin 

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 

A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.
William Arthur Ward

Motivation:

A champion needs a motivation above and beyond winning.
Pat Riley 

Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.
Norman Ralph Augustine 

Everybody kind of perceives me as being angry. It’s not anger, it’s motivation.
Roger Clemens 

In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it.
Jane Smiley 

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. ”
― Walt Disney Company

Peace:

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Mother Teresa 

Peace begins with a smile.
Mother Teresa 

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 

The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace.
Carlos Santana 

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
William Hazlitt 

Energy:

Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.
Oprah Winfrey 

Energy and persistence conquer all things.
Benjamin Franklin 

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.
Eleanor Roosevelt 

The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.
Norman Vincent Peale 

It takes a lot of energy to be negative. You have to work at it. But smiling is painless. I’d rather spend my energy smiling.
Eric Davis 

Passion:

Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.
Anthony J. D’Angelo 

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
Nelson Mandela 

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
Martha Graham 

Creativity:

An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.
Edwin Land 

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.
T. S. Eliot 

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Sylvia Plath 

Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas.
Donatella Versace 

The chief enemy of creativity is “good” sense.
Pablo Picasso 

In Which We Get Verbally Dressed Down by Immigration…

CLT Immigration Officer to my husband (please read IO with a Jamaican accent as well for extra realism):  Mr. Andrew…what do you do for a living?

Andy:  Nothing.  I was a student and I just graduated.

IO:  And what did you do before that?

Andy:  Well, I’ve been a student for a long time.  Most of my life actually.

IO:  Must be nice.

Officer turns to me and asks: And what do YOU do?

Luckily, I can tell him I have a job so he doesn’t think we’re completely destitute freeloaders who deserve to be thrown back into the wasteland between the airplane and the immigration desks.  Then he asks where I’m from and I tell him Buffalo.  He smiles and says he could tell – I don’t look like I’m from Charlotte.  

Imaginary Parent’s Orientation Speech

Or, We’ll Do the Best We Can with What You Have Sent Us.

(No one in their right mind would ever have me talk to the parents of incoming freshmen at our university, but if they did…)

Good morning and welcome! We are so happy to have you in our family.

This time of year fills us all with excitement and nervous energy, and no one can relate to that more than you, the families of our incoming freshmen. You are wondering what to expect from this experience – and so are we at _______________. Because just as every student is unique, so too is that student’s experience. So too is your experience. So too is ours. And every new experience is an opportunity for challenges, learning, and growth.

Challenges. Learning. Growth.
All of these things must take place for students to succeed, and they will – if we let them. I am not going to tell you to let go, because you won’t. And you shouldn’t, because your student will need your support at times when success seems far away. You are their best cheerleaders.

Traditional society considers an 18 year old to be an adult, but research suggests that approximately 50% of parents, college administrators, and the students themselves do not feel that to be true. How then does that transformation to “adult” take place? Some ways are mastering new tasks, developing the ability to manage the emotions, and learning from mistakes. There will be some mistakes along this journey. Forgetting due dates. Believing pizza will give you all the vegetables you need. Navigating the tricky nuances of new friendships and expanding social circles.

Things will go wrong, but the growth and learning will come from how these things going wrong are made right by the person they are happening to. This is where your support is helpful – not by fixing things but by reassuring the student that they have it in them to persevere. That they have the tools both within themselves and within the University. Every issue is a goal and every goal met, no matter how small, helps to work towards the larger goals of independence and adulthood – and of course, a degree.

Things will also go right! With each challenge accomplished, no matter how small, the student’s competence and confidence will grow, providing them with the momentum to accomplish things they never would have thought possible.

They will expand their worldview.
They will learn to lead.
They will do great things.
Our challenge is to guide them without pushing; support them without carrying.

Can I guarantee a college career for the student free of any bumps, disappointments, or hardship? I cannot. Nor would I want to. But we will work with that student – the newest member of our family – every step of the way to become a scholar, a leader, and an adult who is better for having been here. That I can guarantee.

You’re Doing it Wrong: Socially Awkward

I have begun to hate the term “socially awkward” and all that it wrongly (I think) implies. This term gets used a lot in my line of work and I’m as guilty as everyone else of using it as a descriptor or explanation of someone who doesn’t quite fit the mold of “normal”. I hate that word too, FYI. If someone isn’t “normal” then obviously there must be some cause for alarm, something we need to have fixed, something that is lacking. I think usually all that is lacking is a desire to be in that self-righteous category of “normal”.

The phrase makes me think of Gollum – now there’s someone truly socially awkward. Hiding out in the dark, unable to develop and keep real relationships because he keeps killing people, really down on himself – and not wanting to be that way. But if someone isn’t relating to you in a way that you find normal and comfortable, that may say more about your awkwardness than that someone.

One of my favorite movie lines comes from Ghostbusters, where Peter (Bill Murray) is on a date in a fancy restaurant and his buddies bust in and are all excited about something they’ve discovered. As people nervously look around at the disturbance, Peter tells them “you’re scaring the Straights”. I feel like saying that all the time (usually about something I’m doing) but if I did, people wouldn’t get the movie reference and assume I am talking about sexuality. Which is a shame because the whole scene is so apropos to everyday life. No one wants you to do anything to scare the Straights. Otherwise you are labeled as weird, dangerous or socially awkward.

Don’t like networking or don’t want to join a club? You are SA. It can’t be that you detest small talk and your “club” is your group of friends or a solitary hobby. Don’t dress like everyone else? It can’t be that you have waaay better fashion sense, or like to play with styles or colors. You say what everyone is thinking? It can’t be that you are straightforward and hate wasting time with bullshit. Or just the opposite – you don’t say anything? It can’t be that you’ve learned people will look at you like you have three heads if you say what’s on your mind. Can it?

Using the “socially awkward” label really says more about your awkwardness with difference. Weird is wonderful.

Best & Brightest My Ass

Consumer rant for a moment:

I hate rebates because they take so long to process that you forget all about them and while it’s nice to get surprise money, I’d rather not have spent that money in the first place.  I’d rather have a damn coupon.  Of course, if rebates were easy and not time consuming, everyone would do them and then the companies wouldn’t have quite the scam they think they do.  And in this digital age, even I can see how this cumbersome process could be sooo much faster and easier (and cheaper for all involved).

My husband is a rebater, bless his heart.  It could be a rebate that’s slightly more than the cost of the stamp he needs to mail it, and he’ll be all over it with his forms and highlighted receipts.  Actually, he’ll make me be all over it, since he is far too busy to deal with purchasing stamps or writing tiny letters in blocks on these forms.

Yesterday we got a rebate form returned.  It’s my fault and now it’s my job to fix it.  But IS IT my fault? I think not.  Let me give you the facts:

• It was returned because I used our PO Box.  They say they do not ship to PO Boxes. NO WHERE on the form (including the teeny tiny small print) does it say they do not honor requests to PO Boxes.
• I had to list our phone number AND an e-mail address on this form.  They could have quickly contacted us for another address.  Instead they chose to write us a letter explaining the problem and waste time and a stamp sending it with our form and receipt.  Are you kidding me?  Now I have to waste time and a stamp sending it back.

In related irony:

• I am mailing the form back TO A PO BOX.  Hypocrites.
• The rebate is for headlights.  Thus, the name of the rebate is “Best and Brightest”.  I disagree.

Before I sealed the envelope, I wrote them a little note to point out the ironies.  I probably owe my husband $15.

Cameras: It Shouldn’t be This Hard

My first camera was a Kodak with 110 film cartridges.  I would take glamour shots of my Barbies (usually Malibu, she was the prettiest) doing things like climbing trees and lounging in the grass on a sunny day.  I don’t know if any of those photos still exist but if they do, I swear I’ll learn how to use the printer/scanner monster and post one.  Taking pictures was one of the coolest things in the world to me.  I still consider it vital to document things that are interesting or important to me, although I’ve never felt comfortable with sticking a camera in people’s faces.  I try not to.

Eventually I was upgraded to a plastic 35mm automatic boxy thing of no memorable brand.  Pentax maybe.  It served me well for many years (through high school and undergrad) until dying on a vacation in Florida.  I remember this only because of the wisdom of my grandmother, who we had stopped to visit.  ”That’s what credit cards are for.”  That may not be a deep thought but it has served me well over the years when I start getting into a snit over an unexpected cost.  Shit happens.  Credit cards are for that shit.  Ideally they should ONLY be for that shit, but then I wouldn’t have things like…well…almost everything I own.

And so on, until I moved to the south and wanted to get back into “real” photography.  I’d left my “real” camera at home – the mighty Pentax K1000, loved by high school student yearbook staff (including me) everywhere.  My dad had adopted the Pentax and I didn’t want to ruin his fun so I started spending all my free time on this new site…eBay.  I think I lost an entire summer to eBay, I was so overwhelmed by it.  I started to amass a collection of old, sometimes functional cameras because they just looked so freakin’ COOL!

I also acquired a Pentax ME and a Minolta X-370.  I loved that Minolta, and bought several lenses and accessories for it, but in the end sold them both back to eBay.  That’s how it went for several years, rotating cameras with whatever I thought I wanted at the time.  Cute Olympus Styluses, a Canon Elph that used the annoying APS film, and my splurge at the time was a Canon Rebel (35mm).  I agonized over the Canon vs. Nikon debate and read endless online forums discussing the merits of both.  In the end I gave up and went with what was cheaper because it was impossible to tell which was better.  That camera was my Roth IRA by the way.  I felt so grown up at the time. I had opened the account about a year before and that was exactly when things started to tank financially.  I went from $2,500 to $800 in a year with no reason in sight to believe it wouldn’t lose more.  So I closed it while there was money in it and bought the camera.  Don’t lecture me on financial planning, I still think it was the wiser choice.

Then digital happened.  I have actual 35mm film in my fridge – it’s been hanging out with the cheese and lunch meat for years, but I never use it.  My first off-brand digital camera was 1.2MP and I thought it was the bees knees.  Next I upgraded to a Gateway.  Yes, they made digital cameras.  And they sucked.  Actually I loved mine but it just kept breaking.  Best Buy wouldn’t return it for repair after a while and gave me store credit.  Which brought me to my ultimate go-to camera and forever favorite… the Nikon Coolpix L3.  Remember when Coolpixes had only one digit to remember?  Now it’s all 3100 or 5 billion or something.  The L3 was a champ.  I say “was” because it finally gave up on me this Christmas, as I was trying to get pictures of Andy dressing up as Santa.

The last picture my beloved L3 kind of took.

The fatal flaw of the L3 seems to be when the lens motor dies and it will no longer retract or focus.  Sad day.  I felt like I should have buried it or something, it felt so wrong to just toss it in the kitchen trash can.  It went everywhere that my expensive Canon Rebel (first film and later/presently the digital version) never went out of fear of destruction.  It was dropped on top of a mountain in Yellowstone.  It witnessed shocking antics at countless Mardi Gras.  It went to the Grand Canyon, to Paris and Cancun.  It took pictures of the exact same things at Disney World year after year.  Not once did it ever give me trouble until Christmas Eve.  The fact that it was only 5 MP doesn’t really matter because really – when are you actually going to make a poster-sized print?  Never, that’s when.  Anything more than 5MP and you are just having a big dick contest.

Another reason the L3 went everywhere the Canon Rebel did not?  Pictures with the Rebel XT tend to suck.  Yeah, all that money and not only did my 35mm lenses not work correctly on the digital version (even though I was assured they would), but pictures are not nearly as clear as I think they should be.  I don’t get it really, because people in reviews almost always love this camera.  It still sells for a ridiculous amount of money, whereas I can get a Nikon D50 body for $170.  I guess I’m a Nikon person and didn’t realize it until too late in the case of a SLR.  Heavy sigh.  I gradually sold off the film Rebel and it’s lenses, but the Rebel XT (with Canon lens) is my elephant in the room.  Oddly, it is the best camera in the house for close-up photos of my jewelry; that reason alone is why I still have it.

Canon Rebel XT in it's only useful mode.

Besides the L3 and the Rebel, we also have an astounding crapload of Kodak Easyshares.  Three in fact, and every one of them pisses me off.  I got one for Andy years ago because he didn’t really seem into taking pictures like I am so I got him a basic digital Kodak C315.  I feel every person should have a camera – I can’t imagine how people don’t have one.  And just so we’re clear, your phone is NOT a camera.  I don’t care how many megapixels it has.  I don’t know why but I hate when my technology multitasks.  I want my phone to be a phone, my camera to be a camera and my e-reader to be an e-reader.  I SHOULD like all-in-one gadgets (I refuse to golf until someone makes an all-in-one club, and I refuse to believe Andy when he says it’s impossible) but I don’t.

Anyway…that camera has lived it’s life and is starting to do funky POS things.

The second Kodak  was a gift to me from Andy when the cable port on my L3 broke.  He was thinking I needed a new camera and it was so sweet of him and I really wanted to love this camera.  But no.  It seems newer cameras think they know better than I do where I’d like it to focus.  They are wrong almost every single time.  What happened to focusing on what’s in the center of the frame?  What happened to pressing halfway to focus and then composing your shot?  So much disappointment in one little camera.  I keep it in my office though because you never know when you’ll need a camera.  Even so, I just realized I didn’t use it so capture my office earthquake damage in August.  For that I used Kodak #3:  The Mystery Camera

You're thinking that hey, the picture is just fine! Sure, because it's focusing on a flat surface that is standing still. I need it to do better.

The third Kodak (C182)  was found by Andy at The Giant Crazy-Ass Tree House in Crossville, TN.  H to G, if you are ever driving I-40 through Crossville, you MUST go see this thing.  It’s incredible and not far from the highway.  Don’t do a tasting at the winery at the exit before you go, save that (and the Wendy’s) for after.  But I digress.  The camera.  It’s a nice enough camera but still has that same smarter than you focusing problem.  Plus, Andy refuses to use it.  I think he feels guilty about not trying harder to find the owners of the camera before we left the tree house and is afraid of bad Karma. (Actually, Andy just told me he doesn’t like the camera because the battery door is cracked.  Really.)

So, four cameras in the house and all I want is the fifth one that broke.  I figured it would be easy to check out the latest Coolpix and choose the cheapest one, right?  Until I read the reviews and looked at their specs.  Grrr.  Only one uses AA batteries – a dealbreaker for us.  Every P&S we have must use AA rechargeable batteries and SD cards.  The reviews for it are also only 50/50 which is shitty odds.  Same for the rest of the choices.  What to do?  I thought this would be easy!  I know I like Nikons!  I know I don’t like Canons and Kodaks and I didn’t want to choose an unknown evil.  All morning I wasted my time looking at reviews and choices and it went from easy to heartburn-inducing.

So fuck it.  I just bought a used L3 for $20 on where else?  EBay.

UPDATE:  In about 5 hours I’ll probably have another cheap eBay L3, and after I got a manifesto via facebook about P&S options I bought a used Panasonic Lumix today from Amazon.  In short, staying home with a cold cost more than I meant it to.

Hello world!

My new blog.

It has that “new blog” smell…

I’m not sure what my goal is for this blog, but I’ve been missing one for a while now and wordpress looked like a good one to try next.  Maybe this will take the place of Facebook “notes” – which means it will be full of fragmented thoughts written in the middle of the night while hopped up on migraine medication.  Or things that are too long for FB notes, or that I think people who know me won’t really care about reading.  IDK.  Sometimes I just like to type.  I suppose I could do reviews too, I know I always like to read other people’s opinions (and lord knows I have enough of my own).

So fair warning:

There will be no definite theme.

There will be cursing, sarcasm and blasphemy.

Enjoy.