Posts tagged jewelry

Encounter #8 On Wombats and Independence

April 20, 2012 · Filed under Encounters, Reel World Observations · Tagged , , , ,

I wish I could read the messages in bottles the Universe sends me sooner.

I know when there is a disturbance in the Force. I know when something in unmovable and cannot be stirred. I have had that sense for the past couple days, and the Universe decided to teach me something new.

October 22nd is Wombat Day in Australia.

That isn’t the main thing I learned yesterday, but that’s a side fact, and an interesting one to figure out what wombats have to do with anything.

The actual process of this Universe lesson started when I was putting jewelry on. I had gotten this cute bracelet and I could not get it on myself. I was constantly fidgeting with it and spent a lot of time trying to get it on. I eventually had to go get my mom and have her clip the thing on me. I then tried to get on some earrings I had that matched my theme. After 15 minutes I did not have the dexterity to complete the fasteners and was stuck holding earring backings.  In utter frustration, I found some others and they slipped on fine.

My hands ached. I have horrible dexterity and handwriting. I have never officially been diagnosed with Disgraphia but it matches everything I’ve been through.

All of a sudden the phrase, “I have the dexterity of a wombat!” went through my head.  I didn’t know what it meant so I wasn’t sure what to make of my brain thinking that.

During tutoring yesterday, I noticed how dependent one of my students was on me. I knew that I had to help him shake that habit or be stuck. I made a mental note to be tougher on him.

When I got to class last night, one of my longtime classmates sat on a bench outside and called out to me. He wanted me to stick around and chat for a bit.  Lo and behold I did not bolt. I did tell him I wanted to meet with my group first as we were doing a presentation tonight, so I went inside to find them. I couldn’t find anyone.

I went outside and sat with him and talked a bit. It was a fairly deep conversation for someone I had barely talked to.  It went like this:

“In two years we’ve only talked 5 minutes, why would you want to talk to me?”

“We did that project together [last year] so we’ve talked at least an hour.”

“True.”

“So How’s married life.”

“It’s not.”

“Already? Wow, that sucks.”

He had a breakup pre-talk the weekend before with his girlfriend. We discussed that for a bit, and then he talked about his favorite comedians and their advice on life. He said he was glad I was optimistic about my future and that I was doing better without him.

It was then one of my group members came out of the woodwork and said, “Hey! There you are! Where were you?”

“I tried to find you! No one was there!”

That was awkward. The guy joked, “Wow, way to leave your group behind.” He earned a death stare.

In hindsight, I noticed a change. I didn’t worry about what he thought of me. I didn’t worry if he thought I liked him or something. I didn’t worry about what he thought. I understood the joke.

For someone like me with social anxiety, that’s a huge breakthrough.

During the class, one of the presentations was about how good the MPA interns were. Remember all that worrying about an internship? Yep, it was back! The report said that interns sucked at having social skills and other soft communication skills and supervisors didn’t like that and so they didn’t want those types of interns.

It started to dawn on me. My program made people scared of wanting to hire us as interns. All these other bad interns made it difficult for us here in the future looking for interns. Crap!

The other theme presented was hand holding. Apparently, these supervisors thought that the interns were not independent or capable of taking the initiative and solving problems and being confident in their solutions.

It was staring at me in the face; I was going to be a horrible intern!

And like fire my brain started processing all these different scenarios. I thought about where to look on the internet and how I can wrap things up. I wondered if the reason why I hadn’t heard back was because I needed the time to learn all this.

Then I came home. I decided to take the initiative to talk to my mom. She really freaked out at the idea that I might have to have an unpaid internship this summer. An unpaid internship means little time for a job with which to make money. No money is bad for my bills. She begged me to talk to my director about all this and to try to work something out. She was mad at my director for making me pass up an out of state opportunity. She has the power to deny any internship as qualifying. She didn’t want people looking out of state.

Now that I was in full panic mode, I scoured the internet just as I had planned. I used Google for all sorts of terms. And then… I saw it.

It was perfect. It was beautiful. My dream field right there in front of me. 1 hour way commute but it would be worth it… I thought I had hit the jackpot…

Then I noticed something… I was exactly 1 week too late after the deadline…

It was then I started to cry and get mad at myself. I thought again, “I have the learning curve of a Wombat!”

Now what was I going to do? My dependence on my director and this program cost me my perfect internship. I was at the mercy of my director at the beginning, and I didn’t learn until too late that I was in charge, not her. I was in control.

((I’ll talk about my control issues on another post.))

I sent her a panicked email with random updates and how I was really concerned about it. I told her I was getting family pressure. How I needed help. Maybe she could call and push that manager to give me a call back?

That was kind of a horrible idea… I should send some sort of retraction. Hopefully she’ll see it as panicked.

In my social ignorance, I had been so caught up in whining and my lack of network I had forgotten something simple. I had forgotten that since December, I needed to be in charge of my life in order for it to work for me.

Dear Universe. Lesson Learned. Now teach me how to make that manager call me back? I have the confidence now.

I did some research on wombats after this breakdown. They are actually very strong creatures that eat lots of plants and are native to Australia. Wombats are very smart and agile as they live underground and can turn every which way.

I don’t know how I developed this prejudice against wombats. They are actually kind of cute.

Hopefully the wombat facts make up for this extraordinarily long post.

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Social Encounter #2

March 27, 2012 · Filed under Encounters · Tagged , ,

A funeral of someone you love really is nothing to joke at, but sometimes you have to find humor in it to heal. I hate the fact that so early in the year my aunt passed, and I hate seeing all my cousins suffer. My aunt was sick for a long time with infection after infection and it finally took a toll on her heart. She was always in my life.

As I got older I started noticing something. My uncle—her husband—NOT my blood relative mind you—was off his rocker. At my wedding he got incredibly drunk and he hit on everyone, including the groom’s mother. Very classy. This uncle also tells horrible jokes and thinks he knows EVERYTHING. I felt sorry for the nurses that dealt with him when my aunt was in the hospital.

Now that you have a feel for things…the awkward narrative.

While driving two states north, my parents and I held it together. My parents were working out plans and what to do and when to do it. Eventually, we decided to head to my aunt and uncle’s house for dinner, where all of this starts.

My uncle’s sister and her very sick husband were staying at the house and we dropped by. We stayed for dinner, but never having met these people I was not sure what to do or what to ask. It was a pleasant time, and her husband had much better jokes than my uncle ever did. We finished up some Italian dinner and eventually left to check into the hotel.

The next day it was time for the wake. I had heard whispers of “that awful funeral home” and “oh God she’s wearing what?” I was not sure what I was in for.

My dad’s father was laid out at the same funeral home in 1967. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought nothing changed.

It was a tiny building, looking like a house, and it was squished between a ghetto Days Inn, a Meineke Car Repair shop, and to the back was an extensive network of railroad tracks.  The building needed a paint job and a new sign pronto.

As soon as I saw the interior, my jaw dropped.

The entire room was pink with god awful paintings and god awful lamps and god awful couches. Everything was pink. Pink curtains, pink decorations, pink, pink, pink!

My aunt’s favorite color? Purple.

She was laid out very tastefully. I truly don’t know what that means and that is not my opinion. How are you supposed to know what someone who has passed is supposed to look like? The clothing that was picked was nice, but there was something about her jewelry…

Oh no! It couldn’t be true. My uncle made her wear her pimp crucifix.

When I say pimp crucifix, I mean, it was stolen off of Snoop Dogg’s neck, taken to Flavor Flav’s jeweler, and then embedded with more gold.

My aunt was a humble woman, never had anything fancy in her entire life. She had a decent job and my uncle is a deacon. How on Earth did she get such a thing?

Rewind to Christmas when my aunt came home from the hospital. My uncle gave her a nice box from the local jewelers. She opened it up and said, “Oh wow [my cousin’s name] something else for you to inherit!” She stared at this thing in absolute horror, and then said, “Imagine a deacon’s wife wearing this! What would people say?”

And the poor woman was buried in it.

[Scene Break]

At the wake, my cousin’s wife asked me where my husband was. Apparently someone a.k.a. me forgot to let them know I was separated. At this point I did not care so much about the stigma or details. I just told them I was separated and that I did not care much where he was.

What are you supposed to say in that situation? Lie? Not say anything? I don’t know… That wasn’t in the handbook. Conversations are strange enough at funerals anyway. Each religion has its own traditions and taboos. Can’t someone just make it generic? It also did not help that I did not cry much. Normally I’m a mess but either I had no more tears to cry or I was at peace that my aunt was not suffering anymore. I wonder if anyone else noticed that.

The next day was the funeral Mass. It was icky and cold and rainy. I have not been a practicing Catholic since 2004 so why start now? This awkwardness I set up for myself because I have a certain set of opinions and beliefs about the way the universe works.

I did not go up for Communion. In case you did not know, Communion is given often and is practically mandatory. I went to Catholic school where you learned all about the ins and outs of it. Out of respect FOR THEIR RELIGION, since I had not gone to Confession or started to believe in the tenets of the Catholic Church since 2004, I did not get up. I was sitting with my mother’s family, and another aunt tried to force me to get up. There was much ado about the whole thing, from very loud whispering to other family members telling her to leave me alone.

My aunt was a very devout Catholic. I don’t know if she would have respected my decision to follow the rules about Communion or if she’d rather hope that taking it would bring me back to the Church. Chances are the latter is not going to happen, so I’d rather respect others’ beliefs.

I followed the best rules I knew that whole 3 day period. I only spoke when spoken to or when it was needed.

However, as a young woman, I would have liked to help out my family more. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I was not told what to do and when I asked there wasn’t anything to do. My mom’s sisters ran the drink stand during the after funeral celebration. My mom took care of what was needed as well. I had no answers on what I was supposed to do, so I sat there. I’m good in crisis; normally I know exactly what to do—but that’s when I am in charge. But when so many other people are above me in that line, I can only sit there and hope I’m doing the right thing.

Total experience awkwardness level: over 9000

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