"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me."
Walt Whitman (1819-92)
"When I look back now over my life and call to mind what I might have had simply for taking and did not take, my heart is like to break."
Akhenaton (d. c.1354 BC)
And now, the current weather, from some random person we pulled off the street:
Monday, October 27, 2003
Riding the Earthquake
per·se·vere
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French perseverer, from Latin perseverare, from per- through + severus severe
Date: 14th century
1 : to persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement
2 : What I do every day
Well, it looks like the white knight might finally arrive. And he's black. Which in a way is kinda cool.
Without giving up too many details, our company is merging with another one, and in not too long I'm gonna have a new boss. I've been waiting for this for years.
When I first took the position at the company where I work, I had to pretty much create it from the ground up, carving out the areas that I could best handle and creating the company image, the company accounting, the internal workings, all while the other folks played Monopoly trying to make dreams come true and win the quick buck. Well, of course, there are no quick bucks, and dreams only come true with hard work and sweat.
Which are things that some people were not all that comfortable with.
Somehow a corporate culture developed where everyone was just trying to make sure that failures were not their fault. I never bought into that. I always thought that success was better than blame, and always felt that it could be done.
So everytime I've had the chance, I have tried to capture the ear of whoever might be in the position to fix this thing, to make this plane fly.
It appears I've been heard.
Finally.
There was a big blow up Friday afternoon right in front of the new guys. Gary had set things up so that something I needed for a report coulnotto be done without his permission then neglected to keep tabs on it to make sure it was done. Of course, the entire thing became, in his mind, my fault. So he spent about an hour insulting me. The new guys heard it too.
They called me after I left, and had me meet them at a local bar. It seems that as far as they are concerned, I was 100% right. They have promised to fix this in short order as soon as the merger is done.
There's more, but this is a public blog, so it'll have to wait. But anyways, this blog is about me, so I'll talk about that.
When I got home Friday, I began to be very distressed at the day's events, even though the eventual outcome appeared to be a good one. I really dislike conflict, especially needless conflict.
As a result I mood cycled all weekend. Not badly, but enough to blow through my meds and be uncomfortable. Its amazing how quickly you get used to feeling "normal" once the meds get right!
So, the next couple of weeks will be important ones for Cliff, I think.
If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.
Professor Irwin Corey (1914 - )
Just Say No II A study of sex education programs in schools in Texas finds the state’s abstinence-only policy doesn’t work as well as hoped. “We didn’t find what many would like for us to find,” said Texas A&M University researcher Buzz Pruitt. His study shows that 23 percent of ninth grade girls have already had sex by the time they received abstinence lessons. And after they attend, the percentage increased. The numbers for boys are even worse, but they lag the girls by a year. Abstinence education, which must have “as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity” to get federal funding, has been strongly pushed by President George W. Bush, who was governor of Texas before he was elected president. (Dallas Morning News) ...Because girls said no to him while he was in school, and he wants to be sure that doesn’t change now that he’s out. Available in This is True: Book Collection Vol. 11
