Hack, Cough, Wheeze

(Just a note -- blog posts turn up on my Facebook feed as a note; this is old news for anyone reading on FB.)

I've been sick since last Tuesday evening: allergy-induced Bronchitis. I get it at least every other year, around the same time, with the same symptoms every time. Throat suddenly hurting? Inner ears starting to itch? I know exactly what to expect. Knowing what's coming (and that it will pass) does not help me be any less of a big wuss. I'm tired of the deep, painful cough and the phlegm. (Let's leave it at that, shall we?) Whine, whine, whine.

I can't really nap, because laying down makes the cough worse. Things were so-so until Friday night (at least I got through the work week mostly unscathed), but I spent the weekend propped up on the love seat in our little library room here, with some DVDs (the entire run of Frontier House today) and my Giftmas knitting. If nothing else, I got quite a bit of knitting/finishing done! (Working with the pink stuff to the right at the moment.)

It's very important that I get over this in the next few days. We have family coming Thanksgiving evening, I have some knitter friends coming over on Sunday, and on Monday next, I start a new job.

You read that right! I'm sure many people who are reading this have been in similar predicaments: your company is going through rough times, or maybe is already reorganizing; rumors are flying, and you don't know what's coming at you next. So, you get your resume updated and maybe post it online -- doesn't hurt to be ready, right?

What I didn't expect was to have a call within 2 hours of posting the resume, and a request for an interview the next business day! I posted my resume on Friday, had a formal interview on Tuesday and a job offer the same afternoon. (Right about the time my throat started to hurt!) I'm very excited about this new opportunity. With the market the way it is right now, I know precisely how lucky I am.

Hope this finds everyone healthy and well!

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For Sale: 1 Bus Pass

I like my new job very much; however, I'm not a huge fan of my commute. It's frustrating and, at times, harrowing. Then there is the walk between the building and the parking lot. I'm sure it's all quite safe, but it still makes me a little nervous. Really, though, the biggest problem is the stress of the drive. (I may not have mentioned in the past that driving - anywhere - is not something I enjoy.) Recently, a co-worker, who has been taking the bus for years, offered to help me see if there was a way I could do something similar.

Well, we found something and I gave it a try one morning last week. Which brings me to my title. I have 1 Detroit Area Smart pass, with $11 on it. Cost me $10, and I'll sell it for $9 and will pay for the stamp myself.

On paper, it makes all kinds of sense: The total fare for the day costs about the same as my parking fees. I'd get to work about the same time, without the stress of trying to cross a freeway to take a left exit in 1 mile. I'd also save some gas by only driving halfway each time. The bus stop is close to my building -- closer than the parking lot.

What the above doesn't take into account is the fact that 1) the bus drivers have to be willing to stop and pick you up and, 2) be willing to drop you off.

The ride to work was uneventful. Bumpy, but otherwise stress-free. After work... that's another story. After standing in the rain for half an hour, the third bus finally stopped. There was another soaked-to-the-skin woman on board, who had had the same difficulty getting the previous buses to stop. Because it was my first time, she helped me ID my upcoming stop and told me when to pull the cord*. The driver refused to stop. We finally convinced him that yes, that was my stop, so he pulled over to the side of a road, a road with no sidewalk, next to a sign that said "no stopping". And I got to walk back to my car in the rain, crossing an exit ramp, going under a bridge, crossing another street, and finally climbing a hill to get to my car. Around the same time I would have been climbing the steps to my house.

So, I'm done with the bus. I'm serious about selling the pass. I bought it after the uneventful, but bUmPy ride to work, and for some reason, the home-bound bus meter wouldn't accept it, so it's got the full value on it.

*It's "Park and Ride," so there are very few scheduled stops.

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Book Report

Later in this post is the back story to how I came to have a degree in Literature without reading a lot of the classics.

Whenever I do one of those book memes, I feel a little twinge of regret. I mean, I have read many classics, but most of them voluntarily, and not part of any curriculum. I know some of the books on those lists are crap and don't qualify as literature, and some might be required reading in school but aren't really all that great. But there are some great reads that I've missed. So, I took a poll and asked some folks for suggestions. Some of them I'm going to skip, because I still don't believe in reading some books just to say I've read them. But I am mixing it up and reading great books because they sound great.

Recently finished:

• Atlas Shrugged
• Jane Eyre (via Google Books)

In progress:

• Animal Farm (via Google Books)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (loving it!)
• In Cold Blood (Non-fiction. Found while I was digging around Google Books; read a good portion of it on preview. Now will have to buy it.)

In the line-up (pdf downloaded):

• A Tale of Two Cities

Read in the past (in no way an exhaustive list; these were recently recommended, but I'd already read them):

• Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion
• The Scarlet Letter, House of the Seven Gables, many short stories, including Young Goodman Brown and The Artist of the Beautiful (which made me cry). Writing this reminds me how much I love Hawthorne.
• 1984
• The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings trilogy
• Chronicles of Narnia (over and over and over)
• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
• Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys
• Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• The Color Purple
• lots of Shakespeare, some Kafka

Recommended, and planned (have to acquire them first):

• Fahrenheit 451
• Catch 22
• The Bell Jar
• As I Lay Dying
• Wrinkle in Time and a Wind in the Door

Maybes:

• The Giver
• Edith Hamilton’s Mythology
• Moby Dick

The Back-story continues after the cut

I have a Bachelor's degree in English Lit. I love to read. I don't recall ever learning to read - I just started reading, around the age of four. I started getting in trouble over my reading in first grade, when I was caught reading under the lid of my desk. (Yes, I went to school when they still had desks with lids that lifted up, and you stored your crayons, etc. inside.) I loved mysteries the most, starting with The Happy Hollisters, progressing to Trixie Belden, then Agatha Christie. (Not Nancy Drew so much.)

In 6th grade, at the beginning of the second semester, I transferred from a private school where I'd spent 2 semesters to a public middle school. I was plopped into "Reading," where the entire class read a selection from a reading textbook, then answered questions. No great literature there; in fact, I'd read the entire book for fun when I was about nine. (My paternal grandmother worked for an elementary school and always brought me copies of the books they were throwing away because they were too worn.) The class was co-taught by a pair of women, who were not happy with me when they saw me looking around the room when everyone else was reading. I swore that I'd: a) finished reading the selection in class and, b) had already read the entire book. They made me read it again, and again, I finished before the class.

That was the end of my time in 6th grade reading. Rather than put me into another reading class, I was shuffled off to one of the coolest pigeonholes ever: I was to be a Ditto Aide. (Yes, I went to Jr. High back when they still used mimeograph machines. There was one Xerox copier, but it was locked away and only used for office business.) The teachers had to use mimeographs for handouts, quizzes and tests, and there was a team of misfit students who ran the copies. After that, when people mocked the AV squad or other teams of their kind, I knew that they were just jealous.

I went on to another private school for 8th through 12th grade. Baptist school, where they would never, ever foist those terrible reading lists on the students. Heck, we barely read at all. I vaguely remember some poetry, and some Shakespeare. Oh, dear. And Beowulf and Pilgrim's Progress. But not a lot of lit. In fact, a couple of years after I graduated, they dropped "Lit" altogether, as well as anything resembling composition. Imagine the fun later graduating classes had if they managed to get into college! I'll save for another day the appalling, dare I say, abysmal, state of my science education.

Then I went to college. I do not recommend my academic path to anyone. I went to a Baptist college for one semester. Hated it, hated my roommates. It was almost a blessing when I found out that my mom was on bed rest from a back injury and I was more than happy to be inconvenienced and forced to move back home. I transferred to the only local college still accepting students for the next semester - a Church of Christ school. I got my AA there, and had, for the first time, a true, positive, academic experience. Then I went completely insane and went back to the Baptist college. Two semesters there, and I was ready to run. (I did make a wonderful friend there, someone I'm still friends with today (once we found each other again), so it wasn't a total loss. That, and the Abnormal Psychology in Literature class. I loved that class!)

Finally, I arrived at OU. I wanted to teach, and I had the majority of the core curriculum completed (I'd obviously lost some credits as well, transferring between the school), so I started taking the pre-education courses. I excelled at those, and loved them, only to be told that they were only accepting into the program minorities, males, and people who hadn't transferred in. (Swear!)

Distraught, I made my way to the Registrar's office. "What do I have the most credits in?" Literature. Many of the courses I'd taken at the religious schools had transferred as Literature. "Okay, then. Literature is my new major. What do I need to graduate?"

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Upside Down

A quick lunchtime post...

Earlier this week, I learned that I'll soon be out of a job, probably sometime in early February. With the state of the company, I've been waiting for this day to come for some time -- our team has been untouched by the cuts that have been going on all around us for months. Because of the nature of my contract, I'm the one to go this round, but it has nothing to do with my performance; indeed, my boss has been trying to prolong this reality as long as possible.

I'm taking advantage of having this much notice to get my resume updated and am earnestly looking for a new opportunity in my field (web content management and/or training). In addition to getting my resume up on Monster and CareerBuilder, etc., I'm on LinkedIn, and have been spending my breaks and evenings getting my profile updated. I'm also trying to get some endorsements, and one of the best ways to do that (besides just asking for them) is to write them for others. I found a great little gem that some of you might get a kick out of: linekdIn endorsement generator. I think it's meant in all seriousness, but I'm serious when I say: Do not use this to create endorsements! There is no punctuation, it does not recognize gender, and some of the phrasing sounds trite. However, it is fun, and can - occasionally - produce a phrase that will at least trigger a kernel of an idea you can put to use.

I am grateful for the folks that reviewed my resume for me and made suggestions, as well as for all the good wishes and prayers coming from friends and family.

In other news
The only grocery store on my best route home is just dreadful (of course). The fact that it's small and doesn't have the greatest produce - or general selection - isn't a deal-breaker; we can do our main shopping a distance away at a Meijer or Kroger. For convenient stops on the way home, however, it finally became a no-go last night.

I stopped to get a couple of things, including kitchen garbage bags. Store brand, because that's almost all we buy lately (I also got hit with a pay cut earlier this month), the box was stickered $7.49, but rang up at $7.99. I pointed out the discrepancy to the clerk, who turned, peeled off the sticker and said, "Well, it's wrong."

I told her that the scanner law in Michigan required that if the scanner rings up higher than posted price, the posted price had to be honored, but if she didn't want to do that, she could just remove the bags from my order. She stood there for close to a minute, debating, then deleted the bags and re-rang them at the labeled price, scowling the entire time. When the credit card receipt printed out, she slammed it down on the counter with a pen.

One thing is really sad... they have seriously excellent bacon at the meat counter. That I'm going to miss.

Quick response to Jess, and anyone else that's wondering: the $5 bonus applies if you complete the transaction. Then they owe you the difference plus 10x the difference up to $5. I only ever attempt that when the staff at a store seems like they could comprehend. In this case, we've dealt with their quasi-shady dealings in the past and I knew it wouldn't do any good. Once, we had a store manager (at a Best Buy of all places) threaten to call the police on us. So a small-town grocery store wasn't likely to comply. (I also only press it if I don't notice the error until after I've paid.)

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