Some Times, and to some, Tough Is Normal.

Unlike how I raise my own children, my father had certain issues in which he gave no pardon. He never raised his voice or anything, but there was never doubt about his opinion or stand. And I never even thought about disagreeing when he told me to do something. My kids think everything is up for negotiation, but that was not the case at all, when I grew up.

From May to September, my dad told me: “I do not care when you go to sleep; actually I don't care if you sleep at all!!!!! But 6:30 in the morning you will be dressed, boots on and ready to go”.

Every Sunday morning, from May to September that is, my dad and I went up in the mountains to count and check on the flock. He would only walk as far as above the treeline, and then he would use his stick to point where he wanted me and the dog to go.

Often we crisscrossed the mountainside for hours. Just to make sure the sheep were all right. Good thing we are talking about sheep here, because sheep like to stay at the same area, they do not scatter about.

I didn’t really mind. I was in good shape when I was young, and the early, crisp mornings offered amazing experiences. Black adders sunbathing, deer which ran off into the boscage, eagles hovering above me, high up in the sky, making sure I didn’t get too close to the nest. (We had two pairs of eagles, each with a nest in the scree near the top.)

Pouring, summer-warm rain or humid, sunny mornings; bearing promises for a wonderful summers day.

 

One time I carried a sick lamb back home, carrying it across my neck. I wasn’t used to carry sheep, and it didn’t really fit very well, so I walked back home with my neck bent in a strange angle.

You know those paintings/posters of Jesus carrying the one lost sheep? There is nothing relaxed or romantic about it! It was brutal… on me, not the lamb.

One Sunday I remember particularly well. It was fall and we had our annual sheep round-up. We came home missing 7 animals. Standing on the country courtyard, listening to the silence of a Sunday morning still wet from the heavy dew I heard them bleat, then I saw them close to the top… they must have wandered behind the mountain for the night and not returned until after we left. Anyway: I went back up with the dog and brought them home.

That afternoon I went to my boyfriend’s grandmother’s birthday party, and I was so exhausted I just burst into tears for no good reason at all.

Back then we didn’t carry water-bottles or packed sandwiches: we lived in, by, with, off nature, both summer and winter, and it was our backyard, so we went up there, did our thing and went back home.

In fall we picked berries and went hunting. In winter we chopped wood, so it would dry over the year. When I had time, I carried my skies as far up as I could (depending on hazard of avalanches) and had a great skiing ride back down home. My friends used to go to the ski resort, but I never did that. I grew up in a skiing eldorado, but never learned how to ski properly.

In spring we mended the fences, and cut the most damaged brush (caused by avalanches), to open passages and trails. During summer we harvested grass and went to check on animals grazing. My horse would sometimes join in too; checking on the flock and the surrounding farms’ cattle.

Today most farms have quit husbandry; there are hardly any animals grazing in the mountains anymore, fewer pick berries, and only a few go hunting these days. To tend to the forest and brush have become neglected and the passages are not kept open anymore, the way they used to be.

Now people drive somewhere to find more friendly tracks to go hiking. 

 

To me there is a funny twist, though. These days, each fall, sportsmen from all over the country, the elite, and anyone else absorbingly preoccupied with health and sports, enlist for a race; running from town center (the marina) to the top of the mountain. They say it is very prestigeous. And very, very tough.

To Have Or Have Not - Children

Not long ago I was talking to a coworker of mine who is going through a somewhat hard time. Oh, she has a very good life: a husband who loves her, a great house, a neat car, always fashionably dressed, they travel a lot; always on high class.

She regularly pamper herself with spa, massages, hair and nails always perfect and while looking good she enjoys an extensive social life and attend cultural events like concerts and theatre on a regular basis.

One should think she hasn’t got any worries at all, but she does: She has reached an age when she has to decide whether or not to have children.

Her husband is fine living the way he does. He doesn’t dismiss the thought of having children, and he knows he will love them to the moon and back, but if he never becomes a father he will not feel he has something undone in life.

She, on the other hand, feels greater pressure from people in their circle to become a mother. I keep telling her this is a decision she has to make based on her own wishes and needs, otherwise she is changing her entire life based on other people's expectations, and that is not fair neither to her nor the future children.

Another coworker of mine felt the lack of a child so agonizing and such a strain on her very being she became physically sick. Mentally she was fine apart from the sorrow, which is very mind consuming.

She and her husband decided years ago to adopt because they could not have a child biologically theirs.

Until the decision was made they were fine. During the social and financial enquiries they were fine. But when all the formalities were over and done with, and the waiting started, it was like the world crumbled and they went into a private bubble of anticipation.

In my experience (and I know this since I have many years of experience), parenting is both a wonderful and a challenging experience. It takes over your life in ways you never expected beforehand.

Many books will tell you it can put a great deal of pressure on relationships. Forget that. There is nothing can, may or probably about it: It does! You have to put yourself second in every aspect of living. You won’t get enough sleep for years, you can’t plan your days and be sure it will turn out the way you expect.

You may think that nights will be time off; time to live out the person you used to be. I wouldn’t count on it. There is always something left to do, or situations occur which forces you to reschedule. Many get a shock when they get a child. You can’t really plan what it will be like. Extreme situations change a person, and having a child is really extreme. To have your entire life changed overnight is… special.

To be a parent is the most important responsibility people undertake and a loving and supportive relationship helps parents face the challenges of child rearing.

As babies develop into toddlers, then young children and then teenagers and finally adults, it becomes clear that parenting is one of the most demanding jobs a person can do. As kids grow up, you may think they will be more independent, more self-driven… and they are, but they still need you. In different ways, but you still have to be there for them to a large degree.

It isn’t easy to be a couple, two adults who can do just about anything they like, to suddenly become a family of three or four. Sleepless nights and everything else parenthood brings along take its toll.

Lack of sleep makes us edgy, and often arguments start because you need to express how badly you need your sleep. It’s like a competition: who slept the most or the least hours last week. Who got up and soothed the child, changed the diaper, fed or comforted the baby. Statistically most breakups happen when the child is between one and three years old.

Among my friends, I see that single parents often cope the best, because they don’t count on another person to ease the hard work.

I think it is ok not to have children, I think it is a fair choice not to have them... and if you can't biologically; it is allowed to think it is ok. Easy for me to say who got them... but I don't know what kind of person I would have been without them... what I do know, is that my lifestyle would be very different, and that I would have reached a totally different level of self realisation. It does not mean I don't love my kids to pieces, and I have no regrets or remorse over having them... but I, as a person, would have fulfilled my potential to a higher degree as far as my own interests are concerned.

Do I enjoy spending my holidays in waterparks and fairground attractions? Do I like being tugged and called for at all times? Do I feel at ease with my house at all times being messy with toys and gadgets all over? No!

Do I mind interrupted meals, reading the same childrens' book 372 times? Yes. Do I mind enough not to enjoy watching my kids learn, grow, develop into independent individuals with their very own unique personalities? No: I am selfish enough to look at my children and think they complete something fundamental in me as a person. They give me unconditional love, which is returned, even when we disagree.

And yet: The best time of the day is when they are asleep and I check in on them, and place a soft peck on their cheek  ... Just saying.

Time to eat right... not to make others rich

"Cut out some of that abdominal fat ewry day by using this 1 strange tip."

"Lose a little bit abdominal fat every day by following this tip"

"Super diet for a flat belly"

These are examples on the ads I get popping up when online. Not quite sure whether to be amused by the strange typos in these ads, or if I should get horrendously upset or just plain offended. The last one would be preferred, as I then could just sulk and be insulted and ignore them with cool arrogance. That is why there would be no wars if women were the ones to lead the world, you know: We would not have wars, but we would have a selection of countries not speaking to each other because we would be jealous or insulted.

Problem is I find it rather hard to be offended, upset or insulted over something which appears to be so ridiculously unprofessional.

There is a business in the town where I grew up which manufactures a diet pill. It is VERY successful. The founder of this company gave many interviews to the media when they first started. He got into a LOT of trouble because of his honesty; he stated that: This is going to be a huge success, basically because people who think they are fat, people who are afraid to get fat and people who are genuinely fat spend any amount of money at all, if they think it helps them losing weight.

I think we, who struggle to keep our BMI down (and we want to keep it down because after all; we have shoes to tie), are trapped in our comfort zone. We all know what would be good for us. To eat vegetables, cut down on dressings and fat, walk short distances instead of driving everywhere. We think we save time on deep fried food and industry prepared dishes. It is, to us, a question of saving time.

For some strange reason we think that while waiting in line for our food to be deep fried, when we sit in the sofa waiting for the delivery man to arrive or while thawing deep frozen food in the microwave before it is ready to be heated, we save a lot of time.

I am not sure what happened to cookbooks, but I know that internet, especially www.youtube.com, is FULL of good recipes, good instructions on how to do and motivation. Use it!  And when I urge you to do so; I do with a reservation. There is a lot of strange food out there. Really. Honestly. Very unintelligible. Fun, but unintelligible.

Commercials tell us that microwave dinners, take away and semifinished meals (just add water, oil, eggs and/or cheese etc…) saves time and are easier to cook. It is not the truth. The truth is that meals like these are so full of salt, hardened fat (to prolong the expiration date) and sugar, we can’t even recognize the dish. But the industry stuff this kind of prefabricated food with so much salt, fat and sugar, which is really cheap, it is really bad for us... in spite of us believing we cook ourselves.

My grandfather used to say: Red is pretty and sweet is tasty. True, but so are many other colours and tastes.

We eat in front of the TV, or at our desk while working, not paying any attention to what we eat or how much. To eat becomes an unconscious thing we just commit. Almost like a habit. We stuff food in, chew and swallow. Taste, texture, the feeling of becoming full are absent, because our mind is set on focusing on something else.

I would really like to take back control on my money, my time and my health. I will never be skinny, and I would not want to be. If I am to watch everything I eat, I would turn out very boring, not as adventurous and too preoccupied with my appearance. I enjoy the diversity of nature and its fruits way too much to limit myself to brown or white food only.

I want all those fraudulent businessmen who think they can cheat me into making them rich, while making myself miserable, to be proven wrong. I want to spend my money on foods I enjoy both shopping (to go grocery shopping can be quite an adventure), prepare, eat and enjoy while eating. I refuse to swallow it down with a diet pill or some powder or sawdust bar, in a hopeless quest to become closer to the media created ideal of a body. I don’t want my food to be something I purchase and eat just because it is time.

 

When facts are partially fiction, in the media

The thing about trifle details which is part of our everyday doings, and that you see, read or hear on a regular basis (and never really pay attention to); is that once you notice them they overshadow the general main impression, experience or impact it has on you.

Like… the ticking of an alarm clock. You don’t hear it, until one night you just can’t sleep and there it is: tic-tac-tic-tac and your entire you gets so absorbed with the sound it really gets on your nerves. You are on the alert and it is impossible to get any sleep at all. You shut out everything except the suddenly really loud sound.

Every morning I try to find time to scan through today’s newspaper. It makes me feel updated on what’s on the agenda for the rest of the day. Headlines, ingress and pictures give me a guideline to what will be the talk of the day.

Or so it used to be.

There is a good chance I am a bit weird (actually I know I in many ways am); I pay attention to words. I believe that words have the power to catalyze action. I believe you can express just about any opinion prevented you choose your words right. Even an insult can be presented so eloquently it is hard to be offended.

Subconsciously I think we all, to some degree, pick up on these nuances and react to the impact the words we are exposed to have.

It goes both ways; how you speak or write affects people… and we all know that what we hear or read makes an impact on our way of thinking.

There has, for as long as I can remember, been an ongoing discussion about the importance of the press being objective. Lately, when I read the news in the morning, I find myself not really paying attention to the news itself. Like the ticking of the alarm-clock; I pay more attention to the language used.

I don’t know if it is a conscious choice, or if journalists of today are taught this is an acceptable angle to a story, but a LOT of what I read in the newspapers (in paper, and even more on online editions), and what I hear on the radio or watch/hear on TV, is not factual information: we get the journalist’s own opinion on a story, case or occurrence.

I started picking up on the choice of words different journalists tend to prefer.

Far too often the weak, and yet exposed, groups of people in society are even further degraded… or we enhance the prejudices they already suffer from, by how we express ourselves.

An example I see a lot is: the suspect is a young man of foreign descent. So; we don’t talk about the crime committed, we talk about all the foreigners who have come to our country causing nothing but trouble. Making it a disadvantage he is even young, and a man…!

The young man may very well have been born and raised here, his grandparents being the ones to immigrate, but that is not of interest: we just generalize and call them all foreigners, regardless of background or situation.

It is a problem how facts are selected, picked and chosen, deliberately leaving important arguments or facts out.

I am old enough to remember when a fight was won when the opponent lay on the ground. Today a fight is about getting your opponent to the ground so you can hit and kick him properly. Words can do that as well.

When we were presented to news before, we used to discuss issues regarding the event or situation in question.

Now I notice we more and more often discuss not the event or situation itself, but social issues the journalist chose to indicate.

We call media, the press, the fourth estate. They set the agenda by what they present to the masses.

Instead of mending our society by addressing what is wrong with our system, we are lured into brand-marking people. Blaming what is wrong on everybody else. Making us believe our community would be so much better if only we stuck to our own kind. Our people (and I think this goes for everyone, regardless of age, colour, religion and/or political stand.

It is a shame we can’t be updated on news without linguistic misguidance, which distracts us.

I can’t help but thinking this is why we tend to engage less in our local community.

Children’s sports lack trainers and coaches.

The Salvation Army is in great need of more/new volunteers as the older generation must step down.

The list is close to endless.

Instead of spending time healing what is wrong, we focus more and more on our own comfort and feel smug about ourselves because we, at least, are decent people.

And while we do so, we criticize what a bad coach our daughter has to deal with, we don’t even think about what an effort he/she does for our daughter; doing the best he/she can with hardly any help from the other parents.

Very seldom we give thanks or show appreciation. Hardly ever do we care to tell what is right or well.

We adopt the lingo from the medias where we hardly hear anything good. (And if we do it usually involves an infant or an animal.) Small children and animals are still pardoned from our negativity.

I know my postings on here are really nothing much to brag about when it comes to credibility. To be honest I don’t really spend much time on thinking them through… but then again: I never set out to be objective or informative. I just ramble on about what’s on my mind, and it is very subjective.

In many ways news is presented the same way: The press often takes side, choose to tell the part of the story which serves their agenda or cause the best way.

If we want to understand, if we want to change what is wrong about our system we need to know the full story. We can’t make it a matter about whether we like or dislike individuals. It isn’t ok to base factual info on a journalist’s personal view.

I highly appreciate learning what other people think about different things. That is how we evolve as reflective human beings. But what I would like to see is a stronger marking of what is a fact and what is an opinion, especially in the news

(Schoolbooks suffer from the same problem, as they more and more often are designed to be sellable, but that is a different matter.)

Inaccurate language and facts only inspires aggression and makes it approved of, among the masses, to talk about "us" and "them". Looking at history, that was never a good strategy.

A threat - to terrorize

Last week was a rather short schoolweek as Wednesday was the last schoolday of the week. The reason was Ascendant Day… which always takes place on a Thursday, and is a day off here. With Thursday off there really is no point in going back to school for one day… most have already set their mind on a long weekend, and I suppose the world knows by now we Norwegians even postponed end of term tests because Justing Bieber’s consert coincided. (I know there are many rumors it was cancelled, but that is not true: It was postponed.)

No need to arrange an end of term test you know only half of the students will show up for. The hassle of arranging two is just very inconvenient and expensive.

So, this Friday off is another convenient thing as well; not a holiday for religious purpose.

As it turned out, Wednesday became quite an eventful day.

The department, where I work, is in the same building as the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Organisation (NAV), and on Wednesday they received yet another bomb-scare, the third one this year, and we had to evacuate our students (for the first time) because of the threat...

We didn’t really get a lot of information, but we, the teachers, focused on keeping calm so our students would not be frightened by the armed terror police. They are 16 and older, but even though they are on the threshold of being adults, they still need the insurance only adults can give; we play the ”lived-a-long-life” card and tell them the police is on top of things and that we just do as told: trust them, and everything will be ok. To some even that is a challenge, but it is ok to show the teenagers it is true. (Police is never armed here, in any way, apart from in situations like this.)

I found out my year in Israel 23 years ago, was a great advantage. I think I was even calmer than the police themselves. Hah… of course I was: they were on the alert! They took the situation seriously, I discovered later I lulled myself into a state of refusing the possibility it was for real.

So we waited, in the rain, with our students. They needed to go back in to fetch their stuff so they could go home, and the police needed to clear the building before anyone entered. It wouldn’t have been a problem if only the students had brought their busfare card, money, keys to their cars/mopeds/motorbikes… but they didn’t; they left the building as told, and so they had no possible way to get home… we don’t encourage them to hitch-hike.

An hour later I talked to the police and the students who had their car keys were allowed to take their cars from the parking lot and leave. Half an hour later we were told we could sluice the rest of the students into the building, to get their stuff, and we could send them home.

This is like stories we hear from across the Atlantic, or in some other European or Eastern country, or any country anywhere else but here.

In spite of what we have experienced of evil, what we want is no one to pick on others, we want everybody to be good and nice, and with that as basic guiding rules you can do whatever you want… more or less. You don’t have to be friends with everybody, but you can still be friendly and polite.

After all the school shootings over the years in the U.S., administrators have established plans. They have police officers at the schools, tighter security for getting inside, fences, etc. There is actually debate about putting police officers with weapons inside schools to help curb any violence. We don’t want that. We want our schools to be safe, in every aspect.

To me the bomb scare was a rather surreal incident. Even though it was a very calm and undramatic incident, it made me think about huge tragedies. Most started with a phonecall.

People tend to not take them seriously because there are so many. They evacuate buildings, etc., but no one is really scared. Neither were we. We told jokes, talked about future plans, we talked about how the students felt about their school year now that it is almost over. It was rather nice, actually.

For some reason more and more people seem to think that to threaten others is an acceptable, alternative way to express their own profound frustration and/or rage: Regardless of whether the target is a company, an organization, a person or even just random people. To express you want to kill someone, not just take lives, but to do it by inflecting as much harm as possible, purely because they do their job, or just because they happen to be at a set place, is to me to terrorize.

I read a paper published by an Indian student; I think he put it very well:

From Old to New Terrorism: The Changing Nature of International Security

Mahdi Mohammad Nia
Department of Defense and Strategic Studies
University of Pune, India

“New terrorism takes religious and apocalyptic ideologies as its main motivations to action. The new terrorists have ambiguous goals on the systemic level and value destruction for its own sake. For the new terrorists the means are the ends. The old terrorism was comparatively intelligible, limited, precise, and frequently connected to territory, therefore making the political, cultural, or social grievance more susceptible to bargaining.

New terrorism seeks to kill as many people as possible and is specifically drawn to weapons of mass destruction. By contrast, the old terrorism targeted specific groups or institutions and was limited in its means. Old terrorism preferred centralization, hierarchical organization, and skilled personnel, but new terrorism is decentralized, more networked, and inspiration-driven, which opens it up to amateurs and nonprofessional “fighters.”

            http://globality.cc.stonybrook.edu/?p=149

It describes how come many feel they can be inconsiderate and mean enough to predict worst scenario possible as a tool to make a point. I know there is a big difference in threatening to do something and to actually carry out the threat. But to each individual who has to deal with the emotions which occur because you may, or may not, face real harm; that can very well break a person’s spirit. To do so is just not acceptable.

Like and Share.

I don't want anyone to take this personally. I don't want anyont to think I have no  respect for the expressions of social engagement, (and participation in debates conserning our society) people show on the internet, through their social media accounts. We read, like and share.... because we both like what we read and think others should read it too.

And yet, knowing this, I have this disliking of online petitions. "Dislike of" is probably too strong a word, maybe even the wrong one too… but when you sign something by liked and shared it just circulate inside the bubble of a social media. Noone can feel the real engagement and liability people wish to express and be heard on.

Back in the days, you knocked on a door and carried a truckload of boxes into an office; boxes full of papers with signatures on the dotted line underneath. We physically vouched for what we believed in, and whoever received it could see there was a strong opposition, and they felt the unpleasantness of the opposition’s resistance. We made things visual and physically real.

Today… well, not so much. I get a lot of “Please like and share to show….!” And sometimes I do, but not often. I just can’t see the point in showing disagreement by presenting a number of "like"s and "share"d.
 

But there are groups and applications on Facebook I enjoy a LOT! And which I am more than happy to both like and share: Goodreads and Bookcrossing.
 

Goodreads keeps me updated on great books. I have to admit there are books I would not have read if they had not been recommended by ordinary readers… like myself(?). Now that I think about it; I have no idea who writes the reviews, but the reviews are well written and gives a good insight in what you might expect from reading this book. There is no fancy lingo, with multisyllable words I have not even heard of before...
Often, when I read about literature, there is someone zealous who explain everything by using what to me come across as (psychedelic?) linguistic gambol. But you don't find that on Goodreads. Goodreads tells you if a book is good or not, it recomends to you good books you should read... preferably for your own likeing.

When I read a really good book... I just can't find it in me to part with it... ha ha ha... it took me 25 years to learn to get rid of ANY book.
 I wrote about it before on my blog, but I give you the summing up here: I handed approximately 2500 Harlequin books over to the Salvation Army. Suddenly my office looked more empty, the Salvation Army told me they sold out within a week.... and these books, (which I read when I need to escape from thinking) were MINE and not something my family should bother with: I never missed them a second after I removed them from my house.

There is a scary attraction to what allows me to empty my head from pondering. I know, before I even buy the book, how it will end, and yet I still buy and read it. Some of them are ridiculously bad written… that adds another dimension to them as well… a bonus if you will: How NOT to write.

Anyway, when I read a really good book I sometimes buy the paperback and release it. I always carry a couple of Bookcrossing labels with me and release the books I have finished reading. Then I register the books online. It is great fun to see how my books travel, or just disappear and then show up again long time after the release. I think those who pick the books up also read them, and enjoy doing so.

Sometimes, far from always, I release books in my own town, but I always release the books I read when I travel.

So: Goodreads and Bookcrossing; two applications I really enjoy. And since I enjoy; I "Like" and "Share".

 

Challenge yourself!

My goal is to read books in 2013.

 

www.Goodreads.com
www.bookcrossing.com

Tired

 

Today I just felt like staying in bed, which is rather unusual for me. Usually I am the last to go to sleep and the first one up.

I love those crisp early hours when everything is quiet and the world is still lulled in the warm comfort of blankets. In summer I take my coffee outside and sit on my outdoor steps listening to the birds greeting the new day welcome.

If it’s raining I draw a bit back to avoid getting wet and enjoy the sound of drops hitting the roof above and the ground. Something soothing about rain, I always calm down when it’s raining. Whether I sit on my outdoor steps, indoors listening to the rain ticking on my windows, or if I just challenge my dislike to rainwear and plunge into the force of the element: rain is a good remedy for a strained mind.

Growing up where I did, I learned at a very young age to embrace the elements rather than fight them. So, I do.

But today it wasn’t raining. Today the sun was up at the crack of dawn, reminding me summer is just around the corner. Usually I get a feeling of anticipation when this notion hits me, but today… I just felt an avalanche of doings not yet done hit me.

It is like being overwhelmed by an insurmountable race against time. So much to do and so little time… It is like I don’t even want to try.

Tempted as I am to give up before I even try, I went to work feeling exhausted. I am crazy tired, but I keep on going; like the energizer bunny till it runs out of juice! Determined to at least show up and prove to myself I can cope. At least on a negligible level. I think I just need a little down time, but I can’t for the life of me figure out when that down time should take place.

When summer is here and the vacation starts it doesn’t matter what I did or didn’t get done: it will be too late. Then I clear my desk, go home and open every door in my house letting the wind blow through my house and sweep it clean. My head resets and I charge the batteries. By the time summer is over I look forward to meeting my new students: A new school year, new challenges and possibilities.

Strange that is, really, when I know that in a year from now I will feel exactly the same way I do today.

Words: about everything and nothing at all.

Sometimes I have so much on my mind, I almost burst with the urge to get it out.

When I need to get something off my chest I instantly think: I need to get this down on paper. Even now, after all these years of typing on my laptop, I think of paper as the primarily source of writing. Don’t really know why; except from my shopping lists, my to do lists, Christmas- and greeting cards, I type everything on my laptop these days.

The thing I do, when I get my head too full of good ideas and opinions, is to write them down.

While writing this it crosses my mind how old fashion I actually am: I still think of writing down as something I do using pen and paper.

I enjoy pen and paper immensely, and yet I hardly ever use them. In spite of my increasingly growing collection of very usable felt-tip pens I never use, but think is cool. I buy them, and they are expensive.

Oh, I clutter down my shopping lists, my to do lists, my greeting cards and my Christmas cards using my handwriting and a vast variety of felt-tip pens.

In spite of how much I love my pens and papers; my overall writing activities happens by my laptop, where I still hover and press each letter on my keyboard.

I would probably do the same thing with my shopping- and to do list…only using my mobile phone, if it wasn’t for me being so terribly poor at remembering to bring my mobile everywhere.

There is this inherent stubbornness in me refusing to be reachable at all times.

My greeting cards and Christmas cards are handwritten only because… well, I myself, enjoy receiving something other than bills and commercials in the mail. And I get to perform some paper-craft at the same time, with a legitimate excuse.

I have never been a good orator, or to express myself orally. At least I think I express myself better in typing. But that might be something I imagine, I don't really know... and I am not sure it is very important all the while I get to let my mind flow freely, which it does when I write.

The other day I got this “look-up-what-animal-you-are” in an email.

I turned out to be a cat, and it told me that a cat:

“If you are a Cat : An extremely lovable, adorable person, sometimes shy, with a passion for quick wit. At times, you prefer quietness. You love exploring various things and going into depth of each thing. Under normal circumstances you're cool but when given a reason to, you are like a volcano waiting to erupt. You're a fashion bird. People look forward to you as an icon associated with fashion. Basically, you mingle along freely but don't like talking much to strangers. People feel very easy in your company. You observe care in choosing your friends”.

Hmmm…. I don’t even like cats, but I have to accept there is a lot of truth in there… like most general “readings” have.

There is something in particular I find to be very true about me, the cat: “Basically, you mingle along freely but don't like talking much to strangers”.

Yeah, I don’t always find the reasons to express my ideas, opinions and thoughts spoken out loud. My words have a tendency of coming out the wrong way.

But when it comes to write down my ideas and thoughts it is a totally different matter; I use the laptop. And these days I lure people, like you, to read about them. Purely because I tend to post (some of) them here.

I sometimes think it might be a stupid thing to do… like now:

My mind was so full of thoughts I confused myself.

And yet… when I took time to sit down and get it all “on paper”, my mind just went…. Blank.

And I ended up writing another posting about absolutely nothing at all. I suppose that nothing at all was what I needed to put on paper tonight.