"Hey, this box says free vinyl!" "Are there 8 singles in there?" "Yes, why?" "I've had this idea for a while now..." Anyway, I had a great trip in Antwerp this weekend. I'm part of an urban planning club and we go on a trip every year to visit cool projects and generally have fun. Among other things we visited the medieval underground canals that were used for the old center's sewage until 2001 (!). You know how horror games include these creepy sewer-like levels with gross stuff, spiders and rats? It was basically that but with a strong fecal odor. The tour guide happily told us that since they moved to actual sewage treatment fifteen years ago, the river has stopped being a toxic hell and actual fish swim in it. Great job, Antwerp!
I got two hours of sleep last night. At some point today, the counter on my profile will say I've been a Hubski member for 365 days. I'll probably sleep through it as I plan to nap through at least part of my day. So let me just say, this place is wonderful, you're all wonderful, and I'm looking forward to another year on here. :)
One credit agency has deleted the bad item from my report, expecting the other one will too (Update: The second one just did too!). Went on a date on Sunday which went well, meeting up again tomorrow night! (Holy shit, I'm excited about this!?). Been asked to help out with some very, very cool radio things and I'm starting to make a name for myself out here with all this work. Feels good. Now if only my knee felt good, too...
Wow! That's excellent news - and relatively quick too! congrats! (it's still ridiculous that you had to go through it - but I'm glad you're getting to the other side of it)One credit agency has deleted the bad item from my report, expecting the other one will too
Thanks! This entire situation is turning into a huge waste of my time, which, all things considered, is the best case scenario.
Hey Hubski. I am a long time lurker. I've had my account for 555 days, but I was around at least a year before that. I decided it was time to end the creepiness and finally introduce myself. Despite the amount of time I've been lurking, I still wasn't sure if this was the most appropriate way to go about the introduction. So feel free to let me know if I should've done it differently.
I am a picky bitch, but I much prefer introduction posts in Pubski than the stand-alones. That being said and my opinion, I haven't been so mean as to actually call anyone out for a stand-alone post, so don't feel I am taking aim at you if you've done so.
Hello, lurker. It's as good a place as any to introduce yourself.
Thanks everybody. You have a really insular yet wonderful community here. I hope I can contribute in some small way In the future. A bit about myself. I am a woman in my twenties. Ex-EE. I gave that up to reproduce. Now I'm a massage therapist/bad musician.
Tuxedo? Dry cleaned, packed. Music? Well practiced, well marked, two copies of the full score packed plus digital display backup. Flight? Weather looks good for DTW and LGA on Friday. Performer? Anxious. Because traveling in general is kind of stressful to me, and this is my first time flying solo. Once I'm in the city, barring dinner and one Broadway show with the old folx, I'm on my own. It's not something I'm used to, even after a year of living alone. I associate fun stuff, traveling, itineraries etc with people, with a group and my role as part of that group. Now my role is 'fun-haver' and it doesn't sit square. I feel like I should be designated babysitter, managing someones gear/schedule or something. Someone please teach me how to relax :/
I looked over the ForeverLabs site last night, looks great. insomniasexx's work? Also President mk, that's a vote I could feel good about, mind if I write you in?
No, just a template. But thanks. Sure! My platform is to turn the US into a collection of walled city-states. The space in between will be a lawless expanse simply known as "The Wilds".I looked over the ForeverLabs site last night, looks great. insomniasexx's work?
Also President mk, that's a vote I could feel good about, mind if I write you in?
construction on the compound has already begun... if it weren't for the vasectomy, I'd start fathering countless hoardes of children (as if I didn't have enough already). Either a scar or maybe some hardware.... I'll start a board on pintrest. here's a start:
I turned the corner and saw her. She was standing there, a thing of beauty with a long neck and big, deep, brown eyes. We locked onto each other, neither of us moving. For a brief moment it was just the two of us, two creatures' brains connected by the photons bouncing off our retinas, each sizing the other up. I debated saying something for a long, lingering few seconds before she twitched her ears, turned on her front legs and bounded off into the woods behind my house. Fucking deer.
I broke my finger this morning, to my surprise. Started seriously hurting about two hours ago, now I'm out from ward with that one finger placed in some fixture. It's just pathetic how that happened. I can play basketball, volleyball, handball and whatever you can think of and never had so much as a bruise that did not fade away in two days. Car accident from a few years ago? Got some stitches and had to have part of my back bandaged for few weeks. Strengthening wooden bed frame with a rubber hammer? Now that's something where I'm in danger, apparently. What's weird is the fact that it was perfectly OK most of the day and suddenly in the span of few minutes went all purple and caused quite some pain. Other than that, I'm almost done with exams. I might even get additional stipend considering how it went. GPA is at 4.93 on maths and 4.97 on physics, so that's cool. As a side note, we have following grades in Polish universities: 2.0 - failed 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0 - normal pass 5.5 - exceptional / best n people per course, depends on lecturer's and faculty criteria. Some people and even whole universities don't use this grade.
See, I don't really get (or got, until now) injured in a way that lasts more than a few days. The problem here is the fact that I had quite a lot of traumas including but not limited to: -mentioned car accident where most impact went on my right clavicle and shoulderblade -2nd degree burn on 15% of my outer thigh from campfire going very poorly -falling from a bike and plummeting down the steep hill for ten meters before stopping on a pail of scrap -countless little injuries resulting from my active sports life (soccer + mentioned above) and the only thing that actually injured me so far in a way that prohibits me from doing anything for more than few days is… rubber hammer. That's like being able to survive Vietcong ambush unscathed only to be sent to hospital because you have put a really sharp pencil in your back pocket and sat on it :/. Just to make it clear: I don't think of myself as impervious to anything. It's just annoying me on some level that of all stuff that happened to me this is the most lasting.
After 4 months of flailing, I finally collected my first new data set last Thursday. Feels good bro. The actually results weren't too interesting and mainly confirmed what I'd seen before, but it's nice to be out of stasis, protocol-wise. In the mean time, I've been learning all of the other basic lab techniques: cloning / ligations, gels, blots, and cell assays. In other news, I've decided my Aeron chair is not right for me. It would be great if I had good posture, but I do not and I feel like it's actively contributing to my very bad back pain. Any suggestions Hubski?
YES! This stupid little thing: http://www.amazon.com/BackJoy-SitSmart-Posture-Improvement-100-300lbs/dp/B00911XIBM It's called a "BackJoy Smart", and all you do is put it on the chair, and sit on it. I guarantee that your Aeron chair will feel amazing, your back will feel better, your neck will feel better... it seems like a stupid late-night TV ripoff thing - and I thought it was when someone handed it to me - but I now carry it with me when I know I will be sitting in a chair for a long time. (I generally prefer motorized desks that let me switch between standing and sitting, but even when sitting, I use this stupid little thing and feel great.)
I don't know if this will fit your budget/lifestyle/office, but I have liked standing. http://www.ergotron.com/Products/Workstations/StandUpDesks/tabid/803/language/en-US/Default.aspxvery bad back pain. Any suggestions Hubski?
I'm getting married in less than 3 weeks. I get nervous about it for the stupidest reasons, and that usually happens right as I'm about to fall asleep... But I'm really excited. We've got the big things done. Only the cat herding is left. As soon as anything looks about right one of our mothers sprays the cats with a hose again. Talking about the wedding with either of them is hazardous, yesterday she was talking to her mom about the registry and her mom started crying. I'm don't know why, just that it's because. I'll probably survive. I know I'll be to excited and nervous to remember it. Also I've been lurking a few months but just made a new handle to contribute with. Hello Hubski!
Didn't think I'd still be so busy, nearly 2 weeks after coming back from the trip. Lots of seeing friends, family and now i'm helping out my mom by re-painting a bunch of rooms at their place. It feels like i've been busy but have done nothing. Still a TON of videos to edit and I just don't find the time while somehow watching 2h of YouTube (more?) every day. TIME TO GET MY SHIT TOGETHER. Tomorrow it's painting, taxes, editing, gym.
Iced tea, barkeep. And a round of whatever they are drinking for all my friends. So. The wedding is one month away, and I am happy and excited. I've got projects to do, things are on schedule, and I am not stressed. Winning at work, pretty much. My motorcycle and I are building a real friendship. Things are pretty groovy, Hubski.
Hello Hubski -- currently ISO a person who is familiar with/perhaps fond of Gertrude Stein's "Tender Buttons," who also has the time and inclination to read a short-ish poem draft in that style and amenable to slight brain-pickings on the draft afterwards. If that sounds like you, reply or PM me. I will appreciate. In terms of real life, today I was in an 8 hour long meeting, aka my entire work day. I am not fit for 8 hour long meetings. We had a midmorning, lunch, and midafternoon break, but even with those, that is the longest I have sat still in one place in I don't know how long but very, quite, very long. I didn't go outside all day. I do not like things like that. On the rare occasions I do work in the office for 8 hours at a stretch I am the sort of person who gets up and makes a round of the floor every hour or so, who, when on a call, prefers to pace about while talking. The meeting did not have to be 8 hours long. I learned some things that were quite positive and interesting, but in other ways it was deadly dull, overly cheerleader-y, excessive, at minor points even slightly manipulative. Not to mention cloaked threats of future "relocations" (read: lay off everyone who works in one place and re-hire the department in a new place) as well as a list of 4 "attitude suggestions" from our CEO that could be summed up as "There is no I in team, work hard and harder at getting along, don't take it personally if you get fired!" On my way out I stole 2 cans of diet soda, so I suppose I din't leave wif nuffin. It is summer now and it is glorious. I have been writing consistently again. At last. Something turned or fixed somewhere around mid-April and has been continuing to turn or fix gradually, but positively, ever since. This is very, very good. It feels very, very good. I don't know how much effort I am going to put into publication submissions going forwards. But I know, at least for now, I am definitely going to continue to write. - It is hard to suddenly, at 26, find yourself questioning the identity you have held dearly for yourself, as yourself, since you were 12 or so - the identity you thought you would always be, the identity you thought was what described you first and foremost, above all else. I always wanted to be a writer. I always was a writer. Then for the last 6-12 months before April it got very difficult, and then I could find nothing worth writing about, and then I mostly stopped. And I wondered, if I wasn't a writer, who I was. And I didn't know. _ If you want to be a writer, but are having trouble writing, may I suggest you read good books, books you like. Not books from a canon or books you "should" read, but books you enjoy. Easy books, or books about people you admire and love and are intensely curious about. Find a book that is so good you want to read it. And then another. And another. And it may help you write again. At least, it may help you remember what you love so much about words. - P.S. If any Hubskiers are located either in Pittsburgh, or around the Clarksville, TN area, I hope to be visiting both during a week sometime this summer between mid-July and early September. Please let me know. I love a meet-up, no matter how small.
I changed my Galaxy S3 for a Galaxy S7 some days ago for my birthday. I tried to customize it a bit : I have downloaded some new apps (Pocket Casts and Endomondo) and went running, it was really great to run while listening to podcast.
Thanks! Wallpapers:
So, I totally thought Father's Day was this Sunday. That's why I spent two hours of my Tuesday afternoon in one of the country's largest shopping malls, trying to strike a balance between a gift so bland that it might as well be a pair of brown socks and a gift so zany it would never leave the back of a closet. It was only when I got home that I realized that Father's Day is on June 19th, not June 12th. At least the mall was fairly quiet, and I've (accidentally) done my shopping somewhat in advance, which is a rare enough feat for me.
It's a damn funny thing: here, I can talk to people and have little problem with it. The Hubski folks are awesome: funny, chill, always have topics to talk about and do so in a respectful manner, as equals to equals. I miss that in real life. Can't help but think it's something about me, because it can't be the whole country, can it? I made a friend recently. She reminds me so much of my younger self that I went on about lecturing her how to do better without getting her consent. I do my best to stay respectful and positive with her because I made a vow to do so with the new people I meet, but I can't help but notice how screwed her emotional world is. She sincerely believes that holding her emotions back is the best way and that her mental breakdowns - "just" every once in a while - is an okay consequence of not having to rely on anyone because she has to solve her problems herself and only herself. And I may have pushed her deeper down today by trying to make her open up a little. Fuck me. Fuck the exams that make me lose sleep, for the first time in years. Fuck having to navigate a minefield with a person whom I can actually understand, for the first time in my life. I have three exams in the next two days and I can't fucking bring myself to study because of all the worry and sorrow, and I barely know shit in either of the subjects. The only things that help me stay sane is my sharp skill of bottling emotions and as many sweet drinks as the money can buy. And Hubski. Bless Hubski.
Speaking as a person who hates talking about my emotions, and hates telling people the deepest personal stories of my life, the best way to get a person to open up is to shut up and listen. A person who is afraid to share is afraid because they don't know how you will react, or if you can be trusted. They are afraid if they tell you who they really are, they will be rejected. You have to show, through time and consistent friend actions, that you are open to what they have to say; that you will not judge or judge negatively the things they think or have to say; that it is safe for them to bring their darlings out into the open, and that you will not smash them. Don't try to pry out of them what they don't want to talk about. But do be open with your own secrets and vulnerable spots. When you are vulnerable in front of someone else, it makes them feel more safe: you have risked something, you have put your skin in the game, which means you trust them enough to tell them something which could hurt you, and it hasn't, and maybe in return they can begin to do the same.
As someone with a similar personality who learned this the hard way, then had this reinforced more times than I want to account for through therapy groups and training for 7+ years, this is spot on. One bit of knowledge I can pitch in here as well is the use of this particular dialogue to get into the habit of 'active listening'. It's clumsy at first, but provides some seriously great training wheels for creating a safe space for 1-on-1 opening up to one another. That said, it's based on a model for 'couples therapy,' which can be applied to any form of relationship, in reality. My favorite part of it all is how commonplace the wording can be, and the efficacy around de-stigmatizing opening up is profound in my experience. Your partner in these interactions may soon follow your lead and consciously, or not, start reflecting back and listening - a win-win in my book.
Thank you very much, ref, for a good advice. I must admit not to be patient most of the time, and with people, I see that it might get... difficult, for lack of a better word. I also steer the conversation towards self-imporvement a lot of time, none of which has been called or asked for yet. In my trying to help, I might be intimidating the trust of the person I want trusting me. The intent is most benevolent; I'm afraid that the result isn't always beneficial. I'll do my best in that area and see how things go.
Well, I'll be damned. The barkeep had my vanilla coke ready as I got here. That's damn neat. Training for the big MHACF event next week starts tomorrow. I'm curious to see just how big this organization is and its reach since it's supposed to have big wigs from the city there. I finally started to grow out some facial hair for once since being out of JROTC. I get the impression I should shave it for the event; although, hopefully by next week it'll be a bit more solid and I figure out a good way to clean up the look. The gruff is 2 weeks in. It is a momentous occasion. I can see it now. I'll be the manliest man that ever lived once my beard is at full length. Gusts of wind will gaily race through my bearded locks as herons descend from clouds to lift me from the retention pond out back, away to the blazing sun. Rays of light shattering the heavens beguiled by such luxury shall reflect its brilliance for all the world to see. Snaps out of daydream I should have made a point to get to class on time today.... Having summer courses really makes me like I'm perpetually forgetting something important since I'm not in "full school mode." Filling up my time with books is harder than I thought growing up with all these electronics. On that front, with regards to online dating, I actually got woo'd after changing my profile around and adding more description. Who woulda thunk it. The outcome was not my cup of tea, to my disappointment, ultimately.
While school ended quite a while ago, that lingering anxiety remains almost completely intact. I never realized how many things I had actually put on hold because of school, and getting through it now is exhausting. I've held off the job hunt for a bit until I can find a steady routine (only for a month or so). I'm teaching myself the rest of the Spanish language (I can understand it fluently, but never took the time to learn to speak). There is some pressure to attend grad school, but I honestly can't afford it so that's gotta be for the future. I graduated though, so through it all I do feel this deep sense of relief.
My birthday is coming up on Saturday. I will be 28. Where did the time go?
I have been spending my time learning Spanish and German, playing drums, playing and practicing CS:GO (team-based tactical first person shooter (video game)). I really love CS:GO. I maybe want to have a job somewhere around it? I stay home mostly because all my friends are in New York or incredibly busy or have new friends now. My mom wants me to get a job because she thinks not interacting with strangers is unhealthy, which my dad knows is bullshit, and my dad wants me to get a job because he thinks I'm just wasting my time at home, which my mom knows is bullshit, but because the end result for both is to want me to get a job neither one of them is going to contradict the other. So I have to work some bullshit job for the summer. I'm trying to delay it as much as possible. Also I don't want to go back to my old job because it turns out the reason my boss never used his last name is that the first Google result for his full name is him on the sex offender registry.