Happy New Year
Dec 31, 2009 by libjpnHave been wrestling with my students' graduation theses, having moved to online discussion. It's been great in terms of getting students some of the one on one attention they need without having me at the office getting angry at students showing up late or unprepared. Between ObWi becoming a outpost on the War on Terror and my daughter getting an ipod for Christmas, I haven't noticed much else on the innertubes. What's happening in your corner of the world?
Comments
Jan 01, 2010, 05:07:20 OCSteve wrote:
So some thoughts on *not* blogging/commenting…
Number one – the health benefits are not to be exaggerated. If you get worked up when you read something and format a reply, your body reacts. It may seem silly, but the best thing I did for my BP was to give up commenting at ObWi. I went from “OMG admit him to ICU…” to “rock solid good numbers”. Someone is always wrong on the Internet… It is pointless to try to correct them all.
Health wise things are great. My sister remains free of cancer. I realize it is only one year and a recurrence in the next several years would be normal. But we take what we can get. OTOH the expenses are insane. Happily I am still employed, and I help out with the bills where I can. SSDI covers the heavy medical bills – but there are so many incidentals you don’t think about. Travel, time lost from work, hotel stays… My mom and sister lose so much time from what work they can find that they are having a tough time. Good-not good…
Politics… Ugh. (Not you Ugh!) The toughest part for me is reading ObWi but not jumping in to comment. So many times it’s like “you are so damned wrong – Arghhh!”. I guess we all have to face the fact that the site is no longer what it was and likely never will be again. Hilzoy was the heart and soul of the place. I don’t believe there was ever a writer I disagreed with more while respecting the way that she wrote. It’s hard to explain, but her writing drew me in and made me re-examine so many of my positions. The dKos and Jane Hamshers of the world could never do that. But with Hilzoy you would get drawn in before you knew it. Then you start nodding along with every logically laid out point. It was only some time later you would realize how she changed your entire world-view… Miss you Hilzoy – a lot.
ObWi from here? I appreciate Marty’s participation. I do so remember what it is like to be the only one on one side of an issue. He has my respect just for sticking it out even if I don’t always agree with him. But face it – it is a totally lefty site at this point. And…
The rest of my comments would be political and I am staying away from that.
On a personal note – I miss interacting with you all very much. It was a big part of my life. It was and still is very difficult to give up…
Goals for 2010 – give up smoking finally. I’ve moved from OC to the VA boondocks now so I should be VASteve at this point. I’m hoping that the 20 mile drive to get a pack of smokes (vs. walking 1 block) will make the difference finally.
I really hope you all are well in this coming year. I miss you all a lot.
Jan 01, 2010, 08:25:40 DaveC wrote:
I'm fixin' to watch the Vols take on the Hokies. It's cold outside, not quite brutally cold but could get there next week. First Christmas without the kids here, but did have a good meet up on thanksgiving in TN. Can't get mom-in-law to the house either - small place is not wheelchair friendly. Visited on Xmas Eve and morning, then went to Starved Rock Lodge for a couple of days and hiked in the snow around the bluffs; slipped and fell down a couple of times on ice, but didn't go over the cliff. Finished 2nd year at new job, survived 2 rounds of layoffs. 9 hrs + 1 hr commute each way. Dont do internet at work. Hunkering down. Have become more terse. Charles Bird is still blogging on the FORVM. Slart needs to put BirdDog on ObWi alumni Sidebar. Will make it thru winter, God willing and the creek dont rise, then back to camping and bicycling.
Jan 03, 2010, 02:40:34 John Thullen wrote:
Happy New Year to everyone!
As for 2009 (and the rest of the decade), don't let the door hit you in the ass as you leave.
OCSteve, I'm glad your health is improved and I hope your sister does not have a re-occurrence.
I agree with you about blogging -- 2009 was the year of my head exploding -- to no good end.
I miss Hilzoy. I like Marty, even though he is wrong about everything, but someone had to take your place on the wrong side, and it wouldn't be good to have two guys who are wrong all of the time at Obsidian Wings at the same time .......... we might as well call it Redstate.
That of course is a joke ha ha. In my book, you can be wrong and I can still like you, or you can be wrong in the manner that Redstate is wrong and the whirling machetes of God are going to descend on you at my command.
As for you, DaveC, I miss you too. Not so much because you are wrong, but because the manner is which you were wrong was never terse enough. In fact, the sentence, "Have become more terse." is not terse enough.
I'd work on that. "Me terse" would be approaching terse. "Terse" is getting there. Not saying ANYTHING is maximum terseness.
But, I tease. I wish you the best in 2010.
LJ, who would have thought we would be "Taking It Outside" to express how much we love each other.
Things are so bad inside (the global political rhetoric) that we have to take it outside for respite.
Jan 03, 2010, 07:03:10 russell wrote:
I'm glad to see the back of the aughts. A low, dishonest decade indeed. Farewell and good riddance.
Personally, for 2010 I want to overcome my fear of flying. My wife misses France, it would make her decade if we could go there together. And I'd like my stepson to go the doctor and deal with whatever is giving him irritable bowel issues.
Politically I'm not expecting any miracles. I've kind of worn out the head exploding thing. The country has gone more or less nuts. In addition the levers of popular self-government have more or less been usurped by people with Very Large Agendas Of Various Kinds.
All IMO, of course.
On a positive note, here's May Sarton's New Year's Greeting from 1937. If she can muster this at a time like that, I figure it behooves me to shut up, look on the bright side, and do my best.
[quote]
1937 New Year Greeting by May Sarton
The earth feels old tonight
And we who live and stand on the cold rim
Face a new year.
It is raining everywhere
As if the rain were mercy,
As if the rain were peace,
Peace falling on our hair.
Open your hearts tonight, let them burn!
Let them light a way in the dark.
Let them one by one affirm there is hope for a staff:
I say it will flower in our hands,
We shall go garlanded.
There is the fine fresh stuff of faith for a coat:
We shall go warm.
We shall go on by the light of our hearts.
We shall burn mightily in the new year.
We shall go on together.
O you who stand alone on the rim of the earth and are cold,
I salute you here!
[/quote]
Happily or no, in peace or in war, rich or poor, full or hungry, jobs or no jobs, sick or well, we shall go on together.
We're all stuck with each other, here on this little blue and green ball. Might as well make the best of it.
Here's my wish for love, joy, peace, and grace in 2010, for all of us here on TIO, and all of us everywhere.
Jan 03, 2010, 10:39:31 JanieM wrote:
Nice to hear from everyone over here.
OCSteve, we could try to think of stuff to talk about over here that wouldn't get anyone's blood pressure up. It seems like there ought to be some topics that would be fun to explore that didn't involve taking sides. ;)
Or even ways of exploring difficult topics on a friendly basis. Who knows!
Russell -- I didn't get on a plane between 1997 and 2008. I wasn't aware of being afraid, though maybe I was, unconsciously. Consciously, I just wasn't going anywhere I couldn't drive to. (Maybe I was letting my life get a little dull....) I had started driving out to Ohio to see the family when the kids were young, because it cost so much to buy 3 plane tickets. Then I realized that I enjoyed the drive quite a bit, so I kept on doing it whenever I wanted to go out there.
Then in 2008, all of a sudden I had a chance to go to England with my daughter and to Brussels for work. I loved both trips -- especially London. I say, take your wife to Paris! Drug yourself if you have to! It's really not that bad.
I say that, and then I have to admit that I have been stewing for over a year about the challenges of a trip to China. It took me several months, after my son and I agreed on a rough time frame, to actually buy the tickets. It's just so damned far from here! I hope to either sleep or read a good book on the long flights. If other people can do it, why not me?
And you. Go for it!
Jan 04, 2010, 08:25:32 DonaldJ wrote:
"I went from “OMG admit him to ICU…” to “rock solid good numbers”. Someone is always wrong on the Internet… It is pointless to try to correct them all."
I keep trying to live by that attitude, with varying degrees of success. Venting online was a sanity-saving thing for awhile, plus it was great to know there were lots of others like me out there (and some that made me feel centrist). But then it becomes an addiction.
I'm not sure I expect the teens to be much better than the pre-teens (a name I stole from someone at another blog). Nothing seems likely to be worse than the period of total insanity late 2001-2003, but it's not something I'd bet on.
Jan 04, 2010, 09:23:02 libjpn wrote:
JanieM,
If money isn't a huge issue, you might want to stop in Hawai'i before going on to China. For Japan, this works well, and there might not be as many flights to China, but it might make the trip a bit more manageable.
And if you happen to pause in the Land of Wa, please let me know!
Jan 04, 2010, 11:14:37 JanieM wrote:
lj, funny you should mention Hawaii -- I thought about trying to stop off there, because I've never been there, and it sounds so tempting for so many reasons. But between money and time and the related fact that I haven't won the lottery, I decided to just get my butt straight to China and recover at leisure.
All of which also means that I'm not visitng the Land of Wa this time, but if I ever do, I will certainly get in touch. It would be fun to meet up.
Happy 2010!
Jan 04, 2010, 11:26:29 nous wrote:
Hello, all.
My Internet commentary has been curtailed in large part by my dissertation frustration, and by my guilt over writing anything that is not adding to that slow growing, ill-tempered beast. Given its recalcitrance and the state of higher education and the related job market I have a lot more to worry about than someone being wrong on the Internet.
My fallback sources of destressification are video games (currently Mass Effect) and my continuing pursuit of loud, bad guitar playing - currently detoured into the land of quiet, bad guitar playing as I've been plunking on the aging dreadnought, cursing its close string spacing at the bridge, and drooling over asian made 000 12th fret slotheads -- like it would make any difference to my stunted pursuit of non-suckitude. Meh, whatever. The tone...
In other news, I am officially fed up with SoCal and want to go somewhere with seasons...and several million fewer people. If only I could take the affordable wine selection with me.
Jan 05, 2010, 06:01:16 marbel wrote:
I don't do much on blogs anymore. I read them and occassionally comment, but I don't feel like making the effort to become 'part of the group'. Too frustrating. Plenty going on in Dutch/European politics at the moment and I'm pretty bored with the US healthcare debate that has been most prominent the past months.
I am pretty busy on twitter (all in Dutch though) and on Facebook where I spend way too much time playing Castle Age.
Last year was a horrible year for us. I hate losing 'communities' even on the internets so I was still pretty bummed about the year before. My spouse suddenly had a detached retina which fortunately was treated immediately and adequate, so he hasn't lost any sight, but he was been recuperating for months. I had *the* falling out with my sister, which we had tried to prevent for 30 years. My middle son was diagnosed with ADHD and got Ritalin prescribed but I want to search for alternatives and additional treatments first. My brother in law got ill in september and died in oktober, so the last three months of the year we spent practically every weekend with the in-laws in Brussels.
We were very happy to let 2009 go and to start with a fresh new year and a pile of good resolutions.
SteveUSA (^_^): very good news about your health and that of your sister. Nous: hope things will turn better soon.
I hope everybody has a great 2010.
Jan 06, 2010, 00:15:49 Slartibartfast wrote:
[quote]It's just so damned far from here! I hope to either sleep or read a good book on the long flights. If other people can do it, why not me?[/quote]
I strongly suggest business class, if you can afford it. Business class will get you there more rested and better fed, both of which will get you out of jet lag and into enjoying your trip much more comfortably.
I speak from experience, having done it both ways. We had to fly coach coming home our second time over there, and it's very difficult to get any quality sleep in coach. And I can sleep pretty much anywhere. Business class gives you a higher level of comfort (and food, usually) than domestic first class. First class to China is something I haven't considered doing because of the cost. You get seats that fold down into beds, pretty much, and a compartment that's got no outside foot traffic.
Oh, and also: take melatonin right after they feed you, wear an eyemask, and some comfortable earplugs. I'd also recommend an LED-based book-light, if you're shy about disturbing other passengers with the overhead light.
I think our flight took something like 14 hours, so you're definitely going to want to have a good (and interesting!) book, plus sundry other distractions (they also have a decent selection of video, normally, in business class) and even with all that you're going to be itching to get off the plane before you land.
Jan 06, 2010, 01:11:15 JanieM wrote:
Thanks for all the tips, Slarti. At the time I booked my tickets, business class was more $ than coach by thousands -- which I don't have. I don't fly often enough to have any miles to spend, and I don't at all understand the ins and outs of the system, but would it be worth calling the airline at some point and asking what it would cost to upgrade? Do they do that sort of thing these days? (Tickets booked via expedia.com.)
I'll get some melatonin; I hadn't thought of that. And definitely, I need a good and absorbing book! When I went to England in 2008, a friend gave me a book at the last minute ("Water for Elephants") which I would never have chosen myself. But it turned out to be just right. Not too heavy (both meanings), good at getting me to keep turning the pages, and just [i]exactly[/i] long enough so that I finished it with a few minutes to spare for chatting with my seatmate before we landed. I don't remember what I read on the way back...must not have been as good.
So -- I need two of 'em for the two 14-hour legs between Beijing and Newark. Too bad I just reread [i]Middlemarch[/i], it's probably long enough. ;)
Jan 06, 2010, 06:41:02 marbel wrote:
janie: if you can't upgrade you should become a member of the frequent flyer club of the airline you fly with. Sometimes they upgrade people and they pick members, has happened to me in the past (and I don't fly often either)
Jan 06, 2010, 10:10:53 JanieM wrote:
Marbel, thanks. I will do that and hope for the best.
Also -- I hope 2010 is a better year for you and your family. That's a lot of loss and difficulty, much less to have it all come in such a short time.
Jan 07, 2010, 01:06:23 Slartibartfast wrote:
I honestly don't recall what our tickets cost; I could find out, though. Not that that's going to affect you much.
We went through a Chinese adoption travel agency, so we might have gotten a better deal than you could get. Again, no idea. It probably helps to have friends that are travel agents, though.
For travel of that kind, I try to get used books at a steep discount from the new price, and leave them behind so that someone else can enjoy (or be bored by) them, and so that my return trip loadout will be somewhat lightened.
I wouldn't count on the last-minute upgrade; all four legs I've made across the Pacific have been with completely full business class. It doesn't cost anything to ask, though.
Jan 07, 2010, 01:22:55 Slartibartfast wrote:
[quote]My middle son was diagnosed with ADHD and got Ritalin prescribed but I want to search for alternatives and additional treatments first.[/quote]
In general, and not solely in response to this, I too hope that your 2010 is a better year.
Regarding ADHD and Ritalin, my father does things with kids with ADHD and other disorders, and he at least claims to help them a lot without Ritalin. If you check out braingym.org, you'll get a sense of what it is that's involved. You've probably done a bit of checking around that area, though. He's not affiliated with Brain Gym, but there are some common elements.
Dad's a bit outspoken (I know: quelle surprise) regarding to what degree he believes Ritalin to be overprescribed, so he might not be the guy to get a neutral judgement from about whether such treatments are appropriate for your child. Plus, his shop is [i]here[/i], which I suspect would be a rather long commute for you.