The con is on

I never wanted to be an actor. It involves way too much attention on me, which is super not my style. But, guys, I think I may deserve an Oscar because I have managed to convince a lot of people that I am an extrovert. Without even trying!!!!

Ask anyone in my family, or large extended family, and they will straight up tell you I was high-level shy as a kid. Cried during my country report presentation in 6th grade because I hated being in the spotlight that much.* Did everything in my power to avoid attention all through school, with the exception of grad school. What changed you ask?

I really like archives. I was really excited about it and at least for me, Susan Cain's book, Quiet, nailed it. When an introvert really cares about something, they'll put aside their introverted tendencies**. Which leads me to how I have conned everyone into thinking I'm an extrovert:

I work in an archive for my church. Two things on the top of my, "I really care about this" list? Archives and my faith. So at work, yeah. I speak up (too much, really). And then the other place I mainly meet people is at church, so, yeah. And I'm a supervisor at work, so I have to be available to people. And at church, I was a secretary so I had to talk to new people, get to know names, etc. 

Which doesn't explain why I talk soooooooooooo much about my religion and my work. But, that? That is just that I'm super awkward and deal with it by talking, for way too long. 

You'd think someone would have caught on by now....

*Not sure if that's introversion or just a loathing of public speaking, though. 

**Sorry Susan if I totally slaughtered that.

Spring

 

Travel part 3: Hotels

There was a fairly small one in Montevideo, just enough space to walk around the bed. But otherwise, not bad. 

There was the one in Peru with a jacuzzi right in the room. Like, right in it.

And also the one (maybe the jacuzzi one, I don't remember now) with the steam feature in the shower that everyone raved about, and I did not try.

There was the super lux Marriott in Buenos Aires, with a great view from the balcony. I only got to enjoy it for about 6 hours, because we left at 3 in the morning. 

The shared room in Guatemala which wasn't 4 star for a hotel but definitely would have been a posh summer camp stay.

The cabin in Tikal. It was fitting for a jungle, but if I'd known that the early morning walk-into-Tikal-as-the-sun-rises wake up call was going to wake up everyone, I would have gone ahead on the walk. 

The hostel housing with a shared bathroom that could have used an improved design in the shower area.

The ranch-style stay on my latest trip, where I somehow ended up in a double room: 2 beds, 2 baths, but one door. How's a girl to decide which room to use? 

There was also the hotel that was hidden in a mall. It took a while to find the hotel, and was very hard to know which floor was the main floor on the elevator.

There was the Best Western in Tula, which was stuck right in the middle of the block. Pros: Very close to tacos. Cons: zero parking, and the rooms were crammed in everywhere. No two rooms were alike. I fortunately lucked out and avoided any cucaracha visitors, and had a decent sized room (no worse than Montevideo, and I spent even less time in it). Others had a living room, but at least one person had essentially a broom closet.

In contrast was the architectural wonder we stayed at on our last night. Just check out that interior: 

Hotels: all part of the adventure.

Travel part 2: Shotgun

While in Mexico, I ended up being the navigator (lo, the responsibilities of being shotgun). Which, google maps does work in Mexico, but you have to get used to the roads. For example, you'll have a big multi-lane road and one of those lanes will split off into a side street that runs parallel, but right up until you are supposed to be on that road, it looks like it is all one road. And then before you know it you are on the wrong road because either you were supposed to get off or you were supposed to stay on and thank goodness there is more than one way to get somewhere and back tracking is an option.

I also have this tendency to look away right at the critical moment. Because, I want to see what I'm driving past and so if I'm the solo navigator, my mind just wanders too much. Fortunately, I had some help from the backseat (backseat drivers can be helpful!!) and my backseat driver had my back. 

By the end of the trip, I was getting better at navigating or asking people to have eyes on the map with me, but I still never made it without missing at least one thing (although not all of them ended up derailing us). Which, to be honest, feels like something for that life resume. And we made it okay and no accidents, so I'm counting it a success. 

Travel part 1: Photos

While traveling for work about a week ago, I was taking pictures on the road and couldn't help wonder why we take the pictures we do. I mean, why was I taking pictures? Why was everyone else taking pictures? What were we taking pictures of and for who?

I took pictures of the scenery as we were driving from city to city. I took pictures of sunsets and hotel rooms and views from hotel rooms and hotel lobbies that were architecturally interesting and ancient ruins and things that were geometrically interesting and scenes that were different from home and interesting to me even though not necessarily aesthetic. And I tried to take more pictures of people, which is always awkward because I feel weird and shy about asking people to get in a group for a photo or to pose, but I did better this time at getting people (unposed). 

Who am I taking them for? Mostly me. I mean, sometimes I take pictures that I intend to share with the group (more of this when it is family events) but mostly it's for me. In part to see if I can become a better photograph but most of the time it is just me blundering around trying to get pictures of things I think are appealing. I doubt any of them will really have a lot of value in the long run, which of course I think about as an archivist, but should that stop anyone from taking photos? Whose to say?

Anyway, here are a few photos from my trip: 

Love a good bridge

Obsessed with how tight the housing is

I am also obsessed with the layers mountains create

Never seen a giant soccer ball before

Cool hotel architecture

I mentioned mountains, right?

Some nice geometry at Toltec ruins

Mountains. I wasn't kidding

Familiar to sights in my rural home state

Also familiar.

Cool historic cathedrals are always interesting

Cows on mountain roads. This is so reminiscent.

Climate change

I have a trip coming up soon and it will take me to warmer climes. Which will be lovely, because it's been cold here and even as I type this my fingers are somewhat frozen. (Yes I have heating. NO, it isn't the most energy efficient. Also it is loud.) 

But there is a dilemma. It is icy here, and hot there, and I really don't want to haul a coat (and sweater, and warm socks and shows) around for a week in a warm place. You get it, right? I mean, it's a terrible option. But also, the ride to the airport and back...one has to be prepared. Thank goodness for layers. 

Hope your dilemmas are equally insignificant.

Magic desk

I have been trying (periodically) for several months (a couple of years?) to clean off my desk in work. As a precursor to cleaning my office. I actually made some progress this week. For about an hour. And then somehow my desk filled up again. It's a magic desk but not the kind of magic I need. 

And, offices get messy, I get it--well, not my boss's. His is incredibly tidy, which is attainable if you spend most of your days in meetings, so there's that. But in my first 6 years I had 7 office spaces, so it was always a goal to be able to move my office in an hour. And I definitely can't do that now. So I hope I don't need to any time soon, because I have inherited a bunch of boxes and collections and this is what happens when you get into management but not high enough in management that you never get to do any of the work. 

That being said, if messy office means I still get to do the fun work, I will take it.

Error

The other day when I was getting my laptop up and running at work, I got an error message that said, "System error: Invalid argument."

Now, I know I'm definitely not the first one to see this error, and also definitely not the first one to think that maybe we could use that warning in our day-to-day interactions. No lie, I am definitely considering putting it on a t-shirt. Especially in our current state of, well, civil insanity. 

And I'm not saying I'm exempt. As I have mentioned before, my motto should be, "Talk less, smile more." I have invalid arguments all the time. And, sometimes it would just be nice to have something pop up in the moment telling me, "Hey. Maybe take 5 and get your head together?" 

But I think that might require me to wear some kind of VR or AR headset, and I'm just not into that, so I guess I'll do what our ancestors have done for millions of years and just keep trying to be a better person without any computer assistance. 

Shorthanded

I have long fingers. Two of my co-workers are about 6 feet tall guys, and my hands are about the size of theirs. 

Over Christmas, it came up in conversation, and in comparing hand sizes, my brother-in-law noticed that my pinky fingers are short. Which I had never noticed before because honestly, think about it. How much time do you actually spend looking at other people's hands? I suspect not much, except maybe for a special someone or babies. 

Anyway, I fell and hurt my wrist, as previously mentioned, and got an x-ray. And when I looked at the results, it did say that my 5th metacarpal was severely short and the 4th metacarpal mildly so. Which, not expecting that in my x-ray report, but it was kind of fun timing. 

Also, it dashes all hopes about long fingers benefitting me while playing the piano, haha. 

Smart stuff

 Everything is smart these days--refrigerators, dryers, toilets, vacuums. But there is one thing that is not smart that should be: elevators.

At work, if I push the button to go down, and the elevator is going up and has to stop on my floor anyway, (because someone is getting off, for example), it will still stop on my floor on the way back down. So I've got two options. I can stand there like a dummy and let the elevator go up and catch it on the way down. Or, I can get on, wait for more people to get on going down, and we all stop at my floor where the elevator doors open and no one is there. And I get to make the tiresome joke: "And this is the elevator picking me up...". (Or another popular quip people like to make is that it is the Holy Ghost. We do work in a religious institution). 

And every time, EVERY time, I think, "Why is it the elevator can't get information that no one is there because they got on when it stopped going up?" And I'm sure someone could argue that it actually makes sense in some weird elevator traffic logic, but it's hard to see how stopping at empty floors is efficient. 

So, if anyone knows anyone in elevator programming, could you see if they could make a smart elevator? Thanks.

today was brought to you by

Dry erase markers (which I used to organize my white board at work. The only organized thing about my day)

My $5 bed (that I laid in for an hour after waking up, just enjoying the comfort and putting off the day)

Meetings (of which I had 6, 2 of which were at the same time and so I missed the first 10 minutes of one, and I think they might have been the most important 10 minutes)

Missing lunch because of meetings (pretty normal, actually)

Microsoft Office (which I used to create multiple training documents for presentations tomorrow. Lucky me)

Chocolate chip cookie dough (which I ate raw, and also ate fresh-baked from the oven)

Clocks (a constant reminder that I am running out of time to get things done and the to-do list is long)

It's a day!

I found out that today is National Winnie-the-Pooh day! So, what I love about the Winnie-the-Pooh books is that you read it and you absolutely enter a child's world. The characters? They are exactly what our inner child would create. The writing is exactly how a child thinks, with things that adults deal with as lowercase, but kids see as magical Uppercase things. The dilemmas and sticky situations are very kid. The Winnie-the-Pooh books are among the best. And now I want to read them again.

I also discovered it is National Michigan Day. Which begs the question of whether all states have a national day, but have been a Michigan resident, I just want to give a shout out to Michigan. I loved living there. It was a beautiful place (winters could be fierce, but whatever). I miss my apartments there, I miss driving around there, I miss the squirrels, I miss the people I knew. The demonym is Michigander, which how great is that? The only thing I don't miss is the abundance of geese in the spring and summer. So rah rah, Michigan!

And that's it for our days. Hope yours was a good one.

I might be ready for 2024

I know that we are already over 2 weeks into the new year, but I think I might be almost ready for it. Or at least, as ready as one can be (which honestly, that whole mentality is putting a lot of pressure on 2024 and that seems unfair. I mean, it has 12 months and 365 days that all just kind of do their own thing, why is it 2024's fault if the days and months goof up? Besides, it's the people that make the mess, not the calendar!! Poor time!)

There's a reason I feel like I'm just getting into the swing of things. I started the year out with a misery of a cold (sore nose from all the kleenexes, loads of snot, and a cough that came from the chest). And I am just now hitting the point where I feel like I'm more or less over it. Which is a bummer, because now I don't have anything to blame being exhausted on!

Also, I had a sprained wrist, the result of ice skating, and even though it really only hurt when twisting or lifting things for the last week and a half or two, it was still a nuisance. And it meant I couldn't exercise (which did NOT help with the sluggishness). 

Those two things made it hard to really get my head in the new year, and then we hired 3 new employees on my team, and three of our other employees have been on vacation and before that various members of the team were all traveling, and it is a really weird way to start the year. Today was the first time in like 6 weeks--maybe 2 months!--that I've seen my boss in person, and I have coworkers that I haven't seen for that long, so it definitely creates a weird vibe. But now, everyone is starting to come back and we have our new people, and so it feels like things are kicking off. 

And, so, Happy New Year!!!!