Discovering the Classics

At the same time, I have been feeling weak and strong.

Weak from some sort of ailment that has been running me down a bit, due in part to a lack of sleep. R kept me up last night complaining of something in her eye and washing it out did not seem to help.

Strong because the sense of purpose for which I set out, to learn how to write well, goes a long way towards the security that I feel about my purpose in life.

Even though I am a bit tired I feel satisfaction in the development of a craft, it is an enjoyable process.

I am reading a book by Francine Prose (I smile a bit ironically as I read her name, wondering if she has chosen the name as a handle or if it is her given name).

It is called "Reading Like a Writer" she has read widely and gives examples out of many great works. My repertoire of classic books is rather slim as I was a voracious reader of LDS Romances when growing up to the neglect of other novels.

I did however pick up a copy of "Crime and Punishment," in my parents room, when I was 13 years of age or so. The cover of the book was stained, so I carefully manufactured my own cover for it, topped it with plastic and started to read it. I was plunged into the convoluted mind of Dosandtoevsky and found myself depressed by the plot, so I stopped reading it midway through.

Now I am plunging myself in the waters of the classics to see where they will carry me.

As for a job, still working on that as well.

SG

Different Path

There are some things you know, without a lot of thought and I knew that I wouldn't get the job I applied for on Tuesday, Ryan called to tell me what I already knew.

The sticky part of this job was that it was so close to my mom's office that she wanted to stay out of it to avoid being pushy (because she has had the experience of pushy co-workers herself and didn't want to join their ranks).

So on some of the questions the answer that I gave sounded odd, they asked me how familiar I was with the admissions policies of the school. I told them that I had been familiar with the admissions policies ever since I was a little girl and that sounds odd unless you fill in the blanks that my mom has worked there ever since I was about four or five and I used to sit at her window and help the students when no one was paying attention.

So yes I am familiar with admissions, I am familiar with all of the changes that the admissions department has gone through as well, policies and procedures.

Plus I went to the school for ten years! That too sounds odd unless you consider that I started going to UVCC (Community College) in 1996 at the age of 16, took a few classes here or there over the years while in high school. I was there when they became UVSC (State College) received my degree in Behavioral Science then went on while they were in the process of becoming a University to get my degree in Accounting. So not really odd at all... (its not like I was drifting about in an unfocused manner like some people do).

One of the things that my Mom brings up is that I am too qualified for the position, they know I would leave. Ryan told me I interviewed well, (though I know the questions that I botched). The job would have driven me crazy, sitting there processing things all day and not thinking (you all know I am thinking all of the time).

So I will keep applying, there are other offices that are not quite as close to my moms where the situation will be different. Until then, I am keeping busy, as usual. ;D

SG

Now I wait, wait and write

It seems as though every day brings new ideas and the drifting winds of change. Things that bother me one day, do not bother me the next. Or things that have just slightly been a bother suddenly become unbearable and I cannot rest until it is taken care of.

Life has been kind of a manifestation of concerns presenting themselves to me each day. All lined up, waiting for my attention. It takes a lot of time to deal with some things, a lot of concentration, the things that I want to do sometimes lay waiting in the rafters of my imagination until I can shake out my ideals and work on them some more.

So I have my concerns, yet I also have little bits of beauty that takes the edge off, stirs my imagination and makes life worth living.

I will have to wait a few days yet to see if I got the job. The interviewer, Ryan, is new at the process. He told me that he would get back to me by the next day, that was yesterday. I haven't heard from him yet.

I am not particularly distressed about that though because I talked with my mom who has experience with the hiring process at the school. She told me that after they interview all of the candidates, they cannot even offer the job until they put things through the process of submitting names to HR, approval of pay, then the department heads have to review things. So the process takes a lot longer then he probably knew.

As for now, I am taking this time to work on personal goals, as you all know. I am concentrating the most on writing, yes I can write, I enjoy writing as an exercise. Yet I find that I am confronting old ignorance's and old fears so to speak.

Ignorance's in certain aspects of plot development, interpretation of the authors intent in things such as poetry and sometimes in prose, I have difficulties in my spelling and especially punctuation and grammar.

If writing is an art, and it is, then there is need to cultivate it. Good writers work on the development of their weak areas, tedious at times but in the end well worth the effort.

I might as well believe the voice in my head that tells me that this is all a waste of time, that there are too many writers out there already, that I cannot expect to receive any benefit except my own amusement, if I do not take the talent that I have and work with it.

At least the prospect to me seems an enjoyable one, no one is telling me to do this, no one is setting limits here (save my own), there are no deadlines (as of yet).

To others the idea of writing and working on writing might seem ludicrous, because they don't enjoy it, I do enjoy it or else why do it?

Doing what you love is the path to true happiness.

SG

Job Interview and Runty Kitten

Well, I was interviewed today. I stumbled a bit but got through it, I even asked them some questions afterward. Oi' I hate job interviews! Puts me all out of sorts!! GRRR.

The funny thing about it is that my mom hired two of the interviewers and knows the other guy really well, I didn't say anything about it though. They hit me with a few questions that I answered a bit stupidly, (now I kick myself), we shall see. Tomorrow I will find out if they want me, they need 3 people so...

As for the job itself, it is a data processing job. I will do a good job of it, but it is just a job, I have other ideas about life.

As for said kittens, there are four of them and there is a runt. Poor little critter can't seem to latch on long enough to get fat!! He's dreadfully skinny and we are all worried about him. I need to look it up to see if there is something to do!

Now I am sleepy, gonna go catch some ZZZZ's

SG

Tongan Greetings and Farewells

Mālō e lelei! Hello!
Fēfē hake? How are you?
Sai pē! Just fine!
Ko au. Polite response when someone calls your name.
Mālō e lava mai. Thanks for coming.
'īo, Mālō e tau mo eni. Response to mālō e lava mai.
Ko hai ho hingoa? What is your name?
Ko NAME au. I am NAME
Ko e hā e lea faka-Tonga ki he ? What is the Tongan word for?
'oku 'ikai te u ilo. I don't know.
Fanongo pē! Just listen!
'ōua e lea, fanongo pē! Don't speak, just listen!
Fanongo lelei! Listen carefully!
Lea māmālie! Speak slowly!
Ko ia! That's it! (that's right)
Fakamolemole! Forgive (me)!
Kātaki! Please, excuse (me)!
Kātaki fakamolemole! Please be patient! (empatic)
Tali mai! Answer (me)!
Toe 'ai! Repeat!
Tulou! Excuse me!(Tulou is appropriate when you
have just passed in front of someone or
reached over in front of someone.)
Hū mai! Come in!

Farewells
'ālu ā ē! Goodby! (to the person going)
Nofo ā ē! Goodby! (to the person staying)
Mou ō ā ē! Goodby! (to several persons going)
Mou nofo ā ē! Goodby! (to several persons staying)
Faka'au ā ē! Goodby! (polite form, singular)
Mou faka'au ā ē! Goodby!(polite form, plural)

Note: īn most farewells there is a rising intonation in the voice on the final ē.

Spelling, Sounds, Pronunciation

Tongan spelling is phonemic, it is spelled the way that it sounds.

Vowels

a as in father (only shorter) fala, mate, pato
ā a lengthened mālō, kākā, fakahā
e as in bet (or somewhere between bet and bait) fale, mele
ē e lengthened pehē, ko ē
i as in machine liku, piko, taki
ī i lengthened ī, kulī
o as in born (pronounced a little farther fono, pito
back in the throat)
ō o lengthened pō, kokō
u as in root (only shorter and without offglide) lotu, muka
ū u lengthened pūluhi, fufū

In Tongan all consonants are separated by a vowel, all words end in a vowel.

Now on to my goals...

I have been goal setting again (again you might ask?) yes again... I always seem to be trying to set and keep goals.

The process goes like this, I write everything that I want to accomplish out, then I take this list and try to divide up my time in order to work on my goals. I schedule everything out, drive myself bananas then give up.

So this time I am taking a saner approach to it all. I've written everything out, then identified what is most important to me and that is what I will focus on. I tried to schedule no more than 3 hrs. everyday for working on goals, I will be lucky if I actually get 1 hour each day. Yet now that I know where I am going I think that little bits of work on the goals will get me to where I want to go.

So here are the main goals;

Learn how to write well, study grammar and spelling, learn Tongan (then perhaps another language), learn how to draw and paint well, how to take great photo's, how to play the piano and guitar. Then there are a bunch of things I am interested in so I just made a list of those to work on when I can...

Yes, yes I know this is all so interesting and all. Yet it helps to make it public that I am working on goals, it might just be the extra incentive that I need to actually do it.

So I was able to get on our keyboard (we have a piano but it is out of tune) and play around a bit (5 min.) before R came to take over.

So I've gone upstairs to try practicing the guitar (that I have had since I was about 14 or 15). I have tried exploring the book that my dad used to teach himself, yet didn't focus on it so I didn't get very far. I have a print out of chords that I got from girls camp oh so long ago and from which I actually did practice from then.

The only thing that I really hate about trying to learn the guitar is how my fingers hurt, became numb, and I never practiced consistently enough to develop calluses so that I suppose is the reasoning behind my failure at it. Though there are other reasons (excuses) being that I have four kids, I was in school and/or work (at one point). I'm gonna go pick it up again (after I distract R and get her off of my lap) ;D

So ya' here are my goals, I have tons of interests as well but I can't focus on too much.

(Ah, and now R is singing, maybe I should just make a goal to learn a bunch of kids songs and sing along with her... Her songs usually go like this, hmm, hm,hm, g,g,g, ga ga ga and then she can get really enthusiastic and start dancing and drumming as well!)

Grateful

Today I am reflecting on what has happened over the past year or so that I have been blogging.

I originally thought that it was the way to keep in touch with your family by putting updates and pictures up. I didn't think it was worth much attention or time.

So it has been a surprise to find so much more here than the obvious, namely the transformation of thought that I have gone through from speaking with people from many different cultures.

What I was going through when I started was a lot of insecurity about who I was, setting up a blog forced me to define who I was. To choose what I liked, to write out my thoughts, to see how people reacted and what they wrote about.

Now I have goals, and direction. It is worth a lot, I am grateful, for the changes, and for the friends. What a beautiful force of fate!

Kids, Kitties, and Job Interview

Today has been extremely HOT!! I didn't get out to run, I have been hiding inside! ;D

I did however get up to the stores to do a little bit of grocery shopping. The deal though is that our A/C in the car is a bit fritzy, so today it decided not to work! So I did my shopping in turns, went to one store for the produce, then dropped it off at moms (to keep it cool) then up to another store to buy Raw milk and check on the price of their eggs (they had a ton of eggs but didn't have them on sale, they are farm fresh and all but $6.00 for a carton of eggs is ridiculous. Even on sale they have them buy 2 get 1 free. So I just bought the semi acceptable eggs today...)
I dropped off the milk at moms then headed back over to Good Earth for some butter and eggs (the butter comes from Ireland, it's the only stuff that has a bit of color to it so that's why I get it).

Then I got my stuff from mom's and headed on home. The kids asked to go to the store when I got there. They had cleaned up (kind of) and felt they were entitled. So I had them wash the dishes in the sink which were covered in cake batter goo (K is ingenious, he makes up miniature cakes and bakes them in tuna cans in the toaster oven!)

After they had finished I let them go, get em' off my hands anyway, yet they didn't want to bring R (because they would have to walk in the hot sun with her in the stroller, she can be a pain). So they began their ditch R routine which includes lolling about watching television being as nonchalant as they can. Then when she is distracted they sneak out the door. Today they were lucky, she had to go potty at just the right time. I found her upstairs squatting and happily chattering about her accomplishments. ;D

One thing that I have not been blogging much about is how hard things are right now, we are just paddling water until some work comes in. I have sent out applications, with a renewed push because there is work up at the school but I haven't really wanted to leave the kids during the summer (and R was not potty trained earlier in the year), so just in these past few weeks have I pushed at all.

So after the kids left I got a call from someone at the school, they are going to interview me on Tuesday!! Yippee, hurrah!! It felt like the end to a long drought, to hear a call for an interview. (Yeah but I haven't been trying right, well, I've had lots of stuff to sort through).

So I've gotta brush up on my interview skills, lucky for me my mom works at the school (different department, but she does have the down low on the type of questions they ask). I need to get on their web site and do some looking around because the job would be dealing with on-line applications and such (helping the students). This is a part-time job, and there are a few more that I have applied to (including one that would be really, really good. It is full time and pays better, I spent a lot of time filling out their application, answering the questions). I will take what I can get right now though, unemployment "benefits" really suck!

So jeez' this is probably one of the longest posts that I've done in a while. I want to try out the recording feature on my digital camera to see if I can get some cute pictures of the bitty kittens, we'll see how that goes. Still shots just aren't as cute, they are all so black and squishy looking!

Mommy kitty was entertaining last night, we tried to get her to move to the downstairs closet (out of K's room) but she seemed to want to stay there, just sat at K's door looking confused after we had moved the kitties down stairs. Then she decided in the middle of the night that she preferred the downstairs closet and started moving the meowing critters down, woke everybody up!! So now she's happy down in the closet, just wish she'd make up her mind and all! ;D

That's it for today! Oi'

I'm going to go sit under the swamp cooler...

Henry David Thoreau

I think Henry David Thoreau got a lot of things right

A quote about living at Walden Pond:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

I think we all need to metaphorically go to the woods to learn what we may of the truth.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity

Beautiful