Bitter-sweet symphony

Have you ever had the chance to taste the feeling of saying "I quit!" ?
Sometimes, work and work relations come to a point where you want a knife and either cut your wrist's veins or kill someone. Since I am not aggressive by nature and religion, none of these was an option for me. So plan C was to quit.
There were moments when I wished I had another job lined up for me and tell my manger right there: You idiot, you brownnose.. I can't work like this with you anymore, I quit right here, right now!
Then there were moments when I thought: It is not that bad and going somewhere else wont be any better, there are problems everywhere.
So I was in limbo between leaving or staying, trying to find reasons to keep myself going where I was. I knew the people, I knew the products, I knew what I had to deal with and if I could resist, something good would come from it. Like a promotion for example. And then I would take a step back and see how my position was in edge and how my role was setup for failure. And then was the yearly performance review where I heard: Great job, but can't make any change to salary or signority this time, sorry!
That was it! I updated my resume and put it online to all the job engines out there. I even contacted a recruiter and had an interview. It was really bad.The guy told me that he used to be a car salesman and then he started in the agency as a helper but when the economy went tits up, they needed recruiters and so he was promoted. What a joke! He really looked at me like a car, what was my engine, how many doors, what colour, what material for the seats, automatic/stick.. and then looked if there was any customer that was asking for something similar. Never heard from him after and that's good.
Meanwhile, on my gmail account, there was a message waiting for me for a while. See, gmail is not my primary account and I check that every once in a while. Since I was busy posting resumes, I didn't look at this message where someone I used to work with, was making me an offer to apply where he was working! Careful what you wish for ..cause you might get it all ...and then some more!
So I applied, went for an interview that went well. And then another interview that went ok. Then I had to wait for a while but was asked for another interview that was sort of messed up. None of the two people that I was supposed to meet was available and then at the last moment, they sent downstairs someone to interview me on the spot! The guy did show his anger on how this was dropped on his lap but at the end, was ok.
So, here we are, I have my old job in a big corporate that is killing me and where I see no more growth, but where I have been for 11 years, I know everyone, I feel like home and I have 27 days vacation piled up. On the flip side, I have now this offer from this small-ish company, very sexy, lots of room to grow if you are smart but where people work like mad and response is expected at any time of the day/night. And to top it, the guy that asked me to get there, resigned and went somewhere else with less work.
What to do!?
I waited for an official offer from the new job and then I pulled my manger and told him that after the last review, I wasn't happy and I started looking for a job and now I have an offer. I told him that I haven't accept it yet in order to give him a chance to make a counter-offer. He asked for 2 days to work on this but then came back the very next day and said : Sorry, we are not investing in your team this year so there is nothing I can offer to you. You can look to other areas within the company if you want!
Wow! That made me think that I really had to get out of there.. quick! So I discussed my offer with the new place and accept it. And then told my manager when was my last day. I had to google a template for official resignation to find out what to write. He didn't even book 10 minutes to say to me a proper goodbye!
I was really sure that I was doing the right thing leaving that place. I knew I would miss the company of the people I hang out and I consider them friends now, but friends can stay in touch and they do understand what is good for me! That was exactly what happened.
Took a week off to Orlando, Disney. Vacation with family was mandatory before starting a new job. That was fun, material for another post.
And the day came to start the new job!
I am now on my second week in the new job and I have to admit is not as bad as I thought. There are some elements of wild-wild-west in the everyday flow but my tam seems to be ok. I have to really loosen up those guys because they are a bunch of geeks. My previous life as a geek might help. My goal now is to grow in role, and to make this job a place I like to go to work everyday.
Wish me luck because I really need it!

The hamster story

For a while, my daughter has been asking me for a pet, specifically, for a dog. I have been pushing the idea and trying to work out on another option. So at some point, we converged to the idea of having a hamster. Great! We bought the cage on kijiji. Bought a book about hamsters so she would know how to take care of it. At the end, we asked her what kind of hamster she wanted and she was really specific: a boy hamster, golden with short hair! So i took her to the pet store to find out that in that store they had only girl hamsters. We had to drive another 10km to go to the other store that had only boy hamsters. Ok, fine. We went there and directly to the hamster section. The girl there was friendly and presented us with a card box full of boy hamsters. There was a golden short hair one and my daughter picked him without any hesitation! Put him on a little bowl like cage and she was in heaven! He was moving a lot (off course!) so she decided to call him Mr. Movealot. We bought some food and some soft stuff that he can use to make his nest.
It was a really good week. My daughter was happy and excited to have a pet. She took all her friends at home to show them Mr. Movealot. Sometimes put him on a small ball and took him outside to play with the kids. We noticed that his eye had a small black scab. Since he was under warranty ( hamsters come with 2 weeks warranty!) we took him back to the store and asked if there was need to see the vet. The guy working there told us that all we had to do was to keep the eye moisturized. He was able to take the scab away with some small tools he had. So we took Mr. Movealot back home and made sure we will take care of his eye.
That night, we noticed a weird behaviour. He closed the tubes that connected the bog cage with the smaller cages. Weird! Why would he isolate himself ?
The next day, Mr. Movealot was being very quiet. Didn't come out, didn't play in his wheel and even in the evening, didn't come out of his small little nest. Worried, my husband decided to open the roof of his nest and see what was Mr. Movealot doing there. And to his surprise, he noticed that there was our hamster and .... 10 babies!!
10 baby hamsters!!

He closed the roof quickly. Since he has had hamsters before, he knew that if the mother feels in danger, she will kill the babies thinking that is protecting them. Good thing he knew that, I didn't. I wasn't home at that time, was out for a coffee. He called me and i almost fell from the chair when he told me that we have baby hamsters. I just took the car and drove back home quickly, going through red lights.
My daughter was in shock, completely terrified. She didn't know what to do with this news. She started crying and telling me that our hamster has babies. But mommy, how can a boy make babies? Is our hamster a boy outside and a girl inside? We had to calm her down and explain that apparently it is a mistake but let her think that the hamster is half boy and half girl. At that point we didn't call our hamster Mr. Movealot any more, rather started calling her (not him anymore) just Hamy.
I felt really bad. I started relating myself with that hamster. Imagine the poor thing. Left in a box full of boys for who knows how long. She has been rapped, constantly and had no way to escape. That's why she was so tame! And then she came to us, under the constant torturing of my daughter and her friends, all the shaking, all the banging on her cage..even one day before she gave birth we took her to the store and there was a lot of confusion and stress for her. The scab in her eye was probably a pregnancy issue that required some more attention and care. I felt so bad about that poor mother of 10.
So I called the store and told them what happened. I gave them two options, either they didn't know how to recognize male and female hamsters or this was a miracle and I had to call TV. Off course was not a miracle so we arranged to return the babies and they would take care of them. We read on the book that they needed their mother for the first couple of weeks because she breast fed them. After that they would start grow stronger and be more independent. it takes apparently only 40 days for a hamster to get pregnant again. So we had to keep the babies between 2 and 4 weeks. We decided for 3.
3 weeks to see how they grew from small gross little creature to cute little hamsters. We started naming them Number1, Number2 and so based on the order they started leaving the nest and tried to discover the cage. One of them was brave enough to start climbing a small tube that took Hamy to another cage. We called him the Spiderman. At the end of the third week, our Hammy was trying to stay as far as possible from them. Build a nest for herself in a cage that required some climbing and left the babies alone, fighting with each-other. Anytime they would be close to her, they would go to her breast and try to drink more, just like a kid that doesn't want to leave mom's breast...it's the best soother! She on the other had, was trying to push them away with her feet and arms and her face was almost screaming : Leave me alone!! At that point we understood that hamster motherhood is not the same as the human one. Even when our kids are 30 and living in our basements, we wouldn't kick them and stay away from them like that. It was time to take those babies back to the store.
My daughter was prepared but facing it, was hard. She really wanted to keep Number 1 or Spiderman but we had to be tough and explain that it was not the right thing to do. We could have ended up with babies again!!
And so, we are back again to have one hamster, Hamy, and is not a boy but we still think that there is some boy in her.

101

Apparently this is my 101st post! Yay to me!

I read last week that there was a guy from BC (CA) that found out that was going to die from cancer and wrote some final words on his blog but asked his family to publish them only after he was dead. Those blogs reached a record visit and they were very heartfelt: http://www.penmachine.com/2011/05/the-last-post.
I wish Osama Bin Laden also had a blog about himself and left some notes to be posted after his death. Not that I was supporting him, but I like to know what people think close to end. I guess you want to fix everything that you think was left broken from your life, you want to say sorry to everyone you think you hurt at some point, you want to be good and fair to everyone around, and probably, become more religious with the fear that soon you might end up finding out the question we all want to know while alive.
I hear that if your bones are eliminated after death, you are saved from the judgment when this world ends and the new one begins. Based on this, Osama is saved because fishes will eat his body (and bones) now that he is at the deep end of the ocean.
We do not know his last thoughts, there will not be a judgment for him. Is that fair?
I do not think he was able to fix everything bad he did. And I am not talking about the war to USA, because in his opinion, that was not a bad thing, but a very good one. I am talking about other bad things, like he didn't treat very well one of his wives, or didn't return the call to a friend, or didn't say sorry to someone he hurt with/out meaning to, or didn't give a good tip to a waitress that was a single mother, or ...But was he a better person on his last days? Maybe not, because they say the attack took him by surprise. So he didn't have time to improve himself. And maybe because of that, he asked for a last wish, to be buried in the ocean, so he will not be judged.
I guess he was a smart man. Lived upon his believes, left the world divided on deciding if he was bad or good/right or wrong and then went to the fishes, the ones that can't talk. But I do not think he was a good man, someone fair and trustable. From the pictures, I have the feeling he also stunk and was dirty.
At the end, I'm good that he is not here, but I am afraid of the next one, the one that we still do not know how he looks, what he believes and up to what point he will fight for those.
Let's all make a wish that the world of our children will be better!

2 get married, 1000 go crazy

And they are married. Kate and Will. He asked and she said yes..as she would have said no after:
1. signing a confidentiality agreement with royal family
2. signing a prenuptial agreement
3.planning the wedding (booking location, inviting important people from around the world, having 3 wedding dresses as back-up till last minute, have an 8 tier cake, have air force flying over, and so many more of these)
4. give to England a day off
..and the TVs and radios all around the World say how much in love they are, what a real Cinderella story this is and how romantic their story is.

I guess marrying someone that comes with a prefix "Prince" is not just nice, it comes with a price, the Prince Price. Kate is getting into a relationship where she is presented as lesser level than her husband, and she actually signed that she agrees and accepts that. Is she really so much in love with him that she would do anything he asks for, or is she signing up her first step in personal career advancement? Did you see their kiss at the balcony? A rehersed kiss. She kissed him and then turned the head to the crowd. While he lingered his eyes for a little longer on her face. He looked at her. She looked at the crowd. When his parents kissed at the balcony, his mom was the one looking at his father. Is maybe this wedding the one that will revenge for Diana? Instead of the new girl feeling out of the place in the royal palace, will be the prince that will follow the new girl around. Maybe this is the modern love they are trying to bring in the traditional royalty.

Maybe they will be happy together till death do them apart but I do not think this is love. This is business. The new prince got a contract with a pretty girl that is behaving well around and is keeping her mouth shut about his family. The pretty girl got married with the Prince, she just has to play along nicely.




Love the little flower girl that is covering her ears from the noise!

Note to important people

So Easter is coming. Everyone is happy..some because of the religious meaning behind it, some just because of the extra vacations we get. 2 Days baby!! That means a very long weekend.
So I was trying to figure out what do we usually celebrate on our holidays. Some are around the country, like the flag day or the independence day. Some others are political or around an important political person for a country like Martin Luther King's day, or President's day or the birthday of Queen. Most of our holidays are religious, around people that are important to a religion like christmas or Easter. I am talking here about the holidays that are celebrated by non muslim countries, because on those countries the two religion examples above are out of discussion. For Christmas we get almost 1 week off and now for Easter we get 4 days. I wish Jesus was married at some point so we would have had another reason to celebrate and take some days off. The way I see it, the more achievements these important people have reached, the more days we can consider for celebration.

And here my note to the important people:
If you see that you will be or already are an important person, don't just get born and die. Don't stop there, do more! Like, get married, have a lot of children that might be important like you and then we celebrate their birthdays, build something great, make an important speach..or two, travel to other countries so they will celebrte the day you visited them.. I mean do a lot of things and give us chances to celebrate something more.

cry baby cry

Is one of those Saturday nights when I don't have plans to go out, feel tired, feel down and need a boost. Could have gone to bed at 9 but decided to throw myself in the hands of the TV channel choices. First I caught "Finding Forrester" in the last 30 minutes. Such a good movie. Darn, I missed the part when they talk about the BMW history. And that made me think, I am not a great person. I think I am more of like that bad/envious professor that is trying to win no matter what. I so want to be like the other professor, that at the end took the matter in his hands and very nicely closed the conflict. Why am I not like that, why am I not wise and calm, why am I not easy to accept loss... Not sure if that comes with age or is already stamped on me for forever. Is the life that takes us into roller coasters and we get into the player's role and start fighting for winning.... whatever it is, win it! And then I caught "PS. I Love You", almost from start. Impossible not to cry when you watch that movie on a late Saturday night when you have no other plans and feel down. This woman that can't let go of her dead husband, and then falls in love with his best friend... it is not as plain as this, there is more there but I find another tendency of mine. Cutting stories short, connecting begining with end in the shortest way and try to put some humor in it.... hoping my humor is understood as humor. I think i get things but being practical I cut the un-necessary parts to reach the inside kernel. It is like I am constantly delivering cases with a limit of words "Please present the financial status of your company and suggest what needs to change, in 200 words". So here I am, trying to pull myself up and all I end up doing is push it even lower, compare myslef with movie characters and for some reasons, live in other peoples fictional lives. Bad. Not helping..at all. I think I like Irish guys.. if that helps for anything...probably not. So, lesson to myself: find things to do on Saturday nights, or be prepared to cry for relief.

The song at the end of the movie says:

Give me reason but don't give me choice cuz' i might make the same mistake again

Stress is stronger than hormones

Well, I will maybe give too much personal data here but I feel I have to in order to make my point. Every month, just like every other woman, I have to go through some "so" proclaimed "natural pain" that was given to us because some woman decided to bite an apple! Rather than the pain that men might assume, mine is focused on my head. I have huge headaches before and after. It is all explained scientifically based on the change of the level of hormones and their chemical effect to nerves. The pain never fails to be wrong, it is my "alarm" clock.

Last month, I felt very stressed. Work related and personal. Too much to do, too much attention on how to say what to say. The sleep did get hurt too and that affects the mood. So in short, I am happy all that is now over. But what I noticed was, the alarm clock didn't go off! Because of the stress and the muscle spasm, I might have taken here and there an Advil (it is always in my purse, like kids keep lollipops). Without taking too much care of my internal clock, I kept moving and working and do all the routine required. I kept moving like a robot until all was done. And then, without any warning, the natural cycle started and this time, with headache.

Darn stress! Is not enough that messes up with my sleep, my way of responding to others, my neck freeze, my beauty, my attention to details...it also messes up with my hormones...and Wins!! How can I train my hormones to be stronger and do what they have to do without being affected from external dependencies? It sounds like a man askign for his spermatozoids to be trained to go fast and "bulls eye" but to my point, hormones should be on our side, not against us! If stress can overcome hormones, then why do hormones overcome the rest? It is like rock-paper-scizors but paper always loosing! There seems to be no point on resting because it will not bring you any strength, it will just strengthen your hormones. But then, when stress arrives, hormones bent over.

In short, stress is bad, hormones are hores (maybe that's why the name!) and rest is the little guy that needs help and protection. Fight for your rest!