What's going on in your world?

[MsRobyn]

Here in Central PA, I'm avoiding work. I've got old TV on, and I'm looking at clothes. It's raining, so I'm blaming my lack of productivity on that.

Robin

[Rube E. Tewesday]

I'm at work, but in a kind of dead zone, after a busy stretch. As usual on Friday, I'm looking forward to getting home, having some pizza and beer, and starting the weekend. My son and I usually spend the weekend "adventuring" around town while my wife has some "me" time, and it's pretty much the high point of my week.

[tirial]

Taking a break from sending out emails to try and raise some funds for a rather large plane (Appeal coming soon to a messageboard near you!) writing a set of fact sheets about various planes to get some cash in for me, and lamenting the fact it's nice, sunny, and wonderful outside and I'm stuck at a PC. So close to 5:00pm...

And tensely awaiting feedback from a couple of interviews...(fingers crossed)

[SilverTygerGirl]

Printing. I swear it's all I do anymore at work. At least the printers are working at the moment.

At home, I have a bunch of homework - webdesign, with more than I thought I needed (the teacher suggested things); print media; studying for my one lecture class, which I need to buy the book for. And laundry, cleaning, etc.

What can I say, my life isn't particularly exciting.

[NinetyWt]

Just got back from a seminar. This is the winter meeting of an engineering association I belong to; last night was a nice banquest (food was excellent - filet mignon and coconut shrimp) where the Grand Award for Engineering Excellence went to a project for which we did the flood study and Letter of Map Revision. It was a very pleasant evening, I saw quite a few colleagues whom I don't see all that often, not to mention a lot of their spouses. That was nice.

This morning's seminar was all about contracts and how to protect yourself. Rather dry but much needed information.

Had lunch with some engineering colleagues, again the food was great and the company exceptional. I had the shrimp and grits. Yum!

I'm the only one in the office this afternoon. I'm hoping to catch up on some work - maybe the phone won't ring too awful much.

[featherlou]

I'm just in the process of leaving a very bad job (I gave two weeks notice a week ago, called in sick for most of the first week of it, and have one week to figure out still). I think I need a little time to recover after that job - I haven't done too badly in the relationship department, but for some reason, I keep getting abusive jobs. As people say, the constant component of all of them has been me, so I'm trying to figure out why I keep getting these terrible jobs. Just diving into another one and hoping this one won't make me crazy doesn't seem like a good idea right now.

ANYway, we're putting our house on the market in a couple of months, so I think I'll take the time to finish fixing it up and start packing and cleaning.

[Malacandra]

I really, really, really mean to get on with my Open University homework some time soon. Oh, and I just received my Certificate in Mathematics from them - only an undergraduate "qualification" but at least it gives me a pretty piece of paper to admire en route to the degree.

[Kalhoun]

It's the ECONOMY! I'm working, but it's very slow lately. My job is directly connected to the auto industry, so I'm hoping for some positive motion soon. I have some relatives who were rich until September and are now falling apart with every downward tick of the Dow. I have other relatives who work near-minimum wage jobs and they're relatively stress-free. Me and Mr. K fall somewhere in between and I'm just glad we see eye to eye on how we manage our finances.

But I gotta say, the general economic climate is starting to take its toll. I do worry about us as a nation as well as individuals who are having a rough time. I've noticed that a general feeling of sadness is always there lately. Anyone else starting to feel it emotionally?

[NinetyWt]

I've noticed that a general feeling of sadness is always there lately. Anyone else starting to feel it emotionally?

Not me, but I think I know what you mean.

My sister tells a little poignant story about post-Katrina New Orleans. Said that often, while waiting for a traffic light to change, she'd look over at another person in their car and notice them just crying. Man or woman, didn't matter.

She said that evidently people were doing a good job at 'keeping it together' in front of everyone else - but that when they got in the car, away from anyone, they could do their grieving.

I think it will get worse before it gets better.

[EJsGirl]

Sadly, I'm dealing with all manner of shit- personal, professional, my kids... gah. But it only sucks one day at a time too, right?

[Kalhoun]

I've noticed that a general feeling of sadness is always there lately. Anyone else starting to feel it emotionally?

Not me, but I think I know what you mean.

My sister tells a little poignant story about post-Katrina New Orleans. Said that often, while waiting for a traffic light to change, she'd look over at another person in their car and notice them just crying. Man or woman, didn't matter.

She said that evidently people were doing a good job at 'keeping it together' in front of everyone else - but that when they got in the car, away from anyone, they could do their grieving.

I think it will get worse before it gets better.

That's pretty much it. It just begins to weigh on me. I don't want to sound like we are having any trouble, because we're not. It's the general situation -- the feeling of despair and uncertainty, and all the bickering in Washington, and so many problems that need to be remedied YESTERDAY. Some days it just a little much to absorb.

[troubleagain]

Even though no one I'm close to has lost their job due to the economy (yet), the pervasive sadness and feeling of gloom and doom is there. It's like a big dark cloud hovering.

Anyhoo. Learning to crochet, and getting ready to plant flowers!

[BiblioCat]

I'm just home from work and feeling very angry. People are idiots. I nearly ran over at least three people who just walked out into the intersection without looking or even pausing. Every single one of them was either on their cell phone or listening to an iPod. I blew my horn at one guy, and he didn't even look up. I can't imagine how loud he had his music that he wouldn't hear an air horn.

Then there are the Elevator Idiots. When the doors open, and the elevator is full or you see us on there with a patient on a stretcher, yes, the polite thing to do is say, "I'll get the next one." The you wait till the doors close and wait again until the elevator MOVES before you press the button again. Pressing the button immediately just makes the doors open again. Pressing the button immediately THREE times is just freaking insane.
She must have been related to the other woman who was engrossed in a conversation. She got on the elevator, held the door, and continued her conversation. The alarm went off, and it didn't even faze her. I was just about to say something when a guy on the elevator said, "On or off, lady! Let's go!" She was appropriately embarassed, at least.

I'm having a beer and the rest of my much-delayed dinner. I need to go to bed.

[garygnu]

I'm still unemployed, but at least I'm going to Maui in a couple days. (Trip's been planned and payed for since before I was layed off.)

[Baldwin]

I'm still out of a job, although I've got intermittent part-time work. Unexpected good news today: an Unemployment Insurance check. I really didn't think the Georgia Dept. of Labor would approve my application, since I quit my job voluntarily. When I applied, I said I quit because of a hostile work environment, which is true (and also because the alternative was bitch-slapping my boss). This makes a huge difference; we can keep our heads above water until I get a regular job.

[Campion]

It's Saturday afternoon, I still have a few hours of work to do today, but the sun is beginning to set. The house is warm, because even though it's been sort of cloudy today, the temperature has gotten up to almost 80. The cat, who woke up from his nap an hour ago, is convinced he's dying of starvation. Every 20 minutes or so, he expends the last little bit of energy he possibly has left to come into the office and try to convince me in his best Mike Tyson voice that I ought to feed him.

[taters]

I'm getting ready to head to a neighbor's house for a party. I spent the day loading stuff for a trip to the dump, and helping another neighbor who is going through some rough times right now.

I'm looking forward to tonight and hope to win some money too!

[Morgyn]

My work week basically kicked my butt. Anyone who thinks that writing is easy should be flayed with a cat o' nine tails tipped with typewriter keys.

Today, though, I had an excellent breakfast with my heart sister and my niece (just turned six and the sweetest, most loving little girl you could ever hope to get a hug from), got a couple of things at the Homey Despot that were needed for the house, and stopped in at a small home show where I found 3 different companies that can build custom bookcases. If all goes well, I will sooner rather than later have the library I've dreamed of. It's been a good, good day.

[Orual]

I'm baking potatoes and watching an America's Next Top Model marathon.

I just finished my first week of my new job - I'm still finding my feet at the office but I'm so beyond thrilled to be working again that I don't even mind the awkwardness.

[BiblioCat]

It's snowing here. It sucks, because I have a nail in my tire that I'm planning on getting fixed tomorrow, but it can't be done if there's a foot of freaking snow. I hate winter.

[Diana]

I'm out of work, but sort of pushing the worry to the back of my mind and enjoying not having to go out into the cold every day. My daughter is turning 18 in a couple of months, and that's sort of freaking me out. I'm in love, which is nice. I have this weird sort of dizzy-and-kneeless feeling that I'd almost entirely forgotten about. On the whole, my life is, at the moment, good, but a little disorienting.

My best friend's dog died yesterday, and I'm surprised how sad I am about that. Elsa was a sweet girl, and I'll miss her. I'm snuggling my cats a little extra today (whether they want snuggles or not, dammit!)

It's snowing here today, so my plan is to do a little light cleaning and a bunch of laundry, read a little, catch up on a little television, and make gumbo for dinner. All in between cat snuggling, of course.

[Inner Stickler]

I'm currently home from college for a week. (Spring break? Whazzat? I must have missed it under the foot and a half of snow.) I'm in the middle of some awesome classes this semester and I've started a new on-campus job this summer that is directly related to my theater major. (I get to use heavy-duty power tools! Boo-ya!) I'm relatively happy, I must say.

[TheFlame]

I'm supposed to be writing my thesis really, but I'm spending most of my time on here since I joined. It's really exciting being part of a brand new community.

[Muffin]

I've spent most of the weekend on the ski hill trying to strengthen the quads in one of my legs. It's been wonderful getting out in the sun and seeing my ski friends again. I don't have the strength yet to carve hard turns or to hold a tuck, but I still had a heck of a good time. Life is good im my world -- I hope it is in all yours' too.

[XJETGIRLX]

Getting over a bad sinus infection and trying to make myself handy around the house again before the weekend is over. It's been incredibly cold and blustery here in Florida, considering we spent most of last week enjoying temperatures in the 70's.

Now I have to go pick out a bottle of wine to go with dinner. I'm seriously considering building a wine cellar in the crawlspace under our kitchen.

[Queen Tonya]

I'm trying mightily to get my teen aged son back on some sort of even keel. He's somewhat developmentally delayed, with ADD and (not really medically diagnosed but the school system classifies him as) Aspergers. Basically, he's just got issues, always has had, always will. Combining these issues with the normal testosterone explosions of puberty is a bit challenging.

I used to be able to redirect him when he was going into a bad head space, levity worked wonders as well as plain old distraction, but now that he's maturing he's conscious of my attempts to handle him and highly offended by them. We seem do do okay for a few months at a time, then somehow he gets on a downward spiral and seems determined to crash and burn. A few weeks of constant arguing culminated with a bit of a standoff here last week; he was so enraged at me he was thisclose to damaging me and wisely chose to run out of the house instead. Would have been a better choice altogether had he slowed down enough to actually open the sliding glass door, instead he went through it. Luckily it was safety glass and he wasn't hurt, but it's kind of insane here at those times.

I've actually called the cops on him before, when I'm completely out of options and he's going to hurt himself or hurt me, and they take one look at him and refuse to touch him. My thinking is that a night or two in juvie with some real bad guys might sober him up when he's not really perceiving reality very clearly, the cops take on it is that he's "psych" and they want nothing to do with that. We have visited two different emergency rooms, just last week when he put himself through a door and later the same night picked up a 12-foot 2X6 and was swinging it wildly about the back yard wanting to 'fight' me, since it seems quite likely that he needs a serious psych eval and possibly new med management, but each time the ER says "Are you homicidal? Suicidal? Then follow up with your regular docs, next!" and since he is smart enough to answer those questions, that doesn't work either.

His grades are dropping, as is his attendance, and he's on his second school suspension in one month and the only thing his shrink has offered is upping one of his two medications. Since he's been on the same dosage for a few years but has grown substantially in that time, of course this makes sense, but isn't doing much to halt the downward spiral, either.

Combine all this with my work shift recently changing, which I'm sure contributed greatly to my sons behavioral issues but isn't in my control, tons of folks losing their jobs and all of us in fear of either being let go or taking enormous concessions to keep our jobs and it's been a bit much lately.

[Why I Am a Destiny]

I'm under a lot of stress right now on many different fronts. I work in debt counseling... oh my god I can't tell you how understaffed we are right now. We are up to our ears in the economic crisis. People who lost their jobs, their cars, their wives, their children, their parents, their legs, their home countries, their dignity, their self-respect. People who want to keep the house but can't keep the house. People who beg me to promise them they won't get taken to court when I am able to promise no such thing. Everyone at work is completely burned out, pissy, angry, and stressed. We're losing sleep, getting sick but having to go to work anyway, and otherwise ready to curl up into a fetal position by the end of the day. The only thing making it bearable is that fact that I love my bosses and coworkers and we are having a shared experience that is bringing us closer together.

In addition to that, I'm in the process of trying to decide where to go to graduate school. This should be great news and a fun time but mostly I'm just worried about making the wrong decision and/or getting screwed financially. One of my biggest problems is dealing with the unknown. I can't stand it. We are going to have to move and I don't know where, or how we're going to afford the security deposit. We don't have money, and we don't even know how much money we don't have, because my husband's computer crashed and took his Excel files with it.

And what better time than now to suddenly be grieving traumatic experiences from years ago? I rarely cry, but I haven't stopped crying and moping for three weeks. Crying on the train, crying myself to sleep, crying in the bathroom. If there's one thing I hate more than crying, it's crying around other people. My husband keeps trying to get me to talk, but I'm so deep into this, I want nothing to do with anyone, him included. We got into a fight today about whether I will ever be able to trust or connect with other human beings on any kind of meaningful level ever again. I'm sure you can guess what my position was. He kept insisting my belief that I was irreparably, irrevocably cut off from the rest of humanity was creating my isolation. I started fantasizing about smashing dishes into the wall and decided it was time to run away before I lost it. I'm so profoundly lonely and I don't know why I can't get beyond this. I just want to be loved for who I am instead of a person who is happy and strong and wise all the time. I am so afraid that people will not be able to accept the real me. And to be brutally honest, I'm afraid the ''real me'' will be a shitty therapist. I know I'll get to the other side, eventually. But right now I'm not in a good place.

To make things even more interesting, Dr. Destiny is going through some kind of grad school Hell Month during which he really can't give me extended support, and the only new friend I trust on anywhere near this level is also in the same Ph.D. program as him and unable to socialize. I'm going to turn 26 on Wednesday, an event that will probably go unnoticed given everything else that's going on. I'm stressed out, burned out, tired, sad, angry, sleep deprived, anxious, irritable, and still having inexplicable severe abdominal cramping that ranks about an 8 on the pain scale. The medicine I got from the GE helps with other symptoms but not the pain.

QT, I'm so sorry to hear how difficult things have been for you and your family. I hope you are able to get someone to pay attention and give your son the attention and treatment he deserves. Nobody should have to live with that kind of stress, but least of all someone as warm, and good, and loving, as you.

[Defenistrator]

I've noticed that a general feeling of sadness is always there lately. Anyone else starting to feel it emotionally?

Yes, I suppose. I'm starting to feel like a real idiot lately. I'm unemployed, and perhaps at the worst possible time and place. My husband's in grad school working his ass off, and I can't find a job. Well, except that I did have a job, and I quit it, so I feel even worse about not bringing any money in. I just want to have a job that I don't feel like scraping my brain out of my skull afterwards, and that's just too much to ask in this small town. We're moving to St. Louis in 6 months, and I can't wait. I still really have no idea what I want to do with my life career-wise, but I guess it doesn't matter, because even if I did have a clue, I probably wouldn't be able to find a job in it anyway. I should count myself lucky though because everything else in my life is going just fine.

[Queen Tonya]

WIaaD, you have made some excellent choices so far, I have the utmost confidence that you'll make a good choice regarding grad school as well. You and Dr.D have good heads on your shoulders, trust in yourselves. He's a smart man, trust him, he's right that you aren't permanently damaged, traumatized sure, no one could survive what you have without trauma, but You Are Not Broken.
Keep on your quest for answers for the tummy troubles and do the best you can to manage with pain meds until they finally get some real answers for you.
I can't imagine how stressful your job must be right now, yay for good coworkers though. In my experience, you can have fun shoveling shit for a living if you enjoy your coworkers, and the best job in the world will suck if you have bitchy ones. I suppose the best you all can do is try to not internalize it, you can't fix everything for them and you have to keep yourself healthy at the same time, not the easiest thing in the world but try not letting it in.

We'll keep soldiering on here, and this too shall pass. Life will never be easy for the boy, and probably not for us around him, but we'll get there.

Maybe you can be Why Olive Destiny so we can still call you Olive hmm? You are a destiny, you love a destiny, ok it doesn't mean the same thing and maybe it only makes sense if you turn your head sideways and squint, but it would give you an opportunity to show us marching olives again someday. That alone is totally worth it! :mrgreen:

[Clothahump]

I'm out of work and trying to get new students into my Taekwondo school.

[sublight]

I'm in a quiet spot at work right now. Plenty of projects are going on, but they're all in 'wait and see' stages at the moment. Things will get busy again soon enough.

Yesterday would have been perfect for a long ride: no rain, no wind, no bright sun. Alas, the wife was sick in bed, so I stayed home to take care of things around the house. Today is sunny, but very cold and windy. Ok for the ride to work, but the headwinds riding home (going along the river) are likely to be very strong. I've signed up for a 200km ride on the 15th and a 300km on the 20th, so I hope we can at least get dry weather on those days.

Playing futsal tonight with a bunch of our clients. Tonight's match is fairly close to my house, so that's convenient. Last month's game was on the other side of the city.

All in all, no big problems.

[woodstockbirdybird]

I'm at home, supposed to be working on a screenplay, but using this place as an excuse not to.

[5er]

I'm busting my butt between school and work -- mostly school. I was finally correctly diagnosed with ADD last summer and with medication and an understanding of how my brain works, I belched up the confidence to tackle school again. Two weeks left to go in the semester and I'm carrying a 4.0 in both Anatomy & Physiology and English Comp. I barely graduated from high school in 1981 and NEVER got past the second week of any college course I attempted. This is pretty exciting for me.

And there's more! I've met someone pretty special after eschewing relationships for nearly four years. Tonight we confessed that the feelings are mutual and I've got that squiggly feeling in my stomach that puts a stupid shit-eating grin on my face. I just knew she'd be someone whose kisses make your knees melt, I could tell.

I feel so deliciously giddy!

[Why I Am a Destiny]

Maybe you can be Why Olive Destiny so we can still call you Olive hmm? You are a destiny, you love a destiny, ok it doesn't mean the same thing and maybe it only makes sense if you turn your head sideways and squint, but it would give you an opportunity to show us marching olives again someday. That alone is totally worth it! :mrgreen:

I know, I love the marching olives too, but I had to explore a different part of my identity for a while. I'm sorry for being so melodramatic in the other post... jeez, it's amazing what a good night's sleep can do to your personal outlook. It's just a stressful time right now, we'll make it through. And so will you. Good luck with the new week!

[scareyfaerie]

I am at work but it's quiet so I'm having trouble finding enough to fill my day. I've just had a great weekend away with a bunch of girls, and I'm off to Belgium next weekend for some serious birthday partying.

I have an ulcer in my eye that is quite stupidly painful, and it's only been two weeks since I got rid of the last ulcer. The bonus is that I still have the medication they gave me at the hospital for the last ulcer so I can continue to use that instead of having to wait around for hours to be given the same drops, and have to pay another set of prescription charges.

Life at home has been rough of late, 'im indoors has been causing me quite a lot of bother and it got to the point where we had to have The Talk otherwise I would have ended up walking out on him.

Things are better now, and our next job is to get the builders in to do so much work on the house they might just as well be building us a complete new one.

[Why I Am a Destiny]

I am at work but it's quiet so I'm having trouble finding enough to fill my day. I've just had a great weekend away with a bunch of girls, and I'm off to Belgium next weekend for some serious birthday partying.

I have an ulcer in my eye that is quite stupidly painful, and it's only been two weeks since I got rid of the last ulcer. The bonus is that I still have the medication they gave me at the hospital for the last ulcer so I can continue to use that instead of having to wait around for hours to be given the same drops, and have to pay another set of prescription charges.

Life at home has been rough of late, 'im indoors has been causing me quite a lot of bother and it got to the point where we had to have The Talk otherwise I would have ended up walking out on him.

Things are better now, and our next job is to get the builders in to do so much work on the house they might just as well be building us a complete new one.

An ulcer in your EYE?!!! I've never heard of such a thing. Yikes!

I'm somewhat comforted to know I'm not the only one in a less than stellar mood, but I hope you guys can work things out soon. When is your B-day? Mine's this Wednesday!

[Wile E]

I am sick again. I either had a relapse from the crud from a week ago or I was attacked by new germs in my weakened state. I used the neti pot yesterday and it helped the post nasal drip and stuffiness a little but still very headachey today and there's a gremlin in my throat tickling it constantly. I think I need to drink some hot tea to try and drown him out. I am probably going to sign off soon and look for my headache medicine because reading is not helping my headache. I guess I will then have some tea and play some Sims or try to do something productive ... aw, who am I kidding? I will either play a game or take a nap.

[AllWalker]

I feel... I don't know. Bored? Frustrated? Craving intellectual stimulation? Craving... other types of stimulation. Craving a deep and meaningful conversation. Craving inspiration.

In other words, what I feel for most of the day, especially during my down time.

[Hostile Dialect]

Let's see, it's week 9 out of the 10-week quarter, I have two essays due on Friday, I missed my classes today sleeping off a cold, it looks like it's developing into a full-blown flu at the worst time ever (haven't had the strength to start on the essay assignments), I have to come up with $65 by Friday or my driver's license will be suspended and I'll be prosecuted for writing a bad check (I thought I would have the money in my account! shoulda gone with a money order....), I just got rejected at another job, it's looking like I'll have to cop a plea in the criminal speeding case in Arizona that I was hoping to beat in trial (or risk paying a $2500+ fine with an 87% surcharge--no, that's not a typo), I don't know how to come out to my mom and it's killing me, what else? Oh, I'm also being ostracized at the LGBT Resource Center on campus for keeping too much of my food in the kitchen there, even though I bring more free food for the community than I can afford.

On the plus side, I could well be getting a $100 cash infusion on Friday, just in time; I've made a new friend who's really helping me through my process; and I'm finally kicking my speeding habit. It's just getting too damn expensive. Also, I was accepted to the program I really wanted to go to this summer, studying Spanish dialectology in Spain, although I'm not sure if I can afford to go now...

ETA: Sorry, I just really needed to dump this all out.

[Zenster]

I suppose this isn't the time to talk about my current dream job.

So, I'll preface it by mentioning the several years of pure Hell since losing my previous high tech dream job back in 2002. I was doing fundamental research into CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) coatings for DRAM devices and also being flown out to do machine installations in places like Taiwan. Besides doing R&D in semiconductor thin films work I also had the Best Boss Ever™. One who actually allowed me to take the time to achieve excellence. (You can all stop laughing now.)

Then came five years of pure post 9-11 recession Hell as I branched into catering management. First off there was the 33% drop in earnings that shut down all pursuit of my life dreams. Despite being head of operations and second in command, the pay was miserable and the hours were even worse. The hidden killer was how this career change into the culinary trade literally snuffed my prospects in the high technology market. It didn't matter that I had doubled baked goods wholesale orders in one quarter. Sitting on the advisory board of a local culinary academy meant nothing. Even if I sat across from people like the late Joseph Amendola who used to cook with Julia Child and James Beard, not to mention helping start the CIA (Culinary Institue of America). It mattered not that I successfully sold into mega-corps like Tivo, JDS Uniphase and Transmeta. The food industry was too far removed from semiconductor research for anyone in high tech to make the connection.

Then a friend told me about this position with a German semiconductor capital equipment company. I went to Semicon West and interviewed with the proper people, only to be strung along for almost HALF A YEAR. Finally, after much prodding they told me that the position had been outsourced and they had no interest. I bit my toungue and resubmitted my resume to the outsourcing company without much hope.

A few months later, the German outsourcing services company called me and offered me a position as senior service engineer for their USA operations. After lengthy negotiations, my position was upgraded to head of American operations and I was flown to Europe for a few weeks of training.

Only then did I discover that my boss was owner of the company and a truly decent guy. I was given unlimited use of the company car during my stay. So, instead of heading straight up to Dresden, I traveled to Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and then to Eastern Germany. Let me put it this way, driving on the Autobahn is the most fun you can have without taking your clothes off.

The down side, if you can call it that, is how in the last 90 days I have traveled through some 64 time zones, including two crossings of the International Date Line (for personal reasons). Properly extracted and distilled, my jetlag could kill a horse or three.

Still, I'm looking at hefty first-year commissions on new accounts, managing new engineering teams as they come online in America, running booths at Semicon and other shows plus attending related industry exhibitions throughout the USA.

Most ironic of all is how there isn't a single Americann company that would give a high school graduate like me such a job. Yet, a European organization recognized how they would NEVER find someone who could wrench on million dollar machines, make sales presentations to new Fortune 500 clients, proofread their literature and entire web site plus write the articles of incorporation for its American venture.

That's what I'm doing at a higher pay rate than ever before and I report straight to my company's owner without any political crap. You could knock me down with a feather.

Finally, for those of you who are pounding the pavement searching for a job: I will be posting some vital job search and resume writing guidelines in an upcoming thread. This is a Brave New World of job hunting and the rules are neither fair nor rational. If time permits, I will try to review and edit resumes for those who would like my help. Unfortunately, time is rather short for me but I will always have a soft spot for the gang here. Please know that.

[scareyfaerie]

An ulcer in your EYE?!!! I've never heard of such a thing. Yikes!

I have a condition called ulcerative keratitis which means I get tiny ulcers in my eye, always the same eye too. It's because my eye has almost no natural tear film so it is permanently dry and where your tear film would naturally wash out tiny bits of dust and pollen etc, mine doesn't. Anything that sticks to the surface of my eye has the potential to dig itself in and results in a tiny (and stupidly painful) ulcer.

On a happier note, I will be celebrating my birthday in style at a big charity fancy dress party in Belgium this weekend so that's something to look forward to. My brithday is on Saturday too so that's going to be fun. I hope your birthday brings you good things!

[Why I Am a Destiny]

An ulcer in your EYE?!!! I've never heard of such a thing. Yikes!

I have a condition called ulcerative keratitis which means I get tiny ulcers in my eye, always the same eye too. It's because my eye has almost no natural tear film so it is permanently dry and where your tear film would naturally wash out tiny bits of dust and pollen etc, mine doesn't. Anything that sticks to the surface of my eye has the potential to dig itself in and results in a tiny (and stupidly painful) ulcer.

On a happier note, I will be celebrating my birthday in style at a big charity fancy dress party in Belgium this weekend so that's something to look forward to. My brithday is on Saturday too so that's going to be fun. I hope your birthday brings you good things!

Oooh, and I thought tummy ulcers were bad! Birthday in Belgium sounds great! I'm sure you'll look stunning.

[Dragon]

I suppose this isn't the time to talk about my current dream job.

::: snip:::

That's what I'm doing at a higher pay rate than ever before and I report straight to my company's owner without any political crap. You could knock me down with a feather.

Finally, for those of you who are pounding the pavement searching for a job: I will be posting some vital job search and resume writing guidelines in an upcoming thread. This is a Brave New World of job hunting and the rules are neither fair nor rational. If time permits, I will try to review and edit resumes for those who would like my help. Unfortunately, time is rather short for me but I will always have a soft spot for the gang here. Please know that.

WOW, way to go............ :mrgreen: