I Pity The Fool

I had a great Thanksgiving, and hope you did too. We always go out to eat (long,
not-that-interesting story), and I actually get a little jealous of people who
cook and wind up with a week’s worth of yummy leftovers. This year I was somewhat placated, since we
were invited to two other peoples’ houses so far to help them eat THEIR
leftovers!!

Between Thursday and Friday, I think I had turkey, ham,
squash, two kinds of mashed potatoes, two kinds of sweet potatoes, three kinds
of greens, and at least four or five kinds of pie.

Mmmmmm…piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeee……..

Honestly though, aside from the food, it’s one of my
favorite holidays. I like the idea of
taking time out to think about all the incredible good fortune I’ve had in my
life, and how I can give back in some way.

Lastly, one thing that made this year’s T-Day even better
than most is that my crazy and really unpleasant aunt skipped out on us. She left her daughter (my cousin here) and
went to protest against the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock or something like
that. So the rest of us basically had a
better time than normal.

So, I’ve now been working about 5 weeks. One annoying thing is that virtually no one
has internet or e-mail access on the island. I’m not complaining about the fact that I can’t

fool around on Amazon or Friendster all day, but I really do
wish that we at least had an internal e-mail system so that I could have
written documentation of whatever nonsense my supervisor is telling me. Incidentally, I’ve decided to refer to her
as “Shelob” in future blog entries. If
you don’t recognize the reference, I’ll elaborate: Shelob was once an evil
witch, who turned herself into a giant, smelly spider, and hides in a cave
trying to eat hobbits. I don’t care if
it’s nerdy; so far, this is the most apt descriptor I can come up with! Honestly, I’ve realized how much I took it
for granted in the past that I was working with smarter people. GodzillaBoss may have been crazy and evil,
but he actually wasn’t stupid…just disorganized due to the rampant and
untreated mental illness.

Shelob led a meeting today, but I’m going to have to leave
that story for another post. Getting
back to my original point, having no internet at the office cuts into my
computer time a lot (obviously), since usually the last thing I want to do at
home is sit at the computer (least of all to look up information for
work). I’ll admit that I wind up doing
it a lot, but I also have to admit that there are totally lots of other things
I could be doing. Well, anyway, I used
the word Cheater in the title of this post because I am cheating a little bit:
specifically, I’m cutting and pasting stuff from some e-mails I sent people
this weekend. If you are kind enough to
be reading this and you recognize it, forgive me (just consider yourself
special!)…but otherwise I will never catch up.

So…I am slowly getting acclimated to being in the midst of
not one, but two new cultures: that of the DOE, plus that of the DOC or
Department of Corrections. They do have
some similarities- both can be arbitrary and inefficient, or even exasperating
at times. On the other hand, they are
each a totally different ballgame. Even
going in there, I knew that it would be important (equally, if not more so) to
use my people skills, not just my professional skills. Over time, I have started to learn which
officers are friendly and like to chat, vs. which ones I should just politely
nod or smile at…similarly, I am learning which teachers and office staff are
more helpful, and how to stay on their good side. I don’t see this as manipulative, I see it as a survival
skill. One thing I never could
understand at previous workplaces was when doctors or other therapists would
talk down to the office staff, ignore the receptionists, etc. Saying "hello" or "how are
you?" every morning takes less than a minute, but it can mean a world of
difference when you need something from that person.

Moral of the story, so far I am getting along pretty well
with most people; unfortunately there are one or two notable exceptions. One of them is in my carpool, and the other
is the afore-mentioned Shelob. I will
tell you more about her next time.

***

P.S. I can’t resist telling you about this one. My most recent good spam was a message from
“Moser Joseph” entitled “retch cahoots.” It sounds like the joker cousin of Goser (Gozer?) the Destroyer, getting
involved in some kind of intestinal conspiracy…

And by the way, check out the comment Jackie made on my previous post!

and so it begins:

i…got…PAID today!

* * *

it never ends:

Now in theaters- Second Son of Spam.  Highlights include

indifferent awfully           from          "Daniel Romero"

epilogue                          from           "Ralph Ray"

transparently peck           from            "Barbara Silva"

simultaneously redeem     from           "Horatio Vincent"

bombed                           from            "Amabel Vang"

and "Fearless LoveListen" wants to talk to me about a Sony Ericsson phone.

(scroll down here for the first Son of Spam)

* * *

If anyone wants me, I’ll be cheerily checking my account balance!

photos to go along with the previous post:
*
wedding outfit
*
halloween costume
*
but you should still scroll down/go back and read the actual post (if you haven’t) for context!

Well, it’s been two weeks since I started working at Jail School.  I have received my first prison nickname: Curly Sue (probably related to my new haircut).  Hey, it could definitely be worse! ;)  Actually, the inmates do sometimes yell things that are probably at least somewhat inappropriate (especially from the windows, when you are walking outside and you can’t see them), but I can never understand what they’re saying.  I have picked up a little of the lingo so far:
Bing = solitary confinement
the bubble = the security booth at the intersection of several hallways
turtles = officers wearing riot gear
TSO = tactical security operation…as in, today, there was a TSO and a lockdown, which meant that the students were not permitted to come to school, leaving the staff with a more-or-less free day (well, as free as a day can be when you still have to stay at work…in prison…in the rain…).
Speaking of quasi-free days, yesterday was Election Day: in NYC, students have off from school but staff have to show up for development workshops.  Happily, some of us got to enjoy the day at the Queens Museum of Art.  In this beautiful environment, we split up into groups and participated in "art as therapy" activities.  My group worked with a fantastic young artist named Sara Rahbar.  Personally, I really got into the project that we did, and actually photographed the process too (will upload later).  Overall, it seemed that everyone benefited from the day’s experience- even people who didn’t respond artistically seemed to appreciate spending the day in a rejuvenating, creative environment.  Big thumbs up to the collaborators on both sides of the equation (school administration and museum folk), who put a lot of time and effort into the workshops.
***
In the meantime, I guess I’ll share some random other recent news:

• Halloween has come and gone, and I spent it in NY this year.  Due to my recently established early sleep- and wake-times, I didn’t do much on actual Halloween other than hand out candy to trick-or-treaters…favorite costume: "Delvis" (Devil/Elvis).  I did dress up the previous Saturday, despite my raging headcold, and was quite pleased with the outcome: zombie camp counselor!  The special touch was my blood-stained marshmallows on a stick (will upload those too!).
• Saw the Borat movie.  I laughed at some parts, but probably won’t see it again.  I could say more, but don’t want to spoil it if you haven’t seen it yet.
• The famous black-tie wedding has finally come and gone.  I have never before seen the like.  I finally compiled all the pieces of my smashing ensemble, and discovered that it looks awesome but is kind of uncomfortable to sit in.  Also, I scratched someone’s car when I was anxiously pulling out of my parking space, but my conscience forced me to leave a note.  We got a little lost in Long Island, but after that our luck turned around!  Mazel tov to Melissa and Jason.
• Went to a live taping of the Colbert Report with my brother, his girlfriend, and his friend last Thursday.  It was actually really fun- I think Colbert has gotten a lot funnier, whereas I initially didn’t like his show nearly as much as the Daily Show.  Anyway, it was a great time…also, I taped it to watch it later, and saw us on TV!

Well, it’s 10:30.  I have to get up again in 7 hours.  Ta…