letter to my younger self

I hate it when my mom picks out books for me for Christmas. Every year I tell her not to and every year she does it anyway, this year was no different. One of the books was called What I Know Now, Letters To My Younger Self. The title intrigued me. So I read it. I loved it. Weird. My upcoming turning of decades has me thinking alot about the past. I also spent the afternoon with my ailing grandfather at the hospice. Over and over I keep thinking what would I say in a letter to my previous self and at what age, knowing what I know now. I would write to myself at age twenty on the brink of twenty-one. Fresh off of a big break up and about to plunge into a disaster of a relationship and a string of uncertanity once that was over.
Dear Annalea,
I know things have been rough lately, but hang in there. That little voice inside of you is telling you that this is the right choice. Your life is changing now, embrace it, but don't ever stop listening to that little voice. When from the begining of your next relationship that little voice says not to take this one too seriously listen to it. But you won't because listening isn't one of your strong points. When you get in this relationship and that little voice tells you to leave. Do it, the first time and don't look back, because your gonna miss out. This is the time to be wild and free and do the things you want to do and have the experiences later in life you will regret not taking. Had you had taken that time you might had learned some lessons about people you wished you had learned before thirty. Learn to let go of the people who don't tell you how wonderful you are and make you feel it all the time. Don't hold on to the wrong people for wrong reasons. Learn what the right reasons are. The thing about this relationship is that it's gonna make you a fighter and not a smart one. You are strong but, your just throwing fists blind because you feel like you have defend yourself against everyone. Your gonna come out of this. After this relationship is done your still not gonna get it right until you learn to trust yourself. That voice is gonna be askew because you ignored it for so long. Your will have regrets about the one you let go and more regerets about the one you choose to keep around. Either way your instinct will get you where you are supposed to go. You will find the soul mate you've been looking for, in the place you least expect it. So I say to you, listen to that little voice, and getting to a happy place in life would be a much smoother ride.
With Love,
Anna

A Fat Tax

New York Governor David Paterson wants to pass an "obesity tax" on sweetened soft drinks to help close the state's $15 billion budget gap, The Daily News reports. Diet drinks would be exempt, so a Diet Coke could end up costing 15 cents less than a regular Coke. Milk and bottled water would also be exempt.- New York Times

Soda drinkers are probably going to hate me but I think this is a great idea. I think it should be extended to candy bars as well. There are addtional taxes on alchol and cigarettes because they have been proven to be bad for us. Especially when consumed in excess. The same is true for sugar. So why not add an extra taxes to these sweet treats? Hopefully it would help people to think more about consuming them in moderation, the same way raising the price of cigarettes helped some people quit.

Why Women Work and Wash

It seems there has been an unequal shift in society. A woman's job used to be solely in the home. Cook, clean and keep everybody comfortable. June Cleaver was everything a woman was supposed to be. With more income needed to support a family and a certain lifestyle women have become and integral part of the work force. Mom's are now almost always working outside of the home. What's odd is that with this shift in responsibility for income, the role of the woman around the house doesn't seemed to have changed. If the responsibility for income is now become a mutual responsibility why have household chores not become the same? The rate of women with heart conditions is on the rise and a major contributing factor is stress. What makes guys think that half of these household chores aren't their responsibility??? My boyfriend sometimes tries to opt out of chores by saying I have higher standards of cleanliness than he does. Therefore because of my higher standards the cleaning becomes my responsibility because I am the one that wants it that way. Given the chance he would probably live in a barn and be just fine with that. I think all women need to stand up and make a statement about this. Time has changed things like racism and women's rights but it does not happen if you stand quietly by. Maybe we all boycott homemaking duties for a week. Maybe longer. Rest our poor little hearts from trying to keep everybody happy all at once.

Draining the life from me

A sure sign that you have taken on too much in life? You fall asleep sitting up in front of your computer. The good news? You eventually slump sideways onto your boyfriend who is sitting next to you on the couch and very kindly proceed to drool all over him. Even the pit bull sitting on the other side of him was nice enough not to drool. I believe though that the pit bull's life is a lot less stressful than mine. This semester has been like a vampire slowing draining the life blood from me and turning me into something I don't recognize. Through my many experiences in life from bartending to business, art has been the one thing I enjoyed consistently. This semester has changed my mind. In looking for a new career I wanted to do something I enjoyed and I looked to art for the answer. With five classes this past semester I discovered that art under pressure isn't enjoyable for me. When forced to create under time constraints I find it to be like test anxiety, my mind just goes blank. I have never experience it until this semester when I have been under pressure to create so much in such a limited time frame. The frustration levels when art is so much work has me thinking that maybe this isn't for me. When your job is to create your mind can't go blank. Nothing is set in stone so I will see what tomorrow brings. All I know for sure is next week will bring me time to sleep. Hopefully for several hours while laying down, in my bed.

Athlete Junkies

Seems like any more you have to do drugs to stay competitive. Not the same kinds of drugs your parents did in the sixties. There is a new breed of drug addict and I think the message they are sending to our youth is almost just as bad. I'm talking about athletic and fitness competitors. There are two schools of thought on this. The first is: What is the Harm? You do what needs to be done to stay at the top of your field. Performance enhancing drugs, steroids, they are just training tools. The second school of thought is, well, the first school of thought is a bunch of crap. We tell our children to look to the athletes and fitness competitors as the superstars. We tell them to follow in the athletes footsteps with the hope that keeping our kids involved in sports will keep them off of drugs. Yet today it looks like no matter which way you go your going to wind up doing drugs. You either a regular junkie or a sports junkie. The current athlete is setting unreachable standards. Look at bodybuilders, fitness competitor, even actors preparing for a movie (Brad Pitt in Troy) who use steroids. Awesome specimens of human flesh that no matter how hard you ever work you will never be able to look like that unless you use drugs. I wonder where is the line? People, especially need to be aware, in order to set obtainable and reasonable expectations for themselves. Should there be a disclaimer on every ad, this person used performance enhancing drugs in preparation for this event? How do we make our kids aware that images are photo shopped? An asterisk, is that the answer?*

AAR Ring #1

Things I did well:
I feel like I really starting to learn how to control my soldering. The tubing was small and thin. It heated fast, the flux would bubble and push apart pieces that I needed to stick together, moving my solder ball. Overall I feel that it turned out well. The solder placement was controled and not all over the place and the delicate pieces were firmly put together.

Things I could have done better:
That being said, I would like to learn how to control my soldering even more. I would have like to be able to turn some of the pieces so the were not all flat and on one plane. It gets tricky though because the tubing did heat so fast it would reflow areas of solder I did not want to flow if I was not very careful.

What if's:
What if I had used an even smaller torch tip? What if I had yellow ochre'd each section after I completed it? (I had tried that in the end, it seemed to work but also left alot of dirt on my piece) What if I had two third hands that I could use to hold pieces together and still have a free hand to solder with.

Market, I mean Merry Christmas!

I almost want to stop celebrating Christmas. I know. It's shocking. It's not Christmas I dislike, it's what Christmas has become. Christmas is about spirit. It's about loved ones and cozy fires and good times. It is not about shopping, retailers, or their profit margins. I think what Christmas has become is a symptom of the current American problem with spending. Retailers count the days leading up to every black Friday shopping blitz and it can make or break their profit margins. Do you really think that is what S. Claus intended? I don't think spreading cheer had anything to do with making sure some CEO has a golden parachute. A couple of years ago our family dedcided to change things up a little. Everybody brings a wrapped gift with no one person in mind and the spending limit is twenty dollars. The first person picks a gift from the pile and opens it (we draw numbers to see who goes first.) The second person goes, they can either take the first persons gift or open a new one. The game goes on like that gifts taken, new gifts opened, til the last person goes. Its a great time. Somebody always gets stuck with the worst gift ever. Like the year my twelve year old cousin Jake got the fondue pot and we all laugh about it. The games create laughter and stories for years. No one worries about who spent how much money on who or if they have enough money to shop for everyone this year. That is what Christmas is all about. Memories of family fun and sharing. So screw the retailers and how much money they made this year and how that affects the market. My wish for everyone this year is to celebrate Christmas in and with the spirit it was meant to have, no matter which way it takes for you to find that. If you can do that, no matter how much money you have, you can always have Christmas.