Category: work

Posted on

back at last!

smeaog precious

I’ve missed my laptop.

I know, such a pathetic thing to say, but there you have it.

I suppose there’s some redeeming thing to say about not being materialistic — you know, the importance of detachment and all that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s true: the world got on just fine without my laptop distracting me. I wish I could have said that I went totally offline, but I had my phone and an iPad. And this antique HP pc that weighs about 20 pounds and works just fine. I was just spoiled by my light little macbook.

I missed changing the color of fonts. I missed the ease of posting here with access to my pictures. I missed the keypad for my biggish hands (no, I don’t have man -hands, thankyouverymuch).

This electronic object is more than a little toy for posting on Twitter and Facebook, though it does get a lot of action that way. It’s also a tool for communication and for work. If nothing else, this month long absence showed me how much I rely on it to do a multitude of things. I learned the limits of the other, smaller devices, but also discovered that they are, in some respects, more useful and practical than the big daddy for some things.

I think that I’ve picked up some new, hopefully better, habits by not having a laptop open all the time.

In the meantime, I’m going to love him, and squeeze him, and kiss him, and call him George.

 

Posted on

well, a busy week is upon me

I’m going to resolve to do three very important things today:

1. Pray – really pray, not some half-assed recitation of words while I’m distracted by traffic, or ticking off a list between appointments. It’s going to require that I intentionally set aside some time, ideally in about 5 minutes, and concentrate. Quietly. Reverently. With feeling, as they say.

2. Write – I’ve long abandoned any discipline in this area. Perhaps it’s time I stop making excuses and get on with it

3. Work – I have thee little assignments that aren’t terribly important, so I keep putting them aside. Time to get it done.

Of course, then I have to finish everything else in the universe, but it’s good to have a plan.

Posted on

one, one, one adds up

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There are days at work that test my patience to the limit, like these past couple of days. Coming off a couple of weeks of Christmas vacation should have left me rested and pleasant, no?

Not exactly. I always return in the new year frazzled. Not because I didn’t decompress enough over the holiday, or celebrate well with my family and friends, but because the new year at school always means other kinds of stress coming off the students. God bless them, every one. They return a little nervous and requiring some guidance and good advisement. I don’t blame them, but they come by the hundreds. It’s a little daunting for a dozen advisors, believe me.

I’m torn between providing some really good customer service or seeing as many students as possible to get them through the day efficiently. Sometimes I look at the numbers and forget what it’s really about, the student.

That silly Mother Teresa bobblehead stared at me from her little perch high on my bookshelf, and I remembered this quote:

“I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time – just one, one, one. So you begin. I began – I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn’t pick up that one person, I wouldn’t have picked up forty-two thousand….The same thing goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same thing in your church, your community. Just begin – one, one, one.”

It changed my approach significantly. I listened. I chatted. We laughed a little. And somehow, I think I served dozens of students in this way. One person at a time.

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