I am amazed at the lack of commitment people around me are showing lately. When we’re young and immature, a change of mind is easily explained by our age. “She’s still a kid,” people say, “she doesn’t know what she wants yet.” Fair enough. Maybe 16 is too young to take on a major commitment.
But what about 25? or 30? or 35? When’s the right time? What’s the age at which we’re supposed to be more mature and know that a commitment is not meant to be easy, but we stick to it anyway. What if people quit their jobs regularly. I mean monthly. When I worked on Wall Street, people used to say that you need to work in a company at least for one year before you can leave because otherwise it looks bad on your resume. Companies didn’t like to see guys who moved in and out of places within months. It showed lack of commitment. Lack of care.
I fear that my generation is full of people who don’t take their commitments seriously. I have more friends than I’d like to count who are cheating on their significant other, who are getting divorced, who are taking on jobs they know they will quit as soon as they can get the job they really want. What’s the point of getting married if you aren’t willing to try as hard as you can. What’s the point of staying married if you’re sleeping with someone else? What’s the point of it all?
I don’t mean to imply that one is required to stay in a loveless marriage or an abusive one. Life is short and we are supposed to try and be happy for the amount of time we’re here. But the thing that annoys me is that no one is forcing you to make a commitment. No one is requiring marriage which is much harder than it appears. Marriage is hard work. It’s consistent hard work. It’s not all flowers and chocolates and hugs and sex. It’s caring on the sick days, dealing with loss of money, working out different priorities. It’s being with someone who goes through mood swings. emotional downs, major career changes, anger, sadness, frustration, lack of enthusiasm, lack of drive, lack of ambition. And not when it’s convenient for you but when the other person is actually feeling it. Marriage is spending a lifetime with another person whom you can’t control. It’s putting up, bending backwards, compromising, and caring even when you don’t feel like it. Not to mention the dimensions that children add to the picture. No matter how magnificent the other person is, marriage is hard work a lot of the time.
It’s also wonderful and amazing and magical but, for now, we’re talking about the difficult moments. People who stand in front of the officiant and say “yes” should take a moment and realize all this hard work. Maybe then they wouldn’t commit to something they undoubtedly can’t do. I know we start all things with good intentions but how come we don’t stick to anything any more? How come we’ve lost all our integrity? How come cheating has become acceptable; something we can ‘work out’? Why can’t we own up to our commitments? And if the marriage is really over and there’s nothing to work on anymore, why can’t we be honest and deal with it instead of lying and hiding and cheating?
Apologies for the rant but after the seventh case, I just feel like blowing up. It makes me lose all faith in the institution of marriage and it makes me lose respect for humankind.
Oh and I posted two new sets of pictures: malibu, venice beach, beverly hills and learning photography with the nikon ef2 and a new book excerpt: nothing that meets the eye.
I used to make a big deal about celebrating pre-fabricated holidays like Valentine’s day. I used to have expectations and think it was important to remember the flowers and the chocolate and the cards.
A few years ago I gave up being picky about the little things and then I gave up major holiday celebrations. I decided the best choice was to take it easy, keep things in perspective and to remember that no one day needs to be more special than any other. With all the divorces going on, all I wanted was a pleasant weekend with the man I love.
Pleasant, I got.
A few weeks ago, the San Diego Reader said Saturn was closer to earth than it’s been in my lifetime. I had never seen Saturn and thought it might be fun and Jake loves astronomy so I asked him to find out if there was anywhere in San Diego we could go look at the sky. A few days of research showed us that the San Diego Astronomy Association has a regular Stars at Mission Trails event where people can show up and use the members’ telescopes to look at the sky. Friday night, we drove to the campground and I got my first peek at Saturn ever.
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The image was completely clear and I couldn’t believe how much of Saturn we could see. The Cassini division was easily distinguishable and I could see the south pole of the planet. We then looked at Venus and a few stars. I kept coming back to Saturn since, to me, it was the most magnificent thing I ever saw. |
The clear three-dimensional feeling left me speechless.
After we drove home, I promptly read the guide Jake had printed for me. It was my first time looking through a telescope ever and I image I will remember the experience for a long time.
Our plan for Valentine’s Day was to get up early, drive to Malibu Shores and have Jake teach me all about photography. I am hoping to buy a new, fancy digital camera and he was going to teach me all he knew, using his old but amazing Nikon EF2 which is not digital. We took five rolls of film, the tripod, my nikon 885, his camera, the telephoto lens, and the 50mm lens and set out for the road. Along Malibu, we parked on the side of the beach and he showed me how to use the camera and the different lenses for the next few hours. We then drove to Venice Beach and Jake let me practice which meant I used up another roll and a half of film. After a stroll on the beach, we decided to drive through Beverly Hills and head home to meet a friend for a movie. Despite the horrifying Los Angeles traffic, I took some more pictures, we talked for hours and listened to fantastic music.
Today I got back my photos from the developer and almost 80% of them were technically perfect. I learned a huge amount more than I knew about photography and I will be buying the camera some time this week and feel a lot more confident about using it.
While it wasn’t as magical as my perfect day this was one of the best Valentine’s Days I’ve ever had. It was educational, exciting, fun, calm, and full of love.
I love you, Jake.
I have finally managed to convert everything on my site to the new look and feel. Every entry has its own individual page. I also have monthly pages for all posts within a month and category pages for all posts in a category. The category files tend to be quite long, but they’re there. The only section that hasn’t been updated is the pages I had when I was planning my wedding. I will eventually post those, too, but I imagine you can live without them easily.
I’ve converted all the pictures and added a huge collection including: random mix i, torrey pines – part ii, la jolla, muir woods national monument, san francisco – twin peaks, pacific coast highway – big sur, pacific coast highway – ragged point, pacific coast highway – pismo beach, pacific coast highway – on the road, new year’s eve 2003 – hotel del, new year’s eve 2003 – torrey pines, new year’s eve 2003 – pacific beach, sea world, julian cemetery, san diego wild animal park, torrey pines – part i, anze borrego desert, san diego zoo, joshua tree national park, hillside, turkey with my family, and mosques in istanbul. Those should entertain you at least for a while. I’ve also added a feature where the main page in the photograph set shows you thumbnails and then you can click on anything you like. You might or might not be shocked to find out that there are over 5000 photographs posted in the photograps section of this site. I was certainly quite surprised. I wonder if that means I can justify buying a fancy camera, now.
The books section is updated as well and the book names are now alphabetical so you can easily find one you’re searching for in the really long list. There are many book excerpts to be posted in the coming weeks but I need a bit of downtime so I will be taking that first.
In the process of converting this site, I wrote over 40 php scripts so now I am quite familiar with the language and am enjoying having a chunk of my work automated. However, for those parts which weren’t, I have accidentally deleted and recreated many html files in the last two weeks so if you see a mistake, please feel free to point it out.
That’s it for today. Pithy thoughts coming tomorrow.
After having spent an entire weekend updating and tweaking this site, I’ve begun to wonder why we do what we do during our spare time. I started writing my site almost four years ago. Over that time, there were months I updated a lot and months where life came first. No matter what else went on, I always thought about updating it and felt it was a good use of my time to keep it going.
There are others activities that regularly fill my free time. I read for at least five to seven hours a week, mostly on the weekend. If the book is really interesting, I might read up to twenty hours a week. I spend many hours agonizing over how I should be writing my novel and another few actually writing it. Each time, I go out to anywhere, I take time to stop and take pictures. That makes my trips take longer. I watch two to three hours of TV every night. I talk on the phone and chat over the computer with my friends.
That’s a quick list that gives an indication of the last few months of how I spend my free time. When I think about it, there are good reasons for each of my choices. Reading non fiction exercises my brain and teaches me things I didn’t know. Reading fiction exercises my creativity and helps me get lost in someone else’s world for a while and thus makes me experience different emotions.
Admittedly, agonizing doesn’t help me at all and I am trying to turn this time in to a more productive one by using it to organize my novel. Writing my novel makes me feel a huge sense of accomplishment. Even though the good feeling comes months later, I am not ready to give up on writing because it still nags me all the time.
I’ve recently noticed that taking pictures helps me remember being in places I visit. Because I have to take a moment to take a snapshot, I remember the scene even if I don’t look at my photographs for years.
TV. I know that’s a pet peeve for many people. Honestly, I work much better with the TV on. I know that for a fact because I spent all weekend coding php scripts for this site and I could function much faster and more productively when the TV was on then when if was off. I can come up with many theories as to why that is true but I will just state that it’s true and count on the fact that you’ll believe me.
I suppose with friends is the best way to spend time. Especially since most of my good friends are spread all over the world and continually busy, I am thrilled that I can get some quality time with them at all. So when I get it, I seize it and cherish it.
What’s interesting is that my ways of spending my free time are quite different than, say, Jake’s. The goal is to spend it whichever way you like; that’s why it’s called free time. The fact is time is the most precious thing we own and one that never comes back. So I think it’s important that we think of the things we choose to give our time to and those we don’t.
Why do you do what you do in your spare time?
With the help of mysql and php, I have managed to regenrate all the book excerpts. One of the downsides to having a site that’s almost four years old is that there is a lot of updating to be done when you make a design change. Oh, I also created a page to store links to all my pictures and updated other places, about and quotes. I haven’t fixed or updated the content yet but I will get to it.
I’ve had the orange look since December 2001. There were many things I liked about it. I liked the uplifting orange. I liked the flexibility of the three-column design. I liked the fact that I got to see my nephews every time I visited my web page. I liked that I was able to display a lot of information on the same page and still feel like it wasn’t overly cluttered. Unlike my previous design, I didn’t get tired of it instantly. But it’s been over two years. Much has changed in my life since the orange design came about.
I found myself thinking more and more about a design change in the last few months. I wanted to be able to put up pictures of beautiful California and the different states we visited this summer. I wanted to encourage myself to take more pictures. I wanted the design to be simpler. I wanted to remove the thousand links I had somehow accumulated on the left column. The down side of this design means you may have to click through two pages to get to some of the content but I think that’s worth the simplicity.
All the other pages are still in the old design and will be updated little by little in the coming month. Let me know what you think of the new look.
The trip up the Pacific Coast Higway was as wonderful as I expected. I took hundreds of pictures and we listened to hours of the Beatles. Our stay in San Francisco, or Redwood City to be exact, was short but filled with laughter and friends. I will be writing about it all as soon as I can get unpacked and get my life back on track.
One of the fun parts of having studied seven languages is that I look for patterns within the languages I’ve learned. I am always fascinated when I come across an unusual phrase like, “It’s raining cats and dogs.” But I am even more fascinated when I see similarities in languages that don’t seem to have any apparent connection. I would have never guessed that Japanese grammar would turn out to be similar to Turkish grammar.
A few months ago, I noticed that the way we introduce ourselves differs from language to language. Here’s a sample using the languages I can speak:
Turkish: Benim adim Karen.
Literal Translation: My name Karen. (In Turkish, the “is” is implied in this type of sentence. The most correct way to say the above sentence would be “Benim adim Karendir.” the “dir” representing the “is” verb, but it is never really used.)
French: Je m’appelle Karen.
Literal Translation: I call myself Karen.
Italian: Mi chiamo Karen.
Literal Translation: I call myself Karen.
German: Mein name ist Karen.
Literal Translation: My name is Karen. (Though I must admit I don’t know if that’s the common introduction in German since I haven’t spoken it in years.)
Japanese: Watashi no namae wa Karen desu.
Literal Translation: My name Karen is. (When I was there, this was one of the ways people introduced themselves. I’m sure it’s not the colloquial way, tho.)
And in Sign Language one would say “My name Karen.” What’s interesting to me is that while the way we introduce ourselves is quite similar in languages that don’t appear correlated like Japanese, German, and Turkish, the romance languages seem to have a different method for the same, simple task. I wonder how this evolved and why the discrepancy? I also wonder if there are other ways in different languages that I don’t speak or if these, “my name is…” and “I call myself….,” are the only two variations on formal introductions.
If you speak languages I don’t, please feel free to share and let’s see if there are other forms.
When Jake and I drove across the country this summer, we covered every state to the west of Oklahoma, except California. We had a list of locations in the state that we wanted to make sure to cover. Jake said that maybe we should do those another time since we were now officially living in California and would have time to see it. Well, it’s been six months and we’ve only visited one of those locations: Joshua Tree National Park. Our list still includes: Death Valley, Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and driving the Pacific Coast Highway.
A month ago, we thought of going to a State Park by Santa Barbara but the drive was about 8 hours to this remote island and we figured a weekend wasn’t enough. I don’t get three-day-weekends at my job so I got worried that it was a bad idea to put off the California section of our trip.
I’ve been thinking a lot about personal sites lately. Journals, photo journals, and blogs.
There are certain pages I’ve been reading for over three years and cases where when I discovered a site I liked, I’ve read archives that go back multiple years. Over the course of all this reading, I’ve stitched together bits and pieces of information and formed an image of this person I never met and might never meet.
The interesting, and a bit scary, part is that I have an emotional attachment to these people I never met. I feel like since they give me a sneak peek into their thoughts, their lives, their days, I form some sort of a connection with them. It’s a commitment to check someone’s page daily and read all about it even though you don’t even know the sound of this person’s voice.
Most personal pages are one-sided conversations, even the ones that allow you to comment. The comments open up the page to a bit of a community feature and allow you to tell the writer your opinions on a subject matter that’s being explored or a sentiment that was expressed. However, most of the time, the site owner doesn’t then end up having two-way conversations about the issue. The comment posters leave their two cents and the comments become a collection of other people’s opinions on the same subject. I don’t mean to imply that it’s not interesting or valuable to read other people’s comments on an issue I find interesting. I am always thrilled when I see a comment on my site and eager to read the reader’s opinion, thoughts, or feelings. I am trying to point out that comments feature doesn’t necessarily bring you closer to knowing the person behind the web site.
The drawback of consistently reading a web site is that I genuinely feel like I know the person who’s writing those words. I feel like I relate to him. I feel like I can read her thoughts. The fact is I don’t and I can’t. The person who posts is picking and choosing his or her posts. Many days , the person is choosing not to post. When reading a personal side, I get to see only one side of the poster: the side he or she chooses to show.
I think that’s why it feels like such a let down when a person decides to take a break and not post. Suddenly, the door that I had to this person’s life is shut and I am faced with the reality that I don’t know the poster at all. I don’t mean anything to this person. They have real friends. Real people with whom they spend their time.
I always get disappointed when I send an email to someone whose site inspired me or with whom I wanted to share something that I thought he or she might like and I don’t hear back from the person. It’s not because I feel I have a certain right or that my email was really important. It’s mostly because these people put stuff up on the web and want people to read it. And then when people read it and want to share back, I feel it’s rude to ignore them. Those are the people for whom you’re writing. Honestly, if you’re just writing for your five friends, there’s no reason to put it up on the web, and there are few cases where people just want a site for their circle of friends and don’t care if anyone else reads it or not. Most people, however, prefer to have readership.
It’s like a writer who publishes a book but doesn’t ever want to receive letters from his readers. Remember when you were young and someone inspired you? Imagine if you actually had the guts to write to that person? How many days did you stand by the mailbox, hoping they wrote back to you? How many days till you became bitter and cynical?
We all have people we admire for a plethora of reasons. We all, sometimes, feel the need to make a connection. I think the least a person could do is acknowledge that need and thank the person for finding something in him or her to be inspired about. (yes, I am ending with a preposition, so there.) You never know, the few words you write back thoughtlessly, might make that person’s day.
Ps: For those of you wondering, no this isn’t an angry response to a recent occurrence. It’s just my way of hoping we can make the world a little bit less cynical, one day at a time.
I was reading a few fray stories and this one made me think of the time I had had enough:
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I took the job because I believed in its message.
I quit my high-paying part-time management job to become a 5th grade teacher. I spent hours working on the application, stayed up nights to prepare for the interview. I had found my life’s purpose; I wanted to Teach For America. I didn’t listen to anyone’s words of caution. My mom thought I was too educated to teach elementary school, which offended me then and offends me now. My friends thought I was insane to leave the cushy, ladder-climbing job where I had put in 120-hour weeks to achieve my current success. I didn’t listen to anyone.
My enthusiasm increased all through the summer. Despite the fact that I had to spend five weeks in a dormitory, away from my husband immediately after we came back from our honeymoon. Despite the fact that we woke up at 6am and went to bed at 2am. Despite the fact that the kids never listened to a word we taught. The first night of the Institute, the summer training program, I called my husband after watching the previous year’s training video. “I don’t understand why everybody in the world doesn’t want to do this,” I said and I believed every word of it.
Things started going wrong before the first week of school ended. My third-grade appointment was switched to fifth-grade two days before we expected students to arrive. My room was changed three times. On the first day of school, the principal came to introduce herself to the students and said, “Ms. Grunberg was scared to teach fifth grade, but I told her she would to fine, right?” The class nodded enthusiastically.
I put my training to use immediately. I made rules. Consequences. I gave an exam on the rules. I was strict. I was mean. I didn’t ask for approval. I prepared ten-page lesson plans. I created my posters. I memorized my student’s names. I made sure my lesson plans covered all the modalities. I spent every waking moment outside the classroom working to make myself a better teacher: grading, planning, calling parents. I was all that a first year teacher was supposed to be. Or so I thought.
read more.
Here’s a great reason why I love my Mac as much as I do:
I am doing a bunch of data conversion from one MySQL database into another. I execute a long query, copy the results and paste it into an excel window. I go back to execute another query and accidentally paste when I don’t mean to. Since I had the long results of the previous query in the clipboard, my Terminal gets confused and I am greeted with the spinning ball that means nothing other than bad news. I sit there and patiently wait for the ball to stop because force quitting Terminal (which is running several other crucial processes in different windows) is not an option.
After a few seconds, as my panic level increases, I remember that I installed another terminal application a month ago. I start up iTerm, execute a “ps -auxwww | grep mysql” and find the hung window. I “kill -9” the process and my spinning ball goes bye-bye. The Mac dumps the clipboard contents into the shell window and complains about commands that make no sense but my machine is back, my terminals are still running their processes happily and I lost nothing. Not even a tiny bit of work.
How can you not love a machine that lets you save your own ass?
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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