02:03 - 19.09.06
Fear
The events of the past few weeks have bothered me more than usual. I tried working with this essay on fear to deal with it and it helped a great deal. Why fear? Because so much hysteria seems to be fanned as a result by those with agendas trying to manipulate citizens by their most basic emotions. Even when one knows logically what is being done to you, it still is hard to resist that strong psychological pull. When that happens, I go back to the headphone strategy I use at the downtown work I do. Only use one's eyes to see what is going on. Block out everyone else's attempts to interpret the circumstances unfolding. Listen to that still small voice within. Good thing I read it and this next article sent by a friend who is also a teacher. It is about the children caught in conflict anywhere in the world. They lose the one thing that might help them avoid another generation of fighting - formal education/problem solving skills. Right after reading the first article, I got an email from the one cousin (well not exactly, but that's how we've always referred to each other). Her hubby was injured in that last suicide bomber blast in Afghanistan. From her description it sounds as though he will be ok, but with likely a long recovery from multiple injuries. He was working with children at the time it happened. It may not ever be possible to reach the adults caught up in the violence, but if the children can be salvaged through aggressive health care and education so that they are part of the future generation instead of being isolated from it, there is still a great deal of hope as they take over in the future. Problem is most focus will be on retribution or excusing future actions of the adults. Those children are powerless unless we get over our fear enough to help them.
Of course, for all our children making certain there is a physically safe environment for them to grow up in is also at issue. Why is our government contemplating burying more nuclear waste on the Canadian Shield. Maybe I'm missing something here, but my understanding is that nothing is going to dissipate through bedrock. Fact is, there is already a significant amount of the stuff scattered over that landscape from 50 or 60 years ago when little was understood about the long term effects of such material on human and all other sentient life in the area. The British Columbia provincial government's approach has always been the most forward thinking in terms of environmental protection - why not follow the leader for a change instead of those thinking with their wallets. How, for example, can our scientists speak in one moment about water shortages in the near future yet the politicians talk about exporting an essential element of life to other countries.
As for my day? Tried to help my youngest over first day work jitters. You see, he was offered that job he interviewed for over a week ago. Tech support - full time, a raise in pay over the other job, with benefits. He has training for the first while so we'll see where that takes him. I don't think he realized how much it was going to make him miss his prior work buddies when he took the job. They seemed to be a very tight team. As long as he can maintain those relationships that he valued, I suppose the move will work out ok. The election work? Tried until about 3 in the am the evening before to work in the Elections Canada database. No luck. Sent off emails about the tech problems because the reporting software was also not working. Called the support desk in the afternoon - since the resource was closed for the whole morning. It was acknowledged that the timing-out was an issue. Even as I spoke with one of my favorite support people my connection was cut - not even 10 minutes into the conversation. We finally managed to get the database open that I needed to work with but there went another 20 minutes. The support tech told me that it was really busy there, talking about the upcoming October assignment but also about the community outreach component. That was curious, because he seemed to try to take back the comment without being obvious. No one I know in Calgary has been advised of any work there yet. Since we haven't been instructed to recruit staff for that, it makes me wonder what else is being hidden from view. Just paranoid, I know. Spent another half hour working to get the two changes I needed done in that database, then moved on to the other spreadsheets of data we are supposed to be amending and updating. The text of our instructions states that it is the data we submitted ourselves to Ottawa last autumn, but oddly enough I still have the original spreadsheets. They don't even come close to being the same. The new spreadsheet has been programmed so that when one tries to correct errors in it the cells lock up and won't allow the changes. Wrestled with that one until the email I mentioned at the beginning of my post arrived. Decided that in the grand scheme of things it wasn't worth getting as stressed as I was about it. Try Again tomorrow. Good night dear diary.
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