This is topic Long posts about your deepest held beliefs - Mayfly in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
There's an awful lot of contention going on lately. Let's share some important beliefs in an attempt to get to know each other and build bridges. I'm hoping we can spark some really awesome conversation here about things which are really important to us.
 

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Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
 
No.



 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 

quote:

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Let's share some important beliefs in an attempt to get to know each other and build bridges.

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Eugenics is the best idea that humankind has ever had! Yay!
 

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Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
 
My friend Eugene invented a science called "Eugenics". It had to do with making everyone more like himself, because he was so awesome. I never looked up what it meant, though.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
I'm wrestling with the middles now. For some time, I strove always to turn the other cheek, to answer a harsh word with a soft one, and to buffer ill will as much as I could without returning it. This wasn't spectacularly successful, but it was a sincere attempt, and in some cases I think it made the situations I was in better for all overall.

However. However, I found myself (of my own responsibility and out of my own choices) flattening out psychologically. I found my own limits there, and it felt like my buffering abilities wore out (like baking soda can only buffer the acidity of so much vinegar). And more and more, it seemed to be making the overall situation worse -- angry people became angrier, users became more comfortable with using, and I felt like I was actively participating in the degradation of my own soul by not speaking out in my own defense (or at least naming what I saw in front of me that was wrong).

By the way, I'm not speaking of Hatrack here. I am speaking more to my work life, including working full time for 6 months without a paycheck, and then learning I would not be back-paid after all (leaving no money that we had counted on for tax payments, and thus leading to the wiping out of our retirement accounts altogether). Ouch. And also a medical residency earlier, which left me a very bitter and mean-mouthed harpy towards everybody. Double ouch. (But still as a result of my own choices, forseeable even.)

Well. I tried both extremes -- the meek and the witchly -- and neither really suited as good, useful, viable approaches in the long term. I need to do the fearful thing and find the right path through the relatively uncharted middle. Egads, this is much, much more difficult, but it's more difficult in the end not to do it.

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Edited to add: I love Mayflies. *warmly
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
The middle road is definitely a harder path, but I agree that is it most often the better one. The Rambam (Maimonides), drawing on Aristotle, called it the shvil hazahav, the golden mean, and recommended it for almost everything.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Ah, but it lacks the satisfyingly angsty and bright-flashing drama of burning out at either end. What to do, what to do?
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Angst IRL is overrated. I prefer my literature to be angsty and my life to be boring.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
But then one risks having a boring life, one without the sturm and drang of a choice daytime soap opera.

Hmmm, wait a minute ...
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 

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one without the sturm and drang of a choice daytime soap opera

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Nah. I have kids.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
*snorting aloud
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Not to mention the whole business of dating.
 

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Posted by Earendil18 (Member # 3180) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:
Not to mention the whole business of dating.

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Of which I'm about to enter.

eeek! o.o
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
 

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Posted by Earendil18 (Member # 3180) on :
 
Where's my archetypal "wise old wo(man)?" I need a talisman to cross this threshold guardian!

rivka?
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
>_<

I often feel old. But I am NOT old enough to be an archetype!
 

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Posted by Earendil18 (Member # 3180) on :
 
Archetypes can be any age. Does "mentor" sound better?
 

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Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
How do I get to be an archetype? Is there a thread where I can register?
 

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Posted by anti_maven (Member # 9789) on :
 
I am a moveable type - and you can print that.
 

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Posted by Earendil18 (Member # 3180) on :
 
FUNNY.
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
I like boring and uneventful, personally.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
*laugh* Says the woman who moved around the world to marry someone she had met on teh intarweb!


And yes Earandil, mentor is better. It would be the blind leading the blind, though.
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
Um, right...

Okay, how about, um, non-soap-opera-y?


...and we're approaching our fourth anniversary next Wednesday... And no one's dead yet! Yay!
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
I'll be happy to tell you all exactly what to do with your lives. And then my daughter can disagree with me and tell you to do the opposite.

My mom sometimes says to me, "Remember how I used to tell you that someday you would have a child just like you? Well..."
 

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Posted by anti_maven (Member # 9789) on :
 

quote:

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"Remember how I used to tell you that someday you would have a child just like you? Well..."

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quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:
The middle road is definitely a harder path, but I agree that is it most often the better one. The Rambam (Maimonides), drawing on Aristotle, called it the shvil hazahav, the golden mean, and recommended it for almost everything.

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I believe I will never be able to go to bed with a book I am enjoying and actually go to sleep without finishing the thing.

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Originally posted by quidscribis:
...and we're approaching our fourth anniversary next Wednesday...

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Four!? Wow!

Time sure flies when it's someone else's life!

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Originally posted by MightyCow:
There needs to be some more research and personal attacks before I can delete this thread in good conscience.

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quote:

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Originally posted by theCrowsWife:

quote:

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I believe I will never be able to go to bed with a book I am enjoying and actually go to sleep without finishing the thing.

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There's your problem. If you really want to read yourself to sleep, go to bed with something boring and unenjoyable.

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quote:

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Originally posted by MightyCow:
There needs to be some more research and personal attacks before I can delete this thread in good conscience.

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quote:

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Beware the lollipop of mediocrity: lick it once and you suck forever

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quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:

quote:

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Originally posted by MightyCow:
There needs to be some more research and personal attacks before I can delete this thread in good conscience.

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You smell like elderberries and your mother dresses you funny.

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quote:

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"Nether swagger nor grovel" was a limitation, but "here you can swagger and her you can grovel"-- that was an emancipation.

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Doesn't really cover it, but gives a bit of the idea. he goes on to say that Joan of Arc, as an example, outdid both Nietsche and Tolstoy at their own contrary ideas.

or, as Roger McGwinn (or maybe someone before him ) once said "To everything there is a season"
 

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Posted by Earendil18 (Member # 3180) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:
*laugh* Says the woman who moved around the world to marry someone she had met on teh intarweb!


And yes Earandil, mentor is better. It would be the blind leading the blind, though.

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"I see", said the Blind Man.

Would your name still be rivka? Or something much more mysterious?
 

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Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by MightyCow:

quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:

quote:

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Originally posted by MightyCow:
There needs to be some more research and personal attacks before I can delete this thread in good conscience.

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You smell like elderberries and your mother dresses you funny.

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I just got the elderberry body spray at Hot Topic. Glad you noticed!

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quote:

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Originally posted by quidscribis:
Um, right...

Okay, how about, um, non-soap-opera-y?


...and we're approaching our fourth anniversary next Wednesday... And no one's dead yet! Yay!

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quote:

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Originally posted by pooka:
Wow, CT, that is awful. My experience is there are a lot of labor lawyers who will take your case on contingency. Mostly we are against such people, but not paying a doctor for 6 months seems criminally abusive to me.

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Originally posted by Earendil18:
Would your name still be rivka? Or something much more mysterious?

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I am perfectly capable of mystery and mystique using my given name.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Didn't you get the memo? We changed your name to "Mysterious Mystery Lady of Mystery", person formerly known as rivka.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
Hatrack is my soap opera. It's like Hobbiton. Always something interesting going on.

CT, have you seen the movie Dogville? I really think you'd like it. It was fascinating and disturbing and thought provoking to me. I got really mad and sad, too. I mean, it's horrifying in a way but also it felt very much like a thought experiment. So I don't know. If you've seen it I'd love to hear what you thought.

I just had a thought that in the end we're all of us mayflies. A hundred years, a thousand years, a million years, what is that?

<happily dances for this brief instant>
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by ketchupqueen:
Didn't you get the memo? We changed your name to "Mysterious Mystery Lady of Mystery", person formerly known as rivka.

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Nope.
 

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Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
 
Did you get the one where we changed it to "hot mama?"
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
...of Mystery.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Allow me to clarify. I wasn't saying "nope" to having received these supposed memos. I was saying "nope" to the notion that y'all get any say whatsoever in my name.

I'd say I was sorry, except I'm not.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Pffft. The Queen of the Universe doesn't have to listen to what other people say. Even if they have very strokable hair...
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Thanks for the commiseration, pooka and ketchupqueen. It is complicated because I did not have a work permit yet (because of Ottawa's delay with paperwork), and so could not legally be paid during that time. However, I spent that time working in good faith under the promise I would be back-paid. When the time came, I was told that would not be legally possible -- unlike what i had been repeatedly promised previously.

I worked hard to find a creative solution (my doing, by the way, as the option presented to me was just to eat it) in scheduling my year-long contract at that point. I will take a 6 month leave of absence as of the first week of September, still at full pay, to comp me for the time already put in. This allows me to focus on Canadian licensing exams, etc. However, that bite in our finances will take a long time to recover from. *wince

Tatiana, I will seek it out. Thanks for the recommendation.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Oh, I guess you explained that to me before. Well congrats on not getting deported
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
Still, CT, that situation sucks, and big time. I didn't think Canadian law allowed for that sort of thing to happen, and it pisses me off that it does. That's just so very very wrong.
 

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Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 

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Shouldn't this thread have been deleted by now and replaced by another one just like it?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Earendil18:

quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:
Not to mention the whole business of dating.

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Of which I'm about to enter.

eeek! o.o

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quote:

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Originally posted by Tante Shvester:
As much as I'd like to say that I take the high road, in reality, I'm more of a middle road person. So, pretty much everyone gets to Scotland before me.


As of this posting, I still made it to Scotland. Or the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.

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"And lo, a great mist hung heavy o'er the still waters..."

Sounds lovely Tante!
 

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Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
 
Alas . . .
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
CT, I didn't realize that your situation had taken that turn. I mean, I knew about the business of not getting paid for 6 months, but I had no idea that they'd tried to deny you the pay entirely. That's absolutely horrible. I'm glad that you were able to do more than just eat it, but even so...that's completely unacceptable. I expect that you aren't at a point where a friend's anger about your mistreatment is helpful, but I'm absolutely incensed by this.

So the director you've mentioned in the past--how on earth were they able to look you in the eye and tell you this?

I don't think that I could continue working for a place that had treated me that way. I'm glad that you've made it work for you (and sincerely so; I'm not at all trying to tell you what to do here), but I don't know that I could have.
 

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Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
^
|
| What he said.
 

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Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
 
Me too.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Tante Shvester:
As much as I'd like to say that I take the high road, in reality, I'm more of a middle road person. So, pretty much everyone gets to Scotland before me.


As of this posting, I still haven't made it to Scotland. Or the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.

<edit -- oops, left out a key word>

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Well, the broken heart can ken no second spring again! That's very sad. (((hugs)))
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
I really, really appreciate the shared anger. It was a difficult time.

It may be that you do not know how limited my options were, Noemon. I had a Temporary Work Permit, which is good for one job (and one job alone). I could not legally be hired by anyone else for any reason, or even by the same people to do a different job.

In order to get that work permit, the people hiring me had to show that there were no similarly skilled Canadians willing or able to do that work (otherwise, the job should go to a citizen*** of this country -- same as for the US). To do this, the job had to be advertised first in a national publication for a few months without any takers.

So my options were:
1) find a way to work it out with this job
2) be unemployed while I applied for another work permit, which would likely take another 6 months and require shelling out yet more money that we didn't have
3) leave my husband -- who had contracted for work he had to complete here -- and go back into the States, find and pay for a place to live and get a job of some sort down there. We had lived in separate countries before, and I had vowed not to do that again unless absolutely unavoidable. It would have also required the outlay of a large amount of money to set up -- which we no longer had.

There was no option of working at Starbucks, or in a daycare center, or the like, at least not in Canada. Not covered by my work permit. I believe research work might have been considered as free trade under NAFTA (and so would not have required the employer to preferentially hire a Canadian citizen), but I did not have the contacts to set that up at that time.

Additionally, if I want to work in [my field] in [this province], I will have to work with this department in some way or another. If I want to work in [my field] in Canada, my work life would be impacted (to some greater or lesser extent, depending on whether I set up a private office or worked through a University) by my relations here.

It is hard to be an immigrant, no matter what the country.

This happened to work out okay. I believe the problem had roots in honest ignorance, willful ignorance, willingness to use the circumstances of a situation, honest misremembering, some dissembling, and face-saving due to extreme embarrassment. I don't think anyone set out to deceive me, but rather that things which should have been expected were ignored, and then it later became a matter of taking the path of least resistance -- which happened to look like it was over me. *wry look

I've found the hard part about being an adult is learning how juggle that middle ground and yet not get bitter. It is very tempting and easy (I think) to turn around and do exactly the same to those who come after you, who work under you, as was done to you. I think we can do better than that, and we should.

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*** or Landed Immigrant (aka Permanent Resident in the US), which is a technical status that requires about a year to establish, minimally

[ August 13, 2007, 12:29 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Of note, legal action is certainly an option for someone in a bad work situation to consider. In my case, it is absolutely true that they could not pay me for time worked before my work permit was valid -- regardless of what had been promised, verbally, several times. It really would have been illegal, although nobody acknowledged knowing that before it was put to the pinch. Maybe they didn't, but someone should have checked on it before it was promised.

That is why I am able to do what I have worked out, as being on leave of absence for a future part of a contract is negotiable and legal.

Moreover, as I said, my actions would have effect on my future work life, whether justified or not. And had I even considered legal action -- which I didn't, given what I had already come to understand about the situation -- that is a long, slow, and expensive process without at least a union backing you up in a labor dispute. This happens to be one of the only (or maybe the only) job position of this type at this institution that does not fall under union negotiation.
 

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Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
And I thought Canada was supposed to be our friendly neighbor. Sounds like they've been taking cues from US labor practices.
 

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Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
 
Mighty Cow, can you tell me what you are basing the statement that this is typical American labor practices on?
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
I believe it is a common experience for immigrants to any country. In good part this is because the regulations and paperwork are always Byzantine (the nature of a large institution invested with serious responsibility), it is (for many employers) a more uncommon experience to hire a new immigrant rather than someone local or at least established in the system, and individual cases always vary.

I saw this happen time and again during my training in the US with foreign medical graduates: same story, different details.
 

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