Looking Forward

I don't think I've ever been more excited to go to Disneyland.

This last few weeks has really taken its toll on me. I won't go into all the gorey details, but if you can imagine combining the stress of finding a new job, possibly moving, family issues, and financial struggles, then throw in some abnormally bad health problems just for fun... well, you start to get the idea.

Times like this (and yes, I have been here before) make me desperately wish I could just take a month off from life and lay on a beach in Hawaii. Or go to Paris and sit in a Cafe and write in my journal every day for two weeks without a care in the world.

I think the attraction of Disneyland is its artificiality. People go to Disneyland - and see movies, watch television, read novels - because we want to escape. Disneyland is always pretty, clean, fun and happy. Not to mention nostalgic, helping us remember the happier moments of our childhoods (another great escape tactic).

There was a time during the late 90s when television and movies began to tend toward reality. Producers reasoned that audiences no longer wanted to escape, they wanted to see real life in all its grim, gorey, messy disfunction. It worked for a while, until even so-called "reality" shows started moving back toward a fairy-tale and often soap-opera-ish view of life (e.g. Survivor, Desperate Housewives, The Bachelor, American Idol, The Apprentice... even my beloved Grey's Anatomy has become so over-the-top drama-filled that I find it hard to watch sometimes). Even game shows and sitcoms have swung so far to the reality side of the spectrum with nuerotic consestants and dysfuntional families that they allow us to feel superior and disconnected, therefore escaping what we perceive is wrong with our own lives and making us feel better about our own mild (or not so mild) neuroses.

All this leads me to believe that all people, even seemingly happy people, want to escape the stress of real life as much as I do. This gives me some comfort, since lately I feel like I am betraying a part of my normally confrontational personality by wanting to run away so much. It's the classic fight-or-flight syndrome that is the hallmark of my personality type ("Sentinel," classic Aquarius, and either ISFJ or INFJ, depending on the day I take the test), at least according to research I did to try to "find myself" in high school (consisting mostly of online personality tests and self-help books).

So I guess the conclusion of my rambling is that I will be in good company this weekend, side by side with thousands of other escapees, desperately hoping our real lives don't come to find us.

Who I am?

This is me... apparently.

Thinking: Healer

Working: Healer

Emoting: Sentinel

SENTINEL™ Emoting Style of Strength

• No pain is greater for them than betrayal.
• They keep diaries or personal journals.

"A most common emoting style. Behind trademark reserve and alluring attractiveness is an individual who is hard to know and harder to love. Trust is the wall that divides. Whether Sentinel trust is an open or shut case depends on how each person has evolved and adjusted to three personality-typical determinants: language, loyalty, and new experiences. Characteristic of a Sentinel is a crane calm look of time-suspended stillness or fixed concentration. None other portrays mind-at-work like them. Others are often surprised at the thoroughness and depth delivered, when they do respond and reply. No thought, no word, no action is more painful to these sensitive beings than "good-bye." So ingrained is their conviction that all good must come to an end that Sentinel may not risk "hello." If by nature they are skeptical and by choice, reticent, then one question begs answer. Is there a causal relationship between reticence and the fact that Sentinel suffers internal degenerative illnesses more often than others? What is eating Sentinel from the inside out?" ...

HEALER™ Thinking Style of Strength

• Avid readers, they prefer non fiction and biographies to fiction.
• They are keenly sensitive to noise and uncomfortable in messy environments.

"Their fame and repute is more constitution of horse and steel-willed determination than frail and retiring. In fact, they are much more substantial, in every regard, than they appear. Three common characteristics of Healer are: sensitivity to noise, aversion to mess and great need for privacy. Interestingly, Healer is either an avid fan of television and motion pictures, or an avid avoider of such. A propensity for getting too emotionally involved in the human dramas is their commonly cited reason for avoidance. For most people, the term heal connotes with practicing medicine. In terms of this style, heal means an active involvement in some people-benefitting service and practice. Regardless of the scale of their endeavour — science, medicine, arts, entertainment, literature or music; the Healer strength awakens and uplifts the human condition. Removing doubt is their specialty. One peculiarity of this Style of strength is fear of incarceration." ...

HEALER™ Working Style of Strength

• When they solve problems, they look at its effect and impact on the system as a whole.
• They have a natural talent for any field or endeavour where healing is involved.

"These are the ones who change or broaden perspectives. The following excerpts are less specific than indicative of how this Style of strength approaches jobs and tasks. Healers find it odd that when people stub their toe they get angry, curse and through hobbled grimace and gritted teeth ignore the pain. How much quicker the heal if that throbbing toe were held and its pain acknowledged. How much more pleasant the day if the pain were comforted by sympathetic hands. After all, no matter your shoe or the rocky path it is pointed your toe never lets your body down. If small this change in thought does seem, apply it in principle to larger scale living, as Healer would, and note what differences result with change of belief. When the body is sick or diseased the prescribed policy is to view the disease with winner-loser hostility. Rather than stiffening resolve and muscle, and steadying nerve to control the pain, rather than declaring all-out war against the invader, instead try flipping perspectives. Focus light on the body's plight. It is every bit in need of caress as a stubbed toe. Accept the pain. Validate its existence. The body system may be confused as to which is friend and which is foe — the body for allowing disease to enter or disease for daring. Wars are always confusing. As peace follows surrender in war, heal and cure follows surrender in body disease." ...

Losing My Blogger Virginity

I must be obsessive compulsive. Or ADD. Or something.

I just spent the last 2 hours (ish) trying to fix this thing so that I can actually post to it. Now I feel obligated to post something, but I don't know what. I think I'll post what I posted on my Xanga, and my Myspace, since that will be in keeping with the whole OCD theme I've got going on right now.

*Ahem*

So I officially spent the entire day yesterday watching Sex and the City on DVD (special thanks to Costco for putting the box set on sale so it only cost me $50!). I got through all of season 1 and two-thirds of season 2, and I'm completely addicted! (I'm coming to terms with the fact that Charlotte is a slightly wealthier version of me.) Combine that with going to a wedding on Saturday and seeing great friends from high school for the first time in forever... all in all it was a really great weekend!

Unfortunately, I now have to leave my fantasy world of big city life and return to the stress of real life. Boo. Why can't life consist of drinking Cosmos with your girlfriends, discussing sex and romance, wearing fabulous shoes and designer dresses and exploring the big city on the arm of a wonderful man?

*sigh*

Right now, real life for me consists of finding a new job and tying up loose ends at my old one. And moving. We've preliminarily (is that a word?) made plans to move back to DC when Brian finishes grad school (in May). There are many reasons for it, but one of the big ones is that my job recently became the most recent victim of the instability of the nonprofit sector, meaning that at the end of April, they won't be able to afford to pay me anymore. I'm sure I could keep working there for free, but that wouldn't make my landlord very happy when the rent comes due.

So that's the plan right now. Honestly, I could not be happier or more excited! I've been there for a year, and I had been frustrated for a while and was already looking for new opportunities when I found out. Brian and I had been talking for several months about moving back when he finished school. I have also been researching grad schools and all the programs I'm seriously considering except one are in DC. Hopefully I'll end up with a Master's in Public Policy (and maybe even a law degree, too!) sometime soon.

I have been so homesick for so long, I can't wait to return to my favorite city in the world. And with nothing tying us down to any one place (no house or kids or job), the world is our oyster!

Hehehe, I've always wanted to use that phrase.

So that's the latest. I guess that means I may get to explore the big city on the arm of a wonderful man after all!

Making the Grass Greener? Not Really.

As I was reading my beloved Washington Post online this week, I happened upon this article. (Richard Florida's site also links to it.) It's a fun read.

One of my greatest frustrations living here in Fresno is that local organizations who could be working to address more of the underlying issues keeping this region from reaching even some of its potential... don't. Instead, they host monthly social happy hours or "battles of the bartenders" (both of which I have attended - initially wanting to be more involved), and raise money to paint murals in blighted areas of town.

Forgive me if I don't jump to write a check.

Last week I spent six days in Washington, DC, which is a fabulously creative and vibrant city, full of young people, fresh ideas and innovative ways of thinking (and not a single mural, mind you). This thriving young culture is partially due to the fact that half of the working population in DC is 18-30 year olds who come from all over the country to work, go to school, pursue opportunities and experience big-city life. And the city embraces them with open arms.

In a city like that, you don't have to have structured or organized happy hours. The young professionals find each other and socialize together, forming rugby teams, hiking clubs, and travel groups. But I digress.

I guess I just wish that some of these groups here in Fresno would start trying to actually change the professional culture, rather than creating groups to help make it a little easier to stomach. Fresno is dying, and it's dying because within the institutions and power structures in place there is no platform for young voices and very little opportunity for young talent. I actually heard someone say that he believed you couldn't be truly experienced or demand respect until you're in your 40s(!). Excuse me if I disagree.

I think most of the old fogies who feel similarly to this misguided manager would be shocked to learn that most of the work of running the nation and much of the world is actually done by interns, many of whom haven't even graduated from college. Not to mention those senior-level staffers who (in their late 20s/early 30s) are making policy recommendations to presidents, senators, congressmen, cabinet secretaries, and UN ambassadors. Oh, and let's not forget such institutions as the World Bank, the Fed, and the Supreme Court. But, again, I digress.

Personally, I am an advocate for a merit-based and results-oriented workplace. That philosophy says: "It doesn't matter who it comes from or how it gets done; if it's a good idea, let's do it!" Work environments that embrace creativity and innovation are more productive and produce significantly better results. They also tend to employ more young people. (A great website to check out is www.nextgenerationworkplace.com.)

We are at a point in this Valley where we have to move beyond the Old Boys' Network as the only source of ideas. We face so many unique and interrelated challenges that it is absurd to allow the status quo to remain intact.

Why do young, talented people leave Fresno? Because they are given opportunities to succeed in other places. The only way to change that is to give them real opportunities to succeed here. There should be a real, concerted effort to bring the "leaders" of our city – business, government, nonprofits, and education – to a table with talented young professionals and address these very issues. Challenge them to explain why they don't hire, promote or invest in young talent… and challenge them to change.

Until these fundamental problems are addressed, we can paint all the murals we want; we'll just be putting a new façade on a termite-infested building.