But not everyone is at the same balance between time and money. Indeed, some people have neither, and a big shop that carries a lot of things at low prices can save them both in the short run. And sometimes the short run is all they can work with.
Thank you for saying that, Abi. This conversation has made me pretty uncomfortable because whether or not to shop at Wal-mart seems to be very academic to a lot (most?) of the people here boycotting it. At the same time, there seems to be... it's bordering on and sometimes stepping over to condescension. The people for whom it's Wal-mart or nothing are being written about as very hypothetical, almost non-people, certainly no one that'd be reading here.
Well. Me and mine aren't hypothetical. Nor are we stupid or don't know better--it's that we're freaking poor. Many cheap clothes from Wal-mart last as long as most clothes from the mid-range shops my hometown has (yes, really). They also have a wider variety of sizes than those stores. High-range clothes that'll last forever? HA. Pipe dream to afford that much all at once. Pipe dream to afford almost anything like that, really, as much as we'd like to, although sometimes we'd luck out with a find at (the now gone) Salvation Army store (although I always had bad luck with that, being an unfortunate combination of big, tall, and female).
Save up? With what? My mom's paycheck went toward feeding herself and two kids, bills, rent, and there was usually very little leftover. She bought better stuff on the rare occassions she could, but usually? It was like Abi's example about the $10 frying pan. Especially with two growing kids in the house.
So, yeah. Hi. I was one of those people for whom it's definitely not an academic issue (and now mostly because I live in a very different place than my hometown) and for my family it's still reality. Please don't talk down about us, and preferably not to us, either. Please have some respect for us as human beings who are making the best decisions we can under our circumstances.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. This worries me, because for my family it isn't academic: my mom works at Wal-mart*. She works the graveyard shift and usually she does receiving, but not Black Friday! Oh no, I guess they have everyone on the floor. She just told me she has to watch a video on crowd control, which I suppose is the extent of the training the employees get.
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
---
* Would she be working a better job if Wal-mart didn't exist? I don't know. She used to work at one of the the travel trailer factories in town, but being a middle aged, female, GED holding, single parent with a couple of chronic illnesses meant one place bullied her into quitting and the others were more interested in promoting young males over her--despite her 20+ years of experience. When she got fired a few years ago for having a bad attitude (something those young males could get away with cold) it was get a job at Wal-mart or nothing.
No more NaNoWriMo for me. This year my SAD got worse a lot faster than I'm used to, and one of its primary effects on me is that it kills my ability to string words together. The verbal part of my brain goes into hibernation, no matter what I do.
At any rate, I think that unless I move back to more southern climes (I'm at 61N latitude), I'm not going to do NaNoWriMo again. I'll devote November to fiber arts and drawing, since the visual part of my creativity isn't much affected.
And cheering other people on, of course. *\o/* Those are some fabulous word counts, up there!
Here in Finland, I'll raise my coffee cup to that.
I remember it happening when I was 10, almost 11, knowing it was a Big Damn Deal although I wasn't entirely sure why--or maybe time's just rubbe all the detail off of my memories. Even so, I remember that seeing images of the graffiti-stained wall coming down bit by bit gave me an overwhelming, choked up feeling.
I'm currently at 11,667, being a bit behind because of the sudden onset of a fever last night. (It's gone now). The story is galloping right on ahead--not only is not all well in the Tower, but the Swordchildren are suspecting their secret duty is a farce, and they're very near to learning that their guardians may be more helpless to combat the nightmares than the Swordchildren themselves are.
#64 ::: pixelfish: You said what I was trying to say much better than I did. Wiggle room, yes. I need lots of wiggle room to get stories figured out.
#66 ::: Kelley: Why couldn't you do anything with it at the end of the month? If it's fanfiction I understand, but otherwise...?
#67 ::: Emma: It's good for you, really! Er, not the agonizing, the not having time to agonize. Or at least I think so.
#71 ::: Heather Rose Jones: I recall the guy that started NaNo stating that he specifically planned it for a really busy month. For me it drove home emotionally the importance of making time for my writing regardless of my circumstances, if I really wanted to write. With my lifelong case of lastminuteitis, it was a lesson I badly needed (and it only took three years' worth of NaNoWriMos for it to really sink in!).
It's not a lesson everyone needs, or has to learn in such a harsh way, of course.
(The first and most important lesson I got from doing NaNoWriMo, though, was that to write a novel... you sit down and write the damned thing. Yes, I got to age 23 without having figured this out for myself, despite being a voracious reader, daydreamer, and maker-up-of-things since age 3. It never clicked until I had something telling me to just WRITE a really long thing. So I tried it, and partway through the lightbulb went on.)
End of day 2 for me, and 3607 words total on The Tower of Dreams and Desires, which includes bits of protostory as well as a paragraph long chunk of notes. The rest is comfortably story shaped.
DanR: I have a lot of problems with your question because of the assumptions it seems to be built on.
First, I see an implication that people participating in NaNo are writing totally unusable nonsense. Some might, and that's their problem; some do it purely for fun and don't care if the world at large thinks the result is drivel; and some take it as a challenge to pit their already established skills against.
Second, the implication that one should just 'write things right the first time'. For most people, this does not work. This is why we have concepts like revision and rewriting, because most people don't write things just right the first time.
Third, the implication that a little bit of story correct-as-it-comes-out, no matter how slowly it comes out, is better than a lot of story one has to revise. I know for me it certainly is not. I don't mind and even expect to have to write a lot to explore the concepts and emotions I want to convey, then distill what I write into a final version. Nothing is ever wasted; I usually come up with many related things that fit into the story elsewhere through those explorations, things that wouldn't have come up if I'd focused on writing Pure and Perfect Prose.
Besides, as Katster implied, practice makes perfect, or at least good.
Wait--outlines? We're supposed to use outlines?!
Heheh. Kidding, of course, even though I never use an outline for NaNo. I write in a much more structured and deliberate manner than I did after my first NaNo got me started off writing again (2002!), but for this month I like having an oportunity to unfurl my subconscious and let it have fun.
I think my brain has gotten used to structure, though. Last night's 1k is disjointed protostory that looks suspiciously like it's trying to be an outline.
Finland only kind of makes a vague wave at Halloween for the most part, so I just spent my night psyched up for NaNoWriMo and started writing at midnight. I'm up 1000 words of disjointed proto-story, woo!
#327 ::: James D. Macdonald:
Tell her congratulations, and be ready to send lots of letters and cookies when she's underway.
Done (a couple of times), and will do. I bake an awesome cookie. I wonder what Finnish customs is going to think of them. *grin*
My weird feeling stems in large part that I was probably the last person in the family to know about this (bar her father, who afaik hasn't so much as called her in the past 8 years), much like I was probably the last person to know my granny was in the hospital with pneumonia. The extended family is largish, but it isn't THAT big, and my granny was integral in my upbringing!
I'd like to believe that the whole living so far away thing has something to do with it, but this sort of thing happened all of the time when I was in the same time zone only a state away, and actually easily contactable by phone.
So. *shrug* Confused and yes, a bit hurt, but doing my best to just be supportive nonetheless.
I'll happily pass on your advice, which is the best I can offer her besides my support, being as I'm unable to work and have zero cash of my own. I might be able to fly over to see her graduate, though.
Thanks.
'Maybe this isn't the right place for this', it says... Ya think?
As promised, an update:
I have no idea if my sister availed herself of any of the information I gave. At any rate, the whole thing was more of a done deal than I thought; day before yesterday she traveled across Oregon to Portland and did whatever it was that needs to be done (I honestly don't know what it entails) to enlist in the Navy. She got the job rating of AO and will ship next August, a couple of months after she graduates high school.
I support her, of course, although at the same time I'm not really sure what to feel about this. It's definitely mixed up in some feelings of isolation and outsiderness (I am definitely the neon purple sheep of my family (and thank you Lee for that terminology)).
C'est la vie. Thank you again, everyone.
*gratefully takes the little package of hope and cheer from Mez*
I thought I posted an update here a couple of days ago but it seems it didn't actually go through. No matter.
I've been peppering my sister with links so she has plenty of information at hand. She's only responded to one of my messages--with a worrying statement that if she's in for 20 years she can retire at 38, which seems to be making an awful lot of assumptions--but nothing else so far. However, my partner had an opportunity to chat with her last night over facebook (I'd already gone to bed, being as there's an 8 hour time difference between Finland and Oregon) and came away with the impression that she's done some solid research, and doesn't resent my worry and throwing information at her. Which is good.
Still, I worry that she isn't getting all the information she should--I have this Big Thing about informed consent--so I pepper with links and things people in service have told me (and thank you so much, everyone, for all of your help). I also worry that, as smart and socially well adjusted as she is (much moreso than my borderline autistic self), she's still lodged in that subconscious belief that someone who should be an authority can be trusted.
#127 ::: Terry Karney: Thank you for weighing in; I was hoping you would. I'm definitely going to relay your comments and recommend she talk to you.
But just because some of them push the envelope doesn't mean that one should paint them as purely black-hearted.
Indeed. I am suspicious of her recruiter specifically because of the rather grand statements my sister has made. OTOH, a friend of mine in the Marines told me about how he ditched his first recruiter because of much the same thing and went with his second because they answered his questions honestly. (And I told her this, of course.)
#140 ::: Mark: Yeah. After reading some of ginmar@livejournal's experiences... holy hell. I tried to emphasize to my sister that she needs to be prepared for such a possibility. And the possibility that the VA will not have her back, like Ginmar is dealing with. The world is fucking cruel to women (as I know all too personally).
And my sister neither sings nor plays an instrument, so band? Not gonna happen.
#158 ::: Lee: Another good point, and that one REALLY concerns me. Being raped by someone one knows is nothing uncommon for civilians (another one I know all too personally); it's going to be a special kind of hell when it's the people who you may have to rely on in life-or-death situations.
#181 ::: Bill Stewart: I have NO idea why she isn't considering the ROTC. I brought it up in my last message, though.
as an Air Force Reserves general I used to work with said, "if you put on the uniform, you're agreeing to pick up the gun when they need it", and that's a moral choice she'll need to think about.
Definitely. That's one of the things I and my Marines friend emphasized--be ready for the possibility you'll have to kill another human being.
Anyhow. Thank you all again for your words and links and advice. I appreciate this place SO much.
I'll post an update when I have one, although it might be awhile; between other RL stuff (like that my 79 year old granny was in the hospital for pneumonia very recently and that REALLY freaked me out), SAD, and my own up and down health I get a little forgetful...
It doesn't matter if you hit old threads, spammers; we still see you.
#13 ::: PurpleGirl: Thank you for the links. Don't worry about the relationship mistake, it's no big deal.
I don't think our mother is very sanguine about this at all--the time she mentioned my sister had started talking about the military, she sounded guarded and tense.
#14 ::: Abby N: Thank you as well. I'm hoping that she's willing to read info from all sides and average it out for herself. Right now I think she's dazzled by promises and not seeing the shadows.
#23 ::: lightning: Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. That covers my most important concerns very succintly.
#26 ::: David Harmon: Oh, I'm laughing bitterly at that, as just before I went to bed last night my sister sent me another message stating that well, the recruiter she's been talking to has been in for 13 years and has never seen any combat!
I was worried before but that little tidbit of information made me feel distinctly unwell.
Linkmeister, thank you very much. I am totally failing at searching right now. Those links help.
Like I said, I'll be calm if she's making an informed decision, but... I'm scared our relatives have Fed Her A Line, because they sure as hell fed me one. In our family, if a young woman doesn't look like she's jumping right on the having kids thing, they push and push and push going into the military because it PAYS MONEY!!!, even though the number of people who have actually served amounts to, uh, one male cousin. So I don't trust their good intentions (which I'm not entirely sure are good, but that's my bitter to deal with) to have anything to do with actual reality.
Augh. Man. I don't want to be a big worrywart bummer, here, but my 17 year old sister just sent me a Facebook message that worries me a lot and I'm flailing for information. She said that she's going to talk to a Navy recruiter this Friday because if she gets accepted she'll get $30,000 for college. No details otherwise.
Now, the huge number worries me, as does the fact that this is awfully similar to what our relatives kept telling me when I was in high school over a decade ago--going on about how 'the military will pay for college!' while carefully not saying anything about what actually BEING in the military was like or when this going to college would happen. (For the record, the decision was made for me before I was old enough to join--I told a recruiter who called me about not being run due to a congenital hip problem and he couldn't hang up on me fast enough.)
I don't live in the States now so I'm really not familiar with what kind of recruiting is going on anymore. My Google-fu isn't working so hot right now (okay, I'm kind of freaked, this is my little sister after all), and all I've been able to find is a little blurb that lets on that that $30k number is 'up to', and only with an 8 year enlistment.
Does anyone else know where I can find more information on this I can send her, so she knows for sure what kind of thing she's thinking about getting into? If she has a good idea of what she's getting into and decides to go through with it, I'm okay with it--she's smart and I trust her judgment--but I'm very worried she's been made some big promises with all of inconvienent details mysteriously left out.
Did I mention that this is my little sister? Augh. Aughaughaugh.
Lila @ #280: Thanks. I thank human ingenuity for the Internet; the friends and confidence I made from online experiences went a long way toward helping me get out.
Anyhow, I meant to tie how my experiences relate to getting sucked into harmful cult-ish groups (psuedo-spiritual, pyramid scams, what have you). It looks like they can and often do start at the same place--an emotionally vulnerable person desperate for something outside of themselves to help them fix their problems/get their life on track/ease their suffering. Sometimes the desperation is dire and immediate, sometimes it's a constant low-level ache, but it's there.
So you have someone who is already suffering and desperate on some level to do something about it, and who more likely than not has some underlying idea that it's because of something they've done wrong. Enter people like my abuser or James Ray, who are oh so full of helpfulness and pretty words and oh so confident. They have so little doubt in themselves, it's hard for a vulnerable person to doubt them even when things are going pear-shaped. After all, their saviour is so confident, the vulnerable person can't be sure that they aren't just screwing things up for themselves again.
We already know where this goes.
So, yes. IME, the mindset of experiencing pain = failure (and probably = your own fault) is can definitely be a sign of having been abused in some fashion.
Aaand html fail that I of course don't notice until half a second after I hit post. Argh, sorry.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
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| 2009 | 41 |
| 2008 | 19 |
| 2007 | 33 |
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