Halloween!

Halloween is a ridiculous holiday, but it still can be incredibly enjoyable.

It's easily the biggest holiday celebration at my workplace, which is kind of random. On Friday, we had a huge Halloween party. There were contests for desk decorating, best costume, and pumpkin carving, and we had a great barbeque, with trick-or-treating for kids and adults alike. Cindy and I, the Front Office Team, won the pumpkin carving contest with our cannibal pumpkin:



The costumes at work were pretty exciting, I'm not going to lie. I never hoped to win, but it was still fun--especially because I got to be in my PJs all day. =)



On Halloween itself, Grady and I went up to SLC. It was his first time meeting the Peeps, or my college friends. We watched "Little Shop of Horrors" and then we took Trax downtown to Studio 600, a dry dance club that was having a big Halloween party. My friend Justin was a huge hit--he was Optimus Prime for Halloween. This was an AWESOME costume. He was like a Disneyland character, everybody wanted pictures with him. We found out after we got there that there was a costume contest--and Justin won, hands down.



We had an awesome time. We danced for awhile, but then we went and spent most of the evening in the karaoke room. We had pizza and virgin bloody pina coladas. We played a little foozball, goofed around, and just had fun. We almost missed the last train home, which was a little alarming. Being stuck in downtown Salt Lake City at 1 am without any way to get home would NOT have been fun. Fortunately, we caught the last train and headed home. All in all, a great evening.

A sad commentary

This morning, I received a business email from one of our company associates. This would be a professional marketer who works with my company. The email was literally riddled with spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors. It made me cross-eyed just trying to read it. It was barely comprehensible. It was embarrassing! I was embarrassed for him, that this working professional couldn't take the time to use a spell-checker, which is a sad commentary in and of itself.

Why did our society stop caring about this? When did it become socially acceptable for a working businessman to be unable to write properly? Honestly, I see emails like this, and I can't repress a certain amount of scorn. It automatically makes me feel like I'm dealing with someone uneducated, or at least uncaring.

Good writing skills are supposedly important. I wish we could take out the 'supposedly' there. I mean, doesn't the business world (and most of the rest of the world too, right?) function on good communication? Which is being severely hindered by the texting generation, and the utterly blase attitude toward anything remotely resembling educated thought.

Reader, I plead with you. Don't fall prey. Use good writing skills. At the very least, please employ your spell checker. It would do us all a world of good.

Reverting to Childhood

This weekend, I discovered that Wal-Mart had sidewalk chalk for $1. You would not believe the giddy delight that spread through me at the sight of it (of course, it was about 10:30pm at the time, could have been an influencing factor). For a single buck? You'd better believe that I couldn't resist.

I think my dear Melissa may have thought the activity would wait for morning, but upon arriving home at approximately 11:00pm, I immediately cracked open the little box and went at it. For at least half an hour, Melissa and I went crazy all over my parents' driveway and sidewalk--everything from suns and flowers and mountain landscapes, to declaring our BFF status, declaiming the beauty of our parked vehicles, a hopskotch and a fully fleshed decoration of "Super Val" by Melissa. The only drawback to the entire glorious experience is that I scuffed the toe of my brand new shoe. Tragedy!

With spring coming in, I would definitely endorse a few enthusiastic childhood activities. It's immensely stress-relieving. For instance, my CIO is currently building a pinewood derby car in his office. (But don't even get our boss started on men building their son's pinewood derby cars...because he just finished his half-hour rant about it!) Spring is in the air, and it's infectious!

One of my few professed culinary skills

I make a mean raspberry pie.

My company Christmas party is tomorrow. Entirely besides the dinner there's a dessert contest, and my coworker Cindy basically threatened me with my life if I didn't enter, so here is my beautiful (if unoriginal) masterpiece for the competition and consumption. Isn't it pretty?

Welcome once again

This is pretty much as close as I'll get to having a Christmas blog. You know, I don't really feel that red and green go together, but in light of the holidays, I will put up with the clashing for a few weeks in order to feel festive.

Also, yes those are snow BEARS, my best friend and I made them last year, in the high school field across from our house in Cedar-town, and it was about an hour before some high school punks came along and destroyed them. I suppose we should have known better. But they wouldn't have fared better in our front yard, and our back yard was far too confining for the spirit of freedom and infinite possibility aspired to by our snow bears.

I suppose that now (or perhaps in two days when it's actually December) it is actually considered appropriate by the majority of people to play Christmas music. I'm fairly certain that none will be found at my workplace, considering how my coworker Cindy feels about anything besides rock and metal. So perhaps I will have to suffice at home. Which means I need more Christmas music!

I do have to admit that I enjoy the Christmas season. I enjoy the new activities, I enjoy the briskness in the air, and I love snow. I love giving presents (if not so much the trying to figure out what to give people). I also really love Christmas decor--I love Christmas trees especially! I can't wait to put ours up, and I'm pretty stoked to put up a little one on my desk at work.

So, in all, have a wonderful Christmas season, and have some pie. Pie makes the world a better place.

Catharsis

Today has really sucked at work. We lost a HUGE account yesterday, and it was in big part me and my coworker's fault, and we got not only a critical email from the CEO, but also had to go in and have a meeting with him about what we can change and do better in the future. In addition, it's been declared a Stupid People Day. We have one every couple of weeks, when it seems that all of the most concentratedly stupid people decide they all need to call in on the same day and make us miserable.

And so today I find myself drinking Dr. Shasta (which is in no way an acceptable replacement for Dr. Pepper, but is provided by the company for my consumption, so I can't really complain), and listening to my new cathartic treatment: a dose of symphonicky metal with female and other interesting vocalists. ie Nightwish (which happens to be a favorite of my pops), Within Temptation, Evanescence, and even a little bit of DragonForce (the song I really like of theirs being, of course, "Through the Fire and Flames". All the others sound the same.) God bless Pandora!

I'm also trying to work on my novel, but one of my protagonists is putting me through hell, and I don't know what to do with him. So if anybody has any random thoughts concerning my tremulous plotline, I would certainly appreciate them. You wouldn't believe from what I can pull my muse!

Muse

Do you ever find that certain people illicit certain reactions in you?

Like, for instance, are there certain people who, no matter your relationship, always make you feel depressed? Or the opposite--are there people in your life who always make you feel excited and energetic? Or people who always put you in the mood to DO certain things. I think this is the case for most of us. For instance, being around my coworker Cindy always makes me want to listen to hard rock--and being around her son always puts Cindy in the mood to play Rock Band. :)

I have a friend named Sam, we've been friends for a long time, all through high school, and then during his mission and my college, and now into his marriage and college, and my...whatever. We're both writers, artists, with different strengths. But--especially the last few years--whenever I'm around him, I find that my creative juices flow more easily. I get ideas, and I get excited about writing them. Even just chatting with him online can do it.

There are other people like this, sometimes, people I can reach out to in my dry-spell desperation. But there's just nobody quite like Sam to set me off on a writing or creative spell.

I have decided that Sam is a muse.

Here's another

I think that in the weeks leading up to the presidential election (and perhaps many, many more after that) I am simply going to have to accept and find amusement in the political bias and commentary from some of my coworkers. Some I have discussed before. And there shall be more to come.

Today, after a long-winded denouncement of Barack Obama's economic/tax plan (which I support), and after a long-winded rant about Obama's stance on abortion (which I don't), my coworker preceded to (I kid you not) denounce Barack Obama as the Anti-Christ.

Oh yes. I kid you not.

I could not ignore him any longer (which is my usual tact when he starts talking politics, while my other coworker nods and agrees with him, which is sometimes a little much for me.)

I burst out laughing.

There's simply no other way to deal with people like this.

If only it worked for angry customers on the phone.

Can't we all get along?

I've been witnessing some unsuspected discrimination at work over the last few days.

Political discrimination.

Now, of course political debates are heated. Of course people disagree. Of course people argue when their political views differ. But I've never before witnessed discrimination based solely on political views.

Last week, one of my coworkers wanted a stamp, and the office manager wouldn't give him one because he intends to vote for Barack Obama. It was almost that simple. She had the excuse of not giving him company property for personal use, but down and simple, she wouldn't give him the stamp because of who he's voting for. I call that prejudice and discrimination.

Today, one of the programmers was RAILING against Obama, slandering his policies, and shouting for the entire office to hear that people who vote for Obama are idiots. He knows that I'm voting for Obama, as does the office manager, who just as loudly agreed with him. Again, I call that discrimination.

I find it bizarre. Of course, who you vote for matters. Of course who becomes President matters. But I don't think it should matter on a day-to-day level, so that people feel uncomfortable around each other, so that business is interfered. I've been discriminated against before, but never for this. Teased, yes. Mocked, yes. Mildly ridiculed, yes. But always in a way that I still felt proud to be a Democrat, that I still felt like I could stand up for my beliefs.

Today, I felt ashamed, belittled, and degraded. Last week, I felt the same way for my coworker who just wanted to mail a letter. This shouldn't happen. Not over this. Our political party system is flawed, but it took me 22 years to discover how much so.

In for the long haul

So, I now work at a charter school in Provo as a receptionist/secretary/mailman/firewatcher/all-around-get-'er-done person. In fact, my first day on the job, one of the teachers brought all of the first graders out to the front office to meet me. I was introduced as "Miss Valerie", the person who can help you call your mom or give you a band-aid. :)

The first two and a half days were absolute chaos--phones ringing every five minutes, parents coming in equally often needing things I didn't know where to find or even if they existed, besides the fact that the building is still under construction, so there are contractors all over and people tracking dust in from the unfinished parking lot. And this is just first through sixth grade--the middle and high schoolers don't come until next week along with the kindergarteners!

Today felt a little more normal, despite the fact that our trainer wasn't here today. My coworker Sashalai and I kept things under control with only a modicum of chaos, and were relatively productive. I was quite proud of that.

A couple of the teachers asked me today if I think I'll stick around, or if I'm going to run away like the last girl. Every time, I smile and say, "I'm in for the long haul."