I’ve worked every day since April 25th. Still moving along nicely.
What I am thinking about this morning, May 10, 2011 at 6:15 a.m.:
Odd to think, really, that what other people see when they look at you is an image you seldom take the time to explore, and can only do so in a mirror. Our natural state is to not see ourselves as other’s see us, but to see ourselves as we are reflected in the reactions of others. In my youth there was tremendous pressure to wear makeup and pay close attention to clothing and how one appeared to others. It felt unnatural, I think it was unnatural. I was not a woman who appreciated whistles or comments of approval on my appearance, always found these things insulting and demeaning. I abandoned interest in such things as makeup and dress codes when I was in my early twenties, never looked back, never regretted it.
I think we are all round pegs being hammered into square holes. The material we are made of determines how misshapen the life path becomes as the pressure is applied.
Now I must get ready to leave for work.
And later this week, the sun is coming over the horizon at 6:00 a.m…
Happy Birthday Mom!!!!!! I hope the sun shines warm and gentle on you all the day long.
It is lovely here, the black flies are having a great time. Smile.
This week I am working at all three jobs. I don’t so much sleep at night as pass out, which isn’t unpleasant by any means. I’ll have this Sunday off, perhaps. Only a few weeks to go before we have the big bills covered, which means adequate heat next winter and that the taxes will get paid on time. Pesky things, these basic needs. Well, the heat is a basic need, the taxes, well that is debatable. Where we live the taxes are based on the expectations of the relatively wealthy seasonal population who gain their wealth from cities and/or generous pensions, rather than being employed locally. Makes for very interesting politics.
Well, I’m off to work again!
5:15 a.m. another morning!
I received training yesterday on some of the computer systems at my full-time job. It was grueling, as days filled with new and complex processes often are. I’ve been working, up to now, with a few of the functions, quite successfully. However, I’ve been following instructions by rote, and that means if any small inconsistency arises my work grinds to a halt. With the training I have a more general idea of how the software works, and will be able to handle small discrepancies on my own. Since I like working with software, these new skills will enhance my work experience.
I’ll be working at my old part-time job on Friday and Saturday, in a pleasant atmosphere, with a very positive co-worker. I am looking forward to it.
Another sunny day is dawning, the sky is pink in the East. Soon the sunrise view will be obscured by foilage. The buds are bursting on the trees, grateful as they are for the sunshine and warmer temperatures. This year spring seems more a miracle than it has other years.
Yesterday as I drove to work I was struck by the beauty of the natural world. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was traveling in the eye of universe. I could feel myself a part of scenery, the view, the greater picture of which I am only small small and relatively insignificant part. Part of the beauty, I felt a part of the beauty I found myself in at the moment. I felt important, a part of the whole, and yet insignificant, as insignificant as each ripple on the water, wave of a pine branch. Balance.
The natural world cares nothing for our pretensions of ownership, of stewardship. The natural world cannot be enslaved; only the unbalanced harbor delusions of dominance.
Japan Nuclear Catastrophe
“Operator to begin work to halt Hamaoka reactors
Chubu Electric Power Company says it will begin work on Friday to halt operations at 2 nuclear reactors at its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in central Japan.
The plant operator on Monday accepted Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s request to shutdown the Number 4 and 5 reactors.
Kan cited the risk of the plant being hit by a strong quake that is projected in the region in the next 30 years.
The plant operator says it will begin the shutdown of the Number 4 reactor at 3:30 AM Friday and the Number 5 reactor at 1:20 AM Saturday.
The company says it will take 7 to 8 hours to halt power generation at the reactors, and the reactors will reach a cold shutdown about 24 hours after that.
Chubu Electric says it expects the entire process to be completed on Sunday.
Chubu Electric had been supplying electricity to Tokyo Electric Power Company to help it deal with an electricity shortage due to the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant triggered by the March 11 quake and tsunami.
It was also supplying power to Kyushu Electric Power Company. Chubu says it stopped these supplies on Wednesday after arranging for other utilities to provide power.
With the halt of the number 4 and 5 reactors, all 5 reactors at the Hamaoka plant will be out of operation.
Reactors 1 and 2 are already waiting to be decommissioned, while reactor number 3 had been stopped for a regular inspection.
Thursday, May 12, 2011 13:09 +0900 (JST)”
Source: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_19.html“New radioactive leak raises questions
Highly radioactive water was found leaking into the sea from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Wednesday. It’s now been revealed that contaminated water levels in the No. 3 reactor’s turbine building were already alarmingly high by Sunday.
Tokyo Electric Power Company plugged the leak with concrete after it found highly radioactive water flowing into the sea through a pit.
Radioactive cesium 620,000 times higher than the government-set safety limit was detected from the leaked water.
The contaminated water was streaming from the outlet of a pipe for electric cables.
The leak is thought to have stemmed from pooled water in the turbine building of the No. 3 reactor.
TEPCO says it found that waste water levels in the facility had risen to a point where leakage was feared on Sunday.
The company says it doesn’t know when the leak began, but that it will investigate if the monitoring of water levels was appropriate. The problem raises the question of whether the utility wasn’t able to prevent the latest leak.
The utility is planning to soon begin transferring radioactive water accumulated in the turbine building to a provisional storage facility. It is now checking for other possible leaks.
Highly radioactive water poured into the sea from a crack in a pit outside the No.2 reactor in early April.
On Thursday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the renewed leaking of radioactive materials into the sea was extremely regrettable.He says the government apologizes to the local residents, the fishing industry and neighboring countries.
Edano also said he had instructed TEPCO to investigate how the leak occurred, and that the company must take measures to prevent another episode.”
Thursday, May 12, 2011 13:09 +0900 (JST)
Source: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_16.html
Worldly Distractions
Weather
10 °C
Condition: Sunny
Pressure: 101.6 kPa
Visibility: 16 km
Temperature: 10.0°C
Dewpoint: 6.5°C
Humidity: 79 %
Quote
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
Edith Wharton
1862 – 1937
Notes
Edith Wharton
“Wharton was born to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander in New York City. She had two brothers, Frederic Rhinelander and Henry Edward. The saying “Keeping up with the Joneses” is said to refer to her father’s family.[1] She shared a lifelong friendship with her Rhinelander niece, renowned landscape architect Beatrix Farrand of Reef Point in Bar Harbor, Maine, and often traveled with Henry James in Europe. Wharton combined her insider’s view of America’s privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels and short stories of social and psychological insight. She was well acquainted with many of her era’s other literary and public figures, including Henry James and Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1885, at 23 years of age, she married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years her senior. From a well-established Boston family, he was a sportsman and a gentleman of her social class and shared her love of travel, although they had little in common intellectually…
Helped by her influential connections to the French government, primarily through Walter Berry (then president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris), she was one of the few foreigners in France who was allowed travel to the front lines…
Wharton was friend and confidante to many gifted intellectuals of her time: Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau and André Gide were all guests of hers at one time or another. Theodore Roosevelt, Bernard Berenson, and Kenneth Clark were valued friends as well. But her meeting with F. Scott Fitzgerald is described by the editors of her letters as “one of the better known failed encounters in the American literary annals”…”
I am struck by the small social circle within which Mrs. Wharton existed and her narrow experience of life, for all the power and influence she enjoyed. I suspect I am on the other side of the mirror she refers to; that my life and the lives of the majority are not reflected in her mirror. Just ask Alice! [Alice Through the Looking Glass]