Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Racial Tension

People can be incredibly stupid. I’m sure you will agree with that to some degree. I always find that just when I begin to have hope for the human race, someone does something that makes me wonder if abandoning all hope wouldn’t be a better course of action.

For instance, I walked into a hotel while in Paris to ask for the room key for my non French speaking cousin. The front desk clerk was an African man. I might have hesitated in asking for the key because it was hot and I had no saliva left in my mouth. However what came out of his mouth completely baffled me.

He asked me if I was American, which I denied because I wanted to see what he was going to say. He said that I acted like I’d never seen a black man from Africa before. I really wanted to grab him by the collar and punch him in the face because obviously this guy has never been to America. I told him that I was out of breath from the heat so he should just calm down.

I got the key, gave it to my cousin and said goodnight. I walked outside and began a tirade to my husband about how ridiculously dumb people can be. Why would he even say something like that considering that Americans have a Black president and have had race issues since its early history? I really think I should have punched that guy for his stupidity. But what would that have accomplished. I don’t think he would have gotten my point regardless of what I said or did.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Color Your World

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/science/06color.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

This article talks about the differences in tasks when they are associated with backgrounds of red or blue. They say that for certain tasks red works better than blue and vice versa. Does this kind of thing get applied to politics, I wonder? If you are in a blue state are you calmer than you are in a red state? Hmmm.

Authority Figure

Parenting always amazes me. What some people choose to teach their kids and how they decide to enforce rules just fascinates me. My parents, especially my mom, was of the ‘look of fear’ parenting school. If I ever did anything in public, my mom would give me a special look that would make me shiver with fear. I was always afraid of what would follow that look. Even if it wasn’t a spanking, it most certainly result in some kind of punishment that I could never really foresee. Whenever she gave me that look, I just stopped what I was doing that might have been annoying and became quiet. Usually, this was the only thing that my mother really wanted from me. And it worked! Sometimes, the look would result in a talk with my dad. Regardless, punishment wasn’t always a given so the unpredictability of it sort of kept me in line.

As I’ve grown up, I’ve seen different methods of punishment or admonishment. There is the ever famous ‘time out’. Not sure that really works. There is the grounding school of punishment which can be useful, I think. There is the humiliation train of thought. I’m not entirely certain that works because I think the child ends up having horrible self-esteem because of it. But the most baffling of techniques is the Antonio technique. (I’m most certain my husband will talk about this on his podcase so tune into that at www.mac.com/memouribe.)

This Antonio technique came about on a flight in Spain. For two and a half hours, the spawn of Satan himself sat behind my husband and me and screamed his lungs out - the highest pitched screech that I’ve ever heard – the kind that makes nails scratching a chalkboard, chewing aluminum foil and the likes seem like a calm ocean wave hitting the sand.

Normally I’d overlook this if it came from a baby but this child was at least 3 or more. And his name was Antonio. We both knew this because his father kept threatening him by saying:

Antonio, stop doing that or I won’t feed you lunch.
Antonio, be quiet or the captain will come here and scream at you.
Antonio, when we get home, you can’t use the pool.
So on and so forth.

None of these ‘threats’ shut this boy up. The reason why is that the father’s voice was annoying and not firm or strict. Obviously this father had no idea of the power of ‘that certain look’ that my mom and probably every Italian mother has mastered.

I’m pretty darn sure that if I have children and use the Antonio technique, I’m going to end up tied to a chair and gagged while my progeny runs wild.

Language Barriers #2

Medically Speaking

Despite what I’ve written before, there are some words that are very similar from one language to another. Most specifically this is the case with medical lingo. It might be pronounced and spelled slightly differently but it’s pretty much the same word.

For instance, during a recent conversation with a French friend, he wasn’t sure how to say a certain phenomenon that makes you visit the bathroom with great swiftness. So he described it in a different way. Although the creativity of it made me laugh, I told him that the true English word wasn’t very different from the French medical term. Now he knows. However, I’m sure he will continue to use the euphemism so that I will giggle like crazy.

It’s funny though how a euphemism will make you laugh whereas the true medical term will get more compassion.

Language Barriers #1

The Wonderful World of Disney

I love going to Europe especially France because I find I have very deep conversations with people there that I might not necessarily find so quickly here in the states. I definitely talk about more politics in Europe than I do in the States and it’s a very clear understanding that everyone has an opinion and that all entities involved can agree to disagree.

It’s really refreshing. However, there are times when things just can’t be translated or understood in the translation from one language to the next. For instance, after going to EuroDisney, my husband, my cousin and a good friend got into a deep discussion on the names of Disney characters and what they are in each language. The gist of the conversation was pointed around the names of Donald Duck’s nephews.

Basically, what came out of our discussion is that their names are as follows based on the country:

U.S.: Huey, Dewey and Louie (respectively)
Italian: Qui, Quo and Qua
French: Riri, Fifi and Loulou
Spanish (Mexico): Hugo, Paco and Louis.

What I found most interesting about this discussion is that the Mexican versions of the names just didn’t rhyme or ‘fit a pattern’ as they did in the other names.

This just shows one of the wonderful differences that arises when different languages try to express the same thing.

More to follow…..

Monday, May 11, 2009

Meeting Minutes

I spend far too many hours of every day, week, month and year in meetings. It drives me completely insane. I find it even more annoying that fingernails scratching across a chalkboard, chewing on aluminum foil and all those other irritating things.

Don’t get me wrong. Occasionally meetings can be incredibly productive – things get discussed, people walk away with things they need to confirm or do and everyone feels warm and productive (fuzzy and squishy are not adjectives that can be applied to this topic, no matter how much you can convince me!).

However, the majority of the meetings I’ve attended are absolutely painful! To the point that I’d rather get a spinal tap. I honestly think there has to be a better way to get work done than to have all these meetings.

On one occasion, my collegue and I were in a meeting with a number of attendees. But, only she and I were talking to each other and discussing the issue. So we decided to continue to conduct the meeting as if I were just a conversation between us. The reason these people were on this meeting was because they ‘had’ to…How obnoxious and ridiculous was that?

Many times meetings end up being just like this, except that it’s other people just talking to each other and not listening to each other. And nothing gets done. Occasionally, what drives me most insane about these meetings is how people multi-task through them and so you end up having to repeat yourself a number of times.

Let me tell you, there really isn’t a better feeling than repeating yourself a number of times to someone who doesn’t even have enough consideration to put you on mute and you have to listen to their nails clicking the keys of their keyboard. Here’s to hoping you have fewer meetings in your life than I do.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

I hate Murphy

We are all aware of a wonderful law created by a guy named Murphy. Apparently, I must have really pissed Mr. Murphy off because his law follows me around like lint.

“Anything that can possibly go wrong, does”

Like today for instance, I really wanted to go to the gym this morning to do some reading on the stationery bike but also to get rid of some stress that had accumulated since yesterday. I was all decked out in my gym clothes. I got off the train and approached the gym door to find a note saying “Our apologies but due to a plumbing problem, the gym will not be open”. The little excitement I had to get to the gym was immediate quashed thanks to this polite note. So I had to walk around lower manhattan in my gym clothes to get to my office. I swiped into my office building and went straight to the bathroom to change into my work clothes.

So, I got to start the day in a really crappy mood and on top of that, got a number of annoying emails that just made my aggravation a million times worse.

There you have it. Just another horrible example of my man Murphy getting on my nerves.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Doubtin’ Donuts

Every so often I really crave a horribly sweet thing for breakfast. Usually by the end of a terribly hectic and horrific week, I want to hold up the closest Mrs. Fields Cookies or Godiva Chocolate and ask them to fill a bag with ‘unmarked’ goodies. I had just such a day this past Friday.

I usually go to Dunkin’ Donuts to get my coffee in the morning and as I was standing on the ludicrously long line, I decided I’d treat myself to a French Cruller. Why a French cruller? Well, I’d recently read that of all the donuts in the universe, they were the least amount of calories. And since I’ve been working out I thought I could treat myself and still not feel too guilty.

As I got closer to the cash register, I took a look at the caloric signs near all the donuts. (In NYC all fast food establishments need to show the calories of all their meals.) My contacts must have been deceiving me. There was no way that a French Cruller, which I’d seen in a health magazine as 170 calories, could be 250 calories. I refused to believe my eyes. I kept rubbing them. I asked someone in the line in front of me if they could confirm what the calories on the F.C. were. Oh what a horrible day!! They really were 250 calories, more than glazed donuts!! Even more than vanilla frosted.

What was this world coming to? Was everything that I’d been reading completely wrong? If donuts were the beginning where did this insane path of lies end? What else was total falsehood?

Needless to say, I didn’t get any donuts. Just my regular coffee at 5 calories. I informed my co-worker and she was just as shocked as I was because she too had heard that a F.C. was lower in calories. Guess it goes to show you, you can’t believe what you read when it comes to calories and the dearly delectable donut.