I am a native of New York City. I was for a while a Parisienne and I'm a New Englander now. I grew up a city dweller. I expect no kindness from strangers. One of my math teachers in High School once joked that the Golden Rule in New York was either "Do unto Others Before they Do unto You" or perhaps just "Do unto Others." A friend of mine when I first moved to Boston summed up the Boston mindset aptly by saying "Yes we have a bathroom and no you can't use it."
This is what I grew up with and this is what I live with. I don't say that people are wrong to feel this way. In fact if you are too kind in New York or Boston or Paris you'll get fleeced by the con artists and gypsy kids (I stopped my lifelong practice of giving something to every homeless person I met after a beggar kid to whom I'd given 10 francs chased me down Saint Germain demanding more.)
However there is something about terrible weather that brings out the best in New Englanders. When I lived in Cambridge there was one day when it started dumping freezing rain on top of a decent amount of accumulated snow. In order to walk on the sidewalks, one walked single file in the footsteps that were layed out (because not everyone had shoveled) and sometimes through puddles. And as I navigated the physical challenge that was Cambridge's sidewalks everyone smiled at me. I hadn't seen so many smiling strangers since the Sox won the World Series in 2004. WTF? I mentioned this to one of my friends-a native of Pittsfield and he opined that it was the miserable weather that made everyone so friendly.
I saw it again this morning. A foot more of snow on the ground, sidewalks impassible, people lurching through the snow to dig out their cars and yet they all had a smile or a cheerful comment as I passed them. "Lovely weather!" said the man who was delivering something to the market on Cabot street. Weird as it may be, give the denizens of Eastern Mass a good snow storm and they become as friendly as Minnesotans.
I won't argue with that.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Fear
I made a dental appointment last week because my back molars were hurting me. They had been hurting me for some time-a couple of years at least. In a moment of lucidity it occurred to me that if they were hurting then perhaps not only was something wrong with my teeth, but it could be the sort of something that results in lots of pain—what if one of them cracked? I am terrified of dentists. I’m terrified of doctors too but there’s something about dentistry-perhaps it’s because the mouth is so full of nerve endings and as a result even getting a cleaning hurts.
So I made an appointment. I was okay until last night, when all sorts of things that could be wrong with my mouth started occurring to me. Well, perhaps I’d just cancel the appointment, I told myself. When I woke up this morning (with aching teeth) I told myself that I had to do it. “They’re not cops-they can’t force you to have any kind of procedure done.” I told myself and “I don’t care how scared you are-you have to go because it isn’t going to get any better if you don’t. It can only get worse and how foolish will you feel if you have to make an emergency dental appointment?” The winning argument I believe was “so you are sure that there’s some unknown thing that is dreadfully wrong with your mouth that is going to be expensive and painful to remedy that will involve taking massive amounts of time off of work and will impact your lifestyle and schooling? You were also positive that you’d flailed your Accounting final.” And I was dead sure about that. So sure that I announced it to my parents. But I got out of the course with a B. So the point I was making to myself was that I was just being mentally ill about my teeth. And therefore, however sure I was I was probably wrong. I still felt terrible about it.
When I got to work I looked up wisdom teeth, since I still have all of mine and since it’s back teeth that hurt-perhaps the wisdoms were making a belated entry. I also looked up gum disease on Wikipedia. And then I made myself stop. I believe that some part of my lizard brain was trying to make me have a panic attack—because then I’d defiantly cancel the appointment.
We had a Big Thing to do at work today*. I told one of my colleagues that I had to go to the dentist, but that I could put it off. This was the right thing for me to do, as it turns out. Aside from fear of dentists I’ve a healthy fear of my boss and I didn’t want him blaming me for being out. My colleague assured me that there was nothing the boss could blame me for and pointed out that whenever he put off the dentist he ended up not going. We joked about how I would in a position to verify whether an afternoon at the dentist was still worse than an afternoon at work (oh yes!) So now there was one person who would give me shit if I didn’t go to the dentist. So I had to go.
I went and gave them my name. They took me to a chair and left me in it. I could hear the sounds of dental equipment all around me. I crossed myself as I sat in the chair and then remembered that I’m not really Catholic anymore. And then I hoped that they would hurry up and start hurting me—otherwise I’d bolt because I was so terrified. I told the nice young lady dentist that I’d come in because my back teeth hurt and she said she needed a full set of X-Rays. “I need to see the roots-as you say you are aching.” The roots?!! Good God what will she need to do if the trouble is in the roots? Root canal? Some other frightening procedure I’ve never heard of before?! I went to get X rayed. I noted that dentistry had entered the digital age-once the tech pulled the switch I could see black and white pictures of my teeth on the flat-screen next to the chair (not that I wanted to see them.)
When the tech was done X raying me I went back to the dentist chair I had first sat in. My mouth was shaking. I tried to think of the scariest thing I had overcome in the past year (I took the GMAT. I had to interview 15 strangers Spring term. I took an elective last term-while taking another class this gave me an anxiety attack once a week but I got through it.) Somehow, none of these was any help.
The nice young lady dentist told me that the pain in my teeth was due to my clenching them at night and that she could make me a mouth guard that would deal with that (better than the commercial ones) I had a few cavities which would need filling. I can live with that-I haven’t had a filling in 20 years. It’s unpleasant, but because I know what I’ll be getting into, I could make an appointment for fillings (and a mouth guard fitting.)
I was thrilled when I left. For one thing, the dentist had been nice and had accepted the fact that I was scared of dentistry. She and her assistant treated me like a grown up human. All through my terrified afternoon I’d been telling myself how much good it would do me to do this thing that scared me. Even my co-worker chimed in. When I pointed out that my list of things to do consisted entirely of things I didn’t want to do he said –“Well at least by going to the dentist you’re doing yourself some good.”
But although I’ll go to have my fillings done and my mold made without much fuss, this doesn’t change my fear of doctors or of dentists. Bodies—this carbon and hydrogen substance of which we are made —are mortal and are subject to wear and tear and decay. I can change my diet, and I can floss more often but time wears on the human body. So doctors will always scare me in a way that bosses don’t. I can always take another course in SQL or MS Access, but I can’t take any course that will make my body ten years younger.
So I made an appointment. I was okay until last night, when all sorts of things that could be wrong with my mouth started occurring to me. Well, perhaps I’d just cancel the appointment, I told myself. When I woke up this morning (with aching teeth) I told myself that I had to do it. “They’re not cops-they can’t force you to have any kind of procedure done.” I told myself and “I don’t care how scared you are-you have to go because it isn’t going to get any better if you don’t. It can only get worse and how foolish will you feel if you have to make an emergency dental appointment?” The winning argument I believe was “so you are sure that there’s some unknown thing that is dreadfully wrong with your mouth that is going to be expensive and painful to remedy that will involve taking massive amounts of time off of work and will impact your lifestyle and schooling? You were also positive that you’d flailed your Accounting final.” And I was dead sure about that. So sure that I announced it to my parents. But I got out of the course with a B. So the point I was making to myself was that I was just being mentally ill about my teeth. And therefore, however sure I was I was probably wrong. I still felt terrible about it.
When I got to work I looked up wisdom teeth, since I still have all of mine and since it’s back teeth that hurt-perhaps the wisdoms were making a belated entry. I also looked up gum disease on Wikipedia. And then I made myself stop. I believe that some part of my lizard brain was trying to make me have a panic attack—because then I’d defiantly cancel the appointment.
We had a Big Thing to do at work today*. I told one of my colleagues that I had to go to the dentist, but that I could put it off. This was the right thing for me to do, as it turns out. Aside from fear of dentists I’ve a healthy fear of my boss and I didn’t want him blaming me for being out. My colleague assured me that there was nothing the boss could blame me for and pointed out that whenever he put off the dentist he ended up not going. We joked about how I would in a position to verify whether an afternoon at the dentist was still worse than an afternoon at work (oh yes!) So now there was one person who would give me shit if I didn’t go to the dentist. So I had to go.
I went and gave them my name. They took me to a chair and left me in it. I could hear the sounds of dental equipment all around me. I crossed myself as I sat in the chair and then remembered that I’m not really Catholic anymore. And then I hoped that they would hurry up and start hurting me—otherwise I’d bolt because I was so terrified. I told the nice young lady dentist that I’d come in because my back teeth hurt and she said she needed a full set of X-Rays. “I need to see the roots-as you say you are aching.” The roots?!! Good God what will she need to do if the trouble is in the roots? Root canal? Some other frightening procedure I’ve never heard of before?! I went to get X rayed. I noted that dentistry had entered the digital age-once the tech pulled the switch I could see black and white pictures of my teeth on the flat-screen next to the chair (not that I wanted to see them.)
When the tech was done X raying me I went back to the dentist chair I had first sat in. My mouth was shaking. I tried to think of the scariest thing I had overcome in the past year (I took the GMAT. I had to interview 15 strangers Spring term. I took an elective last term-while taking another class this gave me an anxiety attack once a week but I got through it.) Somehow, none of these was any help.
The nice young lady dentist told me that the pain in my teeth was due to my clenching them at night and that she could make me a mouth guard that would deal with that (better than the commercial ones) I had a few cavities which would need filling. I can live with that-I haven’t had a filling in 20 years. It’s unpleasant, but because I know what I’ll be getting into, I could make an appointment for fillings (and a mouth guard fitting.)
I was thrilled when I left. For one thing, the dentist had been nice and had accepted the fact that I was scared of dentistry. She and her assistant treated me like a grown up human. All through my terrified afternoon I’d been telling myself how much good it would do me to do this thing that scared me. Even my co-worker chimed in. When I pointed out that my list of things to do consisted entirely of things I didn’t want to do he said –“Well at least by going to the dentist you’re doing yourself some good.”
But although I’ll go to have my fillings done and my mold made without much fuss, this doesn’t change my fear of doctors or of dentists. Bodies—this carbon and hydrogen substance of which we are made —are mortal and are subject to wear and tear and decay. I can change my diet, and I can floss more often but time wears on the human body. So doctors will always scare me in a way that bosses don’t. I can always take another course in SQL or MS Access, but I can’t take any course that will make my body ten years younger.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Richmond Theatre Collection
Tomorrow is my Dad’s 69th birthday. My dad is awesome. He was instrumental in turning me into the dork-geek that I am. I was going to write a post to try and show how awesome my dad is through examples, but what I wrote sounded treacly and sometimes cringingly personal. There are things that are sweet and overly personal that I should tell my dad about why I think he’s so awesome. But I should *tell* them to him-not publish them on the interwebs. There is one thing I keep coming back to in my exploratory writing and I think I should write about that instead.
When my parents moved to Staten Island, Dad got involved in a local theatre company. Since growing up I’ve heard a lot of disparaging comments about community theatre groups. There may be some truth in them, but what the people who dis community theatre fail to grasp is that community theatre gives people who are not professional actors and singers a chance to take part in Pirates of Penzance or Cosi fan Tutte. Additionally, it gives people who don’t have the money to go to the Met a chance to see theatre up close and personal. I think I was in second grade when my dad first took me to see Die Fledermaus and it was in a church basement, or something like that, but we were within 15 feet of the action. I loved it.
Anyway, my dad had gotten involved with a community theatre group called Richmond Theatre Collection (RTC.) They did most of their productions in a church. As I understand it, the rule was that if they were doing something Christian they could perform upstairs in the church with the altar as the stage, but if their production was more secular they performed in the basement. Looking back, it seems to me that the church was rather lenient with that rule since Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Godspell qualified for upstairs performances (along with Noye’s Fludde and Amahl and the Night Visitors.)
RTC did four productions a year. They did one Gilbert and Sullivan production a year and other than that, their catalogue was eclectic. They did not do Rogers and Hammerstein and I don’t think they ever did Sondheim. They did some Mozart and some Galt Macdermot (although not Hair, as far as I know) and they dabbled in Benjamin Britten. They did La Serva Padrona, which I loved and The Cradle will Rock (which I did not, at the time appreciate.) And they did Jacques Brel is alive and well and Living in Paris—which introduced me to Brel (in English.)
Dad did all sorts of things for RTC. He sang chorus, he did set designs, he helped build things, he sold donuts and coffee at half-time. I’m not sure how it happened, but I started tagging along with Dad—maybe he needed someone to hold a clamp or maybe he thought I’d find it a treat to watch rehearsals (I certainly did) but I spent a lot of time as a kid hanging out at the church on Saturdays.
I was not a very socially adept kid—I had one good friend through grade school and a few more in junior high, but in general I didn’t “get” other kids. I don't think it would be overly dramatic to say that theatre was the glue that kept me together when I was a kid. I got to go to RTC and help paint things or move scenery (while watching rehearsals.) When they were doing a Gilbert and Sullivan show I got to talk to grownups who were just as into G&S as I was. I got to geek out with the guy who was playing the Sorcerer (in the Sorcerer) and who’d done every G&S show except this one. I got to talk to the guy who had understudied for John Reed at D’Oyly Carte. But I also got to talk to other adults who treated me like a reasonable human, unlike most of the kids I knew. I must have been an annoying brat, but they put up with me. Not just when I was being a Gilbert and Sullivan dork, but other times. They said “Do you know how to make coffee in this Thing? The coffee will be bad and they’ll blame me for it.” Or “the tenor’s been sick I hope he hits all his high notes tonight.” And of course “move this here”, tighten that clamp” “just a little more green paint” “go see your dad and tell him we need…”
In 1986, the Mets beat the Redsox for the World Championship. I was in sixth grade and old enough to participate in a local children’s theatre group. We were doing the Lottery and I was Tessie Hutchinson. But on the evening that the Sox lost, I was done with children’s theatre and was helping out with donuts at RTC’s production of Princess Ida. I got the information from the guy who was playing King Hilledebrand. He was out having a smoke break between acts and announcing the fact to the world at large.
RTC was part of my growing up. Local theatre groups do well when there are people who are willing to treat them like a full time job. In the case of RTC, for a long time this was Mr & Mrs K. They were, I believe, a retired couple. I knew them both. As far as I could tell Mrs K was mostly the music director of RTC. Mr K must have done a lot of administrative work (I don’t think he ever directed anything or acted in anything that I saw.) One of my most vivid memories of him is from Godspell. As I mentioned above, because Godspell was Christian in theme, RTC got to perform it on the altar. The church had a high ceiling with a metal beam near the top. During one of the earlier numbers (Prepare ye the way of the Lord) confetti would drop on the stage. This was managed by filling a box with confetti on the high metal beam. I distinctly remember Mr. K climbing up to refill the box.
A few years later, he was telling me that it was okay to sell donuts that were two weeks old. I thought it odd, but I was a kid and he was a grown up. Not too long after that incident, Dad told me that Mr. K had Alzheimer’s disease.
The RTC project was essentially doomed on the departure of Mr. and Mrs. K. Even though I was a kid, I could see this. Community theatre attracts big egos. And while people with big egos make great comic leads, they are not necessarily any good at administration. Mr and Mrs K had provided that. By the time I was in high school they had gone to California.
The company more or less officially fell apart my junior year in high school. They were presenting Trial By Jury, Cox and Box and The Racketeers (this last being the mock Gilbert and Sullivan opera that a few of the RTC regulars had composed.) To this day I cannot say what was the straw that broke the camel’s back. People that I had otherwise considered reasonable adults yelled and or quit for reasons I could see, but didn't seem as important to me as they were to other people.
I learned a lot through my RTC experience. I learned a lot of Mozart and Gilbert and Sullivan and obscure musical theatre (some of it deservedly so) I learned to operate a dimmer board (not well) and I learned a lot about how people behave—good and bad. I am sorry that they are no longer in existence, but I am glad that they were part of my experience.
When my parents moved to Staten Island, Dad got involved in a local theatre company. Since growing up I’ve heard a lot of disparaging comments about community theatre groups. There may be some truth in them, but what the people who dis community theatre fail to grasp is that community theatre gives people who are not professional actors and singers a chance to take part in Pirates of Penzance or Cosi fan Tutte. Additionally, it gives people who don’t have the money to go to the Met a chance to see theatre up close and personal. I think I was in second grade when my dad first took me to see Die Fledermaus and it was in a church basement, or something like that, but we were within 15 feet of the action. I loved it.
Anyway, my dad had gotten involved with a community theatre group called Richmond Theatre Collection (RTC.) They did most of their productions in a church. As I understand it, the rule was that if they were doing something Christian they could perform upstairs in the church with the altar as the stage, but if their production was more secular they performed in the basement. Looking back, it seems to me that the church was rather lenient with that rule since Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Godspell qualified for upstairs performances (along with Noye’s Fludde and Amahl and the Night Visitors.)
RTC did four productions a year. They did one Gilbert and Sullivan production a year and other than that, their catalogue was eclectic. They did not do Rogers and Hammerstein and I don’t think they ever did Sondheim. They did some Mozart and some Galt Macdermot (although not Hair, as far as I know) and they dabbled in Benjamin Britten. They did La Serva Padrona, which I loved and The Cradle will Rock (which I did not, at the time appreciate.) And they did Jacques Brel is alive and well and Living in Paris—which introduced me to Brel (in English.)
Dad did all sorts of things for RTC. He sang chorus, he did set designs, he helped build things, he sold donuts and coffee at half-time. I’m not sure how it happened, but I started tagging along with Dad—maybe he needed someone to hold a clamp or maybe he thought I’d find it a treat to watch rehearsals (I certainly did) but I spent a lot of time as a kid hanging out at the church on Saturdays.
I was not a very socially adept kid—I had one good friend through grade school and a few more in junior high, but in general I didn’t “get” other kids. I don't think it would be overly dramatic to say that theatre was the glue that kept me together when I was a kid. I got to go to RTC and help paint things or move scenery (while watching rehearsals.) When they were doing a Gilbert and Sullivan show I got to talk to grownups who were just as into G&S as I was. I got to geek out with the guy who was playing the Sorcerer (in the Sorcerer) and who’d done every G&S show except this one. I got to talk to the guy who had understudied for John Reed at D’Oyly Carte. But I also got to talk to other adults who treated me like a reasonable human, unlike most of the kids I knew. I must have been an annoying brat, but they put up with me. Not just when I was being a Gilbert and Sullivan dork, but other times. They said “Do you know how to make coffee in this Thing? The coffee will be bad and they’ll blame me for it.” Or “the tenor’s been sick I hope he hits all his high notes tonight.” And of course “move this here”, tighten that clamp” “just a little more green paint” “go see your dad and tell him we need…”
In 1986, the Mets beat the Redsox for the World Championship. I was in sixth grade and old enough to participate in a local children’s theatre group. We were doing the Lottery and I was Tessie Hutchinson. But on the evening that the Sox lost, I was done with children’s theatre and was helping out with donuts at RTC’s production of Princess Ida. I got the information from the guy who was playing King Hilledebrand. He was out having a smoke break between acts and announcing the fact to the world at large.
RTC was part of my growing up. Local theatre groups do well when there are people who are willing to treat them like a full time job. In the case of RTC, for a long time this was Mr & Mrs K. They were, I believe, a retired couple. I knew them both. As far as I could tell Mrs K was mostly the music director of RTC. Mr K must have done a lot of administrative work (I don’t think he ever directed anything or acted in anything that I saw.) One of my most vivid memories of him is from Godspell. As I mentioned above, because Godspell was Christian in theme, RTC got to perform it on the altar. The church had a high ceiling with a metal beam near the top. During one of the earlier numbers (Prepare ye the way of the Lord) confetti would drop on the stage. This was managed by filling a box with confetti on the high metal beam. I distinctly remember Mr. K climbing up to refill the box.
A few years later, he was telling me that it was okay to sell donuts that were two weeks old. I thought it odd, but I was a kid and he was a grown up. Not too long after that incident, Dad told me that Mr. K had Alzheimer’s disease.
The RTC project was essentially doomed on the departure of Mr. and Mrs. K. Even though I was a kid, I could see this. Community theatre attracts big egos. And while people with big egos make great comic leads, they are not necessarily any good at administration. Mr and Mrs K had provided that. By the time I was in high school they had gone to California.
The company more or less officially fell apart my junior year in high school. They were presenting Trial By Jury, Cox and Box and The Racketeers (this last being the mock Gilbert and Sullivan opera that a few of the RTC regulars had composed.) To this day I cannot say what was the straw that broke the camel’s back. People that I had otherwise considered reasonable adults yelled and or quit for reasons I could see, but didn't seem as important to me as they were to other people.
I learned a lot through my RTC experience. I learned a lot of Mozart and Gilbert and Sullivan and obscure musical theatre (some of it deservedly so) I learned to operate a dimmer board (not well) and I learned a lot about how people behave—good and bad. I am sorry that they are no longer in existence, but I am glad that they were part of my experience.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Almost done with term...
I said "Merry Christmas" to someone for the first time tonight. Until tonight "Christmas" was one more project on a list of giant projects to do in December:
Study for IT Project Management Exam
Finish Editing IT Project Management Paper
Finalize 2009 IT Budget for Work
Cram for Accounting Exam
Christmas Shop
Remove Air Conditioning Unit From Window
This is the first year that I have bought almost everything online-although I don't generally enjoy shopping I enjoy buying Christmas gifts. I will visit craft bazaars and go to the Maul and visit bookshops to find trinkets and necessary objects for my loved ones. This year I haven't had the time to do so and that makes me sad. I had a horrible dream a few weeks ago in which I had showed up at my parents house with Nothing purchased for anyone for Christmas. In my dream my dad castigated me for spending all my time reading silly novels instead of getting things done.
It was a horrible dream and obviously it was all about my anxiety about not being able to do a proper job of Christmas shopping. But here's the thing-I haven't been spending all my time reading silly novels-I've spent all my time studying for Accounting and attending meetings for my IT Project Management class. While working full time.
Well, I thought, wasn't that the goal-to be an "engaged" (some would say slightly psychotic) MBA student? Apparently the opportunity cost for doing so includes Christmas Shopping. I am sad of that, but I can remember this and shop for presents for my loved ones some other time.
A year ago I had just gotten into the program. Now I am in the middle of it. It still scares me a bit (I have to take Statistics next term!) but even though it's going to suck for a while I don't think it's un-doable. Apparently flaky, literary, sci fi Cantabridgienne can handle Activity Based Costing and Work Breakdown Structures.
I am not happy about the fact that I have sub-standard gifts to give this year. But having finished one class I can look forward to actually baking cookies and listening to Christmas music and pulling my youngest nephew *away* from the Christmas tree. Of course I want to give good presents, but since I've started MBA school, I myself have put a premium on presence and getting to see my niece and nephews without worrying about a paper due or a problem set.
So, I'm sad that I had to shop online for Christmas gifts, but this is because of a temporary thing (MBA School). This temporary thing is good for Cantabridgienne in the long run and I think that my family understands that. Especially since even if I give less than stellar gifts I will be able to be there body and soul when we bake Christmas cookies, and watch the kiddos rip through all the presents, and eat Christmas dinner.
Study for IT Project Management Exam
Finish Editing IT Project Management Paper
Finalize 2009 IT Budget for Work
Cram for Accounting Exam
Christmas Shop
Remove Air Conditioning Unit From Window
This is the first year that I have bought almost everything online-although I don't generally enjoy shopping I enjoy buying Christmas gifts. I will visit craft bazaars and go to the Maul and visit bookshops to find trinkets and necessary objects for my loved ones. This year I haven't had the time to do so and that makes me sad. I had a horrible dream a few weeks ago in which I had showed up at my parents house with Nothing purchased for anyone for Christmas. In my dream my dad castigated me for spending all my time reading silly novels instead of getting things done.
It was a horrible dream and obviously it was all about my anxiety about not being able to do a proper job of Christmas shopping. But here's the thing-I haven't been spending all my time reading silly novels-I've spent all my time studying for Accounting and attending meetings for my IT Project Management class. While working full time.
Well, I thought, wasn't that the goal-to be an "engaged" (some would say slightly psychotic) MBA student? Apparently the opportunity cost for doing so includes Christmas Shopping. I am sad of that, but I can remember this and shop for presents for my loved ones some other time.
A year ago I had just gotten into the program. Now I am in the middle of it. It still scares me a bit (I have to take Statistics next term!) but even though it's going to suck for a while I don't think it's un-doable. Apparently flaky, literary, sci fi Cantabridgienne can handle Activity Based Costing and Work Breakdown Structures.
I am not happy about the fact that I have sub-standard gifts to give this year. But having finished one class I can look forward to actually baking cookies and listening to Christmas music and pulling my youngest nephew *away* from the Christmas tree. Of course I want to give good presents, but since I've started MBA school, I myself have put a premium on presence and getting to see my niece and nephews without worrying about a paper due or a problem set.
So, I'm sad that I had to shop online for Christmas gifts, but this is because of a temporary thing (MBA School). This temporary thing is good for Cantabridgienne in the long run and I think that my family understands that. Especially since even if I give less than stellar gifts I will be able to be there body and soul when we bake Christmas cookies, and watch the kiddos rip through all the presents, and eat Christmas dinner.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Storage Attached Network
Today I learned what a Storage Attached Network (SAN) is.
My employer is merging with another firm that provides the same services we do (Fee-Only Wealth Management). I can say this now publicly, since the press release has gone out. As part of this merger deal we need to find a way to share network resources with this other firm located in New Jersey. My job has been to work with a colleague in the New Jersey office to find an outsourced IT partner that would provide us with a way to do this.
We had a potential outsourced IT partner in the office today to present their proposal. They had e-mailed us the proposal previously and a component of it was, apparently, a Storage Attached Network. What is a Storage Attached Network?
I decided I should figure this out. I did online research. As far as I could tell, this was a box that housed a bunch of RAIDed drives and could hold a big honking amount of data. Great. But how is this different from any other network attached device (a NAS or a Snap or a plain ol’ server with lots of disk space?)
The outsourced IT partner had brought in an army of consultants from Dell to explain to us why we wanted a SAN. They had PowerPoint slides. They had jargon, all of which, they assured us we would be unable to understand (I love it when my vendors talk down to me!) but which they felt compelled to fling around. In the middle of their talk one of my colleagues mentioned that he used to work for EMC and, y’know, write software to deal with This Sort of Thing all the time. We think that might have shortened their talk a little and perhaps convinced them that we weren’t idiots.
They succeeded in explaining to me at least that a SAN was a very cool thing indeed, but they didn’t answer my fundamental question of what it was. And ultimately, as cool as the concept was, no one succeeded in convincing me or my colleagues why having one would help us with our main goal-being able to share network resources with the office in New Jersey.
I didn’t actually understand what an SAN was until later in the day when I wandered over to my colleague’s cubicle to ask him what he thought of the presentation. During our discussion he explained that SANs used to be wicked expensive and that no outfit smaller than American Airlines would be interested in one until (apparently) recently. “They don’t have Ethernet connectors. They have these funny looking things with light and fibers…” he said “Fiber optical connection?” I asked. “Exactly.” So that’s what one of these is. It’s a big honking network attached device that connects through fiber optics. Fiber is faster than Cat 6 (Ethernet) cable. That’s not a difficult concept to absorb. But somehow I hadn’t gotten it from Wikipedia’s article. The article did mention fiber networks, but it lead me to believe these were old school (from the 90s) and therefore I was unsure how relevant this information was in 2010.
The Dell guys, who talked at us for an hour, didn’t mention this. The outsourced IT provider didn’t mention this. But in a five minute conversation with my co-worker I figured out what the big deal was*.
What have I learned from this? Well it reinforces some of the happy teamwork memes I’ve been so busy absorbing at MBA school. Reading stuff on the Internet is not always enough. Sometimes you need an actual human, or, more importantly, a human who knows you and knows how to explain things to you to help you understand things.
*It also has other neat features which I gathered from the presentation, but those are mostly interesting from a disaster recovery point of view and don’t necessarily make it any more attractive than NASes and don’t explain why these things are so farking expensive.
My employer is merging with another firm that provides the same services we do (Fee-Only Wealth Management). I can say this now publicly, since the press release has gone out. As part of this merger deal we need to find a way to share network resources with this other firm located in New Jersey. My job has been to work with a colleague in the New Jersey office to find an outsourced IT partner that would provide us with a way to do this.
We had a potential outsourced IT partner in the office today to present their proposal. They had e-mailed us the proposal previously and a component of it was, apparently, a Storage Attached Network. What is a Storage Attached Network?
I decided I should figure this out. I did online research. As far as I could tell, this was a box that housed a bunch of RAIDed drives and could hold a big honking amount of data. Great. But how is this different from any other network attached device (a NAS or a Snap or a plain ol’ server with lots of disk space?)
The outsourced IT partner had brought in an army of consultants from Dell to explain to us why we wanted a SAN. They had PowerPoint slides. They had jargon, all of which, they assured us we would be unable to understand (I love it when my vendors talk down to me!) but which they felt compelled to fling around. In the middle of their talk one of my colleagues mentioned that he used to work for EMC and, y’know, write software to deal with This Sort of Thing all the time. We think that might have shortened their talk a little and perhaps convinced them that we weren’t idiots.
They succeeded in explaining to me at least that a SAN was a very cool thing indeed, but they didn’t answer my fundamental question of what it was. And ultimately, as cool as the concept was, no one succeeded in convincing me or my colleagues why having one would help us with our main goal-being able to share network resources with the office in New Jersey.
I didn’t actually understand what an SAN was until later in the day when I wandered over to my colleague’s cubicle to ask him what he thought of the presentation. During our discussion he explained that SANs used to be wicked expensive and that no outfit smaller than American Airlines would be interested in one until (apparently) recently. “They don’t have Ethernet connectors. They have these funny looking things with light and fibers…” he said “Fiber optical connection?” I asked. “Exactly.” So that’s what one of these is. It’s a big honking network attached device that connects through fiber optics. Fiber is faster than Cat 6 (Ethernet) cable. That’s not a difficult concept to absorb. But somehow I hadn’t gotten it from Wikipedia’s article. The article did mention fiber networks, but it lead me to believe these were old school (from the 90s) and therefore I was unsure how relevant this information was in 2010.
The Dell guys, who talked at us for an hour, didn’t mention this. The outsourced IT provider didn’t mention this. But in a five minute conversation with my co-worker I figured out what the big deal was*.
What have I learned from this? Well it reinforces some of the happy teamwork memes I’ve been so busy absorbing at MBA school. Reading stuff on the Internet is not always enough. Sometimes you need an actual human, or, more importantly, a human who knows you and knows how to explain things to you to help you understand things.
*It also has other neat features which I gathered from the presentation, but those are mostly interesting from a disaster recovery point of view and don’t necessarily make it any more attractive than NASes and don’t explain why these things are so farking expensive.
Friday, November 26, 2010
A Happy Thanksgiving
To paraphrase Martin Amis, no one but Tolstoy can write about happiness and still be interesting. I believe there’s some truth to that (to quote the man himself “All happy families are alike…”) This is therefore going to be a rather boring post.
I have never really been a fan of Thanksgiving. When I was a kid, we’d usually fight the traffic between New York and Massachusetts to come to Grandma’s house in Beverly. There we’d dress for dinner and eat New England food-mashed potatoes, mashed turnips, turkey and pies. Nothing had any garlic in it. I always felt that it was a silly ritual. And my sister and I always had Homework to do over the weekend. This is not to say it was never fun. One year my mom had read that the best thing to do for a turkey was to soak a pair of men’s briefs in butter and put them over the bird. So she went out and bought a pair of XL BVDs to put over the bird. I could hear her laughing from several rooms away and came into the kitchen to see what the fuss was about. And dessert was always interesting. Dad would bring Mozart balls (chocolates with hazelnuts and almond paste) and the weirdest fruits he could find in Brooklyn (star fruits, kiwis and quinces) to eat along with grandma’s pies. But the holiday has never been a favorite of mine.
For the past few years I’ve quit going down to New York for Thanksgiving because it’s not much fun at all and they’re going to see me again in a month. Even staying up here and having it with friends, it’s still not my favorite holiday. This year I found myself looking forward to Thanksgiving for the first time in-ever*. It would be a chance to relax and eat a lot among friends and not have anything to do for Work or School. I mentioned this to my best friend, who was hosting this year-along with her husband and she agreed-“I’m actually looking forward to Thanksgiving this year-when have you ever heard me say that before?” Never.
This year Thanksgiving was different for me than it had been in previous years. I feel that my friends found it different as well. Instead of “Oh God! We’ve got to have Thanksgiving. Round up the usual suspects!” It was more like a holiday. It was like a Sugar Mags breakfast date that went on all day. I haven’t seen much of my friends this term so I was looking forward to a day of eating good food, drinking good beer and enjoying my friends’ company. That’s more or less how it worked out. There were small crises-the liquor store wasn’t open so I donated an extra 5 pack in my fridge, the vegetarian stuffing had to be re-done (Thank you!), the bean dip wasn’t baked long enough to suit the chef’s taste (it was delicious though) and one of our friends had brought his computer up, because his reinstallation of Windows XP had not gone by the book and he wanted my help.
Normally, since people frighten me and I don’t know what to do in unorganized social situations I would have been glad to have an OS reinstall to do. This year I didn’t need it as an excuse to flee company, because I was actually happy to see everyone who showed up. I joked to my friend, who had brought his computer up that I felt like I was in high school again—all the polite company is downstairs but he and I were upstairs in the office trying to find a driver for the PCI bus.
But it’s not like I spent the whole time upstairs being anti-social. The hostess came to visit me and brought me beer and let me know when the pies were about to be cut so that I could go back downstairs in time. Other friends arrived with more pies (and tales of bouncing nieces).
I didn’t miss the cooking experience entirely either. I toasted some nuts for a friend of mine and watched and smelled as he made a nice sauce out of them with some wine and garlic. I also admired the bird. I don’t eat turkey or bacon, but a turkey covered in a bacon lattice with rosemary still smells heavenly. The chef is not only a wonderful cook but is also very aware of his wife’s friends’ dietary restrictions (I’m a seafood vegan, another friend is deathly allergic to milk, one of us is likewise allergic to nuts and another has a problem with spices.)
The chef had prepared to make much more food than was needed. When he said “we don’t need the salmon” I pointed out that I would eat it as would another friend. When the other friend arrived she thanked me for being pro-salmon.
Dirty jokes were made. Love lives were discussed. When the time came to eat everything was set on the table. I said that I felt like we needed to say grace. We agreed a toast would do “To Avoiding the Evil God for Another Year and To Good Friends!” Glasses were clinked. We agreed that part of the point of grace was to let people know it was okay to eat. And then we began to pass plates. It’s true we were all hungry and it’s true the chef does good work, but it was like a race to fill one’s plate. “How many brussel sprouts? How many scallops? With or without hollandaise sauce?” “Pass the shallot butter.” “CS Lewis wrote that then there was nothing heard for an hour but ‘pass the salt’ and the clinking of plates.”
Later, a neighbor came to borrow a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine. She knew she could count on us because she had seen me, the hostess and another friend headed back to the house with a 12 pack of Harpoon IPA and said “Hey!” while lifting her harpoon beer bottle to us this summer.
I mentioned to a few friends that this was a better Thanksgiving than we had all previously had together. Perhaps some of it is that we all are grown to be comfortable being ourselves—as opposed to defensive or unsure and we can just eat and drink together.
*not counting last year, when we had Green Cat Day with Indian food, Sondheim and chocolate chip cookies.
I have never really been a fan of Thanksgiving. When I was a kid, we’d usually fight the traffic between New York and Massachusetts to come to Grandma’s house in Beverly. There we’d dress for dinner and eat New England food-mashed potatoes, mashed turnips, turkey and pies. Nothing had any garlic in it. I always felt that it was a silly ritual. And my sister and I always had Homework to do over the weekend. This is not to say it was never fun. One year my mom had read that the best thing to do for a turkey was to soak a pair of men’s briefs in butter and put them over the bird. So she went out and bought a pair of XL BVDs to put over the bird. I could hear her laughing from several rooms away and came into the kitchen to see what the fuss was about. And dessert was always interesting. Dad would bring Mozart balls (chocolates with hazelnuts and almond paste) and the weirdest fruits he could find in Brooklyn (star fruits, kiwis and quinces) to eat along with grandma’s pies. But the holiday has never been a favorite of mine.
For the past few years I’ve quit going down to New York for Thanksgiving because it’s not much fun at all and they’re going to see me again in a month. Even staying up here and having it with friends, it’s still not my favorite holiday. This year I found myself looking forward to Thanksgiving for the first time in-ever*. It would be a chance to relax and eat a lot among friends and not have anything to do for Work or School. I mentioned this to my best friend, who was hosting this year-along with her husband and she agreed-“I’m actually looking forward to Thanksgiving this year-when have you ever heard me say that before?” Never.
This year Thanksgiving was different for me than it had been in previous years. I feel that my friends found it different as well. Instead of “Oh God! We’ve got to have Thanksgiving. Round up the usual suspects!” It was more like a holiday. It was like a Sugar Mags breakfast date that went on all day. I haven’t seen much of my friends this term so I was looking forward to a day of eating good food, drinking good beer and enjoying my friends’ company. That’s more or less how it worked out. There were small crises-the liquor store wasn’t open so I donated an extra 5 pack in my fridge, the vegetarian stuffing had to be re-done (Thank you!), the bean dip wasn’t baked long enough to suit the chef’s taste (it was delicious though) and one of our friends had brought his computer up, because his reinstallation of Windows XP had not gone by the book and he wanted my help.
Normally, since people frighten me and I don’t know what to do in unorganized social situations I would have been glad to have an OS reinstall to do. This year I didn’t need it as an excuse to flee company, because I was actually happy to see everyone who showed up. I joked to my friend, who had brought his computer up that I felt like I was in high school again—all the polite company is downstairs but he and I were upstairs in the office trying to find a driver for the PCI bus.
But it’s not like I spent the whole time upstairs being anti-social. The hostess came to visit me and brought me beer and let me know when the pies were about to be cut so that I could go back downstairs in time. Other friends arrived with more pies (and tales of bouncing nieces).
I didn’t miss the cooking experience entirely either. I toasted some nuts for a friend of mine and watched and smelled as he made a nice sauce out of them with some wine and garlic. I also admired the bird. I don’t eat turkey or bacon, but a turkey covered in a bacon lattice with rosemary still smells heavenly. The chef is not only a wonderful cook but is also very aware of his wife’s friends’ dietary restrictions (I’m a seafood vegan, another friend is deathly allergic to milk, one of us is likewise allergic to nuts and another has a problem with spices.)
The chef had prepared to make much more food than was needed. When he said “we don’t need the salmon” I pointed out that I would eat it as would another friend. When the other friend arrived she thanked me for being pro-salmon.
Dirty jokes were made. Love lives were discussed. When the time came to eat everything was set on the table. I said that I felt like we needed to say grace. We agreed a toast would do “To Avoiding the Evil God for Another Year and To Good Friends!” Glasses were clinked. We agreed that part of the point of grace was to let people know it was okay to eat. And then we began to pass plates. It’s true we were all hungry and it’s true the chef does good work, but it was like a race to fill one’s plate. “How many brussel sprouts? How many scallops? With or without hollandaise sauce?” “Pass the shallot butter.” “CS Lewis wrote that then there was nothing heard for an hour but ‘pass the salt’ and the clinking of plates.”
Later, a neighbor came to borrow a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine. She knew she could count on us because she had seen me, the hostess and another friend headed back to the house with a 12 pack of Harpoon IPA and said “Hey!” while lifting her harpoon beer bottle to us this summer.
I mentioned to a few friends that this was a better Thanksgiving than we had all previously had together. Perhaps some of it is that we all are grown to be comfortable being ourselves—as opposed to defensive or unsure and we can just eat and drink together.
*not counting last year, when we had Green Cat Day with Indian food, Sondheim and chocolate chip cookies.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Giving Thanks
A year ago I had just moved up here and had finally sent in my application to UMass Boston's MBA program (but hadn't yet been accepted!) I had Thanksgiving with a good friend of mine from college. We ate Indian food. We made chocolate chip cookies. We drank a lot of beer. We sang Sondheim. We did not, in fact, dye the cat who lived at the house where my friend was house sitting-we only photoshopped the cat so it looked like we had dyed her.
Now I'm Ms. UMB MBA*. I bitch and moan a lot about school because it is time consuming and it is not always fun. But I feel like I have found my feet there. This is not at all down to anything UMB has done for me. This is due to my having been lucky enough to have good fellow students to work with as team mates.
It is true that my employment situation is far from ideal, but I feel that even the little MBA work I have done has given me more confidence and improved my relations with the friends/work partners I have at my place of employment. I say this hesitantly because they have a tendency to lay off my friends.
But we are all about being thankful now-not negative. I am thankful that when the professor in last night's class tried to launch a program to give us a demo (and we all suggested that perhaps he needed task manager) one of my classmates made me giggle by suggesting "I think it needs a nap."
I gave half of a ten minute presentation last night about a business case. While it wasn't "fun" in that it made me nervous and tied my stomach in knots, I enjoy collaboration and I enjoy feeling that we did a good job.
My sister drove her three children up to Massachusetts this summer so that they could hunt for hermit crabs on the beaches she and I had gone to as children and so they could see their Tia Cantabridgienne. My mom came along as well to help child herd. It was exhausting, but I'm awfully glad they did it.
My sister has also gotten a smartphone and joined facebook. So I can see pictures of her kids online or she can MMS them to me. Also, this makes it easier for us to share snarky commentary.
And of course, obviously there are my friends. Two of them got married this year, which gave me the opportunity to reconnect with old college friends and meet some of my facebook friends in meat-space (and their dogs!). I haven't seen enough of my friends these past few months because I am up to my eyeballs in MBA stuff, but they are still there (I'll see some of them tomorrow) and they are the duct tape that keeps me together. It's not just that they will lend me their iphones or advise me on editing problems--it's also that they will ask my advice on computer problems or trust me to water their plants and they will make me laugh until my tummy hurts.
*Well no, not really. After this term I'll have a whopping four courses under my belt and two that were waived out of eighteen total. I still have very little clue as to how the College of Management functions and I haven't talked to the IS department about declaring a specialty. But I can find classes in two buildings and I've started to get an idea about ..how to think about the concepts presented and how to explain them to professors and my employer as well as what to expect from a class workload-wise. Or to put it another way, arriving on campus no longer fills me with dread of the unknowable.
Now I'm Ms. UMB MBA*. I bitch and moan a lot about school because it is time consuming and it is not always fun. But I feel like I have found my feet there. This is not at all down to anything UMB has done for me. This is due to my having been lucky enough to have good fellow students to work with as team mates.
It is true that my employment situation is far from ideal, but I feel that even the little MBA work I have done has given me more confidence and improved my relations with the friends/work partners I have at my place of employment. I say this hesitantly because they have a tendency to lay off my friends.
But we are all about being thankful now-not negative. I am thankful that when the professor in last night's class tried to launch a program to give us a demo (and we all suggested that perhaps he needed task manager) one of my classmates made me giggle by suggesting "I think it needs a nap."
I gave half of a ten minute presentation last night about a business case. While it wasn't "fun" in that it made me nervous and tied my stomach in knots, I enjoy collaboration and I enjoy feeling that we did a good job.
My sister drove her three children up to Massachusetts this summer so that they could hunt for hermit crabs on the beaches she and I had gone to as children and so they could see their Tia Cantabridgienne. My mom came along as well to help child herd. It was exhausting, but I'm awfully glad they did it.
My sister has also gotten a smartphone and joined facebook. So I can see pictures of her kids online or she can MMS them to me. Also, this makes it easier for us to share snarky commentary.
And of course, obviously there are my friends. Two of them got married this year, which gave me the opportunity to reconnect with old college friends and meet some of my facebook friends in meat-space (and their dogs!). I haven't seen enough of my friends these past few months because I am up to my eyeballs in MBA stuff, but they are still there (I'll see some of them tomorrow) and they are the duct tape that keeps me together. It's not just that they will lend me their iphones or advise me on editing problems--it's also that they will ask my advice on computer problems or trust me to water their plants and they will make me laugh until my tummy hurts.
*Well no, not really. After this term I'll have a whopping four courses under my belt and two that were waived out of eighteen total. I still have very little clue as to how the College of Management functions and I haven't talked to the IS department about declaring a specialty. But I can find classes in two buildings and I've started to get an idea about ..how to think about the concepts presented and how to explain them to professors and my employer as well as what to expect from a class workload-wise. Or to put it another way, arriving on campus no longer fills me with dread of the unknowable.
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