Kingdom of Knuffel

Hahaha, yeah :D
It's already much easier to endure all of it now that I know the end date, in some sense. I just think very hard about how much better it'll be in just a few months and then I can put up with that stupid nonsense a lot better.

Yikes, that sounds like a truly frustrating saga of troubles. (you know, it's funny; people will tell me about these truly horrendous tragedies they go through, and they almost always are offhand about, 'oh yeah, and then this and then that and then this other, so that's why x, y, and z, now.' and the emotion has already been worked through and they've moved on. But then people will tell me about this frustration that is comparatively minor and that's where all the current emotion is. Their faces will reflect dismay, they'll draw in to themselves or gesture wildly, they'll wince or start raising their voices, their movements become more abrupt and choppy, they gesticulate faster, the whole thing. I am left with the impression that a minor irritant left unaddressed for too long is far worse than a clear tragedy)

its cause the irritant drags on, and feels unavoidable. You're constantly confronted with it. Sadly most of the time those minor issues drag on cause its so much work to get them fixed, cause you can't do it yourself and corporations and such can really suck in terms of customer service >>

till you end up with a long long time of dealing with an irritant cause grumbling about it 5mins everyday still feels like the better option than calling and listening to on-hold music for 20mins to then hear they can't fix it for you.

Yeah, something that is not over just rubs at you constantly and you can't really deal with it in the same way that you at some point deal with a bad incident that happened but that is over and in your past. I think that's the difference. But it is an interesting observation indeed!

I have to observe this stuff consciously, I'm not good at interpreting things on an instinctual level.

It's actually been really interesting with that, working at a medical office, because right now the big thing there is cultural impact. (Like cultures that don't admit to pain so you have to know that and interpret their responses differently than a culture which expects a painfree existence and complains about every little twinge). So I'll be going along doing my usual thing of having to verify every observation by checking in with them bluntly, and discover that when someone says they "don't really" have a history of problems with that particular thing, what they mean is yes, absolutely, but then they had major surgery and it fixed things for them for a couple decades so they figure it must be something new. Or someone will come in with worsening back issues and say they aren't lifting any more than they have to and I have to be blunt and say "how much do you have to?" because I don't know what the implied standard is, and it comes out that she comes from a culture that never lets children touch the ground until they are weaned, so she has to carry around a rather large child all the time. Which as soon as we KNEW that, the doctor did some research and then showed her a bunch of different carry holds and sling options and taught her how often to move the child and to keep both sides equally burdened, etc, and that helped. But we didn't know before, because the old assistant was really good with people and never had to train herself to ask, and accepted her reading of the woman as someone who was already doing as little as she could and left it at that. I'd always thought of it as a big weakness I had to overcome and working there has been great because there, it can be a strength.

That sounds pretty great that you actually managed to turn it into a strength because you end up examining the situations more thoroughly! :)
It sounds like a really interesting workplace as well if you get to make all these interesting observations about people from different cultures!

I am very happy I got the job there, yes!


So what all are you folk up to lately? Any plans for the weekend?

That's great :)

I don't have any exciting plans, hoping to be productive and working on my uni project.
Oh, and I hope to adjust the sleeves of my ball dress at some point this weekend as well. And maybe try out a hairstyle to go with it if time permits :)

ball dress? :D

I'm going to take some more pics of my HP sales tomorrow c':

Yeah, I got myself a gown for this year's ball in our university recently :)
It's a bit big for me though, so I had to adjust a little. Did it today :)
I also ordered me a hoop skirt that will hopefully show through a bit less than the really simple one that was included with the dress.