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| It's been a while since I blogged. I was going to write something here today, but I decided not to at the last second.
Back to studying. | | |
| Car keys have an interesting duality for me in the pharmacy. Behind the counter, the jingle of car keys means an approaching patient, ready to drop off some work for you to do and make you dance or squirm like an insect. It is very much like the bell at Summer Paradise: you freeze, you locate the source of the noise, and you react.
Once I step outside the building and give my keys a good shake, however, the tinkling is like the sound of fine, swaying chimes.
Today, I noticed that there was a Beanie Baby 2.0 sitting on the counter by one of the monitors in my store. I didn't know there was such a thing as Beanie Babies 2.0 until today. The tag was sparklier than I remembered them to be when I was younger, and I noticed on the sewn-on label that it was "handmade in China", as though that were some guarantee of craftsmanship. I tried to think of what that might entail, and I imagined Chinese workers twice my age making thousands of Beanie Baby 2.0s, whose labor for pennies gets shipped here for our capitalistic consumption.
I thought back a little further, and I couldn't think that the person that made the first Beanie Babies would ever imagine outsourcing his pride and joy to a foreign country for cheap labor. Nothing that is made in China presently originated in China, which means somewhere along the line a conscious decision was made by TY to switch from making them here to making them there, all for the sake of exploiting cheap labor for profit.
Very cute. | | |
| I have to wake up in three hours.
Jonathon, the latest pharmacist I have found myself under the employ of, once told me that medical sleeping aids such as Ambien and Lunesta were designed for temporary usage. They were never meant for longterm use like many Americans have now found themselves doing. Some insurance companies have even stopped paying for sleeping medications after a patient has been taking them for a certain span of time (which is actually why we were talking about this at all). Humans were never designed to have biological sleeping problems, if they were there would have been a boatload of problems with the human race. Not that we don't have a lot of problems already! *rimshot.
Sleeping pills are used to mask the symptoms of a greater issue, some stressor or other problem that is on your mind. Problems with sleeping are generally caused by problems carried by your conscience, not by some chemical imbalance or hormone cocktail at play in your body. One can use sleeping pills to combat the symptoms of this stress, but in the meantime should be actively working to stop the stress at its source to sleep easy once again. It's not a good thing to become dependent on altering your body's chemistry just so you can get a few hours of sleep.
Mind and body altering medications are scary. I've seen some people dearly close to me on antidepressants, and they were scarily cheery. It was surreal and it frightened me that someone I thought I knew so well was acting so differently.
I have to wake up in two hours. | | |
| You know those times when you wake up from a nap and you're all sweaty? You can tell right away when you've taken a good nap, because you're all sweaty from the EXERTION of taking such a SUPER nap.
I haven't posted in forever in light of finals and the sweet respite of freedom, but I've been inspired to try to write more consistently. This is another entry, so here goes!
I was walking my dog this past Sunday, and seeing families gathered in the windows that I passed I was reminded that it was Father's Day. Father's Day is what some people choose to refer to as a "Hallmark Holiday" because it holds no religious, national, or global significance. It's an occasion to go buy chocolates or a bottle of wine, to treat the family to an expensive dinner. In the past, I have expressed my thoughts on doing things simply for the sake of doing things, and how I think this is a retarded idea. If you only recognize the occasion because there is an occasion to recognize, then whatever gesture that comes out of it (no matter how large) is rendered moot. You're only doing it on a prompt, but how much more would it mean if you did it out of your own volition and the feelings you want to express?
Some may say that posting an entry just for the sake of a post may be hypocritical but THAT IS BESIDES THE POINT
it took me like twenty hours to write this much because of distractions and general laziness -_- and sleep. | | |
| Today I stumbled across an old photo of my dad, back when he was living in Hong Kong, I think. It was black and white, and half the size of a business card, and I found it while looking through random drawers for a screwdriver small enough to use on my laptop. It must have been taken nearly thirty years ago. But this is not what I thought at first.
No, my first thought was, "!$#@%$ THIS LOOKS LIKE ME! AGH."
The hair was too big, as was typical in the '80s, and he was wearing a Hong Kong shirt with the neck cut way too tight to be comfortable, but straight up, I see that face in the mirror sometimes. Now I look at my dad who is approaching his 50th birthday, and I see the wrinkle lines on his eyes, the worn fingers and busted wrist, and I can't help but wonder, is that what I'm going to look like when I'm his age?
I have often expressed the feeling that I am trapped by my father's image, that being his son has automatically determined that I will grow up to be a pharmacist and make bad jokes and drive a Honda. Of course I am my own person, and I won't turn out identically like my father, no matter how hard I try to mimic him or struggle against it. He does, perhaps, provide an identity that gives perspective and depth to who I am, and what I'm supposed to be.
By nature and nurture, I am inclined to mimic my father at least a little bit. I can carry the qualities about him I find admirable, but at the same time am not limited by those that I find less so. I look at him sometimes and I find much to respect, such as his hardworking mentality and his (thankfully) intact hairline. I am his flesh and blood, and maybe I am not glad often enough that I am my father's son.
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