Casulo: Apartment in a Box

i want. see pictures and more by clicking title link, via Treehugger.

Slinkachu @ Nuart, Norway

a compelling and morbid socio-cultural criticism in miniature.
click title link for full set on Flickr.
for more, visit Slinkachu's blog

it was a dark and stormy night...

on the way home last night, through the snow that was coming down steadily since 9 pm and about 2 minutes away from home, my front wheel on the passenger side dipped into a sneaky ditch that was pretending to be road thanks to the snow accumulation that made it level to the actual road. naturally, i tugged the wheel to the left just a touch to pull out of the ditch. of course i was going at about 52 km/hr, so that was enough of a differential in wheel velocities to throw the car into a spin.

not a fan of the spinning car on a snowy road at night (especially while i'm in it), i tried to turn out of the spin, succeeding in making the car spin harder. so i let go of the steering wheel and resigned myself to the immutable laws of Physics.

540 degrees and one rather large crunching sound later, i am submerged two-thirds into the same snow-filled ditch i dipped into earlier (86 m further down the road), leaning about 43 degrees on the driver's side and facing oncoming traffic. except that there was no traffic for a minute or two. if a car does a super spinout on an icy road, lands in a ditch and no one is there to see it, did it really happen?

thought #1: that was exciting.
thought #2: i wonder how i'm going to get to school tomorrow.
thought #3: perhaps i can shovel my way out.
thought #4: i should make some phone calls.

to make a long and boring story about standing around trying to get through to Roadside Assistance on a snowy night, making small talk with a police officer and spending almost $200 getting the car unditched by a tow truck, i got home about an hour later than expected -- without a scratch on car or person.

what do you call that?

ah, the sweet, sweet taste of indignation

new learning! when i am tired, not only does my patience disappear, but my inhibition follows suit and lemmings away into the aether; that is not an excuse.

so today, i has double plus angry, and due to the above new learning, i showed it. mm, catharsis. i won't elaborate (because most of my readership was there), but some innocents got caught in the crossfire, and they will receive an apology.

another new learning: when double plus angry, i can whip off some very elaborate, biting, scathing, snippy remarks, but i can hold them back by jumping up and down.

earlier in the year, and quite recently, i was and have been thinking about professionalism and how, as a teacher, it will extend outside the school life and how my reputation will have to be held to a higher standard. in the middle of a double plus angry, that is the last thing on my mind. therefore, to maintain self-control, it would be prudent of me to learn to prevent such anger from developing in the first place (bud-nipping); regular angries that i normally just let slide must be piped off periodically, in private, to trusted, non-judgmental ears who will tell me if i'm wrong.

lately, i've been eschewing the high road in conflicts and just letting the bridges burn because i honestly don't want to be bothered with maintaining them anymore. i am not a people-pleasing kiss-up, nor do i subscribe to the chinese notion of face-saving. if it doesn't bother me enough, i'll let it go. if it activates double-plus angry, bridge-burning and snarking, i will show it and then i will bear the consequences of my actions.

Romeo + Juliet = <3 4eva

The Reduced Shakespeare Company's abridged version of Romeo and Juliet (parts 1 and 2):
The following contains coarse language, scenes of violence and mature subject matter. viewer discretion is advised.




BONUS: RSC's Hamlet