The Saga of Agent Double Gnome Seven: Road Trip Part 1

The subjects appear to be preparing for a getaway...

At The End Of The Tunnel.

Very faint, but growing brighter... look, a light.

So, after a very rough, challenging, and horribly stressful seven months, which I was certain would kill me, things are starting to look up.  My new boss started yesterday.  My next higher up boss has him so busy that I've barely seen him, but he is an official employee.  And while he doesn't know much yet, the responsibility has lifted from my poor, beaten down body as if and elephant had been sitting on me and finally stood up.  From now on, I can say "you deal with this."  Don't get me wrong, it's not that I minded making the decisions, (it was actually kind of liberating at times) but it was having to be responsible for every single action, decision, process, etc.

The big challenge for me is not going to be getting along with the new boss, not training him... no, it will be letting go of hard feelings from being treated so poorly.  It's not fair, but I am a bigger person than that.  I won't let them break me.

Here's hoping for warm sunny days ahead!  (And not so much time between posts! YIKES!)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24462093@N05/3112185298

Sticks and Stones.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?

That is bullsh*t!  Words are the most powerful weapon in the universe.

As you may or may not be aware, October is National Anti-Bullying Month.  Here in my town we have jumped on the Not In Our Town bandwagon.  Many cities and towns have joined the movement after a tragedy, but we are the first to join proactively.  We have orange t-shirts that say Not In Our Town on the front and on the back they are personalized: Not In Our Schools, Not In Our College, Not On Our Watch, etc.  We have shown several films such as Finding Kind, Light in the Darkness, and we've had Rachel's Challenge presented to our schools and town.  We even made a float for the Homecoming and Oktemberfest parades.  (That's me in the center with the sunglasses.)

Bullying is something very personal to me.

It started as soon as I went to school.  I was the fat kid.  I can remember kids laughing at me as I walked past to get my mat to sit on the floor in kindergarten.  I lived right by the school, so I often rode my bike  on the playground and played on the equipment there, and I can remember riding down the sidewalk one day past some older boys, and a few in my grade and they starting insulting me and throwing water balloons at me.  Luckily, I was on my bike and managed to miss any missiles flying in my direction.  I did have a few friends in grade school, and the teasing wasn't so bad.

Then came Middle School.

I think all children should be shipped off to labor camps during those years.  Middle school aged kids are ruthless!  This is the time in my life where I started to look down when I walked, avoiding eye contact.  I heard all kinds of hurtful words.  If you can imagine it, I was called it.  Tugboat, fatso, Titanic...

Eighth grade was the worst.

That's the year that my own friends turned on me and I had literally no one.  I was extremely depressed and contemplated suicide on a weekly basis.  That was the year I tried to starve myself.  It was also the the year I began having migraines and feeling nauseated all the time.  The school nurse rolled her eyes when she saw me coming.  I missed 22 days of school that year, yet no one wondered if there was some deeper issue.  I remember I even had my own cheer.  One boy named Chris used to chant for me "Katie K. is fat and gay," which is ironic since he was the one who was gay.

High school was no real improvement.  I had a group of friends who spent all their time stabbing each other in the back.  As much heartache as they caused me, at least I belonged somewhere--I had a table in the lunchroom which was almost the most important thing in life at that time.

I recently read somewhere that bullying is like crumpling up a piece of paper and then trying to smooth it out again--the person you bullied never quite recovers.  This is very true.  I'm 31 and still trying to undo the damage.

Is it any wonder that I feel worthless?  Is it any wonder that I have tried to protect myself?  Is it any wonder that I am angry?  Angry at those who terrorized me.  Angry that the adults in my life didn't do anything.

That anger has consumed me.

Still to this day, I walk with my eyes toward the ground.  When I look in a mirror, sometimes I burst into tears.  That is the power of words.  That is why we must each endeavor to choose our words and actions carefully.

I remember a 2004 episode of Without a Trace called Wannabe*.  At that time we watched the show every week, and as I sat there watching, I felt sad, and I also knew exactly what the boy was feeling.  A boy named Eric was bullied and felt like a loser.  At the end of the episode, he hanged himself.

The first time I watched it, I burst into tears and sobbed uncontrollably for probably twenty minutes.  That could have been me, I said.  Still today, I cannot watch that episode, or even a clip of it, without crying.  Even thinking about it is enough to bring tears to my eyes.

My wish is for no one to be bullied, teased, made fun of--whatever you want to call it.  I get upset when people make bullying out to be only against gays or certain groups.  Let's stop bullying of any kind!  Do we have to say "don't bully so and so," or can we just say "don't bully"?

Won't you join me in doing your part to prevent bullying?  Help make this world a better place so that another overweight little girl doesn't have to grow up ashamed of who she is, thinking that there is something wrong with her.

*If you would like to watch a fanvid of the episode with the song that is featured in the episode, click here.

Shoot!

Dad and I took a class at the Iowa River Gun Club range yesterday.  About a month ago we took a class to get our Permit to Carry, and the man who did that class said we do a class at the range to teach you how to fire.  Dad and I said sure!  (I mean it was only $15 bucks and all we had to do was bring eye and ear protection, and ourselves.)

It turned out that there were only four of us in the class.  Dad and I and a very nice couple.  The other lady and I both had pink safety glasses, which is a very important detail...

We took it nice and slow.  Rich set us up with Ruger Mark II .22's.  

Ruger MK II, nice gun.  I highly recommend.

We loaded one round, shot, loaded one round, shot, one round, shot... Then we worked up to two rounds, then three until we'd shot 10 rounds.

1st target.  First round missed by less than .25 inches.

We shot another ten rounds...

2nd target...10 hits.

Then we had fun!  Five rounds at a time, we had to load the magazine and fire off all five rounds in 20 seconds.

3rd target, all 25 rounds within the 7 circle, except the one that whizzed passed his right ear.

Afterwards, dad and I went snooping and he ended up buying a Mark III in stainless steel.  Needless to say, as soon as I am able, I'munna be buyin' my own and down at the range a LOT!

Cider Day Rules!

On September 30 I took two of my students and we went and picked apples and got some fresh, made while you wait apple cider.  Not sure what they thought of it, but mom and I sure had fun!

Hinegardner's Orchard has Cider Day during which you can come pick apples and for each bushel you pick, you get a ticket for a "free" gallon of cider.  Now, we did end up having to pay $1 for the jug, which was ok, I just wasn't prepared for that.  Still, it was a fun outdoorsy day, with a sweet reward!

We picked 4 bushels.

The booty...a fresh golden delicious apple, which I picked myself, and fresh cider.

Hmm, maybe I should make some apple crisp...

A Day of Firsts.

Well, what a day!  I walked 17 blocks from home to meet the Not In Our Town float to walk in the Oktemberfest parade.  I believe this was the first time I'd ever been in the Oktemberfest parade.  Then dad and I went to the General Store and looked at guns.  I held a couple Glocks, a Smith and Wesson, and a couple Rugers.  Then we stopped at a gas station near my house and I hot some hot chocolate to warm me up after walking in 56 degree, windy weather for two hours.  I had just been thinking last week how I'd never been in this particular gas station even though it's only a couple block from my house.

Then, after eating a couple tacos from Taco John's, we drove to Daryl's to snoop some more, and he offered to let us shoot a couple rounds downstairs in the indoor range.  I had never shot a gun before, and I have to admit I was nervous.  I almost said no when he asked, but I'm glad I didn't.  I shot five rounds from a Ruger .22, and 2 rounds from a 9mm.  I'm pretty pleased with the result.  Two in the black, but all on the target.  The lower hole on the black was my first shot from the 9mm.  If I was used to holding that weight in front of me, I think I would have done much better, but not bad for my first seven shots!

Then, after an already big day, mom and I drove down to the World Food Festival in Des Moines.  IT was interesting, but very crowded and I had little patience for it by that point.  The most notable foods we tried were Grilled Spam Musubi (below) and the Chicken Pelmeni.

Chebureki (top) and Chicken Pelmeni.

It is now 10:20 p.m. and I am exhausted.  It has been, however, a great day.

I want to shoot.

My Name's Mat...Doormat.

Ok, so I've talked a little about what's going on at work.  There were basically three main employees; L the supervisor, M the 30 hr. a week associate, and moi, the full-time associate.  M quit two weeks before the end of the spring semester and L retired in June, though she was gone most of May.

Since then I have been, pretty much, the only employee.

Thank God I have Sharon, although only eight hours a week, I don't know what I'd do without her!!!  What it comes down to is this, that for several months now I have been on my own most of the time, and nothing gets done unless I do it; rephrase--I've been doing three people's jobs and not gotten paid a dime for it.  Now, I know what the logical answer is, don't do the other people's jobs...it's not that simple.  It's like any business, there are day to day things that have to be done, and some things that are not my job have to get done before I can do the things that are my job.  (Besides, I'm the one who has to deal with the fallout of things not getting done, so I have to deal with it one way or another.)

I applied for the slightly updated position of Library Services Manager and was one of the first three interviews.  I knew that the only thing I had going for me was my four years in this library.  Unfortunately, in the past, we were not really allowed to grow or try new things in the library, so I had been doing pretty much the same thing for those four years.  So, I was not in the least surprised when they decided to offer to the other two, outside, candidates.

The problem started when my acting supervisor, the guy one step up the food chain, told me that there was nothing wrong with me, they just really wanted someone with more experience--understandable.  However, when I half jokingly/half seriously said "well, you never know, no one has accepted yet--you might be stuck with me" and he said "and we would be fine with that" things started to get messy.

Eventually, an offer was made to the first candidate which was declined.  (I knew going in to this that it was going to be a painful process because we don't pay anything close to competitive.)  Then, eventually, an offer was made to the second candidate--also declined.  This is when acting supervisor started to get a clue that the semester was now three weeks away and we had one employee.  (He hadn't hired anyone to replace M because they wanted the new Manager to do it, even though I said we need at least temporary help, and was told by another higher up that we don't do temporary help.

Guess what?  We do do temporary help, because we are now three weeks into the semester and everyone is pissed about the situation.

I was never offered the position even though they "would be fine" with me.  It was when they invited me to be on the search committee that I understood that they would not, in fact, "be fine with me" and I now had exactly zero chance.

Round two of interviews.

I sit in as a member of the committee and was not greatly encouraged by the interviews.  In fact I was downright disheartened.  The first one was not too bad, though I didn't feel he was the strongest candidate.  The last one, also on Skype, was an immediate no, and the middle one (the one face to face) was a very bright young woman--fresh out of grad school, no experience other than student or intern positions.  Here's where my heart busted into a million tiny, razor sharp shards--one of the committee members said "she'll grow into the position" when others said she had no experience.

This is when I knew that I could not be a part of this, as much I wanted input on my future boss, and even though I'm the only one there who really knows how our library works, for my health and sanity, I could not be a part of this.  It was too personal.

I couldn't it there and look at each candidate and think "why are they choosing to invest in them over me?"

So, I drafted a carefully, respectfully written email and sent it to acting supervisor and I copied it to the entire committee.

That's when acting supervisor asked me to come to his office.

I was unafraid.  What more could he do to me?  He couldn't fire me.  He was surprised, he said, by my email and the timing, and he was dismayed that I had sent it to everyone.  He said, personally, he would not have done that.  (I thought to myself, and??)  I said that I didn't want there to be any questions from anyone as to why I stepped down.  I also said later, when he again said he would not have sent it to everyone, that you never know--if he'd been through what I'd been through, he may have done exactly what I did.

I was fearless, I vented (respectfully), and I made peace.

I will not be silently abused.  I may not get compensated for all the extra work I have done, I may be stressed out, but they will not get the best of me!  I will not let them destroy my spirit. They will not win.

Next interviews are set for next Friday.

I won't be there. :)