Dora's Corner: HAPPY HOLIDAYS!: HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY 2014!

Warm wishes for a beautiful holiday.

Gathering with loved ones and good friends.

Remembering those we lost, but the wonderful memories

and lessons each of them taught us;

especially that life is still awesome, and that

we have so much to continue to be grateful for every single day.

I especially remember Mama on this, her favorite holiday,

and the remarkable person she was;

she was simply...magnanimous and beautiful~

I strive to be like her.

Blessings to every one everywhere!

At the end of the day,

Thanksgiving is...

Family, community, fellowship, gorging and football.

- LOL -

And, hopefully in that order...

 



Dora's Corner: Hicksville, U.S.A.: When Did That Happen!

Okay, here is my issue for the day...we were shopping at the local Academy (sporting good's store), and we were appalled at all the sad, awful music that was being played in the store.  We visited both our local store in Midland and the one in Odessa - the same bad music at each store (ugh).  'Not sure if the music being played is on a loop, all I know is that it is country (really whiney country with a severe twang), and it is awful.  Furthermore, and it saddens me to say, but the damned awful music is indicative of the (too many) hillbillies that have invaded west Texas.  Geez, as if there weren't enough hillbillies in west Texas before the oil boom hit.  The same oil boom that caused the massive influx of people from all-walks-of-life. The same oil boom that is raping our land, might I add. 
I cannot wait to move from this forsaken place.  The Permian Basin is the new Sodom and Gomorrah. 
Anyway...the same rif-raf that Midland was trying (in vain) to prevent from invading their precious, Christian-right area when the idea of allowing a casino to be constructed in neighboring Stanton, are the same rif-raf that the oil-boom brought.  Worse, the rif-raf that the casinos may or not have brought to west Texas would have been here for a few days of gambling then back to their respective homes would the visitors have gone.  However, because of the oil boom, the rif-raf are here to stay for an undetermined amount of time.  I guess the hillbilly music (and the HB peeps) will continue to plague our area ... at least we always have NYC as a second place to call home ... soon, I hope.

Self-Indulgence: Simply...Missing You!

Missing you, dearly missing you.

The time is drawing nearer and no more seeing you.

Oh, but we have only spoken a few times.

But that one special glance was all it took.

I know you know me, but do you know how I feel.

I doubt that you do, you hardly ever reply.

I’ve tried reaching out to you, but my pleas you ignore.

Am I just someone you see every day as you stride by.

Or am I someone you equally like but also cannot approach.

I long to be near you, to see you, to hear you.

I stand alone, silent, never talking, never seen, never close enough.

I don’t know what to do anymore, I am lost.

Maybe fate decreed that you not be a part of my world.

It makes me weak, breaks my heart, and makes me somber.

I will let you go, though sadly, you were never mine.
But I wish you forever love and always to be well.

My days without you won’t soon be easy to cope with – not at all.

For you are not in my life as I had hoped, not even for a stolen second.

One day maybe we will meet again – I do not know - I can hope.

Time cheats us...I continue missing you, dearly missing you.

Dora's Corner: The Nightmare That Came True: The Two Wrong Shoes!

...You know the nightmare: you are in your underwear in front of a crowd of people...maybe at school, at work, or somewhere public; you are wearing the wrong pair of shoes, one is brown, one is black; you are at the wrong location for an important meeting or event; you arrive to an important event really late; and the nightmare scenarios go on and on and...  Why do you suppose we have these dreams.  I am by no way trying to get psychological or trying to interpret dreams.  I am basically asking a rhetorical question about nightmares that have plagued all of us at one time or another.  The  answers vary if you ask different people about nightmares.  Some say they are because a person is feeling unaccomplished, alone, scared, nervous, etc.  My guess is that we experience these nightmarish dreams because we are feeling insecure.  Let me elaborate with a hellish day I just experienced.
Last Friday, I woke up a little later than usual (my drive is long as I live across town from MC).  I almost put on two different shoes, and almost wore a shirt that needed pressing before cognizance set in.  I was tired, but ready for the weekly test in English that morning.  I got to campus with ten minutes to spare so I studied a little more.  This week we finished the definition rhetorical mode, and began on the cause and effect (causal mode/chain) mode.  At the onset of the test, I almost wrote about the wrong prompt, but I caught myself in time to correct my f--- up and ended up getting a 100.  
After English, I tended to some important matters before I ended up at the computer lab.  I like doing my assignments that are due on Monday mornings the Friday before so that I can focus on the other computer assignments during the weekend.  Well, this particular Friday I was feeling restless.  Maybe due to being tired, but I was missing someone.  Yes, missing someone.  A person I would like to get to know and talk to, but the person "throws me to the doggies" (lol).  It is more than that.  I just needed to be around other people.  I stayed on campus and went to the LRC (library), met with a professor, then ended up in the computer lab until I just could not focus so I left.  I had an essay to turn in for English so I thought I would finish it at home later.  I also needed to eat.  
I get home and eat; I watch some tele (Covert Affairs cause I LOVE me some Piper Perabo - ahh), too.  I almost fell asleep, but since I have never liked napping during the day, I got up to finish that essay.  I looked for my jumpdrive, but it is nowhere to be found.  It is not in the usual security of the small pocket in my jeans, it is not in my saddle-bag, it is not on the butcher-block, it is not on the floor anywhere, it is not in the car, it is not in the garage...then it hits me: "you left the damn drive in the g-damn computer lab!"  Panic sets in because the lab closes at 2pm on Fridays, and it was already 3:30.  I think about who I can call.  I have a friend who knows someone who works at the college, and I also have a dear friend who teaches English there, but then I decide that this situation calls for immediate and personal attention, if you will.  I tell  myself: "you need to get your ass in the car and drive there and make someone open the g-damn door!"  That is what I did, but I was nice about it.  I have learned that you do, in fact, catch more bees with honey.  The professor whose door I knocked on did not have a scan card to open the computer lab, but she suggested I call the campus police.  She had a lot of papers to grade, but she was gracious and understanding enough to get the police phone number for me.  The police dispatch employee was nice as was the officer who showed up and unlocked the lab for me to retrieve my jump drive.  The nice computer lab person, whom I have befriended, thankfully left the drive by the computer where we sign into in the lab so I grabbed it and kissed it. I would have kissed the officer, too, but he is so NOT my type.  LOL.  Aside from the important essay that was due later that night, I had so many important files on that drive.  I would have been in a deep pile of ---- had it not been in the lab!
I got over those feeling of being sad and somber (melancholy - there's that word again).  It is funny how an event can get you out of a slump and make you rethink how lucky you really are.  Anyway, I came home and finished the paper that had been eluding me for completion since it was assigned three days ago.  I worked on some other assignments, and I had to make beaucoup phone calls.  Each time I spoke to a person, if he or she mentioned that they had had a bad day, I brought up my day and the eventful scavenger hunt to retrieve the jump drive.

Dora's Corner: Rewards: The Perks of Going to College!

Going to college is not just about taking courses and getting good grades, it is also about being social and making friends - hopefully you will make one or more good friends that you will have for the rest of your life.  My niece, who is enrolled at MC as I am, and I spoke about the topic of why people go to college: the different classes, the things we would change, the things we liked, our ambitions, our ups and down, etc.  Mainly, we highlighted the feelings that each of us was trying to overcome lately; the inundating feelings of melancholy.  I brought it up because I have not really been able to talk to many people about my feelings, not just the feeling of melancholy, but of some weird association of feeling like I am losing something special.  Maybe I haven't learned the art form of not allowing myself to get so attached to people and to things.  Maybe I just need to check myself and be more realistic; however, at the end of the day, I like who I am, and that I cherish things and people as I do.  Once you have lost as much as I have in my own life, you will learn the other art form of appreciation.  I do not overwhelm others or myself by caring too much, but I do put a lot of effort into anything I do or any relationship that I form.  
Each day that we get closer to the fall semester coming to a close, I do not rejoice, instead I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Is it crazy for me to feel like this! (rhetorical)...  I am almost embarrassed to talk to other people, especially classmates, about how I am feeling because it seems that the more I am saddened about the semester almost ending, others are overjoyed about it; furthermore, some are overtly anxious and are counting the days until the fall semester draws to a close; to most of the overly anxious, college has become blasé and cumbersome.  Shame on them is all I can muster for now.  
I am so glad that I brought up the topic when my niece and I were riding back home from having watched the wonderful opera, Il Barbiere de Siviglia (Rossini, 1775), yesterday afternoon.  My niece drove while I basked in the comforts of her new car loving the new car smell which still permeated the interior of her beautiful car.  My bad....I went off on a tangent...  
Anyway, it was nice to finally talk to my niece (a.k.a. fellow MC student) who basically shared the same sentiments of melancholy that had been plaguing me lately.  We spoke of the wonderful professors whose tutelage we were (respectively) privileged to have been a part of this semester.  We also touched upon the many classmates that made us laugh and made some of the more difficult courses easier to deal with when the study material became arduous and demanding.  Of course, we delved upon the special classmates who provided more than humorous entertainment and study-group time, we spoke fondly of the few mates who we will miss dearly; those who provided an actual friendship to us when we needed it the most.  My niece agreed with me that she had made a couple of good friends in certain classes of hers - as I had done.  However, neither of us is certain if we will keep ties or communication with these people, we would like to, but as with so many things in life that have two sides, what we want may not coincide with what the other person wants.  In other words, we may want to keep a friendship going; however, they might not.  Simple math 1+1=2, but with people, that formula gets tossed and the end result is as vague, vast, and uncertain as is infinity ∞

Dora's Corner: Girl's Day Out: A Day at the Met (kind of): Il Barbiere di Siviglia!

So, my niece, who is also enrolled at Midland College, and I attended this afternoon's showing of Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini, 1775) at the Century Theater in Odessa.  There is a reason why we made the drive over there when Midland has better movie houses and one of them was also showing the well-known opera, but that's another topic for another post.  My niece is taking Music Appreciation at MC, and this opera was a requirement for her, and since I love the Opera, I was the lucky one to get to go with her.  It was a nice invitation and a nice event.  We both love all genres of music, might I add.
We both loved the screening of the opera, which was broadcast live from the one and only THE MET (NYC) via satellite to several theaters around the world (made possible thanks to a generous grant from its founding sponsor, The Neubauer Family Foundation, with additional funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts).
We both also discussed going to NYC to see an opera live at the awesome Metropolitan Theater (lovingly dubbed "The Met").  Anyway, getting back to Il Barbiere di Siviglia, it certainly did not disappoint.  We highly recommend it to anyone interested in the arts.  If you have the grand opportunity to see it (or any opera) in NYC, do it.  If you are like us, and do not have the luxury because of lack of time (etc.), then, please do yourself a favor and look up the schedule and see when an opera will be shown live at a theater near you via satellite as we did today.  It was breathtaking, marvelous, and beautiful.  Oh, no, The Barber of Seville did not disappoint.  It was everything I had always read and anticipated and more.  Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy gets girl, but alas, maybe the union is not as solid...we have to now watch Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart) to see how the marriage between the protagonist (Almaviva) and his lovely wife (Rosina) endures love's always changing ways.
My niece and I laughed because we each grew up watching Looney Tunes, and we both agreed that our first introduction to this awesome opera by Rossini was when Looney Tunes mimicked it with their version of The Rabbit of Seville (watch via MetaCafe) starring Bugs himself.  I guess today, we both grew up as did our taste in music.  LOL.  It's all good.  

Dora's Corner: Undocumented Immigrants: They Should Do What?!!

Okay, it is time for me to get on my almighty soapbox, but believe me, this rant is well worth my time in writing it, and hopefully the time of whatever audience this blog generates.
While waiting for a meeting with a professor, I overheard the prof talking to a student, actually, the prof was tutoring (or trying to tutor) the student.  The topic that they were reviewing from the student's essay involved undocumented immigrants.  The student kept referring to them as "illegals" while the prof kept trying to get the student to change the wording.  Regardless of the student's lack of empathy for the negative and difficult position which undocumented works find themselves, she should have at least refrained from using such derogatory language for the academic audience for which essays are written...
The student argued with the prof on several stances.  The prof was getting agitated, but I have to give the prof high praises for keeping her cool and still getting her point across.  The prof was merely trying to explain the rhetorical method and proper writer's craft to the student, but the student was too hell bent on insisting that: "those illegals need to go back to Mexico"..."they are mooching off the government"..."they are taking all the welfare benefits from Americans that need them" (BTW, dear student, people from Mexico are Americans)...and lastly, the most typical, over-used, and incorrectly used assumption: "those illegals are taking jobs from us in the United States."
The student is suffering from a naivete that I won't even try to justify with a reply or a debate.  The student needs to read about the causal effects and why she needs to avoid the rhetorical fallacy, hasty generalization, personal attack/loss of audience, questionable authority, false analogy, either or fallacy, red herring, slippery slope, stereotyping...all the wrong things that one should avoid while writing in the cause and effect mode, well, this student managed to incorrectly include many of the "don't(s)" in her essay.  No wonder the prof seemed a bit perturbed when she tried to explain what the student was doing wrong (the student hardly did anything correct, it seems), and how to fix it for an academic audience, but the student was not listening.
It took a lot for me to keep quiet.  I wanted to lash out at the student for incorrectly stereo-typing the undocumented immigrants because there is more behind why people from Mexico are in the United States.  The area is vastly gray; however, the student just saw black and white (another incorrect process in an essay).  The other thing that upset me was how the student kind of disrespected the professor.  I like this professor; she has taught me a lot, and I have enjoyed our conversations in and outside of class.  I respect the professor because she has gone to college and put in her time towards becoming an educator; she has earned the right to be respected and treated well.  The prof is younger than I am, but that does not matter to me...she should be respected.  She never disrespects others - even when other people act like asses.  Another reason I stayed quiet was the obvious, the conversation was between a professor and a student, and did not include me.  I mainly stayed silent in respect for the professor - not the lame student, with the one-sided point of view that had no rhyme or logic to whatever rhetorical mode she was incorrectly trying to argue.  Give me a fucking break, ignorant student.  
BTW, I can use the personal attack...it's my blog, and I'll attack if I want to.  #ROTFLMAO!

Dora's Corner: Youth Is Wasted on the Young: Wishing I Knew Then What I Know Now!

I agree with the adage by the mighty George Bernard Shaw: "Youth is wasted on the young."

Lately, I have come to question many decisions I made in my life beginning from when I was in my 20s.  I made some terrible decisions, but still, the good ones outweighed the bad ones.  The biggest regret was not finishing college at Texas Tech.  Those were wonderful times, yet, they were often muddled with clouds of uncertainty and fear.  Those, my friends, were my obstacles, if you will.  I have had some really terrific jobs/careers which afforded me the ability to travel the U.S. and Canada.  It also afforded me the ability to see the country sometimes with loved ones in tow, who in turn, also got the opportunity to see several parts of our beautiful country.  The pay was always substantial (in abounds at times) and that is all I need to say about that.  My regret has little to nothing with how much money I have made; monetary issues are obsolete in this point I am trying to make; however, I do regret that I did not take up other opportunities that I had along the way through to the maturity level of today.  That sounded weird, but I am going with it.
If the youth of today (20s) had the ability to travel forward into time, the ability that unfortunately none of us has, then they would see how taking things for granted and not pouncing on certain opportunities would be something they would well regret.  Had I had a time machine (oh, Jules Verne: Où étiez-vous avec vos idées de science-fiction!  and Isaac Asimov, the same question: Where were you with your sci-fi ideas?).  
Sure, I am back on track after several years to complete a certain educational journey which long eluded me or rather I eluded it.  I am back in college for the umpteenth time, but this time things are extremely different, and with God's help (I'm really not that religious, but I acknowledge His existence), I will succeed this time around.  
One piece of advice to the younger crowd at MC, stay in college, get a degree and definitely allow the world to be your oyster.  Do NOT be stupidly stupid, arrogantly arrogant, and for certain, do NOT believe that you know more than anyone else.  I can assure you that you are not intelligent the minute you close yourself off to the idea of learning from others.

Dora's Corner: Paranoia Will Destroy 'Ya! Guns in the Home!

Hell, YES, I am political as well!
Anyway, during my usual viewing of tele in the morning before my day explodes into a hellish start, I like to watch certain shows (news, sports, political, financial - never reality shows, but that is a topic for another post).  I should explain first that, on Sundays, I like to start my day off being productive in order to enjoy the afternoons with family and friends doing whatever is on the agenda, but mostly I like to have my evenings free to catch episodes of two of my favorite tele shows Madam Secretary (CBS) and The Newsroom (HBO).  
Well, this a.m., I started off by watching an episode of Take Part which is an informative show that discusses politics, culture, finance, social issues, and other topics in a nutshell.  It was recently added to our cable subscription line-up, and I have personally enjoyed it.  One of the topics for this morning's episode (not sure if it was live or a rerun) touched upon the ever-weaving, ever-controversial, gun-control issues.  I am a proponent of allowing people to carry guns, but I am by no means a card-carrying member of the much- too-radical NRA.  I believe in the Second Amendment, but to a point.  The main exclusionary proposals/rules/regulations which place a limit or much-needed block on this beautifully-crafted amendment are too complex for me to list here.  
Getting back to the topic regarding today's episode, Study Finds More Americans Believe Having Guns at Home Keeps Them Safe, it was revealed that an alarming amount of Americans find that having guns in the home make them feel more safe and better protected.  63% of Americans subscribe to that theory...that's 6 out of 10 households!  WOW and SMH! 
I do not believe 100% in gun-toting, but I neither knock down others who exercise the right...as long as they do not stockpile, sell or buy illegally, break any laws with firearms, or break any laws in the 2nd amendment that state more clearly and effectively the provisions and exclusions.  
I might/might not have a weapon, but it might/might not be situated in a place that no one can get to it besides the people who live in our home.  Too many young ones (family/friends) come over at any given moment, so we must be careful in this household; I would hate the idea of one of our younger family members or friends to get injured because of an unproperly stored weapon in our home.
Before I end today's post, I must add that I subscribe to the other theory that most people who carry weapons are more likely to get killed by them.  Just sayin'!

************************************************************************* 

Here are the figures that show who favors guns in the home (according to political affiliation) more details available via Gallup Poll:
Democrats remained steadily in favor at 41%
Republicans jumped 28 points to a not-so-surprising 81%
Independents increased 14 points to 64%