Monday, January 29, 2007

Rant-a-Meme

A quick rant on something that bothered me:

I went to the grocery store this afternoon. At the end of my checkout, because it was near the exit, was a great conglomeration of 8 or 10 trolleys. I couldn't push mine out while I waited for the woman from the next till over to pick her bags out of her trolley. Predictably, she added another set of wheels to the mix. While I was waiting for her to leave, the woman behind me nodded her hijab at me and said "Excuse me, can I get out?". Well, I had nowhere to go; we still had to wait till the first lady left the store - that's how crowded it was.

I reached for my bags and thought, "I can't leave those trolleys in such a ridiculous state." I could barely reach the exit anyway, and the hijab lady wouldn't have a chance, specially with her baby stroller. So I pushed about 3 trolleys into each other to open a walkway, and as I was doing so, Mrs Hijab waggles at me again, "Excuse me, my baby is sleeping!"
I replied, "But I am trying to make some space here."
She said, "I see that."
And the cashier and the people in the queue looked over at me and shrugged their shoulders.
I would have like to see her try to get out with bags and a stroller if I hadn't done that.

Sometimes I hate being thoughtful. It would have been so EASY for me to pick up my bags and leave my trolley right where it stood. Of course, if I try that next time, some old lady is liable to look at me and shake her head and proclaim something about the youth of today. You cannot win...

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OK, Blue tagged me with this a week ago and Leilouta did today.

Five Things About Me:

1) I am shy around other people's children, but not their dogs.
2) The only fruit I crave is apples, even if I enjoy others
3) When I was 3, I stole a toy from Nursery School. It was a small orange cube with no known function.
4) I used to hate my first name! I wanted my middle name first.
5) Sometimes I like to put condensed milk on my buttered toast, mmmm.

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I also decided to do the Book Meme:

1. Find the nearest book.
2. Name the book & the author.
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page. Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
5. Tag three more folks.

So it is the book I am reading at the moment:
Theatre of the Mind: Raising the Curtain on Consciousness by Jay Ingram
p. 123, sentences 6, 7 and 8 read:

Some even argue that this experiment doesn't explore free will at all, because the participants know they have to make several of these "spontaneous" movements over the course of the experiment and that the movement will be exactly the same (or essentially so) each time. In fact, when the experiment was first described to participants, they were conscious of the instructions and the procedure - somewhere in their minds they "knew" what they were doing. Yet to take the results at face value you'd have to believe that this background awareness was suspended each and every time they flicked their wrist.

No favouritism here - I tag YOU!


In the tradition of ending each post with a photo, I have discovered The Woodlands College Park High School, home of the Cavaliers. Oooh! I am so envious! I went to a big square brown school built in the 70s. McCullough was the first high school in the Woodlands, back when it was young. Home of the Highlanders.

Now look at this! A high school!

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh! That picture reminds me of my school. I can only find photos of the back of it at the moment, but the front entrance is very like that picture you have.

Anonymous said...

hey I would do that meme, but I am moving soon

t Genies place! wooohooooo...

and poop the chemicals in the Lithorgraphy lab has made me loose my voice

and I have to cancle my tele/net today

woh beeeping hoo

The Moody Minstrel said...

Poor Olivia! That'll teach you to be a decent human being!

Okay...for the book meme:

The Big Book of Small Stuff by Richard Carlson, Ph.D., pg. 123 sentences 6-8:

"A strange thing happens when we postpone happiness until a later date. It's as though, in the meantime, we're rehearsing how to be unhappy. We become experts."

MattJ said...

You should have just shouted at her 'I'M SORRY?! I OULDN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE CLATTERING OF THE TROLLEYS I WAS MOVING SO THAT YOU COULD GET OUT!'

But maybe that's just me..... :p I already ddi the 5 things one, and the nearest book to me is UNIX in a Nutshell..... so it's your fault!

MattJ said...

Actually I will do what minstrel did and post it here lol! That's your punishment! :p

UNIX In a Nutshell by Arnold Robbins, p123 lines 6-8:

"View the mnpage for the grep command; begin near the word "BUGS" and compress extra whitespace:

man grep | more +/BUGS -s"

Olivia said...

Katja - oh yes, yours looks sort of Jacobean-Neoclassical.
Very pretty. There is nothing like a pretty campus, I say.

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Jia Li - all your books are probably in boxes. When you get settled in, we will have a chat and you can tell me all about it.

***

Minstrel - I know :`(

Hey, yours came out as a great quote!

***

Matt - Like most nice people, I usually come out with the best biting sarcastic answers *afterwards*.

Ugh, and thanks for not quoting from Unix.

Olivia said...

Matt - darn, you snuck in here whilst I was commenting and quoted it!!!

*throttles Matt*

ML said...

Wow, that's a beautiful school!

That first bit about the trolleys really bites! Here you are trying to be a good person and that ungrateful woman is telling you to get out of the way! UGH! It's interesting that everytime I've been helpful or kind to someone, it never works out for the positive.

Love the memes :)

Beenzzz said...

The grocery store situation would have made me angry as well. You were just trying to be helpful! I like yur meme's too. :) That high school is gorgeous.

Um Naief said...

some of these women get very snooty, it sounds like she was one of them. and you'd think she would have thanked you for moving the carts... next time, don't be so nice. i've learned that sometimes it doesn't pay to be kind. it's often that the ladies are rude here.... i've gotten to where i ignore it, but sometimes you just can't.

love your lists. the meme one was quite interesting. i might do that, altho i'm not reading a book right now.

it's interesting that you're shy around children... i would have thought otherwise, but i know what you mean. sometimes i'm more in tune w/ animals than i am ppl, and have always thought, because of this, that i liked animals more. maybe i still do! ;)

it's sweet that you remember stealing a cube from school. isn't it weird the things that we remember from our childhoods!

i used to hate my name too. one reason is that one of my cousins used to make fun of me and call me another name that was similar and i hated her for it. now, i like it.

Leilouta said...

Olivia,
Don't mind the rude people. Keep doing whatever you're doing, and if they bother you be rude to them, that might shut them up.I used to be very shy until a few years ago. People like that just make me want to scream. Last week I had a different incident at the grocery. By accident I touched a woman's leg with my cart. I apologized immediately. She stared at me for a few seconds and shouted really loud," Are you in hurry?" and kept mumbling for a few seconds. So I shouted back at her to get over it.

I used to eat condensed milk by itself without anything :)

Prerona said...

I love the pic! And the meme!

Anonymous said...

Tsk Tsk Tsk.... You just can't be nice these days anymore! Especially with them Hijab ladies, they can be somewhat psychos (ok, the ones I've seen at our local grocery can pass for ones)

Beautiful high-school. Reminds me of the high-schools here in Bahrain... NOT :)

Ok, the book meme... Like the idea. I'm at work now, and the only book near me is SQL server! Don't think that'll work here.

AmitL said...

Hi,Olivia..yes,sometimes,you cannot win either way.And,especially in supermarkets,even here,I see people just inconveniencing the ones behind by leaving trolleys and baskets anywhere they want.It's like' My work is done,so why should I care?'.As for the five things- condensed milk on toast?I never tried that.

Miss Dallas said...

Have you ever seen the private school for the gifted in The Woodlands? The John Cooper School? That thing is crazy!

I haven't seen that campus before, but they're putting so many new ones up in The Woodlands because of the large property taxes they can get from all of the McMansions everywhere. That building looks more like it belongs on the SMU campus!

Miss Dallas said...

I forgot the meme!

Nearest book (at work, if at home, it's a whole different story!): Associated Press Stylebook 2005 .

Page 123, sentences 6-8:

International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers: The shortened form, Machinists Union, is acceptable in All references. Headquarters is in Washington.

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers: Use the full name on first reference to avoid confustion with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.

ML said...

Hi Olivia, I just thought I'd let you know that Beenzzz and I are sisters, not aunt and niece :)