Week #11 – Sick Days Are a Waste When You’re Really Sick

Let’s be honest. No one really likes to use their sick days. Not when they’re really sick. Don’t believe me, check the poll:

Of for sure, it’s nice to know that if you’re not feeling well or need to make a doctor’s appointment you can do so without worrying if you’ll have a job to come to the next day.

But who really likes to waste an entire day (especially a warm one!) stuck in the bed??

The first couple of hours are usually pretty okay (assuming you can sleep through whatever’s ailing you… if not, they can rather torturous!). But then comes the rest of the day. As you sneeze, cough and hack your way through it. Head pounding, stomach churning while everyone else seems to carry without a care in the world… it’s enough to make you sick! That is, if you weren’t already.

Maybe it’s because I hate to waste a day and not get something accomplished. Lazy days don’t frequent my life very often because I’ve just got too much on my plate for that. So I think in the back of my mind, I’m always secretly hoping that I’ll feel better right away so that I can go do laundry or run an errand or clean my room… something productive!

Usually by the time I wake up and respond to enough work e-mails to reasonably put me at ease that I won’t have a pile of work waiting for me the next day or that I haven’t forgotten something really major that’s due to the client… it’s 5pm.  Sigh…

The only nice thing about being sick and stuck in the bed is that you get to catch up on all of your favorite youtube videos. This one seemed appropriate

Okay, so clearly the only reference is the fact that the song is called “So Sick,” but given how I’m feeling right about now I say cut me some slack!

Week #9 – What I Learned Over the Jersey Turnpike

This weekend I had the pleasure of chaperoning a group of young people to a youth conference in New Jeresy. Lots of fun, but as you can imagine, very little sleep.

But I won’t complain! Because a lot of good stuff came out of this weekend – and a few life lessons as well:

#1 – I effectively got this song stuck in my head all weekend.. and would randomly sing it at the randomest moments: Angels Watching Over Me. It’s a good song though. About God’s angels watching over us and keeping us safe from harm. Listen to it if you get the chance.

#2 – Sometimes, not always but sometimes… cold pizza is the absolute worst.

#3 – I’m not as young as I once was. If my body tells me that it can’t stay up til 2 and 3 in the morning AND be up and ready by 8am (plus get a group of girls ranging in ages 9 to 12 ready as well)… I should probablylisten to my body.

#4 – Kids will tell you absolutely ANYTHING. But only if you take the time to listen. Seriously. If we would just stop talking every once in a while and let them ramble, you can really find out what’s most important to them and why. From there, you may have a greater impact on helping to steer them in the right direction.

#5 – I was reminded of the importance of building the right type of love relationships. First off, with God. Secondly, with those in my life. I guess this may sound strange to someone at first. How can your love relationships be off, right? But when I began to evaluate how I relate to some of the people in my life, do some real thinking and meditating on the issue, I began to see some areas that needed some work. My prayer is that over time I’ll be able to correct that and have better, healthier relationships.

Week #8 – I’ve Got More Friends Than You!

I held out for as long as I could.

I can remember being a junior in college. A couple of my friends were talking about this new site called Facebook. I really didn’t see what the big deal was at first. And to be honest, I figured it would just fizzle away like some of those other social networks (BlackPlanet, MySpace, etc.).

I can’t exactly say what finally pulled me in. I think I was just plain curious. Wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

I do distinctly remember somewhat gloating (albeit, in my head) when within my first day or two of joining, I’d already surpassed the number of friends I’d acquired compared to others I knew who had been up there for months (I’m currently at 839… but who’s counting, right?)!

Fastforward 5 years later and Facebook is as much a part of my life as checking my e-mail. Scratch that, it’s probably more a part of my life (especially if you count weekends).

And I don’t consider myself a fanatic. I probably update my status on average once a week. I probably change my profile picture two or three times out of the year. And I’ve only recently started ‘liking’ organization and cause pages… because to be honest, I wasn’t trying to drink the kool aid like everybody else!

I think that’s why I was so hesitant to join the Twitter movement. Oh sure, I could easily see the benefit for a personality-type individual. But what could Twitter do for me? Or more specifically, how much more would I be willing to share via 140 characters that I wasn’t already sharing on my trusty FB page?

In the end, I did eventually create a Twitter account @sdanibenjamin (and not just because we had to for this class). I’ve enjoyed 1 or 2 exciting moments so far (most recently when a fav Gospel music artist re-tweeted me! yay!).

I guess I’ll keep this up… at least until the next big thing comes along.