by Well, we had another Echo catastrophe yesterday. I need to plan a mental health day for myself, but I can’t take it yet, and I’m supposed to start jury duty on Monday. I was actually looking forward to jury duty, but I don’t see how I can serve now (I’m the only one to respond to certain problems) and what if they don’t excuse me??
I had a really nice time on Sunday doing a Skype chat about my singing book with the North Shore Choral Society, a volunteer choir from Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. Thank you for inviting me, Linda Faller! It was a lovely break in the midst of a lot of madness. Choir people truly are the nicest people in the world. As if singing itself wasn’t a good enough reason to join a choir. But it’s really the singing and the people. Inseparable.
I have no new pictures because I’ve been inside either working or stressing about Echo. Here is yet another picture from the ballet rehearsal I went to recently. Before the nightmare began.
I see you called Echo “the crankiest group in cyberspace.” Back in 1999-ish, I joined a weird internet chat group we called “BoxTalk”. The originator is a rocket scientist (he has a PhD in solid fuel mechanics) and he dabbled at writing a piece called “The Blue Box of Recycled Ideas”. Then he emailed it to a select group of people. Eventually, this chat group was formed instead of the emails and we’re still going strong. Some of us have died, and the originator is now 88 years old but new people join and the crankiest leave. I would put BoxTalk up against Echo for being the crankiest group!
I am sorry you are having problems with the platform. But you know, if you are looking forward to jury duty, make that your priority. I am sure Echo can take a wee holiday without you. For the first time, in the fall of 2013, I got called for jury duty. When I showed up, there were more than a hundred others to choose from. Some of the excuses they gave for not being “able” to sit on this jury were pathetic. I was just starting my MA that fall but I was willing to see if I could do both. But then my mother started dying and I really didn’t think I could do 3 things. I know they hate jurors who were lawyers, so I told them that and they excused me. I actually don’t know what they would have done if I hadn’t told them I’d been a lawyer in a previous life. I want to find out one day! We didn’t know what the trial was going to be about until after, and it turned out to be the trial of two young men charged with murder. I think it could be really interesting and not like on tv, if you sat on a jury.
I really really want to do jury duty actually and your post made me want to do it more than ever! But it is the worst timing. Normally Echo can do very well without me, but not now. Damnit.
Well, sometimes making this sort of decision is like flipping a coin. Even if the coin turns up ‘heads you don’t’ and you still want to, it just clarifies what you wanted to do all along. Maybe this is n’t the best time for you to be on a jury. I think if we are really wanting to do a thing, we will do it regardless. That’s why, when I got accepted to Carleton for the MA, I posted in my alumni journal: “Julia is going to get her MA in philosophy, even if she wins the lottery in the meantime.” In fact, what happened was the opposite – both my parents died! But I still got my MA. That’s how I feel even more, about going for a PhD. Maybe I should have told the selection committees this anecdote, but I didn’t want to look pathetic or desperate. I would have felt like I was playing ‘the cancer card’ (if I said that was what put me back on the path to school in the first place) and ‘the dead parents card’ and I didn’t want to do that. Of course, at this point, with no offers yet, I don’t care why they take me, I just want someone to offer me a spot! Argh.
I hope you don’t mind me venting here. I have started reading “Imperfect Harmony” and you seem a sympathetic soul and we have things in common. May I also say, you write wonderfully well! I had to stop to read aloud to my husband, the part where you were demoted to 2nd soprano. And then you got into what harmony consisted in, and I was moved to make a note to myself about my burgeoning theory about respect (v. fear.) Anyway. Thanks!
I’m going to be high on your compliments for WEEKS. Thank you.
I’m so sorry about your mother. I lost my mother in 2001, so I know how hard it is, even when you’re an adult.
I got out of jury duty, and I felt sad about it because I wanted to do it, but they only postpone you and she said I would be recalled in six month.