WWBC: Saddest Book I’ve Read

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate including a full list of topics for the year, please click here.

I’ve read some sad books in my day. As a Jewish cancer-survivor I get punched in the feels pretty easily. Night, Number the Stars, Diary of Anne Frank, and even purely historical reviews of the Holocaust are so hard to read. In the same vein, while it is not my people’s history, reading more on how black people have been treated and the immense numbers of humans enslaved, killed, and the horrors in between is eye-opening in a very heartbreaking way. One noteworthy book being Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

Flowers for Algernon is up there as the saddest book I’ve read. I don’t want to spoil it if you haven’t read it. It’s a classic, it’s now been banned in schools which is ridiculous, and you need to have some tissues and water nearby to wipe your tears and rehydrate.

Moods in the same vein:
– Movie – I Am Sam
– Movie – Simon Birch
– Book – Of Mice and Men

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Bad Dreams and Terrible Sleep: a Vicious Cycle that WFH Does Not Help

My bad dreams cause me to have terrible sleep, the terrible sleep contributes to my daytime stress, and then I have bad dreams. You can see where this is going.

I’m not even sure my bad dreams are necessarily nightmares. WebMD says that “[n]ightmares are vividly realistic, disturbing dreams that rattle you awake from a deep sleep”. I don’t think they rattle me awake, I think they just disturb my sleep.

My dreams are almost all different settings with different people. The end result is me feeling alone, scared, lost, or in some form or other of an action movie that I am not prepared for. I have a high level of stress at the moment from a few things and it’s definitely flowing over into my dreams. Just last night I was lost in theme park. I went through the same “exits” over and over, instead ending up on another ride I didn’t want to be on or somehow moving through the park and looping right back to another exit I had already been through. As I saw the pattern repeating I began to run through the park, then things got very “action-film”-y. I was starting to be targeted at exits, I was power-sliding under rails, ducking to hide my face, and eventually escaped on a plane. I know it sounds fun, but I promise it was scary. First off, I get lost easily. Second, I am a nervous wreck while lost. The entire time in this dream my anxiety was in overdrive. I am waking up after the level of anxiety has made me sweat to the point of dehydration, after I have physically abused my SO in my sleep, and after my inner-spirit is curled in a ball screaming and crying.

This makes it so that when I read an email from a coworker who has been passive aggressive and the email can be read as passive aggressive, I get overly defensive or am ready to be on the offense and completely shut down. This only feeds my stress which, since I’m so great at stress management and amazing at conflict management both inwardly and in social and professional situations, means I hold that in my chest. I have never been great at “not bringing work home with me” and now that work is my home, that my desk is in my bedroom, I am not any better at it.

I will be addressing all aspects of this in therapy, by journaling, by meditating, and by talking to personal, professional, and all the in-between contacts that I have that can guide me to the right place.

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BBH: Images, books and otherwise, for Posts

Book Blogger Hop is a weekly, Friday through Thursday, question themed post. Originally created by Crazy for Books and reignited by Coffee Addicted Writer, its purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers their own blog.

This week’s post is “Where do you get book images for your posts?” and was submitted by Elizabeth at Silver’s Reviews.

Generally, for books, I use Goodreads. I find that by using a single source, my pictures come out mostly the same size and shape which makes formatting more simple and consistent. I occasionally use Google searched, but it tends toward the issues that Goodreads helps to avoid.

For images that aren’t of book covers, I use Unsplash; “Over 2 million free high-resolution images brought to you by the world’s most generous community of photographers.”. In fact, the cover for most of my posts come from Unsplash, including this post.

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The Significance of a Job Title

Job titles matter. They reflect what your responsibilities are and your level of authority. They are also an apparent factor that recruiters and hiring managers will skim; more so than the explanation under the title.

“In a recent survey of office workers, a shocking 70% said they would take a better job title over an increase in salary.” – Do Job Titles Really Matter, Jennie Kitchin | Aquent

Flex Jobs has a very useful blog post which goes into detail on the different impacts of a job title and what can be done.

“-Like any benefit, job titles can be negotiated and changed.” – Brie Reynolds, FlexJobs Career Development Manager and Coach | Cited from the aforementioned blog post.

If, as is in many cases, the job title is non-negotiable, there is a way to better reflect your role. Right next to your given title, either in parenthesis or separated by a pipe (|), add a more common and more relevant title. Continuing to reference Flex Jobs, the example is the unclear title of Growth Guru. Based on the leadership level and responsibilities of the job, the more explicit title is Content Marketer. Displaying this, without deception, would like:
Growth Guru (Content Marketer) or Growth Guru | Content Marketer

It’s also important that your equivalent title accurately represents your role. Undermining your title can cause stagnation or difficulty in pursuing your next job while overrepresenting yourself can also lead to failure as you can be viewed as overqualified for desires roles or underqualified for the roles you apply to and interview for.

*Being underqualified should not be a deterrent, as long as it is not too large of a gap in transferable skills or experience.

Reddit (via this post) also has some useful perspectives. User TheDaveSyndrome asked “Is job title important?”
u/Aboiement replied “Can confirm. Hired many people in my day. If I saw “associate” or “junior” in the title, I knew they didn’t have direct reports… they were the direct report.
However, if I saw “VP” next to someone’s name from a tiny 10 person company, I also knew they were full of [$h!t].”

Job titles can influence what searches you come up in for recruiters, whether you make it through a resume screening algorithm, and if a hiring manager will take the time to read further in to your application. Title yourself wisely!

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Turning 30 on Mother’s Day!

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Before I start this post about me and my mom and my birthday, I want to recognize that this day can bring all kinds of emotions.
I want to reach out to everyone who is having a rough time this mother’s day. If you can’t spend time with your mom because of COVID, if your mom has passed, if you don’t have a good relationship with your mom, please know that you are loved. If you are a mom and today is difficult because you can’t see your children, or your children have passed, or you want to be a mom and are having difficulties, please know that you are loved.
Mother’s Day is a reminder for many of us, and those memories and feelings may bring a mixture of emotions. You are not alone and you are loved. ❤

So every 6 years my birthday falls on Mother’s Day. I was born on a Thursday so it’s pretty cool timing that a milestone birthday is on Mother’s Day.

Both my birthday and my mom’s birthday are in May. Growing up as the only daughter in my family, my mom and I always had a girls’ day or a girls’ trip so quarantine has been pretty rough on us. I think there’s been, in these thirty years of my life, maybe three birthdays that I didn’t spend significant quality time with my mom.

I’m so excited that we’ve both been vaccinated and we get to spend time together safely.

^{(Yes, I know we can become carriers, and we aren’t doing anything to endanger others. We just both have items that can be potentially exacerbated to the point of extreme health risk should we have contracted COVID.)}

_{Obligatory “Not A Doctor” Notice.
This will be some research as well as some info about me. The information about me and/or discussed with my doctor are unique to me and should not be assumed to work for anyone who is not me. That being said:
I am not a doctor or medical professional. None of my “research” is clinical or medically viable. Do not make any diet, exercise, medication, or lifestyle changes without first consulting a medical professional.}

I am so glad we get to spend time together this year!

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May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (II)

“More than 100 hundred years later in 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed the first presidential proclamation for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week. In 1992, Congress passed an amendment that called on the people of the U.S. to observe Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month with “appropriate ceremonies, programs and activities.” –Good Housekeeping

Here’s a shortcut glossary to Asian American and Pacific Islander-related terms. Just keep in mind that cultural identities can overlap in this larger classification of AAPI people.

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May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

I recommend going to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2021 (asianpacificheritage.gov) to learn more about what this month means.

Ask your friends, all of them, how they are educating themselves about the US’s history with Asian Pacific populations .

Ask you Asian Pacific friends how they are doing with all of the turmoil from COVID, about their family’s history, about how they are doing in general and what they think is important for you to consider during this month.

Be a better American. Learn who is around you, where they came from, how the US has treated and mistreated populations, and how you can make it better.

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Add These 5 Shows To Your Hulu List

The women of RHOC are hysterical, their drama is either petty or heartbreakingly real, and their fashion is never second rate. I see some of these women walking around their house in cocktail dresses and heels even when there are no plans, and I love it, even though I’ll never do it. The men, whether they like it or not, also end up roped in. It’s just some chaotic fun.

If you want lighthearted, easy to watch, and mildly dramatic then this is your show. Each episode features a different set of people renting a cabin, the consistent characters are the ones who live near the cabin which is kind of in the middle of nowhere. My husband loves it, my mom loves it, and so will you (I hope).

To me, this is kind of the same emotional and drama levels of the above. It’s a little dark, and I mean just a little. It’s funny and the surprising and the actors are so great. There is some buy-in with regard to extra-terrestrials, but you don’t have to be a believer to watch it, just be ready for that element.

I mean, you should watch all of the Law and Orders of all time. You especially need to watch SVU season 12’s Finale and then the opening scene of season 13 so that you can watch the NEW Law and Order Organized Crime!! As Christopher Meloni says, “-people just can get enough Stabler in their lives”.

(Sub)

If you couldn’t tell by the caption above, this is subtitled. And you should be able to tell that it’s a little dark, but there’s also an element of comedy and twists that are not dark, just surprising. Ah, and it should be obvious, but it’s an anime.

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21 Upcoming Historical Fiction Books You’re Going To Love

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kirbybeaton/spring-2021-historical-fiction-books

There’s No Real Reason to Eat 3 Meals a Day

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/your-weird-pandemic-meals-are-probably-fine/618210/