Jo's Personal Blog at Blogger.com: 2014

Friday

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Addresses and Locations

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-book-of-me-written-by-you-topic-1.html#sthash.2TuO2bVu.dpuf

The prompt for the week is:

Addresses and Locations

The Brief:

Are there addresses and locations from your childhood you can recall?
Can you remember your next door neighbours?

Their name
What they looked like
What car they drove (if any)

Addresses of family and friends
Describe the houses
Shops
Clubs
Do you have any pictures - houses, street signs etc

Locations:
I can recall most of the places I've lived which is quite a few since my mother - for some unknown reason - loves to move about every 3-5 years. She always gives great excuses, but its a pattern that I'm not sure why she got into as everyone else in her family stays at locations for years.
We've stayed in the following places:

Newburgh
Walden
Maybrook
Montgomery
Lyon Mountain

Neighbours:
I do still remember some neighbours. These are:

The trailer park - I used to go and talk to another little girl in one of the houses behind and another who visited her grandparents who lived next our trailer.
South Montgomery Street, Walden - I still talk to one of the families that lived first in front and then behind the places we rented
Capron Street, Walden - the sister/brother who lived across the street
Next to Jim Brady's/White Rabbit Inn in Montgomery (going towards Walden) - I still talk to a few of the people I hung out there with
And the other places, I didn't really get to know the neighbours - usually because we didn't speak to each other.

Picture Recall:

Some pictures I do have of where we lived and others are at my mothers in photo albums. I will put a few of the pictures up that I do have. Further, I've been looking up our old houses in Google Earth and then taking a "snapshot" of the buildings now if I could. As there are many addresses, I will pick only some to do.

Birth - late 1970s - Newburgh (that's me with the puppies)


Same house taken from Google Earth 2013

1970s. We stayed here (bottom) when my mother left my father for a short time

1970s. We then stayed on Walnut Street (the weird shaped building was the elementary school) for a bit

1970s. We then moved to get a bigger place when my sister came to visit (above the agency)

1980s. This was the trailer park. We lived in the most back corner with the loop - away from everyone.

1980s. We then moved into the this lane (middle of page) We stayed at the 3rd house (with tree) and then moved to the top house

About 1988. The house we lived at in Lyon Mountain. We rented the back and my sister rented the front.

1988-191This changed ALOT. When we lived here, by Jim Brady's, it was a duplex with 2 steps leading up into the house. We lived closest to the telephone pole.

1989-1991 lived on first level (my car is in the front!)

1991-1997 we lived on the top part (the yellow boards with fire escape)

Hope you liked the picture list.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - How do you measure success?

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

How do you measure success?

The Brief:

Can success be measured?
Medals or Trophies
Money or reward
Status
Personal Knowledge
Achievements
How others view you?

Award for participation in Basketball

When I was growing up, I used to measure success by going to school and bring home good grades. Then when I started to run, play basketball and other athletic things, I measured it, at first, by making it through first a game and then the season. This included some of the runs I did where I actually did get mentioned in the newspaper and by getting a trophy.

Two of my running trophy's (see newspaper clippings)

My placement in one of the 4th of July races in Walden NY (Wallkill Valley Times)

Award for most trying & most improved in Elementary School

I was also trying very hard at school. I did get a medal for the most improved student and found that when I tried harder, I could do it, but I had to try ALOT as I know what I want to say its just hard getting it out and down. I always got very frustrated at myself, others and subjects because I knew what I had to do, but I couldn't put it down on paper. However, it took me years to get it to the point of being able to put it down either on paper on the keyboard. I've only just become more able to do this within the last handful of years. I also starting thinking success was in the bank balance - meaning I had to find a job that paid big bucks to be successful.

Placed 4th in the NYS conference award

Outstanding Student Award

By the time I got towards the end of college, I started to realize it was the small things that really count - being acknowledged for a job well done - handshake, hug, slap on the back - all counted. Yes, you couldn't revisit them, unless it was by memory, but at least it was an acknowledgement.

Trade School Honor Society

High School Honor Society

Does you family celebrate?
I didn't realize until after my high school and trade school graduations in 1991, that you were supposed to be congratulated, praised and usually there was a celebration mixed in. It was really weird to me because when my graduations happened, and I went to other graduation parties and were talking to others, they were all celebrating and having parties. I quickly figured out that was what people did.

When I graduated and celebrations before and after

My family didn't, and still don't, do things like normal families. My family does buy the cards, and may put either money or a gift with it, which was handed, or almost shoved, at me afterwards. They said congratulations and walked away. My mother, for my high school graduation, complained the whole way home because she was cold and would probably catch pneumonia because it had started to rain and we had to go inside while her and my sister went and sat in the car. There was no dinner, no party, no nothing - a normal day resumed after we got home. For my college graduation, my mother and nieces went (I drove my car) and I forced the issue with celebration - I met a group of friends and we finished getting ready together and after took pictures together. However, after I dropped my neices off and we went home, again it was like a normal day. This time, however, a few days after I had planned to have celebrations where I worked by renting a few rooms and, after clearing them out, I had one for food, one for dancing and partying (games, etc) and one for people who wanted to sit around and talk quietly. My mother did go and sat in the one room and talked quietly to some of the others. I paid for the whole thing myself, but at least I had a celebration of sorts.

When I started to work for Manpower Temp agency I got this award for my work.

After that, I gave up. I don't celebrate my birthday and if I get a certificate or anything else, I just don't celebrate it. Its just too depressing. Only because of my husband did we even have a proper wedding and reception because if it was left up to me, we probably wouldn't have had one.

Do you celebrate anything later in life?
Even to this day, I just don't celebrate anything other than holidays because I've found each time I counted on something, from growing up and into adulthood in my life, it just wouldn't either happen or something bad would happen. In fact, when I got my Certificate IV in Web Based Technology, which I got high distinction (think high 90's out of 100), nothing was done other than me saying thank god I'm done and receiving the certificate in the mail.

My latest Certificate in 2014

Now I measure things in I'm alive what else can life throw at me rather than how far can I reach, which is sad.

How do others see you?
When I was going to school, I had a few friends that would call me brainac (lovingly). It didn't really matter to me because I had nothing to judge and only what I saw others do. I think it annoyed them I had so many good grades without really trying or so they thought. However, what they didn't see was even though they didn't have the upper grades like me, they were the ones that were richer - they had a family that was happy for them with hugs and kisses on the day and the celebrations. In my eyes, I saw they were the richer ones than myself. However, I do know of at least one that thought I was in the better position because of the grades.

This is what a friend wrote after I failed either a mid of final exam.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

Thursday

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Clubs and Societies

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

Clubs and Societies

The Brief:

Do you belong to any?
Do you have to belong to any?
Are there any you belonged to and now don't?
What made you join them (and perhaps leave)?
What were they about?
Do you have membership details of organisations that family members belonged to?
What does it mean to belong to group / society / organisation?

To belong to a group, society or organisation means that you are with a group of people who have a common interest, bond or view of topics - unless you are family and then its a common ancestor you are related to and usually have common values.

In my lifetime, I belonged to many groups and organisations. Some where when I was in high school and it was due to high marks and standards (think honor societies), others were due to group who liked technology and business (Future Business Leaders of America), and then there were the sports or exercise.

In college, I was a member of (in different levels) and was the VP of the Computer Club (again common thing was technology and computers. When I was going to the SUNY or state university, I was accepted as a common member of the radio team, but that was only because I hung out with them on campus.

Lessons Learned
While I learned much about how to run the club like a business, how to organize and run meetings, and politics of it all, I also learned sometimes you just have to say NO. Why? Because I was running myself down and ended up really sick, and even at one point, threw my back out because I was constantly on the go. People came to see me and I had to fit them into the schedule - usually with a 10 minute chat which was sometimes fitted in while walking to class. My health - both physical and mental - was not worth it. I would try my hardest but I wouldn't put my health at risk even though I had to remember this lesson learned when I started work in 2006 as I started to get into the habit of just go, go go!

Below are some pictures from these clubs I belonged to.

Basketball

Chorus

VCHS Honor Society listing names.

VCHS Pool aide manual that was used

FBLA voting delegate member

VCHS honor cords for honor society

National Honor Society sash

Computer club membership

Computer Club committee member

Winning OCCC Computer Club of the year

I have also done running, raising money via riding bikes and running for charities, and countless other committee or membership things like Girl Scouts or Girl Guides.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

Wednesday

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - What do you See?

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

What do you See?

The Brief:

Public Use Allowed

Having seen the image what is the thing you thought? Write that down.
Does what you have written have any resemblance to how you view life?

Half full or half empty

Describe how you feel after you have reflected. Does that differ from your immediate thoughts?

Take a look at the picture of the glass and what do you see? A glass? Half full? Half empty? Take a good long look...

I used to dislike these types of questions because there was no one right or wrong answer. It frustrated me. I'd sit there and think about it and see it from angles and try to come up with the one right answer. After years of sitting there and thinking things through - I do tell people do NOT try and get into my brain as its a VERY scary place! - I finally came up with why I was having such a hard time with it.

I can hear you sitting there asking yourself - Well? Why? WHY? Why! Tell me! Because I'm a realist. The glass and water can be anything you want it to and it will change. Sure the glass is - at this point the camera captured it - full or empty a you wish. BUT what happens after this picture was taken... did someone fill it and drink from it? Or did they say we have our picture for the day and empty it? Guess what? It doesn't matter because whatever you were going to do with the glass and water was going to happen whichever decision you were going to make. This includes if you dropped the glass and it shatters - it was going to happen either now or later so it doesn't really matter.

Decision Making - the next step
This being said, I do try and look at all angles/sides which annoys people to no end if they realize I'm doing it. Most people go if I do step A and take a left it will head me into that direction. Others will go to step A and take a right and it will go there and then make a decision. Myself? I go to step A and then try and see what the decisions are from there and then make the next decision and so on until usually I get so confused or its so clear I'm either really comfortable with the decision or really uncomfortable with the decision I have to make that I sit there for a long time. Then its the uncomfortable one people intend to get frustrated with me because I'll just sit there.

I think the fact I used to read books called "Choose Your Own Adventures" which depended upon the decisions you make for the story have something to do with it. I used to sit down with the book, a piece of paper and pencil and list out options for each before making the decision and then make it. At the beginning I usually wasn't in a good spot at the end, but by the time I got finished? I was doing the route A to options are and what would I think do to route B and so on. I sat down and tried to route out the entire journey and I got about 1/4-1/2 of it correct which freaked other kids out. The lesson that was learned was you can map things out but just think out your journey far ahead.

Have All Decisions been good ones?

From Flickr account -

Of course not! Life had many twists and turns like a river. Some days that river runs fast and other days its almost stopped but overall that river is still moving - just like life and our decisions within it. You just have work with what you've got and try and have fun and lots of laughter while you are doing it.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Life Chapters

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

Life Chapters

The Brief:

Is your life divided into chapters?
How has that happened? Has it naturally evolved?
Can you easily reflect where one chapter ends and another begins?

Are there any surprises?

Are those Chapters determined by people and / or places / or significant events?

The chapters in my life have all naturally accord by decisions people have made. I like to think of it Sliding Doors" effect. Its just like the movie - you come upon one ultimate decision - do you go left or right because each of these will take you onto a different journey. Then your life go spiraling this way or that and sometimes they intersect again and sometimes they don't.
as the "

Growing up, I started reading things like "Choose Your Own Adventure" which is a story in which the reader makes decisions and it would send you in different directions based upon the decision. Life is exactly like that.

I have to say, my life has been divided into chapters. They are:

From prebirth to when my mother left my father
From when my mother and I were together until I left the US to get married
From walking off the plane until current

Prebirth to Mother leaving Father

I know from more than one person, how much fighting, yelling at one another and laughing and jokes were done. Usually the fighting and yelling were done when my father was home and the laughing and jokes were when he was away. That's how I can remember tiny snippets from that time. Nothing major just feelings really.

Mother until Migration to Australia

This was mainly one of moving and sameness. My mother did and does thrive on nothing changing and everything staying the same for about 3-4 years. Once the 3-4 year mark hits, and all of a sudden she has to move. She complains about it all, but rather than make adjustments or finding out how to stay, she up and moves again and again.

She has a routine and those of you who break it, hold on to your hats because its going to get loud. If she doesn't eat by 4:30pm then either you miss out or it gets cold - tough if you want something different. If she has a show she watches, don't try and get her to tape it or miss it or else there will be hell to pay and you'll be sworn at quite a bit.

Migration to Australia to Present

This one is more often than not thought of in happiness. We've been married over 15 years and I've only had to move 5 times and most of those were because of the time when we had a fire and moved around a bit. However, since buying our house, I haven't had to move in over 12 years and its been THE BEST in that regard.

Us in front of our house

Like all couples, it hasn't been happy times all around. We've had me first getting a job, because no one wanted to hire someone not Australian. Then I lost my job 4 1/2 years after I got one due to them selling 1/2 the business and so I was unemployed again. Then I got another full time one working for the state government only to loose that one at about the 5 1/2 year mark due to budget cuts when they cut the whole position in the state and again I'm unemployed. I've now done study for web design and finished it with A (or HD) marks, only to find the jobs need some kind of real experience in order to get them. This is where I am at now.

2014 Web Based Tech Qualification

Further, you had us try and have kids. Unfortunately being classified infertile and about 10 years ago we were told we had about 1-2% of ever having kids. This year we decided to roll the IVF dice again to try again - only to fail. At the moment, we're trying to get over accepting this disappointment.

One of our campsites at Bathurst.

That being said, we have had some good times - camping and attending a few V8 motor racing meets at Bathurst in New South Wales in Australia. We visited 14 of states in the US and the final goal will be all 50 of them. We've built a house, and am happy. The only thing I ever require is a stable roof over my head, happiness, food in the belly, and kids. It looks like they are all going to be met except the last, so I guess that's something.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.