Monday, June 18, 2012

Losing Your iPhone Contacts: A Life Metaphor

Hey, hey, hey! I bet that intriguing title really pulled you in to this post, eh? You're in for a treat. This is going to be one of those great sparkly posts where I take a dull, basically insignificant event from my real life and explode it into a genius analogy for the way life works. It takes someone reaaaally special to do this, I know, I know.

It all started last night when I was messing around on my iPhone and wanted to use the "Reminders" app. "What a great new app that I now have after updating to iOS 5.0.whatever!" I thought to myself, "I can keep track of my To-Do lists here, instead of writing myself a million post-its that inevitably get lost and don't actually help me remember anything."

Little did I know, the iPhone (coy little b-yotch that she is) was thinking, "Uh, yeahhhh NO. You're not gonna be doing that."

So this is sort of how our metaphorical conversation went last night:

iPhone: You wanna use the Reminders app, huh? Well SUCK IT! There's no way to add a new task!
Me: Hush, child. I will just be oh-so-computer savvy and Google search remedies for this predicament.
iPhone: *growling in protest*
Me: See?? Look! All I have to do is delete my iCloud account and the appropriate "+" should show up so I can add tasks to my list. Easy peasy!
iPhone: Hmm. Foiled again by the Apple Discussion Boards. You'd better watch your back. Soon I will exact my revenge on you. MWahahahaha.
Me: *Blissfully unaware of this last comment, adding new tasks to my To-Do list.*

Well, this morning started out like it normally does: Me hating life because I have to get out of  bed ... wait, that's irrelevant. Anyhow, I needed to call my dad at some point this morning and realized...

ALL OF MY CONTACTS WERE GONE.

Me: *Smacking iPhone awake after its evil slumber* WTF have you done with my contacts, jerk?
iPhone: *silence*

"Fiiiiine," I thought. "I'll just go back to the discussion boards again and solve this problem." Unfortunately, there were about 50 suggested solutions, none of which worked for me and my cray-cray phone. At this point, I'm about to give up, when I realize that I can go back to my old texts and manually re-add everyone. Problem solved.

What does this have to do with life, you ask? Well, I realized today that sometimes you have to take the annoying, tedious route through life. There's not always a quick fix for losing all your contacts. Or making it as an artist/singer/firefighter/insert preferred career path here. When you want something in life, we always look first for the time-saving option (which isn't bad, sometimes you DO save a lot of time.) But other times, you just have to shake your fist at the iPhone/institution aka "The Man" and say "FINE. I'll do it the hard way, but goshdarnit I WILL DO IT."

So next time you have a goal in mind (restore contacts/secure financial future/achieve childhood dream/etc.), get after it! It won't be easy, and you might be tempted to give it all up in the process. But once you finally get that final contact entered using the irritatingly small little touchscreen buttons (for example), you'll feel soooo much better about yourself and life in general.

Final words of advice: Follow your heart, don't give up on your dreams, and for goodness' sake, don't get on the bad side of your phone. And don't use iCloud.

Sparlke on, pals.

Friday, June 15, 2012

The Times They Are A-Changin'...

Yikes. It's been quite some time since I've updated Sparlke, Sparkle. I'm glad to see Deva has done some work since I've been gone... the tables have turned, eh? But here I am again, taking an hour of vacation time from work (I've accumulated almost 40, I can take 1 for no good reason, alright?) to update you with the meaningless meanderings of my mind. (Alliteration for the win!)

As the title of this post may have hinted, the times they ARE a-changin'. Even the blogger platform has changed, and I'm writing this with a little bit of anxiety because I have no idea if this is going to work. Have I mentioned that I don't like change? It makes my head hurt.

I'd better get over it however, because there are a lot of changes coming up for me. Like moving for the 13th time in 6 years. (Yes, I counted in AND out of each dorm room, apartment, etc. Packing is packing and it's always annoying no matter how far you're going.) This time I'm moving to an apartment that I've never even seen, save for a few photos that my mom snapped. The amount of trust I have put in my mother to know whether an apartment will be acceptable for living is astronomical, folks. Seriously, I would leave the job to no other person on this planet. That being said, I'm still a little nervous about the things that don't really show up in pictures... you know, the flaking paint, the grime on the sink, the caulk in the bathroom that desperately needs re-caulking. And I have to admit, I get a little real estate jealous when I see people on facebook in apartments with hardwood floors, fireplaces and crown molding. Oh well, I guess when you're going back to being a full-time student, you can't complain about the details.

And speeeeaking of being a full-time student again, did I mention I'm nervous about that too? As much as I get tired of my job from time to time, I do enjoy the whole "leave it at work" mentality. If I want to watch TV all night, I CAN. And I like making money! (Who would have guessed!) It's nice to be able to spring for a new pair of shoes just because, or like, buy food. I'm not sure these treats will be available for me come August. Well, hopefully the food will be or otherwise I'll be going on an unintentionally severe diet. At any rate, it's going to be an adjustment to get back to the college life without any of the fun parts of the college life. Seems as though when you get older you have to slowly extract from your life all the great stuff about being a young 20-something... staying out late for no good reason, seeing your friends every day, eating an entire bag of cheddar and sour cream chips and not caring at all... good stuff. I'm sure there are probably some good things about being a mid-20-something in grad school. I wish I could bring my friends with me to guarantee my sanity. Guess I'll have to settle for bringing the chips... if I can afford them.

And as for leaving Nebraska? Well that's an emotional hairball that demands its own post. So tune in next time for when I delve deep into the meaning of the "love-hate relationship." You know you're excited.

Sparlke on, pals.

Friday, June 1, 2012

B

Once upon a time at our local DCFS office, there worked a wonderful receptionist. You see, often times the people I talk to on the phone are not so happy. Either they are sad, they are scared or they are just plain annoyed to hear from me. But not this person, no "B", as we will call her, is always happy to hear from me.

I don't know how she does it. I want to be her.

This complete stranger not only goes out of her way to help me, but did so much as to mail me some releases I sent over to be signed weeks previously. Attached was a post-it that had written on it "Smile, Devin." Along with this message was a rainbow and a smiley face sun. I hung the post-it above my desk. (Do you think she knows how frazzled I am? haha)

Often times I feel vulnerable at work, but it's nice to know that people can be kind, and moreover, people can be unnecessarily kind.

I called her and thanked her profusely and she just giggled and said, "That tiny little sun took me a couple minutes. I'm glad you liked it."  I feel like she's my ally, but I don't even know what she looks like.  I don't know how else to thank this stranger, except to write a blog post about her.... and tell her I appreciate her  and her kindness, and send it out into the universe. (If anyone else has any more suggestions that are not creepy, please comment.)

I don't know about you, but I'm going to strive to send a little more "B" like gestures out into the universe.  Kind is in, didn't you know? It's like I tell the kids at work, "You don't have to like someone or even know them to be kind to them."

So, goodnight, dear B, whoever you are.