My son told me that he tells his friends “My mom is awesome.” How amazing is it that a 14-year-old (almost 15) thinks that? I’m speechless.

It’s spring break time here, which means my son is here for the week. After several days delay due to weather and plane schedules, he finally arrived Sunday. We have a busy week ahead. I’m sure that most of his time will be spent playing games online. What else is new? We only have a few days before he takes the same course I did (this one is especially for teens). He really wants to go.

I only lasted a few months before writer’s block has set in again. I’m back to thinking that nothing happens to write about. I need to do something crazy just give my blog more character. Even my Google searches haven’t been interesting. I guess the past post worked because there are very few “porn” term searches hitting my blog. I should be more careful what I wish for. I still get searches for “silicon doll.” I wonder who keeps looking for one and what they want to do with it. Maybe I don’t want to know.

All this time I could have written about the Landmark courses I have been through, but I don’t want to sound like a shill for them. The courses are great, and if you’re looking for something to give you a boost in your life, they are worth looking into. My mother and sister want to go after hearing about my experience. My son is going because he saw what a difference it made for me.

Awhile back I wrote some posts with pictures of where I grew up. I think I mentioned that I hadn’t spoken to my father since I was 15. Well, I finally got the guts through one of the courses to give him a call. I haven’t spoken to him since though. He had a stroke over a year ago now, but he seems okay. The conversation was rather odd in that sometimes it seemed like he knew or remembered the past, but the next moment he would deny just about anything. I don’t think that has anything to do with the stroke. He had been corresponding with my sister for about five years and off and on with my mother. My conversation was no different from their experiences. So while whatever was said may not have gotten anywhere with him, I got to have my say after all these years.

I’m still not showing my photo. I ran this months ago, but the collage wasn’t available then. I also got different results. So although you don’t know what I look like, you now know who I look like.

Since my two weekends of Landmark, I feel like all I have done is talk on the phone. My ear actually has a red spot that doesn’t go away. I relaxed on Friday until about mid-afternoon. It was a sunny clear day here, so it was nice to just sit outside for a bit. The wind was a little chilly though. The rest of the day I was on the phone yet again. I was avoiding the phone all day yesterday. I have been less watchful for blogging material, so I need to get back into that mode.

I had spent a couple days being persuaded to start the leadership program. So I spent a few days considering if the program was what I wanted to do right now. I’m holding off. I won’t say never, but I have other considerations right now.

I’m looking forward to my son’s spring break since this year he spends it with me.

After the weekend, I finally got my first chance to talk with my sister for more than five minutes. We talked for an hour and a half. It looks like we may actually get along. We have hardly spoken to each other in 20 years. We fought a lot as kids. Once I went to college, I had my own life that I was involved in and just didn’t concern myself with whatever was going on with her. We both admitted that we don’t know anything about each other. I think we both found out a lot in over an hour.

Why do we celebrate people who work more than 40 hours a week? Why is it mentioned that someone works 70 hours a week in an article? I saw this in an article about and executive at eBay. I see this a lot with executives. Why can’t all that work be done in 40 hours or less?

My ideal would be to work about 6 hours a day and get paid the regular salary for 8 hours a day. There is so much else to do besides work. I quit a job where I was bored and unhappy to spend the time with my son. I don’t have a lot of time with him, and it was more important to me to spend his summer vacation with him. I know it meant a lot to him too.

So are these people happy? Most of them–probably not. I’m sure their families aren’t happy. I would much rather have a fulfilling, happy life than all the money that these executives make. although I’m poised to become one myself. I need to find the proper balance for me between work and everything else I wish to do.

This Friday and weekend I attended the Landmark Forum seminar. Mr. O gave me a little push to go. Ultimately, it was my choice to go. I became curious after lengthy conversations. So what did I get out it? A lot. I am finding more and more that I got out of it. The most important things to me were re-connecting with my sister after 20 years of avoiding each other and talking with my son’s father about our son.

There is no way to fully thank the person who introduced me to this class. I had never heard about it before. Now, my mother and sister are both asking me about the seminar. I sincerely hope that they are both able to attend. It made such a huge difference for me that I want to see that happen for everyone I know.

I got my voice back. I notice that I’m talking to people in a very different way. I am actually asking for what I want instead of expecting people to know or guess. I don’t know exactly how that happened. It wasn’t something I “worked” on.

I will be at the advanced course this weekend. More stuff…more long days.

Remember my admission of being a geek? Of being just like the girl in this cartoon I posted? Well, it seems that my offspring is also a geek. I don’t know how it happened. My parents weren’t geeks, so there’s really no explanation for me. My son is excited about “pi” and getting to use it in geometry. He talks quickly and excitedly about using a compass to find the bisector of a line. What’s a mother to do? He’s enjoying chemistry problems that the other students complain about. I told him, “You know, you’re a geek.” He laughed, and said he knows worse. Worse? There’s worse? What happened? Where did I go wrong? How did a create a little me? Poor kid.

I swear geekiness isn’t inheritable. Can’t be. My mother can’t figure out how my sister and I turned out the way we did. She didn’t like school that much. She never got excited about math or science.

Can the geek be removed? There must be a school that can undo the geek. I haven’t found one yet though. It probably wouldn’t help me at all. Years from now I may have to apologize for the apparent “geek gene” that I passed on.

I just hope he doesn’t turn out like those boys in the cartoons. You know…the one who sniffs the girls or begs one to go out with him. Odd goods are just that. Perhaps I won’t have to worry about him getting some girl pregnant. I will just have to wonder what kind of girl will want such a geek.

***

As a response to Mr. Fab’s comment, here are the definitions of geek, dork and nerd.

While I was the university, I met the guy I would later marry. I shouldn’t have, but I did. We weren’t seeing as much of each other when I graduated since he lived in a different city. There were lots of signs that things weren’t right, but I didn’t really see them at the time. I guess I saw the problems, but didn’t see them as really big problems. So my first job out of college was in corporate communications with a really bitchy boss. I was fired from that job. Why? Well the boss hated me, but the reason sent to HR was that I couldn’t perform the job. And why? Well I had developed carpal tunnel in one wrist which made typing all day long and cutting photos for print painful and difficult. I was fired after the second occasion when the photos weren’t cut perfectly straight. I didn’t have the strength to hold those thin photo pages (not photo stock paper) and cut them with an exacto knife. Publishing was so different then. Now straight photo edges wouldn’t be problem. You import the photo into a box with perfectly straight lines every time. Anyway, the job sucked. Pretty miserable experience. After being out of work for a few months, I found myself pregnant. Yep, happens even to smart people who should know better. I didn’t want to tell my mother, and I didn’t until I couldn’t keep it from her. I remember writing a long letter to her before Thanksgiving. I would be going home then, and I was showing. I found another job that fall before Thanksgiving. Pregnancy was not much fun. I was sick a lot. I got up several hours before I needed to be ready for work. It sometimes took two to three hours to get ready. Sometimes I had to start over after getting sick. I went though a lot deciding to keep the baby and what I was going to do after it was born.

A few months before I was due, the father came back into my life and decided that he’d like to get married. I didn’t want to move back home with my mother at the time. I wasn’t sure how I would take care of a baby entirely alone, so I agreed. Biggest mistake of my life. Short version: We got divorced a year later. Well, it takes a year to get divorced, so officially two years later. So a couple of years and $20K later, I was divorced, living with my mother and going back to school to get a degree in chemistry. Oh, the cost of the divorce? Well, I couldn’t deal with all the crap I was constantly bombarded with by my son’s father. Letters every week. Legal bullshit. I had the attorney handle it. Although he probably overcharged. I didn’t get what I wanted anyway. Four long days in court listening to how awful I was. The attorney was overly confident and didn’t really do his work.

So back to school I went. I traveled 100 miles round-trip every day for two years to take undergraduate courses in chemistry.

This picture shows a few buildings. It’s a small campus. I had my classes in the white building on the right. My goal at the time was to get into graduate school and be a professor. I spent the entire drive seeing myself graduate with a doctorate. It’s the only thing that got me through, and most likely made the doctorate a reality. The courses were sometimes a bit difficult, but not too bad. Organic chemistry was not my strongest course. I got to do several semesters of undergraduate research in various projects. I went through graduation with my new degree in chemistry, packed up my things and my son’s things and went 400 miles east to graduate school. I specifically picked the school based on researching professors and my visit there. I began graduate school with my research group already picked out. In fact, I went there in the summer on a special program where I got paid for the months prior to fall classes and worked in that professor’s group. I worked with lasers like in “Real Genius.” I was excited. I had wanted to work with lasers back when I was in mechanical engineering and saw a group doing research there.