Okay I'm Real Salty Here Tonight. I AM SO NOT HERE For That Weird Form Of Judgment That Sounds Like Pity.

Okay I'm real salty here tonight. I AM SO NOT HERE for that weird form of judgment that sounds like pity. You know the one I'm talking about? "Oh, that poor 16 year old girl out drinking with her friends on a Wednesday night. So sad." Yeah, it's freaking heartbreaking. But not when you say it like that! When you say it like that it sounds self-righteous and preachy. It's the same tone you use for those black-baby-poverty-porn commercials. "Tsk tsk, so sad." And you shake your head and go back to your obviously perfect life. My friend, I'm not about that. You know people could have said about me? "Oh that poor girl failed all her courses this semester. So sad." "Oh that poor girl has hooked up with three guys in the span of a month. So sad." And sure, I was going through it. But that superiority-complex pity you're dishing was not gonna help me one bit. That's a way to separate yourself from the person. GRACE DOES NOT ALLOW US TO SEPARATE OURSELVES FROM PEOPLE. Grace puts us face to face with our fellow man and says, "this could be you." And when we see our brothers and sisters stumbling, our reaction should not be "so sad." It should be "hey, how's it going?" Because we have to be there for each other. We have to recognize that when our girls are out drinking and partying and having sex, it's because they feel empty and unloved. It's because no one cared enough about them to tell that they're worth more than that! It's because they don't know that feeling numb isn't actually better than feeling their emotions. Guess who could have told them that? We could have! When our children are struggling, it is because of our failure as a community to care for them. And it is our responsibility to be there for them in whatever they're going through, and to offer them a hand when they trip. Not to stand back and say "so sad."

Short Story: Beauty is a Beast

You know that moment when you step off the schoolbus in the afternoon, or when you shut your bedroom door behind you, or lie in bed at night, and just breathe deeply, finally completely alone. You know the person you are in that moment? That’s the real you, with all your true hopes and dreams and values. Nobody can watch you or judge you, or tell you what to do or who to be. People should be that person more often.

I see it a lot. People are always totally themselves around me. I’m your corner store cashier. I’m like a part of the wallpaper. Because honestly, what effect do I have on the rest of your life outside this miniscule window of time for your trip to buy chocolate or scotch tape? It’s amazing the things I can learn about people as a cashier just by simple observation. I’ve worked here at my tiny corner-store-attached-to-a-pharmacy on the corner of my street for two years, and we sell everything from a turnip to tweezers. In two years of working 7-11 every day of the summer and 7-11 every Saturday and Sunday during the school year, I’ve gotten to know most of the people who live in our neighborhood, through routine visits and fragments of conversation here and there.

For example, elderly Mrs. McAllister lives all alone at the top of the hill with her four cats, whose photos she carries in her purse. Boots is the black one with white paws, Snowball is all white, Mittens is yellow with a black triangle on his forehead and Tommy is orange striped. She buys a 2L of milk and a Big Turk chocolate bar every single Saturday morning between 7:00 and 7:30 without fail.

I expect Mr. Watkins visit around 9 every second Sunday morning. He always buys Werther’s hard caramel candies, Purity cream crackers, a bottle of ginger ale, a loaf of bread and bologna. He carries two tiny school photos in his wallet of his grandchildren, Jeffrey who is in grade five this year, and Alyssa, who is in grade two. They love the caramel candies.

Finally, there’s a tall, dirty blonde boy around my age who seems to live on Nestea and Peppermint Lifesavers. He visits my store faithfully every day at around 10 during the summer to get his fix and still comes back every Saturday and Sunday morning during the school year. I know that he likes the Red Hot Chili Peppers, that he plays basketball and that he goes to the school on the other side of the city even though he’s not zoned for it. Name? Not a clue. I call him Lifesavers-Guy in my head.

I’m writing all this down because I want to tell you the story of a boy and girl. Well mostly a girl, but the boy is in it a little bit. The girl’s name is Purple-Monster-Girl. Or at least, that’s what I call her.

She appeared on the scene around the end of June, right after I had finished grade 11. That day I was teasing 13-year-old Joshua about his first date that night as I put his comic book and Sour Patch Kids into a bag. He was beet-red, right to the tips of his ears and was probably all too happy to escape when my attention was diverted. The little bell above the door tinkled and I looked up to see who it was. My first impression was that she looked really...for lack of a better word, Normal. I wish I could say she looked Mysterious, or she was gorgeous but she looked sad, but she just looked perfectly normal. She was about 5’7’’, with dark brown hair falling in loose waves to her shoulder blades, looking like she had let it dry on its own. I will say she has a really pretty face, with nice skin. She was wearing knee-length cut-off shorts, a black tshirt with a colourful graphic on the front that matched her turquoise converse. She wasn’t stick-thin but she wasn’t chubby by any means. She was just...normal. She had two earbuds stuck in her ears.

She picked up a bag of Doritos, a purple Monster energy drink and a pack of Stride Spearmint gum. When she brought it to the counter I pointed at her ear and said

“What are you listening to?”

She cocked her head and looked at me for a second, as if sizing me up, then she said

“Nothing. People are just less likely to try and make conversation with me if I have them in.”

Something told me I should have been at least a little bit offended by that, but I wasn’t at all. I just felt like I had passed some secret character test. She left the store and I was left shaking my head.

“Weird chick.” I thought, and that was the last I thought of it, until she became a recurring presence. She came back every now and then for her purple Monster and Stride Spearmint, though the junk food varied, sometimes chocolate, sometimes candy, sometimes chips.

Around mid-July when I was selling popsicles and soft serves to droves of sticky, smiling children, she started coming in at 7 in workout clothes. She stopped buying junk food then too. It was around this same time that Purple-Monster-Girl met Lifesavers-Guy. She happened to come later that day, and both of them approached my counter with their usual purchases at the exact same time. Sometimes, replaying the scene in my head, it strikes me that it’s just like a movie. He stepped back like a gentleman and gestured for her to go ahead of him. She just looked up at him, right in his eyes and almost literally glowed at him, like, her smile looked like he was a child who had just said his first word. While I rang in her purple Monster and Stride Spearmint and she gave me the exact change without me asking her, Lifesavers-Guy asked her the pivotal question:

“What are you listening to?”

I looked at her quizzically. Would she be as honest with him as she was with me? She wasn’t. After a glance at me so fast it was almost imperceptible, she took one earbud out, smiled and lied. This is a perfect example of how people are themselves around me. She had no trouble admitting that she wasn’t really listening to music to the corner store cashier, but to this stranger, this boy, who might judge her, she had to lie.

“Red Hot Chili Peppers.”

And what a lucky lie. Lifesavers-Guy’s face lit up and they chatted eagerly all through his order, in which I had to tell him his total twice because he wasn’t paying attention the first time, and out the door. I could see them standing on the sidewalk outside the store. She laughed a lot and he smiled shyly, then they switched their phones and gave them back. I just grinned.

As the days scorched and summer wore on, I sold a cool drink to every customer who walked in the store. August was giving us a beating this year. I stood behind my counter and watched harried fathers buying a box of cereal early in the morning, little old ladies buying tea bags and muffins, and people of all ages rushing in to pick up a card for various occasions and asking to borrow my pen. And I watched Purple-Monster-Girl and Lifesavers –Guy. Not in a creepy way, I mean when they came in the store. Sometimes, if he was alone, he bought Stride Spearmint or a purple Monster with his traditional order, or she bought Nestea or Lifesavers to accompany her drink and gum. Purple-Monster-Girl’s early morning workouts seemed to be working for her too, because the soft curves of June has transformed to taut, toned lines for August. As summer died with blazing red and orange sunsets, I saw them come in together sometimes holding hands. If one or both of them were in the store when Red Hot Chili Peppers came on the radio, I saw them smile like they shared some kind of secret. It obviously wasn’t such a huge secret if I was in on it, but nobody thinks of that.

I guess they just felt special, as only new couples can. They were like a modern day Romeo and Juliet. Actually, scratch that. Let’s say they were like a modern day Beauty and the Beast. Not that either one of them was ugly and the other one was beautiful, I just think that story is infinitely more romantic than Shakespeare’s tragedy because it’s about seeing people for who they really are and looking past outward appearances. Anyway.

The days grew shorter, the soft serve machine went into storage, and Purple-Monster-Girl, Lifesavers-Guy and I all went back to our respective schools for our last year. My time spent behind my corner-store counter was cut from seven days to two. But I still got visits from my favourite couple on the weekends. It was around the time that Crayola crayons and loose leaf were in big clearance bins at the front of the store, and big boxes of mini chocolate bars were on display that I saw Purple-Monster-Girl’s hair straightened for the very first time ever. She wasn’t wearing her workout clothes this Sunday. She was wearing shorts that were, in my humble opinion, too short. If not for the weather, at least for propriety. And she wore the same tshirt I had first seen her in. It hung on her differently now. It slipped right past her flat, toned stomach and didn’t even catch on her hips.

And there was trouble in paradise for our neighborhood lovers. Or at least, that’s how I interpreted it. One chilly morning early November, I was organising a magazine rack and shaking my head at celebrities exploits when the two of them approached the store, seemingly in a heated discussion, judging from their faces through the glass. They stopped talking as soon as they entered the store. The tinny radio music couldn’t quite handle the oppressive silence, and only made it awkward when Red Hot Chili Peppers came on. I pretended to be totally absorbed in perfecting the magazine display, until they had paid for their items and left, still in silence.

Chocolate Santas, chocolate Snowmen and chocolate Reindeer were flying off the shelves and we had our first snowfall. I smiled at all my customers and wished them a Merry Christmas as they left the store. The same five annoying Christmas songs played over and over the store speakers for a month straight, and everybody was jolly. And I watched tiny changes in Purple-Monster-Girl. Dark eyeliner rimming her eyes. A lower neckline than I’d ever seen her wear. Her hair was more often straight and more seldom wavy. She was still beautiful, but she packaged it more. She looked like beauty was no longer natural, but something she put on like a mask when she got up every morning. The day after school let out for Christmas vacation, they came in together, looking happy again. He kept his arm around her waist, not possessively, just kinda chillin there, like he was supporting her, or protecting her. And I saw the way he set his jaw.

New Year’s Day the corner store was open. It closed only Christmas Day and two other forced holidays under the labor law. Anyway, I sold a lot of Advil, Tylenol, Coffee and Gatorade that morning. I didn’t try to make conversation with those customers, I just kind of smiled gently at them. One such girl laid a box of Advil on the counter with a purple Monster energy drink and a pack of Stride Spearmint gum. She didn’t really resemble the one who came in five months ago and told me there was nothing coming through her earbuds. Her whip straight hair had been highlighted with caramel streaks. That looked great to me. What didn’t look great was the tank top that looked two sizes too small and the painted-on jeans which revealed stick arms and legs and a waist so tiny it looked like it would fit between my finger and thumb. I stared at her for a few seconds in wonderment. There were dark circles under her eyes and her cheekbones had become very defined. I passed her her plastic bag of three items and wondered who she had kissed at midnight.

It evidently wasn’t her boyfriend. No more did they enter the store together or buy each other’s items. Red Hot Chili Peppers on the radio elicited a stony face from him and...nothing from her, no recognition whatsoever. A week after we went back to school I watched Lifesavers-Guy stalk resolutely past the Monster cooler and refuse to let his gaze wander to the gum display next to the counter. I didn’t make any eye-contact with him as I rang in his Nestea and Lifesavers.

The following month saw weather as cold and blustery as the night the enchantress sought refuge in the Prince’s castle. Business was slow. I sold contact solution, Benadryl, Root Beer and Reese’s Pieces. At home, I did homework and I started watching Beauty and the Beast again, to relive my childhood. I only saw the beginning before I fell asleep though. I saw the Beast shut himself up in his tower, ashamed at his own appearance, despising himself and repulse any human companionship. I felt bad for him. After all, who said he was ugly? Only society’s socially constructed ideas of “beauty” made him think that. It only took the right person to see the real him, and to see how beautiful he actually was. But I digress.

Lifesavers-Guy came to the store less, probably because Purple-Monster-Girl still visited faithfully to get her energy drink and gum. She never put food with it, but I did get a few surprises. One morning I was just listening to 10-year-old Jess tell me about the latest Nancy Drew mystery she had read, in between mouthfuls of Skittles. Purple-Monster-Girl slipped in somewhere around the falling action. After Jess left, Purple-Monster-Girl placed her traditional energy drink and gum on the counter and then plopped down beside it a box of condoms. I said nothing, just looked at her. She wouldn’t meet my gaze. I rang through her order in what was supposed to be disapproving silence but I don’t know if she got the vibe. That was Saturday. The next morning I sold her more Advil.

Three weeks later it was uncommonly crowded in my tiny store. Purple-Monster-Girl was coming in as Lifesavers-Guy was going out. Manoeuvering around her, he placed his hand ever so lightly in the small of her back, an unconscious, tender touch, but drew it back suddenly as though stung. A moment later she turned around to get her Monster from the cooler and I could see why. Her thin, tight shirt revealed every vertebrae in her back in sharp relief, clearly visible through flesh and fabric. I looked at her with sad eyes. She wasn’t the normal girl she was in June. Seven months had transformed her into an entirely different person, one who was quite evidently underweight. One who...was buying a pregnancy test. Heaven help us. I glanced quickly at her face, but her gaze was focussed somewhere past my left ear. I could only hope that I didn’t see her back here in nine months buying baby formula. After THAT experience, I examined all the labels on our condom boxes, and concluded that she should have bought the ultra-strong ones. They were 98.2% effective, which is a whole 1.2% more effective than the normal kind, but my faith in them was shattered forever.

The next Saturday, everbody was buying boxes of Barbie valentines and candy hearts and Hershey kisses. But not Purple-Monster-Girl. I caught myself staring at her stomach, looking for a bump. I knew it was too soon, but I did it unconsciously anyway. She just looked as shrunken as ever to me. However, to my immense relief, this shopping trip featured a box of tampons. I actually had to restrain myself from sighing in relief.

The ides of March rolled around and a lot of green was on sale everywhere. I saw garlands of four leaf clover and plastic cut-outs of leprechauns and the young and middle-aged elementary school teachers who bought them for their classrooms. And quite suddenly, Purple-Monster-Girl disappeared. Saturday morning when the bell tinkled I didn’t even look up, until I heard a much heavier footfall than what I was used to, and beheld a strange man in a suit buying Pepsi and a muffin. I waited and waited and waited. The end of my four-hour shift came and still no sign of her. Nobody made any utterance of where she was. They didn’t need to.

Near the end of March, I served a woman whom I had never seen before. It wouldn’t be weird to me because I do that all the time, except for a striking resemblance to a girl who used to come in here all the time, and the fact that she was buying a purple Monster energy drink and a pack of Stride Spearmint gum. And did I mention this corner store JUST HAPPENED to be just over the hill to the hospital? The woman’s hair was disheveled and she bore unmistakable signs of fatigue in the shadows under her eyes and the droop of her shoulders. She spoke in hushed tones to the woman standing next to her, whom I assumed was her sister of friend. Completely unintentionally, I caught snippets of their conversation. “ ...still refusing to eat...heartrate dangerously low...better in time for prom...” As I handed her her receipt, I smiled at her and wished her a good day as sincerely as I could.

That night, I tried to finish watching Beauty and the Beast but I only got as far as the dance in the ballroom and Belle wearing her beautiful yellow dress. I reflected that yellow doesn’t look good on many people. In the meantime, I knew the rose in the tower of the castle was wilting. Time was running out. This Beauty felt more like the Beast and I didn’t know if she would get to dance with her prince. This story of a girl and boy is shaping up more like a Shakespearian tale than a Disney movie after all.

A couple weeks later, I looked up to see a tall, dirty-blonde boy enter the corner store. He didn’t pick up Nestea and Lifesavers this time. He went straight to the Monster cooler and picked out a purple one, then a pack of Stride Spearmint gum, then on the counter next to them he placed a greeting card. There was a cartoon Teddy bear on the front with a bandaid on his head and big bold letters above it: “Get Well Soon!” I wanted to say something, but what would I say?

“I’m sorry your ex-girlfriend who dumped you because she’s sick and whom you’re obviously still in love with is in the hospital”

Yeah, no, that’s a little creepy.

I thought for a second, then threw caution to the winds and just said

“How is she?”

He looked up as though mildly surprised that I was speaking to him, and took a minute to process my question.

“She’s doing better than she was.”

I nodded. “That’s good.”

Then he left.

I remember clearly Saturday, April 28th Lifesavers-Guy came in my store again. He didn’t buy a single thing, just marched straight the counter and said

“Can I show you something?”

I was completely taken aback and slightly apprehensive. In the past, such a question had precipitated photos of cats in various attitudes of idleness, of school portraits of grandchildren, but I didn’t know what to expect from this teenager.

“Sure.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a photo. It was of a couple under an arch decorated with swaths of white tulle and flowers. He wore dress pants, dress shirt, vest and tie and she wore a beautiful yellow dress, a perfect fairy tale dress. I recognized the dark hair with caramel highlights and the smile I had seen the day they met – the same glowing smile like a child had said their first word. She still looked skinny but I could see signs of returning curves, like back in June when I described her as “Very Normal.”

“That was at her prom last Saturday.” He said.

I looked up at him. “She’s beautiful.”

He smiled. “I know.”

That night I went home and finally finished watching Beauty and the Beast. As Belle and her Prince kissed at the end and fireworks went off, I reflected on how thankful I am that there are people in this world who know true beauty when they see it.

You know that moment – when you step off the schoolbus in the afternoon, or when you shut your bedroom door behind you, or lie in bed at night, and just breathe deeply, finally completely alone – you know the person you are in that moment? That’s the real you, with all your true hopes and dreams and values. Nobody can watch you or judge you, or tell you what to do or who to be. You should be that person more often. Who cares what anybody thinks? Because I can promise you there is somebody out there who will love the true you.

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depressionanddeconstruction

12 years ago

If you could ask God one question what would it be?

ONE question? Haha ahhh I have so many. They pass in and out of my head several times a week, and for some reason, I never think to write them down. Okay so here’s how I picture it: Right now, I’m a human, and I’m young human at that. Which means I have a mortal, finite view of space and time, which is by definition extremely limited. On top of that, as my mom says to me, “you can be as smart as you want, but until you have lived as long as I have, you will know nothing.” And it’s true, I’ve lived 19 years in a cute, white-picket-fence, sheltered, caucasion, north-american, privileged life. I know nothing! So I picture me getting to heaven and it’s like my soul, that right now can only kind of taste the infinite, is completely freed of my brain and my emotions and my body and now I’m infinite, I’m free-floating, outside of space and time and none of the restrictions that bind me here on earth exist anymore. I’m part of infinity, I’m living in infinity and I can see everything. All of space and all of time, and I picture it as one huge “OHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" moment. Suddenly you can see a gazillion and one connections between seemingly randomly events in your life, and you can see how a butterfly flapping their wings affects the death of a star on the other side of the universe, and you can see how a trivial choice someone made on the other side of the world generations before you affects your life. And you see, woven through everything, is God’s overriding, all-consuming, overwhelming love and grace. You can literally see his fingerprints in the planets and everything just clicks and you’re like “how did I never see this before?” And then I won’t have any of the questions I have now because I won’t be missing the pieces of information that my poor, human head is currently incapable of containing and comprehending. So it’s not like I’m waiting to see God so that I can ask him to explain this one mystery that’s been bugging me my whole life. However, I will share with you the latest mind-bender I was contemplating, just this morning. So there’s a theory that the curse of original sin is passed on through the father. Because Jesus had a human mother, but was conceived through the Holy Spirit. So He didn’t have a human father, and He was perfect and sinless so obviously, He wasn’t affected by the original sin curse like all other humans. And yet He was fully human and fully God. So I’m sitting there musing about this interesting idea and then I’m like, where did the other 23 chromosomes come from?? Like yeah, the immaculate conception was a miracle, but God uses science and nature as His tools, and Jesus was obviously a fully functional human, so He had to have 46 chromosomes…right? So what were they and where did they come from? Hmmmm. And I said to myself, I really will have to get God to explain that to me when I see Him. So there you go! :) Peace and love! -Katherine

“People want to help people, no matter their own challenges.”

Josh Harvey, Innovations Lab Lead and Innovations Specialist, UNICEF Innovations Lab Kosovo

Tell us a bit about your background.

I was born and raised in Amish country in rural Pennsylvania. I have a BA in History from Dickinson College and an MA in International Development and Education from Columbia University Graduate School of Education. Between undergrad and grad school, I was a Teach for America Corps Member in Newark, New Jersey.

What do you do?

I lead UNICEF’s Innovations Lab Kosovo, which is a team of 14 split across three units. The first, the Design Centre, focuses on service design and technology for development (which spans from developing software tools that speed up and improve data collection and analysis by UNICEF and our partners, to building platforms that are used by governments to provide rights holders with access to information, to exploring new technologies to improve service delivery for children); another unit, the Youth Empowerment Platform, develops new programme models for adolescent and youth empowerment and participation; and the third unit - By Youth For Youth - uses an approach we built called UPSHIFT to train and support young people to build and lead innovative solutions to challenges in their communities.

My job is a mix of general management (the Lab has a bit of an unusual structure, so in addition to the programme teams, we have a product development team and separate operations, communications, and finance teams), design, strategy, and policy work.

In addition to the Lab, I oversee UNICEF Kosovo’s Adolescent and Youth Unit.

What’s your working day like?

Work changes a lot depending on where we are in either the programme or product development cycles. I try to start most days with discussions out of the office with partners or peers. Then it’s a bit of organizational stuff—approve payments and check on spending, review programme monitoring data, work through HR, etc. etc. From there I spend about a third of the rest of the day on immediate things—providing input for our products, discussing plans and progress with our programme teams–another third on longer term things like new programme design or communications and fundraising, and the last third on external things—this might be coordination with our peer organizations or advocacy with government partners; often, it’s dialogue with colleagues in other UNICEF offices as it’s become pretty common that the Lab acts as a resource to others engaged in innovation and/or adolescent and youth work.

On the best days, I get to work directly with young innovators or lead design sessions with youth and partners.

How would you describe your job to a 5-year-old?

I help a team of really smart, creative, good people help other smart, creative, good people solve problems.

What did you want to be when you were a child?

I don’t know what his business card would read, but I wanted MacGyver’s job. Creative problem solving and helping people. I actually got closer than I expected!

How/when did you join UNICEF?

I first worked for the United States Fund for UNICEF from 2009. There, I helped start the sports partnership team and was part of the two-person team that managed partnerships with pharmaceutical and logistics companies. I think my boss sensed my innate nerdiness so I ended up tasked with building a strategy to support UNICEF’s innovation efforts with access to tech sector resources, especially tech know-how, and be part of and lead some of the US Fund’s own innovation efforts. Over time, it became clear to me that UNICEF Innovation was where I wanted to be, so in January of 2013 I left the US Fund to lead the Lab in Kosovo.

What are the most satisfying parts of your job?

Young people come to us hungry to make things better for their communities, their families, their peers, and for themselves. We teach them how. It’s an extraordinary feeling when 15, 16, 17-year-olds with whom we work are on national television recounting how their efforts have changed their communities.

What’s the most challenging aspect of your job?

There aren’t always precedents for how the Lab’s work fits into UNICEF. That, and it can be difficult to balance with UNICEF’s long planning cycles the imperative to experiment, be agile, and pivot to capture emerging opportunities.

What’s your best UNICEF experience/memory?

There are so many. One from fairly recently, though, was from a mission to Jordan to share with the office how they might incorporate some of Kosovo’s UPSHIFT work into their life skills and vocational training efforts in Zaatari camp. While we were in the camp, some of the programme participants rolled out a mobile library – a beautiful, cherry red tricycle with a lockable, weatherproof book shelf attached – that they built in order to provide access to books to children living in the camp. It validated two of my biggest beliefs: one, that people want to help people, no matter their own challenges; and two, that the most powerful thing we can do is give others the resources, know-how, support, and opportunity to solve the problems to which they feel close and about which they are passionate.

What’s one of the biggest risks you’ve ever taken in your life?

Well, there’s that time I left my job in New York to move to Kosovo…

What are your passions?

Education. There’s an H.G. Wells quote: “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe”. I don’t have such a dire view, but I feel quote captures the notion that education—in whatever form it takes, not necessarily formal education—is what lets us, collectively, overcome our lesser natures; it’s what enables us as a human community realize our hopes. I often tell young people with whom we work that, if things are going to get better—in their communities, their countries, the world—it’s not going to be me or the Lab that does it; it’s going to be them. Our role is to give them what we know about how to do it.

What advice would you give others who are seeking a similar job as yours?

The practical response is that getting a job with UNICEF is hard, and it’s extra hard to just pick up and be an “innovations person” as most offices don’t have a role focused expressly on innovation; better to seek opportunities related to your skills and experience and get connected to our great innovation network from there. The philosophical response? Be curious. That’s probably the single most important trait of someone working in this space. You’re never going to know, ex ante (or ever!), all the things you need to know to do the job well. Read everything, ask “what if..?”, wonder what’s possible, learn programme development, learn project management, learn coding, learn design, learn as much as possible. And then recognize when others have expertise, and empower them to use it.

Who do you look towards for inspiration?

Mom and Dad. Neither of my parents’ families had the money or inclination to send them to college, they’re nevertheless the smartest people I know. My dad had an unfulfilling job with the post office for 30 years—awful hours, awful work—in order to provide for us, but always had time to help us and other people, and is the definitive jack-of-all-trades—he’s the best creative problem solver I know and his workshop is filled with awesome, hacked solutions. Mom cleaned houses while my sister and I were young to bring in extra money, and then when we were in college she went back to school. Afterward, she started part-time at an organization for abused, neglected, and abandoned children and was so valuable that she worked her way up to manager of administration. Mom is deliberate and thinks hard about how to do things right; she taught me to leave everything you touch a little better.

My colleagues don’t know that…

I don’t hear well; if we’re out and there’s music playing, there’s a 50% chance that I can’t hear what you’re saying and I’m just smiling and nodding. :)

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depressionanddeconstruction

7 months ago

Queer Christians are on a whole other level. Queer Christians have faith you can't even understand. Queer Christians know God in such a deep and special way. Someone who realizes they're queer and STAYS a Christian has such a powerful belief in God and such an intimate acquaintance with His goodness. I wish homophobic, transphobic, conservative fundamentalist evangelicals could grasp even a tiny bit of the joy and peace and love that I experience through my QUEER relationship with God.

Okay I'm Real Salty Here Tonight. I AM SO NOT HERE For That Weird Form Of Judgment That Sounds Like Pity.

More Posts from Depressionanddeconstruction and Others

You can do whatever you want forever.

Short Story: Beauty is a Beast

“People want to help people, no matter their own challenges.”