Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Why you don't ask a graphic artist to do free work....
Okay, the humor in the following might be a bit tasteless to some, but as a former graphic artist, I found the "posters" to be hysterical! Link courtesy of a Facebook friend:
Clueless Secretary Prompts Hilarious Office E-mail Thread
In other news, I have continued my quest to make copies of all my original material on various sites lest the sites disappear from cyberspace. My latest venture was my original 2003-2004 blog, done on "iBlog", which was an experiment that never quite worked out. As I read the old posts, I was struck by several things:
1. I was still working full time, plus going to support group and union meetings, having various medical tests, running errands all over town and driving to the mountains on my days off. I can no longer do ANY of these things (okay, the tests and errands, but rarely).
2. I was spending multiple hours on the computer at home daily IN ADDITION to full work shifts on a computer. Now I can usually only be on a computer two hours max without either a significant break or waiting until the next day. Some days, I can't use one at all.
3. My writing was soooo much better then. Better vocabulary, creative phrasing, more humorous, longer paragraphs, almost no typos (I only found TWO in 120 posts!). I had the energy to write original content at least four days every week. Now most of my posts involve jokes or links that someone else gave me, and the original content, well, it has nearly disappeared from this blog. That makes me sadder than the first two items.
Clueless Secretary Prompts Hilarious Office E-mail Thread
In other news, I have continued my quest to make copies of all my original material on various sites lest the sites disappear from cyberspace. My latest venture was my original 2003-2004 blog, done on "iBlog", which was an experiment that never quite worked out. As I read the old posts, I was struck by several things:
1. I was still working full time, plus going to support group and union meetings, having various medical tests, running errands all over town and driving to the mountains on my days off. I can no longer do ANY of these things (okay, the tests and errands, but rarely).
2. I was spending multiple hours on the computer at home daily IN ADDITION to full work shifts on a computer. Now I can usually only be on a computer two hours max without either a significant break or waiting until the next day. Some days, I can't use one at all.
3. My writing was soooo much better then. Better vocabulary, creative phrasing, more humorous, longer paragraphs, almost no typos (I only found TWO in 120 posts!). I had the energy to write original content at least four days every week. Now most of my posts involve jokes or links that someone else gave me, and the original content, well, it has nearly disappeared from this blog. That makes me sadder than the first two items.
Comments:
I've been thinking about your post and its sense of loss--the kinds of losses that happen incrementally and that you don't necessarily realize have happened until you come face to face with what/who you used to be. I wish I had more to offer you than fellow-feeling! I'm not quite in the same boat as you, as I can still work almost full time, but still empathize whole-heartedly. Where chronic illness is concerned, we can't even say, "Hang on--it will all get better." But at least "Hang on--it's all still worthwhile" still holds water!
I say this hesitantly, because I don't want it to come across wrong. But re: your no. 3--I wonder if sometimes the problem isn't always entirely a loss of ability. I definitely know the problems of fibrofog and am with you in being aware of things I used to do mentally that now are no longer possible--so please believe that I'm not making light of that. But I think an exacerbating factor is the loss of a fully rounded world. When you're surrounded by people who are active and bombarding you with new ideas and new ways of thinking etc. all the time, it's easier to stay creative etc. because it's "in the air" around you. It takes less energy on your part, because you can "borrow" some of that energy from--well, from the world. When you're alone more, it's all on you. You just don't have those daily shots in the arm of newness to the same extent. For what it's worth, I still see a creative, humorous, capable, well-spoken person in your posts, even if that person isn't quite the one you "knew" before becoming ill!
I say this hesitantly, because I don't want it to come across wrong. But re: your no. 3--I wonder if sometimes the problem isn't always entirely a loss of ability. I definitely know the problems of fibrofog and am with you in being aware of things I used to do mentally that now are no longer possible--so please believe that I'm not making light of that. But I think an exacerbating factor is the loss of a fully rounded world. When you're surrounded by people who are active and bombarding you with new ideas and new ways of thinking etc. all the time, it's easier to stay creative etc. because it's "in the air" around you. It takes less energy on your part, because you can "borrow" some of that energy from--well, from the world. When you're alone more, it's all on you. You just don't have those daily shots in the arm of newness to the same extent. For what it's worth, I still see a creative, humorous, capable, well-spoken person in your posts, even if that person isn't quite the one you "knew" before becoming ill!
I think what bothers me more than anything else is that during the time my talents were unhindered, I didn't USE them. I had been told since I was a child that I should have been a writer, and I always figured I would get around to it eventually, when I could afford it, or whatever excuse I was using at present. The words came so easily to be that I figured it would always be that way.
But I did notice the gradual lessening of vocabulary, memory of proper grammar, originality of metaphor, etc. at my job starting in 1997 (I had been there two years by then) as I was a proofreader as well as a graphic artist. I had once been the most reliable source in my department, and it became embarrassing that no only was I starting to miss other people's errors, I was starting to make errors of my own.
I still do have moments where I am as sharp as a knife. Many of my abilities are still buried in my brain but not easily accessible. But I had to give up writing poetry in 2005 as I could not sustain a metaphor long enough to complete one.
I have switched my emphasis to shorter ideas (and paragraphs), informative articles and projects requiring less energy expenditure. What holds me back more than anything else is not having the physical energy to do much interaction at all. It takes MUCH longer nowadays to complete a message due to the missed words, forgetting mid-sentence what I wanted to say, and things coming out so garbled that even I can't figure out what I meant. Most of the time, the final result is still okay thanks to spell-check and re-reading things a minimum of three times before I hit "send".
But I am amazed sometimes how effortless it used to be.
But I did notice the gradual lessening of vocabulary, memory of proper grammar, originality of metaphor, etc. at my job starting in 1997 (I had been there two years by then) as I was a proofreader as well as a graphic artist. I had once been the most reliable source in my department, and it became embarrassing that no only was I starting to miss other people's errors, I was starting to make errors of my own.
I still do have moments where I am as sharp as a knife. Many of my abilities are still buried in my brain but not easily accessible. But I had to give up writing poetry in 2005 as I could not sustain a metaphor long enough to complete one.
I have switched my emphasis to shorter ideas (and paragraphs), informative articles and projects requiring less energy expenditure. What holds me back more than anything else is not having the physical energy to do much interaction at all. It takes MUCH longer nowadays to complete a message due to the missed words, forgetting mid-sentence what I wanted to say, and things coming out so garbled that even I can't figure out what I meant. Most of the time, the final result is still okay thanks to spell-check and re-reading things a minimum of three times before I hit "send".
But I am amazed sometimes how effortless it used to be.
I know what you mean. I left academia after working for years on the bloody degree because of the cognitive difficulties--it was too stressful not to remember the class I had planned the day before, and to stumble over words, and to struggle to understand articles I had written myself. But I look at what I accomplished during those years and am amazed--even though it was miserable because I was so sick-exhausted and aching, I still did more than what I think I could do now, when I'm actually feeling better, b/c the environment provided so much (too much!) stimulation. But the environment also took so much out of me that it wasn't worth the price.
Sorry to be maundering on and on. All to say, "Yes. I hear you." I understand the frustration--and the amazement at remembering "olden days." And thank God for handy software tools like spell-check!
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Sorry to be maundering on and on. All to say, "Yes. I hear you." I understand the frustration--and the amazement at remembering "olden days." And thank God for handy software tools like spell-check!
