Wonderful OP, Rosie. My greatest influence? I think my dad would really be my only choice. I am an only child and my parents split up when I was about 4. My mother saddled my dad with a whole heap o’ debt and I had to stay with friends of his while he paid it all off so he could afford to look after me himself. That was an unpleasant time. However, he eventually did, and I was allowed to go and live with him in '79. Although I never appreciated it at the time, having grown up and gotten out on my own I’ve been able to look back on those times and understand just how much work he put in just to make sure we had a place to live, food on the table, and a small bit of extra money for ourselves. Although he did instill certain values within me (that I didn’t truly understand or appreciate for longer than I should have) it was how he carried himself and lived his own life that probably influenced me the most. His hard work and perseverance (and doubtless his stubbornness, too) have rubbed off on me in such a way that I tend now to carry myself in some of the same ways. Perhaps underneath all that is the simple fact that he did as he told me to do. He led by example, and even if he wasn’t an absolutely model father, he was still a good father to me in being as good as his word. Today I feel more like we’re friends than father and son, and if anything he’s now getting into areas of interest where I have become the teacher, so in some ways I’m getting to return the favour.
I am also very fortunate that he is fit and in excellent health, so with any luck I will be able to enjoy his presence for many years to come yet.
Wonderful and touching OP, Rosie. I’d have to think long and hard about who my biggest influence was.
Some people who influenced me taught me me how NOT to be. In other words, I handle situations much differently than they did.
I’ve had positive influences as well. All in all, I really can’t think of any one BIG influence. I learned a little here and a little there. I really think it’s a big mish-mash of influences for me.
Bibs, greats news on the grade and the job. I’m sorry that things went badly with the hubby, though.
chick, (what? you posted in the MMP, you automatically get nicknamed) I’m so sorry about your friend. Kind of hard to know what to say, so I’ll just say I wish her the best.
It is just ick out today. Of course it’s just rain and not ice and snow like some of you are gettin’, so I am glad for that. Still ick though.
rosie, great stuff. It’s a very touching story, and I’m sure your sister would be grateful for what you wrote.
As for my own greatest influence … I had so many people who helped me through my rough childhood. My parents, of course. They’ve been saints. My therapist that I saw for 15 years starting in the first grade. He was the one that made the diagnosis and got me on the right track. My teachers. Oh, I’ve been so lucky to have the teachers I had. All through from elementary school to high school, I had teachers that helped me get past whatever major obstacle was blocking me at the time, and discover that I loved learning and reading and science and all that good stuff.
When I hit it big, my thank you speech is going to be about 3 hours long. :o
Wherein does one utilize this new edit feature that is so the rave???
rosie, your sister was lovely. Great OP. I think my entire extended Irish Catholic family influenced me growing up. Some in good ways and some in bad.
I am back at work this morning and trying to square away my new cubicle. (We got moved while I was out.) I don’t know where anything is and I think all my pens, pencils and other paraphenalia are back in my old desk.
bibby, hurrah for you. You are embarqing on the silver lining side of divorce. You discover you have many hidden talents you never knew before.
Welcome, chicky. We also trade endearing nicknames at the drop of the hat, in case you didn’t already know. Send fairychatmom chocolates so you don’t get on “The List.”
I got to play with some chihuahua puppies on Sunday. They were so Keeee-ute! swampy, you have GOT to get you one.
Yeah, I know doggio. If a certain somebody hadn’t just had to have a Snicker’s, I wouldn’t have even been in the store and I wouldn’t have seen the sign for the estimated ten million jackpot. Then I wouldn’t have put my hand in my jacket pocket and found I had a dollar in that pocket. Then I wouldn’t have walked over to the counter and said “Big Game Quick Pick, please.” So the fact that I plunked down a dollar to further enrich the education of some lucky Jawja school kiddie (HAH!) is not my fault at all.
puggy when you reply to a thread there’s a little edit button that shows up for five minutes. It’s right there. See?
You can do that here to BibKitty. Well, not the EMS thing cause, well, we ain’t a school, but come in and bitch, moan, whine and cry anytime you need to.
Ahem. Sad part is that I won’t be able to watch it till tomorrow, since I don’t have a TV. Boo. But I’ve obtained yesterday’s episode of Rome, so my friend and I shall watch that tonight.
In the meantime, more cheerful reading about WWII.
Morning, all. Great op, Rosie. Off the top of my head, I can think of two big influences – one was my 7th & 8th grade English teacher, who taught me that I had a brain and not to be afraid of using it. Thank you, Mr. Cushman, wherever you are. And the second, probably my biggest influence, was my dear friend Carole who I met when I moved to California in the early '90s. We had a lot in common (profession, cats, etc.), and we just got to be so close. She was older than me and in many ways ended up like a mother to me, probably more of a mother than my own mother. I could tlak to her about anything. Even when I moved away we stayed close and she visited me a couple times, so it was completely devastating to get an email on 9/13/01 (two days after 9/11, so it was already a painful time) from another friend that Carole had been killed instantly in a car accident. To this day I talk to her and hear her talking to me (and palebunny agrees with me – if anybody could talk from the Other Side, it would be Carole!) and giving me advice. I’m still surprised on a regular basis that I can’t just send her an email or pick up the phone and call her to talk to her about something. I’d say her biggest influence was that she really taught me how to be grown up, to have confidence in myself, to accept my faults and move beyond them, and to be a strong, capable person. I still miss her every day. But I also know she’s listening to me say that and telling me it’s okay!
My task for today is, first and foremost, finish my transcript. I made a great dent in it last night – thanks for all the kicks in the butt in the last MMP! – and today is the final push. The puppies went out and had a lovely romp in the snow before breakfast, Papa Tigs apparently made it to work safely – which is good as they have to do some kind of demonstration of AHLTA (your fave, Taters!) to some High and Mighty PTB, and he wouldn’t be real smart of him to miss that. And palebunny’s betta, Spike, flared at me last night for the first time, so I feel SO special!
puggy at any given time I am on any number of lists.
Tigs are you finishing up that transcript, young lady? I expect it to get done today and no back talk! There is absolutely no excuse to not finish it up. Stop that! Don’t think I didn’t see what you did!
I’m finishing it, I’m finishing it, Oh Ursinus Bossus! It’s just that it’s really, really long so it takes a long time. But I should be able to get it done before COB today, so I’m plugging away – really I am!
Great idea for the OP rosie! I would have to say that one of the biggest influences on me would be Dr. White, the professor in my terrorism class a few years ago. I took the class because it filled a gen-ed requirement, while I picked the class because I figured it would be interesting I never would have guessed how much influence it would really have on me. Dr. White spent the first half of his life in the field as a soldier and a SWAT sniper and is now primarily a teacher, but he has not let that slow him down. Within the semester I was in his class he ended up flying to at least three other countries to train security forces in anti-terrorism and intelligence gathering tactics. He is perpetually excited about his work, whether he is in Afganistan training guards on how to protect VIPs from assassination attempts, or sitting in his office preparing a lecture. That was what made me finally realize that I was in the wrong field, I could never be that excited about what I do.
Later in the semester he said something to me that served as the final swift kick in the ass that I needed to do something about the fact that I was miserable where I was. He told me (I am paraphrasing here as I cannot recall the exact quote, which was more akin to an hour long lecture than a quick quote) “Even if you just get your bachelor degree and leave school, never looking back, you will have an education that puts in the top percent of the population. You will have a better education than 99% of the world. If there is one piece of advice from me you take to heart make it this, do something important with it. You are being given an opportunity that so few people get, make it count.”
Ooooh, Heroes is finally back? Glee!
What a moving OP, Anyrose, and indeed a fitting tribute to your sister; it’s nice too that you have some of her paintings. It brought tears to my eyes, as did many other posts about the main influences in their lives; sometimes we don’t realize the influence until much later. My maternal grandmother was probably the family member I was closest too–I was the first grandchild on that side, for the first two years (or so) of my life I also spent half the week living with my mother’s parents as my parents housing situation wasn’t the best (they couldn’t afford coal for heating most of the time!). My grandmother spoiled me something terrible, but I only got to spend 15 years with her; she became sick around Christmas 1967 and passed away March 2, 1968 (inoperable cancer; by the time she went to a doctor, it had spread so much that they never determined the origin. :(). Beyond that, two teacher in HS: Miss Herson, who taught 10th grade history, and Mr. Baldwin, who taught 11th grade history, influenced me towards loving history, which I had abhored until then (actually, I didn’t enjoy Miss Herson’s class until nearly the end of the year-also the year my Grandmother died).
Congrats to Bibkitty on the EMT job -and- the cert!! And congrat’s to MBG’s Da Bears. YAY!
I wouldn’t venture out onto the ice-topped snow today; too afraid of falling (again) and possibly breaking something or (worse) twisting a knee. I’m hoping that tomorrow morning there won’t be very much left on the ground, even though I know it’s going to re-freeze whatever is there tonight. Anyway, please think of me tomorrow morning as I venture out (before sunrise I might add!), and pray that I don’t slip -n- slide all the way to the bus stop.
