And The Cat Came Back

In my last blog post I wrote about our new kitten. Unfortunately, a week later he got lose and has been running around our neighborhood for the last few days. Since he’s afraid of people he refuses to come to us when we have treats or he runs away when he sees us. 

We’ve decided that he’s nocturnal as he only comes out at night. Let me just say, that it’s extremely difficult to find a black kitten in the dead of night. A few times my roommates and I chased other animals thinking it was our kitten. We did however learn that there are a lot of raccoons in our area of Barrhaven,  so we went and bought locking garbage cans. Some good came of losing our cat I suppose… 

We left out some food for him and put his cages and his bed out in case he wanted somewhere dry and somewhat warm to sleep. It’s getting cold out now so we were really concerned about him. We even left our basement window open with some treats in the window sill if he wanted to come inside the house without us being around. Every morning we opened the basement door slowly just to make sure a raccoon didn’t sneak into our house. 

After three days of going out and attempting to catch him we decided that our strategy was not working and came up with a new plan of action. Our new plan of “action” was to do absolutely nothing. Chasing him was just causing him to run off so we decided to let him come to us. We took it in shifts one night and had one person sit outside and wait with treats. We sat out on the front porch and eventually he showed up. Picking him up was not working out for us so through text we came up with a new tactic. One of us slowly opened the garage door and hid around the corner while the other lured him towards it with treats. We tossed a few in and when he chased after them were shut the door. 

It’s been a few days now and he’s finally coming up from the basement to the main level where we all are and our adult cat doesn’t seem to mind him anymore. He’s still slightly afraid of us but he’s slowly becoming more comfortable but still only comes out at night…

 

Introducing Our New Fur Friend

My three roommates went on a little road trip last week to Niagara Falls. When they returned they had brought home a new furry roommate. At first I wasn’t too pleased with their spur of the moment decision to buy a kitten, especially since the last time they brought home a kitten our adult cat was not friendly towards it and they eventually gave the kitten away. How this was going to be any different I’m not sure.

Years ago when my mom brought home a new kitten our family cat got so angry he never came home when we let him outside. So I was nervous that would happen to my roommates cat. So this time I googled suggestions for introducing a new kitten to the family cat and read that it’s best to keep the cats in separate rooms so they get used to the smell of each other. It’s now been eight days, the new kitten is hiding INSIDE the couch and our cat will not stop hissing and growling at it. The kitten wandered upstairs once and only once and our cat went berserk and chased him back downstairs. He has not been up since..

We have managed to get the kitten out of the couch a few times to eat, but the minute you stand near him he bolts back into the couch. He’s a very sweet kitten and he loves when you pet him but if he thinks you’re going to pick him up he get scared. If hes walking around the basement and hears someone coming down the stairs he runs and hide. We’re not sure what else we can do. If anyone has any suggestions or has gone through the same experience I would love to hear about it. I’m pretty concerned about this kitten, more so than it’s actual owner..

When to Hold Your Tongue

Recently at work I was asked one of the most ignorant things I have ever been asked by a customer. I have a tattoo of a date on my forearm and lots of people ask me if it’s my birthday. One day I was ringing a woman through and she asked me what the date on my arm was for, I told her that it was the date of my adoption.

 

Here’s a little context: My sister and I are from Taiwan, we were adopted separately and just by coincidence, we are blood related. My sister was born in 1988 in Taipei where my parents adopted her and brought her back to Holland where they were posted. Three years later the woman who set up my sisters adoption had a cancelled flight and was stuck in Holland. My parents put her up for the night and expressed their interest to adopt another baby. When the lady flew back to Taiwan she had lunch with one her friends who also worked at an agency and just so happened to know a family who had to give up a baby. That baby was me. Turns out the family had already given up a baby three years before and that baby was my sister. So of course my parents jumped at the opportunity to adopt me and raise me with my sister.

I told the story to this customer and when I was finished she stood there silently, putting her credit card back in her wallet, looked up at me and said “what was it like growing up without a real mother?” I was taken aback by this question because no one has ever asked me that question before. I just stood there with my mouth open wondering if maybe I heard her question wrong, not sure if she was actually expecting an answer. She eventually walked away from me, I suppose the awkward silence was too much for her.
My parents raised me and loved me like any parent would with their children. They gave me a life my “real” parents couldn’t. I think back to that day and think about what I should have said to that lady in my store. I get rattled and angry when I think about how this woman has such nerve to go up so strangers asking these ignorant questions and not even realizing that it’s rude. I find myself getting upset even writing about this. Should I have responded? Would I have gotten in trouble if I got defensive and upset because I should be professional at work?

My question is: how would you have handled this situation while at work?

Dinner Table Debate

I had a discussion at the dinner table with my family the other night about the use of social media and how quickly things spread once something is posted. It was interesting to hear the different opinions each of us had and to compare how the different generations view social media. It suddenly became more of a dinner table debate than a discussion and I decided to use what I had heard in my next blog post! I found that the younger generation was focused more on the positivees of social media and the older generation focused more on the  negatives.

Though we all agreed that it’s great how fast information can spread using social networking, someone pointed out how that also means unreliable and false information can be spread just as fast. Whether it be personal news or world news, good news or bad news it can spread in only a matter of minutes. I’m sure anyone who uses Facebook must have seen that hoax post written in all capital letters about how it will start charging users. “PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON OR YOU ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO NOT PAY!” My news feed was covered in these posts and I caught myself wondering if maybe it was true this time before brushing it off like the other five times I had seen that post within the year.

My dad pointed out how nothing is private anymore and that it’s so easy for someone to access your information or hack your account. I’ve always been warned that what I post online stays online even if I delete it. Now I am beginning to worry if something I had posted as a teenager may come back to haunt me. I have also been a victim credit card fraud, which led me through a very lengthy investigation to have my funds returned to me.

Cyber bullying was a topic that kept coming up throughout the discussion and though cyber bullying is an awful thing, bullying has been around long before social media so even if social media didn’t exist bullying would still be a huge problem. There are different degrees of bullying and I think social media has made it very easy for people to bully and harass others. Social media has given people a way to continue to torment or intimidate someone without having to be face to face.

My main use for social media is to keep up with friends who have moved away. To stay in contact with people who I don’t see every day. Even if I’m not speaking to them directly I can see things they have posted. When I traveled social media is how I stayed in contact with my family so they knew I was alive and safe!

I could go on an on listing the pros and cons that were said during dinner but I am and always will be pro social media. We’ve entered the digital age and I don’t think social media will ever disappear. We can only learn more about it and be careful.

I do agree with each point that was made throughout our dinner debate and am curious to hear what others might think.

Why I Need a Digital Detox—COM0011

I recently read an article written by an old high school classmate who is the co-founder of an app that helps you put down your phone and not be distracted by social media if you’re trying to be productive. In the article she mentions (a previous article) losing her phone during her travels in China and how she went four weeks without a phone. For a generation that is hugely connected to their phones I’m sure it must have been a struggle to go without it for a month, not to mention being in a completely foreign country whilst phone-less. Turns out she really enjoyed “phone-free living” and was in no hurry to buy a new one once she returned home.She writes in the article about habits of people who are constantly on their phones. After reading through the article I realized I am at fault for not only one of these bad habits but all five habits.

1. Your a constant flake. Now that we can shoot off a quick text it’s become so much easier to bail on plans even if it is last minute. Maybe I had a bad day at work or I’m just too tired I can cancel my plans for dinner the day of the dinner.

2. You don’t respect people as much as you should. There have been many times people have been talking to me and I think I’m “multi-tasking” but listening and texting. I claim I’m paying attention to what it is the person who is physically there is saying when in actuality I’m paying more attention to my spelling in the text I’m currently writing.

3.You’re a terrible driver. I’m not a texting while driving person, I don’t talk on the phone while I drive. I do however listen to the music on my phone and scroll through the different tunes to pick what I want to listen to next. That’s just as bad as texting while driving.

4. You get less done. Case and point I’m routinely checking my phone while writing this post.

5. You use your phone a social crutch. Sometimes if I see people I don’t want to talk to I will pretend there’s something interesting or urgent on my phone to avoid having a conversation. When really I’m just swiping through Instagram posts. I cant sit and enjoy a nice sunset without checking my phone, or snapping a picture of it and uploading it to Facebook right away.

I could definitely afford to live less connected to my phone and live more in the moment. When I’m walking through a park I’m swiping through my phone, if I’m out for dinner with my friends I’m announcing it on Facebook, if I take a pictures I’m uploading it to Instagram. I always have my phone in my back pocket and the second I realize it’s not there I start to panic. Patting down every part of my clothing it could possibly be, and shoveling through my purse. I am obviously not one of those people who despise social media and using phones, but I think a “digital detox” is something that we all could afford to do every now and then.

Comment if you feel you’re too connected to your phone or if you feel you have a healthy balance. How would you start becoming less dependent on your phone?
Link to article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alanna-harvey/your-phone-is-likely-the-reason-bad-habits_b_9359806.html

Link to secondary article: https://medium.com/human-output/my-take-on-the-digital-detox-vacation-20ce478b8c74#.pgwfd4ifw