Spring Training and It is Freezing Outside!

So it is now less than a month away, this is my personal countdown, until the first game for the 2010 Season for the SF Giants and the best time of the year, baseball season! I have already bought my first ticket and will be right there ten rows up from the first base line on April 13th! With the season changing and the time moving one hour ahead it seems like the weather would realize the change as well right?

Well, I guess not considering that it has been either raining or sunny with 25 mile an hour winds! What is that about ! It is almost Spring Break and there has not been any warm weather, how am I supposed to get a tan and sport my new bikini?, Ok that was a little exaggeration. But seriously is ever going to get warm? Granted I know this is Monterey and it is never really warm, but I can recall around this time last year it was getting warm enough to wear shorts or skirts and spend an afternoon at the beach, without getting pummeled by the flying sand. I hope that it gets here soon, I am sick of the rain and the freezing cold wind and crappy days.... I need some sunshine and a relaxing day at the beach!

New Hobby-

Ok, so on to something new.  I have recently taken up the sport of tennis. I was pretty excited about this because it one of the only sports that I have never learned to play. I have had a little bit of practice hitting the ball around, but I didn't know the rules or any of the basic routine of the game. One of my friends, who is pretty good agreed to help teach me how  to play. So today after work I met up with him and  we decided to play. This was now my third time playing, so I am starting to get  the hang of things and am finding it  to not only be fun, but a great work out too, which is an added bonus :) So we start playing and I am doing pretty good for only my third time, I am hitting the ball back and we start a small rally across the net. I loose the first game, so now it is my turn to serve. The last time I had played I picked up on serving pretty quick and was getting over the net and in bounds,.which was an accomplishment (my first serve ended up in the pool).

So this time I thought it was going to be a piece of cake, well I was wrong. I couldn't seem to get the ball over the net, and when I did I hit it too far and out of the serving square. I started to get frustrated and the harder I tried the worse I got. I was upset since I had just lost three games in a row, you get two chances to serve  and if you mess up then it is the other persons point. I just couldn't figure out why I was having such a hard time and I have to admit that my competitive edge was getting to me, I was tired of loosing. My friend was starting to tell that I was not having a good time and then gave me a little pep talk. He said " Carly, It is only your third time ever playing, and you are hitting some really great shots! I know you want to win and play your best, but your not going to just walk out onto the court and be a Maria Sherapova! You are doing way better than most of the beginners that I have worked with, so quit giving yourself such a hard time, and have some fun!".

I had to take a deep breath for a moment, he was so right. I had just started to learn the game, how can I expect to serve like the pros on tv or even play the game like I had been doing it all my life. I guess growing up playing sports, you just automatically assume that because you are good at other sports, this new one shouldn't be any different. Well the pep-talk put some things into perspective for me. I have decided that I am just going to take it step by step and enjoy learning how to play tennis. I am not going to let my competitive side get the best of me and I am going to see where this new hobby takes me.

Censorship at Work

Dealing with the general public can be somewhat exhausting. I work in the pro-shop at a golf course so I see a variety of people. Most are nice and sometimes like to share their experiences from their round or ask where they should go out to dinner that evening. But then there are always those few who are..well lets just say not the friendliest in the world. So a few nights ago I was closing with another co-worker and this gentleman walks up to the counter wanting to exchange two windshirts. Well one of them has a logo that does not belong to our golf shop, so my co-worker and I are trying to find out where it may have come from. The gentleman was starting to get aggravated and insisted that he had purchased the jacket from our store earlier that morning. We were trying to do our best to assist him but we needed to make sure that we had the appropriate information in order to do a return and the exchange. As we were explaining this, the gentleman started reomoving the items from his bag and throwing them around at the windshirt display, so now we are completely confused as to which items he originally had and the ones that he would like to exchange. He is also giving us attitude and treating us like we do not know what we are doing and that we are in some way wasting his time...hmm now is about the time when I would really like to mutter something unkind under my breath....but I hold my tongue. So we return the jacket that belongs to a course related to ours and give him a credit so that he could purchase the same thing in the size he needed at the other store the next day... and he leaves with a jacket from our store that he had exchanged...yeah it was a nightmare. So the debacle is over but my coworker and I are still confused and hope that we did the process correctly, and we are stuck having to straighten up the display that this disgruntled man just destroyed. So the point of this crazy story is that it got me thinking about Free Speech and consequences. So we all have the freedom to say what we want, but then we must realize the consequences that could arise.  As I was getting flustered and upset with the treatment from this guest, I had to remind myself that this is not the first time something like this has happened nor will it be the last. I knew it was in my best interest not to sink down to his level and risk loosing my job over not being able to self censor my speech. It was a good lesson for me in how we determine the limits and boundaries to assgin to free speech and how that can play into the workplace environment.

A Country Divided

I just finished watching a documentary in my Race and Gender Justice class on Hurrican Katrina and its effects on the black community in New Orleans. I remember when Katrina happened and everyone was talking about it through the hallways of my high school, but it felt so far away that I didn't really take into consideration what was going on and the devastation that was occurring in these peoples lives.
In this documentary a 24 year old named Kim and her husband film what it was like to go through the hurricane and live to tell about it, while also showing the poverty and racial struggles that the African American community faces, especially in the 9th ward. From the media coverage the refugees were portrayed as bandits and thieves who were "looting" and stealing anything that they could find in shops and stores. In reality, this was not the case, sure things were stolen, but it was out of survival. Most of the relief efforts went to upper middle class neighborhoods, and rebuilding of downtown and the French Quarter. So many people in the 9th ward were left with nothing, no belonging, food, shelter, and many of their neighbors and friends had passed away in the turmoil.
I traveled to New Orleans last summer and could still see signs of the damage and destruction of Katrina and that was about four years later. I could see how hard the city spent on rebuilding, but only in the areas where the tourists go and places that would generate money.  I didn't venture into the 9th ward, but from what I saw in the film I am sure not much has changed. It just seems like the city doesn't care about the less fortunate and want to just cast them aside like an old pair of shoes. It just makes me so angry to know that these unjust things are still occurring in this day and age. That the people in our country who really need are help are being treated like they are un-American or that they don't deserve our help. It just goes to show that the "Rich get Richer while the Poor get Poorer". It is just a vicious cycle, will it ever end?

Check out the Film trailer here!

Kimberly Roberts also has recorded a CD where she has released her feelings about New Orleans and her life experiences through hip-hop, check it out.....Black Kold Medina