Friday Favorite Readings #2: Drugs and Sex

Today marked my last Friday as a jobless person and I can’t say I’m sorry. No matter how underpaid or mediocre my job as a “dining room server” at a Chicago luxurious retirement home may be, it’s still better that sitting all day long around the house, pretending that I’m a 40s housewife minus the up-do.  

No person in his right mind would actually crave the work-related stress. I do. What else I miss about having a job? The one-to-one interaction, although my husband tells me I better be prepared to have a mild case of brain melt for the first few days. The way he describes it “even if you perfectly understand English, after an hour or so, your brain gets flooded with English words and just shuts off”. Awesome! But enough with my ramblings. Let’s move on what really matters.     

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1. How Sugar Daddies Are Financing College Education -The financial burden that comes with a college degree was brought to a whole new level. It’s ludicrous, but try reading it with non-judgmental eyes.
2. Paralyzed Woman Now Helping Injured Patients At Same Place She Received Treatment - This girls should go in a world-wide tour to promote her story, that’s how inspiring she is. She transformed her disability from a major drawback into a huge advantage
3. When you go to the wrong airport - Dana Moran, a RedEye Chicago author, shares a “Mission Impossible” style story that will have you smiling from start to finish
4. Off the Drugs, Onto the Cupcakes - As if battling with a drug addiction wouldn’t be enough for one life, some of the people who received professional help left their treatment facilities with a full blown sugar habit. 
5. Barred From Facebook, and Wondering Why - I’m pretty sure some teenagers would kill themselves if they couldn’t access their Facebook accounts for a week. Beware, social media geeks, tomorrow it can happen to you!
   
   

Friday Favorite Readings and a taste of my bitter mood

Live has been busy around here. Between job interviews (I got hired. More on that in another post) and adjusting to the cold, gloomy weather, there was little time left to write meaningful content on this blog.

Writing is for a sweet struggle, just like physical exercise is.

When missing a workout for other reason than tiredness or illness, I must get it done, before I can properly think at something else. And I’m not even talking about a grueling exercise regimen, just half an hour or so of mimicking a YouTube fitness guru. 

The same goes for writing. I just have to take it out, or else I'll start feeling anxious. The difference between these two activities is crucial. I wasn’t trained to be a personal trainer, nor do I intent to become one, but I consider myself a journalist and I want to put every ounce of my being to draw the attention of a newspaper editor.

Every single sentence worth published has to be smart and funny, or at least one of them, forgetting that I am as new to writing in English as a newborn is at running.

It takes time, practice and, above all, it takes patience. I don’t have any of that.

Now that I got my emotional trash out of the way, let’s go through some really interesting articles I came across this week:

1.    She saw herself in Ray Rice’s wife, Janay, and tweeted about it. So did thousands of others – One single tweet of Beverly Gooden, a domestic violence survivor, changed the way people talked about Ray Rice scandal. A powerful remember that every story has two sides

2.    Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: 6 months without a trace – A collage of pictures taken by a Reuters photograph, showing how the relatives of the ones missing are coping with the grief. The captions are heart-breaking

3.    Rape Culture in the Alaskan Wilderness- Another disturbing article, the kind that you prefer never read it in the first place. It reminds me of Sodom and Gomorrah, the two ancient cities ruled by the same wickedness

4.   The secret to a higher salary is to ask for nothing at all – Finally, something cheerful! The author presents an amazing idea, but it’s not for the weak-hearted

5.    We Tried to Get a Job by Holding Up Signs at a Train Station – A must read for journalists. I nodded my had in approval from start to finish

6.  Girl uses Photoshop to fool her family into thinking she was on vacation in Asia – It’s hilarious and also quite shocking to realize that we all have our share of guilt for perpetuating this social phenomenon

And that’s a wrap!