Providential Calamity

Including today, I have (had) 8 more days of work until winter break. Fewer than 8 days, in fact, to get done a large amount of work.
Today at work I had to video-tape a presentation that was part of a lecture series my office sponsors. This proved to take lot more time than anticipated. Actually taking the equipment out and learning how to use it took half an hour. Then I had to cart 4 pieces of equipment across campus and set them up. These followed me back up to my office and then back down where returning them took probably 45 more minutes and involved quite a few more steps than anticipated. No, I didn’t have an external hard drive with me! Surprise! All this on a day when I was busier than expected with multiple calls, visits to my office, catching up on work.

The plus side to this ever so slightly potentially negative experience? There were a few. First, the funny and helpful support of the staff in the equipment office made my time there a pleasure. Second, opening my eyes to the possibilities of learning how to make and edit video in their free 2-day workshops, videos based on interesting campus events that could be shared on our website. This would be fun, an exciting new skill, creative, and a chance for our office to purchase and me to use a Macbook, thus helping my transition to Apple products at some point. Third, an engaging conversation with those same individuals about religions, the winter break and how to get along. All in all, a pleasurable outcome to what just seemed to be a time-consuming work task.

In an amusing parallel, my husband showed me a book he picked up today. Published in 1938, authored by Stanwood Cobb, the book on character looked cool and the author’s name seemed familiar to me. My husband read me a part that he liked: that calamities might seem to be fire and vengeance, but in fact were often light and mercy. “Oh, that’s from the Baha’i Writings,” I said. “He’s a Baha’i.” “No!” my husband exclaimed. Sure enough, my dad confirmed that Stanwood Cobb was a very active Baha’i, a writer, who passed away aged past 100 years. Trust my husband to pick out an obscure, old book by a Baha’i author!

Leaving our house today: 1 more travel mug (doesn’t hold heat, lid pops off); 1 too-small bra; 1 brown eye-liner (it makes me look tired and sick. No.)

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