A Call to Action....

*we will be posting some blogs from back in the day from time to time to share with all the newer readers, we would appreciate any comments or feedback you may have*

~originally posted 12/9/08~


*my boy Ichigo, get ya anime game right suckas

Have you ever read a job description that sounded like something you could do, but the circumstances weren’t “right” or “ideal”? Maybe the job was in a location that you’d never consider moving to, or in a part of town that required a vest. Maybe the pay would reduce you to eating Raman Noodles, which you are already doing making more money now. Maybe you thought it would be a step back in your career movement up the ladder. However, the job seemed so like something you could do, something you had been prepared for by previous jobs or education. Maybe the job was related to your first major in college that you transferred out of, but always had a yearning to pursue it-if the timing was right. Well I’m here to reveal a message about this exact kind of scenario.

I’ve found that for a while now I’ve been preparing for my war, my battle or to put it ethereally, my purpose in life. Anyone who knows me for 5 minutes knows that I have the spirit of a warrior, always ready to do battle for a cause, against an injustice, and in my youth just for the hell of it. And I’ve been walking around looking for my battle, dragging my sword on the ground, stomping my feet because I couldn’t find a fight. When all along, it was right in front of me. No it didn’t come in the form I expected it to, but neither does blessings or any other message given to us by the divine one. When you get your marching orders, no one is going to text it to your phone or email a detailed description of it. You’d just better get or you’ll miss it.

So now I’m ready, I’ve gotten the call to action. I’ve been preparing for years, I know the name of my zanpaktou and I’m ready to use it. Slaying demons, beheading dragons, or basically getting the job done, when you get the call, will you be ready?

New Jack Library

So let me tell you about my interesting day at the library of all places. I went to the Durham Public Library yesterday to pick up a few books on my wish list because I can't afford to buy them, which makes me sad because I love to OWN books, I hate library books. Anyway, I am getting off focus already. So I decide to chill at the library for a little while and grabbed a chair and began reading one of my book selections. This seems pretty innocuous, right? Au contraire! I get about 20 pages into my book and and 3 teenagers sit at a table a few tables down from where I was sitting. It was 2 girls and a boy who looked rather rough around the edges, but otherwise harmless. Then they begin to loudly talk about their hood-exploits. The boy starts talking about how his attempted murder charges and robbery charges had got dropped. He then proceeded to talk about all the people he allegedly shot at and fought. The girls began to fawn over him like he was God Almighty. They were acting like the little kids and the preacher were all up on Nino Brown in "New Jack City" and I wanted to go over there like the old man and give him a piece of my mind, but I was scared Nino Brown and Keisha would off me.

*skip to and watch 4:00 - 5:35 for the scene*

It made me so sad that they came up in the library to discuss their thuggery as opposed to say ummmmm, read a damn book or in the very least get on one of the many computers. I would have even been happy had they not decided to sit near me with their shenanigans since I was already upset to have to read library books. On the good side the borrowing library books will be coming to an end soon because guess who got a job offer? Here's a hint: she is fly, fresh, flavorful, fabulous, and fun... no not Tiha, ME!

Clearance Electronics

A great and wonderous philosophress once said “sometimes you just have to throw your electronics away and buy quality instead of the clearance rack, no more open box purchases for me, I learned that from my laptop.”

This philosophress and superbad spoken word artist was referring to her job situation after reflecting on what kind of day it was going to be at the office. She followed her lament with the following statement: “I am just going to throw this job away and shop around more than I did for this one, instead of what seemed like a “good deal’”.

And I agree and concur. Jobs, like people, are either here for a reason, season, or lifetime. Things go to shit when our needs outgrow our jobs and we try to extend the relationship with the job. A job we kind of fell into may become the “dream job”, it may be the job that opens the door for other opportunities, or it may just be around to pay your bills while you get your shit together. It is up to us, not the job, to decide when its time to move on or to stay. You can’t make a job you copped from the clearance shelf be the super robust career you’ve always dreamed about. Just like that open box computer the philosopher got, I’m pretty sure it met her needs at the time. It was a computer and she HAD to blog, but sista shoulda known, I mean the philosophress soon learned that running Photoshop and Dreamweaver on a Microsoft Word only pc wasn’t going to work for long*. Thus the death of the open box laptop. Thus the death of the one stop shop job, which was never meant to be a career. Thus is born incentive like a mf to make something else, something better work, with a splash of a crappy economy to bring the hustler out in ya.

My philosophress friend and coblogger is on to something with her metaphor. She aint the only one that needs to shop around, I do too. Yes the economy is in the crapper, but truth be told, being in a shady situation isn’t anything new to colored folks. We’ve dealt with worse, and yet still we stand. I’m no longer going to let the fearmongers dictate my every reaction to their propaganda**. I am a survivor, we are survivors, and we will be alright, like we always are.

*clearance rack Macs are still 110% better than a pc on its good day, booyah!
**this statement may seem hella random, but to those code crackers out there, you know exactly what I’m talking about and why I chose to put it in code to begin with.