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Friday, July 12, 2002 ( 10:20 AM ) MaltaGirl Malta's Mediterranean culture sometimes makes for whimisical and / or surrealistic situations, especially when viewed by someone who was raised in a different culture. Just such a situation occured yesterday... I went to a friend's house for a cleaning product demonstration to be given by one of her friends. Not, might I hasten to add, because I have any scrap of interest in cleaning products in general or these ones in particular, but more as a gesture of moral support. Turns out, it was just as well I went, for not one of the dozen neighbours whom she invited showed up. There just my friend, another lady, the demonstrater, and myself. We are all members of the same church and therefore are quite familiar with each other, although the situation I am about to describe to you could very well have happened among perfect strangers... Having extolled the virtues of the kitchen, clothes, and bathroom cleaning products, the demostrator then began expounding upon the health-care and beauty products also manufactured by the same company. (The juxtaposition of the toilet cleaner and the shower gel didn't look quite right, but anyhow...) One such product, the exfoliant foot cream (with A.H.A's), sparked much debate as it seems that all three ladies present had problems with dry skin on their feet. Of course, in a demonstrative culture like this one, visual aids are there to be used, so the footwear started coming off in order to compare various complaints and assess the degrees thereof. I kid you not, I was sitting there watching them all taking off their sandals and comparing dry soles and calloused heels, and thinking bemusedly to myself... how did I get here? It was rather funny but I managed to contain myself and even joined in. Oh well, I am sure that when I am married with kids and dry feet, I will eagerly participate in, nay, indeed perpetrate, just such a discussion. But until then, I continue marvel at this island on which God decided to place me when he formed me. I love Malta! # Thursday, July 11, 2002 ( 1:58 PM ) MaltaGirl An interesting thought came to mind today... my friend is a very strong-willed, extroverted person, and so she knows that her husband must be a strong man who will keep her in line. And my thought was, so what kind of guy would I need as a husband? Someone to help me lighten up, or someone to be an emotionally-stable rock? Someone to turn my focus on others, or someone to turn my focus on neglected responsibilities? Someone to bring out my (well-hidden) domesticated side, or someone to reveal my more adventurous nature? Or is it possible to find all of the above in just one man? Sometimes it is hard to believe that somewhere out there, is a great Christian guy, passionate for the Lord, who is also capable of making a life with me as his help-meet. On the other hand, maybe I have a "nobler calling" to singleness... But if I declared myself a life-long single, would I be dedicating my life to a noble cause, or running away from the hard part of sharing my life with another human being? Hmmm... # Wednesday, July 10, 2002 ( 10:34 PM ) MaltaGirl The Power of A Woman Yesterday, my assignment in the mechanical workship was to learn how to align two pipes in order to connect a motor to a pump. The pipes must be PERFECTLY aligned, to within a fraction of a millimetre, a job which takes a skilled technician about half-an-hour. The motor casing is fastened to supports using 4 large bolts, and the procedure is that you tighten the bolts, check the allignment, undo the bolts, make adjustments and repeat the procedure. By repeat I mean, do it over and over and over and over until you have a perfect match. Now this should not have presented too much of a challenge to me, I mean, it's not exactly rocket science. The problem was that the ratchet wrench I had to use to tighten the bolts was set to 70 pounds, which means that when I tighten the bolts, I have to push hard enough to exert 70 pounds of pressure before the ratchet will 'click', telling me that the bolt is tight enough. The guy who was doing the project before i was, was struggling with it. I could see his muscles bulging as he strained to manipulate the bolts, and in fact he remarked to me "You're really going to swear over this one!". (He's never heard me swear, and he didn't swear either, but the sentiment was true). So when my turn came, I was determined not to disgrace myself in front of my classmates and the technician who was teaching us how to do the alignment. I made the first adjustments, picked up the wrench, and began to tighten the bolts. By dint of superhuman effort, I actually managed to tighten the first two bolts!!! But then the terrible on-fire sensations in my shoulder joints persuaded me that I was in trouble. The technician had pity, and for the next few adjustments, he did the bolt-tightening for me. I thought to myself, "Who will ever take me seriously as a female engineer if I have to ask a man to do the tough stuff for me?". I mean, OK, as an engineer I wouldn't be doing this stuff myself, I would be supervising, but still I should be able to do it if neccessary!!! Well, the answer came to me as I was releasing the bolts in preparation for one of the adjustments. Without thinking about it, I was using a technique which my Dad had taught me when I was a 7-year-old windsurfer. When a little titch is trying raise a 2-meter square sail out of the water, there is no way she is going to manage with her strength! But Dad taught me that if I grab the rope and just lean back, my own weight will pull the sail out of the water, with almost zero effort on my part. Well, that's the principle I was using to unscrew the bolts - I was just leaning back and pulling the wrench with me, so all the force was coming from my legs, instead of using my arm-muscles. I realised "Hey, this isn't hurting my arms!" and wondering if I could apply the principle in reverse when tightening the bolts. Accordingly, after that adjustment, instead of handing the technician the tools, I said "Let me try again", and began to tighten the first bolt by leaning my weight forward on the wrench, and bracing my elbow on my hip. Sure, enough, it worked!!! I still had to put a fair amount of effort into it, but I was using my legs to push the wrench forward instead of my arms, so I wasn't killing myself. I was able to do all my own wrench-work for the rest of the assignment. The power of a woman :-) # Tuesday, July 09, 2002 ( 2:22 PM ) MaltaGirl P.S. i managed to resist the temptation and didn't actually buy any Oreos yesterday... *self-righteous feeling* # ( 2:19 PM ) MaltaGirl Tell me, why is it that I have infinite patience with people I like and/or love, but almost-zero-tolerance-levels for people who irritate me? Is it maybe that they have already made inroads on my store of patience by irritating me in the first place? Sometimes there are days when I just want to be as far away from people as I could possibly be... I want to sit underneath a shady tree, preferably on a hill with 360-degree vision, so that I can be absolutely sure that there is no-one within a 5-mile radius of myself. A friend today said of me "I think you have people-overload" and I guess she was right. It would be nice to find that tree someday though... Uncomfortable thought of the day: Those who irritate me are precisely the ones who I ought to be patient with. # Monday, July 08, 2002 ( 7:43 AM ) MaltaGirl Just created a travel blog at MaltaGirlUSA.blogspot.com :-) I am linking to it from this blog, but won't link to this one from there, and this one is still un-publicised. Only one person has the address, and I'm pretty sure she'll never come back ;-) I am kinda hoping that I will get to take a month-long trip to the US in 2 weeks time, but at the same time I'm kinda hoping I'll get to stay because there's stuff here that is cool too, like the new kids ministry starting up. Hopefully I will still be able to do my website stuff from there. Anyway, the friends I am staying with are supposed to be raising the money for my flights, but apparently they haven't got enough yet so I am not certain that I am going. Oh well, we'll see. I am off to get that photo taken and get some more Oreos too... # |
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