The click of a button

Have you ever just pondered the intense power found within the click of a button? I often find myself paralyzed with fear as to the consequences of such a simple act. Click. That could have just sent important information all the way across the world to a friend, or to some random hacker who will now delight in stealing my identity and future. Click. I just sent an application to a wanted job, but wait, in looking back I misspelled the company's name. Click. I just put my future on the line by sending an application for continued education, did I fill out the form correctly? These are among some of the fears I experience when holding my cursor over that dreaded button: send, submit, signin. Click. This world in which we now live is full of peril and grief all at such a close distance, that of the click of a button. Click.

Tantrum

So once a week I get to teach a bunch of five year old kids. It's always a fun experience and reminds me of how much fun I have with my nieces. Sometimes the boys tend to be a little rambunctious and I don't really blame them because I know I was probably very similar if not worse as a five year old. A couple of weeks ago one of the little boys was being especially disruptive so I took him outside and told him that if he would be good for two weeks then I would take him fishing. Yesterday was the long awaited fishing trip. I ended up bringing the other two boys in the class to not leave them out and it was an interesting experience. The two boys who had never been fishing before both caught a fish, the first boy caught a three inch fish and the second boy caught a six inch fish. The third boy who was the boy I took outside, was left fishless. He cried and yelled and ultimately ended up throwing quite the tantrum. Luckily his dad was there so I didn't have to deal with the tantrum all by myself. We told him fish don't like little boys who cry and that was why he didn't catch any, but he just couldn't and wouldn't snap out of this fit he was having. The boy ended up getting a spanking from his dad and then being put in the car where he eventually stopped crying. The experience was good and I always try and learn from whatever happens so I find myself looking to the future. How will I react when my children break down? Will I yell at them? Will I spank them? I don't really like the idea of spanking kids, but I do see how it can be helpful. I really just don't know what I will do and that kind of scares me. I feel like I'm pretty good at taking care of kids, but this is one aspect of being a parent I just don't know about. Luckily I'm not to that point yet, but being the good eagle scout I am, I am trying to prepare.

Negotiating

Being a student I have learned to despise the bookstore. They make you pay a ridiculous price for textbooks, and then buy them back at supposedly half price the original. That is, of course, as long as the professor doesn't decide to make a couple bucks by printing a new edition of the book, making your newly bought book obsolete at the end of the semester. Moral of the story, I have since decided to not sell my books back to the bookstore, because I don't like feeling cheated. Luckily, my major is such that it is more a community than a competition, even though our classes are competitive in that only a predetermined number of students get each grade. I really enjoy the feel of this community and it is a common thing to sell your books to a friend, or even just trade or lend.
The beginning of this semester was not unlike others in that I once again found myself dealing with my friends trying to get rid of my old books. Last week I talked to an acquaintance, I say acquaintance because of the following post, about selling some books and we agreed on a price for some books. I was selling them for how much I had bought them and felt it was a really good deal for both of us. I would get more than the bookstore would give me and he would pay significantly less. All last week we had a hard time getting together and I lugged the heavy books with me to school everyday fruitlessly. Finally today this acquaintance came to my house to buy the books and when I gave them to him he asked if he could pay twenty dollars less. I was pretty mad because I'm not some street vendor in a third world country and felt that the deal I had given him was fair. We haggled for a bit and I saw that there was no way I would get my original price, so I settled for ten bucks less than our original agreement.
I admit I'm not an experienced negotiator, and that I could have done better, but for me that is besides the point. I felt really taken advantage of because I considered this guy a friend, and I wasn't trying to cheat him. I don't have a problem with negotiating with people, it is a part of life, but I do have a problem with people taking a fair deal and trying to squeeze whatever they can get from me. I sold him the books for less than I wanted because I wanted to help him out and it wasn't worth the ten bucks to try and find another person, but it really rubbed me wrong that he would do it. The moral of this story is that I needed to write something for this week for class and that I felt blowing off steam was an appropriate post. Hopefully you learned something from my experience, since all I learned is that I'm never selling my books to that guy again.