Mary's Pad

Mary’s Pad

My personal space on the web, to rest my brain after its many wanderings

where I empty and rest my brain

Archives for December 2007

Prepared to care for the body but not the soul?

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“…Brimming with new knowledge, I thought I was fully ready to assume the care of people. I mistook information for insight. While I was prepared for the science, I was pitifully unprepared for the soul.”

This quote comes from a book I am currently reading “The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness“.

Now that the celebrations are dying down, and it’s starting to hit home that I am going to be an RN, that a group of people out there have decided that I am competent to have the care of sick and broken bodies committed to my hands, I find myself thinking much about whether I know what I’m getting into. It bears thinking about, and if you’re in any field involving patient care, this book is worth reading.

PS: This book came from my wishlist by way of a graduation gift. Thank you Angie!

Thought of the day – on nice people

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“A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.”

I was just reading Dean’s blog, and came across his post on Pearls of Wisdom for 2008. He has listed 25 things to think about in 2008, some of them pretty funny, and I was chuckling along until I came to #21 – “A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.” Need I say more?

Regardless of how well someone treats you, one of the truest gauges to character is how that person treats other people, especially service people. We cannot hide our true nature for too long, it’s bound to eventually sneak out and show itself. So if you’re considering dating someone, or are just getting to know someone, watch how they treat other people, waiters, service people, customer service people, telemarketers (ok, I’m stretching it a little here.. lol), etc., and it will tell you a lot about the person.

On a lighter note, I liked #25 – Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.

The viral nature of human relationships

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Human relationships, and friendships, are really really viral in nature. By viral I am not using the term in relation to viruses, but rather in relation to the nature in which there is a spread, a contagion, in the process through which people get to know each other. A common buzz word in the world of internet marketing is “viral marketing” which means promoting information or products that other customers are compelled to give to other friends, colleagues and family. By definition viral marketing is a way to promote a service or product exponentially. When effectively done one person will give it to several people who in turn will promote it to several other people.

The reason I am thinking about this now is that I’m planning a party. I graduate on Thursday, so I decided it would be nice to throw a “little” party on Friday for my friends as a way to say Thank you for their support, and to celebrate this journey I’ve been through.

I started with a guest list of about 12, and then I decided that I should invite some of my good friends from my class to come too, if they didn’t have parties of their own. So that shot my guest list up to about 22. Then I started thinking about each person I had invited and realized that if I invited X, then I would have to invite Y, because I had come to know Y through X, and then I would have to invite Z, because come to think of it, we’d all hung out a few times together, etc. Now multiply this by about 10 and you can see why my guest list is currently at 45 and growing!!! That’s the viral nature of friendships, and relationships. That’s one of the factors that makes applications like Facebook and MySpace so powerful, because they appeal to this viral nature in which people relate to and interact with each other.

Anyway, it’s an interesting thought… and I still don’t know what I’ll do with 45 people, but they’re all invited, and we’ll figure it out. It’ll be fun, if nothing else!!

Reasons I won’t buy the Amazon Kindle just yet

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If you’ve visited the Amazon.com website recently, you’ve probably seen the ads for their latest gadget, the Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device.

Image from Amazon
Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device

What this is is an electronic gadget that you can use to read your books, but more than that, you can shop for books and download them right onto the Kindle without connecting to a computer, you can subscribe to and read newspapers, and more. Amazon has a fully fledged Kindle Store where you can buy books and such.

Now the first thing I did when I saw the Kindle was to say… pfft! I spend way too much time in front of a computer screen as it is, why would I want to read my books off of a screen too? But because I can’t seem to contain my curiosity about all things geeky and techy, I explored some more, read almost all 980 reviews on Amazon (yeah I know I’m weird), and here are the things I learned about the Kindle. I am going to break them down into reasons why I may buy the Kindle one day and reasons why I won’t buy it just yet.

Reasons why I might think about buying the Amazon Kindle down the road:

  1. It’s a gadget, and I’m a geek – need I say more?

  2. I love reading, and I usually have a problem when traveling because I want to try and fit my whole bookshelf into one small bag! – The Amazon Kindle can hold over 200 books at once!!

  3. It has an electronic-paper display that provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper, so it won’t hurt my eyes. It adjusts to the lighting for ergonomic purposes.

  4. The Kindle offers free book samples, so that I can download and read first chapters for free before I decide to buy. Plus I can shop anytime and the downloads are fast. Add to that, the wireless connectivity to Amazon is included in the price, I never have to pay any monthly fees or such for the wireless connectivity.

  5. Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly.

  6. I can access more than 250 top blogs including some of my favs like Slashdot and TechCrunch, all updated wirelessly throughout the day. It also includes access to Wikipedia. And remember all this is at no extra cost.

  7. The Kindle is lighter and thinner than a typical paperback, clocking in at only 10.3 ounces.

  8. It has a long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.

Reasons why I won’t buy the Amazon Kindle just yet:

  1. It’s a device, and I have enough of those.

  2. I like books, I like the way they feel and smell, I like touching them, flipping through them, book-marking them, placing them on my shelf and reaching for them after some time to re-read them, seeing all the marks and notes I made before.

  3. They don’t have all my favorite authors and genres on the Kindle titles yet, so I’ll wait and see how many authors/publishers jump on the bandwagon before I go for it.

  4. The books you buy using the Kindle are copyright protected such that you can only read them on the Kindle, which, if you think about it a little deeply, is kind of unfair and a big disadvantage.
  5. It’s $399.00… yeah I know I’m going to be gainfully employed soon, but still…

So, hmmm, let’s see… I have 4 reasons for not buying the Kindle just yet, and 8 reasons why I might consider buying it down the line. What do you think the odds are that I’m going to end up owning one of these Kindles?

I think the biggest reason why I would NOT buy the Kindle is because, bottom line – it’s not a book. And I love books, in fact I would say I downright have a fetish for books.

But the Kindle is definitely in my list of drool-worthy gadgets to keep an eye on.

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