I like shopping and I like buying gifts but I really hate venturing to the mall to buy Christmas gifts. I’ve gotten a little bit of a late start because I’ve been quite busy between work and school. On Saturday, I was able to get a little bit done but not without some added frustration. I met with my wedding planner at a bookstore in a big mall over in VA. After we got finished talking and going over a few things, I ventured into the mall. I guess others had the same idea about shopping on a Saturday as I did. The mall was pretty crowded. One negative. I hate, hate, hate crowds

The second negative is that since the downturn in the economy, I’ve noticed that salespeople have seemingly turned into vultures. The people in the kiosks in the middle of the walkways practically jump you as you walk by. If you even more than glance at an item, you have salespeople that want to get all up on you to get you to buy stuff.  

I wandered into Teavana, a store that sells tea and tea accoutrements like it sounds. I had this wonderful idea to get my grandma some items to make loose leaf tea because she liked it so much when we went to tea a few weeks ago while she was visiting. I was practically pounced on by this short cashier. She bombarded me with the usual questions (i.e. what are you looking for today? Have you seen <insert new item here>?). I sort of mumbled something incoherent at her. I never know what to say to salespeople and besides, I knew exactly what I wanted. I was carrying a big bag from other things that I had bought already. Pushy Cashier Lady as she in the midst of warbling at me about the 50 bazillion kinds of tea they had says “Oh, what did you get for lunch???” and then proceeds to take her fingers and PEEK INTO MY BAG. For serious? This stranger who is trying to sell me a bunch of stuff wants to see what else I’ve bought. I said “Excuse me!” and she left me alone. I gathered up the items I was going to buy and got out of there only to be bombarded by kiosk people… I can’t win.

I understand that these people are probably being paid on commission but I’ll tell you one thing, if someone is bothering me, I’m probably not having a good time shopping. If I’m not having a good time shopping, I’m going to be less likely to want to spend money wherever it is that I’m being bothered. Yeesh. I wish I could write that on a sign and wear it to the mall…grr!!!

I’m pretty freaked out by what happened at Ft. Hood yesterday. I’m praying and thinking about all of the victims, their families, and everyone else on the base as they are probably pretty freaked out right now as well. One would think that in someplace like a military installation you would be just about as safe as you could be. There’s tons of security. My hometown has a very small army base in it and when I was in high school, I was dating a guy whose dad was in the military and their family lived on the base so I had to go through the front gate security all the time. 9/11 happened while I was in high school and while I was dating this guy and I noticed how much tighter security got. There were times where the MPs had to check my trunk and take a mirror to the underside of my car. This was to get on a little tiny base where most of the stuff going on was science-y type things. It’s been awhile since I’ve been on an actual military base but I know that even still to walk on to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, you have to be frisked and go through a metal detector. So they keep the bad guys from outside out but you never really stop to think that there might be bad guys inside already…

I just feel so much pain for the families affected by this. I don’t have any immediate family in the military but I have tons and tons of extended family that are in the military (including one who was apparently at Ft. Hood yesterday, but he’s okay; thank God!). I have cousins that at this point have deployed to war zones several times and it’s been scary for the entire family. So I have to imagine that there already has to be a huge amount of stress in immediate families where there is even the smallest chance that a family member could deploy. So already these affected families were probably dealing with a lot of extra stress before this ever even happened.

It just makes me sick to think about this happening. People should be able to feel safe in places like military installations. These are the people that are protecting our country!!! They have a pretty stressful job already without this other stuff going on.

I’m going to be very interested to see what the investigation uncovers about the shooter. He was in the military getting ready to deploy for Iraq. He was a psychiatrist that had been up here in DC at Walter Reed (the army hospital where many war veterans with war wounds are treated).

Hopefully what will come out of this whole mess is more of a focus on the psychiatric health of our troops before and especially after they deploy…. I really hope.

The weekend was good. I have pictures of Philly to share once I get them uploaded. Philadelphia was really wonderful. I didn’t realize how close it was to us. I would like to go back again and explore the city a little bit more.

I only have a few more weeks of school left and I am eagerly awaiting the semester to end. Last night, I was thrown into a little bit of an uproar when I found out about a group assignment in Statistics that is due Tuesday (yes, as in tomorrow). It’s not a big deal in the scheme of things. I’ll get it done tonight when I get home and it will be fine. I was just kind of beating myself up because I hate not being prepared. The Architect says I'm being too hard on myself but I hate feeling like I'm behind. Although I suppose I can’t beat myself up too much; neither of the other two members in my group knew about the assignment either. Sigh… On top of that, the group has been really slow to get their parts of a paper that we have to turn in tomorrow finished. It’s frustrating.

My classes end on Dec. 6^th so I only really have to make it through another month and then I’ll have two months off before the spring semester begins. I’m looking at that light at the end of the tunnel with eager anticipation and trying to focus on getting to the end of the semester.

In other news, I realized that I really need to get cracking on my Christmas shopping. I haven’t done any of it!!! Eek!

How do you focus when you’re feeling down?