Hi Readers,
The past few days have been spent in a quasi limbo time warp. The past few weeks have felt oddly awkward and off kilter. It may be the remnants of covid. If there is a covid brain fog then perhaps I can chalk it up to that. Or the new ache that has begun to hammer away in the space above my pre-covid botoxed brow may be a sign that whatever ailed me is not finished with me. Or perhaps the turning of the page on the Jewish New Year has something to do with it. I feel a shift but I donโt know where or what I am shifting to. I have not yet settled into defining my role in a new job which is now on break for a week which gave me a chance to go back and pick up two shifts of straight subbing. I felt a weight lift off me because I was bereft of any longer term responsibility than that one school day. โDone and dustedโ is a good a feeling at the end of the day. I have said that before.
I donโt know what it says about me that Iโm allergic to long term responsibility. Maybe itโs more of a daily job routine or perhaps itโs simply the idea that I have to show up when otherwise I can choose not to. When I think back to the pandemic I was working a full time job in a school setting as an instructional aide. The assignment I was in when we went on home learning was the most painful of all the thirteen years I had been in the role of aide, which is odd because I walked not more than ten minutes to work. It was also a job location I asked for. One that had sentimental meaning to me. But I exhaled for the first time in years when we stopped working in person in March of 2020. Whatever was happening with covid, I could zoom in rather than show up and I felt like myself for the first time in years.
Of course the job was toxic or rather the work culture was toxic. I finally retired in the summer of 2021. I made some close friends along the way, let down by others, and sadly now keep in touch with no one, but miss some people. It had been toxic, the culture to be precise, for years. It left an imprint on my psyche that I have just begun to wash off. It took a while for me to let go of the feelings of not just having a voice; I was a reluctant guard waiting for any cues to do anything. A unit plopped into an assignment, my own sense of humanity was reduced to the eeny meeny miny moe of who gets the coveted assignments. Who played the game better. I was completely mismatched in work at the point of the pandemic shutting life down and out. When we went on home learning I came to life. When reopening became evident, I retired. I could not go back. I had to do anything new, even if it was almost the same. It would be different. I would fashion it so. I had dabbled with writing throughout. My dream of writing never died.
I tired to look before I leapt. But in the end I had to leap. I pushed myself to the edge and then I was pushed and so I leapt. Looking back would I have done things differently, and not taken the jump? I can say if I knew then what I know now I could have waited another year or year and a half. It would have made more financial sense. But only financial sense. I do not think I would have expanded my writing community or my writing even on the microscale that I have. The pandemic allowed me more time online and with more time online I became more exposed to more people. Giving that up to go back everyday all day would have kept me where I was and not moving forward even if moving forward was inching me sideways.
Now Iโm sideways if not forward. Perhaps in the game of hopscotch Iโve moved over one or maybe what seems like up but perhaps not a full step. In chess perhaps Iโm the rook, which is quite powerful and Iโm not giving myself enough credit for intuitively knowing what Iโm doing which is letting go and letting god.
I chose the title for this blog because I had an interesting week. I finally had to give in and buy a new laptop. My eleven year old Macbook was considered vintage and if I waited any longer Apple would not be able to do a data migration. But that is not the point here, I had an older version I-Mac which I was lucky to have the data on a back-up because that was big โNOโ when the tech guys at Apple saw me haul that computer into the store. So to make a longer story short, it became an arduous process of drag and drop from the back-up of the older computer onto my new laptop.
To make an even longer story short in my earlier writing days I did online journalism for my neighborhood Patch.com while I was working full time as an aide. One or two articles got me into a bit of trouble but anyway copies of those published articles were on that much older computer. One article was titled: Look Before You Leap. Itโs about social networking safety and an experience I had with someone trying to scam me as a yoga teacher. Still relevant. I have cut and paste it below as it was the ultimate point of this blog. Although the title took on a life of its own - in my ramblings and musings it might be we can look before we leap only so much and then the rest we have to leave to faith.
But in the case of my article below, looking before you leap or not leaping at all may be the best course of action. I tried to find the article online but that one article I could not find but I did find links to some of my other Patch.com articles. If any of you sweet readers can find Look Before You Leap I will be forever grateful. It would be wonderful to have a link. Iโve realized that things do not stay online forever even if we think they do. At the time I was writing under my maiden name.
https://www.google.com/search?q=sherri+levin+patch.com+beverly+hills&sca_esv=571399955&hl=en&sxsrf=AM9HkKkkD9PZsQlu3LLWxw2ddm9OBTQGXA:1696634746081&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjp6un6yOKBAxUhlWoFHctBCKIQ0pQJegQIBhAC&biw=1291&bih=665&dpr=2
*please note sweet readers that some of the links from the original article are no longer functional as the article is about ten plus years old.*
Look Before You Leap
By
Sherri Levin
Michelle Mowad of La Jolla Patch posted this chilling article: โCraigslist Killing Suspects Plead Not Guilty in Death of La Jolla High Grad.โ
http://lajolla.patch.com/articles/craigslist-killer-suspects-plead-not-guilty-in-death-of-la-jolla-high-grad-
The question: how safe are social networking, professional networking, dating, and online classified sites and organizations?
Four years ago, I was forwarded an inquiry, to Yoga Alliance, for a private yoga teacher. I jumped on it immediately. Doctor Dean Maxwell from England was sending his teenage daughter to Los Angeles for a month.ย She was getting over the death of her mother, loved guitar, and was interested in yoga. He wanted her to have daily yoga lessons for the month. It sounded very legit, and I emailed him a heartfelt letter introducing myself, describing my background, where my teen daughter went to school, and a son who loved guitar. I gave him my name, address, phone number, and availability. I said I was going on vacation and would look forward to beginning lessons with his daughter upon my return and her arrival. His reply asked for my bank information so he could wire $3000 into my account as payment in advance. My reply asked for payment in cash when she arrived in town. I left town and did not hear from him. During my vacation something told me to Google him. Shock was an understatement. He was listed under scams associated with Yoga Alliance. Shock gave way to panic that beautiful Saturday morning in Kauai. I called the Beverly Hills police, my bank, the FBI, Experian, and Yoga Alliance. I felt like a fool when Yoga Alliance told me they knew of the scam and why didnโt I.ย All assured me, if he didnโt have my social security number, then I was okay.ย How could I be, he had my address. I decided to nip the whole thing in the bud and sent an e-mail apologizing for not being able to teach his daughter because my schedule changed. The vacation ended without further issue.
One week later, while in my living room teaching yoga, the doorbell rang.ย It was UPS with a package from him. Panic struck. I refused the package but did not have the foresight to copy the information on the label. I called the police. They told me without the package they had nothing to go on.ย Later that day, while driving Wilshire, he called my cell phone.ย โSherri, itโs me, Dean.โย I lied and said, โYou have the wrong number.โ I hung up, pulled over, and had an anxiety attack, just as he called back.ย I told him to leave me alone and hung up.ย It happened once more; I told him to leave me alone or I would call the police. I did call the police. They said not to worry, he was probably gone by now. He was, I never heard from him again.
I was naรฏve and lucky.ย Many are not. There are dos and donโts of Internet safety for kids and adults.ย We know what they are.ย Do not give out personal information.ย Kids should leave phone numbers and addresses off Facebook, itโs enough a photo and a school is posted.ย Status updates are not itineraries. Postings on You Tube should be done mindfully and carefully. Adults who use Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for professional networking should keep their bios free of too much personal information. An e-mail address is sufficient if one can get away with it.ย Craigslist can be a great venue for selling items, looking for house sitters, babysitters, and roommates. It can also be sketchy. The best advice is to meet the person you intend to do business within a public place during the day. Get a feel for him/her. Then decide to do business. References for house sitters, baby-sitters, and roommates go without saying. When buying and selling items, donโt go alone, always give someone the address where youโre going, and listen to your gut if something doesnโt feel right. Our instincts are usually correct.ย Dating sites can be equally precarious, especially for women. Rules for the dating world: meet your date at a restaurant, bring your own car, donโt offer your address too soon, be discreet when sharing information, cell phone numbers trump home numbers in the beginning. More on dating in subsequent articles. Always remember, better safe, than sorry.
http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/bizpropsample10.php
http://www.yoga-east.org/stop_press.htm
http://www.connectsafely.org/Safety-Advice-Articles/avoiding-social-networking-scams.html
http://simplek12.com/internetsafety
๐๐ปThank you for reading๐๐ป
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