Why Ross's and Rachel's Breakup Still Bugs Me

I've been rewatching all the old episodes of Friends on Amazon streaming. I'm in the middle of season 3, in which Ross and Rachel take their infamous "break."

The tension between the two had been building for several episodes, and going into "The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break," I was expecting to feel sad, since breakups are sad. There was some sadness, but I was surprised to feel a considerable amount of anger about the situation.

In this episode and its follow-up ("The One With the Morning After,") Rachel wants to take a break from Ross after another big blow-up when Rachel again has to work late at her new job. That night, Ross gets drunk and sleeps with another woman (the hot chick from the copy place whom Joey and Chandler have been drooling over all season.)

Even though Rachel initially wanted to try to work things out with Ross, once she finds out about Ross's indiscretion, she summarily ends the relationship. For several episodes afterwards, the issue becomes Rachel ("You slept with someone else") vs. Ross ("We were on a break!")

And here is where my anger occurred. Certainly the fact that Ross slept with another woman is a good reason for Rachel to be hurt and angry, and even want to end the relationship. But, there is never once a conversation about what I perceive to be the real reasons the breakup should occur; namely, that Ross can't handle the fact that Rachel finally has a real career, in which she makes enough money to support herself, and she makes friends outside of the group that–gasp!–include another man.

Rachel has finally landed her dream job in fashion. While Ross pretends to be supportive, he is in reality constantly undermining her competence in front of her new employer. He shows up unannounced, repeatedly, and is rude to Rachel's colleague, Mark. Because Mark is moderately good looking, and also a man (and due to some woefully bad advice from Chandler and Joey), Ross convinces himself that Mark is trying to get with Rachel. Ross refuses to listen to anything Rachel says about her relationship with Mark, and performs a series of ridiculous acts to claim his territory.

This behavior alone is enough to undermine a relationship. Ross clearly doesn't trust Rachel, for reasons that are murky at best. Rachel has been nothing but faithful and loyal throughout their relationship, and now that she dares to have a male friend, she is suddenly worthy of suspicion.

Not only that, Ross also can't stand that Rachel is putting more of her energy into her new job than she is into their relationship. While I can understand Ross being angry that Rachel has to work late on their anniversary, I really think Ross needs to get a grip. In the real world, if an anniversary falls on a Tuesday, normal, working people wait until Friday or Saturday to celebrate. Furthermore, if he wanted to be romantic in the midst of Rachel's latest work crisis, perhaps a delivery of two-dozen long-stemmed roses would have done the trick, rather than showing up with a picnic basket and candles. Ross's behavior drips of desperation rather than of love.

Finally, it is clear that Ross thinks that Rachel's career choice is sub-par. High fashion has been Rachel's passion for her whole life, and even though she didn't have to get a college degree to have this job, she excels at it. She has finally become a fully independent woman, and Ross, with his fancy college degree and dinosaur job at a museum, can't believe that his romantic partner could possibly choose something so base. Ironically, when Rachel was simply a waitress, Ross was fine with that. Perhaps it is the male need to take care of the female partner that is being undermined; now that Rachel works in a meaningful job, Ross's role as the sole provider in the relationship has been removed.

In watching the fall-out of this breakup, I really want Rachel to stand on her own two feet and say, "You know what, Ross, this is really about you being a chauvinistic asshole. You can't stand the fact that I'm capable of taking care of myself, and I don't want to be with someone who isn't ok with me being independent."

Instead, the conversation focuses solely on Ross sleeping with another woman. Rachel doesn't take the opportunity to fight for her feminine independence. Rather, she just "can't stop picturing [Ross] with her," and therefore Ross "is a whole different person to [Rachel] now." Even until the bitter end, Rachel is focused only on Ross, not on herself. It's not that Ross sleeping with another woman made Rachel realize that she deserves better. Instead, Rachel now sees Ross as a "bad" guy, someone who is capable of hurting her. For the entire rest of the series, Ross cheating on Rachel is the defining event in their relationship.

I wonder how different the series would have been had the female characters been a little stronger and more independent.

Things I Think When Reading Google News

I take micro-breaks at work to peruse the headlines on Google News. (I have an Ultimate Badge for reading articles about Google, which means I've read 7 times as many Google articles as the average reader. Take that, bitches.)

I often just skim the headlines, unless an article seems particularly interesting, and then I might click through to the full article. Today's break revealed a whole treasure trove of wonderful headlines that don't even require me to read the article because I already know what they say.

1. "Gingrich Moon Colony Idea Not Well Thought Out, Glenn Says" - SFGate

No shit, Sherlock. Neither were any of his marriages, his policies as Speaker of the House, and his hairstyle.

2. "Jobs, Jobs and Cars" - New York Times

This reminded me of the recent Oxford Comma Meme. "Jobs, meet Jobs and Cars. Jobs and Cars and I go way back, to before you founded Apple! Heh, heh."

3. "Paula Deen Shocked by Lack of Public Support Following Diabetes Announcement" - Huffington Post

Um, sorry no one feels bad that you ate yourself into oblivion and gave yourself a preventable illness and are now profiting from it.

4. "Be Prepared to Sell Your Soul If You Use Google" - Forbes

Bitch, please. I sold my soul to Google when my husband started working there.

Considering all they really want is data about how I use the web, I'm pretty much cool with that. If selling my soul to Google means that I can find crap I don't need and crap I can laugh at that much faster, fine. Selling my soul is a small price to pay for having nice things.

Things I Really Must Remember at the Holidays

I'm on Christmas break, and I've spent this week rolling around ideas in my head for the obligatory Christmas post, but they haven't seemed to gel into anything coherent just yet.  I have some nice pictures waiting in the wings, though.

In it's place, I'm writing the things I really need to remember at the holidays.  In no particular order, these are things that I know, but always conveniently forget when I actually need to use them.

1. I don't actually like champagne.  It always seems like such a festive idea- ah, a little alcoholic bubbly in my fancy glass.  Champagne inevitably turns me into a giggling idiot school-girl and gives a horrible headache in the morning.  Better to drink Martinelli's, which at least has the benefit of being so sickeningly sweet that I can only drink half a glass before I give up and switch to water.

2. It is never a good idea to eat more than 2 rum balls/cookies/pieces of fudge for the duration of the day.   I mean, literally the entire day.  I should only have 2 sweet things in any given 24 hour period, otherwise I turn into something like that Jane Krakowski character from 30 Rock who says "Me want FOOD!" and I eat the whole damn plate.

3. Just because it is on the holiday buffet doesn't mean it has to go on my plate.  Under normal circumstances, I would not attempt to eat a slice of roast/turkey/ham and some bread and some cranberries and some potatoes and five different kinds of jello and several random vegetable servings.  My stomach didn't magically double in size for the holiday, so it's unlikely that a plate heaped as high as the centerpiece will actually get eaten.  Which goes along with...

4. It is acceptable to get seconds, but it's probably not a good idea.  If you couldn't finish the plate the first time around, what makes you think it'll work now?  Seconds at the holidays should probably come a good 4 hours after the firsts.  After a nice long nap and a Tums.

5. If it's sung by a campy/not talented musical group/artist, it should not be allowed in the Christmas playlist.  Reference "Little St. Nick" and any holiday remake by Britney Spears.  I rest my case.

The Joys of Geocaching

Today, I took a much-needed mental health day off.  It's been quite the day.

I've been reading Maphead by reigning Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings.  It's a really fascinating read.  Today's chapter was all about Geocaching, something that I'd never heard of until today.  As soon as I read about it in the book, I went right home and created myself an account.  Then, I downloaded the Android app (which has the privilege of being the first paid app I've ever downloaded.)

The app is cool; once you've logged in, you can use the GPS system in your phone to locate Geocaches close to your current location.  I discovered that one is located right on the creek trail that runs behind our apartment complex!

So, I saddled up the dachshund and asked the app to show me a map.  It's cool; it shows the location of the cache and your current location, and a straight line connecting the two.  It also shows your distance from the cache in meters.

I walked along the creek trail (a path I have walked hundreds of times) like I was seeing it for the first time.  I wasn't just going for a walk; I was hunting for hidden treasure!  The trail is simply full of possible hiding spots, so I had to really be disciplined and look at the distance that I was from the cache before hunting around like a weirdo.  (We wouldn't want muggles- non-geocachers- to mess up the place.)  Ringo and I went off the beaten path- he looked for squirrels and I looked for the cache.

My first geocache!

Since it was my first time, and I wasn't sure what I should be looking for, I had to ask the app to give me a hint.  The hint told me it should be about 4.5 feet off the ground- which was enough for me to discover the cache hidden inside a tree!

I yelled out, "Oh, I found it!" and Ringo dutifully wagged his tail, though I'm sure he would have been more excited if the cache had contained dinner.

Inside the cache was a small log book and some kind of European coin.  Silly me; in my rush to get out and hunt, I left my pen behind!  I will just have to bring Scott back, let him find the geocache, and then I can sign the log myself.

I am excited to pursue this hobby because it can be as easy or as difficult as I want it to be.  Finding more reasons to be outside discovering new things is always wonderful.

Thoughts on Oprah's Lifeclass

I've been getting emails from Oprah.com since I was in college and was actually home at 4 pm to watch Oprah.  Since Oprah stopped shooting The Oprah Winfrey Show and started running the Oprah Winfrey Network on cable, she's started this thing called the Oprah Lifeclass.

Since I'm in a place in my life where I'm not home at 4 pm any more, I meant to set my dvr so that it would start recording at the beginning of the season.  Well, I forgot, and then we had to get a new dvr box, and now I've finally recorded it.

I'm so glad I did.  I've always admired Oprah's wisdom, grace, and poise.  She's basically who I want to be when I grow up, insofar as I'd also like to be admired for my wisdom, grace, and poise.

Anyway, tonight's episode (the first I've seen) was about aging gracefully.  The show is really interesting because Oprah gives her candid thoughts about interviews she'd done with famous people previously on The Oprah Winfrey Show.  Though the majority of the episode tonight didn't resonate with me, since I'm not a) a supermodel and b) past 40, Oprah's ending thoughts rang true.

"I refuse to let a system, or a culture, or a distorted view of reality tell me that I don't matter."

Man, those are some good words, Oprah!   Nobody should ever feel that they don't matter for any reason, not just aging.

In my work, I've found this interesting niche as being "the girl who knows stuff about tech."  So far, that's gotten me pretty far- I wouldn't have gotten promoted to communications coordinator if I hadn't proven that I can figure out tech stuff on my own very quickly.  And I'm proud of that.

But on the other hand, I don't want that aspect of myself to define me.  Just because I'm proficient at Googling for whatever I'm looking for, and won't ever quit until I know how to do it, doesn't mean that that's all I am.  I don't want the other parts of myself to not matter.

So I'm having an "Aha! Moment" that I probably need to broaden my elevator pitch.  As a society, we are fixated on work.  Whenever you are introduced to someone, the first thing you ask them is, "So, what do you do?"  And then we get a boring answer about what somebody does behind a desk for 8 hours a day.

I don't want to not matter, so instead of giving boring descriptions of my job, I'm going to come up with interesting things to say about my whole self.  It will take time to come up with what that is, because I've let myself fall into the trap of defining myself by my work.

I think there are 2 questions here.  1, what is the system/culture/distorted view of reality that's trying to tell me that I don't matter?  2, what do I believe about myself that is at my core, the thing that will sustain me as everything around me changes?

More exploration needed.  I'm pretty excited about this.

Getting Up While It's Still Dark

Now that fall is upon us, Scott and I have noticed that it's become much more difficult to get up in the mornings because the sun hasn't risen yet.  My alarm goes off at the same time, but I find myself hitting snooze much more than I used to.  We've also noticed that it's much harder to stay awake with the shorter days and longer periods of darkness.

Scott grew up in a household that had a light box.  No, not the kind for growing illegal plants in your garage.  The kind for fighting off Seasonal Affective Disorder.  A quick search for such products on Amazon revealed that we could get a Phillips Wake Up Light that would slowly light up prior to alarm time, and then at alarm time would play a radio station or soothing sounds of our choice.

After a couple days of use, I honestly can't believe that I've survived this long without this product.  I really, really needed this when I was teaching.  How many groggy mornings could I have avoided with this simple machine?

We've now got two of these light boxes, one in the bedroom for waking up, and one in the kitchen that we use while we eat breakfast.  Both of us can already tell a difference.

Send an Email When a Google Form is Submitted

I'm building a new website to save my department from the terror that is Drupal.  I've used RapidWeaver, which I highly recommend for all you Mac users out there.

We need to have web forms that can be submitted for various things- being added to our mailing list, reserving a meeting space, inquiries about applications, etc.

Being married to a Google software engineer, I think to myself, "Easy!  I'll create Google Forms and embed them into my webpage.  No PHP, no database, cloud storage, easy to edit, it will be great!"

The creation of the forms and embedding them into the web page was easy.  An unforeseen issue, however, was the fact that each form on the website corresponded to a different staff member's job.  There's currently no easy way through the Forms interface to set up an automatic email to an outside email address when a user submits the form.

Today, though, I did manage to find a way to duct tape a solution together.

(Full Disclosure: I am NOT a software engineer and I did NOT write this code myself.)

First, I found a help page that described the code to insert in the script editor of the spreadsheet where the form's data gets stored:

Use Tools>Script Editor in the new Forms interface to pop up this screen.

Here is the code:


function emailAlert() {
  var Spreadsheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var SS = Spreadsheet.getSheets()[0];
  var submittedData = SS.getRange(SS.getLastRow(), 2, 1, SS.getLastColumn()-1).getValues();
  var headerData = SS.getRange(1, 2, 1, SS.getLastColumn()-1).getValues();
 
  var yourEmail = 'email';//Change it to yours
  var emailSubject = 'Form Submission';//Change as per your requirement
  var htmlBody ='<table><tbody>';
  for(var i=0; i < SS.getLastColumn()-1; i++){
    htmlBody += '<tr><td>'+headerData[0][i]+'</td><td>'+submittedData[0][i]+'</td></tr>';
  }
  htmlBody += '</tbody></table>';
  MailApp.sendEmail(yourEmail, emailSubject, 'body', {htmlBody : htmlBody});
}



I was super proud of myself that I even got the script to run at all.  But then I was like, "Wait, it needs to run automatically when the form is submitted!  Crap!"

So Scott pointed me to another help page that describes setting up triggers for a specific event.  You can have the script run automatically whenever the form is submitted:

Select "Current script's triggers..." to add a new trigger to this script.

The last pull-down menu allows you to select "On Form Submit."

On testing, this combo has worked beautifully!  I am certain that I'm not the only person in the world who needs this kind of functionality, and I find it interesting that Google doesn't have all of this information in one easy-to-find place!