Dynamic Stall

I passed the NC Real Estate Broker exam today! Yes!

It’s such a relief to put that behind me. The monkey is off my back! And, in true Barbara fashion, being licensed in real estate adds yet another left-turn entry on the resume! I predict that by the time I die I will have worked in every industry known to man!

What will I do with a real estate license? Honestly, I don’t know…yet. I can be a practicing broker wheeling and dealing real estate here in the Wilmington area. Or, I can be a licensed assistant for another broker, or work in mortgages or with a law firm. It is a bit of a departure of where I was expecting to be (grad school in LA) but since the broker class was paid for by my boss, it would have been silly to turn it down. And I need to make ends meet.

Then the universe throws yet another unexpected ingredient into my pot of what-do-to-for-a-living. My brother has asked me to manage his sunroom business. No, it’s not sexy at all but it seems that I may be able to make some decent money. And I’m all about the money these days. I told him I would for the right price. He’s gonna talk to his partners and see if they will pay me what I want. He’ll let me know. Maybe I can sell sunrooms and real estate. Just be a selling maven worth millions! Either way I think I will be in good stead. I have options to fall back on for work and real estate is a job I can do anywhere in the world.

Needless to say, I’m gonna be partying down tonite to celebrate!

Next to Hemingway, Michael Ondaatje is the only other literary fiction writer that I reread. (N.B. Jane Austen is not in the literary category for me even though she’s taught as such in most universities.)

The first book I read was The English Patient.

I read it before the movie came out because Ralph Fiennes was on the cover. I like Ralph. There was a large display of the book with a bunch of stills and posters which captured my attention while I was in the bookstore. All part of the massive marketing machine prior to the movie’s release.

The BOOKER PRIZE-winning novel starts off during the last bits of World War II. It’s 1944, and the war in Italy is over. It has moved north. In the Villa San Girolamo, a former military hospital, a young Canadian nurse, Hana and her last patient, Almasy, stay behind. Hana is emotionally destroyed by being a nurse and the death of her father while Almasy is burned beyond recognition. Her father’s best friend Caravaggio, a thief who has been tortured and maimed seeks Hana out to take care of her as he promised, and Kip, a young Sikh who has spent the war dismantling bombs, is stationed nearby. All in all it’s an intense book with all the characters mucking through their own interior drama.

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This one I ‘borrowed’ from stickingtothepoint.

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Never having to worry about money and then being able to do what I wish.

2. What living person do you most admire?
No single person although I have great admiration for old people in general and the Dalai Lama comes to mind.

3. What is your greatest fear?
Dying alone, poor and from a long illness.

4. What is your favorite journey?
The one I take when reading a great story.

5. What do you consider the most over-rated virtue?
There aren’t any. Someone mentioned virginity but I don’t consider that a virtue. There is a book I have called “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues” by Andre Comte-Sponville. I highly recommend it. His list of virtues is love, politeness, fidelity, prudence, temperance, justice, generosity, compassion, mercy, courage, gratitude, humilty, simplicity, tolerance, purity, gentleness, good faith and humor. As I see it, our world needs all of these things more, rather than less.
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