mental tricks and mind games

i had to take a logic assessment this morning. it was timed and i knew i had to be in the right frame of mind for it. the results are important to a potential job i'd like to have. i'm good at this sort of test - the kind of questions where you're presented with a series of figures and asked to choose the next one in the sequence or where you're asked to display your knowledge of shades of meaning by choosing opposites from a list of abstract words. so, fortified with a cup of tea and sitting up straight in my chair, hair pulled back neatly, i donned a pair of pretty high heels and took the test. yes, you read that correctly. and yes, i believe it helped me. my inner feminist would like to say such measures aren't necessary, but i believe they are. dressing the part - smart, businesslike, put together - is important to setting the right frame of mind, getting in the zone. and if it takes a pair of heels? so be it.

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speaking of mind games, what's going on in greece, with their resounding rejection of EU terms for restructuring their debt and this morning's resignation of finance minister yanis varoufakis is a fascinating game of cat and mouse. or perhaps it's more like the roadrunner and wile e. coyote - with the anvil crashing down on merkel's head as greece races free and looks back with a grin. maybe it's just that i tend to admire the underdog, but i can't help but think greece was right to push back. 

nearly two decades ago i spent a lot of time in greece as the euro prepared to launch. even then, on the streets of thessaloniki, it was an open secret that they had fudged their numbers to make the cut. everyone knew, including and especially the powers that be in the european union, but they let them join anyway. what's happening today is just the natural progression of those early decisions, for which germany and the greater EU bear as much responsibility as greece does. it will be interesting to see how the mind games unfold, tho' if the bullied resignation of the truth-telling varoufakis is any indication, it's going to get ugly before it's over. he was the only one of the whole lot of them who actually had an education in economics.  for more, go read krugman's analysis. i also liked this piece about him in the guardian.

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have you seen my latest post on #stuckinplastic?

it seems like every time i write for them, i take a trip down memory lane.