| what |
[Feb. 4th, 2009|09:57 pm] |
I'm having some sort of mid-life crisis. I can't focus. The novelty has worn off. Of everything. Computers are SO BORING. And I have so many jobs that involve the use of them. My days are a bit bipolar. I have exchanges with people and am either flooded with gratitude about the people I get to share my life with or besieged with dark, dark anger at the people I have to share my life with. It's just beginning to affect my professionalism, although so far at a level that only I am aware of. Where did my arm's length observer-ness go?
Also, I have this flu or something. But I already used a bunch of sick days last week. I thought at the time I was really sick, since I felt terrible and exhausted and couldn't move and slept all day, but this throat and actual symptoms stuff this week makes me wonder if it really was just malaise.
My boss asked me last Friday, when I came in after being out, if I had been suffering from sick-of-work. Which I thought was a strange thing to ask your employee first thing in the morning when they come back from being out sick. I must not be the only one. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 29th, 2008|11:50 pm] |
but how am I supposed to interpret my dream with a dictionary that does not have alien, possession, siege, space man, mind control, hostage...
hopeless. |
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| the_meanwhile loves psychology |
[Sep. 26th, 2008|10:40 am] |
Some quotables from Deepak Chopra on "Obama and the Palin Effect" which is worth a read:
"Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that... The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise."
And there is now a part 2 postedas well responding to some of the follow up. |
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| i figured out my whole problem |
[Sep. 4th, 2008|02:57 pm] |
if I wrote a novel, it would go like this:
---------------
Chapter 1 - 17:
srsly u think i shd spend time prfctly xpressing this shit that u should alredy kno?
Epilogue:
hav u not ben paying attention -- ur hol life?
Back cover:
Pls send $.
--------------- |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 14th, 2008|10:55 am] |
What I did see was a Canada goose corpse on the road by the reservoir, my nightmare because they are always walking around in traffic. I am thinking I would like to become a lawyer and
a) attach penalties to vehicular animal homicide
b) enact regulations requiring cars to emit repellent sounds to increase animal safety
c) enact other protective technologies, which need some work.
Why does killing things needlessly (not looking for a vegetarian debate here) not seem to bother the general population as much as it does me? I find roadkill traumatic, and I see like 3 instances a day.
I have always felt like this, however it became more acute after 9/11 for some reason. I have had some close calls, but in 17 years of driving have managed to never hit an animal.
Although in full disclosure: once when I was mountain biking a chipmunk dashed under my wheel and bit the dust. |
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| cubeland |
[Jun. 16th, 2008|11:14 am] |
I know that it is supposed to enhance collaboration and we're all available to each other for impromptu conversations, etc. But seriously?
Someone just cut the cheese.
Why oh why don't I have walls between me and other people? |
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| I was right! |
[May. 28th, 2008|01:53 pm] |
I always said sleep is more serious than anyone seems to consider it! Plus, now you can really yell at those parents you see out in restaurants or movies with their kids at 9 pm!
Sleep Duration and Risk for Overweight in Preschoolers
Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine | Summary and Comment | Subscription Required
Infants and toddlers who sleep fewer than 12 hours per day have higher risk for being overweight at age 3 years than children who sleep 12 hours or more.
Summary and Comment By Robin Drucker, MD
May 14, 2008
Covering: Taveras EM et al. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2008 Apr 162:305 |
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| getting away from it all |
[Apr. 26th, 2008|12:25 pm] |
When I was young, way too intense, highly conflicted, and otherways-ly pathological, whenever I took a trip I would think, thank God! I will Get Away From It All, Clear My Head, Get Some Perspective, Gain Clarity, and a bunch of other capitalized ideas which would allow me to come back and Solve My Life. I knew this was a myth. Because it never worked. I would take the same old thoughts and conflicts with me, think in the same old circles, and not be able to escape from the same old expectations of others around me (this matters, when you are in your teens, and in my early twenties I was still too young to figure out I was getting to where it didn't matter any more. I don't think I quite have that figured out yet.) But I kept trying this approach, because everywhere you look people are saying that this happens.
I find that now that I have nothing to get away from, this does happen. But I think it is mostly mental. Being in a new place automatically opens your brain to learning -- where you are, how to get places, what the etiquette is, etc. When your brain has to do some stuff, it has to quit doing some other stuff. Like what it was doing before. I don't think it's the physical location or the fact that different information is traveling up your optic nerve (so much. that's cool too but you could accomplish that by going to a new museum or something, so the travel thing is more of a holistic mindblast package). In a way it's like the Jewish tradition that you should sing a niggun (wordless melody) after learning -- that i think moves you into the right brain instead of the left brain, allowing absorption processes to happen and keeping your conscious brain out of things. I think a lot of tricks to successfully navigating life have to do with knowing when to use your conscious brain and when to find a way to get it to Shut Up. All the better when you study or travel, which is really just a branch of study that happens to sometimes involve getting blisters, because that shuts up your conscious mind by absorbing it in a demanding and expanding new enterprise. I also think the less you try for epiphany or think about it, the more it happens. (Epiphany is too strong a word here but there's no related but smaller-scale word to use. That I'm aware of.)
And, if I was like other people, I suppose I would just be saying, 'having fun, wish you were here.' But as usual my conscious brain has to feel like it's making the most of the moment. "The most" being some huge existential generalization. Yep, that's me, and I'm not gettin' away from that! |
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| spawned by boredom and jokes |
[Apr. 25th, 2008|01:08 pm] |
so fake steve jobs (http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/ and BTW go Boston!) is talking right now (at Web 2.0) about his blog and the phenomena of how his readers make it great and contribute. The story of his blog career is a great one, but I'm interested in the characters who contribute on his blog -- fakevladimirputin and other fake characters, so his blog becomes a platform for other people to perform.
this must tie into my earlier thoughts, but I think I'll pay attention to the rest of the talk instead of figuring it out. |
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| Bystanders Should Use Hands-Only CPR, American Heart Association Says |
[Apr. 1st, 2008|10:43 am] |
Hooray! We're going to eliminate ventilation because people might be more likely to save a life if they do not have to worry about cooties! I feel more hero-potential welling up in me already at this news.
From the studies showing it has just as good results, I also suspect that trying to do two things at once was stumping the average heroic bystander.
http://firstwatch.jwatch.org/cgi/content/full/2008/401/1People who witness an adult collapse with apparent cardiac arrest should be urged to provide chest compressions without ventilations, according to a new American Heart Association advisory. The guidelines, published online in Circulation, suggest that eliminating the expectation of mouth-to-mouth contact could improve the chances that bystanders will offer help. The AHA recommends that bystanders call 911 and then push hard and fast in the center of the victim's chest, minimizing interruptions. The effort should continue until the arrival of an automated external defibrillator or emergency medical personnel. The AHA cited several studies suggesting that the results of compression-only response are equivalent to those of conventional CPR. The advisory's lead author told the New York Times that the ideal compression rate would be about 100 a minute, causing the chest to depress about 2 inches.
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| education post |
[Mar. 31st, 2008|03:25 pm] |
From an elearning magazine article about "serious games."
In the game Darfur Is Dying, for example, the difficulties of daily life such as trying to secure water while avoiding the Janjaweed militias is challenging and nerve-wracking, bringing home the simple challenges of survival for the people caught in this disaster and raising awareness of the importance of a solution.
From the home page: Darfur is Dying is a viral video game for change that provides a window into the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. Players must keep their refugee camp functioning in the face of possible attack by Janjaweed militias. Players can also learn more about the genocide in Darfur that has taken the lives of 400,000 people, and find ways to get involved to help stop this human rights and humanitarian crisis.
I don't really have time to process what I think of this, but I note distractedly, why is the number of victims in all the PR at 400,000, the same number it was last year, when the fighting continues daily? |
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| wow. and not in a good way. |
[Mar. 17th, 2008|07:46 am] |
I don't often see massively blatant racism/classism, and I was blown away by the mayor of Biloxi on this CNN story (which a friend of mine helped work on).
http://www.vmsdigital.com/MyFiles.aspx?Onum=6F13055E-B277-42AB-954A-40A5A72567E6
It wound up getting bumped from its originally scheduled air date, but the network premiered the piece on the day of the Mississippi Primary, and the report has been airing in "heavy rotation" ever since. It sheds some pretty sad light on the Katrina survivors' struggle, and, more perversely, on their perpetual neglect by several of this state's elected officials.
The link will only be active for another week. |
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