spirituality

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

This is a fascinating and powerful talk. I will warn my normal readership that the content drifts from the interestingly scientific into what some would call… well, I’m not sure what some might call it, but if you don’t consider yourself a spiritual person, you may scoff at Dr. Taylor’s interpretation of her experience.

Still, if I had felt I had achieved Nirvana and lived to tell the tale, I would probably share it in quite the same way.

TED releases this video under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivatives License. Please download and share this video freely in its entirety.

the ongoing saga of my job

Take Your Place In The Circle Of Care

Just got done with my day and a half of corporate training: the Circle of Care. I could tell you all about it, but then I’d have to kill you, being that all my supplementary books and materials clearly state that the contents thereof are property of my employer, et cetera.

Instead, I’ll give you a brief synopsis, which is all you really wanted, anyway:

  1. Videos. Well-produced videos, at least. The characters in the vignettes remained constant throughout the various exercises (calming an upset customer, apologizing, et al.), and the scripts were written and executed well enough that we actually felt emotionally vested in the characters therein. When the clip about Saying Goodbye came up (we do have hospices in our business line), I was one of a few people in the room who got a little misty, but didn’t want to admit it.
  2. Singing and dancing. Seriously. I have a DVD with the music videos for the Original Version, Ballad, Pop, and Dance Mixes (of the Circle of Care song, that is). We were encouraged to sing along, and we danced in the center of the room — usually to the Dance version. Luckily, one of the more outgoing fellows that was in my Orientation group four months ago was also in my Circle of Care sessions, and he did the awesomest college-guy dances EVAR.
  3. People Skills Review. Actually, some was review, and some was new ways of looking at the situations, and new acronyms to apply. I think we all know that, in order to sufficiently answer and soothe a seriously annoyed customer, you need to be calm yourself, and determine the problem, and paraphrase, and reassure, and all that sort of thing. I just got more and different ways to do that in this program.
  4. Holy crap, there’s a lot of people from Sky at my work! There were two in my training group these past two days, and we discussed others, and I went to lunch with a couple of them. I also learned some awesomely juicy news about the Huntington post-merger period.

And that’s about all I’ve got for now. Except a bunch of booklets, two DVDs, a new mug, a teddy bear, a certificate of completion, a couple of new friends, a funky hat, a clown nose, and a new appreciation for my IT skills as a bringer of a more substantial salary than before.

Edit: The Hugging. OMG, how could I leave out the hugging? I may possibly have hugged more people today than I did at my own wedding. We learned all about different kinds of hugs, and I am now officially “Licensed to Hug.”

Yup.

weight loss 1 Comment

The Challenge Reboots Next Week

It’s been a week of ups and downs for me, weight-wise. The weekend was bad. Very bad. Worse than it should have been, mainly because of my inability to STOP EATING.

(One piece of Enchilada Casserole for Sunday dinner would have been OK. Two was pushing it. Three was definitely being bad. But four? Four was redonkulous. And I knew it. And I paid for it in physical discomfort for some time afterward. Aaron and I polished off an entire 9″x13″ pan of Enchilada Casserole in one sitting, and it was a Poor Idea™. But not really Aaron’s fault, as I could easily have begged off after having seconds.)

All last week, I chose not to log my food, just to see what would happen. What happened was that I steadily lost weight: half a pound a day, give or take. Then the weekend happened. But on Monday, I turned it around, and by today’s weigh-in, I was back down to having lost 3% of my body weight since January 1st.

James and I have really been having a time of it. I did really well for the first five weeks, then my weekly average weight chart started heading the wrong direction for the next four. This week, I’m finally on the decline again, so far:

Today, when James and I were checking in with each other via e-mail, he made a suggestion: Why don’t we make this challenge a Spring Fling and call a redo starting March 20th — the first day of Spring? I’ll go with that, sure! (Especially since a Thursday weigh-in will keep me going to Aikido on Wednesday nights.)

So, next week begins a new challenge, a new starting point, and a new attitude. Rather, a continuation of the new attitude I’ve cultivated so far this week. Plus, I could use a new starting point to determine a new ending point; I want to have this competition in the bag by… *calculates a reasonable date by which to lose ten pounds* …by the time I go to the World Crokinole Championship in Ontario, early this June. (No joke. I’ll tell you all about it later.)

Really, though: there’s no shame in calling a do-over when both parties would benefit from a fresh perspective.

music

Damn Weather

We were supposed to go to see Bob Mould at the Grog Shop in Cleveland on Saturday. Alas, Cleveland was under a Level 3 Snow Emergency. So, instead of getting ticketed, fined, or stuck in Cleveland, we just wiped our asses with the $45 we spent on two tickets.

Had the Grog Shop cancelled the show, we could have gotten our money back. However, as with the couple other times we got denied by inclement weather, the venue held what was probably an awesomely intimate evening with Bob and friends, since the band did manage to make it there in time and one piece.

It’s always a crapshoot, buying concert tickets at this time of year, as Aaron has pointed out. I was really looking forward to seeing Bob again — we hadn’t seen him since October 2005.

Ah, well. There’ll be another time. Someday.