Unconscious Mutterings Week 169

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Out of place :: everything, me


2. Helicopter :: noise in the night


3. Francis :: 2 friends


4. Ryan :: White


5. Wedding :: dress


6. Apalled :: shock


7. Historian :: keeper of the interpretations


8. Powerful :: effect


9. Sex symbol :: Marilyn


10. Uncomfortable :: anxious

Weekly word list at Unconscious Mutterings
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How many days?

"Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets."
~Oscar Wilde

This seemed to be a thought provoking link posted by Christa at Awful Souls

How old are you?

I am 19,562 days old...
.... glass more than half full or half empty????

What will I do, what do I want to do with the days ahead? What music will I play? (and in this mood; pleasant and harmonious or discordant?)

For comparison:
(Not accounting for leap years):
75 years-- 27,375 days
100 years -- 36,500 days
120 years -- 43,800 days

Odd to view it in days, isn't it?

On a different note; we were so stupid (really stupid, then complacent) not to push our landlord so many years ago to let us buy this condo from him on contract or outright. I asked several times, then let it go. We've been here 18 years now- it was too easy to let the subject slide, finally thinking of it as our home, our place. Now we can't afford it, but he is selling it. Buyers come tonight to look at it. He is upset that I mentioned Los Angeles rent control laws about taking a place off the rental market (and paying a relocation fee to tenants). Life doesn't look too great from this vantage point at this moment. Silly to have tears and be emotional at every eye blink about leaving a home??? A building is just the shell, after all. It is truly the folks inside that make it a home.

My mind drifts, to somewhere else (avoidance is the desire- just for a moment, just for some breathing space)....

"It's so wonderful... if your whole day is rotten, once they start the music, it seems to melt away." ~Donald O'Connor

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Stress

"Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it."
~Lily Tomlin

May 13 is when I take my comprehensive exams. At the moment, I'm working mostly with my most difficult course material. That part is going ok, but I am, as you might expect, very nervous about it.

Life in all other aspects is working according to Murphy's Laws! Everything is falling apart in all directions... We must find a new home; I need to find a new job; We must pack all our belongings; etc. etc. etc.

As much as I know that everything is all about perception, and we see what we expect to see, I can't shake the feeling that I am dragging a large black storm cloud around with me. I expect the next hailstorm to come at any minute.

The line between sane and losing it, is very thin and I am on the edge -- teetering.

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 168

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Rising :: Sun, The House of the..


2. Third :: Eye


3. Disruptive :: current, personal, housing situation


4. Surround :: -ed with chaos


5. Distant :: whisper


6. Suction :: cup


7. Fried :: green tomatoes


8. Nuggets :: gold


9. Clip :: movie


10. San Antonio :: Texas

Weekly word list found at Unconscious Mutterings

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To learn ...

"To learn anything, you must put aside the safety of your ignorance."
~Richard Bach, Messiah's Handbook

In a much more concrete manner, I have to create and lead a thirty minute workshop on something connected to colleges- for students, faculty, staff, etc. for whom my classmates will act out the roles.

I thought about learning styles as a topic, because it could be presented to fit the time constraints, was useful and certainly pertained to either faculty or students on a college campus. So of course, I am searching for tests, information and so on, some of which I might have already linked.

Here is one I don't think I have linked previously; it's short and quick. I have correspondence pending with its author.

Diablo Valley College Learning Syyle Survey for College, by Catherine Jester and adapted for the web by Suzanne Miller.

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random selections

"The artist is the only one who knows that the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice to be made, a selection of elements" ~Anais Nin

I have this stash of wonderful quotes to draw from and the above stood out from the rest tonight. We are all artists, selecting our elements...

I wanted to have something more to say.. perhaps something that was clever, or intelligent or maybe both.. but arriving home after 10pm, heating up some soup to eat, and staring at the television (second half of Boston Legal, a very quirky show that I enjoy, but only occasionally get to see), pretty much everything and anything with even a vague smidgen of depth and coherence is beyond reach..

I suppose that isn't surprising, given that my choice was to turn on the television for company while eating my tiny supper.

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almost the Jetson's

Working on readings for my Disability Management class and listening to the news on CNN in the background, something caught my ear that required further attention including a Google search (of course!).



This certainly would change rush hour all over the world, wouldn't it?

More information at AirScooter II Ultralight
and/or at AirScooter Faqs

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 167

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Ambition :: to live a balanced life


2. Meatloaf :: Marvin Lee Aday


3. Celebrity :: over rated


4. Coach :: life, sports; some good, some not so


5. Slacker :: someone who hasn't yet found their niche


6. Reflection :: in the still water


7. Original :: often best


8. Risk :: life requires some


9. Saved :: by the bell


10. June :: graduations and weddings

Want to play? Weekly word list at Unconscious Mutterings

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time flies, sleep evades...

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" ~Albert Einstein

Being too wired from class and two different conversations about some future research I might be interested in doing, I couldn't sleep when I got home. Instead I did some looking in the library databases and got sidetracked a bit-- of course. Friday involves a client to see and paperwork that needs to be turned in, so a thoughtful post also evades my abilities.

Instead I have a couple of photos - one from Monday night and one from tonight.. I thought I used the same settings, but I did enough experimentation that I am not certain. None of tonight's photos turned out well, though it was darker when I took the photos.

monday evening from campus

tonight

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I want to dance

I want to dance lightly under the new leaves and sudden growth of spring.
I want to look closely and smile at each spring flower tilting its head up to feel the sun.
I want to feel the sun and wind's warmth on my face and banish their chill fingers to another season.
I want to escape the walls of human made cocoons, escape the prisons of glass and paint and carpets...
I want the sky to clear and the birds to sing and the traffic noises to be far behind me so as not to remember them, at least for a while.
I want to reach the end of rigidly scripted studies, academic deadlines and work reports, at least for this span of time.
I am bone tired with spirit sagging. I need to have the sky for ceiling. I need to smell the earth, to feel the sun and dance in the embrace of the warm winds.

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the crowd in the middle

I don't aspire to be above and in charge, but I don't want to feel as if I were below and powerless.... and I certainly don't want to be caught in the crowd in the middle. That would suggest a reason for the feelings of aloneness. I am not sure where those feelings were shaped (or who, or what influences directed them).

I want to get to where ever it is that I want to get to when ever that might be, and enjoy the pieces I choose to enjoy along the way and sometimes ponder them alone. (It sounds like, I want what I want when I want it even if I don't know what it is!- a two year old in a fifty plus year old's body??). Maybe I am afraid of being settled in too many ways and that holds me back from much, but I certainly don't want someone else defining any of it for me. And why does that bother me, unless I might be afraid that I am letting someone else, or lots of someone else's define it all for me?

~~~
A Dean at another school who has earned the degrees I am finishing, worked in the field a long time and is a likeable fellow, was trying to explain a pet theory of his to me last week --that people are losers who give up quick, or they are climbers who always find new higher ground, or they are stagnating somewhere in the middle (darn, I wish I could remember his term for those in the middle)- clinging to safety and security - afraid to move forward because they might lose or fail. The simplicity of that bothers me, but way beyond the too simplistic, is the annoying assumption that people must be, need to be attempting to be or to get to somewhere else. But some part of me knows that the hanging on in the middle part- the get comfortable and stay there because it is safe bit, resonates with something that seems much too familiar.

~~
On a not so different note, I dislike competition in most areas of life-- too many people take it way too seriously.
And in a somewhat different direction, I think I like pondering the questions-- because I am not so very good at choosing single uniform answers.

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 166

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Buck :: Pearl S.


2. Harry :: Potter


3. Play :: "Would you like to play a game?"


4. Monstrosity :: huge and horrible


5. Nightclub :: past


6. Missing :: someone, anyone, everyone


7. Sprout :: sandwich with tomato and avocado on freshly baked whole wheat


8. Flavor :: herbs


9. Identity :: many and one and none


10. Saucy :: insolent, but perhaps cute ;-)

Weekly word list can be found at Unconscious Mutterings

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another gray rainy day

"I like these cold, gray winter days. Days like these let you savor a bad mood."
~Bill Watterson
(author of Calvin & Hobbes)

I find myself falling into the grayness of the late arriving rainy season. The lack of sun is sucking up every ounce of my energy... beyond that, there isn't much that I care to share at the moment.

For a few smiles, check out the various Bill Watterson/Calvin and Hobbes links:
UComics - Calvin and Hobbes
Wikipedia - Cavin and Hobbes
Andrew McMeal Publishing- Quotable Calvin
ThinkExist Quotes- Bill Watterson

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 165

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Desire :: restrained


2. Sleep :: interrupted


3. Lost :: lambs


4. 2006 :: amazement


5. Pump :: basic shoe


6. Space :: limited


7. Stuck :: rut


8. Reference:: library


9. Birth:: beginning


10. Hand:: and foot

Weekly word list found at Unconscious Mutterings

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