2014-0627 Cleaning House

Hi All –

On Monday, my wife went camping with a church group and left me to my own devices here at home.  Now I know what you are thinking – “Oh, he’ll have wild parties and eat lots of fast food and drink lots of beer and disturb the neighbors with loud music and play poker until 3 a.m. with his buddies and leave a big mess for his poor wife to clean up.” 

But that’s not true!  I don’t drink beer.

Anyway, what I DID do is to go into the garage, look around, heave a sigh or two and then got to work gathering up those things that I have stored forever but haven’t used in donkey’s years.  It was time to find a new home for these items. 

Look – here is the violin that I played when I was in high school!  I was in the orchestra in the 1^st violin section but – let’s face it – I haven’t touched that violin since 1965.  Do I really need to keep it?  Maybe somebody could actually use it to make music again.

Over here is a heavy box containing my stamp collections and the weighty books (from 1973) that describe the stamps and their values at that time.  Neither of my sons want this and I really don’t think I’m going to develop a renewed interest in philately.

Good grief, here’s two or three boxes of technical books on Unix and C and Web design and Java and Computer System Administration.  These served me during my career but, hey, I’m retired and don’t wear that hat anymore. 

Looking up (way up) at my bookcase, I see the physics, chemistry and mathematics textbooks that I used in college to get first my BS double major in Physics and Math and then my MS in Physics.  In retirement, I really don’t need to consult these textbooks.  Textbooks today are so much better with lots of color illustrations.  Of course, my textbooks cost about $12.50.

So why have I kept all this stuff for so long?

Well – I guess it is because I’ve defined myself through some of these things and others form a bridge to my past.  But I’ve reached a point where it is time to let go of these space-fillers and emotional baggage and clear out room to redefine myself as the person I want to become.  My interests are no longer stamps or violin or computers or physics.  Time to pass those on and also let my childhood go as well and look forward to new beginnings and a repurposed me. 

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to clean up before my wife gets home.  ^-^

Take care,

Kevin

2014-0620 Fear Of Speaking

Hi All –

As an ESL learner, have you ever been in a situation (maybe in a class) where you are talking in English in front of people and everything is going pretty well until suddenly you can’t remember the right word to say or somebody interrupts you to correct your pronunciation?  

Did you notice that at that point, everything seems to go downhill and you become tongue-tied and nervous?  You stop thinking about the subject you are presenting and start criticising yourself. 

Your negative thoughts might take the form of:

I can’t remember the right words.

Everybody is looking at me.

I’m pronouncing the words wrong.

Nobody understands what I am saying.

Everybody else is better at English than I am.

I don’t really belong here.

I’ll never get this right.

Everybody else is smarter than I am.

People are judging me harshly.

I’m wasting their time.

I just want to go home.

I feel isolated and afraid.

If you have experienced this, then take heart.  You are not alone.  Many people, including myself and other native English speakers, have a fear of speaking in public. 

Now imagine that you are sitting in the audience listening to someone else giving a presentation.  You notice that they sometimes struggle to find the right word.  They talk rather slowly and sometimes they don’t pronounce their words correctly.  They begin to seem a little nervous.  At this point, what feelings do you have for the presenter?

Do you think, “Oh, she is doing it all wrong.  I’m glad I’m smarter than her.  I don’t think she belongs here.  She’s wasting my time!” ? 

I don’t think so.

Rather, don’t you feel a bit sympathetic towards her because you empathize with her fear?  Perhaps you are thinking “Yes, you can do this?” In other words, don’t you feel supportive of this person, wishing them success? 

I think the reason we feel supportive of people who are struggling to improve themselves is that ALL of us are struggling with some issues, whether public speaking or other social situations or who knows what.  This struggle bonds us together and it strengthens us to see someone else succeed.  Why?  Because it gives us hope that we can succeed someday in our own struggles.  Especially with the love and support of the people around us. 

Have a great week!

Kevin

Reminder:  If you are unsure about the meaning of the idioms used in this message, please refer to "Idioms, Figures of Speech, and Proverbs" posted on this blog in August 2013.  An alternative is to look at http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com

2014-0610 Building a Playhouse

Hi all –

Sorry I’ve been in absentia for so long.  (Absentia is a suburb of Sacramento where the preponderance of global warming is taking place).

Anyway, my wife and I traveled up to the Sacramento area last week and built a playhouse for our granddaughter Katelyn.   Our son, Dave, and his wife, Kelly, live in Citrus Heights so the temperature was nice and toasty judging by the cars slowly melting by the curb.  I’ve never seen a car sweat before!

The construction took us two days and umpteen bottles of water.  I gave up on drinking  the coffee because it was so weak, I had to help it out of the  pot.  The playset directions said that two moderately experienced adults could assemble it in one day but they must have been thinking of I.M. Pei and Christopher Wren instead of mere mortals like myself.  I don’t like to think of myself as slow, but sometimes it takes me an hour and a half to watch “60 Minutes.”   Anyway, in less time than it would take to carve a replica of the Taj Mahal from an oak stump using an Xacto knife with a rusty blade, we finished the playhouse.  It even vaguely resembled the picture in the instructions. 

Although there WERE instructions with pictures, the pictures sometimes showed the project from the front, sometimes from the back, sometimes from the exterior, sometimes from the interior, mostly all taken on a foggy day.  There were aerial shots and some satellite imagery as well, I believe, along with the infrared scans, some X-rays and even an MRI or two.   Fortunately,  there were instructions in English as well as Urdu and Latin so, even though the manual was printed in 7 pt Gaussian Blur, we could sometimes divine where the misprints, errata and lacunae were.  I’ve attached some pix below.

Dave and I get started!  Time for a break.

Well, it LOOKS like it should go here!

Katelyn inspects the progress.

Katelyn gives some advice to Grandma.

Kelly and Dave assemble the gables.

This is our shaded parts department.

Finally it is finished!  So are we.

Features include a rock climbing wall and a slide.

Katelyn has a glider and swings, of course!

She seems pleased with the result!

Have fun, little one! I love you!!!

Now how successful do you think THIS nap will be?

Blessings!
Kevin

2014-0601 Talk To Each Other!

Hi All –

Today’s rant is on the growing tendency of people to use their cell phones in social situations.   Have you ever been to a movie theater, drawn into the storyline, your eyes accustomed to the dark, only to be rudely distracted by some nearby bozo checking messages on his or her cell phone?  Your eyes have adapted to the darkness of the theater and the light from the phone is a harsh and annoying distraction.   When a person performs an action like this which annoys the people around him, he is said to be rude. 

Years ago, people did not want to be considered rude and would be mortified at the thought of being labeled as such.  Nowadays, many more people seem concerned with their own wishes and have little respect for the feelings of others.  Being labeled “rude” is inconsequential to them.

In this picture, we have a nice young couple who might be on a date sharing a romantic dinner or maybe a married couple taking some time for themselves.  Yet they’ve been seduced by the lure of the cell phone – the need to communicate with somebody else.  Why not communicate with the person who is in the same room and at the same table as you are?  The message clearly is that whoever is on the other end of the phone is far more interesting and important. 

Family meals are special occasions to be with loved ones, an opportunity to support each other and build bonds which will last a lifetime.  They are occasions to express ideas and opinions, to have a trusted audience which will help you to shape your thinking.  When you are on your electronic device, it says clearly “I’d rather be somewhere else because this is boring.”

You might be led to believe that people in earlier generations were, in fact, more sociable and I believe that is true.   One reason given for the decline in sociability is, ironically, that technology allows us to be much more communicative than ever before – so we take advantage of that fact to talk on our cell phones or check e-mail or instant message or twitter or post to Facebook or Google something interesting or check traffic on our map app or continue a network game or jot down notes or  . . .

And yet, people have always found ways to isolate themselves in the midst of others.

So really it’s your choice.  Are you more comfortable interacting digitally or bonding with others in a face-to-face manner?  Which will give you greater satisfaction in the long run?

Have a great week!

Kevin