Friday, May 21, 2010

Weight and Wimsy

I was gonna make a lame Thundercats/Juno reference, but "Weight Watchers--HOO!!!" Just didn't look right, LOL.

I'm sure everyone has heard by now that Mother and I are back on Weight Watchers after 4 years absence and so far it's showing signs of progress!

We're currently on week 3 and have had 2 weigh ins and she and I are neck and neck at 6.2 pounds lost each. I even found the last remaining pair of size 20 jeans I own (the rest were donated in an attempt to avoid more emotional trauma than was necessary constantly trying to wear pants that don't fit) and found that while they are relatively easy to put on and fasten they are just shy of completely comfortable when seated. Hopefully in a week or so I'll be able to say that they fit perfectly and begin to see if its worth more to take-in the pants I own or to buy all new ones.

It's actually been fairly easy to feed myself on the system, a lot easier than I thought it'd be as a vegetarian, however I am still having difficulties when eating out or food of other peoples creation, since I was a bit of a point Nazi for the first two weeks. I'm a little more lenient now, planning my breakfasts and lunches at school and being sure to leave a comfortable cushion of points to eat out for dinner (either with classmates on Sat. or my own Sushi decadence on Fri.) and I really don't bother counting them, figuring if I go over that's what flex points are for and since I don't use them during the week I'm not a risk of running out (and even if I did I could exercise to earn back and exchange the difference.)

Well, I have high hopes and plans for the future and I can't wait to see my future success!

Aika

New Avatar Kick! Yay!



So Since Avatar has come out on DVD I've naturally been reestablished in my Avatar Fandom. ^^
It started some with the above video (VERY COOL) LOL And reached it's zenith with the following images:

EPIC RIGHT!!?!?!?!?
I'm SO buying the face and ear prostetics for Halloween or Something. X3 (happy face!)

Anyway, I was thinking since I have a cool HD TV that I would see if anyone wanted to come over and watch Avatar on Sunday after I get home from school.

Any Takers?

Any hoo, watching it again with Mom right now, wish I had a 3D tv so bad (not to mention the Extended/Special Edition) or even just a Blu Ray player! But I don't have $75 to spare right now, though it's gonna be pretty sweet once I get one, LOL.

Well, have a nice night everyone and may the light of Eywa be upon you all! ^_~

Aika

Thursday, May 20, 2010

In Memory of a Healer

GIL BOYNE, 1924-2010
While I never had the pleasure of meeting of meeting Gil Boyne I owe him a great debt. Gil Boyne educated, among the thousands, Tim Simmerman, who then taught Matthew Brownstein, who is now teaching me. I am very sad that I was not able to meet him before he passed but I will always be thankful for the great impact he has left behind. The following is his obituary from his website.

Gil Boyne died on 5th May 2010 at his home in London, after a brief illness. Having been admitted to hospital and been given a diagnosis a week previously, he told his wife Ann that he was very ready to go, that he wanted to pass away at home and he didn’t want to linger. He left hospital on 4th May, arrived home and passed away around 8.45 on Wednesday morning. His wife, his daughter and his grandchildren were with him. He was 85 years old.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Check In

OMG, I've gotten so behind on posting on here, like you don't even know. I've just gotten so behind with everything going on in life and class and such. I've got so many ideas for blog posts and information and I just haven't found the time to put it together. Hopefully I should be able to get started on that soon. I got this idea that going to do one blog posted day to catch up on the ideas and topics that I've been wanting to blog about but we'll see how that happens. I'm very happy to be back in school, it's been really strange to notice how much I missed it while I was gone, life just felt so incomplete and it's really unusual but really powerful too.which is not to say I didn't miss my UUCL friends, but my friends and classmates at FIH are so important to me as well as all of the important emotional change I've been going through.

So anyway, I wish everyone luck, good health, and the best and hopefully you should be hearing more from me soon! Love you all!

Aika

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Happy Beltane!

Happy Beltane indeed everyone!
I had the good fortune this week to be able to convince my supervisor to let me work Wednesday instead of Thursday so I was able to travel up to the Ocala National Forest and surprise my good friends Theresa, Alysia, Tom, Tracie and Bowen. I could only stay for the day, and I'm very sad I couldn't do the whole event this year but I still have school this weekend and it's very important that I not miss anything. I wish everyone then a very happy Beltane and week and I'll see you all on May 9th if not sooner!
Aika

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Biting at the Bit

I started experiencing a strange feeling over the last few weeks.
On Monday evenings, I wake up, get dressed, eat, and drive to work. Once I get to work I find myself asking this question,

"Why am I still here?"

It's like my mind is finding it harder and harder to adapt to the soul crushing monotony of menial labor where my ability to help people is small and my pay is even less.
The first week it was just a strange sense of disorientation, like when you haven't done some habitual task for several days and find yourself trying to find your bearings again.
The next week the sensation was much more pronounced and the question "Why am I still here" first arrived. I started to see the negativity and hopelessness around me and was just like, "I gotta get out of here."
Tonight it came back even stronger and brought with it even more symptoms. I spent most of Sunday night watching the TLC show "Hoarders: Buried Alive" and getting so incredibly pissed that they were subjecting these people to useless unsuccessful treatments at the hands of bumbling Psychotherapists and 'Professional Organizers' (what are they gonna do? Make more space for them to fill???) when they could get at LEAST 3 times as much success in 1/100th the time with effective Hypnotherapy!

*sigh*
Do I think I'm ready to open my own practice? No, not in the least.
Do I want to? Well not right now, I have enough foresight to know I haven't learned near enough for that yet.
Do I want to help others? A most emphatic YES.

Any takers?

Aika

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Random Post of Internet Awesome



Okay this is just pure hedonism on my part. I stumbled across this video on YouTube and was immediately entranced. Who knew South Korea could make such an adorable Boy Band? And so colorful!!!

Well apparently DJ Masa made a mashup of BIGBANG's (that's the Korean boy band) song 'Lollipop' and the great Lady Gaga's 'Telephone.'

And what resulted was very epic.
So bask for a moment in it's glory, or at least let me, lol.

Aika

Monday, April 19, 2010

Great Literature on the Go!

So, as everyone is bound to know by now, I'm completely infatuated with Sherlock Holmes. I bought the paperback versions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes stories but was faced pretty rapidly with the fact that I've got FAR too many books to read: CUUPs books, School books, Manga, Spiritual Books, ETC. There's just no way I see myself getting to my good old chaps Sherlock and John anytime soon. Plus I was lamenting the fact that I couldn't listen to my school books on the 2.5-3hr drive between Lakeland and Gainesville. I had tried to find some audio books recordings for Sherlock Holmes but the ones I had found just hadn't captured my interest, either they were too unprofessional or the British accent was so think I was having difficulties driving and listening on the fly.

I was about to give up on my Holmes-ie when I decided to try one more time and came across the audio book recording for 'A Study in Scarlet' made by Project Gutenberg. And let me tell you, it was perfect. Very clear (though it could have been louder there's not much helping that) and the narrator is splendid, I love his Holmes to death. ^.^

I guess to make a short post even shorter I'm just writing about this cause when I told Lyle that I had gotten my recordings from Project Gutenberg her was surprised and commented that he thought they only did digital books. So here's my pimping out of classical literature! If you're interested in some awesome classical literature in either digital or audio format, check out Project Gutenberg!

Archive.org's Project Gutenberg Page

Project Gutenberg's Main Page

Aika

Friday, April 16, 2010

Holy Breathwork Batman!

Wow...
...just wow.

If you ever have a chance to experience breathwork (and since most all of you know me personally you will,lol) do so! I had heard for weeks vague references to breathwork and the powerful effects it could cause, but all those anecdotes pale in comparison to actually experiencing it for yourself.

Matthew started out today by explaining how breathwork works and how I was supposed to breath, the cadence, posture, etc. He explained that we would be working in 4-5 10 minute cycles of breathing and checking in between segments to see what I was feeling or experiencing. I may not have an emotional reaction immediately, that most people don't start to have a reaction until about 3 cycles in and some longer than that, it just depends on the person and how deep their emotions are buried.

So I laid flat in the recliner, he put out the lights (except for the light from his computer screen) and I began to breathe.

Starting out my mouth seemed to dry up quickly and I would occasionally lapse out of breathing, in which case Matthew would tap on his knee and signal me to continue breathing. I made it through probably 2 full cycles before I started to have a reaction, though I did report the tingling in my arms and legs, alternating heat and cold in my chest, etc.

Finally I started to have a reaction. It hard to determine exactly how it went down in hindsight, but I'll try and assemble it to the best of my abilities.

At some point I began to have 'impressions' as I call them and the first few times I pushed them aside thinking my thoughts were wandering. I quickly realized though that my impressions were of my bedroom as a child and I quickly realized that this must be the memory breaking through so I brought it back and began to look in. The details were, while not startling, pretty vivid. I couldn't remember every detail of the room, but in my defense it was dark so I couldn't exactly see everything, though I did have a very strong grasp of the layout of the room.

As I started to sink into the scene I began to cry, and immediately looked in expected to find sadness, being as the emotion had come up before. However I started to get the feeling, very quickly actually that this wasn't sadness, it was something else.

Fear.

Very soon I wasn't looking down on the scene so much as I was IN the scene, I was having a revivication (re living a memory). I was curled up in my water bed, my arms wrapped tight around my knees, though I can't tell if I was sitting up or laying on my side. I began to hear footsteps coming toward my room and I saw the shadows of two feet stretch out from under the door.

At this point my revivication became an abreaction, I started to feel the emotions of the memory incredibly intensely, I was sobbing, thrashing my head and finally reaching up to cover my face in my hands. My simple fear morphed into abject terror, a level of panic I'm not sure I can recall ever feeling before. Thoughts were racing through my head on my terror driven adrenaline high, there was a man standing outside my door, a man I knew but I still could not name and I kept repeating "He mustn't know, He mustn't know." Slowly the shadows receded and the man walked past my door and into the kitchen beyond and I broke down sobbing in relief.

At this point my adult self was able to disengage from the abreaction and look at the scene objectively again. I was still crying, I was still feeling it, but a part of my mind could disengage and begin the investigating process. I imagined my adult self all around the child me (who I came to age at 5 yr old) and started the questioning, "Who was that? Who? Who?" With every breath I imagined like I was drawing water from a well, every outtake thinking "Who? Who?" and imaging that I was pulling out the information.

After a couple of minutes I was not able to glean who the man was, though I reinforced the information I already stated, and instead switched to "Why? Why must he not know?" (note I may have asked what he must not know first but this got no answer either way). After a few times asking why he must not know I got the answer, "Because he will act" he would act upon this knowledge. As I stated before I got no direct response to 'what' however there were other mitigating circumstances and feelings that occurred that implied an answer, however I'm not comfortable discussing them online. Maybe after further treatment, but not now.

After several minutes of questioning it became apparent that I could get no new information and, since I knew my time would be up soon anyway, I began to disengage and did what felt right, I comforted the little girl. I told her it was okay, that the danger is long since passed and that there's nothing to fear now. You can calm down and relax, rest. My breathing evened and the tears stopped and I was able to come out of the exercise and explain to Matthew what had happened (I hadn't spoken during the experience). He and I discussed it, he said it was a perfect session by the way, lol, and he thought it couldn't have gone better. We made plans to try regression therapy next week and he assured me that even though it seemed I'd done a good job of wrapping up the memory so it wouldn't bother me in the mean time, that I was welcome to pull him aside at any time this weekend if I was facing any difficulties.

As I talked with him afterward I told him I sat there with this incredible sense of ecstasy. I felt amazing, even having seen what I had seen, having faced the possible issues I would face, I felt fantastic.

Then I tried to get up out of the chair.
And I fell over.
I was drunk on Oxygen, get that.

I have never been so dizzy and had so much vertigo. Though at the time I was still in an intensely blissful state so it was a minor hindrance (trying not to walk into walls) and I remember laughing openly in the parking lot as I leaned against my car and tried to get the world to stop swimming. Finally my balance evened out and I went out for lunch, still in a smashing good mood.

However I hadn't been out of the office 30 minutes before I started to deflate like a balloon. The euphoric feeling left and I was left completely drained of energy, my lunch sitting in my stomach like a rock. I went home and tried to nap for an hour and a half but to little avail (it's hard to sleep when you've got fries sitting on your gut.) So I got up and headed to class early and settled in sluggishly.

Thankfully I was the first to arrive and I had a chance to ask Matthew about the situation and he assured me that it was normal and that I would be right again after a good nights sleep. So reassured that nothing had gone terribly wrong I made it thorough class and even found my strength and sense of balance return somewhat so that I'm not so bad off now as I write this. I as still tired though and I'll probably head right to bed after this.

Thanks to everyone who reads this, you don't have to of course and please know I value you all very dearly as friends. I can't wait to see you all soon.

Aika

Thursday, April 15, 2010

I wish I could write...

I've had some rather awesome characterization breakthroughs in my brain over the last 24 hours and I'm like possessed with the urge to work on this story again.
It's my Amazon themed story (you may or may not know anything about it).
I got turned onto it while I was working on an art competition piece about Hippolyta some months back and was intrigued with the twisted mess that is historical accounts of Amazons. Out of this kefuffle I pulled the stories of three women, sisters and amazons.
As with most of my stories my interest comes and goes but it's recently come back more strongly (mostly after watching clash of the titans I think, put my brain back in that era, lol.)

However I'm faced with a fact I must have know all along but didn't have to actually face before. I can't write.
Just in that I don't have any experience of knowledge of how to go about it. The more I would talk with Tracie the more it showed what a REAL writer looked like and did. And I wasn't it.

I tried to let it go, to stop saying I was gonna write that 'one day' but I keep feeling like I'm letting someone or something down, almost like I can imagine my characters looking at me sadly, disappointed that I'll never let them see daylight.

I acknowledge with work I could probably learn how to write, but I'm not certain I'm up to such effort, especially not now, while I'm in school. I think I might find a happy medium for now though.

I pulled out my notes and drawings and I've rekindled my research and have come across several interesting new plot points that I hope to work in and help stabilize the time line and historical structure of my story. It's hella fun too, ^^.

Well, I can't say if I will ever write this story or not, but it's retaken my attention for now. ^^ I must thank the wonderful writers in my life for rekindling the desire in me.

Aika

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Quite So!




I'm still on my Holmes kick.

It's in full swing now.

I bought Vol. 1 of "Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories" and I'm on a roll.

Then I found THIS LITTLE GEM and I'm in naughty fangirl heaven (I knew I could count on you DeviantArt).

PLUS!!!! I found THIS AWESOMENESS and it had become like my new Sherlock Holmes Bible (did I have an Old one???).

IN OTHER NEWS
Like I said I went and picked up my Sherlock Holmes book, so yatta.
I came home, ate my lunch and recorded the next months UUCL Podcast openings until it was time to leave for my appt. with Matthew. I should've known I had nothing to fear. We had a very pleasant session with some hypnotic programming (I'm going to try and listen again before I go to bed) and while there was some emotional release there wasn't a complete meltdown (like I'd feared)... That comes later, lol. He did use some EMT (Eye Movement therapy) though and let me tell you, that shit is the BOMB! I can't WAIT to learn it, it's frickin amazing! It seems simple and unassuming on the outside, someone slowly waving their fingers around in front of your face while you follow them with your eyes and they talk about your fear/negative feeling/whatever you wanna get rid of and then talks about how you wont have that anymore but will feel ____ instead. and then when he stops and you look inside, YOU DO!!! The fear/negativity/hindrance is *poof* gone, I'm telling you, it's crazy. We scheduled to meet again next Friday, and as many Fridays as are necessary to resolve my issues. It was very nice and I'm very excited to begin the work soon. Believe me though, a little of the nervousness is still there, but not as bad as before.

Once came back I chatted with NurAllah and then started to read my new book for about 30min (I like how much Loren D. Estleman-the introduction author-loves Watson, god knows I love him too, but I think she's a little daft about the "they're not homosexual" thing. Cause CLEARLY they are, and it is glorious,lol.) Well after my 30min I went for a walk in a nice park with NurAllah and her dog Kali. I wish I had taken some pictures cause there was this courtyard we went to with a huge 3 tiered fountain in the center and surrounded by a circular trellis covered in Wisteria vines, all in bloom. It looked and SMELLED a dream. And it lead me to discover something later.

Gainesville is like overrun with wild Wisteria! You see it all over the place when you drive around! I don't mean like in people's yards, I mean like growing up trees in wooded lots. I never noticed it before since they weren't in bloom, but now that they are you see them all over the place. I love the plant so much but haven't really been bothered to grow them. Maybe I should steal a branch and see if it'll grow.

Anyhoo, after our lovely walk (the weather was simply smashing) I went out in search of a light dinner and after getting thoroughly lost I finally went to a place I could find and bought my food to go, or I'd be late for class. Class was very fun, amusingly enough, because we're starting to delve into the nitty gritty real world stuff like advertising, marketing and the business of running a practice. I just love this 'realistic' how to stuff, it really gives my planning mind fodder to work with. We'll be getting much more in depth tomorrow.

After class I went and grabbed some more food (Joes!) and decided I wanted to see a movie, so I went and saw Alice in Wonderland again, in 2D this time. It didn't lack much, proof that they didn't utilize the 3D to its fullest potential, unlike Avatar (HAHA did it again, I still got it). Though I could spot parts where the 3D would have been utilized, almost like the screen jumped or something like that. I totally enjoyed the real world 'Victorian' dress and culture more though (yay for Sherlock reference ^^) and totally believe Alice and the Hatter are meant to be.

Came home, wrote this, bed time.




Aika

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Yay New Furniture!




'Yatta' for being able to have friends over and not having to sit on the floor!!! XD

In other news, I'm now completely in love with Sherlock Holmes, and Watson too of course. Separately or together, they are just too awesome not to love. Plus have you heard of "The Great Game"??? Sherlock-ians (lol) who treat the Sherlock Holmes stories and literature as not only canon, but as historical fact.
...sweet. X3
Right up my alley ^.^
They acknowledge if pushed that it's fictional, but only if pushed. Totally google the NPR story on it, its frickin awesome.

I watched a super old TV production of one of the Sherlock Holmes stories (The Adventure of the Speckled Band) that was made in like 1946 (black and white, sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes, the whole nine yards) and let me tell you, watching that AFTER having seen the Robert Downey Jr./Jude Law Sherlock Holmes (twice) is absolutely hilarious. His pipe man!!!! It was HUGE! It was like a tea cup attached to a stick!!! And poor short/fat/old/dumb Watson, you're not just a comedic relief to me!!! Plus the overall hilarity of the deerstalker and plaid cloak was too much, I'm SO glad they didn't dress Downey in that nonsense, X3 still really cool.

I'm in the process of buying all of the original stories in book form and hope to see what other cool stuff people have written about him.
Does anyone see a pattern? It's kinda like...

...AVATAR-
-comes out of DVD April 22nd! Yay Earth Day!! I think I'll have to break down buy a blue ray player for my HD TV and mourn the loss of the 3D. Though Sony has begun to advertise for 3D TVs, I'll have to check out the prices (for when I buy a house, lol).

Well, I'm writing this from Gainsville as I came up a night early so I wouldn't have to get up at like 4am to drive up on Friday for my appointment with Matthew. Somehow I've been able to avoid thinking about WHY I was leaving early until I typed it up right here.
Me? Nervous?
Never.

Aika

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Thank you Lyle



After finishing off the reading requirements for school, I have done nothing but read Sherlock Holmes/Dr. John Watson slash every waking moment.

And it is glorious.

Aika

Friday, April 2, 2010

Clash of the Titans Review



I'd see it twice but wouldn't suggest you to.

The remake of Clash of the Titans was a solid "Okay" in my very un-empirical scale of movie awesomeness. I very much enjoyed the artistic design (the main reason I'd go back) and it was a very good soundtrack, however the acting and story schematics are very so-so. Plus a lot of the characterization is weak, at best. A lot of problems.

No Sex, no Nudity, but a lot of violence (as is to be expected I suppose.)

I saw this film in 3D, and even being as big a supporter of 3D as I am this film would probably be just fine in 2D. There were only a couple of "in your face" moments and the rest of the film didn't really benefit from the 3D (which is kind of sad cause it really could have in a lot of scenes, just to make the scenery more real.)

I will give the film props though for a more gender balanced view of the Greek myths (though it's not more 'accurate' it's definitely better) especially concerning the humanizing of Medusa (she was a beautiful priestess of Athena) and also including some intense badassery from Io (I don't know if it's factual but it was AWESOME ^^.) All they needed was some Amazons and they'd have been set, lol.

Overall the film left me wanting but not as badly as it could have. Maybe my bar has just been set higher by Avatar, LOL (my mandatory Avatar reference has been met).

Last word: Should see it: 5 out of 10, good enough to see if it's not going out of your way.

Aika

Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Return of True Blood!!!



It has finally Arrived!!!

The date of the premier of Season 3 of True Blood has been announced.

And it is June 13th.

ARGH! So close and yet so far away!!!

HBO is running Season 2 reruns on Sunday nights and each Sunday they're airing a new 'in production' clip. They're also releasing Season 3 Collectible posters. Sweet.

The Countdown has begun!

Aika

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Please Disregard Previous Post

I should have know the moment I got too uppity and "Yay I'm healing!" that I was gonna get shit kicked by reality.

Today we did the fleshing out of Suggestion Therapy. It was very interesting when we discussed it and did an example where the entire class was the patient.
The way it works is first the client gives a list of physical symptoms of a problem (say common allergies symptoms). Then the hypnotherapist, through the use of stem sentence completion, uncovers the emotions behind said symptoms (like anger, sadness, guilt or fear). The Hypnotherapist then uses more stem sentence completion to dig down deep to the core beliefs in the subconscious that cause the emotions, that cause the symptoms (like weak, unworthy, unlovable, out of control). You then use more stem sentence completion to uncover the clients opposites to these words (the beliefs, emotions and symptoms) and then use these words to create meaningful suggestions to help them to nullify the erroneous beliefs.
It was all very interesting and effective.

Until you have to actually go through it.

And let me tell you, it's like poking a bear with a stick.

I used the system on my partner Eden with some success, no intense emotional outbursts but he said he enjoyed the programming so that was good.

Then we got to me.

At first it was okay, I decided to go with my chronic post nasal drip which has been bothering me for about a month and a half. I figured that would be a safe topic, that wouldn't have me walking through too many minefields. Right?

...right.

Matthew happened to come upon my session early on and quickly noticed that as we progressed into emotions, I was beginning to strain at the seems of my tenuous self control. Matthew quickly intervened and pressed hard at the dam and pretty soon all the emotions and negative opinions I've held at bay for the last 6 months or better came rushing back, and pretty soon I was just shy of sobbing. But he didn't stop at the basic techniques we were working with, he used more advanced ones, along with 12 years of experience to really try and get at the root of my emotions and I was crippled. The reality that I had discovered hints of over the past couple of weeks was painfully obvious, I had dammed up my emotions many months ago and learned to live fairly happily. I was walking around for months, thinking I was recovering from years of negative self belief and really making headway, when all I'd done was distance myself from my emotions enough that I almost forgot that I had them.
I was devastated.

Matthew quickly finished after we had extracted enough belief words (the most painful part of the process) and left to check on the other groups, though not before a quiet and implied offer of one on one treatment if I was interested.

Eden and I trudged through the creation of the Key words, a process which was on some levels as traumatizing as the original extraction of the beliefs. You try answering the Question, "Instead of feeling worthless, how would you like feel? Instead of feeling unloved, how would you like to feel?" about 5 times each, It's like getting beaten with a sledge hammer over and over again. And while a lot of my initial emotions were sadness, through the key word creation they quickly turned into red hot anger and I had to stop myself on several occasions from lashing out at Eden. It just would have been so easy to tell him to shut the fuck up about the 5th time he asked me what I'd rather feel than worthlessness. Unfortunately I wasn't thinking much during the suggestion creation, other than absorbing myself in the chance to retreat and pull back in my analytical mind, so my suggestions, while pretty, weren't very believable, and thus didn't stick when he finally put me into hypnosis.

I spent the rest of class and most of dinner afterward catatonic as I used every available energy source in an attempt to patch up my dam.

I think that what hurt more than the emotions themselves, was the fact that I'd fooled myself into thinking I was cured, that I'd outgrown those childhood beliefs. I can't believe how foolish I was.

Right after Matthew offered to help, I was overwhelmed with the idea of his helping me. However as the evening drew on I began to second guess this idea, mostly because I realized:
This was gonna hurt.
It was gonna hurt A LOT.
I was perfectly fine and not hurting when I had this all wrapped up, and while it was still there, it didn't hurt.

I feel like such a hypocrite for crowing from the rooftops about my apparent 'success' when I was just as, if not more so, fucked up as I ever was.

On a positive note though, I suppose, I talked to Margaret (one of my classmate's who's also staying at NurAllah's) and we discussed our sessions and after I talked with her and let off some emotional steam I didn't find it so hard to patch myself up and regain my composure. I also think I've decided to ask Matthew if I could take sessions with him. It'll cost a bit more, but I'm committed to becoming a Hypnotherapist, and I need to come to terms with and solve my own issues before I can hope to help others with theirs.

Damn... when I said it was gonna hurt... I didn't really mean it!

Aika

Friday, March 26, 2010

Witch, Shaman, Hypnotherapist - The Healed Healer

I suppose I'll start out with a quick update on my current situation since I haven't posted anything in a while.

I decided to take the room at NurAllah's house and things have been going well so far. I'll admit last weekend that I didn't sleep very well, but I'm not sure what it was due to. The bed was just this side of comfortable, being a thin day-bed (I'm in a different room this week and the mattress in here is much better), I've been having sinus/lymph node problems off and on for the last few weeks so my post-nasal drip was causing some discomfort. But also last weekend we covered/dove into Hypnotic inductions and deepening techniques, so I was hypnotized then brought back out quickly probably 30 times a day over those 3 days. A certain disorienting/exhausting feeling coupled with information overload I think is more to blame for my poor sleep though. But I had some very powerful experiences that weekend never-the-less, mostly including my inner subconscious mind.

Before I detail what happened, let me give you a general breakdown of the happenings inside my head.
There are a bunch on people up there, lol. And no, not in the 'split personality' sense, but simply in the 'parts' sense, there are a lot of 'me's' and each one has an identity and a job.
There's the Muse Me, the figure I often follow when on guided medatations and hypnosis.
There is the Prince Me, and also the Princess Me, my Anima and Animus (I know Jung only said you had one or the other but I'm androgynous so I have both). These two figures where some of the most prominent in my emotional growth and recovery over the last couple of years but I think that more recently they reached a end, or at least a break in their saga. It began with their creation in my mind, several years ago, starting with the Princess's story. She lived in a beautiful rose garden surrounded by and thick stand of Birch trees. These two plants have represented the feminine and masculine in me ever since. But anyway, the Princess tended the garden she could not leave, for the trees grew so close she could not slip through, and she silently waited for the Prince to come and reunite with her. My Prince self later showed herself and was very badly injured, she was bound tightly with razor sharp thorn vines and had been impaled on her own sword. I feel this represented a lot of my confidence and self identity, mortally wounded by myself and suffering a lot of emotional pain. During a very powerful visionary experience I had during a drum circle maybe a year or better ago I experienced her freeing herself from her bounds and in a crescendo of the music the sword was pulled free. This was the beginning of my path to healing. The vision ended with her laying unconscious at the base of a tree still wounded and bleeding, but no longer constantly reliving the injuries.
A while after that incidence I had another vision during a massage session of the Prince starting to heal, her wounds closing and her body becoming whole again. It ended with her standing and slowly making her way through the forest, looking for the princess. I had a few lesser visions after this one of The Prince searching before I came to the final vision in the arc. I had an incidence during a meditation where my Muse self was walking down a path in my mind and I happened to notice as we were heading toward somewhere else, the entrance to the Guarded Rose Garden. But it was not as I had last seen it. For a small moment I looked inside and not only was a path now open to the glen, but the garden was blanketed in snow, and the Princess was nowhere to be found. I thought this was a little odd but nothing much came of it until a later meditation. My Muse self was at the edge of a pond, touching the water to make ripples when a sound caused us to look up, and there stood the Prince. My Muse asked where she was headed and the Prince replied that she sought out the Rose Princess. Muse told her what she had seen in the garden and that the Princess was gone. The Prince was surprised but said that she would go to the garden and wait for the princess' return. Muse me watched her go and bid her rest well, for her journey had ended. Sure enough, the Prince entered the garden, lay down on one of the benches and quickly fell asleep.
I've not had any visions of the two of them since, and I do believe that, at least for now, their story is over.

Now last Saturday I was invited to an event after class, and I'll admit I didn't know what it was until I got there, but it was an Old-time dance society, Countra dance with dosi-does and waltzs and the like. It was very interesting and fun, though I got winded quickly (it was some good cardio let me tell you, lol). Now you have to have a partner for each dance and the first couple of dances the same man helped me out, since I'd never done this before. However after the second dance I was very winded and had to take a breather, but another man came up and asked if I would be his partner. I politely refused and said I needed to take a break. I sat the next dance out but when the next dance was starting up and I went to join the same man asked if I would be his partner now. I agreed and danced, a little confused but happy. After that dance I was quickly winded again and was going to take another break when I was approached by two more people to be their partner. I politely refused, when a thought entered my mind.
"Why on Earth are they asking to be my partner? It's not like I have anything to offer, I'm not worth their attention, they just don't know it."
...a short second after this thought and it's accompanying emotions went through me I pulled up short and realized what had happened. I stopped, everything going quiet around me as I focused inward and said, "Hello Id." And she said Hi back.

The Freudian model of the Id, Ego, and Super Ego is that the Id is your basest, carnal desires, your Superego is your morals and your ego is the figure in between trying to keep balance. As much as I know and accept this construct, the idea entered my head a long time back and manifested in it's own structure.
Ego is me, the me as I am, my conscious identity you could say.
SuperEgo is the idealized me, the me I hope and dream one day to be.
and Id is my Sadistic inner bully. She likes nothing better than to tear me down and make me so miserable I don't want to live. She and I used to be much closer, she was with me everyday and these where some of the darkest days in my life.
However as time has passed and I have grown, Id had been pushed back into the darkness, not allowed to intervene as she once had.
But this incident last Saturday showed very clearly that she was still there, ready to knock me down a few pegs if she thought I was getting too uppity.
It hurt a lot to realize that she was still there, and that she still had the power to so easily lay waste to my still fragile self-esteem.
The night ended on a poor note, I hid in the bathroom most of the rest of the next hour, too ashamed to go back to the dance floor, and when I decided to find the people I had come with to tell them I was leaving, I found that they had already left without looking for me. That added extra pain to my already hemorrhaging pride. Thankfully I was able to let the event go for the most part, letting go of the pain but left with the knowledge that the me that could wound me so deep was still alive and well.
The next day I asked one of the people from class why they left without finding me, and they said that they looked but hadn't checked the bathroom (it was a man) and that they actually left just before I had, so I hadn't been abandoned there s easily and I felt better about the situation.

Shortly after my conversation with R.G. (the classmate I talked to about leaving the dance) we had our daily group Hypnosis session. It was very similar to most guided meditations I've had, a lot of guided imagery that led us to a beautiful beach where after a progressive relaxation and a numeric amnesia exercise, I sat on my beach chair and absorbed the suggestions Matthew(the teacher) was giving. But after a certain suggestion, I can't recall exactly what it was though I know it had to do with healing inner wounds, I heard a sound.

My Muse self looked from the ocean to the source of the sound and I saw, lying about ten feet away on the sand, Id. The sunlight that had passed over my body to relax me earlier in the session was now focused on Id and she was crumpled on the sand in agony. Her cries were unearthly and pitiful. She cried, sobbed, screamed and groaned. She was writhing under the healing light and what looked like thick black crude oil was oozing out of her skin. She looked up at me and the look on her face was pure suffering, her expression was one that was begging for mercy.

I looked upon her and found that I didn't have any of the feelings I thought I might, or should. I didn't recoil in terror or disgust, and neither did I take any pleasure in her pain. Instead, I felt pity, unmeasurable pity.
Long had I viewed Id as my cruel tormentor, the dark part of myself that took pleasure in hurting me. But I saw then truly what she was. Ego is my conscious mind, SuperEgo is my higher mind/ my higher self, and Id was my subconscious, my inner 'well educated 10-year-old' who had long held evil lies as truth and had been poisoned by them. Just like bullies in real life, who often hurt others because it is a deference from hurting themselves, Id was not acting Sadistically but Masochistically, she was hurting herself, me, in the form of the other.

I stood from my seat on the sand and walked over to Id. She continued to look up at me, her face filled with sorrow. I knealt down beside her and gently stroked her hair, offering comfort to myself.
"It's going to be okay," I said, "I know it hurts now, but it's going to be okay, you'll be better soon."

Shortly before I decided to come to this school I bought a book on impulse called "Shamanism for Beginners" By James Endredy. I had never been much interested in the topic before, but I found myself engrossed in it's pages and with the Idea of "The Healed Healer" since most shamans are identified by having survived some illness or injury. They must be healed of their own injuries to heal the injuries of others.
I encountered this exact same philosophy here at Matthew's school, the idea of needing to heal your own emotional and physical wounds before you can heal those of others.

While I may not go so far as to call myself a shaman, I think my wanderings in this life have lead me to this path of the Healed Healer, and I finally feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel, like I'll finally be healed. Like I'll finally have meaning and purpose in this existence. It's like the prospect of being born anew.

As the day wore on Saturday, I noticed the pain of swollen lymph nodes in my neck. I hadn't had them in a few weeks so I was a but preturbed, until a thought occurred to me. Lymph nodes are a part of your bodies immune system that helps to fight infection and flush the associated waste from your body. The image of the black crude immediatly jumped to mind and I made a connection. My body was washing this negativity out.

"It's going to be okay," I thought to myself, "I know it hurts now, but it's going to be okay,"

"I'll be better soon."

Aika

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Change in the Works?

So I may have found the solution to my hotel problem.
In case you hadn't heard I'm staying in hotels while I'm here in Gainesville for school, and apparently this week is "Gator Nationals" which just means crazy football nonsense.
Of course with crazy football nonsense comes astronomical Hotel rates.
Last weekend I payed $54 a night, this week it's $150 a night. I had to go all the way to Alachua to find a hotel that wouldn't cost me $300 and it's still costing me like $100 a night. To be an extra 10 miles by highway away AND be in a shitty hotel.

Don't you just LOVE football. Ugh.

Well, I was just gonna deal with it but an alternative has arisen.

I at dinner with two of my classmates (Maja and Margaret) after class and they're both boarding at someone's house. They were talking about how she was gonna have some rooms open up since a few of the people staying are leaving and they suggested I check it out.

Now this option was offered to me at first but I had immediately turned it down cause I didn't really feel comfortable going to a city I didn't know to stay with people I didn't know at some I didn't knows house and start school with a bunch of people I didn't know. Far too much uncertainty for me. But after a couple of weekends there and getting to know the people in the class better I was starting to feel more comfortable to the idea.

Maja explained that the woman who's house she was staying at was names Nurallah and she was a 60 year old Sufi firecracker with a dog named Kali (after the goddess, yes) who was very big on healthy organic eating and such like that.

Naturally my interest was peaked, so when Maja offered to show me the place so I could see if I was interested in staying there, I agreed. The house was nice, very cool and when I finally met Nurallah she was very pleasant. We chatted a little about different thinks including Names and their meanings (we both have names that are not our birth names, though mine is chosen and hers was given through her Sufi training).

Anyway she'll have a bed open next weekend and a different one (more permanently) the week after that. Plus you can't beat $15 a night when compared to $50-$100. The only possible problem could be that the beds available would be a day bed or a futon, so I'm questioning the comfort of said articles of furniture, but for two nights a week it's probably not that bad.

Well, I didn't finalize with her but I made clear that I was interested and willing before I tried the bed, so I think I might call tomorrow or maybe Monday and see if I can't set it up.

Yippe money savings!

Aika

Thursday, March 11, 2010

If At First You Don't Succeed...

...MAKE SOME MORE MACARONI!

I said I would do it and now I have. I took a swing at Lyle's Macaroni and cheese recipe (Recipe Here) and while I ended with success It was not without its own blunders and hard learned lessons.

Attempt #1:





You probably can't tell by looking at the picture, but you're looking at something like 4 quarts of inedible gelatinous Macaroni. For a few key reasons, but first lets start with what the recipe calls for:

1) 1 box of macaroni (4 cups/1 pound)
2) 3 cups grated cheddar or Colby cheese
3) 2 cups milk
4) 2 eggs
5) 4 tablespoons butter
6) 3 tablespoons flour
7) 1/2 tablespoons pepper
8) 1 teaspoon mustard

My first mistake was that in the creation of my white sauce I used Almond milk instead of ACTUAL milk, 1) because I try to eliminate dairy from my diet whenever I can (and no one better say 'eliminate the dairy from Mac and CHEESE' Shut up) and 2) quite simply I didn't have any and didn't feel like buying some. Now I feel the jury is still out on whether I could have actually pulled this off with almond milk, because the main problem was that my almond milk is the VANILLA flavored variety. Now this it typically no problem when used in for form of baking or other similar type dish, but somehow it didn't occur to me until it was too late that sweet and mac an' cheese doesn't really mix.

I had not originally intended to use the eggs but upon adding my almond milk I was gripped with the fear that the sauce wouldn't thicken because I didn't use real milk, so I threw them in. Now this fear lead to what I believe was my ultimate undoing.

I stirred and stirred my white sauce, looking for signs of its thickening and becoming 'creamy', and instead of cooking it for the recommended 2 minutes, I cooked it for nearly 10, ramping up the sugar concentration of the sauce and skyrocketing past "creamy" into "gravy" before I realized my mistake.

However, not one to acknowledge a folly, I poured my concoction over my cheesy noodles and my dish more resembled a green bean casserole than a macaroni and cheese. But into the oven it went and 30 minutes later I pulled it out and beheld the horror of my making.

After it cooled my mother grabbed and little and said, "Ugh, too sweet", but I brushed it off and sat down to have a fist sized slice. At first it was okay, but quickly realized that this... was completely inedible.

...damn.

The poor abomination of a meal sat in my kitchen for several hours before I finally decided (at 5am) that I was gonna try again and follow the recipe TO THE LETTER. So into the trash my mac went and off to Walmart I skipped and returned with more noodles, cheese and real milk.

Attempt #2

I started again and my white sauce came out with much better results.
Oh, and let me just say, I used cheddar, Colby and Monterrey Jack cheeses and Lyle's recipe says 3 cups is enough and 4 is extravagant. The way I figure it, what am I if not EXTRAVAGANT, so 4 cups of cheese it was.

The sauce poured on much better the second time (it actually SANK INTO the dish, instead of just pooling on top) and I did a quick spread to make sure the sauce was more or less evenly distributed.
Thirty minutes later I was greeted with this:




Much nicer (and more like Lyle's picture lol). After letting it cool I popped it into a few containers and plan to eat them this weekend for my lunches at school. And while it looks lovely and I haven't actually sat down to eat any yet I foresee one problem:

Salt.

Dear God does it need salt.

::sigh:: You can take the artificial processed food out of the girl but can't take away the desire for it's taste.

Thank you so much Lyle and I can't wait to try some new recipes!

ADDENDUM 07:59pm 3/11/10:
Once again educated on how one should occasionally listen to ones mother.
My mother said that the Macaroni would taste better as left overs and being the ignorant child I (occasionally) am, I didn't believe her. But lemmie tell you, after having a dinner of Mac and cheese, green beans, and salad before work, it definitely is better the second time around.

Only needed a little salt, lol.

Aika

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Every Day, in Every Way, I'm Getting Better and Better

Officially my new favorite quote/mantra, I just really like it's simplicity and power and it represents just one of the awesome lessons I'm taking away from my hypnotherapist training.
I walked away from class this weekend (the first) with a lot of cool new information like the quote in the title, but the best thing I think I walked away with was a reinforced feeling that I'm doing the right thing.
I walked in with a head start on a lot of the information (from previous experiences with other hypnotherapists and what-not) but I also got a lot of new stuff, including a lot of first hand operating knowledge from Matthew (the school owner and instructor). And some of the things he's done, and does, are amazing.He's reinforcing the feeling that this is the right path for me, in so many ways.

In the more mundane, day to day aspects, it does appear more and more, to be a very lucrative occupation. Matthew does what I thought would be very difficult to maintain without any further advertisements: maintain a regular practice. Through the power of word of mouth and a few regulars Matthew maintains approximately 20 to 25 sessions a week. At around $200 dollars a pop, that translates out to something between $4000 and $5000 a week. That's like $200,000 a year on the low end! Even if you consider charging the accept median of approx. $100 a session, the earnings are still substantial.
I would only have to do 3.5 hours of sessions a week to match what I make at the hospital working 36 hours a week. And consider that this is only taking into account a standard practice, I could easily make a living doing any number of jobs available to a clinical Hypnotherapist. Holding a practice, working with a doctors office or physicians service (like Watson Clinic or Clark and Daughtrey), working at a hospital specializing in Hypnoanalgesia (a position required by JCAHO), to just doing Theresa's awesome suggestion of working Pagan and New age festivals! There are really so many options out there for me, and more keep opening up every day. But I think that more important than the money (as important as it is), hypnotherapy is offering a a much greater gift.


Hypnotism is not just some cutesy parlor trick, "Make you quack like a duck", it is pure magick. It takes the (or at least my) understanding behind magick, the power of the mind to effect positive change in the world, and makes it REAL. Not only can you help people quit harmful addictions like smoking or shed a few extra pounds, you can change their lives, even SAVE their lives. Using the right technique and method, you can heal someones past hurts, create in them a fertile ground for positive self growth, you can even heal their physical ills. From as simple as taking away someones pain (something Matthew can do in under 10 minutes) to as complex as bringing someone back from death's door and completely healing them of cancer (a feat Matthew has also accomplished).

This isn't just about handing out some cool fun past life regressions to me anymore, this is about me fulfilling a need to create a positive effect in other people's lives that I had only had a slight inkling that I had. To know that I have the power to change people's lives, including my own. The following answer has become a bit of a joke in class already but this saying really sums up my life right now:

Can you complete this training?
Can you become a person you can be proud of?
Can you help other people to create positive change?

"YES I CAN."

~Aika

Friday, March 5, 2010

Long Day...


Very Long.
Went to bed between 5a-6a last night after seeing the IMAX 3D opening of Alice in Wonderland with Daniel, Tom, Alysia and her girls.
By the way, very enjoyable film though I feel it had some serious plot flow and characterization flaws.
Anyway, I only got to sleep about 5 hours last night before getting up, having two grilled cheese sandwiches for Brunch then heading out.
The drive up to Gainesville was relatively uneventful, but lemmie say, after 5 years without cruise control, including 2 years driving back and forth between Lakeland and St. Augustine every other week, having it is SPECTACULAR. It made two and a half hours of interstate driving, almost fun. LOL, it doesn't take much to entertain me sometimes.

Got my room and was very pleased with the set up, since I had read many mixed reviews. However I was charged $20 more at the desk than what was stated in my reservation (Which when I asked about it later was given a very convoluted answer which I chalked up to taxes and fees, which the confirmation does say aren't included) and I was unable to access the internet before I had to leave to eat and go to my first day of class.

And let me tell you, the traffic... insane. It took me 20 minutes to leave the little hotel corral and make it to a main road, and we're talking like, MAYBE two blocks. Ridiculous.

However once I got to a main road I discovered several awesome restaurants very close by and ate my dinner at a place called Pazza Bistro, where I had a DELICIOUS bowl of Spaghetti with Pesto Genovese sauce and topped with artichokes and broccoli. PLUS a scrumptious Parmesan dressing salad. I ate half and wrapped up the rest to eat after class, and I'm certainly glad I gave myself extra time to get there, cause the streets of Gainesville are twisted, conniving and BUSY. Got turned around a couple of times but made it just in time thanks to TomTom.

Class was fun, we're a class of 18 and I'm pretty certain I'm the youngest student, LOL. The next youngest I believe is 25 but the majority are easily over the age of 35. We even have a bonafide Professional Santa! (He really looks like it too, lol.) I introduced myself as a Unitarian Universalist Pagan (represent!) and even worked up the nerve to ask to be called Aika instead of Jessica.

The class was mostly meet and greet and introduction material, and probably would have been more enjoyable if I hadn't had a low grade headache for most of the 3 hour class. Tomorrow we're gonna start with a meditation/group hypnosis and he made clear that we were going to be doing a lot of hypnosis from both ends and reinforced a strict confidentiality agreement, which when you consider that basically you're sitting in on 17 other peoples personal therapy and get to see their darkest demons up close and personal, it makes a lot of sense. So I don't figure there's a whole lot I can talk about but I can still recount my day, lol.

After class I made my way back to my hotel (is the city ever NOT traffic jammed?) and stopped by Publix on the way to pick up some lunch fixens for the next two days. Of course once I got back things got ugly before they got better. I realized once I got in that I had placed my Dinner leftovers in my grocery bad UPSIDE DOWN and covered everything inside in olive oil, including ruining the bag I had intended to use as a lunch box the next day. After cleaning up as best I could I nuked my pasta and made my way over to my chair. But then the edge of the Styrofoam container snapped and my food fell out of my hand and all over the floor.

Sonoffa' bitch.

I just could not win, and it didn't stop there. My internet was still not working and I had to call the Hotel's IT service to see if they could connect me. And after nearly an hour on with them, 20 minutes of it spent on hold, did I FINALLY get connected. I was probably charged for the internet twice, but I'll straighten that out later. I ate a 4th meal of powdered donuts and Pepsi (meal of champions, I know) and wrote this blog. Sigh.

Can I go to sleep now?
Aika

OMG Johnny Wier!



Dear GOD, Look at him!
I do believe this is the hottest gay man on the face of the Earth.
Is it weird for me to think a gay man has a cute butt?
Cause he does, ogle it yourself and see.
I had been first intrigued by the above photo (gotta love a man in heels) but then I saw THIS:



OMG HOTNESS, the dancing, the demeanor, his cute pert butt.
Johnny Wier AND Lady Gaga, TOGETHER!?!?! I MUST be in heaven.
Mmmmm, I can definitely appreciate the aesthetics of his form, lol.
I'll just top off this pointless post with the tv spot for his sundance channel reality show, "Be Good Johnny Wier"
Epic Awesome.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Far too much excitement...

...seriously, I don't need any more.

I should have done this post like six days ago, since most of the drama has resolved itself by now, but I'll entertain you all with its tale as best I can besides.

Friday, February 26, 2010 - I received a call from one of my supervisors claiming to have spoken to me about my schedule. I told her I had never spoken to her concerning my schedule and she corrected, "I mean, you spoke to Eula right?" I agreed that I had spoken to Eula but no one else, (I wanted to make sure I didn't set myself up for a 'well YOU said...' later). She then proceeded to tell me that she had spoken to my Manager and that they could not adjust my schedule to have me off every Friday for school. I was still on the schedule for 2 Fridays a month. I needed to either convince one of the other weeknight girls to swap with me, find some other coverage or take ETO for them.
Now... this is 7 days before I start going to school. SEVEN. I told them before the end of January that I would need this schedule change, and they notify me SEVEN days before I start that I was still on the hook for two Fridays a month. I tell her that there's no way I can afford to take 24 hours of ETO a month for the next six months, and she quickly offers, "Well you could downgrade to part-time status with only two nights a week, though there's no guarantee you'd be able to come back to full time in September."
Dear GOD was that a loaded suggestion. It doesn't take much to look at our schedule and know we're overstaffed during the week but hell would freeze over before I take the fall for their mess. So I told her that was absolutely out of the question. In an attempt to diffuse this situation I told her about the one weekend a month I would have off from school and got signed up to work those Fridays, rearranging the other girl that was covering Fridays to make me only responsible for one Friday a month, including the 26th of March. She suggested I call this weekender girl who had expressed interest in picking up shifts, and while she wouldn't incur overtime, I would lose a whole day out of my paycheck.
I spent the rest of that night trying to figure out what I was gonna do and being in a medium level of agitation.

Saturday, February 27th, 2010 - After work I went home and napped for a little under two hours I headed out to UUCL for the Annual Board Retreat, and found that I was an hour late due to a mistype in the email I had concerning the retreat, my email said 10:30a but I guess everyone else had acquired the correct info elsewhere. Oops. No matter, I spent the whole day there, working on congregational business and planning, then eating at the wonderful potluck that came together (very lucky indeed, sometimes its really hit or miss when it comes to potluck). Tracie and I then stayed after the festivities to chat and obsess over the hall's organization and appearance, altogether very fun and good stimulation for my nit-picky side. ^^ I finally went home around 9pm and went to bed shortly thereafter, completely forgetting to call the weekender girl and ask if she wanted my March 26th shift.

Sunday, February 28th, 2010 - Went to service at 10a at UUCL and it was pretty good, last bit was very much on 'walking the talk' of being a UU (check it out Here). Had a pleasant lunch with Dan, Tracie, Glenn and Bowen(occasionally, lol) before watching Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn," my last CUUPS film for a while, though not the last film CUUPS will see since Tracie will be running some films occasionally for the next six months. After the film Glenn, Tracie, Bowen, Daniel and I went to the Circle B Bar Reserve park out by the PSC campus and had a very enjoyable walk through the beauty of Florida's nature.
I was particularly happy to be introduced to this place because I'd been wanting to find a nice bit of nature to start reconnecting to and this place is awesome. Check it out. After a nice hour or so walk Tracie, Glenn and Bowen headed home and Daniel and I headed over to Lakeside plaza for our regularly scheduled BD's Mongolian Grill dinner, LOL.
I should probably mention that he had been trying to talk me into going to see "The Crazies" with him, Alysia and Tom all day, to little effect. I didn't really have anything better to do, but I refused to go see a film that would most likely give me horrible dreams for the rest of the week, if it didn't send me into a full fledged Panic attack right there in the theater. I am an EXTREMELY empathetic person, I feel what other people feel, including abject terror, so you can see the problem with me going to see a horror flick.
Not wanting to leave, but not willing to go see the film, I came upon a much more enjoyable alternative: They went to go see the Crazies, and I went and saw Avatar again. LOL YES! MANDATORY AIKA AVATAR SEGWAY!!! 8P
So, after my Avatar fix (I think this brings my avatar viewing count up to 4 or 5) I drove to my local Super Wal-Mart (hey, it was late and I had fangirly urges to attend to) with every intention of buying yarn, a knitting loom, and as many native style beads as I could conceivably afford. However once beholding their pitiful selection of yarn (not a single roll that wasn't a giant ball of acrylic) and suddenly realizing if I didn't come with specific bead designs there was no way I was gonna buy any beads, plus if I was designing them at home I might as well order exactly what I wanted online. So, I went home empty handed. Happy for my wallet, sad for Aika's inner fangirl.
Of course on the way home I remember that I need to call the weekender girl to see if she wanted my shift, which just put me back on the angry war path. Saturday at the congregational retreat I had told my woes to anyone that would listen, which had placated my agitation, but now I was just plain angry with being saddled with their responsibility.
So needless to say I was in a foul mood when I got home and greeted my mother. My mood was not improved to say the least when I called and asked the girl if she was interested and was told that she "only did Admissions" and didn't know how to do HUC duties. For those not firmiliar with the differences, they are few and pitiful. I could do her job as easily as mine because I'm CROSSTRAINED, a trait this girl doesn't look interested in gaining in the new future. Damn. I was gonna have to get up in the morning, head into work and talk to my team leader about these happenings, and then come in to work that night. My mother had been quiet since I arrived home, warily eyeing my pissy aura. After my failed attempt to get coverage I unleashed some of my malcontent on her in the form of an angry tearful diatribe against my employer and managers. When she didn't placate my foul mood or reply in any way my mood only got worse, but I got quite instead of continuing the rant.
I sat down next to my mother in the living room and after a moment of silence my mother spoke, "I spoke to Bonnie today."
Now this isn't an unusual occurance, my mother talks to her oldest sister pretty regularly, but the way she said it bred forboding givin the form and feeling in the air.
"Joe's been airlifted back to Georgetown and placed in the ICU, they think he's gone into sepsis."
Apparently my uncle had been discharged from the hospital after his hernia repair (which I knew about) but after a very bad night with shortness of breath at home my aunt called paramedics at his request. He was taken to their local hospital before the ER there shipped him by helicopter to the large hospital in Georgetown, three hours away, since his condition warranted it and that was were he was hospitalized last and where all his doctors were. There was a very good chance he wouldn't make it through the night and mother asked if I could pull up the bereavement policy at work in the morning and see how much time she could take off, as a precaution.
Now I've never been very close with either my aunt or her husband, but the threat of his demise was certainly enough to put a damper on my self righteous anger. I spent most of the rest of the night crying and being a mix of worried, angry and nervous before finally going to bed.

Monday, February 29th, 2010 - Finally, some good news. I got up around 930a and went to speak to Eula about the scheduling problem, who was just as surprised and flabbergasted as I was, so there was a healthy dose of justification. Eula apologized profusely for the confusion, that this was the first she had heard of the scheduling problem and she'd do everything she could to help fix it since I was one of her most flexible reliable workers. (Yes, lovely ego stroke, it's not conceited if it's true ^_~) I thanked her, made plans to speak again on Tuesday and went home to grab a few more hours of sleep. I spoke to Eula again at shift change that night where she said she made a few calls but her best prospect was Lisa who worked the PediED on the weekend, but since it was a Monday she had worked the previous night and Eula hadn't wanted to risk waking her. I told Eula I was gonna talk to Kerry (the supervisor that had called me on Friday) and see if I could get a list of the dates I needed to have covered. Work that night was relatively uneventful and I finally went and talked to Kerry at around 0930. After talking with her the problem became very apparent. I was hired on into a full time 72 hour position and Kerry was unable to find another weekday shift to give me that didn't push the already overstaffed schedule into critical mass. But she couldn't NOT give me a third shift, but I could ask for those shifts off and either take some ETO or work upstairs. Her problem wasn't in staffing those Fridays, it was in staffing ME. Well that changes things. She told me to just pick one Friday a month and she would shuffle everything else around it, she even said I could put in an ETO request for March 26th, even though the deadline for it to be in had passed. I went back to my desk and put together mock schedules for the next six months and picked my Fridays to ask off, arraigning it so that the days I picked only appeared once a month and once a schedule. I made out my request slips and attached my mock schedules to them and popped them in the box. That problem was solved.
Eula then told me Tuesday evening that she had spoken to Lisa and for all intensive purposes she was game to pick up March the 26th. Sweet, disaster averted.

But no more... please no more.
I have enough to deal with, lol.
Like Alice in Wonderland!!! Yay IMAX 3D Midnight showing!!!

Aika

Friday, February 26, 2010

Did I Cook That!?!


Yes... yes I did, LOL. You're looking at my rendition of a Turkish-Style Vegetable Stew from a recipe published in the January 2000 edition of Vegetarian Times.

My version calls for:
2 tsp. Olive oil
1 Medium onion, halved then sliced
4 Medium cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
12 oz Green beans trimmed then cut crosswise (I used 12oz by accident, recipe called for 6oz)
6 oz Okra, trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices (I used frozen )
2 cans of 14.5 oz Diced tomatoes
2 cups Vegetable broth (likewise I used 2 cups on accident, the original called for 1/2 cup)
1/2 tsp. Ground cumin
2 medium Zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1 tbs. Fresh chopped dill
1 tsp. Sea salt
1/2 tsp. Fresh ground pepper

In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium-low heat. Add onion and half the garlic and cook until onion is softened, about 5-7 minutes. Stir in green beans, tomatoes, broth and cumin. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to low, partially cover and simmer, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes. Increase heat to medium low. Stir in zucchini, dill, okra, salt and pepper, cover and cook until zucchini is just tender, about 8 minutes. Serve hot.
I served over a bed of rice and added the second half of the garlic to the leftovers along with some barley.
It can also be served with pitas, hummus, Greek olives and feta cheese on top.

Personally this was very fun to make, especially cooking the onions, there was just something cool about actually COOKING LOL. It was also encouraging that even though I messed up a few points of the original recipe the meal still worked out well and was very delicious. Plus there were plenty of leftovers So I should be able to enjoy this tomorrow.

Well, I'm gonna put this recipe as a success and hope to continue my culinary rehabilitation in the future! ^_^

Aika

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

And So it Begins...Maybe...

I've jumped on another Bandwagon. Lets just hope this one goes as swimmingly as Facebook... wait, no, maybe.

This is not my first attempt at the strange art of 'blogging', not by a long shot. However I hope, with the help of friends, that I might actually be able to be successful with this... whatever success at blogging is defined as, LOL.

I'm currently in the middle of planning a new art venture so wish me luck! Hopefully I can relearn HTML fast and get pictures up here so maybe I can share some of my art in progress.

I also hope to keep up with this as I start school at FIH (Florida Institute for Hypnotherapy) and help me keep up with those that matter most to me, my dear friends and confidants, you know who you are. ^_~

Well I suppose this is a fine enough start, ONWARD!!!

Aika