Busy-ness
Everytime I sit in front of this keyboard with the intention of blogging, a great wave of tiredness sweeps over me and forces my hand to move towards the keys that will engage my continual tweet stream. Well ok that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
I heard a story on NPR yesterday in which someone claimed that people who write high-density sentences, meaning those with multiple changes of subject within, are far less likely to experience altzheimer's in life than those who write more simplistic, low-density sentences. Will these results become skewed now that we are aware of this?
So what has happened in the interim. Well, I guess we shall start with the dreaded hearing test that took place the Monday before last. Admittedly, it wasn't as bad as I'd made out. But then whenever is anything? They concluded that the current hearing aids I have no longer meet my needs for amplification, as she conducted some sort of test by playing back a recording and measuring with a computer program how much the aids were theoretically allowing me to hear. She said it hardly registered on the graph. I know not how I will get these new aids funded, but the folks at the UNC Hearing and Communication Center seemed inclined to help me in exploring options. I just hope something actually helps me.
Following that, I was rather glum. My mentor told me to snap out of it: "you shouldn't constantly frame everything in a negative way. Sometimes you need to step back and just appreciate all that others are doing, even if understandably you are not happy with the overall result." I totally agreed with her, which is why I then instituted a No Negatives Week. This meant that I had to find some way of looking at every crazy thing that happened to me from a good angle. Heck, I liked it so much that I've not relinquished that week since. I know that my expression of negativity was more about my feelings of not being able to live up to my and others' expectations than anything else, and now that I'm confronting this head-on I feel my confidence rising fast. I know that all won't instantly be great, but I'll keep trying!
What did you do for Memorial Day? I'd gone to Charlotte to visit my crazy cousins again; I always wonder what draws me down there, but I guess it's more the entertainment value than anything else.
Nothing spectacular happened, but I did get in a lot of much-needed relaxation. I also saw the woman I'd met via CraigsList all that time ago who used to drive me around, not having met her in person in almost two years. That was a nice bit of nostalgia.
And of course there was the obligatory cookout. We had some good food too: I ate two hotdogs, a big turkey burger with cheese, ketchup and mustard, baked beans, and corn. I was quite full as my cousin's girlfriend and I hit the road on Monday night for the journey back to Carrboro/Chapel Hill.
I've finally gotten my laptop, the one given to me through my mentor and from a former university professor, up and running. However, I hadn't realized the thing was running Windows XP Professional, and not the home edition. This means that in order to activate JAWS For Windows, the screen-reader that I use, I'd probably have to shell out a couple hundred bucks or change my Operating System. So I'm not sure exactly what my answer will be to this situation but I do need to figure it out as the Pac Mate won't allow me to type the letters G or H and is almost certainly on its last legs. I've got time, though.
And what am I reading? It's another one that is kind of related to the oil spill, in this case more so because of where it takes place. It's called Fever Dreams, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It's the 10th in the Pendergast series, and if I'm not mistaken I've read all the others. Basically, Special Agent Pendergast, who at least used to work under the FBI at some point, is this time investigating a shadowy drug company's dealings in the Gulf Coast area. As things unfold people keep turning up dead, making things ever-more complicated for Pendergast and his partners. I'm enjoying it; it's certainly lighter than the story about the Vietnam War. I think it will begin yet another trilogy based on what happened to Pendergast's wife Helen.
And that's really all of significance. I am going to someday soon write a more topical entry, but I gotta find the topic first! Hope all is well with you, and thanks, as always, for reading.
I heard a story on NPR yesterday in which someone claimed that people who write high-density sentences, meaning those with multiple changes of subject within, are far less likely to experience altzheimer's in life than those who write more simplistic, low-density sentences. Will these results become skewed now that we are aware of this?
So what has happened in the interim. Well, I guess we shall start with the dreaded hearing test that took place the Monday before last. Admittedly, it wasn't as bad as I'd made out. But then whenever is anything? They concluded that the current hearing aids I have no longer meet my needs for amplification, as she conducted some sort of test by playing back a recording and measuring with a computer program how much the aids were theoretically allowing me to hear. She said it hardly registered on the graph. I know not how I will get these new aids funded, but the folks at the UNC Hearing and Communication Center seemed inclined to help me in exploring options. I just hope something actually helps me.
Following that, I was rather glum. My mentor told me to snap out of it: "you shouldn't constantly frame everything in a negative way. Sometimes you need to step back and just appreciate all that others are doing, even if understandably you are not happy with the overall result." I totally agreed with her, which is why I then instituted a No Negatives Week. This meant that I had to find some way of looking at every crazy thing that happened to me from a good angle. Heck, I liked it so much that I've not relinquished that week since. I know that my expression of negativity was more about my feelings of not being able to live up to my and others' expectations than anything else, and now that I'm confronting this head-on I feel my confidence rising fast. I know that all won't instantly be great, but I'll keep trying!
What did you do for Memorial Day? I'd gone to Charlotte to visit my crazy cousins again; I always wonder what draws me down there, but I guess it's more the entertainment value than anything else.
Nothing spectacular happened, but I did get in a lot of much-needed relaxation. I also saw the woman I'd met via CraigsList all that time ago who used to drive me around, not having met her in person in almost two years. That was a nice bit of nostalgia.
And of course there was the obligatory cookout. We had some good food too: I ate two hotdogs, a big turkey burger with cheese, ketchup and mustard, baked beans, and corn. I was quite full as my cousin's girlfriend and I hit the road on Monday night for the journey back to Carrboro/Chapel Hill.
I've finally gotten my laptop, the one given to me through my mentor and from a former university professor, up and running. However, I hadn't realized the thing was running Windows XP Professional, and not the home edition. This means that in order to activate JAWS For Windows, the screen-reader that I use, I'd probably have to shell out a couple hundred bucks or change my Operating System. So I'm not sure exactly what my answer will be to this situation but I do need to figure it out as the Pac Mate won't allow me to type the letters G or H and is almost certainly on its last legs. I've got time, though.
And what am I reading? It's another one that is kind of related to the oil spill, in this case more so because of where it takes place. It's called Fever Dreams, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It's the 10th in the Pendergast series, and if I'm not mistaken I've read all the others. Basically, Special Agent Pendergast, who at least used to work under the FBI at some point, is this time investigating a shadowy drug company's dealings in the Gulf Coast area. As things unfold people keep turning up dead, making things ever-more complicated for Pendergast and his partners. I'm enjoying it; it's certainly lighter than the story about the Vietnam War. I think it will begin yet another trilogy based on what happened to Pendergast's wife Helen.
And that's really all of significance. I am going to someday soon write a more topical entry, but I gotta find the topic first! Hope all is well with you, and thanks, as always, for reading.