Risk Management
So I have managed to survive my latest .... *drum roll please ahead of what might well be the worst pun in the history of mankind* .... date with dentistry! Bwahahahahaha! Erm, as opposed to destiny you see? Hm, oh well, you can't blame me for some mild degree of hysteria can you? Well, I suppose you can if you want but it isn't really going to change anything. Anywho, the appointment itself turned out to be a little different than what I what I had been expecting. For one I had to trundle down into the basement instead of my usual trip up to the first floor, and then my friendly Scottish dentist man chose to give me a bit of a rest from another major round of extractions this time and instead focus on putting shiny white fillings into my teeth at the front, with the additional entertainment of having fun UV light shined on them to harden whatever the curious glassy material may be. It was all another interesting experience, staring up into space whilst the man and his glamorous assistant poked around inside my numbed mouth and my thoughts wandered about in space a bit. This time at least there wasn't any unhelpful reflections providing unwanted glimpses of the action, although I couldn't at some points help puzzling over just what might be going on in there. To some degree though the fillings may have even been less fun than the extractions since the additional drillings and polishing led to rather more dramatic vibration of my head. At the end of it though, I did get one additional fang removed, my top right incisor, which required a bit of waggling but came out fairly straightforwardly after being jabbed at with a screwdriver which led me to somewhat ponder the interesting overlap between dental work and carpentry. It's also slightly ironic perhaps that te only real pain involved in the whole business be the injection of the anaesthetic itself, but anywho, whilst the whole business wasn't exactly what you might call pleasant, it was manageable. Indeed, it's probably the sense of having people so close that be most unsettling but at least I didn't have to do anything too scary like talk to them much!
Indeed, I'm really quite appreciative of my dentist's man professional demeanour. He's be suitably reassuring without being too talkative and I was pleased to learn that I'd been doing a reasonable job in allowing my previous extractions to heal. Heh, indeed, I don't think I've been told I was 'doing very well' so many times in my whole life as I have been than whilst in the chair! Anyways, I thinks I can say that as far as such an experience can be, it pretty much went ok. Meanwhile, my recovery from a single extraction has perhaps unsurprisingly proved a little easier and less sore than that from the previous four. I also felt a little more confident about the process too which no doubt helped a great deal. Oddly enough, in the immediate aftermath I probably had more discomfort and blood from the fillings and injection sites than I did from the extractions. I did have a degree of worry that some pride might come before a fall and I could end up being a little too reckless in managing a single extraction but it seems to have all gone ok. One oddness however has been that since this new hole is more up at the front I seem to have developed a slight lisp as it has made it a little awkward to get my tongue in place for those tricksy esses and tees! Despite a little oddness adjusting to the changing shape of my jaw, I seem to have largely been managing, and with my new hole closer to the front it's been entertaining to watch how the blood clot has developed and the hole slowly getting smaller. There's still some healing to go of course, but I think I'm in a good place with it and am mastering the art of eating sideways. There is more fun to come of course. I go back for further extractions and the fitting of replacement fangs on the 28th, but hopefully that won't prove too much more of an ordeal. After that I get a rest of a few months before work starts on the bottom set. Fun stuffs indeed, but for the meanwhile I sits and be largely ok and try no to think too obsessively of what might lie ahead.
As it is though really, this whole business of dentistry, a trying and addtionally complicating ordeal though it may be, is really nothing compared to the challenge to my nerves that the simple business of trying to live continues to prove. I'd had a relatively calm morning prior to my dentist appointment, having a brief shamble about town, meeting a friendly orange kitty and also catching sight of little cloud kitty who I hadn't seen for a while! She was prowling around in that most natural of feline habitats, the window of an estate agents. That comparative restfulness is, anyways, in interesting contrast to the kind of nerves that still cling to my body in prospect of the trip I had to see the fairy job folk in Scarborough on Friday morning. The day itself perhaps I wasn't feeling too anxious but I suspect that might have been down being in a state of utter exhaustion having not had any sleeps the night before! It really is quite ridiculous that I should have these feeling still, knowing perfectly well nothing bad is going to happen and having experienced nothing nad happening so many times before already. My brain seems sadly impervious to this exposure therapy however. I can only wonder whether that might be. I find it difficult to really imagine my brain can be that much different to most other folks. Mayhap though there is something about the process that simply reinforces the negative associations rather than diminishes them. In actual exposure therapy you are supposed to stay in the situation until the anxiety diminishes so your brain learns that being there isn't scary. Mayhap the limited time of my appointments means my nervous reactions don't have time to diminsh before I'm out the door again and as I feel better leaving the place perhaps my mind actually teaches itself that the good thing is not being there? Having said that though, I've had plenty of times being in the situation where I've thought I've felt ok, though as I perhaps illustrated somewhat in my last entry, sometimes what I think I feel may not be exactly what my subconscious mind is feeling. I also read that recent research suggests the brain encodes negative memories naturally more strongly than positive ones, although as I understand it the non-depressed brain is supposed to be naturally over optimistic and will consistently misjudge the odds of bad things happening, hence everyone's risk management skills may not nearly be so accurate as they might like to imagine. But that helps peoples have the motivation to take risks and do things, which perhaps is another thing I somewhat lack. From my emotional reactions and my actions to some things however there is clearly still something strange going on with me. Hopefully I may figure myself a ways around it one day.
It doesn't much help though if, in the meanwhile, what I had thought were potential opportunities seem to disappear in the wind. One thing I hadn't yet mentioned on these pages was that lately I actually managed to acquire myself a job interview or, more accurately, a place on a two hour assessment thing for a job as a 'Web Associate' for Yell. Firstly I had a place for an assessment day on the 15th but with my dental appointments I thought it wise to rearrange that to the later offered date of the 29th. That of course would then have required me to change the date of my forthcoming dental appointment on the 28th. So a certain portion of my brain was spending its time during the night I spent away at my parents following my latest visit to Havelock Dental Practice worrying about how I was going to manage this additional tangle. Imagine then my frustrations when I return from my parents' domain to discover I've had an email that my assessment day on the 29th is canceled! Ach! Not only annoying in itself but I also found myself additionally annoyed with that part of me that actually felt somewhat relieved that it wouldn't be having to face the additional stresses of job interviews. Dear brain, can you not see this is the very kind of thinking that ensures you remain in a position of constant anxiety and insecurity in living? Heh, no, it seems it can't. In any case it also gave me an additional hook for my nerves ahead of my Scarborough appointment as I could imagine that if I hadn't put off my interview I may not have missed an opportunity, and the powers that be wouldn't have to set the tigers on me. Heh, as it turn out though, the inside word from the job people on the business is that this cancelation was due to some folk in the company failing to get the approval of those in authority before beginnings the recruitment process and so the whole thing had to be put on hold in order to satisfy the proper beauracracy! So, the good news then is that at some point in future I should yet have me an assessment for a job although it remains to be seen when that might be. Heh, hopefully not until after I've done with all this dental work so I don't find myself having to make payments I can't afford! Either ways, this sort of tangle is not the sort of things that helps my tangled little brains!
Of course, neither does it really help that I haven't seen my landlady since may so have an awful lot of money burning a hole in my bank account but an increasing amount of difficulty keeping a precise track on how much rent I'll need to pay! Oh yes, and the coming of Christmas like the steady march of doom, and everything that shall need arranging for that, doesn't exactly sit easily on my mind at present (sorry, couldn't help another terrible pun there, I think it's an instinctive mental reaction against despair)! Hm, I wonder if the world wouldn't mind going away somewhere for a little while, just so I might gather as much of the various bits of myself together that reasonable function and glue them back together with the helpful adhesive that be the good wishes of all you nice friend people? Heh, oh well, since the world isn't going to be doing that any time soon I shall perhaps just scamper away and see how much restfulness I can get out of my weekend whilst humans seem to be unhelpfully vacuuming out in the corridor at the moment. Smrrs. In between all these gubbins though the business of Coliseum and shop continue their typical madness, the chaos somewhat increased there since the days off I've been having leaving me somewhat out of the loop with proceedings. Not sure if I mentioned the noises that were made at the Coliseum to actually pay me for some works on a new project we intend to get started using the History Pin website? That wouldn't really help so much if the hours weren't right however so it's suggested they might give me a laptop instead. I wonder whether it would be any better than the one I be tapping at now. Oh well, it's a thing and the supports there is not unappreciated. Meanwhile shop remains it's usual ordered disorder and I look forward to updating my graph with the past week's book sales on Sunday. Given the weather I'm not suspecting the number will be too high, although with everything going on I'm not so grumpy about a relative degree of quiet on the customer front.
Anyways, I thinks that's about all the news I have to update with for now, or at least as much as my brains has the intellecutal endurance to remember to write down. Now imma scamper off and look forward to what I hope will be as frivolous a Saturday evening as can be managed with Strictly Come Dancing and other silly televisions that I missed watching on Friday since I was too exhausted to stay awake after a long day of Scarborough and shop. It wasn't helped that bus timetables are now every hour, forcing me to arrive in Scarborough a whole hour before my appointment was actually scheduled. It leads me yet to ponder how I might manage to get to and from prospective job assessment days, but then I don't suppose I has to worry about that any more for now at least! So yes, hopefully the noises in this building won't be going on for too much longer and I may sit and rests, watch TV and maybe play some more Guild Wars 2 which is a subject I do intend to expand on in a bit more detail, that is if any of my readership would really be particularly interested in learning more of experiences there? For now though it is back into hiding for me and the search for as much of a sense of security and safety as the noise of the vacuum cleaners will allow me. Risk management has never really been my thing though! (Heh, what do you mean that's a terrible tenuous link, I had to find some kind of suitable title for this entry! Yes, I know, 'A Date with Dentistry' would have been better but then I didn't wan to give the game away for my fabulous pun now did I?!) Erm, anyways. I do hopes that everyone out there is having pleasant weekends and the world be treating all you good kind people with all the good kindness that be due to you. Be seeings you!
Indeed, I'm really quite appreciative of my dentist's man professional demeanour. He's be suitably reassuring without being too talkative and I was pleased to learn that I'd been doing a reasonable job in allowing my previous extractions to heal. Heh, indeed, I don't think I've been told I was 'doing very well' so many times in my whole life as I have been than whilst in the chair! Anyways, I thinks I can say that as far as such an experience can be, it pretty much went ok. Meanwhile, my recovery from a single extraction has perhaps unsurprisingly proved a little easier and less sore than that from the previous four. I also felt a little more confident about the process too which no doubt helped a great deal. Oddly enough, in the immediate aftermath I probably had more discomfort and blood from the fillings and injection sites than I did from the extractions. I did have a degree of worry that some pride might come before a fall and I could end up being a little too reckless in managing a single extraction but it seems to have all gone ok. One oddness however has been that since this new hole is more up at the front I seem to have developed a slight lisp as it has made it a little awkward to get my tongue in place for those tricksy esses and tees! Despite a little oddness adjusting to the changing shape of my jaw, I seem to have largely been managing, and with my new hole closer to the front it's been entertaining to watch how the blood clot has developed and the hole slowly getting smaller. There's still some healing to go of course, but I think I'm in a good place with it and am mastering the art of eating sideways. There is more fun to come of course. I go back for further extractions and the fitting of replacement fangs on the 28th, but hopefully that won't prove too much more of an ordeal. After that I get a rest of a few months before work starts on the bottom set. Fun stuffs indeed, but for the meanwhile I sits and be largely ok and try no to think too obsessively of what might lie ahead.
As it is though really, this whole business of dentistry, a trying and addtionally complicating ordeal though it may be, is really nothing compared to the challenge to my nerves that the simple business of trying to live continues to prove. I'd had a relatively calm morning prior to my dentist appointment, having a brief shamble about town, meeting a friendly orange kitty and also catching sight of little cloud kitty who I hadn't seen for a while! She was prowling around in that most natural of feline habitats, the window of an estate agents. That comparative restfulness is, anyways, in interesting contrast to the kind of nerves that still cling to my body in prospect of the trip I had to see the fairy job folk in Scarborough on Friday morning. The day itself perhaps I wasn't feeling too anxious but I suspect that might have been down being in a state of utter exhaustion having not had any sleeps the night before! It really is quite ridiculous that I should have these feeling still, knowing perfectly well nothing bad is going to happen and having experienced nothing nad happening so many times before already. My brain seems sadly impervious to this exposure therapy however. I can only wonder whether that might be. I find it difficult to really imagine my brain can be that much different to most other folks. Mayhap though there is something about the process that simply reinforces the negative associations rather than diminishes them. In actual exposure therapy you are supposed to stay in the situation until the anxiety diminishes so your brain learns that being there isn't scary. Mayhap the limited time of my appointments means my nervous reactions don't have time to diminsh before I'm out the door again and as I feel better leaving the place perhaps my mind actually teaches itself that the good thing is not being there? Having said that though, I've had plenty of times being in the situation where I've thought I've felt ok, though as I perhaps illustrated somewhat in my last entry, sometimes what I think I feel may not be exactly what my subconscious mind is feeling. I also read that recent research suggests the brain encodes negative memories naturally more strongly than positive ones, although as I understand it the non-depressed brain is supposed to be naturally over optimistic and will consistently misjudge the odds of bad things happening, hence everyone's risk management skills may not nearly be so accurate as they might like to imagine. But that helps peoples have the motivation to take risks and do things, which perhaps is another thing I somewhat lack. From my emotional reactions and my actions to some things however there is clearly still something strange going on with me. Hopefully I may figure myself a ways around it one day.
It doesn't much help though if, in the meanwhile, what I had thought were potential opportunities seem to disappear in the wind. One thing I hadn't yet mentioned on these pages was that lately I actually managed to acquire myself a job interview or, more accurately, a place on a two hour assessment thing for a job as a 'Web Associate' for Yell. Firstly I had a place for an assessment day on the 15th but with my dental appointments I thought it wise to rearrange that to the later offered date of the 29th. That of course would then have required me to change the date of my forthcoming dental appointment on the 28th. So a certain portion of my brain was spending its time during the night I spent away at my parents following my latest visit to Havelock Dental Practice worrying about how I was going to manage this additional tangle. Imagine then my frustrations when I return from my parents' domain to discover I've had an email that my assessment day on the 29th is canceled! Ach! Not only annoying in itself but I also found myself additionally annoyed with that part of me that actually felt somewhat relieved that it wouldn't be having to face the additional stresses of job interviews. Dear brain, can you not see this is the very kind of thinking that ensures you remain in a position of constant anxiety and insecurity in living? Heh, no, it seems it can't. In any case it also gave me an additional hook for my nerves ahead of my Scarborough appointment as I could imagine that if I hadn't put off my interview I may not have missed an opportunity, and the powers that be wouldn't have to set the tigers on me. Heh, as it turn out though, the inside word from the job people on the business is that this cancelation was due to some folk in the company failing to get the approval of those in authority before beginnings the recruitment process and so the whole thing had to be put on hold in order to satisfy the proper beauracracy! So, the good news then is that at some point in future I should yet have me an assessment for a job although it remains to be seen when that might be. Heh, hopefully not until after I've done with all this dental work so I don't find myself having to make payments I can't afford! Either ways, this sort of tangle is not the sort of things that helps my tangled little brains!
Of course, neither does it really help that I haven't seen my landlady since may so have an awful lot of money burning a hole in my bank account but an increasing amount of difficulty keeping a precise track on how much rent I'll need to pay! Oh yes, and the coming of Christmas like the steady march of doom, and everything that shall need arranging for that, doesn't exactly sit easily on my mind at present (sorry, couldn't help another terrible pun there, I think it's an instinctive mental reaction against despair)! Hm, I wonder if the world wouldn't mind going away somewhere for a little while, just so I might gather as much of the various bits of myself together that reasonable function and glue them back together with the helpful adhesive that be the good wishes of all you nice friend people? Heh, oh well, since the world isn't going to be doing that any time soon I shall perhaps just scamper away and see how much restfulness I can get out of my weekend whilst humans seem to be unhelpfully vacuuming out in the corridor at the moment. Smrrs. In between all these gubbins though the business of Coliseum and shop continue their typical madness, the chaos somewhat increased there since the days off I've been having leaving me somewhat out of the loop with proceedings. Not sure if I mentioned the noises that were made at the Coliseum to actually pay me for some works on a new project we intend to get started using the History Pin website? That wouldn't really help so much if the hours weren't right however so it's suggested they might give me a laptop instead. I wonder whether it would be any better than the one I be tapping at now. Oh well, it's a thing and the supports there is not unappreciated. Meanwhile shop remains it's usual ordered disorder and I look forward to updating my graph with the past week's book sales on Sunday. Given the weather I'm not suspecting the number will be too high, although with everything going on I'm not so grumpy about a relative degree of quiet on the customer front.
Anyways, I thinks that's about all the news I have to update with for now, or at least as much as my brains has the intellecutal endurance to remember to write down. Now imma scamper off and look forward to what I hope will be as frivolous a Saturday evening as can be managed with Strictly Come Dancing and other silly televisions that I missed watching on Friday since I was too exhausted to stay awake after a long day of Scarborough and shop. It wasn't helped that bus timetables are now every hour, forcing me to arrive in Scarborough a whole hour before my appointment was actually scheduled. It leads me yet to ponder how I might manage to get to and from prospective job assessment days, but then I don't suppose I has to worry about that any more for now at least! So yes, hopefully the noises in this building won't be going on for too much longer and I may sit and rests, watch TV and maybe play some more Guild Wars 2 which is a subject I do intend to expand on in a bit more detail, that is if any of my readership would really be particularly interested in learning more of experiences there? For now though it is back into hiding for me and the search for as much of a sense of security and safety as the noise of the vacuum cleaners will allow me. Risk management has never really been my thing though! (Heh, what do you mean that's a terrible tenuous link, I had to find some kind of suitable title for this entry! Yes, I know, 'A Date with Dentistry' would have been better but then I didn't wan to give the game away for my fabulous pun now did I?!) Erm, anyways. I do hopes that everyone out there is having pleasant weekends and the world be treating all you good kind people with all the good kindness that be due to you. Be seeings you!