As you will find out in the video blog below, one of my ongoing missions is to meet and connect with people whenever the opportunity arises. So I caught up with online strategist Jesse Desjardins (also known for his SlideShare, “You Suck at PowerPoint“) in Toronto for a quick chat on social media and communication. Check out the video below:
Canadian Slumber Party (Part One)
Canadian Slumber Party (Part One)
A dumbfounded feeling swept over me when the Intern poignantly questioned to what extent of what I had been telling the rest of the circus about my December mishap was true. Perhaps it was the stark realization that no one else really prodded me to see if there was validity in my assertion that I had really attempted to “off” myself. It is, and should be, duly noted that I have always enjoyed toying with and rattling figures of authority, especially in what is meant to be a controlled environment. Anyway, I do suppose that I didn’t really have the intention to actually finish the job; I just wanted to hurt myself pretty badly – to wake up from this dormouse appearance, if you will – and saying that I tried to kill myself was the easiest way to describe what had happened for the umpteenth time to whatever new circus member I was introduced to in the month long period between the incident and the meeting with the Intern.
Saw this on flickr, and enjoyed the comment: 'I now have to see my stupid psychiatrist every week. I hate that woman. HATE her.'
And somewhere in all of this mess, I had inserted somewhere another consultation with the Cat Lady. Albeit, the Lexapro had alleviated some of the lethargy that I had experienced with the Zoloft, but I was still gravitationally attracted to my bed like a puddle to a sidewalk, in addition to a trouble concentrating on anything. The Cat Lady assured me that the side effects would eventually peter out, and would toss in the occasional diagnosis of “maybe you have ADD,” but in the meanwhile, we would increase my dosage to treat the barely changed mood. And to that, I wanted to (and probably should have, in retrospect) contest the increase in medication, but I figured that it would only be appropriate to continue placing my trust in the drug doling “professional,” and so I blindly complied.
Bref. The next time I saw the Intern after our late January meeting was the day before Valentine’s Day. More jittery than usual, I couldn’t help but fidget with everything in sight and bounce my knee up and down. It was a struggle to stay awake for school, work, and fashion week, and the frustration with the Cat Lady’s medication “advice” was beginning to take its toll. Describing the distress I felt to the Intern was like watching a dormant volcano slowly wake; all that wanted to be said was at the tip of my tongue bubbling, but I couldn’t form the slew of words into phrases. Funny to note, that on Saturdays, the offices are borrowed – well, the Intern borrowed an office in any case, whether it be the usual weekday or the Saturday – and so the way the rooms were assigned, the Cat Lady was right next door to the room I sat in with the Intern. And so the pillow that I was tossing up and down in the air, which wasn’t out of the norm for me, became a vehicle to express my discontent. Imagining where the Cat Lady was sitting if the wall between her weekend office and the one I sat in was nonexistent, I threw the pillow in said direction.
Unfortunately, pillows can’t travel through walls. They can, though, hit objects in the room. And so the pillow slammed into a lamp. Unbeknown to me until two weeks later when the Intern told me, the edge of the lamp had in fact tore the pillow, and the lamp itself would be more useful as a right-angle triangle for art class, as opposed to its original use. I didn’t realize any of what had happened. In fact, I moved onto my next distraction: frantically raking the table-top zen garden with sand getting all over the table. In effect, I trashed the office in my forty minutes.
Sunday evening rolled on by, and with the following day being an observed holiday (President’s Day for the curious), I opted to head out with some friends to a couple of NYFW parties. And in fact, it was pretty rad at Milk Studios with the close-knit atmosphere, open bar, and Semi Precious Weapons performing ten feet away from me, followed by lounging atop the Gansevoort. Having had quite a bit to drink, I opted to head back to Union Sq to grab a slice of pizza with a friend while the others partied on. And if anything worrisome was to be noted, my friend would have noticed as she dropped me back off at Gramercy, but there wasn’t anything alarmed about me.
Now mind you, I lived alone in that studio apartment. My roommate had inexplicably moved out at the beginning January, and notified no one, and so she ended up paying for the semester’s NYU housing. I grabbed the phone to chat with the Occasional Gauloise. Perhaps it’d be best to mention that at times, my jokes can warrant a little concern if you don’t know me all that well. And with December’s antic, it only seemed to heightened people’s “worry” alarms. In any case, it wasn’t really what the Occasional Gauloise had in mind when calling Wellness Exchange soon after I hung up and fell asleep. Somehow the intention of having Wellness send my RA (resident assistant) to my room and to knock on my door to ensure I had gulped down some water was lost or misunderstood, because quite the opposite unfolded.
Image courtesy of flickr.com (user: everyshadeofgrey)
The Obligatory Post on Goals and Resolutions
The Obligatory Post on Goals and Resolutions
Several years ago, I came across a guide to goal setting on Lululemon’s website (before they had a blog, where you can now find a similar entry here). I didn’t know what to make of the worksheet that asked of me my personal and health goals. Academic/work goals were much easier to fill in since they held more concrete presences in my life. But I couldn’t just leave two whole columns blank without the feeling of having done the exercise wrong; so I tucked away the sheet and didn’t bother with it until much later.
I did eventually fill out the rest of my goals and posted it on my old blog as a reminder. But as days and weeks passed, the entry got pushed down, and it slipped away from my mind. From time to time, I would remember the exercise and dig it up amidst old entries to see how much I had accomplished. Of course, it wasn’t feasible to accomplish it all so soon, not only because some of what I had aspired for was out of reach, but also the fact that the goal setting was meant to be completed in three phases: one year, five years, and ten years.
Reading the ideologies and aspirations that I had for myself present some interesting notes about myself, as well as realizations about others. The more forward I look into the future, the more vague things become, and rightfully so, since much of the future would have to be predicated on he succession of the more recent goals that I have set for myself. And of course, I’ve come to realize the importance of personal and health goals; we can’t live our lives directed in one narrow lane. It is so much easier said than done, but it can be something that one can strive for and try to achieve. But more interesting to consider are the resolutions that some people make.
I use the terms resolution and goal interchangeably in this entry since resolutions are what we often make at the beginning of the year, and are in effect, goals. Goals, more specifically, though, hold no implicit time period, and thus, we often have to specify and contextualize such ourselves when we talk about them.
Some of the resolutions that people make are entertaining, some are achievable, some are out-of-reach, and sometimes, there are just too many of the achievable posed by just one person, and thus making it cumulatively impossible. I’ve learned from past experiences to challenge myself, but not to overexert myself in my pursuits. So while there are many things that I would like to do this year, I realize that I can’t do everything in one year.
Since I spent most of last year and a half learning how to cook, I suppose that I would like to move on (while continuing learning to cook and what-not) and learn about wine, bartending, and mixology. That is going to be my big project for the year of 2011. Of course, I’ll be sure to have smaller goals and resolutions planned, but I haven’t really penned anything down as of yet except for the aforementioned.
So cheers to a new year, and hopes that we all find what we are looking for!
Image courtesy of browardpalmbeach.com
