Daily Search for Meaning

We were mock testing today and I got to the the caller (first time actually). This gave me a really good seat right up front where I could see everything.
As I was watching the senior students run through their tests, I realized something. When we step up to that line and were are ON, we become better people. We are intent, focused, confident, formidable and disciplined. We become what we aspire to be.
The question remains - how to bring this into "real" life? In the martial arts I know we are trying to "make your dojo stance your everyday stance and make your everyday stance your dojo stance. "
But that is oh so difficult.

I'm in the grocery store trapped behind a large woman pushing a cart VERY SLOWLY in front of me. As I slow down to accommodate her pace, I feel the urge to explode into action.
Roundhouse!
Sidekick!
Use my cart to slowly push her into the bread rack as her heels dig in trying to resist the inexorable press of her yeasty fate!
As always, I resist.
I've had a lot of practice. These aren't  unusual impulses for me.

I would ask my friends at LJ if they knew the source of this deterministic "Choose your own Adventure" but a quick Google search gives me little hope of an answer. I am pretty sure it is a photoshopped one-off created simply for the humor value inherent in the answer being the same no matter what you believe,
This bums me out because it would be TOTALLY cool to have an actual choose your own adventure philosophy/psychology/critical thinking book!  What a great educational tool!
In fact, I can envision many educational applications for such an approach

• You could use it to trace the evolution/progression of philosophical paradigms
• You could use it to follow the historical trajectory of various psychological disciplines/approaches (this could be true for any field)
• You could use it to teach research methods students about how the various choices they make determine their experimental design and the strengths weaknesses of their approach

You could even use it for something such as martial arts training.

Yesterday we had all member training in East Lansing. It was a 4 hour session in which we listened to opening speeches for the New Year, worked on focus exercises interspersed with questions of death, followed by the 4 new assistant instructors walking us through the first five kata followed by KenShiBu practice.
My favorite part was the focus exercises and questions o death. The questions have become a New Years tradition and involve the instructors asking us fairly esoteric questions such as what was the exact year the Tsumaki family inherited Tamiya Ryu Iaijutsu and where on the sword is the ("insert word I have never heard before"). If we can't guess the answer we have to do 10 push ups. So we were all pretty much dropping to the floor for push ups right after hearing the question :)
The focus exercises were followed by 100 consecutive cuts.
LOVED IT! I was spool sore in my neck, chest, and shoulders today. It made today's kickboxing pretty tough.
I think the kickboxing once a week and iai four hour a week have been helpful though. I waS able to do the pushups and all the cuts (a first for me for the cuts).
That makes me feel good inside even though I might be in pain outside.

Slowly slipping back into school mode. I'm waking up at 6:30 am (but still going to bed at 12 -got to fix that).
My Mom got me a light box for Xmas since she worries about me being affected by SAD in the Winter. So I'm sitting next to it this morning trying to rewire my circadian rhythms. Awfully BRIGHT for this early in the morning.

We finally got back to iai last night after 3 weeks off. It was nice to see everyone again and to swing a sword around.
Our group keeps growing. A year ago we only had 7 members. With a new member joining us this session, I think we are up to about 14 students now (4 of those students are women). With the promotion of the two senior students to assistant instructors, I am the second most senior student (gasp)! The gym barely has enough room for all of us to practice now.

Everybody was complaining about being sore during practice last night after the long break but it didn't bother me. I guess the weekly kickboxing sessions helped with that. The only thing that is sore with me today is the back of my right hand. That is a new one for me.
Getting old SUX.
We have all member training in Lansing this Saturday so the new iai year is starting of with a bang for me :-)

Here I am crawling into bed at 12:00 AM. I'm trying to be a good girl and get to bed at a reasonable time so that I can get up at a reasonable time tomorrow.
Yes, it's true. Tomorrow is the beginning of the Winter semester. Sigh.
That break went by way too fast. Fast as it was, it still didn't prevent me from slipping into my night owl schedule ( up until 2:00 am and sleep until 10:00 am). It also means that even though I am in bed there is NO WAY I am sleeping right away.
Judging from tonight's posts on Facebook. I'm not the only one feeling this way.
The posts made me realize how many people I know are either educator or students or both.

I read a Psychology Today article that suggested a good way to bring in the new year was to make a list of the accomplishments and pleasures and things that I overcame ( even if they didn't turn out the way I would have liked) in the previous year.
I agreed that revisiting the last year in such a way would be a good way to set goals and have a positive attitude about the year I am heading into.
1) Sabbatical! I was so burned out and mentally exhausted at the end of 2008. Even though I did not accomplish what I had set out to accomplish during the sabbatical, I accomlished other things. Getting a long break from departmental politics, recalcitrant students, and looming deadlines did wonders for my morale, energy, and perspective.
2) The chair of the department being promoted out of the department: He was a force of evil and dissention. You know that part in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy's house smashes the Wicked Witch and all the little people break into song? That's what it was like in the department after he left.
3) Rediscovering and becoming adept at Second Life: this has led to many of the small things I am appreciative of for 2009. Learning how to build in Second Life has allowed me to learn how to use Photoshop well enough that I no longer have to depend on my husband to help me out for the simple Photoshop tasks. I have also made new friends in SL's Raglan community who have given me lots of laughs, companionship, and interesting discussions during the year. Learning SL has also made me a valuable resource for the eLearning department at my school. Finally, it provided me with a flexible and useful platform to conduct creativity research and teach my creativity course.
4) Travel: my research trips to Northwestern U. , Texas A&M, and New Bulgarian U. Did wonders for my self esteem. I haven't published in 4 years and didn't publish much before that. Consequently, I have an inferiority complex concerning my work and my value as an academic. However, I was treated with respect and openly welcomed at these institutions by well respected researchers. Their actions taught me that they really did respect my ideas and enjoyed my company.
The trip to Bulgaria was one of the most interesting, exciting experiences of my life. I gained a real sense of accomplishment from taking such a long trip and navigating a new culture and language and the transportation issues and even coping with an illness for such an extended period of time on my own.
5) Family: i valued getting to spend quality time with my son on two of the trips I went on last year. He is a wonderful travel companion and very laid back. We get along well. I also appreciated having a good time with my husband the week he was with me in Bulgaria. It was the first pleasant trip we had together in years.
6) I appreciate the successful Fall semester classes.
7) I am proud at earning my Shodan rank and finding out I had actually been considered for Nidan. Renting a room and partying with the other members of our school after the Shinsakai was also one of the high points of the year.
8) Employment: I am glad my husband got about 5 months of solid employment so that we still have a roof over our heads.
9) I loved getting to meet, visit, and train with slobbit when I visited Boston this year.
10) Technology: I love my new iPhone, thankful that my 2 yr old MacBook is still performing flawlessly, and am enjoying streaming Netflix movie through the PS3

Wow! My ass is really dragging.
Monday is such a long day. I typically go solid from 9:00 - 5:30 with teaching, meetings with students and office hours. From 6-8, I work while waiting for my son to get out of class so we can ride home together.
I actually really like those two hours. It's just me all alone in the building. I spend the time getting as much work done as I can so I don't have to work when I get home.
Last week I gave my creativity class a chance to use today's class to review for a test or listen to a lecture on creativity and madness. They actually chose the lecture. One student even brought a friend with her who wanted to hear the lecture!
This NEVER happens (though it would be nice if it did more often).
I stayed up late last night and woke up early to prep the lecture. I think it was worth it though.

I was at one of the monthly eLearning meetings a couple of weeks ago and one of the attendees was demonstrating Google Wave for the group.

It is an interesting mashup of a chat, wicki, virtual workspace and information repository.  Apparantly, you can start a "wave" and invite others to it. Once people have access, they can collaborate on a group project by typing information into the wave workspace, dragging images, videos and other files directly into the workspace, search, edit other's work or comment on it.  Throughout, you have the ability to chat in real time with other people in your group (those with access to the wave) about the contents being added, future directions, whatever.
If you can't participate when others are working, you can visit the wave at any time you wish and hit the "playback" button which will play the wave as it progressed, including changes, chats, additions and deletions.

eLearning was thinking that it had the potential to replace Moodle as a class management system some time in the future.  However, in its current incarnation, it wouldn't work since it isn't really possible to integrate the platform with the school's class management system and it isn't possible to keep student information private should they or you wish to do so. It does look like it has real potential to be a useful collaboration tool.

At this point, it appears you can only play around with Google Wave if you know someone who has access and they extend an invitation to you to join.  I don't know what criteria Google is using to decide who initially gets access.  Potential developers probably. Anyhow, someone in the eLearning group now has access and offered to invite me. It was an invitation I gladly accepted (I LOVE playing around with new technologies).
He said it would take a couple of days before I received the confirmation email from Google granting me access.
I would be happy to extend the same invitation to my LJ friends if I have the ability to do so and if you are interested.

I have to admit that it has crossed my mind that this whole "by invitation only" aspect of the project might be a really clever marketing/propaganda ploy.

Link to information about Google Wave

There was a line of about four women with shopping carts in front of me as we were leaving Costco (I hate that place) after checking out. They were walking sooooo slowly. It was like march of the zombies or something.
Speaking of which, I asked my students yesterday what they were planning on doing for hAlloween (trying to live vicariously through them) and a couple said they were going on a zombie walk! It was the first I had heard of the existence of such an event. It sounds really cool though.
I wanna go on a zombie walk too.