Bobbet’s World

Stories August 23, 2008

"Seize the moment!"

That’s how our theory construction class ended last Thursday. With those words from our prof who has that penchant to romanticize on the seemingly dull and gloomy world of research and theorizing, we were fired up to view our grad life as one full of mystery, fun, contingency, creativity, and surprise.

Indeed, it is. With the graphic skills of a journalist and the theoretical lens of a scholar, she (our prof) advised us to grab the moment: write!

Funny that she told us to go the extent of "theorizing the chicka." Yes, the language of the barberya can meet the critical frame of our constructs! Dr. Moran relates it to heuristics.

This is the novelty of attending grad school. What could be mundane to some is viewed extraordinarily by the critical eye. Everything has a meaning of its own.

What could be the sense of these things? Some important notes I always fail to locate only to be found when I’m not looking. Seemingly getting lost one night at Cubao in my search for the HM terminal. Getting a surprising slip in the bathroom this morning in my attempt to reach for the soap (I was gratefully unharmed).

Yeah, these are mundane realities. But they could tell me something. I’m tired. I lose focus. Life is unpredictable. Everything can happen in a day (this is what Arundhati Roy is telling me). Life is full of surprises and, yes, of stories!

Clarissa Pinkola Estes is correct: Stories are medicine, powerful. Listen to our stories, and from there, learn life’s lessons.  The new book we’re writing (Smart Writing) is full of stories. Watch out for that. In one of my journal entries there, I wrote about the story of "the first-time traveler and the sea," inspired by Ernest Hemingway and T.S. Eliot. Isn’t this a hardsell?  Not really. Ha-ha-ha.

Go ahead Dr. Estes, tell these words to us: "Stories are embedded with instructions which guide us about the complexities of life." Well said. Duly noted.

Off to a serious business August 11, 2008

I’m off to, not from, a serious business.

Look at my pictures. (1) Labelling volumes of readings for CR 284, in great preparation for our midterms on Thursday. (2) Consulting that wide spread of a Monday-Monday span of to-do matrix. (3) On the side, sipping my calamansi juice while nursing some flu.

Yes, I’m off to a great week ahead! Blog you again this weekend.

A Beautiful, Stree Free Life July 9, 2008

It’s nice to end the stressful day listening to an inspiring speaker’s talk about stress management.  Dr. Renato Josef, a medical doctor and registered nurse, brightened up this afternoon’s gloomy weather with his non-academic delivery of how stress and burnout can be managed amid the tension, frenzy, and, probably, clutter of the workplace.

I made it a point to catch up with the seminar despite the many things I did this afternoon. Yes, back of my mind, I knew I needed this seminar much. Short of saying, I’m on the verge of being drained up by the kind of work I do and the stressful routine I live.

I had consciously taken note of the seminar’s highlights, things that caught my constructivist lens. At the very onset, Dr. Josef reminded us that stress is a perception.  It is a state of the mind.  Or, in other words, it is a way of thinking. A positive way, thus, of addressing it is to welcome, embrace it — like a philosophy, a belief, a culture, a world view.

Failure to do full acknowledgment of stress, so said our speaker, could lead to neurotic defenses that result in anger or violence, which are reflective of unresolved internal conflicts. When that happens, we are unconsciously protecting our ego so we could maintain our sanity. Insecure people are like that. So do fault finders.

Beyond our mental health, stress greatly affects our heart. Thus, the attack of hypertension and other complications.

Dr. Josef’s prescriptions for combatting stress are worth listing down here:

1. For burnout corporate or academic workers, nothing can beat the idea of work delegation and the proverbial time management. Our to-do list, activity log, and efficient scheduling can spell out the difference here.
2. Relaxation techniques also matter: imagery (speak of visual diary or illustrated discovery journal), meditation, self-hypnosis, and music (try it, he said, it works best in soothing our tired nerves and exhausted minds).
3. Visualization also works. It’s like "beginning with an end in mind." Leapfrog into the future. Create scenarios.
4. Be a good listener. Talk less. Consume less of your emotions used when you’re arguing or resolving conflicts.
5. Synergize. Seek others’ cooperation and affirmation.
6. Sharpen the saw. Another way of saying "be a better person."
7. Exercise! Physically and mentally, that is.

If I may add, positive thinking counts. The thought of living life at the spur of the moment and the acceptance that things sometimes go far beyond our control, and that we cannot please all people at one given time may somehow ease out the burden of life and living. End of it, thanks to Dr. Josef, a cool, relaxed life is a state of the mind. Like a philosophy we embrace, make life stress free by telling yourself "life is beautiful and it is worth living." Only then, we can take things light and the journey lighter.

Scalp Massage + Sleep + ComRes 284 June 18, 2008

I slept through scalp massage yesterday afternoon at Paulo’s. I couldn’t help it. Sleep came, true to form, like a silent tyrant that it really was. Just went back to my senses when the barber’s chair moved up that signalled end of the process. I couldn’t estimate how long my sleep lasted. Fifteen-minute nap probably. But it certainly detoxed, de-stressed. Tired but happy from my undergrad classes, that session truly created a difference. I went home refreshed ready to read CR 284′s assigned readings. I also found the time to chill out with Che which, by the way, was another form of detox, hehe.

Then I slept. The legit length. Thank God I had more time to sleep because back of my mind I could wake up late. It’s Laguna holiday today, after all. But it’s not a totally free and relaxed day. Line of things to do beckon like reality check or list of reminders. A few minutes from now, I need to go out and have my CR 284 materials printed. Then if there’s still time, I may read or re-read. By 12.30 p.m., I must be ready to leave and travel again.

If life is an endless weave of routines, then I might as well make it exciting by re-routing the routines and, from time to time, reinventing the ways through which I succumb to the process or re-crafting the roads that lead to my destination. That is, if I want to be creative and still sane at the end of the day. I must. Like it’s a matter of survival.