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Synthesis & Synchronicity 025
[Visit Who Is Joseph Teller?]
Synthesis & Synchronicity 025
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Personal Notes: Well, I go in for Jury Duty at the tail end of next week. We (Kiralee & I) went in to Boston to find the courthouse ahead of time on Friday. We had a generally good day, and Kiralee got to do some shopping she wanted to do. I splurged and bought some Music CDs (the first new CDs I've bought in almost a year) while waiting for her while she went into Filenes Basement. Anyway, I'm still being a bit anxious about the whole Jury Durty thing, and annoyed that I have to be there at the courthouse by 8:15 AM and the fact that they absolutely forbid ANY electronic devices in the place in the hands of jurors etc (even watches) in their continued fear of potential terrorist attacks. It's downright silly, and I can't see how lawyers and judges can be doing their jobs without such on many cases. Or is it just a double standard thing and only jurors, the public, and other 'civilians' that are not allowed such devices? I guess I'll find out when I go in, but I find it really questionable on their part to go this crazy.
I picked up a new moleskine notebook on the 11th, in part in preparation for the jury duty problems, and continuing my need to have things to jot down notes and ideas on for myself. I also am having more serious lower back problems, enough so that toting my notebook computer down to the coffee shop on my back is risking severe pain and repurcussions on my digestive track. I've had scoliosis since my early teenage years, but worked for a long time to build up my muscles and general frame to compensate over the years - not enough though it seems as in recent months it has grown worse and worse. I may have to get some way to put my computer in a 'pull along' box or bag of some sort rather then deal with the lifting. I picked up one of these boxes for use in the house, and another for the conventions in Jan that we attend for toting stuff to the hotel, but I may have to put them to use a lot sooner then that.
We completed our Assertiveness Training Class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education back on Thursday. Kiralee and I were the only members of the class who attended all the sessions. It was interesting, and gave me some things to think about, including pretty much confirming that some of the folks Kiralee and I have had problems with in the past were just ultra-Aggressives and that it was their behavior that led to our problems with them in our gaming group (none of them are still with the group now), not our management skills or gaming styles.
One of the big things that we got in the context of the course, which the sharing of is important, is the concept of the Basic Assertive Rights of the Individual. These are the fundimental rights that you must recognize that both you and whoever you are in a conflict situation with possess:
1. The right to act in ways that promote your dignity and self respect as long as others' rights are not violated in the process.Book Note : The doctor who book at the top of my reading list was not the best I've read in the series. It's not that the characters were done badly (its a rare 1st Doctor with Ben & Polly as companions story) but there is, 3/4 of the way thru the book, a 50 page "experimental" section of playing with the point of view of the characters that just made the story burdensome to read. The problem is that the author was trying to represent a bunch of characters hooked into a computer neural net with various points of view occuring at the same time, with a lot of page hopping in a primitive hypertext method, and in the end it just didn't work well for me. I'm a hyperftext kind of person (I was working with the earliest software available for it, long before the World Wide Web standardization) when it comes to information retrival, but it works poorly from a literature point of view when used to control story flow rather than giving access to annontations and footnotes with ease. In a paper form like this, it just breaks down, causes confusion and hurts the whole suspension of disbelief thing. So, this is one of the few Dr Who stories I've read that I really need to pan and tell folks not to spend their money on.
2. The right to be treated with respect.
3. The right to say no and not feel guilty.
4. The right to experience and express your feelings.
5. The right to have time to slow down and think.
6. The right to change your mind.
7. The righ to ask for what you want.
8. The right to do less than you are humanly capable of doing.
9. The rigt to ask for information.
10. The right to make mistakes.
11. The right to feel good about yourself.
12. The right to feel angry.
13. The right to have needs.
14. The right to have an opinion.
15. The right to be silent.
16. The right to be an expert on yourself
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Synthesis & Synchronicity is the meanderings of the mind of Joseph Teller and may not reflect the reality of your own personal universe. Contents are Copyright 2003 by Joseph Teller and anyone who wants to reproduce it in any way or fashion must request permission (although linkage to these is granted to any and all websites, mailing lists and newsgroups, their operators, posters and users if so desired). Unless, of course, otherwise noted within the text of the articles involved. Synthesis & Sychronicity is distributed by Naughty Faerie Productions.
