much better now

first of all, following up from yesterday: i feel much better. i gave my presentations and they were effective and relatively smoothly delivered. . for me anyway. so as the time passes and the anxiety fades, i feel better and better about it. moving on.

today, speaking of "follow up", there was a spreadsheet at work today and i laughed when i read the abbreviated f/u because someone had written "so-and-so to f/u" ... so anyway. funny.

in more philosophical news i listened to a fascinating podcast today: APM's speaking of faith. the episode was about the philosophies of the Buddha applied to the suffering found as a result of globalization and imperialism. the point was that desire for the western ideal of consumerist middle class we've been insisting upon as the mark of a modern culture is essentially an unsustainable utopia which by definition costs more than it satisfies, and the inevitable failures to build such a state drives the people in the developing world to confusion and violence. anyway, it resonated with me... the difficult part was that there's not much to be done about it because the large scale social change is always exchanging one kind of ideal for another, and it's a difficult to spot root cause... desire for comfort in material things.. which is very hard to give up. anyway.... from the sound of it, most of the people living on this planet are offended by the affluence of some and the abject poverty of others. ironically, most of those they perceive as affluent are living in the shadows of people of inconceivable wealth... long story short, no one is really happy, except possibly those who've let go of that perception that they aren't satisfied... though i don't think there are many of those.

so that's my deep thought for the evening. i'm going to lay on the couch now.

so late

i should be asleep. i'm putting off going to sleep because i'm nervous about presenting tomorrow. they gave me a much bigger piece of the training to present than usual, a very important piece, and naturally, i'm freaking out a little bit. it's not so much that i'm worried i won't do it right, actually i think i'll do it fine, it seems just like my mental stress reaction goes overboard and i panic about virtually everything all at once. this makes it hard to sleep, and does me absolutely no good whatsoever. anyway.. eventually i get tired enough to just go to sleep. interestingly, there's a Chinese herbal formula for it that i find to be effective beyond anything else (i've never tried any of the anxiolytic drugs though, as i heard they're habit forming and don't actually help the problem) and i don't have two of the three ingredients on hand, so i can't make some. i should buy them, but it takes too long and costs money that i don't have yet. so i will just wait. i tried some ear acupuncture which worked really well actually... but not like the formula. anyway. goodnight peeps. i gon' go sleep now.

finished...

ok. i've done it. I started reading harry potter 7 this morning at like 8 am and pretty much continuously read until 12:44 am a few minutes ago. i guess it took me nearly 17 hours. i won't say anything about it except that it was awesome. i don't know how many of you (besides Courtney, i assume) have done almost nothing but read for what amounts to an entire waking day, but i have to say there are some side effects:
1) i didn't eat enough... wasn't hungry... i had a burrito full of rice and baby diarrhea, and water all day. plus gross crackdonalds breakfast.
2) i'm hella sore from laying around the whole time. my butt may very well be kind of numb right now.. or tingly.. maybe some of both. and my neck is just plain messed up.

but it was totally worth it. i am done with it. no more to read.. now i can have a proper day off tomorrow.. where i recover for the next overly busy workweek.

wow

it's been almost a month since I posted. huh? there are a few things i'm a little angry about in the news lately, but i'm not angry enough to vent today. just not interested. maybe it's not that, but i've been practicing having a mind like a mirror for two days. it's not something i'm good at, and i forget most of the time that i'm trying to do that. it's hard work -when i remember it. but maybe it's too much work for right now. no, i think it's for the best. i spend way too much energy ruminating on the irritating things i see every day, perhaps many people do. so this is my attempt at letting all of that go...

what does everyone else do to let go of the kinds of mind-poop that doesn't seem to do us any good? i'm curious. and don't say take a giant dump.