Roll Call Take Two

I've always found life experience and a certain kind of personality and mannerism is so much more important than qualifications for a psychologist, but I'm weird that way.

I was once forced to see a (fully qualified) psychologist in hospital. She was the same age as me, but actually had less education. She was . . . not helpful. Knew all kinds of textbook stuff, but nothing really about life. She seemed confused about why I speak in French to my father but English to my mother, which I don't really think was a tough thing to understand.

**** it anyway, I just realised that I addressed a wedding card to a cousin and her husband using his wrong name . . . I addressed it to my cousin and Alexander Nobel, who endowed the Nobel Prizes and invented dynamite. How the **** did I do that?!?

Well, you expressed yourself well enough for me to pick up on Lacan.

All I know about Lacan I learned from a Madness Radio (of course!) interview with Louis Sass.

I was thinking I could identify what it is about being a psychologist I think interests me and see if there's another job that would provide those tasks or experiences. For example, I was considering working in a homeless shelter or as a case manager at the mhc. Those jobs would allow me to be of help to people in the population I'm thinking I might like to work with. I wouldn't be a therapist, of course, but maybe that's not what I'm looking for? I don't know. Just exploring. And the exploring is kind of fun. Like planning a vacation.

If I decide I'm interested in becoming a psychologist, I'll have to get the degree.

isnt that the cat from "everytime you masturbate a kitten dies"?

Want some more projects.

My house needs work.

I would like to learn the eastern philosophy of patience.

I've been working on that, cyber. It's helpful if you work at it. Thich Nhat Hanh compares mindfulness to a hammer for a carpenter. If you give a carpenter a hammer, he doesn't set it on an altar and worship it. He uses it. It's a tool. Same with mindfulness. It's a tool meant to be used. Too many people, IMO, read about the tool, but never pick it up and use it - or at least not enough to get good at it. They set it on an altar and worship it.

Now I'm off to do my morning meditation.

I like cleaning and decorating, but am not very handy with repairs.

Good news! My house needs to be cleaned and decorated as well as repaired.

Ew cleaning. I must do that.
I just got off work and all I feel like doing is lying in bed with junk food and watching telly. I hate this job.

Well I would go ahead and book a flight to wherever it is that you live, but my wife might take exception to my running off to clean some other woman's home.
Want a tip? Don't forget that just about everything can be vacuumed - including the walls, ceiling, and the inside of the oven. OH, and scented bleach is awesome. (yes, I am a cleaning nerd)

Gretta, you should make your millions as a domestic goddess. Think of the licensing agreements! You'd make mint on Gretta brand scented bleach alone.

I get extremely self-conscious about my English, to the point where I want to cry.
This isn't good in somebody whose job involves copy-editing a major English publication.

I'll have to try the scented bleach.

I suggested to my son that he might want to do some housework. First, he's an able-bodied adult who should be doing more around the house. Second, it's not good for him to be waited on. Third, I'm pooped! Fourth, he has nothing else to do (currently he's even afraid to go out of the house unless it's something he absolutely has to do). He sits. He stares. He thinks dark and depressing thoughts.

I started saying, "Why don't you run the vacuum cleaner?" I said it over and over and over. Finally he started running the vacuum cleaner. He vacuums daily. It's the only chore he does, but at least I know the carpet is being vacuumed.

I predict that here in the very near future he'll stop and refuse to do it anymore. He'll give one of two reasons, or both: 1) when he does what I ask him to do he feels like he's being bullied or bossed around, and/or 2) it doesn't help - he's still depressed and his life still isn't going anywhere.

Ah, well. For the time being at least the living room carpet is being vacuumed regularly.

Your English seems fine to me. Do you want to cry in English or French?

It's fine, but it's not perfect. It's so much better on the Internet, where I can think. I have a weird Frenchie accent in real life, and when I get tired or stressed I forget how the words and expressions go.

Does crying have a language?
I like to get angry in German (what else?) and celebrate in Greek (they're the best at parties) but I'm not sure about crying.

Plus the psychiatrists used to call me nuts because my English deteriorates under stress. They have a clinical word for it -- thought disorder, I think -- but I don't think it's meant to apply to people who are just ESL speakers.

Someone who has become my good friend on here is a non-native English speaker. I can definitely tell when he is distressed because his sentence structures deteriorate. I didn't realize there was a word for it. I just thought it must be more difficult for him to translate his thoughts under duress.

Would he feel less bossed around if you offered him a few options to choose from? Like instead of saying, "please do the dishes today," you could ask, "would you rather clean the bathroom or wash the windows today?"
If he expresses that doing things doesn't help him any, would he be responsive to the idea that even though it may not be helping him, that it does help you?

Yeah, for me going back into French is a comfort thing. It's what I spoke as a child, and with my schoolteachers and everything. Probably most people retreat into what they know best when they're stressed?
Speaking in English is a big effort for me - sometimes even on a good day. It's especially true of speaking English on the level required for the law or editing.
Also, sometimes there are things I want to say that just can't be said in English!!

There is no word for ESL stress; I just think it gets mistaken for "thought disorder" by psychiatrists -- but the two are certainly not the same thing.

I have a cabinet in the bathroom with my personal things and my housemates have their place for their things under the bathroom sink but it seems that one of the housemates has been going in my cabinet and using my stuff. It's only one item and really a trivial item but the point is she's in my stuff. I'm on a fixed income and budget myself and don't have the money to be supporting others so depending how I look at it, it can be a big deal. This is why I want to learn the eastern philosophy of patience. I have found that Asian countries can lie and wait for years until the most opportune time manifests for them to act upon unlike "out of sight, out of mind" Westerners. So I would like myself to adapt the "lie and wait" mindset that when my stuff runs out she will have no more. I will replenish it but just no longer put it in the bathroom cabinet. I'm an impulsive person so this is a huge task for me.

So on to research Thich Nhat Hanh and any others that hopefully will ring true to me. Thanks, Costello, for pointing me in a direction.

You could take the stuff out of the bathroom now, Cyber. I don't think patience means letting other people use you like that.

If I told you what the item was you'd think I was crazy.