Touched... profoundly

One of the best movies I have watched in recent times is the movie The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock. Bullock's character was strong, compassionate, vivacious, loyal, independent, and determined. Her character was such a good mix and portrayed so well in a number of different circumstatnces that it was emotionally touching. I was moved by watching this movie more than by any other movie in recent times.

During a lifetime we all experience dozens of moving events. But, there are a few events that stand above others, like The Blind Side when compared to other movies. We cull them for our minds to further review and reflect on. Reflecting on these event makes them better because they have been allowed to enter the sacred psyche where we mull events and people, interpret them, and allow them to become a part of who we are. Those kinds of events and the people in them touch us, then become us.

But even among those elevated touching experiences, there come those once-in-a-lifetime periods that profoundly affect our behavior. We internalize them. They stay with us. They define who we are. And these times involve special people, who cause the event to have lasting significance, because events don't happen outside of those who cause them.

I have been through dozens of memorable, moving events. I have even experienced a few elevated, touching events - the kind that stand out. And I can also say that I have seen that pinnacle, once-in-a-lifetime period. I have been profoundly touched... in fabric and psyche... and I am forever grateful.

Seeing the surface

I had a friend from early college days contact me about 6 months ago. We had not spoken or seen each other from those days until he contacted me just last May. I am not sure why exactly that he made contact, but he seemed to want to share his life that was filled with disappointment. He wanted to compare situations at one point, probably around last August, I guess to give himself a frame of reference for situations with education, religion, accomplishments, children, and career moves.

The comparisons he saw made him think that my life had been one of relative success. I think it was a matter of the grass being greener on the other side. He had a number of successes. But, he only looked on the surface. He didn't ask about what may lie behind the scenes except in the area of religion. I know what lies behind the scenes, and I know how to make the facade in front look polished and shiny.

I could act perfectly satisfied with all that has transpired, but that would not be reality. Reality is that I have satisfaction for some facets of my life and a void to fill in other areas. The satisfying parts add to my happiness quotient. But, the void is all about working hard to fill it with accomplishments that are still attainable and about maintaining hope for a dream I have to be realized. I really think my friend's life is not too different from that no matter what he wants to make of the comparisons.

Thanksgiving Tribute

The day after Thanksgiving, the headline in the local newspaper showed a large picture of some volunteers feeding a number of indigent people a Thanksgiving meal at a downtown location. I am always impressed with this, and I know that the same program exists in towns all over the US. I think of the ones that need the meal and some of their dire situations, and I think of the ones who give up part of their Thanksgiving day to serve the ones who need the meal. For those in need, I am grateful that they see a few moments of kindness in an otherwise bleak life.

My tribute is to a young man about to turn 8 years old who wants to go for a second year to serve those in need. He has such an indomitable, kind, and generous spirit. What a champion!

Love that teddy bear

On the arm of one of the easy chairs in my house sits a teddy bear. It's a small one, about 15 inches in length. It sits there daily as a reminder that a beautiful daughter once ran through this house, bringing charm, laughter, and hope for tomorrow. The bear is old, probably a decade or so. But, it does its job; it reminds me of my beautiful daughter.

Inside my mind there are bears that sit where I can see them. They are pictures that represent events and people that bring about charm, laughter, and hope for tomorrow. Unlike the bear, though, the pictures are ageless. They bring vibrance and happiness to everyday life. They allow me a glimpse of raw beauty daily. And I am eternally grateful for them, not just at this season of Thanksgiving.

At rest with knowing

Home is where the heart is. ET (The Extraterrestrial) is a classic movie of this principle. The little, endearing creature from another star world visits Earth, makes the best of his time here by befriending the children of an Earth family, but never forgets his home, where his heart is. In the end his heart leads him back home.

Home is definitely where the heart is. I'm like ET. I know where my heart is.

Message of the puppets

I love experiments like this one. Seven-month-old infants were placed in front of a couple of puppets. Then a screen was placed in front of the puppets. The infants could see a hand reach behind the screen. It either took a puppet or added a puppet. Then the screen was removed. If the infant saw the correct number of puppets the baby looked away fairly quickly. However, if the incorrect number of puppets appeared behind the screen, the baby's gaze lasted longer viewing the puppets. This experiment proved two ideas. First, the executive attention system is already in place; second, a baby has a number sense at seven months.

An experiment of this nature means little out of context to its purpose. But, if you knew the experimenters were tying this to the development of how and when the brain shows self-regulation versus risk-taking, which begins with attention given to something, then a person can appreciate what the brain shows in adults about self-regulation and risk-taking. And, if you knew that it can be taken also that babies can count at seven months, then it can show that the sense of count and the sense that develops sound correlation in language appear independently from each other. That has ramifications for language learning and math learning.

I admire researchers who are so innovative. Unfortunately, such experiments appear in places that people don't normally look. But, experiments like this inform our knowledge base so that we don't have to rely on notions about our executive attention system or about how math might be developed outside of learning how language is developed. People in marketing and advertising should be aware of the executive attention system. They might want to know how that is developed along the way to adulthood and even how adults at different ages exhibit tendencies of complete development or not. Educators should want to know about number sense versus language acquisition. It would affect how early childhood education is viewed or approached by those who run daycare centers and publishers who make books and learning manipulatives.

As it is, this experiment and those like it remain buried in the annals of research. So... unfounded notions will continue and the fact that babies can count at seven months will go unnoticed. The status quo is strong, which is why the term is used - "status is that" (that meaning what has gone before). Too bad. Society could be much farther down the road.

The one of gold

The Spanish had a term for a city of great wealth. Explorers from Spain, in their wanderings around South America had heard of a city that was so wealthy that all commerce in South America went through it. It became known to the Spanish as the city of gold, or just the one of gold, not because it had a golden tint at sunset nor because it was paved with golden streets, but because it traded in coins and accumumlated wealth. The Spanish equated wealth with gold.

Explorers asked many a person where this city was, this one of gold. Interpretations exist about why the Spanish never could find this city, ranging from the explorers' defitiniton of wealth differing from the natives' of South America definition to explorers not having enough supplies and men to go down the Amazon river and find it. I favor the one that says the natives didn't want the Spanish entourage in their midst, so they sent them on a wild goose chase. All the natives knew there was no city of gold. I have to admire the ability of the natives to throw off the Spanish and at the naivety of the Spanish explorers and company.

The North American natives also used the same ploy with the Spanish explorers in Mexico and the Southwestern US. They told the explorers of the one of gold. At least one conquistador took a route through southern California just to find the city or the gold, he didn't care which.

It's the famous story of El Dorado, the one of gold. I think in life people can sometimes get caught up in the pursuit of legendary gold. And, sometimes they let that search keep them from their goals. But not all golden pursuits are vain pursuits for money. Some pursuits are noble and worthy and not misguided at all. I would like to be rich in knowledge, for example, and richer still in legacy. But, for sure I want to be wealthy, wealthy... gaudily wealthy... in the pursuit of Dorado when it pertains to matters of the heart, happiness, and hope.

Learning from chimps

I love it when something is proven in animal tests. I rarely think about checking the literature of animal experimentation, but when I read about it sometimes when working with language, it usually proves a good point. I learned about critical learning windows, for example, when a researcher brought up what cats do during only a certain period of their upbringing.

So, yesterday when I was reading about the brain and its hemispheric differences and functions, up popped an animal experiment. It was very appropro because it showed that even chimpanzees who have no language can still use symbolic reasoning in establishing relational categories. That was important because I was trying to prove that symbolic reasoning is not tied to language necessarily. It's always a good moment when you happen onto something you have been hypothesizing, and it's ironic to me that the lesson comes from a chimp experiment.

It's a good reminder that sometimes pleasant surprises come along when you least expect them. Love it when that happens.

What's it worth?

Occasionally I watch Austin City Limits to catch the flavor of alternative music. I usually enjoy listening to the artists that play there. Brandi Carlile is one of the artists that plays there from time to time, and tonight she played several very meaningful tunes. She talked of playing with Elton John and of putting her life-changing events into lyrics. It made for good listening. At the end, she looked into the camera and spoke of the last several years being worth 100 years because of all the people that made her career possible.



Worth 100 years... that would be something extremely precious because it is saying that something is worth more time than a lifetime. That's one of those superlative comparisons, one that a person can say about the one event or the one person that it is life's apex experience. I guess eveyone has that apex event or individual.




I do... yes, it is worth more than a lifetime... worth 100 years... X 100 more years... ad infinitum.

The last is better than the first

I have a filing cabinet in my study that has fallen into disuse. Oh, I still get bills and statements of all kinds, but they are electronically generated and stored. I used to have a system. I would keep a year's worth of bills, and then, every January, I would make all new folders, move the last year's to a file below the active bills drawer, move those bills to a box, and then store the oldest bills and statements in the garage. I can hear you laughing already.

This last year, by contrast, I paid all bills online through my bank's bill pay. The bank keeps the records of all bills and loans paid. I just have to enter a user name and password... no files. Even when I order something like K-cups for my hot chocolate, tea, and apple cider, I log in, order from a shopping cart, pay the bill online, and the record is kept on the company's server. I can call it up at any time if I ever get curious or need to print a record of it for some reason.

Computing in the cloud is beautiful, and that makes my filing cabinet defunct. I started with a lot of filing cabinets in life because keeping them was expected and was the most efficient way at the time. But a few years have passed, things have changed, they're now defunct. I have ended with the beauty of computing in the cloud, and how beautiful it truly is!

Fortunately... there are amazing people

Mommy Dearest was a classic movie in showing how mothers really don't care at all for their children, and in fact, emotionally abuse them. It is a response I relegate to the movies, however. I heard about it as an adult, and saw only rarely the effects of it in a young person or two that I ran across. So, when I see such indifference and cold-heartedness in my own back yard, I find it especially abhorrent. It's one of the saddest things to have to see. I can't even imagine the thinking process that prompts a mother to be so indifferent to a daughter. What dysfunction it creates, and that's an understatement!

Fortunately, I look around me and know that all is not lost. I see an amazing mother who cherishes her children and carefully molds them into confident, outstanding young people. She shares her life joyously with her children, and they will grow up knowing a true mother's love. I see a judge who reversed a Child Protective Services order to take twins from parents who love them. He saw their love, their deliberate actions of nurture and saw through the lies of an evil doctor who would distort the truth of caring actions.

I can sleep tonight, smiling for the parents who have been reunited with their twins and for the most amazing mother who knows how to give her all in raising strong children.

No cuts

Shows on TV nowadays leave out a lot of real life so that people don't have to see the humdrum of reality. They skip from one scene to the next allowing people to assume the action that happened in between. In NCIS LA tonight, for example, the two main detectives go to the director and tell her that she needs to send them to Afghanistan. In the very next scene, the two detectives are wearing middle eastern garb and are in Afghanistan - no preparation to go there, no flight to get there, no car ride from the airport to the house where the next scene is, and no unpacking and changing clothes in their hotel before going to the house of the next scene.

I would like for this to happen in real life sometimes. I would be nice to skip the mundane scenes in my life and just go from one substantive scene to the next. On trips, I would get to cut out the 5 1/2 hour drives to either Dallas or Austin. Every morning I would get to skip the routines to get ready for work. I would get to cut right to the parts that had meaning in my day.

But reality is not TV. I do have to go through every second of every day, good or bad. But, it makes a better person out of me because I get to learn from my failures in the bad moments and experience great happiness in the good moments. I get to watch others in how they operate their business and learn from them. I get to watch others have their worlds take turns in unexpected directions and see them make lemonade from lemons. And that gives me comfort, vicarious experience, and satisfaction. I would not be the person I am today if I got to skip the scenes in my life. I would end up with less happiness; I would make assumptions about the missing action that would not match what really happened; and I would have less understanding of the connectedness of life.

As it is I experience every second of every day and have great, great hope of how I want the future to be.

The world at your beck and call

A lot of life happens according to your view of it. My father was one who knew the power of positive thinking and used to tell the story of a man who traveled to a town in search of somewhere to settle. He was met at the gates of the city by a wise man who lived there. The traveler told the wise man that he was looking to settle and wanted to know if this was a good town. The wise man asked the traveler what his experience had been in the last town he lived. The man replied that it was a town of many disgruntled people and that nothing went right there. The wise man advised the man that he would find the same in his town, so he might want to look elsewhere. A second traveler arrived the next day and asked the wise man if this was a good town. The wise man asked the second traveler what his experience had been in the last town he lived. The traveler answered that he found the town to be friendly and active, and that he hated to leave it. The wise man welcomed the traveler and told him that he would find the same kind of people and activities in this town.

Yes, the positive view makes for a higher quality of life. And I know someone who lives that way every day. I am inspired by such a life, and my own view is better, clearer, more productive, and efficient as a result. In this season of thanks... thank you for such inspiration. You have the world at your beck and call every day you wake up.

A gift from Japan

Yesterday was an interesting day. The Ministry of Education in Japan commisioned 4 University professors (from 3 different universities in Japan) to visit some United States' online schools so that the Ministry could write new national standards specifically for online schooling. They would keep the current standards for their brick and mortar schools, but write new ones for online schools which they hope to establish in the near future. So, the delegation of four profs selected and came to visit three schools - two in California, publicly funded schools, and one in Texas, a private corporate school, Orion Online Learning. The delegation spent 4 1/2 hours getting acquainted with the Orion protocols for modules and operations in general, taking notes and asking questions. At the end of the visit, and in true Japanese fashion, the four professors gave an appreciation gift to Orion from Japan.

Working with that delegation was very interesting. It would be a nice opportunity to help in writing standards or curriculum for another country. The delegation's visit might lead to some cooperative work with Japan, but even if it doesn't, it helped in expanding my professional horizons.

The last 365

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler.
Long I stood and looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
But as for that, the passing there had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black...

(The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost)
______________________________

A year ago I struck a new path. I did have a choice to stay or go. But, going meant that I would be able to better my position financially. Normally, that is the only consideration I look at in making a decision.



In fact, it was financially better after a year than it would have been had I stayed. And, in fact, it led to opportunity that could not have happened if I had stayed. It continues to produce in the opportunity category. But there was another category. Money is not even in the same arena as this category, and opportunity can not lead to any destination worth it if it means missing the place this other category would lead to. A person can measure the amount of money (s)he makes or determine the value of the opportunities that may come along. But, this other category cannot be measured except in terms of what the heart can produce. 2010 in that regard has been one of great hope.

Still the same

This is election night. Decisons made in the election of 2008 are being turned on their heads. The Tea Party has really made an impact and is upsetting the power structure. Even Republicans are taking notice that the Tea Party element is going to dictate some of their future actions. The Democrats didn't know how much of a dent the Republicans were going to make, and even thought that they might hold onto the House of Representatives. But, it has not turned out that way, not even close.

But over the last two years in my life, there is nothing upsetting at all, no major impacts... no Tea Party push, no takeover from the opposite party. Friends of mine are still friends of mine. Progress is being made in my professional life.

And the one who adds the spring to my step, still adds spring to my step daily and gives me hope.

Affecting the outcome

Watching the world series was a contrast in talent level this year. It was portrayed best by the game's centerpiece, the amazing pitcher of this last game. San Francisco's starting pitcher threw for 8 innings and looked just as fresh then as when he started the game even though it was 101 pitches later. He helped the Giants win and inspired those around him to rise to the occasion also. The Giants won the game not because of luck but because of what they brought of themselves. And the outcome to the series was affected.

My life has always benefited from a talented supporting cast around it. But, of late it has benefited from an amazing pitcher in its center. And, 101 pitches later I am still inspired by this person to rise to the top of the occasions life places before me, to be better than I am. Truly I am fortunate!