Stress talk

I’m giving a talk on stress tomorrow to one of the squadrons and I’m feeling a bit stressed out about it. I’ve never met these people before and I don’t know at what level to pitch the discussion so I’ve opted for a low-key approach. Mix it up with some pictures (the shark and the helicopter is an arresting image to start with) and I’ve drawn heavily from the UN peacekeepers’ stress management guide. I like the distinction it draws between three types of stress — basic, cumulative and traumatic.

But the trick for me is not to get too stressed out about it. These talks work best if they are tailored to the needs of the audience. From what I’ve been told the audience will mostly be ground crew and support staff.

As luck would have it, I have two other major stressors this week. I have to go away on another work trip next Monday, and this one will involve a drive of at least 12 hours practically up to Botswana. Yesterday I did the run-around getting signatures and authority. It’s such a tedious business when I have to get three signatures for everything and drive for 30 minutes at my own expense to do so. There are also the personalities to deal with along the way. Waiting for the OC’s signature for example, I was told by a major that she was going to be using the car after me and that I needed to get my “gat in ‘n rat” (my ass into gear) to make sure the car was in a good condition when she used it. This is from a woman who’s never met me before.

Then there’s the house stuff. I need to pay the balance of the purchase price this week, which means borrowing extensively from my parents. Of course I will pay them back as much as I can from the bond and also the sale of my house in Johannesburg. But there seem to be a lot of things out of my control at the moment. And I do resent the fact that I have to drive so far for work. With better organisation on their part this could have been avoided.

What this means in terms of blogging is that I won’t be blogging much (if at all) for a couple of weeks. I haven’t decided yet whether to take the laptop along but even if I do my attention will be largely elsewhere.

Here are two pictures I’m using for the stress talk.

The first one is a hoax and has been altered while the second one is true and shows construction workers on the Empire State Building. In those days they apparently didn’t have harnesses or protective headgear but they look relatively un-stressed about the job. A major part of stress management is managing your perceptions and it would be interesting to compare the perceptions of workers in those days with those now. From a South African perspective we seem to have a much greater sense of entitlement these days and workers are a lot more assertive about standing up for their rights. I’ll be interested to see what comes out of the discussion tomorrow.

Shaking up the routine

Good post from Elisha Goldstein here on shaking up your routine and getting a new perspective on life.

But the cynic in me wants to add: sometimes an asymmetrical face is just an asymmetrical face. It’s how you evaluate it that matters. Do you see it as faulty and defective and just another reason why you’re not good enough? Or do you see it as adding character, making you unique and a sign that you are perhaps a bit more sensitive to self-esteem issues?

I can relate since I have had the exact same problem.

Losing my marbles

Feeling a bit down this afternoon and as usual it’s a combination of things. Firstly, I had my interview for the military today and although it went pretty well, I was left with disappointment that I had to hide my true feelings in order to get the job.

The interview was successful and I was recommended for employment at the end of it. But the mere fact of going to an interview got me on edge and I hated the fact that I had to say that I was positive about going on deployment. Deployment is the biggie – if you’re willing to go they’ll have you. If you’re at all unwilling to be deployed for three months to an African country then they could well not recommend you. So I did what I had to do. I said I was in favour of it. I also said I was cool about wearing a uniform and going on an Officer’s Course. Argh, no wonder I felt like a bit of a fraud when it was over.

The interview panel was small and included two people whom I know well. V and H asked nice questions and it was good to have coffee with V afterwards and chat about this and that. I hardly ever get to see him and when I do, it always feels as though we’re not quite friends and will probably never be. Maybe I just need to make more of an effort.

Then I went to gym to work off the coffee and cake and the adrenalin from the interview. That was OK but to get free parking I spent over R100 on things I didn’t really need such as mouthwash, a fineliner, paper and so on. When I got home I thought that I’d left my blue top at the gym so I went all the way back to the gym and looked in locker 79 (no top) and then went to ask at the front desk (no top). In the car on the way home I was approached by the usual vendors desperate to sell their Big Issue and I just didn’t have it in me to buy this week’s edition. I felt small-hearted and mean. And I also couldn’t help reflecting that in Toronto I left my digital camera on a train and it was handed in at the next station whereas in Cape Town people in the gym would take a measly Gap top. When I got home I found the top was in my bag after all and I realised that I’d lost my marbles instead.

Perhaps there’s just too much going on in my head right now. The weekend started pretty well with D’s birthday party. The Saturday dinner party was also a good one and there was yummy food, quality singing and some funny conversation. I didn’t know the people at my table but we managed to strike up a lively conversation. C was in particularly good form and told some hilarious stories. The guy next to me was a bit annoying and kept peppering me with personal questions about what it’s like to be a psychologist. I put it down to curiosity and thought no more about it. Until Monday when I get a call from the guy asking me on a date. He knows that I have a girlfriend but he managed to misconstrue a light-hearted comment to the effect that P and I were having issues. I really did nothing to encourage the guy so I was quite astounded that he would call me out of the blue like that.

Of course I was a bit flattered and I felt sorry for the guy (since he was way off the mark) and I also thought that it must be difficult being gay and having to ask other men out. So I thanked him for the call and said it was nice to meet him and C and then called P to tell her the funny story. Unfortunately P didn’t see the funny side of it and proceeded to have an emotional meltdown. She was worried that perhaps I was gay and that she had just missed the signs. (At 39 I think I would know.) Or that I had somehow flirted with the guy or given him some tacit encouragement. She pointed out that at one point I had swopped places with her, which meant that I was sitting next to the guy. Whatever. I couldn’t believe she was so upset about it. At least she apologised today for being a bit irrational but she said it just hurt her very much that someone she knows (although not that well) would try and take her boyfriend away from her.

So that’s what up with Gilbert Grape today, dear bloggers. Time for some more tea I reckon and some blog therapy.

Seven personality traits meme

We’ve had some good weather here in the midst of winter so I’ve been enjoying that rather than blogging. Last night was perhaps the most social I’ve been in a while. D, a friend of P’s, had a birthday get-together and we had a good few glasses of champagne. It was fun to see P get a bit drunk for the first time since I’ve known her. She was singing along to The Committments and getting all nostalgic about her trip to Ireland and her Irish roots. And then it was Jimi Hendrix and all the oldies, and more champagne.

I had a rather surreal conversation with D’s boyfriend J about Granny V, who I assumed was an old lady who lived upstairs and who didn’t like the puppy’s barking. At one point I asked, “So does Granny V own the house?” J replied about how Granny V mostly keeps to her room and tries to ignore the puppy. I thought it was a bit odd that this woman mostly stayed in her room while there was a big party going on downstairs. And then I discovered of course that Granny V is their cat!

This morning P woke up with a sore head but I think it was worth it. Tonight we have another birthday do at the restaurant where one of my exes does some singing. I’m sure it will be fine, and good to hear her sing again.

On to today’s meme (thanks to Charlotte and Doctordi for the tags). I originally did this as a blogging-under-the-influence (BUI) post but I had the good sense not to post that. Very revealing no doubt but I think a sober approach is probably better.

In the BUI post I listed my seven personality traits as: 1) not handling my liquor well 2) a tendency to anger 3) general anxiety 4) social anxiety 5) being critical 6) not sure what this one was but it was about working for various journalistic publications; and 7) curiosity.

But I’m not in a critical mood today and so I think I’ll just mention a few things that come to mind, and also refer to three personality tests (16PF, the Myers-Briggs and the MMPI). I see from the discussion of Personality at Wikipedia that the word traits refers to “habitual patterns of behaviour, thought and emotion”. I would put it the other way round: “emotion, thought and behaviour” but I guess that the point here is that the three are intimately connected.

Quick quote here from Wikipedia on the “Big Five” theory of personality factors:

The Big Five factors and their constituent traits can be summarized as follows:
• Openness – appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, curiosity, and variety of experience.

• Conscientiousness – a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behavior.

• Extraversion – energy, positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others.

• Agreeableness – a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.

• Neuroticism – a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability; sometimes called emotional instability.

I don’t want to get bogged down in the details but I think I’d definitely score five out of five here! I definitely have a tendency to experience the unpleasant emotions easily but I also seek out and enjoy the more pleasant aspects of life. And I also think that empathy (for ourselves and others) is a big factor in determining how we connect with people.

Another aspect to consider, especially today since it’s Mandela Day (in which we’re encouraged to spend 67 minutes helping out in the community) is how Nelson Mandela would score on a personality test and how useful (or not useful) such a test would be in describing this extraordinary man and the huge influence he has had both in South Africa and internationally. My sense is that we would need to pay far greater attention to the broader social context rather than locating factors within his personality.

Returning to those three tests above, the 16PF test (designed by Raymond Cattell in 1946) measures 16 personality variables: warmth, reasoning, emotional stability, dominance, liveliness, rule-consciousness, social boldness, sensitivity, vigilance, abstractedness, privateness, apprehension, openness to change, self-reliance, perfectionism and tension.

The Myers-Briggs test was derived from the work of Carl Jung. There are four scales: Extraversion / Intraversion (E/I); Sensing / Intuiting (S/N); Thinking / Feeling (T/F); Judging / Perceiving (J/P). Last time I did the test I was an ENFJ (although the E has probably changed into an I).

The MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) tests for personality structure and psychopathology. I’m not going to go into that here.

For today I’ll stay with the big five: open, conscientious, extraverted, agreeable and neurotic.

In the interests of spreading this meme around I’ll tag the following seven bloggers:

Sarah at Devoted Reader
Sandy from Blogging Behavioural
Novalis from Blue to Blue
Phd in Yogurty
Natalian
Seachanges
Bee Drunken

Update: The rules of this meme are simple: Describe seven personality traits you have and tag seven other bloggers.

Cold and wet

Not much to report today except a whole ton of rain. Chaos at home and the road to work was also closed due to flooding. What do you do when you’re late for work and the highway which you usually take is now under water? I took a long diversion through town and listened to all the flooding stories on the radio.

The weekend was cold and wet but pleasant. P and I visited my parents at Betty’s Bay and the house is looking really good with the couches and carpets and all the pictures. My dog curled up in front of the fire and was happy as can be. P and I made a chicken and mushroom risotto (inspired in part by Di’s risotto the other day) which was really good.

I don’t know what’s going on with my reading but I seem to have ditched a few books mid-stream and started two new ones. Enjoying “A Memoir of Love and Madness” by Cape Town author Rahla Xenopoulos, which describes her life with bipolar disorder. I want to write something about bipolar as a trendy diagnosis (the diagnosis du jour) and also reflect on how well her memoir works (or doesn’t work). I’m halfway through and am liking it so far. She’s a drama queen is Rahla but it makes for an entertaining read.

Much more disturbing is “Columbine” by Dave Cullen. Cullen was one of the journalists who covered the school shootings at Columbine High in 1999 for the New York Times. After nine years of extremely thorough research, he has produced what I guess would be called a riveting, disturbing but also quite necessary book on the tragedy. I’m interested to know what led two seemingly ordinary teenage boys (Eric and Dylan) to want to go and kill their schoolmates. The ordinariness of their lives is part of what makes this so disturbing. I’m sure most people will have seen (or heard of) Michael Moore’s documentary “Bowling for Columbine” which caused quite a stir at the time, partly because of the seemingly casual attitude towards guns and gun control that pervades much of US culture.

This book covers all the main players in the tragedy and also provides an excellent psychological background to the two killers. One thing that worries me at this stage is how an antidepressant such as Zoloft can perhaps fuel psychopathology (in Eric’s case). And then there are the parents who seem to do nothing when their son is caught and sentenced for making a pipe bomb. In retrospect that was a big warning light for the parents (and school authorities) to take note of but I’ll be interested to see what (if anything) they did about it.

The House

Halfway through the year already and things are not going too badly considering that I’ve just bought a house. Did I mention the house? The one with the walls and the roof and a cute little (we’re talking very little) garden and the wooden floors and the front porch which gets beautiful sunlight in winter. Three bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. It’s in an up-and-coming neighbourhood and is reasonably close to the house where I used to live many years ago when I taught at Westerford.

How did it come about? My parents have a bit of cash to invest and so they were thinking of buying a small house on auction that needed doing up. So we went to see it and didn’t like it. On the way back we stopped off at a few show-houses. This one ‘spoke to me’ straight away. I liked the open feel of it, the wooden floors and the position. It has a drawback in that it shares a driveway with the house behind but I actually like this. It’s good to have contact with the neighbours and the couple that live behind are apparently settled and nice.

I was in the house for all of about five minutes but I liked it instantly and as we drove away, I said we should think about putting in a bid. Nothing happened about that since when we got home my dog had climbed on the furniture again and left a drop of blood on one of the couches in the lounge. Disaster! My mom managed to get off the blood with some carpet shampoo but we felt completely deflated after the pleasure of looking at show-houses. My mom also got a call from the estate agent to say that the house was apparently not on the market after all. There’s a bid which has been accepted. Pity, because I really liked it.

Two days later I’m sitting in the kitchen with my mom and she says, “If you’re not going to do anything about getting a house then I’m going to re-invest my money.” In the meantime the estate agent had called back to say that the previous bid was rejected.
I phoned her up again and arranged to put in an offer. Since the previous offer was dependent on the neighbours behind agreeing to a carport which would block their lounge-window, this was rejected when the neighbours (not unreasonably) said no. My offer was unconditional and was accepted. Easy as that. I still have to pay the deposit (by today) and raise a bond within 30 days but those should be mere formalities. Occupation in eight weeks’ time. Can’t wait …

****

Having a quiet morning since my first patient is at lunch-time, which gives me a few hours to get on with some editing. I’d forgotten how time-consuming it is to do a good edit. Ten pages in the hour before breakfast and this is a re-edit since I did the first paper changes a few weeks ago. At this rate it will take a very long time before I give it back to S.

Taking a break with my “Psycho Mix rides again” mix. Love this track, “Lost” by Coldplay.

Weekend was pretty quiet. Watched the men’s and women’s Wimbledon finals. How was that last set between Federer and Roddick? I felt very sorry for Roddick at the end (and he was gutted). They were still trading volleys in the post-match interviews as well:

Roger: “Don’t feel so bad, Andy, I lost last year and I came back this year.”
Andy: “Yeah, but you only lost once!”

And it’s true. In something like seven finals at Wimbledon, Federerer has won six times! Both Federer and Roddick wanted to grab what could be their last chance at the title before the return of the powerful Nadal.

Then there was the rugby, which the Lions won. (I was happy after the debacle with the Springbok coach basically condoning eye-gouging. The Lion’s coach called him a clown, which was quite accurate.)

A nice roast chicken for Sunday lunch and some reading. A few books on the go at the moment: The Paris Review Interviews (Vol 2); Thin Blue by Jonny Steinberg; Therapy by David Lodge. And a few odd titles here and there. Will try and post a review later this week.

Otherwise, it’s house, house, house. I can’t tell you how good it feels to know that I will soon have a place of my own to stay in again. P likes it too, although she has mixed feelings since we were looking for a place to rent together. But she’ll come round …

Editing blues (and buying long and selling short)

Feeling a bit out of sorts today. I think it’s a combination of things. Firstly, this book I’m editing is taking forever and I have moments when I think it could well be the most boring thing I’ve read this year. Then I feel terribly guilty and I wonder what it would be like if the writer ever read these words. Perhaps I actually want her to read these words (if you follow the twisted logic) and to feel some of the pain that I’m feeling when I work with her words! (She won’t though since she doesn’t know about this blog.)

How about this for a bad opening-sentence (to chapter five)?

As a human being, Lisa could not be faulted for experiencing emotions unique to her lifeworld.

Oh my God! Where do I start? Firstly, “as a human being” adds nothing except make me think of the alternatives (an animal, a rock?)
“Could not be faulted” is passive voice and also makes me think of Wimbledon. “Fault”. But the clincher to this sentence is the phrase “unique to her lifeworld” Are you on drugs? Who speaks like this? New-age hippies on mind-altering hey-shoo-wow gummy berry juice maybe.

Sorry, that is very passive-aggressive of me and I feel suitably ashamed. (And also a little better.)

Other grumbles today:

1) The weather. Fierce berg wind means it will rain later. The air dries out and then of course it gets washed clean again. But in the build-up to the rain I feel edgy and it’s like I can’t quite equalise the pressure.

2) Other stuff. I’m putting in an offer on a house, which is terribly exciting and terribly anxiety-provoking at the same time. I’m waiting for the offer to be emailed to me so that I can fill it out and send it in. The estate agent sounded positive on the phone yesterday but I’m not getting my hopes up too much. I’m also already starting to get that feeling of “buyer’s remorse”.

My buyer’s remorse goes like this: why am I always the one who pays a bit too much for a house but when it’s time to sell, I sell for too little? I don’t feel like going into the ins and outs of this today but I know it has to do with assertiveness and self-belief and ignorance and a general feeling that I’m not quite understanding how this property business works.

3) Then we also have a couple counselling session this evening. I really need that like a hole in the head but I’m also curious to hear what a neutral, experienced observer will say about our relationship (or ex-relationship). We could well discover that we actually want to make this thing work after all. But I don’t want to talk about that here either.

So what should I talk about? Nothing I guess. I’ll post something in a couple of days’ time when I feel that I have something to say …