Developing...blogs and futures

So lately I have designed six new blogs/websites for other people using Wordpress and Squarespace and I love them sooooo much better than my blog. (example) 

It's easier to design in wordpress, and squarespace is probably the most beautiful and easy to use system I have EVER encountered! However it's a pay site because it has extra tools and can be used for other things. I am pondering starting a new site for my personal work (both counseling and webdesign) and just leaving this here. Maybe posting to it less. I still want it online because it's the type of reflection I needed when I was coming out. I most needed to know I wasn't alone. I like the idea of having a professional and a private reflection space.

Another part of why I want to develop a new squarespace professional site is that I got myself a new vocational coach yesterday. An amazing women who lives and works in Canada and who has started businesses. She has a special interest in entrepreneurial ventures. She was good friends with my previous vocational coach. My first assignment is to work on my elevator speech. Which is that three minute speech you give to someone in an elevator about what you do (even if you aren't doing it yet) and why. So I'll be thinking about that this weekend. 

Do you have an elevator speech? Also if you read this with an rss feed I did upgrade my blog style here a bit, not as much as I'd like but...Come have a look.

My inner child is bored

When children are bored you don't entertain them, especially if they are intelligent, you do what you can to help them learn to be creative and entertain themselves. (So say some of the writings on gifted children). My inner child is bored right now. I think this is a bit odd since school is about to start and I have plenty to read, but I am bored anyway.

One of my favorite books of all time is called "Let your life speak" by Parker Palmer. And ironically this Frederick Buechner book is called "Listening to your life". These books represent a parent, albeit a literary one, challenging me to be creative and entertain myself. But, I want to sit both books down on a hard kitchen chair somewhere and explain that I wish I didn't know my life or in this case, my bored inner child, had a voice. 

But, I shall do what the gifted children experts (And Palmer) say. I won't try and entertain or distract my inner child. I will instead sit down and listen to this life of mine and ask it what those experts suggest you ask bored children: 

"Ask your child to tell you what it means to be bored. Ask probing questions, like “Can you tell me more about that?” or “How would you make things different if you could?” or “What would the perfect day look like?” Don’t put words in the child’s mouth such as “Are you not learning anything new at school?”

As is stated in the article "The Benefits of Boredom," there are actually good things that can come from this lack of engagement. It can lead to periods of creativity, giving the mind time to wander and the time necessary to put those thoughts into action.

And then I will also grieve because for me part of bordom is also due to the fact that one of my sources of challenge and vision is going to be gone in a year, school. 

Career Counseling Class - Random quotes

So 20 hours in class is really long. The teacher was pretty good though and showed video clips which helped things out whenever I was about to fall off my chair. We went through a ton of theory and lots of hearing my classmates talk. Some of whom I wanted to talk more than others. I will spare you that content. We took two vocational tests, did a values assessment exercise, a skills exercise, some other activity where we looked for commonalities in all of the information. Good times!

These were some of my favorite quotes and thoughts from the weekend:

• "If you have never had chocolate cake you don't know to ask for it." In reference to people not knowing their job options if they have never seen them or heard about them.
  
• People are unhappy at their jobs it's usually because their work doesn't fit their values.
  
• "You don't believe anything (like a job or environment) is going to change you but it does. People tend to believe they are impervious." (after watching a clip from the movie "The Devil Wears Prada")
  
• Kids that had a chaotic childhood don't have career goals. They never thought they needed to think about it because they didn't feel they would have a choice. eg. They never dreamed because it wasn't an option.
  
• Question: Is there a correlation between gender/sexual orientation confusion and confusion about career and what one wants to do? (Personally I haven't found any correlation here. I've always been clear about what I wanted to do.)
  
• Sharon Daloz Parks is an author I want to read. She did a developmental model for spiritual growth that seems to look at career/calling as well. Her books are called "Big Questions Worthy Dreams" where she explores three stages shipwreck, gladness, and amazement. She also wrote a book with her husband and another couple about community called "Uncommon Fire."
  
• Quote from my prof. "I don't believe in flights into mental health." Meaning you don't find your self clinically depressed... today and wake up tomorrow cured. Process is important.
  

And lastly here's one of the theories I was most intrigued with.
Hapson & Adams: 7 stage model of adult transition: (A theory I relate to because I'm in it)

1. Shock
2. Minimization "O no I'm fine"
3. Self doubt (can I handle this?)
4. Letting go (acceptance/stop fighting it). You attach to your future
5. Testing out. A sense of the future. You start to get some gladness.
6. Search for meaning. What am I supposed to be learning here?
7. Amazement
   

Laying in bed blogging

J and I are both in our separate beds each blogging or skyping or emailing... Finally a relaxing Saturday morning. I over committed myself this week which I don't do very often and it was so cold and I had cramps. All combined let's just say I am very very grateful for this morning for mellow other plans with j.

So the aptitudes tests I took this week: I went in two days and took verbal memory tests, math memory tests, speed tests, creativity and brainstorming tests, language tests, tests where I put together blocks and had to rearrange items on a board and more.There were about 26 scores all together.

So I know that these things just test natural aptitudes and aren't about being right or wrong but I still feel a bit bad that I had low scores on stuff. I had two main high scores. They were in forsight and ideaphoria (divergent thinking).

The ideaphoria test measures the rate of flow of your ideas. High ideaphoria people should choose work that gives them an outlet for their ideas. Sales, advertising, journalism, and teaching are examples. Why? The teacher is trying to keep a class alert and interested, the journalist struggling to complete a story before a deadline, the salesperson thinking of the one last persuasive point to clinch a sale are all exercising their ideaphoria. (from the Johnson O'Conner materials)

Foresight is an aptitude for seeing possibilities.

Those scoring high should set long-term challenging goals. They tend to have a sense of vision that can help them see beyond obstacles to complete objectives.... Those with low foresight seem to be more literal and immediate and are good at getting things done in the here and now.

This stuff I sortof knew already. I love brainstorming and setting goals. Were all these tests worth $600.00? I am not yet sure. I did learn a lot about myself. And I do think this may help me determine what I will do next, more than what I am learning in my career planning class right now but... hmmm. I will use my ideaphoria skills and my foresight goal planning skills to plan my future. It's not about what job one chooses but how the aptitudes work in the job. We talked about all the different types of counseling and the types that would fit my aptitudes better. Cognitive behavioral or any type of psychological testing would not fit me. Counseling that is more like coaching or teaching about a specialty like anger management (there was other stuff about me needing a specialty in all this) would work better.

O, I also had high finger dexterity skills. (grin) Hee hee hee.

Apptitudes testing day

This morning I have aptitudes testing. If I work with you I will be back this afternoon. I know I'll get there, but right now all I want to do is not get out of bed. It's so cold. Does the whole world want to just stay in bed? Wasn't I just saying to someone yesterday that I am of often so excited to wake up? Waking up and getting out of bed, these are very different things. These are the tests I'm taking - for fun? http://www.jocrf.org/

I'll blog about these tests later. My career planning professor didn't really get why aptitudes were important to know. She thought you just know. I don't agree.

Career Counseling course day 1

I'm in a class on career counseling all weekend. And by all I mean all. Fri, Sat, and all day Sunday from 9-5:00. This is good because now I have something to add to my vocational coaching tag. :)

Our first exercise as a class and that you might want to do, is anwser the following three questions:

Career memories

"When I was very young, most of my childhood heroes wore copes, flew through the air, or picked up buildings with one arm. They were spectacular and got a lot of attention. But as I grew, my heroes changed, so that now I can honestly say that anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me." - Fred Rodgers.

1. In the quote above, Fred Rogers explains potential changes in career outlook. What was your first career memory?
2. Why did it call to you?
3. Where are the threads of that in your life right now?

My answers were:

1. First career memory: I wanted to be an artist. I love drawing and have a memory of drawing while looking at a the boy in my elementary school class who was really good. It made me so sad because I was worried I couldn't be an artist because I wasn't as good. But, I do some graphic and web design today. O, and in relation to the quote and superheros, I also wanted to be the hardy boys. I read the entire series in 4th or 5th grade.
2. Why did it call to me? Because it made me happy. Something pretty root level.
   
3. Ironically there is still a boy in my office that is a really good artist and sometimes makes me feel like I can't be one. But then I tell myself that's a memory from my childhood. Ironic how an elementary school memory comes to life in the present.
   

Why, you ask, are these questions important to reflect on? Because your history, early memories, and identity development (which this is part of) greatly impact your choice of career. You?

Embrace your inner earthquakes

I do love this line. I'm starting up again in the new year going through the book "Creating a life worth living" by Carol Lloyd, which is a career planning book of sorts. One or two of the blogs I read blog books they are reading. I have done that some but I decided to try it with this blog. I am holding this idea gently however because I may not want to blog the whole book. Plus I might as well do this because I signed up too late for the career planning course at school.

This book starts up with this quote which I think is worth sharing.

"When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. -Audre Lorde

Fear is tied up in career planning and vocation for so many people I think. This book is one for artsy people who are trying to create life's worth living out of multiple pieces that include how they make money and the art they love. It's really helpful for me because I am like she describes herself at one point an "art-damaged, interdisciplinary, bohemian" of sorts.

One of the first things this book calls upon it's reader to do is a daily action. It's a way to get yourself connected to those inner earthquakes. :) The daily action is fifteen minutes of a focused activity performed every day at the same time of day. She lists people who meditate, draw pictures that aren't for the next painting they are working on but are for fun. You are to do a daily action that avoids activities that require you to respond to stimuli or follow a formula too closely. On that note I'm off to do mine, which will either be drawing or poetry I guess. We shall see.

Death and dying...

One of the most influential people in my life (mentor, vocational couch, father of my friend hp) is dying. I am very sad, but it feels good to be sad in this. This family is one of the hubs that many of my friends are connected to as well. For about a year or more he was my vocational coach. I always planned to post more of what we talked about online here. But I never did. Perhaps I can go in search of more of that stuff and post it in the future.

hp posted this super moving story of how the family gathered around her dad the other night. And it sounds like he could die any day now. He is dying a good death (if there is such a thing) one that is hyper intentional in it's naming and holding of life and love (and loved ones) in the midst of the process of dying. He has done such a great job of fighting and befriending his illness. He also has done a great job grieving his own death himself and helping other people (family and friends) grieve it. I think we all are gratefully carrying our grief, honored that we feel grieved. Grateful for his life and way of dying.... It feels good to take note of another persons influence on my life. His funeral whenever it is, I already know, will be amazing and deep and oddly enough I am really looking forward to it. (let's hope it's not tomorrow!)

Oddly enough in class yesterday there were two presentations on death, dying, culture and hospice. And I've been having conversations with friends about the stages of grief lately. All and all it's a time to be sad and to honor the impact this man made on my life both through his daughter and through his vocational coaching.

The FTPing controversy

OK it's not really a controversy, however, it seems that I caused a bit more buzz than usual with my conference blog post when I said that "FTPing is totally out". People who don't even comment, emailed me off line. So I thought I'd post a follow up with some more clarification. "These are only my opinions... yada yada yada."

First, I was asked what "Static" means when I mentioned static websites. Here's an explanation (from here).

Once it is printed a newspaper can no longer be changed....Similarly, once a static website has been published it too will not change until the next edition; whenever the webmaster or someone familiar with HTML, or flash edits the content.

A dynamic website (most websites that use a content management system are dynamic) on the other hand uses programming in addition to the layout... Dynamic websites empower their owners with the ability to upload information on their own, preferably through password protected administrative interfaces.

The second thing I was asked is "I have an html website and use dreamweaver what do you recommend?" First off dreamweaver is a GREAT program and I use it to design along with photoshop for the look's that I upload into our content management system. So you don't need to throw that out. I personally think all the other web design programs are crap! (I know strong opinion but I do)

In addition if you have static content (that you don't change a lot) and it's really just you featuring your work, your art, or promotional materials (etc) than it's totally fine for you to design it and ftp it online using dreamweaver. I have a one page website that I ftped up. However it's basically just a business card. It has no use beyond that and I edit it about once a year.

This is not the best option for you though if you have multiple people editing and posting content, you have a large website, or if your website is for selling stuff. You can still do it but there are other options. This is especially true if you want anything interactive or dynamic on your site. For example on my work website we can, at any time, add a: message board, blog, photo gallery, wiki, rss feed, video, brand new sub site. It takes me five minutes and goes right into the already created design. You can't really do this with an html website you ftp online. And it's a hassle to make an html website use tags.

Other simple things you can do as an individual is design a blog for your content and use all the fun tools like youtube, fliker, picnik (my new favorite online toy) for your video or photos, and then use something like http://www.etsy.com/ to sell stuff (there are other sites like this I just don't want to go find them). The advantage of this is you get a lot more visibility because there are other people on blogger, movabletype, wordpress, youtube, fliker... so you are more likely to be seen. Visibility is totally important.

Alright so there are just a few of my strong opinions on websites. Any of you who do this work want to say different feel free. O and css is totally great and php is debatable by some. There was a big pretend fight about php at the conference.

Now that all you non-techy people are bored to tears I shall stop! :)

Conference day 3

For some reason you all commented on my conference post....(seemed to bring you technogirls out). Curious.

First, I am at the WebGUI conference. It is an open source (read free!) content management system, AND it's by far the best one that exists. To determine this, I spent almost a year researching open source content management systems (cms). Trust me on this people! (What is a cms you ask? This blog is, in fact all blogs are, but there are tons of other types). Just google it.

Here's some more random thoughts.

1. Static websites are totally out. No one should be just uploading (ftping) static html content onto the internet anymore (companies I mean - just to take my foot out of my mouth - see comments). Don't do it! Hopefully you all know this.
2. Granted I'm lazy about re-inventing the wheel but, really, don't go coding new stuff if it already exists! Save some time and just use the good stuff and adapt that! Making things from scratch is for cooking and art.
3. Non-profits (particularly christian ones, churches etc.) that use pay content management systems are not being very good stewards of their money when there are great free versions out there. Dumb Dumb Dumb. The last conference I was at was for christian publications and there was a certain organization that paid thousands and thousands of dollars for what we got for free. (Don't do it!) WWJD?
4. Another random thing...I'm at a tech conference. You would think there would be lesbians here. So far I'm 0 for 4 on the women I've talked to. The one woman who walked into the all male (really really technical) seminar has a wedding ring, a gay vibe in a "shane from the L word" way, but a ring. The Amsterdam chick talked about her boyfriend. The environmental agency techno-chicks sitting behind me: one talked about her recent boyfriend break-up and the other one hasn't said a thing yet, so she's still an unknown. The rest of the women here (less than ten) I have not talked with so I have no clue.
   

My final comment is if you are going to design a conference t-shirt (swag) with only one placement of your company art/logo on it, you may not want to place it on the back between the shoulder blades. I have pretty long hair so right now it just looks like I'm wearing a black t-shirt. My hair entirely hides the logo. Dumb. They designed it for boys!

My switching work theory & Fun with Yahoo! subject-o-matic

I think I'd put this whole blog post under "things that help". Mostly because listening to well spoken professors talk about topics I'm interested really adds to my mental health. :)

I'm taking today off of work to go to a weekend class in counseling victims of domestic violence. If you can look forward to such a thing I am looking forward to the learning I am going to be doing. The professor is really quite fantastic. Lucky for me my work place supports my outside learning. And I think it makes me a better employee.

Switching between school and work restores me. It's the theory I stole from the Sherlock Holmes books I read before bed. In one of the stories he describes how he rests by switching work, not by resting. So he will play violin to rest from doing chemical experiments. Or something similar. I do the same thing and it really does help me. When I'm burnt out on my job I learn about counseling and theology etc. And then I'm more apt to come back to my job ready to start again.

Another thing that helps... Humor! Now onto fun with Yahoo! mail.

So let's say, hypothetically speaking, that I have 5 email addresses. And 3 for work, 2 google, and 1 yahoo. So I was about to email zuzu in yahoo and I accidentally hit the subject button. Guess what? They have this thing called "subject-o-matic" and it is hilarious. About 20 minutes of time wasting chuckling! Quality. Yes I am very easily entertained. And proud of it, thank you very much!

Here are some of my favorite Yahoo! Subject-o-matic items that came up. And what's even more fun is imagining who you might send an email to with that subject line... :)
My mono isn't getting better...it could turn into stereo
It's not you, it's me. I don't like you.
What's the corkage fee at McDonald's?
rotating platinum pants
Don't tempt me to unleash the one-legged space chickens!
we have located your pants
Quote me as saying I was misquoted.
Sorry I missed you. Stand still next time.
Some Powdered Muffin with your Starfish, Dr Arbuckle?
Cinco de Mayonnaise
Jeremy! What have I told you about the correct way to butter crumpets?
due to an imbalance of hormones i have been sick
Flossing with angel hair pasta

Poetry as the way forward?

I had a really great conversation with my vocational coach today. We talked about poetry. Which might be surprising, poetry in vocational coaching, but it made a lot of sense to me. He went to a seminar on poetry as medicine. And spoke glowingly of how some people in the seminar visibly changed (in a good way) after they had written and shared a couple poems with the group. He thinks poetry is one of the best ways to make one's way forward.

Metaphor and poetry help me access my thoughts and feelings and communicate in a way that I wouldn't normally. Poetry makes point in a different way. In my own life poetry both reading it and writing it have shifted my thoughts and feelings around and often made them clearer.

I need to be reading and writing more poetry. I almost feel thirsty for the way they it helps me think. And I haven't written any in a long while. I know I am not the best poet but I know enough to say "I get it" when my coach says that sometimes poetry can be the way forward. There have been two poems I wrote in the last year (both posted on this blog) which changed me. Something about the writing of them shifted something so that in the end I made new decisions because of what they birthed in me.

So I leave you with a poem I ran across online. :) enjoy. And I leave myself with a renewed poetic momentum.

won't you celebrate with me

won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
--Lucille Clifton

Poignant and Reciprocity

I left the online dating world. But, I am still emailing two people and hanging out with "e". Oddly enough the two people I'm emailing are both professors. And all three respond back to me. Woo hoo. Reciprocity, call and response, equal back and forth should never be under-estimated.

Some of you who know me right now are grinning. Because you know I like to email someone who I "like" about three times for every one time they email me. And so I would like to say I am doing a better job than in the past at that. Although I have wanted to email "e" about five times this weekend. I have not. I can hear "b" saying to me I shouldn't. :)

I have a love/hate relationship with reciprocity. I know it's really important. But I also find it so hard to always force myself to wait and not say something until it's my turn. On the flip side when I do not like someone as much then I am fine with reciprocity.

As a side note: my vocational coach asked me a question Friday that was worded in a way I haven't heard before. I am still trying to figure out how I will anwser.

He asked me:
"Any particularly poignant joys or burrs? conundrums or issues?"

What great words: poignant, burrs, conundrums. :) I'm still thinking about it. One conundrum is I wonder why I never have to think about reciprocity at work? Maybe because I don't care about work like I do about relationships. Or maybe reciprocity is only present when there is a need or want. And at work I don't really need or want. And how in the world do you have a poignant joy? Poignant in it's definition is sad and regretful. Hmmm.

Is it possible to have a poignant joy?

Mindfulness

Blogging is about stating what is for me this day. An intentional act of mindfulness and remembering. Or of course on some days "mindlessness" as in being or feeling out of my mind. But even in that I am aware that I am anchored in this process by my desire for mindfulness and integrity. A desire to lead an examined life. My longing to be fully present.

Trouble is, these virtues are a bit harder to do. It's easier to talk about them. And when it comes to work in particular I am finding I need to wrestle in order to eek out productivity that I expect from myself. Self hate for not doing enough never works. I have learned this in my story the hard way and I have worked on being more gentle with myself. So I live in the both/and space of finding I am not where I want to be in regards to productivity etc. and yet seek to be as kind to myself as others are generally to me.

In the midst of all of this last week my vocational coach gave me some great things to think about that increased my state of presence. They felt like a gift to me. So I share them with you.

He asked the following:

At what moment(s) have you been fully engaged? At what moment did you find yourself away or uninvolved? What actions have you committed to doing as a result of this? Transform this unproductivity into something else. See if this is an invitation to work on that (unproductive area) than work on what you are supposed to do. Maybe what is, is to be. Rather than fight it seek to converse with it. What do you want today? Or in conversing with it ask it directly. Unproductively would you please leave today. We will talk tonight. Think of ways to re-center. Go outside and take the number of gulps of breath up to your age. What is air but the spirit? The metaphor is powerful. mindfulness. Perhaps unproductivity is an invitation to mindfulness...

Isn't that amazing. I thought so.

You look happy

Alright it's a two-blog-post day! So I just got in this fantastic conversation with a co-worker in my department. It started by him asking me how I am because I've been quiet lately. To which I said I am finding it increasingly difficult to say how I am, so I just have been quiet. He went on to try and guess why. He didn't really... but in the midst of it he said "You look happy lately". He is the second person in my department who knows nothing of this journey to say this exact thing! I guess even the act of emailing people agrees with me.

I also lamented to him on how unproductive I've been lately at work due to this unnamed new stuff in life, and how my over active sense of guilt is speaking to me. To which he countered with "Even the earth needs a fallow period." And I need to just live, and let myself be happy, and not get all bent out of shape re: my lack of productivity. To which I felt some sense of grace in spite of the fact that I still want to be a good steward of my work. I still want to do a good job.

And speaking of that. I have a phone call with my vocational coach today. I think I shall have to talk to him about my productivity. I am ok with some time of fallowness for the work of re-equilibrating part of self takes a lot of brain power. AND sometimes you just need to say "Dear one, get your butt in gear! You can be fallow but not 24/7!"

People think I look happy. :) That makes me grin. It's fun to have a secret no one knows sometimes.

Women are better leaders?

This morning's quick preview of articles threw up this one from psychologytoday which caught my attention. I really am not sure there is such a thing as "better" in general. Perhaps just better for a certain place and time. But I do agree that in my case the women do seem to have a style that fits my workplace better than the men. Well.... with the exception of maybe one person. Not that anyone is leading. I try some days to lead my work, at least towards innovation. Today though I just want to go home and read a novel, or go on a date, or or or...

Women Make Better Leaders: "Searching for better leaders? Don't overlook the women in the office. An analysis of 45 leadership studies found that the best bosses are inspirational mentors who encourage underlings to develop their abilities and creatively change their organizations. Women, on average, are more likely than men to enact this "transformational" style."Read the rest here.

Time management

I am a Meyer's Briggs "J" personality type. Which means that when the new year rolls around I get very goal oriented and need to re-organize everything. Hence my re-starting up vocational coaching. In preparation for conversations with my coach I wandered the web to think about what I need to focus on.

I found this website that has a lot of great information on work while searching: "7 habits of highly effective people". You might want to check it out. http://www.businessballs.com/

I've been reading these articles on time management:

• http://www.businessballs.com/time.htm#time%20management%20tips
• http://www.businessballs.com/time.htm
• http://www.businessballs.com/timemanagement.htm
• I also tend to find great advice coming through lifehack. A great website! http://www.lifehack.org

Question of the day

Do you put too much pressure on yourself because you over plan? - Asked by my vocational coach.

This question has come up in more than one way this week. Over planning can be a hazard just as much as not planning can. When does planning curtain productivity and when does it empower it? He said that sometimes we spend so much time making things into finally honed plans with tedious detail that we have no time to do the work.

I hope this blog can be about birthing reflection to use, and less about planning what it will be or should be. . . I just need a place to house my thoughts and titrate my learnings. Perhaps I will share all my thoughts on emotional, relational, and psychological titration in the future. But of course that's a plan and today I choose to have no pressure.