For Kicks

I'm studying Maslow and Humanistic Psychology and finding it very intriguing; I love this list, as featured on this youtube video:

Characteristics of a Self Actualized Person

1. Realistic: realistically oriented, a self actualizing person has more efficient perception of reality and has comfortable relations with it; this is extended to all areas of life. A self actualizing person is unthreatened and unfrightened by the unknown; he has a superior ability to reason, to see the truth and is logical and efficient.

2. Self Acceptance: accepts himself, others, in the natural world the way they are; sees human nature as is; has a lack of crippling guilt or shame; enjoys himself without regret or apology and has no unnecessary inhibitions.

3. Spontaneity, Simplicity, Naturalness: spontaneous in his inner life; thoughts and impulses are unhampered by convention; his ethics are autonomous and self actualizing individuals are motivated to continual growth.

4. Focus of Problem Centering: a self actualizing person focuses on problems and people outside of himself; he has a mission in life requiring much energy as it is his sole reason for existence; he is serene, characterized by a lack of worry and is devoted to duty.

5. Detachment, the need for privacy: the self actualized person can be alone and not be lonely; is unflappable and retains dignity among confusion and personal misfortunes, all the while remaining objective; he is a self starter, is responsible for himself and owns his behaviour.

6. Autonomy: independent of culture and environment; the self actualized person has a fresh, rather than a stereotyped appreciation of people and the basic good in life; moment to moment, living for him is thrilling, transcending and spiritual, as he lives the present moment to the fullest.

7. Peak Experiences: feelings of limitless horizons, opening up to the vision: the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before; the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe; the loss of placement in time and space, with finally the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent, transformed and strengthened, even in his daily life by such experiences.

8. Inter Personal Relations: identification, sympathy, affection for mankind, kinship with the good, bad and ugly, are all traits of the self actualized person; truth is clear to him, as he can see things others cannot; he has profound, intimate relationships with few and is capable of greater love than others consider possible as he shares his benevolence, affection and friendliness with everyone.

9. Democratic Values and Attitudes: able to learn from anyone; humble; friendly with anyone regardless of class, education, political belief, race or colour.

10. Discrimination between means and ends and between good and evil: the self actualized person does not confuse between means and ends and does no wrong; he enjoys the hear and now, getting to goal, not just the result; he makes the most tedious task an enjoyable game and has him own inner moral standards, appearing immoral to others.

11. Philosophical, Unhostile sense of humour: jokes to the self actualized person are teaching metaphors, intrinsic to the situation and are spontaneous: he can laugh at himself, but he never makes jokes that hurt others.

12. Creativity: the self actualized person enjoys an inborn uniqueness that carries over into everything he does; is original, inventive, uninhibited and he sees the real and true more easily.

13. Resistance to Inculturation: transcendence of any particular culture; self actualized people have an inner detachment from culture, although folkways may be observed, self actualized people are not controlled by them; working for long term cultural improvement, indignation with injustice, inner autonomy, outer acceptance and the ability to transcend the environment, rather than just cope, are intrinsic to self actualized people.

14. Imperfections: self actualized people are painfully aware of their own imperfections and joyfully aware of their own growth process; they are impatient with themselves when stuck and feel real life pain as a result.

15. Values: the self actualized person is realistically human due to philosophical acceptance of self, human nature, social life, physical reality and nature.

16. Resolution of Diconomies: polar opposites merge into a third, higher phenomenon, as though the two have united, therefore, opposite forces are no longer felt as conflict; to the self actualized person, work becomes play and desires are in excellent accord with reason; the self actualized person retains his child like qualities, yet is very wise.

Perfect Moment

My newborn niece is asleep in the crook of my left arm while I type with my right and my purring kitty is bidding for lap space between the keyboard and baby; I am smelling that sweet baby smell and listening to a fantastic line-up of rock music, both old and new, while researching Humanism and listening to my son play Star Wars with his three-year-old cousin. Right now, at this moment in time, life is good.

Why you are glad that you were NOT at my house this morning...

Woke up this morning to my beloved cat puking on my bed. ON MY BED! ON THE QUILT MY GRANDMOTHER MADE!!! Good Morning.

Cats puke on occasion. I know. But I have no carpet in the house, which means that the rare event usually calls for some spray cleaner and paper towels...not washing my god damn quilt! Don't get me wrong here, all ye dog lovers, a bout of cat puke is not nearly as disgusting as the thought of picking up some mutts feces in a little plastic bag twice a day *shudder*, or one instance of my child running into the house with shit on his shoes because the damn neighbour was too lazy to walk his dog, let alone let the dog out in their own back yard to do his foul business. Said neighbours also fail to bathe, brush or trim their dog's mangy sheepskin like pelt. If their dog looks that horrid, I would hate to see the inside of their house...

On with my morning...

Nothing like a nice swig of rancid, curdled milk. As I was standing in front of my fridge, curdled milk in one hand, milk jug in the other, I am staring at an expiration date that is still over a week into the future...then I glance at the temperature dial inside the trusty ice box. My child, at some point in the recent past, put his sticky little fingers on the thing and turned it to zero...as in zero cold...as in zero perishable food survived. So, until I go shopping, our fridge now has a couple of vinegar based salad dressings in the door and a drawer full of onions...the rest of the cubic storage is up for rent...

In an effort to make my son's lunch from non-refrigerated goods, I start to open up a can of soup, and immediately after puncturing the top of the can, the can opener went to can opener heaven. So, now I have a fridge full of rancid glory and a de-funk can opener. Oh, and the flu I thought I was coming down with...it would actually be food poisoning! Yay me!

More events that were less than this-will-someday-be-humorous also transpired. All I have to say is that the child and I departed ways this morning with a mutual glare. I re-scheduled my re-scheduled psych exam and went back to bed. Pepto-Bismol anyone?

October in a Blink

My Niecie Girl is TWO Today!!

Life has been a steady stream of homework, kids (mine and other peoples'), homework, more homework and more kids. I'm really living on the edge...cough. Two exams down, one more next week. A short road trip this weekend and a trip to the pumpkin patch next weekend.

October isn't passing me by this fast, is it?

Finally Friday!

Finally Friday!
I think those two words sum it up perfectly!
Soccer, Niece Borrowing, Homework & House Work...
not exactly an exciting weekend line-up,
but it does not include any 5 a.m. wake-up calls,
so I'll take it!

Figures

It's midnight. I've been up since five a.m.
I survived TEN hours of class in a 12 hour block today.
Caffeine was my saviour...
and is now the reason that I can't freaking sleep!
I digress.

To Sum Up Current Existence:

So Freaking Tired!!!

School is officially back in session as of today...but it never really stopped for me. I don't advise pulling an all nighter on the very night before school starts. Back to our fantastically over scheduled schedule. Excited for upcoming pumpkin season. Out of my mind excited about the upcoming ski season...I'm coming off hiatus, baby! Life is good. Sleep is better. I'm going to bed now.

Goose Bumps, Tears, Laughter, Re-defining Insanity?

In Shock. Good Shock. Smile to follow. Sleep much less likely.
(FFF2)

****
In other news:

Psych class has been intriguing, but way too condensed to absorb all the material; may take course again, someday, out of pure intrigue. I could just read the text again, but I would really like to get the non-condensed version of the lectures (would have to get same instructor...) Enjoying school more and more each week...in contrast parts of my social life, some previous ways of thinking, as well as many old habits seem to be diminishing at an equivalent rate. It's a rejuvenating transformation. The last half year of self-imposed-attitude-renovation helped I think...

Pre-calculus correspondence course yet to go... If all goes well, and time allows, we might even make it out of town for a few days before the fall term commences...fingers crossed...

Highlights from the weekend:

Forced myself (& the boy) to take four hours off and go to the beach with a friend. Burned again. Yes. Again. But only in the spots I forgot to apply sunscreen... Forced myself to leave my camera and my watch at home...was less painful than I thought it would be. Bennett enjoyed playing in the river and digging in the sand. Mama (that's me) enjoyed sitting in the sun and playing soccer.

Transformers! & other not-so-interesting babble...

Transformers. A cartoon I watched as a kid, and loved! Toys I played with (& watched all my little friends collect) when I was my son's age. And now, Transformer paraphernalia is still aimed at my kids age group...a.k.a. the sunglasses he is currently wearing. So, why is the "movie" PG-13? I am, by no means, an *over protective parent...the kids favorite song is by Ozzy and he could not identify **Barney or Elmo or the vast majority of the other irritating children's characters if he tried, because he was, quite frankly, never exposed to them....'cause mama thought they were annoying and childish...heh. Anyways, he's finally at an age where I am brave enough to attempt to take him to the theatre (he was a late bloomer when it came to being interested in TV, or movies, beyond musical and short-attention-span Baby Einstein) and this delightful childhood memory, reincarnated, is already off the table. I highly doubt a five-year-old's attention would be held by a PG-13 movie, in any regard.

So, that's my afternoon pout. Boohoo.

On another note, for the second term, I find the new instructor much more entertaining and much less likely to cause one to wish they could fall asleep. I might actually enjoy these psychotically condensed and lengthy lectures without wishing I were elsewhere! See, it aint all pouting today ;-)

*Reasonably protective, YES. Car seats/Boosters, Bike Helmets, Swimming Lessons, etc. are NON-NEGOTIABLE...mandatory, in fact.

**He went through very short (& concentrated) Pocahontas, Finding Nemo, Winnie the Pooh, Dora & Diego, Shrek 2 & most lately, Charlotte's Web phases...these were characters I, the mom, could handle. Sad, I know. (He was not a fan of Cars, much to my surprise.) Personally, I'm missing the OLD Looney Tunes that I watched as a kid...you know the ones, 'Bugs Bunny & Friends' or 'The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show'...before all the "junior" characters were introduced. Am I the only one that feels this way?

~Homework Help~

Such An Exciting Afternoon...Ya'll Should be Jealous!

A repeat of my ever so exciting weekend and Monday morning; using my afternoon to book a hearing assessment, eye-sight test, dentist appointment, vaccination appointment and two pediatrician appointments for my son: I am nothing short of a Lean, Mean, Scheduling Machine! Within the foreseeable future, I am quite certain that my boy will run away screaming at the mere mention of the words, "appointment" or, "doctor," as he will be seeing quite a variety in the upcoming weeks! It's like spring cleaning, only in a freaky medical way...

And the fun is not over yet, oh no, it is not over yet. Tomorrow morning I get to tackle my own schedule and book all my classes for the summer semester. I am quite sure that jealousy is now oozing from the veins of all who are reading this!

On another note, Bennett, being the world's most awesome child, put himself to bed shortly after five o'clock. We had only been home a few minutes and he was very frustrated that I would not let him turn "Dora" on until tomorrow morning; after debating the subject with me all of the way home, he decided that the best solution to the problem would be to go to sleep, so that morning will come sooner! Now, I am free to go to bed as early as I want...and I think I am going to do just that. Good Night.

Kindergarten Registration

Okay. So it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was two hours early and thirteenth in line. All were able to wait inside the warm gym. Bennett is registered, but not yet guaranteed an a.m. spot, which I need him to have. (The school will let us know next week.) Hindsight is 20/20: I should have been there three hours early as I had originally planned (but at the last minute I decided to catch a few hours of shut eye), as being earlier in the line-up would have guaranteed an a.m. time slot for the boy.

Bennett had a fine time hanging out with his Papa all morning, and made it through afternoon preschool and evening daycare without a hitch. Quite a feat for a child running on six hours of sleep!

After daycare we made a pit stop at the pet store to coo at the birds, rabbits and fish. I very much desire to bring home a floppy haired hopper...but something tells me my monster sized cats would eat floppy for lunch...hmmm... And I am sure the novelty would wear off after a couple days and I would just be annoyed that I had to care for another creature. So, Floppy can stay at the pet store.

Chemistry midterm tomorrow. Why am I not excited?

A Weekend of Planning for Funner Weekends

Dishes. Laundry. Change sheets on child's bed. Put child to bed. Clean the litter box. Take out the garbage. More Laundry. It is now midnight and I have yet to start my homework. There will be no sleep for me tonight. I am thrilled to say the least.

I suspect my son slept on the way down from the ski hill, because when I picked him up, he was bright eyed and bushy tailed...not cranky and exhausted as he should be at the end of a day spent skiing. Anyways, he did not fall asleep until a few minutes ago. He usually goes to bed between six and seven in the evening...not twenty to midnight!

I am told that he is progressing by great leaps and bounds, becoming faster and more confident with every day that he spends on the hill. Plus, he totally loves the sport! So, by the time my skiing hiatus is over, he will be right up to par and able to ski with me! How completely awesome is that?!!!

The school I want him to attend for kindergarten has enrollment tomorrow at nine-thirty in the morning. Being a first come, first serve, high demand school with only 15 or so spots available for the a.m. kindergarten class; I intend to be there three hours ahead of time, as I have been told there is often quite a line-up on registration day. Now, if skipping English class to stand outside of an elementary school, in the cold, cramming for a chemistry exam while I wait, does not sound like a fun Monday morning...I just don't know what does!

Since the daycare is not open at six in the morning, Bennett gets to hang with his Papa in a nice warm house. I am sure he will be a delightful child to hang out with on less than six hours of sleep!

And our weekend? The most exciting story of all! I scheduled soccer and swim lessons for the next six months for my son. He started tutoring lessons to help him with his alphabet and comprehension (having a long ways to go before he will be at kindergarten level). I had a panic attack in Wal-Mart, while trying to keep a hyper/hungry/over tired four-year-old in check, while standing in a line, waiting for our turn with the cashier that took more than twenty minutes to ring through the person in front of us! Lesson learned (yet again): Don't go to Wal-Mart on a Saturday Afternoon!!!

We did have the opportunity to get together with some old friends on Saturday morning. It was great getting to catch up with J. and Bennett had a blast running around the McDonald's play area with P.

I spent most of my Sunday in an unconscious state, while the child enjoyed the slopes.

Here's hoping that next weekend is more lively, filled with fun stories and great pictures, as the weekend before this one was!