Over recent years, I’ve started to become aware of a peculiar reaction that goes on around me. I seem to have some sort of effect on electrical systems. It’s most noticeable with light sources. Continue reading “Electric Mayhem”
Category: Musings
Talkin’ ’bout Diabetes
There are times when I feel that my body operates on a very different level than the rest of the world. For the past 10 years I have lived with the fact that I am diabetic. I have a physical need to inject myself with insulin for times a day as my pancreas is not producing it. As a result, we diabetics need to be mindful of the amount of sugar that we ingest.
The logical conclusion is that if minimize, or eliminate, sugar from my diet and continue with my doses of insulin, I will maintain a healthy blood sugar level. But my body seems to be blissfully unaware of this bit of logic.
Job vs Career
At what point does a job shift to become a career?
A little over 10 years ago, I joined my current employer’s ranks. I was in my late-twenties, and had just escaped from a 5-year stint working at Chapters. Escaped may be a harsh term, but I’ve never hidden the fact that I was not happy for the last 2-3 years of my time there. I had been part of the store’s management team, working under a string of seemingly increasingly inept General Managers (I think we went through 6 GM’s in the span of my 5 years there, including a good 6-months with no GM at all). We started off as a leadership team of 7-8 people and then got down to 3 for an extended period of time. Needless to say, I was burned out when I left.
Until this point, I had gone from job to job since the age of 16. Some lasted a summer, some lasted a couple of years, but the simple fact remained that they were just jobs; a means to an end. I worked the job, they paid me. Upon leaving Chapters, I then took a job at my current employer – a health insurance company. I was a seasonal hire in their contact centre and eventually ended up being hired full-time. I didn’t like the job in the call centre, but it was a job. There it is again… job.
“You Think You Know Me…”
About an hour after posting my last blog, I came back to WordPress for some reason or other and something caught my eye. When I sign in, I see an analytics dashboard showing how many views you’ve had, comments, likes, etc. One of the fun little features is a map showing from which countries your blog has been viewed. This is what caught my eye on that fateful day. Continue reading ““You Think You Know Me…””
Sh-Boom
Oh, life could be a dream (sh-boom)
If I could take you up in paradise up above (sh-boom)
If you would tell me I’m the only one that you love
Life could be a dream, sweetheart–Sh-Boom, The Crew Cuts (1954)
Over the past few years, there has been an ever-growing chatter as to whether our existence is real or just a simulation in some super powerful computer. Reading these metaphysical discussions can end up causing an existential crisis of faith type moments in some people. But that is only partly what this post is about.
The Reluctant Leader
What makes a person a leader? This is something that I’ve struggled with for many years. The easiest definition I could find was the following:
Leader – Google Search
Seems simple enough, but what truly makes a person a leader? Is it their knowledge? Their charisma? Their talent? There doesn’t appear to be a single all-encompassing answer to that question. Some leaders have a little from column A and a little from column B; others are purely column A or column B. And still the rare mavericks have something from another page altogether. Continue reading “The Reluctant Leader”
The Invisible Man
Do you ever have the feeling that you’re invisible to people? Not just that they overlook you, but that you’re entirely 100%, invisibility-cloak-wearing invisible? If you continually tell yourself you are (or aren’t) something, the law of attraction says that you will attract that to yourself. I think that’s what happened to me with my invisibility. Continue reading “The Invisible Man”
Disconnected
In my previous life, I was well-connected. From morning til night, I found myself in front of a computer for nearly every instant that I was not working or sleeping. Actually, even sleep did not always dissuade me as I’d often pull my laptop next to my bed in case someone would message me in the middle of the night. (I did have friends in Australia, Europe and on the West coast after all!) I would get up in the morning and the first thing I did was sign in. I would get home from work – sign in. I had even set up my apartment so that while seated at my computer, I could watch TV. My life consisted of being online. I had become an extension of the internet.
It was during these years (the majority of my 20’s really) that I “disconnected” from the real world and connected electronically. All of my friends were chat buddies. I would spend countless hours in chat rooms, or just messaging my friends. I’d communally watch TV with people, chatting about the show during commercials. (How many “OMG can you believe that?!” conversations about Lost did we have Nat?) Continue reading “Disconnected”
I’ll sleep when I’m dead
For the past 15-20 years, I have been an occasional insomniac. It happens at least twice a year, but never lasting more than 3-4 days consecutively. I’ll just lay there; awake, unable to get to sleep. Typically my brain will go into overdrive and won’t shut down long enough to let me fall asleep. Other times, I just have this feeling of discomfort in my own body and I can’t lie there any longer. While I haven’t really had a full blown occurrence of this in some time, earlier this week I lay awake in bed for a while, struggling to fall asleep. Continue reading “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”
Non-Committal Patterns and the Art of Lawn Maintenance
I tend to be a bit peculiar from time to time. Some might argue that it is more often than not. One of my little quirks revolves around lawn mowing. Continue reading “Non-Committal Patterns and the Art of Lawn Maintenance”
