Growing up is a world of gray

What coffee has to do with constructivism

“Why don’t you make it the way I do?” he asks, as I pour the coffee grounds into the Bialetti coffee maker. I look at the coffee maker in consternation. I pour the grounds directly into the filter in the machine. He does it separately and then puts everything together.

“Because this is the way I do it,” I say.

“But then the grounds get all over the counter, and…” he stops himself.

“…Do you want to make the coffee?” I prompt.

He shakes his head and backs off, “Um, no. No, definitely not. Do it your way. We’ll just…clean the counter after.”

I throw a handy tee-towel at him.

Oh, how we want to believe the world is Newtonian! Push it and it moves, pull it and it comes. Gravity is fixed, mass is fixed. An object put into motion stays in motion. Reality is Absolute. Truth exists.

This comforting set of assumptions makes it easy for our anxious little mind to find solid ground. If I know what’s “right,” then I can play by the rules. If there is an absolute Truth, then I can be right and you can be wrong. Blame can be assigned. We rest easy in the rigid arms of justice.

Yet as humanity probes with relentless curiosity into the mysteries of the world, our desire to fix the world into yes/no is thwarted by the mysterious complexity and subjectivity of the Universe. Our poor little brains are on fire with the revelation that time, space, and mass aren’t fixed. Truth depends on perspective. There is no absolute Reality. Rather, Reality is a compendium of the stupendous array of subjective experiences that exist relative to any one point of space/time.

In other words, friends, sh*t gets complicated.

Not only do we see this evolution of thought playing out in physics, naturally the reverberations have cropped up in education and psychology.  For example, in my field of study, no longer are teachers fixated on a “one size fits all” version of teaching (this is the right way to learn them!), but there is an increasing passion for constructivism as a learning psychology, where learning is “constructed” individually by the learner. In other words, each learner is different and assimilates information based on their unique history, interest, and emotions.

Consider this riddle.

What is a hat?

There is no one absolute hat. We have a general idea of hat, with different qualities that we may identify based on our experience (it’s on my head, primarily). The hat that popped into my head is different than the hat the just popped into your head, determined by each of our experiences of “hat-ness” in the world. Think of this: tophat, tukes, riding hat, bowler, Stetson, cap, turban, Ascot, beret, pillbox. Each one of these “hat styles” is also a generalized idea. You could have a million kinds of tukes. Yet our mind puts together all these hat-like qualities and defines and labels the world according to the pattern. When is a hat not a hat? When it’s a balaclava? When it’s a headband? What about a really big headband? Labels are convenient, but they are relative, malleable, and subjective.

And if we have this much trouble with hats, just consider this one: what is love?

Our perception of the world is constructed based on all of our previous experiences, leaving each one of us with a remarkable and unique view of the world and its objects. Like a snowflake, no point of subjectivity is the same.

Growing up  – for humanity as well as for us as individuals – is accepting that the rules, protocols, and labels we so desperately wish to impose upon the world are limited in scope. They may be very useful, but we mustn’t mistake them for the Real Deal.

We are on the edge of revelation. We have been living in a world of right/wrong, yes/no, “hat/ not a hat” since the dawn of consciousness.  In our individual lives, it’s where we spend our toddlerhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. But growing up means expanding our view and recognizing the multiplicity of experience.

To move the collective experience of humanity forward, we must each do our intrinsic part to don our big girl and boy pants, take a breath, and embrace a wider version of Truth.

We begin with small, daily recognitions. Like coffee. So when I am in the kitchen making the morning coffee, and my beloved looks at me in confusion and says, “But why don’t you do it the way I do it?” we can pause. Reflect. And – without blame, defence, or righteousness – simply appreciate the difference. His way of making coffee is the perfect way for him. And my way is the perfect way for me. How lovely, how subjective, how revelatory!

And in fact, there are an infinite number of ways to brew that one extraordinary cup.

 

 

Space. And Intimacy.

“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise…” – James Kirk

Yogis, we’re going on a fantastic voyage. A voyage that reveals the importance of inner space…

A famous study entitled “From Jerusalem to Jericho” was conducted in the 1970’s to analyze the good Samaritan story from the Bible. Researchers sought to determine what factors impacted a desire to act like a good neighbor towards someone else: did someone’s current thoughts affect kindness? Did feeling rushed?

To test their hypotheses, they gathered a group of seminary students and tasked half of them to give a talk on the Good Samaritan story (ostensibly to generating thoughts about helping someone else) and the other half to give a talk about religion and the work place. They then had the students walk from one building to another. The students were further divided so that one group was given a “high hurry” motivation (ie: you’re late!), another group a “medium hurry motivation” (they’re waiting), and a final group a “low hurry” motivation (you’ve got some time to get there). En route, the students encountered a person (an actor) pretending to be in distress.  Then researchers tallied up who see if they could discern any patterns in who stopped to help.

Turns out that degree of religious thoughts had no bearing on whether or not people stopped. (People given the good samaritan story stopped no more frequently than the others.) However, those who felt leisurely stopped far more than those who felt rushed by a ration of 6:1.*

The moral of our story? Compassion requires space.

Daily living is compressive. How often do we feel rushed? We hunch over our desks, rush to get the kids to school, fight against the traffic, and armour up to not get hurt. We are beset by obligations from peers, family, bosses, even friends. Our lives move at cyber-speed, and we frantically race to catch up with emails, texts, and skypes.

It’s time to slow the clocks.

When we go to yoga, or walk in nature, or write in our journals, our soul spreads its folded wings and stretches to full breadth. Without self-nurturing space, we default to our survival impulses. Caught in flight or flight, we react impulsively and can even become blind to what’s right in front of us (some students actually had to literally step over the stricken victim in the scenario). But when we create space in our lives, we then have the room to act ethically, considerately, and gracefully.

How can you create space for yourself? Through the yoga practice? Through breath? Through journalling?

Create space this week just for you.

Because when we create space for ourselves – even when it’s just starts with an extra breath – the world receives a better version of who we are. And that’s worth an extra breath.

*Ironically, the errand that students were tasked with was to go to the next building in order to deliver an impromptu speech on the passage of the Good Samaritan. The full study is entitled, “From Jerusalem to Jericho: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behaviour.”

Gay marriage. The subway. And a 7-year old.

Or, education happens in the darnedest places.

A seven year old sidles up next to me on the N train to Astoria. I’ve got my laptop flipped open, working on an article for EME 6414, my Web 2.0 course. He sits quietly for awhile and watches.

“You type fast,” he observes.

I look over at him. He’s got freckles everywhere, and big, earnest blue eyes.

“I took a course,” I say. “I learned how to do it.” That’s me, always one to beat the drum of education into young minds.

“Oh,” he says. “So.” He looks at my article again. “You disagree with your dad?”

He’s been reading over my shoulder.

I pause. I wonder briefly if his guardian is going to mind this conversation. “Yes.”

He considers this. “You fight with your dad?”

I think for a moment. “Well, my dad and I think different things politically,” I say slowly. “It’s not really fighting, we just have different opinions.”

“Your Dad doesn’t like gay marriage?”

“No.” I smile, “He doesn’t.”

“But you do?”

“Yes. I do.”

He sighs and tilts his head. “…Do you think it’s okay to be gay?”

I glance over towards his guardian, who turns out to be a matronly looking woman sitting three seats down from me. She is listening to us, but doesn’t seem to mind where the conversation is going.

“Yes,” I say, “I think it’s okay to be gay.”

“Even girl and girl?” He sounds pensive.

“Yes.”

“I hear that there’s girl and girl, but I’ve only seen boy and boy stuff.”

“Yes, there’s girl and girl, too. There’s a whole world out there.”

“But you think it’s okay.”

“Yes, I do.” I feel I should explain a bit more, “I have lots of friends who are gay.”

He frowns. He needs specifics, “Girl and girl, or boy and boy.”

“Both,” I say.

He looks impressed by this. “But your Dad doesn’t like gay people?”

“Well,” I consider this, “my dad doesn’t believe in gay marriage. But he likes gay people. We even have gay family members. But he doesn’t think that gay marriage should be legal.”

“It’s not legal?”

“Being gay is legal,” I clarify, “but until recently, being married wasn’t. Until recently, gay people could only get married some states, but not in others. But now the supreme court decided it was okay for everyone to get married, in all states. Which gives gay people legal rights that they didn’t have before.”

“Like what?”

“Like taking care of someone in the hospital, or taking care of their kids.”

“Oh, right!” He says. “Kids. So,” his nose wrinkles in consternation, “Can you have two dads?”

“Yep. Two dads.”

He looks out into the train car. “I’d like to have two moms,” he says decisively.  “But, wait!” he suddenly looks puzzled again, “How can two boys have a kid?”

I wonder again about that guardian. “Wellllll,” I say, “then you might need to get some help.”

“Oh,” he brightens, “like adopting.”

“Yes,” I say with a tinge of relief, “like adopting.” I didn’t want to get into a conversation about surrogacy and sperm donation. I glance up at his guardian. She has a small smile and shakes her head slightly as if to say, ‘Kids? what can you do.’

I decide that I love this seven year old.

“So,” I say to him, “What do you think?”

He looks up at me and considers. “I think it’s okay,” he says finally. And nods definitively.

And then I have to get off the train. It’s my stop.

 

Thriving as a networked individual

“People and institutions exist now in information and communication ecologies that are strikingly different from the ones that existed just a generation ago…It is not an either-in person OR online dichotomy; it is an in-person AND the internet AND mobile contact comprehensiveness.” – Lee Rainie & Barry Wellman, “Networked.”

Thank  God.

Reading this book is like a breath of fresh air. Of relief. You mean all this time stuck in my PDA or online doesn’t mean that I’m a misanthrope? Despite some outcries to the contrary (“it’s all ego,” “everyone’s detached these days!”), it is with a profound sense of relief that I place myself squarely in the Networked camp.

Social networking and creating relationships are not just for the in-person meet anymore. Staying face to face means missing out on the richness of interchange this is humming and thriving right past your keyboard. Social networking means tapping into Facebook, to Twitter, to blogs. And it also means calling your friend and arranging for an in-person meet.

Nine years ago I moved from New York City to Vancouver, Canada, leaving my entire world behind. Thank god we had cellphones. Now with Skype, I can easily video chat my family and friends. With my cheap North American calling plan, I can call my American peeps from the car when I’m commuting. Grabbing a five minute conversation on the go rather than having to wait for a landline at home and paying through the nose. I could also simply Skype the for free, if I weren’t so distracted by video when driving. In the interim, I can read my friends’ blogs, send them articles, like their Facebook postings, and stay tuned into their lives even through I’m far away. Then when I get on a plane and see them face to face, it’s as if we never really had a break.

I embrace my Networked identity. We reach out more, and we also become more autonomous, relying on 1-1 connections rather than more traditional in-person group identities. Each network a snowflake. No two networks alike.

And how three-dimensional will our wonderful webs become? Are we in store for the “Metaverse” (a “convergence of 1. virtually enhanced physical reality and 2. physically persistent virtual space”) or where part of our brain consists of an external hard drive that connects wirelessly to our organic matter (oh wait, that’s our smartphone, we’ve already got that). My grandmother was born without running water. Now she has an Ipad. What changes have been wrought in this life time! What changes are yet to come!

 

References

Rainie, L. & Wellman, B. Networked (2012).

 

Photo credit. 

Photo cropped from original.

Identity reflections

As my social media course winds to its conclusion, I am reflecting back on the first decision I made in the course: how much of myself do I reveal?

At the beginning of the course, I made the decision to post the educational blogs as myself, interwoven into the fabric of my current website. Deciding the my identity was not to be fractured, but yet would be revealed as a whole expression. Although the facets may not make sense (educator? yogi? romantic love guru? sugar free paleo experimenter?), altogether they are a shadowy expression of my own unique digital identity. Just a each thumbprint is unique, each person creates their own unique digital imprint in the world. Each personal learning network is unique – indeed, we are the hub of our own experience and learning – so why would I minimize or flatten this experience in order to placate my readers that I am easily one-dimensional? Knowing that we are all lovers, haters, humble monks, as well as arrogant sons of bitches, can we not expand our own minds to hold the beautiful contradiction and complexity of another human being?

Perhaps our editorializing of ourselves is safety. We fear to reveal our idiosyncrasies because we are afraid that our lack of neat edges speaks to loose ends and irresponsibility. Or that we are protecting our image from those who may be confused by our  speaks to our complexity or our humanity (“no, Mom, at the age of forty, I’ve never been drunk, I swear”). Or maybe we are revealed in our silly humanity, taking selfies and proclaiming our ill acts to the world when perhaps we should just let the moment live without a digital archive (are we afraid if we don’t record it that it will be gone forever?).

At any rate, I am well-pleased with my results. Rather than attempt to box my expression into narrow corridors of branding, I am satisfied by the new aspects of self that have been uncovered through this process. A sugar free nut. A budding educator. Why not? Is not the world wide web a glorious tool for self-expression and exploration?

When I was an actor, my teacher used to berate us when we made our characters logical. “Don’t dull the extremes,” she snapped, “it’s boring. We love the contradictions!” Linear organization and simplicity may be aesthetically pleasing, but there is an equal beauty in the complicated weave and dance of fractals.

Photo credit.

Sugar free at the airport

Travelling to NYC this weekend, I had some strategies for staying sugar free while in transit. Airplane snacks are a no go for the most part: airlines sugar and roast their nuts, add sugar to the hummus (yuck!), add sugar to all dressings, and almost everything comes with gluten crackers and wheat. However, here are some options that can keep you going when you’ve got flights and layovers!

  • BYON: bring your own nuts. Those yummy, cheap nuts that you buy at Trader Joe’s are okay for transport (although I always declare them at customs, they won’t get taken away from you). Get your raw nuts and bring them with you! Nuts sold at the airport are okay, but are often roasted or may have other additives. And the best nutritional bang for your buck is raw.
  • Fruit. Now, I haven’t been eating fruit lately, but if you have fruit as part of your diet then whole fruit is sold at almost all the stands.
  • Eggs. Au Bon Pain has two boiled eggs for sale for just $2.99. Et Voila.
  • Raw veg. A good option: just toss the dressing and instead stock up on some mustard from another kiosk.
  • Salads. Not bad, but the dressings usually have tons of added sugar. So find some mustard or another kiosk with oil and vinegar. If you’re really bold, you can bring your own dressing – as long as it’s under 4 oz. I also use mustard as the great dip for everything. And if you’re eating a tuna salad, the tuna pretty much has enough mayo in it to make your salad yum.
  • Jerkies. Airports now offer jerky as an option (and on flights). Check the sugar content, but not a bad option if you’re eating meat.
  • BYOA: bring your own avocado. One avocado, some salt, it will keep you going for hours!
  • Tip that we all know but could use reminding: drink a ton of water. Airplanes are dehydrating and some snacks (like jerky) tend to be high in salt. Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated and happy in the air.

Happy flying 🙂

Photo credit. 

Photo edited though cropping.

Why we’re fat

The FDA has just approved a “belly balloon” that will let people feel full so they won’t eat.  Reminiscent of gastric bypass surgery (by the way, there is currently there is a longitudinal study being evaluated to assess the effectiveness of surgery), it’s another example of people taking radical steps to help them manage their weight.  With dangers of belly fat looming and one third of American adults labelled obese (and 17% of teenagers), obesity has been looming as the greatest detractor to North American health.

I predict that device will not work. In the short-term yes, certainly. But long-term? The problem with obesity (and diet pills, and diets, generally) is that we don’t eat because we’re hungry. 

Feeling full isn’t the problem.

Feeling is the problem.

We have all these emotions inside of us: fear, sadness, longing, regret. When they start to bubble up, we grab the cake, the pretzels, the cookies, the wine, the beer…in order to make the feelings go away. How much easier is it to have a glass of chardonnay than deal with loneliness? In the short-term, the sugar tactic works. We feel better! And then we’re hungover, sluggish…and the cycle starts again.  And, speaking as a “skinny bitch,” I have often also used not eating as a control tactic. Buying into some idea that if I’m thin, I’ll be okay and the world will make sense.

Same feelings. Still food. Different tactic.

A acupuncturist friend of mine shared a nugget of wisdom from one of her teachers: “Sugar is to cover up feelings. Caffeine is to cover up feeling like we’re not enough.”

Look, it’s natural and important to use food to self-medicate. The beautiful tradition of Ayurveda is based in the philosophy that food is medicine. But let’s look a little deeper. The only way to find deep, inner health isn’t by imposing rules on ourselves; it’s to dare to courageously feel what’s inside of us. To breathe through our experience, feel what we’re feeling, and realize that we’re still here on the other side.

Ways to shift when we want to use food to dull out:

  • phone a friend
  • journal
  • breathe – 1o long breaths
  • go for a walk
  • stretch, yawn
  • put on some music and dance in your living room like a crazy person (yes, do it!)

Don’t try to change everything at once.

Maybe today we simply take three long breaths before eating the cookie/ drinking the wine. The seemingly simple act encapsulates a world of courage. Give yourself a virtual hug and tomorrow maybe it will be five. If there’s work to do, then get a therapist to support you in unearthing what’s driving the feelings. And remember  – the work here may be slow. Two step forward, one step back. When we fall of the wagon (because we will!), let’s be kind rather than drowning our sorrows in pinot gris or a bag of potato chips.

You are not alone. All of humanity is in this one together.

One breath at a time – one feeing at a time – we just do our best.

 

References

Carroll, M., Flegal, K., Kit, Brian & Odgen, C. (2014). Prevalence of childhood and adult obesity in the United States, 2011-2012. Journal of the American Medical Association, 311(8):806-814. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.732

Preidt, R. (2015). FDA approves ‘Belly Balloon’ Weight Loss Device. WebMD. Retrieved from: http://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/20150729/fda-approves-belly-balloon-device-for-weight-loss

Wade, M. (2015). The Risks of belly fat – and how to beat them. WebMD. Retrieved from http://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/the-risks-of-belly-fat

30 days of Sugar Free: Results are in

So, how do I feel after 30 days on a sugar-free diet?

Summary: Good. Not life changing, but solid. Lost weight, gained diversity. 

Here’s a run down of the changes.

  1. I’ve lost weight.

While that wasn’t the intention going into this, it’s pretty remarkable to see how the pounds have shifted. And interestingly, I’ve been working out less this month and abstaining from cardio (mostly because I wasn’t sure how I’d feel without my usual carbs holding me up). Who knew that you could eat whole avocadoes and cashews and get leaner? But I did. Rather satisfying for a 41-year-old who’s heard a bushel-full of stories about aging and inevitable weight gain.

  1. Lean strength, slightly wimpier.

Usually I’m a TRX/ YFit fiend, but this month I’ve been holding off. Combination of a whacked out travel schedule and also just taking a break. So I noticed that I’ve lost some strength, but whether that’s because of the diet or because I’ve been a lazy ass is hard to tell. But what I have done instead is gone back to the fundamentals of integrity. Alignment. Glutes. Stabilizers. Posture. So although I don’t feel “YFit” strong right now (Travis’s YYoga class would kick my butt), I feel lean and strong. Yoga strong, if you will. Lighter. As if because I’ve bulked down, I’m not relying on the superficial muscles strength to pull me through, but am exploring how I can be more integrated. I’m interested to add some YFit/ TRX back into my world and see what happens.

  1. I have a caffeine addiction.

This is not news at all, actually.

But let’s just say that I like treats. And when you’re sugar free, hot beverages are treats. I don’t think I’m going to kick my caffeine habit soon, but it’s something that bears exploring. September, perhaps? Eeeeee, just the thought makes me cringe. I have to choose a month where it’s okay if I’m cranky for a couple days.

  1. I have discovered new foods.
  • SQUASH. You’ve heard me wax eloquent. So good.
  • Bouillon. Yes, you got it. Put some bouillon in a mug with hot water, make yourself some broth, and yum!
  • Nuts. I always stayed away from them because they seemed so high in fat and hard to digest. Now I’m a nut fiend. Still not sure it’s great for my digestion, I’ll start soaking those suckers the night before (thanks Steph Belding for that tip!).
  • GDS: good done simple. Good foods, simply done. Roast them, bake them, eat them, and you’re good.
  • Spices! Curry is my favorite, easiest go to. Bake it on cauliflower. Trying out a medley of rubs that are pre-mixed. And salt. Yes, salt. Not too much, but wow! No wonder people like this stuff.
  • Bubbly water. I’ve been thirsty this month. Enter a slight (ahem, severe) Pellegrino obsession.
  • Avocado. Cut it open, add a little salt, eat. Yum.
  • Cucumber. Cut up, drizzled with a bit of salt. Perfect snack.
  • Coconut oil. On everything.

Verdict? Will I continue?

Heck yeah!

It’s been strangely easy.  Now, I do think I need to watch a couple of creeping crutches, such as salt, caffeine, and nut intake. And I’m curious to feel my body as I add more cardio and strength building exercises into my routine.

One of the unexpected benefits of embarking on this adventure has been the community. So many wonderful people have come forward to share their success stories, commiserate, and jump on the challenge wagon. I’m excited to participate in our August challenges and see how we all fare – to share our go-to solutions, our unexpected discoveries, and greatest challenges.

If you’re interested, jump on board our Page with us and begin your August revolution! It can be as mild or as full on as you like. Do the month, or just come in for the week. Starting August 1 (aw heck, I’m posting late – join on in August 2nd!) and August 9th.

I celebrated the end of my first 30 days last night by sharing a glass of Dom Perignon with a girlfriend.  Um, awesome. It was sugary. And divine.

 

Photo credit.

 

Who owns my “A”?

With social learning on the rise, group learning and collaboration is becoming increasingly common in the classroom. Students can use google docs, wikis, and powerpoints to create their group projects, and connect across distance to produce their work. Researchers are watching the trend, wondering if this “collective intelligence” will result in increased “creativity, innovation, and invention” (Gray et al., 2013).

While “there is strong evidence that social media can facilitate the creation of Personal Learning Networks that help learners aggregate and share the results of learning achievement, participate in collective knowledge generation, and manage their own meaning making” (Dabbagh, 2012), implementing these tools effectively into the traditional classroom environment is proving tricky. While social media tools work quite well for informal, personal connections, scholastic use has generated an array of challenges around issues such as identity, motivation, and assessment.

America was built upon the ideals of individualism: work hard enough and you can make something of yourself. We pride ourselves on self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and tell tales of dedicated underdogs achieving the American Dream. Not surprisingly, our culture fosters a spirit of competition where individual achievement is valued and prized over the gains of the community. In this context, collaborative learning seems to contradict our fundamental values. How, for example, does one feel invested in a group project when participants don’t contribute uniformly? How do we reward students appropriately for their work? Who “owns” the A?

These scholastic issues are representative of the tensions around privacy and ownership that pervade the greater online community. While Creative Commons has stepped in the bridge the significant grey area between copyright and public domain, ownership is still fuzzy. If I take a screenshot, is it mine? If I tweet without acknowledging the source, is that ethical?

To step back and take a larger view: collaboration, information sharing, and interdependence are essential for progress. When people work together, our communities become stronger and smarter. But as more tools for information sharing are created, we need to cultivate the ethical wherewithal to give credit where it’s due. Taking information for free is still too easy: illegal downloading, plagiarism, and copyright infringement are rife. Our technology has outpaced our ethics and our policing. So until we have the protocols worked out, we need to take personal responsibility for the information that we appropriate and curate. We can start by questioning our use of information as well as attributing credit diligently.

Collective learning is providing us with an opportunity to question our culture’s dogged adherence to individualism. Acknowledging the power of collaboration liberates us from the idea that we need to “do it all” ourselves. Freeing ourselves from our usual short-sighted competitiveness permits us to attribute generously without being afraid that we’ll somehow undercut our own personal worth.

And when we trust others to honour our contributions, then we won’t cling to our own work out of fear that it will be inappropriately stolen or copied.

Who owns the “A?”

Maybe, eventually, we all do.

References

Clerehan, T., Hamilton, M., Gray, K., Richardson, J., Sheard, J., Thompson, C. & Waycott, J. (2012). Worth it? Findings from a study of how academics assess students’ Web 2.0 activities. Research in Learning Technology (20). 1-15. doi: 10.3402/rlt.v20i0/16153

Dabbagh, N. & Kitsantas, A. (2012). Personal Learning Environments, social media and self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning. Internet and Higher Education (15). 3-8. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.06.002

Gray, K., Kim, H. & Thompson, C. (2014). How social are social media technologies (SMTs)? A linguistic analysis of university students’ experiences of using SMTs for learning. Internet and Higher Education (21), 31-40. doi: 10.1016/j.iheduc.2013.12.001

 

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons.

 

Media, meditation, and monkeys, oh my!

People, my mind has gone full jumping monkey.
As I’ve plunged more fully into social media (with a vengeance, tally ho!) during my Web 2.0 course, my mind has become hyperactive, jumpy, and just a wee bit obsessive. The instantaneous and fractal nature of working online is seductive; I’ve followed so many rabbits down so many holes that I’ve created an underground bunny kingdom.

The virtual world is addictive; it fires up our reward centres and keeping us clicking along. I may check the clock at 9 pm, think vaguely that I should stop blogging/ tweeting/ networking/ surfing  – and when I look up again it’s 10:30. My brain then stays jacked on for at least another 90 minutes, too giddy to unwind from all that stimulation.

I usually sleep like a rock. The last month? Insomniac.*

“Networking,” “plugging-in,” and “multi-tasking” titillate the monkey that is waiting to swing in our mind trees. As we all engage in the virtual worlds of our choosing (twitter, Facebook, surfing, second life, video games, etc.), we need meditation and embodiment practices more than ever before. While it the virtual world is just as “real” a forum for social interaction as face-to-face, participating in these worlds removes us from the sensations and experiences of our physical body and immediate environment. Virtual worlds are an increasingly common, culturally sanctioned out-of-body experience that occurs from the dubious comfort of sitting in a chair in front of a computer.

Full health requires embodiment. We need to retain our capacity to sense, to taste, to touch, to hear. The more we are in our heads, the more we need to come back to our bodies.

“You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes every day. Unless you’re too busy; then you should sit for an hour.” – Zen adage

For every hour that we spend surfing, can we spend just five deliberate minutes mindfully feeling, stretching, walking? Being with kids is a wonderful way to get back into reality (they won’t let us be otherwise – um, unless they’re on your IPad). And let’s not just tend to our bodies, but let’s calm down that crazy monkey in our heads as well. Sitting in meditation for even just five minutes will help us find a little space for our thoughts. Otherwise the minds can become infatuated by its own agenda, forgetting that it rests in the greater space of our being-ness.

I am loving every moment of my Web 2.0 course. Participating more fully in social media is dynamic, fun, collaborative, and exciting. But this work has also exposed some of the consequences that come with playing online. Now that almost everyone in our culture is hooked in, more and more of our educational and recreational activities are become virtual. And in this tidal shift, it is becoming far too easy to leave our bodies, senses, and feelings behind. You know, like Neo in the Matrix.

It’s an exciting new frontier. And by all means, let us all go “to there,” as Liz Lemon might say.

But let’s make sure we’ve got some happy bodies and spacious minds waiting for us when we get back home.

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons.

*(Another reason paleo friends are becoming close to my heart; they emphasize our need for sleep.)

Google Maps just blew my mind

Okay okay, so it’s been awhile since I’ve checked out Google Maps. The last time I did anything resembling this kind of exploration was a few years ago when I did a cursory check of Google Earth and visited the usual hangouts. You know, like typing in “Titanic,” getting zoomed around, flying into the ocean, and seeing a few nice photos of the great sunken ship.

When I went back to check out Google Maps, I was shocked. First of all, the revolution of street view seems to have happened without my noticing. What is this strange new world? High-definition reality displayed for all to see. Who needs to travel? Now everything is revealed with an address and a click. Although one of my friends, a locations director for film, had shared with me that he uses street view for his work, I hadn’t understood the magnitude and depth of the technology.

I have entered a real world video game.

I immediately went back to view the houses I grew up in, my old schools, my old apartment in New York City, and my best friends newly bought home. All displayed in shockingly high definition.

And here, yet again the issue looms: privacy. Someone is caught on the camera. While their face may be ruefully smudged out, Google Maps exposes the question of our right to our own image.  Does it belong to us?  To the photographer? Although we’re taking in the sites from “street view” (and these views are therefore public), I felt like a peeping Tomasina. This is legal? Staring into people’s homes?  Although I couldn’t exactly walk down the driveway, I felt as if I had been given magic binoculars to peer into a secret life halfway around the world.

Having just checked out Second Life (a virtual online world created by users), I couldn’t help but be startled by the eerie similarity between my experiences. In both worlds my computer screen is a portal to a new world; one in which we can fly through space, go wherever we want, and explore the limits of a digitally enhanced virtual world. Although Second Life is programmed rather than captured by photographs, they both seem to be caught in a grey world between real and unreal.

What will be next, I wonder. Video enhancement? Real-time interaction with other people using Google Maps – or – god forbid – with the residents of the buildings we are perusing? Maybe checking in through google maps virtually will become our next way of paying house calls. Just walk in and click to ring the doorbell.

 

Photo: Screenshot of a capture of a street view of BC Place.

Sugar-free: why all the desserts!?

So I decided to do a Pinterest board to celebrate and share the love of being sugar-free this month. To add to my board, I do a search for “sugarfree”, and lo and behold, my search returns….

…desserts.

They’re sugar-free, grant you. But they’re all desserts.

So I add “paleo” to the description. After all, I’m being paleo inspired this month as well. Surely that will return some more robust food options.

What do I get? Still desserts.

Add “vegan.” Desserts.

Add “grainfree.” Desserts.

What is going on?!

It’s like our decision to go sugar-free has created this gaping hole that can only be filled by replicating the very ingredient we’re avoiding!

Okay, people, let’s buck up together. I’m a fan of a good sugar-free brownie just like the rest of us. But the point in going sugar-free for a few weeks or a month isn’t to be constantly substituting for our “deprivation.” Our goal is to re-sensitize our overly-sugared tastebuds to the subtle and delicious possibilities of our palate.

Let’s take the plunge. Let’s go sugar-free for real.

So rather than adding non-caloric sweetener to make a faux blueberry crumble, let’s dare to take a step back and jump into a different diet altogether. We are not depriving ourselves; we are nourishing ourselves. This isn’t a pity party or a diet, it’s a festival of culinary possibility.

Let’s embrace the sugar free! Embrace real food! Embrace no additives, no sweeteners, no corn syrup, no calorie-free substitutions! (Except the best hot cocoa ever. You get one gimmee :))

I’m three weeks in and I gotta say, it’s not a hardship. I’m gonna keep the ship going.

Jump on in. The sugar-free water is just fine.

 

And PS: Check out my Pinterest board!

Second Life: more than just Batman with a phallus.

Alright, alright. So I have seen “Second Life” in a bunch of academic, peer-reviewed articles in reference to supporting learning activities. As in, “the post graduate course used a range of social media technologies including Facebook, Delicious, blogs, wikis, and Second Life (a virtual world) to support a variety of learning activities” (Dabbagh, 2012). So I figure, okay, in the interest of higher education, let’s see what this is all about.

Oh my goodness gracious.

It’s like my beloved video game Myst had a baby. Or a bunch of babies. And then they all became programmers and started writing themselves. (For those born after 1990, Myst is an early puzzle game that provided hours of obsession for those who wanted a virtual world experience with awesome graphics – but no bloodshed, guns, or zombies.)

Second Life was born at Linden Labs, a cyber tank specializing in creating virtual experiences. Although they’ve got a mysterious “Project Sansar” brewing that is slated to herald the next-generation of virtual creation, Second Life is currently the “internet’s largest user-generated 3-d world.”  I’ve only just begun to explore this strange new world and I can see the obsession. Who doesn’t want to fly around an island and chat up people nearby? Apparently you can listen to music, buy and sell goods, and converse with people from all over the globe.

I gave myself five minutes of playing and then cut myself off. (I have spent hours playing Myst I, II, III, IV, and V and I know how quickly one can enter the wormhole.) However, out of curiosity, I googled screenshots to see what further adventures the world might hold. Most of the images that I found were sexual: a Second Life Batman with an erect penis, avatars having sex with each other, avatars dressed in gear that would make a music festival blush. Apparently, Second Life is an excellent forum for all kinds of fantasy. I also found a number of interesting images showing real-life photos of users with their uncannily twin like avatars. This world, no doubt, has become much more than just a game to many of its players.

But how one turns Second Life into a learning experience, I have to yet to discover. That exploration might require more than five minutes of screen time to find out.

I will tread cautiously. And bring a timer.

References

Dabbagh, N. & Kitsantas, A. (2011). Personal Learning Environments, social media, and self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning. Internet and Higher Education (15), 3-8. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.06.002

Image courtesy of Creative Commons.

 

Periscope Down! Streaming video from Twitter.

I tried Periscope this week. It’s a Twitter creation that streams live video to whoever happens to tune into the feed at the time.

“Let’s just try it,” I say to my boyfriend, while we’re eating breakfast at local restaurant.

“Periscope?” He raises an eyebrow.

“It does live video. Like a mini-broadcast, I suppose.” I open my newly downloaded Periscope app. “Here, I’ll broadcast you, eating.” I  hit the red button, and presto! Begin transmitting. He looks at the camera and shakes his head.

“I pity whoever is watching this,” he says dryly.

I roll my eyes, “Oh come on, who would actually watch this.” I stop suddenly in horror. Someone has joined the live feed. Then another person. “Oh my god.”

“Boring, boring, boring,” he is saying, poking at his eggs.

I fumble with my phone, trying to turn the camera off, “They’re actually watching! People are watching!”

I finally get the camera to turn off and start laughing. “Oh my god, that was insane. Look, look…”I point at my periscope update. “Five people tuned into watch.” I sit back, “Wow, that’s so weird! They didn’t even know what they were going to get.”

He is still shaking his head at me. “Worst broadcast ever.”

“You know what I should’ve done, I should’ve periscoped my class this morning.” I had taught a public class in Whistler outside. “Now that would have been thinking. What could this be good for?” I’m musing.

On my recent visit to Toronto, I stayed at an AirBnB of a hairstylist. Amongst our pleasantries and how-do-you-do’s, she had mentioned that she was planning on using periscope to transmit her live classes. Periscope could be useful in many learning situations, where an immediate live feed could provide visuals for psychomotor skills to the public. You could publicize it on twitter, similar to a Twitter chat. “Live Periscope Feed at 5 pm!” Or the like. The video could then be saved and perhaps more artfully curated for video distribution. The issue that could rise from impromptu video screenings: privacy, privacy, privacy.

“Huh.” I say. My boyfriend again raises his eyebrows and shakes his head.

“Okay,” I say, “I’m almost done with the phone.” The eggs look great.  And I’m going to eat them – right after I instagram them for posterity.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

First Twitter Chat!

Baby’s first Twitter chat!

132 tweets, 12 participants.

I think we can safely say that it wasn’t a rousing affair (especially as it began with 20 minutes of meditation and breathing), but it was geographically remarkable in that the chat influencers were from Idaho and California. Mostly the chat consisted of the hosts posting inspirational quotes and everyone commiserating about how busy our minds are. The irony of meditating while on Twitter did not escape us.

 

Chat participation

Chatting on twitter is a little like group texting. People have time to compose their thoughts (as quickly or as slowly as they like), ideas and links can easily be shared, and people can participate as much or as little as they like. Although 12 people (a low number, I grant you) participated in this chat, only 3-4 people really voiced opinions. The rest preferred to observe.

I can see why people like Twitter chats. They are a great way to have a collaborative Q&A, sideline private conversations, meet experts, and share resources. I didn’t find this chat particularly useful, beyond an interest in seeing who participated and from where. Well, and to note that “computer brain” and “meditation brain” are on opposite ends of the spectrum. The more I engage in social media, the harder it becomes for me to switch into a meditative mind state.

Finding your Chat

I stumbled onto this chat quite by accident  – and only because the chat time and hashtag were listed in this user’s twitter profile. Finding a chat seems a little right now like finding the “in” club through an unmarked door. They’re out there, but hard to find unless you know someone who knows someone. I did find a few online resources that list upcoming Twitter chats, although I feel like they are not comprehensive. Gnosis Arts lists them via a wiki, and someone (who?) has created a Google Sheet.

For my next chatting adventure, I’d like to engage in an established chat that has more than 12 people involved in order to see what kind of information maelstrom ensues. Let the chatting continue!

PS: Interesting privacy/ ownership issue. If I take a screenshot, is it “mine?” Photo courtesy of my Mac and my screenshot.

 

Eat your breakfast

I usually like a breakfast of coffee, more coffee, and cream. The burners in my kitchen are pristine from lack of use. In the olden times I’d scarf down a protein vega bar around 10 AM and be ravenous by about 11:30.

But during this sugarfast, I’ve been a positive breakfast dynamo. Three egg omelettes include with fish, spinach, kale, cilantro. Sprinkled with curry seasoning, then paired with a handful of nuts or a side of squash. Maybe some avocado.  And wonder of wonders, I’m not hungry til lunch. Or beyond.

I always though breakfast was irrelevant. Despite the data suggesting that breakfast is the most important mean for sustaining energy and managing weight, I sort of figured if I skipped it that it meant that I was consuming fewer calories. Right? Wrong. Breakfast skippers just eat more later. And because we get so darn hungry, we over do it. And snack at night, which doesn’t do us any good and can lead to weight gain. I just love to eat at night (and sugar, and popcorn, and small, crunchy things), however, I haven’t been having the same cravings at all now that I’m eating more substantially during the day. Wonder of wonders!

Moral of the story: My sugar free month has made me a breakfast convert.

So get your breakfast on.

If eggs work for you, then start by sauteeing in your add on ingredients, then crack three eggs over it and cook (I like to cook up the ingredients first, as they usually need more cook time than eggs). Here’s an interesting aside: eggs have traditionally made me feel nauseous. But organic, free-range eggs work just fine. Interesting, no? If eggs don’t work for you, then do a scramble of ingredients without the eggs, adding in your lean protein source of choice.

My usual contenders for add in’s (don’t add all of them at once :)):

  • kale
  • collards
  • spinach
  • turkey
  • chicken
  • fish
  • curry powder, spices
  • avocado (add on top after)
  • mushrooms
  • onions
  • peppers
  • tomatoes (b/c of sugar, I haven’t been doing too many of these)

Try a week of solid breakfast, and see what happens to your daily energy and hunger cycles.

Breakfast NOM NOM. Enjoy the yum.

 

Photo taken by me 🙂

Data: the underworld you are creating

There’s a problem with data.

No, not Data from Star Trek, with his emotion chip. But data. User data. Your data. My data.

The trail we leave behind us as we fritter along our merry away on the web, facebooking, linking, posting, lurking, and tweeting.

Have you ever noticed how those ads that crop up next to your google searches are uncannily similar to sites or products that you’ve looked for before? “Customized for you!” Google or Amazon may boast, as if mining our data is for our own convenience. Here’s the quandary that Jessica Reyman explores in “User data on the social web: authorship, agency, an appropriation” (2013): we have user content and user data.

While owners may have some tenuous right to their content (the blogs we create, photos we post), ownership is by no means cut and dried (check out this article where an artist modifies and sells other people’s Instagram posts). Sure, we have privacy settings which seem to restrict how our content may appear to the world, but most of us fail to understand these settings fully or use them appropriately. However, beyond our user content (the obvious stuff), we participate and help create another layer of information. And the ownership of this user data (the information trail we generate through our clicks and web interaction) has been appropriated and used by corporations without so much as a how-do-you-do.

“Although users are aware of the content that they are generating online…many are unaware of the additional, hidden act of contributions of data made with each participation.” – Reyman (2013)

Corporations may argue that this data is simply a by-product of user interaction (and why shouldn’t they have the right to it? After all, they created the platform upon which its being created). However, Reyman argues that this “social web” is a “dynamic, discursive narrative” that is impossible to create without the users themselves. Therefore, users should have some say in how it is managed.

Also, the use of this data by corporations and governments can have real-life consequences for users. Big Brother is indeed watching. While the information may be used for something seemingly innocuous (like suggesting books on Amazon), it can also have grievous consequences for individuals who live in societies where they may suffer persecution for their interests (think politics in more restrictive countries). Arguments have been made that user data could be used to track criminals, which is unnerving in terms of its privacy and legal implications.

Where do corporations stand on this issue? Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg argues that “privacy is dead,” a convenient position for one of world’s largest holders of user data around. You see, this user data that we create is very valuable because aggregates information across populations and can be sold and used for marketing and sales. (Which is why I see “yoga retreats” crop up on my google searches.) Creepy?  Well, a bit. But we must also acknowledge that corporate interests are the engine of innovation in a capitalistic society. Would the web have been created so quickly without the incentive of cash reward?

Historically, the money grab comes first, and the regulation and protection comes after. Think of the industrial revolution and the rise of labour laws. Working conditions and hours were horrific until capitalism was curtailed by government regulation. Well, now we are essentially in the wild west of the internet, just beginning to wonder if we need some sheriffs. Entering into a conversation about user data is part of a larger emerging discussion that has emerged about privacy, ownership, and usage. As can be seen in Obama’s “net neutral” stance, the role of government in regulating the web and its information is just beginning to emerge.

Perhaps we will decide ultimate that Zuckerberg is right and privacy is simply the cost of doing business. However, to make this decision, we must first wake up to our participation and start to contribute to the discussion. In other words, we have to recognize that we are meaningfully contributing to a huge network of information generation every time we click the mouse.

“We should seek more fair and ethical practices that make data collection transparent and that openly recognize the value of users’ data contributions to the co-creation of digital culture.” – Reyman (2013)

 

References:

Reyman, Jessica (2013). User data on the social web: authorship, agency, an appropriation. The National Council of Teachers of English.  

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons.

Blogging identity: art, porn, and privies

I am a transparent blogger. I use my real name, reveal personal details, and don’t separate my personal and professional identity. In my posts, I have discussed everything from flatulence to love to education, and readers who visit my blog will likely gain multi-dimensional view of who I am.

­­­

Art and reality 

“Never let them catch you at it.” – Spencer Tracy (on acting)

My comfort with a high level of transparency stems in part from my artistic background, where personal revelation is essential for meaningful performance. As an actor, I have repurposed my most sacred, internal and vulnerable experiences for public consumption. However, the public doesn’t usually register that they are seeing “me” because this identity is filtered through “character.” Our online identity is similar: we present a character that is considered, edited, and revised. In other words, there’s always an art to it. Blogging – no matter how revelatory – is curated.

Curating Identity

This curating of our identity is far from disingenuous, although it’s more obvious when we literally edit material for publication. However, every relationship we have, even with our most intimate loved ones, is edited to some extent. It’s why different aspects of ourselves become revealed with different friends, and why we learn to think before we speak our every thought. We are constantly evaluating and monitoring our self-expression. Full integration is  possible only from our own singular viewpoint.

From this perspective, our unease with online identify conflation is similar to the panic we feel when we are hanging with a friend from our wild days and then bump into our new boss. The crossing of the worlds forces us to recognize our own internal fragmentation, our willingness to be one thing to one person and something else in another context. Perhaps crafting our online identity is an unexpected opportunity to unite our fragmented selves, or to at least work towards become comfortable with our human inconsistency.

Entertainment

The line between truth and fiction has always been blurry, and social media is pushing us further into meta-awareness of its subjectivity. After all, when the medium is the same and the content sounds similar, distinguishing between reality, entertainment, and education becomes increasingly subjective. It is a similar conundrum to the quandary of defining porn:

“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” – Supreme Court Justice Stewart, on pornography

The most public purveyor of this blurriness (um, between truth and fiction, not porn and art) can be seen in President Obama, who has embraced non-traditional entertainment venues such as Saturday Night Live to meet the public. When a trusted figure like the President shows up on television in a show, reading scripted lines, the artificiality and limitations of both worlds are exposed. It’s a new uncanny valley, where the consistency of the artistic medium is fractured and the artificiality of the news is exposed. Truth is increasingly in the eye of the beholder, and the onus is now on the recipient – rather than the progenitor – to construct a personal version of reality.

Privacy and the Privy

So where does that leave us? Has trying to separate our personal and professional identities simply antiquated? Companies frequently (if unofficially) peruse Facebook profiles of potential employees where they can information that is considered illegal to obtain during the interviewing process, such as one’s age, kids, marital status, and sexual orientation. We feel that if it’s out there, we have a “right to know.” Similarly, it’s common to “face-stalk” someone after meeting them to get the goods. Our attempts to separate our personas into discrete data packages is becoming harder and harder to maintain. Engaging in social media is like having a huge party and inviting everyone you know to come with all their friends. Trying to control our personas is a little like trying to keep your parents from talking to your good times college roommate Spanky.

When I took a rafting trip down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon, we used an outdoor portable privy and washed in the river. “Privacy,” declared our guide, “is not looking.” In other words, privacy was in the hands of the observer, not the progenitor. If you want to be respectful, don’t look. Perhaps this will become the hallmark of social media, where the onus is on the observer, not the observed, to exercise restraint.

Or perhaps we’ll stop worrying so much about what will happen when Mom and Spanky meet, and instead just start enjoying the party.

 

References

Dennen, Vanessa (2009). Constructing academic alter-egos: identity issues in a blog-based community. Identity Journal Limited. doi: http://www.dx.doi.10.1007/sl/12394-009-0020-8

 

Photo credit.

Sugar free: my menus the last two weeks

Oh my god.

Who knew that squash would be so delicious?? But I get ahead of myself.

So I was asked by a friend, “Rachel, what exactly are you eating? Can you write out some of your menus?”

Why yes, I can. So here’s what a typical day has looked like for me over the last couple of sugar-free weeks:

Breakfast

  • Coffee – 6-8 AM
    • Okay okay, I know. But every day for me starts with coffee. Coffee fasting is for a different month. Not this month. Let’s not be crazy.
    • I take my coffee with cream, no sugar.
    • If you haven’t yet, try the paleo version with grass fed butter. It’s ridic. (And yes, a dairy fast is on my mind too…but not this month. See above notes on coffee.)
  • Breakfast omelette: between 9-11 AM
    • Throw some coconut oil into the pan.
    • Saute in whatever you fancy!
    • My favorite ingredients were organic turkey sausage, spinach, kale.
    • Three eggs. Bam, done.
    • If you’re sugar free, you can do cheese and stuff, but I stay away from cheese personally.
  • Add some sides to your breakfast.
    • Yes, sides! More sides! A slice of squash, or some hummus, or some sauerkraut (great for a happy gut!). Or avocado. Add enough fat that this will hold you over for a good long while and you will feel satiated. No toast. No potatoes. Forgot those pasty white things! Squash. Yummmmm.

Snack options

If you’re hungry, which you really may not be:

  • Squash. I love squash. Oh squash, where you have been all my life?? This one deserves its own blog so that I can get really poetic, but let’s just say that squash is my new favourite food. Squaaaaaash. Quick and dirty:
    • Heat oven to 400 or so (honestly, I never really check).
    • Cut squash in half.
    • Take out seeds.
    • Coat inside with coconut oil.
    • Put facedown on foil or cookie sheet.
    • Bake for awhile. 45 minutes-ish? (Again, I just leave it in there until I remember I put it there. Then I check. If it’s not done, I leave it longer.)
    • Once it’s all bubbly and soft and awesome, take it out.
    • Wait for it too cool.
    • Eat it.
    • Store by covering it and putting it in fridge, then cutting off pieces during the day and going NOM NOM NOM NOM.
    • I eat the skin. Is that weird? I dunno. But I do.
  • Nuts: Almonds, walnuts, cashews. Raw, please.
  • Cucumber, celery, cut up veggies – if your gut is happy eating crudite. Mine is not. Cucumber’s fine but the other stuff I would steam.
  • Reminder: no fruit. Who needs fruit?! Not you! At least not til next month.

Lunch 

If you want it. If you ate breakfast late enough, you might be fine through til an early dinner. But just in case. Eat 1-2 pm. Remember, no deprivation! If you’re hungry, then eat!

  • Salad. Huge salad. With almost anything. Favourite toppings of mine:
    • Chicken
    • Avocado
    • Cucumber
    • Shredded zucchini
    • Celery
    • Steamed broccoli
    • Sun-dried tomatoes (okay, okay, a little fruity, but as a treat)
    • Roasted garlic
    • Himalayan salt and pepper
    • Peppers
    • Mushrooms
    • Asparagus
    • Radish
    • Balsamic vinegar and olive oil
    • You could add nuts and seed, if your tummy takes such things (soaking nuts/seeds makes them easier to digest)

Dinner

  • Eat early if you can. Before dusk.
  • Protein (steamed fish, turkey, chicken, etc)
  • Warmed, steamed, dark green vegetables (think kale, broccoli, rapini, brussel sprouts, bok choy, collards, etc)
  • Salads if you like.
  • Squash! I’m serious. (But then again, I have developed a bit of a squash problem.)
  • Curry cauliflower (yummmm)
    • Cut up cauliflower into bitty bites
    • Put in a mixing bowl
    • Toss by hand in olive oil and curry (and maybe nutritional yeast). Get it all yummy coated.
    • Back in oven at about 350 for about 20-25 minutes
    • NOM NOM NOM
  • Kale chips
    • Strip the kale from the stalks
    • Massage with coconut oil

Drinks

  • My favourite treat ever. Dessert. Yum.
  • Tons and tons of water. Tons. Seriously. Tons. I drank a lot of pellegrino, too, but you want plenty of the old fashioned straight stuff.
  • Make cucumber water, lemon water, lime water. Water.

I’ve been looking into paleo sites as well for ideas. They have tons of good sugar free options.  My next step is going to be to figure out how to do what I’m doing and move towards the vegetarian side of things. Oh, and the darn coffee. And the dairy.

Shucks, it’s always something.

Meantime, here’s some places to be inspired! Let me know if you stumble on anything you love!

 

When the web gets sticky

This week I dove in and drowned. I got too excited about incorporating the tools from last week immediately and entirely into my  life. As a result, Twitter, Feed.ly, Facebook, and the blog took up a lot of my time, and I didn’t spend enough time exploring the new tools on the agenda.

Diigo

Diigo looks amazing, but felt completely counter-intuitive to me. I have used it fumblingly to annotate before, but never really explored how this can be useful or shared. Just sort of highlighted something and thought, “Oh, cool! Now…what?” As I dove in for another go, I found myself lost in “lists” and “outliners” and having a hard time figuring how to track entries or move them easily. I am excited about Diigo and see its value; I hope to create more time this week to explore it at a less frantic pace.

Pinterest

Pinterest is one that I’ve encountered before but never really explored and used. A visual scrapbook for images and video, Pinterest is – as a marketing friend of mine says – “girly.” I haven’t gone much into this world before, but again dipped my toes back in. The amount of social sharing that’s possible is incredible, although Pinterest is not reciprocal. That is, you don’t have to both “like” each other to pin stuff and see someone else’s board. I am interested in considering how these different tools work differently socially. For example, Facebook is mutual like (reciprocal), while Twitter and Pinterest are non-reciprocal. Like Tinder versus Plenty of Fish. Again, I’ve only just dipped my toes in here, but I’ll continue to play with it and see what happens.

To summarize, I got my butt kicked a bit this week. The combination of finishing teaching our 200-hour yoga teacher training with the fractal and ever-inward-spiralling obsession with our first week’s tools is encouraging me to take a breath and not go too far too fast.  Hard to resist the freeway, but I need to take the back roads and keep the speed limit for awhile longer. Until my internal tech is upgraded to a Porsche. Bad metaphor complete.

 

Photo credit.