Anatomy of a hero: Notes from an Emotional Intelligence training.

Hiya you throngs of people you! 😀

OK so today I attended a training at work called Emotional Intelligence.  If you’re thinking it’s a Oprah-ish, new agey, What-Color-is-Your-Parachute kinda deal, you’re right.   Not to trivialize it, I did gain some good Ah-ha-moment! insights in the session but  those are for my thoughts only…I don’t Ah-ha! and tell.   What kinda girl do you think I am?  But here are 3 that I’m willing to part with:

1. Emotional Intelligence trainers who look like AND have the affectations of Richard Dreyfuss (and thereby have you thinking about What About Bob the entire session) are distracting.
2. Some phone apps still make noise—loud noise even though you’ve silenced your phone. My bad.
3. Librarians are an Emotionally challenged bunch! Breathe! Do the Harlem Shake! Give a hug! Receive a hug! Something! Dang!

Lastly,  I will leave you with one helpful exercise that Dreyfuss had us do.  He instructed us to think back on those ‘heroes’ in our lives that really inspired us or made an impression on us and isolate the characteristic in them that we liked/admired.  Give this one a try!

Here’s my short list:

• My Grandmother– Powerful love
• My Mama– Superhuman selflessness
• Sister Vanessa (pre-school teacher at my Elementary school)- Kindness and grace under fire
• Lady J. Boone– Excellent Listener
• Mrs. Parker (7th grade teacher)- Nurtured all students, not just the squeaky wheels
• Ummi– The picture of patience
• My Big Sister– Responsible before her time…

So many others (lots of women huh?), not enough space.  Who are your heroes and why?

Until next time…

Give me! Give Me! I need! I need!!!!

Subway escapades and books to boot…or read.

Welcome to another edition of…Three-random-thoughts-on-the-subway-Thursday’s!

1. Oh my God! Is that Paul Giamatti! OMG I  love him!! Is it? Could it be?  Nah. This is Atlanta.
2. Wait. Can these people hear that I’m listening to Maxwell? I don’t want them to see me/hear me listening to Maxwell. What will they think if they can hear my Maxwell?
3. Oh Lord! This dude beside me didn’t assume the herky-jerky-train-stance! If this dude falls on me it’s gonna be a problem! Dangit!

For more subway fare (Get it?! Subway fare :D) visit here.  Photo’s by Kubrick.  Stanley Kubrick.  Once there check out the 2nd shot for an illustration of the herky-jerky-train-stance:  feet shoulder width apart with a slight lean forward, to anticipate sudden movements and prepare to brace

Sure the Feeble 5 can be on the train, but not Paul Giamatti. Maybe he's filming Sideways 2. Hope so!

And now for the book love!

Day/titles 108-110

At the request of my blog buddy Sel, here are some works by African authors. Lottery be darned! I run this!! 😀

Short read but oh so engaging!

Short stories. Every one of them worth the price of admission but 'Luxurious Hearses'...grabs you and transfixes you. You are there.

Oyeyemi knows how to tell a tale that will scare the pants off you.

Pretty please! With pink icing on top!

Day/title 53

Bibliographic Information:

Voices on the River: The Story of the Mississippi Waterways

Walter Havighurst

MacMillan, 1964

Summary:

Surveys the Mississippi’s importance over three centuries as a transportation system and contribution to the heartland of American frontier life.

My reaction:

This book was obviously written before it became common knowledge that human beings have the attention span of a gnats toenail clipping–at least the new millennium human being does.  I mean the author goes on and on! There’s huge, looming chunks of text! No bullet points?! No pages of illustrations and/or PowerPoint flow chart screen shots (shout out to Jeniffer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad author)!?  Shoulda known he’d be long winded with a name like Walter Havighurst; he’s all ‘Battle of Tippecanoe’ this and ‘Captain Dickie Hiernaux’ that.  I swear all of the names in the book are a mouthful and I’d just rather chew on something else right now. Where’s my Dunkin Donuts coupon?

But honestly.  I read a couple of paragraphs and it does have a sprawling, adventurous feel to it.  Now if he’d just write a screen play and do a film adaptation I’m all in.

I actually hate sprinkles but the quintessential donut image always has them.

PS– I want to shake it up a bit.  Because I do a lottery to get my call numbers I’m only able to get  non-fiction titles–because those are comprised of 3-7 numbers and a name/descriptor.  But I’m feigning for some fiction, some novels.  The ‘call numbers’ for novels are generally just the author’s last name.  I need to invent a way to do a lottery of sorts for pulling names.  I need a way to randomly select names so that I can go hunt down books by those (hopefully, fingers crossed, please let them be) authors. Make sense? Any suggestions?

Day 28 Stars and Thumbs

Your favorite movie:

Allow me to jump up on my film geek high horse.

photo from iamthemama.com

Whew! Vertigo!

So here’s how I feel.  If you really love film, it’s not possible to choose a favorite movie.  I think my film Sheik—The Incomparable Roger Ebert—would tend to agree.  When queried with the inevitable “whats your favorite movie?”,  he ultimately arrives at this most astute sentiment “The only truly honest answer is: I don’t know.”  

I feel you Roger.  I have zero film education/background save for my auto-didactically informed estimation of what makes good cinema.  For me its these few things:

• no matter how outrageous the subject matter, does it ring true?
• does the film lift, carry and then place the voyeur gently on the ground—or does it drop you with a thud?
• does it tell a complete tale? and accomplish what it set out to do (make you laugh, cry, think)?

No, I don’t have a favorite film but I do have female and male lead types that I’m partial to.  I love my men wounded but transendentally aware like Randy “The Ram” Robinson in The Wrestler and Bob Harris in Lost in Translation.  I like them slightly twisted and dark but still managing to be the most ethereal thing on the screen like Karl Childers in Sling Blade and Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction.  I like them unapologetically un-normal and endearing like Andy Stitzer in The 40 Year Old Virgin and Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin.

As for the ladies.  I like my female leads remarkable in ways other than beauty, like Annie Hall in Annie Hall, Celie in The Color Purple and Ruby in Cold Mountain.  I like for them to be the smartest, most insightful thing on the screen—if not the most vulnerable—like Addie Loggins in Paper Moon and June Carter Cash in Walk the Line.

So there you have it.  I shall now dismount the steed I rode in on.  His name you ask—what else would an aspiring film snob name a pet?  Rosebud of course.