realistic_optimist misstree is your email working? *poke poke* *lick!* 031120 ... REAListic optimIST wtshizzle... i finally answer my bajillion emails, and see a realistic_optimist page, and i'm like whoa what is this?! someone has nice things to say, or perhaps has venom to impart, either way it should be intriguing! and it was merely an inquiry as to the status of my email... hrm well i'd contribute something to this purported R.O. shrine if i had done anything worthy of it lately. alas, i've not been doing the things my godself is made of. when i do, i will post some self referential self-back-patting here. until then i'll continue not posting much around here, since i've not been too inspired, and my mind is all mucky, and instead focus on getting my quake team into the playoffs, and getting blathercon off the ground. 031121 ... misstree when i realized that i had popped your page's cherry, i froze like a deer in headlights. i felt the urge to say more, but decided to leave it to others. you know what i would have to say, tree-lookin' brother, you know that you are dear friend and creative soul and far more grounded than i, you know that the light you shimmer with will always make me smile serenely, you know that you are strong and smart and ohso gorgeous, and any more specific fawnings or zerberts or nosethumbings would simply give away your nature, and i like to keep hold of my unfair advantage. 'sides, i've written enough about you on other pages (and no, i won't tell you where) that i think i should be excused from doing it again simply to have something worth the loaf of Garlic bread and glass of wine i should be setting on your altar. 031121 ... Lemon_Soda I like you cause your stuff is fun to read or insightful, sometimes both. Also, because you read my stuff and comment on it. 031121 ... Death of a Rose hey Real, hows (some indefinable slang word used to mean, well, you know.....things)? 031121 ... REAListic optimIST well, i've been unemployed for months now, enjoying the longest vacation since i began preschool. finances have been tight, but life has been good. now i have come into a couple decent sums of money, and i believe that things happen for a purpose. therefore, either i won't get a job until after my benefits run out, and i will need the money for rent, or something bad is going to happen and i'll need the money for that, or i'm not going to be able to convince the court to take my evidence since i missed my courtdate but i will get the job for which i've applied that requires me to have a driver's license, but will have to use the money to pay fines and tickets. i guess that's the best outcome, so that's the one i will hope for. the last time i was with a girl was for about a month last july, and it was over a year before that that i was with one before even that. lately it's just been unattainable untouchable women who have been interested in me. pickiness and straightforwardness leads to lonliness but less heartache. im pretty lost in terms of my direction. i have some good ideas and a few tools in my pocket. hopefully i'm smart enough to use them, but my recent lack of progress has me feeling some self loathing. i am my own biggest obstacle. in spite of all this, i find time to be happy and to breathe and to smile, and so life is good. thank you for asking and earnestly wanting an answer. 031122 ... Death of a Rose in the words of the immortal dafremen; 'doOd', i enjoy reading your blathes and since you crave a response, this is it. i don't always leave anything behind in my wake, sometimes though i feel i can contribute. so, this unemployment is getting you down? may i ask what your area of expertise is? hope we can make this blathercon work, my brother. 031122 ... Death of a Rose oh and feel free to send an e-mail my way if ya want. and it looks like miss chaos magic has changed my status to 'moderator'. now what the hell do i do with this new role? and have you any task you need taken care of for the upcoming blathercon? 031122 ... REAListic optimIST my area of expertise? hrm. good question. i have a bachelor of sciences in liberal arts and sciences, with a major in psychology. i have experience working with chronically mentally ill, with addicts, and with criminals. i have experience in residential and community mental health settings. but i have experience elsewhere as well. i am planning to get my master's of social work i suppose, only because it seems necessary, not because i actually want the degree. i plan to study grantwriting as well. and we can do all the planning and task assignment stuff on the bigwigs group. it's a relief to have motivated help. if even half of the ideas that we have come up with work this will be a difficult blathercon to top indeed. 031122 ... REAListic optimIST (and i meant that it seemed like you earnestly wanted a response to your question, not that i was earnestly craving a response to my response to your question. just to clarify...) 031122 ... Doar thanks for the reply and the clarification Real 031122 ... seventeen can I eat your socks? 031123 ... REAListic optimIST my roommate's cat used to make love to my socks. i found that rather disgusting as she would wait until they were all sweaty. however, if my socks are a delicacy to seventeens, then let me find a pair i won't need for a bit... 031123 ... pipedream *hides behind a door and pounces on R.O when he isn't looking* hellooo! *grins* 031124 ... REAListic optimIST *rolls over and over giggling with pipedream after the initial "oof!"* pipey, you have to be the most action oriented poster here. you are always *action*ing something or other hehe. 'ello yourself :) 031124 ... seventeen do you have AIM or MSN messenger? (I'm yummychuckle for both) you should add me. eh? EH? *nudge nudge* 031125 ... REAListic optimIST ok, but then perhaps YOU should respond to my messages?! huh? *nudge* *nudge* *poke* *poke* *fwap* fwap* 031125 ... Rosie looks like we are coming for the yurts and staying for the hot tubs m'man. Rock n' Roll . 031219 ... realistic optimist i can't wait! is it summer yet? *checks calendar* setting this up will be my gift back to all of you who have affected me in ways unimaginable. i can't wait to meet all of you wonderful people! *checks calendar again* well, i have to finish decorating my apartment and cleaning up, since my mom is going to be here in a few days! *runs around the apartment, spreading holiday cheer* 031219 ... pipers woo woo, MSN? wherewhere? real-time talkin', yo ho ho! yup, i *am* pretty asterisky...i enjoy expressing affection to peeps i enjoy (except of course when it really really counts, then i get shy and tongue-tied which is a real pain because that's the last thing you'd wanta be) asterisky frisky ummm...never mind loll *gives R.O a massive hug* i looove this one :D you're a psychologist...that's really brilliant; i'm massively interested in how the mind ticks...specially dreaming and consciousness; i wrote my term paper for Human Behavior on that. how the mind is never 'asleep', and the fact that during R.E.M sleep its functioning like it does when you're awake, only its turned your consciousness off...so we can sleep talk and walk and do all kinds of things without even knowing it; the brain/mind is an incredibly powerful thing..has a life of its own. scary sometimes. 031219 ... realistic optimist sometimes consciousness seems to me to be the most important thing of all to study. it is that which allows creation, that which allows reality and paradigm shifting, and that which allows society at all. i feel that until we can determine a better way of analyzing and understanding consciousness than cognitive or behavioural "science," we will be hard pressed to solve many other subtly related puzzles. 031220 ... realistic optimist and thanks for the hug, pipey. i can really use it right now. leave it to the holidays to make one feel as if everything is coming apart. 031220 ... cymoril *LLLLLLLIIIIIIIICCCCCCCKKKKKKKK* hoopy hollydays dahlink. lick k-os and pet yer mum for me. 031220 ... pipers no probs, lurve... :) yep...consciousness should one of the supreme-o focuses of cognitive science...im rather fascinated by hyponitism too; can you hypnotise someone? 031221 ... realistic optimist i have never learned how, nor have i tried, however it is a topic which does fascinate me. i am looking into integrative psychiatry at the moment as a possible field of study. interesting stuff, bridging eastern philosophy with western medicine ideas. actually trying to get at the source of the issue instead of merely treating symptoms. 031221 ... pipers hm. what would constitute as eastern psychiatry? 031222 ... realistic optimist well eastern medicine (in my limited understanding) is more about the chi (your body's energy), and how you are living. the theory is that sickness is merely a blockage of the chi manifested by your lifestyle and thought patterns, and to fix the blockage, you must fix the way you are living your life. medicine and herbs are more secondary, and really only used as an aid to the first part. therefore, integrative psychiatry takes an approach in which the things western medicine has learned about the different parts of the brain, the biochemistry, and the symptomology has equal footing with the aforementioned eastern approaches to medicine. of course such a thing will meet a great deal of resistance, as the pharmaceutical companies are getting richer and richer, while even hospitals struggle to make a profit, showing where the power lies in the medicine machine. 031223 ... Death of a Rose just thought i'd bump your page to the recent list doOd. 040228 ... oldephebe can't believe i haven't posted to this page..yeah RO you're the cat's pajamas and no irony intended..i'm just completely out of coherent or intelligent banter or serious conversation firght now.. :) later, 040228 ... pipers i found a caterpiggle under the couch 040228 ... realistic optimist i got my new "business" cards: ------------------------------------ Realistic Optimist "Faith applied reasonably is practical magic." [name] activist Fax / Phone: (206) 339-3739 realistic.optimist@gmail.com ------------------------------------ they are so fun! i went to vistaprint and got them for free (well i had to pay shipping) if you go to the site, i got the colored pencil drawing of the tree for my background. 050302 ... me *lick!* 050303 ... realistic optimist ok. so my uncle said if i can decide what i want to be when i grow up, he will pay for a year of grad school: room, board, tuition, the works. the good thing is, i feel like i've pretty much found myself. i feel like i'm in the best position in my life to be making such decisions. scholastic background --------------------------------- several years after an undergraduate bachelor's of sciences in arts and sciences degree was awarded (with a major in psychology), and after 5+ years of field experience in community and residential mental health, and after sitting on boards to determine how this county should reshape the available mental health services, sitting on a board overseeing and helping to facilitate a performance group consisting of people in recovery, and/or who have received various psychological diagnoses. I was part of a layoff consisting of 50% of the workforce of the huge managed-care-uber-conglomorate-corp which took over almost all of portland metro area's mental health agencies. ---------------------------------- recent experience ----------------------------------- for the past year, i've been involved in public policy. at first, i was working to expand the medical marijuana law here in oregon. then lately, i've been doing canvassing and campaign coordination for a statewide environmental group. through this work, i've learned management, project management, media relations, built business contacts, lobbying experience, and several other useful skills. -------------------------------------- thoughts on direction --------------------------------------- it is important for my overall passion and joie de vivre that i morally agree with my profession, and that my profession in some way helps to make humanity more aware of our current social situation, and hopefully empowers us to transcend a bit of the bullshit structure that is locking us into the downward arc of this american empire. on the same hand, i'd really like to be able to travel the world. i love people, and immersing myself in a culture. perhaps a profession which would allow this would be desireable, as well. ----------------------------------------- things i'm considering getting a degree in ------------------------------------------ * public policy * master's of social work with a focus on management with the idea that i plan to eventually manage non-profits * environmental law * integrative psychology (a merging of eastern medicine with western psychology and psychiatry) * teaching (english perhaps?) * something else?! ------------------------------------------ honestly,