The Imprint-TV blog is for people who often tune out and turn off their nightly news simply because they find it depressing. However, there are stories everywhere that can break through the flood of debilitating and dehumanizing news and focus on positive people who are changing society without any thought of reward or praise. We created this blog to challenge Imprint-TV viewers – encouraging them to find their own ways to leave a positive imprint on their communities and the world.
Tonight will be 2010's biggest and brightest full moon! A Native American monkier, also calls this "wolf moon," stating that hungry wolves used to howl at the moon on cold winter nights. The shape of the moon will be an ellipse, causing it to reach the closest point to Earth, therefore making it more brilliant than others to come. According to http://www.spaceweather.com/, tonight's moon will be about 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter than lesser full moons of the year. Be sure to see if you can spot the man on the moon! Story from http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100129/sc_space/biggestandbrightestfullmoonof2010tonight
Sailors among a boat in Warsaw, Poland got an unexpected surprise when they saw a dog floating on a block of ice more than 100 miles up a river, headed towards the Baltic Sea. As the crew got closer, they saw the dog trying not to fall into the icy waters. Crew members aboard the Baltica, rescued the poor dog and are now in the process of finding its owner, or possibly, a new home. See the entire story and video at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35098616/ns/world_news-wonderful_world/
Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, these four courageous teens experience tough circumstances in their own lives everyday. However, they made the unselfish decision and committment to feed local families in need through an organization called buildOn. Check out this amazing story! http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/35058256#35058256
Jobs can sometimes be hard to come by in today’s economic recession. But don’t worry we’ve got some tips to help you stay on the employer’s radar.
1. Temporary Staffing In research done by the American Staffing Association, studies show that temporary hires increase as the economy rebounds from a recession. The American Staffing Association’s website www.americanstaffing.net, has a database of over 15,000 staffing firms to be searched by location or specialty. Be sure to apply to several different firms. Seasonal jobs are available as well, especially during the holidays.
2. Healthcare There is always a constant need for doctors, nurses, home health aides, pharmacists, etc. Companies like CVS and Walgreens say they are hiring for pharmacy positions nationwide. If you don’t have medical training, places like Career Stop One, Workforce One, or CareerOneStop.org have information about places that offer training in several areas of healthcare.
3. Federal Law Enforcement There is a forecast of 50,000 new federal jobs from positions for the Transportation Security Administration, to special agents in the Secret Service. USAJobs.gov is a website that breaks down the process of applying to federal positions.
4. Try a start-up company. According to the Commerce Department, 64 percent of all new jobs in the past 15 years have been created by small businesses. These companies may offer interesting positions, but it can be difficult to find these names initially. However, website Startuphire.com adds about 4,000 new jobs a month to the site.
5. Be Aware of Steep Competition Starwood hotels had 10,000 applicants apply for only 300 positions in their newest Washington D.C. location. These numbers may be alarming but don’t let them stop you from applying. This is an incentive to stay sharp at all times. Complete story found at http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/JobClub/tips-find-job-january/story?id=9650636&page=2
The future looks a bit brighter two young Haitian earthquake victims. Bettenia and Dieunette, last names unknown, were among 53 children rescued from the earthquake rubble of their group home in Port-au-Prince. The girls now share a home with their new adoptive parents, Kristin and Scott Heaton of Omaha, Nebraska. After the family’s biological daughter Victoria learned of the country’s poverty-stricken areas, she encouraged her parents to help. The Heatons first met Dieunette in Haiti when she was 6-months-old and the family volunteered to sponsor her for a brain surgery in 2008. The young girl first entered the orphanage when a hurricane swept through her home town, leaving her mother unable to care for her. Kristin Heaton visited Haiti every three months over the last several years to check on Bettania and Dieunette and take supplies to their orphanage. The Heatons had been in the delayed process of adopting both girls over the past three years, but on January 18th, the United States decided to loosen its Visa requirements on Haitian children, left parentless, in near-final stages of adoption. This affected 900 children awaiting adoption. “We can’t think of anything we’d rather do than raise these children and make a difference,” Kristin Heaton said. Bettenia and Dieunette are still getting used to their new home. Since Dieunette speaks little English, they plan to home school the girls until they are ready to interact with their peers. In the meantime, Kristin says their goal is to, “just spoil them rotten.” For the full article, visit http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/us/26orphans.html?ref=us.
Anya was neglected, and finally abandoned. Most of the two years of her life was spent locked in a garage. When humans approached, the large, gentle Leonberger-golden retriever mix cowered in fear.
Stewart Thorpe spent 30 of his 55 years on Boston’s streets, bundled in depression. He used to sleep in subways and on sidewalks. When Pine Street workers eventually reached out to him, he was too fearful to look them in the eyes.
These two homeless creatures - man and dog, both shadows in life - are finding that they have a lot in common - a history of abandonment, trauma, and distrust.
Over the past year, something remarkable has happened to Thorpe and Anya and a handful of other homeless men and dogs in a Pine Street transitional home.
Anya is finding out what it means to be cared for in a loving home, while Thorpe and 10 other men are discovering what it means to live again.
“I’ve committed myself to doing something again,’’ Thorpe said. “I’m thinking of something other than me.’’
Anya is the latest of six dogs once considered unadoptable who have had a foster stint at Pine Street’s Stapleton House, a four-story South End dwelling for men entrenched in homelessness.
The program tries to get men housed first, before addressing their medical, long-term housing, and emotional needs. The men, in their 50s through 70s, learn basic life skills such as sharing common space, caring for themselves, and looking people in the eye.
Barbara Davidson, who heads the effort, has spent years helping the homeless who struggle with paranoia and other psychiatric issues. The men she helps do not cause trouble, but they do not want help and do not talk about their lives - which makes assisting them difficult.
A year ago, she was working with a paranoid man who was refusing treatment. But he loved dogs. To put him at ease, Davidson and her client began volunteering at the nearby animal shelter. Soon he wanted a dog for himself.
“I told him that we could bring in dogs that, like everyone else here, don’t have homes, and work with them just like we do the humans,’’ Davidson said.
Dogs are the ultimate ice breakers. They teach the men to build trust and open up about their hidden lives, so the staff of five can get the humans the help they need. The dogs learn to accept love and temper their aggression. On their daily walks, the dogs are conversation starters with strangers.
These may be small feats in the annals of daily life, but for men and dogs who have spent much of their lives in the grip of homelessness, these encounters are giant leaps to newfound independence.
Amy Marder, a veterinarian with the Animal Rescue League who is not connected with the effort, said both dog and man are connecting and helping each other through their shared histories of isolation.
“It’s also saying to the homeless men that it is OK to get help,’’ she said.
So far, it is working. Five of the dogs have been adopted to homes across the state, and six men are getting the treatment they long shunned. One has his own apartment, and at least four are on their way to getting their own home.
“A lot of people are very secretive about their lives and histories, but if you talk through the dog, you begin to know the person,’’ Davidson said.
The bond between dogs and humans has long been documented, with studies showing how canines reduce stress, boost happiness, and brighten one’s outlook, said Katenna Jones, an animal behaviorist at the American Humane Association’s office in Rhode Island.
Across the country, specialists have been providing dogs to inmates and parolees as well as to children and elders who have difficulty coping with grief or loneliness. Pairing dogs with the homeless is new, though, she said.
“These relationships are mutually successful for the humans and the dogs,’’ Jones said. “The contact is nonjudgmental. . . . It’s something that you can’t necessarily get with another person, especially people with social anxieties and phobias and people who have a hard time interacting with others.’’
Different breeds have stayed at Stapleton House, most of them from All Dog Rescue, a Natick-based volunteer group that places abandoned dogs in foster homes.
Brady, a mixed breed with heartworm and depression, was the first dog at the house. Now he’s living pretty in a new adoptive home, Davidson said.
Spike Lee, a miniature poodle mix, had a bad attitude. “He was the meanest little street dog ever,’’ Davidson said. But the men calmed him down.
Then there was King, a cocker spaniel found wandering the streets with part of a backyard chain around his neck.
Something about King evoked a childhood memory for William S. Collins, 56, an Army veteran.
Collins doesn’t say much - but the homeless man has undergone a dramatic turnaround. When he came to the transitional house, he was severely depressed and hardly spoke, said Jacqueline Swanson, a case manager there.
It was a slow process, but the staff helped Collins get the right medication to treat his depression. Months later, he completed a janitorial training program and is on the waiting list for a job and an apartment.
“He stuck with it, he followed through, he didn’t give up,’’ Swanson said.
Collins didn’t give up on King, either. The dog reminded him of the German shepherd he had when he was teenager.
There have been other success stories, too. A man in his 70s finally began talking about his life after two years at the house, revealing that he had been an electrician for a big company. With the staff’s help, he is now awaiting his first Social Security check.
In the past few weeks, the men have been fostering Anya, who follows them around or finds one of them to curl up next to - her soft, brown eyes melting their hearts.
She has some aggression issues with other dogs, but the men are helping her with that.
Her new best friend is Michael O’Brien, who has a history of roaming from shelter to shelter. O’Brien, 61, thought some of the other dogs were too depressed or too yappy.
But Anya, he said, is just right for him.
“I like her the best,’’ he said. “I didn’t know about having a dog before. . . . She’s just good company.’’
Charlie Simpson waves during his five mile cycle ride around South Park, west London, Sunday Jan. 24, 2010. A young British schoolboy has raised nearly 100,000 pounds ($160,000) for Haiti's relief effort. Seven-year-old Charlie Simpson was so upset by the devastating images of Haiti's deadly earthquake that he asked his mother if she could help him set up a sponsored bicycle ride around his local park in west London. Charlie originally hoped to raise 500 pounds ($800) for UNICEF's Haiti appeal with Sunday's 5-mile bike ride but his Internet page was flooded with donations.
Full Article @ link: http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2010/01/25/uk_7_year_old_raises_tens_of_thousands_for_haiti/
A miracle rescue has happened eight days after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti when a 5-year-old boy was pulled out alive from his collapsed home.
Though the boy is suffering from severe dehydration, he suffered no broken bones, according to his doctors. Unfortunately, his mother was killed and his father is still missing.
You could say times appear to be tough. The earthquake in Haiti, the slumping global economy, unemployment rates going up, the lack of food and clean water throughout the world, a Hollywood-obsessed culture being fed a false reality - and the list can go on. But according to Oprah, even though things may be rough at the moment, there are 100 people, places, ideas and things we have to get excited about. Bright spots, she describes, in the horizon. We'll give you 10 of our favorites courtesy of Oprah.com. Check out the other 90 at: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/100-Things-That-Are-Getting-Better.
(1) Your chances of visiting the moon Numerous astronauts and several animal species including a squirrel monkey named Gordo have made it up there, but the average earthling has been stuck on the sidelines until, well, soon: Richard Branson's latest venture, Virgin Galactic, aims to be the first to book civilian trips into space, for $200,000 a head, a price the company hopes will fall dramatically over time. Multiple competitors are tinkering with tourist spaceships, and the FAA has already released its set of space travel regulations.
(2) Poetry Dear reader, you may feel a twinge of trepidation, But poetry is key to modern conversation. In classrooms, poet laureate Kay Ryan makes A case for passing time with Bishop, Frost, and Blake. Or Keats—Jane Campion's Bright Star garnered rave reviews For conjuring the young Romantic's passion for his muse. Great poets—Robert Graves and Ogden Nash, e.g.— Inspired Leave Your Sleep, Natalie Merchant's CD. Even Stephen King has found a poet's perch. He channels Coleridge in the epic "The Bone Church." Those Levi's ads, meanwhile, attract both praise and venom: Blasphemy or genius, Walt Whitman pitching denim?
(3) Definition of the good life It used to mean ostentatious designer bags, stock options, and second homes; now we're spending $11 billion annually on goods and services that champion self-improvement. Voluntourism and spending time with the family are up, and socially responsible investing—in communities and eco-friendly companies that don't profit from tobacco, oil, or sweatshop labor—is at an all-time high, totaling about $2.7 trillion. The good life just got better.
(4) Oak Street, New Orleans Ransacked by looters during Katrina, historic Oak Street is back in action. Businesses like Ace Hardware, the Maple Leaf Bar, and the legendary Jacques-Imo's Café have reopened, and new ones are popping up: Blue Cypress Books, two yoga studios, and a day spa for pets (nothing says "We're back!" like a day spa for pets). A $5.4 million overhaul helped, as has the annual Po-Boy Preservation Festival.
(5) Wind power Change is in the air: We now produce enough wind power to run seven million homes. The goal is to generate 20 percent of our power from wind by 2030, which would mean a 25 percent reduction in CO2 emissions. (6) The news In 1973, the year Rachel Maddow was born, only about 5 percent of TV newspeople were female. Now we're up to 42 percent, with those glam truth-tellers Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer leading the charge.
(7) Breast cancer survival rates Keep kneading those breasts, ladies: A recent report from the American Cancer Society found that since 1990, breast cancer mortality rates have been steadily dropping—by 2 percent a year among women 50 and older, and by 3.2 percent a year among women younger than 50; we all have early detection, healthier lifestyle choices, and improved cancer treatments to thank.
(8) Prosthetics A spring-loaded artificial knee called the XT9 means that above-the-knee amputees can now snowboard and rock climb; microprocessor-controlled prosthetics have sensors that anticipate your every step; and the bionic i-LIMB responds to muscle signals.
(9) EPA A shot of much-needed vitality and resolve has come to the Environmental Protection Agency courtesy of Lisa Jackson, its first-ever African-American chief. In her crosshairs: greenhouse gases, hazardous waste sites, climate change, tailpipe emissions, protection of our waterways, clean air standards.
(10) You You've just got this glow about you—some combination of wisdom and inner peace, plus a lovely self-awareness. You're not sweating the small stuff; you know what feels good, feels right, and you simply don't muck around with the rest. You're not a kid anymore, and we mean that as a high compliment. There's a new kind of lightness about you. And your hair has never looked better.
One Million Acts of Kindness is an incredible mission founded/created by Bob Votruba, a father of three college kids. His goal - to encourage people to individually perform one million acts of kindness in their lifetime. He said his motivation came from contemplating the kind of world kids are currently living in which sparked great concern. He believes in an effort to create a safer, more loving world, people should purposely commit acts of kindness. A sort of "paying it forward"-type of outlook.
To get this process going, Votruba bought a bus, decked it out with the help of more than 50 friends and family members, and took off on a 10-year journey with his Boston Terrier, Bogart. He's traveling throughout the country, visiting college campuses, hoping to promote a kindness movement. He started in August 2009. Be sure to check out his blog which is updated with each stop he makes along the way. And get ready to spread the word about Kindness Week which takes place February 8-14. Check out Bob's website to learn more: http://www.onemillionactsofkindness.com/.
From CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/13/world/main6090814.shtml?tag=topnews
Here is a list of charitable organizations helping the victims of the earthquake: Americans seeking information about family members in Haiti should call the U.S. Department of State, Office of Overseas Citizens Services, at 1-888-407-4747 or 202-647-5225.
• American Red Cross • Action Against Hunger • AmeriCares • American Jewish World Service • CARE • Beyond Borders • Catholic Relief Services • Direct Relief International • Childcare Worldwide • Doctors Without Borders • Feed My Starving Children • Friends of WFP • Haitian Health Foundation • International Medical Corps • Hope for Haiti • International Relief Teams • Medical Teams International • Meds and Food for Kids • Mercy Corps • Oxfam • Operation USA • Partners in Health • Samaritan's Purse • Save the Children • UNICEF • World Concern • World Vision • Yele Haiti • Wyclef Jean's grassroots organization: Text Yele to 501 501 to donate $5 via your cellphone
The U.S. State Department Operations Center said Americans seeking information about family members in Haiti should call 1-888-407-4747. Due to heavy volume, some callers may receive a recording. "Our embassy is still in the early stages of contacting American citizens through our Warden Network," the U.S. State Department said in a statement. "Communications are very difficult within Haiti at this time."
For those interesting in helping immediately, simply text "HAITI" to "90999" and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill. (For more information, go to the Department of State blog.)
From CBS NEWS: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/12/world/main6089607.shtml?tag=nl.e875
The International Red Cross and other aid groups said Wednesday they were preparing a major disaster relief effort in Haiti after a powerful earthquake struck the capital.
ICRC spokesman Simon Schorno said the agency was preparing to send a relief team from Geneva to help hospitals deal with casualties caused by "massive destruction in all the main neighborhoods of the city."
Schorno said that Haitian Red Cross staff were completely overwhelmed and that there was little or no coordinated aid effort at this point. He said there was "very little information about the scale of the disaster."
The U.S., Britain, France, Mexico, Venezuela and Taiwan have pledged to send aid teams.
The United States started its disaster response efforts Tuesday at the Department of State, according to spokesman Philip Crowley, as President Obama ordered U.S. agencies to begin preparations.
"It is the poorest country in the hemisphere and clearly will need an enormous amount of assistance," Crowley said. "And as the President said, we are standing by to do whatever we can."
A spokesman for the French foreign ministry said Wednesday that two airplanes carrying humanitarian aid would depart later in the day for the Haitian capital. He said the main airport in Port-au-Prince was able to accommodate landing aid flights.
While communications between Washington and the U.S. Embassy in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince were spotty, officials there reported "significant damage."
The State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. Southern Command started to coordinate on Tuesday.
The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance will be assembling a team to send to Haiti, Crowley said, including search and rescue experts from the U.S.
Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere subcommittee, said, "This is the worst possible time for a natural disaster in Haiti, a country which is still recovering from the devastating storms of just over a year ago."
Engel urged the administration "to do everything possible to help" the Haitian people recover.
Former President Bill Clinton, the U.N. special envoy for Haiti, said his office and the rest of the U.N. system were monitoring the situation. He pledged relief, rebuilding and recovery assistance to Haiti.
South Florida's large Haitian-American community reacted with worry after learning that their homeland had been hit by a devastating earthquake.
West Palm Beach firefighter Nate Lasseur was desperately trying Tuesday to reach family and the firefighters he trains in Port-au-Prince. Lasseur says land lines, cell phones and Internet connections are all down.
Lasseur was training firefighters in Port-au-Prince in November 2008 when a school collapsed, killing nearly a hundred people. He described a chaotic scene then and feared the Port-au-Prince fire station would be overwhelmed by debris from the capital's many unsafe buildings clogging the narrow roads.
From the Associate Press/NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122469287
Miep Gies, the office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family for two years and saved the teenager's diary, has died, the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam said Tuesday. She was 100.
Gies' Web site reported that she died Monday after a brief illness. The report was confirmed by museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostar, but she gave no details. The British Broadcasting Corp. said she died in a nursing home after suffering a fall last month.
Gies was the last of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and good cheer to the secret annex behind the canal warehouse where Anne, her parents, sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during World War II.
After the apartment was raided by the German police, Gies gathered up Anne's scattered notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer for her return after the war. The diary, which Anne Frank was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from June 12, 1942 until Aug. 1, 1944.
Gies refused to read the papers, saying even a teenager's privacy was sacred. Later, she said if she had read them she would have had to burn them because they incriminated the "helpers."
Anne Frank died of typhus at age 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, just two weeks before the camp was liberated. Gies gave the diary to Anne's father Otto, the only survivor, who published it in 1947.
After the diary was published, Gies tirelessly promoted causes of tolerance. She brushed aside the accolades for helping hide the Frank family as more than she deserved — as if, she said, she had tried to save all the Jews of occupied Holland.
"This is very unfair. So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work," she wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press days before her 100th birthday last February.
The Diary of Anne Frank was the first popular book about the Holocaust, and has been read by millions of children and adults around the world in some 65 languages.
For her courage, Gies was bestowed with the "Righteous Gentile" title by the Israeli Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. She has also been honored by the German government, Dutch monarchy and educational institutions.
Nevertheless, Gies resisted being made a character study of heroism for the young.
"I don't want to be considered a hero," she said in a 1997 online chat with schoolchildren.
"Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary."
Born Hermine Santrouschitz on Feb. 15, 1909, in Vienna, Gies moved to Amsterdam in 1922 to escape food shortages in Austria. She lived with a host family who gave her the nickname Miep.
In 1933, Gies took a job as an office assistant in the spice business of Otto Frank. After refusing to join a Nazi organization in 1941, she avoided deportation to Austria by marrying her Dutch boyfriend, Jan Gies.
As the Nazis ramped up their arrests and deportations of Dutch Jews, Otto Frank asked Gies in July 1942 to help hide his family in the annex above the company's canal-side warehouse on Prinsengracht 263 and to bring them food and supplies.
"I answered, 'Yes, of course.' It seemed perfectly natural to me. I could help these people. They were powerless, they didn't know where to turn," she said years later.
Jan and Miep Gies worked with four other employees in the firm to sustain the Franks and four other Jews sharing the annex. Jan secured extra food ration cards from the underground resistance. Miep cycled around the city, alternating grocers to ward off suspicions from this highly dangerous activity.
In her e-mail to the AP last February, Gies remembered her husband, who died in 1993, as one of Holland's unsung war heroes. "He was a resistance man who said nothing but did a lot. During the war he refused to say anything about his work, only that he might not come back one night. People like him existed in thousands but were never heard," she wrote.
Touched by Anne's precocious intelligence and loneliness, Miep also brought Anne books and newspapers while remembering everybody's birthdays and special days with gifts.
"It seems as if we are never far from Miep's thoughts," Anne wrote.
In her own book, Anne Frank Remembered, Gies recalled being in the office when the German police, acting on a tip that historians have failed to trace, raided the hide-out in August 1944.
A policeman opened the door to the main office and pointed a revolver at the three employees, telling them to sit quietly. "Bep, we've had it," Gies whispered to Bep Voskuijl.
After the arrests, she went to the police station to offer a bribe for the Franks' release, but it was too late. On Aug. 8, they were sent to Westerbork, a concentration camp in eastern Holland from where they were later packed into cattle cars and deported to Auschwitz. A few months later, Anne and her sister Margot were transported to Bergen-Belsen.
Two of the helpers, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman, were sent to labor camps, but survived the war.
Around 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands before the 1940-45 Nazi occupation. Of those, 107,000 were deported to Germany and only 5,200 survived. Some 24,000 Jews went into hiding, of which 8,000 were hunted down or turned in.
After the war, Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam and lived with the Gies family until he remarried in 1952. Miep worked for him as he compiled the diary, then devoted herself to talking about the diary and answering piles of letters with questions from around the world.
After Otto Frank's death in 1980, Gies continued to campaign against Holocaust-deniers and to refute allegations that the diary was a forgery.
She suffered a stroke in 1997 which slightly affected her speech, but she remained generally in good health as she approached her 100th birthday.
Her son Paul Gies said last year she was still receiving "a sizable amount of mail" which she handled with the help of a family friend. She spent her days at the apartment where she lived since 2000 reading two daily newspapers and following television news and talk shows.
Her husband died in 1993. She is survived by her son and three grandchildren.
From CNN.com & REAL SIMPLE Magazine: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/personal/01/11/rs.10.ways.embrace.change/index.html
When it came to change, my father had it licked. His motto was simply "Don't let it happen to you."
He proudly wore the same tie he'd had since college. He moved house just three times -- ever. But his town and his life were epicenters of low upheaval.
For most of us, change is an unavoidable fact, something I (re)discovered when, several years back, I lost my job in a shrinking industry. Far from ruining my life, that seismic shift gave me the chance to do two things I had always hoped to do: live in India and learn a new language (Hindi).
In the process, I discovered a lot about how to survive when head-rattling transformations are thrust upon you. Here are some of the tricks I picked up along the way.
1. Don't just do something; sit there. If you're facing a massive rescaling of your life, your first impulse will be to go into a whirring spin of activity, which is exactly what I did right after I was fired.
I later discovered there's a lot of value to sitting quietly instead. In the realm of language learning, there's a stage called the silent period: Adults may try to avoid going through it, but if you take a kid and plop her down in Paris for a spell, she'll naturally clam up for a few months. When she opens her mouth, her French will have flowered. Making sense of a major change is a lot like that. You need to allow yourself a fallow period before you can blossom.
2. Mother yourself a little. When familiar routines suddenly dissolve, it can seem as if all your supports are gone. For a while after I lost my job, I had the sense that I was in free fall. It's crucial, while absorbing the shock of the new, to make yourself feel well taken care of. Prepare nutritious meals for the week ahead. If you can spare the cash, have someone come in and clean the house.
Yes, you need to take some time for yourself, but don't let the pizza boxes pile up.
3. Ignore your inner reptile. There's a part of the human mind that is often referred to as the "lizard brain," because it existed in even the earliest land animals. The lizard brain is concerned with survival; it likes the tried and true, so it's likely to pipe up right now, flooding you with adrenaline warnings of "Danger!" as you veer off course.
This was a handy function to have when deviating from the familiar path to the watering hole may have led to an encounter with a saber-toothed tiger. But in the modern world it's like a misfiring car alarm: pointless and annoying.
4. Silence your inner know-it-all, too. When I interviewed the eminent linguist Alton Becker, I asked what makes someone good at languages. It helps not to be too smart, he said, explaining, "Smart people don't like having their minds changed, and to learn a language, you have to change your mind."
If you're so smart that you can't rethink your positions, all your IQ points won't do you much good when your life is turned upside down. Becker's advice applies across the board.
5. Seek out new perspectives. Zen practitioners cultivate the "don't know" mind; they work to assume they don't know anything and in that way see the world fresh. This is a great way to approach change -- as an opportunity to start anew, to consider all possibilities.
Ask naive, wide-eyed questions of anyone who is doing anything you might be interested in trying. Listen seriously to arguments you might once have dismissed.
6. Try something new and slightly scary. Why? Because now is the time to explore what it is that you really like. Catch yourself off-guard and see what happens.
At a time when I was feeling most stuck, I spontaneously volunteered to get up onstage at an open-mic storytelling evening in New York City. The experience was elating and terrifying and showed me that I wanted to lead a more creative life.
7. Be skeptical of common wisdom. It's dangerous to live in the aggregate, especially when you're trying to figure out your next move. One year, everyone knows you need an M.B.A. to succeed at anything. The next, they're saying that there are no jobs out there anyway, so don't even try. In my case, everyone but I knew that you can't learn a language at age 43. But since no one alerted me to that fact, that's what I set my sights on.
8. Learn to live with uncertainty. When I began learning Hindi, my teacher encouraged me to get out and practice with native speakers in New York. I wound up asking a waiter for love (pyar) when I'd meant to request a cup (pyala). But in that way I inched into a new language. That anxious feeling does not signal that you're doing something wrong, only that you're trying something new.
9. Say "really?" a lot. When you start to turn this sudden shift in your life to your advantage, you might shake up a lot of people, especially the ones who aren't happy with how they're living. To them, your efforts to move forward may feel like a glaring searchlight that needs to be switched off and fast.
To their descriptions of the terrible fates that will surely befall you if you dive headlong into a new life, respond with "Really?" Alternatively, "Oh, yeah?" works, too.
10. Shed your old skin. Discard physical clutter, tired ideas, old routines. Seeing things through another's eyes can help. I had that chance when the Hindi school I enrolled in asked me to list my daily requirements.
I could honestly have said, "For the past 62 days, I've eaten pineapple sandwiches for breakfast: toast, butter, canned pineapple (sliced, not crushed). Bedtime: white-noise machine (surf, not rain), four pillows (two hard, two soft)." Instead I wrote, "None."
It's only when you have cast off what has been weighing you down that you can finally move on.
More than 50,000 volunteers from the small country of Estonia volunteered to clean up more than 10,000 tons of waste in just one day in 2008. Learn how it happened in this inspiring video.
Seven year old Alyssa Ripley asked friends and family to make a donation to Heifer International in lieu of buying her Christmas gifts this year. Heifer is a nonprofit organization working to alleviate poverty around the globe by giving animals to people in need, thereby providing them with access to a steady income, food, clothing and more. So far, Alyssa has raised over $700 for Heifer. She has set her sights on raising $8,000 for the organization.
To help Alyssa visit: http://heifer.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=178641&lis=1&kntae178641=9FEF442CB4FE40A19C69E73DB151DC1B&supId=276464569
Know someone in your life that needs a little guidance? January is National Mentoring Month. There's no better way to start off the new year than helping a child reach his or her full potential.
Serve.gov is promoting the month's mentoring theme with a personal entreaty from General Colin Powell for Americans to become mentors in their own communities.
From the Columbus Dispatch [Columnist - Joe Blundo]: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2009/12/31/1A_BLUN31_--_dec._31.ART_ART_12-31-09_D1_DOG1VIC.html
"Bill told me I never have to turn in my security badge," Elaine Miseta said with a hint of pride.
After all, if you can't be trusted after 67 years at a company, at what point can you be trusted?
Miseta officially retired yesterday -- on her 88th birthday -- from her job as an administrative assistant at the White Castle corporate headquarters. Her first day was June 8, 1942.
The Bill who let her keep her security badge is Bill Ingram, president and chief executive officer. She also served his father, Edgar, and his grandfather E.W. "Billy" Ingram, founder of the restaurant chain famous for its little hamburgers.
Miseta was at the company eight years before the latest president was born. They've always been on a first-name basis, given that he was a toddler when they met.
"It's great to have someone who has that historic knowledge," said Ingram, 59. "She's very organized and methodical, and remembers everything."
Miseta -- who was born near Montpelier, a village in the northwest corner of the state -- moved to Columbus to take a job that her father helped her get with what was then called the Ohio Bureau of Unemployment.
She hated it.
"So I transferred to the highway department," she said, "and that was just as bad."
Miseta found her place when she walked into the White Castle headquarters, 555 W. Goodale St., to drop off an application and found it buzzing with activity.
"I thought, 'This is for me.' "
She started in the stenographer's pool but wound up serving as the executive secretary to the company leaders.
Until recently, callers had to get past her to reach Ingram.
"They want to talk to Mr. Ingram," she said. "Everybody does. If they have a hangnail, they want to talk to Mr. Ingram. But he doesn't do hangnails."
Miseta had a routine: She would arise at 5 a.m., dress in a suit (don't get her started on "business casual") and be in the office by 6:15. By the time the phones started ringing about 9 a.m., she had accomplished a lot. She would leave for home in Upper Arlington about 4 p.m.
When told that was more than eight hours, she shrugged.
"They got their money's worth."
Miseta was married for 54 years to husband Frank, a lawyer who died in 2004.
They traveled the world together. ("We've never been to Borneo and the two Arctics, but we've been everywhere else.") The couple had no children -- one reason that Miseta kept working so long.
Her last day on the job was actually Dec. 4; she has been using up vacation time since then.
She had calls to screen, mementos to pack and goodbyes to say. She didn't cry.
"My mother tried to teach me not to be a bawl baby," she said. "So you just grit your teeth."
Retirement hasn't diminished her loyalty.
She still professes a fondness for her longtime employer's signature product: the Slyder.
But she admitted she hasn't recently bought a sack full of the little burgers with the big digestive effect.
"I don't eat them very often because I have to be careful," she said. "They're kind of high-powered."
From MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34623713/ns/local_news-chicago_il/ By Andrew Greiner & Natalie Martinez
He may be a little guy, but he helps homeless folks in a big way.
After seeing a homeless woman during a holiday trip to Chicago, Jonathon Slack, a seven-year-old boy from Orland Park, led a 10-day donation drive, collecting over four truckloads of food and toys for a Chicago shelter.
Jonathon was moved to tears when he saw the homeless woman standing outide of Macy's on State Street, holding a sign that said she and her son had no place to live. After he finished crying, he was moved to action.
"At home that night after I read to him and getting him ready to be tucked in, he started crying," said Heather Slack, his mother.
He told his mom, "That lady had no shelter, mom."
"He wanted us to drive back to the city so that he could give the lady the $6 he had in his pocket," Heather said.
The Slacks weren’t sure that was a good idea, but they encouraged Jonathon to think of other ways to help. He thought of plenty.
He was going to paint smiley faces on rocks and sell them. He was going to ask president Obama to take money from rich people and give it to poor people.
His mother suggested starting a donation.
So Jonathon wrote a letter asking his community to pitch in. He dropped off photocopies all around his neighborhood.
The response was tremendous. The youngster managed to collect over four truckloads of food and toys, which he then sent to the Su Casa Catholic Worker homeless shelter in Chicago.
"We got started late and people only had 10 days to get their donations together," Heather said. "They ended up donating about four and a half trucks worth of stuff. We ended up filling their whole elevator with food."
Jessi Gauger-Kiraly, the volunteer coordinator at the Su Casa Catholic Worker House remembers the day well. "It was really exciting because we had a lot people moving donations in and out of the house," Gauger-Kiraly said. "It’d be nice if people did this all year round."
"I don't know where it came from," Heather Slack said of her son's selfless drive. "Last year we tried to get him to realize there were people less fortunate, and it wasn't working, and this year I'd like to think that it was Divine Intervention."
