I Won the Biggest Loser at Work!

Yay!

So after starting the competition a few months ago, and extending it once, I have been awarded the title of the Biggest Weight Loss Loser at Work! WOOOHOOO

My percentage was 3.09% of my body weight. It would have been higher, but I didn't weigh in for almost a month, only made it to the gym a few times, and gained back 3lbs. However, I still won with the highest percentage lost! But - since I started (before the time frame of the competition), I've lost more weight - which makes my real percentage 5.16% overall! WOOO HOOOO!!

So, I'm now $150 richer and 5.16% lighter!

Just wait until we start again in January... I'm taking the money again!

Horoscope for the day

I don't normally take these things seriously but I thought it was interesting today:

Some rather intense and vivid dreams could inspire you to embark on some in-depth study of a subject that specifically interests you, dear Taurus. This could involve the arts, philosophy, or metaphysics. Travel plans to one of the world's great spiritual centers, such as Jerusalem, Glastonbury or Vrindavana, might be on your mind as a result. Your level of intuition is very high today, so whatever you dream of doing, give it some serious thought. It might be just what you need!

Anyone want to go to Glastonbury? I'd love to stumble upon King Arthur's grave and prove once and for all that he really did exist! I think they link the Holy Grail to this site as well. All legends aside, it supposed to be one of those magical places which "feel" powerful. Not sure if the earth's magnetic field is stronger in this particular location, but it's been linked to the supernatural for centuries.

Things like that always interest me... I've always felt called to do something great, maybe I will find it in one of those places.

monday catch-up day!

Monday = catch-up day! Yay!

I was out of the office most of last week either facilitating or observing. Actually, I need to do more observing this afternoon, as I have the final report due on Dec. 1 about my findings. I'm really not getting much data, except for 1 or 2 important conversations. I think they are on their best behavior when I'm there, so I really can't see anything that happens. But hopefully I'll blend in better the next couple of times around.

My boss has someone she wants to set me up with. He's apparently the son of a couple she and her boyfriend hang with. She couldn't personally verify what he's like, as she's never met him, but I'm always up for an adventure! I told her that I'm always looking to meet new people, so I'd have coffee with him if he was interested in having a blind date. I just like dating, it's fun! I wish more people saw it that way.

I turned in my Short Paper a day early for class, and now I've moved on to working on my A Paper (as she calls it). I'm still looking for a topic, but I have to settle on one soon. I have a few ideas, but I'm having trouble finding research about it. My ideas are mostly sweeping assumptions that could be contributed in a cause/effect, but nothing concrete. I need concrete data in order to write, as I don't have time to conduct my own study! hehe :)

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is this week. I saw at bowling that they are opening Rock 'N Bowl later in the evening on Thanksgiving at a discounted price. I'm trying to talk my family into going, as I think that would be a fun tradition to start!

Did you ever have someone in your life that causes a gut reaction (in a good way) whenever you hear or learn something new about them? I found out some more information today, and like all things about this person to me, it's bittersweet. Fate keeps moving...

ripple affect...

I don't know what it is about me, but I had two interesting scenarios while in New York yesterday that rival my story from the watering hole I posted earlier.

I always seem to leave a positive lasting impression on complete strangers, and I really don't know what it is about me that does it.

Yesterday, I was walking down Mulberry Street in Little Italy with my family while visiting NYC. Around lunch time, they had reps from each Italian restaurant outside, trying to sweet talk people into dining at their restaurant. This one saw me crossing the street, and started waving his arms and dancing. I laughed and he hugged me like he knew me forever. We joked around for a few minutes, I introduced my family to him, he told me he loved my smile and I made his day. We actually kept walking soon after, and came back to have lunch there. And I noticed, while inside, he didn't laugh/dance/or joke with anyone else. I was glad I was able to brighten his day for a few minutes.

Later yesterday, we went into the the Info Center at Times Square. Before I could even get in the door, the lady who takes pictures with interesting backdrops wanted me to pose for her for free. She told me that with a smile like mine, I should be on a billboard. I joked and told her that the idea is not to frighten the New Yorkers each day with my face! She said, "No, I'm being serious! You are too cute all bundled up, and it would be a great change around here with that smile!"

It just goes to show, the old smiling face and a twinkle in the eye is still noticeable, even after the world has become very jaded.

Creative high

I've been on a creative high the last two days. We use Job Aids when we are facilitating workshops, and I've been designing them like crazy. It's fun to take a learning concept and design a visual to help teach it.

I've also started making my first pair of socks. I'm bored already. I like learning the pattern, but after I master that I don't want to do it anymore. It becomes very tedious to continue hundreds of rows of something. I'd have to be naked if I was in the olden days, as I wouldn't be able to knit my clothes fast enough!

Oprah aspirations...

I had more thoughts today on the book I want to write. It's about self-awareness, but not the hoity-toity philosophy stuff that brings a lot of theory - it's action packed with exercises to do to get to self-awareness.

I define self-awareness as understanding your impact on other people. And how behavior, expectations, feelings, thoughts, and actions on those can propel others into action, or work against you. Then the punch, is that your impact is a choice.

After I write the book and go on Oprah, I'm running for president. I think an OD Consultant who is an ENFP can do a lot of good in the world.

Oh well - off to teach a course in Group Dynamics with an intact team! Wish me luck!

updates for the day..

I did another observation today at one of the clinical offices. I'm glad to see that the customer service expectations are paying off from the class I did the other day, but that's not really why I'm there. I'm officially there to observe the manager, and see if she is effective or not. But she doesn't know that. She was told that I was there to just observe the dynamics of the team.

I saw some of it yesterday, as she was acting parental, but I didn't see it today. Today they were fully staffed. I want to be able to ask the girls (gosh, they have me calling them that)how effective she is as a manager, but I haven't been able to. Hopefully soon!

Tonight I get to do some beer tasting with a friend, so I'm really looking forward to that! Cheers!

intelligent eyes

I had forgotten what it's like to hang out in downtown Baltimore at the local watering holes. Saturday, I met my friend Joel at Gecko's, and while waiting for him to arrive, I was approached. It was the typical, "I'm not trying to hit on you, I just thought you looked bored, so I'll chat." How I looked bored when I was engrossed in the football game, I'll never know. I mentioned that my friend was coming soon, and he seemed to be a little insulted. But, it wasn't a line, my friend was on his way in a cab to meet me.

After he sat down, I guess I gave him too much eye contact, because his first comment to me was that I have really intelligent eyes. I don't know what I was doing, or what my eyes were saying, but I can tell that he was startled by that. He asked me what I did for a living, and I told him. He proceeded to dump his entire story on me of when he used to own a car shop in New Mexico a few years ago. I guess my Active Listening skills paid off, because he kept interrupting himself to tell me how my eyes keep telling him how intelligent I am, and how I really "get him" and "understand him".

He then told me that he is willing to pay me to keep listening to him on a regular basis, because he really needs the help. Again, I really haven't said anything to him yet. I told him that I'm not qualified to help him, as I'm still in grad school, and wouldn't be able to assist. He kept commenting on my eyes, and then I think he got intimidated and embarrassed that he shared so much with a stranger. He excused himself from the conversation, and wandered down the bar to talk to other people.

Joel came in soon after, and we had a great time eating dinner, catching up, and then hanging out at the Club Charles. I always have fun with Joel, as he takes me places that I've never been before, and there's always interesting characters there! hehe :)

Friday night I got my haircut, and my hairstylist put a few extra layers in to give it va va voom! Yes, she actually wolf whistled. The other stylist started laughing, and asked if she was trying to give an impression of her boyfriend. At that point, Annie (my stylist) had to explain about her boyfriend. He apparently has Turrets, and his "thing" is that he beeps and whistles... especially when he gets excited. I felt horrible for laughing, but my mind jumped to all sorts of things on that note! hehe He apparently likes to "sneak up on her", and well, he can't! He'll stand behind her beeping and whistling, trying to be sneaky, and it just doesn't work! hehe So cute!

Yesterday I pre-bowled, got some shopping in and started knitting a pair of socks. I've never made socks before, so this is an adventure in itself!

lost thoughts...

I thought of something to write about in my blog, and I remember saying to myself at the time - I need to write about that! - but now I can't remember it... I'm sure it'll come back to me.

My cohort has been planning our trip to Bethel in April, and we found a beautiful mansion to stay at. It sleeps 26 people, 3 floors, and a 20 person theatre in it! With splitting the costs, it'll only come to about $400 a person for the week. WOOO HOOO! I get to be fancy for a week. Now I just need to nail down flight reservations. I don't normally make them this early, but the "J's" in the group are ready to book, so we have to get on the band wagon with them or lose out!

I'm going to start writing my paper this weekend, I'm just going to start writing and see what happens. It has to be about the moment I found out a pattern about myself, and I have so many! Living in a self-aware world does that to you. It's too easy to go through the motions on the surface, but looking deep really sucks you in.

Amy is brought to you by the letter A and the number 13.

It seems like everything I've been talking about and planning for work, is happening this week. Yesterday I finally did a workshop for one of our physician sites, and today I did technical training in the morning for the website I designed. Apparently my website is getting a lot of attention, as it's the only one on the intranet that has usable information. LOL

I actually won twice at Bingo last night, both time during special games, so I got some extra money out of the deal! Yay! I'm putting it toward the Christmas party fund. Mom and I decided to rent our community center to have our Christmas party this year, as we didn't have a summer party, and there isn't room inside our house for all the family and friends. I'm in charge of decorations, so I can't wait to spruce the center up and make it festive! I also get to do the invitations, which will be going out after Thanksgiving. I love planning parties!

I've also begun making another scarf... I need time to process my thoughts for school, and it's helpful to be working on that while thinking. I'm doing blocks in brown and green, and each block is a different stitch. Instead of connecting them, I'm making it one continuing piece.

It looks like I'll be staying in a huge mansion when we go to Bethel for class. We are renting the place out, and with 8 bedrooms, it's going to be fun! hehe :) I can't wait to get away for that week. It'll be very intense while we are there, as we will be doing a lot of work on ourselves, but it is a great opportunity! :)

Hapy Tuesday!

Yesterday I facilitated a managers retreat and it was awesome! The energy in the room was amazing, and when the president and CEO of our company walked into the room, the applause of the crowd was invigorating!

We had been planning for him to speak, but no one knew he was coming (it was a surprise), and the group that always feels like the step-child, really felt like they belonged to the larger organization. It was an awesome feeling.

It seems like things that I have been working on for awhile are all happening this week, and then I'll be back to my quiet office existence for a few weeks. I'm in and out of the office, and it also feels like I'm starting to get a cold. I'm going to stop at the drug store on my way to the customer service workshop today and get some zinc.

Yay TEAM! :)

Welcome Back Amy!

WOW.

This weekend flew by and I have no idea where it went!

After class on Friday I had plans to have dinner with my buddy from the T-group I met. For those following along, my buddy ended up being the asshole I mentioned before, who can't see the world past his own nose. He appears to be going through a midlife crisis, and thinks I'm his therapist. The relationship is supposed to be supportive on both sides, so I'm interested in seeing where this heads during the next couple of meetings.

He's the type of person that gets very intense, lots of eye contact, and I felt that I was really connecting with him. Then he leaned back in his chair and told me he'd have his personal assistant put me on his schedule each week. Ummmm.... ass. He didn't even notice that I shut down right after that. But I did make him feel awkward when walking to the car, because I completely ignored him, and left him standing between our cars trying to figure out what to say next. If he wanted to be business like, then he was going to get business like from me. I think people need to put him back on his heels more often. The conversation was stimulating, as he's devoutly Catholic and is now dealing with the idea that his wife no longer loves him, he has a miserable marriage, hasn't had sex in over a year, and everyone tells him to get divorced, but that's against religious law. He's now dealing with the fact that he's having lustful thoughts about other women. Besides all of that, he has a superiority complex, a fixation on money and the things it can buy, and his public image. I'm really waiting for the real him to "show up" because I still believe that no one can possibly be as unaware as he is. It's all an act, his suit of armor to protect himself from something. Despite all of this, dinner was really yummy, and I had some great sangria!

On Saturday night, about 20 people went out to celebrate the November birthdays to a really neat Indian restaurant in DC. The food was slightly more spicy then what I'm used to, and made differently than what I normally see, but it was incredibly tasty! One of my classmates got drunk on caffeine and started telling me war stories. TOO FUNNY! (She was a Major in the army before retiring.)

Sunday I met a new friend after class for dinner, and had a really good time. I love conversation that really works, and feels natural. Hopefully we'll get to know each other better as the days come.

Class was intense. We studied most of the great psychology minds and started doing exercises to reflect inward to see what kind of crap we each carry around with us. FUN! But we did get to color and draw pictures for awhile while reviewing Freud, so that was entertaining!

I stayed at the Omni Shoreham, which is a very "old world lavish" hotel that holds a lot of the inauguration balls in DC. I had a view of the park, and since I registered for their loyalty program, I had free Internet, drinks in the morning, and a newspaper. I would suggest the hot chocolate each morning - it comes with it's own homemade marshmallows! YUM!

So.... I got back to work today... and boy has it been a whirlwind:

- Prepping for a manager's retreat tomorrow
- Permission to attend the MBTI certification
- Making reservations for that, even though they snuck me into the last available slot over the phone so I wouldn't miss out on the deeply discounted price
- Making priceline reservations for that
- Getting to use the laminiator in the office - FUN FUN!
- Rescheduling my gyn appointment to a better time in the month
- Supervising the AVP making cookie center pieces for the manager's meeting tomorrow
- Listening and advising on all of the drama because one of my coworkers had a woman show up to class slurring her words and being disruptive. (My boss ended up driving this woman home after speaking to employee health. She apparently changed her psychiatric medicine.)
- Emailing back and forth with my cohort about our trip to Bethel in April and where we are staying and who is flying out when...
- Doing my expense report
- Updating system documentation
- And now trying to figure out where to go get supplies for the icebreaker I'm doing tomorrow...

Plus I have to bowl tonight! Hopefully I can have an awesome showing after my 171 from last week!

Oh... and Msgr. Zorbach passed away this weekend, so I'll be going to the wake for that tomorrow night.

BUSY!

Class tomorrow!

I have one more thing to get through this afternoon - I'm facilitating an action planning session in financial services - and then I'm free to get ready for my second class tomorrow.

This class is called The Individual and the Organization. It's about all the stuff we carry around inside of us, and how that impacts our effect on an organization or group of people. The readings for this class have been really interesting, as I'm learning more about Freud, Jung, and Ellis... as well as how to become more self-aware physically, mentally, and spiritually.

I do believe that I'm in sharp contact with my mental and spiritual self, it's my physical self that I don't pay attention to. It's interesting to me, as on my MBTI, I'm labeled a "feeler", but I don't really pay attention to my own feelings or what is physically happening inside of me during the day. I block all of that down and rationalize it with my mind.

According to what I read about Ellis, I seem to have a very healthy attitude. I don't let the data that I receive get me down, or create an "awful generalization" out of it. My thoughts tend to process it into a positive, which helps me redirect my feelings about a subject from negative to positive as well. The mind is a powerful thing... but I'm looking forward to learning more about my "core of rot!"

Some things just crack me up...

see more puppies

Rock the Vote!

I went this morning to vote, and there wasn't a long line, and the flow of traffic was great. They had about 12 machines open, and everyone was in and out very quickly.

Everyone keeps saying how this is going to be a landmark election, and I think I have to agree. I always think of voting as choosing the lesser of 2 evils, but I want to see what happens to the American people. I think there will be a huge uproar if Obama doesn't get in, and I think there will be a huge uproar if Palin gets in as VP. She's a flake. That's my political rant - again, I'm not one to talk politics.

Last night we had a bowling meeting with our old team, and out of the kindness of their heart, they gave each team money. Based on our standings, we got $28 a person. That at least pays for my missing sanction money. AMF still claims that they are not at fault, which I think is a bunch of huey. Someone asked what they were doing going forward to make sure that this doesn't happen again, and they really couldn't give a good answer. They said it was up to each league to vote in their President and Vice President, and choose what they want to do with the money - if the Bowling Alley keeps it, or if the officers keep it. I would think that the national bowling association would step in, and re-write the rule, saying that the money has to stay at the bowling alley, that all leagues need to be ran by the bowling alley so they have authorization on who gives out the money, and not leave it up to the officers. This is a rarity, but obviously there are flaws in the system if this is allowed to continue to happen!

I went bowling at my regular league afterwards and I had the best game ever - 171! WOOOO HOOOO! I need to keep that up! I think it's because I didn't go home after work. I went directly to the first bowling alley, then to the 2nd. When I go home I get tired. I was also fluffing my Aurora, keeping positive vibes around me. It worked!

Physician Heal Thyself

The old adage that people go into psychology or medicine to understand/heal those around them or themselves is pretty much true, or at least in my case.

As I went through my T-group experience, and have been doing my readings for my upcoming class this weekend, I'm starting to piece together the puzzle that is "me".

I seem to have revelations while in the bathroom, and while in the tub on Thursday night shaving my legs, I seemed to put it all together.

Here's one theory of Amy; I'm sure there are many more:

I learned in T-group that I became an adult very quickly in my childhood through family circumstances. And when I should have been protected emotionally from some of the stuff I had to deal with, I wasn't. (Maybe this is why I'm attracted to alpha males, I feel they are strong enough to protect me, so for once I don't have to protect someone else.) I was always told to be a little lady, and wasn't allowed to act out or act pretty much in any other way then a small adult. I played, but it was during certain times, and I was expected to be mature all other times.

Part of being an adult, or so I was taught, meant not showing emotion, and having to deal with unpleasant things by disassociating from the emotional aspect of it. Adults do what they have to do, even when they don't want to. I became very responsible, and the "rock" that everyone in my family counts on to make sure things got done. I learned how to be very calm and rational, as someone had to be, and use logic to solve the problems.

My grandmother taught me the habit of eating. We ate when we were happy, we ate when we were sad, and we ate when anything really happened. I remember coming home from school, and she would make me something to eat because "this will make you feel better". Therefore, I'm an emotional eater.

Putting all of that together, here's my self diagnosis:

Because I didn't have an emotional shield when I was a child, I built my own physical armour out of weight by stuffing down my emotions with food.

So what does that look like? Well, I'm not a big eater, I eat what anyone else "normal sized" eats, and I don't sneak food. A typical day of eating for me is - a packet of instant oatmeal for breakfast, 10:30am I have a healthy granola bar, 12:30pm a Lean Cuisine and some fruit, 3:30pm another piece of fruit, and dinner around 7:30pm of 2 veggies and a lean piece of meat.

When does the emotional eating happen? Well, let's say I get fired up at work about something. Usually I'm bitching about it out loud in the car, talking to myself all the way home. I march into the house, into the kitchen and grab too cookies and stuff them down. At that point, the sugar kicks in, and I feel fine, all of my anger is gone. If I'm happy, I do the same thing, and have celebration cookies. If it's not the end of the day, and I'm stressed or anxious about a project, I'm on the prowl for chocolate at the vending machines at work. If I have to give feedback to someone that isn't going to be pleasant, I'm looking for a snack. In meetings, where it isn't polite to eat, and it becomes stressful, I start chugging my water bottle.

Anytime I feel like I have to be the "bigger person" and handle myself "appropriately", I stuff something in my mouth to hold the emotion in and not let it out.

How do I change this habit?

Well, the first step is recognizing that I have a problem. Which I just did. The next small step is to replace the bad food with good stuff (water) while I work on handling my emotions and recognizing them. Sometimes I don't even know I feel something, I'm so used to controlling it. I control it by rationalizing the other person's behavior and saying that they have no idea what their impact is - they aren't thinking before they speak. However, my reactions are my own, not someone else's fault - I'm well aware of that. I'm going to start labeling my emotions when I feel them, to recognize them and bring them into awareness. My "core of rot" as Seashore calls it, or the "shadow" of me, as Jung calls it, needs to be recognized for what it is.

More things to ponder ....