I love this hotel and the staff that slave within its halls and lobbies. I am, at some point, leaving here (kicking and screaming). I say to a clever and perceptive staff member:
Me: What will you do without me?
He: Keep collecting the pay checks
Me: Give me a pen and I will write it down and put it on the blog.
He: It is done!
Then I am sitting in the lobby and five or six people sit down and one of them is planning the seating arrangements at a table for dinner. The negotiations go on forever. Of course I have to contribute.
Me: My goodness. This is not rocket science or brain surgery! It is dinner. Get people to seat themselves. It might be more fun for everyone!
He and They: arrange and arrange and arrange.
Me: You can invite me. I am a clever conversationalist!
He and They: arrange and arrange and arrange.
Finally at the end, a humorous man looks at me and says:
He: Well I think we should take your advice and just not show up!
Me: You are brilliant. Brilliant. An easy and apt solution.
The mighty organizer ignores me completely! He thinks he is the most brilliant person on earth and that he can manipulate people. I did cheekily say to him.
Me: I don’t want to be seated next to you. That is for sure!
Everyone in the group laughed at that. So I am having fun. There are gale like winds outside. Blow, blow and more blow.
But there is a great deal going on in the social media world as well. The April 20, 2019 San Francisco Chronicle reported a study as its front page story. “Student stress reaching levels never seen before UC Berkeley finds.” Basically this article blames it all on social media but, in my experience, newspapers often get study findings wrong. And if you think that is bad, the Internet is worse. The story centers on a young woman who “deleted all social media from my devices, and I get my homework done on time.” After grabbing the attention of the readers, the reporter admitted that”financial difficulties and the heavy use of digital devices were two of the likely reasons for the increase (in anxiety). “So the poor youth of today are going into debt for the rest of their lives due to tuition and housing costs and the Chronicle is blaming Instagram and Twitter. The study, using unnamed and unreported data said in 2006 1 in 10 students had an anxiety disorder but in 2016 it was 1 in 5. And what in hell does this mean: Students with a mother who has a college degree have a 45% higher chance of having anxiety.” But the article admits that “the national surveys did not ask about father’s education.” It is absolutely essential to read the study and not rely on Nanette Asimov, the reporter who penned the article.
It is clear that a newspaper is not the place to receive accurate information on psychological studies – or perhaps anything else – depending on the newspaper. The most reliable source of information is The New Yorker because of their practice of fact checking and the hiring of highly intelligent writers. Well The New Yorker and alexismcbride.com London and Beyond. Hahaha and not Hahahaha.
By social media experience on Instagram is far different that what is usually reported. Instagram is a tool that can be used in a favourable way or misused. My goodness there are scammers on Instagram – some woman said she was familiar with my profile and promised to talk to me on an intimate line and included sexy pictures of herself. Honest to Gawd!
Me: Are you kidding?!?! NO.
I guess I have to get busy and block her but it is doubtful that I will hear from her again. But I received a wonderful gift on Instagram yesterday. One woman thanked me for connecting and said that she was committed to helping people with PTSD and sent a link to “Light in The Darkness Living Well After Trauma.” It was an amazing film, described by her as “one of the best I have ever seen on this issue.” It was so enlightening and so helpful! I suffer from PTSD, it is under control but sometimes it pops up. It is not fun and takes different forms. I can awake and be freezing cold. Actually tender memories of the people at the Trump International Hotel in Vancouver surfaces. Staff would come running to my side bringing me blankets and talking with me One man from Security pointed out to me that it was a PTSD attack. So it was not the direct result of living in frigid Edmonton too long! The last sentence is a joke and shows how my sense of humour saves me. It is not necessarily helpful nor advisable, for the PTSD sufferer to figure out the trigger to the attack. I guess sufferer will be the concept of the day. This straight to you from Wikipedia: “Suffering, or pain in a broad sense,[1] may be an experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual.[2] Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of affective phenomena. The opposite of suffering is pleasure or happiness.
Suffering is often categorized as physical[3] or mental.[4] It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and frequency of occurrence usually compound that of intensity. Attitudes toward suffering may vary widely, in the sufferer or other people, according to how much it is regarded as avoidable or unavoidable, useful or useless, deserved or undeserved.”
How appropriate could all of this be for the blog of Easter Sunday?!?!?! I could, and never will, understand the adage that Jesus died for our sins. That makes no sense to me at all. I think the whole idea should be NOT to sin rather than get some guy to hang on a cross and be in.a lot of pain for no good reason at all. Just me, I guess.
But here is something destined to cheer. I awoke to a very funny message from a very funny man.
He: As a kid I could never understand how finishing my food was going to save a starving child in Africa.
Me: Nor in China which was the pitch in my time. Once at a hotel restaurant in London I declined to finish my food and cheerily said that there were no starving children in China any more. At the adjoining table were an obese couple. They did NOT laugh.
This very funny man and I have a similar sense of humour and this will be helpful. Two more stubborn people never have walked the face of the this earth. It must be true love because it is certainly is not running a smooth course.
Hopefully one of David’s finest jokes will grace this blog. Today’s version was not awfully cheerful but you get what you pay for.
