The Interview

I mentioned, about a month ago, I was going on a job interview. Well, I went and it was a different experience to say the least. It was very controlled, I'm guessing so that the employer would be able to defend themselves and say that everyone was treated the same in the case of a lawsuit. My interview went something like this.

I showed up at the appointed place and time and they gave me a list of the questions they were going to ask me during the interview.  I then got exactly 15 minutes with the questions to formulate answers. Several of them were multi-part questions where the parts were sometimes related and sometimes not.

Then I was escorted to a room with a three person interview panel. The same three people interviewed every candidate. After introductions and a couple of disclaimers, they read me the first question. Then I talked. And when I finished talking, they read me the next question. And once again, when I finished talking, they read me the next question and so on. There was absolutely no feedback. No followup questions, no clarifications, no stopping me if they had had enough examples. They said nothing. They just waited for me to finish talking and then they read the next question on the list. While I was talking, they were taking notes. I found it unnerving and unnatural.

When the panel finished with the list of questions, they asked if I had any questions. I asked about the procedures after the interview, how many jobs, how many interviewees, etc. The panel either didn't know the answers or were not allowed to give out the information to any of those questions.

And then I was done.

From talking to coworkers, who have been through the process before, supposedly there is a score sheet where they tally how well you answered the questions. If you left out a part of a question, you would get no points for that. So if you didn't answer the questions exactly, it would be possible to be well qualified but not do well on the tally sheet. After the points are tallied, the panel breaks any ties.

So how did I do? I've had no feedback one way or another, so I have no idea. But I tried. Now onto something else.

Thankful Sunday, June 30, 2019

I am thankful for birds.

Catbirds are one of the birds that visit the feeders and fly around the yard.

Years ago, Ward said he wanted to get a bird feeder, so I set one up for his birthday. Little did I know how much enjoyment I would get from watching the birds around it. While we're still trying to figure out the best way to set feeders up around our new house, I am enjoying the birds that visit. And for that, I am thankful.

Acknowledgement

As I have mentioned before, I have trigeminal neuralgia (TN). TN is characterized by searing mouth pain usually caused from eroding of the myelin sheath around the trigeminal nerve. The pain has been described as the worst pain known to man or as the suicide disease because it has caused some to end their life rather than deal with it. I don't know if I would describe it that way, but you get the idea. It really hurts. No pain killers touch it whether they be ibuprofen or narcotics. However, in many cases it can be controlled by anti-seizure medications and that is true in my case.

But here's the problem--the side effects of the medicine. For me, even at low doses, the meds make me dizzy and sleepy making it hard to function effectively. So I am in a constant struggle to balance the pain control with the side effects of the medicine. During a recent trip to the doctor, he said that after years of trying with meds, maybe it's time to consider something else. There are several procedures that are used to treat TN including brain surgery. However, most of them only have a success rate of 50-60% and need to repeated every couple of years with sometimes permanent side effects. What to do? About a year ago, I was ready for the brain surgery because it has the highest success rate and the longest lasting results. But then I had a remission. Remission is a hallmark of the condition. It comes and goes for no apparent reason. I've never had long remissions like some have, but I do have them. And during remission, when I have no pain and am taking lower doses of the  meds, I think I am willing to put up with whatever side effects the meds have and take no risks.

But now I am having a flare up and I am once again considering the options available to me. While I'm trying to figure out if I want to change the course of treatment, I am trying to do positive self talk to lift my mood. When you're in pain, it's pretty easy to go to negative, self-pity places.

Which brings me to the point of this post. There are two basic kinds of self talk I do--that things could be worse or things are good in spite of the problem. They each work differently for me.

When I play the things could be worse game, it doesn't seem to help me a lot. For example, I say, "I could have a seizure disorder like my friend who requires high doses of medicine. I could have  mouth cancer like my neighbor with no hope to get better."

While I intellectually am truly thankful that I don't have more serious problems such as these, I still feel pretty negative about mine. I think that is because when I play the "things could be worse game," I'm not acknowledging my own difficulty. My pain is not the worst problem in the world, but my pain is a real and it's a problem for me.

So what I have learned, is that I need to acknowledge my problem and think about the positive things around it. For example, I say my mouth really hurts but I have about three hours in the middle of the day, when I seem to find a reasonable balance between the meds and pain. My mouth really hurts but I am able to go outside and work in the yard which seems to wake me up a little and helps forget  about my pain. My mouth really hurts, but I have an understanding, knowledgeable doctor who I work well with to treat it. My mouth really hurts, but it is not a threat to my life. When I think of things in those contexts, I do a much better job of keeping myself out of my negative world.

This may be another version of positive reinforcement works better than negative reinforcement. A concept that I have known about for a very long time, but just this morning in the shower, figured out how it applies to me in this situation. Another reason why my showers are so long sometimes. That is where I do some of my best thinking. :)

What works best for you when you are trying to pull yourself out of a depressed mood?*

*This is not for clinical, long lasting depression. You can't talk yourself out of that. Clinical depression needs the help of a professional.

Thankful Sunday, June 23, 2019

I am thankful for volunteer plants.

Or another way to say it is, "I am thankful for plants that seeded themselves from last year." When I find an unexpected plant, I tend to leave it alone whether or not it fits into my landscape plan. It seems when nature picks the place for a plant, it grows much better than when left to my hands.
Here are a few of my volunteer plants and for them I am thankful.

Birds are responsible for spreading a lot of seeds including this sunflower from our bird feeder. I'm looking forward to seeing it bloom.

Next to the sunflower are basil plants which I had  planted here last year. I have since thinned these a little and shared the extra plants with friends.

On the other side of the basil is this single parsley plant that I planted last year. Even thought it's not a volunteer, it's remarkable all the same. It has gotten huge. That is a full size watering can for scale. I was going to trim it back to perhaps get more foliage instead of blooms, but we still have parsley in the freezer that we got from this plant last year so I just let it go to see how big it would get.

Moving along to the other side of the parsley is a volunteer yellow cherry tomato plant. We had one here last year that produced very well. This one is already getting large. I'm hoping to soon find the best way to contain it. I had meant to stake it, but that ship has sailed. BTW, I did some weeding in this bed after I took the pictures.

Moving onto another part of the yard to a bed we calling the lightning bed. We call it that because this is where a huge pine tree was until lightning blew it apart one day. Here we have a volunteer marigold surrounded by more basil. Don't know what kind of basil, but this is a milder one than is growing in the other bed.  I had one basil plant in here last year that was an extra from a friend. From that one plant, volunteers are everywhere. Maybe the wind had something to do with it.

There are also a couple of dill plants that came up among the basil. I planted a couple of volunteer dill plants in this bed last year from another part of the yard. We didn't get much dill because some creature enjoyed munching on it..

There is a volunteer tomato plant in the lightning bed, also. Last year, there was one tomato plant in this bed that was an extra someone had. It didn't do much because the deer kept munching on it when it would grow a little bit. This one has been munched on, also, but has recovered.  Another tomato that needs some kind of control. And soon.

More basil in the lightning bed. I have dug up and moved some of it to another flower bed just for the flowers and a treat for the bees.

Today...

Today, I'm going to remember that

 "From a little acorn, the mighty oak grows." 

Sometimes, I get so overwhelmed with big projects I find them hard to start. I need to remember that doing just a little bit will get things going and soon good progress will be made. I'm getting better with this, but I still need a reminder now and then. This little oak tree I found while weeding was just the reminder I needed.