Night owl cardio.

I came to a conclusion today while finishing up my 12:30 AM workout at the local 24 hour fitness. "I like exercising at night." 

When I signed the contract for the 24 hour fitness gym I thought it was for one reason; it had the best pool out of the three gyms I evaluated. In the last two weeks I have used the pool twice. I have taken advantage of the 24 hour twice as much. More than once it's been me, the cleaning lady, the guy at the front desk, and one or two HUGE guys throwing around weights at 11 PM. 

After realizing I prefer working out at night, I thought of possible reasons.  

1. I'm more of a night person than a morning person. I find it far easier to stay up late to get my cardio than to get up early. I blame years of having to get up to go swimming for making me hate waking up to exercise.
2. It helps me relax from the stresses of the day; especially when those stresses involve school. 
3. It makes my "morning weight" a little bit better. :)
4. I don't have to fight anyone for a parking spot or cardio machine spot.
5. I've had more success in maintaining an exercise program at night than in the morning.

I am now going to try to be a night owl exerciser.

It's a question of motivation...

Michael has recently bought a brand new hi-def projector for his home theater. It was a reward for losing a certain amount of weight. I don't know how much motivation the hi-def projector provided him, but it seems like a nice reward.

Inspired by him Wendy and I have been debating what motivates us. We've discussed the possibility of a "techie" reward following Michael's example. In theory, something like the Iphone 6 should be fairly motivating.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure that is as motivating for me as it theoretically would be. In my experience the times that I've been most "motivated" seem to revolve around some form of competition. The time I lost 30 pounds in two months? Yep, weight loss competition.

So the problem I run into is; how do I make things I don't want to do...or perhaps better stated, currently lack the motivation to do, a competition? My results may depend on how I answer that question.

We're still trying to figure out what motivates Wendy. She joked today that "negative" consequences seem to be her best motivation.  For example, one of her suggestions recently was that if we didn't reach certain goals within a certain number of months we would be "forced" to buy a treadmill desk.

I guess at some point we all have to decide what it is that motivates us. I'm sure that we all wish it could be as easy as a 5 month old boy who wants a train.

Sliding Doors

Life Changing moments.

When I was in high school there was a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Sliding Doors, that attempted to show how a difference of a moment can change the future forever. In the movie the main characters life splits when in one timeline she makes a subway train, and in the other she does not. In one timeline she finds true love and a flourishing career; in the other she's stuck in a dead end relationship and a two dead end jobs. One moment of change, two completely different lives.

All of us have these guidepost moments; the moments where one experience, one,thought, or even one comment changes the direction that our lives go.  Whenever we look back at these moments it's hard to resist the idea of thinking, "What if...?"  Where would my life be if I didn't have this experience? What would be different?

One of my "what if?" moments was recently prompted by an article I saw about thyroid cancers, Thyroid Cancer Rise Mostly Overdiagnosis.  The article states that the number of people diagnosed with thyroid cancer has tripled between 1975 and 2009, most of the diagnoses being that of small papillary cancers. At the same time deaths from thyroid cancer stayed at exactly the same rate. The authors conclude that,

"Patients....might be better served with a less intensive diagnostic and treatment approach to these cancers, and even by relabeling them using a term other than cancer. "

My cancer: Papillary thyroid malignancy (cancer)
My treatment: Complete thyroidectomy (take the entire thyroid out) with full radiation treatment x 2

So what if...they had decided to not label my cancer as "cancer?" What could have been different in my life? I wouldn't have had surgery, I wouldn't have two rounds of radiation therapy. My doctor's wouldn't have spent the next three years attempting to get my hormone levels to the appropriate levels. I wouldn't have to take hormone supplements every morning. One of the major reasons that I had to leave nursing school back in 2004 was my inability to keep up with the demands of nursing school while undergoing treatment or while titrating my hormone replacement.

It seems that so much of what went wrong in a difficult period of my life can be directly attributed to my diagnosis of cancer. What would my life be if I didn't have this experience? My initial thoughts ran along the lines of, "So much better than now!" Further reflection gives a more nuanced answer. Sure, I would love to not worry about thyroid medication every morning. I'm not sure that I could do without other differences.

I recently was admitted to the University of Utah nurse practitioner program. I had a friend who's academic achievements appeared to be somewhat similar to mine. He had a competitive grade point average, volunteered, and participated in the nursing departmental honors program. He also applied to the University of Utah NP program. He didn't even make the interview phase.Is it possible that my admittance to the program might also be an indirect result of my cancer?

Because of my cancer I finished my bachelor's in nursing with almost a decade of nursing experience; a significant portion of that time in management and leadership positions. Without cancer, I would have been applying to nurse practitioner schools with a year and a half of nursing experience. All of which would have been in an entry level position. The years of experience, the management experience had to have made some difference in the selection process. Not to mention the "overcoming" cancer storyline that I'm able to tell.

Another, larger possibility of how my life would be different. If I didn't have cancer would I have met and married Wendy? This is a harder question to answer. I know that I'm more humble, more willing to accept that I have limits, and more willing to be influenced by others. Would Wendy have been attracted to the more "egotistical", independant me? My soul shudders if the answer would be no.

While it's nice to think about how the classification of my disease might have made my life different. I find myself under the cliched realization that my experiences have shaped me. I am who I am because of my cancer, my treatment, and how it has affected my life. I love the life I have. 

What color is this shirt?

The class I'm currently studying for is Cultural Diversity. The section I'm currently studying is about linguistic diversity. One of the more interesting sections is about how differently men and women speak. One of the differences that they spotlighted was color. The author told the following story:

"Kottak brings an off-purple shirt to class.  Holding it up, he first asks women to say aloud what color the shirt is. the women rarely answer with a uniform voice, as they try to distinguish the actual shade (mauve, lavender, wisteria, or some other purplish hue.) He then asks the men, who consistently answer as one, "Purple." Rare is the man who on the spur of the moment can imagine the difference between fuchsia and magenta."

I had to laugh at the story because it describes my current situation so well.  Even after two months of telling everyone our colors are aqua, red, and yellow I'm still not exactly sure what color "aqua" really is.

What color do we really see?

The nursing facility is prime opportunity for many people who are trying to do community service, court ordered and self-motivated.  Current govenment protocols require that  the court ordered community service people do their hours without any direct contact with residents. (Maintenance, laundry, groundswork, ect).  The problem that we've had in the past is that some citizens come into the facility saying they want to volunteer.  It is only after completing their specified number of hours that they go to the volunteer coordinator and ask for certification of their hours. They sometimes get very upset when they find out that we can't provide that certification.

This has resulted in a certain process when people ask to come in to visit or volunteer.  Typically if someone wants to visit residents we just let them visit. Sometimes it becomes obvious after a short discussion and observation that someone is there for community service hours and not to really volunteer.  Instead of just letting them visit; we need to send them to the coordinator.

Which brings us to my experience today. We had a mid-twenty year old person come in today to talk with residents.  He was wearing baggy, low-slung clothes, and the predominant color was black. His speech was mumbled and slurred.  He was African American. I came to the snap decision that this probably was a person who needed to see the volunteer coordinator before visiting with the residents.  I sent our visitor into her office; fully expecting not to see him again.

I was wrong. Turns out that this visitor; had recently changed his life. He had found the gospel, within the baptist community. He was so happy with how his life had changed that he was actively searching for various opportunities to share that experience. He thought the nursing home would be a good place to start.

Meanwhile. I'm feeling pretty crappy. I don't really consider myself a biased person. However; faced with a situation I jumped to a rapid conclusion based upon dress and physical appearance.   S. has a friend who had one parent who was Hispanic. He never learned Spanish; never participated in the culture. He mentioned that there are many times when he meets people that they assume he doesn't know English and their initial interactions reflect that belief.

I wonder sometimes how often our unknown biases and prejudices affect our decisions and rationales. We see someone and based on dress, appearance, skin color, and jump to a snap decision. How often do we see what we expect to see even though it's wrong? We aren't consciously biased but how often does it creep in without us knowing.  More importantly; how do we avoid this unconscious thought process?

Yea for offloading debt to my kids.

Here's an absolute stunner related by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, co-chairs of Obama's debt and deficit commission, to the National Governors Association last Sunday: Every dime of current federal revenue is consumed by three entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That means all other federal programs, including the military, education and innumerable others, are being paid 100 percent by borrowing.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700048741/In-budget-battle-which-side-is-right.html

I've always known that Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid were monsters. I guess I wasn't really aware of how much of the federal budget they really consume.  You have to wonder how long the US can keep borrowing money until something collapses.

What is love?

I've had a couple of interesting conversations in the past few days with several people. The subject is a little corny; but we all need a little bit of corny in our lives occasionally.

The first conversation actually occurred at work. It was actually prompted by a conversation that a few of my aides were having at the nurses desk. We have a fair number of very interesting and enlightening conversation there. This specific one was actually about love. My aide had made a comment that she was madly in love with a boy that she had recently been dating. I expressed my honest opinion that I thought it was impossible to really love someone that you have barely known for a couple of weeks.  She stated that she knew it had to be love because he was all that she could think about.  I thought it interesting that she would define love as what I would consider infatuation at best and lust at the worst.

I mentioned this conversation to a girl that lives in Salt Lake City. After the conversation with my aide I was somewhat curious as to what other people believe that love is. This girl brought up some ideas that I thought were fascinating. Instead of describing love by how a person feels; she defined it by what someone does. She described the relationship that her grandfather and her grandmother had. There are times in which I wish I could record conversations in my mind because I'm probably not going to do justice to her comments.  The basic idea, as I understood it, is that she defines love as having such an intimate relationship that you are completely attuned to each other.  Her grandmother always knew what her grandfather wanted and/or thought.

The conversation continued on to why some people rush to say "I love you to each other."  I think that one of the problems is that the English language doesn't really have the capability to reflect that graduations that exist in human emotion.  We have "I like you" and we have "I love you." There is nothing in the normal language that would delineate the range of emotions between those two.  So it leaves a person with the following conundrum. Do you keep using "I like you" even though it understates your feelings for a person; or do you switch do "I love you" which in in all likelihood overstates the emotions you're really feeling.

After these conversation I realized something somewhat ironic. Those girls to whom I've expressed the words I love you too are those girls who I probably felt a little over "like". The one girl whom I've come closest to real love however; I never expressed it to her.  There's got to be a better way to really define how you feel about someone. I recently found one in a text book. Weird I know.

One of the classes I recently took was development across the lifespan. There were several chapters covering the various age groups and the challenges that each age group typically faces. One of the major discussion points for the emerging adulthood group was the formation of relationships. There was a fascinating article written by Robert Sternberg in 1988 titled "The Seven Forms of Love."

He believed that all forms of love can be described through 3 different attributes.

1. Passion - an intense physical, cognitive, and emotional onslaught characterized by excitement, ecstasy, and euphoria. 
2. Intimacy - Knowing someone well; sharing secrets. Each partner gradually revealing more of himself/herself as well as accepting more of the others revelations.
3. Commitment - Grows gradually through decisions to be together, mutual caregiving, shared possessions, and forgiveness.

Each of the seven forms of love is defined by which of the three attributes is included within the relationship.

1. Liking - Intimacy
2. Infatuation - Passion
3. Empty Love - Commitment
4. Romantic Love - Passion, Intimacy
5. Fatuous Love - Passion, Commitment
6. Companionate Love - Intimacy, Commitment
7. Consummate Love - Passion, Intimacy, Commitment

I was actually surprised at how well the categorizations fit all my previous relationships.  Of course; it's not really appropriate to use in everyday vernacular. I'm not particularly eager to find out how a girl would respond to the phrases "I'm infatuated by you." or "I have fatuous love" for you. The results probably would not be pretty; and might even lead to a restraining order.