The wisdom of Dory - "Keep on swimming"

In truth I have never really been either a follower or a critic of Michael Jackson. I used to really like some of his songs when I was in primary school, and ‘Heal the world’ is still one of my all-time favourite songs (although this is more for sentimental reasons, as my standard five class performed the song for our end of year concert, and ever since then it has remained a trigger for memories from that time). For about 10 years or so, I have not really cared much for much of his stuff. His appearance (especially his nose) upset me tremendously – it just grossed me out. And this mass outpouring of fan grief on television is seriously annoying me.   

The only person who has had any sensible thing to say about Michael Jackson’s death is my mother(!). She said:

“What these people don’t realize is that whatever one might say about Michael Jackson, he lived his life exactly the way he wanted to. So it is futile and stupid to grieve for him. He lived his life. These people [said while gesturing to the TV screen where a fan was wailing in despair] should really focus on that and get on living their own lives”

This was a really strange comment coming from my mother. But I realized that agreed with her 100%, in that there really is no point to wasting precious time and life with stupid and often inane worries and concerns.

The reason that her comment really hit home is that two of my old work colleagues and friends have passed away in the past two months or so. The one was Barbara, a 42-year-old cancer survivor, who had genuine chutzpah (for lack of a better word), and a real joy of life. The second was Fundi, a 31-year-old mother, who left a young son behind. Both deaths really shocked me, partly because they were so unexpected, partly because of who these people were and the vitality that characterized them, and partly because it really showed how valuable life and love is. Even worse, the brother of one of my really good friends is extremely sick with an extremely rare type of lung cancer (very rare in itself, and then usually only found in asbestos miners). This wonderful young man, who is the most stubborn person ever, has done all he can to fight this awful disease, but is currently so weak that he cannot even stand by himself.

So, in the context of all this, my mother’s comment has really made me think. This year I have been so absorbed in doing everything that needs to be done, that I have really forgotten the point of it all. I have so worried about pleasing my lecturers and supervisors and even clients that I have lost sight of the person I want to be when I am practising as an educational psychologist. Worse than this, I have also been bringing a lot of the stress into my life.  

Today I met my good friend (and former colleague), Robert, for coffee:

In between an awesome catch-up session, we were talking about Barbara and Fundi. Then and there we made a pact to focus our minds and hearts again on who we are and what we want, and to keep all of our daily trials in perspective.

In this vein, here is a link to my new mantra – “JUST KEEP SWIMMING”...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmyUkm2qlhA

Just a warning – the song does indeed get stuck in your head  

Last Sunday was Gabi’s christening. It was a tiny affair, with her parents only inviting family, the two godmothers and their respective partners, and me. David was not able to attend as he had to run a weekend workshop, but I went anyway.

And I was so glad that I did attend, because it was so an awesome ceremony. Gabi was christened in the Catholic church, and I had always assumed that the ceremonies between the Greek and Catholic were very similar (apart from the language difference), and as a result I had really not been so excited apart it. You see in the Greek Orthodox church, the ceremony is really long. There is a long section where the priest chants the service. Then the mother and godmother go off with the child, strip them down and bring them back to the priest. The priest then literally dunks the baby into the baptismal font three times, completely submerging the baby in water. This happens three times. The baby (who by this time is screaming blue murder) is whisked away by the mother and godmother to be soothed and dressed in the white baptismal outfit. During this time, the priest continues the service. When the baby, mother and godmother are ready, they come back into to the church and finally the godparents make their promises to renounce evil and look after the child, etc. It is a long ceremony, and definitely not one of my favourites.

But the ceremony on Sunday was different. It was actually rather nice. First of all, there were three babies being christened at once (which I still can’t quite get my head around). Then there was a print out of the service, printed on fancy silver cardboard, so that everyone could follow along. The service itself was in English, which after long ancient Greek services was a real treat. The priest told us that as we had all taken time out of our lives to be there to witness the special event we were all sort of godparents of the child we had come to support, and so he encouraged us to respond each time the little pamphlet prompted the godparents to respond. The priest himself had such a nice and gentle way with the children, it was really so lovely to see. He did not dunk the babies into water, but rather held them and leaned them backwards so that he could anoint their foreheads with holy water. The whole thing was over in next to no time, despite the fact that there were three babies being christened. It was just such a nice ceremony.

We then headed back home for lunch. This was the kind of awkward part, as I have never met any of David’s uncles or his aunt, and my word, they were a stand-offish bunch. It was so weird. They don’t have much of a relationship with David any more, so I guess they that they didn’t feel a need to strike up a relationship with me. However, it was cool chatting with David's younger sister, and Keera’s friends (the godmothers and their significant others). We actually had some really cool chats about random topics like Star Wars. It turned into one of those afternoons where you laugh a lot, abut nothing in particular, and just have fun.

Here is a picture of Gabi being christened and one of me holding my honorary niece:

Currently Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Special Edition) By Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries, Benny Hill, Gert Fröbe see related

The Living Years

This evening was an example of how things have a funny way of working out exactly the way they need to. In fact, they generally work out perfectly, albeit in a completely different way to how we pictured it.

I guess the story begins with Linda’s boyfriend, Eksteen. Now Eks has a band, known as The Sick Leaves. It is kind of a one-man band of sorts, and he is the singer, song-writer and guitarist. He may hire other people to play different instruments, but he is The Sick Leaves. Linda runs her own record label, which really makes them the perfect match.

I have only seen Eks perform once before (at the Night of a 1000 Drawings), and I really enjoyed the performance. Since then, I have been so keen to see him perform again, but unfortunately this year has placed so many demands on my time, and made me feel so utterly exhausted, that I have not really had a good opportunity to see him. Until this evening, where he was scheduled to play at the St. Stithian’s Art Festival. It was supposed to be the perfect time to watch him, as today was the last ‘deadline-day’ for this month, and I actually had a holiday feeling. It was exciting to be seeing Linda again after quite a few months. This is when things started unravelling.

David was hoping to come along, but then someone insisted on having a counselling session with him on Thursday at 18:00 (i.e. at the exact time The Sick Leaves were scheduled to play). So I made a plan with my dad to drop me off at the festival. Problem solved.

Then the mom of the two girls I au pair asked me to look after her girls during the afternoon until 5:30. I agreed, thinking that it would take me 10 minutes to get home, and 25 minutes or so to get to the school, so while it would mean frantic running around, everything could still be done.

I left the girls late, mainly because they had two friends there and the four girls were having such a good time that their friends left only at 5:45. I dashed into my car and started driving only to see my ‘Oil’ light flash. I don’t know much abut cars and engines, but I do know that when you get a signal to put oil in the car, you don’t question – you put oil in immediately. So I took a detour past a service station, and waited for one of the attendants to put oil into the car.

I got home 25 minutes late, rushed inside to consult the map book just in case my dad needed directions, and sent Linda a text message. I then rushed off to find my dad, only to find that he was hungry and had decided to have dinner before taking me. He finally finished his meal, and we headed off to the school. My sister decided to come with, mainly because my mom decided I would need company at the school.

My dad decided to take his way (i.e. the long way) to the school. We finally got there, only to discover that St. Stithians huge – it is more like a medium-sized suburb than a school, and there were no posters up to point the way to the festival. After driving around the school / suburb for 10 minutes, he finally asked for directions. Finally at 6:55 I got to the festival.

Unfortunately, as you may guess, The Sick Leaves had long since gone. There was a really group on stage, but at that point, after an extremely rushed day (presentation 8:00 – 13:00; au pairing 14:00 – 17:45; and pandemonium 17:55 – 19:00), all I wanted to do was get hold of Linda and Eksteen and apologize for missing the performance. And that’s when I discovered that I had cleverly left my phone at home with the map book.

Luckily, my sister was able to get hold of my dad who came back to pick us up. We listened to Zebra and Giraffe perform (incidentally they are an awesome band!) until he got there, and then we finally headed home.

And that’s when the Universe finally showed me why things worked out that way. There is a song that I hear from time to time by Mike and the Mechanics, ‘The Living Years’. This song always makes me tear up, because of my relationship with my dad. I never feel like I am the daughter he (a) wants and (b) deserves. And also, my family find it difficult to express emotions to each other, and I never really know how to tell my parents how much I really do love them.

As the song was playing, my dad suddenly started talking about how it was one of the few songs where he really listens to the lyrics (usually he likes to listen to the melody and the voice, not so much the words). But this song is different. It evokes memories and strong feelings in him too. It was really rather amazing (and very rare experience) to sit with him in that space, and actually have a way to communicate real feelings with each other.

And the funny thing is, the whole evening had to work out in exactly the way in which it did in order for us to have had that moment (including not seeing The Sick Leaves).

When I got home, I found my phone and saw I had a missed call from David. His voice mail message was that the guy he was meant to counsel had not come through yet, and he had waited for 30 minutes, and he was phoning me to see whether he could come through to the festival after all to meet me.

I gave him a call, and it turns out that the client arrived about 10 minutes after he had called me, and they had had a really good counselling session. So even leaving my phone behind had served a valuable purpose, because if David had gotten through to me at 6:30, he would have left his house and thus missed the client (and I would probably have gotten a lift home with him and not my dad and thus missed the father-daughter bonding moment). 

An update

The last few weeks have been some of the craziest ever. This is because the deadlines are starting to pile up (and in some instances overlap with each other), and the department, in all their wisdom, had decided to add the addition pressure of us finding internship sites for next year. The one completely magical and wonderful moment this week was celebrating two years with David, which has been awesome J

I have been slowly working my way through my ‘June to September To-Do’ list, and am now over half-way through my literature review, half-way through my data collection, and have devised a two-part plan for data analysis and discussion of my research. I even have a sort of ‘research group’, which stemmed from a realization that I needed a research ‘buddy’ and as most of my class are rather relaxed about their research, I selected Luke as the lucky buddy, reasoning that he needed to finish his thesis anyway. Somehow this changed to include Megan (his fellow lab mate), and then changed yet again to me being a part of their weekly lab meetings, where weekly research goals are set. The best part about these meetings is they have stoked up my enthusiasm for my research again.

The awful and much-dreaded June exam was written on Wednesday. Apart from my mom interrupting me by calling my phone incessantly (and thus sparking the major panic attack I had, as I was convinced she was calling because there was a very real emergency – luckily all was fine).

I am making slow but steady progress in most of my coursework, and have even serendipitously managed to locate a second hand copy of a book of transactional analysis for toddlers, and thus I can now even devise a programme for my class at the nursery school where we do our community psychology pracs. Transactional analysis is far from my favourite psychological therapy, but it is simple enough – the basic premise is to get the individual to the optimal state of believing “I’m okay, you’re okay”. It is simple, and will probably work, or at a minimum get the kids at the school into a better emotional space. These children are almost like the exact opposite of the kids at Keera’s little school, as they are often severely emotionally deprived and in some cases abused. So it is a really good feeling to know that this will help them. The kids are just too cute - here are some of the kids in the class I take:

The best news is that I have secured my top two internship sites, and so on Monday morning I will actually be turning one site down. It is a really awesome feeling to know that this has been sorted out, and I got my first choice site.

And we are semi-‘on holiday’ as we only have supervision and clients for the next three weeks, and one seminar paper and presentation for Thursday (unfortunately, it is for community psychology, and it counts 35% of it course, and my group are only starting to work on it – time has not been kind to us!)

The point is that for the first time in months I woke up feeling a strange sense of freedom – I didn’t have deadlines (well, at least not until Monday) and the only place I ‘had’ to be was at Bedford Centre to watch an afternoon showing of a movie. I didn’t even have plans with David, as he is running a workshop this weekend. Naturally this changed within 10 minutes of waking up, and within 30 minutes of waking I was off to attend a 5-hour workshop on one of the scholastic assessments and meet with my assessment partner to go through our supervisor’s comments on our work. Then I dashed around Johannesburg between book stores purchasing a father’s day gift for my dad and a gift book for Gaby (who is being christened tomorrow), before charging off to Bedford Centre to meet Luke to watch ‘Sunshine Cleaning’. This is an awesome movie, by the way, and I would so recommend it. We then spent far too long looking at travel books (a major indulgence of mine) and I have now added Umbria and the Czech Republic to my list of ‘Places to go’. I am now spending this evening working on the community psychology paper, so that one more thing can be ticked off the list!

Today it hit me that it is the beginning of June!

Okay, this seems glaringly obvious, and yet somehow the enormity of it escaped me. Or rather, I was in a state of utterly blissful denial. Because you see, in the next three months (i.e. the period between the beginning of June and the beginning of September) I have to complete the following:

·                1 x exam on 17 June (the bane of all the psychology masters’ students existence)

·                1x assessment feedback (from the first assessment I did over the last quarter)

·                1x assessment (the second assessment we are due to start in July)

·                1x assessment report (on the second assessment we are doing)

·                1x adjustment and maladjustment paper (the topic and due date have yet to be set)

·                1x community psychology paper and presentation (which thankfully will be over and done with on the 25^th)

·                1x case conceptualization and presentation (at least, I sincerely hope it is only one and not two!)

·                6x in-depth face-to-face interviews (to be done by end of next week – the big interviews will be done on Friday this week, Hooray!)

·                6x transcriptions of said interviews (to be done by the end of next week – the big ones to be transcribed by Sunday and no later)

·                30x scoring of developmental assessment tests (to be done by the end of next week)

·                1x Data analysis chapter (chapter 5 of my research dissertation, consisting of both quantitative and qualitative analysis – thank goodness for the market research days!)

·                1x Literature review (chapter 3 of my research dissertation – thankfully I have a really good start on this and have already started tackling this)

·                1x Discussion chapter (chapter 6 of my research dissertation)

·                1x Conclusions chapter (chapter 7 of my research dissertation)

Then, I also have internship interviews that literally pepper my calendar for the month of June.  

I also have to attend two Saturday workshops of assessments this month.

There are a number of social events coming up, such as Gabi’s christening and my course co-ordinators final, final party (a long story). And then there is Father’s Day. And my brother and my mother celebrate their birthdays in June, which means I need to take some time out to plan something for both of them. July and August are hectic birthday months, and all of people who are super-important to me, so plans will have to be made (even if it is only making a plan for a cup of celebratory coffee and a slice of cake).

Also this month brings my two-year anniversary, something which I am so celebrating - I am extremely blessed with David.

Now that I have made this list (which I should point out consists only of the work that is due for marks – I have not counted any of the mountains of readings we have to complete or the transcribing of our therapy sessions, etc), I am starting to freak out a little bit... Maybe even more than a little bit... Seriously, denial (and all of the other wonderful defense mechanisms) are fantastic – Freud was so right!