Recently, I was explaining to a friend about my upcoming surgery. Her reply was, “Kidney surgery. Yuk!” I thought she nailed it. It is certainly how I am feeling with the date now only three days away.
This all began with an ordinary kidney infection, which was discovered when I ended up in the emergency room with chills, a temperature—all indicators of another kidney stone—of which I have been plagued for over twenty-some years.
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Delights of dipping chocolates, baking filled cookies, and the perennial favorite—pumpkin pie. They flutter through my brain along with images of glistening snow, sleigh bells ringing, and carolers singing. This time each year, I start thinking about Christmas in my hometown: Inkom, Idaho. It’s just like in the movies, I swear. And 71 of my 75 Christmases have been spent there with my parents and extended family.
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Anabel Jensen’s journey to make the world a more empathetic place started way back when she was a toddler. Today, as founder of Six Seconds, she teaches companies how to be more emotionally intelligent, which she says helps the bottom line. Along the way, she received a most precious gift – at least four times – from one of the world’s greatest comedians.
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A few days ago, I received a post from a friend who was honoring the importance of friends in her life and she had forwarded a list from the late Andy Rooney about the things he had learned while living.
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At Synapse, the important memories are our memories of the children – moments of innocence, of naiveté; moments of expectancy and excitement; moments of joy and laughter; moments of loneliness and sadness; moments of generosity and service. From my seven years at Synapse, I remember with joy…
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In November 2014, I spent 17 days (minus travel time), in India. This trip had been on my bucket list for quite some time and it cost me a nice chunk of my savings. As both my vocation and hobbyhorse circle around emotional intelligence, I was determined to pay strict attention to how this trip and my emotions would intersect. I looked forward to experiencing these emotions, which happened multiple times within any one day at home, with great anticipation. “Hooray!” I thought to myself, “I finally have a reason and an opportunity to see such items as the Taj Mahal!”
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Synapse might be looked upon as a “rainforest to the mind.” If, as research suggests, the growing brain is physically shaped by experience (Diamond, 1988), then the human mind is being ignored and neglected by many educational institutions from pre-kindergarten to college. Today’s children, bombarded by a fast-paced media culture, are developing different and less powerful “habits of mind” than did children of previous decades (Healy, 1990).
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What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning?
I am motivated to get out of bed by my noble goal, which is to use my voice (deliberately chosen to battle introversion) to balance accountability with compassion so that integrity floods the globe. When the velcro of sloth would keep me penned to the bed, I am reminded that only action makes it so. My noble goal is the fuel for my intrinsic motivation.
It wasn’t gone, not really…just misplaced. I just need to search more diligently. It must be here someplace. I couldn’t believe it was really gone.
School was over — the last celebration attended, the last award presented, and the last speech delivered. I was in the process of clearing house — the doll house, that is (the big house remains sadly neglected) — when I discovered one of my favorite gifts, a small toy chest, had disappeared from its place in the attic.
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I have always been both fascinated and repelled by snakes, and so when I read this story* several years ago when teaching literature to eighth graders, it was unforgettable. The story is true.
Grace Wiley chose to became a zoologist who specialized in the reptilian world. She was a tiny woman, Barely five feet tall and did not weigh 100 pounds. After an early, disastrous marriage, she had decided snakes were easier to cope with than were husbands. And so snakes had been her main companions for over 40 years.
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