What Are You Working On?

[Dannyalcatraz]

You live in the South? Any kudzu on your property?

I ask because according to Alton Brown of Good Eats fame, kudzu is not only tasty, but extremely healthy for you. He does advise, however, that since its considered an invasive pest species in the USA, you don't harvest & eat the stuff by the roadside, since your local authorities have probably sprayed it with some heavy duty plant-killers.

 

[Desdichado]

No, I don't live in California or Oregon or Pennsylvania MW. I live in the Deep South. We don't need government regulations for everything (or most anything) we do. We just do stuff. (I'm kidding to a certain degree, of course, but only partially. We don't much cotton around here to asking government permission to do what we wanna do with our own land. It's my land, I don't need a permit or to file papers. I'll do as I please.)

And you're also free to call it as you please, but nobody else would ever call that a wildlife preserve. Everyone else just calls that "their backyard."

 

[Bold or Stupid]

Currently working on

New Wednesday 4e game in an area based on a picture in the Worlds and Monsters preview book (the one with stone dragonheads).

Ongoing games - about to change gears in one, trying to get the other properly going.

Trying to form a solid enough idea to submit to Dragon.

Trying to sort out a recently returned anxiety issue so I can return to work.

 

[Jack7]

Trying to sort out a recently returned anxiety issue so I can return to work.

Before I hit the hay, do you mind me asking a few things about this? If you feel like answering, that is.

I used to be a psychologist.
Now I only worked with schizophrenic patients. But later on I became interested in things like anxiety disorders. And how to cure them.

Do you know what's triggering your anxiety?
Have previous treatments been effective?
What kinds of treatments did you try?

If you don't wanna answer I understand.

Good luck and Godspeed to ya in any case.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

Before I hit the hay, do you mind me asking a few things about this? If you feel like answering, that is.

I used to be a psychologist.
Now I only worked with schizophrenic patients. But later on I became interested in things like anxiety disorders. And how to cure them.

Do you know what's triggering your anxiety?
Have previous treatments been effective?
What kinds of treatments did you try?

If you don't wanna answer I understand.

Good luck and Godspeed to ya in any case.

No worries talking about it can help. Spoiler so people can avoid my angst.
[sblock]
I'm pretty sure it's been triggered by a series of upheavals at work, combined with a fairly certain knowledge that elements in the companies management wants rid of me and several others I've worked with (our faces don't fit the regional managers idea of good booksellers).

My anxiety is always work related, I've had various problems, and every new job seems to have some tragedy attached to it, at my first post uni job (a phone monkey) my dad had a heart attack. My next job after a period of long unemployment (mostly linked to now apparent stress issues) coincided with my gf leaving her job due to depression. My latest job started on the day of a very good friends cremation after I got the job about two days before she died.

I'm mostly using CBT this time, previously I've had counselling (person centred) combined with drugs to help lift my mood so I could work through it. The first lot Citirizene (iirc) turned me into a zombie, and then I took prozac, which worked well allowing me to deal with my .

Hope that covers it.[/sblock]

 

[Jack7]

Interesting. I can certainly see how the associations developed over time.

Are you familiar with the old training adage that it's easier to train a moderately intelligent dog than a really intelligent dog?

What I mean by this is that the moderately or far less intelligent dog simply waits for cues, he doesn't try and anticipate environmental or training conditions. He just takes things and cues as they are, not making many assumptions. His "association line is straight," and direct. The more intelligent dog, because he is more intelligent, is trying to figure out what will come next and gets overloaded with possibilities. His associational cues "branch out" in all directions. He's smarter, but also harder to train and retrain because he is constantly attempting to use his greater powers and capabilities to anticipate possibilities, regardless of whether those possibilities reflect actual reality, or not. He sees associations and cues in everything, regardless of whether those associations are necessarily meaningful, or not. plus he often associates multiple meanings to the same event or cue or situation.

Now I'm in no way comparing you to a dog, nor am I saying the internet is the place for meaningful mental, behavioral, psychological, or spiritual analysis of anyone, especially someone you don't really know.

But I give the smart dog example just as something to think about.

Is your talk therapy helping any by the way?

Well, I gotta go in a few minutes.

Again Good Luck and Godspeed to ya.

 

[Mistwell]

Before I hit the hay, do you mind me asking a few things about this? If you feel like answering, that is.

I used to be a psychologist.
Now I only worked with schizophrenic patients. But later on I became interested in things like anxiety disorders. And how to cure them.

Mind if I ask why you gave up being a psychologist?

I mean, with all the schooling and licensing requirements and hours you have to put in to get there, I figure there might be a story there as to why you gave it up?

Mind you, I'd understand. I'm an attorney who does not primarily practice law anymore (though I do still practice it some).

 

[Jack7]

Mind if I ask why you gave up being a psychologist?

I mean, with all the schooling and licensing requirements and hours you have to put in to get there, I figure there might be a story there as to why you gave it up?

Mind you, I'd understand. I'm an attorney who does not primarily practice law anymore (though I do still practice it some).

Not at all. I wasn't a psychiatrist though. A psychologist. It wasn't too bad. The internships ran concurrent with the studies.

And I gave it up for the same reason I gave up being a teacher. (Though I now homeschool my kids and occasionally teach for both college and church.)

I gave it up because I was working for the state. And they wouldn't let me cure anyone. Wouldn't let anyone cure anybody. Not even treat them decently. Just wanted them shot full of drugs and warehoused so the private contractors housing them for the state could collect money for each patient so warehoused.

Cures were actively discouraged. Subsidies and state welfare quotas were encouraged. It was a scam. After I saw where it was going and that it wasn't gonna change, I bailed and went on to other things. Nobody was gonna get cured, and nobody could be cured as heavily as they sedated them. Treatment was sedation. The guy working boss over the whole project took me out to lunch one day. We got into a discussion on psychology and different treatment methods and he didn't even know who Adler or Jung or James were. He didn't really know any treatment methods other than heavy drug therapies. I kid you not. Nice guy, totally clueless about his chosen profession. And I think he liked it that way. Fill out the right paperwork, talk to each patient the required thirty minutes a week, sign off on meds, back to their beds. It was convenient.

Just like when I was a teacher in the public system everything but a real education was discouraged, a quota of other things were encouraged. So when I saw that wasn't gonna change anytime soon either, I quit it. I don't like being involved in things where the system actually discourages success and achievement. I prefer the opposite course, where things actively encourage success and achievement. I thought about private practice in psychology but by then I was gravitating towards writing full time and business.

Any kudzu on your property?

I ask because according to Alton Brown of Good Eats fame, kudzu is not only tasty, but extremely healthy for you. He does advise, however, that since its considered an invasive pest species in the USA, you don't harvest & eat the stuff by the roadside, since your local authorities have probably sprayed it with some heavy duty plant-killers.

That's interesting. Never ate it, and never heard of doing that.
It's real heavy in some fields, especially near the river. But it's mighty, mighty hard to kill and will choke off most anything else around. And it's a real pain trying to slog through. I avoid it.

You can burn it off, but that's hard to do too unless it's really, really dry.
Maybe I've overlooked it though as a,potential source of medicines or nutrients. I'll go get some and examine it under a microscope and test it some with my chemicals. See what it shows.

Well, it's my weekend off for the month. The wife and I have an arrangement where she gets one weekend a month off, and I get one off. So I think I'm gonna go do some yardwork since the sun is low and check the habitats and then maybe go out to the lake.

See ya. And have a good weekend everybody.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

From what was said by Alton Brown, kudzu is akin to things like spinach or kelp in terms of nutrition.

And a quick look-see uncovers this:

Kudzu: 'Vine that ate the South' is also good eating

32nd Annual Blythewood Kudzu Festival Kudzu Recipes

 

[Jack7]

From what was said by Alton Brown, kudzu is akin to things like spinach or kelp in terms of nutrition.

And a quick look-see uncovers this:

Kudzu: 'Vine that ate the South' is also good eating

32nd Annual Blythewood Kudzu Festival Kudzu Recipes

That's interesting. About being similar in properties to spinach and kelp. You know I was thinking about this last night in the car.

About how certain cells designed to absorb, store, and utilize heat energy might be subsumed beneath the outer layer of the epidermis to undertake certain functions. And I was thinking, what would be an efficient distribution pattern for such cells to make them as efficient as possible for such functions? And could they be triggered to change shape and alter morphology given the right conditions?

Then I thought about what you said about kudzu. Kudzu leaves are distributed extremely efficiently to absorb solar energy (and it is also one I reason I suspect it chokes off everything underneath) because it blankets an area so it can soak up everything for itself. Thinking about the kudzu leaf distribution pattern like a cellular distribution pattern gave me some interesting ideas. Of course growing such a cellular pattern in a culture, and having them arrange in such a pattern in a living organism is entirely different, and they would have to share space (and therefore shape themselves accordingly) with other tissues, but the idea interested me a lot.

Maybe also, when it comes to nutrients and possible medicinal applications, I should look at the vine and roots as well as the leaves. Today when I go out I'm gonna ride down towards the river and photograph some of the kudzu patches and see how they are arranged. So thanks for that idea. See ya.