?When trying to express oneself, it’s frankly quite absurd,
To leaf through lengthy lexicons to find the perfect word.
A little spontaneity keeps conversation keen,
You need to find a way to say, precisely what you mean . . .?

Mary Poppins

It’s Monday, and It’s a Mary Poppins kind of day. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and I find myself singing along with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke as they perform ?Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.? Inasmuch as I find myself waxing nostalgic, I am also thinking about how much I love words.

Throughout my undergraduate journey I constantly absorbed new words. While I didn’t come across the chemical name of titin, or borrow ?honorificabilitudinitatibus? from Shakespeare, I did augment my vocabulary in a perfectly wonderful way: though reading. Every course, every lecture, every journal article, and every library book gave me an opportunity to develop my vocabulary.

Long before I embraced higher education, I was friends with a young woman who had both a B.A. and an M.Sc. Although my former teammate was an intellectual she was, sadly, not an educator. Instead of showing tolerance toward less educated folks like me (and perhaps gently correcting me in private), she brandished her alumna status like a bludgeon, taking random intellectual swipes at the unlearned. I recall (admittedly with some wincing) the time she humiliated me in front of our entire baseball team for using the colloquial expression ?yous guys.?

According to Urban Dictionary, the phrase ?yous guys,? common in New Jersey, New York, and Chicago, is a colloquial reference for a group of men and women. Something one might say to a coed baseball team. Granted, it wasn’t the best turn of phrase but it was an earworm that had somehow burrowed deep into my brain and for whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from saying it (much to my own amazement, I assure you).

The term earworm comes from the German word ohrwurm, and refers to a musical phrase that sticks in your head. According to Earwurm, ?Do you know that sensation of having a tune or song fixed in your mind, repeating over and over? That is called an earworm!?

For better or worse, we all have earworms we would like to annihilate from our psyches. While culling phrases such as ?yous guys? and eliminating superfluous word like ?like? from my repertoire was a challenge, to this day I take comfort in knowing that I am not alone in my desire to purge inarticulate phrases from my memory and speech. In fact, wikiHow has pages devoted to learning how to stop saying ?like? and how to stop being (like) so annoying.

Someone once said ?laughter is an instant vacation.? As long as the joke is not at someone else’s expense, I agree. The difference between me and my former baseball buddy is that I don’t feel compelled to publically call out someone for poor vocabulary choices. We all learn in different ways and at different speeds.

However, if you do want to expand your vocabulary quickly, Languagelab offers a succinct list of words that are sure to impress.

But for maximum impact, read. Read every day if you can. I suggest that you start with the dictionary (no, I am not kidding; keep it in the bathroom). I am what you might call a bibliophile. With over three thousand books in my home library, one of my biggest dreams is to build a floor-to-ceiling bookcase (with requisite rolling ladder, naturally). For now, though, my books will remain shelved on 18 Billy bookcases from IKEA.

As you can see, whether It’s a phonological memory loop or laziness, those irritating expression, songs, and jingles that refuse to disengage themselves from our heads can be as maddening as hiccups. Speaking of hiccups, thanks to my very bright niece I learned that a spoonful of sugar gets rid of them.

Now if I could just get rid of that song in my head.

Naturally, as a kid it meant nothing, and I continued to eat as much Gummibären (Gummi bears), marzipan (almond icing), and lebkuchen (gingerbread) as I could scarf down. And every December, just in time for Heiligabend on December 24, a gigantic box of goodies arrived from my Omi in Germany; inside was every manner of holiday sweet including my favourite, dominosteine (chocolate-dipped lebkuchen cubes with jelly and marzipan filling).

Back then, I drifted off to sleep with visions of sugar plums. If I ate that way today, I’d be drifting straight into a diabetic coma.

As a mid-forties adult, ?Der Mensch ist, was er ißt? suddenly means everything and I find myself obsessing over food labels. It all started last fall at the Kardish health food store in Ottawa. While I was waiting in the checkout line, I picked up a gratis copy of Vista magazine. I had never seen the magazine before and when I flipped to the contents page I was pleasantly surprised by the array of insightful articles. Although titles like ?Grow a Younger Body? and ?Nobel Prize Winner Discusses Our Climate? sounded interesting, I was immediately drawn to the title ?Overfed Yet Undernourished,? written by Ironman triathlete Brendan Brazier. I quickly flipped to Brazier’s article and read about the obesity epidemic pervading contemporary North American society.

Stuffed and starved we are.

However, I’ll go one step further than Brazier and say that we are also ignorant when it comes to matters related to foodstuff; in particular, what we think we are eating. Inasmuch as caveat emptor applies to real property, it also applies to real persons.

Having recently watched the film Killer at Large, I knew Brazier was on point. To further buttress his assertion that we are overfed and undernourished, my partner and I had just returned from a Caribbean cruise with eight of our friends where we witnessed excessive, unremitting consumption. While the volume of consumables was substantial, and visually appealing, it was largely nutrient-deficient fare. Even the fruit juice, no doubt injected with excessive flavour molecules, was too sweet.

Although I don’t consider myself a people-watcher, I couldn’t help but stare (frankly, in utter astonishment) as passengers gorged themselves on as many as 17 (yes, one more than 16) plates of assorted desserts. Frenzied dining is not something I care to see again; nor, for that matter, do I ever want to vacation amidst such a backdrop of overindulgence. While I realize it must be challenging to prepare healthy food options for three thousand people, as I walked down the gangway I was relieved to leave the floating amusement park, with all its greed and gluttony, behind me. Back on beloved terra firma, I pledged to make wiser, healthier food choices.

In an effort to help me more fully understand the effects of sugar in my diet, a doctor friend of mine challenged me to give up all forms of sugar (i.e., agave, stevia, honey, brown sugar, maple syrup) for 10 weeks?an experiment that changed my life.

After my little science project concluded, I picked up a second-hand copy of Connie Bennett’s book Sugar Shock. Having just experienced cold-turkey sugar withdrawal I was well aware of the negative impact sugar had on my body. More importantly, I finally understood that sugar, with its short-term boost, had actually been depriving me of intrinsic vitality. In any case, as I continued to educate myself, I began to see that prepackaged, ready-to-eat foods are by no means convenient for the body and, more often than not, food identified as ?wholesome? is anything but.

So why such a disconnect between fact and fiction? Commerce.

Although Killer at Large offers some insight concerning food origins, it only skims the surface. If you really want to understand where our consumables come from, go rent the movie Earthlings. Written and directed by Shaun Monson, the English film is narrated by Joaquin Phoenix and Persia White while the French version, Terriens, is narrated by Montréal Canadiens vegan hockey player Georges Laraque. If you are at all mindful of the interconnectedness of life, you will walk away from this movie irrevocably changed. In addition to examining what you eat, you might even find yourself motivated to lessen your environmental footprint (to learn more about that, visit Planet Green).

As for me, the way in which I treat other living beings?beings that exist ?lower on the food chain??is becoming more important to me; the more I ponder human-instigated death and destruction, the more I find myself wondering what our future will hold. What will our patent disregard and disrespect for other life forms say about us as a species after we have annihilated ourselves? And I wonder, too, about the knock-on effect of the religious decrees that say on one hand ?Thou shalt not kill,? (Deuteronomy 5:17) but conveniently claim that not all killing is murder. Is it just me or is that not somewhat of a contradiction, like the term ?civil war??

American educator Derek Bok once said, ?If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.? If you have the guts to explore your own ignorance, I invite you to conduct your own science experiment and eliminate sugar, processed foods, or meat from your diet and record what you observe. After my experiment with sugar deprivation I decided to purchase a book for some levity, so I snatched up a copy of Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? by Peter Walsh. After reading Walsh I was not only inspired to purge my kitchen cupboards but the rest of the house, too. As I surveyed the house I began to realize I have a lot of stuff. Let me clarify: I have a lot of unnecessary stuff. The very act of donating boxes and bags of excess ?stuff? to Goodwill enabled me to wake up to my own excess.

If you are at all like me you, too, have a subconscious penchant for excess. If we don’t address this epidemic, like obesity itself, I wonder what will happen to us as a species. Once we have destroyed and consumed every other living thing, what will be left to eat? I wonder if we will go the way of the 1973 science fiction thriller Soylent Green? For those who are unfamiliar with the movie, it is based on Harry Harrison’s 1966 sci-fi book Make Room! Make Room! and takes place in New York City in the not too distant future of 2022.

In that world, some 40 million New Yorkers struggle to say alive, most living in the streets. Surviving on ever-depleting rations, the government comes up with a sustainable solution: feed the people, people. Okay, so perhaps that concept is a bit of a stretch. But since we do live in a world that is obsessed with consumption’soda pop, candy, fast food, cars, clothes, electronics, whatever?I have to concede It’s possible that we will, some day, run out of food.

Before you call me a blasphemer, remember I said ?I wonder.? Besides, I agree with Isaac Asimov when he said ?Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today?but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.?

I wonder a lot, in fact, so in an effort to continue my ?food and me? education, I am reading as many books as I can find that challenge me to think about my relationship with food. Books like The Ethics of What We Eat and The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, both by Jim Mason and Peter Singer.

I’m also building up my personal library to include as many of Michael Pollan‘s books as I can find, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. The point, for me, is to keep learning. Like any situation in life there are always more than two sides to the story.

To close with an interesting quote by Tim Robbins (from the December 1993 edition of Esquire), ?You are what you think you eat.? I would like to tell my shipmates who gorged themselves on food like it was in infinite supply, though you thought you were eating well, you were mistaken. While you were storing up empty calories in your body, that same quality of energy was feeding your brain.

Say No—UNiTE to End Violence Against Women website

Take action!

Inasmuch as these words inspire community engagement and transformation, to witness real change requires a collaborative commitment to “walk the talk.”

There comes a time in our lives when we are confronted by someone who challenges our personal and political ideologies, forcing us to question how and what we “know” to be true and, in facing the fallacy of our dogma, we are forced to concede our ignorance. If one can embrace even the possibility of transformation, however faint, change will inevitably follow.

Recently I attended the UNIFEM panel discussion corresponding to the UNiTE to End Violence Against Women campaign, a global call for action on ending violence against women and girls. Launched in 2008, the campaign advances UNiTE’s objectives through social mobilization. What I heard has inspired me to think and act locally, and globally, in order to be part of the solution to ending violence against girls and women everywhere.

Moderated by Charles Coffey, O.C., the panel of guest speakers included The Honourable Senator Mobina Jaffer, Q.C.; Nanette Braun (Head of Communications, United Nations Headquarters, UNIFEM); Dr. Shafique N. Virani (Professor, University of Toronto); Madame Lise Watier (President and Founder, Lise Watier Foundation); Zahra Rasul (Faculty of Women and Gender Studies, University of Toronto at Mississauga); David Kelleher (President, Amnesty International, Canada); and Almas Jiwani (President, Canadian National Committee of UNIFEM), the event organizer.

Senator Jaffer spoke of her experiences as an emissary to the Sudan, and of participating in the peace process in Darfur. “In both of those locations,” she said, “I saw just how far the arms of UNIFEM extended.” After sharing a particularly tender story about a young Masai girl in Kenya who, due to birth complications suffered from a fistula and was banished by her own husband, Senator Jaffer encouraged everyone in the audience to stand up for the rights of women and girls everywhere.

“Write to Prime Minister Harper and tell him exactly what you want to see our government do for women everywhere,” said Jaffer. She then encouraged the audience to get involved in the G8 and G20 summits and ended by saying, “Let’s work together to change the lives of women and girls around the world.” Clearly Senator Jaffer got Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s memo: this woman walks the talk!

Nanette Braun told the audience that violence against women and girls strips countries of the full potential of human capital. In one of the most illuminating moments of the entire event, she said, “VAW is not inevitable … it is a problem with a solution. VAW is one of history’s great silences.”

Reiterating that gender equality is one of the United Nations Millennium Goals, she explained that the UNiTE campaign moves to accelerate action in order to meet the 2015 millennium goal deadline.

“In more than 50 countries, maternal rape is still allowed and, in many more countries if a man rapes a girl or woman he is free under the penal code if he marries the victim,” said Braun. Speaking about the need to expand our focus from responding to violence after the fact, she shared how UNIFEM is strongly advocating for the establishment of innovative primary prevention strategies and national action plans. Braun reminded us that anyone can become a champion for change.

Professor Rasul explained the global consequences of violence against women and girls. Interpreting data from Afghanistan, we learned that 87 per cent of Afghan women have experienced violence. Rather than blaming religion or culture, Professor Rasul emphasized the need to examine the roots of patriarchy and violence against women and girls. She encouraged Canadians to question whether or not the climate of war, and occupation, produces and accelerates violence against women. “We need to ask ourselves, here in Canada, what are we contributing to it,? she said, ?and then critically evaluate whether or not occupation helps or hinders.”

She spoke of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), established in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1977 as an independent socio-political organization of Afghan women fighting for human rights and for social justice in Afghanistan. She also spoke about the Women’s Action Forum (WAF), a 29-year-old Pakistan-based women’s rights organization supportive of all aspects of women’s rights and related issues, irrespective of political affiliations, belief system, or ethnicity. “Become fully informed and engaged concerning the issue of VAW—wherever you are,” said Rasul. “Here, in Canada, you can support the Stolen Sisters campaign, an Amnesty International human rights response to discrimination and VA indigenous women in Canada.”

Demonstrating activism here in Canada, Lise Watier shared stories from her vision to encourage women to take charge of the present and build for the future. This can be accomplished through structure and support, including her foundation, a non-profit organization whose primary mission is to help women in need.

Later, David Kelleher of Amnesty International reminded us that legislation only works if it is enforced, and emphasized making the personal political wherever possible.

So back to the point about a time in our life when we are confronted by someone who challenges our personal ideology, and the warning “No data. No problem. No Action.”

Although the impact of those words resonated with my core belief in the importance of grassroots community advocacy, I wondered how I could become part of the solution. What I learned is simple: do something. Acknowledge the fact that change is required and, however small, begin taking steps to achieve change.

“People may forget what you say and what you do, but they never forget how you make them feel,” said Coffey.

I say, “People may forget what you say and what you do, but they never forget that you showed up.”

Take action. Today!

Sesame Street

Tell me, who are the people in your neighbourhood?

I remember singing that song with my son in the mid-1990s. We sang about all sorts of people we met on the street: letter carriers, police officers, teachers, and bus drivers. If we sang that song today, we could add the lady panhandling at the corner and the kid sleeping next to the curb.

Out of curiosity, I searched the word ?homeless? at Sesame Workshop and although it came up blank, to their credit, Sesame Street has an ?Initiatives? page with a section devoted to well-being that includes the piece ?Coping with Economic Difficulties.?

In Canada, our current economic difficulties have led to a rise in homelessness. According to Statistics Canada, ?in 2006, an estimated 24.9% of all households spent 30% or more of their income on shelter, up marginally from 2001. Those who spend 30% or more on shelter may do so by choice, or they may be at risk of experiencing problems related to housing affordability.?

Gordon Laird, Media Fellow Emeritus for the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, and author of “Homelessness in a growth economy: Canada’s 21st century paradox,” writes that ?Canada’s ?new homeless? can be found everywhere?towns, cities, suburbs.? In fact, according to Laird, ?one in five renter households in Canada spends more than 50 per cent of their income on shelter.?

Think about that for a moment. Imagine spending half your income on shelter and the other half on the rest of life’s needs?things like childcare expenses, clothing, debt repayment, food, insurances, medical and dental costs, school expenses, transportation and, of course, taxes.

I find it notable that Sesame Street has supportive initiatives to help families during tough economic times, whilst our current Conservative government has allowed child poverty to worsen under its watch. According to the Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSC), Stats and Facts on poverty, ?approximately 3.5 million Canadians were living in poverty in 2004?more than 11% of the population.? As well, 865,000 Canadian children under the age of 18 lived in poverty in the same year?one of every eight children.

To break that down into relatable terms, according to the Ontario Ministry of Education’s class-size tracker, primary classrooms in Ontario currently have 23 students. This means, rounding up, that three students in every primary classroom in Canada now live in poverty (the actual figure is 2.875).

In an effort to learn more about ways to advocate on behalf of the homeless, I recently spoke with Laird Eddy, Director of Mission Services at The Ottawa Mission. For 17 years Mr. Eddy has dedicated himself to ameliorating the lives of homeless men in Ottawa.

What do you believe is the single biggest misconception Canadians make about the homeless?

There are many misconceptions about homeless people. I think one of the biggest is that the homeless have caused their own situation. Economic factors, mental or physical illness and many other problems in life, issues that are often beyond our control, can lead to homelessness.

What advice do you have for emerging advocates who want to confront homelessness in their own communities?

Volunteer or get involved in some way in your own community. Take time to learn about the issues that cause people to become homeless. As you educate yourself, you will be able to determine where the need is greatest for the homeless in your own community.

What are some simple ways to help the homeless in our midst?

Coordinate a fundraising event or a donation drive for your local homeless shelter. A simple thing like collecting socks, underwear and other everyday items for a shelter can inspire hope and dignity, particularly at a time when some have very little.

Can you recommend some strategies that students can undertake to raise awareness concerning the issue of homelessness in Canada?

Nothing is as effective as seeing the problem with your own eyes. There are many simple ways student can help. Get a group of people together to volunteer at a local homeless shelter, or collect donations and personally deliver them to a shelter. Through these types of experiences and talking with people staying at shelters, people become aware of various needs and get involved.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of your job and, conversely, what is the most difficult?

The most enjoyable aspect of my job is watching the hope return into the eyes of someone who has lost everything. I often see this when people realize that someone truly cares about what happens to them. The most difficult aspect of my job is when someone new walks through our doors. It means that circumstances in life have overwhelmed them with grief of some kind to the point that they are now homeless.

If you had the ability to instantly fix one piece of the homelessness puzzle what would it be and why?

I would try to provide more affordable supportive housing. In cities it is especially difficult for low-income families to afford even an apartment. The lack of affordable supportive housing is a barrier to solving the problem of homelessness.

What are you most proud of in terms of The Ottawa Mission’s advocacy around the issue of homelessness in Canada?

I am most proud of the fact that we have been able to provide the kinds of programs that are life changing for people. Our programs, which include our hospice, medical clinic, school, job training, addiction rehab and housing assistance all work together to provide opportunities for people to change their lives for the better.

As Mr. Eddy has revealed, advocating on behalf of the homeless can be as basic as collecting and donating sundry items to a shelter, or it can be comprehensive as spearheading a fundraising initiative in your own neighbourhood.

And speaking of your neighbourhood: I ask you again, who are the people in your neighbourhood?

They are the housed and the homeless. And I know you see both.

Joseph Campbell, American mythologist (1904 – 1987)

To Whom It May Concern: As you will see from the attached resumé . . .

I have written those words quite a few times in recent weeks. My academic journey at Athabasca is nearly over and I’m beginning to look for gainful employment. Unfortunately, gainful employment doesn’t appear to be looking for me.

I’m not sure if it is today’s sensitive economy, my age, too many credentials or not enough, but jobs don’t seem to be as plenteous as they were even five years ago.

So, what’s a grad to do?

Two-thirds of all AU undergraduate students are female, and many of us are well over 29. For those of us who did not start our university journey straight out of high school, we are at or near ?mid-life? as we look for our first job out of university.

Somehow I thought it would be easier.

As I have already realized, this new road is rife with pitfall and promise. Since I prefer to position myself on the side of promise, in the spirit of forward thinking and self-motivation I purchased a new bumper sticker: Focus on your hopes, not your fears.

As I handed over a toonie for the sticker?a poignant motto for my current state of being?I received a penny in change. I don’t know why, but as I held that little one-cent piece I was reminded of the kafuffle it created a few years ago when Bank of Canada economists suggested the penny be retired from circulation. In that instant, the penny became a powerful symbol for resilience for me as I persevere through this semester of unemployment. I carry it with me as a reminder to focus on the mettle within. I have great skills and now a wonderful education, and although I’m not 21, I am nowhere near ready for retirement!

Joseph Campbell once said, ?Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.? Well, I discovered three doors that lead to a large percentage of jobs, and I want to open them for you today.

Door 1: Your local newspaper and your favourite online recruiting site (my favourites are idealist.org and charityvillage.com). It’s estimated that some 10 per cent of all jobs are found this way. Good to know.

Door 2: Your local placement agencies. Here in Ottawa I signed up with two wonderful organizations: Red Chair HR and Excel HR. If you haven’t found an agency you are comfortable with, stay positive and keep searching.

Okay, we have one door left and, according to some estimates, it can lead to as many as 80 per cent of jobs. So, do you want to know what marvel of employment awaits you behind door number three?

It’s your Rolodex!

Wherever you keep your contacts?on your desk, in your laptop or cell phone (or, if You’re like me, a weathered spiral-bound book with hundreds of Post-it notes)?dust it off and start networking. A surprisingly high percentage of all jobs are found by the simple and persistent act of mining your very own contacts.

Who knew?

The point, as I am learning, is to be open to everything and attached to nothing. Which brings me, full-circle, to the To Whom It May Concern issue. Although I am following my bliss to graduate school, I also want to follow my bliss to the bank. To do that, I need to remain flexible, positive, and conscientious in my job search.

To close with more of Campbell, ?We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.?

A penny for your thoughts?

Am I correct in thinking that in 2009 there is nothing common about courtesy?

Like most of you, I am a dedicated distance learner transitioning from part-time to full-time studies.

To make it happen, I left a full-time corporate career for a part-time café career. I assumed it would be a fairly easy transition; I did, after all, know people.

Or so I thought.

The first time my alarm went off at 3:45 a.m., I reluctantly rolled out of bed and fought the urge to crawl back in. Thankfully, it really does take only 21 days to build a habit, and for seven weeks now I’ve been contentedly (more or less) starting work at five in the morning.

I welcome the dark embrace of the morning, its stillness rife with birdsong. Maybe five a.m. inspired Rabindranath Tagore when he wrote, ?Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.?

Anyway, back to the café. It’s a pretty nice environment. Jazz music provides an ambient backcloth that dusts the periphery of my world. Up front, It’s a fascinating world of personalities?from Zen to zealous, café patrons provide me with endless fodder for thought. Mostly, however, I marvel at how mean people are?particularly at the drive-through window.

I’m keeping statistics now, and although it is by no means scientific, I have noticed that the majority of ?mean people? are women around my own age (40-plus). This, in itself, comes as a shock to me. I get the distinct feeling that these women assume most of us work in a café because we aren’t well educated. For shame.

The Friday leading into the Easter weekend was anything but ?Good.? For six hours, café staff worked non-stop. Although we greet people with a hearty ?Hello and welcome to . . . ? it was after 11:00 a.m. before a single customer said ?Good morning!? to us. I realize coffee addicts need their fix. What I don’t get is how they can be so disrespectful to the people who feed their need.

Let’s modestly assume that my colleague and I served over 75 coffees between nine and 10 a.m., and that many of them were specialty requests requiring milk steamed (at 142 degrees, if you please), extra shots of espresso, and the like. And let’s also assume that we were not doing one order at a time, but three. For this to work, the process needs to run like a pendulum?perfect synchronicity between my colleague and me.

Well, guess what? Inasmuch as I love the idea of ?perfect synchronicity? my colleagues and I are human and we do make mistakes. Whether you are a solicitor, a microbiologist, a non-profit ED, or a custom carpenter, I suspect you make the occasional mistake at work too. And maybe, just maybe, we filled the previous 74 orders perfectly before we did yours wrong.

Moreover, it is difficult to hear everything that is said to us at the drive-through order box; not only do we have loud café noises behind us, we hear the cars driving past you, we can’t hear you when you don’t look into the camera/box, we can’t hear you over the music you are listening to, or, worse, You’re still talking on your cellphone and expect us to differentiate between what you say to us and your important caller.

There are a thousand reasons why we don’t always hear correctly, but does that give you the right to berate us for missing your ?extra foam?? Does it give you the right to speak in a condescending manner or pitch a tantrum because we didn’t hear ?non-fat? and used 2 per cent milk instead?

Really, does messing up a simple coffee order really entitle you to belittle us?

In fact, my colleagues are dedicated to providing a superb coffee experience for you. The people I work with are kind, witty, and incredibly unique: many of them have another job; most of them are in university; all of them have community commitments. They are, in short, just like you!

During the few minutes You’re at the window paying for your joe (that may have been made wrong the first time) I would invite you to think of the people who serve you as mirrors of yourself. And I challenge you to make a different choice in how you interact with them. Think about Craig Kielburger.

In their book, Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World, Craig and Marc Kielburger offer a blueprint for creating a better world: one action, one small step at a time.

So, in the spirit of human kindness, why not try a different approach: common courtesy.

The choice is yours. You can choose to let your ?little-self? rule the moment, or you can let your ?big-self? stand tall. If you can’t demonstrate common courtesy, civility, and the spirit of friendship at your local drive-through, what chance do we have of creating an internationally respectful 21st century world?

So, whether You’re getting a triple tall, extra-hot, extra-foamy, 142-degree caramel latte or a double-double and a cruller, whatever neighbourhood coffee shop you frequent, please do the hardworking staff a favour and show some kindness.

Take a breather from the self-absorbed ?It’s all about me!? approach to life, and take the proverbial high road (even if you are right). we’re all part of the same community, each serving a different set of customers: your family, your friends, your neighbours?and you.

Since It’s your coffee, it really does start with you!

John conducts ongoing poetry groups in the San Francisco Bay Area and is an international leader in the movement of poetry therapy as an expressive art and medicine. In part 2 of a two-part interview, he shares some thoughts about his work.

You’ve written about how individuals can learn to catalyze conscience and creativity to make effective social change agents. How would students learn to view our world through the eyes of a poet?

The creative process, when it is really welcomed, draws upon and is impacted by so many things?the unconscious, lived experience, the senses, the moment, word play. I’ve always liked something Robert Bly said about writing poetry: ?I think writing poetry is a matter of agreeing that you have these two people inside: every day you set aside time to be with the subtle person, who has funny little ideas, who is probably in touch with retarded children, and who can say surprising things.?

Perhaps a story will help students understand what Robert Bly means. My sister, Holly, was born with Down syndrome. She will say to me, ?No, John, It’s Up syndrome.? So we know she has sense of humour! One day I asked her how she went about watercolour painting, which she does quite beautifully. Her first response was to say, ?I just do it.? Sounds pretty good!

I pressed her about that, ?Tell me more.? She replied, ?I get into the flow.? Then, she looked down to her right, for only a moment, lifted her head, looked straight into my eyes, and said, ?Wait a minute. I am the flow!?

How can students use impulse writing to enhance their learning journey?

I think learning ought to be, at least in part, fun. I think this would enhance the ?learning journey.?

Watching children can help someone who wishes to cultivate the poet within in the midst of a learning environment. A child’s fresh way of meeting experience is such a reminder of what we lose as adults. My book Finding What You didn’t Lose was written to help us recover that kind of spontaneity and to treasure our creative self.

How did we play as children? We followed an impulse towards fun. We imagined that the toolbox our father had was not just a toolbox, it was the toolbox that serviced cars during the Indianapolis 500 and we were the head mechanics. Or we imagined that the open field and creek near our home was the playground where a legion of imaginary creatures, a place where we could become whatever we wanted to be: space aliens, good guys, cave dwellers, bad guys, wild horses, Amelia Earhart and Mickey Mantle.

Poetic language offers us the opportunity to suspend a certain consensus level of reality in order to invoke and experience a reality that is more deeply in tune with our feelings and our sense of who we are. In this way, we help imaginative poems to arise. All too often we are given the message in school to quit playing around and ?get with the program.?

Sometimes, we wise up and transform ?playing around? into creativity. This can have a lasting impact on the rest of our lives and should be part of lifelong learning.

Apparently Kahlil Gibran once said, ?Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.? The same could be said for the academic journey. How do you think the pursuit of poem-making would best help the undergraduate, graduate, and/or doctoral student?

I think poetry helps us be more whole. That’s useful in any endeavour, to raise awareness of that wholeness. Sometimes, also, what matters most to us can’t be quantified or fully explained. There are parts of life that don’t ?write all the way across the page.?

In my work with students in graduate programs (I teach regularly in about four of them) they find that poetry is a way to communicate with themselves, and at times, with others who can listen, in a way that both builds a sense of community and helps them to distil their experience.

This can be especially helpful when we feel overwhelmed. The poem is one place you can go where there is nothing to prove for certain and where you do not have to have the answer. Yet, it may actually be a way to get a glimpse into some insight that had been hidden beneath the surface.

What advice do you have for university students who are, perhaps, afraid to let loose their inner poet?

Give it a try!

What makes one a poet?

If you realize that one of the toughest things there is to do in this world is be nobody-but-yourself, and you also see the value in taking on that challenge, it will help you see things in the way a poet does. I urge people to regain or to maintain a pleasure in words, in language. In living a life with words, take time to savour them.

Perhaps one other thing that can help is to trust the fact that you are already creative. When I was in eighth grade, my mother told other guests at a gathering, ?When John grows up, he’s going to be a poet.? Yes, It’s very encouraging that a mother would affirm such a thing! However, and I don’t think I intended any disrespect at the time, she tells me I turned to her and said, ?I am a poet.?

John conducts ongoing poetry groups in the San Francisco Bay Area and is an international leader in the movement of poetry therapy as an expressive art and medicine. In part 1 of a two-part interview, he shares some thoughts about his work.

How long have you been writing poetry?

I wrote my first poem when I was 12 or 13; I can’t remember exactly. I was watching a girl skate alone on the ice at Thorton Park, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and I was standing up as I wrote the poem. Although I wouldn’t have said this at the time, there was a sense of wanting the words to skate across the page.

What drew you to the art of poem-making as a healing modality?

I love writing, and have since I first started to write. I remember the feeling of joy when, in second grade, I made up my own stories. That joy was not only in the writing but some larger sense of making something. I created homemade books with poems and photographs and gave them to people who made a difference if my life.

Another reason, certainly, was that I was born with a severe medical problem with my right leg that developed during my childhood and teenage years. So I would write about that, especially as a teenager. Writing poetry gave me a voice that helped me not only to cope with this difficulty that included considerable pain but opened up a way to gather insight that helped me find meaning and grow.

My father, who greatly appreciated poetry, mostly classical poets from the 19th century, shared this with me, and my siblings. His goal was to communicate messages about noble attitudes. I saw that poetry could speak to issues about life not only in a literary way but in a personal way, also.

These elements, aspects of poetry that lent themselves to healing, to seeing oneself and others in a way that included body, mind and soul, began to come together in the early ?80s when I met Stephen Levine and soon after that my mentor in poetry therapy, Joy Shieman, who worked at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California.

It seems that the academic community finally recognizes poem-making as a valuable tool for student development. What are your thoughts on this?

There has been a tremendous amount of work in this area through medical humanities programs that occur in many medical schools. Physician poets like Jack Coulehan and Audrey Shafer along with a nurse practitioner poet like Cortney Davis, and Arts-in-Medicine writer like Gail Ellison, to name a handful of people, have been so important in advancing this field.

In addition to the PBS documentary [Healing Words: Poetry and Medicine], I’ve written about the value of poem-making by people in medicine in a book, The Healing Environment, published by The Royal College of Physicians in England, and also, Whole Person Healthcare, published by Praeger/Greenwood.

Poetry contributes to a deeper sense of listening and a greater capacity to notice details about someone. We see the intimate and sometimes unspoken clues in a person’s story that can help make authentic the phrase ?medical care.? My poet friend Kim Nelson (who works with incarcerated youth) writes that poetry helps us to recognize that ?It is the details of existence / That reveal our code of connection.?

Most AU students balance work, family, community commitments and school. How can students first find time to write for pleasure and second use poem-making to enhance their everyday lives?

The fortunate thing about poems is that they can be brief. A favourite poet of mine, William Stafford, when asked ?What is a poem?? answered by saying ?It’s where you don’t have to write all the way across the page.?

What he means, partly, I think is that in a poem you can imply and suggest. You don’t have to explain everything. The writer Erica Jong said, ?The image is a kind of emotional shorthand.?

For some people it is helpful to actually set aside some time dedicated to writing?even 20 minutes a day or every couple of days. For others it may be helpful to carry a notebook and have it available to jot something down. But value your words enough to catch those thoughts that catch your attention. Even a fine poet like Robert Frost said he had no idea what a poem would be when he started to write it. This may sound glib but you can start anywhere.

These are strategies to get started, to make it more accessible. But I would say that one has to get a real feeling for its value. I’ve written some books that have ideas for writing, sample poems, and actual space to write in the book! One should wade into the water a bit and get wet. The water is fine!

You’ve spoken about the importance of telling our own life story. Since you are speaking to an audience of university students, where precise language is vital, can you share how this alchemical bond could unite the poet to academia, in both a real and metaphorical sense?

I think I would rather try to connect academia to the poet. That seems, to me, to be a better way to go! The poet can learn from academic rigor, as you suggest, from the important of precise language. A poet can learn a great deal from poetic forms and by becoming familiar with all the elements that can make up a poem. The question a poet in academia might ask is, what does it mean to learn? How can I open to the process of poem-making?

About 22 years ago I wrote to the Greek poet Odysseus Elytis. Eltyis won the Nobel prize in 1979. His poems, of great lyric beauty, have had a great impact upon me. I sent him some of my poems and asked him to comment. What he wrote back, so briefly, was to say, ?A window to the world of the unknown but also the true has been opened to you and it will help you.?

So my image, both real and metaphoric, for the poet to connect is for academia to open the windows! I think the key is to have the window open.

Albert Einstein

Rituals. We all have them. There are physical rituals (your partner brushes his teeth using a weirdly rigorous technique). There are emotional rituals (your colleague plays BTO’s ?Taking Care of Business? before every staff meeting). And there are spiritual rituals (your mother smudges her home with cedar, sage, and sweet grass before and after every family event).

And for some of us, there are even academic rituals?deliberate actions that bring us into character for a specific educational purpose.

I presume that most of you have figured out that the distance-learning gig isn’t for the weak-willed. Not only are distance students an exceptionally conscientious genus of learners (brazen compliment intended), they’re also highly adaptable and remarkably resourceful. Since most distance learners have career, family, and community responsibilities, they are also master doers.

But the ?doing? thing isn’t so easy when your body is screaming for a nap. So it is precisely for times of low-to-no energy that I created my own ritual to spark an errant academic flame. As embarrassing as it is, I freely admit to the following ritual because it works for me; these 11 steps motivate me to manifest the mindset that I require to succeed as a student.

So, here you are; my unreasonable rite of way to reason, logic, and learning:

One, turn off the phone. Two, make solo espresso or green tea rice-milk misto, as required. Three, locate beaded cat ears and place on head to pull back hair (I have also been seen wearing moose antlers, a tiara, and a flamboyant red top hat I wore in the Vagina Monologues).

Four, layer up to combat the 10 p.m. to two a.m. chills. Five, light votive candles and Tibetan incense. Six, play Hildegard von Bingen or Rammstein CD, as required. Seven, sort books and readings into strategic piles.

Eight, pat the dog that has materialized by my feet. Nine, take the helm of my ?command centre? (a.k.a. the desk). Ten, visualize successful outcome(s).
And 11, begin learning.

Silly enough? Well, let’s face it: when avidity is waning, a large part of the whole ?success? thing is simply creating a climate for learning.

I hate to badger, but the right mindset can make the difference between an absolutely divine paper and an oh-my-god-this-really-bites paper. Truth be told, motivating myself was a whole lot easier when I was in a ?regular? classroom. Inasmuch as I love the virtual classroom (I can, after all, wear a kitschy top hat), this long-distance and, dare I say it, long-suffering educational pursuit has left me so isolated and unmotivated at times that my cranium-embellished ritual has become a PFD as I drift about my own little sea of indifference.

Since there is no corporeal connection for distance education students, no face-to-face interaction with other learners to mirror our progress, many of us have had to find ways to create an appropriate climate of learning. And who determines what’s ?appropriate?? Well, you do.

In one of my AU philosophy courses I learned that philosophy moves us in the direction of wisdom, along the path of perspicacity, if you will. But (pay attention here) studying philosophy does not impart knowledge necessary to become a wise woman or man.

Right now, wherever you are, I invite you to meditate on the following bit of wisdom from Henry David Thoreau: ?If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.?

What ?music? compels you? Just as I am the creator of my academic environment, having developed motivational vices and virtues as needed, so, too, are you the creator of your environment.

I encourage you to do whatever it takes to establish the atmosphere you need to succeed as a distance student. Why not allow yourself the freedom to be a little outrageous? Tap into the source of wonder within you and get a little crazy.

My rite of way is just that: mine. What will yours look like?

I hope you allow the kindergartener in you to take centre stage. Create a ritual That’s just for you. Be bold. Be eccentric. This journey (academic or otherwise) is what you make it, so why not make it fun?

Besides, who’s going to see you?

Like most of you, I am a dedicated distance learner transitioning from part-time to full-time studies.

To make it happen, I left a full-time corporate career for a part-time café career. I assumed it would be a fairly easy transition; I did, after all, know people.

Or so I thought.

The first time my alarm went off at 3:45 a.m., I reluctantly rolled out of bed and fought the urge to crawl back in. Thankfully, it really does take only 21 days to build a habit, and for seven weeks now I’ve been contentedly (more or less) starting work at five in the morning.

I welcome the dark embrace of the morning, its stillness rife with birdsong. Maybe five a.m. inspired Rabindranath Tagore when he wrote, “Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”

Anyway, back to the café. It’s a pretty nice environment. Jazz music provides an ambient backcloth that dusts the periphery of my world. Up front, It’s a fascinating world of personalities—from Zen to zealous, café patrons provide me with endless fodder for thought. Mostly, however, I marvel at how mean people are—particularly at the drive-through window.

I’m keeping statistics now, and although it is by no means scientific, I have noticed that the majority of “mean people” are women around my own age (40-plus). This, in itself, comes as a shock to me. I get the distinct feeling that these women assume most of us work in a café because we aren’t well educated. For shame.

The Friday leading into the Easter weekend was anything but “Good.” For six hours, café staff worked non-stop. Although we greet people with a hearty “Hello and welcome to … ” it was after 11:00 a.m. before a single customer said “Good morning!” to us. I realize coffee addicts need their fix. What I don’t get is how they can be so disrespectful to the people who feed their need.

Let’s modestly assume that my colleague and I served over 75 coffees between nine and 10 a.m., and that many of them were specialty requests requiring milk steamed (at 142 degrees, if you please), extra shots of espresso, and the like. And let’s also assume that we were not doing one order at a time, but three. For this to work, the process needs to run like a pendulum—perfect synchronicity between my colleague and me.

Well, guess what? Inasmuch as I love the idea of “perfect synchronicity” my colleagues and I are human and we do make mistakes. Whether you are a solicitor, a microbiologist, a non-profit ED, or a custom carpenter, I suspect you make the occasional mistake at work too. And maybe, just maybe, we filled the previous 74 orders perfectly before we did yours wrong.

Moreover, it is difficult to hear everything that is said to us at the drive-through order box; not only do we have loud café noises behind us, we hear the cars driving past you, we can’t hear you when you don’t look into the camera/box, we can’t hear you over the music you are listening to, or, worse, You’re still talking on your cellphone and expect us to differentiate between what you say to us and your important caller.

There are a thousand reasons why we don’t always hear correctly, but does that give you the right to berate us for missing your extra foam? Does it give you the right to speak in a condescending manner or pitch a tantrum because we didn’t hear “non-fat” and used 2 per cent milk instead?

Really, does messing up a simple coffee order really entitle you to belittle us?

In fact, my colleagues are dedicated to providing a superb coffee experience for you. The people I work with are kind, witty, and incredibly unique: many of them have another job; most of them are in university; all of them have community commitments. They are, in short, just like you!

During the few minutes You’re at the window paying for your joe (that may have been made wrong the first time) I would invite you to think of the people who serve you as mirrors of yourself. And I challenge you to make a different choice in how you interact with them. Think about Craig Kielburger.

In their book, Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World, Craig and Marc Kielburger offer a blueprint for creating a better world: one action, one small step at a time.

So, in the spirit of human kindness, why not try a different approach: common courtesy.

The choice is yours. You can choose to let your “little-self” rule the moment, or you can let your “big-self” stand tall. If you can’t demonstrate common courtesy, civility, and the spirit of friendship at your local drive-through, what chance do we have of creating an internationally respectful 21st century world?

So, whether you’re getting a triple tall, extra-hot, extra-foamy, 142-degree caramel latte or a double-double and a cruller, whatever neighbourhood coffee shop you frequent, please do the hardworking staff a favour and show some kindness.

Take a breather from the self-absorbed “It’s all about me!” approach to life, and take the proverbial high road (even if you are right). we’re all part of the same community, each serving a different set of customers: your family, your friends, your neighbours—and you.

Since It’s your coffee, it really does start with you!