Nine Ways to Help Haiti

Not sure how to donate? Think your budget is too tight to contribute?

Here are some suggestions for (relatively) painless ways to help:

1. Text to donate. Text message to donate $5 to relief organizations. Text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross. Text “Yele” to 501501 to donate the Yele Haiti, the grassroots organization founded by Wyclef Jean. The donation will appear on your cellphone bill  where you may hardly notice it. Or use one of the other steps to balance the budget.
2. Raid your change jar. If you have been throwing your change into a jar to save, or even just your pennies, count them out. Five dollars equals 20 quarters, 50 dimes, 100 nickels, or 500 pennies. Of course, you can combine them to make up the total. If you have young children, turn this into a great math lesson.
3. Get your own coffee. Instead of stopping at your favorite coffee emporium on your way to work, bring your coffee from home in a thermal cup. Do this two - three time this week, and you’ll have five dollars to contribute. Or wait until you get to work. Many companies supply coffee for employees - it may not be your favorite blend, but it’s better than not having access to fresh water.
4. Stay home. Instead of going out to the movies this weekend, stay home. Watch a DVD. Instead of renting the movie, check one out from your local library. You could also play a board or card game instead. With the cost of movie tickets and refreshments, you could give $15 to relief efforts. 
5. Set up a donation jar on your desk at work. Choose a clean jar or cup, tape on a label saying “Money for Haiti,” and put it on your desk along with a sign-in sheet for people to record their donations. Send out an email to your co-workers that they can stop by anytime to donate. (Check with your company’s HR department to determine company policy first. If you can’t do it, maybe the HR department can. They may even be able to match the funds or help you through the accounting department to turn the money you collect into a check for donating.)
6. Turn down your thermostat. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, turning back your thermostat 10°-15° for eight hours can save you around 10% a year on your heating bills. Put on a sweater, and set the temperature 2°-5° lower for a week or two, and donate the difference. It’s better for the environment, too. U.S Department of Energy: http://tinyurl.com/dx6pja
7. Skip dessert. Set aside the money you would spend on ice cream, pie, cookies, or other treat to donate instead. The same goes for raiding the snack machine at work. You will be helping a good cause and trimming calories at the same time. Now that’s sweet.
8. Check out the library. Instead of spending money on a paperback or renting a movie, go to your local library. If you want the latest releases or the current bestsellers, go online to reserve a copy so it will be waiting for you. Call the library or go to their website to see if they are part of a consortium - my town library is part of the Minuteman Library Network in the Greater Boston area, for example, so if my library doesn’t have a copy, one of the other libraries in the area may.
9. Go online. Not sure how you want to donate? Check out these sites for more information on relief organization efforts:


• Charity Blog: http://blog.charitybuzz.com/charityBlog/?p=621
• Boston.com (via @dabeard): http://tinyurl.com/yagyf4n
• UNICEF Haiti: http://tinyurl.com/ye82pqa 
• American Red Cross: http://tinyurl.com/y8pgceq
• Yele Haiti: www.yele.org
• Better Business Bureau (to confirm that an organization asking for donations is legitimate and not a scam): http://www.bbb.org/us/charity/

A Little Afternoon Music

Yesterday, I had the delightful experience of attending an afternoon concert by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players (BSCP) at the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. The program included the Bartók quintet for piano, two violins, viola, and cello; Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles for wind quintet; and Brahms Hungarian Dances I - IV arranged for wind quintet and string quintet by Martin Amlin.

The members of the BSOP are Malcolm Lowe, violin; Haldan Martinson, violin; Steven Ansell, viola; Jules Eskin, cello; Edwin Barker, double bass; Elizabeth Rowe, flute; John Ferrilllo, oboe, William R. Hudgins, clarinet; Richard Svoboda, bassoon; and James Sommerville, horn. The pianist for the concert was David Deveau.

Disclosure: I am not a musician nor have I studied music. I rarely go to concerts, although when I do, they are orchestral. The last one I attended was the Handel and Hayden Society’s production of the Messiah at Symphony Hall, Boston, this past December, a performance I thoroughly enjoyed. I did learn to play the piano as an adult, but had to “retire” after I had wrist surgery. My antique Steinway has been in storage for several years.

Enough about me. I would skip over the Bartók, too, because as a composer, he doesn’t interest me, but the playing was remarkable. I loved the interplay of the instruments, and the intensity and clarity of the music. Deveau was impressive, expressive, and if I could think of another “essive” word, he was that as well. I was enthralled the entire time they were playing the quintet, watching the musicians, impressed with their skill and technique. Deveau’s playing made me want to find a way to get my piano out of storage.

The Bagatelles were a delightful contrast, modern and complicated, demanding incredible technical skill and dexterity. The extended notes, particularly for the horn, were impressive.

I had never heard any pieces by Ligeti before, so along with the technical intricacies, I was pleased by the humor in the compositions. 

Of course, they saved the best for last. Not because the other pieces weren’t amazing, but because the Hungarian Dances were passionate and fabulous and breathtaking and.... Well, you get the idea.

The BSCP had commissioned the arrangements from Amlin for the concert and he did an exquisite and masterful job. Although job isn’t really the right word for his acumen. The Players announced the addition of the Hungarian Dance, No. 1 just before they started playing the Dances, and I’m so glad they did. The performance was simply brilliant. A privilege to attend. I would beg and plead them to release a recording very soon. (I feel like the judges on Britain’s Got Talent after hearing Susan Boyle for the first time.)

Jordan Hall itself was a delight - such a gorgeous setting and apparently, the acoustics are quite good. The photo on the left doesn't do it justice.

Let me thank my mother’s neighbors (anonymously) for giving us the tickets and enabling me to have such a great experience. 

And thank you to the the Boston Symphony Chamber Players for transporting me with their music. Bravo!

If you can, check out their upcoming concerts on the Boston Symphony Orchestra website: www.bso.org. You'll also find digital recordings and podcasts, including one for the sold out BSO series with YoYo Ma as guest soloist.

Percolation

I’m busy musing. 

Musing as in “ruminating” or thinking over. And musing - I am basically making up this definition - as in waiting for some sort of Muse to offer me inspiration. I’m coming up with ideas, but they need more time to percolate to see if they have merit and to allow them to gain strength. 

“Percolate” - get it? To filter through something and to brew through percolation to make stronger. 

Isn’t the dictionary a wonderful tool? My musings often lead me to look things up, and then what I look up leads me to new musings. 

I use Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, as I’ve said before. It’s huge, although not as big as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which is truly awesome. If Webster’s Third is too much, the Associated Press Stylebook recommends Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th edition.

Dictionaries help define words, sure, but they also keep us involved in communication. I like knowing that when I use “percolate,” for example, it has more than one meaning that I can play with. It opens up possibilities.

The dictionary’s true playmate is the thesaurus, that wonderful reference tool listing synonyms and antonyms made famous by Roget. Or rather, that made Roget famous, as he was created the first one. You can read more on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roget's_Thesaurus

All thesauruses (or thesaruri; according to Webster’s New World, both versions are acceptable) are not the same, which could be ironic given that they indicate similarities and differences in meaning. Or maybe that’s just me. 

But back to my point - I really like Roget’s Superthesaurus by Marc McCutcheon, which is now in its third edition (2003). It has a “word-find reverse dictionary” which really helps when you aren’t quite sure exactly what you are trying to look up. 

These reference books are good tools for musing. I also like to doodle, but that’s a subject for another day.

Report from Week One

It snowed again today, a light dusting. Winter is here, challenging me with the cold and the dark. 

Working in a home office without the need to “punch in” or even to get out of my pajamas until noon or later means I need the internal drive to be professional. While some people love the casual atmosphere of working from home and can be productive in the same clothes they’ve slept in, I’m setting the goal of behaving as if I am formally reporting for work. Otherwise, it’s too easy to hibernate in mind, body, and spirit.

So, checking off accomplishments for the week: one project completed, turned in, and invoiced. The second larger project started for the same client. New edits arrived in today’s mail, so I’m targeting completion by the end of next week. 

New business and professional development: my blog is up and running and I’ve contributed something every day. As this blog evolves, I will see where the writing goes and where I can contribute to the greater blogosphere. Books, poetry, music, movies, news, events are some things I will be exploring.

Website development: this project has been on hold since early fall, and I want to get moving on it again. The delay has been really helpful as my design ideas have changed based on some new career goals. I’m going to let go of the set notion I had, particularly as I hadn’t been able to convey those to my web designer clearly. Priority for the weekend is to get those concepts moving.

Writing: So many of my personal writing projects have been stalled for legitimate reasons, but not so any longer. So the commitment is another challenge - more specifically, how to move toward those personal writing goals. (Aside from “just do it.”)

Art: I”m exploring with art and photography after a long, long hiatus. For now, I’m taking one photograph a day, with the reality that I’m taking more than that as I learn about my digital camera. (Check off another challenge from the list this week.) 

Yesterday, I switched the flash from “auto” and “off,” and loved the results. Still haven’t found my cable to connect to the computer, so that’s a definite challenge for this coming week. 

My list continues, but it is enough for me to know that I have been able to keep my expectations in the box (as I posted on January 3) and have some forward momentum. 

All in all, a pretty good start for a new year. 

Winter Poems

We've had cold and snow in the Boston area over the past few weeks. I know there are places where the weather has been worse, and that to complain about my popsicle toes is really more like whining. So, if I can't beat the cold, I can at least try to enjoy it. Not by skating or skiing - I've had enough broken bones from riding horseback, thank you very much. 

I'll imagine a fire in my fireplace, which is at least decorative even if I don’t want to test the chimney. I’ll enjoy a hot cup of cocoa (made with soy milk, but cocoa still), and read some poetry. What else should a former English major, some one who holds the graduate degree that's been equated with "piled higher and deeper" - do?

Enjoy!

Wallace Stevens

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

and, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

from Harmonium, 1921)

Robert Frost

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

(from New Hampshire, 1923)

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Snow Storm

No hawk hangs over in this air:

The urgent snow is everywhere.

The wing adroiter than a sail

Must lean away from such a gale,

Abandoning its straight intent,

Or else expose tough ligament

And tender flesh to what before

Meant dampened feathers, nothing more.

Forceless upon our backs there fall

Infrequent flakes hexagonal,

Devised in many a curious style

To charm our safety for a while,

Where close to earth like mice we go

Under the horizontal snow.

What do Antarctica, water buffalo, and break dancing have in common?

The same thing as Smith College, Global Post, and Starbucks have:

My Facebook Wall status updates.

Social media is changing the way we see the world, helping us make connections with other people in ways that inform us, allowing us to go places we couldn’t otherwise. What we do with that information, how we filter and exchange it, helps us be better citizens of the world, open to the exchange of ideas. 

Antarctica: I get FB updates from Smith College, my alma mater. The college posts notices about what alumnae and faculty members are doing, and today they included a link to Christina Arrison’s blog from McMurdo Station in Antarctica: http://iciest.wordpress.com/

Arrison graduated almost thirty years after I did, so Smith is our only connection. Without it, I wouldn’t be enjoying her enthusiasm and insights about living in such a remote area. I have no intention or inclination to ever live or work there, but I like knowing about it.

Water Buffalo: I took two journalism courses at Harvard University Extension this past fall, one of which was taught by Andrew Meldrum, an internationally known and respected journalist. He was the last foreign correspondent in Zimbabwe, and has written a book about his experiences, Where We Have Hope: A Memoir of Zimbabwe (Grove Press, 2006). I highly recommend it, particularly as Mugabe continues to be in the news.

Meldrum is currently a senior editor at Global Post (www.globalpost.com), an online international news agency which relies on citizen journalism to report on world events. Many U.S. news organizations have closed their foreign bureaus and have curtailed their budgets for international correspondence, so Global Post is providing much needed coverage. 

Today’s Global Post FB update did not mention water buffalo. Instead, it highlighted an article about “Avatar” and accusations in Russia that it had been plagarized - falsely, it seems. Yesterday, a FB friend had posted a link to Peter Sagal’s blog commenting on the movie, which I have not seen, so I clicked on the link to find out more about it. 

One thing led to another on the site, and I found myself checking out an article about water buffalo. I’m allergic to cow’s milk, and love buffalo mozzarella because it has significantly less allergens for me, so I like cooking with it. I’m also interested in multimedia - since I was assigned to do one for Meldrum’s class - so I was interested to see the one that accompanied the article: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/italy/090717/making-buffalo-mozarella

Break Dancing: I’m a fan of Starbucks coffee, and get the FB updates for coupons and special offers. Starbucks does more than post about its products. It also posts about social issues it supports. Today, the post had a link to a video about break dancing and youth activism: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=261232040814&ref=nf

Checking out the video got me interested in the organization behind it, Youth Venture. That led me to the organization behind Youth Venture, Ashoka. And now, I can let you know about them, too: http://www.ashoka.org/story/6472

This is viral marketing at its best.

Some Good Books

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym, published in 1950s and reissued by Penguin Classics in 2006. 

I read this over the weekend and couldn’t believe I hadn’t discovered Pym before. 

Amazon.com compares her voice to Jane Austen’s. The plot is slighter and the voice is more amused and witty than ironic, but the story is enjoyable. An unmarried woman in post-WWII England involved in her church and community, and very interested in her neighbors. Elizabeth Bennett she most certainly is not, even if Elizabeth remained unmarried into her thirties, as Mildred Lathbury, the heroine of Excellent Women does. 

Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, by Dave Evans, Wiley Publishing, 2008.

An excellent guide to the social media, including blogging, Facebook, and Twitter. Even if you are just setting up a personal blog, Evans gives you tools to understand how to get your blog noticed. Since I’m assuming if you didn’t want to be noticed, you would just keep a journal, this book is a good introduction. I’ve just started reading through it, and so far have found some answers to questions I didn’t know I should be asking. Good stuff.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, Henry Holt, 2009.

A big book that won the 2009 Man Booker Prize (literature), the novel chronicles the life of Thomas Cromwell of English History and Henry VIII fame. The story is broken into components, which helps the reader keep track of who, what, and where. What intrigues me to keep reading is the third-person point-of-view that keeps us inside Cromwell’s perspective and yet distances us from it. I can’t speak to the historical accuracy, but it’s got substance. Good for a winter’s night and not beach reading.

Mindful Movements: Ten Exercises for Well-being (with DVD) by Thich Nhat Hanh, illustrations by Wietske Vriezen, Parallax Press, 2008.

These simple exercises by the Buddhist monk are easy enough to get me moving when I feel cramped from sitting at my desk. They don’t require any equipment and they encourage being in the moment. I can always use more of that.

And that’s what I am reading now. You may like them as well. 

Facing the Challenge

It’s Monday after a long holiday weekend, which came right after another long holiday weekend. The fresh possibilities of the new year seem already in the past. We’re on day four of our resolutions and intentions and many of us can feel the desire to change subsiding into the ordinariness of our non-holiday lives. The same stuff in our lives that affected us enough to want to change is there to seduce us back to stasis.

So today, let yourself think of something different, something that does not require willpower or stamina.

Let yourself be.

You could ask yourself the motivational question, attributed to Robert H. Schuller, that shows up on bookmarks, paperweights, and coffee cups: “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” 

That may work for you. Perhaps it doesn’t.

You could meditate. Breath in and breath out. Deeply and calmly. 

Then again, that could just seem silly. I’ve never been able to get to any internal calm by meditation, although perhaps I would like it if I kept at it. That’s a challenge I’m not interested in facing right now.

You could doodle or draw or scribble something, words or lines or whatever.

Something may come of that or something might not. Your inner voice may claim you aren’t a writer or an artist.

Or you could let yourself be who you are right now in this moment. 

I think that may be the real challenge. Who am I? What are the parts of me I like? What don’t I like? 

In order to change, we need to know the starting point. Not who we are on January 1, but who we are today, right now. 

Expectations, Great or Otherwise

Expectation, according to dictionary definitions, is the act of waiting for something to occur, of looking forward or anticipating. It is also the object of anticipation or the basis of it.

Mathematical expectation is based on probability; scientific expectation is tested as hypothesis.

(I’m paraphrasing from several sources, but my primary references are Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged and Dictionary.com.)

All too often, we ignore probability and hypothesis to form resolutions predicated on our hopes and desires, anticipating the future without reckoning with the past and present.

Dickens wrote about this effect in Great Expectations, a coming-of-age story for Pip, the main character, who realizes that life is different from what he had imagined. The published ending raises a hopeful expectation of connection between Pip and Estella, in contrast to the original keen insight with which Pip accepted his true story through his experiences. Ironically, Dickens rewrote it to meet his publishers' expectations.

On the other hand, Danes apparently have low expectations, and that makes them happier, as Eric Weiner reported on the New York Times Opinionator blog last July: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/lowered-expectations/ (We can assume that gloomy Hamlet was an exception.)

Rather than high or low ones, the Buddhist tradition seeks to have us let go of expectations altogether. To give up desire -- even the desire to change -- to live in the uncertainty of each moment without looking to the future or the past. 

What comes to mind is Schrödinger’s cat, both alive and not alive until the box is open. While we are always in the present, we do evolve towards the future. Schrödinger was using the cat hypothetically, as an exercise in understanding of quantum physics. Sooner or later in our world, however, that cat needs to be fed. 

Expectations are tricky, whether they are high, low, or meditated away. The best approach may be to not let them rule our actions, which is the closest I can come to letting them go. Let them exist in the box with the cat.  

And take our cues from Monty Python, where “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.” 

In their inimitable way, the Spanish Inquisition skits play on our expectations that the Cardinals will burst through the doorway, flub their lines and have to start over, and that their methods of torture will be ridiculous -- from the dish drainer instead of the Rack to the comfy chair.

In the brilliant final twist, the defendant in the courtroom declares, “I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition,” and everyone turns to the doorway, indeed expecting the three cardinals to burst into the room. They don’t. Instead, they are hustling onto a double-decker bus to get to the courtroom, and they make a late entrance. 

“Bugger,” as they say.

What we don’t expect, as it happens, may be better than what we do.

Note: The Monty Python skits are available on YouTube and on DVD. Information on Schrödinger’s cat is available through Wikipedia among other sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat

"The Best"

As I wrote in yesterday’s post, the goal of being “the best” is problematic because it is externally driven, elusive, and temporal. Olympic athletes sustain unexpected injuries or come down with the flu and are unable to compete -- what happens to their goal of being the best in the world? Are they now failures?

Some would say “yes,” I suspect, particularly those in the sports world where competition seems to be everything. I live in the Boston area, where Red Sox fans are, well, fanatical. We lived through the Curse, so we know and accept failure. Members of Red Sox Nation are fiercely loyal but harshly critical, ready to blame and slow to forgive. 

Can you say “Bill Buckner”? 

What happened in the 1986 World Series (when the ball rolled between Buckner’s legs) won’t stay in 1986. Boston Magazine, for example, ran two stories -- ”Leave It to Buckner” by John Wolfson and “Thanks for the Memories” by Rebecca Dorr -- on it in October 2006, 20 years later: 

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts_entertainment/articles/leave_it_to_buckner/

Harsh. In a sport where an outstanding batter still misses the ball 60% of the time. (And personally, Bill, I don’t care if you autograph photos of the error for money. It happened to you, so why not?)

Buckner came back, played again. He didn’t allow that failure to be the defining moment of his life. Unlike many fans in Boston, who can’t “forgive” him because he didn’t.

We all make mistakes, have moments in our lives that we wish we could do over, when we have taken a wrong turn or let something get by us. Our challenge is to move forward from those moments and not allow them to define us.

Or to let being the best define us. Retrospectives at the end of each year highlight the “best of” that year. Those lists can be useful, if we remember that what defines the best is most often informed opinion, not fact, which is why arts reviewers for the same newspapers can come up with different lists for the best movies or the best books of the year. 

Turn the calendar to the new year, and what was best is in the past. Predictions for the future abound, as we seek to define what lies ahead. We want to believe it can be known.

What we find often surprises us in the shock of discovery, as Susan Boyle did last year on “Britain’s Got Talent.” In the final contest, she came in second-best. But in the end, she met her own challenge to be a professional singer. 

Millions watched her on the show and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY (I love the moment when she starts to walk off-stage. She’s done what she came to do -- “make that audience rock” -- and she’s finished. I also love her smile in the pause before the final verse.) Her debut album was released in November with record-breaking sales.

She didn’t allow us to define her by what she wasn’t -- thin, glamourous, stylish -- but by what she was -- genuine, talented and courageous. 

What could be better than that?

Resolutions?

For the past few years, I haven’t made resolutions to ring in the new year. Not because I don’t have goals for the year, but because I do. Putting them on a list and calling them “resolutions,” going by my earlier years, doesn’t push me to success. 

I’m not alone. A quick Google search today for “keeping new year’s resolutions” turns up  thousands of articles and blog entries with advice about making and keeping them. Some of the links I found (please note these are only examples; I’m not recommending or endorsing any of these suggestions):

• Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project blog on the Psychology Today website, for example, has numerous suggestions and personal comments regarding resolutions: http://tinyurl.com/yl3jtnq.
• On the eHow website, users post how-to articles about keeping resolutions. “How to Keep Your New Year Resolutions With One Key Word” by WesleyJ has a five-star rating for “the one word you need to think of is: MODERATION!”: http://tinyurl.com/bnr9pp
• The USA.gov website has links for help with 12 specific resolutions -- including “Lose Weight,” “Save Money,” and “Drink Less Alcohol” -- along with one to send a CDC Health-e-Card: http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/New_Years_Resolutions.shtml

After all, following through on our resolutions is supposed to make us happier and healthier. Lose weight, exercise more, and you will be a better person. That’s true, of course, if your good-to-best scale is calibrated to physical health and if you do need to lose weight and exercise more for medical well-being.

My scale doesn’t work that way -- I stall out on the better-to-best part. It’s such a guilt trap, and when I think about what I would like to accomplish, I can feel it snapping around my ankle. Metaphorically, of course, but it still has sharp teeth that sink themselves into my psyche. And that hold me back.

Because all too often, “best” is elusive and singular, driven by external measurements that are seductive but fickle. Rather than a pinnacle, it can turn out to be a line drawn in the sand, gone when the tide turns because when you were looking back to ensure you were ahead, the game changed. 

What I do like is being eager to take the next step because I am wondering -- in the fullest sense of the word -- what I will discover. Trying something different or a new way on the path to discovery. Challenging myself to experiment, to learn, and to create. 

So no resolutions this year, but guidelines (in the Pirates of the Caribbean sense): I challenge myself to challenge myself. Every day. To go where that challenge leads me.

Even if it means I will exercise more.

Notes: 

• Suggested reading: “Economics focus: New-year irresolution” in The Economist January 2nd print edition. Great article on the whys of procrastination and why we don’t always meet the challenges we face. Online may be for subscribers only: http://tinyurl.com/yhn92y5
• To make the long URLs shorter for posting, I used the website Tiny URL. Voluntary contributions help keep it going: http://tinyurl.com