Memories Archives - INSPIRING MAX

Tomorrow Is Another Day

February 10, 2015 inspiringmax

Take a quote from your favorite movie — there’s the title of your post. Now, write!

As a child in early primary school I can remember going to the movies to see Gone With The Wind. It is a movie that changed my life.

I loved it.

I left the movie theatre that day thinking, I as a girl, growing up in the 1970’s could do anything. Scarlett O’Hara was my hero. What I saw as a child was a woman who, if she wanted something, went out and got it. She was a tough, resilient survivor and I needed to know that was possible. I, of course missed all of her relationship difficulties, which are another part of the movie, but I was too young to understand.

The concluding scene of the movie and the title of this blog post has lived with me everyday since—”tomorrow is another day.” Whenever things get tough—I like Scarlett—remind myself “I can’t think about that now, I’ve got to think about it tomorrow, after all tomorrow is another day.” I usually find by giving myself some space, by sleeping on my problem—the next day I have an answer. My problem may still be as big but at least I have made a plan to get through it. When problems are really tough, I go back to an earlier blog post and ask St Francis of Assissi for advice.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/silver-screen/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Scale

February 8, 2015 inspiringmax

This week, share an image that highlights a size relationship — make us pause and take a second look to understand the scale of the elements in your photo.

For more information on Canton Tower one of the world’s tallest building see my earlier post. It dwarfs people and is difficult to photograph due to its size.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/scale/

Will I Go?

February 7, 2015 inspiringmax

Is there a place in the world you never want to visit? Where, and why not?

I love to travel.

If money were no object I would travel to more countries across the world. From my experience, more can be learnt about different cultures by getting off the usual tourist path—we have traveled recently to regional China and Canada in winter. Learning about a country through its history joins the dots on why things developed and are the way they are.

When my husband and I are considering traveling to a new destination, I ask myself the following questions to discover if it is a place we can visit now. Even if the answer is no, it doesn’t mean it is a place I never want to visit. Everywhere has something new to offer.

Will we be safe? This is particularly important as we like to get ourselves around places not go on tours where you may have a built-in safeguard.
Will we be able to stay healthy? Is the food and water safe?
What , how and where will we eat? What is it advisable not to eat?
How will we get around the city? Will this be possible? In Nanjing we thought we would catch a train however when we arrived at the train station it was literally packed with people. There no signs were in English, we felt claustrophobic so we quickly left and made other plans.
Where do we plan to stay?
What local rules or customs do we need to follow? Can we live with them for a couple of days?
What is the reason we want to visit the country or area? If this is strong enough it can change some of the other answers.
How do we get from the airport to our accommodation? Once we needed to pre-book a private car for a two-hour trip across provinces in China.
Are injections required to protect us from disease?
All things considered is the risk too great for us to travel to this part if the world at this time? YES or NO.

If the answer is yes, we reconsider visiting if the situation changes. In the meantime we will go somewhere else. We will never stop traveling—meeting new people and learning new things as it takes us out of our comfort zone and allows us to grow in ways we couldn’t imagine. Bring on our next adventure.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/no-thanks/

An Offer I Couldn’t Refuse

February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 inspiringmax

Here’s the title of your post: “An Offer I Couldn’t Refuse.”

Set a timer for ten minutes, and write it. Go!

The most important offer I couldn’t refuse was my first job. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I finished high school. I was 18. I had my life in front of me and only two prerequisites for my job—I wanted to work with people and I didn’t want to be a general nurse. Th world was my oyster but I didn’t know how to open the shell to get the pearl.

At the time my mother was working in the post office in the telegram department and noticed that the delivery boys were making a lot of deliveries to the local psychiatric hospital, literally up the hill. She inquired and discovered they had advertised for six trainee psychiatric nurses. This was a job mum thought would suit me, so she was excited.

At the time I didn’t know much if anything about psychiatry, but the more I investigated the keener I was. It was a type of nursing that dealt with people not bedpans and I was encouraged to talk to patients. Yes. This was my job and now I had to get one of the positions.

After two interviews, despite my young age I was offered a place. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. My career psychiatric nursing started 34 years ago on Australia Day—what a way to celebrate. It has been the perfect job for me. Now called mental health nursing, it has many areas of expertise. It has taught me many skills and allows me to help people get through very difficult times in their lives.

I am grateful to Matron for believing in this young woman and helping me find my pearl.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/race-the-clock/

Lessons From My Teachers

February 2, 2015 inspiringmax

Tell us about a teacher who had a real impact on your life, either for the better or the worse. How is your life different today because of him or her?

Teachers are about education. And from my experience good and bad teachers teach you skills, even if it wasn’t what they set out to teach you. My school years were the late sixties and seventies—a different era. Most of my teachers taught me well and used skills that I consider imperative today when interacting with or teaching my patients.

Caring
Confidence
Consistency
Good Communication
Honesty
Individuality
Kindness
Listening Skills
Non-judgmental
Patience
Respect
Self-Belief
Transparency

In 5th class however, my teacher was the opposite. He made my life so difficult. He picked on me, made me the laughing stock of the class and criticised everything I did. This lead to poorer marks that meant my grading in high school was lower than it should have been. Despite this I worked my way back up and the gifts I gained from him are RESILIENCE and a never say never attitude. All of these skills and qualities combine to make me the person I am today. It is all part of the patchwork quilt of my life.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/teachers-pet/

Fire Beware

January 30, 2015 inspiringmax

Your home is on fire. Grab five items (assume all people and animals are safe). What did you grab?

In the Sydney bush fires of 1994 I had to do consider this in real life. All main highways into Sydney were cut off by bush fires and we lived on the northern end of the city. We overlooked a major bush gully that hadn’t had a bush fire through in 30 years so officials were very worried about what would happen if it caught alight.

My life has changed greatly since 1994 so what I would pack today is different to what I packed them although core items are the same. In 2015 my choices are:

Formal documents that are difficult/unable to be replaced including passports, insurances, special awards, medical information.
Camera bag which includes the USB’s of digital photos.
My handbag which contains mobile phone, wallet, keys and other everyday essentials.
My prepacked overnight bag containing a change of clothes, toiletries and sleeping device to make a difficult situation easier.
My laptop and associated hard drives which hopefully will give me access to everything I want.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/burning-down-the-house/

Rideau Canal

January 21, 2015January 22, 2015 inspiringmax

What was the last picture you took? Tell us the story behind it. (No story behind the photo? Make one up, or choose the last picture you took that had one.)

We have just returned from six weeks in Canada, where we took literally thousands of photos. It was a fun time. However a little disappointing as the lack of snow meant many of the things we had planned were not doable. Our last planned event was to skate on the Rideau Canal—the world’s longest skateway. It opened 4 days after we left, so we only got to see the preparation and dream.

Oh and experience our coldest temperatures ever, -18 feels like -29. The other problem we had to content with was the frostbite warning. We were attempting to take photos but had to limit them because our fingers were going numb and the cameras couldn’t cope with the cold. One passerby heard our accents as we were taking our last photos and stopped to advise us get inside as quickly as possible. Our solution as it was a bright sunny day despite the cold, was to stop taking photos regularly and as long as we were warm to continue exploring what Ottawa had to show us.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/moment-in-time/

Connecting With Naure

January 20, 2015 inspiringmax

Tell us about the last experience you had that left you feeling fresh, energized, and rejuvenated. What was it that had such a positive effect on you?

I love spending time with nature. It energises me, makes me forget my troubles and grounds me. Nature is everywhere. Living in the city doesn’t mean I can’t connect. There are many ways within 15 minutes from my house or work place I can connect with nature. These include:

Walking barefoot on green grass anywhere
Enjoying the flowers in a local park
Sydney Harbour
Wetlands
Swimming in the harbour beaches and pools
Parramatta river
Mindfully walk around the neighbourhood looking and listening for wildlife

If I wanted a day out I could travel to the beach, bush or the mountains. Both of these are favourites of mine and I enjoy both in all seasons. In one of my early posts I discuss getting back to the beach for the first time in many years in late autumn.

Other ways I like to energise myself is to get amongst mother nature herself. I love watching sunrises and sunsets, playing in the rain, watching thunder storms particularly over the ocean and recently in Ottawa walking in the snow storms. So when I feel I need for a little or big pick me up, I connect with nature, energise myself and get on with the day.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/re-springing-your-step/

Using My Brain

January 16, 2015 inspiringmax

Let’s assume we do, in fact, use only 10% of our brain. If you could unlock the remaining 90%, what would you do with it?

I am unsure I could cope with using 100% of my brain, although I do believe I use more than 10%. I have images of it constantly going and not giving me time to catch up. My brain sometimes seems full now, so how would using more of it change my life. Irrespective, I am up for the challenge and would like to further develop skills using the left and right sides of my brain as they are responsible for different things.

Left Side Brain	Right Side Brain
Analytical	Believes
Classic Music	Big Picture
Control	Can Be Absentminded
Critical Thinking	Cat Lovers
Details Oriented	Colour
Dog Lovers	Creative Storyteller
Facts	Creativity
Language	Dreamer
Logic	Emotions
Mathematics	Fantasy & Mystery
Order	Good at Arts
Organised	Good at Sports
Past & Present	Images
Patterns	Imagination
Perception	Intuition
Practical	Listen to Music /TV While Studying
Prefers Verbal Instructions	Passion
Rarely Absentminded	Prefers Visual Instructions
Rational	Present & Future
Reason	Recognises Faces
Safe	Risk Taking
Science	Rock Music
Study In Silence	Spatial Awareness
Structure	Spontaneous & Unpredictable
Write Non-Fiction	Thinks Better Lying Down
	Write Fiction

Going through these lists, makes me realise I do use both sides of my brain. I am mostly a right brain person however, I use more of my left than I first thought. My goal is to develop my current skills further and see where they takes me. Afterall,

“Who knows, but you have to be in it to win it.”

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/brain-power/