Upcoming Speech Therapist Visit: Will It Help?

 Today I felt too tired to train.  Melissa said this may be due all the chemotherapy I had been taking recently against my glioblastoma brain cancer. My oncologist feels that the treatment..including Avastin infusions... fed into my weariness, and temporarily relenting on it could restore more energy to give me better strength and endurance.  Tomorrow a speech therapist will b visiting to assess how I am doing with my speech. Cognitively I don't think I have a speech problem, but that while engaging in speaking my voice tends to weaken and even break...this is frustrating when I get the impression that folks simply don't want to invest the needed time and attention to hear me out...

High School Public Speaking Memory, Today's Early Morning Plans

 I remember, looking back on my high school times at Nova, how one of my female blonde classmates one day suddenly "saw the light" and underwent a speedy transformation into a glib, smooth public speaker.  She even got on the closed circuit school television and delivered a five-minute monologue to the school about how good and easy public speaking was, and that folks like little-old "almost subhuman" me had no excuses for not dazzling the world with my oratory skills.  A little later on ,we were introduced by a mutual friend, on whom she definitely had her eyes set.  I smiled and tried to look and sound nice, but she only came across as a rejecting snob who was fending me off...not that I was even remotely interested in her on the slightest level.  I could have tactfully (or brutally) put her in her proper place by interjecting that good speaking is only part of the equation, and that good listening skills are at least equally as important as well .  You can either esteem (or insult) your counterpart based on your attitude toward them as people, hopefully encouraging them in the process. That one speech I heard was special in one way: afterwards, and I could have brought this up to her, I couldn't think of a single section within the presentation that was of any use.  Oh well, I dealt with the snub in a dignified manner by henceforth avoiding her like the plague...I could see that she was grooming herself to be a finger-pointer later in life...probably launched into tr  ashing me soon after our greeting. So I arose at 3:30, brewed coffee, ran in place, and wrote this article. It's now a little past 5 and the day (March 8) lies ahead (we 'lept' ahead into Daylight Savings Time).  I'm still frustrated by my lack of endurance when it comes to going on modest walks. I want to continue hearing and implementing Jim Rohn YouTube podcasts, read a flawed fantasy novel by Josh Khan and study foreign languages.  And, now that I have that connecting cord, do some journal writing on my wonderful oldAlpha Smart processor before I nod off into an afternoon nap..

Quote of the Week...from Ernest Hemingway

I like to listen.  I have learned a great deal from listening carefully.  Most people never listen.

                                                                         ---Ernest Hemingway

In spite of my high school English class experiences practically ruining it all for me, I later came to read most of Ernest Hemingway's classic novels, among them For Whom the Bell Tolls being my favorite.  I especially appreciated his stated plain writing style, avoiding fancy and cryptic techniques employed by some of his contemporaries that often garnered them undeserved critical acclaim but made their works largely unreadable by the general public.  Today being his birthday, I thought I'd throw in one of Hemingway's quotes in celebration, and this one rang true to me...well, mostly true.  I think most folks, when engaged with others in conversation, are only half-listening, at the same time preparing the next thing they will say themselves.  On top of that, people tend to hold on to personal narratives concerning just about any person, place, thing, or issue.  They will be happy to "listen" for a while if the speaker is affirming that narrative and be equally happy to zone out or cut them off if they diverge from the script...and if the message is a mixed one, with some welcome information said along with some unwelcome facts, then it's a simple cognitive sleight of hand to accept the affirming stuff while ignoring the rest.  I can extend this all to reading, too, as well as whatever media channels one tends to prefer plugging their respective brains into.  If the message affirms a dearly held narrative belief system, regardless of reality, then they'll be a loyal audience...this is the world we live in today, where the population insulates themselves within comfortable belief bubbles where feedback loops reenforce distortions and lies as long as they fit the pattern.  Yet Hemingway died in 1962, so this sort of thing's long preceded the Internet and mass media manipulation tactics of today...