This was one of our shorter chats, but nonetheless quite interesting as you will see.
Zoe was the first to enter this week, soon followed by Kyron and Ranjana. It turned out that Zoe was turned out very well done, because she had a sunburn acquired from purchasing a cd. I realize that sounds quite remarkable, until one is told that she had to go to the store under a very bright sun in order to get the cd. The good news was that Zoe passed 4 of her exams and is already a fully qualified GMDSS electronics operator who can't use a VCR.
Zoe was particularly pleased, because failing exams can create difficulties. For instance, failing that course would result in her not having the qualification as well as costing her ?105! Ranjana, upon hearing this, exclaimed "holy smokes…. that's expensive!!" upon which Zoe appropriately stuck to the subject saying that failing her Advanced Firefighting course would result in her again not having the qualification and this time costing her ?530! As you can see the difficulties actually compound, of course, as a direct result of the British currency system that insists on using pounds as a unit rather than dollars, which is probably just as well since there apparently is no word 'comdollar'.
Sangeeta came in and told us about the video, she has been working on to introduce animal rights into high schools. We know that she was telling the truth, because we actually saw this video a couple of nights ago. It is excellent already, even though the finishing touches aren't in place yet. It is bound to create a significant impact in the curriculum as a social justice movement that more people are becoming aware of and thinking about. Sangeeta is also giving a talk on animal rights in New York tomorrow to a school in East Harlem and is in the process of possibly introducing AR components to the Girls and Boys club on a nationwide basis.
I came in about now to tell everyone that Breaca's new friend Dawn (rhp's Unicorn) who is also the mother of our Veggiechess Clan's FoolsM8, might be coming to our chat. Unfortunately, Dawn didn't arrive and neither did Breaca, who wrote to Ranjana saying she had too much sun and was going to bed and to give her love to everybody.
Fjord came into the chat and we were all glad to hear that his leg was much better and that he walked for the first time since injuring it a while ago. Fjord asked Kyron how his string theory was coming along and was told that he and Sangeeta who had started us all on this were both at a stage where they grasp the superficialities, but need to study a lot more math in order to understand the details.
Zoe told us she has a friend in Croatia who was in the middle of an mild earthquake so I told her that we get them here all the time, but they are so small that we don't even notice them. After she learned that we lived on Vancouver Island, she immediately started a conversation on the excellent Xfiles series. This was followed by her saying that Canada presented dangerous waters to navigate in because of the ice, rocks, shallow passes and the cold temperatures that can be very hard on older ships' metal. As her ships' navigator, one of her responsibilities is to make sure that the course taken does not embroil the ship in dangers such as these.
While I was discussing these most interesting matters with Zoe, Fjord was having an equally engaging conversation with Kyron and Sangeeta regarding string theory. Those interested in an introductory non-technical explanation can find out all kinds of things at this excellent site:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/
Inspired by all this Sangeeta contemplated existing in parallel universes, but her ambitions seemed not to affect Andrew who had just arrived. However, it reminded Fjord of mescaline which is a 'psychedalic to expand your consciousness and to throw you out the normel sense-experiences' in the form of a mushroom. Fjord went on to talk about Ram Dass a psychologist specializing in human motivation whose explorations of human consciousness led him at one time to pursue intensive research with psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals." He also wrote some interesting and kind books one of which we have read called 'How Can I Help'. Here is a link to his website, in case anyone is interested:
http://www.ramdasstapes.org/
Andrew left at this point and Ray appeared. Ray told us that he had a neat computer back in the early nineties called the Amiga2000, so I volunteered that we still had our original MacIntosh from 1984, and Zoe mentioned her Sega system - all great machines in there own time.
Meanwhile, Fjord and Sangeeta had gotten into a very interesting discussion on the concept of expectations. Sangeeta's premise was "we are stronger than we think…and have abilities to reach heights that supercede our expectations– that is why expectations aren't a good thing", while Fjord maintained that "expectations are all right as long as we can deal with it when they get scattered; like dreams". This discussion greatly interested Ranjana. Ray who was talking to Kyron about a Linux Fedora boot up problem their company was having was also intrigued and joined the conversation.
Meanwhile, Zoe was experiencing her own limitations in that she considered herself to be very small, but I made her feel much better by reminding her that she could say the word 'purple' now, which she could only say as 'purcle' when she was really little. She felt so good, in fact, she tried to convince me that she had to stand on a phonebook to steer her ship. Well, I wasn't going to be fooled by this and suggested that she was just telling me a phoneybook story.
In the other conversation, Ray suggested that our beliefs determine our reality, while Ranjana tried to get clarification as to what was exactly meant by the word 'expectation' so that it wasn't confused with the idea of 'goals'.
This was a point to consider since Zoe needed to deal with a specific goal of her own, that of acquiring relief for her sunburn. Quickly, wielding the Home Remedies text, I offered several solutions including soothing compresses with cold water, oatmeal, witch hazel, or buro-sol antiseptic powder which contains aluminum acetate, cornstarch paste, vegetable slices (cucumber or potato), lettuce, tea bags soaked in cold water. However, it seemed that aloe vera was considered the best. Upon hearing this Ray just had to offer "Where is Vera, and why are you saying 'aloe' to her?" and this really didn't help Zoe's sunburn one bit.
Then Ray got serious again: "what does one do when they are fully immersed in their expectations to such an extent that they no longer believe that the expectation is a part of them, but that they are a part of the expectation?" This is actually an interesting concept that appears often in our daily 'rituals' - does one drive the car, or has one become so attached to driving, that it is the car that does the driving?
Sangeeta tried to differentiate between types of expectations: "going to work is little expectation…what i mean is the big expectations we have like expecting to find a life partner….we can expect but it is also a limitation i believe as you lose sight of all others around and you are centered around that one expectation"
I was also suggesting to Zoe that if she didn't have oats, for a compress for her sunburn, she could try mud, but it turned out that she didn't have a garden.
Ranjana clarified between planning and expectations: "when I say planning,,,, I mean mean setting some goals etc….but it is open to the forces of the universe! expectations I believe make me more closed to those forces…."
Fjord however felt that it was possible to have expectations and be open to whatever comes. He illustrated his point with what was happening at his house in that he was expecting a delicious dinner, but if it is burned "I will try to smile".
The discussion was obviously very deep, because even the mention of food didn't send everybody off wanting to eat the way it used to in the past!
Instead, Sangeeta suggested that "if you didn't expect anything burned or not, you would smile anyway and there would be no 'try' " As if inspired by this comment, Fjord filled the screen with smiling faces!
Well, Ray was so happy that he closed the wrong program when it was time for him to go, but he figured it out shortly and was therefore able to leave, but not before wishing everybody a happy Queen Victoria holiday.
I initiated a conversation with Zoe regarding accents in which I maintained that the British, Aussies, Americans and even Canadians except those on Vancouver Island all spoke with accents. However, for some reason, she found my powerful arguments unconvincing. So then I tried to point out that Vancouver Island really wasn't part of Canada, but that didn't work any better. So I quickly changed the conversation back to the holidays issue again and by suggesting that everyone take a holiday, managed to skilfully extricate myself from the situation.
In fact, I was so skilful that everyone else started to extricate themselves from the chatroom rapidly. Perhaps they took my suggestion of taking a holiday seriously.
Anyway, half an hour after the great exodus, Sangeeta who had threatened to return to the chatroom, did only to find that no one was there, so she threatened to stay there and meditate, which she did for precisely 32 seconds - a point that I threatened to note in this summary which I have just done.
And guess who showed up a couple of hours later? You're correct! It was Lori noting that she had now missed 2 Satchats in a row! However, she wished everyone a "super awesome week" and said she would catch us next week and left with a smile which is a great way to conclude this week's chat.