"the first phone call from heaven"

It's amazing how one of the first blog posts I started writing for 2014 has turned into one that I kept meaning to get back to but did not. Weeks turned into months and here we are in August and I am just now getting back to it.

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One of my goals is to read at least 52 books in 2014 (average of one per week). You can see a partial list of the books I have read in an earlier post at Books - Borrow or Buy (Update: I have now read 54 books so I can say that at least one of my goals for the year has been completed 8/2014. I'll post an updated list at the end of the year). My first completed book of the year is one my husband and son gave me for Christmas: Mitch Albom's newest book "the first phone call from heaven." Just like his other books, once I started reading it I had trouble putting it down.

Without giving too much away, it was great to read another book that had some positive notes to it. People thinking that they were speaking to loved ones in heaven. Although there is a twist toward the end, the whole premise was that of helping people through the hurt of losing someone they cared about. Which of course got me to thinking who I would like to speak with if I could get a phone call from heaven.

First would be my grandmother. She passed when I was in middle school and to this day I miss her. We would spend hours together, not really doing much but just being near. Of course there are others family, friends and even people that I have never met that I believe would be interesting to talk to. I guess this idea of getting calls from heaven is like the question "If you could sit down and have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?"

So, who would you like to get a phone call from heaven from? 

Creativity: Comes from many places

I recently read a post called "61 Online and Social Media Resources for Motivating People to Create" on Brainzooming's site. I won't rehash all of them here as you can read them for your self, but it did get me thinking about where I get creative thoughts from.

When I was younger, I was able to write a lot more creative thoughts and stories. As I made the choice to go into Public Relations I ended up following more of a path of news writing. Put in all the facts and leave the "fluff" to a minimum. Reporters don't want to read flowery language in press releases. So my creativity waned. This led to difficulties in a previous job where they determined after I started that they wanted more of a marketing style of writing (think catchy advertisements). I struggled to do so and in my focusing on the type of writing made errors in other areas that I had never had trouble with before.

So, fast forward a couple years to when I started working on my Master's degree. Several of my classes relied on storytelling as part of the projects. Thankfully we were able to submit drafts and I was able to obtain generous feedback from peers and instructors to help me learn to add the "fluff" in order to make writing more conversational.

Having the skills of both styles of writing has been and continues to be beneficial. But back to the idea of where creativity comes from. I have found that many of my ideas come when I am not sitting in front of the computer. Unfortunately it is typically when I am not in a position to write them down (driving to work, in the shower, as I am falling asleep). No matter how many times I have tried to remember a thought, phrase or idea to be able to write it down when I get paper and pen, I never get to it in time or remember bits and pieces but not enough to make it sound good.

Do you ever have this problem? What do you do to combat it? I have taken to using the voice record feature on my MP3 player to record while driving and keeping a pad of paper in my nightstand to record those evening thoughts. However, and wherever you get your creative thoughts, make sure to write them down. You never know where they might lead you.

New Job, New Language, New Challenges, New Opportunities

In mid-July I was fortunate to begin a new chapter in my career by joining the Center for Outreach Services at the Ohio School for the Deaf. Like any new situation, I had a variety of feelings over this change from being excited at the new challenges and opportunities that awaited to being nervous (along with some self-doubt) to going somewhere new where I need to learn a whole new language and culture to ensure continuation of my position.

 Now to be fair, I did take a couple years of sign-language in high school. However, that was close to two decades ago that I studied it. So with excited trepidation, I began my new journey. In the four weeks I have been here I have discovered that I remembered more than I thought and that I have a ways to go in my learning before I have to take my Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) next July. Luckily, the SLPI is more about personal life issues (family, hobbies, vacations, etc) than technical topics like job skills. I am hopeful that between classes I am looking at for fall and beyond, tutoring sessions with deaf/hard of hearing co-workers and having the staff and students back in a couple weeks I'll pick up on it more.

 For once though, I did not doubt my ability to do the job from a public relations/communications point of view. I knew that I had the KSA's needed to help with the redesign of the web site, creating handbooks and manuals, branding forms and other publications, and the development of a quarterly newsletter. I am optimistic about the future here and look forward to meeting the challenges head on.

What types of challenges have you had with a new job? Have you ever been required to learn a new language in order to perform you job? I'd love to hear you answers to these questions.