A Christmas bug

It is two day's after Christmas. I am staying at my parent's house; I've been here since Christmas Day. I am sick and my lifestyle the last two days has been nothing but eating, drinking lots of fluids, and sleeping.

I am sick and on the verge of laryngitis though apparently safe from writyngitis. My voice is at least an octave below my normal range; if I don't recover then I will have to ask Cindy to audition me for the bass section.

It started Christmas Eve at the cafetorium, during rehearsal. I felt a tickle in my chest and sensed that some bug had already infiltrated my body. It was only a matter of time before it took over to the point of my incapacitation.

"Vern", I said, seeing an opportunity to tease my tenor buddy, "I think I'm losing my voice. You're going to have to sing loud enough for both of us."

"Oh no, you have to sing!" That's Vern - he's so easy and delightful to tease, and he takes it so well. He has a way of setting himself up for a teasing and has such a good sense of humour about it.

I prayed that my voice would last through the service. All those weeks of preparation, of learning those two new songs - they were the highlight of the pre-Christmas season for me, yet this evening, Christmas Eve, was what really mattered. All those weeks of preparation would amount to naught if any one of us was off this night. Pull together, pull through. Even if only for the two new songs, Come On Down To Bethlehem and Love's Perfect Light. If I could just get through those two songs it wouldn't even matter to me if I couldn't do the standard Christmas carols that followed. No, not just get through the new songs, but get through with excellence. A Christmas Eve service calls for a higher standard than a regular service.

The key payoff to rehearsing is to learn which parts of the song are prone to mistakes. At which parts do I tend to lose my place, or or get confused about the timing, or tend to get the words mixed up, or tend to get confused about which notes to sing. With those sections identified, it then becomes a matter of diligence during the performance to remain aware during approach of a problem spot and to take extra care to hit the right note and the right words at the right time.

During last year's Christmas Eve service, our rendition of then new song went by so quickly, it was over before I knew it. It was almost anticlimactic. Not so this year. I felt very present in every moment, every phrase, every note. And of all the anticipated trouble spots, I think that we did not hit any of them. When we finished Come On Down To Bethlehem I was elated. We did it! I patted Vern and Hardy on the back in congratulation and encouragement. We did it!

The RTWAP saga continues

Last Wednesday I attended the OSEB Phase II workshop. I was supposed to bring my Return To Work Action Plan (RTWAP) with me but I didn't have it yet and the earliest appointment I could get with an assessment counselor who could write one for me was for the day after, Thursday.

I went to see the assessment counselor on Thursday. She opened a file for me and collected some general information about me but we didn't have enough time during my short appointment with her to complete the plan. "Come back tomorrow," she told me.

So I went back on Friday and met with her again and she completed the plan. It was a rushed job because she was booked up for the day and didn't have a lot of time to spend on it and I had told her that I needed it yesterday. It was a rushed job but at least I got it and it had the all important recommendation that I apply to the OSEB program. Mission RTWAP was successful I texted to my buddy.

Several hours later I was home and getting ready to forward it to my business advisor in the OSEB program, when the counselor called me and asked me to hold the report and not send it out. She found something in my file that she wasn't sure about. It was close to the end of the business day now so I agreed to hold off and decided I would go back to the office to resolve the issue on Monday (today).

I went to see her again today and this time she told me to hold off submitting it until after January 3, and that she wanted to make some changes to it, since the original version had been rushed.

Now I was feeling stressed, because January 3 would be even later past the deadline I had for submission. So I went to see the business advisor in person and explained my situation to him. He told me to bring the plan with me when I have my Phase II interview, which is January 8. At least I have some relief on that front now.

My day at Phase II

I spent my day today at Phase II of the OSEB program. This workshop went from 9am to 4pm.

I got off to a stressful start this morning; stressed about whether I had done enough prep work, stressed about getting up so early, stressed about getting myself there on time, stressed to have to brush the snow of my car before I could go.

I ended up leaving my house later than I had planned to but still got there only two minutes after nine. We spent the first part of the morning filling out forms - confidentiality, non-disclosure, freedom of information, that sort of thing. Then we had an exercise to answer some questions like who am I and what is my business, and after we had some time to write down answers, each participant did a presentation about their business focus.

After lunch we had some more exercises and got our homework assignments, which are due next week.

I met some new people today and one of them was a film producer. I told her that I have a goal to have one of my songs used as a soundtrack in a film; she took down my contact information, and I'll see if anything comes out of this.

Although I had started my day with stress, I left that workshop feeling good about it.

Thoughts on network marketing

I am skeptical and cynical when it comes to network marketing businesses. I have heard so many bad things about them. There may be legitimate ones out there, but how does one differentiate the legitimates from the scams? I think that network marketing has gotten enough of a bad rap, that if the industry wants to be taken seriously then it better start cleaning up after itself.

Someone I know has recently approached me to join one. I've looked at the inviting scripts that I am supposed to use, and I what I see in them is that I will not establish credibility in my personal network if I use these scripts. For example, if they ask "is this multi-level marketing?" I am supposed to respond with "Absolutely it is; and its one of the finest. You have to be at my house tomorrow!"

So what is it that makes this company be one of the finest? Are there any facts to back this up or is it just a hyped up claim?

And what's with the have to language? One thing I have learned about leadership is that I do not get people to follow me by telling them they have to do anything. I have people follow me when I am being authentic and open; I have people follow me when I inspire them.

Here's another example of script that I don't like. "Listen, I just found a way for us to make some serious money! Trust me and be at my house Tuesday!" Okay, what's with the trust me language? When I hear someone say trust me an alarm goes off. I either trust someone or I don't. When my people trust me, they trust me because of my actions and because of the way I'm being. When I am being trustworthy and in integrity, my people do trust me - I don't need to tell them.

So I am skeptical and cynical when it comes to network marketing. Every once in a while I decide that I want to be more open minded about it, but when I do I start to find things about it that I don't agree with.

Return To Work Action Plan

I found out late on Friday that I have been accepted into Phase II of the OSEB (Ontario Self-Employment Benefits) program that is being offered by the TBDC (Toronto Business Development Centre). My Phase II appointment is on Wednesday. I'm supposed to bring a completed Return To Work Action Plan with me on that date. I need to go to an Employment Assessment Centre and have a counselor complete one for me.

Oops. I need to have this done for Wednesday, but the earliest appointment I could get at an Assessment Centre is for Thursday. I spent most of my morning calling the different centres in order to get this appointment.

I called the TBDC and let them know that the earliest I could bring my RTWAP is the day after my Phase II appointment and they said I could bring it then.

I'll have to carefully prepare my rationale for entering the OSEB program in order to get this RTWAP.

Christmas preparation

I tend to be slow in getting into the spirit for holiday preparations. However, one aspect of Christmas preparation that I enjoy and look forward to is rehearsing for Christmas Eve service. Last year the worship team learned a new song for the Christmas Eve service; we started rehearsing for it in November.

This year we are learning two new songs. We had a rehearsal tonight in which we went over these two songs. I have a copy of the two songs on CD and I've been learning them by listening to the CD. At tonight's rehearsal is the first one this year that I've been to where we had musicians and almost the full complement of singers to practice the songs.

I'm looking forward to the December 24 service.

Recalibrating time line

I am behind on my time line for my book in progress (see Steve Teller called me a bastard). When I planned my writing schedule in the summer, I had planned on making November be my big push month. November is the month in which NaNoWriMo takes place - National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is a creative writing project in which participants aim to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. I've never participated in a NaNoWriMo but I've thought about it. In fact, I thought I could use my current novel as an experiment to see how I'd fare in a NaNoWriMo.

Well, if this past November is any indication, I would not fare very well. My original plan was to complete my book plan by end of September, let it incubate in October, then blast out the text in November - my target was 60,000 words.

I actually completed my book plan in August, so I thought, why wait until November? The target of 60,000 words in a month sounded very ambitious and so I decided to start writing in September and plan to finish my first draft in November. I thought I would use September and October as warm ups and do my most writing in November.

Ha! November actually turned out to be my least productive writing month. Part of the reason was that I lost my job at the end of October and used a lot of my emotional energy in November setting up the transition into my new lifestyle, instead of writing.

My current word count is over 21,000 so I am just over one third towards my target. I've completed my first draft on Chapter 1, have written most of Chapter 2, and have started writing scenes for Chapters 3 and 4. I'm recalibrating my time line. My new target is to complete to end of Chapter 4 by the end of this month. The end of this year! At that point I will have completed half of my book, according to my book plan (I am planning to write eight chapters in total).