Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Sitting here in lotus

and enjoying the softness of just having practiced. Home practice today......oooookay....that's it for lotus now. Ahhhh, that's better.....Still can't manage more than 10 or so minutes like that.

Still here in Safe Mode, and I have to say, this works pretty well, although without "Safe Mode", my laptop won't even boot Windows. So I don't think it would be wise to keep this up for very long. It's really pushing my luck, akin to driving with the reserve light on. Wouldn't want to mess with my extended warranty. For once, it was worth it to get the extended warranty, I might add.

Something else I might add...if my words seem choppy, stilted, it is because my keyboard is all choppy and stilted. And apparently, I can't think if I can't type. Of course, there is always the possibility that it is really the other way around.

Spent my morning once again with the charming (oh, wait...) flunky who is being paid by an insurance company that shall remain nameless, to sing the praises of my cognitive skills, thus rendering me able to sit at a desk for 12 hour stretches, reading endless reams of contracts and figuring out ways to use them to help wealthy clients make even more money. By which I mean I spent my third morning (adding up to close to SEVEN hours altogethe) being subjected to cognitive testing by a shink who is being paid by my insurance company to determine my ability to go back to work as a corporate lawyer. Among other things, I was treated to the 567-question MMPI-2, aka the "Minnesota Multi-something Pesonality something beginning with an "I"".

The MMPI-II is a measure of, I guess, personality traits. It is in the format of a diabolically long true/false S.A.T.. Examples of the questions to which I was required to answer either "true" or "false" included:

  • I never lie.
  • I sometimes hear voices in my head.
  • I know that people are plotting against me.
  • I would enjoy being a forest ranger.
  • I would enjoy being a construction worker.
  • I enjoy drama.
  • If a group of people gets into trouble, the best thing is for them to get together and get their stories straight.
  • I have acted in ways that are dangerous because I enjoy the excitement.
The biggest problem I had with the test was that I had seen it before. See, my mom used to be a child psychologist, by which I mean a psychologist who works with childen, not a psychologist who is a child. Back when I was a girl, I was at times used as a guinea pig, by which I mean that I was used as a test subject, not as an actual small, furry animal. And so, I already know full well the leading nature of questions like, "True or false, 'I never lie.'"

I told this to the hired flunky/shrink/thug. Nevertheless, she would not let me weasel out of the test. And by weasel...oh never mind.

I answered as honestly as I could, which is to say that I had to answer false to "I never lie" and to "I would enjoy being a construction worker". Of course, I had to answer true to "I know that people are plotting against me".

After all, if they weren't, would I be taking the sodding test?

YC

7 comments:

Lees Lamar said...

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you.

Anonymous said...

MMPI -Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - good answers! I TOLD YOU SO.

Anonymous said...

You should have answered True or False to all of the questions. That would have given them something to think about!

Anonymous said...

EEK! You were a corporate lawyer... I'm STILL a corporate lawyer. I'm sure its somewhere in your previous posts but what the heck is going on here? You've transitioned to being a yoga teacher and somehow "they" want you back in the corporate asylum? How does that work?

Anonymous said...

"my mom used to be a child psychologist, by which I mean a psychologist who works with childen, not a psychologist who is a child. Back when I was a girl, I was at times used as a guinea pig, by which I mean that I was used as a test subject, not as an actual small, furry animal." That was hilarious!!! LMHO.

Hate those tests. I don't think they're as objective as they should be. Anyway, what do YOU think about working again as a corporate lawyer?

Anonymous said...

Sergio,

Isn't it obvious what YC thinks?

Anonymous said...

Interesting about the Lotus for 10 minutes. You posted this in 2006. Have you progressed much since then? I can do about twenty minutes with right foot on left hip, then perhaps another ten minutes with left foot on right hip. I've been trying to work through the pain of sitting in lotus, the biggest problem appears to be my legs falling asleep after some physical discomfort which I suppose can be described as pain. I figure legs being asleep is probably a bad thing, so I'm going to keep up the effort to be able to get the body to adapt itself to the sitting posture. To be honest, Ultimately, I'm not sure why I do it :).

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About Me

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Northern Westchester, New York, United States
I live by a duck pond. I used to live by the East River. I don't work. I used to work a lot. Now, not so much. I used to teach a lot of yoga. Now not so much. I still practice a lot of yoga though. A LOT. I love my kids, being outdoors, taking photos, reading magazines, writing and stirring the pot. Enjoy responsibly.

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