Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Ghosts Continued...

It's starting to get hard to sleep at night. Rush of cold air creeps in. I'm feeling my soul "kick-in" almost like a force field . There's definitely a presence. I've gotten better at ignoring it and not letting it get to me.

Then my sister sent me this: 


A before shot of the chair with stuffed animals at the house she's staying at before she left for the night.

And a picture of the chair as she found it when she came back to the house later that night. 

"It was lights out so not sure what happened. There was a cat in the room but doubt the cat could make the stuffed animals go flying like that. It was tough for me to force the dog out of the spot it was sitting in onto the floor. The cat would have to be attached to it to drag both the dog and the pillow off the chair. I don’t even think the cat got on the chair to be honest but was lying by it. The cat wouldn’t come in the room after that last night. Wouldn’t even come near the door." 

Weirdness.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Ghost Scratches -Part 2


Well craps. Woke up with new scratches on my right leg -like before, only higher up this time. No cat. No dog. Just lying in bed. 

Ghost. :(

Monday, October 21, 2013

2 Weeks: Ghost Update

For a week I left my apartment and baby sat my dad's house. I slept on the couch with his 3 dogs -one curled up by my feet. 

Nothing really happened. There were a couple times when 2 of the dogs seemed to be seeing/reacting to something that I couldn't see, but it could have just as easily been something outside they were picking up on.

Then I came back home to my apartment and experienced NOTHING. It was awesome. No vibes, no energy, no presence. Nothing. I was very happy. I think I ditched the ghost :)

Then this past weekend I went to my mom's house -the source of 90% of my haunting experiences. 

Saturday night I heard something -it said something but it was like a scratchy whisper. I didn't freak out or anything, I just became very alert. Then the sheets were kind of pulled off the bed. At first I thought they were falling, but then I pulled on them and felt resistance -like something was holding the other end and not giving me any lead-way. So then I sat up and pulled the sheets up.

My mom's dog usually sleeps under the bed, but she slept on top this time, by my feet. God bless dogs.

Last night I went back to my apartment. I felt uneasy and didn't get that same sense of nothing I had enjoyed before. Not entirely sure if it's back. We'll see :(

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Possible Speech: AC Manual -Project 2 -"Let's Get Personal"

As a good Toastmaster and Leader/ Club President I feel the need to set an example and give a speech since I haven't done so in... a month or 2? That probably says it all right there: I can't remember the last time I gave a speech in my weekly public speaking group. I talk at every meeting of course, opening up with general comments and greeting guests. And lately I've been given the role of Evaluator, which adds anther 2-3 minutes to my speaking. But I haven't given a prepared speech in a long while. Then today somebody asked me, "When's the next time you're giving a speech?" 

The fact is scheduled speakers back out each week. We've often gone from 4 assigned speakers down to 1. Then some people also add themselves in because that week works for them. So then we've also gone from 4 speakers down to 1 and then back up to 3. So technically I can pop in as a speaker whenever I choose to.

Since I completed the basic 10 speech CC manual a while ago, I've been working on my Advanced Manuals. I finished one (5 speeches). Now I'm unto the next. The advanced manual I'm working out of now is called "Storytelling" and it focuses on 5 different kinds of stories/tales you can tell. It's hard. So I'm just going to skip Project 1 (A Folk Tale) for now and go for Project 2 (Telling a Personal Story). I'm just going to write out the basic outline/story below:

"Let me check my schedule". I never thought in reality that'd I'd actually have to use those words in a sentence. "Let me check my schedule". I don't have schedules! I'm an artist I just go with the flow. Who needs watches and calendars and dates? That stuff's complicated and I'm free whenever. 

How did this happen? I decided to create a pie chart with some free time I somehow managed to find and discovered how slowly. but surely, my life has come to require the fine art of time mapping.

Pie Chart#1 of My Life shows the percentage of focus and time alotted to the main activities of last year:

Toastmasters was at 20% (I was just starting out as V.P. of Education)

My full-time job as a Marketing Assistant was at 25% 

My "Me Time" which was dedicated to things like Drawing, Watching TV, and Writing was at an all-time high of 35%. 

Spending time with Friends was... I didn't have many friends. Does Facebook count? 5% total...

And spending time with family was at 10%. They don't live far and I don't have pets so I mooch of theirs. 

But for some reason my life felt incomplete. I had this chunk of my being that wasn't being utilized like I knew it had the capacity to be. It felt like I wasn't doing enough, I was contributing enough, and I wasn't giving enough back in an impactful way.

Then my friend Jos came along and as I've said before if you ever want to find something to do, go talk to Jos and the next thing you know you'll be mid-way through a High Performance Leadership Project driving blindfolded while juggling knives.

Behold my current Pie Chart of Activities: 

Toastmasters is now at 19% -You only went down 1 point. V.P. of Education was a big role to fill, but being President is still keeping me pretty busy. 

My full-time job is now at 14%. Don't let the numbers fool you, I added 2 new categories so the ratio percentage has actually increased. We're releasing a new software so I have plenty of things to do at work these days. 

Nooooo...Where has all my "Me Time" gone? It's been cut in half.

Now it's tied at 7% with... Friends? When did I get those? I now spend half of my time alone at home enjoying solitude and TV shows and the other time running around with people. 

Family has gone down 5%. They've been traveling lately and I've been busy.

And what's this... A new category entitled Jos and the women's entrepreneurial group she formed called Promote Her Business that I promote online via social media and attend/ organize many subsequent meeting and events for. 25%. We're a busy group. 

Oh look another new category that consists of 23% of my time. Because one of the objectives of Promote Her Business is to support women's favorite caused in the community, I began trying to help raise funds for 3 causes PHB has decided to focus on this year. One of them is called CCPY. It's a non-profit, mentoring program that helps at-risk-teens in East San Jose. Initially I just went in to find out more about the cause. Never do that. Never go to a non-profit organization with the intention of just popping your head in and finding out what it's about. It's like going to animal shelter with no intention of walking out with a puppy.

I couldn't help it. I signed-in, sat in a chair, and it was over. In a small lounge room at a high school on a Saturday around noon, 10 curious adults sat waiting to hear what the 2 Mentor Leaders and 4 conspicuous looking teens were going to say.

All of the teens had been through the mentoring program the previous year and went around sharing their individual stories. Each teen was asked to establish 3 goals for themselves to strive towards the year they started. The goals usually had to do with getting better grades, improving a relationship with a relative, and gaining confidence or improving a skill. They then discussed what it was like working with a mentor and trying to achieve the goals they set for themselves. 

One girl said initially she gave her mentor attitude and tried to avoid talking with her. She would spend most of her nights out with friends partying and doing drugs. When she did check in with her mentor they would discuss goals and whether the things she was doing were helping her achieve them or leading her further from them. 

The thing that ended up getting to her was the fact that her mentor never judged her or told her she was bad or wrong. Instead she became an impartial third eye that helped her see clearly what she was doing and what kind of an impact it was having on her life. She could then see it was driving her further away from her goals -one of which was improving her relationship with her mother who she was always arguing with. Eventually she stopped doing drugs, she stopped partying nightly, and her mom and she now get along great. 

A boy said he use to be angry all the time. He had friends who were part of a gang and he was considering joining them. He too initially avoided his mentor. Then as time passed he saw that the mentor was always there whenever he called and would always show up. His mentor became a reliable source he could trust that genuinely just wanted to support him. When he looked at the friends he was hanging out with the things they would do, he decided they weren't having a positive impact on his life and he was able to focus and do greater things without that kind of influence in his life. 

To sit in a circle and hear these stories and see how happy and bright these kids are -you'd never know what they went through and how much they've progressed in such a short period of time. The transformation was undeniably inspiring. I saw an opportunity to give back and also an opportunity to grow in ways we don't get the chance to most days. So I signed up with CCPY and now they're on my schedule.

Speaking of which...


I'm booked until November.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Ghost Part 3? 4?...

Last night was kind of same old same old. 

I was laying down and it felt at one point like someone was rubbing my left arm right above my hand. I could move my hand and it felt normal, but the part above it felt like someone was rubbing it -not physically but metaphysically. That part of my arm started to go numb -almost as if it were asleep-but my hand itself felt normal.

So I moved my arm and tossed and turned. Allergies and a light case of insomnia kept me up; even though I was very tired. Then I heard someone knocking on the other side of the wall in my bedroom. I was just laying there and someone started knocking. It was strange because the knocking wasn't just random, it had pace and rhythm to it -kind of like the "match in the gas tank... boom! boom!" thing. Where it sounds as if someone is knocking and is waiting for a response, then moves to a different part of the wall and hits the same tune in knocking, waiting for a response again. It happened about 5 times. Different parts of the wall and at different volumes. I couldn't tell whether it was the apartment next to mine or the apartment below mine. 

Then around 10pm I got up to get a sleeping pill. I went into the living room to grab one, then on my way back to my bedroom there was another series of knocks to the same tune -only it was directly below me. It was coming from the floor under me, which was weird because when I was in my room it sounded like it was from the apartment next to mine. 

Not convinced it was anything paranormal. Could have been just the neighbors or the neighbors kids.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Attempt at Poetry

So I've decided that in the mornings I'm going to attempt to create something kind of resembling a poem based on my thoughts/experiences. Hopefully I'll get better at it. It usually helps when I listen to music as well.

Poem 1: Thoughts Pinned to Pinterest 

Steal pictures from tumblr
No photo shop needed
Microsoft Powerpoint image adjustments instead
Mountain needs to be lighter and have more yellow hue
Turtle doesn't need much -more color contrast
Yet another lake, but it is beautiful so... 

Now to Pinterest
Repost what's already there 
Why do people repost images from a group page back into the same group page?
Repeatedly? 
Add what was taken and adjusted
Post on my page and post onto group page
Like shopping with your eye
Window shopping on a Window's screen

227 Followers, only Following 22
Responsibility 
Addiction? 
Desire 
To images 
Of life

Poem 2: Ghost

Gone for years
Almost forgotten 
Yearned to remember in detail 
Returns to reality
The fear
Listening

Noises 
Brief
Doubt
Heart beats
Increase 
Breathe 
Uneven 
Try to calm 

Listen
Feel  
Sense 
Presence
Energy 
Weight on air 
Darkness 

Wait to see
Listen 
Feel 
Presence 
Of fear