WEDNESDAY, 17 November 2010 – How can you multiply a value within a single day?
I did it today.
My left-overs from the $3 I invested last time was time worth spent (To read the whole Investing $9 stories so far, click here). My remaining leftover value in my BART pass was, as I found today, exactly $4 (because I haven’t been using it since 23 October 2010). So I took the BART that was heading towards Richmond at about 12 in the afternoon and landed on Ashby, just like before, only that I didn’t make a mistake reading my Google Maps.
Then I brought along The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay with me, a fabulous, Pulitzer-winning novel by the visionary Michael Chabon. I couldn’t stop turning every page. it’s like I get lost absorbing the meaning of each word.
I can relate a lot to escapism and comical ideas. It is a far-fetched dream, on a moonless night, where I would have a prestigious prize for my world of Assaliuna and how Ai fly to the moon.
Anyway, I met Miss Sierra Hin Shaw to do some paperwork for the volunteering program for Reach Out And Read at West Berkeley Family Practice.
GOING, with $2 for TRANSBAY After I landed on Dwight/7th with the 49 bus unmistakably, I first stopped by the main branch of Lifelong Medical Care. There was no one on the front desk, so I just browse around the office, until two ladies appeared. One came out of the many rooms on the lobby.
Me: “Excuse me, do you know where Miss Sierra is?”
Lady #1: “Sierra?”
Me: “Yes. I’m supposed to meet her at 2. I’m a volunteer.”
Lady #2: “Oh, Sierra’s in the West Berkeley clinic. Do you know where that is?
I shook my head.
Lady #1: “It’s just 3 blocks away from here. Continue walking on 7th street and you’ll see it on Addison Street.”
Me: “Oh, okay. Thank you!” I eyed both ladies, smiling.
Lady #2: “Sure!”
Lady #1: “Sierra?”
Me: “Yes. I’m supposed to meet her at 2. I’m a volunteer.”
Lady #2: “Oh, Sierra’s in the West Berkeley clinic. Do you know where that is?
I shook my head.
Lady #1: “It’s just 3 blocks away from here. Continue walking on 7th street and you’ll see it on Addison Street.”
Me: “Oh, okay. Thank you!” I eyed both ladies, smiling.
Lady #2: “Sure!”
And then, shortly, Lady #2 said to Lady #1: “She seems so happy!”
I am not sure whether it’s a past tense of “seem” or the present tense that I am assuming.
However, I think both of their instant friendliness came from Ai’s The Pink Sleeves that I used – simply, the friendly face that she puts on.
So I kept on walking. Walking. Walking. Just like running, just slower. However, I kept a steady pace along the way, so it’s all good. According to my Nike+ data, my pacing has become more and more steady on a weekly average basis, despite the distances I ran. Check out Ai’s The Blue Boots to see that.
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Shortly after, I found Sierra, then we filled out my paperwork and stuff.
You know, just talk like human being does, despite all formalities we all have to face today during face-to-face interactions whenever we are applying for certain things by means of formal letters.
Upon finishing my stuff, getting to know the community, talking with Sierra, and seeing the environment there, I left the building with the Reach Out And Read pamphlet with me that Sierra gave before I exit the building.
RETURNING, with $2 for TRANSBAY I read the pamphlet while I was waiting for the 49 bus towards Ashby BART station.
I think I have increased my spatial awareness. Being a girl, I am dumb reading maps.However, when I walked back from West Berkeley clinic to Dwight/7th Street, checking my Google Maps now and then, I took a step back on my obedience to the Directions my Google Maps app is giving me.
The intersection of Dwight Way, Dwight Crescent, and 7th Street, when viewed Street View, i.e. when you’re right there in real-time, is very confusing to my mind. I am a girl/woman, I am lousy at reading maps, you know?
So I stupidly walked along Dwight Way up till the cross street I stopped again to check my Google Maps became 4th Street. At that point, I knew I made a mistake again. It turns out that I’m supposed to walk back to the intersection and walk across 7th street. Shortly after walking backwards towards the intersection again, turning right, I finally came across the 49 Transbay bus stop.
So you see, I think I really had just increased my spatial awareness just by doing the right thing after making a mistake: making a turn. I’m guessing that my cerebral cortex has just made multiple new synapses. (See: Spatial-temporal reasoning)
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After reading the Reach Out And Read pamphlet, I realized that there are a lot of suggested things to keep in mind, but two of which I’d like to emphasize on is the top two on the list:1. Identify yourself. I should be introducing myself, find a secure place for my belongings, and let people know when I will be leaving to prevent future worries.
This applies to whenever I come in for my weekly times to volunteer, and also applicable for everyday life.
2. Waiting rooms can be unpredictable. It may be different every time, and different times of the day makes different things happen. just be yourself and work at your own comfort level. If there is no one I can read in-to, I can always ask for help, or ways I can help!
Ditto for applying this to the “waiting rooms” we all have to be in today.
The queue is getting longer and longer towards an individual identity’s walk of life, because the road itself towards self-identity, especially in America, is getting wider by the minute, which has built up over years since Christopher Columbus found this foreign land and created a history of rich and poor foreign affairs since 1942. There is an ever-growing room for improvement, especially within the middle class of the room, since Columbus discovered this unknown space where the Indian Americans inhabited, however in the present day, citizens of this space seeks the virtual room instead of the virtues it provides, dis-covering the space instead of the knowledge, wasting more time in line rather than on course.
After investing $4 today, I learned that oftentimes, we have to go off-limits in order to gain a stable credibility to reach out for those we want to be related with, definitely off-limits of our comfort zone, and out into the outer space.
In the words of Michael Chabon, it goes like this:
Forget about what you are escaping from. Reserve your anxiety for what you are escaping to.
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Here are some tips on the pamphlet for me to read to the children, and also tips applicable for you to read my stuff on this Web site, or, in fact, other sites on the Web out there that provides you any room for improvement , so that you won’t have to wait:
