For several years I've been leading a quarterly training program for UW journalism students. The program is designed to give the students the experience of interviewing people who are going through a traumatic event. Actors are used to play different characters involved in the scenario.
From the beginning the program used the backdrop of an apartment fire, so that is the scenario I've been used to incorporating into conducting the training, but quite recently the circumstances of the scenario have been changed. I led this new version on Zoom a couple of times last year, although of course Zoom is a pale imitation of face to face, in person, real life communication.
Yesterday I led the training for the first time in a classroom, in person. But it was a different classroom than I had ever been in, so between having been away from in-person leading, and the new scenario, and the new classroom, which was bigger and therefore affected acoustics and intimacy, my confidence was even more wobbly than usual. As often as I've led this program, I still always have a sense of dread when approaching the next training. Once I get warmed up, I always have a splendid time, although, like most teachers, I seldom get to hear if the training had an effect on the students or was as powerful as I know it can be.
That was Something New for yesterday.
Today while I was grocery shopping I chose some different produce than I've had or even heard of before. One is a chocolate persimmon. I've never eaten a persimmon, having decided a long time ago, based on nothing but childish whim, that I don't care for them. But in the name of trying new things, I thought I'd buy one, let it ripen a bit more (aren't they supposed to be soft?), and then eat it. I asked the checker if it was called chocolate because the pulp is brown, but she didn't know, so I'm looking forward to finding out.
I also bought 3 new (to me) kinds of apples: Lemonade, Hunnyz, and Envy. I do love living in the apple capital of the country, maybe of the world. So many kinds to choose from.
Today's other Something New was to maintain good posture all day. It was surprising to me that every time I thought to check my posture, I had fallen into either tightness or slumping. All day long I kept pulling my shoulders back and keeping my head up and holding in my stomach, and then ten minutes later I'd find that I was once again either tense or slack. I think I need to keep up this commitment to good posture for a while, long enough that it might become the habit.
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