Welcome to Teresa's World!

This is my oldest blog - I now have several other blogs/websites for different areas of my life, different ways I think. You can check out old posts on this blog for glimpses into my life from long ago, or else check out newer posts at my various other blogs and websites for more insight into my current life and thought patterns...

Dream Big, Play Big - my personal development & life-hacking blog

Read With Teresa - the books that have been filling my head lately

MultiPassionate Coaching - living life with 'too many' interests and passions

PhysArt - dancing, moving, body-hacking

Me on OkCupid - my thoughts on relationships and such

and of course, my main personal website...


Or if you want more up-to-date stuff about what I'm doing, and things I'm interested in, come subscribe to me on Facebook.


Sunday, April 16, 2006

"Whenever I see a book that doesn't interest me, I'm relieved."

Lately, I've been reading "Refuse to Choose: A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love" and "The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One". It's great to find books that seem to be written for me! I've always bought books that promised to help me find the one perfect job/career/passion for me, hoping that I could find the one thing that I'm supposed to do. But as Barbara Sher says, if I actually pictured myself doing only one thing for the rest of my life, I think I'd go insane!

I have so many different interests! I always say that I want to learn and understand everything, but as my first quote implies, I do actually have limits on my interests, but given enough time, almost everything comes into my interest field, at least for a little while!

A few of my interests...
-Dance (Ballet, jazz, pointe, lyrical, ballroom, etc.)
-Fitness, Gymnastics, Martial Arts, etc.
-Math & Science
-Cognitive Science, Psychology, Linguistics, Philosophy, etc.
-Programming & Problem Solving
-Financial Planning & Business Planning
-Languages & Travel
-Healthy Eating (Raw, Vegan, etc.)
-Kids! & Helping People

I've also been reading "Is Your Genius At Work?: 4 Key Questions to Ask Before Your Next Career Move". Through reading that and trying to figure out what my genius is, I've become intrigued with the idea of flow. Not so much flow in the way that Csikszentmihalyi refers to it, but flow for me is having everything come together perfectly. It might look all disjointed and jumbled, but as its time comes, everything flows together. A wonderful dance has flow, a good action sequence in a movie has flow, languages have flow, good programming has flow. All of the different parts work together to create the perfect outcome, although at lots of different times, it seems as if everything might crash into a huge heap. My apartment has flow - it may look like a mess, but I know where everything is, and I flow through everything. I like Steve Pavlina's Donut Factory game, where you have to guide the donuts along different paths and through different bakers & icing machines, because as the levels get more complicated, the donuts get closer and closer to hitting each other and if you try the wrong solution, the donuts crash into a huge heap, but once you've found the solution, they flow perfectly through, around, and past each other.

I'm not totally positive about my genius, but I like "Choreographing Chaos"! I need to have the idea of flow in there, of living on the edge between chaos and order. I like the alliteration of the C's. Choreographing has the dance connotation to it, and Chaos has a math/science connotation to it. I had been thinking "Finding Flow" (again with the alliteration), but it seems kind of passive compared to "Choreographing Chaos"! I'm also thinking about "Integrating Information" (can you tell I like alliteration?) - it does have the idea of flow, and I am definitely into information, but it's not quite as ME as "Choreographing Chaos" But
I hestitate to say that I'm certain about "CC" because I also have a part of me that really likes/needs to discover & understand. I can kind of make the point that in order to choreograph chaos, I have to understand it, but the understanding aspect is implied, not blatantly stated. Oh well, it will all work itself out - because the universe flows! :-)

I'm off to indulge in some of the chocolate that my parents sent me for Easter!

Saturday, April 08, 2006

So last night, I saw the Caltech Dance Show up in Pasadena. It was so cool! Way back when... gosh, it's been almost 7 years... Anyway, back when I started at Tech, the Caltech Dance Troupe was just a little club that sometimes had workshops, and now they're organizing a whole dance show with the other campus dance organizations! I had so much fun teaching classes back then, and planning the summer children's camp. And now I'm so proud of them now (even though I don't know any of them anymore)!
The Dance Show was really nice. They had lots of different types of dance, and everyone was so enthusiastic to be dancing. There was one couples' ballroom dance that was quintessential Caltech - and then one burlesque style dance that was definitely not quintessential Caltech. It was a fun evening, and I got to show a friend around campus. He was very intrigued by the whole Caltech culture, so I was telling him all about house life and dinners and swimming with the Whirling Blades of Death. And my South Master key still works! :-) Being on campus always brings back so many memories; there were so many good times! And yet I'm glad that I left when I did, because I think if I had stayed, I might not look back on my Tech times with such fondness.