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Act of Kindness Day

As I was listening to the radio at work today the DJ made a passing comment that today was Act of Kindness Day. I looked it up, and indeed a movement that got its start in Japan has deemed this Act of Kindness Day. There’s a foundation associated with this concept, and they’ve got several such events planned throughout the year.

To be honest, I haven’t had time to read up on the foundation or the movement to tell you much about them. But, isn’t the idea its self nice? I know this might seem corny, or Pollyannaish, but imagine how much better the world around you would be if we all set out to do a random act of kindness every day.

In fact, we HPS’ers benefit from so many acts of kindness, although most probably aren’t random.

I think one of the things I like about the concept is that it requires us take the focus off of ourselves and think for a minute about someone else’s troubles or needs. Those of us with HPS are so often the subjects of others’ efforts to reach out and do something nice. It’s nice when we can give back as well.

As many of you know, I’m somewhat of a TV nerd. I don’t get to watch much TV and thus I’m really not “hip” about the latest shows etc. I spent part of this evening laying on the couch (not feeling well) and watched a smidgen of television. Boy, I’m not missing much (although I like the history, health and science channels.)

If I were feeling better I’d elaborate on what I saw – it was really, really sad. Maybe next blog.

Today I’ve had some weird symptoms going on. I’m feeling just so, so tired. My throat is a bit sore, and my tongue, of all things, seems to be swollen. I feel like I’ve got mouth sores under my tongue, but it’s so swollen I can’t feel under there to try to tell what’s going on. I keep biting my tongue because it’s bigger than normal, which I’m sure isn’t helping.

So, tonight I opted for soup for dinner with some tea and then I went to Homers to work on things for work while drinking a warm latte.

This week is going to be more hectic than I thought. Our press deadline for the January issue was moved up a tad, and my deadlines were moved up further because my boss is going to cover a show right after Thanksgiving. So, she wants all my copy just as soon as I can possibly get it finished. (Like I’m sitting around or something…grin) Actually, this is just fine by me because it gets me that much further ahead to be gone at NIH in December.

I still don’t have confirmed dates from NIH. This is starting to get irritating as my co-workers would like to know what days they need to cover for me, and which days I’ll be able to cover for them. We can’t all take our holiday leave at the same time. Pesky readers – even when there’s a holiday they still expect to get their newsletters and magazines. Grin! Not always getting time off at the holidays is just part of working in journalism.

But, to get things finished by early next week will probably require working several nights this week, which will put me behind on the HPS Newsletter. And, if I keep feeling this stinking tired, that’s going to complicate things as well.

Off to bed for me.

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