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Text of the page (random words):
for several weeks i just want to take a moment to acknowledge you whoever you are reading this it is an odd feeling writing for unknown readers i never know whose eyes are scanning my words how and where my thoughts land whether you find them interesting irrelevant helpful or boring perhaps you are a student at the end of a long semester or a staff person on a break maybe you are having coffee and a frontier roll or waiting for a bus or putting off grading papers for a few more minutes possibly you just grabbed a newspaper to line your bird cage or pack up your belongings when i was a child my mother read to me and my sisters from rudyard kipling s just so stories kipling wrote as if he was speaking and he referred to his reader as o my best beloved when i heard that i always felt specially acknowledged writers write for their readers after all so thank you for reading what i most want to say to you is that i hope you acknowledge yourself whoever you are there is only one of you in this universe you are the definition of unique nobody else has your experiences your struggles and accomplishments your exact take on the world you have your own preferences habits quirks and your very own style your strengths have saved you your weaknesses have cost you life has hit you in the gut one way or another leaving you a little wiser and a little stronger each time you are a changing growing human being shaped by your changing growing life between nature and nurture the forces that mold us are endless and varied it takes every single one of us to complete the complex wondrous picture that is life on earth i personally find it fascinating that there are no two of us alike anywhere and i thank you for your contribution to the landscape have a good winter break posted by peg spencer at wednesday january 01 2014 no comments labels ask dr peg columns wednesday october 31 2012 take a flu shot for raymond raymond plotkin was a freshman at unm in 2009 a native of texas he was one of 18 freshman accepted into the learning and living community for engineering he planned to become a nuclear engineer and he was very happy here he loved living in redondo village and eating at la posada he was a friendly young man who liked his roommates and got involved in student engineering clubs and the local hillel house he kept in close touch with his parents and older brother in houston his mother elaine said raymond fell in love with unm he really connected with his school of engineering advisors and did very well in school he made good friends and was having fun everything was falling into place for him and the future looked bright the fall semester was going well raymond carved a jack o lantern for halloween and reveled in his first snow experience even saving snowballs in his dorm room freezer when the time came he got a flu shot sadly that was the year that the h1n1 flu took the nation by surprise and the regular flu shot the flu shot that was available to raymond didn t include protection from h1n1 in early november 2009 raymond got his first symptoms he came to the student health center and was treated for flu a few days later on a saturday he got much worse and his roommates took him to unmh where he was admitted to the intensive care unit for four days the doctors did everything they could fighting to save his stricken lungs and heart with all that modern medicine has to offer tragically nothing worked on november 11 just weeks shy of his 19 th birthday raymond died from h1n1 a week before his death raymond posted a quote on his facebook page life s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you they re supposed to help you discover who you are raymond s parents rather than allowing themselves to become paralyzed by the terrible grief that losing a child brings have become passionate advocates of influenza immunization they don t want anyone else to lose a son or daughter to flu if it can be prevented take one for raymond is the name of their initiative that has now become a foundation spreading the word about influenza immunization writes elaine plotkin all we ask is that everyone considers taking a flu shot and if you re on the fence about it please think about it again no family wants to hear that a loved one is sick in bed with the flu it is our intent to educate and inform everyone about the importance of flu immunization we do this because we wouldn t want any other family to have to go through what our family has without our son that is why we will do everything we can do to ask each of you to take the flu shot if you are able to do so stu dent health coun sel ing shac and unm hos pi tal part ner to offer free take one for raymond flu shot clinics for the unm com mu nity the influenza vac cine will be offered to unm stu dents staff and fac ulty any one 18 years old or older tuesday wednesday sept 25 26 and tuesday wednesday oct 23 24 from 10 a m to 2 p m in the stu dent union build ing atrium elaine and ronnie plotkin raymond s parents also established a scholarship in his name starting the fund with a generous donation the same year they lost raymond each fall the scholarship is awarded to an incoming freshman engineering student recipients so far are paul gilbreath and sean chavez to contribute to the scholarship or for more information contact the unm school of engineering at 277 5064 or visit http www unm edu soeschol freshman html for the past two years elaine plotkin has written an article like this one for the daily lobo this year the honor is mine i take this task very seriously because you see i have a son almost raymond s age and that same year my son also contracted h1n1 to my profound relief he survived it so every fall when flu season breaches the horizon i imagine the pain raymond s parents have endured and my heart hurts and every fall i find inspiration in the courage they have shown by moving beyond the paralysis of unimaginable challenge and i go take one for raymond i hope you will too posted by peg spencer at wednesday october 31 2012 no comments labels ask dr peg columns sunday september 16 2012 meditation last week i had the great good fortune to attend a meditation retreat in the high country of northern new mexico for three days i sat for many hours on a cushion silently bringing my attention back to my breath over and over again or walked slowly upon the earth soles alert to every pebble on the path during the breaks i savored delicious food wandered flower bedecked meadows and immersed my senses in fresh air stars and running water there was no phone service no internet connection no television by the end of the retreat i felt a depth of rejuvenation and calm that still sustains me why am i telling you this beyond wanting to share my joy i thought you would be interested to know that meditation is actually good for you for starters it can improve your gpa meditators have more gray matter this has been measured gray matter is what does your homework for you so presumably more is better more specifically the gray matter growth that has been observed in mediators occurs in areas associated with learning and memory sense of self empathy and stress management further long term meditators have more folds in their cerebral cortex which allows for faster information processing sitting makes you smarter meditation is also good for your health both physical and mental scientists have studied this in typical scientist fashion by plastering electrodes all over the heads of meditating buddhist monks surveying thousands of people with a smart phone app and of course using more conventional methods like basic lab measurements meditation can lower blood pressure and pulse rates improve your immune system and decrease your experience of pain people who meditate have less anxiety depression and insomnia and respond better to stress if you have a chronic illness like aids or cancer meditation can help manage the physical and emotional symptoms meditation and exercise are the only two activities proven to prolong brain function in old age and perhaps most importantly meditators are happier and more resilient in times of stress what is meditation anyway in the simplest sense it is the practice of relaxing the body and clearing the mind another way to describe meditation is focused attention on the present moment with awareness and without judgment there are different kinds of meditation but they all have the same goals mindfulness meditation uses awareness of the body and mind to bring the attention to the here and now other traditions use an object or an image for focus and some use a prayer a mantra or a wish for widespread happiness yoga was traditionally a way to prepare the body for sitting meditation and can be used as a kind of movement meditation there are many choices the concept of meditation is simple but that doesn t make it easy the nature of the mind is wild and wandering and getting to even a few moments of calm present moment awareness can take years of practice sakyong mipham a great shambala buddhist teacher likens the mind to a wild horse that gallops off at every opportunity jack kornfield an internationally renowned meditation teacher writes that meditation is like training a puppy to sit and stay the puppy always gets up and runs away and you just pick it up and put it back down over and over again if you have never tried it meditation might sound mysterious at best useless at worst but more and more people are trying it liking it and keeping it up it is sweeping the globe in fact just last weekend people in over 100 cities around the world held a special meditation for peace this included 100 000 meditators in buenos aires alone if you think you might be interested in meditation you could start with some reading in addition to the teachers mentioned above i recommend thich nhat hanh pema chodron the dalai lama or jon kabat zinn these are just my personal favorites there are many others you could also check out a dvd find a meditation center near you or take a class amy gross former editor in chief of o the oprah magazine retired from her highly successful career to become a full time meditation instructor and practitioner she writes as you meditate the grip of your history loosens and you get a little saner lighter less entangled maybe that is what i was feeling up in the mountains last week it s somewhat indefinable for me at this moment all i know is that it felt good and right and if you ll excuse me i m going back to my cushion posted by peg spencer at sunday september 16 2012 no comments labels ask dr peg columns meditation monday november 15 2010 dr peg on veterans day my latest daily lobo article posted by peg spencer at monday november 15 2010 4 comments monday october 25 2010 dr peg on itching my latest daily lobo article posted by peg spencer at monday october 25 2010 no comments tuesday october 19 2010 de stress a little at a time from my ask dr peg column in the daily lobo newspaper take time to de stress posted by peg spencer at tuesday october 19 2010 no comments flu shots from my ask dr peg column in the daily lobo newspaper should i get a flu shot posted by peg spencer at tuesday october 19 2010 no comments saturday july 17 2010 consider not considering the source consider the source that is one of those truisms for critical thinking we learned in college before you accept something you hear or read as truth with a capital t look at who is saying it and decide if they are worth listening to or not is this person an expert is this article peer reviewed was the study double blinded could this person be biased do i even like this guy it s a good idea to an extent but i submit it can get carried too far do you ever consider the source before you listen to what they have to say i know i do oh that guy is a republican i know i won t agree with him her she said something nasty and untrue to my friend the other day i know i won t believe a word she says my husband i m pissed at him for something he did this morning so anything he says today i ll take personally the thing is if you filter stuff before it even gets to your brain like this you can miss out on a lot of good information that republican guy might have something reasonable to say about the gulf oil spill the nasty gal might have just been on the rag the other day and have a great tip for sale dresses today my husband making an observation about my behavior might just be right i cringe to admit i ve been practicing not considering the source try evaluating the message on its own merits forget the messenger whether it be someone s take on current events or feedback on how i come across i m trying a just the facts ma am approach is the message valid interesting worth considering if so it doesn t matter where it came from i can learn from the message even if i m too biased to learn from the messenger if the message is worthless let it go push the eject button and get it out of my mind easier said than done but worth a try posted by peg spencer at saturday july 17 2010 1 comment tuesday january 19 2010 getting rid of excess body hair my latest dr peg article in the daily lobo posted by peg spencer at tuesday january 19 2010 no comments older posts home subscribe to posts atom the authors of 50 ways interview on kchf tv 50 ways to leave your 40s tv interview with phoenix pat mcmahon about me peg spencer albuquerque new mexico united states having been a clinic doc for twenty years i ve reached a point where i want to enrich my life and expand my skill horizons hence my creative writing efforts so far successes include first place in the 2005 southwest writer s essay contest co authorship of a published book called 50 ways to leave your 40s and a regular health column in the daily lobo newspaper view my complete profile labels 50 ways to leave your 40s book 14 ask dr peg columns 19 bright spots 2 gothic 11 medical stories 37 meditation 4 on writing 3 photos 12 random musings 26 running 5 silly poems 2 soccer 3 war 5 the book cover now available click here to buy 50 ways to leave your 40s visits since 6 11 08 follow this blog categories medical stories 37 random musings 26 ask dr peg columns 19 50 ways to leave your 40s book 14 photos 12 gothic 11 running 5 war 5 meditation 4 soccer 3 on writing 3 bright spots 2 silly poems 2 blog archive 2024 1 april 1 almost 10 years to the day since my last post in 2014 1 january 1 2012 2 october 1 september 1 2010 8 november 1 october 3 july 1 january 3 2009 31 december 1 november 4 october 1 september 2 august 1 july 3 june 8 may 3 march 3 february 1 january 4 2008 34 december 6 november 1 september 1 august 5 july 7 june 11 may 2 april 1 2007 10 december 1 november 3 april 1 march 1 february 1 january 3 2006 72 december 5 november 2 october 3 september 2 august 4 july 12 june 3 may 11 april 11 march 17 february 2 my favorite medical blogs barbados butterfly becoming a 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