Monday, April 28, 2014

April 24 Meeting Update - Orange County South NSA Group

This update is not as detailed as I would like. I was planning on writing it on Saturday, 4/26 while the meeting was still fresh in my mind. However, I had to make an unexpected visit to the emergency room at Saddleback Hospital with severe abdominal pains, which resulted in an overnight stay, a CAT scan, x-rays, a sleepless night, & no eating for 2 days. Mostly better now. (Should've never put those sardines and mayonnaise on my ice cream).

There were 7 persons present including a new member - welcome, Roberto! A student from Cal State Fullerton was also present. The student did not take part in the meeting, sat apart from the others as an observer & note taker, & asked questions of the members toward the end of the meeting. One of these questions has been asked before but is still a really good one: "Have you had any bad experiences with speech therapists?"

We started with introductions along with the question: "What would you do if you won $100,000,000 in the lottery?" An interesting range of responses included: Become a venture capitalist, travel, give some to my friends, give some to charity, buy a nice house, build the ultimate dirt bike, invest in the  financial markets, go back to school, pay off debts, & take a long vacation. One member said he'd go back to studying Chinese. Another said he'd find the world's best speech therapist.

A topic for discussion was then put before the group: "How would your life be different if you woke up one morning & didn't stutter anymore?" One member said his life would not be that different except he would give better presentations. Many answers were about the general themes of being more outgoing, speaking up more, being more extroverted, talking to more people, etc. This writer said he'd be a contestant on Jeopardy.

With the time that was left, we did a few table topics. Subjects included "Fridays", "Do you believe in aliens?" "Do people have free will?" & the most novel one: "Jeopardy or Wheel?" (General consensus favored Jeopardy.) You never know what will come up in table topics.

While people who stutter have many things in common, after each meeting & after having been in the NSP/NSA (the NSA used to be the National Stuttering Project) for a long time, it always amazes & heartens me that each of us is an individual with their own ideas & imagination. The wacky & original responses to the introductory, discussion & table topic questions always reinforce this idea for me.

The next meeting is on Thursday, May 8, 5:45 PM, at Kaiser in Irvine led by Mihaela & Matt (assuming Matt is back from chasing a little white ball all over Scotland).

No comments:

Post a Comment