In other news out of North Korea it has been reported that Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un ordered the execution of his chief defence minister, Hyon Yong-Chol, which was administered April 30 in front of an enthusiastic crowd of onlookers, supposedly because Hyon fell asleep at a meeting. The method of his demise was an anti-aircraft gun which rapidly fires 14.5 mm rounds.
The one thing I have always feared most in life (apart from clowns) are meetings. Long meetings with long talks going over subjects that either do not apply to me or subjects that do but I got the point in the first 2 minutes but know that we have at least 45 minutes more to go and then, just when I start to get out of my seat the person running the meeting asks if anyone has any questions and, guess what, someone who must have nothing better to do always raises their hand and we are all stuck for another 15 minutes.
Such is life (well, at least outside of North Korea). One learns early on how to manage all that wasted time. There are several things you absolutely must have at your disposal during meeting time. Most people would choose a strong cup of coffee (perhaps an eager, upcoming military aide put of few drops of something into Mr. Hyon's brew) but since my drinking habits have never even prompted me to step inside a Starbucks I need to go to plan B.
Plan B:
Something to write with.
Something to write on.
The write on material can be a yellow legal pad but for me it usually is the thoughtfully provided handout that lists the meeting's agenda. When I was about 3 and my mother would read me a Winnie The Poo book I was sure she was making things up and so I would ask mom to show me on the page where it said what she was saying. Mom would smile at me and say, "Bobby, I'm just reading between the lines." Little did my mother know that I would spend years of my childhood staring at those empty white spaces, trying to see what my mom could see.
But now, much wiser as an adult, those spaces are perfect for doodling. I am not an artist but I do like to have blue lines connect everything that is written. If the speaker says a word that I find intriguing, like " new paradigm" I will write that word down, circle it, and then connect those circled words to somewhere else on the page, perhaps to the circled words "monkey see, monkey do." Once I have a lot of lines I then need to ink in between those lines with circles, squares, cross hatching, gradually working my way out to the edge of the sheet.
When I was younger and needed to attend meetings I was a little more creative. Blue fighter planes circling and shooting down scary giant monsters that looked a bit like the guy or gal running the meeting, drag cars with giant rear tires, blue smoke streaming from the tires, or perhaps anti-aircraft lasers destroying incoming nuclear missiles. Hey, come to think of it, maybe 32 year old Kim Jong-Un was in a meeting listening to some general citing yet another round of statistics as to how many Americans they can annihilate and he glances up and sees General Hyon catching 40. Kim connects the dots, hands his agenda to an aide and BOOM, all his dreams come true.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, or maybe I'm just reading between the lines.
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