The final day of English with NLP in Istanbul, Turkey. June 2007.
takedeepbreath@
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Today has so much going on for me.
Still no hot water, so no shower, (click) but I have had a full wash-down, and it was invigorating to say the least.
But is that so terrible?
I was in contact with NLPGrup in Turkey today, and was told some very upsetting news, that one of our English participants had passed away, along with his wife. It appears he and his wife were murdered by the ex husband. What a waste.
I have listened to the reports of the floods in the UK, how people are without fresh water, electricity, have lost their homes, their personal belongings. The little amount of flooding we had here in Norbiton Hall was nothing. (click to see pictures and videos).
Last year I was giving an NLP training in Antalya in the South of Turkey, and Asu, my translator at the time, pestered me to take her scuba diving, after all I am a Master Diver, (click) with over 600 logged dives around the world. But she had to get qualified as an Open Water Diver before I could buddy up with her. This she did at the hotel where we were holding the training, and on her last qualifying dive I joined her and the diving instructor.
I experienced great difficulty descending, with pains in my ears. After a couple of years with no diving, I expected it, I could not equalise the pressure in my ears. Slowly I got to about 3 meters (9-10 foot), and decided that was deep enough for me with the difficulty of equalisation.
The dive continued. But then the whole world began to spin, something I had never experienced before. I had only one option to abort the dive and surface.
The dive instructor said I had a little blood coming from my nose, and rescued me. Me a Master Diver, a Rescue Diver. I felt stupid.
For days after I could not hear well, my ears were blocked, and upon my return to the UK, I went to see my doctor. I had high blood pressure, plus I report slight discomfort in my neck.
I was sent for tests. After many tests it was found that I needed a Stent placed in my heart, one of my arteries was getting blocked. No wonder I was feeling tired all the time.
A very easy procedure was done. Fully awake and with no pain, I watched as they played inside my heart, placing the Stent, which they blew-up like a balloon to widen the artery, allowing the blood to flow.
A near miss for me.
Shortly after that on resuming my travels and training, I awoke one night to find blood coming out of my ear.
Panic. What was going on. I am in a strange country, Turkey, with no medical knowledge of what was happening.
The tablets I was taking since the procedure are designed to thin the blood, so if I cut myself the wound takes a long time to stop bleeding. If I bang myself, I bruise easily. I lay on my side with the bleeding ear uppermost so that the wound would heal.
This resulted in a blood clot or plug in the ear, and nothing I can do has removed it, syringing did nothing, putting oils in the ear, nothing.
That was last November 2006, it is now July 2007. I have been waiting for a hospital appointment to remove the plug since. Many appointments have been made, but each one has been canceled at the last moment by the hospital. I have arranged my trips abroad, my work around them, only to find that they put back the date.
Today is the day, and I have had no cancellation.
Perhaps I will get it seen to today, it should be quite simple to do.
Perhaps not.
An interesting talk about myself, Phillip Holt, by the Turkish broadcaster and University lecturer E lif Canan Onat.
Elif has requested that I remove this Youtube entry.
I always think I am normal. To me I am anyway.
The aftermath of the floods (click) we experienced in Norbiton part of Kingston upon Thames, has not been as great as others in the UK. many homes and businesses have lost everything they own, as the flood waters entered their premises, especially in the counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. After receiving one months rain in a couple of hours, the infrastructure, the drainage systems could not cope.
Here in Norbiton, yes we had the roads flooded, but the water soon disappeared, and transport got back to normal as if nothing had happened. A few premises were flooded in the area, but for us in Norbiton Hall, (click to read history), our communal boiler room, that heats all the 192 flats hot water needs, was flooded.
The boiler room is underground, and the site manager David Flynn told me that the room was flooded to waist deep. I suspect that means that all the electrics, the controls will have been damaged, perhaps the fuel supply will have been contaminated, and the boiler no longer works, therefore we will have no hot water for days.
OK, no big deal, who needs hot water? But how do we wash or take a shower?
Cold water? Yes. But this is cold, cold water, sorry too cold for me. The UK is not a tropical island, or Malaysia, Turkey or Greece, sunning themselves in temperatures near 40 degrees. There it is great to have a cold shower.
The British culture still has the concept of baths. Long tubs in which we lay down and soak ourselves for a longtime.
A recommendation, I hope of my work and training in Turkey.
Yaptıgım calısma ve egitimler ile ilgili bir tavsiye duymak ve izlemek isteyen kişilere, lütfen buradaki videoyu izleyin.
Ali Gök, July 2007
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Synchronicity
If something is going to happen it will, or the fact is we are drawn together, people, article or matter in some way.
In a previous blog article War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells, Jeff Wayne I wrote:-
Synchronicity. The release of human possibilities. Breaking free of limits. It will happen if it should happen.
C.G. Jung describes synchronicity as “a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, where something other than the possibility of chance is involved.”
I had planned an article which I published this morning 21st July 2007 at 0100 hours, 1 o’clock in the morning, or 1am titled To empty my Brain where I write about Slingbox, Skype and the new internet TV service Joost. The article had been written for some days, but the timing to publish was not right until this Saturday morning. I had set the publication date in the software.
As people will know, I love new technology, new ideas, and I have to be there first, try it out, use it, I want to learn, I can see applications for these new ideas to solve some problem, or to help me in some way.
Internet TV is an area I have played with for sometime. I am away from home a lot in different parts of the world, and to relax in strange beds and rooms, to relax and switch my brain off is often difficult. To read if I have time or especially watch TV, is one way for me to relax and switch off.
Foreign TV is very often frustrating, especially as I do not know the language, or do not understand the program content, what is happening. That is where Slingbox and Joost come in, it enables me if I have free internet access, I refuse to pay the high costs of hotel internet access, to watch British, English language TV.
The yesterday afternoon, Friday, I received from the BBC an invitation to join their Beta testing of a new service they are soon to launch on the internet, called BBC iPlayer.
BBC iPlayer will be a service which enables enrolled subscribers to download a range of BBC television programmes to the PC from the last seven days. BBC iPlayer Beta is currently open to a limited number of people in a closed environment, although it will launch in Open Beta to the public on July 27.
It is strange that they contact me.
How did they know of my interest?
Are they watching me?
Strange how we are drawn together. It happens to me such a lot.
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To empty my Brain
With the long hours I do presenting and training, continually calibrating with the participants and translators, working out my next move, my future moves, my language, I need space in the evening as I am exhausted, my brain needs to relax and switch off.
A participant once said I am like an actor whilst I train, but on top of that, I am the writer, the producer, the director, the theatre manager, the stage manager, sound engineer and catering manager. It is true.
But I love my job.
In the evening, I could have a relaxing meal and conversation with someone I know, or take a wrap, Simit or sandwich back to my hotel room.
I can switch-on the TV, but mostly there will be only two English language channels, CNN and/or the BBC. Once you have seen the news once, that is it, I do not wish to see it again, and again, and again.
If the hotel has free internet access, then I have a great solution. Slingbox.
Slingbox from Sling Media, is a way I can watch British TV anywhere in the world for free, it will change the way we watch TV in the future I am sure, the same as VoiP and Skype have changed the way we can telephone the world at very cheap prices or for free.
Slingbox is a box full of electronics looking like a block of chocolate, that connects to your satellite or cable TV box in your home, then to your broadband connection, not your computer but the router. The Slingbox is then given its’ own internet address, which is secure, that then allows you to access and control your satellite or cable TV box, downloading the TV signal to your computer logged onto the internet anywhere in the world.
You can control which program you wish to watch, in fact it is just like having the home TV controller in your hand.
The main trouble for this is if someone else is watching a program at home and you want to watch another channel. But that can be fun.
You can get the Slingbox here
Yaptıgım calısma ve egitimler ile ilgili bir tavsiye duymak ve izlemek isteyen kişilere, lütfen buradaki videoyu izleyin.
An English version can be seen by clicking here. 
English version
Zehra Gurol, July 2007
See other recommendations (click here.)
For someone who would like to see and hear a recommendation for my work and training, please see the video here.
Türkce versiyon icin burayı tıklayarak izleyebilirsiniz. 
Türkçe versiyonu
Zehra Gurol, July 2007
See other recommendations (click here.)
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Floods in Kingston upon Thames
Today we have had a really bad storm, more like a tropical downpour with thunder and lighting.
So heavy was the rain that the road outside the flats of Norbiton Hall, (click to read about), London Road, Kingston upon Thames, where I live became flooded, not unusual as it has happend before, but bad this time.
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Another video.
Another video of the floods in Kingston upon Thames.
I think I will stay in until the water goes.
The aftermath. (click to follow link).