Movie Review: Avengers 2: Age of Ultron ~ written and directed by Joss Whedon

Super heroes. Dialogue filled with cliche and warning. Fantastic aerial combat not from supersonic jets but from men and women with superpowers. Fighting to save the world from an artificial intelligence taller, smarter, stronger and shinier than any of them. Ultron, who doesn't have humble connection in his neural net, is this artificial intelligence. Ultron believes that in order to create a peaceful world, all humans must be exterminated  ~ beginning with every one of the superheroes - Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and new to the scene are Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Then there is Vision, a sentient robot, played by Paul Bettany who comes into being in a computer lab and by fortunate accident. Vision is the superhero that works on the side of good and saving the human race. (He has a cape!)

Directed by Joss Whedon, Avengers 2 ~ Age of Ultron was fun! Lots of smashed cars and buildings, people being saved from instant death and destruction, tender family scenes (at a minimum) and special effects galore. Reading online information, many scenes - and one or two super heroes were cut. Even then the movie was a three hour slug fest. Only one of the superheroes dies and another goes missing - can’t tell you any more than that!  That would be giving away some of the suspense. 

And did I mention it was in 3D! More fun!

“I like superheroes. I like the drama of it, 

the stirring, larger-than-life aspect.”

~ Kurt Busiek

Written and directed by Joss Whedon

Partial Cast:

Robert Downey, Jr. - Iron Man 

Scarlett Johansson - Black Widow

Chris Evans - Captain America

Chris Hemsworth - Thor

Jeremy Renner - Hawkeye

Mark Ruffalo - The Hulk/Bruce Banner 

Elizabeth Olsen - Scarlet Witch

Aaron Taylor-Johnson - Quicksilver

Vision, a sentient robot - Paul Bettany

Day Three - Releasing Time to Care

As with all conferences, this was the day when we wrapped up, tied up and carried away all of our experiences and education from Day One and Day Two.Some of us were  - well, I suspect most of us - were ready to be home in our own beds, with our own families and friends. Amazingly, the sun shone favourably on Vancouver. The timing of this conference coincided beautifully, lending a positive karmic grace to all of our deliberations - or does that sound too airy-fairy?

There was nothing airy-fairy about these three days. It was not a top-down, hierarchical, or simply educational conference. This Releasing Time to Care is for improving patient care by increasing the availability of time with changes to the way things are done by staff on their respective units ~ communication, finding problem areas and solutions that fit those problems. Changing things that need changing and strengthening those that work ~ for all the health care team members to the benefit of our patients. The conference may be over, but the work has yet to begin.

I do enjoy and am excited by most conferences that I have attended. However, once I am home and in my own surroundings again, the excitement wanes until I have forgotten all but a few highlights ~ a keynote speaker, a particular presentation, or some feature that captured my attention. What captured my imagination this time was the entire presentation and it's collaborative, hands on approach. A presentation that spoke to what has long been important to me ~ changing health care systems that have stagnated because of routines that, while still having a basic utility, many times have felt plodding and tiresome.

What has seemed an impossibility, has flowered into possibility. With enough willingness and humility, I will be an effective part of the many upcoming discussions that will foster change to the status quo on our Detox unit. Any change to a present reality does usually involve collaboration and communication, elbow grease and sweat equity, in order to become the next reality.

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.”

~ Mark Twain

Day Two - Releasing Time to Care

I heard a saying a long time ago: “Principles above personalities”.  In the last two days, that is what I’ve heard at this conference. Not only have I heard this in theory, but watched it in action as we listened, shared interactive learning sessions and had break away times for each team to discuss, debate and plan for creating order on our own units using these principals. It has been very humbling to recognize that, as a group, we are all in the same boat.

Not spiritual principles, but principles that can be shared among disciplines in any health care setting. Principles that run along lines of organization, ‘time waste’ management, and just cleaner organization of the work place that frees up time for improved more frequent patient/client interactions. We are not learning along the structured hierarchical lines of management, union, team leads or front line workers, but as health care professionals wanting to provide quality time to our clients and patients rather than dedicating our time to the electronic world, paperwork, and running about to find things that have been stuffed in the nearest available corner.

The most fascinating part of this conference is that one hundred and fifty men and women from managers, coordinators, frontline nurses and addiction and mental health workers are discussing and working through the principles that have been established by the Releasing Time to Care program. This program has come from the National Health Service of the U.K. It has been taken globally to Saskatchewan, Ontario, British Columbia all the way to Waitemata in New Zealand, as well as Sweden and Holland.

“We all came in on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now.”

~  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Day One - Releasing Time To Care

Ordinarily, any conferences I have been to, have exhausted my brain and my body, while nudging my spirit with new ideas. And that’s just on the first day. 

The new ideas were generated by front line staff of hospitals, community clinics and residential housing. Staff included nurses, mental health workers, and addictions workers.  Many of our supervisors and leaders were also present. Much of what was discussed, and will be developed, will call on our honesty and humility about our roles in our various health care settings. The program being learned over these three days is Releasing Time to Care. I’ll be telling you more about this over the next two days.  Suffice it to say that, any data that is generated will be specific to those of us on the front lines. 

So, today was really not much different except for the amount of exercise. We made time to exercise. Not part of the conference agenda, it was part of the agenda for myself and colleagues. At the end of today, over 140 minutes (that’s two hours and twenty minutes), mostly walking, had been completed. After lunch, it involved walking for a shopping trip, then out to supper. Not just down the street but striding out to the Sky Train and again through Little India to a local restaurant for Indian cuisine. Oh, and then it was a walk back!

Releasing time for the education exercise of mind, body and spirit!

“Lost time is never found again.”

~ Benjamin Franklin

Extending Humility

I’m not sure how to address this topic tonight. I am in a beautifully appointed and a well staffed hotel in downtown Vancouver for a three day seminar, compliments of Vancouver Island Health Authority. I believe it is the ‘compliments of’ that relate to this topic of humility. 

Vancouver Island Health Authority is a very large health authority, island wide and extending to the islands of the Georgia Strait and in the mainland communities north of Powell River and south of Rivers Inlet. I am one employee, in one health care unit, working in one facility in all that area.

As I look down from my fourteenth floor window of the Pinnacle Hotel on West Hastings, I feel as small as the Canadian flag, the walkway, the trees and all the details of this scene. However, when I am at work, I and my colleagues, each one of us in this expansive Health Authority, become the center of our work world, extending our hands into the heart of our work with the clients and patients that come to us for care.

Being offered this opportunity to learn more after these many years of nursing is equally humbling. To learn about this initiative, Releasing Time to Care, for this one nurse, in a singular career, is exciting and, I’m certain, will reward me with time to collaborate with colleagues, many that I have yet to meet, and some that I have already worked with and known.

“The humblest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them.”

~ Louisa May Alcott

Exercising Humility

Monday is my exercise day.
I do minimal exercise on all other days of the week, but Mondays are dedicated to two specific activities:  the walking group and aquafit.

The walking group involves a lot of talking as well. Walking from Mile Zero on Dallas Road to Moka House on Shoal Point - 30 minutes (I timed it for the IslandInMotion activity). Coffee, visiting, laughing and then it’s return back the same way again, talking all the way.

Now here’s the humbling part.
I have, for most of my life, hidden a part of me. It, which is my scoliosis - a fancy name for a crooked spine - caused my left shoulder to droop and my hips to shift to the right. It left me unbalanced with clothes that wouldn’t fit. And once more I was different.

I’ve worked hard at correcting that, hiding it with certain types of clothes, standing up straight - or at least as straight as possible - and regular basic yoga practise. I’ve not really been aware of being ashamed of this crooked old back of mine as it has held up beautifully and my shoulder no longer droops, my hips aren’t as unbalanced.

The humbling part?
When I go to Aquafit, I am first in the ladies locker room, stripping quickly into my birthday suit, revealing myself unwillingly to all and sundry. (Hopefully I'm alone.) Wearing a bathing suit that shows my bare back and it’s lumpy, curving spine and offset hips, I pull myself up to my awesome height of 5’1’ - and I’m stretching that!  (If my back wasn’t crooked I’d be taller!)

All body types and ages, some very young, adolescent, middle aged and old gather with towels, bathing suits of as many descriptions as our bods, and metal lockers waiting patiently to hide our clothing and shoes. The youngsters, not in the Aquafit classes, seem relaxed and nonchalant about their shining young bodies. For the rest of us 60 something - 80 something group with our surgical scars, muffin tops, turkey necks and the ever present loose arm flaps are less so - or maybe I should just speak for myself.

Then, an hour long class over, and after a few minutes in the hot tub, we stand naked in showers beside each other, trying to hurry and cover up again before we switch from swim togs into clothing - once more wearing our outside selves.

Everyone seems almost comfortable. No one notices me! (I hope.)

“To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.”

~ Simone de Beauvoir

Humble Pride

‘Pride goeth before a fall’ ~
So says the Book of Proverbs 16:18

But these brilliant flowers
proud and standing tall,
with humble roots deep in rich soil,
grow and thrive in all the tall grasses.

“Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues.”

~ Confucius