As Advanced Composition draws to an end, reflect back upon your time in the class. What words of advice would you give the next group of students who are coming into this class? What does it take to be successful in this classroom and what kind of attributes does a successful student have?
Try to close with a favorite portion of the class. Was it a favorite reading, a favorite discussion, a favorite activity?
150-200 words.
Due: FRIDAY, MARCH 14th. :)
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Importance of Writing Communication
Suttle & Simons - Importance of written communication
Read the two short articles below.
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/feb/18/luminaries_tout_importance_written_communication_s/?saturday_column
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-writing-skills-business-845.html
Think about your future. Explain how writing will be important to your life. Explain what types of writing you will be responsible for, and how important it will be for you to show proficiency. Will you be typing essays for college, e-mails for an employer, flyers for your own garage sale? Think realistically! :)
WC:200-250
Due FRIDAY, MARCH 7th.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Wikihow
Wikihow - Essay Writing
Now that you are successful, seasoned essay composers, read the following article and comment on the topics below.
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-an-Essay
1) Is this advice correct and accurate--why/why not?
2) What is the most important part of this advice?
3) What additional advice would you offer someone just beginning a research essay project?
WC: 200-250
Due TUESDAY, MARCH 4th.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Perseverance
King - Perseverance
Read the following article:
http://www.masterkeycoaching.com/2011/11/guest-article-perseverance-the-key-to-total-success-jawara-d-king/
Respond on how this article and its advice relate to your writing process. What advice does King give that relates to YOU and your process?
WC: 150-200
Due FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28th.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Shooting an Elephant
Shooting an Elephant - George Orwell
Read the following article: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/everythingsanargument4e/content/cat_020/Orwell_Shooting.pdf
Answer the following issues in your blog response:
1- Why do you think he shot the elephant?
2- What do you find ironic in this essay?
3- How does Orwell use adjectives in this essay? Are they effective?
4- What point was Orwell trying to make with this essay, and was he successful? **Remember Orwell is a very anti-governmental writer. His most famous novels depict corrupt governments and oppressed peoples.
This blog should be 225-275 words; include a word count at the conclusion of your response.
Due TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25th
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
School Advice
School Advice - Sykes
Read the following article by Charles Sykes.
How do you feel about this advice?
What are the three best pieces of advice, and why are they the best?
Which piece of advice applies most to you and least to you and why?
Make sure to answer all of these in your blog.
200-250 words.
Due FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21st.
Advice You Never Learned in School
Although the following list of eleven useful "rules" you did not learn in school is typically attributed to Bill Gates, it is actually from the book "Dumbing Down our Kids" by educator Charles Sykes.
RULE 1: Life is not fair; get used to it.
RULE 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3: You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
RULE 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
RULE 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
RULE 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
RULE 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills; cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
RULE 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
RULE 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Read the following article by Charles Sykes.
How do you feel about this advice?
What are the three best pieces of advice, and why are they the best?
Which piece of advice applies most to you and least to you and why?
Make sure to answer all of these in your blog.
200-250 words.
Due FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21st.
Advice You Never Learned in School
Although the following list of eleven useful "rules" you did not learn in school is typically attributed to Bill Gates, it is actually from the book "Dumbing Down our Kids" by educator Charles Sykes.
RULE 1: Life is not fair; get used to it.
RULE 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3: You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
RULE 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
RULE 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
RULE 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
RULE 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills; cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
RULE 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
RULE 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Black Men and Public Space
Black Men and Public Space -By Brent Staples
Read the essay below. Respond with 130-200 words.
Why do you think Staples shares this insight and these stories?
What does it say about society?
Is it showing a positive or negative picture?
Why is the picture this way?
In today's society, is this situation true to other races or creeds of people?
Don't forget your word count!
BLOG DUE TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18th.
Brent Staples. “Black Men and Public Space,”
Harpers Magazine. 1987.
“Black Men and Public Space”--Brent Staples (b. 1951) earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Chicago and went on to become a journalist. The following essay originally appeared in Ms. Magazine in 1986, under the title "Just Walk On By." Staples revised it slightly for publication in Harper's a year later under the present title. The particular occasion for Staples's reflections is an incident that occurred for the first time in the mid-1970s, when he discovered that his mere presence on the street late at night was enough to frighten a young white woman. Recalling this incident leads him to reflect on issues of race, gender, and class in the United States. As you read, think about why Staples chose the new title, "Black Men and Public Space."
My first victim was a woman-white, well dressed, probably in her early twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not so. She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man-a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket-seemed menacingly close. After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross street.
That was more than a decade ago, I was twenty-two years old, a graduate student newly arrived at the University of Chicago. It was in the echo of that terrified woman's footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I'd come into--the ability to alter public space in ugly ways. It was clear that she thought herself the quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or worse. Suffering a bout of insomnia, however, I was stalking sleep, not defenseless wayfarers. As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken--let alone hold one to a person's throat--I was surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once. Her flight made me feel like an accomplice in tyranny. It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto. That first encounter, and those that followed, signified that a vast, unnerving gulf lay between nighttime pedestrians--particularly women--and me. And I soon gathered that being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed to turn a corner into a dicey situation, or crowd some frightened, armed person in a foyer somewhere, or make an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman. Where fear and weapons meet--and they often do in urban America--there is always the possibility of death.
In that first year, my first away from my hometown, I was to become thoroughly familiar with the language of fear. At dark, shadowy intersections, I could cross in front of a car stopped at a traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver--black, white, male, or female--hammering down the door locks. On less traveled streets after dark, I grew accustomed to but never comfortable with people crossing to the other side of the street rather than pass me. Then there were the standard unpleasantries with policemen, doormen, bouncers, cabdrivers, and others whose business it is to screen out troublesome individuals before there is any nastiness.
I moved to New York nearly two years ago and I have remained an avid night walker. In central Manhattan, the near-constant crowd cover minimizes tense one-on-one street encounters. Elsewhere--in SoHo, for example, where sidewalks are narrow and tightly spaced buildings shut out the sky--things can get very taut indeed.
After dark, on the warren like streets of Brooklyn where I live, I often see women who fear the worst from me. They seem to have set their faces on neutral, and with their purse straps strung across their chests bandolier-style, they forge ahead as though bracing themselves against being tackled. I understand, of course, that the danger they perceive is not a hallucination. Women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence. Yet these truths are no solace against the kind of alienation that comes of being ever the suspect, a fearsome entity with whom pedestrians avoid making eye contact.
It is not altogether clear to me how I reached the ripe old age of twenty-two without being conscious of the lethality nighttime pedestrians attributed to me. Perhaps it was because in Chester, Pennsylvania, the small, angry industrial town where I came of age in the 1960s, I was scarcely noticeable against a backdrop of gang warfare, street knifings, and murders. I grew up one of the good boys, had perhaps a half-dozen fistfights. In retrospect, my shyness of combat has clear sources.
As a boy, I saw countless tough guys locked away; I have since buried several, too. They were babies, really--a teenage cousin, a brother of twenty-two, a childhood friend in his mid-twenties-- all gone down in episodes of bravado played out in the streets. I came to doubt the virtues of intimidation early on. I chose, perhaps unconsciously, to remain a shadow-timid, but a survivor.
The fearsomeness mistakenly attributed to me in public places often has a perilous flavor. The most frightening of these confusions occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I worked as a journalist in Chicago. One day, rushing into the office of a magazine I was writing for with a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken for a burglar. The office manager called security and, with an ad hoc posse, pursued me through the labyrinthine halls, nearly to my editor's door. I had no way of proving who I was. I could only move briskly toward the company of someone who knew me.
Another time I was on assignment for a local paper and killing time before an interview. I entered a jewelry store on the city's affluent Near North Side. The proprietor excused herself and returned with an enormous red Doberman pinscher straining at the end of a leash. She stood, the dog extended toward me, silent to my questions, her eyes bulging nearly out of her head. I took a cursory look around, nodded, and bade her good night.
Relatively speaking, however, I never fared as badly as another black male journalist. He went to nearby Waukegan, Illinois, a couple of summers ago to work on a story about a murderer who was born there. Mistaking the reporter for the killer, police officers hauled him from his car at gunpoint and but for his press credentials would probably have tried to book him. Such episodes are not uncommon. Black men trade tales like this all the time.
Over the years, I learned to smother the rage I felt at so often being taken for a criminal. Not to do so would surely have led to madness. I now take precautions to make myself less threatening. I move about with care, particularly late in the evening. I give a wide berth to nervous people on subway platforms during the wee hours, particularly when I have exchanged business clothes for jeans. If I happen to be entering a building behind some people who appear skittish, I may walk by, letting them clear the lobby before I return, so as not to seem to be following them. I have been calm and extremely congenial on those rare occasions when I've been pulled over by the police.
And on late-evening constitutionals I employ what has proved to be an excellent tension-reducing measure: I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers. Even steely New Yorkers hunching toward nighttime destinations seem to relax, and occasionally they even join in the tune. Virtually everybody seems to sense that a mugger wouldn’t be warbling bright, sunny selections from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. It is my equivalent of the cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country.
Read the essay below. Respond with 130-200 words.
Why do you think Staples shares this insight and these stories?
What does it say about society?
Is it showing a positive or negative picture?
Why is the picture this way?
In today's society, is this situation true to other races or creeds of people?
Don't forget your word count!
BLOG DUE TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18th.
Brent Staples. “Black Men and Public Space,”
Harpers Magazine. 1987.
“Black Men and Public Space”--Brent Staples (b. 1951) earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Chicago and went on to become a journalist. The following essay originally appeared in Ms. Magazine in 1986, under the title "Just Walk On By." Staples revised it slightly for publication in Harper's a year later under the present title. The particular occasion for Staples's reflections is an incident that occurred for the first time in the mid-1970s, when he discovered that his mere presence on the street late at night was enough to frighten a young white woman. Recalling this incident leads him to reflect on issues of race, gender, and class in the United States. As you read, think about why Staples chose the new title, "Black Men and Public Space."
My first victim was a woman-white, well dressed, probably in her early twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not so. She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man-a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket-seemed menacingly close. After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross street.
That was more than a decade ago, I was twenty-two years old, a graduate student newly arrived at the University of Chicago. It was in the echo of that terrified woman's footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I'd come into--the ability to alter public space in ugly ways. It was clear that she thought herself the quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or worse. Suffering a bout of insomnia, however, I was stalking sleep, not defenseless wayfarers. As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken--let alone hold one to a person's throat--I was surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once. Her flight made me feel like an accomplice in tyranny. It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto. That first encounter, and those that followed, signified that a vast, unnerving gulf lay between nighttime pedestrians--particularly women--and me. And I soon gathered that being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed to turn a corner into a dicey situation, or crowd some frightened, armed person in a foyer somewhere, or make an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman. Where fear and weapons meet--and they often do in urban America--there is always the possibility of death.
In that first year, my first away from my hometown, I was to become thoroughly familiar with the language of fear. At dark, shadowy intersections, I could cross in front of a car stopped at a traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver--black, white, male, or female--hammering down the door locks. On less traveled streets after dark, I grew accustomed to but never comfortable with people crossing to the other side of the street rather than pass me. Then there were the standard unpleasantries with policemen, doormen, bouncers, cabdrivers, and others whose business it is to screen out troublesome individuals before there is any nastiness.
I moved to New York nearly two years ago and I have remained an avid night walker. In central Manhattan, the near-constant crowd cover minimizes tense one-on-one street encounters. Elsewhere--in SoHo, for example, where sidewalks are narrow and tightly spaced buildings shut out the sky--things can get very taut indeed.
After dark, on the warren like streets of Brooklyn where I live, I often see women who fear the worst from me. They seem to have set their faces on neutral, and with their purse straps strung across their chests bandolier-style, they forge ahead as though bracing themselves against being tackled. I understand, of course, that the danger they perceive is not a hallucination. Women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence. Yet these truths are no solace against the kind of alienation that comes of being ever the suspect, a fearsome entity with whom pedestrians avoid making eye contact.
It is not altogether clear to me how I reached the ripe old age of twenty-two without being conscious of the lethality nighttime pedestrians attributed to me. Perhaps it was because in Chester, Pennsylvania, the small, angry industrial town where I came of age in the 1960s, I was scarcely noticeable against a backdrop of gang warfare, street knifings, and murders. I grew up one of the good boys, had perhaps a half-dozen fistfights. In retrospect, my shyness of combat has clear sources.
As a boy, I saw countless tough guys locked away; I have since buried several, too. They were babies, really--a teenage cousin, a brother of twenty-two, a childhood friend in his mid-twenties-- all gone down in episodes of bravado played out in the streets. I came to doubt the virtues of intimidation early on. I chose, perhaps unconsciously, to remain a shadow-timid, but a survivor.
The fearsomeness mistakenly attributed to me in public places often has a perilous flavor. The most frightening of these confusions occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I worked as a journalist in Chicago. One day, rushing into the office of a magazine I was writing for with a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken for a burglar. The office manager called security and, with an ad hoc posse, pursued me through the labyrinthine halls, nearly to my editor's door. I had no way of proving who I was. I could only move briskly toward the company of someone who knew me.
Another time I was on assignment for a local paper and killing time before an interview. I entered a jewelry store on the city's affluent Near North Side. The proprietor excused herself and returned with an enormous red Doberman pinscher straining at the end of a leash. She stood, the dog extended toward me, silent to my questions, her eyes bulging nearly out of her head. I took a cursory look around, nodded, and bade her good night.
Relatively speaking, however, I never fared as badly as another black male journalist. He went to nearby Waukegan, Illinois, a couple of summers ago to work on a story about a murderer who was born there. Mistaking the reporter for the killer, police officers hauled him from his car at gunpoint and but for his press credentials would probably have tried to book him. Such episodes are not uncommon. Black men trade tales like this all the time.
Over the years, I learned to smother the rage I felt at so often being taken for a criminal. Not to do so would surely have led to madness. I now take precautions to make myself less threatening. I move about with care, particularly late in the evening. I give a wide berth to nervous people on subway platforms during the wee hours, particularly when I have exchanged business clothes for jeans. If I happen to be entering a building behind some people who appear skittish, I may walk by, letting them clear the lobby before I return, so as not to seem to be following them. I have been calm and extremely congenial on those rare occasions when I've been pulled over by the police.
And on late-evening constitutionals I employ what has proved to be an excellent tension-reducing measure: I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers. Even steely New Yorkers hunching toward nighttime destinations seem to relax, and occasionally they even join in the tune. Virtually everybody seems to sense that a mugger wouldn’t be warbling bright, sunny selections from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. It is my equivalent of the cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
On Writing
On Writing - Stephen King
Read the following blog about Stephen King's writing tips. Then, answer the following questions in your blog response.
http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2007/10/08/stephen-kings-top-7-tips-for-becoming-a-better-writer/
1) Which two of these rules do you think also apply well to research writing, like you are doing now?
2) Which rule is your favorite and why?
3) From what you know of research, and what you've learned about Stephen King's fiction writing tips, what do you think he would suggest as tips for writing research? Come up with three ideas and also explain WHY he would encourage them.
WC: 130-200
BLOG DUE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14th.
Read the following blog about Stephen King's writing tips. Then, answer the following questions in your blog response.
http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2007/10/08/stephen-kings-top-7-tips-for-becoming-a-better-writer/
1) Which two of these rules do you think also apply well to research writing, like you are doing now?
2) Which rule is your favorite and why?
3) From what you know of research, and what you've learned about Stephen King's fiction writing tips, what do you think he would suggest as tips for writing research? Come up with three ideas and also explain WHY he would encourage them.
WC: 130-200
BLOG DUE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14th.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Salvation
Salvation - By Langston Hughes
Read the following essay and write your reader's response in the comment box below. Your response should be between 100 and 150 words.
Please include a word count.Remember to use the questions in the column to the right to help guide you.
http://www.spiritwatch.org/firelangsave.htm
This blog is due TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11th.
Read the following essay and write your reader's response in the comment box below. Your response should be between 100 and 150 words.
Please include a word count.Remember to use the questions in the column to the right to help guide you.
http://www.spiritwatch.org/firelangsave.htm
This blog is due TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11th.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Teen Brain Development
Teen Brain Development - 2 articles
Read both articles below. Study the charts and pictures too, and combine their information with what you read to further your understanding. Compose a response of 130-200 words.
Remember to read, think, and respond critically. You may read others' comments, but do not copy them. I want original reactions and thoughts.
Think about the author's intents in these articles too. WHY would they write these? Likewise, why would your teacher pick them for you?
Infer, infer, infer! Grow big brains! :) Big brains make smart, successful adults - Yay!!! :)
http://www.actforyouth.net/documents/may02factsheetadolbraindev.pdf
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122765890
This blog is due FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7th.
Read both articles below. Study the charts and pictures too, and combine their information with what you read to further your understanding. Compose a response of 130-200 words.
Remember to read, think, and respond critically. You may read others' comments, but do not copy them. I want original reactions and thoughts.
Think about the author's intents in these articles too. WHY would they write these? Likewise, why would your teacher pick them for you?
Infer, infer, infer! Grow big brains! :) Big brains make smart, successful adults - Yay!!! :)
http://www.actforyouth.net/documents/may02factsheetadolbraindev.pdf
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122765890
This blog is due FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7th.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Putting in Time
Visca--Putting in Time
Read the following article by Visca. Respond to the following questions:
1) Do you like or dislike Visca's outlook? Why/why not?
2) Find a line in this article that you feel represents your writing process. Copy it and explain how it describes or relates to you.
3) Find a line in this article that you feel is important in living your life. Copy it and explain how it describes or relates to you.
Word Count 150-200
Due TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4th.
As I sit here in my creative studio, I gaze outside and marvel at the spectacular day in front of me. I can’t help but observe the growth of the ivy that continues to envelop my house. It has now managed to weave its way along the perimeter of my porch. Somehow it has achieved what it set out to do: artlessly grow! It puts in the time — daily, weekly and monthly. Its focus is centered on one key objective: continual growth. It maneuvers itself forward towards the light, slowly blanketing each bit of surface.
The audiences that I inspire often comment, “Gerry, it’s easy for you to create. It comes naturally to you. You’re a super achiever.”
My audiences only witness the final product: a new book; an article; a magazine; an audio recording or a new presentation.
What they don’t see is the perspiration and the daily discipline behind the curtains.
Have you ever driven past a new subdivision that appears to suddenly spring out from the ground? We underestimate the tremendous effort involved in its creation. So many of us are infatuated with the future as a destination for happiness and peace. We also overlook the beauty and the wonderment that is directly in front of us. We can’t speed up the future no matter how hard we try; similarly, we can’t force a plant to grow no matter how much we will it to.
What you can control is the daily, weekly, and monthly actions thatyou intend for yourself in the present.
What I know for certain is that we all have a life purpose — and when you fixate on “putting in the time” you will uncover your true potential and you’ll help others live “in-spirit” with their why — the true path to being inspired.
At the end of 2008, I declared to myself — and then to the world — that I was going to live a life of inspiration. My life goal became aligned with a purpose of inspiring one million people to action across 33 countries. In the past 3 years, I have put in time and taken incredible action through the delivery of a myriad of inspirational presentations, publications, articles, and events.
As I leaned into my life purpose with determination, passion, and enthusiasm, I discovered I was able to shift my perspective of time. Through this process, I have managed to achieve greater results in far less time. My process consists of daily visualization combined with stillness of mind. I focus on harnessing new levels of energy and I align action with tremendous belief. When you create with this new mindset, then anything is possible.
Plato argued that time is constant and life is the illusion. Einstein noted that our understanding of time is based on its relationship to our environment. He further noted that the faster you move the slower time moves. Reality is merely an illusion albeit a very persistent one. There is no difference between past, present, and future time.
As I continue to live a life in-spirit, deeper levels of awareness for what I can “shift” have opened up. I have become fascinated with two significant concepts: The ability to create in less time and the power to completely re-create oneself.
For example, what used to take me a year to create now only takes several weeks. How is this possible? If time is an illusion, then I have demonstrated that we are the only ones that determine just how long it will take to reach a goal. As I continued to step into my greatness, discomfort and challenge presented itself. The more discomfort, the more disciplined and focused I became. I recognized the power in the statement: energy flows where my attention goes. I allocated energy towards what I wanted. When fear presented itself, I focused on what I could control by visualizing the end result of all that I was creating and taking action through creation.
My Process of Creation:
Imagine it
Believe it
Take daily action
Receive it
Believe it
Take daily action
Receive it
Putting in the time for me means living a disciplined program that starts at 5:45 am with my hour of personal power. Thirty-five minutes of physical exercise followed by 25 minutes of stillness and meditation. I quickly recognized that I needed to harness new levels of energy, so I adopted a new diet that included healthy smoothies, juicing, an explosion of greens and supplements from Usana Health Sciences. I carve out the time with very specific coaching days so I can pour myself into select clients who are on a path of doing great things. I continue to allocate writing days with a goal of publishing 17 books and producing monthly articles, tips, and inspirational audio productions.
Over the past three years I have reached incredible milestones, however this year has been the most impactful for me to date. I truly believe that when you are living your life “on purpose,” you reach a state of flow. As I write these words and glance at my past books, I ask myself, “When did I produce all of this? Was it me or something more powerful working through me?”
Everything that I do whether it’s writing, recording, coaching, extracting, presenting or inspiring everything is aligned with mywhy: to creatively inspire people and ideas to action.
This year was by far one of the most challenging — and equally the most fulfilling — times filled with tremendous personal and professional growth. Audiences often feel that inspirational speakers and authors like us never endure discomfort, sadness or fear. Well, let me set the record straight, we are human just like you. This year I was presented with some of the most life-challenging situations. In spite of these challenges, I managed to write over 1,000 pages, publish two books, produce 100 articles and tips, record over 50 audio and video productions, launch a 24-page glossy magazine, launch 12 major events and creatively coach 25 amazing DEFYENEURS, my inspired breed of entrepreneurs.
This year, I have even experienced a deeper and richer love. I spend more quality time with my two amazing daughters and travelled to 12 incredible destinations with my life partner.
This is your time to uncover your why and achieve your goals by putting in the time. Here is how you begin:
1. Go to the art store today, purchase a canvass, and paint that beautiful art that has remained dormant in your mind.
2. Get some clay and sculpt that magnificent form that has always been there.
3. Write that manuscript, regardless of what you think of it.
4. Draft that article and send it to a magazine publication for consideration.
5. Download an audio recording program and produce your first cd-rom with those beautiful poems and songs that you have stored in the abyss of your soul.
6. Stop what are you doing this very moment and grab your loved one sitting next to you and embrace them with the most passionate kiss ever.
7. Spend time with an expert in the field and ask them thought provoking questions to kick start your dreams.
8. Begin to THINQ and live a daily powerful question like: What would make this the biggest and the best year and live it for thirty days.
2. Get some clay and sculpt that magnificent form that has always been there.
3. Write that manuscript, regardless of what you think of it.
4. Draft that article and send it to a magazine publication for consideration.
5. Download an audio recording program and produce your first cd-rom with those beautiful poems and songs that you have stored in the abyss of your soul.
6. Stop what are you doing this very moment and grab your loved one sitting next to you and embrace them with the most passionate kiss ever.
7. Spend time with an expert in the field and ask them thought provoking questions to kick start your dreams.
8. Begin to THINQ and live a daily powerful question like: What would make this the biggest and the best year and live it for thirty days.
Keep putting in the time. You are the architect of your life if you don’t design it, then someone else will.
Gerry Visca, Canada’s Creative Coach®International Speaker | Author | Consultant
RedchairTM Branding
www.gerryvisca.com
gerry@redchairbranding.com
905.528.6032
--
© Anthony R. Michalski/Master Key Coaching | | (0) Comments
© Anthony R. Michalski/Master Key Coaching | | (0) Comments
http://www.masterkeycoaching.com/
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
A Very Controversial Article - By Athena Louise
A Very Controversial Article - By Athena Louise
This article is an online editorial article. I chose it because there are two very touchy social subjects and the author is very clearly against them. I'm not supporting or denying either of her claims at all. I wanted you to read something very emotionally written and respond to it. :) If you love her or hate her, (you all won't be in the same category) I hope you appreciate her passion & the sense of voice her writing contains. Your response should be 100-125 words. Include a word count.
Please remember no matter how you react to this article, your response must be respectful, as everyone will not agree with you. We can disagree and still get along, so be nice. Support your claims, but do not personally attack anyone or make general assumptions about groups of people.
http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Very-Controversial-Article&id=308782
Your post is due FRIDAY, JANUARY 31st.
This article is an online editorial article. I chose it because there are two very touchy social subjects and the author is very clearly against them. I'm not supporting or denying either of her claims at all. I wanted you to read something very emotionally written and respond to it. :) If you love her or hate her, (you all won't be in the same category) I hope you appreciate her passion & the sense of voice her writing contains. Your response should be 100-125 words. Include a word count.
Please remember no matter how you react to this article, your response must be respectful, as everyone will not agree with you. We can disagree and still get along, so be nice. Support your claims, but do not personally attack anyone or make general assumptions about groups of people.
http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Very-Controversial-Article&id=308782
Your post is due FRIDAY, JANUARY 31st.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
The Lowest Animal--Mark Twain
The Lowest Animal - Mark Twain
In the comment box below, you will be writing a reader's response.
Remember to READ CRITICALLY. Amaze me with your brilliant responses. Feel free to read each others' responses, but do not copy others' ideas. I want original thoughts.
Use the questions in the right margin to help guide your responses, as well as:
How does the time period and author's voice affect this piece?
How does the author feel about this subject?
How is this shown in his tone and approach?
What point is he trying to make, and specifically how do you know that?
Why might an author write this piece?
Who is the intended audience?
Will this piece affect them?
You do not have to answer all these - they are just a guide to help you.
Your response should be between 100 and 125 words. No more. No less.
Include a word count at the end of your comment. You may want to write it in MS word, get a word count, and then copy and paste it into the comment box.
MAKE SURE you COMMENT ON THIS BLOG, not the blog on which you read the essay piece.
Read the following excerpt:
http://thevegantruth.blogspot.com/2009/11/excerpts-from-lowest-animal-by-mark.htmlThis blog is due TUESDAY, Jan. 28.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)