Feel Good Video Thursday

I've decided to start a new weekly post on my blog. Actually, my first weekly post. Let's hope I can keep this up ;)

With Thursdays being the beginning of my weekend, I wanted to pick something that would help kick off my weekend right. Something that would put me in a good mood.

There's so much negativity in the world, and in everyone's everyday life, that I wanted to focus on videos that make me feel good. Things that inspire me and pick me up when all I feel is frustrated.

And without (much) further ado, here is the first video that I chose.

This is a video I go through and watch anytime I get frustrated with teaching.  I love teaching, but sometimes I just need a good reminder as to why. This video always does it for me.

It's Taylor Mali's What Teachers Make

You can find more awesome videos at his website here: http://taylormali.com/

And Finally Back Up

It's been a while. I've been pretty busy with school, coaching, and life and have let my blog fall a bit to the side.

But I'm back.

And I'm back to talk about the post I made two months ago, about getting back up. I'm happy to say that I did it. I got back up. Even more important, I think it was worth it.

So let's backtrack. Two months ago I posted the beginning of my novel on two critique forums. At one place, it was really praised. At the second...well torn to shreds would be a good way to put it.

Saying it was a huge blow to my ego would be an understatement. I do believe there were some tears. And some second guessing about my choice to be a writer.

Kids Say...

A couple of things from teaching today. :)

First!

Today, in class, I was prompting my students to write a scene that showed what their character was like. This was the result.

Me: Tell me the four things I want to see in your scene.

Student 1: Dialogue

Me: Good

Student 2: Action

Me: Yes, what else?

Student 3: Thoughts and Feelings.

Me: And what's the last one?

Them: ...

Me: Starts with a D

Student 4: Dinosaurs!

-_-  Yes.  All of your scenes need to have a dinosaur. At least we're working on historical fiction, so we can almost fit it in.


Second!

I was with my homeroom class for the five minutes before the next class starts. They asked to play silent ball (teachers, if you don't know this game our students are like addicted. It's weird).

I said no (we play hangman on Tuesdays)

Student: Miss, what time did you go to sleep last night?

Me: Why?

Student: You seem tired...and grumpy.

Me:  Bah. Go to class.

Well, at least they feel they can be honest with me.

On Getting Back Up

When I first moved to Kuwait, 6 years ago, I started coaching soccer. In one season, I coached two different teams. Both of those teams went on to the finals. Both lost, but just barely. In one year, I'd established a reputation.

Not only with the other coaches, but with myself. After that first season, I expected to always be successful.

And then year two came around. I went to my first game of the season for my U-14 team. We were playing a weaker team, one we'd easily beaten the year before. I even sat some of my stronger players because I thought it wouldn't be a problem.

It was a problem. We got our butts kicked. Badly.

Quick Video Link Update

It's about time I posted an update. And I have stuff to talk about, I promise. But I've gotten into a bit of a rut with school seriously kicking my butt and needed some time to myself.

So those updates that I planned to write are not written, but should get written soon.

Instead, today I wanted to share another video that I found online. I can only describe it as beautiful. And touching. And truthful.

Ok, so I have a lot of words to describe it.  It is well worth watching, especially if you are a fan of spoken word.

Enjoy and let me know what you thought in the comments!

Bullies Called Him Porkchop 

Wordle

Yesterday I was spending my day using my favourite procrastination tool...Absolute Write. (it's a little sad that the site I've used to gain so much knowledge has now become where I waste time).

And then I came across another way to procrastinate (though it is also a helpful revision tool). One of the members posted a link to the website Wordle. A lot of you who read this have probably heard of it before. For those who haven't, it's a site where you can go and paste in a text sample and it'll show you the most common words from your text.

In my case,  I pasted my manuscript into the box and clicked submit. It then gave me an image of all my common words (after I downloaded a Java plug in-that was a bit of a pain in the butt). The bigger the word is, the more I've used it in my manuscript.

Follow the jump if you want to see.

13!

Hey guys!

I signed up for my first ever blog chain via Absolute Write. Nothing like trying something new for the new year.

The topic was fairly open.  All we had to do was write about something related to the number 13. Easy, right? I figured I'd sign up and worry about the topic later. (I'm sure we can all agree that's not always the best plan, but I think it worked out this time).

I had lots of ideas, but none of them seemed quite right. I could talk about what I was like at 13 (way too scary), 13 things about the Middle East (meh, love it, but wasn't quite right), 13 books that inspired me (again not quite showing off me).

And then I figured out what I wanted to do. I wanted to combine my topic with something else I'd been trying to figure out how to write about.

For Christmas, my husband got me an awesome camera. It's a Fuji  HS30 EXR (for those of you who know anything about cameras). It's awesome. I've wanted a big camera for a while. But I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing with it.

And I don't want to be a person who has this big camera and no idea how to use it. So, I've been struggling my way through it. Taking pictures as often as I can and trying to read about things like aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. (most of those still seem like foreign words).

So in honour of the number 13, I thought I'd show you 13 pictures that I've taken with my new camera. Some I like, some are so bad they make me laugh, but they all just make me happy that I'm trying to learn something new.

So without further ado, here are my 13 pictures (watch out, this is about to get pic heavy).

P.S Don't forget to check out all the links at the bottom of my page for other interesting takes on 13.