I've been trying to cultivate inner strength. I don't know whether it will work or not. I'm terrified of talking to random beautiful strangers. Seems like it's something that can be learned/practiced. I bet it can be cultivated. I wonder if I did some of those exercises, like smiling or greeting people as they passed by it would help. It would have ( Read more... )

Seems really good for my thinking. The chill comes in the window and I feel that spirit move around. That old energy. I get the smell of roast and baking bread and I just go back. Maybe the winter will show my my mindfulness. Show me my way.

Facebook feels way too public. I like the idea of posting here better ( Read more... )

Home is a collective sense.  A memory, a dialect, a saying.  You go around building it wherever you go.  It travels with you and what you long for is what you call home.  You call where your heart is "home," but you don't necessarily have to have a place to go with it.  I think for me when I think of "home" it's wrapped up with lots of places; ( Read more... )

Vanessa van Hemert - formerly of "4 Strings," aka Dutch DJ Carlo Resoort
Justine Suissa of OceanLab
Jasmine Rodgers of Bôa

The most beneficial personal management tool may also be that tool which injects modularity into such mass-collaborations as crowd-sourcing projects. Via the internet, large tasks can be divided up into small, feasible ones which individuals can accomplish in service of the collective endeavor.  Writ large, this process can yield such projects as ( Read more... )

I'm interested in Zen koans.  I'd kind of like to sharpen that kind of mental acuity and start working on answers which lead me to an appreciation of the mind's work and a sort of self-encounter.  I think generally that's what those things are supposed to do.  Problem is I think you need a guru or someone to lead you through that sort of thing.  ( Read more... )

 Hello, hello.  I'm glad I get to keep up with all of you in some form.  It's a nice thing.  Lately I've been really busy with classes.  It's kind of ironic because I don't technically NEED any of the classes I'm taking this semester to finish my PhD coursework, but I'm taking them anyway; some at the behest of my advisor, and some by my own ( Read more... )

 I am real damn busy.  I'm teaching German 102 this semester, and lesson planning has started taking over my life.  It's like a 24-hour job.  I have to figure out what I'm going to teach, what activities would be useful to teach it, how to organize the activities such that the students won't get bored, and copy countless handouts, little worksheets ( Read more... )

Been making an Amazon wish list so people won't always be telling me "you're impossible to buy gifts for!" Although honestly they're right; I am impossible to buy gifts for.  I don't typically want something so fervently that I must have it, and if I do, then I just go buy it. Perhaps the Amazon list will provide people more advance warning about ( Read more... )