Sharmskee

Despite not posting every day, as I had ambitiously envisioned myself doing upon beginning this blog, I have been working on my writing every single day since throwing myself on a roll.

Most of this is comprised of learning – reading, reading, reading. However, I did throw myself on a couple of limbs. This is what I was up to;

AT and I also met three times, for several hours each, to work on our brand new script. AT is a hyphenated individual, and by that, I mean test taker-writer-website-maker.

I find collaborating a terrific way to get started. It’s great to encourage each other on. Our script is moving along swimmingly so far, and having AT’s expertise in the area, and humor has been tons of fun.

On a side note, on Thursday it was sunny as all get out, so we scheduled our meeting for 3 o’clock on the patio of Las Margaritas in Kitsilano. With both of us in superior spirits, we decided to start things off with a bang – cheers with a shot of tequila, and a pitcher of strawberry margaritas.

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Telling isn’t always the trademark of a troublemaker. Sometimes it’s just a kid’s way of saying “I have no idea how to handle this”. Ignoring or reprimanding the act of telling just makes learning social skills and relationship building that much harder.

We know kids need a teacher for math and reading. Well, social skills are one of the most valuable skills we can learn and too often kids are left to figure it out for themselves. Because they’ve been silenced with “don’t tell” which translates into ”Don’t bring me your problems. Don’t speak up.”

It’s like an early indoctrination into conformity. I’ve been the parent who tells their kid to not tattle and go work it out. But, then I’ll notice their friend won’t do their part to work anything out. Instead they’ll manipulate their way out of trouble by telling my kid, “Well you can’t tell. That’s tattling.” Too many kids care more about staying out of trouble than working things out.

Eventually, as kids get older, they might reason, “Well, I can’t tell, and I can’t work it out with the source, so I’ll find friends who will listen to me.” And what does that eventually look like? Read more

I was reading a certain blog for other reasons and ran across their entry about whether married couples should combine finances. This is definitely an emotional issue and as a result, people become very opinionated about it. Predictably, I’m sure, I have my own opinions, and I thought I’d do better writing about them here than letting them get lost in someone else’s comments.

I am divorced, so obviously I have been married before. My experience then was that we combined our finances. We had a joint account, and when either of us got paid it went into that account. Now, after my son was born (I think; I don’t remember for sure), I began arranging for a percentage of my income to go to a savings account I had back home that had been open since I had started high school in 1992.

I got married in ‘01 and I think I started doing the savings thing in ‘01 or 03, so do the math. But I thought it would be stupid not to put any money away for a rainy day. No specific reason why, I just vaguely felt it was something I should do.

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Both training and learning are being improved by developments which are permitting more innovation to be used in everyday college lessons. A brand-new sensation, of ‘linked knowing’, is arising, which is requiring that students and students in every phase of their education, right to college, have greater technological know-how in order to have the ability to participate fully, and discover their full potential.

In response to this higher use of modern technology, numerous professionals claim that the values of the class of the future should alter, to come to be one where synergy and collective learning and sharing of encounters will certainly be essential.

The huge danger that many educators see of this drive to higher embracing of modern technology is that some pupils will merely released from exactly what is going on in the class.

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So I found this post, over at Rare Bird Freelancer, very helpful. It just outlined how to go about getting out of my horrible little job, into something I chose for myself. The way she put things made everything tangible and possible, if approached step by step. I was also reminded – ah, that pesky business of goals. So necessary, and yet so difficult to peg down, because then you’re accountable. So, without further adieu, my goals for the remainder of the year.

– Post in my blog an average of three times a week. Be an excellent editor for the e-learning website
– Write my first set of three query letters
– Continue meeting with AT to develop screenplay at least twice a week
– Finish reading my new book about freelance writing
– Get business cards made up
– Finally settle on a domain, and snatch it up

I think all of this is attainable. Once August is finished, I’m going to review back on how well I did, and establish some long-term goals – most likely with vision of six months from then.

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For awhile, I was writing for hours everyday. And I don’t mean, organizing my e-mail inbox, twittering, getting distracted by my stumble button … I mean full-fledged pounding away at the keys, replacing my keyboard at the end of every day. All because somebody had the hare-brained idea of daring me, saying I couldn’t do my writing in mittens.

Not really. But I am known throughout google for my rabbit mittens, as told to me several times now by Google Analytics. So, that ones for you Rabbit Mitten people.

Anyways, I would write up a storm. And then, I would have a moment of self-refection here and there. Sitting in a big comfy arm chair, scribbling in my notebook. On the skytrain, sunlight shooting through the window, broken into fragments, shrapnel, warming me up. I would write in my notebook “I never write anymore.” Yet, I was writing 3 hours a day, 4 hours, maybe even 6 hours once or twice. That’s nothing to shake a lobster at, right?

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I work with students who are preparing for the HSE exams and again and again I hear them saying  the practice for exam sucks. Sure, I they would like to be able pass any exam without preparation but it’s not realistic. Here’s 3 reasons why students don’t like practice tests or any other form of preparing for their GED or TASC (New York State chose for the TASC to replace the GED) :

“It takes too much time!” Learning takes time. You have to learn every day on a consistent basis to get ready for the GED exam. The beauty of our GED practice website is that it basically spoon-feeds you the tools needed to do this, but all the tools in the world are useless when they’re not used! Learning requires work, but pays great dividends.

For that reason, it’s only going to work for those people dedicated to creating and implementing a rock solid plan for success. The person who approaches this as another “nice thing to do” will probably fold when the going gets tough….and quite possibly say, “I tried to pass the GED….it sucks!”

“It’s Too Expensive” What? Compared to what? Not getting work you deserved is expensive. Sure, you’ll spend some money on GED preparation at other places maybe, but our prep resources are free! Sure, the test is not, but you have to ask yourself the following questions about your business: Read more

Going back to college as a grownup can be a challenging or even scary experience.  We all are aware that you can find numerous skilled and experienced persons who never attended college or who, for whatever reason, never were able to finish their high school degree.

For many people, gaining that piece of paper can turn things around in their professional or personal life, simply the fulfillment of their life time ambition. It’s just that the thought of going back to school after a long period of time could be quite a nightmare.

Very often, people who are going back to school after many years not having been in a classroom, are concerned about not being at the right place. They worry about fitting in a classroom with 18 to 25 year old’s, how to take good notes, how to study properly, and if they could do well on exams.

The process of admissions and obtaining financial aid is usually a puzzling and aggravating experience, but there are really good online programs to help you get through the process. It really is irrelevant what age you are, or how long it has been that you went to school. One thing is certain, you are not alone, millions of grownups have done so before you, just take the first step and you won’t ever regret you did it.

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Innovation is the only way to move forward and carry an idea into the future. Every now and then we have some people that come expand on a concept in a way we had never thought before. The world is filled with examples of this with such innovations like the: airplane, Nintendo Wii, iPhone, etc. But the innovation I want to talk about is an innovation in Internet Marketing. It is not so much the innovation I will talk about but the innovator.

That innovator happens to be Soulja Boy Tell’em. Now although I do not feel I need to explain myself to you all I will still tell you what I admire about him. This man is a great example to look at when studying online marketing. He built a fan base for his blog/sites that most webmasters will NEVER accomplish. And he did it BEFORE he even graduated high school.

He then took his internet prowess and celebrity and turned it into a very lucrative recording career. I may not respect the guys’ music, but I have to respect his success. Especially success within a niche that I am in and from somebody still in high school, that is pretty amazing to me.

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That’s, like, the biggest question every hopeful internet mogul asks. More visitors equals more customers/ad clicks. More of that stuff means lots more money, so, yeah, visitors are probably the most important aspect for any internet business. Except they’re not.

VISITORS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL

I’ve failed miserably multiple times at making a living on the internet. This is important because one of those miserable failures bankrupted me and taught me the very hard lesson that visitors don’t matter as much as you think. See, what had happened was . . . I decided to try my hand at Google Adwords – thinking, like most internet wannabes, that visitors were the X factor I was missing.

Buy eyeballs on my pages and (so long as my commissions paid more than my ad buys) I would profit big. Let me just tell you how fast I lost money using that strategy . . . Fucking FAST. It was right about that time (you know, while having panic attacks over my credit card bill) that I realized that all visitors are not created equal. But even that’s not quite right. It’s not that all visitors aren’t created equal, it’s that

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