News for today's 2018

Pastoring & Self-Pastoring: A Concise Introduction

1:42 PM Tukiyooo 0

<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">    Something has finally coalesced for me. After a journaling practice I’ve been doing for a few years, a couple of different ways of making sense of reality came together. It was my approach to church and my approach to myself. I don’t know whether sharing this will do anyone any good. Paul Tillich said, “There is no truth without the way to truth.” But since this truth is nothing new, since it is just other people’s wisdoms connecting, just me finally noticing that 2 + 2 = 4, it might be a little assistance, so here goes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">       THE FRAMEWORK: When I do spirituality workshops or offer spiritual guidance, I operate out of a paradigm that sees each person as made up of a whole network of parts or Subpersonalities – not as a pathology, but as the basic way human beings are constructed. In his classic novel, <i>Steppenwolf, </i>19<sup>th</sup>Century German author Hermann Hesse told the story of a protagonist who was half bourgeois businessman and half mountain wolf. Toward the end of the book, the author admitted he had oversimplified this character. He was really the composite of far more personalities.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">      Today, that view of human nature takes the form of various psychological models: psychosynthesis, psychodynamics, gestalt, and internal family systems just to name just a few. But the adherents of these theories of normal multiplicity did not just leap to this paradigm because they were fans of Hermann Hesse. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Psychology began in the field of ascetic theology (spirituality), then was absorbed into philosophy, and began to become a science in the 19<sup>th</sup>C. The first doctors to explore the mind were neurologists. Their first main interest was situations when a person began to think, speak, and act with a personality different from their usual personality -- like mediums, shamans, what we now call channeling, etc. The neurologists didn’t really sort it out, but they did conclude that some people who had different personalities popping up at different times were seriously nuts – but others were not.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">The observation that different personalities inhabit the same body was the starting point for scientific psychology. Freud studied under some of these neurologists & tried to systematize them. He said everyone has 3 parts: an id, an ego, and a superego. It was similar to Transactional Analysis if you remember that from the 70’s – we all have an inner parent, an inner adult, and an inner child.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">     <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Freud’s student, Carl Jung thought that was much too simplistic. We have far more parts inside us  – archetypes from the collective unconscious. We have an inner mother, warrior, magical child, hero, etc. Another student of Freud, Roberto Assagioli thought even Jung was being too restrictive. He agreed we have different parts or Subpersonalities. But he didn’t start with assumptions as to what they are – either Freud’s assumptions or Jung’s assumptions. He just looked inside to see what was there in each person. You have your own unique collection of sub personalities and I have mine.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">But why do we have parts or sub personalities?  How does that come about? Even Assagioli wasn’t clear on that. Today, brain science tells us how this happens. Whatever we experience we experience neurologically. Like water etching lines in rock, experience forms patterns or habits of feeling and thinking. Brain scientists capture the dynamic with this adage: “What fires together wires together.”  Events and situations are constantly changing but we keep having the same feelings and thoughts over and over and over. Those patterns are hardwired into our circuits. That’s what neurologist mean by “wired together.” The neurologic capacity to have a new experience or think new thoughts is called “neuroplasticity.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Those hardwired patterns form distinct personalities. Subpersonalities. Obvious ones relate to roles. We function one way as parent, another as spouse, another as friend, another in our work. There are deeper habits of being, patterns of feelings, thoughts, and actions, called Subpersonalities. We may have a Wounded Child, a Tragic Romantic, an Enforcer, a Worker, a Lover, an Artist. I have a Care Taker, a Defender, a Builder, a Spiritual Quester, a Righteous Judge, a Wildcat Oil Driller, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">This is not pathology. It makes us complex and interesting. All of us, like Hesse’s Steppenwolf, have multiple Subpersonalities. Fernando Pensoa is an accomplished poet with his own style. Without ever abandoning that identity and style, he began writing other poetry in a different style and voice under another name. That new poet had his own biography and philosophy. Then Pensoa added yet another poet to his repertoire. Today are four very fine poets --albeit quite different in style and content -- inhabiting one body.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Pathology sets in when one personality takes over and is not even aware of the other personalities, as in the Sybil story (which may be a dubious account but there are cases of real multiple personality disorder). Such cases are probably rare. What is more common is that Subpersonalities take over for short times but other Subpersonalities compete with them, sabotage them, judge and criticize them. The Subpersonalities are often in conflict – as was the case for our poor friend, Steppenwolf. Much of our anxiety, depression, and ambivalence arises from conflicts between Subpersonalities.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Let me reiterate: Subpersonalities are not bad.  They are all part of us. The problems arise when they are have not learned teamwork. Assagioli, along with numerous other psychologists and Christian spiritual masters going back to St. Paul, teaches that there is another part of us that is not a Subpersonality. It has not been conditioned by experience. It is not a neurological pattern of thoughts and feelings that have fired together until they are wired together. It is deeper than that. It is an innate capacity for simple awareness. Psycho-synthesis Theory calls it the Personal Self; Internal Family Systems Theory calls it the Core Self. Christians might call it the Soul. Assagioli was comfortable with “Soul.” Some of his followers, not so much.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">The Soul is the central organizing principle of the person. Our core identity does not consist of passing thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Those are the waves on the surface. Our core identity, our Soul is deep and still. Psycho-synthesis Theory says there is also something larger than the Soul or Personal Self. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">The “Transpersonal Self” is the central organizing principle of the cosmos. Assagioli sometimes called it Spirit. This is the best statement of what the Transpersonal Self or Spirit is and does. Assagioli said,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">              <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .25in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">“Spirit working upon and within all creation is shaping it<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">      Into an order, harmony, and beauty, uniting all beings<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">(some willing but the majority as yet rebellious) with each other through links of love, achieving – slowly and silently, but powerfully and irresistibly – <i>the Supreme Synthesis.</i>” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">The Personal Self is always already plugged into the Transpersonal Self, so when we connect with the core of our own being, we connect with the core of Reality. What Psycho-synthesis calls the Transpersonal Self the Jesuit scientist theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called the Omega Point or Christ. 14<sup>th</sup>Century mystic, Julian of Norwich said that the Soul is already always connected to Christ. But our personality is split away from our Soul. The break is not between the Soul and Christ. It is a split within ourselves. It is a case of broken relationship with all or some of our parts.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Modern psychology agrees. We are split within ourselves. But we also have the God-given capacity to heal that split. That is the function of the Soul when we find it and let it do its work. How then shall we recognize our own Soul should we stumble upon it? The Soul has certain basic characteristics:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Serenity: It has a certain serene balance. It is the eye of the storm. It is the part that is not shaken or enflamed by outer forces.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Awareness: The Soul has the capacity to notice – to observe. Because it is not shaken, it can see clearly.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Compassion: The Soul has the capacity to care without losing its balance. When the Subpersonalities are in conflict, the Soul is neutral. It does not want to extinguish any sub-personality. The Soul can appreciate each part of us as it is,     <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">allowing it to be as it is, but also asking what it wants, what it needs, what it is trying to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Will: The Soul is the center of the will. Our attention can turn one way or another.         We can choose to tell ourselves a particular story about things or make up a different story, a different interpretation, or we can choose to just watch without interpretation. The Soul is where we can make those decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">The problem is the Soul often doesn’t get engaged. We identify with the subpersonality of the moment, let it run the show, and the Soul is left out. We lose our Souls in our Subpersonalities  – which means Christ is left out of the equation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">         The first step in this spirituality is a kind of detachment. Meister Eckhart wrote at length about something we translate as “detachment.” Buddhists are always talking about something we translate as “detachment.” But when we translate those German and Sanskrit words as detachment, it sounds like not caring, apathy, anesthetizing, numbing out – killing off the feeling part of our being. That isn’t what they mean – or if it is, it isn’t what they should mean because it’s life denying, death dealing, bad psychology and bad religion.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">The better word is disidentification. Disidentification means: We have feelings, thoughts, or experiences. That’s fine. It’s simply life experience -- until we identify with it. Our very language has this mistake built into it. “I am x.” Compare “I am hungry” in English to “Tengo hambre” (literally, I have hunger) in Spanish. It’s the same in French. If we feel anger, we say, “I am angry” not “I feel angry” or “I have anger.” Our language contributes to as well as expresses a lot of identification with the feeling of the moment. Maybe we say, “I am depressed. I am a depressed person.” But our Soul is not depressed. A part of us is depressed -- maybe the Loser, or the Wounded Child, or the abandoned One, the inner Orphan. Depressed is not who we <i>are</i>. It’s an experience we are <i>having</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Disidentifying doesn’t mean we repress the experience. We have the experience. We may have it all the more clearly because we don’t have to be afraid of it. But it isn’t who we are. It’s something we are experiencing. At the center of the “we” doing the experiencing is the Soul, which experiences with serenity, awareness, and compassion while maintaining the strength of will to hold the experience within its proper boundaries.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">II.  APPLICATION TO PASTORAL LEADERSHIP<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Murray Bowen’s gift to this discussion was his insight that even the complex inner network of Subpersonalities described by Assagioli was too simple. In fairness Assagioli’s sense of the transpersonal already pointed toward Bowenian systems theory, but his language was too spiritual to gain traction with mainstream social science. Bowen said that there are networks larger than the individual, there are unifying <i>social </i>principles at work – larger than the personal self. He called them “family systems.” In a nutshell, groups of people, particularly families, organize themselves like teams with each person having an unconsciously prescribed role in the system – the optimist, the worrier, the spendthrift, the drunk, the moralist, the nag, the rebel, the control freak, etc. Each person is manipulated by the rest into playing his or her role, living by the prescribed script. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Edwin Friedman brought Bowenian systems theory to the field of congregational leadership by observing that congregations function like families. They establish a homeostasis that depends on each person in the congregation playing an unconsciously prescribed role, playing their position on the team so to speak. This systems theory is kindly in that it does not blame individuals for their sometimes difficult behavior but tries to work with the system that programs them to behave this way. But there are problems. A system can be nurturing, but it also tends to set pathologies in stone and necessarily consigns each person to a role which is smaller than their full identity.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Friedman’s model of leadership was essentially that the pastor should function, insofar as possible, as the Soul in the congregation, the Personal Self – serene, aware, compassionate, will. The pastor’s goal is to accept and appreciate each person in the congregation, eventually facilitating their relationships with each other, in ways that allow each member to become more fully differentiated and less bound by imposed scripts. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;"> That is the goal. But what do congregations and pastors tend to do with the more broken members. Congregations’ very purpose is to welcome and accept the broken, to offer nurture and healing. But what do we usually do in practice?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">I am not alone in observing we tend to do one of two things with the broken people. First, we tend to put them in charge. In order to make wounded people feel better about themselves, we hand over leadership roles that they are utterly incapable of fulfilling. This is helpful to the system, which has a shadow agenda of self-sabotage. It also allows us to feel good about ourselves since we have been so nice to this difficult person. If the lay leadership positions are insufficient, we set out to ordain them. Congregations endorse the psychiatrically disabled, the addicted, the felonious, and the otherwise severely dysfunctional to ordain as pastoral leaders. People with intellectual and cognitive deficits are chosen to make policy for the church. Absolutely and without question, these folks belong in the church. They deserve our love and respect. But I can’t carry a tune in a bucket and can barely play a radio. I have no business being the music director of a congregation. To assign people roles they are not capable of fulfilling is not a kindness. It is a set up for failure. We do that all the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">A variation on this theme of empowering pathology is the consensus driven meeting. This not about giving the broken person a title or a job. But it is about who gets their way. In a consensus driven model, we have to pacify everyone in group decisions. Since the craziest person in the room is the hardest one to pacify, they have to get their way. The church in its quest for niceness is ruled by a “madocracy.” The nuts rule.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">         Our second option for dealing with difficult people is to drive them out. The laity are usually more inclined to toward this one – but I have known clergy who exercised their leadership in this way. Strategy two: drive them out. In some denominations, excommunication, shunning, withdrawing of fellowship, etc. are formally recognized practices. In the Episcopal Church, this normally “just isn’t done” – though in my diocese it happens with surprising frequency. In another diocese, a priest managed to shrink his congregation by about 50% in just a few years before tendering his resignation. He announced his mission was accomplished. He had been sent to “prune” the congregation by getting rid of the bad members. While most Episcopal churches do not formally exclude anyone from worship, we do informally push people out the door all the time. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">         Such leaders operate by stirring up and perpetuating Level 4 Conflict in the conflict taxonomy of Speed Leas (Alban Institute) – that is “fight/ flight” conflict in which the loser must leave. The problem is I have never seen a congregation that had driven out enough people to establish peace. Given what we know of depth psychology, I highly doubt that a congregation of one could be free of conflict. It is like the story of the man marooned on a desert island where he built two churches – the one he attended and the one he left in protest. Once a congregation falls into the pattern of driving out the problem people, it can never drive out enough. The guillotine becomes a habit. That kind of pastoral leadership is 180 degrees opposite to the authentic mission of a congregation “to reconcile all people to each other and God” – to be a soulful community in which differences are appreciated and integrated into a dance of mutuality.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">         Friedman, Peter Stenge, Ronald Richardson, and Arthur Paul Boers would insist that driving troublemakers out of a congregation solves nothing. The person leaves but the role remains so someone else will be found to play it. The leaders role is to be soulfully present to the whole system and each individual in it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">         The key is to welcome the difficult congregant into the family, without putting them in charge. Putting them in charge not only sabotages the congregation’s mission, it is bad for the person we are putting in charge. It rewards and reinforces their pathology. To be helpful to a person, we need to be soulfully present – with serenity, awareness, and compassion – along with the will to establish healthy boundaries. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">III. SELF-PASTORING<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">But being soulfully present in a congregation is hard, hard, hard because the system pushes our buttons to get our various Subpersonalities to react in ways that fit the system’s pattern. Saying, “be soulfully present” is easy. Doing it is quite the challenge.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">In order to engage our Soul in pastoral leadership in the congregation, we first have to engage our Soul in self-pastoring, in relating and integrating our own Subpersonalities. Otherwise, the Soul will never make it into the worship service, the parish forum, or the vestry meeting. One or the other of our Subpersonalities will show up instead, usually the subpersonality conjured by the most pathological manipulations of the system. When that happens, we invariably do more harm than good.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Now here’s the point that is so obvious – but it eluded me until today. We pastor our Subpersonalities precisely the way we pastor our congregants. Here’s how I finally got it. I have a Subpersonality that deeply needs to be tragic. It demands either a misery of self-sacrifice or a misery of remorse for failing to make the sacrifice. It is a deeply held value going back for generations in my family and well rooted in the culture where I grew up. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">         I spent nearly 40 years with that subpersonality very much in charge of my life. Other parts of me fought against it, insisted on developing my human potential, experiencing the variety of life, going on the spiritual journey, etc. But the Tragic Subpersonality held the stronger hand and he knew it. I have spent the last 20 years trying to get free of that. And I have made good progress at great emotional cost. But the Tragic Subpersonality will not go away. The harder I try to escape him, the more tenacious the hold of this snapping turtle of tragedy. People come along to evoke the thoughts and feelings. If they don’t do it to me, I do it to myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">One night, in journaling a dialogue between my Personal Self and the Tragic Character, I acknowledged to the Tragic Character that he was part of me. He wasn’t going anywhere. I was not going to try anymore to drive him out. I slept uneasily after that and was still troubled the next morning, because I remember what its like when this Tragic Character gets his way. It ain’t pretty. Then quite out of nowhere, I heard the voice of my Self say to the Tragic Character, calmly, kindly, yet firmly “But you don’t get to be in charge.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">I wondered how the Tragic Character would respond to that boundary. I didn’t know until the following night when I resumed journaling. To my surprise, the Tragic Character was not in revolt. He was calm too. He wanted some clarity on how his needs would be met. Just how much misery and remorse do we get to indulge? We will no doubt be working that out over the years. But the Tragic Character actually seemed relieved to be neither exiled nor enthroned. Exile was too scary and lonely. Enthronement was too much responsibility. The Tragic Character belongs in the congregation. He likes being in the pews. But ordaining him is not doing him a favor. He was only trying to get ordained to keep from getting excommunicated. There is something in between.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">So here’s what I’ve learned: The way we relate to our Subpersonalities makes all the difference for how we relate to our congregants – and vice versa. Cultivating a soulful practice is both an inner and outer process. For better or worse, we do love our neighbor a whole lot like the way we love ourselves – all of that mixed up muddle of humanity inside us and that mixed up muddle of humanity in the pews. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">So work from the inside out. Work from the outside in. It’s a process. We work between the sidelines of exile and enthronement. That’s my version of the via media.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br /></div>

Pastoring & Self-Pastoring: A Concise Introduction

Something has finally coalesced for me. After a journaling practice I’ve been doing for a few years, a couple of different ...

Sitcom Architects

11:30 AM Tukiyooo 0

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Brady_%28The_Brady_Bunch%29#Mike_Brady">Michael Brady</a> is without a doubt the most popular television architect who was a recurring character. While his portrayal barely resembled the realities of architecture (as Jody Brown <a href="http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/3658247/list/Mike-Brady-Lied-to-Me">humorously recounts</a>), he did a good job of setting a precedent for architects in sitcoms: He <a href="http://www.sixthriver.com/wp-content/uploads/01.jpg">sits at his desk surrounded by pretty pictures of houses</a>, but the profession takes a backseat to the usual sitcom antics. This is not a characteristic specific to architects but how sitcoms operate, inherently deriving their humor from situations, most of them revolving around the relationships of families and friends. The workplace is for dramas, and as far as I know no dramas about architects have been tried.<br /><br />Very few succeeding sitcom architects come to mind — <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Mosby">Ted Mosby</a>, <a href="http://www.mommytracked.com/Working-Mom-Role-Model">Elyse Keaton</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_%28TV_series%29">Rob</a> (a landscape architect) — so I'm surprised to hear that the new sitcom <a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/partners/"><i>Partners</i></a> revolves around the "bromance" of two architects who are partners in a firm.<br /><br /><img alt="cbs-partners.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/cbs-partners.jpg" title="Partners on CBS" /><br />[<i>Partners</i> screenshot — an architectural model as metaphor for relationship troubles — image <a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/partners/video/2284722372/partners-chicken-and-stuffing-sneak-peek-">source/clip</a>]<br /><br />What's even more interesting is that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partners_%282012_TV_series%29">2012 CBS sitcom</a> bears a striking resemblance to a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partners_%281995_TV_series%29">1995 Fox sitcom</a> also called <i>Partners</i> that also focuses on two architects. Both shows are about the tensions in the partners' friendships that arise from one of them getting engaged. The earlier show was cancelled after 22 episodes, and if the above clip (and reviews <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/23/3013829/sitcom-partners-isnt-exactly-new.html">like this one</a>) are any indication, the new <i>Partners</i> won't be around even that long.

Sitcom Architects

Michael Brady is without a doubt the most popular television architect who was a recurring character. While his portrayal barely resembled ...

Sushi Sunday!

10:42 AM Tukiyooo 0

<span style="font-size: large;">Lunch in <a href="http://www.yosushi.com/restaurants/dublin-clarendonstreet">Yo! Sushi</a> today.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">It was delicious!  I love the atmosphere of this place and it is so much fun taking food off the belt.  We sat at the counter and I found it so much more social then a booth.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO23jGsetVWvVqoN030q7EEfXOAxinMX5BKjURwe-xoTOMt4mw8sa0qh1RGek0G8qtfSvLkDbSODL37azj8gCXDTnxYWYH0HFb7iZCoewS6fzCHsOBpgduOolgx5btJzwsPGJs3b0OH5-6/s1600/IMG_2097%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO23jGsetVWvVqoN030q7EEfXOAxinMX5BKjURwe-xoTOMt4mw8sa0qh1RGek0G8qtfSvLkDbSODL37azj8gCXDTnxYWYH0HFb7iZCoewS6fzCHsOBpgduOolgx5btJzwsPGJs3b0OH5-6/s320/IMG_2097%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAi4SfwBSMbyN09tdn_LVcabbmGca9VOn7KOUaS9OWBzzprOjovBD-gMGU4OQCcgrYH1_0ecFGh8ktIV0nrzrCZsgbnzaxOz5lwWQn6xXZsvLZoerDRf62w6SbGVpBWLmuUo1oDGrpGND8/s1600/IMG_2098%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAi4SfwBSMbyN09tdn_LVcabbmGca9VOn7KOUaS9OWBzzprOjovBD-gMGU4OQCcgrYH1_0ecFGh8ktIV0nrzrCZsgbnzaxOz5lwWQn6xXZsvLZoerDRf62w6SbGVpBWLmuUo1oDGrpGND8/s320/IMG_2098%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH_74v1WHoyidHfPGUmRA0sP4cumZ3Yfcbko8nrGkqq6M49S0A2sGr4Y172F7Ys1WxC956HtA1th8ERRNtKio6PXs8nOb37dLjwp6XduvZt3e4HANd58mjbUN7VbpFjc1YbeK8SnP_6adW/s1600/IMG_2100%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH_74v1WHoyidHfPGUmRA0sP4cumZ3Yfcbko8nrGkqq6M49S0A2sGr4Y172F7Ys1WxC956HtA1th8ERRNtKio6PXs8nOb37dLjwp6XduvZt3e4HANd58mjbUN7VbpFjc1YbeK8SnP_6adW/s320/IMG_2100%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxMAVFbxU1_Ag8dxUGdaumtrbaG3sPwojoVmBeHo0vwaWeMo74wDiNEUxOcaWabwdiJJrIYQUTzYWviP3dhqJRZYNs60n6jetOUtoGTi2gChOziG1OEKOdJsGNmVNJtV0Ek5_8ALyGUUDY/s1600/IMG_2102%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxMAVFbxU1_Ag8dxUGdaumtrbaG3sPwojoVmBeHo0vwaWeMo74wDiNEUxOcaWabwdiJJrIYQUTzYWviP3dhqJRZYNs60n6jetOUtoGTi2gChOziG1OEKOdJsGNmVNJtV0Ek5_8ALyGUUDY/s320/IMG_2102%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><br />

Sushi Sunday!

Lunch in Yo! Sushi today. It was delicious! I love the atmosphere of this place and it is so much fun taking food off the belt. We sat at...

Long day!

10:25 AM Tukiyooo 0

<span style="font-size: large;">Early start yesterday up at 6.30am to get on the road to Belfast for the Smart Car Rally.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Here's a report written by Amy for the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Smart-Car-Rally/131167930286810?fref=ts">Smart Car Rally Facebook</a> page:</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">September 2012 Belfast Trip Report: Enid & I left Dublin at approximate 7am and arrived at the Boucher Crescent Smart/Mercedes garage at 9.30am. Coincidentally we arrived at the same time as Gerry & Shay from the Dublin Smart Car Rally!</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">We were greeted in the garage by some lovely folk from the Ulster Cancer Foundation who took our donation and gave us the clues</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">for the rally. We then were dir</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">ected to another garage to the staff restaurant where we had a fantastic Ulster fry to keep us going for the day. (quick aside: we had Bones the dog with us who made a show of us by climbing up on to the table - he never does that - and was immediately turfed out by chef. Silly Bones!). We poured over the clues and saw that we it was a considerable length - 156miles in total!</span></span><br /><div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Quick media photo outside and we were off! Very convenient for E&I we were behind Gerry, who was behind Shay & Alice, so we let them lead the way and we enjoyed the scenery. Stopped off halfway for a scheduled stop (part of the rally) for soup and sandwiches. Another media photo shoot and we resumed tour.<br /><br />We finished up in the Carn Smart garage in Portadown where we had some lovely refreshments - tea, coffee, sandwiches, sausage rolls & chicken goujons. Had nice chat with a few Smartie people. We did not meet any people from this page :-( Prizes and goodie bags were given out and Enid and I then set off home.<br /><br />We arrived him approximate 8.30pm that evening. It was a long days driving for poor Enid! Next year we would probably stay over...<br /><br />Overall a great day. Fantastic hospitality as always from Smart of Belfast. Met some lovely people and saw some beautiful parts of Northern Ireland.<br /><br />Anyway on the subject of next year - we hope to arrange a 2013 Dublin meet up! Probably along the lines of: meet in the Phoenix Park for a "tailgate party" - to chat about Smarts, have a look at everyone's car, some eats and tea :-) and then a Smart parade/convoy drive around the Phoenix Park. Watch this space!</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Diwti-GK3U7MB94CDSXTo3t-sBPgyqBT_KYqUfPgnb-xKbIvVLXPLi79GKzQElQ3Dwg7Ln71gFwMBlXLCfjBxJkrD-5m5EIC3C1GFnwhGNHKc7Bgx2cdB8NnGGMsnXLsrmgawG5-2yMA/s1600/IMG_2079%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Diwti-GK3U7MB94CDSXTo3t-sBPgyqBT_KYqUfPgnb-xKbIvVLXPLi79GKzQElQ3Dwg7Ln71gFwMBlXLCfjBxJkrD-5m5EIC3C1GFnwhGNHKc7Bgx2cdB8NnGGMsnXLsrmgawG5-2yMA/s320/IMG_2079%5B1%5D.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>

Long day!

Early start yesterday up at 6.30am to get on the road to Belfast for the Smart Car Rally. Here's a report written by Amy for the Smart C...

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 09/30/2012

2:30 AM Tukiyooo 0

<ul class="diigo-linkroll">      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/a_big_list_of_375_free_ebooks_for_your_ipad_kindle_nook_and_other_devices.html">A Big List of 375 Free eBooks for Your iPad, Kindle, Nook and Other Devices | Open Culture</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">A nice list of free ebooks from Open Culture.</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/ebook">ebook</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/literature">literature</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/engchat">engchat</a></p>                                        </li>      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/sean_connery_reads_cp_cavafys_epic_poem_ithaca_set_to_the_music_of_vangelis.html">Sean Connery Reads C.P. Cavafy’s Epic Poem “Ithaca,” Set to the Music of Vangelis | Open Culture</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">Literature teachers and many of you will enjoy this epic poem ready by Sean Connery with music by Vangelis. Very enjoyable.</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/culture">culture</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/poetry">poetry</a></p>                                        </li>      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://uncommonblog.edublogs.org/2012/09/23/reshelving-project-almost-there-and-already-awesome/">The Uncommon blog » Blog Archive » Reshelving Project: Almost There and Already Awesome!</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">Loving how these librarians are transforming their library. Here are some great ideas and examples to share with librarians.</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/learningcommons">learningcommons</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/librarian">librarian</a></p>                                        </li>      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://sociallearningcentre.co.uk/top-100-tools-for-learning-2012/">Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 | Social Learning Centre</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">Voting closes Sunday. This is a highly viewed list. Please take a moment to vote.  "Please share your Top 10 Tools for Learning to help me build the 2012 Top 100 Tools list.  What is a “learning tool”?  This could be a tool you use for teaching, training or creating learning content/solutions for others, and/or a tool you use for your own personal or professional learning.  Voting rules  Please name TEN specific tools rather than generic technologies (e.g. “Blogger” or “WordPress”, rather than “blogs” or “blogging”) A vote for Google will be a vote for Google Search, so if you want to vote for other Google tools, you will need to to name them indvidually, e.g. Google Docs, Google Reader. Note too, that a vote for Google Apps is for the badged collection of Google Apps for your organisation – not a generic term for all Google apps. A vote for Microsoft Office will be split over Word and PowerPoint, so please vote individually for the tools, i.e. Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook etc. The list doesn’t have to be in any order of preference."</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a></p>                                        </li>  </ul><p class="diigo-ps">Posted from <a href='http://www.diigo.com'>Diigo</a>. The rest of my favorite links are <a href='http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher'>here</a>.</p>

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 09/30/2012

A Big List of 375 Free eBooks for Your iPad, Kindle, Nook and Other Devices | Open Culture A nice li...

Zooey Deschanel: Adorkable Babe of the Week

9:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />IWS is proud to announce that Zooey Deschanel is our Babe of the Week! Zooey burst onto the scene in as young William Miller’s troubled older sister in <i>Almost Famous</i>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDvXrJAcCgSUxdTHP8wTmfCarxorGO143H6IeRXP3sKjlqPIw18BfS5Wn9cTHsOfJi-KzLqOgLjfjOdsxf_1RKjicJ-7-VLiByzATiNxRY3rzRXymYiZdvv3QZYth7jekwpQi8cTJFiHc/s1600/Zooey-Deschanel-Hot-Legs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDvXrJAcCgSUxdTHP8wTmfCarxorGO143H6IeRXP3sKjlqPIw18BfS5Wn9cTHsOfJi-KzLqOgLjfjOdsxf_1RKjicJ-7-VLiByzATiNxRY3rzRXymYiZdvv3QZYth7jekwpQi8cTJFiHc/s320/Zooey-Deschanel-Hot-Legs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />She then reeled off a series of great performances in movies like <i>Elf</i>, <i>The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</i>, and <i>500 Days of Summer</i>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCACZGlqptXR7c17IDLnDn0srxC94BU-BdbJdO7IQdrQ7m2y_OYf50YMoGWmGjK-R9WKhOs5mqfznHUDer3KUIKfZvvhV_e0F_B3kpTbWwLj543_RPKdWpqaQV0GVkhcS5Ktzx1OnLYbo/s1600/Zooey-Deschanel-Cleavage-Hot-Boobs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCACZGlqptXR7c17IDLnDn0srxC94BU-BdbJdO7IQdrQ7m2y_OYf50YMoGWmGjK-R9WKhOs5mqfznHUDer3KUIKfZvvhV_e0F_B3kpTbWwLj543_RPKdWpqaQV0GVkhcS5Ktzx1OnLYbo/s320/Zooey-Deschanel-Cleavage-Hot-Boobs.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><br />But, in addition to being a great actress Zooey is an accomplished musician and singer-songwriter. She plays keyboards, percussion, banjo and ukulele!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxU-ohD-taSOB30O_EE-grlMY4Rl-8dI-aeM0wJb3GPr4R3-1R1IAMSUsDfjpSMVX_qKfiHbQiIb2GYMKDH9ONYEMAJey_qhtwwXKXNU96pqCjfJJczCWYXiCC-FcHZbFo74B5r2r1tTM/s1600/Zooey+Deschanel+Singing+Hot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxU-ohD-taSOB30O_EE-grlMY4Rl-8dI-aeM0wJb3GPr4R3-1R1IAMSUsDfjpSMVX_qKfiHbQiIb2GYMKDH9ONYEMAJey_qhtwwXKXNU96pqCjfJJczCWYXiCC-FcHZbFo74B5r2r1tTM/s320/Zooey+Deschanel+Singing+Hot.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><br />Even more awesome is the fact that because of Zooey’s quirky personality and sweet, girl-next-door looks, they had to invent a whole new word to describe her: <b>ADORKABLE!</b><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj05LrsGz_b25jVTy-Oc_JO5kyiwy_OI5PYiy7V-0t2XURqR8S_QzLGcPetB1aEdSQ2A2oJnYamocWn0N9bMYtWMHNLGxgJ8MM7nKkN9I4_LEwFMEV6J852_ZtAfPHTU8_wR42ON0ypxuk/s1600/Zooey-Deschanel-Adorkable-Legs.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj05LrsGz_b25jVTy-Oc_JO5kyiwy_OI5PYiy7V-0t2XURqR8S_QzLGcPetB1aEdSQ2A2oJnYamocWn0N9bMYtWMHNLGxgJ8MM7nKkN9I4_LEwFMEV6J852_ZtAfPHTU8_wR42ON0ypxuk/s320/Zooey-Deschanel-Adorkable-Legs.png" width="318" /></a></div><br />Ms. Deschanel has been nominated for a Golden Globe, Grammy and Emmy award over the last few years. She is currently the star of Fox’s breakout hit <i>New Girl</i>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9eZaOs8gyId3U0WtnygHHstChmaoIV8bUhiW3A8_VWaG1gpHG2paUCxARBqKpgP1FkR7WCApacDIqu_DIwqlxGZk81dqBPWzwrzYK9lRBnDINavQ-k3kHCDEY6IDR861kjOozWi0GHI/s1600/Zooey+Deschanel+Nude+Bra+Panties+New+Girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9eZaOs8gyId3U0WtnygHHstChmaoIV8bUhiW3A8_VWaG1gpHG2paUCxARBqKpgP1FkR7WCApacDIqu_DIwqlxGZk81dqBPWzwrzYK9lRBnDINavQ-k3kHCDEY6IDR861kjOozWi0GHI/s400/Zooey+Deschanel+Nude+Bra+Panties+New+Girl.jpg" width="195" /></a></div><br /><br />Obviously Zooey Deschanel is one of the most talented women we have ever named Babe of the Week!<br /><br /></div>

Zooey Deschanel: Adorkable Babe of the Week

IWS is proud to announce that Zooey Deschanel is our Babe of the Week! Zooey burst onto the scene in as young William Miller’s troubled olde...

The Google Teacher Academy in New York #1: What does Google New York look like?

8:37 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpHmwohsNGryrgQCS5gUOVI-Ap-mNA_6xfj6TP4Q8sas7LxI699SWohJkkrNxWXF4JZFGHzAwwQGsC_Mq3JoFDA_hcM72hQYhIpWg4QR6dvxsrK4AomErbvjSkt36fkZ02vBoRMV7gJ00/s1600/NewYork-LindaY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpHmwohsNGryrgQCS5gUOVI-Ap-mNA_6xfj6TP4Q8sas7LxI699SWohJkkrNxWXF4JZFGHzAwwQGsC_Mq3JoFDA_hcM72hQYhIpWg4QR6dvxsrK4AomErbvjSkt36fkZ02vBoRMV7gJ00/s320/NewYork-LindaY.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><i>Submitted by Fiona Beal</i><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 12.65pt; text-align: justify;">In a few days time (on the 3rd and 4th October) 50+ excited educators from the United States, Mexico, Canada, Colombia, the Czech Republic and South Africa (that’s me) will be descending on New York to attend the Google Teacher Academy New York 2012. These educators have been selected from the hundreds of applications from around the world, so undoubtedly many interested folk will be following the #GTANY Twitter hashtag to get a glimpse of the proceedings.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 12.65pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 12.65pt; margin-bottom: 9pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">I love the way Linda Yollis one of the successful applicants from Los Angeles,  has involved her Grades 2&3 class in getting ready for the Google Teacher Academy. Take a look at her blogpost:<br /> </span><a href="http://yollisclassblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-google-teacher-academy-in-nyc.html">http://yollisclassblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-google-teacher-academy-in-nyc.html</a><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 12.65pt; margin-bottom: 9pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">We have been told by Google, “</span><span style="color: #222222;"><i>We are working hard to prepare everything to create an inspiring couple of days for you next week in New York, and we can't wait to meet all of you. Your heads are gonna spin with all the great experiences we have in store for you. Get ready!</i>”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 12.65pt; margin-bottom: 9pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">We have also been told, ‘</span><span style="color: #222222;"><i>We are finalizing a bunch of great activities with a completely revamped agenda from previous academies, and we are so excited to share it all with you next week!</i>’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 12.65pt; margin-bottom: 9pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can you wonder that we are excited!<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>What does Google New York look like?</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 12.65pt; margin-bottom: 9pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 12.65pt;">On hearing of my selection for the Academy, m</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 12.65pt;">y first question was (after I had got over all the excitement at being selected) – '<i>Whereabouts is Google in New York, and what does it look like</i>?' In my Internet search to answer these questions</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 12.65pt;">  </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 12.65pt;">I came across two videos, one posted in February 2012 and one posted in 2009 when Google first opened its new New York offices. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 12.65pt; margin-bottom: 9pt; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Here is the 2009 video entitled '</span><span style="background-color: transparent;">Inside Google's New York Office'.  </span></span><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F-zUPTxMEw"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F-zUPTxMEw</span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div></div></div></div><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5F-zUPTxMEw" width="420"></iframe> <br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is the latest video published by The Wall Street Journal, entitled '<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 12.65pt;">An Inside look at Google’s New York Offices'. </span></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 12.65pt; margin-bottom: 9.0pt;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpm_LIyMtMY"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpm_LIyMtMY</span></a><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bpm_LIyMtMY" width="420"></iframe><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Keep watching this space and we will bring you more news of the Academy.</span></div>

google The Google Teacher Academy in New York #1: What does Google New York look like?

Submitted by Fiona Beal In a few days time (on the 3rd and 4th October) 50+ excited educators from the United States, Mexico, Canada, Colomb...

US INTELLIGENCE FAILURES

6:48 PM Tukiyooo 0

<br /> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj62Lnf75t66R5ZM-HZzMlp5Clcc1vZB2O7r9gZvQTkg_wQSP8Y_1VmsnVkaxVjkL1wy2Bd9L1-9updtOmzGCIHfIKkR8U450ulbwmHZvUCW0BvN2LqE2JXIfBiZ04U9Cj6Kcwe_I6nVyaf/s1600/20120328-071707.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj62Lnf75t66R5ZM-HZzMlp5Clcc1vZB2O7r9gZvQTkg_wQSP8Y_1VmsnVkaxVjkL1wy2Bd9L1-9updtOmzGCIHfIKkR8U450ulbwmHZvUCW0BvN2LqE2JXIfBiZ04U9Cj6Kcwe_I6nVyaf/s400/20120328-071707.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />    <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-gzP4lL_MTOyazDZLPzxNVnGxVbFF0-jhuY7GFkc7REtZ9wYPBuv4DNhBAxXo6YsjhHjSTXyFIwR7c9kok8LSLy4IuRpoVHRNPjqECTUK2iWBYqe1zeklt6qnwlDNUfSWh98qIHFf0eY/s1600/photo1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BLIND, DEAF AND IGNORANT: 5 RECIPES FOR US INTELLIGENCE FAILURE</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It was so much easier when it was just the SOVIET UNION, a clear enemy, even a fun game. So with the 9/11 disaster, AMERICA’S spy agencies were made to understand that there was a new single enemy in town—<b>Osama bin Laden</b>. The only way to advance your career as a spy was to focus on <b>bin Laden</b>, or at least on <b>al-Qaeda</b>. Countless intelligence failures later, we have LIBYA. <br /><br />Post-9/11 intelligence failures have been grave, and lessons, if learned, have not been implemented with any noticeable degree of effect. There have been a few hits, but more misses. Among those failures we have the 2009 “underwear” bombing attempt, thwarted only thanks to passengers on board the plane; the Arab Spring, which had gone viral on the internet before the Agencies figured it out; the loss of a handful of <b>Hezbollah</b>informants in <b>Beirut </b>due to an almost comical flaw in procedure; the Ford Hood shooting; and most recently, LIBYA, where despite the warnings there was no anticipation of the attack on the US consulate in <b>Benghazi </b>and inadequate protection. <br /><br />US intelligence failures are bipartisan and each successive administration owns these failures. On the 11th anniversary of 9/11, heads should be rolling. <br /><br />Why is US intelligence failing? <br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>BEHIND THE GLOBALIZATION CURVE</b></span><br /><br /><b>Al-Qaeda</b> is more of an idea, an ideology, than a concrete group. From IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN, SOMALIA and YEMEN, to PAKISTAN, LIBYA and most recently SYRIA (just for starters), it is a globalized ideology. Furthermore, the lines between terrorist groups and organized crime networks are rapidly blurring and becoming borderless. The Agencies cannot keep up because they cannot adapt, still struggling with structural and organizational issues in the post-Cold War period. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">INFORMATION BECOMES PRECIOUS NOT FOR REASONS OF NATIONAL SECURITY BUT FOR REASONS OF CAREER ENHANCEMENT</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-gzP4lL_MTOyazDZLPzxNVnGxVbFF0-jhuY7GFkc7REtZ9wYPBuv4DNhBAxXo6YsjhHjSTXyFIwR7c9kok8LSLy4IuRpoVHRNPjqECTUK2iWBYqe1zeklt6qnwlDNUfSWh98qIHFf0eY/s1600/photo1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-gzP4lL_MTOyazDZLPzxNVnGxVbFF0-jhuY7GFkc7REtZ9wYPBuv4DNhBAxXo6YsjhHjSTXyFIwR7c9kok8LSLy4IuRpoVHRNPjqECTUK2iWBYqe1zeklt6qnwlDNUfSWh98qIHFf0eY/s400/photo1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The US cannot even globalize internally, with information-sharing the latest buzz phrase defining what everyone knows is a key problem that will not be resolved <b>as long as the Agencies are at war with each over turf and funding</b>. Information becomes precious not for reasons of national security but for reasons of career enhancement and departmental positioning. <br /><br />It was the lack of information-sharing that was highlighted in the aftermath of the attempted bombing of an <b>Amsterdam-Detroit</b>flight on Christmas Day 2009. The would-be bomber, <b>Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab</b>, managed to board the passenger place despite the fact that he was on one of many blacklists raising suspicions of his connections to a terrorist group. A Senate Intelligence Committee report pointed to 14 intelligence failures in this case. While the bomber was on the U. database of suspected terrorists, along with some 550,000 other names, he was never placed on the No Fly List or the Selectee List, which would have subjected him to additional security screening at airports, nor was his US visa revoked. His name was misspelled and the State Department thus concluded that he did not have a US visa. The CIA also failed to disseminate key reports to the appropriate people until after the attempted attack, when it was too late to share information.<br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>WHITHER HUMAN INTELLIGENCE: THE ARTLESSNESS OF ASSET DEVELOPMENT</b></span><br /><br />The rocket attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that took out the US envoy to LIBYA and three other AMERICAN diplomats was a disastrous failure of human intelligence, which has been dangerously sidelined in favor of high-tech surveillance solutions--the response to a lack of qualified human resources particularly in the CIA.<br /><br />This attack was highly organized and had nothing to do with riots and protests connected to an anti-Islamic film of dubious origins. The attack was not anticipated (or it was anticipated at some point in the intelligence chain but ignored higher up) despite a clear warning 24 hours before in a 42-minute video message from <b>al-Qaeda</b> leader <b>al-Zawahiri</b>. In no uncertain terms, <b>al-Zawahiri</b> pledged to revenge the death-by-drone of his second in command, <b>al-Libi</b>. And LIBYA was the obvious venue for revenge, as it was from here that <b>al-Libi</b> hailed and here that he was turned from an enemy terrorist into a US friend in the fight against <b>Gaddafi</b>. When the job was done, it was here that the US again cut him off as a terrorist. Connecting these dots required the bare minimum of human intelligence and risk analysis. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">INFILTRATION OF TERRORIST GROUPS OR RADICAL ISLAMIC OUTFITS IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE OR EVEN OVERLY CHALLENGING</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijlxHa8UL2WI5SqQQSdw3_r4VF6SsrsZ_mKuJypfjcQIwxqScJD5gOdAWPH121Scx9tNXuEsT4wyckxjT8U1Sk59Jbo9AtSwLS26CFaY9tcTMDjUoN6R9PH1TFeqE1b7eiTF04H0zoDPxF/s1600/competitive_intelligence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijlxHa8UL2WI5SqQQSdw3_r4VF6SsrsZ_mKuJypfjcQIwxqScJD5gOdAWPH121Scx9tNXuEsT4wyckxjT8U1Sk59Jbo9AtSwLS26CFaY9tcTMDjUoN6R9PH1TFeqE1b7eiTF04H0zoDPxF/s400/competitive_intelligence.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Human intelligence has suffered the most since the end of the Cold War, and the idea of “infiltration” has become the purview of electronics. Regardless of what one might think, so-called infiltration of terrorist groups or radical Islamic outfits is not impossible or even overly challenging. At its best, human intelligence is subtle and natural, not cloak and dagger. It requires casual observation and establishing relationships with unremarkable people who are close to and have access to these groups, in villages, towns and cities. <b>It requires a very localized perspective. <br /></b><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>INADEQUATE INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS</b></span><br /><br />Along with human intelligence comes analysis, which is also inadequate. There is an ongoing debate about the proper distance between the Intelligence Community and policymakers. The bulk of intelligence recaps events that have already happened and is woefully shortsighted and finding itself in an illogical competition with US news agencies. <br /><br />The Arab Spring is a case in point. While the CIA had vaguely warned policymakers that the Middle East could potentially experience some unrest (which is always a potential), they were caught by surprise when the Arab Spring unfolded. The Agencies had nothing to offer policymakers by way of how the Arab Spring might affect US policy and security. One of the first disastrous responses to the Arab Spring was to send high-profile diplomat Frank Wisner Jr. to Cairo without bothering to any homework on Wisner’s personal agenda. As it turned out, Wisner was on the payroll of the Mubarak regime and took US policy in his own hands, declaring support for the regime on behalf of Washington. Washington of course recalled him immediately, but it was too late to undo the damage.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="color: red;">INTELLIGENCE-GATHERING AND INTELLIGENCE-ANALYSIS ARE ERRONEOUSLY CONSIDERED VERY SEPARATE THINGS</span><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />There are a number of reasons why intelligence analysis is inadequate, but a key reason (recruitment aside) is that intelligence-gathering and intelligence-analysis are erroneously considered very separate things, and analysts live in fear of raising any alarms before it is clear that there is a dire situation: In other words, when it’s already too late. The bottom line is that it is too risky in terms of career for analysts to go out on a limb with policymakers.<br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>RECRUITING THE LEAST COMPETENT</b></span><br /><br />The Intelligence Community’s recruitment policies are counter-productive to say the least. Anyone with any in-depth foreign country experience that might have included the key aspect of asset development—hobnobbing with the locals—is immediately excluded as a security liability. It is extremely different for non-native AMERICAN citizens to pass security clearance. There is also a lack of recruitment intuition, namely that the Agencies consider those who come through their doors, rather than actively seeking the people they really need. Good analysis requires a certain mindset, and those who possess are the least likely to actively seek employment with the Agencies. In the end it is the Agencies own subconscious admission of its inability to conduct counter-intelligence and due diligence on a level that would allow a better recruitment policy to be less of a security threat. <br /><br />The Intelligence Community’s answer to that, for now, is the private contractor, who is unfettered (except at its highest levels) by security clearance requirements. Private contractors are free to have foreign experience and to develop assets among local communities in key hotspots, and they are better at due diligence and counterintelligence. They also often attract a higher quality recruit, and the higher salaries help. <br /><br />This is not, however, the ultimate answer to the Intelligence Community’s shortcomings. There are too many unknowns in the private contractor world; too many easy opportunities to engineer conflict and tensions in the name of creating more business. But the IC can definitely learn from the private contractor in this “transitional phase”.  <br /><span style="color: red;"><br /><b>UNFINISHED REFORM</b></span><br /><br />Intelligence has been in a state of suspended reform in the USA since 1947. The most sweeping reforms came in 2004, with the creation of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which was to oversee the entire Intelligence Community, and usher in structure in place of inter-agency competition and promote information-sharing. It has succeeded in none of this. Rather, new front lines in the turf war have been drawn, between the DNI and the CIA, which is not wont to give up its former prestige, and between the DNI and the agencies under the control of the Department of Defense (DoD).  The DNI lacks the power the position promised, and is certainly not the White House’s go-to man for intelligence. Indeed, one would be surprised if the average American can even name the DNI (google it). <br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;">By Jen Alic via Oilprice</span></span></span></div>

US INTELLIGENCE FAILURES

BLIND, DEAF AND IGNORANT: 5 RECIPES FOR US INTELLIGENCE FAILURE It was so much easier when it was just the SOVIET UNION, a clear enemy,...

Matt Said, Jay Said LVI

9:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Matt coughs.  Jay sneezes.  You grab a surgical mask, and listen.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ_Q5nO-b9AJewuZZqF23xgwMEffYfBxnFPObojNxvM9txdywygmWPjVLSzDfU4s9nE6Ws0n_xHE4VVzdftGmFUfyElKcy8VNsJvQWW-Kh17kkohxZrPBkGHApIB9oltjHnIbilKw7lJo/s1600/Sexy-Nurse.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ_Q5nO-b9AJewuZZqF23xgwMEffYfBxnFPObojNxvM9txdywygmWPjVLSzDfU4s9nE6Ws0n_xHE4VVzdftGmFUfyElKcy8VNsJvQWW-Kh17kkohxZrPBkGHApIB9oltjHnIbilKw7lJo/s400/Sexy-Nurse.jpeg" width="225" /></a>Matt:  Hey Jay.  Thanks for doing a Thursday morning phone call instead of our normal Thursday night.<br />Jay:  No prob.  I have people covering my pre-existing conditions, er…appointments.<br />Matt:  This sore throat is a bitch. Hurts to eat, to drink, to talk.  Oy.<br />Jay:  Wow.  Should I list you as probable, questionable, or doubtful for Sunday’s show?<br />Matt:  What?  Are you suffering from Fantasy Football withdrawal?<br />Jay:  Not at all, why?<br /><br />Matt and Jay:  (Cough, Sneeze, Cough, Sneeze)<br /><br />Jay:  Hey?  In this Sunday’s intro and since you are not well, should I replace your singing with a file off the bench?  Say…Mitt Romney singing America the Beautiful in order to bolster our line-up?<br />Matt:  Our Line-Up?  Focus Man.  Dear God.  There is no Fantasy Football this ye---<br />Jay:  Oh wow…Man I don’t know where my head was at.  I am sorry.  Okay I’m good to go now.<br />Matt:  Okay.  It’s all good.<br /><br />Jay:  Man…Between my allergies, your whatever, and now this withdrawal thing, we’re a medical mess.<br />Matt:  No shit…It’s amazing how even simple medical maladies can screw one’s life up even for short periods.<br />Jay:  IKR?  I had to throw a half a plate of Lemon Poppy Seed muffins away, because I sneezed on them.<br />Matt:  Really?<br />Jay:  Well yes and no…I mean, I did sneeze on them, but I figured it was my own sneeze, so…I didn’t really throw them away.<br />Matt:  Understandable.  I guess you just considered them to be glazed at that point.<br />Jay:  Exactly. It’s a sin to waste food, y’know.<br /><br />Matt:  (Cough)<br />Jay:  Hey…This Sunday we could talk about all of this.  You know, how it sucks to get sick.<br />Matt:  It is that time of year.  Cold and Flu season is fast approaching…obviously.<br />Jay:  Exactly.  We could talk about the times we have been sick.<br />Matt:  Hospital stays.<br />Jay:  Hot Nurses.<br />Matt:  Funny diseases.<br />Jay:  Death Panels.<br />Matt:  The color of the gallon of funk they drained from my lung.<br /><br />Jay:  What color was that, exactly?<br />Matt:  I guess you’ll have to wait til’ this<i><span style="color: blue;"> <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/im-with-stupid/2012/09/30/a-couple-of-sickos" target="_blank">Sunday at Noon ET</a></span></i> to find out!!<br /><br />Jay:  Aw Man, this is gonna be epic.  I may even impart what kind of Doctor I always wanted to be.<br />Matt:  I have an idea as to what that might be.<br />Jay:  Maybe so, but you won’t know for sure until this Sunday at Noon ET as IWS Radio presents…<i><a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/im-with-stupid/2012/09/30/a-couple-of-sickos" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">A Couple of Sickos.</span></a></i><br /><br />Matt:  I like it.<br />Jay:  Me too.<br />Matt and Jay:  I think we’re set.<br /><br /></div>

Matt Said, Jay Said LVI

Matt coughs. Jay sneezes. You grab a surgical mask, and listen. Matt: Hey Jay. Thanks for doing a Thursday morning phone call instead of...

Made to Crave - Chapter 6

7:49 PM Tukiyooo 0

Tonight I just finished Made to Crave!  Finally!  It was a 193 page book - it shouldn't have taken me so long to read it.  But my excuse, as will continue to be for everything that I lack these days, is because of school.  I wish I would have stayed more on track with the book so as to stay in the spirit of it all while I read it.  Ah well.  I'm finished and that's what counts.<br /><br /><ul><li><a href="http://the-big-weight.blogspot.com/2012/08/made-to-crave-ch-1-reflections.html" target="_blank">Chapter 1 Reflections</a></li><li><a href="http://the-big-weight.blogspot.com/2012/08/made-to-crave-ch-2-reflections.html" target="_blank">Chapter 2 Reflections</a></li><li><a href="http://the-big-weight.blogspot.com/2012/08/made-to-crave-ch-3-reflections.html" target="_blank">Chapter 3 Reflections</a></li><li><a href="http://the-big-weight.blogspot.com/2012/09/made-to-crave-ch-4-reflections.html" target="_blank">Chapter 4 Reflections</a></li><li><a href="http://the-big-weight.blogspot.com/2012/09/made-to-crave-chapter-5.html" target="_blank">Chapter 5 Reflections</a> </li></ul>Highlighted passages from this chapter:<br /><br /><ul><li>"How do you grow closer to God?"  "By making the choice to deny ourselves something that is permissible but not beneficial.  And making this intentional sacrifice for the sole purpose of growing closer to God.  After all, Jesus said, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.'"<br /></li><li>"Yes, I want to lose weight. But this journey is so much more than just that. It really is about learning to tell myself no and learning to make wiser choices daily.  And somehow becoming a woman of self-discipline honors God and helps me live the godly characteristic of self-control.  The fruit of the Spirit is a list of godly characteristics: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  In the end, pursuing self-control does help my heart feel closer to Jesus and more pure to receive what he wants for me each day...." <br /></li><li>"....live with the willingness to walk away when the Holy Spirit nudges you and says, 'That food choice is permissible but not beneficial - so don't eat it.'"<br /></li><li>Prayer to pray: "I need wisdom to make wise choices.  I need insight to remember the words I've read in Scripture.  I need power beyond what I can find on my own."<br /></li><li>When the apostle Paul says in Philippians 3:18-19 that "'their god is their stomach', he means that food can become so consuming that people find themselves ruled by it. [....we find that certain foods are impossible to wlak away from - we can't or won't deny ourselves an unhealthy choice in order to make a healthier one - then it's a clue we are being ruled by this food on some level.  Being ruled by something other than God diminishes our commitment and will make us feel increasingly distant from Him."</li></ul><br />Chapter 6 was titled "Growing Closer to God".  The reflection questions are:<br /><br /><span style="color: #674ea7;"><i><b>1.  What is your response to the idea that we grow closer to God when we deny ourselves something that is permissible but not beneficial?  Have you ever had an experience of denying yourself that helped you grow closer to God? Do you believe this could be true for you in your battle with food?</b></i></span><br /><br />I would definitely agree that we grow closer to God when we are sacrificing something that we've made a priority in our life.  It makes total sense.  I would say that people who experience addiction can attest to this.  If you're trying to kick that habit (smoking, alcohol, drugs, food, whatever!), you know how incredibly hard it is, especially taking that first step.  You <i>need </i>God's help to get you through those critical moments.  <br /><br />I cannot say I've had an experience where I've denied myself of something and it has resulted in a closer relationship with God.  Though, that is what I have gotten out of reading this book.  If I want to be truly successful at weight loss, I need to start asking Him for help - because I prove to myself almost daily that I'm not capable of doing it alone!   By seeking His guidance, the relationship will flourish from there.<br /><br /><span style="color: #674ea7;"><i><b>2. The apostle Paul lists self-control among the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).  Are there areas of life in which you experience self-control and feel that your self-discipline and wise choices honor God?  For example, in your spending decisions or how you manage your time? What insights about your strengths in those areas might help you to honor God and grow in self-control with your food choices?</b></i></span><br /><br />I have thought about this exact concept over and over in my weight loss journey.  I am so disciplined with finances & concentrating on my studies, why cannot I not be that disciplined when it comes to weight loss?  I don't live beyond my means financially.  When school is in session, I don't procrastinate with studying.  Why, when it comes to weight loss, can I not translate that same level of self control to my journey?  I don't know!<br /><br />The way I've approached school and money management is simple:  I will not fail.  I will not spend more than I make.  I will not procrastinate/not do my homework.  Failure to abide by my goals for those two things scares the crap out of me.  Yet, with weight loss.... ugh.  So, I know I have it in me to be disciplined.  I know how to do it.  I just have to figure out how to apply that to my weight loss journey.<br /><br /><span style="color: #674ea7;"><i><b>3. Have you ever had the experience of the Holy Spirit nudging you in connection with your food choices? If so, what was that like? If not, how do you hope the Holy Spirit might help you now?</b></i></span><br /><br />I think God is that little voice in the back of my head saying, "Hilary, you don't need to stuff your face with x, y and/or z."  Yes, I know I've heard that voice many times telling me I didn't need more of what I was eating at the time.  While there have been a few times that that voice was enough to stop me, sadly, more times than not, it hasn't.   <br /><br /><span style="color: #674ea7;"><i><b>4. As Christians, our calling - and our source of spiritual nourishment - is to do God's will and finish His work (John 4:34).  To what degree have consuming thoughts about food impacted your ability to pursue your calling and receive spiritual nourishment?</b></i></span><br /><br />I've definitely had days where I start off completely focused on my weight loss journey, ready to tackle the mountain of to-do's I have, and then something negative happens.  This could be a stressful situation at work.  A disagreement with Joel.  Whatever the case might be - something goes awry.  And then, sometimes, the way I deal with that negative emotion is to eat.  Then everything quickly goes south.  I can no longer focus on what I originally had planned to do that day because now I'm swimming in a pool of guilt for having just eaten away a day's worth, if not a week's worth, of Points.  This is just a small example.  I've had "fat days", where I just feel like such crap about myself, I cannot even get out of bed to go to work.  Now, I try not to make a habit of this (for so many reasons!), but it has been known to happen on occasion.  It's sad.  And it is getting in the way of living my life to its fullest! <br /><br /><span style="color: #674ea7;"><i><b>5.  Would you say you are spiritually well fed, spiritually malnourished, or somewhere in between?  Have you ever tried to use food to satisfy your feelings of spiritual hunger?  What was the result?</b></i></span><br /><br />I would definitely say I'm somewhere in between.  I've definitely eaten out of all sorts of emotions on SO many occasions.  And I'm doing that to try to find happiness.  The result is the similar to the phrase "Money doesn't buy happiness".  Well, food doesn't provide happiness either.  It just digs that emotional hole even deeper.  <br /><br /><span style="color: #674ea7;"><i><b>6. If we find certain foods impossible to walk away from, this is a clue that we are being ruled by food on some level.  Are there foods you can't or won't deny yourself in order to make healthier choices? Why are these foods especially important to you?  What thoughts and feelings arise when you think about potentially giving them up?</b></i></span><br /><br />My major problem is sugar.  I love sweets.  I've tried giving them up in the past and it does bad things to me.  And what I mean by that is, I've given them up entirely with the hopes of losing weight.  What ends up happening is that I just substitute one addiction for another.  So while I've given up sugar, I end up consuming larger quantities of other things that I normally wouldn't.  Then I really gain the weight! <br /><br />One thing I have to come to terms with about one of the main points of this book is "deprivation".  Lysa, in my opinion, says that if we deprive ourselves of certain foods, we then form a closer relationship with God (not automatically of course).  That might be the case.  I'm not opposed to a closer relationship with Him.  However, I don't believe that that is the answer for me.  Yes, I know I need to limit the quantity of food I eat daily.  Yes, I do believe there are foods that I should cut out of my life completely because there is just no nutritional benefit to them.  However, I don't want to give up sweets entirely.  I just want to learn how to have them in moderation.  I believe that God can help me achieve that as well.<br /><br />I don't know why sweets are so important to me.  When I think about giving them up for eternity, I'm afraid I'm going to miss out on some epic tasting food!  Frankly, it just seems wrong to live without chocolate.  I'm not even being funny!  It's how I feel! <br /><br />I just want to do the best that I can with what I've been given.  And right now, I am fully willing to admit that I cannot go it alone.

Made to Crave Made to Crave - Chapter 6

Tonight I just finished Made to Crave! Finally! It was a 193 page book - it shouldn't have taken me so long to read it. But my excuse...

Today's archidose #622

1:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

Here are some photos of the recently opened <a href="http://www.stedelijk.nl/">Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam</a> in Amsterdam, Netherlands, by <a href="http://www.benthemcrouwel.nl/">Benthem Crouwel Architects</a> (2012), photographed by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs_borghgraef/">Matthijs Borghgraef</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs_borghgraef/7999808241/" title="Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam by kwikzilver, on Flickr"><img alt="Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam" height="427" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8037/7999808241_40cd47d15b_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs_borghgraef/8000076222/" title="Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam by kwikzilver, on Flickr"><img alt="Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam" height="427" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8031/8000076222_5c4658fa41_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs_borghgraef/8004102834/" title="Stedelijk Museum Bookshop by kwikzilver, on Flickr"><img alt="Stedelijk Museum Bookshop" height="427" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8321/8004102834_6146e5b948_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs_borghgraef/8000437325/" title="Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam by kwikzilver, on Flickr"><img alt="Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam" height="427" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8173/8000437325_04a0409bae_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs_borghgraef/8001228334/" title="Escalators 2 by kwikzilver, on Flickr"><img alt="Escalators 2" height="427" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/8001228334_d838e7582c_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs_borghgraef/8003980085/" title="Escalators 1 by kwikzilver, on Flickr"><img alt="Escalators 1" height="427" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8031/8003980085_ba2e48b483_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs_borghgraef/8000522229/" title="The new Stedelijk: it's ON! by kwikzilver, on Flickr"><img alt="The new Stedelijk: it's ON!" height="427" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8317/8000522229_e1c2665773_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:<br /><blockquote>:: Join and add photos to the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/archi-dose/">archidose pool</a>, and/or<br />:: Tag your photos <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/archidose/">archidose</a></span></blockquote>

Today's archidose #622

Here are some photos of the recently opened Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in Amsterdam, Netherlands, by Benthem Crouwel Architects (2012), ph...

Think Before You Tweet

4:21 AM Tukiyooo 0

Today on social media I saw someone write gritty, gross details of her cat's stomach ailment and another person described the moves that she learned in her yoga pole dancing class <i>(with names too adult to share here.) </i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX6CZFUUlKUAMHJwBlFOOkyY1QMcZMRLbD6lZJ-LvBVRfaqNFljM_23Uw56jeWZ8e8TZ4-D3SAaRhLohgEwQYt3bI9W1ao8TkJh_vpAFS_LWLsemQT1HnHVeCTcWsSUj3b743-u71BnOs0/s1600/bigstock-Blue-bird-32532500+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX6CZFUUlKUAMHJwBlFOOkyY1QMcZMRLbD6lZJ-LvBVRfaqNFljM_23Uw56jeWZ8e8TZ4-D3SAaRhLohgEwQYt3bI9W1ao8TkJh_vpAFS_LWLsemQT1HnHVeCTcWsSUj3b743-u71BnOs0/s320/bigstock-Blue-bird-32532500+(2).jpg" width="264" /></a></div><br />I'm trying to understand why either of them would think those two things would enlighten or improve the lives of other people.<br /><br />These ill advised shares mar the timelines of otherwise interesting professionals.<br /><br /><h2><b>Don't make this mistake</b></h2>I am going to admit something here. One time, about two months after I joined <a class="zem_slink" href="http://twitter.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Twitter">Twitter</a>, someone sat next to me at an airport and unashamedly did the unthinkable right beside me! I tweeted about his flagrantly loud gastric distress and my shock. At the same time someone at a workshop in Virginia was talking about how useful Twitter was and was showing my Twitter stream as a good example of someone who was so helpful. <br /><br /><h3><i>And across goes my ill-advised Tweet.</i></h3><br />When I got the direct message, I was humiliated and deleted the offending Tweet but I couldn't take it back. I looked like an idiot and made someone else look dumb too. I'll never forget what I learned that day.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8rmlQTLvrM8G6CFH7I7-WfhhcrCFa8TZom0OEchxmDJUNmElc7SZ7lBF_SQOXvnhcrm-mry_VNCNeyAF9Al0TNr8DPCFeU4oGaqhUfiXCRzx5vdJJazkPpBFlJ7bsPenG-44mvarPHJM_/s1600/bigstock-Tweeting-Birds-Doodle-5459231.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8rmlQTLvrM8G6CFH7I7-WfhhcrCFa8TZom0OEchxmDJUNmElc7SZ7lBF_SQOXvnhcrm-mry_VNCNeyAF9Al0TNr8DPCFeU4oGaqhUfiXCRzx5vdJJazkPpBFlJ7bsPenG-44mvarPHJM_/s320/bigstock-Tweeting-Birds-Doodle-5459231.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><h2>Twitter is not a confidante. </h2>It isn't your long lost friend who lets you whisper secrets in his ear while you go stumbling through life. She isn't smiling and nodding her head in rapt attention at your every word. Neither is <a class="zem_slink" href="http://tumblr.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Tumblr">Tumblr</a> or <a class="zem_slink" href="http://facebook.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Facebook">Facebook</a> or any other social media tool.<br /><br />Like <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlton_Heston" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Charlton Heston">Charlton Heston</a> yelling in the movie <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.soilentgreen.net/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Soilent Green">Soilent Green</a>, I want to shout from the mountain top, <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>"Your Twitter stream is people!"</i></blockquote><br />Social media is made up of many many people. It is a complex ecosystem that you cannot ever understand. <b>You never know WHO is looking at your stream. </b>Never. You know the sequence of events but you are the only one - others splash in and out of your streams like Hobbits heading to Mordor. Every tweet, status update, and post stands alone.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBbX11Hn9wZqvnqQ8mFVigONMJGP5zOla9y6nwOMUnqvyOVctpUCFIxMy0lPvrdjrL4qjnLDP4elpuaGoW64z8FjXRFDJ1cqS5FsL6LR_ht_2gjin8G8eJT4Ink6Ie5aIRgSdZEI6Mnhw4/s1600/bigstock-World-social-media-network-19958630.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBbX11Hn9wZqvnqQ8mFVigONMJGP5zOla9y6nwOMUnqvyOVctpUCFIxMy0lPvrdjrL4qjnLDP4elpuaGoW64z8FjXRFDJ1cqS5FsL6LR_ht_2gjin8G8eJT4Ink6Ie5aIRgSdZEI6Mnhw4/s320/bigstock-World-social-media-network-19958630.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Please learn from my humiliation. Cat barf and pornographic yoga poses don't belong in the stream of a professional and neither should you share it if a big guy sits next to you and makes a intestinal noise that would cause middle school boys to go into hysterics. If you have to talk about those things, join <a href="https://path.com/" target="_blank">Path </a>and friend just a few close people who love you enough to even share the more personal things about your life.<br /><br />The easiest way to negate your nobility is to throw mud on yourself.<br /><br />Yes, be a real person. You can share some about your life. But the unsavory and potentially disgusting parts of your life should be kept private. Your short lived desire for someone out there to hear and understand your situation isn't worth the long term impact you can have on your professional image if the wrong person is looking at your stream at the wrong time.<br /><br />I'm so lucky that the person who I disappointed respected me enough to tell me I screwed up so I could learn a hard lesson. Don't say that you've never done it because you might have but just didn't know.<br /><br />Tweet well and prosper.<br /><br /><br />Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-32532500/stock-photo-blue-bird" target="_blank">Big Stock</a>, may not be used without licensing from Big Stock<br />  <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_c.png?x-id=97f52c4b-b5e5-4ba8-b2d1-89ce5b982f56" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div>

Think Before You Tweet

Today on social media I saw someone write gritty, gross details of her cat's stomach ailment and another person described the moves that...

the souvenir treatment

4:00 AM Anonymous 0

As you might have guessed, I like to do a little bit of <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/2012/09/thrifting-thru-south.html" target="_blank">shopping on vacation</a>. (last vacation related post, promise) But I never really gravitate toward souvenir type things. We've already got enough crap at home, we don't need any additional t-shirts or koozie holders.<br /><br />But there is one exception. Sea shells. For some weird reason I'm wicked psycho about seashells. It is physically not possible for me to walk down the beach without bending over every two steps to pick up a shell. It's great cardio. I even have a type of shell that I look for each year - this year was sand dollars. (told you - psycho much?!)<br /><br />This means however that each year, at the end of our annual beach trip, I have a huge basket of seashells that I can't bring myself to leave behind. So I also pick up these old glass canisters from the local architectural salvage thinking I'll store all my shells like some awesome organized person.<br /><br />And each year they sit in the garage of some awesome unorganized person.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvOH8N0NZ67vAEczalWkFnlalTXLAdXn9gXquPA1fXneCH_YcNa05xvuTCCWYcMgcPB6DY3qoW4hdm6I0jyU_VWSW4evKfPSZ3CW9MDRPTs6ATCaZ8IxOLdJTBnvIvItgEyiNpZV5uhW2_/s1600/AntiqueJars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvOH8N0NZ67vAEczalWkFnlalTXLAdXn9gXquPA1fXneCH_YcNa05xvuTCCWYcMgcPB6DY3qoW4hdm6I0jyU_VWSW4evKfPSZ3CW9MDRPTs6ATCaZ8IxOLdJTBnvIvItgEyiNpZV5uhW2_/s640/AntiqueJars.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />So this year, damn it, I was going to get these things cleaned and put in their place.<br /><br />First things first, I followed <a href="http://www.seashells.org/cleaningseashells.html" target="_blank">these steps</a> to clean the shells. I had to do them in batches and they took forever to dry, but otherwise not hard at all.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ3rCJaRALryL67XjrBBYUnZ0Tijae8CQTXsX9AWr9ACbOR5XuPBYx6doPsr7LjJtCrj6PzecAdGy1OrMzHgLXh0Joi7f1Tc9M-E2IfVtSCe_GStr28T3vCh7SlQ37Fr2rF-IgXZZDkoB_/s1600/CleanShells.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="548" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ3rCJaRALryL67XjrBBYUnZ0Tijae8CQTXsX9AWr9ACbOR5XuPBYx6doPsr7LjJtCrj6PzecAdGy1OrMzHgLXh0Joi7f1Tc9M-E2IfVtSCe_GStr28T3vCh7SlQ37Fr2rF-IgXZZDkoB_/s640/CleanShells.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />I wanted to add a label to mark each year but I didn't want to stick or spray anything on the canisters. So I went to Michael's and picked up some labels Martha made some for me, and grabbed the twine from the garage. (which ironically was right next the the shells on the shelf)<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUBTpaMwuPfG1ZEa3oyZIGEpfgg4HkGAwF_iszkGu-uayXlh7ITVpYeoMUe7NEIwWendm4ZzxVMC7vp2RVjOvxaval1dVG0tjOb8c_kzg0FEzsEEcAvbtXEj37TRqGFdwFuTqGYjt36fT7/s1600/supplies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUBTpaMwuPfG1ZEa3oyZIGEpfgg4HkGAwF_iszkGu-uayXlh7ITVpYeoMUe7NEIwWendm4ZzxVMC7vp2RVjOvxaval1dVG0tjOb8c_kzg0FEzsEEcAvbtXEj37TRqGFdwFuTqGYjt36fT7/s400/supplies.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />I didn't want anything to precious or perfect but rather relaxed and easy - just like vacation. So I just wrote the year on each label and tied them around the top of the jar with the twine.<br /><br />Voila.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgowwyiy0h9a8HRh4rZH0Dt2JzbIUJbxHmprGyEaueqv8tBGCD6vf9xwFuLRvidGY4qRWodPbtko_CflsyZBI1MCsZSgMTL6fM6XhRrunGgin_efOZK-04-noznGql8aOR36wUSwW9iNab7/s1600/seashellcloseup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgowwyiy0h9a8HRh4rZH0Dt2JzbIUJbxHmprGyEaueqv8tBGCD6vf9xwFuLRvidGY4qRWodPbtko_CflsyZBI1MCsZSgMTL6fM6XhRrunGgin_efOZK-04-noznGql8aOR36wUSwW9iNab7/s640/seashellcloseup.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Each year lined up and ready to go.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijGZbjU_JvK2bYxqGMWqTpC_vlzfK61zGHepKSRBpd8sZPgeX2xAKkgEpNjdoBWTjktJR02LWF6HqBwP3WJaKcMzKTwLix813T3_o48SxuuIOdduM5PDenqIGEKLk2AWDWfl_nRvCOVD_3/s1600/seashellsdone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijGZbjU_JvK2bYxqGMWqTpC_vlzfK61zGHepKSRBpd8sZPgeX2xAKkgEpNjdoBWTjktJR02LWF6HqBwP3WJaKcMzKTwLix813T3_o48SxuuIOdduM5PDenqIGEKLk2AWDWfl_nRvCOVD_3/s640/seashellsdone.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />For now they are living on the bookshelves in the <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/p/basement.html" target="_blank">family room</a> so I can look at them while I watch TV and remember good times. (the trips, not the tv show) Dynomite!<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivMwZU6WnNcklsVCJg426KE2WM3sh4KLJmwvXsTM_Z8UmQEzhA08s2kkIF4vA2jYE5Wei2MGuvDWymAC0LHQMRzQK9dNjM22odGfAMCywtSMttIaNXNdK6KjJckHIya3TjnS3MzqM1xO7G/s1600/seashellbookcase2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivMwZU6WnNcklsVCJg426KE2WM3sh4KLJmwvXsTM_Z8UmQEzhA08s2kkIF4vA2jYE5Wei2MGuvDWymAC0LHQMRzQK9dNjM22odGfAMCywtSMttIaNXNdK6KjJckHIya3TjnS3MzqM1xO7G/s640/seashellbookcase2.jpg" width="590" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">btw - I HATE taking pictures in the basement. Crap lighting.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />What do you bring back from vacation? Does it end up in the closet? Have you found a special place for it?<br /><br />

the souvenir treatment

As you might have guessed, I like to do a little bit of shopping on vacation . (last vacation related post, promise) But I never really grav...

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 09/28/2012

2:30 AM Tukiyooo 0

<ul class="diigo-linkroll">      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://theweek.com/article/index/233980/the-casual-vacancy-5-reactions-to-jk-rowlings-adult-oriented-novel">The Casual Vacancy: 5 reactions to J.K. Rowling's adult-oriented novel - The Week</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">JK Rowling as a new adult fiction book amidst mixed reviews.</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/literature">literature</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/authors">authors</a></p>                                        </li>  </ul><p class="diigo-ps">Posted from <a href='http://www.diigo.com'>Diigo</a>. The rest of my favorite links are <a href='http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher'>here</a>.</p>

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 09/28/2012

The Casual Vacancy: 5 reactions to J.K. Rowling's adult-oriented novel - The Week JK Rowling as ...

Arthurs Day/Marketers Day?!

1:25 AM Tukiyooo 0

<span style="font-size: large;">Really enjoyed "Tuesdays with Morrie" last night.  Thought it was an excellent production.  In particular I thought that Terry Byrne who played Morrie was brilliant.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">On the way home we drove through the city and up Camden Street.  It was crazy!!!  The Village had a live band on for Arthurs Day and 2FM were there recording it.  Every pub on the street was packed and there were people all over the place, even walking on the road. Traffic had come to a complete standstill.  </span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I think Arthur's Day has only been celebrated for the last few years - the cynic in me is beginning to see it as just one big marketing opportunity even though it is great for all of those less well known bands who get to play in all of the great venues all over Dublin.  </span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I think the whole concept of Arthur's Day just leaves me a little cold. </span>

Arthurs Day/Marketers Day?!

Really enjoyed "Tuesdays with Morrie" last night. Thought it was an excellent production. In particular I thought that Terry Byr...

The Captivating Teacher Manifesto

4:29 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXtdwG6D7FaY9JhRT48atpplOLPZ8O5vt_X_aiaT4hxN9QZJfeITWNGGbO4byyeZV8PXO-5pnxAf6DmCa-DXeyKktGmxADJAO0t2lTZnrIjPy2qWE5DhCprWf0AFvC5aDmGrKICiO6vpTg/s1600/bigstock-Digital-Age-Concept-1668013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXtdwG6D7FaY9JhRT48atpplOLPZ8O5vt_X_aiaT4hxN9QZJfeITWNGGbO4byyeZV8PXO-5pnxAf6DmCa-DXeyKktGmxADJAO0t2lTZnrIjPy2qWE5DhCprWf0AFvC5aDmGrKICiO6vpTg/s640/bigstock-Digital-Age-Concept-1668013.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />I want to be captivating. I want to entrance students with my subject. I want students fascinated to walk into my classroom.<br /><br /><b>I am the teacher of THIS subject. </b>I can't make all their subjects captivating, that isn't my job. I can speak of the importance of English, Math, Science, History and pull a little into my topic, but<b> I will make my class one they want to come to.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>I will be that teacher who captivates them. </b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQVouclyeoAlDktbFVYeJXzgDXV3Oz3oq8WHbtmvQmC29-IA6Fx0fOYt8jqdQR1xTFDz_tugLa1wA7DdO-BsWpkiYg-0XHcUYEjXococcIOmaHEs92cbu__7mdgPPgGlXD2gc-uMBbmRmV/s1600/bigstock-Camp-Fire-At-Night-Flame-And--1821425+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQVouclyeoAlDktbFVYeJXzgDXV3Oz3oq8WHbtmvQmC29-IA6Fx0fOYt8jqdQR1xTFDz_tugLa1wA7DdO-BsWpkiYg-0XHcUYEjXococcIOmaHEs92cbu__7mdgPPgGlXD2gc-uMBbmRmV/s320/bigstock-Camp-Fire-At-Night-Flame-And--1821425+(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><br /></b><b>When I see the spark in their eyes, I will fan it with my energy, excitement, and education in the subject until it flames into a bonfire that will never go out.</b><br /><br />I will drive myself to be interesting and interested in what interests my students. I will be on top of my game and push myself to innovate more and be more.<br /><br />I will never let a filing cabinet of lesson plans determine what is next. I will take every lesson and add one innovative element and do ONE thing differently.<br /><br />I will take the lessons that I know bore students and <b>MAKE THEM BETTER.</b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFgSaA0qL6M5z5aoaGK66Sl8PmxkMS_PoTnI1b87CvXVwCWxtbyqlh0bvKuYCbwW6AUqNk_yKRtFN6yCsywk1MzIQatKw4jZ2PYDYcbXU6io5Xg3CSlGl8-4aCeiJ0yZ3xKslalxOzpJpI/s1600/bigstock-Six-Students-Running-Away-From-3917395.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFgSaA0qL6M5z5aoaGK66Sl8PmxkMS_PoTnI1b87CvXVwCWxtbyqlh0bvKuYCbwW6AUqNk_yKRtFN6yCsywk1MzIQatKw4jZ2PYDYcbXU6io5Xg3CSlGl8-4aCeiJ0yZ3xKslalxOzpJpI/s320/bigstock-Six-Students-Running-Away-From-3917395.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I will take those lessons that get students EXCITED and figure out what it is about those lessons and<b> DO THAT MORE.</b><br /><br />I'm not here to <b>ENTERTAIN </b>or <b>BABYSIT</b>, I'm here to <b>EDUCATE</b>, <b>ENGAGE </b>and <b>EXCITE </b>them about learning.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg66q8rDmKk16ZDEwuJqhIHDUxAitz8a5yrnSqPqEIg5R40fEPIhK03QhVtACu25RVUTNPKKGC5jRbPGO8MZj2hUanVB6Vw7mRmANWLRmfnFcL4i9KcuS4WpmtF5hH2y7mkQIPIKgp52tYZ/s1600/bigstock-Will-you-choose-I-am-a-Winner--21747167.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg66q8rDmKk16ZDEwuJqhIHDUxAitz8a5yrnSqPqEIg5R40fEPIhK03QhVtACu25RVUTNPKKGC5jRbPGO8MZj2hUanVB6Vw7mRmANWLRmfnFcL4i9KcuS4WpmtF5hH2y7mkQIPIKgp52tYZ/s320/bigstock-Will-you-choose-I-am-a-Winner--21747167.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I will gamify my classroom and allow them to <b>LEVEL up their learning</b> in ways that give <b>HONEST praise</b> for ACHIEVEMENTS earned and an <b>understanding of FAILURE</b> that it is part of the learning journey, not a dead end. I will never give <b>false praise</b> or let kids lie in thinking that they are failing when they are learning. I will never say a child is learning when they are just taking up space. <b>Honesty is part of what I do.</b> Students and teachers trust my word and integrity so when I speak, everyone knows it is out of a sincere heart.<br /><br />My classroom will be <b>a safe place</b> of mutual respect, common sense, and discipline. It won't feel like a toboggan ride down a virgin hillside, but an intentional trek on a <b>journey of discovery</b>.<br /><br />When I see the spark, I'll see the possibility another flame has begun.<br />When I see my students hurry to class, I'll know I've won. <br />When they are so <b>excited </b>that they are teaching me and each other more than I'm teaching them, I'll know I'm done.<br /><br />They have been captivated and are becoming captivating teachers themselves.<br />I don't make students, I inspire teachers, leaders, and thinkers to make themselves more.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzu74bf502lEiAbz91QXmxj1Vymuzv22bjwrwrxfffissR2dAVB9ap1r9lygEE80e_fBEukVPkB31my0UsvFnvmWG8Uemxu3neDtjtSG9Kf2HGPbmBucYmIZygeBNcmW0gzC-7lOpXL_4a/s1600/bigstock-Hand-Raised-Among-Others-Hands-4275615.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzu74bf502lEiAbz91QXmxj1Vymuzv22bjwrwrxfffissR2dAVB9ap1r9lygEE80e_fBEukVPkB31my0UsvFnvmWG8Uemxu3neDtjtSG9Kf2HGPbmBucYmIZygeBNcmW0gzC-7lOpXL_4a/s320/bigstock-Hand-Raised-Among-Others-Hands-4275615.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I don't make copies in school, I make <b>originals</b>.<br />My students aren't numbers, they are individuals.<br /><br />Each one has a unique mystique that I will use to pique their interest in a personalized way.<br /><br />While I teach among fantastic teachers, I have to teach like I'm the only <b>excited, professional</b> teacher that they will see all day. Not every teacher relates to every student. I will fall flat on some of them, but  I will work at being captivating, I am the only classroom I can control. I am the only teacher teaching this subject this year.<br /><br />Being captivating starts with lighting my own fire of learning, love, and longing every day.<br />I will <b>learn something</b> new every day.<br />I will <b>love </b>my students.<br />I will long to be the teacher who doesn't give up, gives all she has, and gives kids <b>hope </b>for their future.<br /><br />I will capture my own negative attitudes, trite platitudes, and wobbly incertitudes and turn them into<br />grateful <b>gratitude</b>, unstoppable <b>aptitude</b>, and a determined <b>mood </b>as I<br />and conclude that <b>my students will not delude me or elude me</b>!<br /><br />I will do whatever it takes to <b>reach </b>them, <b>teach </b>them, and <b>touch </b>them.<br />They are made in God's image and deserve my <b>respect</b>. I will be the <b>captivating</b>, <b>loving</b>, <b>unstopping </b>teacher that I want my own children to have.<br /><br />My classroom isn't about me, my convenience, or my own way - it is about my <b>students</b>. It is always about my students.<br /><br />I don't expect them to love me. I don't yearn for popularity. I want a <b>reputation</b>. A reputation for being <b>fair</b>, for loving my <b>subject </b>and for <b>loving </b>them.<br /><br />They are children and I am an adult. I have <b>control </b>over my emotions and can choose my response to life. I'll flee any lunchroom, locker room, or teacher's room that zaps my <b>energy </b>and <b>attitude </b>with negativity.<br /><br />I'll pray every day and look for new ways to reach these kids.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkND2fTgvwRa5kOlVCgs3PoQOGn3_HEEl2pYppsmG2YqK7RnVcDnsrHPmsJl4-DMVzECF06t8b5FuEoxmC-ewUXTApjlh4wGU_TZwGzmsTIBHKr6_rzmPg8MN-6rJb2w-bgn4BGuMfgKxH/s1600/bigstock-Student-collage-27335630.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkND2fTgvwRa5kOlVCgs3PoQOGn3_HEEl2pYppsmG2YqK7RnVcDnsrHPmsJl4-DMVzECF06t8b5FuEoxmC-ewUXTApjlh4wGU_TZwGzmsTIBHKr6_rzmPg8MN-6rJb2w-bgn4BGuMfgKxH/s320/bigstock-Student-collage-27335630.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />These precious students are mine<br />I'll <b>love </b>them all the time<br />To <b>teach </b>them things they couldn't<br />and lots of things they wouldn't<br />have ever done without me,<br />a teacher, the modern <b>nobility</b>.<br /><br /><br /><br />Photo Credits: <a href="http://www.bigstockphoto.com/download/bid-1435357/" target="_blank">Big Stock</a>, used under license. No permission for reuse.<br /><br /><div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_c.png?x-id=efaba677-cacd-487a-9fc5-77e453a4dac7" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div>

The Captivating Teacher Manifesto

I want to be captivating. I want to entrance students with my subject. I want students fascinated to walk into my classroom. I am the teache...