Room to Think

Guess what? It's TUESDAY. And I'm here. Granted, it has taken me twenty days since my last post, and I'm about to go to volleyball, but I have managed to make time for this, and all of you. So, I watched a couple TEDtalks in my quest to find one to bring to you today. One was "Why Google Glass?" by Sergey Brin. He's a Google co-founder, and now the leader of their Special Projects. The other was "How do you get your ideas to spread?" by Seth Godin. Personally, I don't think Sergey's talk was all that spectacular--not really something I would originally consider as "worthy" of the TEDtalk title. Many other people agreed with me that his talk was somewhat lacking...It was really just a commercial that introduced Google Glass, which then launched an interesting philosophical discussion in the comments. I wasn't originally going to post this as my blog topic, but then I found myself asking all sorts of questions...about...

I suppose I should post something  tonight. I've been feeling kinda bad the last couple weeks because of how sparse and lacking in quality my posts have been. Especially  because I keep seeing my pageview count continuously increasing. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing that. But I love it more when I know I've posted something good recently, and frankly, I don't think I have written anything worthy of the number of pageviews I've gotten since my last post. On the other hand, I'm so glad you like my blog! I'm so glad you keep coming back, and I really wish I had more time and energy to keep up with it like I used to. On Tuesday this week, I happened to watch this TEDtalk by iO Tillet Wright. It came up in my facebook feed because of course  I follow ted.com on facebook. To be honest, I wasn't that interested in the content to begin with. If you follow me regularly at all, you'll notice that the TEDtalks I tend to cover involve design, vide...

Given that this is a new year, I think I should be allowed to dictate a new schedule! I officially decree that we're going to do an experiment. TEDtalk tuesdays will now be on Thursdays...and fingers crossed that this will allow me to keep up with things. This is only temporary! (unless it works, of course) I've added about 9 hrs a week of vball to my new schedule, and usually there are team dinners afterwards, and therefore I've begun a new crazy habit of coming home around 11:30 on Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (my vball days). And while I would normally be fine doing a late (and typical!) blogsfrombed post, I just can't handle 3am mornings when I have to play hard later on (and get up for the internship...please note the new internship zombie hours). SO, without further time or sleep wasted, please expect this week's TEDtalk Tuesday...on Thursday.  =) Happy frigid Tuesday, everyone! Cross your fingers that we get snow soon, or all this cold is SO not worth...

So apparently I really need to work on keeping promises. I keep telling you "I'll follow-up on this post tomorrow"...and I never do! Not in reference to the "tomorrow" bit, anyway. I do try to finish them eventually . Usually it's before my next blog day. That's why I end up with so many TEDtalk Thursdays, I think. Wednesdays are just so busy! Turns out that my new schedule makes Thursdays busy, too.  hmm...Oh well. 3am on a Friday is still Thursday to me, as you all well know! Last night I introduced you to Tim Leberecht, a marketing guru who is used to a certain degree of chaos. Every time I listen to the video, I swear he says that he works for a company called "Frog", where one of their "giving employees more control" exercises is speed dating all the old and new employees together. **I do hope you noticed that his talk is under 7 minutes long. I also hope this means that you actually did watch it.  =D With my new inte...

Happy Tuesday! I'm certainly happy. It was a good day at the new internship, and I only had to sit in traffic for an hour in trade for 3 glorious hours of hardcore volleyball. I haven't played at that level in a long time. I'm positive the endorphins are still flowing. It's also been a long time since I've hurt as much as I know I will in the morning. So in favor of stretching and sleep, I'm going to make this a two-part TEDtalk Tuesday/Wednesday-- just give you the TEDtalk tonight, and continue the discussion tomorrow. Hope you're all right with that. I'm going to go do yoga now before the tendon in my knee decides it's never going to stretch back out again. See you in the morning! P.S. This guy's name is Tim Leberecht. He's a marketing guy. I'm trying something new this week and posting a business talk, instead of my usual technology-psychology-design-video game topics. It's less than 7 minutes long, and full of pictures.  =...

This lovely lady's name is Jane McGonigal. She's a game designer who has spoken at TED conferences before, but recently had a pretty bad experience with brain trauma.  I like her particularly because she starts off her talk letting us know that she plays her life as a game. She's a gamer I relate particularly well to. She likes goals. She likes secret missions and side objectives (the side objectives are my favorite. I often play those before I even get to the main storyline). And she treats this talk the same way. Her goal is to extend our lifespan by 7.6 minutes. The only downside of this goal is its measurability...but it's a nice way to begin a talk.   For now, I'm just going to post the talk...seeing as it's 1am already. I'll do a follow-up either tomorrow or the next day(eek! double post on Friday!), but this week has really been a busy one. So, I'm treating it like a game, and hitting as many objectives as I can without skipping a...

Fun Fact: The ancient Greeks used to have spoken word poetry a sport in their Olympic games. As an English major, I never took the chance to really study spoken word poetry...sometimes known as slam poetry, or performance poetry. But even that's not quite right. Spoken word poetry really means that you're breathing life into the words on a page. I always appreciated spoken word--I loved watching poetry slams. But since I never considered myself "good at poetry", I tended to steer away from the classes I had a hunch I wouldn't do well in. That means I missed out on some pretty badass classes. Those poets know how to express themselves. They know how to connect.  They know how to make their listeners feel. "If I should have a daughter, instead of "Mom", she's gonna call me "Point B." Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I'm going to paint the solar system on...

It's midnight. Here's the video. It's about the benefits of listening first.   About why the locals might just have a better idea of their situation than you do.  About how respect one way usually comes back.  And about why following passion is the fastest path to growth. Also, this man says "Forget about it!" in exactly the same way that my favorite volleyball coach used to. (That's you, Aio.) I had a lot of mind-wander connections to share with you tonight--about the million other things this talk could apply to-- but I'm wondering if I should just shut up first and ask you what you think? =) Happy TEDtalk Tuesday!

For those of you who are following, I got caught up watching talk after talk tonight and never got around to writing anything. Now it's after midnight, I'm at risk of being sick for the third time in a month and a half, and I'm exhausted. So, I leave you with these fine gems until I can get back to them. Their lessons? Listen to beautiful music, allow yourself to be awe-inspired, and don't be afraid to let your mind wander. You'll be happier** for it.  Enjoy.  =) **update below. 10pm UPDATE: Okay, I really hope you enjoyed the music by the Earth Harp lady (it's so soulful and wonderful, how could you not enjoy it?), because clearly I didn't watch that mind wandering TEDtalk before I posted it. In it, the guy pretty much suggests that letting your mind wander may, in fact, actually be responsible for your unhappiness...and therefore probably does not make you happier. You caught me. I am a slacker. But I will remedy that now. "That guy...

First off, if you're reading this and you haven't voted yet: CLOSE THE INTERNET AND GO VOTE.  (actually, the internet was a fairly useful tool to me for my voting research this year. I learned what I couldn't learn from the widely distributed voter's pamphlets.) But I don't know how many people you need to tell you to go vote. They're important choices, and we  all  help make them. You can see the rest of the post by clicking the "Read more" below, AFTER you've turned in your ballot. >.>

Good evening everyone! It has been constantly pouring here in the southern Seattle area for almost 24 hours now...actually, that's probably not true. There was a nice little break in the middle of the day where it was only misting, but the sort of mist that soaks you anyway. To be honest, I love this weather. In fact, I wish it was windy and stormy on top of that. At least then it'd seem more like home (yep, I'm homesick for Bellingham, but the rain is still nice.) The sound of the pounding rain often causes me to  look out the window at the streetlamp outside to see how much water is falling...and to see if it has turned to hail yet. That said, I don't like the traffic that the rain brings, and thus, I've spent the day inside (mostly), working on this blog post and other computer-y things while I listen to the rain drown the world outside. To my credit, I have not touched my xbox all day, though I still haven't felt particularly productive. Coincidenta...

Boy, I think I need to come up with a new schedule. I got a new job last week! I'm coaching my old high school volleyball team.  =D  Yeah, I play volleyball...apparently well enough to coach too, since my girls haven't lost yet with me as a coach (Shhh, that's only two games, but hey, it's something!) The reason I think I need to come up with a new blogging schedule is because we have games on Tuesdays and Thursdays--so I don't get home until 9:30 or 10 some nights. Those nights make for rambly, rushed, half-assed blogs, or me not wanting to roll out of bed the next morning because I didn't get to do yoga or get enough sleep. Like tonight. Here is tonight's TEDtalk.  It's given by a woman named Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist. Since I'm currently looking for another job to supplement my meager school district income, I thought her talk was particularly relevant to the interviews I'm bound to have in the future. She claims that she can ma...

I've been out of the house on a scavenger hunt for men's jeans today, but when I got home and checked my email, guess what I had in my inbox???? a priority invite to TEDxVancouver!!! Okay, so I did  sign up for priority registration notifications....and everyone who clicked that button gets one of these...but...but...it's exciting anyway. I sent a request to be an intern for TEDxVancouver back when I lived in Bellingham, and I'm kinda wondering if they'll contact me for volunteers now. Either way, this is almost as good as getting an email from Chris Anderson himself, although he won't be present at this one. I also don't know if I"ll be attending.  It's very soon, and this ticket reservation I got expires in three days, and $100 is a lot of money for an unemployed potential technical writer, especially when gas is over $4 again.  =( But if any of you are interested in driving up to Vancouver to check out the whole day, just clic...

Hello everyone, I've had a busy day and my legs are aching with that not-enough-sleep feeling. Lately, I've been having nightmares with spiders infesting my room.  At least when I dream, no one is chasing me down a street calling me a failure (That would mean you have Nightmare disorder). I originally wanted to find a TEDtalk for one of my best friends, Donelyn, who is starting her own blog about engineering and design and activism. She's a wonderful writer, and she's starting to figure out what she's doing in life and I'm all for it. Originally I had wanted to do today's post on a TEDtalk relating to her. That TEDtalk will have to wait for next week. I have several in mind, but I don't have the time to write and reflect on them right now, given that I forgot it was Tuesday and spent 4 hours at a Starbucks caught up in conversation with a fellow writer. Now it's after midnight and it's not even Tuesday anymore. You know my rules, tho...

Hi everyone! My page-view counter is increasing again, thanks to you loyal readers, whoever you are. (*hint hint* there's a comment bar at the bottom!) And, in celebration, I'm actually going to post on-time for you. The TEDtalk above is given by Eli Pariser, the ex-Executive Director of MoveOn.org . I feel like I should have blogged about the content of his Talk before because I've been mulling it over my head for a long time. The observation is that "personal search" is changing the way the internet works. Those of you who took my Search Engine Optimization (SEO) workshop during Nicole Brown's class last spring know what I'm talking about. But if you aren't aware of it, it just means that Google no longer has standardized search results. It means that if you and I type the same thing into Google's search bar, we won't see the same results page. That this same phenomenon is going on on pretty much every site you visit; most notably...

Quite frankly, I feel like I'm making a miracle right now just by starting this post. Blogging has dropped out of my life in the past couple months, and I have to apologize. Just so you know, about 30% of that apology goes out to you guys, my few and faithful readers.  The other 70% is an apology to the academic, driven part of myself that has been neglected in favor of lazing around playing Skyrim, not finding a job, not updating my resume, and generally enjoying not having to go back to school.  That said, I'm not a fan of my brain turning to mush, and with all this free time, I can either start writing again, or continue doing craft projects until my graduation money runs out. I'll do another post just for the reading and crafting I've been up to. (I promise.) For now, I think it's appropriate, that since it's Tuesday, that I should reintroduce TEDtalk Tuesdays.  So...this is where my brain is at. I'm learning about my favorite animal--the ...

Hello again...finally. I apologize in advance for my text-heaviness and rambling.  Someday I'll edit my thoughts. I thought I'd come back into the blogosphere with a video to share with you all, given that I finally have time to enjoy my video games after such a hectic quarter .  --Also...I'm on a video game binge, I realize.  I do have other TEDtalks in my queue. promise. =P This TEDtalk is a long one, so I'll split it into two parts (because I'm feeling lazy tonight and actually don't feel like thinking at all). Essentially, David Perry started out life learning how to program computers. And he didn't program them to help kids with their homework--he made video games. In his talk, he essentially covers the past and future of video games...he has a cool timeline video that he updated from a previous TED conference that tracks the audio and video quality over time (only until about 2007...it's a bit outdated).   W...