Room to Think

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...

Good morning! Today's TEDtalk Tuesday is by that hipster man up there, Joe Sabia.  He's known for things like videos like " Tupac in Kazakhastan " and " A History of Lyrics that Aren't Lyrics ". He's a technological storyteller...which means that he tells a story about the evolution of stories in under 4 minutes . And, he uses his iPad. So I'll keep my summary short so you can actually watch the video. He begins with the book. "The book was the king of storytelling. It was venerable. It was ubiquitous. But it was a little bit boring...In its 400 years of existence, storytellers never evolved the book as a storytelling device."  (about 10 secs in) Then he shows how a man named Lothar Meggendorfer   started the revolution that led to the evolution of how we tell a story. "But the way that humans tell a story has always evolved with pure, consistent, novelty." (3:15) And that's what I'm going to ...

Sorry guys. I know it's not Tuesday.  It's not even Thursday anymore, as far as many of you are concerned. Most of my excuses pertain to the recent PNW snowfall, and an onset of recklessness, laziness, procrastination, and a simple willingness to just be outside. What was I saying about general recklessness? I DID mean to post on Tuesday.  In fact, I watched several TEDtalks that day; videos ranging from a cool statistics program  with a speaker who is like a sports commentator, to a pair of hilarious jugglers , a man who nearly died from healthy living, and a slew of videos about the brain and how it works , and how that will change computing . So...I've been busy.  I just haven't blogged. I gave you a bunch of links to my recent escapades through TEDland, and since I know 99% of you DIDN'T watch my last TED video, I figure I'll just skip to my thoughts and let you explore as you want this week. The reason I watched so many TEDtalks on ...

12:34am I've decided that's it's not best or most productive for me to write later than about this time of the night.  Tuesday night got a little crazy--definitely a little out of hand.  And though when I read through those posts, my only thoughts were: "Wow, I can still write cohesively at 3 in the morning!" and "Wow, I can get incredibly carried away" especially when my fingers can manage to keep up with the strings of thoughts as they pass through the ticker in my head that is in charge of motor control. A wordle of Tedtalk Tuesday--Happiness vs. Satisfaction I apologize. I love words. I love having things to say, and multiple ways of saying them.  But sometimes I feel like I should revel more in the beauty of being succinct. Last quarter I took a workshop class where I was required to write critiques for my classmates' work, and in return, they would critique mine.  It was  Kate Trueblood's senior seminar for fiction writing, s...