Category: Blogging

My Stolen Kindle

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A year after my first Kindle was stolen, my second one was stolen. This time I knew the thief. It was my middle child.

As if it wasn’t bad enough she stole my e-book, she’s using it to read about lying.

Yesterday I got an email notice that she just downloaded, “Pretty Little Liars, Part 8.” That’s right, she has read or listened to 7 previous “Pretty Little Liars” books.

How can the author, Sara Shepard, sustain so much pretty little lying? (I won’t worry. Ms. Shepard’s doing fine. I heard the series is a children’s bestseller.)

According to a recent front page article on The New York Times, my daughter, the e-reader, is not alone. Young Adult e-book sales hit 25 percent this year, up from 6 percent a year before. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/books/05ebooks.html

I guess I shouldn’t mind all the lying and thieving, since it has inspired a love for reading. Even e-reading.

But I really ought to tell my darling, “Give me back my e-book, you pretty little thief. Save your babysitting money and buy your own! ‘Cause I want to read about thieving and lying too!”

the opposite of cyberstalking

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Sometimes I worry that by writing so personally, I am opening myself up to cyberstalkers. It’s pretty easy to Google someone’s name and get all of their personal info. But why would anyone bother?

With the scourge of short attention spans, the cyberstalker might have the inclination to stalk me, but then follow through? Meh! 

I know when I’m half-way through typing in an old high school boyfriend’s name on Facebook, I find myself distracted. I’m looking up what my coworkers are making for dinner instead of checking up on Bob Stumpf. “I wonder what ever happened to Bob Stumpf? Oh, look, Julie’s making chili!”

I have Googled my ex and his name is very common — something like John Smith or Jim Brown. Okay, you got me, it’s Jim Brown. But after a page of Google links to the running back and then to the singer, I’m off on a tangent reading about the history of rhythmn and blues.

I did write about this in an earlier post. Are our short attention spans doing anything good for our souls?  http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/does-social-media-grow-your-soul/

What’s the opposite of cyberstalking? Cyberapathy! That’s the new trend in social media.

Posting Every Day

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I post every day. Okay, every night. I plan to do it for 66 days because that’s how many days it takes to make a habit. I’m up to 33 days. Half-way there!

I love it. I love mulling over what to write. I jot down ideas on the back of envelopes in my purse. Then, later, can’t decipher my handwriting. It’s big and scrawly. Other times, I know exactly what I wrote. Like I saw the phrase —  “glory = Riversd Park = walkin home as lmpsts light.” I’ll post that one in My Beautiful New York.

I like the feeling of scooping a story. I believe I was one of the first people to post about the new astrological sign (thanks to my friends at Happy Hour!). I did expect my readership to soar the night I posted that little piece of brilliance. http://mybeautifulnewyork.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/the-zodiac/

There might have been a slight bump in readers. I don’t obsess over my stats. I am just glad that I have readers. (THANKS!) And I’m doing it partly for myself — to figure out what it is I’m thinking.

And I don’t have to go on long in these blog posts. Once I hit 100 words, I figure I’m nearly done!

I want to conclude with a picture of where I was when I started writing this post — a new cafe on 120th and Broadway at Columbia University. How charming is this! I am in love. I am in love with New York City. This spot had been a construction site for years. Now it’s a lovely place to hang out and write in the early morning.

Go figure. Life is surprising. And so are the things you discover every day.

Writing about social media

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I have spent my entire evening writing a prayer service on technology for a daylong retreat.

I want to go to bed AND I want to keep up my daily post. So I’ll cheat (repurpose) and include here a bit from my retreat booklet.

I want the retreat goer to ask, What does social media do to your soul? (This may or may not make it into the final chapter.)

Assignment: take 15 minutes to quietly reflect on how we give or receive words of love through social media. Write in your journals these three writing prompts.

I was cursed by technology when ….

Then I was blessed by technology when…

Now I know I can write words of love through cyberspace by…

To toot my own horn here (without blowing it), I was pleased with the nice response to my creative writing prompts on this blog last month. http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/creative-writing-prompts/ Thanks to Dawn Herring, @JournalChat and #journalchat for choosing that post as the post of the week.

The Tyranny of New

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I love writing a new blog post, love a new dress, love a new episode of “Modern Family.”

New, new, new. Wait. What’s so great about new? What if old, old, old is best? What if recycled is as good, if not better, than brand spankin’ new? Why not repurpose?

See, I was considering what to write for this week’s assignment for my Bootcamp for Journalists class at Media Bistro. We were supposed to visit a new museum exhibit or review a new restaurant. I could not get any where. I could not think. Then it occured to me — repurpose (I love this word!) a blog post from my Travelpod blog about me and the girls’ visiting the New York Times Travel Show last year. It’s coming up soon. The convention would be new to my readers! Genius! http://www.travelpod.com/members/mbcoudal

At the New York Times travel show at the Jacob Javits Center, we went to Indonesia — the woman at the booth was super nice. She gave the girls magnets of a rice field.

We went to Israel where we ate tasty olives and some kind of chips.

We dug sand art in the Caribbean.

We watched penguins waddle at Sea World.

We went scuba diving in a warm pool.

The girls ascended the climbing wall several times.

We danced with teenagers from South Africa.

I want to go back to the travel show again this year. It runs from February 25 to 27, 2011 http://www.nyttravelshow.com/ I hope they have some new exhibits.

And BTW, I don’t think it’s called plagarizing if you’re stealing from yourself. Then it’s called repurposing.

The State of the Union Address

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The President said, “Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done.”

At that moment, I realized my daughters had homework to do but they were laying on my bed watching, Mean Girls 2. Yes, at 10 pm, because of the President’s words, I felt compelled to get up off the couch and tell them to turn off Mean Girls 2. I was not popular.

One of my daughters pleaded, “Let us stay up and do our homework.” The other literally pushed me away from the TV. This is what I deal with.

“We don’t make you not watch your show,” one of my girls tried to reason.

“That’s because my show, The State of the Union Address, is on once a year.” Why even bother.

I wish I knew and was like the president’s mother. When he was a boy, his mom made Barry get up early to do his homework.

Ann Dunham told him at 4:30 in the morning, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.” (But it paid off, because he’s now the president!)

But Obama’s right. It’s up to us. Even if it’s no fun. And it is no fun telling the kids to turn off the TV.  Or reminding them to do their homework.

The President was so right he received a bipartisan standing ovation for that line. Those bipartisan standing Os are not easy to come by.

It’s no picnic, buster.

Family Screen Time

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Sometimes I like staring at a screen with my kids, instead of staring at our own individual screens. Tonite the darlings and I played wii. We were yelling at the screen instead of each other. I played horribly in every single wii game, especially wii Fishing and wii Ping Pong. The kids enjoyed how bad I was. They bonded over my ineptitude. That was nice that they bonded.

We were all fairly exhausted. One of my daughters had been to the Met, the other to the Natural History, my son to the basketball court and me? I played games with my colleagues in the 3rd floor conference room at the Leadership Academy. Yes, the workplace academy was a big success. As I’ve mentioned, I love this kind of thing — a chance to deepen friendships, share positive ideas, strategize, commit to change, help other people become leaders. What’s not to love! 

One highlight for our group was learning about and applying the three levels of listening.

1) Listen to yourself. Your thoughts, feelings. (And yes, insecurity lives here.)

2) Listen to the other. With focus, as if to a lover.

3) Listen to the global environment. The vibe.

It made sense. Often I’m stuck in a personal, reflective space when there is a bigger mood I could be aware of.

I would pay (and I have paid) to experience this kind of personal growth — to learn how better I can understand and use my gifts. Instead, I get paid to learn. I love that my job involves so much learning — about myself, about the other, and about the global environment.

Okay, so given that I am competitive and I have to face the reality that I may never beat the darlings at any wii games, I can console myself that I am good at other types of games. Like the game of personal growth. I am curious about the world and what makes other people tick. I love encouraging others. I hope to continue to share this openness and positivity and teach my kids to value learning and their own unique skills.

I hope that the kids and I do not lose ourselves in screens, but if we do, at times, I hope that we can always stop our individual games and learn to play together. Even if we are not gifted with the necessary hand-eye coordination.

When work becomes play — be it the work of parenting or paid work — it really rocks.

Leading with Positivity

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Our workplace leadership academy begins tomorrow. I am a sucker for skills building. As I said in the application for the academy, I am a life-long learner. I’m excited. I love taking classes, especially ones where I learn about my assets. And I’m guessing Strengths Based Leadership has to do with, well, my assets. Confident people are productive people, says the leadership book, so bring it on.

Tonite, after taking an online quiz while sipping Chardonnay and ignoring my kids’s pleas for homework help, I discovered that my strenghs are Positivity, Woo, Communicator, Maximizer and Relationship. I think that’s what they were. I am also an ENFP according to Myers Briggs and a 4 or a 7 in the Enneagram. Know thyself!

Although these kind of personality or leadership tests help me get to know myself, they also remind me that other people have other ways. In fact, my way is not the only way. In the Five Love Languages book, which I read years ago, I recall that my love style is to value loving words. (But, okay, I like gifts, and all the rest of the love styles too!) So if my spouse brings me a bag of groceries instead of a kind word (ahem!) that doesn’t mean he’s wrong and I’m right. It just means we have different styles.

But now that I have learned my style is positive and encouraging, I can encourage him (and everyone) to be more like me. Ahem.

Busy or Crazy Busy?

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I know my kids are overscheduled. But I want them to learn to type (keyboard), play instruments, enjoy theater, and do sports. They’ll watch less TV, play less XBox, stay out of trouble, sleep better, have more fun if they’re active.

Being active is great for kids’ mental health. I read a study that showed Middle Schoolers were something like 30 times less likely to be depressed if they participated in team sports.

I know it helps my mental outlook when I work out.

I’m also more productive. Like the expression says, “If you want something done, ask a busy person.” I like being busy, just not crazy busy.

We may all be a little too busy, but we’re not all depressed.

I’d like to go on and on about this. And tie the kids’ activities into this theme of getting them unplugged. But I’ve got to tell them to go to sleep now. It’s late and they’re still doing their homework. I’ve got homework too. I just started an online class, Bootcamp for Journalists at Media Bistro.

Creative Writing Prompts

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A colleague emailed me that she was feeling creative and wanted some writing prompts. Here are the two I sent her:

  1. Write about the last time you were really mad. After 10 minutes, stop, breathe. Now continue the story but make it funny.
  2. Write about one memory from a kitchen in your childhood. Be sure to include the smells.

There is something warming about memories of food and there is something healing about making an infuriating incident comical.

Once when I did this first writing exercise, I wrote about how a fellow drama student blamed me for our acting scene having gone awry. To add a funny twist I conjectured that she had a crush on our teacher and was just trying to ingratiate herself in his good opinion by dissing me. I don’t know if my take on the incident was true, but writing that scenario made me feel better.

Writing naturally makes you feel better and boosts the immune system. Lots of studies show that journal writing every day can improve your health. I don’t know why this is true but I believe it has something to do with our human need to see things anew.

And the human body is just wired to love and respond well to stories, even the stories we tell ourselves, which is why we dream.

I have been thinking about performing and teaching because  this morning I taught three one-hour classes at my son’s school. I taught, “Writing and Performing Comedy.” Almost all of my 60 or so students were 7th grade boys.

In their comic scenes, the boys often made choices that had to do with shooting one another and/or putting on funny accents. I tried to encourage them to see that humor has to do with being authentic and saying the thing that everyone thinks but no one says. Comedy is about getting to some truth. Sometimes saying the truthful thing with a funny accent works, but not usually.

I love teaching but after the morning session, I was exhausted. I don’t know how teachers do it day in and day out.