Category: 30 Days of Blogging

30 Days of Blogging: Day 8

So I’ve been re-watching Babylon 5 recently and I’ve been struck by how timely it is for what is going on in our country right now. While the main storyline of a great battle between the forces of light and dark permeates the seasons, it’s the subtext of the anti-alien sentiment from forces on Earth that really speaks to our current time. The Earth First movement is very much like what Trump is doing now with his Make America Great Again, in fact in one of the scenes I could have sworn that one of the characters talks about making Earth Great Again.

The show is also masterful at discussing the causes for why the movement gets started: loss of jobs, fear of change and the awakening of a larger place in the universe for Earth. These are all the same things that the followers of Trump are feeling. Babylon 5 also does a good job of sympathizing with and showing the evils of these emotions that the characters deal with so that it creates a very layered story and is not just one dimensional of good vs. evil.

Another storyline in Babylon 5 though that is also part of our times is the conspiracy theories keep the mystery to some of the episodes. With the Psi Corp and the various government intrigues, it seems like stories that were taken directly from our own daily news. Unfortunately, while many of today’s conspiracies are being used by Trump and his brand of conservativism to drum up support for himself and have no basis in fact, the some of the conspiracies in Babylon 5 are ultimately true.

Well, as I re-watch the show, I wonder if Babylon 5 will get a reboot like so many other shows from the ’80s and ’90s. If it does, I wonder if it will have compelling stories of racism, conspiracy and some of the other themes that are present in today’s world.

30 Days of Blogging: Day 7

Today I set up my new phone, the Mate 20 by Huawei. I know the American government has been putting pressure on carriers to not carry Huawei phones because they are a Chinese company, but they make a great phone for the money and I’m not too worried about them spying on me. I can totally understand if you worked in some capacity for the federal government, that it would probably not be a good idea to have a Chinese phone. 

Otherwise, it is very much like my old phone, the Mate 10, just with updated hardware and software. The battery life has been awesome on the Mate 10 and I’m expecting similar performance from the Mate 20.  It should also have a great camera because it is just like the Mate 10, but better. I also like that it has a fingerprint sensor on the back instead of on a button on the front. Having it on the back is so much easier than trying to get a thumb on the front. 

What I wasn’t too excited about with the Mate 10 was the way they tried to make it look like an iPhone or a Samsung. The Mate 10 had design elements that were similar to both of those kinds of phones and to be honest if I’m getting a Huawei phone, they should just create their own style. On the Mate 20, I’m a little concerned about the fact that it has removable storage but its a Nano SD card which is something new that Huawei is trying to push on everyone. I wish they had just stayed with the regular micro SD card like everyone else. I guess if it catches on then I can say that I had one of the first phones to use it, but because its not by someone like Samsung, Google or Apple, it probably won’t be something that becomes standard. The good news is that the Mate 20 comes with 128Gb of storage so I don’t really think I’ll need any extra storage for a while.

One other issue that I’ve only been having recently is that I can’t get a good cell signal from AT&T at my house. It hasn’t been a big issue, since I can make IP calls from my house so I don’t need the cell signal, but I’m a little concerned because I don’t know if its a cell tower issue or a phone issue.

Well, now I get to live with my new phone for a while and I have to fend off my boys who both want my old Mate 10.

30 Days of Blogging: Day 6

This has been the hardest day so far for my challenge. Part of the problem with today is that it is a Saturday and I typically don’t do much on a weekend except getting caught up on the household activities that I have neglected during the week. This is also why I would be worried about becoming a full-time writer if that was the only job I had. Working and running the kids around to their activities during the week helps to keep me busy and give me things to think about. Today I mostly ran errands and did some yard work.

Managing the kids is also a big task, especially on a weekend when they don’t have any structured activities. They mainly just want to watch TV or play video games and I would like them to work on some other projects to engage their creativity. So I often have to come up with things for them to do just to keep them busy. When I think back to my own childhood I wonder if my parents ever thought about these things. I remember that most of my weekends as a child were spent in front of the TV or reading. I also had Legos and puzzles. My brothers and I would go outside on occasion and play with the other kids in the neighborhood, but on rainy days we were kind of stuck in the house. I can remember some fun snow days when we would play some board games.

But I don’t remember much interaction with my parents except for going shopping or running other errands with them. I know my brother would go fishing with my Dad down at the beach which was only a couple blocks from our house, but we were not allowed to go down there by ourselves.  When we moved to Germany for a few years during my pre-teen years, we had a little more freedom to wander the fields and forests that surrounded our housing development and when we got back I was able to travel around more on my bike to see my friends who lived further away.

30 Days of Blogging: Day 5

We adopted another cat a few months ago. His name is Finn and he was an all black kitten when he came to live with us. Now that he is almost a year old, he’s still as black as night except for his yellow eyes. He has turned from a feisty little kitten into a sweet little cat with his own personality. But he also has some magic about him. There has been more than a couple of times that he has appeared out of nowhere. One minute I look and he’s not there, the next he is staring up at me as if asking “you called?” I’m not sure if it’s because he’s so black that he is like a shadow and I just don’t know he’s there. Or if he really is magical.

I’ve always liked cats since I was introduced to them during my college years. My father never could stand them, mainly because he grew up on the farm and knew mainly the farm cats that would sneak around in the barn and get underfoot. He was more of a dog person and that’s mainly what I grew up with. But when I went to college and some of my friends had cats, I got to know them better and was drawn to them. They made great pets, especially while I was living from apartment to apartment. They are very low maintenance and don’t need constant care and walking. Cats are also great because as long as you give them enough food and water, you can leave them alone for a couple of days without needing to worry about them.

There were also a lot of myths that I had heard over the years about cats and their behavior. I’ve heard that cats were sneaky and selfish and aloof, but in reality, they are very caring, loyal and affectionate. They all have their own personalities and each one is an individual. They also pull their weight around the house by keeping the bugs and mice in the house taken care of. I’ve even used them in the yard to keep the moles under control.

Cats are special and magical and they make great companions.

30 Days of Blogging: Day 4

Today was a pretty good day at school. I enjoy teaching but when I can do special things with the kids and be creative, those are the best. One of my classes is a Digital Media class where I teach kids about photography, photo editing, and videography. It is an Enrichment class which means that I get students who are interested in this subject and want to be there. It also means that I have some freedom to teach it like I want and I don’t have to worry about tests and grades. So today we were learning about the photography technique of the Rule of Thirds. We went outside and the kids just wandered around the school taking pictures. It was great.

Later I got to teach another one of my favorite subjects, Moore’s Law, to my 6th graders. I like Moore’s Law because it’s the fundamental idea behind our entire computer revolution and what makes computer technology so great. My 6th graders were really getting into it and I have a few props that I use to demonstrate how things have changed over time.

Even my first class of the day, with my 7th graders, wasn’t too bad. They’re working on their Children’s Story Presentations which lets them be creative and I can wander around the room and see the great work they are doing. I also get to present to them a children’s story from past classes that help to get them motivated and give them some ideas for their presentations. 

So not a bad day, hopefully tomorrow will be just as good.

30 Days of Blogging: Day 3

Here we are on the third day and I’m starting to get worried about what to talk about. I’m trying to stay focused and just write about ideas that come to me but I’m still struggling with writing about things that I haven’t been thinking about for a while. I’ve even considered keeping a list of ideas as they come to me, which isn’t a bad idea and would probably help out.

I was also reading about one person’s journey to being a better a writer and how they would spend so much time just working on their blog site so that it was perfect. This was a professional writer who was trying to make a living by writing short articles and then trying to build those into a job by getting people to view them and also subscribe to his blog. But he realized that he was spending more time on blogging and not enough time on building relationships with his readers.

Right now this is not my problem. I just want to practice writing so that I can get better at that first. So I just need to keep working on coming up with things to write about. 

Another worry about mine is having the time to do this. Between working and running kids around to their activities and then getting dinner and sleep in there somewhere, my days are usually pretty full. Luckily I have been writing while sitting at Tae Kwon Do practice. It doesn’t make for the best environment, especially to focus but so far I’ve been making it work. Having the kids around is also a distraction, they do require a lot of my attention. Luckily I can use some of my training as a teacher to manage their time and behavior and still carve out some time for myself.

Finally, I have been getting the hang of Grammarly which does offer better suggestions to you if you pay for the premium version. I think that the basic will do just fine for what I’m trying to accomplish here.to me so that

30 Days of Blogging: Day 2

The hardest thing about this challenge is coming up with things to blog about. The hypocrisy, at least for my students, is that I have them blog every day for an entire semester, but I’m worried about doing it for just 30 days. 

The other thing that I have been thinking about as I start doing this is how much do I need to write about. I’m thinking that I should at least be writing a good page at least. The problem will be coming up with that much to write about every day. As a writer, I have always started the process by thinking about what I will be writing for a while before I even start typing. I like to have a good portion of it written in my head before I start. I’m thinking that with this challenge, it will be a little more writing on the fly.

I’m hoping that as I start to write each blog post something will come to me to write about and while I have a few ideas to get me started, I’m not sure how I will be able to maintain this. I’ve always been a planner and an organizer so this exercise will definitely take me out of my comfort zone.

One of the tools that I’ll be using to make me a better writer is Grammarly. I’ve heard about it for a while now and I thought that by using it for this blog would give me a good excuse to try it out. So far it’s only been finding a comma that I’ve missed here and there. I thought it would also be making suggestions for different words to use, but that must come with the paid version. This kind of sucks because if I start paying for it and it doesn’t do what I’m expecting will I be stuck with it for a period of time.

30 Days of Blogging: Day 1

The idea of practicing something for 30 days is something that has been done a lot recently but it has always been something that I have wanted to try. The goal in most of these challenges is to do an activity for 30 days straight in the hope that it will become a habit or at the least will change how you live your life. That’s pretty much what I want to do.

I’m starting by blogging here for 30 days in the hopes that I will get in the habit of writing a little bit every day. I have always wanted to be a writer and when I was in middle school, I was on the school paper (editor-in-chief in fact) and my teachers were all very encouraging about my writing. I had a weekly column where I would write about whatever theme I chose for the week. I would also type up stories on our old family manual typewriter for my other classes. Looking back now, they were imaginative but pretty silly. 

In college during my freshman year, my English 101 teacher also thought my writing was pretty good, She was probably a grad student so I’m not sure if my writing was “really” good or just perhaps just better than other student’s. Through the rest of college, my papers seemed to get good grades, not so much on the content but on how I presented it, the “story” I could tell.  

Being able to communicate complicated ideas in an easy to understand way had always been a strength of mine as I moved from job to job. I learned early that communication was a key skill that I needed to maintain and enhance. It has served me well and has probably lead to my success in my jobs of IT Support.

Now as I get older I realize that what I really would like to do is start writing stories like I did back in middle school. I miss those days and hopefully by practicing my writing for 30 days will help me get back to those times.