Category — Microblog Mondays

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Back in college, retirees used to come in the summer and audit classes as part of an elderhostel.  I told myself that when I was older, I would go spend time at colleges around the world and learn new things just for the sake of learning them.

And I still plan to do that, but there is this huge sea of time between the end of graduate school and the start of my retirement, and I’ve been trying to fill it.  While I don’t have the time right now to go to a local college and take a class, I am deeply interested in things like Coursera that allow you to take college classes from afar.

I’m currently devoting this year to learning a new computer language.

What would you want to learn if you had the time and guidance?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I’m now on the second book in Lev Grossman’s Magicians series.  I started reading it because I was working on creating an interactive fiction game about witchcraft and Josh suggested it.  And while I’m still working on the game and love the world I’ve created, I am equally in love with Grossman’s world.

So much so that I can’t get close enough to it. If I were a cat, I would be rubbing my cheek against the world’s leg. I want that magical world to be a sleeping bag I can crawl inside, soft and comforting and warm.

This certainly isn’t the first time this has happened.  The first time was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  The second time was Phantom Tollbooth, but that book equally made me want to create my own worlds.  I’ve felt this way about Jasper Fforde’s worlds, and Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and certainly Harry Potter.  But every time I find a new one, it makes me so happy.

What book (or movie or television) world would you like to crawl inside?  (Knowing, of course, that you couldn’t get hurt by stray orcs or unforgivable curses.)

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Someone (not Albert Einstein) said the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  So we all must be insane because every year about this time, we reflect on our life and make up resolutions; goals for the new year.

And then not fulfill those goals over the next 365 days.

So I’m proposing something else.  State your resolution below.  But also peruse the list and see if there are any resolutions you can help someone else reach.  Know what they want to learn?  Give them some tips to get started.  Have a great piece of advice that helped you reach the same resolution in the past?  Pass it their way.  Consider it crowdsourcing the springboard to get your resolution going.

My resolutions are to become a professional game-maker by the end of 2015, and to restart eating well and get back to my target weight.

What about you? What are your resolutions?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Apparently, first date selfies are a “thing.”  As in, kids today are taking a picture together on their first date and posting it to Instagram with the tag #firstdateselfie.

It took me many months to work up the courage to take a picture with Josh.  I mean, taking a picture together — that was serious shit.  You didn’t just take a picture with someone you had just started dating.  Telling someone that you wanted a picture of them meant something.  It meant you wanted to show your friends what the person looked like.  It meant you wanted to look at a picture of them when you were apart.

I mean, I wanted a picture on the first date, but I would have never had the guts to take a picture.

The technology certainly existed back then — I had a point-and-shoot camera with film in my purse at all times — but I would have never had the guts to suggest taking a picture together on our first date.

What about you?  I think we would all want the picture in retrospect, but would you have the courage to ask to take one?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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An interesting breakdown in holiday commercials is how many show a person receiving something they want (I’ve been good all year and now I get a car!) and how many show someone giving the perfect gift (I know you so well that I got you the perfect necklace!).  My completely unscientific count shows more commercials of people happily giving than ecstatically receiving.  Though I think if we were all brutally honest, we’d admit that it’s sort of more fun to receive.  It makes me wonder what the psychology is behind the advertisements: what makes people buy more items if they see people happily giving than happily receiving?

Don’t get me wrong: it’s fun to give, but how many people choose to do a community service project to celebrate their birthday (other than Josh) and how many people want to sit back and be pampered and get presents?

So here’s the scenario (and be honest): would you rather host a blog giveaway for a really great item that you don’t own and know you made someone else really happy, or would you rather win the giveaway and get to keep that item forever?  Me?  I think right now that I’d want to win more than I’d want to host.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.