Okay, I know the last post was about Humble Bundle’s Tom Clancy video game bundle, and two Humble Bundle posts in a row may strike some as somewhat repetitive. Plus, this particular bundle has been available for over a week, so I’m late. However, it’s “Force Friday” because of a Disney marketing strategy to sell toys that retailers apparently understocked on (I am so glad I stayed home today). The bundle is available for four more days. I haven’t spread the word about it. That equals three good reasons to talk about it, according to me. Oh! AND this bundle is audiobooks instead of video games, and it’s Star Wars instead of Tom Clancy, which make two more additional reasons, so let’s do this thing! Continue reading “Force Friday plus Humble Bundle equals Star Wars Audiobooks”
Category: writing
Understanding My Limits
So it’s been nearly a month since I last posted. Not good for my resolutions at all, is it? There’s a simple explanation, though: I underestimated the workload I was putting on myself with work, classes, student organizations, responsibilities at home as well as household projects, and extracurricular activities, and, in addition, overestimated my ability to juggle all of that effectively. I have a bad habit of doing that.
And as a result the blog has languished a bit. And by “a bit”, I mean almost a month.
Thankfully, however, we’ve gotten past midterms, and I’m taking this as an opportunity to get some posts in before I get swamped in more papers in a couple weeks. I’m scheduling some time at the end of each day to write blog posts (thirty to forty-five minutes a day is not a lot of time, after all), and I’m going to work at making this a habit so I can have more content on the blog.
In the meantime, enjoy a dubstep remix of Edward Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”. Yes, this exists, and it is hilarious and awesome at the same time.
My Resolutions for 2015
Every year I make resolutions about what I’m going to do for the new year, and every year I fall off the wagon sometime in mid-January, maybe February. However, despite all of these failures, I keep trying, because I have learned that eventually things seem to arbitrarily click into place. My best example of this in the realm of reading. For years I had a horrible habit of starting a book and not finishing it, not because the book was bad, or boring, but because I was distracted by the Internet. In an effort to break this habit, I started compiling a list of the books I successfully finished, but my lack of dedication to books created a lack of dedication to that list… until the summer of 2013, at which point I redesigned the list and tried again. This time, for some reason, it worked: in 2013 I completed thirteen books (eleven of which during the six months after the list redesign), and in 2014 I completed forty-three. There are no signs of me slowing down for 2015, either.
So here are my 2015 resolutions, and let’s see what sticks. Continue reading “My Resolutions for 2015”
Stronger Writers Are Better Workers. Who Knew?
A few months ago, the online grammar-check website Grammarly conducted a study with over four hundred freelancers to see what effect, if any, writing skills can have on career options. They published the results in an infographic, shown on the left (click to make it larger), which was covered by The Huffington Post, and I was asked to cover it as well (though being a student at university caused a several-weeks delay). In the interest of full disclosure, Grammarly will donate $20 to the charity Reading Is Fundamental as a thank-you for this coverage.
I work in a community college writing center, and am acutely aware of how poorly the K-12 school system in my area prepares students for college life. In fact, the community college system here offers dozens of remedial English courses per semester to prepare these students for the actual college English courses of ENG-1A and 1B. The K-12 system’s insistence on focusing on test scores and “measurable” results has resulted in hundreds, if not thousands, of young adults who are unable to clearly articulate their thoughts and ideas in writing. This simple fact holds them back from completing their college education, as nearly all college courses require quality writing to achieve passing grades, and rectifying this problem can and sometimes does require students to take an additional year of schooling. Worse, according to the study, this can even hinder their employment options!
Continue reading “Stronger Writers Are Better Workers. Who Knew?”
Summer Projects 2014
Many apologies for the silence on this blog for the last two months. I had a bunch of essays and writing assignments during the last half of the college semester and that pretty much took the writing itch out of me. Now, however, the college semester is over, and I’m getting myself back in action with a few summer projects to work on until the fall session starts. Continue reading “Summer Projects 2014”