The Only People

One of my job “responsibilities” (if you could even call it that) is to keep up with the blogs our students keep – hardly a responsibility – I love this stuff! Although I’d rather be the one off in the world having this amazing adventure, I think being able to have the vicarious experiences is almost as good. (=

So I was reading a student’s blog…iIt was so great to read of her experiences – brought back tons of memories and amazing sentiments from the 2 short years ago when I was there. Also made me ready to jump on the next plane down to Mexico! (=

Anyway, one of her posts really struck me – it was a quote that I just fell in love with – so much depth and truth in a small paragraph. Check it out…take it in…read in 15 times…enjoy:

Nurturing Creativity

Well, I read Eat, Pray, Love a few years back and really enjoyed it – just watched Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk – makes me feel a little better and certainly reminds me alot of the great minds in the j. school:

Camp Grenada

I must take a poll: What is the best part of this video?

1. The way awkward ambient noise

2. The unnecessary spelling corrections

3. The fact that the singer sounds to be a 45 year old man. Why is he at camp?

4. The sheer awesomeness of this song / memories of singing it all the time in elementary school music class

One Of Life’s Lessons – You Can’t Take It With You.

I saw this a few years back, but thank you Zappos for tweeting this link – comes at a good time for me…and many of my peers, as we are right in the eye of deciding which of life’s paths to explore:

And yes, I agree, life is very much like a piece of music. The beginning and end are certainly important and telling points of the whole but the truth is, it’s the various components within (both a song and life) that are frequently overlooked, but quite often carry the most significance.

This past week at API we had our 2010 peer mentors in our Austin office from across the country for training. During the last part of the training, each peer mentor stood up and talked a bit about his/her experience abroad. Talk about inspiring.

A theme I quickly picked out from all the stories (and that brought back sentiments from living in Mexico) was learning the value of taking time to enjoy life and appreciate relationships, and that filling life with work and school is not how it necessarily should or needs to be.

Our peer mentor from Florence I think perhaps summarized it best -> There is always going to be more work or more school, but at some point, I learned there is more to life than work and school. When all is said and done, you can’t take it with you and it’s the relationships and experiences you that are going to be the most meaningful and memorable.

the things you learn when videotaping yourself…

When you start watching yourself on  tape – wow.  This summer during COLAB, I recorded a number of video blogs, and through these, I’ve realized a few things about myself – and of everyone really- the way we THINK we present ourselves, and the way we actually appear are frequently different…

When conducting an interview, who is doing most of the talking?  Unless it’s a conversation, you already know what you think – let the interviewee speak.

Facial expressions (do you look bored when others are talking??)

Silence is just as important as dialog – give time for thought and processing

Overused words/expressions

Are you speaking succinctly, or are you using too many words to say the same thing? (yes, that was intentional…)

Are you feeding answers in your questions?