Tag Archives: travel

The Pomodoro Technique

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So, I’m sitting here writing a blog on something I’ve just discovered for time management.  A new friend of mine named Emilie happened to catch my attention & told me it was writing challenge.

Well, I’ve not updated my blog in about two months because I’ve been running nearly end to end for the last two months.  Going from work to weekend warrior feels about like turning into a werewolf.  I figure as many times as I’ve seen the grizzly transformation depicted in the cinematic tales of various incarnations of the Wolfman or werewolves I can say the weekend move to weekend warrior can be painful because it starts catching up with you & by the time you get back to work you’ve not totally come down from the high of what you were doing.  So, I quickly hit Google to find out what the Pomodoro Technique is & how it works.  Apparently it involves a kitchen timer that looks a bit like an apple or tomato that runs in 25 minute increments.

The goal is to divide up tasks your doing into with the timer & how long you will need for it.  The longer you need the more timers you need if the one task takes more that 25 minutes.  Yet the goal is bit different.  The goal is on improving your skill at the task you’re wanting to do.  Mastery.  I know it sounds a bit odd but I can see how this would improve upon a person in many ways.  You do not move on from that specfic task you’re trying to complete until you’ve mastered it.  For example this blog post will be approximately 25 minutes worth of writing while Emilie is focused on her task.  The point is to do all this with no distractions & complete focus.  I’m actually doing pretty good because I’ve kicked off the movie I was watching, & only have some ambient noise filling the room.  I may have to try this to music sometime & see if improves or totally messes up my concentration   This is really inspirational.  I’d also have to say different for me because it’s not something I’ve attempted at an recent given moment.  Though I’m a few minutes behind it feels as if I’ve already accomplished something by just typing out what the task is about.  I think I’ll move onto a small summary of what I’ve been doing since late summer & during the fall.

What’s been happening.

During the late summer I was informed by Autumn Bunner (http://Autumnbunner.com) she would be moving away.  My focus shifted on trying to get few more videos complete with here before she moved to Cleveland.  It took us nearly the month so September to meet up but when we did it was instant magic.  I keep telling her over, & over, & over to stop listening to the crowd.  You’re above the crowd, yeah I know her father has lightly scolded her for being an overachiever in a light hearted way but I’m more interested in her focus of being bullied.  I remember when I was young & went through it but nowadays it 100 times worse & emotional scars last way longer than physical ones.  Name calling, rumors, & even worse circulate through the school halls anymore.  Plus she speaks really well when talking about the subject.  I’ve tried to point out this is career, this something she can build upon & have her own life around over the next few years as she starts to wind down in high school & look past the dramatics of being teenager, to step fully into being a young woman eager to tackle the world.  That last part about her taking on the world, she can do it & don’t doubt her because size.  She could a big a New York City sky scrapper at least in intelligence alone.

From that I’ve tried to get to wrestling shows & help produce something a friend of mine kind of threw at me called To The MAXim which is online at http://tothemaxim.com

Between hitting the road with photography, shooting video, & social media I’ve filled up my time.  Though I still yearn to get into ghost hunting at some point.  Yeah, ghost hunting.  Paranormal.  Fits me well, right?  I find it good that I don’t live in a big city & can still do grass roots promotion too.  Not everyone is connected to the world wide web.  I wish it were true but honestly it’s not.  People who are online are a different breed, were quick to adapt except when facebook crashes & we panic because we can’t see what’s going in every one else’s lives via our digital medium.  I guess I’ll wrap this up because I went over my 25 minutes just to kind of fill this out & not leave you feeling bored for actually reading this.  Thanks for stopping by on my website.

A whole different world.

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I once joked with Scott James about making the team clean the gymnasium to teach them something.  At some points I’ve actually wanted to be serious about it but yet I know once again this summer the parents & boosters will be left to get ready for the three day summer shootout.

Yet, what if our society actually had not degraded to where someone is paid to clean. Well, one thing is I would not have this job. Is this me complaing? Not at all, I enjoy the community but sometimes I really do get sick & tired of how much stuff gets dragged into the building by everyone. I do it as attempt to better myself to move on past being a custodian. Here is an excerpt from an email my mother sent me from Japan in which she visited a middle school with my brother.  You may find it interesting.


“Wednesday”

“Yesterday was a very busy day.  I went with Ryan to his Junior High.  They call it a Middle School but it has grades 7, 8, and 9.  I was asked to introduce myself to the students in the three classes that Ryan had yesterday.  Those of you who are teachers will not believe the following:”

“Each classroom has two teachers.  The teachers change rooms the students stay in the same classroom.  There are 10 minutes between each period.  At no time did I see a student ask to be excused during the period.  At no time did I see any students outside of the classroom during the instructional periods.l  I am making the assumption that students use the bathrooms during the 10 minutes and anything else that is needed.  There is no disruption of the instructional time.  In two of the classes tests were given.  The students moved their desks apart while taking the test and then moved them back next to each other afterwards.  Of course, they were very quiet and respectful while I was making my introductions.  The teacher then quizzed them about certain things I had said in my introduction.  Students are assigned duties within the instructional day.  Some clean the board after each class, some carry their instructions textbooks back to the teacher prep area and I don’t know what else is assigned.  Students even come and get their instructors texts  from the prep area in the morning before the instructors go to the classrooms.  I was particularly interested in watching the students clear the blackboards.  Yes blackboard with chalk.  They meticulously go down the board until the entire board is cleaned.  It appears that two students are assigned this duty.  There is even a small vacuum in the room to clean the erasers.  No beating the erasers on the side of the buildings or the sidewalks to get rid of the dust.  If students erased any and there were erasers crumbs on the desk, it was after the instructional period that those little piles were scooped into their hands and placed in a wastebasket.  No one moved from their desk areas during the instructional time.”

“After class, I ate with the students.  Are you ready for this one???  The students served the lunch and cleaned up after the lunch.  Each student is responsible for bringing their own chopsticks.  They eat at tables with plastic table cloths on them and there are no napkins.  Students bring their own towels which are rinsed out and hung on drying racks in the kitchen.  After everyone is served, seconds are offered.  Any food not eaten is placed back in the containers where it was served.  I didn’t have the guts to ask if the food was offered again or what happened to the food.  I was afraid of the answer.  Once the dining area has been cleaned, then ALL the staff and students go to sinks in the hallway and brush their teeth.  Yes brush their teeth.  Each student has a cup with his toothbrush and toothpaste in it.”

“It was just so strange to see all these students standing at the sinks brushing their teeth.  Wonder what would happen if we tried this in America or had students actually clean the cafeteria areas?  Corporal punishment?  Teachers may also hit the kids and nothing is said.”

“After lunch, the students have a 20 minutes of exercise/study time.  There is a library but there is no librarian.  Students go in and get the materials that are needed.  No check out and once finished the students return them.  Students were everywhere in the building without any supervision.  Some were playing basketball, so were rough housing in the classrooms, and some were just in groups talking.  It was so strange to see them without any instructors near by and no issues.  Ryan said he has never seen an issues.  Two guys were arm wrestling in the classroom before the instruction started and teacher didn’t appear that she even noticed the behavior.”

 

What if western civilization hadn’t degraded in the last 100 years?  Where would we be?

 

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