Tag Archives: Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

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“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Don’t try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.”
― Philip K. Dick

“The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

“If you have to think about it twice you probably shouldn’t do it”
― Sophia Nam

“People make mistakes, it’s just part of life. But, it’s what we do with those mistakes that matters. What matters is what we learn from the mistakes, not what the mistake is.”
― Chris Hankin

“For the advice in a joke is sometimes more useful than the most serious teaching.”
― Balthasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

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I enjoyed most of the required reading in school.Then again, I’ve been a voracious reader my entire life!

Some of the famous writers, poets, and playwrights we studied in school were ones I was already familiar with. For example, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Langston Hughes were all appealing to me.

School introduced me to other storytellers that I hadn’t yet discovered such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, S.E. Hinton, and the person or people who wrote Beowulf. It took a little work to understand them and the cultures that created them, but it was well worth the effort.

I strongly disliked a small percentage of the writers we were assigned to read. A couple of them were dreadfully boring, and others talked about things so beyond my personal experiences that I struggled to relate to them in any way. Out of respect for those individuals, I won’t mention them by name. Not every author will appeal to every reader.

I sympathize with students who felt that way about most or every English class assignment. Yes, expanding young minds is a worthwhile goal, but some works have aged so much that they might be better suited for an adult audience than a preteen or teenage one.

This might veer a little off-topic for today’s post, but I think modern students should still study some classic works. There’s definitely something to be said for being familiar with famous stories that are referenced in so many later paintings, plays, songs, and novels.

However, I also hope that today’s kids and teens will have a chance to read some contemporary authors, too. Not everyone enjoys older writing styles or the themes they explored back then, and there are brilliant storytellers in every generation!

I’d rather encourage students to learn to love reading and to get into the habit of trying new authors, genres, and styles of writing as they come across them.

The classics that might not appeal to them today will still be there when they become adults and have more life experience with which to understand stories from past centuries. Then again, maybe they will be like me and quietly cross a few names off of their reading lists for good!

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I wish someone could invent an app that would get to know the user’s habits, preferences, talents, and interests in depth and without selling to or sharing any of that information with other companies. Instead, users would pay a small monthly fee to keep it going or opt to see ads if they wanted the free version. Companies who wanted to use it to find new customers, employees, or volunteers would pay a larger monthly fee.

We’d start using it by filling out a survey and sharing updates on how we spent our time in many different areas of life.

The app would then start to recommend people, experiences, events, volunteer gigs or maybe even actual job advertisements to us. The more information it had about your likes and dislikes, the better it’s recommendations could be.

For example, if you loved Jazz, it could let you know about any upcoming concerts or festivals within X number of miles or kilometres of your location. You could also opt in if you wanted to make friends or find romantic partners who shared that hobby.  Anyone who was a Jazz musician could receive tips on restaurants or other places that were looking for live musicians, and people or companies who wanted to hire one could do likewise.

There have been multiple times when I heard about something I would have loved to attend or apply to work/volunteer for after the fact. I’ve often wished for a centralized way to be notified about stuff I enjoy doing and meet others who shared those same interests.

If it were moderated correctly, I think it would be a fantastic tool for networking, finding a great job, building communities, making friends, meeting a new life partner, advertising to niche audiences, and so much more.

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Here are a few of the things that make me laugh. I hadn’t previously realized just how amusing I find dogs. It’s cool to learn new things about yourself, don’t you think?

This isn’t their dog, but this one is of a similar size and colouring.

A True Story:

One of my neighbours has a little dog who loves people. No matter who you are or what you look like, this dog hopes everyone in our area will stop to say hello and pet him for a moment. (Our neighbours are quite friendly guys who don’t mind it if others pet their dog as long as they know you).

This same little dog dislikes every other dog he meets. He barks ferociously at puppies and senior dogs alike.

It’s hilarious to me to see our furry little neighbour switch from wagging his tale at the nice humans to scaring off any dogs who get too close to him in the blink of an eye. Maybe he wants all of the human attention to himself?

Three Jokes:

Q. What does a dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac do at night?

A. He stays up wondering if there really is a dog.

A guy spots a sign outside a house that reads “Talking Dog for Sale.” Intrigued, he walks in.

“So what have you done with your life?” he asks the dog.

“I’ve led a very full life,” says the dog. “I lived in the Alps rescuing avalanche victims. Then I served my country in Iraq. And now I spend my days reading to the residents of a retirement home.”

The guy is flabbergasted. He asks the dog’s owner, “Why on earth would you want to get rid of an incredible dog like that?”

The owner says, “Because he’s a liar! He never did any of that!”

How does NASA organize a party?

They planet.

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 My first question when I read this prompt was, how long will the time capsule be sealed up?

If it’s something like 50 or 100 years, I’ll bet we’ll still have a great deal of knowledge about the books that were around now.

If it’s 1000 years from now, future generations might have forgotten a lot of what we know today.

Then again, we still have books in print now that were written thousands of years ago. I’d want this time capsule to be as historically useful as possible, so my answers will be a little off the beaten path as I try to come up with things that future historians would be excited to receive.

A Book of Covid-19 Memories by Ordinary Folks. That is to say, let’s include the stories of teachers, healthcare workers, morticians, people who were homeless, grocery store clerks and other frontline workers, people who caught Covid-19, people who were diagnosed with Long Covid after their original infection ended, and others who aren’t always included in history books.

A Photo Essay Book About Life in the 2020s. They’d include photos and brief descriptions of the people in them from as many different cultures and countries as possible.

A Book or Booklet of Predictions About the Future. Wouldn’t it be interesting for future generations to see what we thought their lives might be like in X number of years? I know I love reading predictions of life in 2020 that previous generations compiled.

A Book of Descriptions of the Daily Lives of Ordinary People. For example, they could talk about what they ate, wore, did, read, watched, and thought about. The more details, the better.

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While I’m not quite as deeply introverted as I was as a child, I still relish time alone to do quiet activities. Here are some of the things I do to recharge.

Nature Walks

There’s something incredibly soothing about walking in all sorts of natural settings, from forests to beaches to mountains and more.

This is something I can do with certain people as long as they’re not too talkative during the walk. Occasional bits of conversation are fine when necessary, but I find nature walks best when we can mostly walk in companionable silence and listen to the beautiful sounds of nature.

Time Alone

Other than the many usual sources of stress we all went through during the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the toughest parts of the past eighteen months has been how little time alone I’ve had.

This was especially true during the winter when Toronto was under a strict Stay at Home order and it was too cold to take a long walk outside. I love my spouse dearly, but I also desperately needed alone time during those long months spent at home!

Jigsaw and Sudoku Puzzles

I’ll dabble in other sorts of puzzles, too, but these two are my favourite kinds of puzzles.

It’s nice to sit quietly and think about something that is guaranteed to have an answer.

The satisfaction of figuring it out makes me quite happy.

Reading

This last answer is sort of obvious for us bookish folks, but some books are wonderful for recharging after I’ve done a lot of socializing.

Rereading old favourite stories is a particularly good way for me to recharge, especially if they have lighthearted subject matter.