by James | Jun 30, 2012 | Life
I have to to say if you had asked me 3 years ago what I would be doing now the answer would not have been sitting in a office in France preparing to start an English lesson. It’s a strange life and I’m not sure now what that means I’ll be doing in another 3 years.
In many ways that’s scary, in many more ways it’s exhilarating, intriguing and motivating. I would never have believed I could be good at English grammar until I had to teach it for thousands of hours, my grammar has always been abysmal. I would never have believed I could live in a foreign country for over 2 years, or speak a foreign language until I had too.
Being a teacher is probably not the career I will follow until the grave but it will always be a part of me, and through teaching I have learnt me a great deal about how we learn, about peoples temperaments, about language, culture and how we approach problems. Not to mention I can now speak happily in front of groups of people manage time a little better and generally I’m more confident when it comes articulating my ideas.
Not to mention all the time I’ve had to write up my various thoughts and clarify what I believe in life and what I want to be in the future.
It’s strange how unexpected events lead to better situations even if they seem at first to be a mistake or a problem, it’s all about framing I guess. Now I’m working seriously on my French, getting my fitness back to a good level and returning to programming.
I can’t wait to see where and what I’ll be doing in 3 years time :).
by James | Jun 20, 2012 | Random Links, Writing
I was reminded of Malcom Gladwell’s book on viral marketing ‘the tipping point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference’ when I watched this video. Just for the method of creating a sticky message easily spread. I haven’t smoked for a long time, and I realise the difficulties in giving up. The road to obtaining release is probably never traversed, I still to this day want a cigarette when I’ve had a drink or when I have a moment of indecision and stress.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/Sabd1SbyLgQ[/youtube]
The strategy followed in the video is a great one it makes people question themselves, it makes people realise the questions they wont ask. It needs to be pursued, cigarette companies are a multi-billion dollar industry based upon addiction and death. When was the last time we looked at that and thought “this is wrong”.
I for one wish that the selling of tobacco was banned but that probably wouldn’t stop the trade. We need better methods to stop children from starting and strangle this industry from the roots up.
by James | Apr 11, 2012 | Writing
To celebrate Easter, I pretty much slept, which, while doing wonders for my mental state and giving me a huge burst of energy, wasn’t exactly productive. I did manage to get a few things done, but mostly this weekend was about chilling out. I have done some small programming work, but I’m way behind where I’d like to be.
On another note, I am plowing through the 4-hour body by Tim Ferriss, and while I take everything with a pinch of salt, I find his writing at the very least amusing. I’d also note I find it convincing enough (after some Google time) that I bought a kettlebell for home training, weighing scales, and a yoga ball for crunches. I’m leaving off the diet now, but I’m interested enough to attempt it for a few weeks to see what happens.
School is good (teaching English, that is), programming PHP is coming back strong and clear; I’m even thinking of adding Java work to my repertoire as it is my primary experience at work (and still the most sought after language). Presently, however, I’m putting my efforts into PHP, and my project list reflects this.
The only thing I need to work on more is French; I intend to really start focusing on that after I get my Unit Tracker plugin up and running, procrastination? Maybe… But I want to measure a lot of what I do, and if I can do that and make my need into a project, it’s probably worth it.
