Life Is Illusion...

• Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe • Nine Inch Nails - Head Like...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:42:48 -0700

• Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe
• Nine Inch Nails - Head Like A Hole

Alternative download link: http://official.fm/tracks/PCKP

Wow, thanks folks!
I should point out carly_rae_reznor had the idea, I just cobbled them together.. http://www.reddit.com/r/mashups/comments/19m1nt/a_request_for_which_i_lack_the_technology/

Photo

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:10:55 -0800

Photo

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:46:34 -0800

Chicken pox! Day 2…oatmeal baths, lavender oil, bentonite...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:43:06 -0800

Chicken pox! Day 2…oatmeal baths, lavender oil, bentonite clay.

fckyhdkkh: There is a term in Buddhist psychology that can be translated as...

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 20:54:53 -0700

fckyhdkkh: There is a term in Buddhist psychology that can be translated as...:

fuckyeahdukkha:

There is a term in Buddhist psychology that can be translated as “internal formations,” “fetters,” or “knots.” When we have a sensory input, depending on how we receive it, a knot may be tied in us. when someone speaks unkindly to us, if we understand the reason and do not take his or her words to…

Kickstarter - OFF THE RECORD

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:55:53 -0800

Kickstarter - OFF THE RECORD:

OFF THE RECORD explores mental health issues, intimacy and the struggles a woman goes through being a survivor of sexual abuse. Being the lead actor as well as the director, I plan to push the boundaries (as you can hear by the song choice in the video for kickstarter) and express organically very controversial and taboo topics.

Support Digital Dharma!

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:17:00 -0800

Support Digital Dharma! :

Donate to the Kickstarter Campaign only 21 hours left and Just under $5000 needed.

Digital Dharma uncovers E. Gene Smith’s 50-year journey with renowned scholars, lamas and laypeople as they struggle to find, preserve and digitize more than 20,000 volumes of ancient Tibetan text. Crossing multiple borders – geographic, political and philosophical – Digital Dharma is an epic story of a cultural rescue and how one man’s mission became the catalyst for an international movement to provide free access to the story of a people.
About the Mission

In 1959, Tibetan villages were attacked and hundreds of monasteries were destroyed, causing irreplaceable ancient Sanskrit and Tibetan writings to disappear. This tumultuous time put the history of the entire Tibetan culture in peril - and called a man from Ogden, Utah to his destiny.

E. Gene Smith became the unlikely leader in an effort to rescue, preserve and share the riches of a 1,500-year-old seemingly lost Tibetan literary culture. Smith’s mission crossed geographical, political and philosophical borders to rescue this chronicle of mankind’s advancements—from the medical to the mystical.

With the Buddhist thought at its core, his goal was to digitize the more than 20,000 volumes he rescued in order to provide free access to the story of a people. With technological advancement speeding forward, Gene’s vision was to make these texts accessible to everyone, even in the most remote monasteries and villages, and preserve the knowledge they contain for humanity.

Photo

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:28:48 -0800

http://bethelesson.com/2011/10/12/morning-meditation-with-the-kid...

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:27:02 -0700

http://bethelesson.com/2011/10/12/morning-meditation-with-the-kids/

Scene: The master bathroom/bedroom. Mom is sitting in a chair.

Mom: Pretty Eyes’ I think as part of our morning routine we should include meditation. You know part of waking up, brushing your teeth, washing your face, getting dressed preparing for our day.

Pretty Eyes(7 year old dear daughter): I do not like meditation.

Mom: Why? What is it about meditation that you don’t like.

Pretty Eyes: It’s not playful.

Mom: Ok. Now I want you to look at the other side of meditation and tell me one think that you like about it.

Pretty Eyes: One thing that I like is sitting. I love sitting because you don’t really have to do much, you just sit. That’s why I love the sitting.

Enters Singing Bird(6 YO DD), she wakes up out of bed.

Mom: Singing Bird, how do you feel about meditation?

Singing Bird: Gives mom a kiss. (no answer to the question)

Pretty Eyes: One thing I like is sitting.

Pretty Eyes sets up the meditation cushions.(A Zabuton and a Gomden)

Enter Giggle Lips(4 YO DD): Naked and putting her panties on because she just got out of the shower.

Singing Bird: laughing(no words just laughing and looking at Giggle Lips.

Enter: Buddy the almost weiner dog. (He came straight in and went directly under the chair Mom is sitting on.)

Giggle Lips: laughing and looking at Singing Bird.

Pretty Eyes: (takes a seat on the meditation cushion. She has the singing bowl on her lap.)

Mom: Singing Bird, how do you feel about meditation?

Singing Bird: It makes me feel calm.

Giggle Lips: I feel like pooping meditations out.

Mom: And how does that make you feel?

Pretty Eyes gets up and lets Giggle Lips sit on the cushion.

Everyone sits on the floor and Singing Bird sits on the cushion to lead meditation.
Singing Bird leads a meditation by ringing the gong.

We sat for 5 minutes. After the time was over and the gong stopped ringing we are all silent still.

Mom: What did it feel like to be leading the meditation

Singing Bird: After every meditation its good to have a mint. (As she grabs a bag of mints from between the mattress of the bed!)

Pretty Eyes: It lets you clear your mind and dump stuff out of your brain.

Buddy always meditates. He is so good at just sitting there.

The girls decided that we needed to make a play and had me type it all out as they were doing it!

Math. Do Some. Learn Some. Teach Some.

Tue, 31 May 2011 21:51:06 -0700

This method says if you can count to nine, identify a rectangle, and tell if two items are same or different, I can teach you math. Period.

I have three girls ages 7,5,and 4 that I will be using this method with. I am a beginner to teaching math. I will attempt to reorganize the information that is on Crewton Ramone’s House Of Math . com into an order that is useful to me. Being a beginner, it is very helpful to have a set of rules for teaching a method I have never learned or taught. In this first post I will highlight the rules. You can learn with my girls and myself as we attempt to discover what math is really all about. I own quite a few of the manipulative kits and I will help you acquire the manipulative/blocks as cheaply as possible when you are ready to get them.

First things first. I am taking things directly from http://www.crewtonramoneshouseofmath.com/ Most of it is word for word but on occasion I will add my two cents! Follow his blog here CRHOM Blog.

You can go there yourself and view all the amazing information he makes available for FREE. Then support him by sharing the website with your friends and purchasing a password to the protected pages. It is well worth the few bucks he is asking for. When you feel the information he has provided is worth it, you can go back and donate more than the measly amount he asks for.

Here we go: You need to know the rules of teaching with this method.

Math is counting but it leads to critical thinking skills, and this involves the economy of thought expressed with symbols. Math IS NOT just computation.

The Five Basic Concepts.

1. Mathematics is the study of numbers and all we can do with numbers is COUNT.
2. The concept of SAME. The highest number we can count to (in base ten) is 9, the numbers tell you how many the places tell you what kind. Before we can count they must be SAME.
3. We form rectangles to facilitate counting.
4. O
Hero ZERO.
5. 1
No Fun Get Back To One. NFGBTO.

Presenting the five basic concepts.
When presenting the basic concepts always ask questions. Whatever the answers are give positive feedback, and lead them to the answer you want. Remove the NO from the lesson. This takes practice. Building confidence and self-esteem is a major part of this method. One of my favorite teachers Mr. Ripa used to say ” When you are listening to a teacher and they repeat themselves over and over again, take note of what they are repeating because it is really important!”

Remove the “NO” from the lesson.This is a very difficult thing for some people. Stay positive. You want to keep math positive and fun.

Refrain from saying NO during a class or lesson or when you are directing their discovery. I mean it. Figure out how to express yourself in the positive. If you think they are getting it “wrong” keep in mind they are just getting more information. If they are building tens and they try the 4 with the 7, let them. Get out-of-the-way. Watch them discover the right answer for themselves. The blocks are “self-correcting.” The child can see that 7 + 4 is longer than a 10 if it’s out of the trays. Or it doesn’t fit in the tray and they will see that too. If you ask them a direct question like “show me the six” and they show you an eight, say “that’s an eight, show me a six.” Tell them what they have, not what they don’t have.Tell them when they get it right, not when they get it “wrong”. Keep your lesson positive. You will get into the habit of staying positive. All it takes on your part is a willingness to be aware of what you are saying. When you catch yourself, you can stop and rephrase what you were saying.

Three Period Lesson
Use a “three period lesson” to introduce whatever concept you are working with ALWAYS.
1-This is.
2-What’s this.
3-Show me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIA-3jrULBs&feature=player_embedded]

Directed Discovery
Another concept for teachers is “directed discovery”. You get them to “discover” math concepts. It doesn’t matter that we all know 3 three’s make nine and that nine is square, the student doesn’t know this yet. You direct them to discover these facts. You must become masterful at this. It takes a huge amount of patience. You have to stop yourself from telling them things that they are supposed to memorize and start getting them to discover math concepts and facts for themselves. Direct their discovery don’t do it for them. Show them. Give examples. Let them reach mastery…and demonstrate that they have done so.

Note: Directed discovery is not letting the students do whatever they like. The lesson is on whatever it is. YOU the teacher are teaching, you know where they are going…you just point them in the direction and let them figure out how to get there.

To this I add make a plan going into the lesson on what concept you want to work on. It can be easy if you haven’t taught math before to get distracted by the little ones! They are so great at being creative:-)

Place the student in a situation where they cannot fail.

Place the student in a situation where they cannot fail means just what it says: put the student in a position where they have no option but to get it right. The blocks are self-correcting. If you are building addends, use the tray to build tens. If you put a nine block in there it is “visually obvious” that a one is what fits there. The student may try other blocks just for fun but they wont fit. They can not fail to make a ten…same with the other addends.If you are building squares and doing square roots they can see if the shape they have is square. When factoring or doing division they can see if they have a rectangle or not…It also means the first two or three times you give an example and then give a very easy problem for them to try by themselves. No challenge, you are finding out if they understood your examples and got the CONCEPT. Redundancy is good to start. The three period lesson is a good example of this.

Stages To Mastery.

Pre-Stage one: ignorance/incompetence.

Stage one: Unconscious incompetence, makes errors without realizing they are making them, or takes a test and is not sure how well they have done.

Stage two: Conscious incompetence. Becomes aware of mistakes right after or while the mistake is being made.

Stage three: Conscious competence. Mastery. Gets answers right consistently but has to think about it, work at it.

True Mastery: Unconscious competence. Gets answers right without thinking much about it, knows what to do, how to do it, when to do it and why. Can teach others and can teach others to teach others.

Which ladder would you rather climb?

In this method we always start super easy and STAY super easy, the answers are obvious (visually obvious) and pretty soon 7 year olds are showing high school students how tofactor polynomials…build their confidence by putting them in a position where they will not fail.Increase degree of difficulty gradually. Once they have mastered a concept, if you ask them if they want a problem that is hard or easy often times they will say HARD. Once in a while they say “medium”. Everybody loves a challenge when they are ready for it…and they feel confident. Building confidence and self-esteem is a major part of this method.

Economy of Symbol.Use the fewest symbols possible to represent the idea or expression we are describing. I often used to say mathematicians are lazy they don’t like to write a lot of symbols. Now I usually say they are “efficient”…It’s easier and faster to use 2⁴than to write: 2x2x2x2 or 2*2*2*2 or (2)(2)(2)(2).

It very similar to using the fewest pieces possible to “build” a problem with the blocks. Rather than grabbing a bunch of units it faster and easier to grab 4 four blocks for 16. And super easy to see 16 is square…with individual units arranging and even counting the blocks takes TOO long.

Eventually this leads to one of the points I make about mathematics: math is counting but it leads to critical thinking skills, and this involves the economy of thought expressed with symbols. Math IS NOT just computation.

The masters come up with formula that have the fewest symbols possible. They are often described as simple, beautiful and elegant, descriptions that sometimes baffle the layman who think about math in no such terms. The formulas mean nothing if you don’t know what the symbols mean, and are useless.

This information needs to be digested and contemplated. These are just highlights from theCRHOM Basic Concepts page.

New Web Site: Be The Lesson

Tue, 31 May 2011 21:46:33 -0700

New Web Site: Be The Lesson

Photo

Sat, 14 May 2011 15:45:02 -0700

Lost Memo saying goodbye. I did my best to make her comfortable....

Sat, 14 May 2011 15:39:05 -0700

Lost Memo saying goodbye. I did my best to make her comfortable. She was enjoying the carrots.

Peaceful Warrior

Wed, 11 May 2011 09:00:41 -0700

A warrior does not give up what he loves, He finds the love in what he does.

A warrior is not about perfection or victory or invulnerability. He is about absolute vulnerability. That’s the only true courage.

Life is about choice. You can choose what you want to be.

Life has three rules.

1. Paradox- life is a mystery don’t waste time trying to figure it out

2. Humor – keep a sense of humor especially about your self, it is a strength beyond all measure.

3. Change- know that nothing stays the same.

The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.

Notes I took while watching,

Peaceful Warrior

Parenting Thoughts

Wed, 11 May 2011 08:57:17 -0700

I think that as a parent you do the best you can with what you have, but it is your ultimate responsibility to your child to nurture them and respect them and help them reach their full potential with whatever means you have available to you. Fostering their ability to become an independent free thinking compassionate human being. I try to treat others as I want to be treated, including my children, even when they think differently than I do. Some days I fail miserably. I catch myself becoming frustrated, irritated, yelling and not being a nice person to be around. I acknowledge to them out loud that I have made a mistake, take a deep breath, and then try again to say or do things in a manner that is more respectful. We are all human beings and we will all make mistakes. That is how we learn. My mother was not perfect, nor was hers, nor can I expect myself to be.

At some point in life I figured out that my mom and dad were no better or different than me, they were human and didn’t have all the answers. I strive to see my children as equal beings and allow them the freedom to discover their likes and dislikes. In this lifetime, success for me has come with my ability to adapt and maintain a positive perspective. Trying to see the lessons in all things good and bad. I can’t change what happens but I can change the way I look at it. I often have people get irritated with me for being “disconnected” I find it a useful tool to be able to step out of the immediate situation and try and see things from the outside looking in. I find that life is too short to go around being angry and upset and I would rather process my own emotions and let go of the negative so I can get back to the positive and being happy. After all we are not promised tomorrow, or even the next hour or minute so I often have to remind myself to be present and live in the moment. If someone else has an issue it is their issue alone, I do not have to make it my issue.

Half Full or Half Empty? Welcome!I am an explorer. I love...

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 10:58:00 -0700

Half Full or Half Empty?

Welcome!
I am an explorer. I love learning. I am always on an adventure. I am happy. I choose love every day.

Here is the space that I will share with you a piece of me.

A peek inside my life and my own thought processes. My hope is to share my love and compassion with all of my friends. We all have our own battles each and every day, I just want everyone to know you have a choice about what kind of warrior you are going to be.

You have the ultimate power to choose how you view things. How you interpret what is happening in your life is your choice. You can see the glass as half empty or you can see the glass as half full. You can choose to see only what is on the inside of the box or you can take a step back and look at what is outside of the box. There is always the opportunity for growth in ever situation you are presented with. You can find the silver lining in each cloud. You can examine everything with Micro or Macro level thinking. Your thoughts make a difference. Your thoughts make a difference. Your thoughts make a difference.

I am an explorer. I love learning. I am always on an adventure. I am happy. I choose love every day.