PechaKucha ((Japanese for chit-chat), which started in Tokyo in 2003, is defined as: “The art of concise presentations.” Concise is right! 20 slides with 20 seconds of talk for each slide. PechaKucha Night is now in over 800 cities, so it’s a genuine phenomenon. I’ve heard it pronounced pecka koocha, pe-ka-coo-cha, peek-a-boo-choo and other almost unrecognizable versions. Regardless, it’s a fascinating approach to creativity. When Ange Friesen, Community librarian at the Markham Village branch, asked me a few months ago, I thought, sure, sounds like a good way to test my public performance skills. They expected over 400 people in attendance (some came for the free food). And there’d be wine and beer. Yeah. Not scary at all. I mean, I used to teach…
… random observations from my journeys through a well-lived life
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Well, on Sunday, I took my fingers from the keyboard and sat back, admiring the results of too many years of labour: creating, writing, editing, revising, cutting, tweaking. It could go on forever, because I never run out of new ideas. But I have to stop writing. I mean, in December, I discovered that I had over 125,000 words. Way too long. I toiled away and cut it back to 109,000. Still hefty for print, but it’s time to get it out to my beta readers. No more hiding behind the ‘there’s still work to do’ wall. I whipped up a cover (ugly, I know), but by the time I was ready to compile the seventy-two chapters from Scrivener to a Kindle version I…
Categories: What I'm Doing, writing
Winter is here. Ugh. I have to force myself to get out of the house, drive to Costco or the mall and walk. But, I’m pleased to say, I’ve done DDP Yoga every day except two since January 5th, which means eight workouts. As soon as I finish brushing my teeth every morning, I grab my iPad, strap on the frigid cold heart rate monitor band and head to the ‘exercise room’ and do either two short workouts or one longer one. There are no weights involved but I’m surprised how hard some of the yoga poses are, because of the dynamic resistance, balance and stretching involved. My flexibility sucks, which is a shock, because I was always fairly limber. But sitting all day…
Categories: What I'm Doing
Have you seen this video? We first saw it on television – I think it might have been 60 Minutes or another ‘news’ type program. Usually this kind of stuff (poverty porn, sad-faced dogs, kids with flies on their faces) makes me turn the channel, but this time, Hub and I watched until the end. [embedplusvideo height=”640″ width=”880″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1OdRyGj” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/qX9FSZJu448?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=qX9FSZJu448&width=880&height=640&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=” id=”ep5641″ /] The man’s name is Arthur Boorman and he is a real person, not a body-beautiful fitness model or rich person with a chef and all-day trainer. His courage and transformation were amazing. We both wept. I didn’t think much of it until November, when I started searching for something Hub and I could do to get fitter, without having to join…
Categories: What I'm Doing
Here we go. January 5th, for heaven’s sake, and I’m just gearing up for the New Year. Time for new starts and cleaning up old stuff. Embracing tranquility. Yup, that’s on my agenda. Along with finishing not one but two novels, home renovations, yada, yada, yada. How am I doing? Well, I haven’t reached flea-market status yet. I have not embraced the KonMari Method nor have I gone on a purging binge. The weather has been too lousy for facing the emotional tug of throwing out old stuff. But I was re-reading some of my blog posts from 2013, when I wrote over 320 entries about my journey to mindfulness and weight loss. I’m not sure if I became any more mindful, but I…
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