Exponential Ramblings

   Frank and I went to Mill Mountain for coffee early Saturday evening. We needed an escape from our perspective families. I am sipping on my hazelnut coffee in it's usual ceramic mug, describing my foray into sewing about eight sets of pajama bottoms for my family for Christmas, when he says, "I have a serious question."    "What is it?"    "How are you smart?"    "What do you mean?"    "How do you know so much stuff?"     I really couldn't answer him properly because I was a bit taken aback by the question, simply, I don't consider myself to be that smart. But we have had this discussion before. I did credit my mom with a lot of my upbringing. She wanted children who were intellectually capable and successful. What parent doesn't? But then I realized that most of it is due to culture, perpetuated by my parents. Mom is a teacher and dad is an engineer. Successful parenting does not always have to do with occupatio...

   This is not going to be a massive blog post or rant but a reminder of certain values. Here is my list of things that kill your relationships. Being judgmental.  Look at the way you communicate, from your friendships and courtships to your online posts. If you are pointing fingers and telling groups of people how wrong they are all the time, you will find that your friends will back away. Why? They don't want to be in the line of fire when other people begin to judge you and  they don't agree with you. Show the best side of yourself in all  communication. Withholding. All withholding. Whether it is your inner self to physical contact to gratitude to information. If you think that you are not worthy of good friendships, then your friends will think that they are not worth your time. If you have difficulty opening up, start with one person who you think you can trust. You don't have to be 100% sure that they won't betray you. That is how trust is built. But ...

   First, let me say that it is a joy when I get to review any of Kanta Bosniak's delightful books. You may recall that I reviewed Twin Flames: More Love Poems   last October. Kanta is a spiritual guide in this crazy world. She is warm, insightful, and compassionate. I expect nothing less than that in her writing. Twin Flames  gave this Yankee woman the "feels," as the kids call it. But they are not tears of pain and loss, they are always of the heart leaping out of the chest with joy.    However, her new title Welcome to the World  is a very different read for me. As a tutor, I have read all sorts of children's books or educational books that focus on child development. I understand the implications of positive psychology and early development as parental stress does have long term effects on the child. While my specialty is not early childhood development, a stable and caring home environment does not take a degree in rocket science to comp...

  There were some concerns yesterday from my friends who were not aware that I was pulling out of leadership positions in the Society of Physics Students (SPS). There are a few leadership/logical reasons and a few personal reasons. Is this my official resignation letter? Maybe. Leadership/Logical reasons: I had agreed with the faculty advisor that I would pick it up and rebuild it because no one was working on it or seemed interested.  A year and a half later, there is increased involvement.  Our SPS Constitution needed major revision at the time, one person was doing all the work. The work was divided up more evenly.  While there is increased involvement, attendance fell flat in SPS, MAA (the Math student club), and ACM (the computer science major club) after Fall Break. There are few reasons why this happened.  Midterm reports came out and students in our majors will freak out. Chill guys you got this, you can still be involved, and it means you may...

    Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Albert Einstein    Very rarely do I blog when I am frustrated, angry, upset, sad, etc. I try to keep everything positive and light but sometimes hard honesty is necessary. If today's blog seems a bit random, it's because it is. When I work through things, the brain is on overload. Friends tell me that they can look at my face and see my brain racing. Of course, I have the ADHD that fires EVERYWHERE in my noggin.  Herding people is like herding cats.    So many of us are pushing for a paradigm shift on campus. More community because it seems to be our biggest problem. We heard from our lawyer of the college, Michael Pace. He told us that two things were going to be very important for the GenXers, Millenials, and the two generations behind us; leadership and citizenship. And this is the greatest problem that I see for us: You have to come to the ...