A small reflection

Because I am not of many words, this will be short. I have worked at Full Sail for two years now, and while much of that time has been exhausting and frustrating, I realize that all of that time has also been humbling, incredibly creative, possibly life-altering, and has garnered some incredible friendships (I know that last part is not parallel dammit!). I write this during a reluctant break from what has literally become my favorite thing to do, something I am really freaking great at, and something that fuels a passion for eradicating crap I thought I lost years ago. I speak of course of the tweak, the slide tweak. What started out as honestly just a way to NOT grade has become something of an art, obsession, and calling for me.



I love callings! Yay calling!

I do this all of the time...I take what someone might think are perfectly excellent slides and I tweak them...(at first I took really terrible, awful, mind-exploding in the bad way slides and tweaked them). To me, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing what others are doing (I spend way too much time at the following: Information is Beautiful, Slideshare, speaking.alltop.com, and Stumble Upon's design section) and being inspired by this to create something myself. Sometimes it is seeing what my fellow revolutionaries Alex Rister and Christin Upshaw are up to or hearing that someone is "working on slides." Anything (especially being preoccupied over yet another heart-based run around) sparks the need to tweak (not on meth) in me, and I couldn't be happier.

I always thought being a teacher of writing would be my calling, but then I started teaching Humanities, and now I've taught public speaking for two years. Maybe my calling is just to be fortunate enough to find something I completely love, that I am also completely awesome at, and follow that bliss where it leads me, even if that is Seattle, Wa and a cold, cold, everyday. I bitch and moan about many things that I should just not worry so much about, just thought I'd take a sec and praise the one thing that has brought me complete fulfillment at least in that one little part of me...

Check out my tweaks! Working on a few more!

Today's TED Roundup: Aaron Huey, Birke Baehr, and Zainab Salbi

Now that I am done grading discussion posts, I get to watch TED!

I watched this talk by Aaron Huey a few weeks ago, and it left me in tears. Huey discusses the modern state of Native Americans as prisoners of war. Huey displays raw emotion, applying the Be though Vulnerable TED Commandment expertly. His use of imagery forces the audience to come to terms with their own complacency in a 200 year old war. The visuals completely reinforce his point and paint a picture of a people worn thin by time and circumstance. Truly powerful!



I didn't think I could love TED more, but here comes TEDxAshevilleNextGeneration. This amazing event gathered young people who are passionate and concerned about the world's problems together in a super awesome city for an amazing conference. One of the speakers was 11-year-old Birke Baehr, who aspired to be a football player, but after learning about the conventional farming system decided to become an organic farmer. You know, people gripe a lot about homeschooled kids, but Birke, Adora Svitak, and my three amazing younger siblings (my 15 year old sister, Karen, is a writer, has started her own writer's group, sets writing goals of 50k words per month for herself, and is a budding visual artist) have made me a believer in this personalized form of education. Birke breaks down what is wrong with our food system, what kids can and are doing about it, and how we can proceed in the future, all in five minutes! I am not a huge fan of his slides, but he is 11, so he gets a pass.



Today's final talk comes from Zainab Salbi, who will become my example for storytelling, vivid language, and figurative language from now on. She paints a harrowing, haunting picture of a woman's experience in war, from Iraq and Afghanistan to the Congo and the Sudan. Through her work with Women for Women International, she "learned that the colors and the sounds of war are the same, but the fears of war [are] the same." In particular, it is "The fear of losing the I in me" that haunts the many women she shares this experience with.Open and honest about her fears and experiences Salbi makes the case for bringing women into the post-war reconstruction process. Incredible!