- Conan O’Brien, Last Episode of Tonight Show

Short post. It’s been ages since the last one, I know. Lots of great stuff happened since. Life feels…different. Though it takes a moment of reflection to observe it…

So last night I was out with a buddy. It was a Sunday (yes, we were out on a Sunday), and we had just left The Ranch after one too many rounds of Jameson, courtesy our local bar staff. As we were walking down Lavaca St, he tells me: “You know, you’ve progressed a lot. I remember how you were 4 months ago..”

I replied: “Really…you know, sometimes I just don’t see it…”

He said: “You know what makes it especially difficult to see progress? When you keep comparing things back to those one or two great moments. It kind of makes you think that you’ve been doing a lot worse than you really are.”

It made me think. It reminded me of that old adage:

Excellence is not act, but habit.

One of my favorite salsa instructors told me she got good by going out dancing almost every night for two years straight. She loves what she does, and now choreographs  shows with a couple of dance troupes in addition to teaching several classes during the week.

I also know a professional video gamer (female, I should mention). She was into Counterstrike when she lived in Africa, and trained 10 hours a day with her team. During the first two months she had only one kill. She eventually made it into championship matches with her team.

A lot of getting to where you want to be is strictly hustle. And when you don’t see progress, it makes it real easy to just quit. That’s why it’s so important to remind yourself of how badly you desire something, because then the smallest of progress you know is always a step towards your goal. Sometimes it will take a friend to point it out and encourage you. Sometimes you just gotta recognize and celebrate the small victories.

I’m sure I’ve missed some goodies…leave a comment if you think of an awesome song to add to Extreme Mix Vol. 5! Songs characterized by dance, pop, dance pop, europop, epic ballads, and anything with epic buildup and key changes.

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Extreme Mix Vol 5

Amy Grant – Baby, Baby

Wilson Philips – Hold on

Nicki French – Total Eclipse of the Heart Dance Mix

Debbie Gibson – Only in my dreams

Robyn – Show me Love

Donna Lewis – Always Forever

Real Mccoy – Runaway

Taylor Dayne – Tell it to My Heart

Mr. Mister – Kyrie

Toto – Africa

Marky Mark – Good Vibrations

Enrique Iglesias – Escape

Celine Dion – That’s the Way It Is

John Parr – St Elmo’s Fire

Electric Light Orchestra – Twilight

C&C Music Factory – Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)

Debarge – Rythm of the Night

Technotronic – Move This

Vanessa Carlton – Thousand Miles

Dream – He Loves U Not

La Bouche – Be My Lover

No Mercy – Where Do You Go

Nsync – Bye Bye Bye

Enrique Iglesias – Don’t Turn Out the Lights

Haddaway – What Is Love

Jon Secada – Just Another Day 

Outhere Brothers – Boom Boom Boom

Vengaboys – Boom Boom

Enrique Iglesias – Rhythm Divine

Culture Beat – Mr. Vain

Real McCoy – Run Away

Le Click – Tonight Is The Night

Tag Team – Whoomp! There It Is

Backstreet Boys – Everybody

Spice Girls – Say You’ll Be There

Backstreet Boys – The One

Mariah Carey – Fantasy

Nsync – I Want You Back

Aqua – Barbie Girl

Peter Cetera – Glory of Love

Real Mccoy – Come and Get Your Love

Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time

Ashlee Simpson – Pieces of Me

Crazytown – Butterfly

Spice Girls – Two Become One

Coolio – 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New)

Backstreet Boys – Larger than Life

Technotronic – Pump Up the Jam

Real Mccoy – Another Night

Five – Lights Go Out

Scatman John – Scatman

311 – All Mixed Up

Eiffel 65 – Blue

Vengaboys – We Like to Party

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And…my favorite scene in H&K:

I’ve been re-evaluating a lot of things lately.  Questions I try to ask myself frequently is, “Is doing this getting my closer to my goals?”, and “Is this making the world a better place?”

I’ve thought about it before, but today I really weighed out the benefits and non-benefits of facebook. It undeniably takes a big chunk of my life, and the thing is, I don’t even use it as much as I know others do (or am I in denial?).

Lumosity came out with a new game. I love this company and their website, and appreciate what they are doing to help people.

What do they do? Lumosity develops flash games based around recognizing and developing various cognitive abilities, such as memory and attention. This new game is called Brain Shift, and reflects in some way our ability (or inability as I discovered) to multi-task.

It’s a very simple game, with “multi-task” being only two tasks. But as I was switching between the two, I found myself pausing for long moments as my brain was switching from vowel to even number. What the… Doing just two things slows me down.

What are some things you multi-task with in life? Are these tasks helping you get work done? Are you creating tasks to make you feel productive? Try single-tasking everything for one day, see what happens!

My highest score was 2925. Post your score, I want to know how I measured up!

Edit:  Highest Score 3875  5075

It would be cool to see the average time it takes between responses, that should be interesting. Perhaps add more than two tasks, and plot the response time as a function of tasks.

Great game, Lumosity.

Today I registered for the SXSW interactive conference that comes around in March.

Five days of technology industry wazoo. You can find some big names here. The overwhelming feeling of inspiration and meeting awesome people…that’s what I’m excited for! Oh, and all the free parties. Those, too.

One interesting thing about the schools I work with this year, other than the recent shuffling of some high schools (Johnston High now is Eastside Memorial), is the block schedule. This means that I have two sets of students that I see every other week, but doing more or less the same material for both groups. It’s actually an opportune time to try different things and see what works, but what I’ve found is that I come in and approach the tutoring session in more or less the same way. 

Every now and again we get opportunities to develop change in our lives. Change is difficult. It means viewing things in a completely different way, mostly in ways that are not comfortable. It requires listening to people, maybe from people we do not like, and hearing things we do not want hear. This is all part of development, and getting over this barrier can open up a brand new world.

Somtimes we need more deliberation and awareness to help us implement change. At my last APIE class, I took a few minutes of just quietly observing. Looking at the students working hard (and some not at all, heh). Looking at the dynamics between the students. Looking at the way my fellow tutors were communicating with the students. I didn’t realize how differently my peers were engaging the students and it was great because they approached things in ways I couldn’t think of. After class, I chatted briefly with one of the tutors who works with high school kids regularly. She shared some great advice, and I am glad I stepped out of my way to talk to her.

Change is always possible. Don’t forget there are people there to help, if you are just willing to ask for honest feedback. Make the decision today that something can be learned from anyone.

Photo used under Creative Commons from FaceMePLS

Back in the days of studying for classes – a time that I am glad is over – I remember having a few select spots that were conducive to studying. Getting your brain in a to start  thinking in a brilliant state can have a lot to do with being surrounded by something new, something different. Great study locations for me were often characterized by non-distracting, isolation or solitdue, open space.

The thing is, once you get used to your work location you tend to follow the same mindframe, which is perfect in terms of sheer work output. But as for creativity this can be a brick wall that blocks you from strokes of genius.

A change in venue may help your brain think more actively, more freshly.

Photo used under Creative Commons from Chris&Oli

I remember when my brain often stalled during a study session, without hesistation I would pack up my stuff and nomadically head over to another spot. I did this fairly often, and discovered some awesome study places. Not just places, but specific times that these places were just zen for getting work done.

Something happens when you are mobile. You are suddenly more open-minded.

You experience and observe new situations, enivoronments, people and interactions. You step out a little from comfortable bubble, and displace your routine that has become a convenience. Perhaps you will even meet new people and interactions. The world becomes more present and you realize there are more stories and ideas all around you.

This got me thinking of what it is to be mobile. America, with it’s 60M personal vehicle fleet, could be seen as mobile. But is sitting hours in traffic expanding your mind? Fighting for taxi cabs on a street flooded pedestrians? Perhaps we are not as mobile as we think. Perhaps being mobile means so much more than being able to get transported from point A to point B in the quickest time possible, and whenever we want to.

Being mobile means you observe the journey.

Photo used under Creative Commons from Lieven SOETE

We often miss the critical element of steady observation. For me, I could step outside a lot more. There’s people to meet, places to see, stories to hear.

“Indecision may or may not be my problem.”

– Jimmy Buffet