Decompression Now!

I'm thinking of this like George Costanza's cry of "Serenity now!"

As my family travels from house to house seeing and stressing about seeing all sorts of relatives, the note below hit me right in the kisser. Or the breadbasket. Which, due to the actions of the kisser over the past few days, has become more of a Hershey's-chocolates-basket.

No less vital to our lives and far more based in reality, please enjoy the tip below from feedthepig.org. If you like it, sign up to have such tips delivered. If not, that's okay too and will spare you what would just be inbox clutter. Enjoy!

From: www.feedthepig.org...

The Holiday Marathon: Decompression

The holiday season draws to a close this week, as we prepare to greet a new year. While you may still be making the schlep to work, make sure to take some time to relax, breathe and enter the New Year refreshed. Try a few of these stress-busters.

1.Find Your Center. Identify all of your good traits, and write them down; this gives you a visual of how fortunate you are and how much "right" there is with your life. Anytime you're down, revisit your list of traits and bring back your positive power so you can greet the day with a smile on your face and a spring in your step.

2.Rest Up. Getting enough of sleep, typically eight hours, can carry you a long way. If your body is rested, the stressors of life won't seem as challenging, allowing you to function at a higher level. Just because you have a lot to accomplish doesn't mean you should skimp on sleep; your exhaustion will ultimately be the catalyst of you becoming unraveled. Set a specific bedtime and stick to it.

3. Me Time. Focusing on what "makes you happy" can bring more life, joy, energy and a better sense of well-being. This requires taking care of YOU. It could be as simple as doing a few stretches on the living room floor, having a cup of tea, going for a 10 minute walk or sitting outside after work to enjoy the fresh air.

4. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. In the aftermath of the hubbub and busyness, don't forget to truly enjoy the last of the Holiday Season. Appreciate and be thankful for your friends, family, home, pets, job, etc. Place yourself in a state of gratitude and love.

So here we end our "Holiday Marathon" series, with our final tip of 2010.

Happy Holidays and a very joyous New Year to all!

Visit www.feedthepig.org for more money-saving tips.

Darth Vader v. Anakin Skywalker. Round 11.

Compassion v. Greed

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_compassionate_instinct/

Rock 'em Sock 'em Homework Battles Rage on

I'm not sure what beavers have to do with homework, except perhaps in Canada, they say, "The beaver ate my homework."


It’s not clear that simply turning off homework is a good idea for students who aren’t prepared to address their learning needs in other ways…however, ...

"At the beginning of the school year, Irving stopped counting homework toward grades, but tests, essays, projects and performances were counted...." The 100 Year Homework War

"Homework is the Black Hole of learning," Do Afterschool Assignments Matter? (Harvard Gazette, 2000)

"It’s better to give no homework to anyone than the same homework to everyone." Rethinking Homework (Alfie Kohn, 2007)

What babies should do...

Let's all join the movement for Free-Range Children. Spend a few minutes with this baby at play (video). (It's like you can see the self-construction happening before your eyes.)

Now that you have seen what infants at play really look like (free-ranging), get young children out of all those containers:

1. Put the crib in the trash: keep the mattress and just set it on the floor (make sure the rest of the room is child-safe. Children can be independent getting in and out of bed and are never in danger from those drop-side disasters.

2. Ditch the playpen jail: just lay out a blanket for the infants, once children are moving, LET THEM MOVE and try to keep up (that's your job as the parent)!

3. Skip the Johnny Jump Up: Just DON'T do it. Put your child on a blanket on the floor or outside in the grass. Stay close, watch what happens. Watch!

4. Unbuckle from the car seat (unless they're in a moving car): I know this is a toughy, but do what you can. Infants presently are spending more time in their infant car seat than ever and much more than they should.

5. Please no 'walkers': Not only are these quite dangerous (I'm pretty sure they're banned now), but they can really give children quite a false sense of the extent of their physical body at precisely the time they're learning about such things.

There. Now doesn't that feel better? Keep in mind that we're not talking about just setting children in the middle of a field and walking away. This is about creating the least restrictive environment that is safe for them to explore and develop. It's not abandonment; it's freedom within limits. It's what helps us all, whether infants, adolescents, or adults.

You Need to Smile More

You have 15 seconds.  Watch this.

It's not a YouTube hamster dance.

Time with tools

People are constantly saying that in order for students to be prepared for the future technology, they must master today's tools. I've not really seen that to be the case. That today's tools are ever easier to use (2-Year-Old Finds iPad Easy to Use [VIDEO]: Cute) can be helpful, but the fact that younger people can handle them with ease, does not, in my mind, make those people more ready for the future.

The future is full of people. Knowing how to use a phone, or computer, or television does not really require much skill. The make up time for young folks who have never handled something like an iPad is pretty short. So let's stop saying that students need "time with the tools" as if they couldn't learn it in a few weeks at any point. Clearly as that video of the two year old shows, it's not a hard device to learn to use.

I consistently read about managers who are looking for new employees who can think, solve problems, get along with co-workers, demonstrate soft skills with clients, and value work done at a high level. None of those things have been necessarily enhanced by products from 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA. Aesthetically pleasing as those products may be.

Cool It!

I'm going to see this movie.  I just don't know when.  If you've seen it already, let us know what you thought of it.  After I've seen it, I'll give my 2c.