Lon Chaney Snr. was born Leonidas Frank Chaney  to Frank H. Chaney and Emma Alice Kennedy; his father had mostly English and some French ancestry, and his mother was of Irish descent. Both of Lon Chaney Snr.'s parents were deaf, and as a child of deaf adults Lon Chaney Snr. became skilled in pantomime. Lon Chaney Snr. entered a stage career in 1902, and began traveling with popular Vaudeville and theater acts. In 1905, he met and married 16 year old singer Cleva Creighton and in 1906, their 1st child and only son, Creighton Chaney (a.k.a. Lon Chaney, Jr.) was born. The Chaneys continued touring, settling in California in 1910.

Unfortunately, marital troubles developed and in April 1913, Cleva went to the Majestic Theater in downtown Los Angeles, where Lon Chaney Snr. was managing the Kolb and Dill show, and attempted suicide by swallowing mercury bichloride. The suicide attempt failed and ruined her singing career; the ensuing scandal and divorce forced Lon Chaney Snr. out of the theater and into film.

The time spent there is not clearly known, but between the years 1912 and 1917, Lon Chaney Snr. worked under contract for Universal Studios doing bit or character parts. Lon Chaney Snr's outstanding skill with makeup gained him many parts in the highly competitive casting atmosphere. During this time, Lon Chaney Snr. befriended the husband-wife director team of Joe De Grasse and Ida May Parke, who gave him substantial roles in their pictures, and further encouraged him to play macabre characters.

Lon Chaney Snr. also married one of his former colleagues in the Kolb and Dill company tour, a chorus girl named Hazel Hastings. Little is known of Hazel, except that her marriage to Lon Chaney Snr. was solid. Upon marrying, the new couple gained custody of Lon Chaney Snr's 10 year-old son Creighton, who had resided in various homes and boarding schools since Lon Chaney Snr's divorce in 1913.

By 1917 Lon Chaney Snr. was a prominent actor in the studio, but his salary did not reflect this status. When Lon Chaney Snr. asked for a raise, studio executive William Sistrom replied, "You'll never be worth more than $100 a week."

After leaving the studio, Lon Chaney Snr. struggled for the 1st year as a character actor. It was not until 1918 when playing a substantial role in William S. Hart's picture, Riddle Gawne, that Lon Chaney Snr's talents as a character actor were truly recognised by the industry.

In 1919, Lon Chaney Snr. had a breakthrough performance as, "The Frog," in George Loane Tucker's The Miracle Man. The film not only displayed Lon Chaney Snr.'s acting ability, but his talent as a master of makeup. Critical praise and a gross of over $2 000,000 put Lon Chaney Snr. on the map as America's foremost character actor.

Lon Chaney Snr. is chiefly remembered as a pioneer in such silent horror films as, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and most notably, The Phantom of the Opera. Lon Chaney Snr.'s ability to transform himself using self-invented makeup techniques earned him the nickname of "Man of a Thousand Faces". In an autobiographical 1925 article published in Movie magazine that gave a rare glimpse into his life, Lon Chaney Snr referred to his specialty as "extreme characterisation".

Lon Chaney Snr also exhibited this adaptability with makeup in more conventional crime and adventure films, such as, The Penalty, where he played an amputee gangster. Lon Chaney Snr. appeared in a total of 10 films by director Tod Browning, often playing disguised and/or mutilated characters, including carnival knife thrower Alonzo the Armless in, The Unknown (1927), with Joan Crawford. In 1927, Lon Chaney Snr. co-starred with Conrad Nagel, Marceline Day, Henry B. Walthall and Polly Moran in the now lost Tod Browning directed horror classic, London After Midnight, quite possibly the most famous lost film ever. Lon Chaney Snr.'s last film was a remake with sound of his silent classic, The Unholy Three (1930), his only "talkie" and the only film in which he displayed his versatile voice. In fact, Lon Chaney Snr. signed a sworn statement declaring that 5 of the key voices in the film (the ventriloquist, old woman, parrot, dummy and girl) were in fact his own.

Although Lon Chaney Snr. created, in Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame, and Erik, the "phantom" of the Paris Opera House, two of the most grotesquely deformed characters in film history, the portrayals sought to elicit a degree of sympathy and pathos among viewers not overwhelmingly terrified or repulsed by the monstrous disfigurements of the characters, who were merely victims of fate.

"I wanted to remind people that the lowest types of humanity may have within them the capacity for supreme self-sacrifice," Lon Chaney Snr. wrote in Movie magazine. "The dwarfed, misshapen beggar of the streets may have the noblest ideals. Most of my roles since The Hunchback, such as The Phantom of the Opera, He Who Gets Slapped, The Unholy Three, etc., have carried the theme of self-sacrifice or renunciation. These are the stories which I wish to do."

"He was someone who acted out our psyches. He somehow got into the shadows inside our bodies; he was able to nail down some of our secret fears and put them on-screen," the writer Ray Bradbury once explained. "The history of Lon Chaney Snr. is the history of unrequited loves. Lon Chaney Snr. brings that part of you out into the open, because you fear that you are not loved, you fear that you never will be loved, you fear there is some part of you that's grotesque, that the world will turn away from."

Lon Chaney Snr.'s talents extended far beyond the horror genre, and stage makeup. Lon Chaney Snr. was also a highly skilled dancer, singer and comedian. In fact, many people who did not know Lon Chaney Snr. were surprised by his rich baritone voice and his sharp comedic skills.

Lon Chaney Snr. and his 2nd wife Hazel led a discreet private life distant from the Hollywood social scene. Lon Chaney Snr did minimal promotional work for his films and MGM studios, purposefully fostering a mysterious image, and he reportedly avoided the social scene in Hollywood on purpose.

In the final 5 years of his film career (1925-1930), Lon Chaney Snr. worked exclusively under contract to MGM, giving some of his most memorable performances. Lon Chaney Snr'.s portrayal of a tough-as-nails marine drill instructor in Tell It to the Marines (1926), one of his favorite films, earned him the affection of the US Marine Corps, who made him their first honorary member from the motion picture industry. Lon Chaney Snr. also earned the respect and admiration of numerous up and coming actors, as Lon Chaney Snr. was considered helpful towards new actors, showing them the ropes, and was always willing to talk to the cast and crew about his experiences between takes on films.

During the filming of Thunder in the winter of 1929, Lon Chaney Snr. developed pneumonia. In late 1929 he was diagnosed with bronchial lung cancer. Despite aggressive treatment, his condition gradually worsened, and 7 weeks after the release of the remake of The Unholy Three, he died of a throat hemorrhage. Lon Chaney Snr.'s death was deeply mourned by his family, the film industry and by his fans. The US Marine Corps provided a chaplain and Honor Guard for his funeral. Lon Chaney Snr. was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California, USA next to the crypt of his father. Lon Chaney Snr.'s wife Hazel was also interred there upon her death in 1933. For unknown reasons, Lon Chaney Snr.'s crypt has remained unmarked.

Lon Chaney Snr. as "Mr. Wu," conducting an orchestra of women.In 1957, Lon Chaney Snr. was the subject of a biopic titled Man of a Thousand Faces, and was portrayed by James Cagney. Though much of the plot was fictional, the film was a moving tribute to Lon Chaney Snr. and helped boost his posthumous fame. During his lifetime, Lon Chaney Snr. had boasted he would make it difficult for biographers to portray his life, saying that "between pictures, there is no Lon Chaney Snr." This was in line with the air of mystery he purposefully fostered around his makeup and performances.

Lon Chaney Snr. has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1994, he was honored by having his image designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, placed on a United States postage stamp.

The stage theater at the Colorado Springs Civic Auditorium is named after Lon Chaney Snr.

In 1929, Lon Chaney Snr. built an impressive stone cabin in the remote wilderness of the eastern Sierra Nevada, near Big Pine, California, as a retreat. The cabin (designed by architect Paul Williams) still stands, and is preserved by the Inyo National Forest Service.

Lon Chaney Snr.'s son, Lon Chaney, Jr., became a film actor after his father's death, and is best remembered for roles in horror films, especially The Wolf Man. The Chaneys appeared on US postage stamps as their signature characters, the Phantom of the Opera and the Wolf Man, with the set completed by Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster and The Mummy.

Lon Chaney Snr. and his son Lon Chaney Jnr. are mentioned in the Warren Zevon song "Werewolves of London".

Many of Lon Chaney Snr.'s colleagues held him in high regard and he would often give advice and help actors who were just beginning their careers. Lon Chaney Snr. was also greatly respected by the film crews and studio employees with whom he worked.

Following his death, Lon Chaney Snr.'s famous makeup case was donated by his wife Hazel to the Los Angeles County Museum, where it is sometimes displayed for the public. Makeup artist and Lon Chaney Snr.'s biographer Michael Blake considers Lon Chaney Snr.'s case the central artifact in the history of film makeup.

In 1978, Gene Simmons of the rock band KISS wrote a song about Lon Chaney Snr. called "The Man of A Thousand Faces" for his first solo album. Simmons had been influenced by the old black and white classic horror movies growing up in New York City.

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Laura is known as the 1st deaf-blind American child to gain a significant education in the English language, 50 years before the more famous Helen Keller. However, there are accounts of deaf-blind people communicating in tactile sign language before this time, and the deafblind Victorine Morriseau (1789-1832) had successfully learned French as a child some years earlier.

Laura was , being the 3rd daughter of Daniel Bridgman (d. 1868), a substantial Baptist farmer, and his wife Harmony, daughter of Cushman Downer, and granddaughter of Joseph Downer, one of the 5 1st settlers (1761) of Thetford, Vermont. Laura was a delicate infant, puny and rickety, and was subject to fits up to 20 months old, but otherwise seemed to have normal sense. However, Laura's family was struck with scarlet fever when she was 2 years old. The illness killed her 2 older sisters and a brother and left her deaf, blind, and without a sense of smell or taste. Though she gradually recovered health she remained a deaf-blind, but was kindly treated and was in particular made a sort of playmate by an eccentric bachelor friend of the Bridgmans, Mr Asa Tenney, who as soon as she could walk used to take her for rambles a-field. Laura learned through touch to sew and knit as a child but had no language.

In 1837 Mr James Barrett, of Dartmouth College, saw her and mentioned her case to Dr Mussey, the head of the medical department, who wrote an account which attracted the attention of Dr Samuel Gridley Howe, the director of the Perkins School for the Blind at Boston. Dr Howe determined to try to get the child into the Institution and to attempt to educate her; her parents assented, and in October 1837 Laura entered the school.

Laura Bridgman was a comely child and of a sensitive and affectionate nature and was imitative in so far as she could follow the actions of others. However, she was limited in her communication to the narrower uses of touch. Laura's mother, preoccupied with house-work, had already ceased to be able to control her, and her father's authority was due to fear of superior force, not to reason. Dr Howe had been recently met Julia Brace, a deaf-blind resident at the American School for the Deaf who communicated using tactile sign, and developed a plan to teach the young Laura Bridgman to read and write through tactile means — something that had not been attempted previously, to his knowledge. At first he and his assistant, Lydia Drew, used words printed with raised letters, and later they progressed to using a manual alphabet expressed through tactile sign. Eventually she received a broad education.

Dr Howe taught words before the individual letters, and his 1st experiment consisting in pasting upon several common articles such as keys, spoons, knives, &c., little paper labels with the names of the articles printed in raised letters, which he got her to feel and differentiate; then he gave her the same labels by themselves, which she learned to associate with the articles they referred to, until, with the spoon or knife alone before her she could find the right label for each from a mixed heap. The next stage was to give her the component letters and teach her to combine them in the words she knew, and gradually in this way she learned all the alphabet and the 10 digits. The whole process depended, of course, on her having a human intelligence, which only required stimulation, and her own interest in learning became keener as she progressed.

Dr Howe devoted himself with the utmost patience and assiduity to her education and was rewarded by increasing success. On the 24th of July 1839 she 1st wrote her own name legibly. On the 20th of June 1840 she had her 1st arithmetic lesson, by the aid of a metallic case perforated with square holes, square types being used; and in 19 days she could add a column of figures amounting to 30. Laura was in good health and happy, and was treated by Dr Howe as his daughter. Laura's case already began to interest the public, and others were brought to Dr Howe for treatment.

In 1841 Laura began to keep a journal, in which she recorded her own day's work and thoughts. In January 1842 Charles Dickens visited the Institution, and afterwards wrote enthusiastically in his American Notes of Dr Howe's success with Laura. In 1843 funds were obtained for devoting a special teacher to her, and first Miss Swift, then Miss Wight, and then Miss Paddock, were appointed; Laura by this time was learning geography and elementary astronomy. By degrees she was given religious instruction, but Dr Howe was intent upon not inculcating dogma before she had grasped the essential truths of Christianity and the story of the Bible.

Laura grew up a happy, cheerful girl, loving, optimistic, but with a nervous system inclining to irritability, and requiring careful education in self-control. In 1860 her eldest sister Mary's death helped to bring on a religious crisis, and through the influence of some of her family she was received into the Baptist church; she became for some years after this more self-conscious and rather pietistic. In 1867 she began writing compositions which she called poems; the best-known is called "Holy Home."

In 1872, Dr Howe having been enabled to build some separate cottages (each under a matron) for the blind girls, Laura was moved from the larger house of the Institution into one of them, and there she continued her quiet life. The death of Dr Howe in 1876 was a great grief to her; but before he died he had made arrangements by which she would be financially provided for in her home at the Institution for the rest of her life. In 1887 her jubilee was celebrated there, but in 1889 she was taken ill, and she died on the 24th of May. Laura's name has become familiar everywhere as ,an example of the education of a deaf-blind. Helen Keller's mother Kate Keller read Dickens' account and was inspired to seek advice which led to her hiring a teacher and former pupil of the same school, Anne Sullivan. Anne learned the manual alphabet from Laura which she took back to Helen, along with a doll that Laura had made for her.

A Liberty ship was named after her.

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According to the website of the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York, "John was not an artist who incidentally was Deaf but rather a Deaf artist, one in a long tradition that owes many of its features and achievements to the fact that Deaf people are, as scholars have noted, visual people."

John's father, Dr. John Brewster Sr., and his stepmother, Ruth Avery Brewster, c. 1795–1800 Little is known about John's childhood or youth. John was the 3rd child born in Hampton, Connecticut, to Dr. John and Mary (Durkee) Brewster. John's mother died when he was 17. John's father remarried Ruth Avery of Brooklyn, Connecticut, and they went on to have four more children.

John Brewster Sr., a doctor and descendant of William Brewster, the Pilgrim leader, was a member of the Connecticut General Assembly and also active in the local church.

Unidentified Boy with Book (1810) by John Brewster, Jr. (from the collection of the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut) One of the younger John's "more touching and polished full-length portraits" is of his father and stepmother, according to Ben Genocchio, who wrote a review of an exhibition of John's portraits in the New York Times. They are shown at home in conventional poses and wearing refined but not opulent dress in a modestly furnished room. John's mother sits behind her husband, reading while he is writing. "She stares directly at the viewer, though softly, even submissively, while her husband stares off into the distance as if locked in some deep thought."

As a deaf from birth, and growing up in a time when no standardised sign language for the deaf existed, the young John probably interacted with few people outside of the circle of his family and friends, with whom he would have learned to communicate. A kindly minister taught him to paint, and by the 1790s he was traveling through Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and eastern New York State, taking advantage of his family connections to offer his services to the wealthy merchant class.

John's younger brother, Dr. Royal Brewster, moved to Buxton, Maine in late 1795. The artist either moved up with him or followed shortly afterward and painted likenesses in and around Portland in between trips back to Connecticut.

James Prince and Son, William Henry (1801) by John Brewster, Jr. Prince was a wealthy merchant from Newburyport, a shipping center in Massachusetts. The painter included numerous expensive luxuries to show Prince as wealthy and a gentleman: Curtains and a fine floor indicated wealth; the bookcase with books and the desk suggest learning. The boy is symbolised as entering world of adults by his holding a letter. (from the collection of the Historical Society of Old Newbury) John probably communicated with others using pantomime and a small amount of writing. In this way, despite his deafness, John managed the business of arranging poses along with negotiating prices and artistic ideas with his sitters. As an itinerant portraitist working in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the United States, he would travel great distances, often staying in unfamiliar places for months at a time.

John's deafness may have given John some advantages in portrait painting, according to the Florence Griswold Museum exhibit web page: "Unable to hear and speak, John focused his energy and ability to capture minute differences in facial expression. John also greatly emphasised the gaze of his sitters, as eye contact was such a critical part of communication among the Deaf. Scientific studies have proven that since Deaf people rely on visual cues for communication [they] can differentiate subtle differences in facial expressions much better than hearing people."

John's early, large portraits show the influence of the work of Ralph Earl (1751–1801), another itinerant painter. Paintings by the 2 artists (especially in John's early work) show similar scale, costumes, composition and settings, Paul D'Ambrosio has pointed out in a catalog (2005) for a traveling exhibition of John's work, "A Deaf Artist in Early America: The Worlds of John Brewster Jr."

Ralph was influenced by the 18th century English "Grand Manner" style of painting, with its dramatic, grand, very rhetorical style (exemplified in many portraits by Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Ralph and John refashioned the style, changing it from lofty and grand to more humble and casual settings.

Mother with Son (Lucy Knapp Mygatt and Son, George, of Danbury, Connecticut), 1799 In the early 19th century, John habitually painted half-length portraits which saved him labor, saved his patrons money and "were better suited to his limited abilities," according to Genocchio. Some of the paintings are almost identical, down to the same clothes and furniture, with only the heads setting them apart.

In 1805 his brother, Dr. Royal Brewster, finished construction of his Federal style house in Buxton, and John Brewster moved in. For the rest of his life, he lived in the home with his brother’s family.

By about 1805, John had his own style of portraying children in full length, with skimpy garments or nightclothes, soft, downy hair and big, cute eyes for a sweet, appealing affect but, the perspective problems remained, with the figures seeming out of scale with their environment.

At about this time the artist also began to sign and date his paintings more frequently. John also moved away from the large-format Grand Manner-influenced style and turned to smaller, more intimate portraits in which he focused more attention on the faces of his subjects.

In the years just before 1817, John traveled farther for clients as his career flourished.

Francis O. Watts with Bird (1805) by John Brewster, Jr. (from the collection of the Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York) Typical of  John Brewster's portraits is "Francis O. Watts with Bird" (1805), showing "an innocent looking boy with manly features" wearing a nightslip and holding a bird on his finger and with a string. The surrounding landscape is "strangely low and wildly out of scale—the young boy towers over trees and dwarfs distant mountains. John looks like a giant," Genocchio has written. Or he looks as if the viewer must be lying down, looking up at the child from the ground. John always struggled with the relationship of his figures to the background.

A more positive view of the portrait comes from the Web page about the 2006 exhibit at the Florence Griswold Museum website: "Brewster’s serene and ethereal portrait of Francis O. Watts is one of his most compelling portraits of a child. In this work—particularly Francis’ white dress and the peaceful landscape he inhabits—modern viewers often feel a palpable sense of the silence that was John’s world.

"The bird on the string symbolises mortality because only after the child’s death could the bird go free, just like the child’s soul. Infant mortality was high during John’s time and artists employed this image often in association with children."

Moses Quinby (c. 1810–1815). Moses was a successful lawyer from Stroudwater, Maine. Moses was probably painted when John was traveling in Maine. From 1817 to 1820, John interrupted his career to learn sign language, a newly developed help for the deaf, at the Connecticut Asylum in Hartford, now known as the American School for the Deaf.

John, at the age of 51, was by far the oldest in a class of 7 students, the average age of which was 19. It was the 1st class that attended the school and witnessed the birth of American Sign Language (ASL).

When John returned to Buxton and to his portraits, "he seems to have taken more care when painting the faces of his subjects," Genocchio wrote," resulting in portraits that show an increased sensitivity to the characters of his subjects."

After the 1830s, little is known of John Snr's work or of John Jnr.'s Work.

Reverend Daniel Marrett (1831). An example of  John portraits from his late career, many of which show great depth and strength of characterisation. Reverend Daniel Marrett’s furrowed brow and chisled features convey the seriousness of his convictions. The paper he holds quotes Amos 4:12, "Prepare to meet thy God." (from the collection of Historic New England/SPNEA) John "created hauntingly beautiful images of American life during the formative period of the nation," according to a page at the Fenimore Art Museum website devoted to a 2005–2006 exhibition of the artist's work. "Working in a style that emphasised simpler settings [than the "Grand Manner" style], along with broad, flat areas of colour, and soft, expressive facial features, John achieved a directness and intensity of vision rarely equaled."

The Fenimore website also says, "His extant portraits show his ability to produce delicate and sensitive likenesses in full-size or miniature, and in oil on canvas or ivory. John was especially successful in capturing childhood innocence in his signature full-length likenesses of young children.

The website says Brewster left "an invaluable record of his era and a priceless artistic legacy."

According to the anonymous writer of the Florence Griswold Museum's web page about the same exhibit, "Brewster’s deafness may also have shaped his mature portrait style, which centers on his emphasis on the face of his sitters, particularly the gaze. He managed to achieve a penetrating grasp of personality in likenesses that engage the viewer directly. Brewster combined a muted palette that highlights flesh tones with excellent draftsmanship to draw attention to the eyes of his sitters. The importance of direct eye contact to a deaf person cannot be overstated."[2]

The same writer also says, "Brewster was one of the greatest folk painters in American history as one of the key figures in the Connecticut style of American Folk Portraiture. In addition, Brewster’s paintings serve as a key part of Maine history. Brewster was the most prolific painter of the Maine elite, documenting through the portraits details of the life of Maine’s federal elite."

Genocchio, reviewing the exhibit for the New York Times, took a dimmer view, noting John's difficulty with painting backgrounds but admiring his "sweetly appealing" paintings of children.

Some individual works

Unidentified Woman in a Landscape (c. 1805) (from the collection of the Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York)Boy with Book (1810); unidentified subject (Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut, collection)

Francis O. Watts with Bird (1805) (Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, collection)

Dr. John Brewster and Ruth Avery Brewster (c. 1795–1800) (Old Sturbridge Village collection)

Mother with Son (Lucy Knapp Mygatt and Son, George) (1799) (Palmer Museum of Art of the Pennsylvania State University collection)

James Prince and Son, William Henry (1801) (Historical Society of Old Newbury collection)

Woman in a Landscape (unidentified subject ) (c. 1805) (Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, collection)

Moses Quinby (c. 1810–1815) (Bowdoin College Museum of Art collection)

Reverend Daniel Marrett, 1831 (Historic New England/SPNEA collection)

Exhibits

"A Deaf Artist in Early America: The Worlds of John Brewster Jr.," Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, April 1 to December 31, 2005;

Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut, June 3 through September 10, 2006

(Florence Griswold Museum exhibition sponsored in connection with The American School for the Deaf). The show, with some augmentation, was at the American Folk Art Museum, New York City, from October 2006 to January 7, 2007.

The Saco Museum in Saco, Maine, is believed to hold the largest collection of John Brewster, Jr., paintings, including the only known full-length (74 5/8 inches long) adult portraits, Colonel Thomas Cutts and Mrs. Thomas Cutts.

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I changed the blog title. The impulsive lazy perfectionist sums me up (if that's possible) in three words

im.pul.sive - Inclined to act on impulse rather than thought.

la.zy - Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.

per.fec.tion.ism - A propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards.

These three traits in one head lead to a psychological nightmare. Impulsivity leads to the million and one random projects i have my hand in, not to mention the financial implications which I'll elaborate on at a later date. The perfectionist in me is not satisfied if the project i undertake isn't deemed to be good enough by my own standards, we are after all our own worse critics. The laziness in me tends to make things far from being perfect, and eventually leads to throwing it all down the pan and sinking into the deep dark depths of self loathing, depression and an utter feeling of worthlessness.

To be honest with you I'm surprised I'm still here. It's a Ferris wheel and i want to get off.

It seems I have to start life again. I haven't actually done anything with my life. I left school with very few qualifications and no idea which direction i wanted to go in, so i dabbled in things to get by. What i should have done was go to college, university, made friends and discovered my "thing" along the way. Instead i lost the few friends i had when i got into a "serious" relationship and had my first son. I haven't made any new ones since.

I missed out on what many people believe to be the part of life that defines who you are. Is it too late to go back?

Ironically i need to learn that it's OK to learn. Being a perfectionist with no skills or direction at my age hinders any hope of learning new skills, the perfectionism won't permit being a beginner!

Also, surround yourself with good friends.  I've been blessed with a bunch.  I will forever be grateful for that.

Another good article from Anna Johnson -

“Are you a Quiet Achiever... or Loud Conceiver?”

Are you more of a quiet achiever - someone who quietly gets the job done without fanfare... or a loud conceiver - someone who announces to all and sundry what you are planning to do, before you do it?

As you might imagine, the more introverted you are, the more likely you'll be to quietly achieve, than to seek or attract attention. And the reverse is true if you are more extroverted

There's nothing necessarily wrong with being either a quiet achiever or a loud conceiver either. They do, in fact, suit different kinds of people.

A quiet achiever is most definitely a "doer" - someone who just gets it done... most probably while everyone else is still talking!

Alternatively, a loud conceiver can make for a great leader and motivator - someone who can rally and excite the troops before they take on a big challenge.

The trick is to, as always, play to your strengths whilst neutralizing your weaknesses.

As a quiet achiever, you're probably great at getting things done, often in “stealth” mode. The only problem with that is where you fail to sell yourself... and others take the credit. Or, even worse, you cop the blame when others talk about you behind your back!

So perhaps find a role where there is minimal need to sell yourself... align yourself with someone or several people who will vocally support and sell you... and/or try to sell yourself a bit more.

As a loud conceiver, your biggest challenge probably lies with actually delivering on all your promises. In this case, you may need to discipline yourself to focus on fewer projects than you think you can handle (realizing your tendency to over promise). You may even want to practice talking about your achievements AFTER you've achieved them, rather than when you've conceived them.

Either way, be reassured that it's okay to be either a quiet achiever or a loud conceiver. Or even someone who's both (if that's possible)!

Tracklist:

1. "execute" – 1:49
2. "Gematria (The Killing Name)" – 6:02
3. "Sulfur" – 4:38
4. "Psychosocial" – 4:42
5. "Dead Memories" – 4:29
6. "Vendetta" – 5:16
7. "Butcher's Hook" – 4:15
8. "Gehenna" – 6:53
9. "This Cold Black" – 4:40
10. "Wherein Lies Continue" – 5:37
11. "Snuff" – 4:36
12. "All Hope Is Gone" – 4:45

Bonus tracks:

1. "Child of Burning Time" – 5:10
2. "Vermilion Pt. 2" (Bloodstone mix) – 3:39
3. "Til We Die" – 5:46

cheers & GB...

There is a very big difference between understanding and knowing. I can understand certain Biblical passages, concepts and truths, but do I really know them? When I met with my pastor a couple of weeks ago he encouraged me to read and pray about the passages in the Bible that speak of God's love for me and ask God to make that become real to me. Not just something I look at and and analyse, but something I know deep inside me.

I tried to do this. I found lots of these passages in both the Old and New Testaments. I got in the bath and read some of them. I tried to look at the words and come to a realisation of what they mean. I prayed and asked God for help. And then it became a little bit too difficult and I gave up.

And that's how it's been. Just as I have given up something happens to remind me of my quest and I start again, but then I give up again and send my quest off the the realms of intellectual pondering. Because it's safe there. It can stimulate my mind but it can't touch me or change me or scare me in any way.

"Well done!" I can hear you cry. "You have officially reached the status of Prime Coward." Yep. 'Tis true. So I have a decision to make. I either: 1) stay a coward and resign myself to not growing or developing, or: 2) I grow a spine and sort this out.

Hmm. Option 1 is not an option, because developing my faith and character is something that is very important to me. So that leaves Option 2.

And that's where I'm flummoxed. I haven't got the faintest idea how to go about doing this. But I spoke to Guru today and she was the one who encouraged me to shake things up. She thinks that God may be rattling my cage deliberately in order to get me to grow. She thinks the Spiritual Director thing may not be a bad idea, could be something to look into at the very least. Or maybe some sort of retreat. Something - anything - to prompt me to stop keeping God at arms length. And I have realised that it is not just God that I am doing this to. I am keeping my own capacity for understanding, learning, adapting and developing at arms length too. I am not giving myself enough credit. Just slipping back into the same old thought processes and instinctive, habitual actions that have been with me my whole life.

I have a long weekend coming up and then a week on a barge with some friends in early September. Both will be good opportunities for me to do some reflecting. But I need a plan of attack. Otherwise I will just do what I always do: have a go and then quit and read a book instead. My ideas so far:

1. Look into some method of receiving more/different spiritual input/guidance.
2. I have no further ideas as yet.

Isn't that a good list?

Do any of my lovely blog readers have any ideas about how I might go about 'shaking things up'? Anything you may have heard of, or from personal experience?

Old fashioned and a bit of a homebody, you totally go for comfort food.

You're the type who loves to cook for friends, and they love you for it.

You truly know what tastes good, and you can often pick out the best dish at a restaurant.

You don't fall for food trends. You stick with what's been food for a long time!

Saya menghadiri peluncuran dan seminar mengenai isi buku ini di Toko Buku Gramedia, Matraman, di suatu Jumat sore (15 Agustus 2008, 16:00 - 18:00 WIB).

Penulisnya adalah Farid Poniman, Indrawan Nugroho, Jamil Azzaini, ketiganya dari lembaga KUBIK Consulting, sebuah lembaga konsultan yang sudah mengadakan serangkaian seminar di beberapa perusahaan berskala nasional yang bertemakan judul buku ini.

Yang ditawarkan adalah solusi esensial meraih "sukses + mulia". Tidak sebatas frasa "sukses" sebagai pencapaian pribadi, namun selayaknya "mulia" agar bermanfaat bagi sekitarnya.

Masalah mendasar seseorang selalu saja terjebak dalam "kegagalan" yang sama: Ketidak-mampuan memimpin diri sendiri.

Seringkali yang pertama kali mesti dilakukan adalah memperbaiki cara pandang. Memahami permasalahan sebaiknya dengan menyederhanakan masalah yang kompleks, karena masalah "idealisme" tidak bisa dijawab dengan "strategi", masalah "taktis" dengan "praktis", dst.

Dalam teori Kubik Leadership, setiap orang memiliki struktur dominan dalam otak masing-masing.

Yang paling menarik, jika ukuran sukses adalah 4-TA (harta, tahta, kata, cinta), maka setiap pribadi memiliki sifat dominan yang berbeda-beda.

Analogi kepribadian seseorang adalah seperti karakteristik berikut:
Jari jempol = memiliki keunggulan stamina dan visi (HARTA), bisa jadi kaya raya
Jari telunjuk = kecenderungan menjadi pemimpin (TAHTA), berkedudukan
Jari tengah = paling efektif jika diposisikan untuk mediasi
Jari manis = secara alamiah memiliki daya tarik (KATA)
Jari kelingking = mengutamakan perasaan, gampang berjanji namun lemah dalam aplikasi, berempati besar dan pandai menjaga perasaan orang lain (CINTA)

Contoh aplikasi: Orang "jari tengah" dilukiskan sebagai pencari kebahagiaan, tidak terlalu ambisius untuk mendapatkan salah satu dari 4-TA itu secara maksimal.

Bagi orang tua, pemahaman terhadap karakteristik anak menjadi penting agar pengarahan akan tepat sasaran. Ada yang instinktif, thinking, dll yang selengkapnya bisa dibaca dalam buku tersebut. Sebagai atasan pun, menghadapi bawahan juga seharusnya dimulai dengan mengenali karakteristik mereka agar pengarahan menjadi tepat sasaran.

Seseorang yang orientasinya hanya "sukses" tidak membawa kebahagiaan bagi sekitarnya, maka konsep "mulia" adalah kesuksesan yang juga berguna bagi orang lain.

Alasan berbuat baik biasanya "karena dianjurkan agama". Namun secara alamiah, berbuat baik mempertahankan hukum kekekalan energi. Apapun yang kita usahakan akan sama dengan yang diusahakan.

JUMLAH USAHA = HASIL USAHA

Namun jika seseorang merasa sudah berusaha sedemikian keras namun hasilnya nihil, berarti hasil usaha itu masih "tersimpan" sebagai "tabungan energi". Rumus di atas menjadi:

JUMLAH USAHA = TABUNGAN ENERGI + HASIL USAHA

Tabungan energi bisa bernilai negatif maupun negatif, contohnya "korupsi" adalah salah satu bentuk "penimbunan tabungan nergi negatif" yang suatu saat akan memiliki efek.

Selengkapnya bisa dibaca dalam bukunya, seharga Rp.85,000 di toko buku online ini. Anda juga bisa mengunjungi website para penulisnya atau memantau siaran Trijaya FM setiap Kamis, 17:00-18:30 WIB.

Is that odd?

Look I love hugs and I love sharing a coffee, I love just sitting and chatting over a glass or two of wine.  I hate my birthday and I hate Christmas or any other gift giving time, I hate it.  Someone giving me a present always embarrasses me and makes me feel bad. Yeah I know my straight jacket lies right next to me but that is fact. 

I am a giver NOT a receiver.

No, I am not pulling your chain either, this is a known fact.  I have avoided functions because I knew gifts would be present. Yip, you heard it right.

When I step away from myself and look from the outside inwards it is actually quite shocking behaviour.  Not only is it rude it is hurtful to the person trying to give. It is as if I was telling them that I don't appreciate the effort they put into selecting a gift for me, that I don't respect their love for me nor themselves.

In reality it is the opposite.  I respect everything that they have done and I appreciate it beyond words.  The truth is that I just don't believe myself to be worthy of their attentions or time never mind the effort they put in.

In examining the truth of my actions and the causes it is almost as if my inner child bulks at anything given for the fact that normally there is an emotional and/or physical price tag attached to it.  The silent message triggered in the brain is a simple "I give you this gift but I expect something in return, it may be more than you have but I expect it". 

I give freely, it is who I am, it is part of my core personality and soul.  I do it with no intention or want of reciprocation.  The price tag I am talking about is not the returning of gift giving but rather "I gave you that gift now you are enslaved to me" or "I did this good thing for you now you are indebted to me".  I have gotten those a lot, growing up nothing was ever for free, even hugs felt as though they had a price tag.

They only hugged me when they were mean to me, they only gave me things because they felt bad. 

Everything given had and still has a price tag and it is always cashed in. Always. 

Again I am learning that it is only some people that are like this but again it is a tough habit to break.  I never really thought about what I do to others when I refuse their small gestures of help or gifts.  The realisation that I have hurt people through these actions of self preservation breaks my heart, it really does. 

At least I am aware of these bad habits, slowly realising and growing through their annihilation.  At least life is never boring.

Until now, qualities such as vision, perseverance or the ability to tolerate risk have been hailed as hallmarks of the so called entrepreneurial personality, but say that entrepreneurs need to embody those woefully obvious characteristics is akin to saying a pilot must like to fly or a doctor must be able to tolerate the sight of blood. Today researchers are finding the ability to overcome character flaws may be just as important if not more important than having certain charact,er traits. For example a study completed for the Cass Business school shows a direct kinship between the real entreprenuerial personality and dyslexics, a group not typically associated with resounding business success. The findings are both facinating and important : Certain characteristics of dyslexics, such as the ability to comfront and overcome obstacles or collaborate with others, are among the most critical and consistent characteristics of the world's most successful "normal" entrepeneurs.

And when you ask proven entrpreneurs venture capitalists, or other market place players to define key personality traits that inspire success you begin to understand the connection. After all those who succeed point to an aptitude for overcoming their shortcomings, including their inabilities to listen, absorb information and delegate authority. They rarely mention a dogged sense of self reliance. One of the biggest

characteristics of being an entrepeneur is being persistent however on the down side is that you cannot be stubborn. The ability to listen to feedback and intergrate it is critical and is one of the more rare characteristics found in entrepenuers. You cannot avoid or ignore the market and what it's telling you. The smart ones do not keep plowing forward, hitting their heads against a brick wall. The smart ones are able to shift and change. For entrepeneurs, the ability to listen, absorb criticism, and take their business in a different direction is absolutely critical.

- - - -

Back?  Okay, let's jump into things, shall we?

The mind of a writer is a funny thing.  The way my mind's always worked is thru narration.  When I really think about a scene for a story, I don't just 'see' it in my mind's eye, I also 'hear' a narration overtop of it.  It can be a little annoying sometimes, but it can also be great--when it comes time for me to actually write the scene, I'm actually just transcribing it from my mind's narration.  Pretty sweet.

I'm really hoping to be able to sell something I write at some point (soon, hopefully).  I see some of the stuff that's out there and people (presumably) got paid for, and I think "I can do better than this!"  I just need the drive and the determination to 1) DO it, and 2) try to SELL it.  One does not necessarily lead to the other, altho you'd wonder with some of the reading fare out today.  (Of course, the accessibility of the internet doesn't help matters--every 13 year old who with a keyboard can slap some drivel online and call themselves a 'writer', but that doesn't make it so.)

Bad writing makes me cringe, especially when I see it somewhere it SHOULDN'T be--on an ad, in a book or magazine, even on the internet.  I know that a lot of people think that the internet should be a special consideration, but honestly, I think people should be MORE strict with their chosen words on here.  Why?  Because there's no tone of voice, no facial or body expressions, nothing that can add to the words to indicate whether something's a joke, an insult or a serious statement.  And whether you want to believe it or not, posts CAN leave their mark on you.

Think about it.  Have you ever been insulted or flamed on a message board or in an email and had it creep back up on you later?  Maybe in the middle of the night, or when you're sitting in traffic?  Even if it's just to make you think, "Boy, that guy's a jerk!"  There's the power of the written word at work.  It can be very damaging in the wrong hands, and unfortunately, the internet has no shortage of people ready, willing and able to be as mean, harsh, and overall nasty as possible.  I will never understand that.  I guess they get their jollies from hurting other people.  Nice.

In other news, I've been trying to perform a completely personality overhaul on myself.  A few weeks ago, I came to the realization that I'm an overly negative person who was stuck in this mire of pessimism and depression.  I'll spare you all the details, but basically it's something my hubby's been trying to convince me of for YEARS, but I was never willing to accept it.  I was never willing to accept the fact that I wasn't the person I THOUGHT I was all along.  It wasn't everyone else who had the problem, it was me and my attitude.  Big kick in the gut, lemme tell ya.  So I have consciously tuned out the negative thoughts and tried to remain more positive.  It's hard some days, but I'm still trying.

My daughter is about 6 and a half months old, and today I've lowered her crib mattress to the lowest setting.  Why the lowest when she's not even crawling yet?  Three reasons.  1) She's getting ready to crawl, you can tell by the way she squirms on the floor.  2) She's a tall girl, so when she does start to crawl and pull herself up, she's going to be able to reach higher in the crib.  And 3) I'm lazy.  The bottom rack (the part that supports the mattress) is held in the crib frame by hex screws, not regular philips head screws, and getting the thing unscrewed and adjusted is a pain in the arse.  I didn't want to put it on the second setting just to have to adjust it again in another few months.  We can still reach her on her new setting, and that's the important thing.

Boy we've been having some really nice weather lately.  Normally St. Louis summers can be described in one word--HUMID.  Last August was the hottest month on record, as we had high 90s temps and high humidity every single day.  Not a few days and then a break.  No.  Every.  Single.  Day.  The heat index was over 100 degrees.  Every.  Single.  Day.  It was disgusting.  But this year's been nice so far.  A few humid days, but mostly it's been in the 80s and very low humidity.  Nice!

Well, I'd better stop my rambling.  I technically have a blog on blogger (the link is on the right under "Family Blog") but I thought I'd give Wordpress a try.  I think it's got a few nicer features than blogger, but I'm just starting out.  We'll see how it goes.

Do we have a personality independent of our choices of actions?

Called Deaf President Now (DPN), the week-long protest was a watershed event in the lives of deaf and hard-of-hearing people all over the world. At its conclusion, the Board reversed its decision and named Irving King Jordan, 1 of 3 finalists for the position, the 8th president of Gallaudet and the 1st deaf president since the institution was established in 1864.

Irving King Jordan is a native of Glen Riddle, a small town near Philadelphia in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school, Penncrest High School, in 1962, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served 4 years. Irving King Jordan became deaf at the age of 21 when, while driving a motorcycle, he obtained a skull fracture due to not wearing a helmet after having been flung into the windshield of a car.

As professor, department chair, dean, and president, Irving King Jordan has made numerous scholarly contributions to his field. In addition, he has been a research fellow at Donaldson's School for the Deaf in Edinburgh, Scotland, an exchange scholar at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and a visiting scholar and lecturer at schools in the French cities of Paris, Toulouse, and Marseille.

Irving King Jordan and his wife, Linda, live in West River, Maryland. They have 2 grown children. Irving King Jordan loves running daily.

Irving King Jordan holds 11 honorary degrees and is the recipient of numerous awards, among them: the Presidential Citizen's Medal, the Washingtonian of the Year Award, the James L. Fisher Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the Larry Stewart Award from the American Psychological Association, and the Distinguished Leadership Award from the National Association for Community Leadership. In 1990, President Bush appointed Irving King Jordan Vice Chair of the President's Committee on Employment of People with disabilities.

On campus, he was widely applauded for his successful efforts to increase funding, including funds for the expansion and construction of 2 new large-scale centers for education research and support.

On Thursday, 1 September, 2005, Irving King Jordan announced his intentions to retire from the Presidency effective 31 December, 2006.

Irving King Jordan became the subject of controversy himself when he defended the controversial decision made on 1 May, 2006 by the Board of Trustees to appoint Dr. Jane Fernandes as president designate. The announcement of her selection set off a campus-wide protest.

Critics claim that Ms. Fernandes was not highly regarded by both the faculty and students, and many deeply suspect Dr. Jordan orchestrated her ascension for personal reasons. Dr. Jordan, taking a line from page 10 of the 1995 book, "Deaf President Now" (by Christiansen and Barnartt), publicly accused some critics of rejecting Ms. Fernandes because she was allegedly not "deaf enough". They replied that such a charge is off-base, because Irving King Jordan himself was accepted as president, even though he did not become deaf until he was 21. The protesters insisted that they protested for more profound reasons, such as Ms. Fernandes' character, leadership, and policies.

The protesters also took issue with the fact that during escalating tensions between the administration and protesters in October 2006, Irving King Jordan proceeded to host ceremonies in which the Student Academic Center was renamed after him while a wing in the Washburn Arts Building was renamed after his wife. Many of the dissenters took the moves as a sign of Irving King Jordan's arrogance and narcissistic attitude.

On 13 October, 2006, Irving King Jordan ordered mass arrests of Gallaudet University Students at the 6th street gate. Dubbed as Black Friday, a total of 135 student-protesters were arrested. The bail was originally set at $250 as requested by Irving King Jordan. The D.C. Metropolitan Police later decided to set it at $50. This set off even larger protest the following day estimated at 1,000 people.

Many in the deaf community interpreted Irving King Jordan's actions in arresting the protesters as an act of political suicide on his part. The protesters prevailed soon thereafter, on 29 October 2006 when the Gallaudet Board of Trustees met and voted to rescind Jane Fernandes's contract to be the 9th President of Gallaudet.

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Guillaume's father was a lawyer from Normandy who had moved to the French capital. While still young, Guillaume lost his hearing, which may have motivated him to focus entirely on science. Guillaume never attended a university, but was able to study mathematics, the physical sciences, and celestial mechanics. Guillaume also spent time studying the skills of drawing, surveying, and architecture. Guillaume was supported in his research career by the government, and was employed in various public works projects.

Among his contributions to scientific instrumentation were improvements to the barometer (1695), hygrometer (1687), and thermometer (1695), particularly for use of these instruments at sea. Guillaume also demonstrated an optical telegraph and proposed the use of his clepsydra (water clock) for keeping time on a ship at sea.

Guillaume investigated the relationship between pressure and temperature in gases though he lacked accurate and precise thermometers. Though his results were at best semi-quantitative, he established that the pressure of a gas increases by roughly 1/3 between the temperatures of cold and the boiling point of water. This was a substantial step towards the subsequent gas laws and, in particular, Charles's law.

Guillaume's work led him to speculate that a sufficient reduction in temperature would lead to the disappearance of pressure. Thus, he is the first researcher to discuss the concept of an absolute zero of temperature, a concept later extended and rationalised by William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin. In 1699, Guillaume published his rediscovery of the laws of friction first put forward by Leonardo da Vinci. Though they were received with some scepticism, the laws were verified by Charles-Augustin de Coulomb in 1781.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)) can be named as the father of modern tribology as he studied an incredible manifold of tribological subtopics such as: friction, wear, bearing materials, plain bearings, lubrication systems, gears, screw-jacks, and rolling-element bearings. 150 years before Guillaume's Laws of Friction were introduced, he had already recorded them in his manuscripts. Hidden or lost for centuries, Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts were read in Spain a quarter of a millennium later.

Guillaume's Laws of Friction were first recorded in books during the late 17th century.

There 3 laws of friction are:

• 1. The force of friction is directly proportional to the applied load. (Guillaume's 1st Law)
• 2. The force of friction is independent of the apparent area of contact. (Guillaume's 2nd Law)
• 3. Kinetic friction is independent of the sliding velocity. (Coulomb's Law)

NOTE: These 3 laws only apply to dry friction, in which the addition of a lubricant modifies the tribological properties signifiantly.

By looking at any surface on the microscopic level, one would find that it is never perfectly flat. There would exist many tiny bumps and craters, due to imperfections on the surface and the alignment of molecules. (The skin does not feel the bumps and craters because they are too small to be detected.) Considering a smooth stone on a smooth flat road, the 2 surfaces would be still in contact, but only at a few points (the bumps do fot fit exactly into the craters). Due to electrostatic forces of repulsion between the atoms (nuclei and nuclei) of the stone and the road, the road will exert a force on the stone, and the stone will exert a force on the road (normal contact forces). The NET force exerted on the stone would be the NORMAL contact force.

If net external forces cause the stone to move to the RIGHT, the forces that the road exert on the stone would be slightly skewed to the LEFT, thus the net force will be pointing UP but LEFTWARD (tilted contact force). As the vertical component of the net force is the normal contact force, the extra horizontal leftward component of the force would therefore be the FRICTIONAL force. (Note: friction OPPOSES motion)

Suppose the stone had a greater mass (hence greater weight as g=constant). The stone would then:

• exert a greater force on the road (the increased load causes the separation distance of the nuclei to decrease, force of repulsion becomes stronger(inverse-square law) ), AND
• more of the atoms of the road and the stone would be in contact.

Hence, when the stone is moved, a greater frictional force would be produced (more areas of contact means that more forces can be skewed, producing more horizontal components of the contact forces).

Guillaume's law applies to any 2 surfaces, regardless of their orientation. (e.g. pressing a brick against the ceiling, etc.)

NOTE: Applied load means the normal contact force acting on the stone. That is, if the stone is being pushed down harder while it was trying to move, the force acting on the ground increases, and hence the force of the ground acting on the stone (normal contact) increases. This means that more force is required to move the stone across the ground. (frictional force increase)

What this law means is that if two equal masses made of similar material are resting on the same surface with DIFFERENT SURFACES AREAS OF CONTACT, they would require the SAME AMOUNT of FORCE to start moving (overcome static friction) and to move at constant speed⁺.

To put it in another way: considering 2 equal masses, and the area in contact in situation A is greater than in situation B. This only means that in situation A, the load is distributed across a greater area then in situation B. However, the applied load is still the same! Thus to move both masses, we would require the same amount of applied force to overcome friction. (Guillaume's First Law)

⁺ To maintain constant speed, net force has to be 0N. Assuming no drag forces,

Through studies and experimental observations on the properties of friction, a relationship between frictional force and normal contact force was established:

,

where μ is the coefficient of friction and N is the normal contact force.

This is as predicted by Guillaume's 2 laws, where F_fric depends only on the normal contact force (reaction pair of the applied load), and is independent of the surface area in contact.

However, exceptions to Guillaume's Law have been observed in various nanometric scenarios. For example, when 2 surfaces get close enough such that molecular interactions and atomic forces come into play, the 2 surfaces are attracted together and form what was known as 'negative load'.

*requires verfication by Specialists*

Honours

• Member, Académie des Sciences, (1690)
• The Amontons crater on the Moon is named after him.

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1. I am a Pisces born on the ides of March.
2. I married an Aquarian born on Valentine's Day.
3. I met my husband at a pool. [caption id="attachment_339" align="alignnone" width="208" caption="Pool at Simon Fraser University"][/caption]

   He came in to ask if Water Polo would be there that night. It wasn't.

4. Shortly after we started dating, I watched him cross a road and knew I would marry him.  
5. We had our first kiss here: [caption id="attachment_355" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Lost Lagoon Bridge in Stanley Park"][/caption]

    and he proposed to me 5 years later on that same spot.

6. I love water. I would be a mermaid if I could.
7. I was a prime number when I had all three of my children: 29, 31, and 37.
8. I have 4 brothers and 3 sisters. All from the same parents who have been married since 1965.
9. I have played a sprite, an airy spirit, a wizard, a devil, a magical snake, a giant, and a fairy queen. No mermaids though.
10. Although, I did play a woman who drowned herself and left only the message "I am feeding the fish."
11. I've played quite few crazies too.
12. I have run the Sun Run twice. Well, walked and jogged it really.
13. I don't like the words moist, blog, pus, or zit.
14. I do like the words melancholy, vox, flummoxed, luminous, sylvan, and obstreperous.
15. If I were a Pooh character I would be Piglet.

    [caption id="attachment_341" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Pooh and Piglet"][/caption]

16. If I were a Muppet I would be Beaker.

    [caption id="attachment_342" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Beaker"][/caption]

17. If I were a Disney princess, I would be Ariel.

    [caption id="attachment_343" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Ariel"][/caption]

18. If I were a Peanuts character, I would be Lucy.

    [caption id="attachment_370" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Lucy"][/caption]

19. In my next life I'm hoping to be tall.
20. In Myers Briggs personality profile, I am in INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving). Yep, I'm all down one side of the table.
21. My husband and I dated for six years before we got married.
22. We got married on the anniversary of our first date -- October 16 (also the birthday of my paternal grandfather).
23. According to Chinese astrology, I am a Sheep, and my element is Fire. I think it's interesting that these things seem to contradict each other, as I also feel I am a creature of contradictions (remember the symbol of Pisces is two fish swimming in opposite directions). Plus what's with the combination of being both a Water and Fire?
24. I have a Kevin Bacon score of 3.
25. I am good at making a plan and terrible at following it.
26. The only thing I am consistent at is inconsistency.
27. I can read a book in a day. A day and a half if it's a long book. I do this more often than I should.
28. I probably spend more money on books than clothes.
29. I have worked in the offices of a food processing plant, a wood preservation company (preserving through creosote, not forest protection), a helicopter maintenance facility, a computer-based-training organization, and a continuing education academy for dentists.
30. I am the oldest child of two parents who are also oldest children. I married an oldest child.
31. Everyone in my family has a birthday buddy--someone who was born within 5 days of the other: Sis2 and Mom: Jan 24 and 26. Me and Sis1: March 15 and 17. Sis3 and Bro1: April 3 and 4. Bro4 and Dad: July 4 and 7. Bro2 and Bro3: October 25 and 29.
32. Jane Eyre is my favourite book of all time. I only read it at the behest of my very literary paternal grandfather. I now own that copy from his library plus two other editions.
33. I am afraid of horses.
34. My three closest friends would likely not be close friends with each other.
35. My first album purchase was Heart of Glass by Blondie.
36. My three best book finds on the Chapters discount shelves were: Tex and Molly in the Afterlife, Colors Insulting to Nature and The Time Traveller's Wife. These are books I bought because they were cheap and looked interesting, but knew nothing about them before I bought them.
37. My best feature is my hair. Does hair qualify as a feature?
38. I love watching modern dance, but I hate watching ballroom dancing.
39. I can juggle.
40. I went to Catholic School from grade 3 to grade 12.
41. I am allergic to codeine. When I have codeine my face swells up like a puffer fish, and I look like I could have a bit part in the third installment of Babe.
42. I have a diploma in Human Resources Management
43. I must have one of the longest degree names in the history of degree names, here it is: I earned a Bachelor of Arts with a Double Major in English and the Fine Performing Arts (Concentration, Acting).
44. I have put my hands in the Trevi Fountain.

    [caption id="attachment_372" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Trevi Fountain"][/caption]

45. I have put my whole body in the reflecting pool in the quadrangle of Simon Fraser University.

    [caption id="attachment_385" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Reflecting Pool at SFU Burnaby campus"][/caption]

46. I have eaten haggis (although it was more of a McHaggis, since it was deep-fried)
47. These self-helf books actually changed the way I look at life: Women Who Run with the Wolves, The Art of Possibility and How to Be Free
48. If I could choose to live somewhere other than Vancouver it would probably be Edinburgh.
49. I have had a tonsillectomy, two c-sections and a kidney-stone blasting.
50. I LOATHE the expression "My bad."  Every time I hear it I have to restrain the urge to SMACK the utterer upside the head.
51. My kids have had swimming lessons at the same pool at which I taught swimming lessons, which is the same pool where I learned to swim.
52. I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. But have lived in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia most of my life.
53. I watched a lightning storm outside the Radcliffe Camera.

    [caption id="attachment_346" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Radcliffe Camera"][/caption]

54. Three of my favourite television shows contain a direction in the title: Northern Exposure, Due South and The West Wing. I wonder where is my East?
55. I have hoisted a beer in the Eagle and Child, which is the pub the Inklings used to meet.
56. I was born in the year of the Summer of Love (I guess I was the springtime lead in--sort of like a warm up act).
57. I can find a metaphor anywhere.
58. I actually heard someone say to a Gondolier in Venice, with a thick Texan accent (the tourist, not the gondolier) "Do you speak American?"
59. Despite the fact that it's ridiculed on the website Stuff White People Like, (although I will note that the author of that website has now written a book) I have written two chapters of a novel. I may even finish it one day, if I can garner enough energy and focus.
60. My schoolgirl crushes included Shaun Cassidy, Apollo (from Battlestar Galactica) and Frank Hardy (in either book or television form).

    [caption id="attachment_374" align="alignnone" width="257" caption="Richard Hatch as Apollo on Battlestar Galactica"][/caption]

61. My schoolgirl crushes that went on to be adult woman crushes include Sting and Harrison Ford.
62. I have only been skiing once, and I'm scared to do it again.
63. I once worked in a place where the women and the men sat at separate tables. Intentionally. It was an unwritten rule, but you would be reminded if you broke it.
64. I make things too complicated.
65. I have flown on a trapeze in Sam Keen's back 40. In addition to a trapeze, he also had turkeys. I found the turkeys to be scarier than the trapeze.
66. I don't like umbrellas. I would rather walk in the rain. As a matter of fact, I like walking in the rain.
67. I have flown in a helicopter.
68. My most amazing theatre watching experience was seeing Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream at the Royal National Theatre in London as directed by the Great Canadian Wunderkind, Robert LePage. The set was a giant mud-puddle and Puck was played by a French-Canadian contortionist. I had GREAT dreams that night.

    [caption id="attachment_375" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="The set of A Midsummer Night's dream by Michael Levine"][/caption]

69. I can drive a standard.
70. Although it's heresy, I don't like the novels written by John Steinbeck or Joseph Conrad.
71. Someone once lost their job because I could the job better than they could. I honestly had not intended that to happen, hadn't even considered it a possibility.
72. I have sprayed liquid chlorine in my eyes. It was an accident okay? This was my first indication that I might be an ideas-gal.
73. My second-most amazing theatre watching experience was seeing a Scottish translation of Cyrano de Bergerac at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival by the Communicado Theatre Company. Translation done by Edwin Morgan. Directed by Gerry Mulgrew. Cyrano played by Tom Mannion. Instead of the traditional long nose, they modelled the nose after some kind of diseased nose found in a medical textbook. Yucky, but brilliant.
74. If I were one of Charlie's Angels, I would be Sabrina Duncan (Kate Jackson).

    [caption id="attachment_379" align="alignnone" width="202" caption="Kate Jackson as Sabrina Duncan"][/caption]

75. If I were on the Scooby-Doo team, I would be Velma.

    [caption id="attachment_380" align="alignnone" width="166" caption="Velma"][/caption]

76. I earned an A+ in my acting class during our Shakespeare semester.
77. I have never been cast in a Shakespearean play outside of university.
78. I wear orthotics.
79. My favourite book as a child was Beyond the Paw Paw Trees.
80. I love my job, my 2 bosses, the company I work for, the product we make, and the location of my office. How great is that?
81. I was downsized once. I was offered the same job back four months later. I declined.
82. I've done a 7-day liquid fast.
83. I was a singing hostess at Romano's Macaroni Grill.
84. I played a mascot for one week by the name of Cleaver the Beaver.
85. I worked the Army and Navy's annual shoe sale for two weeks. Insanity. There was an actual countdown to opening over the intercom and the sale clerks flattened themselves against the walls to avoid being run over in the stampede.
86. I am pretty good at dream interpretation.
87. As I get older, I get worse hangovers from garlic than booze. That sucks. I'm not saying that I can drink unscathed, but I will suffer more from three cloves of garlic than three glasses of wine.
88. I actually enjoy office work. It satisfies the part of my brain that also likes doing a sheet of multiplication problems. There's something about the problem-solving, symmetry, and blank filling-in that I enjoy.
89. I cannot get through a Henry James novel.
90. I have never done any drugs. The only cigarettes I smoked were for a role--Wang, the Waterseller, in the Good Woman of Szechwan.
91. I ate lunch in/on the Eiffel Tower

    [caption id="attachment_382" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Eiffel Tower, Paris (photo courtesy of Freefoto.com)"][/caption]

92. I cannot eat blueberries. They make me gag. My sister is the same way. We believe that it is a gene that we both inherited.
93. I have learned not to believe "That will never happen to me or my family."
94. My favourite roles have been Ariel from The Tempest, Mad Margaret from Ruddigore and the Fairy Queen from Iolanthe.
95. The worst job I ever had was a two-week stint in the data entry offices of a department store chain entering shipping manifests for 8 hours per day.
96. The last but most useful class I took at University was Rhetoric.
97. I love getting pedicures.
98. I'm trying to eliminate the word "like" from my vocabulary unless I'm like saying that I like appreciate something or it's like similar to something you know like it.
99. I took an accounting class after working in offices for 8 years. Learning about credits and debits and balance sheets was like discovering the Rosetta Stone to me. Finally! It all makes sense!
100. I had no idea how much having kids changes you. Or how much you could love another person.

If you made it this far, I congratulate you. I almost didn't get here myself and I have a somewhat vested interest. Can I ask, was there anything on the list that surprised you?

Usually first days in class are pretty short, long enough to get a syllabus and for the professor to explain it, then you are released. In creative writing we do not have a syllabus nor a book so we just jumped in. We read two poems: "The Zen of Housework" by Al Zolynas and "The Town of Websterton" by our instructor, Dr. William Webster.

"The Zen of Housework" was read to show us how to capture what shimmered around us in the ordinary world. How to take our ordinary experiences or things around us and use them in language to create a poem. "The Town of Websterton" was done by Webster as part of a writing exercise of creating a poem about the town that you envision that it would be - along with a title to match. It was humorous, creative, and illustrative. That is what I love about literature, that it can bring out senses and visions from words on a paper or from the language rolling from a tongue.

The class is small, six people. I do not complain however, I like small class environments. It allows me to function better and make friends. The people in the class are so familiar, yet I have never met any of them. No, I do not believe we met in a past life. I am not sure why, but it seems personalities float around. I met some interesting people, creative and unique. I do believe that it will be an interesting writing environment.

The last part of the class was about craft. We discussed what is called "the trick". The trick is to find out what we know, challenge what we know, own what we know, and give it away in language. Also a little wisdom: good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's.

The class ended with an assignment we are to write a poem for our next meet on:

1. Write a poem about a memorable moment in your life.
2. Write a poem describing objects in your bedroom or living room telling a little of their - and your history.
3. Write a poem about something you do on a regular basis. Try to get at the particular way you perform this activity that might be different from someone else.

Finding the things that shimmer indeed.

- Jason

Georgia Horsley hails from and has been working as a model and florist. Georgia Horsley has 10 GCSEs, an A Level in Art, 2 AS Levels in Geography and Sociology, a diploma in Anatomy and Physiology, and a Red Cross Therapeutic care course qualification. Georgia Horsley's aim was to pursue a career as a media make-up artist and she was due to start a degree in design and media make-up at university before she won the title of Miss England.

Georgia Horsley has her success at one of the fast track events held during the pageant when she was one of the top 18 semifinalists of the Miss World Talent. In spite of being one of the early favourites of the contest, she failed to secure a place in the top 16 on the final night.

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Gabriel Faure was a French composer, organist, pianist, and teacher. Gabriel Faure was the foremost French composer of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers. Gabriel Faure's harmonic and melodic language affected how harmony was later taught.

Gabriel Fauré was born to, Toussaint-Honoré Fauré and Marie-Antoinette-Hélène Lalène-Laprade. Gabriel Faure was sent to live with a foster-nurse for 4 years. At the age of 9 he was sent to study at the École Niedermeyer, a school which prepared church organists and choir directors in Paris, and continued there for 11 years. Gabriel Faure studied with several prominent French musicians, including Camille Saint-Saëns, who introduced him to the music of several contemporary composers, including Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt.

In 1870, Gabriel Fauré enlisted in the army and took part in the action to raise the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. During the Paris Commune he stayed at Rambouillet and in Switzerland, where he taught at the transported École Niedermeyer. When he returned to Paris in October 1871, he was appointed assistant organist at Saint-Sulpice as accompanist to the choir, and became a regular at Saint-Saëns' salon. Here he met many prominent Parisian musicians and with those he met there and at the salon of Pauline Garcia-Viardot he formed the Société Nationale de Musique.

In 1874, Gabriel Fauré stopped working at Saint-Sulpice and began to fill in at the Église de la Madeleine for Saint-Saëns during his many absences. When Saint-Saëns retired in 1877, Gabriel Fauré became choirmaster. In the same year he became engaged to Marianne Viardot, daughter of Pauline, but the engagement was later broken off by Marianne. Following this disappointment he travelled to Weimar, where he met Liszt, and Cologne in order to see productions of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Gabriel Fauré admired Richard Wagner, but was one of very few composers of his generation not to come under his influence.

In 1883, Gabriel Fauré married Marie Fremiet, with whom he had 2 sons. In order to support his family Gabriel Fauré spent most of his time in organising daily services at the Église de la Madeleine and teaching piano and harmony lessons. Gabriel Faure only had time to compose during the summers. Gabriel Faure earned almost no money from his compositions because his publisher bought them, copyright and all, for 50 francs each. During this period Gabriel Fauré wrote several large scale works, in addition to many piano pieces and songs, but he destroyed many of them after a few performances, only retaining a few movements in order to re-use motives.

During his youth Gabriel Fauré was very cheerful, but his broken engagement combined with his perceived lack of musical success led to bouts of depression which he described as "spleen". In the 1890s, however, his fortunes reversed somewhat. Gabriel Faure had a successful trip to Venice where he met with friends and wrote several works. In 1892, he became the inspector of the music conservatories in the French provinces, which meant he no longer had to teach amateur students. In 1896, he finally became chief organist at the Église de la Madeleine, and also succeeded Jules Massenet as composition instructor at the Conservatoire de Paris. At this particular post he taught many important French composers, including Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger.

From 1903 to 1921, Gabriel Fauré was a critic for Le Figaro. In 1905, he succeeded Théodore Dubois as director of the Paris Conservatory. Gabriel Faure made many changes at the Conservatoire, leading to the resignation of a number of faculty members. This position meant that he was better off in terms of income, and he also became much more widely known as a composer.

Gabriel Fauré was elected to the Institut de France in 1909, but at the same time he broke with the Société Nationale de Musique, and supported the rogue group which formed out of those ejected from the Société, mainly his own students. During this time Gabriel Fauré developed ear trouble and gradually lost his hearing. Sound not only became fainter, but it was also distorted, so that pitches on the low and high ends of his hearing sounded like other pitches. Gabriel Faure made efforts to conceal his difficulty, but was eventually forced to abandon his teaching position.

Gabriel Faure's responsibilities at the Conservatoire, combined with his hearing loss, meant that Gabriel Fauré's output was greatly reduced during this period. During World War I Gabriel Fauré remained in France. In 1920, at the age of 75, he retired from the Conservatoire mainly due to his increasing deafness. In this year he also received the Grand-Croix of the Légion d'Honneur, an honor rare for a musician. Gabriel Faure suffered from poor health, partially brought on by heavy smoking. Despite this, he remained available to young composers, including members of Les Six, who were devoted to him.

Gabriel Fauré is regarded as the master of the French art song, or mélodie. Gabriel Faure's works ranged from an early romantic style, when in his early years he emulated the style of Mendelssohn and others, to late 19th century Romantic, and finally to a 20th century aesthetic. Gabriel Faure's work was based on a strong understanding of harmonic structures which he received at the École Niedermeyer from his harmony teacher Gustave Lefèvre, who wrote the book Traité d'harmonie (Paris, 1889), in which Lefèvre sets forth a harmonic theory which differs significantly from the classical theory of Jean-Philippe Rameau in that 7th and 9th chords are no longer considered dissonant, and the mediant can be altered without changing the mode. In addition, Gabriel Fauré's understanding of the church modes can be seen in various modal passages in his works, especially in his melodies.

In contrast with his harmonic and melodic style, which pushed the bounds for his time, Gabriel Fauré's rhythmic motives tended to be subtle and repetitive, with little to break the flow of the line, although he did utilize subtle large scale syncopations, similar to those found in Brahms works. Aaron Copland referred to him as the 'French Brahms'.

Gabriel Fauré's piano works often use arpeggiated figures with the melody interspersed between the 2 hands, and include finger substitutions natural for organists. These aspects make them daunting for some pianists, but they are nonetheless central works.

Gabriel Fauré was a prolific composer, and among the most noteworthy of his works are his Requiem, the opera Pénélope, the orchestral suite Masques et Bergamasques (based on music for a dramatic entertainment, or divertissement comique), and music for Pelléas et Mélisande. Gabriel Faure also wrote chamber music; his 2 piano quartets are particularly well known. Other chamber music includes 2 piano quintets, 2 cello sonatas, 2 violin sonatas, and a number of piano pieces including the Nocturnes. Gabriel Faure is also known for his songs, such as Après un rêve, Les roses d'Ispahan, En prière, and several song cycles, including La Bonne Chanson with settings of poems by Verlaine, and L'horizon chimérique.

The Requiem, Op. 48, was not composed to the memory of a specific person but, in Gabriel Fauré's words, "for the pleasure of it." It was first performed in 1888. Gabriel Fauré is thought not to have had strong religious beliefs. It has been described as "a lullaby of death". In setting his requiem, he left out the Dies irae, though the reference to the day of judgment appears in the Libera me, which, like Giuseppe Verdi, he added to the normal requiem mass. Several slightly different versions of the Requiem exist, and these have given rise to a number of different recordings. Personal grief may have influenced the composition as it was started after the death of his father, and before it was completed, his mother died as well. The Requiem can thus be seen as an expression of Gabriel Fauré's personal tragedy written after the death of his parents. The Requiem is also acknowledged as a source of inspiration for the similar setting by Maurice Duruflé.

Gabriel Faure's music is used in "Act I: Emeralds" of George Balanchine's ballet Jewels (1967).

In the UK, the Berceuse from his Dolly Suite became known to several generations of children when it was used as the closing music for the radio programme Listen with Mother, which ran from 1950 to 1982.

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nothing influenced me to write something like this one tonight. i got FRAGILE just listening to this song of STING. after today's bulk of work, i got tired and was hoping actually to write something worthwhile in here but nada! it's just me and sting with him singing fragile over and over and over.

just go on check the lyrics of this song. sometimes we hide our fears through a facade of strength. although we get to hold up that kind of pretense most of the time, there are instances we get to realize that we are fragile too. sometimes it's best to just be quiet and humbled than be stubborn and violent. what's my point? it's okay to be fragile and sensitive at times. we are only but human. allow yourself to hibernate by admitting some sort of weaknesses.

don't mind me. you have all your reasons to be how you are now. nothing extraordinary happened today which triggered to make me write this entry. i'm just talking to myself while getting sentimental. it's just the song.

i guess all i want to say is good night, good afternoon and good morning... whichever applies to you. :)

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are