Breaking all my rules!!!

I changed my mind. I have broken every rule I set for myself. You know what? They are my rules...so that is ok. The strangest thing about this is that I have found this to be so profound. I was the one who took upon me my 30 articles in 30 days challenge but then I let it rule my life. It was a challenge, not life or death.


The worst part is, I have been living every day for so many years, as if every choice I made, even the little tiny ones like what to throw away, was a life or death decision. You know what? I could go on and on about why I do this (and if you know me personally, you know that I do go on and on and on, forever), but I don't stop.

So I decided to stop.

I will die someday. That is a fact. Yet, I know without of shadow of a doubt that death is not the end of my spirit or my eternal journey. I am not dead today. So it is about time to live.

To do all the things I want to do.

I have spent the last 18 years trying to become the next internet millionaire. (Too bad that Mark Zuckerburg beat me to it :)...Facebook is a darn good idea). It is not going to happen, today :).

So today, May 10th 2012, what is important? My son. He is now 16 and the most awesome thing in the world.

16 years ago when I became a mother at 17, I had no idea that my life would turn out like this. It was not how I planned, but you know what? Even though I don't have a million dollars, my own house, or any of the dreams I wanted at 17, now at 33, when I look into my son's eyes and I see my greatest treasure on earth,
I feel like a billionaire.


For all of you teenage Moms out there who feel like you can't make it or that it is not worth it, or that you can't walk down the halls of your high school one more time without feel less than anyone else, don't feel less. You are worth it.

You are a Mom, and try to imagine you life 20 years from now. If you are ever alone, don't give up. Never give up.

I have learned that the only rules I have to follow are mine. I am only accountable to my self  if I break them, and since I love myself, it is ok.

Happiness comes from within.

Check out a cool blog that I like..

I know I didn't post yesterday....no excuses..keep forgetting. Decided going to just keep posting and trying. I am also going to take the focus off me for today.

This is a cool blog that I follow and I would like to have you guys check it out. I am all about style, but I prefer those who follow their own sense of style, and especially those who have a bit of wisdom to back it up :)

Here is the link to Advanced Style. Wonderful pictures well worth the click...

have an awesome night :)

Not posting yesterday...ahhh!!! Getting lost in life a great book and Dancing With the Stars...

I have often heard that it only takes 21 days to either break or form a new habit. This seems so easy. Just 21 days. As the last 3 months have proven for me, 21 days is almost an eternity.

I did post everyday from last Tuesday till Sunday...only 6 days in a row. It did seem like an eternity. I did say I would celebrate my successes-so yeah! :) Great from me...6 days in a row posting is a great accomplishment.

Now to yesterday, I did remind myself to post when I woke up, but I did not feel well. I help take care of my disabled sister and she had three seizures the day before. She was not able to go to her day program and I helped her during the day. I kept trying to get my self motivated, still didn't feel well at all, and then I got lost in Dancing with the Stars, season 14. I am so impressed with this season. I have watched every season, and I feel that all the stars on this season are great dancers. It has been hard to vote, because they have all been my favorites! That is really the first time a cast has been so great for me.

Then more of life happened..I got lost in another great book...then a 12:00 am this morning..I thought: "Oh, no, I forgot to post!" I felt horrible. I have wanted to just delete my blog many times in the last 4 months. When I almost lost it, I freaked out, but then when I kept making promises that I did not or could not keep, I felt even more miserable.

Then I thought about the post I wrote on Sunday. My own road to perfection. I also thought about attitude and this year's resolution. To persevere no matter what. I will continue to post. Every day. If or should I say when I make a mistake or life gets in the way, I will explain it, deal with it, learn from, and then let it go. Start again with my goal. It is harder to see life optimistically than pessimistically (in my case) but much more rewarding and motivating.

Happy Tuesday :)

Sundays and My Quest for Perfection

Sundays have been a holy day for me for as long as I could remember. I have wanted to keep it holy and sacred and have almost driven my self to obsession in my pursuit to not "break" the sabbath and not to break the commandment given by the Lord to his people.

Needless to say I have broken the commandment, I have sinned, and I have felt the guilt of all of my fallen expectations for myself, daily. I have had goal to be perfect for as long as I can remember. In the King James version of the Bible scripture that comes to my mind most often is Matt. 5:48. "Be ye therefore perfect" is the part of the verse that both motivates me and troubles me.

I was able to have a great visit with one of my oldest and best friend's on Friday night. In a discussion about perfection, she shared an article she had recently read in the BYU quarterly magazine. This article was entitled: "Seeking Perfection without Being a Perfectionist" by Janet S. Scharman. I loved the whole article, but was impressed by the last two paragraphs especially. I will copy them below:

" 'Peace be unto thy soul' (D&C 121:7) is an important message for us to remember. We are living in a day of harsh competition and unreasonably high competition coming from many directions. Inherent in the message is one of wisdom to not run faster than we have strength (see D&C 10:4). It is good to have plans, goal, and high expectations for ourselves. But when we experience tears, exhaustion, and feelings of depression, it may mean that we are self-imposing unrighteous expectations.

 As we come to accept that perfection is a developmental process, something we learn 'line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little' (2 Nephi 28:30), we can let go of guilt trips and over-complication of our lives. We can better understand the truly wondrous gift of the Atonement which as Elder Bruce C. Hafen (BA '66) has said, is not to erase our mistakes, but to provide a way for us to 'learn from our mistakes without being condemned by them' " 

(D&C is shortened for the Doctrine and Covenants and Nephi is a part of the Book of Mormon.  Both are scriptures I know to be true and can be accessed at the Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-day Saints Web Site-Search the Scriptures section of the site. I encourage you to keep an open mind and read these scriptures for yourself. Then, pray to God and ask if they are true. He will tell you for yourself. I also completely support everyone is their own faith, and even if they do not believe in a deity, in their lives at all. I hope we can all find happiness in this life, and I know that we all have our own minds, hearts, and free wills).

This article has helped me realize that I can still continue my quest for perfection, but I do not have to beat myself up,each time I fall way far away from my goal. I can also listen to my feelings, and when I am stressed, and depressed, I know I am doing too much, or the wrong things in my life.

Life is about joy, and it is more than okay to take time to enjoy each day that I am given in this life. Each day is precious and I am grateful for each one. To quote my dear mother who always said, "live life to the fullest."
That I plan on doing..I wish the same for all of you and best of luck on all of your own quests...whatever they may be for :)....

Translation Widget successful..problems with template...

I was able to attach a Goggle Translation widget (a small amount of code that is embedded in my web site code that transmits to goggle translate each time the drop box language is changed, then goggle translate changes all the English text on my blog to the closest translation to the language chosen by the user in the drop box). Now Goggle Translate will do its best to translate as accurately as possible, but there may be some errors in the translation, and there may not be a translation for what I am saying into the selected language.

The biggest problem I am having though, is that I cannot get the drop box to appear in the newest blogger template that I like called: dynamic views. I changed it to a new template, but am still researching how and if it is possible to have the widget appear with the new template!! I hope so..

Suggestions are always welcome...please use the translate widget and read my blog in your language, all over the world :)....

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:) :).!!

Happy Friday :)!!

 

Wishing all of you a happy Friday :)!! There are people all over the world that the day is not Friday, or is called something else or that this may not be this your weekend (even if your are in the U.S. or do have Friday as the day of week), in that case...happy day_______ (you fill in the appropriate name.)

This has gotten me thinking...and I am going to work on seeing how I can have my blog have the option to be translated in to the language of the current user's choice...that will be my project for this weekend.

To all of you....happy ____Day...and a wonderful night (or the reverse for all of you on the southern hemisphere :)!!!!)

................

Thursdays, Discussions, and the power of Language

What has kept me from posting on Thursdays has always been school at Ashford University- Online Campus. Mainly the responses to the discussion questions that are due on Thursdays. I wait till the last minute and spend most of the day working on my responses. I decided that I would post one those responses here for my blog and ask how powerful do you think language is?

According to Elgin (2000), “It is all too easy to underestimate the power of language . . . because almost every human being knows and uses one or more languages, we have let that miracle be trivialized . . . we forget, or are unaware of, the power that language has over our minds and our lives; we use that power ourselves as casually as we use the electric power in our homes, with scarcely a thought given to its potential to help or harm. We make major decisions about language on the most flimsy and trivial—and often entirely mistaken—grounds.”  This is too true. I have often wondered about how important language is and been dismayed at my own lack of understanding and misuse of it.

Fairclough (1989, 1997) was keenly aware of how powerful language is and also how important the meaning of what is not being said, but what is implied, by language the language used is. Fairclough built his Critical Language Analysis or CLA on Foucoult’s study of the use of language by those in power (Diaz-Rico & Weed, 2010, p. 306). When I think of Foucoult’s study I am reminded of a favorite musical I love: My Fair Lady,  which is based on a play by Shaw (1916),  entitled Pygmalion. I

n this play an English gentleman (a professor of language) makes a wager with another English gentleman (also a linguistic scholar but in the military as a trade) that he can change a common flower girl’s speech and turn her into a lady. Eliza (the flower girl)  wants to change her circumstances and wants to be lady in a flower shop.   As the show progresses, she endures Professor Higgins and does indeed change her speech, become a lady, but falls in love with the professor. As a turn of fate, the professor (a confirmed bachelor and mean man) falls in love with her too, against his better judgment.

The reason that this story reminds me of Foucoult and Faircloughs’ theories of language is that according to Diaz-Rico and Weed, Foucoult theorized that those in power used language to “repress, dominate, and disempower certain social groups” and that “conversely certain social groups have appropriated, or acquired language practices that mimic those in power and thus shaped power to their own ends” (2010, p. 306).

Professor Higgins recognized the power of language and that the way a person spoke determined their social status. He also used this to his own ends and because he wanted to win the wager. Eliza also realized the power of language and “appropriated” the language of those in power.She eventually did use language to shape power to fit her needs, but after a difficult trials, and heartbreak. 

Building on this metaphor, Fairclough “conceives of discourse as a nested set of boxes: first, the text itself that constitutes the message; second, the institutional influence on the message; and third, the social/cultural influence on the message. Any text, whether spoken or written, has features at these three levels” (Diaz & Reed, 2010, p. 306).

A classic line from the movie is a language exercise that Professor Higgins is trying to teach Eliza: “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.” With Eliza original accent she pronounces rain, Spain and plain as raain, with an unusual emphasis on the /a/ in the words making them sound as if they were long /a/s or even a short /o/. She is made to practice this lesson over and over. 

At first she hears no problems with the phrase. The text is gibberish to her and conveys a sense of frustration, annoyance, and overall bewilderment. The professor also uses the text to assert his authority, education, and arrogance. There is a definite institutional influence for the text as is intended to both teach Eliza the “correct” pronunciation of the words. Yet, the words are a puzzle if one deciphers their meaning, because there is literally rain in all parts of the country of Spain, giving Eliza something to think about and to even feel more confused about. 

The social/ cultural meaning of the text is also both confusing and obvious. When Eliza first said the words, it is apparent her social class. As the movie progresses though she is able to change her accent and pronounce the phrase as the Professor has taught her and as an English lady would. In fact there is scene following her success where she, the professor and the colonel start singing a song and dancing together. When Professor Higgins and Eliza first dance together, this is the first moment that she falls in love with him. “The rain in Spain…” phrase takes on a whole new cultural/social and hidden meaning to the text after that night.

                                                                        References

Díaz-Rico, L. T., & Weed, K. Z. (2010). Crosscultural, language, and academic development  
      handbook: A complete K-12 reference guide (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. New York: Longman.

Fairclough, N. (1997). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Reading, MA: Addison-

       Wesley

Elgin, S. (2000). The language imperative. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.

Shaw, G. (1912). Pygmalion. New York, NY: Brentano's Press.