IN HONOR OF MEMORIAL DAY: During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt pledged that Filipinos who fight for the United States will be granted citizenship and military benefits. As a result, over 200,000 Filipinos fought side by side with American soldiers during World War II. Shortly after the war ended, that promise was taken back with the Recission Act of 1946. It was not until 2009 when President Obama signed a bill that would give Filipino World War II veterans a lump sum compensation of $15K ($9K for those living in the Philippines) to the less than 18,000 veterans who are still alive today. Yes, such an amount is not commensurate to the benefits they missed out on for over 50 years, but yet to this day a majority of them still have not received such meager compensation. So, LET US REMEMBER THE FILIPINO VETERANS WHO WERE NOT ONLY VICTIMS OF WORLD WAR II, BUT ALSO VICTIMS OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM.
I explained this to a friend over coffee today. I thought I was doing an okay job. Then I realized I had been calling it the Recession Act the whole time. Womp.
My Lolo died without his benefits. It is fun and redemptive to pretend his ghost is haunting crooked politicians.
Lesson 1…Experience disappointment and disillusionment early in your career. I’ve spent the past 15 years working side by side with some of the brightest idealists on the planet. In some ways I provide adult supervision for the 24 to 32 set. I watch them experience the first time their idea wasn’t accepted and the shock they exhibit. Disappointment gives you wisdom. Wisdom is like frequent-flyer miles and scar tissue; it does accumulate, and often by accident while you’re trying to do something else. And wisdom is what people will start wanting from you sooner than you normally have enough of it.
Lesson 2…Make excellent mistakes. Work for someone who will let you fail so you’ll learn to embrace the learning that only comes from failure. Then when you seek your next job, celebrate those failures. CEO and Superintendents love people who have learned through failure on somebody else’s payroll.
Lesson 3… A Great Workplace isn’t fancy technology, lattes, health care, sushi lunches, nice offices or big compensation, but rather it’s STUNNING COLLEAGUES. The day care and the lattes are done only if they are efficient at attracting stunning colleagues. My belief is that you are a stunning colleague and don’t work for a place who doesn’t have an abundance of you and when you hire commit to hiring only colleagues you find stunning.
Lesson 4…Remember either you’re NETWORKING or you’re not working. Everyone you meet offers lessons in life, insight and endless possibilities.
Lesson 5… Don’t Wait for Superman…or Wonder Woman…or Spiderman… or all The Avengers for that matter…believe in the power of Local Heroes like your parents, neighbors, coaches, farmers and the like…those who are humble, mindful and unsung… and be one yourself.
Lesson 6…When given the choice of doing well or doing good…choose doing good.
Lesson 7… People will tell you to make a plan, get a plan, have someone help you design a plan…take it from me…There Is No Plan…what you have is a chance to dictate directionality…where you’re headed…and the best COMPASS I know is your heart…trust the direction your heart sends you…take a pass on the plan.
And finally some advice. Do What You Love and Earn What You Need and Take A Few Big Risks The job I’ve chose back in the 1960s was teaching…a profession that to me has and will always be one of dignity. When people asked me what I do or what I make I respond proudly. I make kids wonder, I make them question, I make them volunteer, I make them apologize and mean it. I make them understand that if you have the brains, then follow your heart. And if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make in money, you pay them no attention.”
– Don Shalvey (Ed.D ‘95), Commencement Speech ExcerptThe only commencement speech to date that ever made me cry. Don Shalvey’s speech was gripping, succinct, passionate, funny, and so much more than I could have hoped for. So grateful to have been there. Watch him perform his speech or just read the text—I think you’ll really enjoy it.
The Search for the Keys to the Body’s Clock
Figuring out what makes our biological clocks tick could do everything from cure disease to ease astronauts’ lives.
photo credit: NASA/Astronaut Ron Garan
“NASA is looking at practical solutions, like installing blue lights aboard the station, a wavelength which studies show increases alertness by suppressing the body’s release of melatonin, a natural sleep hormone, and stimulating the retinas to secrete an alertness protein called melanopsin.”
I need to install those blue lights in my future classroom. Wake up, kids!
But seriously, the rest of the article is fascinating as well. I’m hardly ever aware of the “beautiful, complicated pattern,” the “elaborate, very pretty dance” that a human body goes through every day, but I’m definitely grateful for those critical microscopic functions that keep me going.
Stanford neuroscientists host the world’s first love competition, asking contestants between the ages of 10 and 75 to spend 5 minutes in an fMRI machine thinking deeply about the person they love. The results are certain to bring a tear to your eye.
Complementary reading: 5 essential books on the psychology of love.
this is really beautiful. watch it!
Well…I’m in tears.
Now i feel like crying and going to sleep and just reliving things man….<3
That really was beautiful. I must say, didn’t expect the second place winner ;)
Via sleeping to dream
Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life.
Researchers have long known that the “classical” language regions, like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, are involved in how the brain interprets written words. What scientists have come to realize in the last few years is that narratives activate many other parts of our brains as well, suggesting why the experience of reading can feel so alive.
[…]
The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated.
[…]
The novel, of course, is an unequaled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life. And there is evidence that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real-life social encounters.
We no longer have to just take iconic writers’ words on the power of fiction. The New York Times’ Annie Murphy Paul explores the neuroscience of your brain on fiction and how narratives offer a way to engage the brain’s capacity to map other people’s intentions, known in psychology as “theory of mind.”
You Brain, On Fiction.
(via jtotheizzoe)
Via jotistaCharlie Todd & the shared experience of absurdity; improveverywhere.
So true! There’s no right or wrong way to play.
Via jotista
“When you are in school, your talents are without number, and your promise is boundless…But at a certain point, you begin to feel your talents dropping away, like feathers from a molting bird.”
—Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Ms. Hempel Chronicles
Professor Shun-lien Bynum quoted! She was my favorite in the English department and I took her classes every chance I could. :)
GET INVOLVED. STOP AT NOTHING. THE WORLD MUST KNOW.
I dare you to stop scrolling through your dashboard. Stop checking your Facebook newsfeed that you’ve already checked two seconds ago. Stop updating your Twitter and seeing what your favorite celebrities are saying. Stop watching funny and nonsense videos on Youtube. Take time to educate yourself to MAKE A DIFFERENCE in this world. This is your chance! WATCH THIS VIDEO.
Let’s make JOSEPH KONY Famous!!
Who is JOSEPH KONY?
He is THE WORST LIVING CRIMINAL. He abducts children and makes them use guns to kill their own parents. He takes girls and forces them to be sex slaves. He calls his abducted children the Lord’s Resistance Army, AKA the LRA. He has abducted over 30,000 children and forced them to be child soldiers in Central Africa. He remains at large because he is INVISIBLE to the world. FEW know his name, even FEWER know his crimes. WE ARE MAKING HIM FAMOUS! Because when he is, the world will unite against him and demand his arrest.
We can help make a change. We can make a difference.
I feel so inspired. I feel the need to help and make a difference. This has to happen in 2012. We can’t let him go around and keep doing this to children in Central Africa. Let’s make his name known so he can be stopped. HE CAN NO LONGER BE INVISIBLE!
REBLOG IF YOU CARE.
This will not make your blog ugly, please take a moment to reblog and get the word out. SHARE THIS TO EVERYONE! Be a part of something BIG and when they catch this man, you would be able to say.. “I HELPED.”
LET’S START HERE ON TUMBLR.
(Source: kimpoyfeliciano)
Via marpaz
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