Maribeth Boelts's Blog

Agen Bola Terpercaya Piala Dunia 2014 yang akan diadakan pada tahun 2014 di Brasil. akan Menjadi Ajang Taruhan Bola Terbesar Abad Ini.
Brasil  sudah dua kali menjadi Tuan Rumah  turnamen ini (sebelumnya tahun 1950), Brasil  menjadi negara kelima yang pernah menjadi Tuan Rumah Piala Dunia FIFA World Cup lebih dari satu kali, menyusul Meksiko, Italia, Perancis dan Jerman. Turnamen Piala Dunia 2014 ini juga merupakan Piala Dunia FIFA pertama yang diselenggarakan di Amerika Selatan sejak Argentina 1978. dan Sebelumnya tidak ada satupun negara Amerika Selatan yang menjadi tuan rumah   Piala Dunia 2014  lebih dari satu kali.

Bagi Anda yang Suka Taruhan Bola Online Sebaiknya Baca Ini

May 8th, 2012 means it's PUB DAY for Happy Like Soccer!  To read an interview and learn more about its backstory and much more, check out...


http://twowritingteachers.wordpress.c...

While you're there, stay a while.  As you'll soon discover, this blog is incredible , and offers interesting and always-changing  articles, challenges, book reviews, teaching strategies, videos and some from-the-heart reflections on writing and reading.  What a gift!   Ruth Ayres and Stacey Shubitz are also the authors of "Day by Day: Refining Writing Workshop Through 180 Days of Reflective Practice" which I highly recommend, too. Though they live 565 miles apart, they are friends and colleagues dedicated to the teaching of writing.  Love this blog!

Has anyone seen the movie, "Bully"?  Darwin and I went this weekend and have been talking about it since.  If there hadn't been people around me in the theater, I would have sobbed out loud and not choked it back over some of the stories of kids who are bullied on a daily, and sometimes hourly basis at school, on the bus, etc.  

There is nothing flashy or rehearsed about the film-making, either.  Experts don't interject or weigh in, statistics aren't splashed across scenes, and easy answers aren't given.  What unfolds are heartbreaking stories, raw courage, ineptness on the part of some adults, and a call to action by others--particularly parents who have lost a bullied child through suicide.

We also went to a panel discussion yesterday at UNI, which included the director, Lee Hirsch and producer, Cynthia Lower.  What was most interesting to me was the "why" behind the project?  What drives a director to take on a documentary like this?

When I came home, I read this interview with Lee Hirsch and discovered the answer...

 “I felt that the hardest part of being bullied was communicating,” Hirsch said. ”And getting help. I couldn’t enroll people’s support. People would say things like ‘get over it,’ even my own father and mother. They weren’t with me. That was a big part of my wanting to make the film. It’s cathartic on a daily basis." Hirsch said he hoped the film grows far beyond him, inspiring advocacy, engagement, and empowerment not just in people who are being bullied and in their families, but by those of us who all too often stand by and do nothing. He stated, “I hope we build something that’s really sustainable. I hope this takes on a life of its own.”


This is a hall of fame example of "write what you know" and how that knowing can be used to change the world.  

Two big questions for you today...

My sister gave me this picture book a few weeks ago and I've been enthralled  since.  The text is one (one!) perfectly crafted run-on sentence about a boy, his dog and their observations on what happens when they plant seeds in early spring.  "First you have brown, all around you have brown, and then there are seeds..."  I told my sister it hurt to read it the first time through because it was utterly masterful--do you ever have that experience?  Something is so...exquisite...that it makes your heart hurt?  I have a daughter who can tear up over the cheese counter at her local co-op, the baby orangutan at the zoo, and dads with kids at Target.  Our youngest said the perfect, undiscovered song can do it for him, and the underwater retro world of the video game, Bioshock.  My good friend said the sound of her boys laughing together and a bouquet of tulips.   What, to you, is so aesthetically pleasing or perfect that it almost hurts?

This is another very special book. Note that both books are illustrated by Erin Stead.  This storyline speaks volumes on kindness--a devoted zookeeper who lovingly particularizes each of his animals, comes down with a bad cold, so the animals take the bus to his house to keep him company and care for him.  Such expressive illustrations and though the storyline is unrealistic, it is perfectly believable.  Of course the animals could take the bus to his house, play games with Amos and figure out what Amos needed most.

How does an author create that "of course"?  As a kid, I remember reading a story about a girl who gets a toy ambulance for her birthday and decides to use it to rescue injured animals in the woods.  She carried miniature supplies for the robin with a broken wing, the beetle with an injured leg, etc.  She made a little hospital out in woods, too, for the animals to recover more fully in.  I was a gullible kid, yes, but I believed every word!  Of course she could do that.  Of course the animals were grateful and didn't bite her or freak out or give her rabies.

Good writing often makes us suspend our belief.   Have you read an "of course" book lately where the author completely had you, even though the storyline was implausible?

An amazing author and friend of mine, Kristi Holl, lives in San Antonio, Texas and sent me this Easter photo of the bluebonnets in full bloom.  Aren't they something?  


Here's what they look like up close...

A sea of bluebells spreads out for acres along a bike trail we often walk.  We went back four times to this same spot last week--breathless by the array of beauty but also, the gift that is was.  Humans do not create, plant or tend this sea of wonder that is here  for a week or so, then fades into the green floor of the woods.  I had the deep sense last week that I was being called to stop, gaze and receive this gift.  Thank you, Lord.
"Our Lord has written the promise of the Resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time."  Martin Luther

It's been 7 days of using the treadmill desk for all writing projects.  Since beginning...

1) I have logged 42.5 miles at 1.3-1.7 miles per hour, walking between 5-7.5 miles per day. Yes, this nerd is tracking data on a calendar.

2) I have not fallen off once, though the first day, there was a potentially epic circus-like spill.

3) I have had much more focus, even during some of my less exciting projects. My body shuts up when I give it something to do, allowing my brain to work.

4) I have dumped one mug of tea which did not hurt either computer or treadmill but was close enough for a good scare and a new location for all beverages.

5) I have simplified my already simple wardrobe to exercise pants, hoodie and tennis shoes.

6) I sleep better but dream weirder.  

7) I take less ibuprofen.

8) I don't have the 4:00 PM stupor and can still speak in complete sentences at 7:00 PM.

This is not a replacement for sweaty, heart-thumping exercise (shudder)-- it replaces sitting, and it takes about 5 minutes to get accustomed to working this way.  If you are in my neighborhood, stop in and check it out for yourself.  If you're not, watch the video of author Arthur Slade on his treadmill desk on YouTube or just google "treadmill desk" and you'll find plenty of believers.

When I think about the way to begin a story, I lift up the best hook in the whole wide world, crafted by E.B. White...

"Where's Papa going with that ax?"

But as I mentioned a few years ago, did you know Mr. White had to work through several versions of openings before he landed?

Here are his alternate openings...

1. A barn can have a horse in it, and a barn can have a cow in it, and a barn can have hens scratching in the chaff and swallows flying in and out through the door -- but if a barn hasn't got a pig in it, it is hardly worth talking about. I am very Glad to say that Mr. Zuckerman's barn had a pig in it, and therefore I feel free to talk about it as much as I want to. The pig's name was Wilbur. 

2. I shall speak first of Wilbur. 
Wilbur was a small beautiful, nicely behaved symmetrical pig living in a manure pile in the cellar of a barn. He was what farmers call a spring pig -- which simply means that he was born in springtime. But there is no use talking about Wilbur until we have looked into the matter of the barn itself. The barn was very large. It was very old. 

3. At midnight, John Arable pulled his boots on, lit a lantern, and walked out to the hog house. The sky was clear, the earth smelled of springtime. Inside the hog house, the sow lay on her side; her eyes were closed. Huddled in a corner stood the newborn pigs, eleven of them. They had their heads together, in a circle, like football players before a play. 


I have to remind myself (often) that an opening is the pop of a gun when a race begins.  The reader doesn't have to know what time the runner woke up, or what he had for breakfast, or what the weather was like.  The reader wants the immediate sense that the race is beginning. We're taught not to be "blurt-ers" when we talk to people, but in writing beginnings, that's almost what it is.  E.B. White blurted, in a sense, launching the story with a big, concerning question.  


Here's the beloved author and his wife, Katharine along with their dachshund, Minnie.










  

Not being a flowers and oversized Hallmark card kind of girl, my husband gave me the best gift of love he could.  Two days of work to build me a customized treadmill desk which I've wanted for over a year.  He's a good, good guy and has a way of knowing what gifts speak love most.

I'm entering a busy time of writing projects and school visits and decided that I needed to step up the level of self-discipline by way of an external tool.  In other words, I am weak.

Enter "StayFocusd",  a free app for Google Chrome.  You can set how much time to allow at each of your usual internet haunts, and once your time is up, you're blocked for the rest of the day.  The screen that flashes if you attempt to visit said site--let's just use the New York Times for example, contains the large, unnerving question, "SHOULDN'T YOU BE WORKING??"