Oh yeah. Just about the coolest thing ever!
I am extraordinarily un-Canadian in that I don’t like beer of any sort, but this is creative genius!
HAPPY CANADA DAY, July 1st!
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chuis bo lip dub June 29, 2012
The French Immersion kids at my school, many of whom were in one of my assorted English classes, created this awesome lip dub of Chuis Bo (transliteration of ‘Je suis beau,’ get it?) by the French group PZK . It took many days of rehearsal, and a couple different days of filming. In some versions I did a cameo for you, but I’m not in this final edit. 🙂 (which is a good thing). Enjoy their efforts!
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etymology June 28, 2012
Now, it might just be because I’m a nerdy English teacher, but I LOVE word etymology. I find it quite fascinating to explore the history of word origins. Imagine my delight to find a comic that shares some of this fascination! Check out a chapter in the life of Etymology Man from xkcd.com!
any kind of happy? June 27, 2012
“Being any kind of happy is better than being miserable about someone you can’t have.”
~Leah in Breaking Dawn
Stephenie Meyer
In the Twilight Saga, Jacob loves Bella, but Bella loves Edward. However, she loves Jacob, too. If we were to pull out the Greek words for love, I think we’d be using three different words in this triangle. Bella’s affections for Jacob are like a family attachment: storge. Her feelings for Edward are sexual: eros. Jacob’s feelings for Bella suggest a bit of agape, but also the comradry of philia. There is a lot of complexity going on as these different kinds of love all simmer together, complicating things.
So Jacob can’t have Bella the way he would like, and Leah thinks anything is better than nothing. Each of the words above is a fragment of attachment, one can have several of them at once. What do you think? Is one better than nothing? Is each valuable in its own way? Do you have to have all or a majority of them in one relationship to make it valuable?
forever June 23, 2012
“No measure of time with you will be long enough, but let’s start with forever.”
Edward’s wedding speech
Twilight Breaking Dawn (pt 1)
Having just finished draft two of Grace Awakening Myth, this whole “I’ll love you forever, if all those evil doers keep out of my way long enough” thing has been on my mind. Is it easier to love someone forever when you have to keep fighting for them? If someone is just always ‘there’ and not at risk, is it too easy to take them for granted?
Here are Bella and Edward at their wedding, finally everything is going their way, but no one gets happy ever after at the beginning of a book. Forever has to work through adversity.
The value of poets June 21, 2012
Discovered this great quote on the blog “Greater Umbrage”
“You see, in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was made flesh in the weave of the human universe. And only the poet can expand this universe, finding shortcuts to new realities the way the Hawking drive tunnels under the barriers of Einsteinian space/time… To be a true poet is to become God.”
~ Dan Simmons
Wow. It makes me feel crazily powerful! How daunting. How magnificent. How humbling!
6 tips for self-editing from Jerry B. Jenkins June 19, 2012
In the Writer’s Digest video, How to Become a Ferocious Self-Editor, author Jerry B. Jenkins recommends that in order to be publication ready, every author needs to intensely self-edit. He advises that you should,
- make every word count
- pay attention to your dialogue
- avoid hackneyed language and situations
- get quickly to your point
- maintain one point of view
- resist the urge to explain
I’ll be watching for these as I’m going over draft two of Grace Awakening Myth (aka Book three) this week. What are you self-editing these days?
Look to Canadian authors for a good read
Look to Canadian authors for a good read. Article by Joan Wickersham from the Boston Globe. Another Canadian author to try? Me! ;-P
Shawn L. Bird 
Canadian, eh! July 1, 2012
Tags: accent, Alberta, canada, Canada Day, Canadian, Christina, flag, flash mob, Ottawa, saying
In honour of Canada’s birthday, here is a video from Christina who lives in Alberta, about things from Canada.
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Someday, I want to go to Ottawa to see the Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill. Here’s a flash mob among the crowds waiting for events to get under way. Note to self: it looks like you have to go early, especially in years when royalty is attending!
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