Not too shabby

Still plugging away at reading "The Shallows"

I love picking up a book that shares similar thoughts that I have been having for year. Only problem he was able to make money off of it and I tell people who do not seem to care.

In the book he is making a convincing point (could be convincing because I have had the same thought for the past few years) that multitasking takes away from concentrated thought. He quotes Seneca a roman Philosopher " To be everywhere is to be nowhere". I like the wording of this. If we are focused on everything we are hardly focused on anything. It is true the more we spread ourselves out, the more spread out we become. We can't seem to pinpoint problems if we are no focusing on any single on but trying to focus on all of them.

Another great quote one that I would have highlighted if I owned the book was "we are evolving from being cultivators of personal knowledge to being hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest". Man I love it. I have made this point many time Why waste energy filing away things if I know I can just go to Google and easily pull it up.

Current read

I am still reading "The Shallows", its been a bit over my head and has made me slow down and read it carefully. Its talking of how the internet is changing our way of thinking. Carr has been pointing out how writing changed how we told stories, books changed how we though. But now reading is changing again because we read all day long, now oftentimes unconsciously. He quotes David levy, in stating we read street signs, menus, billboards, and products in stores. But we are reading shallowly, because we never really dive into anything. We skim the surface and never dive deep into what we are reading. I haven't reached the point where he is commenting on the internet changing our thought process yet, he has been laying back knowledge for all the different changes that have taken place in "Technology" and how it affected us.

So far it has been a super good book, and is really enjoyable.

Say what you need to say

I must say I am a little disappointed in this. If you are going to talk trash about your coach, which for one I think is in poor taste. But if you were going to do a report to the paper, at least say who you are. I am tired of this unnamed player crap. I dont think the Vikings losing is completely Childress' fault. It would be like blaming the Cowboys record solely on Wade Phillips. I mean look at his over all stats, he coached a team that won over 50% of their games. So maybe romo should go to the paper and talk trash about phillips but do it unnamed!

Food for thought?

I hope to be a middle school history teacher in the next couple of years. I love history and love kids so I figured I would put the two together. I listen to a great podcast call "Stuff you missed in History class", I love it, I listen to it all the time, the ladies tell of really cool things that happened that I had never even heard of. Maybe its only great to us History buffs that just love learning old information!!!!

But one of their latest blogs really caught my eye. Why was history boring? when I become a teacher am I going to be able to make history not boring? I mean sometimes some things really aren't all that interesting, but regardless history is History. So maybe by putting in hours a week listening to their podcast I can sharpen the skill needed to make history not so boring!

A friend in need is a friend in deed

Sometimes I hear an old saying and then it really clicks what they were talking about. A friend in need will be a better friend, because only when we are in a state of need do we slow down, think a little more, and realize we need help in this crazy thing called life. Sometimes when we have come to the end of ourselves we look to others to help figure ourselves out.

When we are that friend that has the friend in need, we need to be very careful. We can really help screw up screwed up situations, or if we could actually listen, that would be beneficial. I have been trying to work hard on being a listener, I often times in the past would run my mouth for hours.

Sitting in community group tonight, I am trying to do my best to hear people out and actually listen to what they are saying. It helps me to figure out who they really are, where as in the past I would have tuned them out and waited for my opportunity to speak.

all of this reminds me of another old saying,

I'm not where I should be, but I am sure not where I was!

A little learning

I am currently reading "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr. I am only about 30 pages into it, but it has already posed some great points. He discusses how we have to reanalyze how we thing. He talks of how we no longer read left to right, top to bottom the internet has made us jump around. the quote from Carr that has really stuck with me is "I used to be a scuba diver of words, but now I am only a guy on a Jet Ski". Which is quite true, now that we have tons on information at our fingertips we skim, we look for things that make us excited and discard the rest. He talks of how we have to change the way we view our brain and how we process information.

I look forward to continuing to read his thought. Carr so far has kept me interested because he breaks into the historical side of studying the brain, and how for the longest time we believe that once you were in your 20's you brain no longer took on information unless it dumped other info.

What has been great I have been thinking for years how The internet has made me A.D.D. I can no longer really focus. I can only focus in small burst. I can't sit and read book for long period. I can't even play a video game straight through anymore. I have to jump around. Other wise I get bored. Long gone are the days of spending hours playing jacks and hunting down lightning bugs.