Extemporaneous

People have been complimenting me on my people and speaking skills my whole life. It then perhaps is not surprise that I am also somewhat of a natural writer. 

In 9th grade my English class had a computer program that would do an in depth analysis of written work. 

We all submitted a fiction sorry for the class and were able to have it analyzed. I was amazed that it said things like 12th grade or above comprehensive writing level. 

What does that even mean I wondered. How can you write above the 12th grade anyway???

It was not really clicking for me that all the mechanics of English class, when utilized elevate the reading level of the material. I mean who even followed that sentence? It means the more formulas you use when writing the more educated and cerebral your text can sound. 

I just write like I think. Go figure. 

That English class included an oral report as part of the curriculum. I did it on the fear and loathing of public speaking. 

Title: Oh No The Oral Report. My presentation was a hit. I had fun as always. Life went on. 

Today I probably had the worst public speaking presentation ever. Still it went better than some really bad sessions I have experienced or heard about. 

There was no crying. There was no booing. Bullet points were delivered. My outline was again killer.

Trying to pull a powerful, organized (by someone else's design) speech together is where I was stuck. If you do not use the formula you are destined to (only) be a motivational speaker the substitute professor informed us. 

I should have taken my label and walked out because I am ok with that! 

No I needed to make a fool of myself and still pull off a decent speech so someone could see that. 

Good thing my text really speaks for itself and I did spend a chunk of my time reading that before I began to try and expound on it. 

The class I needed would have been one where we were told to write speeches for presentation. I would not even have minded topics picked out for me. I think I can frenzy up a crowd with impact full knowledge. I don’t need notes and an outline for that. 

Those with the filters for minds could then critique the speeches and from this I would see my strengths and weaknesses.

Extemporaneous

I knew there was a word that was missing from the syllabus for this class.

Motivational speaking career here I come.

Post Birthday Info

I was supposed to make a post about my birthday but it sucked and then I moved on so this is a little late in coming. The good news is I am another year older and still looking 20something feeling fantastic. My tummy is growling in a hormonal way but that is ok too... Just a phase I am sure. My birthday was last Saturday. 

The afternoon before I hopped on a bus and took myself alone to the cheapy movies at sunrise mall. I think I saw Captain America. It was good but the ending kinda left me a bit chilled or disappointed.

I ate at Panda Express and even had time to shop before coming home for the evening. One of my favorite mall stores used to be Wet Seal. All but right across the isle from the theaters a sign for every 2nd shirt half off caught my eye. In the back on the discount racks the deals were even better. Buy one get the 2nd one for a penny! SQUEE

I bought leggings, a dress and two tank tops. With all the activity and the way buses start running less later in the evening I opted not to stop off and get some much needed supplies for the house. 

My plan was to get up Saturday and after watching reruns of my new favorite show Prison Break I would head out again. In vain I tried three times to catch the bus and it never showed. Finally the hour was getting late again and I gave up. Buses stop running even earlier on the actual weekend. Totally bummed me out. I was going to treat myself one more time before the birthday ended. It was not to be. 

This living without a car business has just been the pits. I am 36 years old. I have no friends who aren’t busy. It has been a lesson in counting my blessings not my problems and being grateful for the little things. Indeed I am. I know well what I don’t need. What I needed was someone to think about me and offer to take me grocery shopping once or twice. What I would have loved is a friend to come and get me to attend events or just hang out for coffee.

Instead I had NetFlix and cable. Yeah I splurged and went there. LOL It just has not seemed fair. I picked up strangers off the side of the road when I had a car. I help everyone I can all the time. Waa waa waa 

The only thing worse was after I was living at home with no car my dad got mad at me and refused to let me drive his. He was experiencing a tad bit of dementia due to some stroke activity. 

It was really all a misunderstanding. I can’t say I saw him more by not going anywhere. Still he died shortly after giving me back my privileges. What can this car less season have been about in relation I wonder. ???

Use Hashtags to Search or Chat

If you are tracking with me, you are well on your way to being an excellent tweeter!

By now you should have noticed words or phrases come through your time line with the number sign # attached to them. 

They become hyper links. 

The eager among you have already clicked and began to unravel the mystery or asked and gotten explanations. For those who are still wondering Twitter calls them hashtags. Maybe they have some friends 'across the pond'.

Trending ideas or topics get the hash tag # and thus link to each other. Search will work without the tag but the best use of them might be for Twitter chat sessions. 

When someone wants to communicate with many others about a subject they will decide on a word segment to tag. Learning To Twitter can become #LearningToTwitter or #LTT.

To host a chat you send out invites and announcements a bit before maybe days maybe only hours. Your followers can invite theirs and it can really be a chatter fest. At the appointed time the chat starts. All replies and responses contain the appropriate tag and can thereby be tracked watched and participated in. 

One of the things this does is help everyone stay in the loop while cutting down on the characters it takes up to send a tweet or response to multiple people at a time.

This is also a fun way to see who else is interested in a hot topic from news or tv for instance. 

Prime time shows are usually very well represented in evening Twitters streams. I do not watch #DWTS but I am a #NancyGrace fan.

You can make a phrase as long as you want into a topic. Just leave out any spaces. Symbols will break the hyper link as well. Now that you have learned yet another new skill it is time to start putting it into practice. 

After sending out some tweets plug in some words or catch phrases into the Twitter search engine. See what comes up. Follow some new people and or join in various conversations.

Twitter is global and it really does not sleep. Experiment and have fun with it. People say Facebook is where the people who are supposed to know you are. They are supposed to be the people who would want to hang out with you and you them. 

What we find often happens however is Twitter connections become even more a great fit of personality humor and temperament. With less personal information being shared via an individuals page there is less to bog down. 

When you really begin to enjoy tweeting you will realize how it makes your communication more concise. Hope your ID is no longer than about 6-8 characters because 140 comes and goes really fast.  Case in point: 

I ran across a healthy detox tidbit.

Tweeted it in under 140. Nice! 

"@TerryAnn333 Lemon or organic apple cider vinegar in 8oz H20 as an a.m. ritual (1T plus 1t honey or BLECK). Can heal, purge + help UR body."

Update:

Sorry if that tweet does not read completely coherently. It's one table spoon acid plus one teaspoon sweetener in one cup of water on an empty stomach. 

Such are the perils of trying to say a lot in very little space. Proceed with caution.