Myanmar - Places to Spend

That's a picture of me at my first wine tasting. Did I bother to learn the name of the winery? No. I think it might be something like The Red Roof Winery.


That's a picture of one of the walls at the spa I visited in Myanmar. This was the pedicure floor. The lower floor was for massage and manicures.


And that's a picture of my deep fried soft shell crab that I had a part of my 5 course meal at a four or five star restaurant in Myanmar. Why am I sharing this? Well, I had decided that I would not indulge while overseas, but my instructor had other plans in mind because it was so cheap.

Wine tasting - $4
Pedicure + reflexology foot massage + shoulder massage - $18
Meal at 4-5 star restaurant - $10

Luxury treatment for all under $40 dollars. My treatments at the spa ran around 2 hours by the way. So there was a little bit of an exchange. I had a lot of nights with upset stomach while visiting the second poorest country in the world, but I also got the star treatment on the cheap.

My instructor could not help but chat about Thailand where the massages were $2 for most of the time. Thailand. I would have liked to visit there, but for this study abroad trip. I am happy that I got a chance to witness global arbitrage at it's best.

I was told that the avg. monthly income was $40.

Life In a Day - Realizations

Okay so a couple of hours ago something terrible happened. Well, I am not quite sure if it is terrible or just an occurance. After interviewing two very impressive characters this week on Skype and recording the interviews with Vodburner I went to create the videos only to discover that I was out of hard drive space. Thank you Vodburner for not warning that you average file size is larger than life. Yes, two 1 hour interviews took up more than half of my hard drive, that was 60 GB! I know, no onw should have less than 500 GB these days, but...

What surprized me was that I was more concerned with getting these interviews to the persons that I interviewed and my blog posts set for this month than completing my school work. I not being effective in any areas right now. I have not finished any blog posts. I'm behind in my class work, and I have not began to prepare for my trip in two days from now. Yes, everything is a mess, and strangely, I am okay with it. I've accepted that the class was designed for us to fail in week three. Vodburner is designed to take over hard drives and crash computers, and that I might possibly not care about completing my Master's degree as much as I did 12 months ago. I thought I could keep it together for the two months that I have left in the program but maybe not.

But, I am very proud to have taken part in the life in a day submissions. I felt that it was more important to get this submission in by the deadline than it was to get my reading discussion post in, which was uncharacteristically difficult.

Brain Dump - Grad School Blahs

(*sigh) my cup overfloweth and yet I frown. I'm writing to maintain my sanity. For the life of me and I cannot express how pressed I am in this course Second Language Assessment. I cannot fully express how it drains the life from me to even write a few words about the material. And I have loved everything so far about the TESOL program.

There is some unfair grading practices...won't talk about those here, but I must say. Even though I have put everything on hold, and when I say everything, I mean all the fun things that I was doing to distract myself from my work, I still cannot seem to get everything finished. Twelve days left until the close of the course. I too finish on time so bad. I really do although I have already discussed a two week extension with Mary. So much is out of place. So much is incomplete. But, the professor has extended me grace with late work so I am going to try to get it all done in the next 12 days.

Aha, I know why I am dragging now. I have note listed everything in my usual neat little check-off list. I need to do that now:)

Psalms 18

Psalm 18 (King James Version)

This is how I felt about the criteria for the book review that has a 1000 word limit. It seemed impossible to meet the standards in only 1000 words, but with God nothing is impossible.

1 I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.

2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

3 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

4 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

5 The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

6 In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.

7 Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.

8 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.

9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.

10 And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.

11 He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

12 At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.

13 The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.

14 Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.

15 Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

16 He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.

17 He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.

18 They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay.

19 He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.

20 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.

21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

22 For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me.

23 I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.

24 Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.

25 With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright;

26 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.

27 For thou wilt save the afflicted people; but wilt bring down high looks.

28 For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.

29 For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall.

30 As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.

31 For who is God save the LORD? or who is a rock save our God?

32 It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.

33 He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places.

34 He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.

35 Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.

36 Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip.

37 I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed.

38 I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet.

39 For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.

40 Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me.

41 They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.

42 Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.

43 Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people; and thou hast made me the head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known shall serve me.

44 As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.

45 The strangers shall fade away, and be afraid out of their close places.

46 The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.

47 It is God that avengeth me, and subdueth the people under me.

48 He delivereth me from mine enemies: yea, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: thou hast delivered me from the violent man.

49 Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen, and sing praises unto thy name.

50 Great deliverance giveth he to his king; and sheweth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.

Why Do I Procrastinate?

For the last three days I have sat at my computer to write my final papers only not to write them. Only to watch more Frank Kern trainings. To outline my papers and rewrite me "to do" list several times. I exercised, drank caffeinated beverages, asked my mother to bug me about it, even informed my teacher (earlier in the week) that I was having this lagging issue, and I still procrastinated.

The one day that I worked on my papers before they were do was last Wednesday, and that was after I sent my teacher an email telling her that I would be sending a rough draft of one paper and an outline for the other. I keep my word. It seems that deadlines are everything. Unreasonable deadlines are even better for me.

I wrote a book about this. Coach Aneirin's Guide to Living Your Winningest Life Ever! You can get a copy at: http://lifebeat.ning.com/ Ignore my horrid picture there. Procrastination is very irritating to me, but now I just have to figure out how to avoid procrastinating on setting deadlines...

A small observation

I just noticed that my clothing tag was particularly itchy. I looked at it closely and noticed that that half of that little plastic thing that the stores use to affix the price to the shirt was still there...chaffing my back; it had been there for years.

Are there little ideas, things left undone, or habits that you have that are chaffing you? Tackle a few today. I feel much better that I have removed the offending itch-inducing piece of plastic.

I actually did a little bit of this last week. I was having trouble sleeping so I thought of all the things that I had not made a decision on. After I gave myself an answer to all these 'little' questions that had been chaffing at me, I went to sleep.

You might not even realize how much something is affecting you. Every time I have a headache, my first thought is if the little things that I've been ignoring have piled up and begun to physically affect me.

[On a separate note: pay attention, you can learn so much by being aware of what you are doing or of what's going on around you. It took me twenty-three years to learn that everything is connected and that every thing informs every thing.] A silly example would be I learned about African culture by looking at my hair.

Wisdom is a weapon

So I want to share this quote from some dangerous reading that I've been into lately.

"Success is inversely proportional to hard work. As you move towards effortlessness, success moves towards infinity."

Now I know y'all know that I love the Four Hour Workweek, but I needed this essential paradigm shift in order to get more stuff done. Most everyone has been complaining that there isn't enough time in the day to get everything done, but what do we do about it besides complain and stress ourselves out thinking about it.

I was fortunate enough to have one of my cousins visiting me this month for two weeks. The first week I had a lot of school work to finish and not enough time or energy to do it all. After just reading about this effortless way to success I realized that I was doing the world a disservice by not employing people to do the work that I hated. So I asked her to type my transcript for this interview up for $20. I don't remember how much I ended up paying her in the end, but the point is that I have many more projects that have been sitting on the back burner because I've had the philosophy that hard work equals success. Faulty philosophy = faulty results.

So from now on I will always be looking for ways to 'ethically' outsource my life.

Collaboration

Let me start with my focus as a patron.
The Facebook Causes App has become a useful tool that
I helped Glory Power Ministries begin to successfully use.
Oh, what I can see from here!
A chance for everyone to give a little, to spread the word...
a little and achieve massive results together.
Let the donors be trusted to organize themselves.
Just give them the tools; they are given genius and ideas by God.

Non-profits can either catch on to this vision or die a slow and
agonizing death.

--

I was doing my market research for an information product as
outlined by Jeff Johnson. And I ran across what would be the
competition, but as I looked at her excellent sales letter and
observed that she was a student like me (or at least that was
her story) I decided to sign up as an affiliate.

Once I get my video promotion going.
(I have only cleverly designed the sales copy and saved it.)
And I finish my product.
I will seek her out for a JV.
Her product is excellent. Very professional looking, although
I did not learn many new things from it. I'm not very typical.

There's just some buzz with Ann Sieg and that Ferny guy
about collaborating with the would be competition. It doesn't
always work out, but it's much better to build together or in
larger industries buy them out instead of competing.

--

I have a highly competitive nature.
In fact, it's the only thing that kept me at my sales job
a couple of years back. So when the last instructor, professor,
facilitator, teacher, whatchamacall'em advised the class that
part of our requirements was to review and comment on our
peers work to help them improve. I was like, "What?!!"

The textbooks I'm reading too: Brave New Digital Classroom
and Technologies in the Second Language Composition Class-
room both encourage this strange idea of students collaborating
on their assignments. With the onslaught of digital plagiarism
this one of the proposed solutions. Hmmm...

The world is really changing. I wish I could have gotten help
writing all those AP English papers back in high school.
And what now that students have the ability to hire a
freelancer to write their papers for them? We've graduated
on to new tactics for cheating!

I Finally Get It! Pilates 101

Okay so the last few weeks have been scary for me as far as effortless weightloss goes because I've gone from 135 to 123 and I didn't start really weighing myself until the beginning of this week. I did not have a weightloss goal. I had a fat loss goal and as far as that goes I'm still borderline fat according to my scale.

So what's been going on? Lack of sleep, running on caffeine, and not having time to eat. Disastrous! At first I was like yay 125! And then this morning at a little under 123 pounds I was like...this is bad. But, that's not what I wanted to make this post about anyway.

I was a practitioner of Pilates for 5 or 6 years and then I stopped after I learned about it's partial origins in Yoga. One of my spiritual advisors told me that practicing Pilates was not praying to the Hindu gods because it was not designed with that it mind.

Anyway, I had only been to classes briefly and at the classes the instructor was overweight and made us do the exercises with a large number of repetitions. In the book The Pilates Body by Brooke Siler which I used as a manual, Siler recommended a low number of repetitions and to imagine your body as various objects like a rope and pulley.

Anyway, this morning I was doing a little ab workout. My abs and lower back still need help okay. And it finally clicked for me. It all came together because I was thinking about this group of radical exercise freaks that had been on Oprah. They all did their exercises in a slow methodic manner while concentrating on using the body to create resistance instead of machines.

So I had read in Brooke's book or somewhere else that a workout is not complete without the mind. And this morning I was finally able to bring my imagination into the ab workout (which included a few Pilates moves). I had to close my eyes to imagine my body as some object stronger than it was, but at the end of my workout I was satisfied that I had challenged myself sufficiently without overworking my muscles. Over-training causes muscles to break down! I can remember the days of doing 400 crunches a night. Now I have finally mastered the mind-body connection.

Front Loading

This is a skill that I have been thinking about for a while. I read about this group that described one of their friends. He had this odd habit of spending the first two weeks of his classes in the library doing all of his work for the semester. He would even miss some of his classes. I have started doing this on a smaller scale. I have not gotten to the point of doing all of my reading before a class starts, but I have begun to do all of my reading at the beginning of the week.

Reading can be spaced over three days. I cram it into one day and with good reason. I want so spend more time on infopreneuring. I took a big step towards into creating a muse (according to Timothy Ferriss' definition) today. I spent a little time talking to God on what I am suppose to be giving the world. Now I know what to write about. I made a table of contents for a book, and I know it will not be difficult to complete. The book will include the conversation.

What's Facebook Have To Do With It?

Today I realized that as much as I claim to love to network that I had not done much to connect with my old friends on Facebook. Today after finding someone that had similar interests like traveling and building a business out of it I realized my lack of a network on this favorite networking web site of mine.

So I went on a friend adding blitz. Basically, I used the dreaded automatic adder, the one that you plug your email address into with your password. I was like, "So much for security." Security is an illusion anyway.

So I had been emailing this stranger back and forth for about an hour and then I added him as a Facebook friend and...nothing. No response. Maybe I need to say hello, but it definitely woke me up a bit to my lack of networking. I put the Facebook App on my I-Pod and then actually visited a few other websites that I've been neglecting (i.e. Twitter).

All of this has been a great way of procrastinating on the 100 or so pages I have to read by tomorrow night. What am I doing up at 3 in the morning anyway--procrastinating--I'm still telling myself that I will do my work after I do a few other things. Where did this behavior start?