Tag Archives: google

#jbuliesblog supports #oohlabra w/@ideavillage at #NOEW2013 @silverlinecrm 18 Mar Wonderful job! Congrats @OohLaBra on #Leader $10k @salesforce @silverlineCRM Challenge!

Posted on March 2013 | 7 Comments
How can you show your support? By sharing on pinterest, facebook or twitter. Thank you.

How can you show your support? By sharing on pinterest, facebook or twitter. Thank you.

Congratulations Lisa!

jbulie’s blog would like to extend a huge well earned mega congratulations to hardworking real life sister, Lisa, at OohLaBra.com. Lisa McKenzie is supported by family and friends when awarded the first prize for the sales challenge presented by multinational player Silverline.

In March of this year there was a conference for entrepreneurs called NOEW that stands for New Orleans Entrepeneur Week. I was thrilled when my sister called me a few months ago to tell me that her company, Ooh La Bra was selected as a finalist for more than three contests as the most innovate product. That call put her into the top five contestants as an entrepreneur.

In the following months, I watched my sister practice her pitch down to the last detail, including hair, makeup, market share and future projections.

Lisa McKenzie with her partner Susan Bopp, and members of the Salesforce and Silverline teams at yesterday's "Salesforce Challenge". Ooh La Bra was awarded the top prize of a customized software application, valued at $10k. Thank you Salesforce and Silverline!

Lisa McKenzie with her partner Susan Bopp, and members of the Salesforce and Silverline teams at “Salesforce Challenge”. Ooh La Bra was awarded the top prize of a customized software application, valued at $10k. Thank you Salesforce and Silverline. #NOEW2013

She’s truly amazing to watch as her friends can attest.

To read more about the contest, follow my twitter feed by clicking here.

Right after winning she was contacted by ABC to be interviewed. You can read and see the interview by clicking here.

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=91064&sitesection=wgno_newswithatwist&VID=24656069

Here’s the official press release.
Global Corporations, Investors, Startups to Convene in New Orleans for 5th New Orleans Entrepreneur Week

PR Newswire | February 25, 2013 | 12:52 AM EST

National business executives, entrepreneurs, MBAs, and globally renowned venture capitalists will meet for the 5th Annual. New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, NOEW, on March 16-22, 2013 to share best practices and celebrate innovation and entrepreneurship.

Event headliners include Walter Isaacson, President and CEO of Aspen Institute,  Hamdi Ulukaya, President, Founder and CEO of Chobani Yogurt and Dana Mauriello, Director of New Business Opportunities for Etsy.

Additionally, representatives from Fortune 500 companies, the most prominent venture capitalists, and notable entrepreneurs will be participating, including:

  • Lisa McKenzie: Founder, President of Ooh La Bra
  • Jim Coulter: Founding Partner, TPG Capital, L.P.
  • Donna Fenn: author; contributing editor, Inc. Magazine
  • Nick Friedman: Co-Founder, College Hunks Hauling Junk, College Hunks Moving
  • Patti Greene: Professor Babson College; National Academic Director, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses
  • David Hall: Revolution Ventures
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
  • Mary Matalin: Political Consultant
  • Kathryn Minshew: Founder, The Muse
  • Wendell Pierce: star of HBO’s hit show Treme
  • Bridgette Sexton: Google for Entrepreneurs
  • Margaret Spellings: Former U.S. Secretary of Education; Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Advisory Council
  • Alan Weinkrantz: Global PR Expert
  • Tina Wells: Founder, Buzz Marketing; Huffington Post blogger; Black Enterprise columnist
Lisa McKenzie, Founder and President of Ooh La Bra an amazing person. We support her as she is a finalist at NOEW2013.

Lisa McKenzie, Founder and President of Ooh La Bra an amazing person. We support her as she is a finalist at NOEW2013.

New Orleans has one of the most dynamic and engaged entrepreneurial ecosystems in the world and NOEW is its premier showcase event. NOEW is hosted each year by The Idea Village, a 12 year old nonprofit that identifies, supports, and retains entrepreneurial talent in New Orleans. The week-long event is the culmination of The Idea Village’s nine-month Entrepreneur Season, attracting thousands of attendees.

This year, NOEW is expected to gather 3,000 of the nation’s most innovative business leaders, financiers, entrepreneurs, and students to support New Orleans entrepreneurs through over 55 events.

Highlights include Capital Pitch Competitions, which will award prizes ranging from $100,000 to a personalized, guided tour of Silicon Valley’s investment community, and an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Summit that will engage global partners to discuss best practices for sustaining entrepreneurial ecosystems.

All seminars, workshops, and keynotes are free and open to the public on a first come, first served basis.

These events range from one-on-one counseling sessions to specialized workshops on legal and marketing practices. Registration is open at http://www.ideavillage.org

SOURCE The Idea Village

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Posted in art gallery - if you're new start here, family, happiness, holidays, Inspiration, Italy, journal, learning, lists, motivation, relationships, teaching, travel, writing

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How to increase blog traffic — 10 tips and tricks from jbulie’s blog.

Posted on March 2013 | 38 Comments

If you want your blog or website to succeed, just love doing it.

Easy.
Even the what you can't imagine is possible. ♡ ㄥ❀∨モ

Even what you can’t imagine is possible. ♡ ㄥ❀∨モ

I’m sharing with you what I’ve been doing over here to attract visitors and increase blog traffic.

Don’t believe the guys who say they get a million visitors a day. They are like kids in a candy shop, typing in numbers. Learn from doing first hand, and ask a blogger friend.

Here are the steps you can take to make your site grow.

1. Get to know your readers. Share.

Spend a lot of time looking at your stats feature and try to understand where your readers are coming from. A lot of my readers have become friends. Thanks guys. A lot are new, welcome. I’ve also found having a stats counter installed helps.

I’ve learned that they come from all over the world and different backgrounds and ages.

ㄥ❀∨モ

From Pauline to Helen Gurley Brown: She is an unsung, deliciously sybaritic, and downright cheeky feminist heroine. She will be sorely and dearly missed.

2. Participate in comments and conversations.

One of the best ways of inviting visitors to your site participate in conversations in the comment sections of blogs you like reading. Ever since I started my blog, I’ve learned a great deal in the comments section of articles.

3. Write good content.My highest ranked day was when I wrote a piece about motivation and being a better person.

4. Write from the heart.

Talk as if you were speaking to a few good friends. Write about what you care about people are going to be supportive.

5. Make it a goal.

I have also made it a goal of mine to have a lot of visitors so in my free time, I read as many articles I can on the subject.

6. Use your real voice.

When I write, I like to picture I’m either standing infront of my peers and explaining things simply. Or, I try to imagine I’m writing my sister or mom and telling them how simple it is to make a blog grow.

Wishing you flowers today.

Wishing you flowers today.

7. Enjoy

You guys might have noticed how much I love to play around with my readers. I enjoy writing. I write to share, to learn and to enrich life and the people around me.

8. Add extra value, then go the extra mile.

The more you give, the more you receive. It’s so easy to get great feedback ~ just give of yourself.

You are one person writing, right? Well, there are lots of people reading so the ratio is just immense. Give of yourself and you get back so much from some many people. I strive to constantly go the extra mile and provide excellent quality in all my endeavors.

9. Be inspiring

You can be inspiring, funny wonderful, full of life. If you don’t believe in yourself, well then I do! You can do it.

We all have the ability to push ourselves to learn and make our lives better. You can do it. I believe in you.

10. Pay it forward.

Without my visitors, I’d just be here talking to my cat. She’s a good listener, however. To pay it forward it’s super simple. Just hit the tweet button if you have twitter, or share on facebook by clicking the link below.

Thanks for visiting. I appreciate your comments.

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Posted in happiness, Inspiration, learning, lists, motivation, writing

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How and Why I Self Published a Book

Posted on February 2013 | 19 Comments

I remember one day sitting at a trade show booth in Las Vegas with my awesomely successful and lovely sister. Clients would come up to us and ask if we had any number of objects from Velco to copies, to faxes to signs.

We’d look at each other with a knowing smile, pretend to bend down and change hats.

One hat said Designer, one said Electrician, on said Copy Girl. Today my hat says Blog Writer.

i shall be calm in this moment. ♡

i shall be calm in this moment. ♡

I think that flexibility in skills in today’s marketplace is absolutely key to being successful.

One day I decided to write a book. It was so easy. I was sitting next to my fire while my family was either watching TV or playing cards and I was surfing the internet for interesting things to read.

Then I thought to myself, hey, if that person can write a blog or publish a book, then what is stopping me. So I did. I opened a blank document up and started to type. Before I knew it I was looking at my guide book called Zero to Blog.

Basically, it explains why I started a blog and how easy it is for you to do the same.

The steps I took to get my book available to the public were so easy. After you type up your book, you just need to design a cover. I had read about lulu.com where you can upload a book and name your price. I think I make half of book sales. I can’t remember exactly.

I designed the cover according to their requirements. They needed the cover to be a certain exact size, so I did that following their directions.

Then, all I had to do was upload it and there you go. I linked it to my blog so anyone who is interested can download it.

You don’t know actually need any authorization or approval from anyone in particular in order to write or sell a book.

You just do it.  Simple, right?

I also like to go the extra mile so I’m sharing some adjectives here you can use to spice up your writing. Have fun and let me know how your projects come along.

Here are 9 rockstar blog words for dummies smart people.

1) Barbra Streisand She’s amazing. She’s everywhere. If you don’t quite get it, neither do I. I am almost sure it’s just playing around. I love people just like to say it. If you know why they do, please tell me. :)

2) Life Hacks I’ve noticed a lot of the seriously smart blogging blogs are using Life Hacks in a positive way. Life Hacks offer simple solutions to every day problems.

3) Wicked As old as this seems I’m still coming across Wicked in in well written headlines. It’s still works. At least on East Coast it was big when I was a wee tot. On the west coast we used a little bit more surf slang. You tell me, do people still use this? I try to use words that I say. I’d never say killer buzz words. It sure looks good in a title though, doesn’t it?

So I heard you been jammin’ down some gnarly tunes on your guitar?

That is just so wrong on so many levels. This gem was offered up last summer at a barbeque.

Be a free thinker.

4) Zen Whether it’s Zen Motorcycles or Zen Journey or Zen Habits people love anything that will make their lives more zen like. It’s an art. It conjurs up images of peace. Oaahhhhhmmmmmmm.

5) Simplicity I like any website that promises a simpler better life. I remember reading one day less is more. Or was it every day one thing less? My goal in my life is to get everything put away before I die. One thing less. Simple Life, Simple Pleasures, Simple simpleness. Simplify your life. It’s simple.

6) Social Media I don’t truly love this term. I bought a book at a garage sale in Pacific Palisades, California from a nice lady. I wanted to keep in touch with her so I asked her if she was on facebook. She said, no I don’t like social media. It was the first time I heard the word. Now it seems to be everywhere and growing. I still can’t use it in a sentence though.

Take the road less travelled.

7) Non Conformity If we are living parallel lives as avatars in another planet, I think we’d all be driving Prius’s and living in solar powered houses. The idea of non conformity offers you the possibility of changing your life for the better by choosing to do what you love.

Be a non conformist. Be a free thinker. Turn off the news. Get informed. Read. Stay informed. Make up your own mind.

~8)  Trending It seems like people say Trending and then whatever new thing is out. I don’t know because I’m not trending anything!

*9) Boomz Thanks to one of my super cool blog writer friends like Tiny Island who shares with us some Singaporean coolness from their beauty girl Ris Low. I love they they just have fun and play with language. I used to do this when I was a little girl. I wonder why I no longer do. That’s just Boomz {hands out}.

It’s time for reader input ~ what are your thoughts?

What do you think? I think these words are on their way out: Dude, Alternative, Rad, Stoked, Factoid, Gnarly, Social Media and SEO. Those are lame in my opinion.

I think these words are up and coming: Blog, Boomz, Fluffy, My Bad, Hiney, Smile and Nod, Shiny, happiness, writing and Talk to the Hand.

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Posted in happiness, Inspiration, lists, writing

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13 things I wish I knew before I started a blog.

Posted on February 2013 | 27 Comments

1. That I would be so visible in all of the world wherever there is internet. For some reason I thought I was still speaking to my immediate friends.

Six Simple Rules to live by: Be happy, be nice, be a leader, be organized, be a lifelong learner and be healthy.

Have a blessed day.

2. That people could laugh at me if they wanted. Sometimes they do but I mostly get compliments, thank goodness.

3. That everyone uses their blogs however they want in different ways to represent their own style. Some blogs have comments, some have books, some have lists, some have videos. Each person can make their blog completely personalized.

4. That the blogger community is extremely supportive. If you need help with anything there are endless forums to help you answer your questions. Or, you can post a new one. I did and got tons of quick answers.

5. That words are important. And can save lives. Take for example:

Let’s eat Grandma! versus Let’s eat, Grandma!

Believe it or not, a lot of people find my blog by typing those words into google.

6. That some people make money with their blogs,

Hi Mom!

Smile. You’re beautiful.

7. That it takes more time and dedication than I thought. But like most projects the more you put into it the more you get out of it.

8. That I ♥ blogging.

9. That 97 percent of people want to write a book.

10. What’s a widget. I thought a widget was that wooden triangle piece you slip under a door to hold it open. Boy was a surprised. I have since discovered that widgets are the spice of life. You can see all my widgets on my right column. They are things like being able to see your categories, most popular posts and facebook links.

Bike today. Yes please.

11. What’s a theme? Believe it or not, you get FREE themes. Themes are the overall looks of your site and you can choose whichever one suits you, just like a jacket.

You can even change as often as you want. I like mine for now but you never know. People love new looks. And it’s free.

12. That blogging would bring me increased confidence just like overcoming a fear.

14. That you would be reading this.

and just for fun, I’ll add another one. What would you add? What’s your number 14?

14. I wish I knew what social media was and how incredibly far reaching it is. I had seriously only heard the term social media at a garage sale buying a book.  Things you should look into are twitter, facebook and now pinterest.

I’m seriously in awe of the amount of times I see people in real life who have read my latest posts.

What about you? What are your favorite widgets? Why do you blog? Why don’t you blog? What are your favorite blogs and why?

As always, thanks for visiting and commenting. Nice to see you.

  1. Write down my goal in very specific terms.
  2. Practise visualisations daily.
  3. Stay positive and have an attitude of gratitude.
  4. Tell people about my goal repeatedly and publicly.
  5. Act as if I had already achieved it.
  6. Take massive action to make it happen.

What am I reading?
My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House

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Posted in Inspiration, lists, writing

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All things beautiful and kind.

Posted on October 2012 | 11 Comments
Were men and women meant to live in harmony together?

Somewhere, out beyond all ideas of right and wrong doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. Rumi

Why are men and women so different? Why do men love things that are dangerous and women love things that are sweet?

I live with three men. I grew up with three women. I can’t get over how different we are although sometimes we seem so similar.

Did God seriously divide the two of us at birth? Were we truly one being as the zen picture of the two swimming circles show?

My boys like adventure films, action, shooting, guns, trains, airplanes and playing sports to name a few.

My girlfriends and I like shopping, kindness, cupcakes, decorating them, dressing up, clothes, hair and nails.

How in the world are we supposed to live in peace if we are so strikingly different?

Field Trip to Garda Lake

Field Trip to Garda Lake

I’m having a hard time these days saying goodbye to my students. I’ve gotten numerous comments from my readers, family and friends who have told me they can see how close we have become. It happens every year, I can’t help it. I love my job. I love being able to watch the kids grow.

The truth of the matter is that they are the ones who make me grow.

One day, I took two of my students to the center of town shopping. They would hand me t~shirts to try on. I would hold up a shirt and get the teenage big eyed face lights up yes, or the opposite eye rolled absolute no.

all things beautiful ♥•*¨*•✩♥

One day, I brought my two boys with me on a theater trip to the town center together with my class. The Italian professor gave me huge compliments. My boys deserved them. They behaved so well, just smiled, had fun and were part of the group. I particularly remember watching the theater performance from the box in the balcony. I had gone up there with my two boys to rest because there was a red velvet couch.

Slowly but surely my students spotted me, and came to keep me company. In the end there were nine of us in the box and my boys on their laps. My boys sat forward with their arms crossed, chin on their arms watching the entire theater performance. It was magical. ´¯`»¸¸.·☆

We have five more days together before we part ways. It this what it means to be a mom, wife and teacher?

 

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Posted in happiness, relationships, teaching

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Inspiring day — Country walks, a jog and a new bike. #Euronews Business Awards

Posted on September 2012 | 16 Comments

Hi, I’m Julie. I heard and read about a contest the other day and I’m going to try and enter it. The deadline is October 28th 2012. I have uploaded my video so wish me luck! You can watch my video on you tube by clicking here.

Here’s how it works:

1. You make a video, less then one minute.
2. You choose a category. There are three. The categories are:
- Women in Business
- Going International
- Growing Online
3. You submit your entry to this link.

What can you win?

1. the chance to make a mini-documentary about your business with equipment personnel required for filming.

2. This report will be shot during in November 2012 and shown on the Euronews Channel and will be available on http://www.euronews.com on video on demand.

3. A trip to the prize giving event in Brussels on 15 November  2012 plus 1 guest, 1 or 2 nights accommodation in standard rooms with breakfast and all travel expenses will be paid by Google.

4. A Samsung Galaxy Nexus Chromebook.

5. A training session with Google on how to succeed online.

Contest rules:
http://www.euronews.com/media/download/docs/Avenant_UK.pdf
http://www.euronews.com/talents/business-awards-terms-and-conditions#UK
and a video is here;
http://www.youtube.com/euronewsbusiness

You must have a registered address is located in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain or United Kingdom, be in English or subtitled in English and the video must include no music.

Good luck!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now back to our regular programming.

♥ Students to me: Prof, where are you going? Me: To buy my boy a bike for his birthday. Them: But you said that yesterday. Me: For my kids every day is a birthday.♥

It’s like when you shut your eyes, then you open them and see your kids are grown. Time flies so fast. We want to capture it and hold onto it. Especially the kids. I want to hold on to every smile they make.

They are so happy go lucky, true boys boyz. Yesterday was a big day for us in growth. My littlest found his balance on his new bike.

I watched him learn with a happy heart. He got the glow in his eye and looked at me with big smiles as he propelled himself forward wabbly and all.

{After school}
Students to me: Prof, where are you going?
Me: To get my soething for my son’s birthday.
Them: But you said that yesterday.
Me: For my kids every day is their birthday.

We cross the street and we are in the middle of the most beautiful Italian countryside and orchards. It makes my heart stop. I try to capture it with words but it’s bigger than me. Sort of like driving with rows of seedlings.

Violet sunset sky going down across golden hay.

It seems ridiculous to even attempt to describe the beauty.  Take a cool deep breath and close your eyes. You can feel the cool air in your lungs and the warm embracing sun over head. Coolish in the shade.

Nature’s beauty restores our souls.

I’ve been running lately a big more than usual. Last night, my boys were invited to come with me. They out ran me ~ boy are they fast. It was so cute though running side by side with my six year old, him looking up at me smiling. It truly warms my heart. My big guy going off ahead ’til the farm house.

Dinner ready, table set when I come home. Hot bath. No bubbles today.

Simplicity.

I try to catch the beauty with words but we all know it’s futile. Still, if I close my eyes I can see and breathe the fresh air and know it’s all good, it’s all beautiful, pretty, sweet, and for us to behold.

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Posted in family, happiness, Inspiration

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On What’s Up With Me and My Blog

Posted on March 2012 | Comments Off

Hello friends and welcome back. Nice to see you.

I started this blog in October of 2010 as a way of sharing part of my life with my friends and family abroad.

Lately I’ve received a couple of comments about me and my blogging I wanted to respond to. A friend of mine commented that she doesn’t get any email notifications. It’s a thing I have with email. I hadn’t checked my email for like a weekend, then checked and I had about 150 messages that mostly went right into spam. It’s more than I can keep up with.

Seeing how this is a personal blog about my life here, when I email, let’s say 216 people with what I’m up to, I feel like it’s me sending one of my personal letters to let’s say 216 people. I wouldn’t do that. Neither would you.

So, friends have asked how to subscribe to my blog via email so they know when I update. Well, it’s really not that simple. What I do is republish old posts. I’m doing that in order to try to not spam you with my life.

Also, as you know I cannot stand having articles published without comments. This happened recently to one of my favorite blog posts. It’s really strange, but in person I have had numerous people tell me that they loved it. But only two people left a comment. Seeing how when someone reads an article but doesn’t comment, it makes the article look like no one is reading it. I can see on my stats feature that it has plenty of readers dropping in.

I suppose it’s all part of the learning to blog, learning by doing process.

Here’s things I’ve done on this blog that I have tried if you are ever thinking of setting up a blog.

1. Set up your twitter and facebook accounts immediately and link them to your blog so people know who you are. I made the mistake of adding my facebook page to my blog after a year or two of blogging. I should have done it from the beginning. Also, there are two types of facebook fan pages, one is called a page and the other is called a group. It’s really been a nightmare actually because one of the two isn’t linkable. Also the format keeps changing making it hard to manage.

2. I’ve tried numerous themes on. I’ve read as much as the next guy has on niche marketing, creating a brand, blah blah blah, but I’m just me, just a lady who is tying at her keyboard sharing my life. Not a brand, not a niche. I’m trying to live here and learn here and to share.

Here’s the breakdown: When I started blogging I quickly learned where I could blog from for free. There were three main blogging platforms, but I chose WordPress because the owner Ma.tt wrote me right back welcoming me. I knew it was a real person out there. The forums and online help were outstanding.

Then when you choose look for your blog, you have what is called a dashboard, with a hundred or so options of links, posts, pages, ratings, comments, media, appearance, blah blah blah. One of the most important obviously is what’s called the theme which is the over all layout of your blog. So I keep changing mine. Buy hey, that’s me. A marketing professional would probably say to choose one and stay with it. I’m not pro. I’m just me, like I said, so I keep changing mine.

I’m like that with my hair too. I can’t remember the names of the themes I’ve chosen but I sure have had fun playing with them. I admire bloggers who can choose one image, choose one theme and stick with it even for YEARS. Wow! Not me. I was even thinking of changing themes daily, only my widgets get all freaked out.

What’s a widget? It’s another one of your options that you set up where you can decide what is visible on your sidebars. Mine have gone from two side bars to one, to bottom, to top, you name it. Even without. Once, I had like 40 odd widgets. Now I have about 16. It’s what you see is what you get folks.

In summary, I don’t like email, so you probably aren’t getting an email update from me, even if you have signed up to get one. I change my theme alot. I don’t like when I don’t get comments. I wish more people encouraged my talented students who are would so appreciate your kind words supporting the art and need to hear your positive feedback.

Also, I set up a couple of pages I later pulled down. I don’t think that’s too bit of a problem. Finally, I don’t believe that all of those ads you see flying around blogs help or work. I thought about it but in the end, I decided I don’t want to be all addy and all. So there you are. That’s my update.

On a personal side, it’s a beautiful day, I’m feeling fantastic, so I’m going outside. Hope you are well. As always I hope this post finds you lovely, lucky and in love.

Julie

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Posted in relationships

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I ♥ my readers. Great minds can make anything happen when working together.

Posted on January 2011 | 9 Comments

Each time one of my readers leaves a comment I’m scared to look at it. I sometimes can’t sleep thinking oh great I’m going to wake up and some nut in cyber world is going to have written something mean on my blog and I’m going to have to delete it. Instead I wake up and I see words like excellent and exceptional.

Bike today.

I’m getting to know you all better and I thank you so much for participating in life, love and laughter. You guys are my extended students outside my classroom. I’ve particularly liked meeting people who need help on their endeavors like web site advice feedback. It’s nice to have found a fun creative place to play.

Whenever I’m in a classroom situation my students generally flock to me for information. Why is that? Even when I was little I remember the teacher asking me to explain simple concepts to the other students. I can only attribute it to the fact that both my mother and my grandmother, bless their hearts, were teachers.

If you have read my entire blog you will have seen that I used to write travel diaries from when I was younger. I travelled to Europe mostly before I moved here.

Back to you. My reader’s comments.

My first comment on my first post was from my friend from high school who I call double G. That’s for Gigi. Isn’t that the coolest name – Gigi? She said she’s adding me to her RSS feed. I seriously had never heard of that so I had to look it up on Google. I then read my comment from Pam at Bored Cook and she said Excellent. I felt like I got a good grade on a paper.

It's all an illusion.

One of my favorite comments comes from the nicest guy named Jeff. He wrote I find it hard to believe this isn’t the most popular self-improvement blog out there yet. I about flipped. I’m a new at this. I’d say it’s luck and passion. I also like to laugh and love to write. You guys made my dreams come true for getting 1,000 hits under two months. I’m aiming for another 2,000 in two more months. Does that sound about right to you?

A couple of years ago I was working at a Jr. High School here in Italy. You know what my students like to do? Before I walk in the class they like to write on the blackboard Prof Angelos is the Best. They also like to pass me decorated graffiti like notes written Angelos on them. The kids are 12 years old and so smart.

More Reader’s Comments

It’s your uncanny way of never “seeing” the obstacle of things and situations that make you a great motivator for me. Anne Marie

Your writing style feels like I’m sitting in your living room drinking tea and shooting the breeze. Jeff Burke

I love reading your blog! Miss A. Topp

The articles here are fantastic. Shane Mosley

Hey there. You might be new, but I enjoyed your commentary. Dr. Tom Bibey

Cool and funny tips! … I like the way you write and you have another regular visitor in me! Tomas Z.

Truthfully, this was a really outstanding post. Rosa Planting

You must be a wonderful teacher being who you are. Jeff R

Strong Voice. Shufina K., contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle

Not all reader’s comments have been positive.

On about my third day of blogging I tried adding my blog to a search directory and a guy said he though maybe I was writing satire. I had to look that up. If I’m writing Satire I’m unaware of it. That particular comment is not on my blog because he wrote it on the web directory.

Is this a positive or negative comment? I’m undecided.

The other comment I’m not sure was good or bad was a friend of mine on facebook. When I wrote I’m getting teary eyed when I see babies in strollers Tim wrote Careful, Nietzsche felt the same way about horses.

That comment was so above my head. Maybe some of you readers can explain it to me. I looked it up on wikipedia and it said Nietzche ended up in an insane asylum.

Before this starts sounding like too long of an undeserved Booker Prize speech I just wanted to say you have all been wonderful motivators for me. I write about motivation because I like to get my students thinking. I like to see them smile. I like a good laugh. Life is good. Life is wonderful.

Two quick and funny stories I’d like to share with you.

The first is about my holiday experience at school last week. The school was closed due to snow so the remaining teachers sang and danced. It was a moment I wished lasted forever. When is the last time you can imagine teachers singing and dancing in a teacher’s lounge? Kind of crazy.

And the second

I embarrassed myself on Sc.tt’s website that you can see to your right on my blogroll. I introduced myself as an English teacher and then I misspelled a word. I wrote back to ask him to please not publish it. I wrote through not threw. By that time it was already on his public New’s Feed. No going back. I then went to comment on one of his articles he wrote on a FOO camp – I had never heard of that so again I had to look it up. What I saw was a picture of a beautiful house and a bunch of tents in front of it.

It was hosted at a guy’s house named O’Reilly. I commented that I couldn’t believe Bill O’Reilly wouldn’t invite people in to his house or host them at a nearby hotel. Kind Scott corrected me saying it’s publisher Tim O’Reilly. Who would have known? I tried a third time to correct my mistake by telling him he ‘sited’ O’Reilly four times without giving the first name so my mistake was honest. By the time I hit the return button I saw I wrote sited instead of cited.

For the third time in a row I saw my name on the new’s feed calling myself an English teacher. Oy Vay says my sister. Oy Vay.

When travelling we always run into funny stories of miscommunication. Would you like to tell me yours?

Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Julie

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