I AM ON VACATION!!!

Off to Nha Trang for five days. Will post photos along the way :)

My Thoughts on the Government Shutdown

Twitter Updates

The Republican party has backed themselves into a corner by letting the most extreme voices have the most clout. Now, those extreme voices are being told that while they can have some of what they want, they can't have it all - and they are shutting down the government out of stubbornness. In child-rearing, this move by Republicans is known as the "last stand" tantrum. A child will kick, scream, yell obscenities, break things - anything to keep the energy of an emotional high going while asserting some desperate attempt at control. I wonder which method of dealing with them would be best for America - refusing to rise to the bait and letting them tire themselves out, or a good long stint with their nose in the proverbial corner?
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Important: Facebook NewsFeed FIX

Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your newsfeed from the same people lately? Have you also noticed that when you post things like status messages, photos and links, the same circle of people are commenting and everyone else seems to be ignoring you?

Don't worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large chunk of your friend/fan list can't see anything you post and here's why:
The "New Facebook" has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you've recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa - you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!!

HERE'S THE FIX: On the homepage click the "Most Recent" title on the right of the Newsfeed, then click on the drop down arrow beside it and select "Edit Options", click on "Show Posts From" and change the setting to "All Of Your Friends and Pages" (you can also access the "Edit Options" link at the very bottom of the facebook homepage on the right) Note: Business pages do not have a newsfeed however page owners should adjust the settings on their personal accounts.
The good news is: now you can now view all of your friends and fans again. The bad news is: YOU ARE STILL INVISIBLE to a large portion of your list. You must get the word out to ALL of your friends and fans by inviting them to this event or creating one of your own so they can read the post and adjust their settings. To invite your friends: Click on "Attending" at the top and then you will see an option to invite your friends at the top left. It’s public so everyone who logs onto facebook can view it and even the friends who can’t see your posts WILL see the event invitation. You can also tweet about it, create a blog post or send out an email to your subscribers in hopes of reaching them all.

You're welcome! :-)

Typical Message from a Nun

So, as you may already know, I volunteer weekly teaching a class of nuns. They make great students, by the way - very polite, eager to learn, and always surprising me with some kind of homemade gift from sugar cane they cut themselves to grape wine they've conjured up.

Sometimes, I'll send them a message to tell them to have a nice day, and here's a typical message I receive at any given time. It's cute, so I wanted to share.

My Kiwi Class

Here's a photo of my Kiwi Class. They are mostly teenagers and seem to know more about current American culture and music than I do. We were once studying a lesson about how to report an auto accident, and one of the new vocabulary words was 'damage.' Upon hearing this word, one of my students, Ann, started singing 'Damaged' by Danity Kane. I was DONE!

Confused Students

So, over the weekend I taught my class Win, Lose, or Draw, and these two didn't quite understand what their teammate was trying to draw. Their faces were priceless, so I snapped a quick photo.

I'm a Model. Clearly.

Oh How I Love Payday!!

It was a GOOD month!

Class Party

Last night, my Kiwi class celebrated the birthday of a student by throwing him a surprise party, complete with cake, snacks, drinks, singing, and lots of photo taking. This class has become one of my favorite classes. Photos below.

The birthday boy, John, is in the Armani tee.

Students helping themselves to cake

Thomas stuffing his face