So recently, I was surfing YouTube as is my usual routine and past-time and in my feed, I see this: The first few minutes of the video is particularly mesmerising. I don’t know if it’s his stance, his wrinkled pants, the gorgeous wild hair, the ciggie packet in his shirt pocket, or him holding out […]
Remember the Days When People Commented on Blog Posts?
I’ve been a blogger since way back. This is my second blog that I started after deciding to ‘rebrand’ myself to have a more “professional” persona online and came up with Activate Learning Solutions or @activatelearn back in 2014. (Standby, this will soon change again as I start change it from a business to a […]
Loving the Crafty Side to My Network
I’ve been watching a show on Foxtel called Chateau in the Country, where two English people, Angel and Dick buy a dilapidated chateau in France and over the years, renovate it. Dick is an engineer, a big bear of a man who has the knack and know-how to repair, fix and create things from junk […]
Time to Get Serious about the Next Phase
It’s a bit weird writing about this topic on this blog but I can’t deny it that this is something that is part of my life now – and for many women – and I may as well accept it even though it doesn’t sit well with me. Yes, the dreaded menopause. via GIPHY Every […]
Alone in My Car
I’ve been reading Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism: On Living Better with Less Technology and there was one chapter that really hit home for me on solitude. He used the term “solitude deprivation” which is a state in which you spend close to zero time alone with your own thoughts and free from input from other […]
Future Fit
Recently I finished reading a book by Andrea Clarke called Future Fit: How to Stay Relevant and Competitive in the Future of Work. Although the book was not relevant for me (in the sense that I have for many years now, been building an online profile and networks to help navigate through my different projects, […]
Enjoying My Birthday
So it’s a bit eye opening to realise that I turned 52 yesterday. The body says I’m 52 but in my mind, I’m 25. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I look in the mirror and notice the skin that’s going papery, the wrinkles around my eyes and the random hairs that seem […]
Enjoying the Moment
I think the whole COVID saga has been some kind of blessing in my life. I don’t usually use words like “blessing” as it has some kind of religious connotations. I’m not religious by any stretch of the imagination however, I believe I am spiritual so I’ll go with the word….for now. An alternative word […]
30 Day Learning Challenge
Recently I found a tweet that had a language learning challenge over 30 days that I wanted to try out: I decided to give it a go and see how it all pans out. A few French speaking people have been helping me along – most prefer to give their feedback through Direct Message as […]
What Did You Miss In March?
It’s been an interesting month where I continued with my French but also shared some work-related projects I’ve been doing related to virtual teambuilding activities, learning OBS and also lots of interesting books. Here’s what you may have missed. The Blogs Learning OBS (I had a lot of fun learning this tool and doing some […]
On Self-Critiquing
Yesterday I filmed a short book review about Nassim Nicholas Taleb on his book, Skin in the Game. Although it may look like I create the footage in the one go, usually it involves a lot of stops and starts where I wait until I get into some conversational flow in front of the camera […]
Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait cette semaine?
Learning to write French requires practice and lots of feedback. By doing writing a blog post in French and then seeking feedback from my French speaking network, I’m able to correct the written phrases. Here’s what I got up to this week. A BIG Merci to Rotana Ty (@rotanarotana) for this weeks corrections! Cette semaine […]
Working and Learning Out Loud
I have written a lot of transparent work and learning practices on this blog over the years so I thought I’d revisit the theme again. The reason for this was a recent Twitter conversation started by a question asked by Jayne Davids (@Jaynedavids) who is my ‘go to’ expert in my Personal Learning Network on […]
Update on Social Media
Early this year, I did a massive clean up and decluttering of both physical and online “stuff”. It was a cathartic experience to ditch a lot of things, clean out the garage as well as streamline all documents, files, photos and videos on the cloud. It had to be done and now I can progress […]
Learning OBS
I have finally gotten around to downloading OBS (the free streaming software) on both my Mac and PC. On the Mac, you need to do some extra things because you need to download additional software but it works like a dream on the PC. Some time ago, Darrell (@DarrellaaS) told me about OBS but I […]
What Did You Miss in February?
Thanks to the deletion of social media on my phone, the removal of notifications and a bit of insomnia thrown in, my mojo for writing, creativity and learning has come back! Yay! It’s been a MAD writing month with some creativity thrown in where I am now on a fictional travel adventure around France in […]
Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait cette semaine?
Big thank you to my friend Céline Schillinger who helped me out with the French corrections this week in purple. Big thank you to Kevin Le Vaillant once again who has helped me out this week in the blue writing. Learning to write French requires practice and lots of feedback. By doing this, I’m learning […]
Day 1: Virtual Tour of Les Hospices de Beaune
Last night my husband asks me, “how about a trip to Paris in November?” My reaction? I know that it’s highly unlikely we’ll be travelling anywhere internationally for the next two possibly up to five years, sadly. What he meant to ask me is that we buy a couple of tickets to go see the […]
Baking
One of the things I’ve been doing a lot more with my time is cooking and baking things that I’ve never done before in an effort to try something new. I find I get into a rut sometimes and revert to cooking and preparing dinner that is something tried and tested because it means it […]
Learning Languages Ruined My Life
Phoenix shares his story of how he found a book in a bookstore called, “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent” (a book by Lionel Trilling) and how it made him think about how learning languages makes you intelligent BUT it comes at a cost. They are both painful. Painful in the sense that it gives […]