Tuesday, December 11, 2018

The Classroom of the Future


Changing the way school is structured:       
      The Future of Education - A School You Would WANT To Attend!

(I have a dream to open my own school; I'm open on the subject matter and style, although I would have both traditional classes 
and others below included. 
I'd also have my own Hogwarts curriculum too--and I would be quite comfortable teaching some of my skills as a psychological mythologist. Yes, there are those of us who are Magical: we have knowledge and awareness that can't be taught in routine methods. Some of us are Healers and Manifestors. 
 That's how we look at the stars and learn about the psyche and human behavior and learning styles regarding challenges and growth opportunities. (And nurturing and socialization needs) 

Besides subject study, ample social time should be given between classes and play time (or nap opportunities) should be allowed in the morning and afternoon. A “free” class could be created where a child can expand on any topic they wish with other children, i.e., let the children teach the children. 

The length of time for classes should be less than one hour for each class, schedules should be individualized, homework should be a rarity, and the children should not be overworked or stressed. Class credits should be given for the interaction in community of gardening, building infrastructure, and care-giving.


School should be fun and the children will want to add as many classes as they can. Curriculum should be an interactive choice between the student, parent, and a counselor based on the capability of the child, and graduation of primary and secondary schools could be done at any age.


Education will need to be continuously re-created as more strands of our DNA are activated and more information is available to humans through our higher selves and our Akashic records. One of Education will need to be continuously re-created as more strands of our DNA are activated and more information is available to humans through our higher selves and our Akashic records. One of the most sought-after jobs will be teaching these brilliant children and it will be one of the most rewarding careers to have.


Education administrators will be free thinkers, organizers, and mediators, and will enjoy their jobs just as much as teachers. the most sought after jobs will be teaching these brilliant children and it will be one of the most rewarding careers to have. Education administrators will be free thinkers, organizers, and mediators, and will enjoy their jobs just as such as teachers.


 Does this article give you any ideas about the future of education and the co-creation of the New Earth? If so, now is the time to begin brainstorming and to form groups on Facebook and other social media sites dedicated to revamping our education system. Change will have to happen on the community level by example and then spread throughout the world due to the success of one particular curriculum over another. Information and awareness about the corruption of our current system and what we are going to do about it is the key to moving forward as free-willed humans.


Math- Geometry is the basic building block of all life. Math will take on a whole new meaning and new ways of arithmetic along with fun ways to calculate will be taught.


Cosmic Science- Identity and placement of Universes in our cosmos and the difference between free willed Universes and non free-willed Universes.


Universal Science- How planets, moons, and stars are sentient beings and how they all work together to form solar systems and galaxies.

Universal History- The history of the Universe including civilizations and placement in the Cosmos.

Creation Science- The study of how everyone and everything is connected from one Creator and how we contribute to that creation.

Human History- DNA studies, human genetics, and the history of humanity from Lyra to today, including the social statistics, behaviors, and characteristics of all humans in our Universe.

Human Rights- Constitutional Law on freedom and the Golden Rule.


Sexual Relations- The responsibility behind merging energies with another human and teaching the ability to decide whether another human body is created.


Universal Language- Learning the language of light which is understood throughout the Universe.


Universal Law- Learning the importance of Universal Law and how it relates to all sentient beings.


Astrology - Learning how to read and fully understand your birth chart and life cycles.


Astronomy - Understanding the importance of stars, planets and constellations.  Learning how the stars can show us the cycles of time along with how they can be used for navigation.


Sixth Sense Studies- Developing all of your innate gifts.


Meditation - Guided classes on how to safely travel the Universe with your consciousness, learning new meditation techniques, developing new ones.


Exercise- Yoga, Tai Chi, etc.


Galactic Ambassador Training- How to become a galactic ambassador, spaceship flight training.


Healing- Methods for keeping the body clear of negativity (reiki, quantum touch, etc...), responsible thinking, service to others.

Gardening- How to grow organic food and hemp for cultivation, different forms of gardening such as hydroponics, permaculture, etc...

Technological and Industrial Sciences- How to make almost anything from hemp, 3d printing, free energy technology, encourage free thinking and non-competitive invention.


Environment- The true importance of being stewards of the earth by living on her without making footprints and healing the environment.


Recycling- Maximizing what has been created in the past into something sustainable.


Council of Elder training- With the elimination of government, a Council of Elders training program will be facilitated to ensure that future elders will always be working in humanity's best interests.


Music- All forms of music including history, composition, symphonic band and concert, and voice.


UFO Research - Classes on the documentation of UFOs through night vision goggles, how to interact with them, sky mapping, UFOs in Art History, etc...


Creative arts- All forms of creativity including art, dance, drama, and writing.


Community- How to contribute economically to your community through barter, volunteering, and communal care-giving for all children.


Creative culinary classes and decorating houses for energy flow could be subjects.


Life Path Development - Helping people find their life path, based on their astrological charts, personal interests and past life experiences.


Spiritual Psychology- Learning how the body, mind, soul and spirit interact.  Dream analysis, dream journals, counseling methods, past life regression techniques are included in this genre.

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Dinosaurs: a Movie

A student has asked for a movie about dinosaurs. The animation on this film is pretty realistic--but a warning that it's got a measure of realistic violence that befits the creatures. After all, these are prehistoric monsters who either were eaten by larger predators or lived on plants in a quantity that allowed them to grow to huge sizes. 

And whether it's the male-female T-Rex pair stalking and successfully killing a Triceratops, the arrogant Allosaurus who tries to establish his status for territory against a much larger, sleeping dinosaur, or the angry mother Mosasaur who attacks the predator sharks who killed two of her newborns, these are the beasts that captured our imaginations in all their furious ways. 

Friday, October 26, 2018

LearningFarm.com for science-based assessment and more


https://www.learningfarm.com

I just wrote this company for help with the science assessment program I need to present to my students.

  • Goal-oriented, self-paced, instruction and practice
  • Rigorous content, yet fun and engaging for students
  • Very easy to use for students and teachers
  • Web-based, designed for desktop or tablet
  • Find out why 16,710 schools have signed up for Learning Farm this year


Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Calling all standards!

On the 2nd-from-bottom image, I now learned that I've been using "i.e." wrong: I meant to use "e.g.." which means "for example." Okay, how am I going to remember that?! Well, I use mnemomics ("neh-mohn-ics" to remember things--so I'll remember that "i.e." is an EGGS-ample."





Sunday, October 7, 2018

Just stating the facts...

The gnawing gnarled gnu's nose knows what's new now.







Sunday, September 30, 2018

Wonderful words in English

Glad to say I've heard or used these!! And pumpernickel is one of my favorites--to eat.



Saturday, September 29, 2018

We accept exceptions

Does the cat see the mouse? No, the dirty rat!


Monday, July 30, 2018

Good versus Well: grammar lesson


Today's Lunchbox Lesson, c/o Analytical Grammar/Grammar Planet: GOOD and WELL
GOOD: an adjective, modifying/describing a noun. It's typically used three ways:
1. before the noun it modifies ("Have a good time!")
2. after a verb of being ("That movie was good!")
3. after a linking verb ("Those cookies smell good!")

Good should not be used as an adverb to modify a verb.
It would be incorrect to say "I played good at piano practice today." 
It should read, "I played well at piano practice today."
WELL: an adverb, modifying/describing a verb. That means WELL tells *how* something is done. For example, "She did well on her AP exam." (How did she do? She did well!) For example, "He reads quite well for his age." (How does he read? He reads well!)
**In certain cases, well may be used as an adjective and be interchangeable with good:
1. to indicate good health (I feel good/I feel well)
2. to indicate satisfactory conditions (All is good in the city today/All is well in the city today)
GOOD and WELL both change to "better" and "best" in their comparative and superlative forms.
This is a good research paper.
It is much better than your last one.
In fact, it's the best paper in the class!
Everyone played well at the concert today.
The percussion section played better than the string section.
The brass section -- with the saxophone solo -- played the best!
GOOD is always an adjective modifying a noun.
WELL is usually an adverb, modifying a verb. It can, however, be used as an adjective only to describe good health or satisfactory conditions.

Friday, June 22, 2018

Students develop School-Community Connections


PROJECT-BASED LEARNING

Mapping Their Futures: Kids Foster School-Community Connections

Students at the Y-PLAN project create bonds through grassroots city planning.

On a sunny Saturday morning in the San Francisco Bay Area, two groups of high school juniors from nearby Emeryville and Richmond step from a school bus to check out an underused public space along the Berkeley waterfront -- a running path laid out on a landfill. The morning reconnaissance is part of Y-PLAN (Youth -- Plan, Learn, Act, Now), a city planning program run by the University of California at Berkeley's Center for Cities & Schools. As traffic barrels along the nearby freeway, students glance around curiously. They are new to this patch of land, even though it's relatively close to where many of them live.

To help the two groups of students get to know one another, Y-PLAN coordinators ask them to give their names as well as something they appreciate about their own neighborhoods. A few mention the freshness of living by the water; others refer to the ability to walk to a grocery store or local basketball court. One young woman, toeing the ground, shrugs her shoulders and mumbles that she can't think of anything she likes about the gritty section of Richmond where she lives. "I don't feel safe there," she says. Others nod knowingly.
For inner-city kids who've grown up with poverty and crime, this sentiment is understandable -- and not unusual. Because the idea of neighborhood has as many negatives as positives, many Y-PLAN students admit to approaching their local project assignments with initial skepticism. But after twelve weeks of working in teams with UC Berkeley mentors to gather a big-picture view of urban planning, including conducting surveys and site research, crafting proposals for two community centers in their respective neighborhoods, and presenting their ideas to a panel of urban-planning professionals, Y-PLAN participants had a new sense of possibilities.
"Y-PLAN changed my perspective," says Julio Arauz, a student at Richmond's John F. Kennedy High School. "It's not just the negative aspect you have to look at. You have to look at the potential -- the bright side of things."
Through the knowledge that they, too, can affect their communities, Y-PLAN students came to some of the same conclusions as the program's founders: Young people have valuable ideas to bring to the city planning table, and educational revitalization can be a catalyst for community revitalization -- and vice versa.

Project: Transformation

Now entering its tenth year, Y-PLAN is "the heart and heartbeat of the Center for Cities & Schools," says Deborah McKoy, creator of Y-PLAN and the center's founder and executive director. Winner of numerous awards from such groups as the Architectural Foundation of San Francisco and the California Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, Y-PLAN is held every spring for twelve weeks, usually in conjunction with ninth-, tenth-, or eleventh-grade social studies or history classes in hard-pressed East Bay communities. Graduate and undergraduate students in urban planning at UC Berkeley lead a rigorous project-learning curriculum; through initial brainstorming sessions to design sessions to formal presentations for city officials, high school students become stakeholders in the city planning process.
"After they critically analyze the places they are in," says Center for Cities & Schools program manager Ariel Bierbaum, "they learn the process by which those places get transformed -- and their role in that change process."
Past Y-PLAN projects include the redesign of the historic West Oakland train station and a neglected Oakland minipark. This spring, students at Emeryville's Emery Secondary School and in John F. Kennedy High School's Architecture, Construction, and Engineering Technology (ACET) Academy developed recommendations for two projects: a wellness center located in an unused part of the Emeryville school building (designed to serve as a youth and family destination for health and recreational services) and the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center and Park, a cornerstone of an ongoing revitalization of Richmond's Nystrom neighborhood.
For city planners and administrators who'd been given the task of developing youth programming for the centers, Y-PLAN offered an opportunity to hear from the kind of young people who would be served by centers like these.
Many of the projects Y-PLAN students work on are so large in scale that any effect of the students' input may not be immediately obvious -- no train station or community center can be redesigned in a matter of months. Although student feedback has sometimes influenced city planning decisions, it doesn't necessarily sway them. Still, the overall impact the program has on both the student and professional perspective appears to be significant.
"Y-PLAN makes folks who deal with cities and urban centers aware of the incredible importance and value of public schools," says Deborah McKoy. "Urban public schools are often seen as 'the problem,' when in fact what I think we learn from Y-PLAN is how much a part of the solution they are."

The Finals

At the two schools' final presentations for city administrators, council members, engineers, and architects, students showcased scale drawings and three-dimensional models of each building, backed up by explanatory posters and Microsoft PowerPoint slides with detailed proposals for how the buildings might best be used. Richmond students emphasized the necessity for a tight security staff, a public gun drop-off, and social services such as driver's education, job training, a walking path, and a child-care center. They also proposed replacing a dilapidated playground with a garden or even a café to draw in more "customers."
Emery students presented their wellness center as a place to do homework, make art, use computers, and see counselors. To transform what they described as "a very empty and very dark" space, they incorporated in their design plants, murals, and large windows. They also had a variety of propositions for unused public spaces nearby that could be converted into parks.
Some site aspects students referred to, such as a lack of trash cans or a prevalence of broken gates, "frankly had me squirming," says Richmond city manager Bill Lindsay. "Why aren't we doing this? These ideas are simple and practical and can happen right away." Because budgets are chronically tight, many of the larger, more hopeful suggestions had little chance of coming to fruition in the near term, but the presentations nevertheless had a revelatory and empowering effect.
"Seeing what they want for themselves has been an honor," says Emery participating teacher Madenh Hassan.
"Y-PLAN is a good opportunity for us, because we can actually speak our minds," says self-assured Emery student Chantell Brown. She hopes the Emeryville center will be, among other things, a safe place where young people can go after school -- something teens in low-income, high-crime communities desperately need. She was eager to tell developers, educators, and city administrators "what the 'real' is, what we see every day, what we have to go through."
"Sometimes adults don't take us seriously," adds her classmate, Yesenia Cuatlatl. "Y-PLAN is a good idea because sometimes we say, 'Oh, they really need to change this,' but we don't do anything; we just talk about it."
Judging from the enthusiasm of their audience, the students' work -- and the determination that went with it -- helped adults take them very seriously indeed. As Bill Lindsay told students, "If you ever want to talk about city management as a long-term goal, please give me a call."
Y-PLAN is transformative, says Ariel Bierbaum, for both the audience (civic leaders and urban planners) and for the young presenters, who "gain facility with a new vocabulary and advocate for themselves in a civic space. Even though it's just a semester, from what I've seen, I think the kids hold on to that."

Ripple Effects

Many students do hold onto the experience -- and not just symbolically. As Y-PLAN introduces them to a spectrum of employment opportunities in urban development, planning, politics, and administration, some pursue related careers, many at UC Berkeley. "Without doing Y-PLAN, I don't think many students would have been exposed to those professions, or would even have known they exist," says Jeff Vincent, deputy director of the Center for Cities & Schools. Although the university is a local resource for these students, some do not see prestigious UC Berkeley -- or any college -- as a real possibility. Y-PLAN, which includes a tour of the Berkeley campus and tips on the admissions process, helps make college a more accessible option.
Y-PLAN has also had ripple effects nationwide: From 2000 to 2005, the Center for Cities & Schools worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to adapt the Y-PLAN model to HOPE VI, a public-housing-redevelopment initiative. In partnership with thirty-seven cities and more than 500 students, Y-PLAN coordinators led multiple-day "urban-planning boot camps," creating, says Deborah McKoy, "a national network of youth who live in public housing, and who then were a part of the redevelopment of their communities."
And in 2007, Alissa Kronovet, a former Y-PLAN mentor and a graduate of the city planning master's program at UC Berkeley, gathered students from both coasts to form the Young Planners Network (YPN) -- what McKoy refers to as "advanced Y-PLAN" -- an opportunity for students to attend planning conferences and network with students from other cities across North America. The YPN was created after Kronovet and an initial group of fifteen students from the Bay Area and Brooklyn met and worked with students from New Orleans at last year's Planners Network Conference. Participants were eager to continue learning, meeting one another, and, as YPN participant and Emery student Deszeray Williams puts it, "make a career out of helping make my community a better place." In April 2008, 100 people attended the first YPN conference, held in New York City, and a conference is scheduled in Berkeley for next spring.
Now that the program has been running for almost a decade, Center for Cities & Schools staffers have put together a "Y-PLAN Handbook," a step-by-step guide available to the center's school and community partners. Although Y-PLAN is a labor- and resource-intensive undertaking, its founders have high hopes for its scalability -- and, ultimately, for sustained, systemic change in communities and schools.
It's a daunting task, of course, but the Y-PLAN approach embraces one key idea: Start with the kids. "Even though we may not say it, we care about our community as much as adults do," says student Chantell Brown. "We did Y-PLAN so that we could have a voice."
SARA BERNARD IS A FORMER STAFF WRITER AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCER FOR EDUTOPIA.

Friday, July 7, 2017

The March of the Dinosaurs (full movie)

A great movie about dinosaurs  (both plant eaters and meat eaters)--and their habits and activities.

Monday, April 10, 2017

A word puzzle to reinforce critical thinking and writing skills

In teaching in a foreign country where pedagogy and instructional methods are quite different than Western methods, I have found ways to bring creative thinking and reasoning together: what I call “fluid learning”. To me, this brings both left-and-right brain styles of thinking together in one complete package. As an example, I used a simple word puzzle this week in my writing class. 

My reasons were more than playing a game: it was serious from the start, because my Chinese students DON’T like to brainstorm or word-web out ideas. They just try to write in English, and in doing so, get bogged down and discouraged. But this lesson showed them a lot more than they expected.

First, I made up a word puzzle with business English vocabulary that they will likely encounter in their sophomore classes. Because I’ve taught this course as well, I know what words are commonly used on exams. In Asian countries, especially China, the emphasis is SO strong on “study-memorize-test”. There is no amount of critical thinking taught to the students. And I insist that they need this, especially as international graduate-degree-seeking young men and women.

Then I started the class. I knew they were apprehensive: their mid-term papers were due. And I wrote the word “test” on the board. It raised some of the tension, but then I wrote “con” in front of it: “contest”. It brought laughs and smiles. Yes, I said, this will be a fun exercise for you all, and you will learn to think and write in this lesson.

I gave out the word puzzle papers, FACE DOWN. That’s important: “DON’T turn them over!” I wanted them to learn to LISTEN to me first. Of course, within two minutes, several students had ignored me and begun to scan the paper. I stopped each time and mildly reprimanded them that “you need to LISTEN to me. If this was a job interview process and you read it and saw on the bottom that ‘Failure to listen means you are not qualified for the position,’ you’d be crushed with disappointment.” I reminded them that I wanted everyone to have a fair chance to be the winner of the contest. It doesn’t matter who has the highest grades, I said. This is different.

So then I signaled them to begin. And I could listen (even though I don’t speak Chinese) to their exclamations of surprise and delight when they found words in the puzzle. I watched their earnestness and determination as they pored over the combinations and searched for patterns. I observed them interacting with each other in pairs and groups as they shared results. 

When the first person sounded out that he had completed all the words, the others kept going. I let them continue: their progress was part of my goal. I wanted them to complete the process on their own initiative. We took a short break, and I still saw some of them trying to solve the missing words. What I noticed was that some of them instantly could figure it, while others tried different ways of seeing patterns in the letters. And everyone had his or her own way of doing it.

As a follow-up, I wrote out the list of results and methods that I wanted them to think about for writing a paper about this experience. Again, as noted, my students are NOT the kind who do brainstorming. They are much more inclined to try and memorize something, or to use their cell phones to surf for an answer. And I gleefully told them at the start that they were welcome to use their phones—but that the device would offer no help. They had to learn to THINK first.

I put a title on the board: Solving the Word Puzzle. My students need to learn how and why a title should be on a paper. My reasoning is “What is the idea to be explained in the content? That’s the title.” Then I wrote out a numbered list of items that they had experienced in the process as a way of showing them how to WRITE DOWN ideas and use it as a focal point to bring up more examples of thoughts for the paper:

1. Think independently. 
2. Work in teams; help others
3. Solve problems without directions
4. No phones needed—do this with your own brain power
5. Have fun—get excited!
6. Stay with an idea! Keep pushing for results and answers!
7. Listen first to directions!
8. Learn new vocabulary words
9. Learn word recognition
10. Not use “study-memorize” for results. Use creative-critical thinking.
11. Brainstorming ideas by writing them and seeing where they lead in other results.

My students thanked me and said it was really interesting. They enjoyed the class, and I reminded them that it’s just as important to THINK about writing and then to plan it out first—just like I had done for them with the examples that I listed. 

I said that we will write about this experience and that this list will serve as reminders of how and what and why they learned something, and how to remember it. And then I thanked them for helping me learn to be a better instructor.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Get that Life! Follow your dreams to success!!



(The Creative Classroom says, “I am happy to say Ericka is a friend of mine who has found success and her heart’s dream!”)


Get That Life: How I Turned a Failed Restaurant Into a Successful Food Truck
Ericka Lassair left a job that made her unhappy to create Creole-inspired hot dogs for a living.
By Heather Wood Rudulph – Cosmopolitan magazine
Mar 27, 2017


When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Ericka Lassair left a successful job in finance to start a business that would help rebuild her hometown. She opened Diva Dawg, a Creole-inspired hot dog restaurant, in 2012 to local fanfare. A year later, competition drove her out of business, and Lassair took some time to figure out what to do next. Diva Dawg was reborn as a food truck in the fall of 2014. The business, which now includes the truck and a stall at a food market, has become a local hit, but Lassair has her sights set on national success.

Once I graduated [college] in 2001, I took a job with a finance company called Chrysler Capital to become a collections agent. The job was in Dallas and I was desperate to get out of Louisiana to see different parts of the country. After four years of cold-calling people about their late car payments, I started applying for different positions within the company. When an auditor position opened up that included frequent travel, I went after it. I spent the next two years flying all over the country.

At our main office, we used to do a lot of potlucks. It was the first time I discovered people outside of my family loved my food. I was creative with my dishes, which always had the New Orleans Creole flavor. I would get requests from coworkers to cook for their dinner parties; one of my coworkers would constantly buy my pies. I never considered cooking as a career before then. I thought, Who wants to be stuck in the kitchen all day sweating? Once people started requesting my food for their events, it got me thinking.

When Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, my parents and little brother came to live with me in Dallas. They thought it would be just until the storm blew over, but they couldn’t go home for eight months. They desperately wanted to get back to their life but I loved having them there. When they left, I felt so empty. I realized I wanted to be home in New Orleans. I started asking for assignments that took me to the city, and I would use my miles to fly home on the weekends.

I was moved up to become a retail credit analyst, the person who checks your credit when you buy a car at a dealership. I was stuck at my desk every day making calls or going through piles of paperwork. I was good at my job, but I was miserable. After a year, I knew I had to quit. My bosses offered me another promotion, [but] I turned in my company car, sold my house, and moved back to New Orleans.

Being home felt good. I got a retail job at Saks Fifth Avenue and tried to map out my plan. I was thinking of going into the food industry but I wasn’t sure how. I applied to a [two-year] culinary program at a community college and the prerequisite was to get a job at a restaurant. I interviewed at Commander’s Palace, which is a historic restaurant in New Orleans. I was intimidated but the chef gave me a chance. I worked in the dessert department making bread pudding soufflés earning $7 an hour.

I graduated from the culinary program in 2010. One day, I was craving hot dogs, and I bought some regular wieners and buns, and a can of chili. I added my Creole flavors to them and ended up eating them all week. The idea hit me to open a Creole-inspired hot dog restaurant. I started writing down recipes — like a chili dog with fried chicken, and a crawfish chili dog — and asked a friend of mine who owned a nursery for business advice. She recommended Good Work Network, which offers free small-business consulting. I started taking all the classes they offered. I discovered a small credit union that has a reputation for helping new business owners.

I knew I wanted to be on Magazine Street. It was always my favorite place to shop with my mom, and I love the architecture and boutiques there. When a spot opened up at the end of the street, I jumped at it.

That year at Jazz Fest, I was introduced to a vendor who had a sausage booth. I told him about my idea and he offered to make my hot dogs for me. I wanted something special, and when I tasted what he created for the first time, it was so good I cried.

Back then, I wasn’t really big on social media. I just spread the word by posting “Diva Dawg Coming Soon” on the door. I also took out an ad in a local paper. A lot of people heard about the restaurant from news coverage; I was getting a lot of write-ups from local journalists because another hot dog restaurant had opened across town, so now it was a trend.

I was so upset because I had been working on this idea for so long. I wanted to be the first. I went to eat there to see what they had to offer and it was nothing like what I wanted to do for Diva Dawg. They had basic hot dogs, sausages, and toppings. So I continued to move forward.

We opened in September 2012 and got a great turnout. The restaurant was packed. I could barely keep up. I hired one dishwasher, a cashier, and a cook. I trained my little cousin to help me with everything, and my boyfriend at the time and his two sons helped, and so did my mom. I was cooking, running the cash register, doing all the accounting, and talking to the customers. It was overwhelming, but I was so excited. I thought, We’re going to make it.

In March 2013, the other hot dog place opened up a new location on Magazine Street. The moment I knew I was in trouble was when a lady came in saying she left her credit card behind. Then she said, “Oh, it’s the other hot dog place.” My heart sank. It was a downward spiral from then on.
I KEPT A SMILE ON MY FACE, BUT INSIDE I WAS STRUGGLING.
I started borrowing money to pay the rent. I didn’t want to ask my family for money, so I took out those quick, high-interest payday loans. I couldn’t pay my employees on time. I’d have one good day but then a week of hardly any business. I kept a smile on my face but inside, I was struggling. I would go home at the end of the night and cry.

In September 2013, I applied and got into a program with the Urban League called the Women-in-Business Challenge. It’s an incubator that helps small-business owners sharpen their skills with classes and networking, and at the end, there is a pitch competition and a $10,000 prize. We talked about our struggles and these other entrepreneurs gave me a lot of new ideas. I was starting to feel hopeful, but I was three months behind on rent and my landlord was threatening eviction. In November, I made the decision to close.
I thought I would have to leave the Urban League program because I lost my business but they encouraged me to stay. The classes helped me release the stress and encouraged me to try again.

I went back to working in retail, which allowed me to make a little money, but I was broke. I was relying on my parents and taking the bus every day. I was hiding my car at the dealership where my little brother worked because I didn’t want it to get repossessed. How ironic that I started in collections and here I was, hiding my car.

I have always been an upbeat, positive person but the stress of entrepreneurship is intense. It’s a risk you are taking with not just your life, but your employees' and your family's.

Even though I was in a funk, I followed through on the Urban League program. The pitch [competition] was in March and I put everything into it. My revamped business plan was to do a hot dog food truck. Even before I opened the restaurant, I thought a food truck was perfect for my concept but New Orleans didn’t have clear guidelines for running a truck in the city. I didn’t want to take the risk of getting a food truck and then not being able to be in business. But after the restaurant closed, I decided to go for it, [and] I won the $10,000.

I reached out to a local bank owner I knew to see if he’d help me, and he said I’d need a business partner [because of my bad credit]. I reached out to my cousin-in-law Andre who always supported me. When he said yes, I started to worry, What if this doesn’t work out? I don’t want to ruin his life too.

We got approved for the loan, and my meat guy told me about someone who was selling their food truck and moving back to L.A. The timing was perfect. We cleaned the truck, painted it, and rebranded it. I wanted to open in October, which is National Chili Month. We booked every [local] festival we could find with that truck. That first month, I probably slept 20 hours total. I was determined. I was not going to fail again.

It was just me and Andre for the first month. He was a police officer at the time too, so he would be working 24 hours some days. I would hire people now and then to help me when he was busy.

After two months [in business], we had money saved, and that’s when I knew everything was probably going to be fine. With the restaurant, there was never any money left over. With the truck, I don’t have to pay rent and electricity and employees for eight-hour shifts that only see two customers. I needed a fire permit and a health permit. It was much more manageable. We mostly worked lunches, parking the truck near the hospital and some office buildings.

Our first Mardi Gras [in 2015] was the true test for me. You can’t drive in this city during the festival. I had to park the truck in our location four hours before they started to close the streets off. I had to do triple the amount of prep work. My ankles were swollen and I was sleep-deprived. I cried in the corner on the truck like a baby because I was so overwhelmed and stressed out. But it was a huge success. The experience taught me the importance of delegating. I needed to learn to let go, to allow myself time to work on the business while not running every aspect of it. I think 2016 was the first year I was able to start doing that.
In November 2016, we opened a [stall] in Roux Carré, which is a food accelerator [market] that helps small businesses. Now we reserve the truck for festivals, catered events, and parties. Our schedule is always random and unpredictable, and we can get a call to do a job the same day.

What I’ve learned is not to do things too fast. I write down all my ideas, but focus on one thing first and do it well. I want to make Diva Dawg a national brand, develop my own line of sauces and cookware, and even host a TV show. But I will first focus on getting into the airport, then malls. It’s just a feeling I have. With everything that I pursue in life I have a vision first, then I have to bring it to life.

Get That Life is a weekly series that reveals how successful, talented, creative women got to where they are now. Check back each Monday for the latest interview.


Wednesday, February 1, 2017

How to write an outline

Oh, no, it's "the dreaded 'Outline' assignment time"!  


Okay, just because this idea gets a lot of grief (and hits) on this site by desperate students (I was once a D.S.), here's a sample.  I ALSO recommend you look at my post on thesis statements and also topic sentences.

That's all an outline REALLY is: a thesis statement plus the breakdown of each paragraph's topic sentence background.
Oh. Why didn't they tell us (me) that when I was younger?
(It was too easy to explain it that way, I think.)


Note:  for a GOOD outline to work, THINK (and write down) WHY/WHAT makes the idea important--why the idea of the thesis is unique; why it matters; how it has value, importance, or SOME other special quality--then GENERALIZE those ideas as the thesis. DON'T use them in the thesis--SAVE them to chop apart in each topic sentence! THAT alone will help you broaden out the sub-paragraphing needed to create the rest of the outline format.  (That means "You use the topic sentences to expand the paragraph...."). "Gee, Mr. Lopate...this works."  (Yep.)

HOW TO WRITE AN OUTLINE

An outline breaks down the parts of your thesis in a clear, hierarchical manner. Most students find that writing an outline before beginning the paper is most helpful in organizing one's thoughts. If your outline is good, your paper should be easy to write.

The basic format for an outline uses an alternating series of numbers and letters, indented accordingly, to indicate levels of importance. Here is an example of an outline on a paper about the development of Japanese theater.  (Yes, I modified this from the original; the thesis was too bland. I underlined my inclusion of three unique concepts to add some more "power" to the outline itself.) 

OUTLINE
NOTES
I. Thesis: Japanese theater rose from a popular to elite form based on social and cultural, historical, and religious influences (some unique to Japan) and then returned to a popular art form.

The thesis is stated in the first section, which is the introduction.

II. Early theatrical forms
A. Bugaku
B. Sarugaku
C. Primitive Noh
D. Authors and Audience
III. Noh theater
A. Authors
B. Props
1. Masks
a. women
b. demons
c. old men
2. Structure of Stage
C. Themes
1. Buddhist influence
2. The supernatural
D. Kyogen interludes
E. Audience
IV. Kabuki
A. Authors
B. Props
1. make-up
2. special effects
C. Themes
1. Love stories
2. Revenge
D. Audience
V. Bunraku (puppet) theater
A. Authors
B. Props
C. Themes
1. Love stories
2. Historical romances
D. Audience

The body follows the introduction, and breaks down the points the author wishes to make.
Note that some section have subdivisions, others do not, depending on the demands of the paper.
In this outline, II, III, & IV all have similar structure, but this will not necessarily be true for all papers. Some may only have three major sections, others more than the five given here.

VI. Conclusion
Your conclusion should restate your thesis, and never introduce new material.