Hello beautiful people, thank you for stopping by
my blog. If this is your first time, welcome. This is a lifestyle blog that
addresses issues relating to life and living.
Based on the last blog post about the 7 wonders of the world, here is a
list of the New7Wonders of the world and the countries they are located in.
The results from the 100 million votes were not ranked because according
to the Swiss corporation that organized the event in 2007, all seven are equal
in ranking.
The Great Wall of China – built in 700BC, located in
China.
Petra –312 BC, located in Jordan
The Colosseum- 80 AD, located in Rome, Italy.
Chichén Itzá - 600 AD, located in Yucatán, Mexico
Machu Picchu-1450AD, located in Cuzco Region, Peru.
Taj Mahal- 1643 AD, located in Agra, India
Christ the Redeemer- 1931AD, located in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil.
As you can tell by now, there
were a couple of controversies with other people who did not accept the list.
The result of one of the
major controversies lead the Swiss corporation to add a honorary status to the Great
Pyramid of Giza- 2560 BC in Giza Necropolis, Egypt.
Hello beautiful people, thank you
for stopping by my blog. If this is your first time, welcome. This is a
lifestyle blog that addresses issues relating to life and living.
Today’s topic is about the wonders
of the world. I have always heard about the 7 wonders of the world but recently,
I paid a little attention to it.
The New 7 Wonders of the World
This semester, my Art History class
has made me more interested in finding out more about the wonders of the world.
Here are 3 questions that I had in
mind:
1. Why do they
have to be 7?
2. Who decides
what is a wonder of the world and what isn’t?
3. What makes
these wonders so special?
Here are some answers I found:
1.The number 7 adopted, based on guidebooks
popular among Hellenic sightseers. The sightseers were Greek and they believed
that the number 7 represented perfection and plenty, and because it was the
number of the five planets known anciently, plus the sun and moon
2.Over 100 million voters around the world vote
for what should be on the list. A Swiss corporation called “The New7Wonders of
the World” organized the event and hosted the voting site where millions around
the world voted for their top 7 wonders of the world. The last announcement of
the new 7 wonders was held on 07/07/07 to represent perfection.
3.The fact that they can be recognized worldwide
as phenomenal creation, whether manmade or natural makes them a wonder.
Hope you have learned something
about the wonders of the world. Below is video of the official announcemt of
the New7Wonders of the world.
Trailer: Official Declaration of the New7Wonders of the World
Hello beautiful people, thank you for stopping by again. If
this is your first time, welcome. This is a lifestyle blog that addresses real
life issues.
Todays post is about 5 things to consider while preparing a
speech. If you are not preparing a speech at the moment, read the post anyways
because you know, no knowledge is wasted.
A man on stage, specking to an audience.
Top 5 Things to Consider While Preparing a Speech
1. CONSIDER THE SUBJECT:
You might have been given a theme or topic
to speck on or it may be totally up to you to decide what you will be speaking
on. Either way, you need to know what you will be speaking about. Take out time
to study the subject. For every minute you spend speaking, you would need about
an hour of preparation. So if you have a 10-minute long speech, you need at least
10 hours of study and research on the subject. However, if you are a
professional in the field, you might not need that much time to understand the
subject of your speech but you will defiantly need time to put your knowledge
and experience in order and context of the particular speaking engagement.
2.CONSIDER THE AUDIENCE:
Your audience has sacrificed their time to
listen to you, do not waste their time. Do some research to find out more about
your audience? Consider the following questions:
·What is the average age and gender of my
audience?
·What is the education level of my audience?
·Will my audience be hostile, supportive or neutral?
·Will my audience have to be convinced on the
importance of the subject?
·What is the attention span of my audience?
No matter how beautiful, well
organized, graceful and refined a speech is, the only judge whether or not a
speech is good or bad is the audience.
3. ORGANIZE YOUR SPEECH:
Make sure you have an Introduction, a body
and a conclusion. Use good transitions to go from one part of your speech to
the other.
4. INCLUDE ANALOGIES:
An analogy is a comparison of an idea or
event. It aims at explaining an idea by comparing it to something that is
familiar. It can be a real story that emphasizes a concept. As much as analogies
are good to consider, it is important to make sure they make sense and can be
understood by your audience. You can make sense out of an analogy by explaining
how it relates to the concept you are comparing the analogy to.
5. CONCLUDE WITH A BANG:
Conclusions must be short and conclusive.
Your conclusion has to be formal and clearly defined. A good conclusion can be
used to save a bombed speech. Sometimes a very bad speech is saved by a very
good conclusion.
I hope this post has been helpful. This blog post was inspired
by some important concepts I got after reading “How To Talk So People Will
Listen” by Steve Brown.
I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in
developing their communication skills.
This post is about team skills and interpersonal communication. I have worked with a lot of groups and I find this information useful, hence the reason I have decided to share it with you.
I have tried to summarize it but I added a link to a more detailed video that will help you get a better sense of the topic.
Interpersonal
communication is simply the exchange of information between two or more people.
The following are some characteristics of
effective team communication that will be useful to group leaders:
Have a clear objective- Let your team members know what you all need to achieve.
Share a sense of purpose- Let each team member know their role.
Communicate openly and honestly
Reach decisions by consensus- Try to make sure everyone knows why a decision is being made.
Think in creative ways- Brainstorm collectively wit your team.
Know how to resolve conflict
Learning the characteristics of effective team communication revealed some things I did wrong in my previous interactions with teams.
Although the work got done
and the team finally got along as you can see in the picture, previous
knowledge of the above characteristics would have allowed for less time
settling misunderstanding and more time being productive.
Watch the video below to get a better understanding of Mastering Team Skills and Interpersonal Communication.
This post is about writing. The context is basically
coming up with a to-do list for yourself to help you get things done.
The reason I decided to share this is because the knowledge
and practice of writing has helped me greatly since I began to put it to
action.
In this post, I will answer the 5 W’s and 1 H of writing
in terms of getting things done and becoming more productive.
5 W’s and 1 H
1.Who?
–
You are writing for yourself. You are the writer and the reader.
2.What?
–
You are writing anything that takes up psychic real estate. Things that you
need to get done that distract you from what you need to be focusing on. Maybe
you need to buy dog food and you are trying to finish an important homework,
write that thought of buying dog food on your to-do list… once you do that, you
will find it easier to focus on finishing your homework and concentrating on
what needs to be done.
3.Where?
–
You can write anywhere. Stationery, when you are in one position or in transit
when you are moving from one place to another.
4.When?
–
Whenever, especially when there is psychic noise. Once it comes to mind and
distracts you from focusing on what you are working on.
5.Why?
–
There are many reasons why you should write down thought but the most
important ones are: it helps to focus on one task at a time, it helps you get
things done and most importantly you can refer to it if you forget about what
you need to do.
6.How?
–
People have different ways that they write. Some people use planners, calendars,
portable devices and soon. The trick is to use whatever works for you. I have
found that the old school notepad and pen work best for me so that is my preference.
Thank you for reading, I hope
you try to write more often now after reading it. You would be surprised how
productive you will become. I wish I started prating this from my freshman
year.
Watch the video below to
learn more about writing. I also recommended a book that will help you get
things done if you decide to learn more about writing to become more productive.
For this weeks post, i decided to share the story i wrote about Penn States new logo.
For reference here is a picture of the two logos, old and new. Please let me know what you thoughts are in the comment section.
Old logo on the top, New logo below it.
Thank you for reading!
New Logo
It is difficult to determine if
the university has achieved the purpose of changing the Penn State logo.
Strength, distinction,
memorability, endurance, visual appeal, meaningfulness and legal viability were
supposedly the seven elements that influenced the design of the new logo.
However, it is difficult to
comprehend how $128,000 was spent on a logo that turned out the way it did.
To put it bluntly, the new logo
shows that more value was placed on the opinions of the so-called experts who
designed it than the reaction of the students and alumni who have to live with
it.
Specifically, the graphic of
the lion head in the shield looks too much like a comic, and the font used to
spell out “Penn State” is not classy or professional enough.
Many believe that it has failed
to maintain the original heritage and prestige of the university. The old logo
boasted the year Penn State was founded – a fact that many alumni were proud
of. The new logo, however, dismisses that part our heritage by excluding it.
Even though it can be easily argued
that the shield and lion head are symbols of Penn State heritage, zooming in on
just the face does not convey the power or grandeur that the Lion Shrine has
come to represent.
The new logo is supposedly
designed to maintain the original heritage while being more friendly in this
digital era, compared to the old logo that was developed in the 1980’s. While
the logo may be more modern and easier to use digitally, that shouldn’t be the
reason to change something that has come to mean so much to the very people who
make up this great university.
Penn State has nearly 100,000
students enrolled across its system, with more than 600,000 living alumni
across the globe. It is reasonable for the alums and students of Penn State to expect
a logo that reflects the heritage of the university.
