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One of the most influential, prolific and talented writers of our time.  Ray Bradbury.

It’s sad to see him go. But, wow, I’d like to give him thanks for living the way he did!

My most memorable influences from Mr. Bradbury came in Grade 9. I recall, rather vividly, sitting in class, as a young aspiring writer myself, reading the required Fahrenheit 451. It was written decades before then, but the realism and the path we were on rang true: the television screens which took over housing walls, and society’s obsessions over the small, sensationalized news headlines.  Yeah, he wrote about that  – in 1953.

I am certain this one book of his made me even more determined to one day write a book of my own. And dang gum it, to ensure that books  – in whatever form they may be – will not burned by the…

When I was a little kid in school back in the middle 40s, I can remember being rewarded for doing good work. I loved it when the teacher stuck a gold star on my paper or workbook, and it made me want to do even better.

I also remember that we had reading groups, and they were divided according to ability. If you were in a lower group and your reading improved, you’d get moved to a higher one.

But over the years I started to notice a change in this merit-for-excellence system. Teachers started giving poor performers more attention, and even rewards, so they wouldn’t feel bad about themselves. I thought, why should an under-achiever get a reward? It didn’t make sense to me. Encouraging and helping someone do better is one thing, but I came to believe over the years that stroking the underdog doesn’t help anyone.

I…

Why? Well it started in Guatemala last week. I was eating in the weightlifting chow hall with Donny Shankle and thinking about the food. The meal that day included a sort of salad. Tasted like it had some kale in it, had some green beans, some corn, lettuce, and bits of bacon. There were diced up potatoes, cooked with onions. Diced up carrots that most people seemed to be mixing up with the potatoes and onions. And chicken. Not fried chicken, just chicken. It was representative of most of the meals, mostly vegetables and meat, some potatoes or rice. Nothing fancy. I remarked to Donny that it would be hard to overeat and get fat on such food. Not that it wasn’t good, it was tasty enough, but it was nothing you would want to go on eating once your hunger had been satisfied. And it wasn’t calorie dense, mostly…

I guess I could say this is my favorite poem since it is the one that I think of the most and what it teaches us.

 When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself
And see what that face has to say

For it isn’t your father or mother or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass,
The person whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.

Some people might think you’re a straight-shootin’ chum
And call you a great gal or guy,
But the face in the glass says you’re only a bum
If you can’t look it straight in the eye.

That’s the one you must please, never mind all the rest,
That’s the one with you clear to the…

We’ve worked, since 1995, to help educators cope with — or at best, embrace and lead — the technological revolution that is rapidly changing the ways our students learn.

1995. That’s a mere 17 years ago. Yet the changes that have occurred since then are nothing short of mind-boggling.

There were no readily available search engines in 1995. No Google or Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn or Amazon or YouTube. No smartphones or iPads or Kindles. Bandwidth was a trickle, email virtually unheard of.

We left our traditional educational publishing company in 1995 — and when I say “traditional,” I mean we developed textbooks — to form one of the world’s first web-based publishing companies, dedicated to using new & emerging digital communcultural technologies to develop and deliver a new kind of learning material to the classroom. And with it, a new breed of ongoing teacher training and support.

The world of languages fascinates me. Given a chance to fulfil a wish, I would jump at mastering as many languages as possible. It is one of my earnest desires. Thankfully my career as a student of Sociology and Social Anthropology does not come in the way. For having a way with languages is considered to be an added qualification in this branch of social science. The level of fascination is so high that on meeting new people, I make all direct and indirect attempts to find out the number of languages they know. People with multilingual abilities impress me so much. I must confess of a sense of envy that crops up in the subconscious.  

So far I have been a slightly decent sample of the ‘rolling stone’ variety with a little moss gathered here and there in my brain. My efforts directed towards learning languages have met a…

Are you interested in pursuing a gypsy lifestyle? Traveling the world professionally? Constantly making new friends and exploring new places? Welcome to the club!

Don’t know where to start or how it can be done? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. In fact, I am constantly receiving e-mails and comments from people asking how they too can pick up and go.

Often times, I feel like its difficult for people to fathom how I lead my life. It’s like I’m constantly trying to act out the season finale of Lost. No-one gets me.

This is partly my fault. I just kind of started this journey and continued to blab about it without much regard for others looking to travel. Sorry about that.

So this is the beginning of a series of blogs elucidating the best kept secret of full-time travelers: how they manage to make it happen. You’ve asked for it…

I could not fall asleep today because I couldn’t get these thoughts out of my head. For everything I say, do, post on Facebook or write on my blog, the thought of what my host families are gonna say and think comes mind. Not necessarily Host Family, but Host moms. Host moms are even scarier than your mom back home. The difference between them is that, with your real family, you can say and do pretty much anything, because you know that if something isn’t right, they are gonna forgive you and forget about it the next day, they are family, that is what they are there for, they can’t simply give up on you. But Host Families are the people that choose to open their doors and let you into their house, into their families and their lives.

As a Rotary Youth Exchange Student I had three Host Families; the Lawells…