The power of incentives (or everyone has their price)

I love learning.

I have a thirst for knowledge, and new experiences.

The only problem is I procrastinate, which makes finishing assignments and assessments one of those hit and miss affairs. Every form of study I've undertaken, I intend to get started early, finish early, get things out of the way as soon as possible, but it's all just empty promises, and I end up doing an all nighter right on the deadline.

Certificate 4 last year was good, the Diploma has been more of a challenge.

But I DID get everything done, and only a couple of assessments were late.

We're back for semester two, and have started getting our Learner Assessment Strategies (LAS).

One teacher, who is flexible with dates and deadlines as long as we do the right thing and let him know, hit on a great little incentive...

CHOCOLATE!!

For the online OH&S unit, if we hand stuff in on time we get CHOCOLATE.

I'm there...

I'm so there!

Newest Project

One of the things that I often unfinish are plans to do things for charity. I'd love to do something BIG, something special to raise money for charity, but, well.

I think this year is the closest I've ever come.

I took part in FebFast in er, um, February, and gave up alcohol for a month to raise money for drug and alcohol programs for young people. I made it, and I think I raised about $110 dollars.

Walk in her shoes was a failure, my official pedometer was faulty, and I got an infection on my big toe *sigh* but I did raise $20 (my registration fee!)

We're finally cooking with gas (that's a rather unfortunate pun, I'm afraid)

We're doing the World Vision 40 Hour Famine!

Morgan, Hamish and I will be giving up all sorts of mod cons from August 17-19 to raise money for programs to fight chronic hunger in developing countries. The money raised goes to teach communities to farm more efficiently, and to find alternative income streams for back up when crops are bad. This in turn allows children time to go to school and to play and to be real kids. It's been proven that getting an education is the best way to break the cycle of poverty.

If you'd like to find out more, you can visit our BLOG and follow our adventures, go follow us on Facebook or go right ahead and donate to this important cause.

A pregnant woman can't possibly be a CEO

So there is controversy surrounding the appointment of a new CEO at Yahoo.
This would not be news... except that it's a WOMAN, and she's 6 months pregnant with her first child.

Of course when anything like this happens people make a fuss, like she doesn't deserve kids blah blah blah.

What really makes me angry is the double standards. If this was a man who's wife was 6 months pregnant with his first child no-one would batt an eyelid and the asppointment of a new CEO would barely get a mention other than in the business pages.

Why we can't butt out of other people's life decisions, I don't know.

Surely we should be celebrating the appontment of a woman, and commending her on achieving so much. Yahoo were aware of her situation, and selected her with this in mind.

This criticism is why the glass ceiling exists, and how can we expect equality in upper management and the executive if this is how we treat a woman who breaks through.

Well done Marissa Meyer. I commend you!

I Never Finish ANYTHING...

My life is filled to the brim with unfinished projects.

I have cupboards full of wool for knitting, paint for painting, fabric for sewing, plots for writing, seeds for planting...

I. Never. Finish. Anything.

See, I'm an imaginative planner and a creative inventor, I'm a born R & D person (research and development). I have amazing ideas, I'm creative, I love looking at various options for things and thinking of ways to do things outside the square...

Then once the "ho hum" bit arrives I lose interest, and the wonderful creative ideas get locked away, forgotten.

I am known for this habit of never finishing things.

I never started scrapbooking because I knew I'd never finish. I now avoid starting new projects because I know I'll never finish.

But I'm adding more. Another blog.

This time, just a general everyday life thing, no grand plans (I tend to think big when I do R&D) just somewhere to offload stuff. and in honour of my habit of never finishing anything I'm calling it Unfinished, cos it will never be finished, and even if it is left unfinished, then it will be exactly what it says it is.

And LIFE itself is unfinished... until it is finished.