Tag: old school

Throwback Thursday Jam – Don’t Ask My Neighbor, The Emotions

What ya’ll know about this? Get ’em old school! This song reminds me of playing spades around the card table. *snaps fingers*

Throwback Thursday Jam – Brick by Dazz

Calm down 90s Jam addicts, we back on next week (tee hee hee). Until then, come on with it old school. Ya’ll up another week! What ya’ll know about this? lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbfL4Q9bP7g

 

Confessions of an Old School Reader

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EC Book Shelf #1

I try, really I do, but I can’t seem to get into a good novel by staring at a computer screen. I’ve done it, but it just doesn’t compare to the real thing.  There is something much more intimate and provoking about holding a book in my hands; feeling its cover, running my fingers across the pages, crisp and sharp; the smell of a fresh book that has never been opened, and the potency of the ink when it jumps off the pages; that new smell from brand new books, like cradling a new born in the crook of your arms. So precious and delicate that you almost don’t want to open it. Don’t want to destroy the perfect foundations by bending it’s shiny flaps or causing a crease. In your lap is the weight of your favorite coffee cup, the modest light of the lamp, and a world waiting for you to enter it. To touch and feel the tangibility of book bindings is to go on a creative high of possibilities. All the way down to when you close a book after coming home from the journey and daydream about the revelations and alternate endings. You can end an eBook but you can’t close it. That big red x in the corner won’t do it justice either. I can’t breathe in deep and close my eyes while holding an eBook in my hands. I can’t stare at the front cover as if there’s more to come or fold the pages over. Highlighting isn’t as fun either. Perhaps the best thing about hard-copies is that these books are much more prone to immortality; they will go back for years and years to come. I smile sometimes at the books of my youth that are still found hanging around, too naïve to be read again with the same zeal but too precious to do away with. The satisfied glory of having been read, watch your favorite collection stand and shine beautifully against the backdrop of the book shelf, a time machine right there in your bedroom.

Can YOU Spell?

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Ah, that lovely red ziggly line, it comes in handy doesn’t it? In the age of increased knowledge and technology we have discovered ways to expedite the learning process. No longer must we search Thesauruses and dictionaries. Why when we have Google? No longer must we sound out words or put effort into phonetics, why when we can always depend on the ziggly line? I for one absolutely adore Microsoft Word’s auto-correction, but is it helpful?

Lately, I’ve been using a different computer and this one in particular does not have Microsoft Word installed as of yet. Instead there’s Word Pad (I know, don’t judge me). As such, Word Pad does not automatically correct errors, leaving me to edit either on my own, or in the WordPress post instead of on the Word document I usually use. (I tend to write in Word and Copy and Paste into WordPress. Personally, this gives me the opportunity to write more clearly and carefully. I almost never draft a new post directly into WordPress unless I am using my phone, and I never publish a post without previewing it first.). While doing this, I noticed that I tend to misspell more words than I do when I use Microsoft Word. It’s as if the real me is the writer using Word Pad because I am correcting on my own, whereas Microsoft Word is my tutor. This got me thinking: Does technology limit certain capabilities we learned in school by acting as a crutch for us? Is it a good idea, every now and again, to do things the old school way? For instance: Does it benefit to use the dishwasher everyday or wash on hand? What kind of skills are present in both? Is there something different that happens when you hand write vs. type? I wonder.

While I am wondering, here’s an idea: For your next blog post, don’t correct the errors that show up in the post! Ignore the red ziggly line and see just how well you do. Use only your own mind and previous knowledge to correct.

Your post can be anything. Use this topic or make one up but write something without using your computer to edit it. So as not to cheat, realistically you will have to draft your post using a document processor, such as Word Pad, that does not automatically correct your mistakes. Or, just turn the auto correct off for Microsoft Word. Then, when you copy and paste it into WordPress, you’ll get to see what you spelled wrong, but don’t correct it! Publish as is and see how you do. You can even have your followers guess what’s grammatically incorrect, if any, for added fun.