Inspired by Lulu, Emma, Jen, Alyssa and, well, so many others that have done this. I thought it was a cool idea, so I thought I might do one too, so here goes:

1 – I have lived in 5 countries in 5 continents. I’ve also traveled to 96 cities in 15 countries (I’d like this to be 60 by the time I’m 60). I grew up in Africa, but spent most of my childhood in Costa Rica.

2 – My favorite childhood movie was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. My favorite childhood cartoon was Tintin. I still love both to this day. I’m so glad that Peter Jackson is thinking about making a Tintin trilogy! My favorite book of all time is Animal Farm.

3 – I’m a bit of a geek at heart. I love tech stuff. I taught myself programming at the age of 10. I was assembling computers by the age of 12. I currently have 6 computers at home, 4 of which I built myself. [okay, enough of the geek stuff. Don’t want to scare you all away]

4 – I’ve always wanted to play the piano. I took lessons briefly in college and in SF. I showed up to my my 3rd piano class with the sheet music for Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2 and told my teacher that I want to play it. He promptly humbled me.

5 – I’m not an artist by the strictest definition of the word… but I’ve always wanted to be. I’ve studied music, painting, and I’m teaching myself photography, which is currently my only creative outlet. I think, in my next life, I would want to be an artist of some sort.

6 – Two subjects that I prefer to avoid when I talk to people are religion and politics. After having lived in so many places and having been exposed to so many religions, cultures, political views, it’s so difficult to make a case for one versus the other. I respect each person’s distinct beliefs. I do, however, believe that any form of blind fanaticism can be troubling.

7 - I try to be a perfectionist. Mediocrity bugs me… just about myself.

8 – I’ve never had a dog or a cat. I have had a gorgeous blue and gold macaw and two awesome parrots. If I had a white dog, I would name it Snowy (Tintin reference).

9 – The most important people in the world to me are my family. They're the only ones capable of giving me unconditional love.

10 – I like to surround myself with people who make me happy. There’s no room in my book for those that have a cynical view on everything in life (or those who are jerks, in general). I believe life is too short, and I want to spend it smiling and laughing… even if I have to be ignorant about certain things.

That’s all. Thank you for reading.

P.S. A very sincere thank you to all who took the time to help me. I’ve officially opened the store. Thank you SO much!

Leica Summilux 50mm f/1.4 ASPH

My camera suddenly started overexposing and at first I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't until I got home and started thinking about it that I remembered the camera has an assignable thumb wheel that was set to EV. In the previous evening I was doing something with the camera at home and when I set it down I accidentally turned the wheel and unknowingly dialed in about +3EV. I ruined a few photos as you can see here, but I have now set the EV back to zero and turned off the thumbwheel function. Lesson learned the hard way.

piano lessons for kids in Florida

Costa Rica

I decided that just a simple hat wasn't good enough so I decided to do a woman wearing the hat. I really wish that I knew how to actually draw people

First time developing my own film. Quarantine was a great opportunity to learn i guess. Pretty pleased with the results. This frame and some others didn’t receive enough developer due to loading the film with a little water in my hand da, causing the film to stick in places, not allowing the developer to properly process the frame. With that said I love this shot blemish and all.

Shot on Rollei Retro 400s with a Voigtländer VSL1 and Takumar 35/3.5.

D76 1:1 20c 10.5min

Grenouille de Lessona à la Petite Camargue Alsacienne

Lesson's Motmot at the Hotel Bougainvilla, Heredia, Costa Rica.

todays lesson concert at casa de lafões, lisbon

Spread 0118 – Lessons

January 2013

Vintage and personal papers, napkin transfers, acrylic paint, gesso and matte medium.

blogged here:

apaperbear.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/spread-0118-lessons/

At our usual Friday evening swim lessons. In my 20s wouldn't have imagined THIS is how I'd be spending Friday nights!

If your require coffee to wake yourself up in the morning, never attempt to shoot it! I tried so many zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wha? Oh yeah,

View on black or I will zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Our Dailzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Our Daily Challenge: On top of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Thats it! I'm drinking the dang subject now zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

this young mother, holding her baby while they waited in a long line for the pharmacy at a mobile health clinic in northeast india, truly defined what it is to simply radiate joy.

it is a never-ending lesson for me in these places...if those in the most dire circumstances are capable of this much effortless joy, so should i be, in the land of plenty.

A typography lesson in 12" x 16". Sold out.

Cylinder, Cube, Sphere, and Cone

Chair with blanket over it

sb800's left and right. Left at 1/2 pwr right at 1/8. Processed skin in PS with a little dodge and burn on the rest of the image.

I photographed this lily long ago and have recently rediscovered it...in a new light.

I remember piano lessons

The hours in freezing rooms

Cruel ears and tiny hands

Destroying timeless tunes

She said there's too much out there

Too much already said

You'd better give up hoping

You're better off in bed

You don't need much to speak of

No class, no wit, no soul

Forget your own agenda

Get ready to be sold

I feel now like Christine Keeler

Sleepwaking in the rain

I didn't mean to lose direction

I didn't want that kind of fame

And even though I got it all now

My only stupid dream

See you and me together

And how it should have been

I remember piano lessons

Now everything seems clear

You waiting under streetlights

For dreams to disappear.

S. Wilson

Dreaming Lessons ~ Pelajaran Bermimpi

Ada hal yang tidak dapat dipelajari di sekolah, kecuali bila ada yang mengajarkan:

Pelajaran Bermimpi

Sejak tahun 2009, aku ditugaskan oleh pemerintah untuk mengajar di sebuah SMP Negeri ndesit, yang terletak sekitar 30 km dari rumahku.

Dan aku dapati meskipun ini sekolah negeri, kemampuan akademik murid-muridku sangatlah mengerikan~

Bayangkan saja, murid SMP yang notabene sudah lulus SD, masih banyak yang tidak bisa membaca, menulis, apalagi berhitung dengan baik!

Aku pun bertanya-tanya kira-kira, apa penyebabnya?

Selidik sana, selidik sini

Akhirnya aku temukan sebuah fakta yang cukup mengejutkan

Tentang sebagian besar muridku yang datang dari keluarga kelas menengah ke bawah itu aku sudah tahu

Tetapi lebih dari itu, ternyata sebagian besar dari mereka juga datang dari keluarga berantakan.

Ayah meninggal, ibu menikah lagi, ibu meninggal, ayah tiri menikah lagi

Ayah-ibu yang bercerai, dan kemudian masing-masing menikah lagi dan punya anak sendiri.

Ayah-ibu bekerja jadi TKW/TKI ke luar negeri, di rumah hanya tinggal dengan nenek yang sudah tua, atau bahkan dititipkan kepada kerabat lain yang belum tentu baik hati

Ayah-ibu bekerja di sawah atau pabrik yang tak terlalu jauh dari rumah, tapi pergi sebelum mereka bangun, dan pulang larut malam

Ada juga beberapa orang yang ayahnya memiliki lebih dari satu istri baik secara resmi maupun simpanan.

Bahkan ada beberapa orang yang merupakan anak di luar nikah!

Atau lebih buruk dari itu, ada juga ayah muridku yang merupakan seorang preman atau maling!

Sangat menyedihkan~

Maka jelaslah sudah penyebab buruknya prestasi murid-muridku.

Mereka terjebak di sebuah dunia yang menyesakkan, kurang kasih-sayang, dan perhatian.

Hidup hanya menjalani sebuah rutinitas, karena merasa kurang lebih akan beginilah jadinya masa depan mereka.

Sama sekali tidak ada motivasi untuk belajar apalagi berprestasi.

Maka inilah aku untuk mengajarkanmu bermimpi

Dengar ya sayang, kemalangan hidup itu dapat di ubah

Di luar sana dunia lain yang lebih indah yang dapat kamu masuki

Dan kalau sekarang keluargamu kurang menyenangkan, di masa depan kamu bisa membentuk keluarga sendiri yang lebih bahagia dari yang sekarang kamu miliki

Jangan menyerah sayang, tolong jangan pernah menyerah!

Pelajaran bermimpi adalah pelajaran untuk menjadi manusia yang lebih baik

”Man jadda wajada” = barang siapa bersungguh-sungguh maka akan terwujud

”Man shabara zhafira” = barang siapa yang bersabar, maka akan beruntung

”Man sara ‘ala darbi washola” = siapa yang berjalan di jalannya maka akan sampai pada tujuan

”Man yazra’ yahsud” = siapa yang menanam maka akan menuai

---pepatah Arab, taken from a real story novel Negeri 5 Menara dan Ranah 3 Warna by Ahmad Fuadi, more about this novel and community please visit negeri5menara.com/ ---

Omong-omong, bapak ini adalah ayah dari salah seorang muridku.

Tadinya dia bekerja di ibukota Jakarta, tetapi akhirnya dia memilih kembali ke kampung halaman demi keluarganya.

Sekarang dia bekerja sebagai petani dan tukang ojek.

Aku lumayan sering mengobrol dengan beliau dan beberapa tukang ojek lainnya, saat menunggu bis sepulang mengajar di halte(?) itu.

Mereka itu orang-orang baik yang memiliki impian sederhana untuk anak-anaknya, yaitu agar anak-anaknya memiliki pendidikan yang lebih tinggi dari mereka dan kelak berpenghidupan yang lebih baik dari mereka.

Dan sekolah tempat aku mengajar itu terletak 5 km menyebrang dari tempat itu, belok 3 kali.

==========================================================================

There is something that couldn’t be learn in the school, except if someone taught it:

Dreaming Lessons

Since 2009, I was tasked by the government to teach in a village Junior High School, located about 30 km from my home.

And I found, even if my school is a state school, my student’s academic abilities are terribly so bad.

Imagine this: junior high school students who in fact have been graduated from primary school, where can not read, write, moreover to count well!

So I wonder, what is the reason?

I try to investigate it.

About most of my student were come from middle class family to below, I’ve already know.

But more than it, most of them were actually come from broken-home family.

Father passed away, mother remarried, then mother passed away and the step father remarried again.

Father and mother divorced, then each of them were remarried again and have their own children

Father and mother were working out of town or country as a domestic worker or labor, and left them in home with only an old granny or deposit (?) them to another relatives whose couldn’t be insurance to treat them well

Father and mother work in rice field or factory which not to far from their home, but they go before them wake and back very late

There are also some of my student who their father have more than one wife whether official or mistress.

There were even some of my students who were a children out of wedlock, --children of adultery—

Or more worse than it, there is some of my student father who is a gangster or a thief!

What a heart crushing~

Now it's clear the reason of poor performance from my disciples.

They were trapped in a world that is oppressive, less affection, and attention.

Live just underwent a routine, because they feel this is the future they also would be.

No motivation to learn, furthermore to excel!

So, here I am to teach you to dream~

Listen dear, misfortunes of life could be changed

Out there are also available a beautiful world that you could enter

And if your family is now less fascinating, in the future you would be able to form your own family that full of love and affection more than what you have now!

Don’t give up dear, please never give up!

Dreaming lessons is a lesson to be a better person

”Man jadda wajada” = who is seriously make effort would be succeed

”Man shabara zhafira” = who is patience would be lucky

”Man sara ‘ala darbi washola” = who is walk on his way would arrive to the destination

”Man yazra’ yahsud” = who is plants would be harvest

---Arabic proverb, taken from a real story novel Negeri 5 Menara dan Ranah 3 Warna by Ahmad Fuadi, more about this novel and community please visit negeri5menara.com/ ---

By the way, this man is one of my student’s fathers.

He was work in capital city, Jakarta, before but he decides to back home for his family.

Now he works as a farmer and a motorcycle rental driver.

I quite often to talk with him and several other motorcycle rental drivers, while waiting for my bus in those bus stop to take me home after working.

They are nice persons, who have simple dreams that their children would have a better education and later a better life than their own.

And the school where I teach is located 5 km crossing of those roads, turning 3 times.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=J56IkSxHzaI&ob=av2e

Maap, ceritanya kepanjangan kan ya… ;p

Part 1 Lesson 4 freehand from EP

I made a rather silly and basic error on my last hike.

Recently I have started to download a copy of the most appropriate OS map for my hill walks. I take along a phone charger and have been able to use the phone facility easily wherever I have been. On this hike though I purchased an additional map for part of my proposed route. When it came to starting the walk I tried to open the map and realised that I had no phone reception which meant that I couldn't download the map. If I had done that a before I lost reception I would have been fine.

The consequences were that for the first few miles I had no map and would be hiking in an area I wasn't used to. I had good visibility so knew that a I had to walk the track past the youth hostel in Ennerdale and then somehow make my way to the skyline ridge I could see towering above to my left. A walk across the riverside meadows was straightforward and crossing the River Liza meant wet feet but that was reasonably easy. Once on the far bank I came across this delightful pond at Moss Dub (the only time my camera came out of my rucksack) but then had to enter the Ling Mell plantation to make my bee-line ascent towards the ridge.

There were no paths in the coniferous plantation, it was particularly steep and dark, but the main obstacles were the old fallen trees that I had to climb over, under or through. All of the time scratching myself on their dead spiky branches. The seven hundred feet of ascent that took me fifty minutes to negotiate was probably one of my worst hill experiences. I tried my best to climb in a straight line and as long as I continued climbing as steeply as possibly I knew that I would emerge out onto the open moorland above somewhere near where I had intended. I emerged a bloody sweaty wreck.

The lesson to myself is twofold.

a). Don't rely totally upon electronic navigation devices.

b). Stick to a path wherever possible.

See, Daisy darling? Several bites in....and your lipstick is still intact. And don't worry...I'll make sure you get lots and LOTS of practice from here on out. 😊

Lucca street scene - local colour vs shadow first

Nikon D3200 - 90mm f/2.8 Macro -

skating lesson

[29thOCT2009]

I had a second "Halloween Theme" Icing Cookie Lesson with 4 talented students :)

View On Black

I remember piano lessons

The hours in freezing rooms

Cruel ears and tiny hands

Destroying timeless tunes

She said there's too much out there

Too much already said

You'd better give up hoping

You're better off in bed

You don't need much to speak of

No class, no wit, no soul

Forget your own agenda

Get ready to be sold

I feel now like Christine Keeler

Sleepwaking in the rain

I didn't mean to lose direction

I didn't want that kind of fame

(Take your hands off my land)

Credit me with some intelligence

(if not just credit me)

I come in value packs of ten

(in five varieties)

And even though I got it all now

My only stupid dream

I see you and me together

And how it should have been

I remember piano lessons

Now everything seems clear

You waiting under streetlights

For dreams to disappear

Porcupine Tree Piano Lessons

Walking back to Surfers along the beach front.

History of Surfer Parades

James Beattie, a farmer, became the first European to settle in the area when he staked out an 80-acre (32 ha) farm on the northern bank of the Nerang River, close to present-day Cavill Avenue. The farm proved unsuccessful and was sold in 1877 to German immigrant Johan Meyer, who turned the land into a sugar farm and mill. Meyer also had little luck growing in the sandy soil and within a decade had auctioned the farm and started a ferry service and built the Main Beach hotel. By 1889, Meyer's hotel had become a post receiving office and subdivisions surrounding it were named Elston, named by the Southport postmaster after his wife's home in Southport, Lancashire, England. The Main Beach Hotel licence lapsed after Meyer's death in 1901 and for 16 years Elston was a tourist town without a hotel or post office.

The boom of the 1950s and 1960s was centred on this area and the first of the tall apartment buildings were constructed in the decades that followed. Little remains of the early vegetation or natural features of the area and even the historical association of the beachfront development with the river is tenuous. The early subdivision pattern remains, although later reclamation of the islands in the Nerang River as housing estates, and the bridges to those islands, have created a contrast reflected in subdivision and building form. Some early remnants survived such as Budd's Beach — a low-scale open area on the river which even in the early history of the area was a centre for boating, fishing and swimming.

Some minor changes have occurred in extending the road along the beachfront since the early subdivision and The Esplanade road is now a focus of activity, with supporting shops and restaurants. The intensity of activity, centred on Cavill, Orchid and Elkhorn Avenues, is reflected in the density of development. Of all places on the Gold Coast the buildings in this area constitute a dominant and enduring image visible from as far south as Coolangatta and from the mountain resorts of the hinterland.

For more Info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfers_Paradise,_Queensland

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca: On entering a temple we assume all signs of reverence. How much more reverent then should we be before the heavenly bodies, the stars, the very nature of God!

John Muir: All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains, on the sea or land or down among the crystals of waves or high in a balloon in the sky; through all the climates, hot or cold, storms and calms, everywhere and always we are in God's eternal beauty and love. So universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best.

EXPLORE May 21, 2009 #159

Thanks !

i went to ballet class in the morning .

i havent gone for long time

ofcourse my legs were too bad couldnt do anything.

couldnt keep my body straight . and neck , back , waist , hip , arms, legs.....

only toes were still strong .

i felt frustrated a lot .

but i also enjoyed lesson very much .

anyway i love ballet : )

When my voice grows strident,

When I feel important--

I'm reminded of the kindness

And where I'd be without it.

I'm learning my lessons

It may take me a lifetime.

Give me strength to justify my being,

And show someone the kindness shown to me.

Todd Rundgren