Fashion and how it can boost your confidence

I hail from a city known for its sparkling fashion, its unique trends and personal styles. A quick survey of the supermodels-in-disguise on any bustling NYC street and you’ll notice how they emit an air of individualism, of flair, of rooted authenticity. As Chuck Klosterman writes in, “The Ethics of Paradox”, in this month’s issue of Esquire:

“[New Yorkers] usually think their personal opinions are more interesting than any movie ever made.”

We know we’re full of ourselves and darn proud of it. That said, our sense of fashion is no different.

Revolution in the school cafeteria.

Following the recent trend of individualism and social democratization (e.g., YouTube i-Reporters, Wikipedia), here’s a story about a group of second-graders challenging the school’s lunch lady without staging a nasty food fight.

Some children got downright prolific when asked to write what other foods they would like for lunch or breakfast. Viviann requested “stake” and lobster, while Logan Strong wanted “chocolate filled panda cookies” and “chicken cordon blue.”

Seems like everyone nowadays – even kids – are taking action to make their voices heard. I wonder how they feel about the current presidency.

[via CNN]

911 now hiring tutors

Funny 911 call below (not a prank!):

The kid is absolutely adorable.

[via SpikedHumor]

Make your writing sparkle.

DailyWritingTips has an interesting (interactive even) post on editing. Granted there are fancy spellcheckers out there, manual proofreading catches more than just misspelled words; you may find an inferior word that doesn’t really capture what meaning you want to convey, wrongly used punctuation marks, and most importantly, you polish your writing so it’s easily digestable.

Here’s a great tip left by a fellow commentor:

Here’s a tip I used in graduate school and one I pass along to my students: Read aloud to yourself.

When you proofread silently, you really tend to skim and possibly miss mistakes. But, if you read aloud, there is absolutely no way your mouth can keep up with your brain. Therefore, you have to slow down and you can “hear” your mistakes more easily.

People may give you funny looks, but not when grades come out and you are on top.

And don’t just edit words, edit content. Take out gratuitious, unnecessary thoughts and ramblings that are meaningless. Make your literary product concise. Copyblogger has a great post on how to tighten up your writing. Your blog is in constant competition not only against other blogs but against broadcast news websites, commercial retailers, IM conversations, emails and so on. By the time readers enter your store, the last thing they want to read is dense literature.

Not all habits are evil.

For many of us, when we think of “habits”, we immediately think of those that deserve breaking (such as the one above). However, seldomly do we construct and nurture good habits, those that allow us to climb to the top, to succeed, to become whatever we aspire.

The blog at Productivity501 created a list to help us maintain the habits we do want to harbor.