5 top story links worth sharing

1. Julian Treasure: 5 ways to listen better

In our louder and louder world, says sound expert Julian Treasure, “We are losing our listening.” In this short, fascinating talk, Treasure shares five ways to re-tune your ears for conscious listening — to other people and the world around you.

 via TED. 

2. Love letters with 7 years delay

Beijing authorities, alarmed at the skyrocketing divorce rate, are promoting a new service in which the post office will send a love letter to your partner – after a delay of seven years.

via Govt’s love letter service aims to scratch 7-year itch

3. Five Reasons Why YouTube Rocks the Classroom 

Videos are, in effect, changing education and learning. We are now past the point of debate. Flipped teaching and the ubiquity of high-performing teachers using YouTube are clear evidence of the shift.

via MindShift

4. Fatherhood decreases Testosterone

The researchers found that men with the highest levels of testosterone were more likely to become committed partners and fathers—at which point they showed steeper drops in testosterone than did their single, childless counterparts.

via Science News 

5. How Well Do You Know Your Friends?

People who had more knowledge of their friend’s if-then profile of triggers had better relationships. They had less conflict with the friend and less frustration with the relationship.

via Psychological Science

Thoughts about writing my first novel

I’m really excited to write my first novel. But before I even start to finish it, I first tried to research about it’s element by reading the very definition of novel in Wikipedia. The idea of writing my first novel started when I stumbled on a link given by Mr. Scott Berkun on his practical tips about writing a book. So upon accidentally discovering the project of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which starts at the month of November. It requires a participant to write a novel with 50, 000 words starting from the 1st day of November up until the 30th of the month. (For a quick NaNoWriMo overview, click here)

So statistically, it would mean that you need to write 1667 words a day in order to write your 50,000 words novel within the month of November. I’m not really good in creating a fictional story though.

Now going back with my wiki search, I read the genre section and it seems that writing in a form of letter, the epistolary novel genre, suits my writing style . I’ll get my inspiration from Malcolm Gladwell, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and other great story tellers. 🙂

I’m really excited with this idea of writing a novel. Join me with my novel writing journey by signing up to NaNoWrimo. The goal is 50,000 words. It depends on you if you’ll finish the novel or not for as long as you reach the mark. If you decided to join, inform me and become my writing buddy. 🙂

The Haiku Twitter Post

Last time, The Daily Post suggested (Plinky.com to be precise) to write a haiku.

Let’s try something different.

Using this haiku idea (5-7-5 measurement) and combining the 140 character limit of Twitter, try to choose any specific topic (eg. Blogging, Anger) then create a haiku using only 140 characters using Twitter. Or if you don’t have a Twitter, try to create a haiku and make you it won’t exceed 140 characters (so it means it requires counting including the spaces in between the words).

Good luck! 🙂

Example: