4 Reasons Teachers Should Take Their Career to the Next Level

As a teacher, you can fuel career growth in three key ways. One, you can take short courses in areas such as leadership and management, mentorship and relationship management among others. Two, you can register for an advanced degree, masters or PhD. Sites such as https://online.merrimack.edu/  offer advanced degrees online and thus you can study as you work. These online degrees are flexible and a great investment for anyone who wants to advance their career. Finally, career growth can come as a result of your hard work and dedication. You can advance in your career by doing your best in class, actively participating in meetings and extracurricular activities, and volunteering to take up more tasks. But why is it important to take your career to the next level?

Better Pay

As you advance your career and get promotions, your pay check will also go up. Therefore, if your current teacher position isn’t giving you enough to spend, save and invest, make a plan that will take you to another position. However, money shouldn’t be your key motivation. You have to be passionate about helping students in the next level to achieve their goals. When money becomes your only concern, you will not meet your goals as a teacher and you may end up losing your job.

Experience Working in Different Environments

Ever dreamt of working as a college professor and helping others to become teachers? If yes, consider furthering your education and applying for postsecondary teacher positions. You can also move from elementary to high school or even consider teaching kids with special needs. You may end up getting more satisfaction teaching in the new environment.  

Take Up an Administration Role

By advancing your career, you can move away from the classroom and take up roles managing a school or departments within the school. Administrative roles come with big responsibilities and may require additional skills. For instance, as a head teacher, you need skills to help you manage the students and teachers, resolve conflict, improve performance and make good financial decisions among many others.

Move Away from Teaching

While teaching is a nice profession, it is not for everyone. There are teachers who get into a classroom and realize it’s not their long term calling. There are a number of alternative career options for those teachers who desire to move away from the classroom. For some careers, a teaching degree will be enough to get you started on your new career, but for others you will need an extra course. For instance, for roles like a curriculum director for schools, an extra course may not be necessary. Other alternative careers for teachers include social work, child counsellor, librarian, research writer, online teacher or tutor, business or personal coach and health care worker among others. If your career change requires extra training, you can take part time classes as you work your teacher job and quit teaching when you are ready to start your next career.

By advancing your career, you will enjoy better pay, experience working in new environments, get the opportunity to head a school and even explore other careers away from teaching.

Read More

How Second Life can help in the battle against anxiety

We regularly hear the word anxiety, but how many of us actually know what it is? More to the point, did you know that Second Life can help sufferers battle anxiety?

Anxiety is that feeling of nervousness, tension, and unease that something terrible is going to happen. It’s something that a lot of us experience some of the time, such as when we’re in stressful and unfamiliar situations.

For anxiety sufferers, those attacks are a lot more frequent and severe. They don’t just stop at feelings of dread or worry but extend to feeling physically sick and a suffocating tightness in the chest.

We’ve looked at the ways in which Second Life can help in the battle against anxiety.

Second Life allows people to practice their social skills

One of the most prominent forms of anxiety is social anxiety. This is the thought of having to socialize, especially if you doubt you have the social skills to do so. Second Life provides people with a safe space to practice those skills anonymously and where they won’t be judged. On Second Life, you can build confidence from interactions and then take that into the real world with you. By helping remove the fear and anxiety that comes from being in a social situation, you’ll be in a better position to battle the condition long term.

Second Life helps us relax

Stress and worry are two of the main triggers for anxiety, which goes part of the way towards explaining why anxiety is on the rise in America. When we play Second Life, those feelings disappear. Your mind isn’t on what is troubling you out there in the real world, you feel more relaxed as a result, and your anxiety levels decrease. Outside of Second Life, you can use natural supplements to try and help you relax and battle anxiety. Herbs and plants such as kava root, lavender and the best kratom powder online are just some of the natural remedies some people use.

Second Life makes us question

Playing Second Life makes you ask questions and forces you to think about what you are doing with your avatar. Compare that to what goes on in your own head. You very rarely question what you are thinking or why or even if your mind is playing tricks on you. That is part of what anxiety is. It is where your brain takes a situation and distorts it into something far bigger, causing you serious worry. It might be an innocent email from your boss which your mind tells you is going to result in you being sacked or a friend failing to reply to a text and making you think you’ve fallen out. If you can question these thoughts, then you can start battling back against anxiety.

Second Life teaches us to test things out

You make a decision that you’re going to do something in Second Life, and you test it out. That way, you find out if the outcome is positive or negative. One of the most crippling aspects of anxiety is that it gives you a real fear of failure to the point where you can be paralyzed from doing anything. You won’t go to that party for fear that nobody will talk to you. If you act in real life as you do in Second Life, you’ll test out your negative theory and probably find out that you were wrong – people will talk to you. Once you get that confidence, you can battle anxiety.

Read More

Two More Stephen King Stories Set to Hit the Big Screen

Stephen King is one of the world’s most prolific writers. He is worth an estimated $400 million, which helped him buy one of the most expensive properties on the west coast of Florida. He’s in good company, of course, as there are many celebrities that live in Tampa and nearby Sarasota.

During the long span of a highly successful career as a fiction writer, King has published 58 novels and sold more than 350 million books. He’s also had many of his books adapted to the screen, some more successfully than others. Now it looks like there will be two more adaptations hitting the big screen soon. Entertainment news outlets announced that two of King’s works - a novel and a short story - are being adapted for the cinema and TV screen.

Rest Stop

Rest Stop was a short story published in Esquire magazine in 2003. It won an award and was later included in an anthology of work titled Just After Sunset. There are now plans to turn it into a movie. The story centers around an author who makes a pitstop in a Floridian rest area. While in the restroom, he becomes the unwitting witness to a man attacking his pregnant girlfriend. In a bid to end the violent argument, he channels his pen name’s alter ego, which is a theme King explores in another of his novels, The Dark Half.

Sleeping Beauties

Sleeping Beauties is a more recent work, published in 2017 and written in collaboration with his son, Owen King. In this tale, women fall prey to a mysterious sleeping sickness. Soon, women all over the world are blissfully asleep, protected by a cocoon. Unfortunately, many of their menfolk don’t appreciate being left on their own and they try to wake the women up. This is when it all begins to go horribly wrong, as the women who are rudely awakened erupt into a homicidal rage. And who can blame them?!

Insiders say this adaptation will be for the small screen, with the novel set to become a TV series. Who knows, maybe it will become another Walking Dead and continue for multiple seasons!

More New Projects in the Pipeline

Those in the know say that more adaptations are in the pipeline. King’s apocalyptic novel, The Stand, is being developed for the small screen, and a movie based on The Talisman, a book King wrote in collaboration with Peter Straub, is in the works, too.

Previous Stephen King Adaptations

One of the most recent Stephen King adaptations, IT, was surprisingly good, but perhaps the best one of all time was Brian de Palma’s Carrie, made in 1976. Jack Nicholson in The Shining and Kathy Bates in Misery are also excellent. Other great works include Stand By Me, The Green Mile, and The Shawshank Redemption.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Some of the worst include Lawnmower Man, Graveyard Shift, Cell, and Maximum Overdrive.

What’s your favorite Stephen King novel? Tell us more below!

Read More

SPOTLIGHT ON SPIRITS IN MOTION AND THE KACHINA THEATER – Josh (Thomas1 Bellic) Reporting.

SecondLife is arguably the most advanced and perhaps engaging of the virtual worlds out there. Not just a land of phenomenal beauty and creativity, it also hosts an incredibly talented and diversified community of artists.  A relative newcomer to the performing arts community is the Kachina Theater and their performing dance troupe, Spirits in Motion.

I recently had the very real pleasure of visiting the Kachina Theater as they were preparing for their upcoming performance of “Blast from the Past”.   This show was written by Jilly Lonewolf (leannburt), with assistance from Ciarra (kayceb), and choreographed by Mrs. Starlena Lonewolf (starlena.hansen) and in some cases even the dancers themselves.  Most of the sets were designed by Starlena. This musical extravaganza will be preformed one time only on Sunday, May 19 at 2:00 PM SLT. Their newest production will feature numerous pieces of music from the Roaring 20s to the Rocking 60's.  With Muse Wolf (musicgal9026) as the DJ, Ciarra as the announcer/moderator will serve as a sort of time traveling musical guide as cast and audience waltz through the ages.

I caught up with Starlena one night recently, and she was gracious enough to give me a tour of their facilities.

As you enter Kachina Theater by way of swinging double doors, you are greeted by a tastefully appointed lobby with grand staircases at either end leading to the upper lobby.  From here you enter the theater proper, with ample seating available in either single person chairs, or two-person love seats lined up about the room. The stage with the proscenium arch is the focal point of the room.  Elaborate in both planning and execution, Blast from the Past will involve multiple scene changes and an equal number of costume changes by the dancers.

The sets and the musical numbers selected for this show are guaranteed to have you leaving the theater humming a favorite tune.  On a Wizard of Oz set, you will hear the Scarecrow lament “If I only had a Brain”.  Whisked away to a USO stage at a WWII base camp, you will be entertained along with the troops to the dulcimer harmonies of the Andrew Sisters as they sing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B”.  And what else would you expect to hear in a 50’s style Malt Shop but “Rock Around the Clock”.  Don’t forget to catch that quintessential favorite at night clubs in the 30’s, Benny Goodman’s “Sing Sing Sing”.  And you certainly do not want to miss when that crooner of crooners, D'Artagnan Michaels (raybartleson) wows the  audience with “Jailhouse Rock”.

Later, I caught up with Jilly Lonewolf, deep in the midst of her own show preparations, and I was able to ask her some questions about the theater and production,

Josh (thomas1.bellic):  What a great name… “Blast from the Past”.  Tell me, Jilly, where did you get the dialogue and dance routines for this show?

Jilly Lonewolf (leannburt): We are one of SL's newer venues.  This show is totally original. We started from scratch, so to speak.  I came up with the concept and the title. The theater and land is closed prior to the day of the performance as many of us also live on the sim.  

J.B:  how many shows will you be doing?  How many performance times?

J.L.: This show right now is one performance only.....we have been talking about doing an encore performance but some of our dancers work weekends etc. so our schedule is limited at present.  Starlena, our primary set builder, works full time so her available hours to build are short. She is amazingly creative and her set designs are fantastic! We schedule our shows approximately five weeks apart. Our actual schedule depends on when Starlena has time to work on the sets and I get the script written.  We do plan to put on our version of Phantom of the Opera late this summer/fall.

J.B.:  So tell me, Jilly.  How did you and Starlena meet?  And how did you decide on a partnership in the performing arts?

J.L: Starlena and I go way back.....we worked together first at Magnifique Weddings....I was an officiant/planner and she was the main photographer.  Later we both worked at Paramount Playhouse, which is another performance venue here. We have always wanted to have our own theater and the timing was right for us to make our vision a reality

J.B.:   How long has your Dance Troupe been together?

J.L.: We formed our troupe in January and held our debut performance February 17th, 2019. Our dance troupe normally has a cast of 13 dancers and various support crew.  This show will have a few extras on board that don't dance but do some add ons, playing instruments etc.  Some of our dancers are extremely talented. Many of them even do their own choreography.

J.B.:  A quick search turns up dozens and dozens of Dance Troupes in SecondLife, involving hundreds, if not thousands of dancers.   What is it that makes Kachina Theater special, given the large number of options available to people in SL today?

J.L.: Hmmmm.....not sure the proper way to phrase this so perhaps you can help me out.  We pride ourselves in the fact that unlike many theaters, our shows are more PG, as in no nudity or suggestive language.  Our show is more along the lines of what you would see on Broadway, It’s something you would be comfortable bringing your parents to.  We feel you don't have to take your clothes off to be sexy :) There are plenty of places in SL that folks can go to see naked avatars and hot and heavy emotes.  We focus on strictly entertainment.

So, there you have it folks.  I don’t know what your plans are for Sunday, May 19, but if you DON’T make it a point to attend Kachina Theater’s “Blast from the Past”, starting at 2:00PM SLT, you are gonna kick yourself later.  There is ONE performance only, and I guarantee this is one show you do NOT want to miss.  The Spirits in Motion dancers and Kachina Theater present “Blast from the Past”  A musical review of your favorite songs from the Roaring 20’s through the Rocking 60’s,  brought to life through song, dance, and the magic of SecondLife!

Be there.  Aloha! - J.B.

Teleport:   http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Azumi/128/108/1501

Read More

7 Tips for Borrowing with a Poor Credit History

Running into financial difficulties in the past can seriously limit your lending options. Even if you have made steps to improve your situation and are easily managing your money well now, a poor credit history can get in the way of you being accepted for a credit card, loan, or other credit agreement. Whether you are looking to get a credit card for emergencies, want to purchase a car on finance, or take out a loan for a large purchase, there’s nothing more frustrating than being rejected on the basis of credit history that you’ve managed to turn around. The good news is that there are several alternative options available that you might want to consider. Here are some ideas that you may find useful.

#1. Improve Your Credit Score:

If it is not a financial emergency, then the best option is to work on improving your credit score, so that it’s more likely you will be accepted for credit in the future. Whilst certain things will take a while to be removed completely from your credit record, such as missed and late payments or defaults, making clear steps to improve your credit, and demonstrating a clear pattern or improvements to lenders, can boost your chances of being accepted for credit in the future.

#2. Try a Credit Union:

If you need a loan in an emergency, a credit union can be a great alternative compared to a bank or other traditional lender. Credit unions tend to put more emphasis on customer service and often lend depending on your personal circumstances, taking your ability to repay into account, rather than simply looking at your credit history alone. Additionally, credit unions tend to have lower fees, meaning that you could pay less overall when it comes to repaying your loan. And finally, many credit unions will offer programs to help you get back on track with your finances and improve your credit score.

#3. Credit Building Credit Cards:

If you don’t need a large sum of money straight away and want to borrow credit in order to build and improve your credit score over time, a credit building card could be the best option for you. These cards tend to come with a lower credit limit, meaning that they are easier to manage and allow you to make small repayments each month to improve your credit rating. In some cases, you may even be able to get a credit building card with a limit low enough for you to comfortably afford to repay all at once. This way, you have some extra money and are able to rebuild your credit easily without the risk of running into financial trouble again.

#4. No Credit Check Loans:

If you are in urgent need of a loan, then you may benefit from no credit check loan options which are usually available online. However, it’s important to bear in mind that these types of loans are often short-term and many will have very high rates of interest, so it’s crucial that you do plenty of research beforehand, to make sure that you will be able to afford the repayments. If you can, getting a no credit check loan and paying it back on time is a great way to boost your credit score.

#5. Find a Guarantor or Co-Signer:

If you’re struggling to get credit on your own, then it’s a good idea to look into options that allow you to get credit with the help of somebody else. Guarantor loans are a great idea as they allow a trusted friend or relative to vouch for you and say that they will be able to cover payments in the event that you are not. However, you don’t want it to come to this, so make sure that you take out a guarantor loan that you know you will be able to comfortably afford the repayments for without running into difficulty. Not only will this lead to financial stress for yourself, it can also put a strain on your relationship with your guarantor or co-signer. So, make sure that you full discuss all the possibilities and risks before coming to a decision.

#6. Ask Friends and Family:

Instead of going down the traditional routes and borrowing from a bank or other financial institution, you may want to consider asking your friends and family members for help, if you feel that it is appropriate. Most of the time our partners, parents, siblings and friends will prefer to help out if they can, rather than allow you to put yourself in a position where you could be in financial difficulty. And, borrowing from somebody that you know is less risky than borrowing from the bank, as there’s no risk of fees, charges, and court letters if you’re struggling to pay – you can simply talk to them about it instead and change your agreement, and it won’t affect your credit score. However, if you plan to borrow from family and friends it’s important to do it in such a way that preserves your relationship. Come up with a contract for repayments that you can both agree on, and make sure that communication between the two of you is consistently open and honest.

#7. Use Your Home:

Last but not least, if you own your own home then you can tap into its equity in order to borrow, and most of the time your credit score will not be affected. If you own your own home, there are several options to consider – you can put your home down as equity in order to get a separate loan or you may be able to borrow by remortgaging the property. However, bear in mind that this type of loan carries a lot of risk. If you are unable to keep up repayments, your home will be repossessed.

If you have a poor credit history, borrowing money isn’t always easy. However, it is not impossible! These are just some options to consider if you need to borrow money but your credit score is holding you back.

Read More

Club Inferno is a hotspot in SL for the Macabre

Club Inferno is a hellish realm of torture, twisted carnival games and Freakshow featuring heavy metal music. Mythological Creatures/Demons/Lycans/Furries welcome! Macabre/Horror/Gore themes. Live singer 8:00-9:00PM SLT Fridays

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Queue/178/190/1002

Read More

Three Practical Ways You Can Improve Your Home

Having your own home is one of the biggest achievements you can make in your youth. Finally, you have a space that you can call your own and enjoy the independence you have always wanted. As amazing as it is to have your house, there are always things that you can do to make it a better and more enjoyable place to come back to after a long day at work.

To help you start to make these improvements to your home and your life in general, this handy guide has put together to get you started. These are the best three improvements you can make to start your home renovation in the right way.

Invest in the maintenance of your roof

When people think of home improvements, they tend to only give thought to the cosmetic side of things, in terms of interior design. While this can make your home look lovely, if the underlying structures are not properly looked after, then none of this will matter.

One of the most important of the practical considerations is the roof. A roof that is well looked after will ensure the protection of all your household items and aid in keeping in heat during the winter. You can click here to find roofers Charleston SC who will be able to identify any issues and fix your home to a high standard.

Prepare your garden for the summer

With summer just around the corner, one way to make some serious improvement to your home is to learn how to landscape your back yard. This isn’t something that requires you to have training in to be able to do well; it just means you need to do your research and invest in the proper tools to complete the job.

Go online and look up some professional gardens in order to get some ideas together about what you might be able to do with the space you have. If you are not someone who has particularly green fingers, then choosing to create a gravel garden with potted plants only will be a great alternative and easy to maintain no matter what the weather is.

Increase your storage space creatively

Another practical way that you can improve your home is to put some serious thought into your storage. Nothing can make a home more unpleasant to be in than clutter as this environment can cause stress and make you unhappy. Looking up some clever storage hacks to improve your home can make all the difference.

For example, something as simple as modifying your headboard to be pull-out storage space to keep in books, creams, and maybe even your pajama sets. Another good idea is put up shelving around the perimeter is your room just above head height; this is a great way to make use of dead space.

By making these changes to your home, you will be able to enjoy a higher quality of life and get excited about spending time in your own home again.

Read More

Step back in time to the birthplace of Swing: The Savoy Ballroom

  Experience the best in classic swing, new swing, and electro swing along with vintage latin big band tunes.  Our extensive collection of dances are grouped by type and tempo to make dancing more realistic and fun. Dance to our SavoyStream 24x7, with volunteer dance partners often available.  Weekly hosted shows and monthly parties. Our Swing Era Museum and full-immersion Dance 301 Classroom brings the Golden Age of swing to life. Visit anytime - the swing never stops at Savoy.   In beautiful Creations Park

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Creations%20Park/33/50/28

Read More

Petra's Performance Schedule & Hosts for Week of 4/21/19

                    ARTIST                                                                              HOST

                                                   TUESDAY, APRIL 23
                                                  
                                                  
    2pm     Paris Obscur                                                                    Alyss
   
    3pm     Savannah Rain                                                                 Alyss
   
    4pm     Wayne Davis                                                                   Foxxy
   
    5pm     Erik Kottzen                                                                     Foxxy
   
    6pm     Liam Wakeman                                              
   
    7pm     Savannah Coronet                                                          Sweet
   
    8pm     Essence Bilasimo                                                           Sweet
   
    9pm     Hogan Bailey                                     
   
   
   
                                                   FRIDAY, APRIL 26
   
   
   
   
    1pm     Telima                                                                            Alyss
   
    2on      (Lisa Brune Not In This Week)
   
    3pm     Jack Slade                                                                     Foxxy
   
    4pm     AMforte Clarity                                                              Sweet
   
    5pm     Collin Martin                                                                   Foxxy
   
    6pm     Max Kleene                                                                   Sweet

Read More

Events For Parkinson's and Miss Globe Universal Charity Foundation partnered up to bring a exciting new event, The Oasis

Last day April 21st!


The event will kick off on April 1st and end April 21st. It will be a beautiful three week event inspired by Egyptian history.

We plan to provide a beautiful Egyptian themed region for invited brands, bloggers, and guests for an fun shopping experience, music, theater entertainment, twice the hunts and much more during the wonderful time of the Spring season in the era of Ancient Egypt. We also want to raise more awareness for this amazing charity through education for guests. Lending your support to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, we are forever grateful.

About The Michael J Fox Foundation

════════════════════════

Team Fox is the Grassroots Fund Raising Branch of the Michael J Fox Foundation. All their overhead and expenses are anonymously covered so that 100% raised by Team Fox is passed on to the Michael J Fox Foundation who then determines the most promising research into finding a cure for Parkinson’s.

The Michael J Fox Foundation has the highest rating by Charity Navigator. They work very hard to keep their overhead exceptionally low at only 11%. They give 89%, directly to the best research. This is perhaps the highest amount going to research of any major charity in the world. Their commitment is to find a CURE not only to find more expensive medicine or treatments.

Social Media

════════════

Flickr Group

https://www.flickr.com/groups/creationsforparkinsons/

Official Blog

https://creationspark.wordpress.com/

SLurl:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Greenmist/105/134/3201

Read More

GeekSpeak – 5G is coming! 5G is coming! Join the discussion Saturday April 20th at 12pm SLT

5G is coming.  What will that mean?  Will we all get fried by the data streams in the air, or will it usher in a whole new era?

What are the advantages of superfast data?  Will it enable thousands of drones to be in the air together?  Will it mean that self-driving cars finally take off?  Personalised ads on every corner wherever you walk?  Will it mean that everyone can look you up on Facebook before you walk around the corner?  Will every city be a forest of antennae?  

What new developments can you think of?  How will human behaviour change once we are always online at high speed?  Will we ever want to go back?  Will we be able to?

Do you look forward to the new world?  Or does it frighten you?  Discuss the future with us at GeekSpeak.

IM Vulcan Viper if you have any ideas for new subjects.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Danmu/143/127/51

Read More