• Grab your current read.
• Open to a random page.
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page.
• Becareful not to include spoilers! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if the like your teasers!

"Oh! Kira exclaimed. Her eyes widened. "You're not the real Dracula, are you?"/"Does no one think to warn people before they meet me?" Vlad muttered, shooting an irritable look at Mencheres.~Eternal Kiss of Darkness by Jeaniene Frost pg. 263 

I spent the first part of today in our annual Campus Convocation Day. Translation: The day the entire Staff and Faculty are mandated to attend professional development. Usually there’s an irrelevant speaker, bad food, and awards of service giving out. This year, I’ll admit the food wasn’t bad, I enjoyed seeing my coworkers public ousted for their years of service, and ultimately, the guest speaker was actually not too bad. Although, those who make part of their living from public speaking engagements should really rely on outlines. Once again I let the communication major want to be in me pick apart the speaker. To defend myself, the information was great and relevant but not organized great. He tended to jump back and forth. Still, I got the information and found it engaging.


If you’ve ever had to sit through a day like this, I’m sure you’ve found yourself trying to solve the problems of the universe or at least taught yourself how to write with the opposite hand. This I did quite successfully one year. I felt so accomplished afterwards.


This year I shared my table with my new supervisor, who I actually love to work for, and one of my nerd girl buddies. (This is a nickname several of us have for one another who share the same love for homesteadish living, technology, learning, and general weirdness). As we discussed this and that throughout the morning everything from babies to education prolonging life to the need for support in the local school systems, community college, and the local area in general, my mind latched on to something I had once thought of doing but filed away under “not qualified” to do.


What’s my profound thought? I want to work with people who need communication skills. Not just public speaking which is a requirement for graduation at the community college level in this state but overall communication skills. I’ve watched work studies come in to interview for the office I work in. They are not prepared to interview. Even if they had a class at some point in high school to interview, it didn’t take. Maybe it’s the culture or maybe it’s the times.


I remember my first interview involved pantyhose and heels. This might give away my age but I don’t think so. It wasn’t that long ago...only a couple of decades ago. ha! ha! Regardless, society has relaxed its standards when it comes to how we carry ourselves in public. I’m not just talking about dress codes. I’m talking about how we speak to one another. Rarely do we hear the words yes ma’am or no sir. It’s ya or naw. We’ve relaxed ourselves to the point that we either don’t notice that our workers aren’t presenting themselves professionally or we care.


But I think that people view a business by the presentation of its workers. In turn, I’m sure businesses view its potential employee by the way they present themselves as they walk through the door. Would you hire someone to assist with PR if they walked in slumped over, shuffling their feet, and “um”ing their way to their point? If so, good luck with it.


Now that I’ve pointed out what I see is wrong, let me tell you what I want to do. Teach people how to not only do an interview but how to use body language, verbal language, and eye contact to show their abilities. We live in a virtual communication world but at some point we need to reinforce the face to face, verbal communication process as well. With advances in technology, we will continue to use nontraditional methods for meetings and communication. However, we need to have the confidence to conduct ourselves just as we would face to face. At some point, the employee who relies on virtual communication will have to have that face to face conversation.


I have a son who’s been out of high school for a year, starting college in a few weeks and has zero communication skills. He’s intelligent, quick, and has a great sense of humor. None of these would come out in a first time interview. All anyone would ever see is a nervous kid who couldn’t possibly be competent enough to do any job. This makes me worry for him but I also wonder how many potentially great people are over looked because they don’t have the communication skills?


I have a great plan in my head. I won’t go into great deal especially since I’ve already made you read all this for no real point. My plan is set in my head. Now I have the long road ahead of me to get myself qualified to do what I want to do. After all, I will basically have to create this on my own. There’s nothing in this area that does anything like this. I have a list of to do’s and a lot of time a head of me to either come to my sense or hone my plan. Who knows though. Maybe someone else will come up with a better plan and maybe just maybe a supernova will pass over the planet, causing everyone to speak properly and carry ourselves like we have some sense.

I ran across this great blog during this week’s TT, Emma the Bookworm. I loved this idea she had with these 10 Questions. I thought they were fun and a great little Get-to-Know-you kind of thing. So let’s answer and share just for the fun of it.

1. Has reading a book ever changed your life? Which one and why, if yes? Oh yes! Several but there’s two that really stick out. First, is the Cinderella Syndrome by Lee Ezell which made me stop relying on the HEA of movies and books and look at relationships in a realistic way. Second, The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch…it gave me a reality check on what’s important and how to wake up each day and chose to be a Tigger and not an Eeyore.
2. Do you prefer to read fiction or nonfiction? Explain your choice. Tough choice. I’m a professional student (ok, not really but it feels like it) so I read a lot of textbooks. When it comes to anything about Communications and how people relate I love nonfiction. However, for fun I love nonfiction. It’s my escape from reality. My mini-vaca from the real world.
3. If you could be a character in any novel you’ve ever read, who would you be and why? That's a hard one...All of them? I really like the strong woman who is still clumsy and real. I don't like the wimpy women who have to have a man save her but I love the ones who are strong but want a man to help save her.  
4. Has reading a book ever made you cry? Which one and why? Really? I cry at OnStar commercials. There’s been so many books that have made me cry but there’s a tie for the most recent ones (well within the past year at least)…First would be the Dawn’s Light by Terrie Blackstock. I read the entire series with tears but the last book tore my heart out yet gave me so much hope for people at the same time. The Second one was the other book by Stephenie Meyer The Host. It’s a very underrated book. She has a grasp on so many things in that book. I’m not a Twilight nut…I can take it or leave it…but this book really stuck with me.
5. How many books do you read each year? My kids would say a million. Really it depends. I never count school related books into my numbers and I read a lot of those. I used to try to count so I could out do my last year total but I’ve learned to slow down and savor my books. On average I read between 30 and 50 books. I’ve found that my book taste is getting more complex and it takes me longer to read say a 1,000 page in-depth book as opposed to a 300 page PNR.
6. Have you ever written (or started to write) a book? Yep. Still doing it. I try to write every day…with several different things going at any one time.
7. Name one book you had to read but hated, and explain why you hated it. Had to read? Hmm…I can’t think of one I HAD to read other than because I have a rule that once I start a book I have to finish it (I always think bad ones will get better). A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton: I was in a PNR kick so I tried it free on my Kindle… It wasn’t my cup of tea at all. The other was The Ruins by Scott Smith Another cup of tea entirely…the movie was not much better. The first was like a porn movie gone wrong and the second was the same only for horror flicks. They both could have been so much more. Just not for me.
8. If someone wrote a book about your life, what would they title it? Memoirs of a Mad Woman or Here comes the Clowns. You just have to know my life as a mom to get that one.
9. If you could pick a book you’ve read to make into a movie, which one would you choose?  I'm one of those who prefers they NOT make a movie of my favorite books. Why? Simple...you can't take something so personal and put someone else's vision of what the words are and make it equal. I like movies but I rarely like the movies that comes from books. 
10. What was your favorite book as a child and why? The one that sticks out the most was The Wizard of Oz a guest read to my 2nd grade class. It was the first pop-up book I’d ever seen. The colors were vivid and the words that accompanied it made those dang monkeys even scarier.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read.
• Open to a random page.
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page.
• Becareful not to include spoilers! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if the like your teasers!

Here's mine:

"So that's it in a nutshell. All that I can remember, anyways, about the night I became what Grampa calls NQR, which is his pet name for Not Quite Right, which means--brain-wise--I'm not doing so hot." ~ Land of a Hundred Wonders by Lesley Kagen

Please leave a comment with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays post, or share your 2 "teasers" in a comment here (if you don't have a blog)


Thanks & happy reading!