A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

blog challenge

20 Days of Chill: What I learned in school (Day 12)

It took a long time, but I can look back and realize that I did learn quite a bit in school – but not all of it was positive.

School for me went in different levels.

  1. Elementary school/middle school: From what I can remember, it wasn’t awful. But I honestly have very foggy memories.
  2. High school: This is basically grades 9-12, and I honestly hated it. I never wanted to go to school (and only had like two absences) and was bullied. I can’t imagine living during these days with social media and the internet in regard to bullying. It would have made things way worse. I was happy when graduation day came.
  3. First college: I took a little time off and then went to the local college and it took me five semesters to get an associate’s degree. I then took five years off.
  4. Undergraduate: This is where I learned to love education. I liked my professors. I had a work-study job with the public relations department. I enjoyed my classes and I loved the area I was in. I figured out how to study, how to pay attention, and what education meant.
  5. Graduate: I enjoyed college so much, I went and earned my master’s degree the following year. It was something I truly enjoyed.
  6. Teaching: I’ve also had the chance to be an adjunct teacher. This has allowed me to see the other end of things and see what people go through not only to learn, but what it takes to help people learn. This is a very rewarding experience and I hope to do it again in the future.

It took me a long time to learn when it came to school. I would rather forget everything about high school, to be honest. But I’d go back to college without thinking twice. It was when I honestly learned about many things, including life, and made me realize that learning could be fun.

In the current days, learning is so amazing if you go to the right place. There are classes schools offer now that I would have loved to have been able to do back when. I might have enjoyed high school more if I was challenged more than just the traditional ways.

How about you? What did you learn?

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This post is part of the 2018 20 Days of Chill Writing Challenge hosted by A ‘lil HooHaa. Please check out the link if you’d like to see others or join in. You don’t have to do every theme if you don’t want! And for those participating, take a moment and check out the other participants! This is also part of the 2018 HooHaa Blogging Challenge. 

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

20 Days of Chill: All for me grog (Day 11)

It’s Monday.

And we’re moving along with the challenge. I usually do this at least once per year, and this was the perfect spot.

Here’s to a good Monday!

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This post is part of the 2018 20 Days of Chill Writing Challenge hosted by A ‘lil HooHaa. Please check out the link if you’d like to see others or join in. You don’t have to do every theme if you don’t want! And for those participating, take a moment and check out the other participants! This is also part of the 2018 HooHaa Blogging Challenge. 

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

20 Days of Chill: High, low … in, out (Day 10)

Baseball season is soon to be here, of that I am sure.

For those of you who know me and/or follow this blog at all, you know I like baseball a little.

Maybe just a wee bit.

Yes, I ‘m a baseball nerd. So much so that I tend to dive into many aspects of it. I like the nuances of being at a park and keeping a scorebook and such. A lot of times, I’ll miss something and pull out my phone and go to the MiLB app or the MLB app, depending on what game I’m at.

That’s the beauty of technology.

If you’ve ever been to a minor league park in the past couple of years, you’ll notice technology at work. Behind home plate at many parks have what looks like a mini globe, with items that look like solar panels. From what has been explained to me is that these are items that track a lot of what’s going on the field and send immediate things back to the major league team.

On top of that, teams often have anywhere from five or so cameras to more than a dozen in all different parts of a park. That gives many vantage points of things going on during the game.

A year or so ago, I spoke with a guy, who was maybe in his early 20s, getting all the cameras after the game. That was a main part of his job – putting the cameras out, getting them after, and putting things together. Think about that over a full baseball season and it seems like some of those jobs are filled by interns.

So what does all this mean? Let’s go back to the phone app.

For those of us who are baseball nerds – and there are many of us – the phone apps can be a lot of fun for discussion. Many tend to be armchair umpires and all, but it’s also just fun to be able to talk about what we saw as compared to an app. I am not sure exactly how the app works or receives its information, but it makes for interesting items to think about.

For example.

A player is up at bat, takes two pitches and has a one ball, one strike count on them. I might be curious about a pitch as maybe it looked high and inside. I can go to the app and see the flight of the pitch and where it was, as well as what type of pitch it is.

OK, it’s never going to be 100 percent accurate, but it gives you something to work with. A pitch can be high or low, in or out … and this tracker will give you a way to see.

If you are baseball nut like myself, or just wanting to learn more about games as you are attending them, this is a great way to do it.

Plus, any baseball is good baseball!

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This post is part of the 2018 20 Days of Chill Writing Challenge hosted by A ‘lil HooHaa. Please check out the link if you’d like to see others or join in. You don’t have to do every theme if you don’t want! And for those participating, take a moment and check out the other participants! This is also part of the 2018 HooHaa Blogging Challenge. 

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

20 Days of Chill: Swimming upstream (Day 9)

When I sat down to write this post for the challenge I stared at the screen.

It seemed like … forever.

Of course, it wasn’t. But it felt it. Almost like I was stuck in a virtual reality world. Could you imagine? Oh wait, no … I had South Park on.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah. I was writing up this blog post for the challenge. But therein lies the problem. When you go to write about topics like this, sometimes you are just like … WTF?

Did I really just write WTF? Oh god. There I go again. I mean, why the heck would I be putting internet text-speak into blog posts?

Who the hell does that? lol

Awww crap. (face slap)

Why would I be doing something like that? It just doesn’t make sense. After all, I’m just trying to come up with a fun and/or clever blog post for this theme and this challenge. Why would it be so hard to do that?

Just one.

A simple blog post.

One.

And it really shouldn’t be that hard, should it? I guess I could talk about fish. Maybe Swedish fish. God those are good. But I don’t really eat candy anymore (as well as candy bars, if you read yesterday’s post). But they swim. Well, not Swedish fish. Regular fish though.

Where the heck am I going with this blog post?

I think I should just stop and throw in the towel. I’ll probably need the towel after all as I feel like I am just swimming upstream …

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This post is part of the 2018 20 Days of Chill Writing Challenge hosted by A ‘lil HooHaa. Please check out the link if you’d like to see others or join in. You don’t have to do every theme if you don’t want! And for those participating, take a moment and check out the other participants! This is also part of the 2018 HooHaa Blogging Challenge. 

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

20 Days of Chill: Candy bars (Day 8)

September 30, 2017.

It was on that day that I had my last true “candy bar.” This, of course, is for health reasons. And over the Christmas holiday, I did have a few small pieces of candy.

But it’s been since September 30 since I had anything such as .. a Reese’s. Or a Snickers. Or a … oh goodness, it sounds good!

Halloween came and went and I didn’t touch even the mini candy bars.

I’ve been in stores and have seen a Reese’s peanut butter cup and I’ve thought about it, and passed.

A funny thing when it comes to doing something like this – the longer you go, the more you don’t miss these items. I know they are bad for me and until my health gets way better, I needs to stick with this. So knowing I don’t see something and want to dive in is a good thing.

It has been hard at times, though.

When it comes to “junk food,” I tend to lean toward something more like chips, pretzels etc. But there are certain candy bars that I love – Reese’s, M&Ms, Twix … maybe one or two others. Those are my favorites, though, and I haven’t even given myself a “success” treat as I’m worried if I crunch into one, it might be a downward spiral.

That being said, I don’t think this is a permanent breakup from candy bars. As I continue my path of better and healthier habits, I’m sure I will have a treat here and there. It will probably be a while though, as I know I have been way better without these in my diet.

In the past, I’ve done this with soda. In fact, I’ve done it several times. And each time, I get better and better with the aftermath. Basically, now, I’m down to about one (diet) soda per week. I’ve found that my body appreciates the fact that I am more into water and the diet (or Crystal Light) iced teas.

This whole journey of making myself healthier isn’t something that is done in a day, a week, month, or even a year. It’s a lifetime and I know I just have to keep improving and doing the right thing.

And if that means without candy bars, I’m OK with it.

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This post is part of the 2018 20 Days of Chill Writing Challenge hosted by A ‘lil HooHaa. Please check out the link if you’d like to see others or join in. You don’t have to do every theme if you don’t want! And for those participating, take a moment and check out the other participants! This is also part of the 2018 HooHaa Blogging Challenge. 

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!