I cannot tell you exactly what the topic was, but I can tell you that this speaker on this day said “um,” “uh,” and “so” a lot! This stood out to me not as a critique, but as a reminder. I thought about my time as a member of Toastmasters International, an organization for public speakers who want to improve their skills. One of the many forms of training we received was how to minimize and ultimately eliminate filler words such as “um,” “ah,” “so,” and “uh.” We tend to use them to fill in the Continue Reading
The Door Will Be Closing
There we were waiting on the platform in New York City when the subway train we needed pulled up. As the door opened I could hear the automated lady’s voice warn us saying something to the tune of “the doors will be closing… the doors will be closing…” And guess what happened after some designated amount of time? Yep… the doors closed. The only problem for the two of us was I was on the train and my husband was still on the platform! We locked eyes as I glided by aboard and he stood there Continue Reading
Talk About Grace
One day, I received a mind boggling email informing me that my daughter’s latest math assessment had been graded and recorded as a 48%--an F!! I emailed the teacher asking her for any advice or direction she may have to give. I told her we were doing all we knew to do at home, but clearly Gabrielle needs more support in math given how poorly she performed on this assessment. The teacher responded to my email with the following: “She actually did very well she just didn’t do the back at Continue Reading