In Fall 2013, I was assigned to teach cs4414: Operating Systems, a course that is required for our BS Computer Engineering and BS Computer Science (and taken by about half of our BA Computer Science students as an elective). I had never taught operating systems before, or for that matter, even taken an operating systems course at any level1, so didn't have much idea what should be in such a course.
This was my first chance to teach a real course since my experience teaching and helping develop MOOCs at Udacity. I'd been asked many times by reporters how my experience teaching open on-line courses would change my in-classroom teaching, and never had a very good answer to this at the time. I didn't have much of an idea in starting this course, but did have a perspective that led me to question many aspects of traditional courses that are typically taken for granted.
Courses where students build a simple operating system.
Courses where students learn about low-level programming and build robust and scalable systems, but don't build an operating system.
The first type of course has a clear and estimable goal: provide students with a deep understanding of low-level aspects of computing systems by building their own OS kernel. This is typically done using some kind of processor emulator such as Nachos and with some code provided. Exemplars of this type of course include MIT's 6.828: Operating System Engineering, Yale's CS422/522: Operating Systems, Princeton's COS381: Operating Systems, and Harvard's cs161: Operating Systems course taught by Margo Seltzer (2013) and Matt Welsh (2007) (famously featured in The Social Network). Since building an operating system is a fairly huge undertaking, such courses typically involve teams that work together for the full semester and require survival guides.
A variation is to not attempt to build a full simple OS, but to instead make modifications to an existing OS. For example, University of Washington's CSE 451: Introduction to Operating Systems uses a sequence of projects where students modify a Linux kernel. Such courses are great for providing deep understanding of operating systems, and this type of actual OS hacking is probably needed to gain a strong understanding of how operating systems really work at a low level.
The second type of course is often still called "Operating Systems", but is better named "Systems Programming" or something like this. Exemplars of this type of course include CMU's 15-213: Introduction to Computing Systems (and the excellent associated textbook], MIT's 6.033: Computer Systems Engineering and Penn State's CMPSC311: Introduction to Systems Programming. The goal of these courses is to teach students what they need to know to build robust and scalable computing systems, as well as the most interesting intellectual ideas from operating systems. Such a goal is less well-defined than the goal for the first type of course, but more relevant to the vast majority of students than the first type of course. Very few people will ever actually write or work on an OS kernel today, but all programmers need to understand low-level aspects of computing systems if they want to build efficient, scalable, and robust computing systems.
I believe there is a great case for offering a core Operating Systems course of the first type and encouraging interested students to take such a course as an elective. When an "Operating Systems" course is required for all students (which is the case for two of the three computing majors our department offers), though, it seems better to me to focus on the more broadly-applicable aspects of building scalable and robust computing systems. Everyone benefits from learning these, and the benefit-suffering ratio should be much better than in classes where students focus on building an operating system.
Perhaps the most controversial decision I made was to use the Rust programming language as the main language for course assignments. The jury is still out on whether or not this was a good decision in the long term. I've written up more about this in a separate post.
The problem with most university classes is they are too big to provide students with the individualized attention and flexibility that maximizes learning, but too small to provide the economies of scale needed to develop really high quality teaching materials and to engender substantial student contributions.
The amount of teacher attention per student drops as the class size increases, but the resources that can be put into developing quality teaching materials increases with the number of students, and most importantly, the value of student contributions increases dramatically (both because there are more students, and each student has more incentive to put effort into major contributions). Unfortunately, most University classes fall in the "trough of mediocrity", with 20-150 students.
Despite the problematic class size (for Fall 2013, cs4414's enrollment was 65 students), I tried to avoid the trough of mediocrity by (1) assuming the effort invested in developing the course would be amortized over more than just the students in this semester's course, and (2) finding ways to provide a flexible and individualized experience even in a fairly large class.
I've always spent a ridiculous amount of time preparing lectures, at least compared to what most faculty do and what is typically recommended.2 I feel like it takes me at least 10 hours to prepare a decent lecture, and often 2-3 times that to prepare a good one (the preparation time is a bit more for topics that I don't initially know much about, which is the case for much of this course, but I find it is often harder to produce a good lecture about something I already know well than about something I am figuring out myself as part of developing the lecture). This means that in a semester where I am preparing a new class, developing the lectures is taking up the majority of my time.
Although I might want to do this anyway since I enjoy it (especially when I'm learning about new and interesting things) and take personal pride in it, it would be very hard to justify this investment for just this semester's class. That's not to say it isn't worth trying to make lectures good even for a small class, but in a "trough of mediocrity" size class, instead of spending ~30 hours a week developing the two lectures, I could meet with each student individually for 20-30 minutes each week, which I hope would be more useful for most students than sitting in 2.5 hours of lectures (even if I hope they are good ones).
The way to justify putting a lot of effort into developing lectures for the classes, is to view it as a more generally valuable resource that will be useful to me in future semester, and will hopefully also be useful to many people who are not in my class. Although our department is notoriously fickle in scheduling classes and unwilling to plan more than a semester ahead, I did get an agreement that I would get to teach the course at least one more time before starting this year's course. Reusing a prepared lecture still requires effort, both to improve and update the content and to refresh my memory about what to talk about, but much less effort than it takes to build a new lecture from scratch.
The better way to amorotize effort in producing course materials is to make them open so people outside the class can also access them.3 This is more likely to be useful if the material covered is different form what many other courses have covered before, and if lectures and notes can be released in a way that makes then useful on their own. I wasn't able to do this for all the classes this semester (and have plans to make things more useful externally next semester), but nevertheless did manage to produce materials with some external impact. Its hard to measure this definitively, but according to the SlideShare stats, several of the lecture slides have been viewed by over a thousand people including the lectures on Rust (SlideShare page), processes (SlideShare page), trust (SlideShare page), synchronization (SlideShare page), and my personal favorite, Inventing the Future (SlideShare page).
The biggest challenge for larger classes is to still provide a sufficiently individualized experience for the class to be valuable for most students. Even in a curriculum with set prerequisites, students enter classes with very different backgrounds and aptitudes, and even more different interests and goals.
Providing Alternatives. Since this course is required for two of our majors, a large fraction of students are taking the course merely because it is required to satisfy a graduation requirement (about 20 out of 65 students gave this as the main reason for taking the course on the initial course survey). I don't really think this course should be required, so wanted to give students who felt their personal goals were not well aligned with mine an opportunity to do something different. I explained this in Class 5, and even made it a question on the midterm, but no one asked to take advantage of it. I'm not sure if this is because everyone thought their goals aligned well with what I was doing in the class, or because students realized coming up with a good alternative would be more work than doing the course as prescribed, but at least felt that by providing the option gave me some more justifiable freedom in designing the class.
Open-Ended Assignments. One way to individualize a class is to provide more flexible assignments. The challenge in doing this for a larger class is maintaining consistent grading (I'll talk more about grading below) and providing enough guidance for individual (or small team) projects despite the medium-sized class. We did that this semester by leaving it mostly up to students to decide what extensions to do at the end of the two main problem sets: Problem Set 2 is about implementing a shell and included a couple creative exercises and a final problem to implement extensions chosen by the students; Problem Set 3 is about implemeting a multi-process web server, and left it for students to make most of the major design decisions (given a starting framework), and to extend or improve the performance of their server however they could. I think these could have benefitted from a bit more structure, in particular in how performance is measured, so plan next semester to release the most (if not all) of the benchmarking tests as part of the assignment.
The final project was completely open, and students could do whatever they wanted in teams of any size so long as they could convince me it would be worthwhile and satisfy at least two of the goals of the project (fun, relevant, technically interesting, and useful). There were only a few teams that had hard times finding fulfilling projects.
I met with each project team twice during the course of the 5-week project (scheduling meetings using ohours.org). This took a lot of time, but I think was worthwhile, and most groups ended up doing projects that I thought were worthwhile, and some did things I thought were spectacular (including one team that built an ARM kernel in Rust which I hope to use for a new assignment in the next class)!
I tried using Piazza for course discussion. This was my first experience using Piazza, and there were some things I really liked about it, but other things that are quite unsatisfactory. A major problem is that it is closed by nature. There is no way to share discussions with people unless they register for the Piazza course site. It is also not very effective at encouraging useful class discussions, and has no easy way to link discussions in Piazza to course content.
The only topics that ended up getting semi-reasonable discussion were questions from problem sets where students were required to post something in the forum. The forum did work fairly well for students getting answers to technical questions, and we benefited greatly from participation in the course forums from some Rust experts who were not students in the class. Piazza does have some easy-to-use polling features which I used a few times during the semester, which I think worked okay but not great. To be fair, I don't know of anything that works better, and I don't know of anyway to have a very effective course discussion forum without having several thousand active students. I'm not sure how much of this is a technology problem, but there are some important technology-support features needed for good discussions that no tool I know of supports well.
The usual reason given for not scaling courses is the difficult in grading a large number of students. From what I see, most CS courses put far too much effort into grading, and most of that effort could be much better invested in teaching.
To provide (hopefully) useful feedback to students.
To assess how well the course is going and how well students (as a group) are understanding key ideas.
To provide motivation to individual students, who might otherwise not be inclined to spend time on the course.
To measure student performance and have data for assigning final grades.
Of these reasons, #1 is very important and essential to actual learning in many cases. But, assigning detailed scores for each question doesn't provide any useful feedback. Providing written feedback on code or answers can be useful. This can require a huge amount of effort to do well, and it is often demoralizing to discover later that most students are not actually reading these comments. More commonly, students do read them but not necessarily understand them, and it is pretty rare for a student to come to office hours to ask about comments on an old assignment. So, I decided it was more useful to spend the time I would normally spend on providing written feedback in having in-person post-assignment meetings (these were called "demos", but that's probably a misnomer, since they were mostly about asking students to explain how they did something and why, and following up with questions about whether other options would be better and how they would do things differently if there were other requirements, etc.) The time was fairly tight for these (15-20 minutes for each team), but I think it was enough to be more valuable than spending far more time on written feedback.
In addition to the in-person demos, students submited a web form with some questions about the assignment, as well as assessments to indicate whether they were able to solve each main problem. Having students self-grade this seemed to work well, and since they had follow-up demos, even without relying fully on the honor system I think there were sufficient incentives for students to answer them honestly (and I'm not aware of any instances where students claimed to have solved a problem they didn't at least appear to solve). The submitted forms provided a useful basis for structuring the demo, and I could quickly read through the submissions at the beginning of a team's demo and follow-up on any interesting answers.
This way of doing grading scaled well to a 65-person class, and can probably work for a somewhat larger class, but I'm expecting to need to do things a bit differently next semester (with around 115 students).
This made it feasible for me to grade all 65 exams in a reasonable amount of time, while still providing grades that were either fair or generous to students. I don't know of anyone else who uses such a grading scheme, but I strongly encourage it. I think most faculty feel there is some kind of moral obligation to at least superficially grade everything students do on an exam, but its hard for me to see why this is necessary.
I don't think courses should be designed to emphasize #4 (grading for the sole purpose of sorting students), especially courses mostly taken by third-year and higher students. Providing more precise grading matters a lot in first and second year classes, since these are the prerequisites for later course, and are courses where students benefit from clear signals if they are in the right major for them. By the time students are in 4000-level classes, though, they have mostly decided on their major, and the difference between getting an A- or B+ or between a B- and a C+ should be very minimal. It only really matters for helping second-rate companies who are not able to hire the best students more efficiently determine which students to interview, and I don't think its really up to us to do that. Much better to spend time on teaching, and on providing ways for students do things that will help them get jobs at first-rate companies or succeed in graduate school.
I am, of course, not the least biased judge of how the course went, but I was reasonably happy with how things worked out for a first run of a brand new course. For a more balanced view, you can read the student's course evaluations.
There were definitely places were things were not as well prepared as they should have been, especially with Problem Set 2 (which initially included a problem that was effectively impossible) and Problem Set 3 (which I think mostly worked okay, but was delayed because of problems getting it ready and didn't provide some starting code it should have). My attempts to make up for lack of assignments with low-level kernel hacking by looking in-depth at the Linux source code in class didn't work for most students, and I think we should have done some more concrete things with lower-level implementation issues.
I enjoyed the demo-based grading a lot, and from what I've heard, most students found it worthwhile (although for some, a bit nerve-racking, even though demos were designed to be low-pressure). Since the course size for the next semester will be about double the 65 students in the first course, I won't be able to do all the demos and project meetings myself, but will need to find a way to distribute this effort.
I'd like to thank my spectacular assistants, Weilin Xu and Purnam Jantrania, who did much of the work in creating the assignments, and provided a great deal of help to students throughout the course. I'd also like to sincerely thank all the students who were brave enough to stick with an experimental and unusual course, and especially the many who made great contributions to the class. I'd also like to thank the contributors from outside the class, especially Corey Richardson and Huon Wilson, Rust experts to answered many student questions in our course forum and in the #rust IRC.
Please feel free to comment with your identify or anonymously below, or to email me directly to follow-up on any of the comments here. I'm especially happy to get comments from any students in the course who might disagree with my take on things.


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12/18/2020 • 2:28 PM 0
Season One of This Plague of Days (ebook) will be discounted to 99¢ for one day only, Saturday, December 19!
"This is like reading World War Z…hooks you from the beginning and you can't stop reading!" ~ Armand Rosamilia, Author of the Dying Days
Jaimie Spencer is a boy on the spectrum caught in a fight for survival as the Sutr virus spreads across the globe. The inexorable mind virus brings civilization as we know it to an end. The war for the future has begun and the greater numbers are on the side of the infected.
To save the world, Jaime will have to save his family first.
Please spread the word:
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06/17/2014 • 8:27 AM 1
Guest Post: Ian McClellan's One Undead Step
Today, as part of the Summer of Zombie 2014 Blog Tour, we get a peek at Ian McClellan's work:
Many people know that the 1969 moon landing was faked, but are unaware of the actual circumstances surrounding the event. Find out how the United States faked the moon landing to avert the zombie apocalypse as the lives of a disgraced B-movie director, a bar owner, some drunks, an Army Ranger unit, a bunch of gangsters, an affluent but very dysfunctional family, and a few cops come together in One Undead Step.
Just one year after George Romero shocked the world with his masterpiece Night of the Living Dead, a small city in the Midwest is rocked by grisly, random killings, the gory details of which are only known through hushed whispers and secondhand rumors. The government presence that makes the populace all the more nervous is unable to contain the impending threat that grows out of control on a hot, humid night in Mid-July. As the city's residents barricade their doors and fight for their lives, the American Military rushes to make a film about two men landing a small spacecraft on the moon. Will their plan work? Will the infection spread throughout the rest of the country? Will it be enough to save the world from the burgeoning threat of the undead? Find out as an evil man finds redemption, some special forces soldiers choose between their mission and their duty, a young couple finds a forbidden love, an older couple reignites their passion, and a bartender gets stiffed for a lot of drinks in One Undead Step.
One Undead Step contains some bad language, many scenes of violence and gore, and a graphic but oddly amusing sex scene.
One Undead Step: A Zombie Novel
Ian McClellan
Excerpt (Explicit language follows.)
1. On the Set
Christ, Mark Mathews thought to himself, how the hell did I ever get myself into this mess?
Drugs and statutory rape, his know-it-all subconscious answered. Mark was a fun guy, but his subconscious was kind of a blunt asshole. Of course it was right. If he hadn't gotten obliterated that night and slept with that sixteen year old girl he wouldn't be on a poorly constructed set on a military base in Nevada filming the greatest hoax in history with a bunch of guys who may be able to shoot rifles really well, but were total amateurs when it came to making movies.
When the detectives came to arrest him they'd found a smorgasbord of drugs in his home. Pot, uppers, downers, cocaine, L.S.D., mushrooms, and even some heroin. He never touched the smack, but there was a girl who came by from time to time who loved the stuff, and she made it worth his while to always keep a little on hand. The cops knew about the drugs. They knew about the parties, too. A successful b-movie director could get away with a lot in Hollywood, but you had to be A-list with a capital A to go deflowering underage girls and not see the inside of a prison.
It had been a typical hot and sunny summer day in southern California when the police came to his door. The two detectives in their cheap, off-the-rack suits and ties were sweating bullets, as were the officers donned in dark, city-issued uniforms who'd accompanied them. Mark had begged and pleaded with them and tried to state his case. "I'm not a bad guy, really. I just like to have a little fun. Who doesn't? How the hell was I supposed to know that little slut was only sixteen? She had no business being at that party. You guys oughtta go arrest her parents!" He was told to tell it to the judge. He should have seen that one coming- he'd thrown the old cliché into a couple of his movies.
Bribery didn't work, either. "Look, I've got ten grand in a bag upstairs. Take it. There's more where that came from." The detectives exchanged odd smiles that Mark would come to understand later, but they didn't bite on his offer. What they did do was handcuff him and take him downtown in the back of a police car.
Mark was thinking of that car ride- the only time he'd ever been in the back of a police car- and how frightened and humiliated he was at the time, when something on the set got his attention.
"That's one tiny step for a man…" the one fellow was saying. Nick or Neil or whatever the hell his name was. The one who just had to be the star despite the fact that he couldn't take direction for shit. He just had to be the first one out. He just had to have the big line in the script. Of course he wanted it so badly, but couldn't say it right for all the whiskey in Ireland.
Mark rubbed his temples and looked back beyond the "lunar module" that the fellow had just stepped out of. There was a hand emerging from one of the craters. His first thought was that it was some drunk key grip or janitor (it happens more than you'd think) until his brain registered the decay of the skin. "Christ Almighty!" he yelled. "Cut! Cut, God damn it. One of those fucking things is in here. Is this a military base or a fucking public library?"
A young man with a rifle ran up and shot the zombie between the eyes as it was hoisting itself out of the crater. It fell back in the hole and landed with a thud. He got on a radio and informed someone of a 'security breach' that was now 'code eleven' which Mark assumed meant that its brains were now scattered all over his set.
"Get that shit cleaned off my set," Mark told his assistant as he rubbed his temples. "And get me a damn drink."
About the author: Ian McClellan was born in a small harbor town in southwest Ireland. In an effort to be cliché his parents moved the family to New York when he was thirteen. Once a promising up-and-comer in the world of competitive eating, his career was cut short by an ACL injury. He now resides in Florida with his dogs and drives a truck for a living, but is crossing his fingers and hoping his writing career will earn him enough money that he can tell his boss where to stick it.
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The stench of rotting flesh is in the air! Welcome to the Summer of Zombie Blog Tour 2014, with 33 of the best zombie authors spreading the disease in the month of June.
Stop by the event page on Facebook so you don't miss an interview, guest post or teaser… and pick up some great swag as well! Giveaways galore from most of the authors as well as interaction with them! #SummerZombie
https://www.facebook.com/events/286215754875261/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular&source=1
AND so you don't miss any of the posts in June, here's the complete list, updated daily:
http://armandrosamilia.com/2014/06/01/summer-of-zombie-blog-tour-2014-post-links/
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Writer's A, B, C: Free tools for finding happy new readers
1. Anonymity is the problem.
2. Discoverability is the issue.
3. Being broke is the obstacle.
4. Prolificacy is the strategy.
5. Generosity is the solution.
Today, I'll give you three strategies I'm using to sell more books. First, there's this:
This book of suspense is FREE until midnight, March 7, 2014. Have a look, if only to read my favorite three-star review of all time. You might also enjoy it so see for yourself.
Okay, we all know we can do giveaways to increase our visibility by lowering the risk to new readers, but how to promote it? Here's what I'm doing:
A. Stop ignoring Facebook groups.
I didn't mean to ignore anyone. In fact, I'm quite active on Facebook and have made new friends there. After the release of a new book, there's often a flurry of new friend requests and it's great fun to interact with readers there because they're enthused and friendly.
Over time, I've joined several relevant Facebook groups. If I had a spare moment (more rare these days) I'd lurk more than I'd participate. Mostly, I'd concentrate on the main news feed. That's what draws the eye. However, there are plenty of groups to join where you can connect with like-minded people. I'm paying more attention now, making new friends and finding potential readers there.
B. I'm using Wattpad.
It's a free platform for interaction, improvement, encouragement, feedback, sharing and promotion. Best of all, writers are welcome. Wattpad is not new, but I've pretty much been ignoring it. That stops now. It could be a great addition to your platform, too.
Several authors I've spoken to have not felt that Wattpad led to conversions. However, like me, they weren't really active on the site nor did they promote it. To build an audience for the long-term, go where the readers are. Since these readers are also writers, you can expect respect there. It's a friendly atmosphere.
So, for instance, you can get a sneak peek at my new book now. It doesn't come out until spring, but I've put up the first chapter (The Prelude) of Season Three on Wattpad. It's not for the faint of heart. Click here to get the link to see the big opening and you'll also find out what Batman has to do with the apocalypse.
Wattpad's membership is young and vibrant. I joined early but I wasn't over there enough. I'm paying better attention now and encouraging my readers, new and old, to get that free sample there. But remember, it's a social platform. Follow people. Read their stuff. Interact. If you find yourself having fun, congratulations. You've just discovered another social medium that's for you.
I plan to use Wattpad for developing book ideas and finding new authors to read. It would be fun to write short stories as prequels and sequels. Best of all for me and for readers, I'm interested in writing more stories within the worlds I create.
For instance, This Plague of Days takes place across continents. It's a vast and sweeping story of the fall of our civilization. Beyond the books, there are many facets I couldn't tell within the stream of the serial. I'd like to try out Wattpad for stories about minor characters. What happened to Brandy before Jack finds her at the opening of Season 2? What happened at the Joint Air Base in Charleston, before we get to it in Season 3 of This Plague of Days? Stories like that are fun and lead new readers back to all the work you're selling. (Mental note: Write more books.)
But Chazz, I hate free. Free is evil.
Pre-sold readers are the best audience for any work. Free short stories are a powerful way to find them. If you hate free, write them on Wattpad and, when you're ready, delete them from Wattpad. Then put your book up for sale as you normally would. That way, your work is doing more work for you while you're creating it! You might even get valuable feedback through the process as you gain new potential readers for the rest of your books. Considering all that, do you still hate free?
C. Find your audience with more coopetition.
Horror authors Armand Rosamilia and Tim Baker put their talents together in a scary pack two novellas for only 99 cents. Click here to check out Dying Days: Siege 1 and 2. Working together, these guys are louder and reach more readers. That statement about being loud is also affirmed by their weekly radio show, Friday Night Writes. See you in the forum there tonight. Don't forget to tune in at 8 pm EST. (I use the TuneIn app so you can listen to Surf 17 in Flagler Beach, Florida no matter where you are.)
Next logical question:
Got a novella or some short stories? Who are you going to team up with so you and another author or authors can get more visible?
Triberr is free, too.
I've already suggested Triberr as a way for authors to promote each other more effectively and systematically. This week I was invited to join a new tribe that targeted my readers. It's a good fit because the niche is more specific and my tribe mates are all really strong bloggers.
This is coopetition (a phrase coined by author Joanna Penn, I believe.) The bloggers with whom I'm cross-promoting share similar interests so, as we tweet together, we expand our reach. Blogs generally aren't very powerful tools, but Triberr is a fulcrum to gain leverage.
Do it right.
Lately I've noticed that a few "gurus" in the business are coming off…well…a tad dickish. "Prideful" my Baptist minister grandfather would say. The barrage of narcissism is off-putting and surely hurting them in the long run. I'm worried they might break their arms clapping themselves on the back that hard. That's why this is such a great time to be generous and humble.
This isn't about cheap marketing strategies. It's an attitude that will make you happier. It's about being the sort of person who elevates their circumstance by helping others instead of stomping them down and standing on their necks. To quote Patrick Swayze as Dalton from Roadhouse (again!), "It's nice to be nice."
Better Twitter.
Every day I scan my Twitter stream for people doing cool stuff. It might be an enthusiastic book review or a factoid or a joke. I don't care what it is as long as it's cool, fun or helpful. Retweet freely. Too often, I think we're looking at Twitter's "Interactions" stream. That's a mirror. Look out the window instead. Look at what other people are doing and promote them to your followers to expand your view and your visibility. Your followers will appreciate the curation effort and you'll have more fun with Twitter.
I've also made a conscious effort to go find new cool people I want to get to know. How do we find cool readers who are hot for our work? Hashtags are search handles. Use key words to find and follow avid readers of your genre. Active is faster than passive.
By sharing more, we all get to eat and have a more enjoyable meal.
~ You read all the way down here? Oh, Sweetie, Baby, Cookie, Honey! For your endurance alone, you deserve Murders Among Dead Trees by Robert Chazz Chute. Click!
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What we aren't reading that might help our writing most
On sale now for a mere 0.99 cents. Click away!
"Poetry: the best words in the best order."
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
How does poetry help your prose? Why is poetry still important even though so few people buy it? Here's why:
1. To paraphrase comedian Greg Proops: "Because George Bush and Dick Cheney. That's why." Poetry is a salve for our minds and times.
2. To take off on the Coleridge quote: Poetry is the least words in the best order. Capture a scene with fewer brush strokes and the reader will appreciate the efficiency of your storytelling.
3. From "A Late Walk" by Robert Frost:
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words.
To capture images with imaginative language that illuminates the scene in the reader's mind, practice by reading and writing more poetry. So much prose is linear to the point of telegraphic minimalism. I love a spare writing style, too, but there's room for art as long as the story remains unobscured. The point is not to make the reader work harder to see the picture you're painting, but to grasp it all in a pleasing way. Many readers won't notice how you're doing it, but they'll feel what you're doing. Prose shows, true, but poetry engages.
4. I have a penchant for dark poetry. It's fun and I found a way to integrate it into my zombie apocalypse. Sure that sounds insane, sure, but here's what I did:
All the chapter titles in This Plague of Days make up a long, dark poem with clues to the plot. There's a secret in This Plague of Days no one has yet guessed. I've offered to name characters after the first three people who guess right. So far, the secret remains undiscovered. (To see the entire poem for each season, you can find all the verses in the paperbacks. In the ebooks, search "Table of Contents". If you care to guess, DM me on twitter @rchazzchute and keep the secret so Season 3 remains spoiler-free.) Here's a piece:
Miles away in the Last Cafe,
We count every cost, each rueful day,
But knowing will not lessen the surprise
when you see the truth beneath the guise.
The puzzle is not Death, but Life Neverlasting.
The answer is under the stars and moon shadows casting
Now in paperback!
Light, revelation and fearful truth
The stuff of old age and disappointed youth.
In dreams we find the connection to what will last,
what won't survive and what's best left in the past.
~ from Season 2, Episode 2 of This Plague of Days
5. Read poetry for the pure love of language.
The more you read, the more sensitive you become to the sound of rhyme and the beat of meter. Power lies where the syllables fall and ring. Poetry doesn't have to be dense, flowery or meaning-adjacent, communicating only by approximation. Poetry's gift is in its precision. Poets choose their words carefully. Writers of prose can, and should, choose their words carefully, too. Do it right and even a grisly dismemberment can reach high lyricism.
6. Play with words because it's fun. Unless you insist, poetry doesn't have to rhyme.
Work it right and find the time
to light up your readers' minds.
With a little poetry to your prose,
fans will love the words you chose.
7. Poetry doesn't have to be dusty and academic.
Check out a poetry slam on YouTube sometime. You'll see, hear and feel raw emotion communicating points and pictures. When I want to hear a modern poet who writes imaginative rhymes that fit together, tight and smooth as puzzle pieces, I listen to Eminem rap.
That's the sort of poetry that still sells, but I love it all no less.
~ Robert Chazz Chute is the author of a bunch of horror, a couple of crime novels (so far) and a lot of suspense. To check out all his books (many of which are on sale now, awaiting your anxious clicks and happy reviews), find them all here. For his podcasts, check out AllThatChazz.com and CoolPeoplePodcast.com. For more on This Plague Of Days, go to ThisPlagueOfDays.com.
Filed under: Poetry, writing tips, Comedian Greg Proops, Eminem, Greg Proops, poetry, poetry slams, poets, prose, publishing, rap, Robert Chazz Chute, Robert Frost, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the little book of braingasms, This Plague of Days, writers, writing, zombie apocalypse, zombies
Ebook pricing, free promotions and you
The complete first season is FREE for two days. Click now.
Generosity feels great and, in this incarnation of the book business, generosity is a marketing strategy if done right. Today, a giveaway and a case study in real time. (If you don't know anything about This Plague of Days, check out ThisPlagueOfDays.com for sneak peeks.)
I released This Plague of Days, Season 1 as a serial. There were many reasons for doing it this way. I wrote it like a television mini-series and serialization opens up marketing opportunities. On the first day of Season One, I published the complete first season and Episode 1. Four more episodes followed each Monday. The episodes sold for 99 cents each or readers could get the whole season for $3.99.
For my initial giveaway, I put the first episode up for free for two days. I don't believe in long promotions. By the time you're done more than two days, you've exhausted your connections and momentum slows. I gave away about 1500 downloads of Episode 1 and stayed at the top of the Post-apocalyptic and Dystopian charts on the free side of Amazon for those two days. It's really exciting sitting at #1 and #2 beside Hugh Howey.
An interesting thing happened next:
A bunch of readers liked Episode 1 but they stuck with the individual episodes. I watched my dashboard charts light up green with sales of Episodes 2, 3, 4 and 5 as people who got Episode 1 for free worked their way through the serial. The complete book of the season sold a bit, too, (at $3.99) but it seemed for readers to jump from episodes to the season at once, the discount would have had to be even deeper.
Pros and Cons of This Strategy
Pro: I gained a bunch of reviews for This Plague Of Days. Most readers dug it.
Con: Readers of Episode 1 only see the dad is an atheist and they may not stick around for the sweep of the story's longer arc. The atheist dad has doubts about his lack of belief and his religious wife has doubts about her faith. I don't dump it all in Episode 1 so, with serialization, you get judged by what you lead with. I'm not complaining. If you do something similar to what I'm doing, stay true to your vision, but don't expect everyone to wait patiently for the payoffs later on. I have secret seeds planted in Season One that don't bloom until Season Three.
Con: You'll always get your worst reviews from free promotions.
Con: Some people who click free will never click "buy". (Actually, that's unfortunate, but it's not really a "con" per se. I mention it because I anticipate resistance to these tactics. However, it's not a true deficit in that it's mostly irrelevant. These readers aren't in my long-term equation for the same reasons the cobalt industry, Cadillac and Vera Wang don't target me as a customer. Just as I'll never be in those businesses' target demographics, I'm hunting for converts, not free book shelvers.
Pro: All those downloads got me Also-bought listings and Amazon started selling the book for me with their mailing list. That's a major plus on the brand visibility side of the argument.
Pro: As summer sales of Season One ebbed, I saw the momentum from July evaporate. I did what few say makes sense. I put the price up to $4.99. No one's buying the episodes now, but they are buying the complete first season at the higher price. That could indicate that Season One was underpriced. Probably, but as I'll argue below, that's okay. I'm in this for the long-term. Discoverability is more important than sales for now.
What I'm doing differently for Season Two
In This Plague of Days, I'm trying to give a B movie an A treatment. To get traction for an unknown serial aimed at a smart crowd in an unfamiliar format, I think the starting price was fair and good for Season One. If you didn't jump aboard before, for two days only, Season One of This Plague of Days is free to download on September 18 and 19th. (If you love it, please review it.) Season Two will also have some bonus material in the back.
Why give away an entire book? Isn't that evil and the death of literature?
Season One is the gateway drug to Season Two and, for two days only, the first taste is free.
I'm using Freebooksy and Bookbub to let the world know. This publicity does cost money, potentially a few nasty reviews and maybe I'm leaving money on the table. However, it will get my name and Season One into the hands of at least 5,000 people. (If that doesn't sound like much to you, consider that 5,000 paid sales equals a bestseller in Canada. I expect to hit #1 and #2 again and have some sales momentum behind me as I slide into the October launch of Season Two. This is marketing as an exercise in delayed gratification. I'll sell more of Season Two because I'll get more readers in on the ground floor of the serial. Besides, it's a one-time only sale. Most readers will find the cash for the full price under their couch cushions, so let's not get too dramatic about the losses or gains.
To put it another way, a la Seth Godin, "Too many people are reading my free ebook is not a problem" (as long as there are other books to sell.) To paraphrase author Cory Doctorow, Free isn't my problem, "obscurity is my problem." And finally, I quote myself for emphasis, "Generosity feels great…(and) discoverability is more important than sales for now."
Season 2 launches Oct 1.
The Rationale: Season Two of This Plague of Days launches in a couple of weeks.
The story and the virus evolve together. This time out, TPOD has a different pace. Season One was like a television serial. Season Two is the action movie. It gets more paranormal and it's loaded with surprises, chills and blood spills. Expect new villains and more twists from Ireland to Iceland to the Indianapolis Speedway. You'll see the invasion of New York, the Midwest and the terrible events at Canada's border with Michigan. It'll sell for $4.99 this fall. In a month or so I'll do a giveaway of Season Two, Episode 1 only.
Eventually I'll put This Plague Of Days across more platforms and go for a price match so Episode 1 of Season One will be perma-free. I'll experiment with price points, but the complete Season Two will never go free. The law of diminishing returns kicks in if you're trying to get people to jump into the middle. (Ironically, you could jump straight into Season Two without reading Season One and you wouldn't be lost at all. However, people don't believe that. I never got into Ally McBeal because I missed the first episode.)
About Audiences
People who love zombies were very patient with Season One. The zombies don't show up immediately but the dread keeps rising so I guess the suspense satisfied them until the heavier horror kicked in. They don't have to wait for any action in Season Two, so I expect this phase of TPOD will go big all the way to Christmas (especially as other promotions kick in.)
The other thing that surprised me was how readers with family connections to autism, developmental delays and handicaps responded to the story. The protagonist is on the spectrum and those readers enjoyed seeing the world through his eyes. It's not a long screed (and certainly punchier than this post) but those readers responded well to discussions of what it's like to be the parent of an autistic kid. The family loves Jaimie, but they don't romanticize his disabilities and his sister treats him like a normal kid treats a sibling who is often difficult to live with.
About Price Resistance
Selling episodes at 99 cents with 30% to me won't keep me in cat food, but it did help with visibility. I gather those who started buying episodes in Season One will mostly choose to get the complete second season so they can find out right away what happens to the Spencer family and the British refugees.
It seems the greatest resistance to price increases lay not with the readers, but with yours truly. More readers are discovering my books at higher price points. I guess those higher prices make them confidant I know what I'm doing. So, while I'm still advocating short-term discount promotions, the trend with all my book prices is for them to climb. Done right, with a giveaway of sufficient numbers, free can still work. If I thought I could get more traction on other platforms, I'd try a different strategy. However, regarding promotion, it appears the other platforms are still lacking.
If you're reading this on September 18 or 19th, 2013,
grab your free copy of the complete first Season of This Plague of Days here.
And please tell a friend. Thanks!
Dystopian Braingasm: For word nerds and horror readers who love autistic heroes (chazzwrites.com)
What happened to your city in This Plague of Days? (thisplagueofdays.com)
FAQs: How to write books agents will hate (but readers might love) (chazzwrites.com)
Writing Against the Grain: B Movies. A Treatments and the Deceptive Familiar (thisplagueofdays.com)
Filed under: author platform, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, Amazon, book marketing, book pricing strategies, BookBub, Cory Doctorow, dystopian, ebooks, entertainment, horror, Hugh Howey, indie, Marketing, Plague of Days, publicity, Robert Chazz Chute, seth godin, zombie apocalypse, zombies
07/31/2013 • 12:48 PM 7
Dystopian Braingasm: For word nerds and horror readers who love autistic heroes
Click it to grab it free before midnight tomorrow night!
It's time to glimpse your future. The plague is coming. The pandemic will hit us in waves. One strange boy with hidden talents will determine whether this is the end of the world or the just the end of the world as we know it.
Get Episode One of This Plague of Days free until midnight tomorrow night.
Horror lovers have plenty of surprises ahead with this dystopian serial. The infected are not what you expect and the heroes and villains of this zombie apocalypse are like nothing you've experienced.
Jaimie Spencer is a selective mute on the autistic spectrum. Read Episode One for free now and find out why parents of autistic children love This Plague of Days.
A savage virus spreads around the globe and society collapses. In Britain, the story has the flavor of the international thriller. In America's heartland, you'll see what happens when the Sutr plague comes for a family just like yours.
This serial is two books in one on a collision course.
Five stars from reviewers:
"Not your average Zombie story!"
I think this storyline is brilliant. It's not your cliched, run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse story. It's character driven. It's cerebral. It's awesome.
The first episode of This Plague of Days is the perfect balance of back story, anecdotes, and the events of the present crisis. Jaimie, the main character, is fantastically written and surprisingly well thought out.
Plague of Days Episode 1 takes the reader into a new perspective-the autistic. A different concept, refreshing as well as illustrating the challenges faced in real life as well as in fiction.
I've read and watched several zombie novels and TV shows. This one is told from a unique perspective and I can't wait to read the next episode. I think this would translate to a miniseries!
Can't have just one chip? Season One has five episodes. Get each one for 99 cents or get all of Season One at a discount for $3.99. Season Two hits this September.
~ Robert Chazz Chute is a former journalist, columnist and podcaster. This Plague of Days is his ninth book.
Season One of the World's First Autistic Zombie Apocalypse Novel is Complete! (thisplagueofdays.com)
This Plague of Days: An intro to serials and the big idea (thisplagueofdays.com)
The book I lost a job for…and why zombies? (thisplagueofdays.com)
This Plague of Days: A Secret Revealed (allthatchazz.com)
This Plague of Days: The mind virus is created (allthatchazz.com)
The Reason I Jump: One Boy's Voice from the Silence of Autism, by Naoki Higashida – review (guardian.co.uk)
Is My Child An Indigo Child? (netherrealminvestigations.wordpress.com)
Autistic!Sherlock Holmes – An Analysis (lucasscheelk.wordpress.com)
Filed under: free ebooks, publishing, Science Fiction, Amazon, Apocalypse, Asperger syndrome, autism, Autism spectrum, books, dystopian, ebooks, free days, free ebook, horror, horror lovers, international thriller, paranormal, parents of autistic children, plague, post-apocalytic, Robert Chazz Chute, sale, serial, This Plague of Days, thriller, Zombie, zombie apocalypse, zombies
Video, Audio and Pixels: Hugh Howey hits and This Plague of Days launches Episode 5
And here, folks, are the announcements as promised. It's a cornucopia of fun stuff to feed your hungry, hungry hippocampus:
See the rest of the interview on my YouTube channel here, or subscribe at CoolPeoplePodcast.com.
Also available on iTunes (or on Stitcher through the show link to the All That Chazz podcast.)
This Plague of Days: The first zombie thriller on the autism spectrum.
Episode 5 is now available! Get each ep for just 99 cents or get the discount deal and get all of Season One for just $3.99.
In Episode 5 of This Plague of Days, it's all action as the Spencer family faces great loss in the Midwest and Dr. Sinjin-Smythe runs for his life in London. Dump your expectations of what a zombie apocalypse can deliver. The survivors of the plagues can be just as dangerous as any horde of rampaging zombies.
From the latest review on Amazon…
"The final episode of Season One did exactly what it was supposed to do. It twisted your stomach in knots, let go slightly, then snatched your stomach away until the second season is available.
All the immediate conflicts were resolved in a satisfying way, not rushed, not unrealistic. There's plenty of ground to cover next season, and the last few lines will leave you guessing. Well done, Chute. You've crafted a high-brow zombie thriller that stands out from the rest." ~ Ava Easterby
Coming late to the Apocalypse? No problem!
This Plague of Days scares me to death! I just can't put it down; I have to see what happens next.
~ A review from Victor Morin
The mind virus is created. Spread the infection. If you already have read it, please review it.Thanks! ~ Chazz
This Plague of Days: The Pitch (thisplagueofdays.com)
Podcast: In the Line of Fire (allthatchazz.com)
Podcast: A Kiss Before Dying (allthatchazz.com)
Podcast: Get Shorty (allthatchazz.com)
How Weird Al, Kevin Smith, Hugh Howey and Scott Sigler Succeed (chazzwrites.com)
This Plague of Days, Episode 2: An emissary arrives (allthatchazz.com)
Filed under: book trailer, Books, Horror, podcasts, This Plague of Days, Amazon, Autism spectrum, book, books, Cool People Podcast, dystopian, fiction, horror, Hugh Howey, imterview, iTunes, Kindle, Podcast, Robert Chazz Chute, serial, Stitcher, suspense, This Plague of Days, video, YouTube, Zombie, zombie apocalypse, zombies
06/18/2013 • 11:13 AM 7
This Plague of Days: You will be infected
The mind virus is created. Spread the infection. Click the image to purchase.
Welcome to young Jaimie Spencer's world.
See the collapse of America's heartland through the eyes of a boy on the autism spectrum. Watch the rise of the zombies destroy London. Two forces. One collision course.
This Plague of Days, Season 1 is like two books in one.
Terrorists release a deadly virus: Sutr-X kills 60% of the world's population. It mutates. Now Sutr-Z is coming for all of us. Watch how ordinary people react when everything they thought they knew is ripped away.
Look around.
Your power? Your conveniences? The gasoline for your car and all that food to choose from? Gone.
The food chain is changing. The virus is spreading. Your world is falling apart and you are meat if you can't run, fight or hide.
This Plague of Days is a horror serial that will surprise you.
Latin phrases, contemplations on the nature of God, cannibals in the streets and a strange boy who is a selective mute with an obsession for words. Don't miss this one.
You can get five episodes for 99 cents each week by week for a summer of grim fun or you can get all of Season 1 at a discount for just $3.99. You're going to love it.
Filed under: Books, My fiction, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, This Plague of Days, Asperger syndrome, autism, Autism spectrum, books, deadly virus, ebooks, fiction, horror, latin phrases, List of Latin phrases, mind virus, nature of god, Robert Chazz Chute, This Plague of Days, zombie apocalypse, zombies
Winner of Writer's Digest's 2014 Honorable Mention in Self-published Ebook Awards in Genre
The first 81 lessons to get your Buffy on
More lessons to help you survive Armageddon
"You will laugh your ass off!" ~ Maxwell Cynn, author of Cybergrrl
Fast-paced terror, new threats, more twists.
An autistic boy versus our world in free fall
Suspense to melt your face and play with your brain.
Action like a Guy Ritchie film. Funny like Woody Allen when he was funny.
Jesus: Sexier and even more addicted to love.
You can pick this ebook up for free today at this link: http://bit.ly/TheNightMan
For my author site and the Chazz network, click the blood spatter below.
See my books, blogs, links and podcasts.
Follow Chazz via Email
Brain Spasms a la Twitter
RT @TorontoStar: "Good for them for putting that line in the sand," said Kelley Lee, Canada research chair in global health governance at S… 20 minutes ago
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text:
Headwaters Market Garden
August 28, 2017 /in Farmer Incubator Program, Our Community Farm /by sahcadmin
We welcome Will and Savannah Salley of Headwaters Market Garden, new vegetable producers on our Community Farm. Their operation focuses on growing seasonal mixed vegetables and culinary herbs. Will and Savannah recently returned to the Carolinas after living in Maui, Hawaii and are launching their new market garden business through participation in our Farmer Incubator Program.
"Right out of college I got a job selling fertilizer and consulting with farmers," says Will. "I had about five years experience with mixed agricultural settings all throughout North and South Carolina. I enjoyed it, but I realized I'd rather be on the producer side. So I aspired to become a grower."
Will and Savannah moved to Hendersonville in mid 2016 from Maui, Hawaii to pursue their love of agriculture together and be closer to family.
"We knew what we wanted to do but not quite how to get there. We did a lot of research online to see what support exists in the state," explains Will. "That's how we came across WNC FarmLink [SAHC's Farm Pathways partner]. When we met Chris Link and visited SAHC's Community Farm, we were excited to learn about the Incubator Program."
Our Farmer Incubator Program provides Will and Savannah with resources to make farming and agriculture their true lifestyle.
"It's something we'd talked about for so long and it seemed impossible," says Savannah. "This has allowed us to really make it a business, a lifestyle – to make it real. I'm excited for that adventure. It's a new experience and I like that we can jump in full force and just be farmers."
"There's infrastructure here, and that's really important because a lot of work and a lot of money goes into installing this type of infrastructure," adds Will. "That definitely sets this program apart."
Will and Savannah have the vision of a small, community-based operation for Headwaters Market Garden.
"We always hope to keep things small," says Savannah "'Taking Better Care of Less' is a motto that we've incorporated into our business and also in our lives."
"We want to focus on quality over quantity," adds Will. "I'm looking forward to developing relationships with our customers in the community and sharing with them what we're doing and why we're doing it. Our goal eventually is to create an integrated farming system where different aspects of that operation aid or support the others."
The name Headwaters Market Garden is a mix of geography and metaphor. The stream that flows through the Community Farm is part of the headwaters of Newfound Creek in the French Broad River watershed. Will and Savannah also feel that the headwaters of a new agricultural movement exists here in the mountains — along with the headwaters of their journey together as farmers.
Thanks to a grant from The Community Foundation of WNC (CFWNC), we purchased a two-wheel BCS Tractor for the farm. We are grateful to CFWNC for supporting our Community Farm and Farmer Incubator Program with grants through its Food and Farming Focus Area. For more info, visit www.cfwnc.org.
Tags: farmer incubator program, farming, Headwaters Market Garden, SAHC Community Farm
https://appalachian.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Will-and-Savannah-at-market.jpg 955 1440 sahcadmin https://appalachian.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/LogoUpdate_SingleHiker_bluecreek_RGB-283x300.png sahcadmin2017-08-28 21:50:302018-01-10 22:36:27Headwaters Market Garden
Virtual Lunch and Learn: Alphabet Soup - Navigating Government Farm Programs
2018 Farmer Education Workshop: Good Agricultural Practices
Farmer Incubator Program - Call for Applicants!
Farm Workshop: The Two-wheel, Walk-behind Tractor
Afrolachian Agriculture: Bringing People Closer to Food
Community Farm/Discovery Trail Hike
SAHC Outreach AmeriCorps Leads OLLI Hiking Course
Sparrow Hill Farm
Farmer Education Workshop: Irrigation for Small Farms Asheville Greenworks' Water Bar Workday


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Utah's U.S. Attorney, John Huber, told to resign
Rick Bowmer/AP
U.S. Attorney for Utah John W. Huber arrives at the federal court for the sentencing of Aaron Shamo, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020, in Salt Lake City
By: Jeff Tavss
Posted at 12:50 PM, Feb 10, 2021
SALT LAKE CITY — John Huber, the U.S. Attorney for Utah, was told to resign Tuesday and submitted his letter of resignation Wednesday.
"On an all-U.S. Attorney call yesterday, Acting Attorney General Wilkinson instructed most presidentially-appointed U.S. Attorneys, U.S. Attorney Huber included, to submit resignations effective February 28, 2021" said Andrew Choate, a spokesman for the Utah U.S. Attorney's Office.
CNN reports the Justice Department asked all U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Trump to submit their resignations Tuesday. The request, which is routine when administrations are changed, was made to 56 U.S. attorneys.
Huber shared his letter of resignation to the Biden administration in which he wished the best for the new president and looked back at what he had accomplished in office.
"It has been an extraordinary honor to represent the United States of America in the District of Utah over the past six years. From the time President Obama appointed me, through President Trump's administration and up to my final day of service, I have aspired to be a statesman who prioritizes patriotism over partisanship."
"Certainly, our nation is in the midst of considerable discord and strife. Nevertheless, with the unique perspective as the only United States Attorney appointed by both President Obama and President Trump, I observe that what binds us together as Americans is so much stronger than the issues that would pull us apart."
Huber has been in his position since 2015 after he was nominated by then President Barack Obama. He offered his resignation in 2017 when requested to do so by the Trump administration, but was renominated to the job in June of that year.
Stay with fox13now.com and FOX 13 News for the latest on this breaking news story.


A diet represents a crucial role in delivering improved connection between shedding pounds with Phentermine. To attain expected final results with Phentermine, one has to stick to the diet regime prescribed by doctors by health practitioner. Consuming proposed dosages in addition to standard workout routines and ideal sticking to your diet allows you obtain wanted cause smallest timeframe. Get started your exercise routine progressively and gradually raise exercising phase.
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← Phentermine And Weight Loss – Can Phentermine Really Help?


Surety Bonds - Barre VT & Montpelier VT - Jaimes L. Fewer Agency, Inc.
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Contact a Bond specialist at Jaimes L. Fewer Agency, Inc. today to keep your commercial responsibilities protected.


text:
Let CTA Take You to the Annual Bud Billiken Parade on Chicago's South Side
Additional service will be provided on CTA buses and trains for customers heading to the 82nd Annual Bud Billiken Back to School Parade and Picnic on Saturday, August 13. The parade will start at 10 a.m. and run until approximately 4 p.m. before disbanding in Washington Park.
Extra service will be provided on the #3 King Drive, #4 Cottage Grove, #15 Jeffery Local, #47 47th and #55 Garfield bus routes.
The southbound lanes of King Drive from 33rd Street to Oakwood, Oakwood from King Drive to Langley and Pershing from King Drive to Cottage Grove will be used for parade assembly beginning at 6 a.m. on Saturday.
As a result of the street closures, CTA will reroute the #3 King Drive, #15 Jeffery Local, #43 43rd, #47 47th and #55 Garfield buses around the immediate parade area.
Detours may begin as early as 6 a.m. at the direction of the Chicago Police Department based on traffic volume in the area. King Drive is expected to remain closed until late Saturday afternoon.
#3 King Drive
Supplemental service will operate on the #3 King Drive route beginning at 7 a.m. Northbound buses will detour around the parade area via King Drive, 61st Street, Indiana, 31st Street, back to King Drive and then resume the regular route. Southbound buses will operate via 31st Street, Michigan, 61st Street, back to King Drive and then resume the regular route.
#4 Cottage Grove
Additional buses will operate on the #4 Cottage Grove route beginning at 7 a.m. No reroutes will be necessary.
Additional buses will operate on the #15 Jeffery Local route beginning at 7 a.m. The #15 will operate in two segments around the parade route:
One segment will operate between 103rd Street/Stony Island and 51st Street/Cottage Grove.
The other segment will operate between the 47th Street Red Line station and 51st Street/Cottage Grove. Southbound service will be detoured around the parade via 51st Street, Michigan, 61st Street to Cottage Grove before turning north to begin northbound service from Cottage Grove/51st Street.
#43 43rd
Service on the #43 43rd route will operate in two segments with regularly scheduled service operating in both directions along the west portion of the route between Prairie and the 43rd Street Green Line station. There also will be service operating in both directions on the east portion of the route between 44th Street/Forestville and 43rd Street/ St. Lawrence.
#47 47th
Service on the #47 47th will operate in two segments with regularly scheduled service operating between the Orange Line at Midway and the 47th Street Green Line station. There also will be service operating via 47th Street between Lake Park and the 47th Street Red Line station.
#55 Garfield
Supplemental service will be provided on the #55 Garfield route beginning at 7 a.m. Service on the #55 Garfield will operate in two segments:
Eastbound service will travel over the regular route to 55th Street/Michigan and then will operate via Michigan, 61st Street, Cottage Grove to 55th Street and then resume the regular route. Westbound service will travel over the regular route to 55th Street/Cottage Grove then will travel via Cottage Grove, 61st Street, Indiana then return to 55th Street and resume the regular route.
A bus shuttle will operate between the Garfield (55th Street) Red Line station and the Museum of Science & Industry.
Longer Green Line trains will operate from 8 a.m. until approximately 6 p.m.
CTA customer assistants will be on duty at the 35th, 43rd, 47th, 51st and Garfield Green Line stations and at the 47th and Garfield Red Line stations to assist parade spectators with fare and travel information.
For details about all CTA service, call 312-836-7000.
Bus customers who use CTA fare media pay $2 to ride. For rail customers or customers who pay cash on the bus, the fare is $2.25. Customers who use magnetic strip cards or other CTA fare media may transfer for a 25-cent fee. Transfers are not available for customers paying fares in cash.


Want to see the film? Keep an eye on the website and the documentary's social media channels for forthcoming events in your area. I'm currently talking to a few different people to set up some screenings and I'm waiting to hear back from a few different UK film festivals. If you're interested in showing the film at an event in the UK or Europe, please get in touch!


The Paralympic Movement offers sport opportunities for athletes that have a primary impairment that belongs to one of the following 10 'eligible' impairment types: • Impaired muscle power Impairments in this category have in common that there is reduced force generated by the contraction of a muscle or muscle groups (e.g. muscles of one limb, one side of the body, the lower half of the body). Examples of condtions included in this category are para and quadriplegia, muscular dystrophy, post poliomyelitis, spina bifida.
The Paralympic Movement adopted the definitions for the eligible impairment types as described in the World Health Organization International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (2001, World Health Organization, Geneva) Each Paralympic Sport has to clearly define for which impairment groups they provide sports opportunities. This is described in the Classification Rules of each sport. While some sports include athletes of all impairment types (e.g. Athletics, Swimming), other sports are limited to one impairment type (e.g. Goalball, Boccia) or a selection of impairment types (e.g. Equestrian, Cycling) The presence of an applicable eligible impairment is a prerequisite but not the sole criterion of entry into a particular Paralympic Sport.
The inaugural Asian Para Games saw the curtain rolled down in the Aoti Main Stadium here on Sunday evening, with the flame and spirit to be kept in Guangzhou forever.
Guangzhou, December 19 - The inaugural Asian Para Games saw the curtain rolled down in the Aoti Main Stadium here on Sunday evening, with the flame and spirit to be kept in Guangzhou forever.
Attending the press briefing was APC President Dato' Zainal Abu Zarin, Vice Mayor of Guangzhou Municipality Chen Guo, APC Secretary General Ms Malini Rajasegaran, International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Media & Communications Senior Manager Craig Spence.
APC President Dato' Zainal Abu Zarin thanked Guangzhou citizens for bringing the world a splendid and marvellous gala, which became an example for future Asian Para Games. In this gala, several world records and Asian records have been broken and the values of the Asian Para Games have been spread all over the world. He also thanked volunteers, technical officials for their devotion and said the spirit of the Games will continue.
Chen Guo, Deputy Secretary General of GAPGOC and Vice Mayor of Guangzhou Municipality, introduced that the Guangzhou 2010 Asian Para Games was the first sports meeting for athletes with a disability after the foundation of the APC.
Some 2,512 athletes of delegations from 41 countries and regions of Asia as well as 1,286 team officials, 1,096 technical officials and 2,558 reporters from 185 media took part in the gala. "The athletes made their efforts to the success, and their courage and persistence earned our respects," said Chen. Till 15:30 on December 18, 74 athletes from 13 delegations had broken 82 Asian records 74 times, and 31 delegations had shared medals; up to December 17, over 470,000 spectators had been in attendance.
The Closing Ceremony of the Asian Para Games on Sunday will mark the conclusion of two Asian Games.
According to Chen, preparations for the Closing Ceremony of Asian Para Games have been accomplished. GAPGOC will share the theme of "We cheer We share We win" with the world and leave the whole Asia and the world with "beautiful, passionate and charitable" impressions of Guangzhou.
The subject of the Closing Ceremony Performance is "You make the world different", composed of three charters "Sky and Sea", "Leaf and Vein" And "Light and Dream", and the gala will feature celebrations for athletes from 41 countries and regions of Asia, totally 41 minutes long.
The Ceremony will comprise several parts including the parade of athletes, flowers presentation for volunteers, remarks by distinguished guests, holy flame putting out ceremony, flag lowering ceremony and handover ceremony to Incheon, Korea, the host city of the 2014 Asian Games and Asian Para Games.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) today celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Opening Ceremony for the Rome 1960 Paralympic Games.
Being the first time that the Paralympic Games were put together and assembled to be equivalent to the Olympics in the same city, the event marked a tremendous step in sport for athletes with a disability. Today, the IPC is proud to look back 50 years ago and remember the strong milestone that the Rome 1960 Games were, and the people who made it all possible.
Founder of the Paralympic Movement Sir Ludwig Guttmann and Director of the Spinal Centre in Rome Antonia Maglio started preparations two years prior in 1958 to stage what was called the 9th Annual International Stoke Mandeville Games (the term "Paralympic Games" was only approved by the International Olympic Committee later in 1984). Now regarded as the Rome 1960 Paralympics, the event took place from 18-25 September supported by the Italian Institute for Disabled Workers (INAIL) and the Italian Olympic Committee, six days after the Closing Ceremony of the XVII Olympic Summer Games.
The Opening Ceremony on 18 September saw a crowd of 5,000 spectators greeting the colourful entry of the wheelchair athletes at the Acqua Acetosa stadium. Camillo Giardina, the Italian Minister for Public Health at the time, had declared the Games open to the world. It was the largest international Games to date with 400 athletes from 23 countries, with the largest delegation coming from the host country.
The competitive programme included eight sport events considered beneficial and suitable for athletes with spinal cord injuries: Snooker, Fencing (foil or sabre), Javelin and Precision Javelin, Shot Put, Indian Club Throwing (throwing a baton), Men's Basketball and Swimming (Freestyle, Breaststroke and Backstroke). Other events which took place included Table Tennis (singles and doubles), Archery, Dart Archery and the Pentathlon (Archery, Swimming, Javelin, Shot Put and Club Throwing).
The Closing Ceremony on 25 September was held in the Palazetto dello Sport in the Olympic Village in the presence of Sir Guttmann and the Patron of the Games and wife of the Italian President Donna Carla Gronchi. Medals were presented in 57 different events, with Italy finishing on top, followed closely by Great Britain and USA.
At the time, Sir Guttmann summed up the Games saying, "the vast majority of competitors and escorts have fully understood the meaning of the Rome Games as a new pattern of re-integration of the paralyzed into society, as well as the world of sport."
The Paralympics have come a long way since the Rome 1960 Games.
Fierce competition in Athletics today officially started the 2010 BT Paralympic World Cup in Manchester, Great Britain.
The first race of the day was the Men's 200m (T11-13). Ireland's Jason Smyth (T13) took first place with a result of 22.07, followed by Portugal's Luis Goncalves (T12) and Great Britain's James Ball (T13). In the Women's 200m (T44/46), Germany's Katrin Green (T44) took first with her result of 28.86. Green was followed by New Zealand's Kate Horan and Great Britain's Stefanie Reid respectively.
Top Paralympian Oscar Pistorius (RSA) was in his best form, taking first in the Men's 100m (T44) event. Finishing with a result of 11.33, Pistorius was followed by compatriot Arnu Fourie and Great Britain's Ian Jones. In the Women's 100m (T36/37), Germany's Maria Seifert took first with her result of 14.47. Seifert was followed by Great Britain's Katrina Hart and Jenny McLoughlin respectively.
In the Women's 800m (T53/54) event, USA's Tatyana McFadden (T54) took first with a result of 1:56.99. McFadden was followed by Canada's Diane Roy and Great Britain's Shelly Woods. For the Men's 800m, Marcel Hug from Switzerland took first with a result of 1:38.54. Hug was followed by Great Britain's David Weir and Thailand's Prawat Wahoram.
The Women's Shot Put (F12/13/40) competition had Tunisia's Raoua Tlili (F40) take first. Following Tlili were China's Genjimisu Meng and Great Britain's Sophie Hancock respectively.
Today is the only day of the Athletics competition, with Football 7-a-Side beginning tomorrow. Football 7-a-Side is a new addition to the BT Paralympic World Cup programme this year, replacing Cycling which was on the programme in previous editions.
On 27 May, the popular Wheelchair Basketball competition begins, running for four full days. Swimming finishes the BT Paralympic World Cup on 31 May. The BBC, the official televised partner to the event, will broadcast live from the Manchester Aquatics Centre on the final day of Swimming on BBC Television.
British athletes will make up a large part of the contingent of nearly 300 athletes. For the first time this year, a team challenge has been introduced which sees Great Britain take on teams from the Americas, Europe and the Rest of the World, with athletes competing for the overall BT Paralympic World Cup trophy.
Vice President of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and President of the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) Greg Hartung recently launched a new Paralympic Sport Programme at a ceremony in Canberra, Australia.
Together with Chief of the Defense Force Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, Mr. Hartung announced that the Australian Defense Force (ADF) Paralympic Sports Programme will deliver a wealth of benefits to members of the military with an acquired disability through access to the APC's Paralympic Sport Programmes. The programme will aim to direct ADF members who acquire a disability through their employment.
The IPC Vice President said that the partnership with the ADF is an important step in growing the Australian Paralympic Movement by providing opportunities for wounded and injured Australian Defence Force members not previously available.
Mr. Hartung continued, saying that both Australian Paralympians and members of the Australian Defense Force strive to do the best job possible and be the best they can be under the Australian flag.
"In this way, there is a natural connection between the APC and the ADF and we hope that through the extensive knowledge of our APC staff, this partnership is able to produce some world class athletes, as well as help ADF members who have acquired a disability to rehabilitate and move on with their lives," he said.
Through the partnership, the APC will work with the ADF to provide programme participants with advice on specialized physical fitness training and rehabilitation, effectively beginning the journey towards representing Australia at the Paralympic Games.
The ceremony also saw Paralympic gold medallist and world record holder Heath Francis, who spoke of the benefits Paralympic Sport has to offer after sustaining a serious injury.
"As an Australian Paralympic athlete, there is no greater thrill then competing at the Paralympic Games, and achieving success," Francis said.
For more information about the Australian Paralympic Committee, please visit www.paralympic.org.au.
In a hard-hitting final against Canada, host country Australia took the win 57:52 at the International Wheelchair Rugby Four Nations tournament this past weekend.
Taking place on 2 May, Australia remained the overwhelming favourite of the hometown crowd at the Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre. The team led the Canadians at every change and rarely looked threatened in a display certain to give Australian coach Brad Dubberley immense confidence less than five months out from the World Championships in Vancouver.
Coach Dubberley said the Canadians were a phenomenal team, and this made the win great.
Although clearly disappointed to fall short of victory, Canadian coach Kevin Orr said his team will take plenty of positives out of the tournament as they prepare to win September's World Championships on their home soil.
"We thought we did really well. This is really good preparation for us for the World Championships," Orr said.
In the third place playoff held the same day, New Zealand prevailed with a stunning 53:52 victory over Great Britain in double overtime.
May 01: Apart from a few uneven gravel patches, which the city promises to fix before the World Cup, wheelchair-user soccer fans will have a smooth ride from Cape Town station to the stadium along the Fan Walk.
You will need strong arms, though, unless you can persuade someone to push you.
The route through the city to the new Cape Town Stadium is fairly disabled-friendly.
Cape Town tourism authorities say the city has gone out of its way to make the World Cup an accessible and enjoyable experience for disabled soccer fans.
Cape Town Tourism chief executive Mariette du Toit-Helmbold said the city would ensure that disabled fans got to the stadium and fan parks in comfort.
About 30 feet deep on Molasses Reef off Key Largo, Greg Rodriguez chased a barracuda, temporarily eluding his scuba-diving buddy, Jim Elliott. When Rodriguez and Elliott emerged about 45 minutes later, they were chuckling.
``You left me in your dust,'' Elliott said to Rodriguez.
What made this playful exchange remarkable is that three months ago, Rodriguez, 26, was confined to a wheelchair -- the result of a traumatic brain injury from a March 2006 car accident that left him in a coma for three weeks. Rodriguez, a Marine Corps veteran from Stickney, Ill., has trouble speaking and can only walk with a cane. But you would never know he was disabled by watching him zip around in the water.
GOING TO DIVEHEARTRodriguez became a certified scuba diver more than two years ago through Diveheart -- a nonprofit organization near Chicago that trains people with a wide range of disabilities how to enjoy the underwater world. Diveheart also teaches able-bodied scuba divers how to be buddies and instructors. Elliott is founder and president of the group.
Since Rodriguez took up scuba diving, he said he has made two trips to Key Largo and one to Cozumel, Mexico. Rodriguez's last Key Largo plunge several weeks ago was a special treat because he and Elliott got to try out a new piece of equipment -- the Pegasus Thruster.
Invented by Dean Vitale of Miami, the thruster is a hands-free scooter that fastens onto a scuba tank. It weighs only about 5 pounds underwater and can propel a diver at speeds of up to two knots for 30 minutes on batteries. The diver simply pushes a button on a cord, and it goes.
Vitale briefed Rodriguez and Elliott on board the Rainbow Reef dive boat before turning them loose.
Elliott nodded and looked at Rodriguez.
``So, be careful, dude. Don't lose me,'' Elliott said.
Elliott and several crew members helped Rodriguez into the water, and they were off, exploring Molasses Reef. Underwater photographer Sharon Baron trailed them, trying to snap photos.
``I couldn't keep up,'' she said.
ENJOYABLE TIMERodriguez was all smiles when he returned to the boat nearly an hour later.
``I enjoyed it,'' he said.
His diving buddy was intrigued by the possibilities of using Pegasus in Diveheart's training programs.
``This could change diving for people with disabilities,'' Elliott said. ``If somebody is mobility-impaired, it takes them a while to get around the reef.
By the second dive, Rodriguez was buzzing around the reef like James Bond in Thunderball. The Rainbow Reef staff eagerly took turns trying out the Pegasus so they could hang with Rodriguez and Elliott.
Rainbow Reef dive instructor Jardin MacDonald watched Rodriguez as he chased the barracuda.
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YogaUnion has created for a sixth year an intensive 200 hr Yoga Instructor Training Course. Become a yoga teacher through an internationally accredited teaching yoga certification program with Yoga Alliance Professionals based on Ashtanga Vinyasa Flow. Gain the knowledge, the confidence and the skills needed instilled by a highly-experienced team of specialists and see yourself turn into a yoga expert within the 23-day yoga classes.
The primary aim of this Yoga teacher certification course is to make a new generation of yoga instructors with profound knowledge of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and the yogi way of living through a deeper understanding of their own practice and their own body.
The yoga courses are based on theoretical background on anatomy, physiology, pranayama, philosophy and ethics of yoga presented in an interactive way applying the knowledge on the daily asanas practice and the peer-to- peer observation and adjustment.
Learn to teach yoga with confidence in any mix level class having the appropriate information to build safe and imaginative asana sequences. And all these in the most idyllic location in Greece, in the Ionian jewel, the island of Lefkada well- known for the amazing nature which is totally conducive to yoga and the crystal blue beaches perfect for the summer relaxation.
To apply for the 200 hour/Pre-Yoga Teacher Training Course please fill up the online application form.
Neohori is situated 6 km from the beach and the small port of Nidri. It is a traditional village with stone-made houses built on the top of a hill surrounded by amazing nature. The trees and the flowers combined with the breath-taking view to the infinite blue of the sea and the small islands of Skorpios and Meganisi turn this place to a real paradise. The place thrives in olive trees and other local flora giving the opportunity of amazing hiking trails to amateurs but also professionals.
Our yoga shala is built into the woods under the shade of old trees. The traditional though modern guesthouses offer 3-bed rooms with private bathrooms, wardrobes and WIFI access. The atmosphere is cosy and friendly making the guests feel peaceful and relaxed and at the same time the bliss to meet new people from all around the world.
Our food will be a complete responsibility of the team of FOOD PATH. All meals will be based on the principles of vegetarianism, Ayurveda and macrobiotics. Local fresh ingredients, tasty combinations full of energy will drive you to a tasty journey of all the senses.
The yoga teacher training course is focused on Ashtanga Vinyasa flow. The system of Ashtanga through the asanas of Primary Series inspired by Sri Pattabi Jois the guru student of Krishnamacharya is a combination of asanas (yoga postures), dynamic movement (vinyasa) coupled with breath control (pranayama). It can be the base for countless yoga sequences since the foundation and alignment of each posture will be deeply analysed. The breath, drishti (gaze) and bandhas (energy locks) are primary ingredients of this method. In addition to that and by completing this training course the new yoga instructors will be able to create their own flows (sequences) using elements of Ashtanga and parts of their individual personalities.
Key alignments, modifications, contraindications and use of basic yoga props as well as hands-on adjustment techniques, teaching methodology and teaching practice are all in the daily program of this course.
Through the theoretical knowledge of Anatomy and the teaching technics the trainees will manage to address to a wide variety of students and even create tailor-made classes for clients with special needs and demands. We place a lot of emphasis on learning Sanskrit names of postures to both expand your knowledge and enhance your professionalism as a teacher.
Furthermore, the course includes pranayama (breathing technics) and meditation sessions which will give the chance to the aspiring yoga teachers to incorporate them into their own classes and take their own practice to a deeper and more profound level. Other styles of yoga, such as Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga and Hatha yoga will be part of the daily lessons.
History and relevance to the modern world.
Yin yoga is based on the idea of stretching and deepening into a pose with the help of the body's gravity and the gradual immersion through time. Restorative on the other hand as its name reveals heals and restores the muscles with the use of various props.
The trainees will experience the relaxing and healing properties of both systems and of course will have the chance to analyse them and incorporate them to their teachings.
The teachers are always present in your practice observing and suggesting you the necessary corrections, variations or improvements. Once a week there will also be posture clinic lessons to make sure that you practice with correct technics and alignment so that when you leave the course you have advanced your practice to a much higher level than you came with and apply the theoretical knowledge in your own practice.
The themed workshops will cover a wide range of asana keys like handstands, backbends, inversions and hip openers. Twice per week the trainees will meet one of these aspects through more advanced asanas and demanding postures as well as the way of working towards them.
suryabheda (vitality stimulating breath) to name some.
Ethics in yoga business building network with other yoga teachers, schools, studios and retreats. Book Now yor Seat.
The participants will also have the chance to get a general idea of Zen Shiatsu and Reflexology and get hands on treatments upon request.
Lefkada is really famous for the summer water sports! Windsurfing, water skiing, paragliding, kite and many more are a daily offer in its lush nature and crystal blue waters.
Keeping in mind that Sundays are free days in our training program you may have the opportunity to try them out.
Furthermore, renting a car you can take a tour of the island's numerous beaches or go on a cruise to the nearby smaller islands.
double room with a bathroom in one of our guesthouses in Neohori. Each room has a big wardrobe and the beds are divided with Japanese partition. The rooms & bathrooms are cleaned by our housekeeping every 3days. We also provide toilet tissue papers, bed linens, bathing towels and face towels. Spacious bathroom with western style toilet & hot shower.
3ple room with a bathroom in one of our guesthouses in Neohori. Each room has a big wardrobe and the beds are divided with Japanese partition. The rooms & bathrooms are cleaned by our housekeeping every 3days. We also provide toilet tissue papers, bed linens, bathing towels and face towels. Spacious bathroom with western style toilet & hot shower.
Includes tuition fee – manual – YogaUnion T-shirt & handbag.
Are you interested in another type of accommodation? Do not hesitate to ask us!!!
Course fee is non cancellable, non refundable and non transferable to another person. but can be transferred to another date or future course with us.
We will process your application within one day and let you know if you are accepted on the course. In case you do not receive a reply within the above mentioned period please write us an email at yogaunion108@gmail.com.
You will be required to deposit a booking amount of €400 as soon as possible to confirm your place. The remaining amount will be during the first day of the seminar.
"I really enjoyed my experience with yoga Union on the TTC, I felt I've grown as a person mentally and physically – and this is down to the teachers knowledge and passion, helping me to expand, develop and unleash my inner teacher.
Classes were made really interesting in different locations, and there were many variations of Asana class that we touched upon, I enjoyed the difference of the two teachers, it made for a good balance in their feedback to us and a good balance of classes.
I enjoyed the simplicity of the theoretical classes, always in an inspiring and fitting environment, with nothing but a few notes and ourselves.
"I find the course very well structured, just the information that I needed the most. I learned a lot of useful things for my own practice and also for teaching others. After this course I feel way more confident in my teaching and my daily practice improved a lot. I developed more strength and more accuracy in my practice. The theoretical classes were really useful for me, Maria and Jonas have very good teaching skills, they know how to make the information accessible and interesting. The asana classes gave me strength and also relaxation. The beautiful Vinyasa classes were a great source of inspiration for me.
YogaUnion's 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training Course (TTC) is registered with Yoga Alliance Professionals. Students who will be certified from our school will be eligible to register with Yoga Alliance Professionals as RYT 200 Registered Yoga Teacher).
Having experienced the deeper meaning of yoga and life in India, she decided to undertake one more Yoga Teacher Training at Sampoorna Yoga, Goa. After the completion of this training she opened the first and only yoga school and studio in 2011, "YogaUnion", at Ioannina, Greece. A wonderful and warm place, that made yoga known and loveable to the Greek city.
Jonas Vellas: A medicine Student and a passionate practitioner of martial arts and calisthenics Jonas came to yoga by accident "to prove it's not a real challenge". With his ego crashed Jonas left his first class feeling ridiculously sore but profoundly calm with an (unknown up to that moment) sensation of inner peace. And he had caught the bug. Mastering control over his own body and breath became an obsession to him. While studying in Germany, "training" at a studio wasn't something he could afford and that turned him into a disciplined Ashtanga self-practitioner in order to fulfill his obsession.
Maria Vardalou: Maria's journey to yoga started some years ago, basically as an answer and relief to her hectic way of life. Having studied foreign languages in her BA studies and teaching methodology in her MA she found yoga teaching as a natural extension to her existing teaching experience after so many years in classes with various students of all ages.
A certified RYT-200 hrs Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga instructor after completing her first training course with Yoga Union- Sampoorna India and certified 200hrs Yogaworks© instructor, Maria is a passionate yoga teacher and practitioner with experience in teaching various types of yoga and levels, committed to make a difference by applying wide knowledge of Yogic philosophy and using yoga as a healthy life style.
Having attended various seminars and workshops and met great teachers as Rolf – Yogabones in India (Ashtanga yoga), BJ Galvan (Anusara yoga) and many more, she also had the great chance to meet her spiritual guidance in her journey to India through her guru Om Baba.
Considering that learning is a life-long process, she never stops learning and transmiting her knowledge through teaching. Besides the daily classes in Yoga Union, she has also participated in training courses of yoga teachers organised by Yoga Union. She is a certified Thai massage therapist too through a training course with ITM school of Thailand.