Great Hudson River Revival Festival 2013

This month's Catalysta.org article!

Join us at the Great Hudson River Revival Festival next weekend.

Read about it here.

Catalysta.org, Trailblazers Article 1

Dear readers,

My second Catalysta article is now online! Read about Mr. Brooke Allen, a man who is trying to make the world a better place one project at a time. Brooke studied Mathematics and Computer Science in college. His career arc moved from programming to finance. For 17 years he ran a business unit trading stocks electronically based on mathematical models. Soon after his 60th birthday, he renegotiated his employment contract to free up 80% of his time to do social entrepreneurship projects that were unrelated to his job. Instead of focusing on what “they” should do in a perfect world, he asks, “What can I do within my means right now to make a positive impact within my community?”

To read more, click the following images below!

Catalysta.org Homepage

Trader to Maverick Article - By Lana Kitcher

Lana Kitcher - Catalysta.org Bio

Catalysta.org, Observations Article 1

After a rocky start, I got my first article for Catalysta.org published on February 25th. Take a look at it here!

Retaking Perception - Media Shapes Our World by Lana Kitcher

Next article to be published in April, under the "Trailblazer" category. I'll keep you posted!

-Lana

Happy Thanksgiving!

HAPPY (slightly belated) THANKSGIVING! I hope it was a good one. Although we didn't have the day off here, I was able to have a large Thanksgiving-style dinner last Sunday evening with a bunch of other English teachers in the area. Also, we had the day off on Wednesday due to a Japanese national holiday so it was a good week all in all.

To top it all off, I finished my NaNoWriMo novel last night at 50,121 words! I've updated my "NaNoWriMo 2011 participant" badges to the "2011 NaNoWriMo winner" ones. Anyone who crosses the 50,000 word finish line is a winner. Towards the middle of the month I was feeling less motivated, but I got a final burst of motivation triggered by comptetive spirit and I finished. The novel needs a lot of work, but perhaps someday it will turn into a published short story. For now, it is just a rough draft and will probably stay that way for some time. I think I'd like to do some planning throughout the next year and write another novel next November. Hopefully I'll have time to think up a fun plot-line and some interesting characters before then.

Here is a very short blub from my 2011 NaNoWriMo novel:

H&F

Sometimes I wonder if I could change things still. Even now.

There are light-brown stains on the index and middle fingers of my right hand. My hair is brittle from dye. I try to tease it for volume but it’s pretty useless. The cheap cloth of the uniform I’m wearing is wrinkled and discolored from overuse. It hangs loosely on my frame. Cigarette burns, beer stains, and oil marks from the dirty men who grope me as I walk through the isles form a visible pattern on the blue fabric, like they’re part of the design. God I hate this job. I hate those men. I hate their smoke and their money and their crude language, and everything about them. The people who come before the doors even open and stay until we kick them out are the absolute worst. Where do they get the money to gamble all day? Every day the same people come. They’re as addicted to pachinko as I am to not coming to work.

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All for now. Good night!

November Articles

The November issue of AJET Connect magazine is now out!  In this issue I have two articles featured.  One is a full two-page article, and the other is a one-page column by "Rosie."  I have also  submitted a photo for the November photo contest.  I hope you will enjoy reading this month's articles!  They aren't perfect, but I'm happy to be writing and getting my work out there!


Screenshots:

"The No Impact Experiment" -LRK, PDF pg 15

 

"A Word to the Wise" -Rosie, PDF pg 54

"At Home in Serenity" -LRK, PDF pg 57

Here is the link for the direct download, and here is the link to access the section on the AJET website http://ajet.net/ajet-connect/.

And on a different note, I'm up to 9,451 words on my NaNoWriMo story.  Although I know it isn't a very good story, as in this case quantity as more important than quality, I am still tempted to post it on lulu.com when I'm finished.  If not for anyone else, I think I'd like to own a hard-copy of the story at least for myself.  It can be a reminder of this accomplishment of November 2011.  Also, if I ever do National Novel Writing Month again, it would probably good to have a physical copy of all of he work I've done from the past to keep track.

A day mostly well spent I think.
Good night Tokyo!