For today’s adventure, I tried my hand at writing my very first acrostic poem. An acrostic poem is a type of poetry where the first, last or other letters in a line spell out a particular word or phrase.
I chose to use “other letters in the line” to spell out the theme of my poem : Cherry Tree. I have capitalised the relevant letter on each line. If you scan my poem from top to bottom, my acrostic poem spells out CHERRY TREE!
I’ve been wanting to capture the spirit of the cherry tree for some while now. Its blossoms captivated me in Spring, but during the summer months the cherry trees sunk into the background , unable to compete with other flowers and trees. A part of me wondered why people would plant a tree that only held its beauty for a very short period of time.
As Autumn has advanced, I now understand the real beauty of the cherry tree. It’s as if the Spring blossoms offer a promise of better things yet to come. In Autumn, the cherry tree is bright, bold and confident. If the cherry tree is a pretty girl in the Spring, then by the Autumn, this tree is all woman (and all too ready to take off her clothes!)
For today’s adventure, I try my hand at driving a Kawasaki 4010 mule. I keep to the traditional YouTube style for this kind of thing : a “walk ’round” to show off the key features of the vehicle, followed by an actual drive!
It was fun to see if I could pull off the walk ’round. It was even more fun driving it!
Today I learn how to count from 0-10 in Finnish. I find the rhythm of the language mesmerising. The rhythm seems to be the key to learning and remembering this language.
For some reason, today’s words seem uncannily familiar. To be more precise, they “feel” familiar. I’m going to pay attention to this feeling and walk a little deeper into the Finnish forest 🙂 .
For today’s adventure, I’ve learned some basic Finnish phrases. I used Finnish Pod 101 to help me out. What surprised me about learning the phrases is how helpful rhythm is when speaking Finnish 🙂 .
You can hear me speaking Finnish in today’s video. I’m using the familiar form of language and I’m saying : Hello. My name is Jane. Pleased to meet you. Do you speak English? Bye!
For today’s adventure, I set about learning the rules of renga, a Japanese form of collaborative linked-verse poetry. There are now 13 poets involved in The Big Renga Project , and I wanted to put some easy-to-follow guidelines together so that people could get to grips with the rules before the big “renga off” on the 1st December 😛 .
There are many versions of “the rules”. I plumped for a distillation of the traditional rules : I’ve based the rules for The Big Renga Project on Sonja Arntzen’s article (you’ll need to scroll down to the bottom of the article for the rules applying to renga).
I’ve spent 3 hours immersing myself in various forms of the rules today – and now it makes complete sense! I’ve adapted Sonja’s version of the rules slightly so that they work for our 25-stanza poem, and I’ve posted these rules into our group forum.
I can imagine if you haven’t seen rules like this before, you might not think that they’re that simple. That’s why I’ve written the rules well in advance of the start of December – the group has more than a month to get its head around these rules! As well as being one of the participating poets, I’ll also be the GRU (General Rule-Upholder 😛 ), making sure that everyone keeps on track and also understands the implications of each verse within the context of the rules. This means that people can relax and have fun, knowing that they’ll get a friendly nudge if need be or some advice if they want it.
I explain some of the rules we’ll be using in our collaborative poetry project in today’s video 🙂 .
Oh – and maybe I should mention that it’s my 300th adventure today! Only 65 days of adventuring left 😦 . I think this calls for a celebratory meal tonight, don’t you?
When people hear about my 365 Days Of Adventure project, one of the most common things they say is, “That’s really inspiring, but I just don’t have time for that kind of thing.”
The whole emphasis of the project has been on having a micro adventure everyday. Some of those micro adventures have added up to become mighty big adventures. I’ll also admit that some of my adventures took me a little longer than others ~ in fact, writing the chapters for my unromantic romantic novel seemed painfully long at times (what with all those tragic deaths and no romance whatsoever) 😛
For today’s adventure, I want to show you that it is really possible to integrate daily adventure into your life without it taking too much time. At the moment I am super busy with work, and I’m also keen to tie up the loose ends from some of my larger adventures. And yet, I still have the impulse to break into new adventure territory every day.
My 365 Days Of Adventure project has reminded me that I love to learn new things – and that learning feels really adventurous. When I’m learning something new, I’m pioneering. When I’m learning something new, I’m not sure if I’m going to succeed, I’m not sure if I’m going to bump up against my own edges. When I’m learning something new, I’m learning more about myself.
And now that I find myself in a very busy period, to keep the spirit of adventure alive, I’m going to feed that spirit with learning. A wee taste of learning will be enough to keep the spirit alive. It’s as simple as that!
For today’s adventure, I’m learning some basic Hungarian phrases, helped by Hungarian Pod 101 . What I like about these language-learning videos is that they say that you’ll learn something in less than 3 minutes. My inner adventurer gets excited by that invitation 🙂 . Is it really possible for me to do this? As I’m watching the video, I can feel the thrill of adventure and I can feel the fun of learning too.
You can see if I managed to learn some Hungarian in today’s video. I’m saying “Hello. My name is Jane. Nice to meet you! Do you speak English? I don’t speak Hungarian.”
If you know what brings you to life, I wonder what would happen if you spent 3 minutes a day “feeding” that thing? And if you don’t know what brings you to life, I wonder what would happen if you spent 3 minutes a day experimenting and exploring… until you discovered what brings you to life?
Considering I’m such an adventurous gal, you’d think that I’d enjoy a change-about now and again, wouldn’t you? Looking at both my Facebook wall and page for my business, I realised that I hadn’t changed my wall cover image since September 2013 – and I hadn’t change my Humans Resourced page cover EVER!
This 365 Days Of Adventure project has really got me thinking about what I’m all about, the way I’d like to run my business in the future, and the kind of life I want to live. So for today’s adventure, I’ve been exploring and playing – trying to find images and words that express more of who I am.
For my Humans Resourced page, I’ve now generated a collection of images around the theme of “Bold Living” – I think that’s the direction my business is headed in right now. I’ve posted my favourites here ~ the peacock image is currently gracing the header spot on my Humans Resourced Facebook page 🙂 .
For my personal wall, I’ve taken a Henry David Thoreau quote and made it into a cover picture. I think the quote really captures the essence of what I’m about and how I’m living.
I think my renga project must be getting to me : for today’s adventure, I learn some basic phrases in Japanese :). I used a brilliant YouTube video to help me to learn the following phrases :
1. Nice to meet you / hello [something you might say when you meet someone for the first time – and the kanji for this phrase are in the image on the left!]
2. My name is ….
3. It’s a pleasure to meet you [said when you’re bowing]
For today’s adventure, I finished creating the website for The Big Renga collaborative poetry project. I even learned how to create a contact form for the “Contact Us” page 🙂 I’m just waiting for bio details from the poets and then we’re good to go.
The brilliant news is that there are now 9 of us. I’ve worked out that if we can grow the crew to 12, then the project will work out pretty well. Of course, more than 12 would be fabulous, but 12 is enough.
In mid-November, I’ll be closing The Big Renga Project doors so that the renju (collaborative poets) can spend some time agreeing how the logistics are going to work and also learn a little more about the renga form.
For today’s adventure, I tried my hand at writing my very first acrostic poem. An acrostic poem is a type of poetry where the first, last or other letters in a line spell out a particular word or phrase.
Humans Resourced 