Two Words That Make Most Audiences Cringe!

Okay. We are adults, right? Basically, we are comfortable with ourselves or we hide our insecurity appropriately or in a socially acceptable manner (drinking, smoking, etc.) right? Ummmm.

In transitioning from stand up comedian (who speak their minds) to a Toastmasters Humor Speaker in a contest, let me tell you what not to do.

There is a rule known in comedy circles, and actually any performance circle, called 'know your audience.' It is a good rule and one that will always help you craft your message to the correct demographic. Unless you are a smart aleck comedian.

I recently competed at the 'area' level in a Toastmasters Humorous contest. I scratched my way to this second level of five levels. Now, I knew who would comprise my audience. There would be basically conventional Toastmasters types that delight in stories about coffee, the dreams of a boy and a broken television and relatively safe stuff. Hey, let's just say totally safe material!

I knew this coming into the competition. I knew it after I heard the first humor contestant delight in 'why do women in SUV's drive with their cellphones attached to their heads.' I knew it from checking out the audience before the event. By the way, these are the lessons in this article: check out YOUR audience before the contest, mingle with them, and listen to the other speakers to see what the audience is going for, and hopefully these hints will guide your speaking efforts.

I know of these things, yet, I choose to blatantly ignore them for the sake of, one, stage time, and two because the words Penis and Vagina, of which everyone in the audience was in possession of, should not have made them cower or recoil. Which I believe some of them did! Apparently, those accouterments are not used very often...by some. (Another lesson, do not be mad or blame your audience for your performance!) (And, no, I'm not mad nor blaming them...I'm sorta making fun of them, I'm a comedian, remember!)

Which brings me to the last lesson. Do Not, I repeat DO NOT do what I did (you'd have to be really brave or crazy!) Do not use language that will turn some or most of the audience against you! Think through your speech! I made people feel uncomfortable...on purpose! I knew way ahead of time, that I would not nor could not win a Toastmasters humor contest...not with my mouth or my comedic past!

I even mentioned to the audience their discomfort in hearing those words within a speech. My speech BTW was not blue, laced with any expletives, nor did I mention anything graphic. I simply uttered 2 terms that tend to make adults feel like, 'No! She didn't say that! Oh, my God, I'm embarrassed! Now, John (?) knows I have one! Damn Her!" Or they were feeling something like that. I must also say that I am a registered nurse, so those terms, PENIS and VAGINA are part of my working vocabulary. Although, I must say that they are used in the nurses lounge more than in relation to patients!

If you've read my other articles, you know by now that I cannot count. So here is the other lesson that I took a 'hit for the team' in order to write this article (and get the precious, precious stage time!) At some point take the chance, take the risk and say what you want to say! Risk putting yourself out there. I am not talking racism or porn! I was not tarred and feathered. I am still alive. Some of the older ladies gave me a few looks. So what! Actually, a lot of the audience thought I was really funny (one guy stated that I could be a comedian!)

Which of course leads me to the final lesson. Please make sure the MC, or whomever introduces you, gives you the correct introduction! Immediately, after the 'comedian' comment from an fan, I thought, perhaps some of the audience would have accepted my material better, if they had known I was a stand up comedian and nurse from the beginning. I would have been given a bit more leeway in stating or being more blunt...not blue, not offensive, but directly stating certain words!

So those are the lessons I offer to you. Comments?

AUTHOR/SPEAKER, ADRIENNE ZURUB is a former cardiothoracic surgical nurse with over twenty-five years of experience on the open heart/heart transplant team at Cleveland Clinic. She is a CNOR (certified nurse operating room) She is The Nurse Whisperer!

She is an actor/poet/and stand up comedian. As a comedian she has performed in clubs in New York City and LA. In theater she has written and performed her solo performances pieces at Cleveland Public Theater. She performed at the historic Karamu Theater as part of Arenafest. She belongs to Toastmasters Club 6500, NSAOhio, AKA Sorority,Inc., and volunteers in the Greater Cleveland community as a speaker.

She is the Author of 'Notes From the Mothership ~ The Naked Invisibles' a nonfiction work that coalesces some of her experiences on the open heart team with the randiness of many aspects of her life! http://adriennezurub.typepad.com
Find her on: Twitter, Facebook, Livejournal, Ning.com, GoodReads, ...

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Waiting to Meet Ms. Perfect?

It must be really tough. Do you think you are just a victim of bad luck and that’s the reason Ms. Perfect hasn’t appeared in your life yet? Or have you decided that maybe Ms. Perfect only exists on movie screens and not out here in the real world? BINGO! You’ve got it. She doesn’t exist anywhere except in your imagination and on movie screens.

The truth of the matter is that the reason Ms. Perfect hasn't appeared has nothing to do with your luck, good or bad, but everything to do with you and the fact that you are busy looking for a person that doesn't exist! You can't date with your eyes closed and some impossible dream in your head. You'll get so caught up in this whole exercise of dating that you forget to look for the qualities you seek! You haven't met the person of your dreams because you aren't looking for the things that will make them close enough to perfect for you.

You are so confident that every woman you have met could not give you what you wanted. But what was it that you wanted in the first place? Once you are sure of what you want, you will know exactly what to look for in your woman. What are the qualities that you feel are necessary in a person? What are the attributes you are willing to make a compromise on? Have you thought about all these?

Remember, that nobody on this earth is perfect. Everybody has faults…some are bigger faults than other faults. Some are faults you can overlook and some are faults that you couldn’t overlook on your best day and if she was the most beautiful, most sexy woman on the planet.

When you meet a woman, remember, however hard you try to impress others, you cannot control their thought processes. Instead, it’s far better to concentrate on your needs and desires, and how much of what you need would be fulfilled if you dated this woman.


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Learning the Piano - A Beginner's Guide

If you are considering learning the piano, there are some basic, elemental things you should understand about beginners piano training and beginners piano lessons.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

First, one of the things you'll have to keep in mind at all times is that learning the piano, at first, isn't easy. It's that simple. If you are highly gifted and talented or already have musical training on another instrument, then you'll be able to advance more rapidly than other people, but it's still going to be a "chore" when you first begin it. So you'll have to take it slow at first while you train your hand, wrist, and lower arm muscles to move the way you want them to, and train your brain and ear.

You cannot fool yourself into believing that you happen to have some advantage that will make beginners piano learning "easy". You don't. You also don't have any special secret training method to make it "easy". Playing the piano will only become easy for you in time. In the meanwhile, there's only one way to make that happen, and that's to practice in a regular, disciplined way. Again, you have to at first practice slowly to learn quickly. You'll learn simple songs and melodies at first--including plenty of "one handed" songs. You will also need to follow routines for proper warm up and do "boring" exercises to learn scales, keys, chords, arpeggios, and so on.

If you fool yourself into believing that beginners piano should be easy for you, you're setting yourself up for failure. You will give up easily because you don't get instantaneous results. You won't go back over and over parts that you have trouble with; you'll just get red-faced with frustration and either rush ahead without learning what you needed to or quit altogether. If you stay disciplined and accept learning simple beginners piano techniques to start with, your progress will seem to take place in hardly any time.

So, keep your mind open, have patience, practice slowly to learn quickly, and prepare for one of the most enjoyable, pleasurable "hard times" you'll ever have in your life!

GO DEEP

Second, you should not go the way of just learning songs on the piano, even if you have no intentions of becoming a "serious" piano player. If you don't understand basic music theory and basic technical concepts about music and piano playing, your playing will suffer. You won't have the depth of understanding that you need to get more creative, put more energy into songs, develop your own unique style, or be able to "jam" effectively with other musicians. You're also robbing yourself of the deeper joy and pleasure that always come with a deeper understanding of something.

Having said all this, to learn the piano as quickly and thoroughly as you possibly can, you need to have great teaching resources like books, CDs, and DVDs. Nowadays, the Internet makes access to these things easier than ever.

There are a couple of online products that I highly recommend which will have you playing the piano in hardly any time at all. My personal favorite is Rocket Piano. The other guide worth mentioning is Piano for All.

At the beginners piano website you can watch videos on how to be playing the piano in under 10 minutes.

For a free beginners guide with a free piano chord chart visit our beginners piano web site. We have reviews of the best home study courses available and beginner piano videos.

Discover online piano course reviews in the Play Piano Guide.

Hiring a Quality Home Movers

Moving from one dwelling place to another is a normal scene in Singapore. A number of occupants are not home owners. They are just tenants. The reason is that owning a house is not easy especially for non Singaporean citizens who obviously make up the lion's share of Singapore's manpower. Thus housing service is mostly on a yearly contract basis.

Given this real scenario and considering the volatile behavior of the real estate market, the demand for home movers is high in Singapore. While there are many service providers, it pays to do your job in screening out the most dependable home movers particularly if you are short of cash. And the necessity to make a good choice is paramount if you would like proper care on the manner your stuff are transported.

The rate of home movers in Singapore can be quite expensive. It may turn out to be much more costly later if you happen to hire unskilled home movers who can only mess up with your priceless stuffs. Other companies engaged in this service because it is good money and those duly registered and professionaly trained to give moving service. You definitely opt to engage home movers who can offer the best rate and the best service possible.

If there is one good venue to locate these movers in Singapore, it is through the internet. Check on ebay Singapore. Search using the keyword "Singapore home movers" and you can most likely generate a good search list. What makes ebay a good source of info is that you can refer to testimonials of previous clients. Yes, while these feedbacks are not 100% reliable you can have at the minimum an idea on the kind of service.

Also, online forums which are Singapore based in nature can give you some guide on home movers. Just concentrate on heavy traffic blogs and forums. Of course, not missing out the classifieds. Home movers tend to post ads on online classifieds because ad posting here for free, if not at a very minimal rate.

With your filtered list, you expect to tap the most reliable home movers in town which will give lesser hassle house moving service for you.


Here is a recommended Singapore Home Movers

Why Use Option Trading Strategies?

Many opportunity seekers are attracted to options trading as they have heard stories making promises of fast profits. The problem is that these traders come in thinking of nothing more than stuffing their bank accounts full of cash in a short period of time. While this scenario is achievable the odds are certainly going well against you. In most cases achieving big profits in a short time period involves an extremely high risk options trading strategy. The key to your success is finding a reliable strategy and mastering it. It is far better to pull off consistent gains rather than trying to hit a home run. Once you know one strategy, well you can learn others.

Below are some of the options trading strategies that you may consider.

Popular strategies to trade options include:

Bullish on volatility
Bearish on volatility
Selling Credit Spreads
Bearish strategies
Selling Covered Calls
Bullish strategies
Neutral or non-directional strategies
Calendar Straddle
Strangles

The above list is in no way an exhaustive list, there are plenty of other strategies that you may employ. The purpose of this article is to just give you a small taste of some of the possibilities. Below I expand on a few.

Selling Credit Spreads - If you are looking for a strategy that does not involve marrying your stock options career, then this is one you could consider. There is nothing worse than following a strategy that requires you to monitor the market for every minute of the trading day. You can complete what is involved with this strategy in around an hour a week and if done correctly you might be able to increase your portfolio by around 10-15 per cent monthly. They are great returns that really put to shame what the banks are offering. To execute this strategy you need to know how to carry out a trend analysis on the market. Of course the scope of this article does not allow me to cover this further. You are best advised to join the mailing list on this site.

Bullish Strategy - If you are expecting the underlying stock of an option to increase then you could go with this strategy. The Bullish options trading strategies are brought into play when you as the trader expects the underlying stock price to increase in value. You need to consider just how high the stock price is likely to go and within what time frame. The most likely strategy choice for a bullish trader is a simple call buying strategy. This is quite popular with beginners. Other bullish strategies include Covered Straddle, Bull Calendar Spread and The Collar.

Complex Strategies - These include such things as iron condors, butterflies, straddles and strangles. Just where do they come up with the names used in strategies for options trading? Strange aren't they? The ones I have listed here if followed correctly are generally low risk while at the same time being highly likely to be profitable. The disadvantage is that they are expensive, either due to the fact that you are trading expensive options or thanks to high brokerage fees which come about due to the number of trades involved.

You should remember that options are quite versatile trading instruments. With such great flexibility this is where many people get it wrong. They think that the more complicated an option trading strategy is the more successful it can be. In fact it can be quite the opposite. The more complicated the strategy the more open you could be to risk while at the same time limiting profit potential.

As with any strategy you employ with your options trading business and treat it with respect. Don't trade live until you have given it a good test using a practice account. Only then should you consider running with it using your real money.

When learning how to trade options it is always advisable to only use risk capital when trading with real money. This means only use money that you can afford to lose if you have trades that go against you. There you go that just touches the surface of options trading strategies. Of course you will want to learn more and then select a strategy to trade your options using a test account. From there who knows?

Always remember to not let things get out of hand. If you are learning a new strategy only trade with one contract at a time. If you go overboard you will soon find yourself out of control and headed towards disaster. Options trading is not a race. You have time on your side and you should make the most of it. The market will still be here tomorrow.

Want to know more about Options Trading Strategies? Then visit StockOptionsSecrets.com and sign-up to receive more strategies straight to your inbox.

Emini Trading Strategies

30 Minute Emini Day Trading System

Toddler Travel - An Essential Checklist

With a little thought and some careful planning a lot of the problems encountered with Toddler Travel can be avoided. Young children can get cranky and fidgety on long car trips so it is important that when you are packing for your trip you bring along enough items to keep them occupied, fed and comfortable. The following list is some of the items that you should consider.

1.) Always make sure to bring along some of your child's favorite toys. Just remember that small toys aren't easily retrieved when dropped in a moving car. Large toys can easily be grabbed by other passengers in the car thus avoiding any "meltdowns" by your toddler. It is also an excellent idea to give your child a brand new toy at the start of the trip. The novelty will create excitement and interest in your child and keep them occupied for quite some time.

2.) We all get hungry on road trips so be sure that you bring along enough snacks to keep your youngsters bellies full. Not only will this keep your children satisfied, but it will also save you time and money.

3.) We all know that when children get tried they also get crabby and hard to manage. (kinda sounds like me actually) Be certain to bring along comfortable pillows, favorite blankets and whatever else is necessary to help your toddler get the rest that he or she needs.

4.) In addition to bringing along toys make sure that you also pack up some type of art supplies. This will let them be creative and focus some of their energy. There are special markers that only draw on the intended paper. An Etch-a-Sketch is also a good idea.

5.) Music is an important part of any road trip and this goes for your children as well. Bringing along some of their favorite music Cd's and tapes could possibly entertain them for hours especially if it is turned into a family sing-along

*** Whatever you do please do not park your children in front of DVDs the whole trip!

When planning your trip be sure to include time for a sufficient number of rest stops. Your children need an opportunity to get out of the car to move around and get some fresh air. Normally the younger the children you are traveling with the more stops you will have to make. Toddler Travel can be a lot less painful and even enjoyable with a little careful planning. Good luck and have a safe trip.

Joel Krett

http://www.toddlertravelblog.com

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