The Incredible And True Story Of Jimmy And Jazzy

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December
2010

The Incredible And True Story Of Jimmy And Jazzy

The Incredible And True Story Of Jimmy And Jazzy
Jimmy B was just beginning his second hour as DJ at an exclusive Jersey Shore Nightclub. As he was cueing his next selection, a weird yet amazing feeling swept over him. He looked up from the Turntable and glanced off into space. Suddenly, he realized that a beautiful woman was returning his stare, as she chalked her pool-stick up and prepared for her next shot. As a DJ in a exclusive Club, seeing attractive women was not an unusual thing. BUT……THIS woman was MAGICAL! To cut a LONG STORY SHORT, they met, exchanged phone numbers and the night ended. For the next ten months, MANY phonecalls and Emails were exchanged. But ever a true “date”. Then, suddenly Jimmy B’s cellphone began to ring as he was preparing to do his laundry. It was Jasmine, ACTUALLY ASKING HIM IF HE WOULD GO TO DINNER WITH HER! That date was followed by MANY OTHERS, and they fell in love!!! Then, as they were chatting about the subject of Marriage, Jimmy B reached for a tiny bag, and handed it to Jasmine. She quickly opened it——– IT WAS AN ENGAGMENT RING!!!!! AND SHE SAID YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Wedding Day was scheduled for September 9th, 2006! And, days FLEW by! Jasmine selected a dress, the Couple selected their Parties and Life moved on QUICKLY! Jasmine and her Mom went to Jasmines’ FINAL Dress Fitting together, on August 18th, 2006. They had a quick Dinner, and the Fitting occurred. Jasmine hopped in her car and went to pick up Jimmy from his return by Train from his day job as a Research Chemist. She waited as his usual train pulled up……AND LEFT. There was NO JIMMY. So…..she waited longer and longer. Train after train came and left—– STILL NO JIMMY. She looked up at her watch—— ONE HOUR had passed. If there was a TRUE Delay, Jimmy would have called her. NO CALL AND NO JIMMY. Jasmine began to experience a WEIRD feeling that something bad may have happened. Here it was, only THREE WEEKS before their Wedding Day. Wouldn’t it be insane if something crazy happened? Like if he got HIT BY A CAR only THREE WEEKS before their Wedding?
Well, as crazy as that appears, THAT IS EXACTLY what happened! Being a “Green” person, Jimmy B would travel on his Transit Bicycle to the West Windsor Train Station, get on the train, and head home to West Keansburg, NJ. On THIS day, though, he NEVER made it to the Train Station. For, on the road RIGHT NEXT to the Bike Path, there was a horrific auto accident! One auto tried making a late left turn, hit an auto heading in the opposite direction, caused it to flip on its’ side, and it STRUCK Jimmy B moving at 45mph! Jimmy B, on his bicycle, flew 50 feet in the air and landed on HIS HEAD! So……just three weeks before The Wedding Day, Jimmy B was nearly killed!
Jasmine went home and saw that there was a Phone Message! She thought it might be Jimmy. As she played it, the following spewed out of the machine——- “Hello, Kitty. This is The Emergency Room at Fuld Hospital in Trenton. We are calling ALL numbers in a cell phone we have that belongs to an individual that is in a Coma and on Life Support in our Hospital. If you have ANY information on this person, PLEASE CALL US BACK”. SO……..KITTY (Jasmine) called back! And the reason that I had her identified as KITTY was because she LOVED Cats……and she was Persian. I made her The Persian Kitty!
When Jasmine called the Phone Number, she asked ONE THING! “Please tell me that he IS BREATHING!”. Their Reply—– “With the help of a machine”. SO…….here was a Persian Woman, just three weeks from her Wedding Day, and just hours after her FINAL Wedding Dress Fitting, PRAYING that her Fiance WOULD LIVE!!!!!!!
Well, I DID live! Even though the Medical Personnel warned Jasmine that IF I DID come out of Coma, I may be a Vegetable For Life….. I made it! Here was a woman, INSTEAD of planning a Honeymoon and Life, had to plan for my Rehabilitation! She, instead of becoming MY WIFE, had to go to Court to become my (because of unsureness when IN Coma) LEGAL GUARDIAN!!!!
Months passed…. I was determined to have SEVERE TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY. I had to first learn who JASMINE WAS! Then, I had to learn who I WAS! I was admitted to Kessler Rehab! I had to learn HOW TO GO BATHROOM! HOW TO CLEAN MYSELF! HOW TO TALK! TO WALK! As, later, an Outpatient, I had to relearn how to think! There is a TV Show called “Samantha Who” that is true!!! It summarizes what someone with TBI has to overcome!
On May 17th, 2008 WE MARRIED!!!!!!! We not only got married, but WE BEAT THE 65% of couples after TBI that BREAK UP!!!!!
WE MADE IT!!!!!
Jimmy

Moe and Mirvat’s Story

Moe and Mirvat’s Story

Posted by Tina Tellall on 18 Nov 2007 | Tagged as: STORIES, good, internet dating |

My Name is Moe am 27 years old, I live in United Arab Emirates, in Abu Dhabi, and 14 years ago when I was like 13 years old, I was in love with a girl she used to live next door, every day I used to stay 9 hours just waiting for school to finish so I can go and wait her to come from school just to look at her sweet lovely eyes.

So when the school bus drop me home I just go running to the bathroom to take a shower, put on my perfume, and put on the best clothes I have every single day.

I go call my best friend and ask him to go out waiting with me, her maid used to wait her too, with her small little brother and his name is Moe too, he was 2 years old that time he used to be so cute, I used to spend all the time playing football (a game I hate) with him just to see her kissing him when she arrived from school and I stayed this way months without even telling her about my feelings.

At the summer time I went to my country for a vacation, I got her a gift with the letter M as the first letter of her name (and by the way Her name is Mirvat) and I decided to go to her house and knock the door and give her the gift just like that.

And I finally knocked her door and she opened, but there was one problem that she opened the door like she was going to kill me for bothering her while she was sleeping or something, anyways she was angry and her eyes were on fire, so I freaked out and I couldn’t think what to do, finally I told her I just got this gift to your brother Moe, and I was like :S .

That was the last day I ever saw her, they traveled for a vacation and then we moved from that aria, and I never been able to meet the girl I love again.

So before 3 months I was surfing the net and I was searching in a nice website called Facebook, I saw a lovely girl who is single and she’s 27 years old , she looked so beautiful I liked her profile picture and it’s the only picture I could see because she’s not in my friends list, I add her to my list and she accepted and I never got the time to go to her profile and see her pictures, after a while she left a comment on 1 of my pictures I loved the comment then I replied back, I added her to my MSN Messenger and we started to chat, after along adult chat she told me that she saw my face somehow or somewhere before, and that made me go to her profile to have a look at her pictures, and when I saw them I was shocked I was going to have a heart attack, is she the same girl I used to love 14 years ago?

I asked her a lot of a questions and all of them made me sure that she’s my dream, I was strong enough just to tell her that I used to love her long time ago. I told her that I played too much football just for you and just to see you, and that gift was for you not your brother but she couldn’t remember it, she smiled and couldn’t believe all this.

We talked that day on the Internet more than 13 hours , was so amazing no story such as this one, and we met the day after that, and we are in love now with each other and we are planning to be engaged soon.

This is my story and I just feel so happy sharing it with everyone.

Yours,

Moe & Mirvat

20 Good Habits to Start in Your 20s

20 Good Habits to Start in Your 20s

Now well into my 30s, there are several good habits I’m thankful I started in my 20s, and several more I wish I had started a decade ago.  If you’re still in your 20s, or even if you’re not, I challenge you to implement the habits below into your daily routine, one at a time, starting today.  A year from now, I guarantee you’ll appreciate the results.

1. Focus on the activities and people that make you happy. – Sometimes we make things complicated when they are really quite simple:  Find what it is that makes you happy and spend more time doing it.  Find who it is that makes you smile and spend more time with them.  Living your dream is really just a state of mind.  It’s feeling comfortable in your own skin, and realizing that where you are at any given moment is exactly where you want to be.  Thus, happiness and success in life is simply the gratifying combination liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking who you do it with.  Read Stumbling on Happiness.
2. Trust your instincts on new opportunities. – Life is too short to wait.  Every new day is another chance to change your life.  Every great accomplishment starts with the decision to try.  Trust that little voice inside your head that says, “What if…” and then GO DO IT.  You would be surprised how often “what if” works.  And no, you’re not obligated to win every time.  You’re obligated to keep trying – to do the best you can do every day – to be better than you were yesterday.
3. Build the courage to face your fears. – Everything you want is on the other side of fear.  Don’t ever hesitate to give yourself a chance to be everything you are capable of being.  It’s better to cross the line and suffer the consequences of a lesson learned, than to just stare at that line for the rest of your life and always wonder.  And remember, courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid; courage means you don’t let your fear stop you.
4. Focus on the resources you do have access to. – It all begins and ends in your mind.  What you give power to has power over you, if you allow it.  Too many of us are hung up on what we don’t have, can’t have, or won’t ever have.  We spend too much energy being down, when we could use that same energy – if not less of it – doing, or at least trying to do, some of the things we really want to do.  So focus on the opportunities you DO have, and exploit the resources you DO have access to.
5. Be less busy, and more productive. – Incessant busyness is often a sign of ineffectiveness and laziness.  Because it’s easy to be busy – just partake in a bunch of random activities that drains all your time.  Doing so justifies never having enough time to clean, cook for yourself, go out with friends, meet new people, etc.  Right?  Wrong.  Don’t just get things done; get the right things done.  Results are always more important than the time it takes to achieve them.  Read Getting Things Done.
6. Make your goals a priority. – Never put off or give up on a goal that’s important to you.  Not because you still have tomorrow to start or try again, but because you may not have tomorrow at all.  Life is shorter than it sometimes seems.  Make today count.
7. Accept your humanness. – You can stop pretending.  It feels good to own up to stuff… to admit that you’re human – a work in progress – a beautiful mess.  You’re fine.  Having a little anxiety is fine.  Being a little fearful is fine.  Your secrets are fine.  You’re a good person.  You’re intelligent.  You’re blowing things out of proportion.  You’re fine just the way you are.
8. Seek less approval from others. – Your ideas and choices don’t have to be on everyone’s ‘approved’ list.  Regardless of the opinions of others, at the end of the day the only reflection staring back at you in the mirror is your own.  Make sure you’re proud of who that person is.  Approach others with the belief that you’re a good person, whether they respond positively or not.  It’s normal to want the people around you to like you, but it becomes a self-imposed burden when too much of your behavior is explicitly designed to constantly reassure you of their approval.
9. Ignore society’s comparisons. – Constantly checking your life against one of society’s prewritten stories of how things ‘should’ be is a phony way of living.  It’s sort of like renting your identity.  Just be you.  You are far more nuanced than anyone else’s narrative you try to fit yourself into, and more complex than society’s story of what ‘should’ be happening.
10. Believe in your ability to succeed. – You control the ultimate result of where you will end up, what you may become, and how successful you can be.  No matter what your current circumstances are, always maintain a strong belief in your ability to succeed, and then put your beliefs to work.  Do so, and in time you will amaze yourself.
11. Manage your money before it starts to manage you. – Too many people buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have to impress people they don’t know.  Don’t be one of them.  Bottom line:  It’s easier to find long-term wealth by needing and spending less, instead of making more.  So spend less than you earn, and always go without until you have the cash in hand.  Keep six months of your salary in an emergency savings account just in case you lose your job or have an emergency that prevents you from working for a prolonged period of time.  And keep a few extra hundred dollars on hand for unexpected expenses, such as car and home repair.  Read I Will Teach You To Be Rich.
12. Let the wrong people go. – You can try your hardest, you can do everything and say everything, but sometimes people just aren’t worth trying over anymore, and they aren’t worth worrying about.  It’s important to know when to let go of someone who only brings you down.  The moment someone tells you that you’re not good enough is the moment you know you’re better off than they are, and better off without them.
13. Appreciate your true friends, and return the favor. – A friend who understands your tears and troubles is far more valuable than a hundred friends who only show up for your smiles and joys.  Because a true friend accepts who you truly are, and also helps you become who you are capable of being.  Friendships like this require more than just finding the right person, they also require you to be the right person.  When someone believes in you enough to lift you up, try not to let them down.  True friendship is a sweet responsibility to be nurtured, not an opportunity to be exploited.
14. Do everything with a touch of kindness. – Whatever can be done, can be done more effectively when you add kindness.  Whatever words are spoken, will always be more compelling when expressed with kindness.  The kind deeds you exert in just one moment can have a positive impact that lasts a lifetime.  Your days will be brighter and your years fuller when you add kindness to your purpose.  Choose to be kind every day, and you’re truly choosing to live in a better world.
15. Choose happiness. – If you can find joy in doing nothing, you can find it in everything.  Learn to experience happiness without a reason and you can create happiness for any reason.  Realize that happiness and joy are not always the result of good things, oftentimes they are the cause of good things.  There is nothing you need in order to be happy other than the choice to be.  So let go of the worries you have for what may or may not come your way.  Focus instead on the good things that you can give, create, inspire and choose to experience, right here, right now.  Don’t allow the world to pull you down with its negativity.  Choose to transform the world around you with your own positivity.
16. Learn to cope with anger effectively. – When you’re infuriated with someone else, take a few deep breaths, sit quietly, and think for a moment.  Acknowledge the true source of your anger.  Anger bleeds from the inside out.  Remember that we need to fix ourselves first before we attempt to fix or influence others.  Trying to change others is a common recipe for prolonging the suffering.  Taking responsibility for changing yourself, and how you deal with the actions of others, is a recipe for growth, freedom, and happiness.
17. Accept some responsibility for the way others treat you. – Yes, on occasion you will run into someone who is downright wicked, but for the most part, others will look to you for direction on how you want to be treated.  They will test you to see what is acceptable, and then treat you the way you let them treat you.  Remember, you can’t control them, but you can control what you tolerate.
18. Work on your inner beauty too. – Our outward acts are a manifestation of who we are on the inside.  Let’s remind ourselves to love who we are from the inside out – to be pretty happy, handsomely kind, pretty smart, handsomely unique, pretty loving, handsomely lovable, pretty quirky, handsomely funny, pretty cool – and not just pretty and handsome.  Read A New Earth.
19. Introduce a little variety into your routine. – Remember that the way you’ve always done it isn’t the only way.  It’s unlikely that one of the things you’ll regret when you’re 70 is not having consumed enough beer in your 20s, or not having bought enough $6 lattes from Starbucks, or not having frequented the same night club for years.  But the regret of missing out on opportunities is a real, toxic feeling.  You’ve figured out drinking and going out.  You’ve had enough lattes.  It’s time to figure something else out.  Every corner you turn or street you walk down has a new experience waiting for you.  You just have to see the opportunity and be adventurous enough to run with it.
20. Always keep in mind that life is somewhat unpredictable. – Some of the great moments in your life won’t necessarily be the things you do; they’ll be things that happen to you.  That doesn’t mean you can’t take action to affect the outcome of your life.  You have to take action, and you will.  But don’t forget that on any day, you can step out the front door and your whole life can change in an instant – for better or worse.  To an extent, the universe has a plan that’s always in motion.  A butterfly flaps its wings and it starts to rain – it’s a scary thought, but it’s part of life’s cycle.  All these little parts of the machine, constantly working – sometimes forcing you to struggle, and sometimes making sure you end up exactly in the right place at the right time.

12 Dozen Places To Educate Yourself Online For Free

12 Dozen Places To Educate Yourself Online For Free

All education is self-education.  Period.  It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in a college classroom or a coffee shop.  We don’t learn anything we don’t want to learn.
Those people who take the time and initiative to pursue knowledge on their own are the only ones who earn a real education in this world.  Take a look at any widely acclaimed scholar, entrepreneur or historical figure you can think of.  Formal education or not, you’ll find that he or she is a product of continuous self-education.
If you’re interested in learning something new, this article is for you.  Broken down by subject and/or category, here are several top-notch self-education resources I have bookmarked online over the past few years.
Note that some of the sources overlap between various subjects of education.  Therefore, each has been placed under a specific subject based on the majority focus of the source’s content.

Science and Health

• MIT OpenCourseWare – MIT OpenCourseWare is a free web-based publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.
• Tufts OpenCourseWare – Tufts OpenCourseWare is part of a new educational movement initiated by MIT that provides free access to course content for everyone online.  Tufts’ course offerings demonstrate the University’s strength in the life sciences in addition to its multidisciplinary approach, international perspective and underlying ethic of service to its local, national and international communities.
• HowStuffWorks Science – More scientific lessons and explanations than you could sort through in an entire year.
• Harvard Medical School Open Courseware – The mission of the Harvard Medical School Open Courseware Initiative is to exchange knowledge from the Harvard community of scholars to other academic institutions, prospective students, and the general public.
• Khan Academy – Over 1200 videos lessons covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, and biology.
• Open Yale Courses – Open Yale Courses provides lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public free of charge via the internet.  The courses span the full range of liberal arts disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and physical and biological sciences.
• webcast.berkeley – Every semester, UC Berkeley webcasts select courses and events for on-demand viewing via the Internet.  webcast.berkeley course lectures are provided as a study resource for both students and the public.
• UC San Diego Podcast Lectures – UCSD’s podcasting service was established for instructional use to benefit our students.  Podcasts are taken down at the end of every quarter (10 weeks Fall-Spring and 5 weeks in the summer).  If you’re enjoying a podcast, be sure to subscribe and download the lectures.  Once the podcast has been taken offline, faculty rarely approve their reposting.
• Johns Hopkins OpenCourseWare – The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s OpenCourseWare project provides access to content of the School’s most popular courses. As challenges to the world’s health escalate daily, the School feels a moral imperative to provide equal and open access to information and knowledge about the obstacles to the public’s health and their potential solutions.
• Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative – No instructors, no credits, no charge.  Use these self-guiding Carnegie Mellon materials and activities to learn at your own pace.
• Utah State OpenCourseWare – Utah State OpenCourseWare is a collection of educational material used in our formal campus courses, and seeks to provide people around the world with an opportunity to access high quality learning opportunities.
• AMSER – AMSER (the Applied Math and Science Education Repository) is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use.
• Wolfram Demonstrations Project – Wolfram brings computational exploration to the widest possible audience, open-code resource that uses dynamic computation to illuminate concepts.  Free player runs all demos and videos.
• The Science Forum – A very active scientific discussion and debate forum.
• Free Science and Video Lectures Online! – A nice collection of video lectures and lessons on science and philosophy.
• Science.gov – Science.gov searches over 42 databases and over 2000 selected websites from 14 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results.
• The National Science Digital Library – NSDL is the Nation’s online library for education and research in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics.
• EnviroLink Network–  A  non-profit organization, grassroots online community uniting organizations and volunteers around the world.  Up-to-date environmental information and news.
• Geology.com – Information about geology and earth science to visitors without charge: Articles, News, Maps, Satellite Images, Dictionary, etc.
• Scitable – A free science library and personal learning tool that currently concentrates on genetics, the study of evolution, variation, and the rich complexity of living organisms.  The site also expects to expand into other topics of learning and education.
• LearningScience.org – A free open learning community for sharing newer and emerging tools to teach science.

Business and Money

• MIT Sloan School of Management – MIT Sloan is a world-class business school long renowned for thought leadership and the ability to successfully partner theory and practice.  This is a subsection of the larger MIT OpenCourseWare site.
• Investopedia Financial Investing Tutorials – A plethora of detailed lessons on money management and investing.
• U.S. Small Business Administration Training Network – The Small Business Administration has one of the best selections of business courses on the web. Topics include everything from starting a business and business management to government contracting and international trade. Most courses take only 30 minutes to complete.
• VideoLectures.NET (Business) – A free and open access educational video lectures repository. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science.
• My Own Business, Inc. – Offers a free online business administration course that would be beneficial to new managers and to anyone who is interested in starting a business. This comprehensive course is split up into 16 sessions covering topics like business plans, accounting, marketing, insurance, e-commerce and international trade.
• UC Irvine OpenCourseWare (Business) – Rapidly with the addition of nearly 10 new courses every month. Many of our OCW offerings are directed at working adults seeking continuing education, with the option to enroll in instructor-led, for-credit courses, related to the OCW content.
• Kutztown University of Pennsylvania – The Kutztown University of Pennsylvania’s Small Business Development Center offers more than 80 free business courses online. Kutztown’s courses are individualized and self-paced. Many of the courses feature high-end graphics, interactive case studies and audio streams.
• Boston College Front Row (Business) – Boston College Front Row is a Web site that offers free access through streaming media to tapes of cultural and scholarly events at Boston College.
• Financial Management Training Center – The Financial Management Training Center provides several free downloadable business courses for people who need to learn the finer points of financial management. All courses offered can be taken online; courses include full exams as well as evaluation forms for people seeking Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits.
• The Free Nonprofit Micro-eMBA – Free Management Library’s Free Nonprofit Micro-eMBA Program is an especially great resource for students wishing to learn more about nonprofit management, but most of the lessons also apply to general business management. Completion of this program will not result in an MBA degree, but enrollment is free and the material is well structured.
• Bookboon Free Business e-books – Hundreds of free business books online in PDF format.
• TheStreet University – If you’re just starting out as a stock and bond investor or need a refresher’s course, this is the place to learn what you need to know.

History and World Culture

• University of Washington’s OpenUW – Explore a variety of learning in several free history-centric online courses from the University of Washington.
• Notre Dame OpenCourseWare – Notre Dame OCW is a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
• Bio’s Best – Biography.com’s most popular biographies on notable historical figures.
• UC Irvine OpenCourseWare (Social Science) – Rapidly with the addition of nearly 10 new courses every month. Many of our OCW offerings are directed at working adults seeking continuing education, with the option to enroll in instructor-led, for-credit courses, related to the OCW content.
• Boston College Front Row (History) – Boston College Front Row is a Web site that offers free access through streaming media to tapes of cultural and scholarly events at Boston College.
• MIT OpenCourseWare (History) – The MIT History Faculty offers about 70 subjects in the areas of Ancient, North American, European, East Asian, and Middle Eastern history.
• Wikiversity School of Social Sciences – Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
• OpenLearn (Arts and Humanities) – The OpenLearn website gives free access to Open University course materials.
• A Biography of America – A Biography of America presents history not simply as a series of irrefutable facts to be memorized, but as a living narrative of America’s story.
• Have Fun with History – A resource for students, educators and all lovers of American History.
• The USGenWeb Project – Free genealogy and family history resources online.
• MacroHistory and World Report – Tell without illusions or ideological restraints the story of our ancestors, our parents and us.
• World History HyperHistory – Navigates through 3000 years of World History with links to important persons and events of world historical importance.
• American Digital History – Online American history textbook. An interactive, multimedia history of the United States from the Revolution to the present.

Law

•  Duke Law Center for the Public Domain – Duke University is counted amongst the best schools in the South. If you’re interested in law, Duke’s open courseware in that subject area can go a long way towards helping you learn more about the justice system.
• Intute Law – Provides free access to high quality resources on the Internet. Each resource has been evaluated and categorised by subject specialists based at UK universities.
• Boston College Front Row (Law) – Boston College Front Row is a Web site that offers free access through streaming media to tapes of cultural and scholarly events at Boston College.
• American University – Offers a selection of podcasts on a number of different law-related subjects. There is even a very interesting podcast on debt relief and the law.
• Lewis & Clark Law School – Provides a number of podcast from the law school. Subjects include tax law, business law, environmental law and other areas of law. Interesting and insightful lectures on the law.
• Case Western Reserve University School of Law – Offers a number of interesting lectures on different law subjects. These lectures are both podcasts and Web casts. You can look ahead to the coming school year, which already has a number of interesting subjects lined up.
• Harvard Law School – Provides a number of Web casts of law lectures, symposia, panels and conferences. A great collection of relevant information and insights on how the law interacts with current events.
• Stanford Law – Provides open courseware via iTunes on a variety of law subjects, including the theory of justice, mobile content distribution, gay marriage, judicial review and privacy protection. The tracks are available for free, but you’ll need iTunes. Put the lectures on your iPod or iPhone and listen them anywhere.
• MoneyInstructor Business Law – From MoneyInstructor.com provides a look at a number of basics in business law. Learn how to define crimes under business law. Worksheets and curriculums are available for teachers. Ordinary folks will find them useful as well.
• Wesleyan College Constitutional Law – From North Carolina Wesleyan College offers an overview of the U.S. Constitution and the laws springing from it. Online lectures and class notes are included, which can help you develop a strong understanding of the Constitution and how it forms the basis of our laws.

Computer Science and Engineering

• VideoLectures.NET (Computer Science) – A free and open access educational video lectures repository. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science.
• Wikiversity School of Computer Science and Technology – Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
• New York State University (US), Computer Science – Hundreds of lectures, tutorials and links to educational material.
• Dream.In.Code Tutorials – Lots of computer programming tutorials.
• MIT OpenCourseWare (Engineering and Computer Science) – MIT OpenCourseWare is a free web-based publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.
• Maine University (US), Fogler Guide to Computer Science – An insanely detailed list of computer science resources.
• FreeComputerBooks.com  – Free computer, mathematics, technical books and lecture notes.
• Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies – A massive collection of bibliographies of scientific literature in computer science, updated weekly from original locations, more than 3 millions of references (mostly to journal articles, conference papers and technical reports), clustered in about 2000 bibliographies.
• W3Schools – Web-building tutorials, from basic HTML and XHTML to advanced XML, SQL, Database, Multimedia and WAP.
• FreeTechBooks.com – This site lists free online computer science, engineering and programming books, textbooks and lecture notes, all of which are legally and freely available over the Internet.
• Free computer Tutorials – Free computer courses and tutorials site. All the courses are aimed at complete beginners, so you don’t need experience to get started.
• Programmer 101: Teach Yourself How to Code – Several helpful resources for computer programming beginners.
• Google Code University – Provides sample course content and tutorials for Computer Science (CS) students and educators on current computing technologies and paradigms.

Mathematics

• Oxford University Mathematics OpenCourseWare – Various online mathematics classes provided free by Oxford University.
• UMass Boston Mathematics – Various online mathematics classes provided free by UMass Boston.
• Whatcom Online Math Center – Various math lessons provided free by Whatcom Community College.
• VideoLectures.NET (Mathematics) – A free and open access educational video lectures repository. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science.
• Wikiversity School of Mathematics – Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
• AMSER Mathematics – AMSER (the Applied Math and Science Education Repository) is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use.
• Math.com – Math.com is dedicated to providing revolutionary ways for students, parents, teachers, and everyone to learn math.
• Intute Mathematics – Provides free access to high quality resources on the Internet. Each resource has been evaluated and categorized by subject specialists based at UK universities.
• Free-Ed College Mathematics – Offers a wide range of free online math courses and study programs.

English and Communications

• Open Yale Courses (English) – Open Yale Courses provides lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public free of charge via the internet.
• Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students – These guidelines for engineering writing and scientific writing are designed to help students communicate their technical work.
• MIT Writing and Humanistic Studies – The MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies gives students the opportunity to learn the techniques, forms, and traditions of several kinds of writing, from basic expository prose to more advanced forms of non-fictional prose, fiction and poetry, science writing, scientific and technical communication and digital media.
• Merriam-Webster Online – In this digital age, your ability to communicate with written English is paramount skill.  And M-W.com is the perfect resource to improve your English now.
• National Novel Writing Month – Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
• Lifewriting – A complete text of the 9-week writing class a professor taught for years at UCLA.
• Guide to Grammar and Writing – Grammar and writing techniques, lessons and quizzes.
• Purdue Online Writing Lab – Over 200 free resources including lessons on: writing, research, grammar, and style guides.

Foreign and Sign Languages

• BBC Languages – Teach yourself a new spoken language online.
• American Sign Language Browser – Teach yourself sign language online.
• Livemocha – Start learning a new language online for free.
• Learn10 – Gives you a language learning habit that’s hard to kick. 10 new words; everywhere, every day.
• One Minute Languages – Learn a new language via podcasts that are updated regularly.
• Mango Languages – Over 100 lessons, shown to you in PowerPoint style with interstitial quizzes, to move you through any language without cracking a book.

Multiple Subjects and Miscellaneous

• OpenLearn – The OpenLearn website gives free access to Open University course materials.  Multiple subjects are covered.
• Capilano University OpenCourseWare – The Capilano University OpenCourseWare site is a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
• University of Southern Queensland’s OpenCourseWare – Provides access to free and open educational resources for faculty members, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
• YouTube EDU – Educational videos on YouTube organized by subject matter.
• LearnHub Test Prep – Raise your test scores with free practice tests & counseling on various subjects.
• iTunes U – Hundreds of universities — including Stanford, Yale and MIT — distribute lectures, slide shows, PDFs, films, exhibit tours and audio books through iTunes U.  The Science section alone contains content on topics including agriculture, astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, ecology and geography.
• United Nations University OpenCourseWare – Showcases the training and educational programs implemented by the University in a wide range of areas relevant to the work of the United Nations.
• Brigham Young Independent Study – BYU Independent Study now offers free courses in different areas of study.  These areas include Family History, Family Life, and Religious Scripture Study, Personal Dev elopement, etc.  Use these courses as a starting point for your personal studies or just to add insight to an area of interest.
• University of Utah OpenCourseWare – Provides access to free and open educational resources for faculty members, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
• United States Nation Archives – The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation’s record keeper.  Valuable records are preserved and are available to you, whether you want to see if they contain clues about your family’s history, need to prove a veteran’s military service, or are researching an historical topic that interests you.
• Wikiversity – Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
• UMass Boston OpenCourseWare – Various online classes provided free by UMass Boston.
• About U – A collection of free online educational courses from About.com.
• Academic Earth – Online degrees and video courses from leading universities.
• Free-Ed – Clusters of courses that support your preparation for today’s fastest-growing careers and critical academic disciplines.
• Connexions – A place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute.
• TED – Motivational and educational lectures from noteworthy professionals around the world.
• Intute – Provides free access to high quality resources on the Internet. Each resource has been evaluated and categorised by subject specialists based at UK universities.
• Boston College Front Row – Boston College Front Row is a Web site that offers free access through streaming media to tapes of cultural and scholarly events at Boston College.

Free Books and Reading Recommendations

• LibraryThing – LibraryThing connects you to other people who are reading what you’re reading and allows you to see which books are popular in various categories of reading.
• Textbook Revolution – Links to free online textbooks and other educational materials.
• Book TV – This is the companion site to Book TV on C-Span2. The site holds some current interviews with authors, many past interviews, opinions, reviews, and featured programs through online video.
• Bookboon – Bookboon provides online textbooks for students in PDF format. The free ebooks can be downloaded without registration. Our books are legal and written exclusively for Bookboon. They are financed by a few in-book ads.
• Scribd – Scribd, the online document sharing site which supports Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and other popular formats. You can download a document or embed it in your blog or web page.
• BookYards – BookYards is a web portal in which books, education materials, information, and content will be freely to anyone who has an internet connection.
• Planet eBook – Free classic literature to download and share.
• E-Books Directory – Thousands of ebooks on various subjects to download and share.
• Read Print Library – Free online books library for students, teachers, and the classic enthusiast.GoodReads – Get great book recommendations and keep track of what you want to read.
• The Online Books Page – University of Pennsylvania database with over 30,000 books.
• Public Literature – Thousands of familiar classics, children’s books, plays and poems, as well as books by new authors.
• Full Books – Thousands of full-text nonfiction and fiction books.
• Many Books – Free fiction and nonfiction ebooks for your PDA, iPod or ebook reader.
• Get Free Books – Thousands of free ebooks to download.
• Project Gutenberg – More than 20,000 free books from the first producer of free e-books.
• Bibliomania – Thousands of classic books, poems, short stories and plays.
• Classic Reader – Large collection of free classic books, plays, and short stories from more than 300 authors.
• Bartleby Fiction – Classic anthologies and volumes.
• The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List – MBA programs don’t have a monopoly on advanced business knowledge: you can teach yourself everything you need to know to succeed in life and at work.  The Personal MBA features the very best business books available, based on thousands of hours of research.
• Books Should Be Free – Free audio books from the public domain.

Educational Mainstream Broadcast Media

• BBC Learning – Online learning, support, and advice. This site offers internal and offsite links to a vast amount of materials.
• Biography – The site holds videos to past interviews and biographies on people in topics that range from Black history to women’s history.
• Book TV – This is the companion site to Book TV on C-Span2. The site holds some current interviews with authors, many past interviews, opinions, reviews, and featured programs through online video.
• CBC Archives — Relive Canadian history through thousands of available radio and television clips.
• Discovery — This channel is home to several different networks that focus on the military, animals, travel, etc. The Discovery site offers a “Video of the Day” from its home page, a separate online video section, and a Discover Education center where teachers can accumulate materials for K-12 teaching. It’s impossible to list all their offerings here, so go discover!
• History Channel – Visit the Video Gallery for a selection on historical topics. Like the Discovery Channel, this network provides many opportunities for you to gain access to information and reference materials.
• NOVA — Watch current science shows or browse by category. PBS sponsors this channel.
• Research Channel — Speakers, researchers and professors present revolutionary thoughts and discoveries. Use their Webstreams and an extensive video-on-demand library for research.
• Weather Channel – You can learn about weather all over the world, but the Weather Channel also offers dynamic content based upon seasons and special conditions and a special multimedia and education section.

Online Archives

• American Memory – The Library of Congress provides extensive multimedia offerings on various topics through their American Memory Collection, including their outstanding Built in America project that showcases historical buildings through photographs.
• Fathom – This archive, provided by Columbia University, offers access to the complete range of free content developed for Fathom by its member institutions. The archives include online learning resources including lectures, articles, interviews, exhibits and seminars.
• Internet Archive Open Educational Resources – A digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form.
• National Archives – Provides primary source materials from NARA along with lesson plans for teaching with those sources.
• National Climatic Data Center – The NCDC, a division of NOAA, maintains climatic archives, including lists of storms in given counties, and records about global extremes, etc.
• The Rosetta Project – A global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers building a publicly accessible online archive of all documented human languages.
• September 11 Digital Archive – This site uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of the 9/11 attacks.
• U.S. Census Bureau – If you think the Census Bureau is all about numbers, you might be surprised to learn about their archived photographs, daily radio features, and more available through their Newsroom.

Directories of Open Education

• Google Scholar – Provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
• OpenCourseWare Consortium – This site provides a portal to search through hundreds of free courses or to add new courses you know about to the database.
• iBerry – Check out this site for a huge directory of open courseware organized by school and subject matter that can point you in the right direction for any type of learning.
• Self Made Scholar Directory – Free online directory of web-based classes and courses.

10 Thoughts You Must Leave in the Past

A new way of thinking has become the necessary condition for responsible living and acting.  If we maintain obsolete values and beliefs, a fragmented consciousness and self-centered spirit, we will continue to hold onto outdated goals and behaviors.
-Dalai Lama

If you want to move forward, you must change your way of thinking and leave these thoughts behind you:

1. “I don’t have a choice.” – You write your own destiny through the choices you make.  You become what you repeatedly do.  It is more important to know where you are going and why, than to get there quickly.  Do not mistake activity for achievement.  Every time you are tempted to react to the same old circumstances in the same old way, ask yourself, “Do I want to be a prisoner of the past, or a pioneer of the future?”  Read As a Man Thinketh.
2. “Life is easy.” – Life is NOT easy, it IS difficult.  That’s the greatest truth there is.  It’s great because once you understand and accept this truth, you can move forward with your life.  Once you thoroughly know in your heart and mind that life is difficult, then life gets a lot easier to deal with.  Because once difficulty is accepted as a foundation, it no longer surprises you or stops you from building a lifestyle that rises above it.
3. “The way it is now is the way it will always be.” – Don’t confuse your path with your destination.  Just because it’s stormy now, doesn’t mean you aren’t headed for sunshine.  And remember, you cannot heal a lifetime of pain overnight; be patient with yourself, it takes as long as it takes, but your happiness is worth the wait.
4. “The sky is falling.” – When everything in your life is coming together, you can hold on to the belief that ‘everything happens for a reason’ with frivolous ease.  But when everything’s falling apart – your relationships, your health, your finances, etc. – it takes tremendous effort to wrap your mind and heart around that belief and hold onto it for dear life.  Yet you must.  For in that belief lies your hope, your courage, and your strength to move forward.  Read The Last Lecture.
5. “Everyone else is doing better than me.” – Do not feed your insecurities, or they will consume you.  Sometimes the reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes circumstances with everyone else’s public highlight reel.  We listen to the noise of the world, instead of ourselves.  So stop the comparisons; listen to your own inner voice and your own soul.
6. “That’s unrealistic.” – To be successful, you have to be a little unrealistic.  You have to believe that something totally different than what has happened for an eternity can happen.  Think about it.  Being realistic doesn’t change anything; being unrealistic does.  Doesn’t it seem a bit unrealistic to be able to walk into a dark space, hit a switch, and instantly fill the entire space with light?  Fortunately Thomas Edison didn’t think so.
7. “I wish.” – The best thing you can do for yourself is to stop saying “I wish,” start saying “I will,” and then go do something about it.  The world isn’t going to dominate itself.  You just have to wake up one morning and decide that you don’t want to feel like this anymore, ever again.  And then make a change, just like that.
8. “It’s too late.” – Believing it’s too late is the end of your journey; believing in yourself is an endless destination.  Trust yourself.  Break the rules.  Don’t be afraid to fail.  Ignore those who doubt you.  Work your butt off.  And be sure to give something back before you’re done.  Read The Art of Non-Conformity.
9. “I can’t.” – Nobody is going to blindside you and hit you as hard as life will.  Sometimes life will beat you to the ground, and keep you there if you let it.  But it’s not about how hard life can hit you; it’s about how hard you can be hit while continuing to move forward.  That’s what true strength is.  And that’s what winning the game of life is all about.
10. “This situation couldn’t get any worse.” – Nothing is good or bad, as thinking makes it so.  Be determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation you may find yourself.  For you will eventually learn that the greater part of your happiness or unhappiness is determined not by your specific circumstances, but by your disposition and perspective.

26 Life Lessons Learned by Age 26

26 Life Lessons Learned by Age 26

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Here is a list of 26 life lessons I have learned thus far at the age of 26.  I pass this list on to you with the simple hope that it makes you think.  Sometimes thinking about your life and sorting out what you have learned is just as important as tackling a new venture.

1. Being an adult can be fun when you are acting like a child.
2. Love has nothing to do with looks, but everything to do with time, trust, and interest.
3. Laughing, crying, joy and anger… All are a vital.  All make us human.
4. The greatest truths in life are uncovered with simple, steady awareness.
5. Greed will bury even the lucky eventually.
6. Bad things do happen to good people.
7. Paving your own road is intelligent only if nobody has gone exactly where you are going.
8. Uncertainty is caused by a lack of knowledge.  Hesitation is the product of fear.
9. Time heals all wounds… regardless of how you feel right now.
10. Most of the time what you are looking for is right in front of you.
11. Your health is your life.
12. Chance is a gift, so act on chance when given the opportunity.
13. Kindness and hard work will take you further than intelligence.
14. People deserve a second chance, but not a third.
15. Marry your best friend.
16. Take lots of pictures.  Someday you’ll be really glad you did.
17. Money makes life easier only when the money is yours free and clear.
18. Carelessness is the root of failure
19. Your actions now create memories you will reminisce and talk about in your elder years.
20. Stepping outside of your comfort zone will put things into perspective from an angle you can’t grasp now.
21. Motivation comes in short bursts.  Act while it’s hot.
22. Purposely ignoring the obvious is like walking backwards toward the enemy.
23. Taking ownership of failure builds the foundation for success.
24. First impressions are completely worthless 50% of the time.
25. Personal glory lasts forever.
26. If you never act, you will never know for sure.

60 Tiny Love Stories to Make You Smile

60 Tiny Love Stories to Make You Smile

Here’s a selection of 60 tiny love stories recently submitted to our sister site, Makes Me Think, that not only made us think, but warmed our hearts and made us smile too.  We hope they do the same for you.

1. Today, my 75-year-old grandpa who has been blind from cataracts for almost 15 years said to me, “Your grandma is just the most beautiful thing, isn’t she?” I paused for a second and said, “Yes she is. I bet you miss seeing that beauty on a daily basis.” “Sweety,” my grandpa said, “I still see her beauty every day. In fact, I see it more now than I used to when we were young.” MMT
2. Today, I walked my daughter down the aisle. Ten years ago I pulled a 14 year old boy out of his mom’s fire-engulfed SUV after a serious accident. Doctors initially said he would never walk again. My daughter came with me several times to visit him at the hospital. Then she started going on her own. Today, seeing him defy the odds and smile widely, standing on his own two feet at the altar as he placed a ring on my daughter’s finger MMT.
3. Today, I walked up to the door of my office (I’m a florist) at 7AM to find a uniformed Army soldier standing out front waiting. He was on his way to the airport to go to Afghanistan for a year. He said, “I usually bring home a bouquet of flowers for my wife every Friday and I don’t want to let her down when I’m away.” He then placed an order for 52 Friday afternoon deliveries of flowers to his wife’s office and asked me to schedule one for each week until he returns. I gave him a 50% discount because it made my day to see something so sweet. MMT
4. Today, I told my 18 year old grandson that nobody asked me to prom when I was in high school, so I didn’t attend. He showed up at my house this evening dressed in a tuxedo and took me as his date to his prom. MMT
5. Today, when she woke up from an eleven month coma, she kissed me and said, “Thank you for being here, and telling me those beautiful stories, and never giving up on me… And yes, I will marry you.” MMT
6. Today, I was sitting on a park bench eating a sandwich for lunch when an elderly couple pulled their car up under a nearby oak tree. They rolled down the windows and turned up some jazz music on the radio. Then the man got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, opened the door for the woman, took her hand and helped her out of her seat, guided her about ten feet away from the car, and they slow danced for the next half hour under the oak tree. MMT
7. Today, I operated on a little girl. She needed O- blood. We didn’t have any, but her twin brother has O- blood. I explained to him that it was a matter of life and death. He sat quietly for a moment, and then said goodbye to his parents. I didn’t think anything of it until after we took his blood and he asked, “So when will I die?” He thought he was giving his life for hers. Thankfully, they’ll both be fine. MMT
8. Today, my dad is the best dad I could ask for. He’s a loving husband to my mom (always making her laugh), he’s been to every one of my soccer games since I was 5 (I’m 17 now), and he provides for our family as a construction foreman. This morning when I was searching through my dad’s toolbox for a pliers, I found a dirty folded up paper at the bottom. It was an old journal entry in my dad’s handwriting dated exactly one month before the day I was born. It reads, “I am eighteen years old, an alcoholic who is failing out of college, a past cutter, and a child abuse victim with a criminal record of auto theft. And next month, ‘teen father’ will be added to the list. But I swear I will make things right for my little girl. I will be the dad I never had.” And I don’t know how he did it, but he did it. MMT
9. Today, my 8-year-old son hugged me and said, “You are the best mom in the whole entire world!” I smiled and sarcastically replied, “How do you know that? You haven’t met every mom in the whole entire world.” My son squeezed me tighter and said, “Yes I have. You are my world.” MMT
10. Today, I have an elderly patient who is suffering from a severe case of Alzheimer’s. He can rarely remember his own name, and he often forgets where he is and what he said just a few minutes beforehand. But by the stretch of some miracle (perhaps the miracle of love), he remembers who is wife is every morning when she shows up to spend a few hours with him. He usually greets her by saying, “Hello my beautiful Kate.” MMT
11. Today, my 21 year old Labrador can barely stand up, can’t see, can’t hear, and doesn’t have enough strength to bark. But it doesn’t stop her from wagging her tail a mile a minute every single time I walk into the room. MMT
12. Today is our 10th anniversary, but since my husband and I are both recently unemployed we agreed not to get each other any gifts. When I woke up this morning, my husband was already up. I walked downstairs to find beautiful wild flowers brilliantly arranged all over the house. There must be 400 flowers total and he didn’t spend a dime. MMT
13. Today, my high school boyfriend, who I thought I’d never see again, showed me the pictures of the two of us he kept in his Army helmet while he was overseas for the last 8 years. MMT
14. Today, my 88-year-old grandmother and her 17 year old cat are both blind. My grandmother’s guide dog leads my grandmother around the house, which is normal. But lately, he’s been guiding her cat around the house too. When her cat meows, he walks up and rubs against her, and then she follows directly behind him to her food, to the litter box, to the other end of the house for a nap, etc. MMT
15. Today, I watched in horror through the kitchen window as my 2-year-old slipped and fell head first into the pool. But before I could get to her, our Labrador Retriever, Rex, jumped in after her, grabbed her by her shirt collar and pulled her to the shallow steps where she could stand. MMT
16. Today, my older brother has donated bone marrow 16 times to help treat my cancer. He communicates directly with my doctor and does it without me even asking or knowing when he has an appointment. And today my doctor informed me that the treatment appears to be working. “Cancer cells have been drastically reduced in the last few months.” MMT
17. Today, I was driving home with my grandfather when he suddenly made a u-turn and said, “I forgot to get your grandmother a bouquet of flowers. I’ll pick up one from the florist at the corner down here. It’ll only take a second.” “What’s so special about today that you have to buy her flowers?” I asked. “There’s nothing specifically special about today,” my grandfather said. “Every day is special. Your grandmother loves flowers. They put a smile on her face.” MMT
18. Today, I re-read the suicide letter I wrote on the afternoon of September 2nd 1996 about two minutes before my girlfriend showed up at my door and told me, “I’m pregnant.” Suddenly I felt I had a reason to live. Today she’s my wife. We’ve been happily married for 14 years. And my daughter, who is almost 15 now, has two younger brothers. I re-read my suicide letter from time to time as a reminder to be thankful – I am thankful I got a second chance at life and love. MMT
19. Today, and every day for the last two months since I returned to school with burn scars on my face after being hospitalized for nearly a month for injuries I sustained in a house fire, a red rose was taped to my locker when I got to school in the morning. I have no clue who is getting to school early and leaving me these roses. I’ve even arrived early myself a few times to try to figure it out, but each time the rose was already there. MMT
20. Today was the 10 year anniversary of my dad’s passing. When I was a kid he used to hum a short melody to me as I was going to sleep. When I was 18, as he rested in his hospital bed fighting cancer, the roles were reversed and I hummed the melody to him. I haven’t heard that melody since, until last night. My fiancé and I were turned on our sides looking at each other in bed when he started humming it to me. His mom used to hum it to him when he was a kid. MMT
21. Today, a woman who must have her voicebox removed due to cancer is enrolled in my sign language class. Her husband, four children, two sisters, brother, mother, father, and twelve close friends are also enrolled in the same class so they can communicate with her after she loses her ability to speak aloud. MMT
22. Today, my 11-year-old son speaks fluent sign language because his best friend, Josh, who he grew up with from the time he was an infant, is deaf. Seeing their genuine friendship evolve and grow over the years MMT.
23. Today, due to Alzheimer’s and dementia, my grandfather usually can’t remember who my grandmother is when he wakes up in the morning. It bothered my grandmother a year ago when it first happened, but now she’s fully supportive of his condition. In fact, she plays a game every day in which she tries to get my grandfather to ask her to re-marry him before dinnertime. She hasn’t failed yet. MMT
24. Today, my dad passed away from natural causes at the age of 92. I found his body resting peacefully in the recliner in his bedroom. In his lap, facing upright, were three framed 8×10 photographs of my mom who passed away about 10 years ago. She was the love of his life, and apparently the last thing he wanted to see before he passed. MMT
25. Today, I am the proud mom of a blind 17-year-old boy. Although my son was born without his sense of sight, it hasn’t stopped him from being a straight A student, a guitarist (whose band just surpassed 25,000 downloads of their first album), and a loving boyfriend to his long-term girlfriend, Valerie. Just today, his younger sister asked him what he likes about Valerie, and he said, “Everything. She’s beautiful.” MMT
26. Today, I waited on an elderly couple. The way they looked at each other… you could see they were in love. When the husband mentioned that they were celebrating their anniversary, I smiled and said, “Let me guess. You two have been together forever.” They laughed and the wife said, “Actually, no, today is our 5 year anniversary. We both outlived our spouses and then life blessed us with one more shot at love.” MMT
27. Today, my father found my little sister alive, chained up in a barn. She was abducted near Mexico City almost 5 months ago. Authorities stopped actively searching for her a few weeks later. My mom and I laid her soul to rest. We had a funeral for her last month. All of our family and friends attended the ceremony except my father. Instead he kept looking for her. He said he “loved her too much to give up.” And she’s back home now because he never did. MMT
28. Today, there are two senior boys at my school who have an openly gay relationship. They have experienced verbal humiliation on a daily basis for the last two years, yet they continue to hold each other’s hand in the hallways. Despite threats and vandalized lockers, they showed up to prom this evening wearing matching tuxedos. Seeing them on the dance floor, smiling from ear to ear in spite of all the haters MMT.
29. Today, my sister and I were in a bad car accident. My sister is Mrs. Popular at school – she knows everyone. I’m a bit of an introvert – I hang-out with the same 2 girls all the time. My sister immediately posted a comment on Facebook about our accident. And while all her friends were commenting, my 2 friends showed up independently at the scene of the accident before the paramedics arrived. MMT
30. Today, my fiancé returned home from his last tour of duty overseas. Yesterday he was just my boyfriend, or so I thought. Almost a year ago, he mailed me a package. He told me I wasn’t allowed to open it until he got home in two weeks. But then his tour got extended for another 11 months. Today, when he got home, he told me to open the package, and just as I pulled the ring out of the box, he got down on one knee. MMT
31. Today, my 12-year-old son, Sean, and I stopped by the nursing home together for the first time in several months. Usually I come alone see my mother who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. When we walked into the lobby, the nurse said, “Hi, Sean!” and then buzzed us in. “How does she know your name?” I asked. “Oh, I swing by here on my walk home from school all the time to say hi to Grandma,” Sean said. I had no idea. MMT
32. Today, I found an old hand written note my mom wrote when she was a senior in high school. On it is a list of qualities she hoped she would someday find in a boyfriend. The list is basically an exact description of my dad, who she didn’t meet until she was 27. MMT
33. Today, I’ve been chemistry lab partners with one of the most beautiful (and popular) girls at our school since the beginning of the school year. And although I never would have had the courage to talk to her otherwise, she’s totally down to earth and sweet. We spend our time in the lab chatting, laughing, and getting A’s (she’s smart too), and just recently we started talking a little bit outside of class too. Last week when I heard that she didn’t have a date to our homecoming dance, I desperately wanted to ask her, but chickened out every time I was about to. Then this afternoon, at lunchtime, she ran up to me and formally asked me to ask her to the dance. So I did, and she kissed me on the cheek and said, “Yes!” MMT
34. Today, on our 10th anniversary, she handed me a suicide note she wrote when she was 22, on the exact day we met. And she said, “For all these years I didn’t want you to know how foolish and unstable I was back when we met. But even though you didn’t know, you saved me. Thank you.” MMT
35. Today, my grandpa keeps an old, candid photo on his nightstand of my grandma and him laughing together at some party in the 1960’s. My grandma passed away from cancer in 1999 when I was 7. This evening when I was at his house, my grandpa caught me staring at the photo. He walked up, hugged me from behind and said, “Remember, just because something doesn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth your while.” MMT
36. Today, I sat down with my two daughters, ages 4 and 6, to explain to them that we have to move out of our 4 bedroom house and into a 2 bedroom apartment for awhile until I can find another job that pays well. My daughters looked at each other for a moment and then my youngest daughter turned to me and asked, “Are we all moving into the apartment together?” “Yes,” I replied. “Oh, so no big deal then,” she said. MMT
37. Today, I met the prettiest woman on a plane. Assuming I wouldn’t see her again after we made our connections, I told her how pretty I thought she was. She gave me the most sincere smile and said, “Nobody has said that to me in 10 years.” It turns out we’re both in our mid-30’s, never married, no kids, and we live about 5 miles away from each other. We have a date set for next Saturday after we return home. MMT
38. Today, I’m a mother of 2 and a grandmother of 4. At 17 I got pregnant with twins. When my boyfriend and friends found out I wasn’t going to abort them, they turned a cold shoulder to me. But I pressed forward, worked full-time while attending school, graduated high school and college, and met a guy in one of my classes who has loved my children like his own for the last 50 years. MMT
39. Today, on my 29th birthday, I returned home from my 4th and final tour of duty overseas. The little girl who lives next door to my parents (who isn’t so little any more - she’s 22 now) met me at the airport with a long stemmed rose, a bottle of my favorite vodka, and then asked me out on a date. MMT
40. Today, my daughter accepted her boyfriend’s marriage proposal. He is 3 years older than her. They started dating when she was 14 and he was 17. I never liked the age difference when they were kids. When he turned 18 a week before she turned 15, my husband insisted they break-up. They maintained a friendship, but went on to date other people. Now at the ages of 24 and 27, I’ve never seen two people more in love. MMT
41. Today, after I heard that my mom stayed home from work with the flu, I stopped by Wal-Mart on my way home from school to pick her up some canned soup. I ran into my dad who was already in the check-out line. He had 5 cans of soup, NyQuil, tissues, tampons, 4 romantic comedy DVDs and a bouquet of flowers. My dad makes me smile and MMT.
42. Today, I was sitting on a hotel balcony watching 2 lovers in the distance walk along the beach. From their body language, I could tell they were laughing and enjoying each other’s company. As they got closer, I realized they were my parents. My parents almost got divorced 8 years ago. MMT
43. Today, I’m only 17, but I’ve been with my boyfriend, Jake, for 3 years, and last night was the first time we spent the night together. We’ve never ‘done it,’ and we didn’t last night either. Instead, we baked cookies, watched two comedies, laughed, played Xbox and fell asleep in each other’s arms. Despite the warnings from my parents, he’s been nothing but a gentleman and a best friend. MMT
44. Today, when I tapped the side of my wheelchair and told my husband, “You’re the only reason I want to be free from this contraption,” he kissed me on my forehead and said, “Honey, I don’t even see that thing.” MMT
45. Today, my grandmother and grandfather, who were both in their early 90’s and married for 72 years, both died of natural causes approximately one hour apart from each other. MMT
46. Today, my dad came to see me for the first time in 6 months since I told him I’m gay. When I opened the door he had tears in his eyes and he immediately gave me a huge hug and said, “I’m sorry, Jason. I love you.” MMT
47. Today, my autistic little sister spoke her first word at the age of 6 – my name. MMT
48. Today, at the age of 72, nearly 15 years after my grandfather passed away, my grandmother remarried. And since I’m only 17, I’ve never seen her so happy in all my life. It’s inspiring to see two people so in love at their age. MMT it’s never too late.
49. Today, at a jazz club in San Francisco I saw a man and woman enjoying a drink together.  The woman was a dwarf and the man must have been 6 feet tall.  Later in the evening they went out onto the dance floor.  The man got down on his knees so they could slow dance together.  They danced the rest of the night. MMT
50. Today, as I was sleeping, I woke up to my daughter calling my name. I was sleeping in a sofa chair in her hospital room. I opened my eyes to her beautiful smile. My daughter has been in a coma for 98 days. MMT
51. Today, exactly 10 years ago almost to the minute, I stopped at an intersection and a car rear ended me. The driver was a student at UF, just like me. He was cordial and apologetic. As we waited for the cops and the tow truck we chatted and started laughing together about all sorts of stuff. We exchanged numbers and the rest is history. We just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. MMT
52. Today, I was working in a coffee shop when 2 gay men walked in holding hands.  As you might expect, heads started turning.  Then a young girl at the table next to me asked her mom why 2 men were holding hands.  Her mom replied, “Because they love each other.” MMT
53. Today, after 2 years of separation, my ex-wife and I resolved our differences and met for dinner.  We laughed and chatted for almost 4 hours.  Then just before she left, she handed me a large envelope.  In it were 20 love letters she wrote me over the last 2 years.  There was a post-it note on the envelope that said, “Letters I was too stubborn to send.” MMT
54. Today, I was in an accident that left me with a gash on my forehead.  The doctors wrapped a bandage around my head and said I have to keep it on all week.  I hate wearing it.  Two minutes ago my little brother walked into my room wearing a bandage on his head.  My mom said he insisted that he didn’t want me to feel alone. MMT
55. Today, my mother passed away after a long battle with cancer.  My best friend lives 2000 miles away and called to comfort me.  While on the phone, he asked, “What would you do if I showed up at your house and gave you the biggest hug in the world?”  “I would surely smile,” I replied.  And then he rang my doorbell. MMT
56. Today, as my 91-year-old grandfather (a military doctor, war hero, and successful business owner) rested in his hospital bed, I asked him what his greatest life accomplishment was.  He turned around, grabbed my grandmother’s hand, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Growing old with you.” MMT
57. Today, as I watched my 75-year-old grandmother and grandfather being silly with each other and laughing in the kitchen, I felt like I got a short glimpse of what true love feels like.  I hope I find it someday. MMT
58. Today, exactly twenty years ago to the hour, I risked my life to save a woman who was drowning in the rapids of the Colorado River.  And that’s how I met my wife - the love of my life.  MMT
59. Today, on our 50th wedding anniversary, she smiled at me and said, “I only wish I had met you sooner.” MMT
60. Today, my blind friend explained to me in vivid detail how beautiful his new girlfriend is. MMT