Thoughts and things ...

Tagged: blogging

6

BLOGGING / WRITING 101

The Secret Garden Hostel in Quito, Ecuador

Today’s Prompt: If you could zoom through space in the speed of light, what place would you go to right now? Writing 101’s prompt of ‘where would I be?’  takes me back to my trip to Quito in 2006 and is definitely a trip I would love to repeat with the added benefit of a little more knowledge of the environment and what to expect along with the added flavour of knowing it’s been almost 10 years since my initial visit. I’d never stayed in a hostel before March of 2006.  I happened on the Secret Garden hostel as I was researching places to stay for my upcoming trip to Equador.  It was a very well-reveiwed place and an extremely affordable place to stay. The word hostel had always left me with the vision of rows of bunks and youth mentally equating to parties and ultimately no sleep.  As I started researching the Secret Garden I came to realise that it did not fit into my preconceived notions.   It had to be too good to be true!  The Secret Garden as it turns out has the option to reserve your own room with a shared bathroom (shared with one other room) for at that time $14 a day. I arrived in Quito knowing no-one but ready to venture out.  A modest taxi ride from the airport brought me to the colourful front door of the Hostel.  It was after dark and I could only hope I was in the right place.  It’s not like there were illuminated neon signs floating around (thank God!). I rang the doorbell and was able to check in and receive a key to my room.  Uneven colourful stairs took me to my room where I settled in with a fullsize bed a nightstand and a beautiful wall hangings....

3

BLOGGING

Writing 101: Day One: Unlock the Mind

Today is the beginning of another blogging challenge.  This is my third one now.  The first one was Blogging 101 followed by Photo 101 and now Writing 101.  With blogging 101 the point was to a get a functioning blog website going that you would through assignments add to daily.  It was pretty easy overall but required the discipline to participate as close to daily as possible.  If unable to participate daily then quite flexible in terms of just catching up with the assignments.  I am quite familiar with WordPress, the platform used in this series of courses so blogging 101 was definitely more along the lines of familiarising you with the platform.  For me the usefulness of the course was the habit of doing something daily. Photography 101 was a lot of fun.  This course was also easy in the aspect of finding a subject matter to photograph to tie in with the assignment.  Some of the subject matters were more challenging than others and some of the photographs I took I’m still not quite happy with in terms of them fulfilling the assignment but overall it challenge me to commit to a daily habit. Now I’m on to Writing 101.  The assignment for today was to unlock the mind by way of just letting pen to paper flow.  Since we are blogging this translates into letting the words flow on the computer screen and then publishing the post – the train of thought as experienced for a 20 minute timed write.  This post therefore is about writing.  It is the fruition of my allowing my immediate thoughts dictate the outcome of the post.  Unlocking the mind in this manner has proved easier than I had anticipated. This last week was a bit of a break between Blogging Events offered...

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