What are your biggest pet peeves?

I simply can't stand ignorance.

Some others are notorious lateness, laziness and sloppiness ;)

How do we make sense of the inexplicable? With the holidays coming up I keep thinking about the presents curtained away for the sweet, innocent children, who have been killed in a senseless shooting in Connecticut. How their parents even cope, I don't know. Heavy hearts have to deal with the loss of their precious babies. Being a mother of two I feel the darkness of those families. But there's not much I can do. Each day that passes by, each prayer, each small thing will bring us one small step closer to healing. That and prayers that something like that won't ever happen again....

"Up the ante" How would you use this expression in a sentence? Whenever I hear or read this idiom I find it extremely hard to get the gist of what people are trying to say. I'd be really grateful for many, many examples on how you'd use "up the ante" in context.

Mistakes, experiences and the pattern to learn or not Have you ever said to yourself "Why don't I ever seem to learn?" Do you seem to make the same mistakes in life over and over again, such as choosing the wrong partner or the wrong job or simply upsetting someone by saying the wrong thing? Well, the answers to these mysteries can be summed up in what Peter Honey and Alan Mumford call "The Learning Circle". According to Honey and Mumford the 4 distinct stages - shown below in a diagram - are involved in a successful learning experience. each of the four stages requires a different style of thinking. 1: I'll try anything once 2: I'd like time to think about this 3: How does it fit with that 4: How can I apply this in practice? Over the years, however, most of us fall into habits of thinking which favor only one or two of these stages and we ignore the others. As a result to that we tend to become one of the four different kinds of people; an activist a reflector a theorist or a pragmatist They say with that, it's a pity that we lose the benefits of the other styles of thinking. What I found most interesting in Honey's and Mumford's thesis: Only one person in a fifty has mastered all 4 thinking styles sufficiently to complete the learning circle and with that are able to learn effectively from experience and to be who they want to be and to take control of their lives. I certainly cannot say which learning style I use most frequently or which one I use most naturally and with pleasure. But I admit I have some weak points in the learning circle and could most definitely benefit from developing stage 4 ; ) Which of the 4 type learners/thinkers are you or which combination of types..maybe you are even that one out of fifty person..in that case : Congratulations :)

First notebook entry: Introducing myself Hi, I am a new member here. I love the English language and for that specific reason I am trying to find people to exchange thoughts and ideas with.