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30 Day Blogging Challenge #23

December 9, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

How different nationalities use Facebook to express themselves

By Emma Palova

I’ve always wanted to write about this. Now, I can. It took some time to analyze it. And that is how different nationalities use Facebook to express themselves.

I consider myself privileged that I am both on American and Czech public and private groups on Facebook. I am on Michigan Authors on the Grand, Learn to Blog, 30 Day Content Challenge & WordPress support group. I created my own Writers Loop and Fallasburg Today public groups.

I am on Czech groups I love Czech Republic and Czechs & Slovaks on Facebook.

I speak and write both languages fluently which is very important because a lot gets lost in translation. It doesn’t matter which translating service you’re using, it is not accurate.

You have to know the culture of that particular country to know what they are talking about on Facebook.

I grew up in former Czechoslovakia and got my university education there.

On the other hand, I went to middle school in Hawkins, Texas and mom Eliska homeschooled my brother Vas and I in Sudan, Africa. I also lived in Saskatoon and Montreal in Canada.

There is a striking difference between the usages by both nations that reflects the difference in cultures.

A Czech person uses Facebook to vent their feelings, anger and to fight. You can easily find 250 comments on one post. If they don’t agree with something they will swear at you and call you names. These threads turn into long pointless discussions.

An American person uses Facebook to show daily experiences followed by at the most 20 comments, if it is a heated subject.

A Czech person is funny and shares jokes on Facebook. We laugh out loud with my husband Ludek, as he reads the jokes to me in the evening from his IPhone.

An American person is inquisitive and functional, so he or she uses riddles or questions to find out how smart you are.

“Where was this photo taken,” posted local photographer Bruce Doll.

The photo looked like a Kiss concert all in blue and smoke, but I know Bruce.

“At the Impact church,” I posted.

“Yes.”

A Czech person turns emotional on Facebook and shares four Advent candles a thousand times.

An American person asks for prayers when needed.

A Czech person sometimes turns to sex to see how you react.

An American person uses Facebook for business to see how you react.

A Czech person doesn’t do selfies.

Americans love selfies.

Neither one in particular partakes in sharing tragedies until the recent Paris attacks.

Both cultures share the same love for photography.

I will continue to explore this interesting theme into the future. Watch for more observations.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #22

December 8, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

The way we do anything is the way we do everything

By Emma Palova

This statement is true. I either do everything 100 percent or not at all. It doesn’t matter what it is; writing, blogging, posting, laundry, gardening or cooking. I don’t believe in halfway work.

Yes, sometimes I do wander off on a tangent, but I get back on the track. I wrote about excellence #21 yesterday.

Once, I decide I am not going to do something, I don’t do it. Today I have a lot of work ahead of me. I have to post to a client’s blog, while another one has pulled a fast one on me. It’s the nature of the business.

You explain the purpose of a WordPress blog to someone in a sales pitch, and they go and have someone else do it for them.

I am a good spirited person, I don’t mind. I can handle just about anything except for stupidity and violence.

Every day we make conscious choices based on the best information we have.

Today is unique, it will never repeat itself no matter who we are. I like to think that by writing every day, I am helping also someone else accomplish the same goal.

That’s the knowledge I’ve gained in this 30 Day Content challenge by Learn to Blog (L2B).

By helping others, you’re helping yourself as well.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #21

December 7, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Excellence, participate in life

Dec. 7, 2015 Monday

By Emma Palova

I’ve been excellent and I’ve been bad. Most of us have. I’ve been able to produce the best of work, and the worst of work. Just like in the Charles Dickens’ book. It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. They have a tendency to feed into each other. The good and the bad. I know, now I sound like Clint Eastwood.

Thai wind 1 by Kacey Cornwell, Art Prize entry

I can be creative, and on other days not so creative.

What carries me through this challenge is that I need to help others. I do not live for myself. I think we each have a bigger purpose why we live.

I strive for excellence, but sometimes it’s not within reach. I am a human being, therefore I am vulnerable. I have my strengths and my weaknesses.

Totally desperate when my husband Ludek had to leave Michigan for Wisconsin in 2009, I wrote a screenplay “Riddleyville Clowns” © 2009 about the assassination on presidential candidates. Yesterday, I heard from an independent production film company. I’ve been to the Cannes Film Festival in France twice and I saw demonstrations there along with Johnny Depp and Antonio Banderas. That’s again the good and the bad.

What satisfies me, is that I have done all these different things. I have participated in life. The educational system in former Czechoslovakia taught me to participate, it also taught me to be a leader and to help others.

Anything can be hard if you make it hard. Anything can also be easy, as easy as you make it.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #12

December 6, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Putting one foot in front of the other aka #creativity against violence

By Emma Palova

Very appropriate theme as we come closer to the end of the year 2015. We have completed the year by putting one foot in front of the other.

We’re more than half-way through the content challenge and we’ve attracted the attention of a lot of people.

Was that our goal? Not really.

During this creative challenge many bad things have happened around the world from Paris attacks to San Bernardino.

I took it upon me to call this challenge #creativity against violence.

The hope is to inspire other people to do the same thing, because peace cannot be enforced.

Together we can and will make a difference. Collectively, we have posted 3,000 pieces of content since Nov. 17. I’ve reached with this post 319 posts on the WordPress platform.

Nothing is going to stop us in creating. No guns, no amendments or fear.

Actually one of my best posts Day #3 “Thoughts on Fear in the Wake of Paris Attacks.”

Equally good is Day #18 “Creativity versus violence.”

Now, I am all caught up with all the posts.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #19

December 6, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Take charge, express yourself

By Emma Palova

Connecting things is like making new things happen. You don’t always have all the tools and you don’t necessarily need them. Look at Facebook, it wasn’t a new idea. It was a better retooled idea.

You start from nothing, a blinking cursor on a white page. Or you start with a thought for the day.

I usually have to regroup or restream myself before I write. I do that by driving to the nearby Murray Lake. Nature has always inspired me.

We have a beautiful winter in Michigan. For the first time since I’ve lived here, we have no snow in December. People were playing golf at the Arrowhead Golf Course next door yesterday. This girl has lived in Africa and Texas without a snowy Christmas. Never missed it for a moment.

I am grateful that I can be a part of this content challenge that it will hopefully make a difference in this world.

I am hoping to use #creativity against violence along with all my friends, real and on social media. I do have respect for all the amendments, that’s why I use the pen to bring hope and joy.

I hope to inspire other people to do the same thing, and that is to create. It doesn’t matter what, how big or how little. Just create at any time and anything. Take charge, express yourself.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #18

December 6, 2015 emmapalova 1 Comment

Moving forward

By Emma Palova

Okay, I am over the shootings and the violence. I cannot change anything. By looking at it, I am a part of it. I’ve become a part of the problem, because I am not willing to do anything about it. I’ve become a part of a violent society.

My Alma Mater taught me better. Do something about it.

I led a heated debate at the Parnell General Store about, “What is the purpose of the gun?”

We didn’t come to any conclusion. Just like the situation in the Middle East, it has no resolution.

We even had a Rumanian born American Sniper there who said weapons are necessary to kill. He killed his first person when he was 10 years old.

The owner of the store brought out an unloaded shotgun Erica.

You have to respect the weapon.

On the other hand I have a respect to the pen.

I’ve always had that. And I use it on daily basis to give hope to others.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #17

December 3, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Creativity versus destruction & violence

By Emma Palova

The content challenge that started on Nov. 17 has been marked by consistent violence. I find it bizarre, that at a time when we’re creating content, 2089 pieces of it, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg created a $51 billion foundation for the next generation, other people decided to destroy.

It saddens my heart to see so many people killed. Starting with the attacks in Paris, shooting at the Planned Parenthood Center and now San Bernardino, California.

Even for president Barack Obama, the speeches after shootings have become routine.

Is this the way to live in fear of routine shootings?

We’re living like in the Middle East where you never know if you’re not going to get blown up in a coffee shop. And now people suggest to arm ourselves. On Day #3 I wrote about Fear in the wake of Paris Attacks. The post was about how fear supports consumerism. And here we go again. Buy more arms.

I will never shy away from saying that violence breeds more violence. We have just saw it over the last three weeks.

Violence is not the answer to anything, neither is increased consumerism.

I face violence with more creativity, my own and others. The government should use diplomacy and they shouldn’t be sticking their nose into other country’s business.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #11

December 3, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Lighting of candles without the candle burning down, Buddha

By Emma Palova

I share happiness and the great human experience through my writing. Sometimes it’s sad, at other times it’s happy. That is life.

Art has always helped me get through difficult times. When I am upset, I turn to art; my own and others.

When my husband Ludek had to leave for a job in Wisconsin, I turned to painting. I painted pictures of koi fish in our pond up there in the garden.

Most often poetry does the trick. Nicole Varga’s poetry has calmed me down after the upsetting shooting on Dec. 2 at San Bernardino, California.

I also love poetry by the Rumanian poet Valeriu dg Barbu and Emily Dickinson as well as Charles Baudelaire.

There is something calming about art and poetry. Throughout my journalistic career, I met many artists, but one really stands out in my mind. Her name is Kathleen Mooney. She owned a gallery in Lowell. Mooney is a member of the International Society of Experimental Artists (ISEA).

After traditional painting, she turned to abstracts.

When I asked her which is more difficult, Mooney answered immediately:

“Abstracts.”

“What inspires you?”

“Symbolism.”

Yes, Mooney finds inspiration in symbols and in words.

I personally think that is incredible. Somehow, all the arts are integrated into one big sphere.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #10

December 3, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Nov. 26 Thanksgiving Thursday spent with the family in Hastings

Thankful

By Emma Palova

I am thankful for the country I live in. I became a naturalized American in 1999 along with my daughter Emma Palova-Chavent at the Gerald Ford museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I received so many congratulations and the Ionia Sentinel-Standard did a story on me. Kara Hennigan wrote the story. That made me both; the writer of stories and the subject of some of them.

I was born in former Czechoslovakia and I studied engineering at the Technical University of Brno by default and by punishment. We left the country illegally in 1968 just before the Soviet invasion. I wasn’t allowed to study any humanities.

Mom Eliska wanted to go back in 1973. We returned to the homeland and we were punished for doing so.

On a writer's retreat in Venice, Florida — On a writer’s retreat in Venice, Florida

The book is about our journey back and forth across the Greenwich Meridian.

We left the country again; dad Vaclav in 1976, mom Eliska in 1980 and I left in 1989 after the Velvet Revolution. My husband Ludek left the Czech homeland in 1988 for Austria.

Crazy?

It’s been a turmoil. When I interviewed my own parents two years ago during a writer’s retreat in Venice, Florida they both said they would never do it again.

“It doesn’t matter anymore because everyone back home is dead,” Vaclav said.

True, our most recent trips to Czech were for the purpose of attending funerals.

However, we all started a new life in the USA. It is a life of accomplishment, satisfaction and love.

Our son Jake has a beautiful family and he is very successful with the Faygo company. He studied at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Our daughter Emma lives in France with her family. Both her husband Adrien and Emma are medical doctors.

I learned to blog on WordPress, the biggest publishing platform in this world.

I consider myself privileged.

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30 Day Blogging Challenge #16

December 2, 2015 emmapalova 1 Comment

When the inner fire goes out

By Emma Palova

I am meditating on today’s theme “When the inner fire goes out and meeting another human being rekindles it.”

This is a big one because it has happened to all of us. We are sharing a common human experience.

It has happened to me many times in life and then I suddenly met a person who sparked the fire in me again. I recall them all. They were editors, fellow writers, business owners, store managers and directors.

Kathleen Mooney's abstracts. — Kathleen Mooney’s abstracts.

Most recently it has happened to me on the Internet with the 30 Day Content Challenge. I went into the challenge on Nov. 17 after finding out about it only on the previous day totally burnt out from years of writing.

I could have plain ignored it like I have other challenges. But, this seemed important.

Why was it important to me? It wasn’t to showcase anything or to prove to myself that I can do it. It wasn’t for the exposure either. It was because of the special bond these challenges create, they teach you discipline and you are helping others move forward. By helping others you are also helping yourself.

My weakness is the lack of discipline in everything. I like freedom without boundaries. But, that creates also problems. I can overeat, overwork and overdo. And after that I need rest to recharge my batteries. It’s like a vicious roller coaster.

Yes, the 30 Day Content Challenge rekindled my inner spirit. I found new passion for writing, met new people, made new friends on Facebook and twitter and I got new followers on EW Emma’s Writings.

So, in the end even though I wasn’t seeking exposure, I got it.

I found gratitude to those who led the challenge and helped out.

I found the writer in me who will never go away even when I try to throw that character out.

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