Liliana's personal blog

In case you guys didn't know, I will be participating in Camp Na-No-Wri-Mo in July. I'm going to be really busy, writing a 65,000 word first draft in thirty-one days (assuming you're counting family reunion and Sundays, despite the fact I won't be writing then).

This means that I won't be posting (almost) every day. I think I will be posting about twice a week, although that is subject to change.

Mostly, I'm just letting you know that you shouldn't be planning on new material on here every day in July.

Teen: “Mom, but then I won’t have enough time left to do school! And I’m already short on time anyways!”
Mom: “We need you to help out in our family more. We have the garden, the new baby, animals to take care of, laundry to wash, meals to cook. You can add one more job to your load. We can’t take care of it all, it’s already sliding uncontrollably.”

Yeah, you might have heard that conversation before. In fact, you might have participated in it many times. And sometimes, you wonder how on earth you will ever learn everything you need to learn in time to complete your mission. After all, as Winston Churchill said, “To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitter to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”

But guess what, work is good for school. Seriously. And I’m not even saying this because I’m in league with your parents or anything. Or because I’m a parent (I’m not, I’m 15!!!). So I am saying this purely from personal experience. I am completely unbiased. Work is good for school.

Reason one: It teaches you how to manage time more effectively. I mean, if you have twenty four hours in a day, and you spend ten hours asleep (I’m rounding this for easy math), two hours eating, two hours working, that leaves ten hours for friends, school, extracurricular, and just having fun! Currently, I do about seven to eight hours of school a day. You, however, might find it best to do eight and a half, nine, or even ten! Then what? Well, you have to prioritize and reorganize. Are there times of the day when you learn best? For example, I don’t really do school in the evening. The majority of it is before lunch. I wake up early and am in bed around 9 most nights. I try to be outside for at least a little bit everyday to ‘refresh’ myself. I also noticed that when my mind starts freaking out from all the learning, a quick walk can make it good as new again.

Reason two: Having a lot of work and having to respectfully talk about it with your parents can teach you a lot of communication skills. First you have to listen, then you have to articulate your thoughts, then you have to find a solution that makes everyone happy, all while keeping your cool.

Reason three: Having less time to do school in forces you to find a way to make your schooling more effective. Learning is a life long process, but unfortunately, as a mom or dad, your study time will be drastically cut. You will have to learn how to make the most out of an hour, half hour, or ten minutes. And what better time to learn how to maximize your learning time then now, as a teen? It will make the rest of your life so much better, and it will help you even now as you learn and prepare for your mission.

So next time your mom reminds you to do your work or considers giving you a bit more, don’t freak out. Just remember that work is an important part of your education, and do it with a smile on your face.

Let it be known, I am participating in Camp Na-No-Wri-Mo! (squeeeee!!!) For my project, I shall write a 65,000 words long first draft of a book which I hope will be the first in a trilogy(!!!). I have from July 1 to July 31 to complete this outrageously hard and outrageously awesome challenge!

And let it be known, I have signed the following pledge(found in a Na-No-Wri-Mo middle-school work book (I'm not a middle-schooler! I'm 15!)):

I hereby pledge my intent to write a novel in one month.

By taking on this absurd month-long deadline, I understand that notions of craft, brilliance, grammar, and spelling are to be chucked right out the window, where they will remain, ignored, until they are retrieved for the editing process. I understand that I am a talented person, capable of heroic acts ( ) of creativity, and I will give myself enough time over the course of the next month to allow my innate gifts to come to the surface, untouched by self-doubt, self-criticism, and other acts of self-bullying.

During the month ahead, I realize I will produce clunky dialogue, clichéd characters, and deeply flawed plots. I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected at a later point. I understand my right to withhold my manuscript from all readers (except possibly my teacher) until I deem it complete. I also acknowledge my right as an author to brag about the quality of the rough draft and the rigors of the writing process, should such bragging prove useful in garnering me respect, attention, or freedom from household chores ( ).

I acknowledge that the month-long goal I set for myself is both wildly challenging and totally achievable, as long as I let no Evil Inner Editors, outside distractions, or normal bedtime hours ( ) stand in my way. I also acknowledge that, upon successful completion of the stated writing objective, I am entitled to a period of gleeful celebration lasting days, if not weeks, afterward, and moreover, should I fail to reach my goal, I am entitled to a well-earned break after which I will try again.

(signed, Liliana K Owen)

YAY!!!

If you guys didn't know... I'm going to Leadership Academy of Utah. It's this really cool, leadership-minded school that is based online but now has in-person learning centers scattered throughout Utah.

But before that, I was homeschooled. I still call myself homeschooled, BTW. LAU is so much a homeschooling community... it was even founded by homeschoolers... it's like homeschooling gone public.

Anyways, the method of homeschooling my family uses is called Thomas Jefferson Education, or, TJEd. It's founding father style "created" by the DeMille family. Well, Oliver DeMille, father of the DeMille family, wrote this really cool book called "Hero Education: A Scholar Phase Guidebook For Teens, Parents, and Mentors." It's so good!

I've taken the time to re-read it today and was once again wowed by it's simple yet profound wisdom. Okay, well, maybe I skimmed it. But as C S Lewis said, "It is a very silly idea that in reading a book you must never 'skip.' All sensible people skip freely when they come to a chapter which they find is going to be no use to them" at the present, at least.

Let me just tell you:

Our education matters. It's not about grades, college, or good-paying jobs.

It's about freedom vrs tyranny; it's about influence; it's about mission and purpose.

Education is not books and dates and facts and more facts and tests to make sure you know those facts.

It's about gaining wisdom-- knowledge, applied in your life to better you and others. As Mark Twain said, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education."

Your mission matters. And because your mission matters, your education matters.

The daily personal meeting is not a big ordeal. If it takes you more than fifteen minutes, you're doing it wrong.

The best time to do this is in the morning, right after you get up.

List out five things you're grateful for. Figure out WHAT you need to do today. Figure out WHEN you're going to do it.

That's it! It should take no more than 15 minutes, but it works, and it's powerful!

Once upon a time… in a quarantined world, there lived a very bored girl who couldn’t think of anything fun to do. In desperation, she went to her mom for ideas.

“why not make a national dinner?” she suggested (paraphrased for article).

And so the bored girl did. She chose Italy. While she was researching Italian meal plans and whatnot, she happened to be working on some family history. Then she realized that she was not descended from any Italian (that she knew of), but she was 7% Norwegian and 22% Scandinavian. So why not make a Norwegian dinner?

She got to work, research what Norwegians ate for what course, and then found some recipes. After a lot of planning, it was time to cook.

She spent what felt like the entire day in the kitchen, working on preparing her four-course meal.

But it was all worth it when she sat down and took that first bite… it was heaven.

(Photos and recipes in the next post!)

Knud Pedersen was a normal boy living in Denmark. Then his whole world changed when Hitler invaded and the Danish government surrendered to the invaders the same day.

His whole world changed then. German soldiers were everywhere, Denmark captive. Knud knew this was not right. But the adults in his world made no move to stop the Germans, to free Denmark.

What was left to do? Oh, nothing really... just start his own resistance with his friends.

"The Boys Who Challenged Hitler" is a fascinating biography about the boy resistors of Denmark, boys who had been willing to risk literally everything for their country.

I highly recommend this read! It's very engaging, intense, hard to put own, and super inspiring!

The American culture has some serious issues. We eat too much junk food, have too must stuff, and stress far too much.

Well, the cure to one of those problems is found within an amazing audiobook that I recently discovered. Titled "How To Stop Worrying And Start Living:Time-Tested Methods for Conquering Worry," it is by Dale Carnegie, author of "How To Win Friends And Influence People."

I have finished listening to disc one of nine, but it's so good and there is so much wisdom that could totally change my life if I chose to act on it! (Which, ahem, I will...)

For those of you interested in listening to it, you can find it here.

I don't know if you guys have heard, but in Seattle, Washington, there is a six-block area that is called the "Autonomous Zone" and is, apparently, not a part of the USA any more (barriers around the Autonomous Zone say "leaving the USA").

Basically, people were protesting over Floyd's death and then the police retreated and now the people have taken over and it WAS anarchy over there. Problem: was.

Because that's the thing, anarchy is never permanent. Sooner or later, someone bigger, cooler, stronger, or with more thugs will come in and take over. Period.

Rapper Raz Simone has taken over the autonomous zone as his, and using his "groupies" to beat people up when they disagree with him (Article 1; Article 2)

Let this be a lesson: anarchy doesn't work. Pure democracy doesn't work. Why? Because it never stays that way. Sooner or later (and probably much, much sooner than you would have thought), someone is going to come along and seize power. It's always worked that way and it always will.

Live right now!

https://www.cato.org/events/homeschooling-protecting-freedom-protecting-children?mc_cid=f71414fca0&mc_eid=1767a55d19

Monthly Personal Events are a powerful stepping stone to translating everything you got from your Annual and Semi Annual Personal Meetings into a reality.

For a Monthly Personal Meeting, you are going to need a notebook and pen, a quite location (like your house, early in the morning), and a brain that isn't fogged up with sleep.

You are going to review your summaries from your Annual and Semi Annual meetings, then take the time to be brutally honest and answer the following questions:

1. What do I need to do, this month, to achieve my dreams?
2. Do my routines need altering?
3. Am I living life as intentionally as I could be?
4. How have I done in achieving last month's goals?
5. What obstacles am I encountering, and what am I doing to combat them? How effective are my efforts to combat them?
6. What should I be doing to combat them?
7. What fears are holding me back that I need to conquer?
8. Is my life on track?
9. What events are happening in the next month?

When you finish answering those questions, take the time to write a nine paragraph summery of your notes.

Please take the time to do this well! Take the time to write out your thoughts. Be brutally honest. Face and accept the truth and plan how you can do better next time.

Of course, the Monthly Personal Meeting is nothing without the Weekly Personal Meeting.......

In my last post, I discussed yearly-personal meetings. They are your large scale meetings to determine what's up and what matters.

In your semi-annual meetings, you are going to reevaluate your life, see if you're on track to accomplish everything you determined to accomplish in your annual meetings and see if it perhaps is necessary to change your annual plan. Maybe something big came up, like a life-changing diagnosis in your family that is turning your world upside down. Or a pandemic started. Or a pandemic died off. Or a loved one's death. Or, you know, something major that is changing your life. Maybe it changed your values, or your responsibilities (and thus your time), or perhaps you realized that maybe, your focus for the year is what you thought it "should" be, not what you actually want it to be.

Semi-annual meetings will happen twice a year, in spring (March, April, May or somewhere around there) and in fall (September, October, November or somewhere around there). In order to complete this meeting, find a notebook and pen, a water bottle, an hour or two of uninterrupted time, and a location without SCREENS, MUSIC, LOUD NOISES, or other DISTRACTIONS.

Then take the time to answer the following questions with horrific honesty:

1. How am I doing in achieving what I said I'd achieve in my annual meeting? Am I on track to achieve all my goals?
2. Was I completely honest about what I needed to drop, start, or achieve?
3. Does my plan need altering?
4. What are the biggest obstacles to me achieving what I said I'd achieve?
5. How can I overcome those obstacles?
6. What do I need to do in the next six months?
7. What do I need in the next six months?
8. How can I fulfill those needs?
9. What big things are going to happen in the next six months that will require my time and attention or an altering of my schedule (for example, family reunion, trip to Hawaii, or a one-week camping trip with your family)?


It should take you about two hours, give or take a little, to do so. When you finish, take the time to reflect upon what you've decided, sum up your plans and thoughts, and decide what the "next right thing" to do is.

And then you're done!

Of course, the Semi-Annual Personal Meeting is absolutely useless without the monthly personal meeting... stay tuned for how to do that next post!

Questions on how to do a Semi-Annual Personal Meeting or why it matters? Comments? Experiences with personal meetings? Please comment below and I will get back to you in 1-2 days!

You know, there is a problem with society today.

They don't know what they want, and if they do know what they want, they either (a) don't take steps to get it OR (b) don't know how to get it.

Enter, personal meetings.

In order to maximize personal meetings, they should happen at the following times:

~At the start of the year
~Start of spring and start of fall
~At the beginning of the month
~At some regular, schedule time once a week.

Sounds like a lot to add to your plate? On the contrary, it will SAVE YOU TIME, help you realize what REALLY MATTERS, and allows you to PRIORITIZE, PLAN AHEAD, and CHECK IN with yourself.

So although this isn't the start of the year, today I am going to discuss the YEARLY PERSONAL MEETING.

For the yearly personal meeting (which actually doesn't HAVE to be at the start of the year, it could be before school starts, in the middle of the summer, whenever works for you as long as you are CONSISTENT about it) you are going to find three hours, a notebook and pen, a water bottle, and a quite location without SCREENS, LOUD NOISES, MUSIC, or SNACKS.

Then you are going to get yourself situated, open up your notebook, and set an alarm for three hours later. Then don't look at the clock/alarm and take ample time to be brutally honest with yourself and answer the following questions:

1. How is life going right now? Good/bad? Why/why not?
2. What has been your biggest achievement this past year?
3. How have you changed this past year?
4. What do you want to do better this next year?
5. Is your life going in the direction you want?
6. What do you want with your life?
7. If you have one, now is the time to review/edit your mission statement. If you don't have one, now is the time to make one.
8. What are your passions?
9. What do you want to accomplish this next year?
10. What do you need this year? What needs of yours are unfulfilled?
11. What steps can you take towards fulfilling those needs?
12. What are your priorities?
13. Is there anything you need to drop?
14. Anything you need to add?

When the alarm beeps, you can be done, or keep going. Three hours should be enough to answer all those questions (that is 12.857 minutes per question), but if it isn't keep going.

If you finish before the three hours finish, take the time to pat yourself on the back, and then start reviewing your notes, adding in anything you think of.

By the end of the three hours, you should have a lot of notes, a few doodles, and a soul-wrenching period of self-honesty (yay!).

Well, now what? The yearly personal meeting is useless if you don't sum it up in fourteen paragraphs (one paragraph per question), which should give you a general idea of what you need to do and focus on this year.

And then, of course, you need to act on it.

But... again... the yearly personal meeting is completely and utterly useless if you don't follow it up with the semi-annual meetings, the monthly meetings, and the weekly meetings.

I will describe those meetings and how important they are in later posts... next one coming soon, maybe later today.

Questions/comments about the Annual Meeting? Please comment below and I will get back to you in one or two days. See you in the next post!

Here is another quick update for "new way to read." It's been going good, but with quarantine and everything, I do have a smaller limit on books I can check out, so #ProjectOtulissa is being put aside for now.

However, I am deciding to notch up all of my reading by approaching books with a question in mind. For this book I just barely finished (How To Fight A Hydra), the question was, "how can I combat overwhelm and start achieving my dreams?"

And yeah, I got answers. I love books!

And yes, I highly recommend How To Fight A Hydra, it's a really quick and enjoyable read but also a super deep parable.

Here are the seven lessons I got out of it:

~Just follow your dreams! People are going to try to stop you; don't listen to them. They don't know how capable you are.

~Learn from the great people of the present/past.

~Getting a QUALITY EDUCATION matters!

~Your fears may be justified, but they are useful. Acknowledge them, then act in spite of them.

~Go slowly; don't go so fast that you get yourself "killed." Know what you're getting into. But also, don't spend your whole life planning! At some point, you have to stop researching and start doing.

~Learn to recognize your treasure and adapt your plans accordingly; it might not be exactly what you thought it would be, but it's still going to be amazing.

~And finally, take advice from those who have succeeded, not those who have failed or given up. Learn from those who know what they're talking about and use it in their own life!

Elisabeta and I just finished another Shakespeare play... which she approved of more than the last (All's Well That Ends Well). Basically, it's another big tangled romance..... that ends happily.....

Honestly, it's hilarious! I'm not going to tell you plot.... you should just go watch it. I watched THIS production. The actors etc are AMAZING!

So... my favourite lines......

"Methink you are a fool."

"O time, thou must untangle this, not I; It is too hard a knot for me to untie."

"Ay, he does well enough if he be disposed"

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

"Be not afraid of greatness."

"There is no darkness but in ignorance."



And yeah, this play is such a comical mess.... It's sooo funny.