It's Friday night in the A and you know what that means. Kelly Price and Troy McElhady coming at you on Rise Up Tonight, presented by AT&T. It's a great time for a new year and an even better time for a new year show. The Falcons have been officially eliminated from playoff contention, but it is time for a new slate. A new year! And I think that like our fits, maybe the Falcons future is pretty bright. You know what? I agree and it also doesn't hurt that the Falcons have quite a bit of money to play around with this offseason, which we will get into later in the show. Now, as the Dust and the Confetti settles here, we look back at the last couple weeks with the Falcons, only winning once since week nine and now securing their fifth straight losing season, but let's huddle up about what's next in these final two games. Grady Jarrett really said it best and he said it actually a handful of times after that loss in Baltimore. Same stuff, different day. And this season was yet another example of just not good enough for the Falcons, but I do think the growing pains they're going through right now are necessary. And as we look ahead on the eve of 2023 tonight, you hope that they can take the next step into contention as an organization next year. Do you think that signs kind of point right now to a brighter new year, Tori? I really do and look, if you understood the situation Terry Fontano and Arthur Smith inherited when they took over in Atlanta, you knew this was going to be a process that spanned years. This 2022 team was pieced together with players on the early days of their rookie contracts and veteran free agents on short term deals. Plus you tack on over $80 million in money you just cannot use this year. Tough. But all of that changes when the new year arrives because for as much money as the Falcons weren't able to use in 2022, that's how much they're projected to have in 2023. That's an already to play draft class won't hurt either. That certainly helped them this year. Another overarching theme this season was kind of a tale of two sides of the ball on critical downs the Falcons defense tended to tighten up breaking bending and not breaking rather while in similar situations the offense folded. This was especially true in Baltimore where Atlanta was five of 14 on third downs one for four on fourth down and 0 for four in the red zone. And offensively let's be clear this isn't unique to Desmond Redder. I'm sure I don't have to remind anyone that the turnovers at Marcus Marriota incurred in critical situations before the quarterback switch were similar. Drake London would be the first to point out at himself in those situations as well. So how do they kind of fix this problem of executing in these most critical situations or is that a new year's resolution for next season? Yeah, so I'm going to kind of sound like Arthur Smith here for a second. But the issue the Falcons have had in the red zone isn't a one size fits all situation. I can't sit here and say, oh, if they fix this, they'll be successful inside the 20 because honestly at this point the Falcons should just have a find a way mentality. Do what you got to do to punch it in. I know that's not very specific, but the answer to executing in the red area isn't necessarily a specific one to it's not a specific issue that they have. Well, Desmond Redder put it well when we talked to him this week. There are some guys who at this point around the league with nothing to seemingly play for would be booking their offseason vacations and I feel that I really do. But the reality is the Falcons do have two more games to play in. Redder said this entire team is on the same page about finishing the season strong regardless of what got them to this point. So Tori, I want to ask you, what do you think matters most in these final two contests? Two words for you, evaluations and pride. Playing for pride obviously speaks for itself, so let's stick on evaluations for a little bit. Because of the changes coming for the Falcons in the new year, a vast majority of the players on this team, whether they are rookies or veterans, are still playing for opportunities. If you're a rookie, you want to make sure your spot is secured on the game day roster next year. You need to show that you are valuable to what the Falcons are trying to build. If you're a vet, you want to make sure you have productive tape to show potential teams if you were to hit the open market as a free agent, which we know is going to happen to a lot of these players. So even though there is not much left for the team to play for per se, there's actually quite a lot for the individuals to play for. That makes sense. What was literally freezing in Baltimore on Christmas Eve, and it was so cold back here at home that I'm sure you guys saw all those videos of pipes all around Atlanta bursting and so many of the guys dressed cosily and accordingly this week. So we are walking in presented by Wells Fargo. The only thing better than sweater weather is leather weather. And Corderole Patterson knows this more than anyone.  CP, we know you're a man of the people. So don't get gatekeep. Drop the link because I want this jacket. Yeah, same. The leather, the fluff. It just all works. And look at that even the carry on matches the fit. We love a good fluff. Now QB1 with the number one comfy vibes. I feel like the Falcons really need to start a like to know it page. If you don't know what that is, look it up because I want this hoodie. Also Desmond Ritter. I am also really digging the neutral pairing with the beige coat on top. And is it just me or has Ritter really like stepped up the fits as starter? Here's the thing. I like to think so. The fits have been solid for Des all year, the last two weeks. He's really giving the I'm the captain now type of vibe. I like that. Next up, Grady Jarrett looking fresh as always. Another jacket I'm here for. And you know what? The puffier, the better. We love it. And black and green as accent colors. Love that. Here's the thing. If you take away the puffer jacket, you're like, oh yeah, cool. A sweater with jeans. But with the puffer jacket, this fit is elevated to an 11. Immediately. That is innovation that excites. Finally, we have confirmed Arnold Abiketti is a Swifty. I'm up. I'm the problem is on his jacket sleeve. Tori, I know this has to be a big development for you. Yo, A.K. Will I see you at the bins in April supporting our girl Taylor? Because if so, wear the jacket. I'm a big fan. Hopefully he got tickets. But also I love the pastel colors he's playing within the south.   You really can't. Well, perhaps you have wild New Year's Eve plans to ring in the New Year or maybe you're just ready to bust a move. If Georgia takes home a Peach Bowl win. I know you're excited for that one. Well, this week we wanted to ask who's the worst dancer in the Falcons locker room in our question of the week. Probably Avery. Avery Williams. Yeah, he's terrible. Just doesn't have the rhythm.  All of them. Pretty much any time he steps onto any type of dance floor. I'm going to go Avery. I'm going to go Avery. Avery is just kind of real goofy with it. I've never really seen him like actually do a routine. He's just kind of, kind of wild with it. He's a funny guy. Avery Williams. Everyone says Avery. Literally everyone has said that. It's bad. Are you guys conspiring? No, it's bad. You got to see him what he does. It's very comical, very funny. And yeah, he's bad. I like the end where he's just like, no, he's like really bad. I mean, for all of them to say Avery, like it really has to be bad. Yeah, because some of those were taped a while ago.  They're putting that man on the last. Honestly, congrats, Avery. So still to come here. Mercedes-Benz Stadium executive chef joins me later in the show to talk about meal prepping for 75,000 people and what goes into transitioning the world's best venue from a college football playoff game on Saturday night and NFL kickoff less than 17 hours later. Plus the Falcons and Santa Claus himself teamed up to give back this holiday season. More on that is coming up next on Rise Up Tonight. The Atlanta Falcons continue to make an impact in our city now more than ever around the holidays. Let's Rise Up for Atlanta brought to you by Truist. Last week, a few Falcons players took a visit to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and they were even joined by Santa Claus before he got so busy on Christmas Eve. Traveling room to room to spread Christmas cheer to all the patients there. That's really cool. In your post-game notebook in Baltimore, you really wrote about how that loss put on full blast the deficiencies that the Falcons have and what they maybe should prioritize this off season. It was a nice look forward. Everyone check it out on AtlantaFalcons.com. So what do you think is the most important for this organization really focused on going forward? Yeah, so basically what I wrote about is that the Falcons need to prioritize finding players this off season that strike fear into the hearts of opposing coordinators. And I'm talking mainly school guys on offense, players who can take the heat off of Drake London and Kyle Pitts, particularly if the Falcons find themselves in another position where one of those guys is just not available. And for this defense, you already know the Falcons have to find past rushers and take note that that doesn't just mean edge rushers. The Falcons need a significant push along the defensive interior too. The Falcons need more players that coordinators have to worry about, and that should be a priority. Absolutely. So what's next for the Falcons? Well, we've got some thoughts, and you know we're going to let you know about them in our hot take segment to end the show. Plus, the culinary creator behind your favorite, Bend concession food, Stop Spy, Rise Up Tonight. That's coming up next. Rise Up Tonight is presented by AT&T and brought to you by Georgia Lottery. Today could be the day. By Home Depot, how doers get more done? By Mercedes-Benz, the best of nothing, and by Truist, committed to a better future. Welcome back to Rise Up Tonight. Let's head in the nest with Kelly Tory and this week's special guest, brought to you by Mercedes-Benz. Well, the holiday season can be busy for all of us, but Mercedes-Benz Stadium really has no busy season. They're bustling all the time, and nobody knows that more than tonight's in the nest guest, Matt Cooper, who is the executive chef for the stadium. He shares some scenes from behind the scenes of that side of the stadium, the best stadium in the world in my opinion, to his 20,000 Instagram followers at Stadium Chef. How do you kind of get into this job and this industry? Yeah, well, first thanks for having me, Kelly. I still, I mean, we opened back in 2017, and it's almost five years now, sitting here with you right now. I'm doing what I'm doing, so it started out actually just cooking, like any other job, and graduated high school. Didn't really know what I wanted to do, and got into sports and entertainment with the Braves, and that's one that really opened up my eyes to sports stadiums, arenas in the food industry, so from then on, I set out to make a career out of it and put my head down. Had a lot of good teachers and chefs that kind of took me under their wing for four seasons, four years, and traveled all around the country to different stadiums and arenas and convention centers, and that's when I really kind of took everything that I learned from all those travels and got confident enough to be able to take on something like Mercedes-Benz Stadium and have been there ever since. So you're from the Atlanta area, you've obviously been in a couple different areas gaining experience, but what brought you back to Atlanta and why did you want to, you know, why is it so kind of special to you? Yeah, so Atlanta's home. I grew up in California and moved here when I was probably about 10, 11 years old, so pretty much half my life I've been in Atlanta and I just love just everything about it, the culture and the fast-paced environment and the people and of course family, all my family's here so wanted to come back home, so after being down in Tampa for four years that's when me and my wife said, hey, let's get back home, and I think it was a trip back from Thanksgiving weekend we traveled back up to Atlanta every weekend or every holiday and that's when we looked and I saw Mercedes-Benz Stadium getting built, reached out to the food people that were providing food for the stadium and was able to get in front of them and interview and take on a beast of Mercedes-Benz Stadium. What's that process kind of like you mentioned getting in front of those people but I'm assuming you don't just submit a job application, how does that kind of happen? Yeah, so I mean the old adage it's not what you know, it's who you know that's a big piece so I mean you know as I was in Turner Field with the Braves in Tampa for the Buccaneers that was really kind of proving yourself in making relationships was the biggest piece so I happened to know the vice president of the food and beverage company provider that was building the stadium so he already kind of knew me, that the company already knew me in my style and what I was doing so when I talked with them they had already known about me but obviously that's not enough, you have to prove yourself so really talking to what it takes to open a stadium and Mercedes-Benz is one of the nicest stadiums in the world if not the nicest so to really be confident and talk about all the different departments, I mean you have concessions, you have suites, catering, clubs, restaurants having knowledge in all those departments is really I think what made me stand out and be able to take on the stadium. You mentioned all those different departments, what's something about your job that you know a normal person who hears your job title might not know about something that you have to deal with that's a big part of your job. Yes so I mean really the biggest things for my job my position and really any executive chef position is logistics, timing and organization, those are kind of the three key things that I talk about all the time I mean those three are the most important to be able to feed 70,000 people every time you open up the doors you really have to you know have an eye for really putting all the puzzle pieces together and making it work. Those are the four areas that we feed and there's differences in each of those areas so really having that knowledge base and that experience to know you know menus that you write for suites or clubs are completely different than you know concessions operations which is what most people think of when they think of stadiums is the chicken tender, the hot dogs, the burgers, you know all the high volume stuff that we do thousands of but it goes a lot deeper than that we have over 200 executive suites which gets a pretty extensive menu, we have clubs and restaurants, I think seven different clubs and restaurants, all inclusive all the way up to you know eight, nine hundred people in each of those, catering, our catering department at our stadium, the team that we put together does an amazing job just to give you a quick glimpse out of the 365 days of this last year we only had the kitchen closed 19 days out of the entire year so yeah a lot of people think it's you know football games and the Atlanta United soccer games but it goes a lot deeper than that, we have catering department we'll do 3,000 person plated events on the field which takes an army and again the team that we put together and built does it every single time and we do an amazing job at knocking out a 3,000 person plated event on the field where you have 15 minutes to really get plates out and you know these aren't just you know small plates, this is a full course meal, three, four courses so it's fun, absolutely love it and again I can't say enough about the team, we have really built an amazing team there to be able to execute at such a high level. It's crazy to think that it's been five years since Mercedes-Benz stadium has been open I mean it's still one of the premier venues in the entire world as far as I'm concerned you know when you think back to those five years what's maybe a favorite memory you've had there so far, what's something you're most proud of? Yeah so it's crazy it's been five years but I think the biggest one for myself is Super Bowl that was a fun time, it really is I mean we spent I'd say probably about a year planning that just from having the Super Bowl committee come to the stadium and walk all the areas and talk about menus and how we're going to execute that was about two weeks long of events just every single day back to back to back that kind of it flew by really quick but there was a lot of logistics and planning which is my favorite part of the job so to look back at it and know that we had you know all the support from our company we had probably I think it was like 10 or 12 years that flew in and again it takes about 250 cooks to open up the stadium so to have all the support we had and the planning that went into it and looking back at it that was probably the most memorable time that we've had there at the stadium for myself. Yeah that's a big one you know you talk about the hot dogs and the different events that you guys have all the different kinds of food that you guys create I don't know how much of that you're kind of you know putting your time and energy into making those recipes and stuff but what's really a favorite dish that you've created or a favorite thing that the stadium has? Yeah so it's more of the concept so there's a concept that I created it's called the Molly B's featured item of the game so it's a really fun one you know looking at stadiums and arenas we spend a lot of time during the off season writing menus and creating concepts and those go throughout the entire season it's really hard to change those in the middle of the season so one thing that I came up with was to have a different featured item every single game and that gives us the ability to not only be creative but bring something fresh and something different that you don't see at a stadium so it's named after Arthur's mom Molly Blank and there's two parts to Molly B's there's a club that's all inclusive on one side and then on the other side it's a concession stand so what we do is all look to different chefs, different cooks even different managers that aren't necessarily chefs and we collaborate and come up with some really fun and exciting items Well anyone who wants to catch full conversation go to Fox5Atlanta.com tons of really cool interesting stuff there thank you so much for joining us giving us insight on this kind of team behind the team that you know we've all had hot dogs we've all had sodas and beers at the stadium but we don't always know all the work that goes into it and it is a lot as you guys just heard we'll be right back on Rise Up Tonight well the narrative that the fans are pushing right now is tank for the draft pick but like can we all just chill out on all that for a second the Falcons being eliminated for playoff contention is really a blessing in disguise when you think about it now you have a pure evaluation period in front of you fans just relax and enjoy these two games strictly as that a time to figure out what you've got what you've got what you've got what you've got a time to figure out what you've got what you need like we talked about and what the future looks like and I happen to think the future is pretty bright for the Falcons I like it now taking that a step further Arthur Smith said after the loss in Baltimore that he wants to see this team progress and get some wins in the final two games but let's be honest outside of Desmond Ritter we know what this team is so progress for this Falcons team at this point could simply look like execution it's executing what they've been asked to do all season but at a higher clip progress isn't necessarily anything more than that sometimes yeah execution we've been saying that for weeks you guys gotta listen to us well thanks for staying up late with us here on Rise Up Tonight next Friday night can you believe it is our season finale so sad oh my gosh can't believe the season has gone by but happy new year everyone good night


And still on sports news, President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach says it had been chilling to witness Russian teenage skater Kamila Valiva crumble under pressure at the Beijing Olympics as a doping scandal continued to swell, hitting out at a 15-year-old's entourage. The saga has opened a debate on the suitability of the Olympic environment for minors, but International Olympic Committee President Bach said the IOC had limited means of action. Valiva, who had been leading the women's figure skating event after the SHOT program, cracked in her free skate on Thursday 9th and stumbled down to four places compatriot Anna Skebakova skated to gold. There is also the very sad story about Kamila Valiva. And I do not need to go back to the decision and how it came. I think this has been discussed and been addressed there with you also when Denis Oswald was here the other day. I must say I was very disturbed yesterday when I watched the competition on TV and saw first in her performance how high the pressure on her must have been. I know from my athlete's time a little bit about pressure, but this pressure is beyond my imagination.


OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. Thank you. Well, hi everyone. This is exciting, our high-flex session. Welcome everyone here in person. Welcome everyone on Zoom. We are presenting today engaging conversation and pronunciation activities in Zoom. It will be more focused on conversation activities, but we do have some pronunciation resources to share with you. And I am one of the presenters. I am Monica Cueva. I am a vessel instructor and our ESL technology coordinator at San Diego College of Continuing Education. Hi, everyone. My name is Sarah Alba. I am the OER coordinator and ESL instructor at San Diego College of Continuing Education. So thank you for being here, both in person and on Zoom. Right. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. For today's agenda, we just have an hour session. So it's going to go pretty quickly. So we are going to. Talk about you. And serve people on Zoom. We're dealing with a smart board here. So it might not be as smooth as we would like. So we are going to be talking about using Zoom breakout rooms and speed meeting activities with breakout rooms. Diana is going to show us a couple of websites that she uses and how you can create discussion activities in Zoom. And then we'll also be sharing some resources with you for additional conversation and pronunciation practice. And so for right now, we would like just to do a quick poll so that we can see who's here in attendance with us. There is the link that you can type on your device, menti.com. And there's a voting code. You can also stand this code with your phone really fast. And we just have two questions for you. So the first is just if you can share your name, your agency position and subject area. And the second is your comfort level with Zoom breakout activities. And I see some responses coming in already. And we won't be able to share these responses on the screen here today. But I think can you see everyone's responses on your device as you answer the question? In a moment. We'll wait for the next one. OK. And you can't see the results. Well, I can just call out a few. We have Matt back here. We have people from Miracosta. Oh, yay. We have some from San Diego College of Continuing Education. I see Illinois. Wow. Welcome. I see why you are joining via Zoom. We also have South San Francisco. A lot of ESL faculty. Director of Community Education and Training in New Jersey. OK. Well, welcome everyone. I'm going to move to the next question, which is what is your comfort level with breakout room activities in Zoom? And so if we can just get a quick page of that. OK. So it seems like many of you are very comfortable with breakout activities in Zoom. And then there are some of you that are somewhat comfortable and some of you feel you might be more in need of practice. So that's great. We will be going over some breakout room activities and giving you going over some of the details of how to make it happen a little bit more smoothly. But it's good to know that you are comfortable with that. Yes, you have a check monitor now. So you don't have to go back and forth. Oh, thank you. I was looking at the survey. But yeah, they just asked for that. And she told me it was going to be perfect. OK, great. OK, so we are going to move on. So thank you for that feedback. And yeah. OK, so I'm going to begin and start talking about speed meeting activities that you can create for speaking practice in Zoom. And this might look a little familiar to some of you. You have a Zoom meeting. Not many students have their cameras on. And everyone or almost everyone is new on you. So how do we go from this to what more closely resembles what we're used to in the in-person class where students are interacting and engaging and collaborating? And so that's kind of what Diane and I will both be going over today is how can you make it more similar to what we know and are familiar with in our in-person classes? And so actually, if you can just go back for a minute, Diane, that's sure. Oh, it's not that easy. Not an easy job. She's going to press the back button. We can stay here. Oh, OK. And so just so if you can think of in the classroom, you know, one activity we have is where students stand in two lines facing each other and they're talking with each other and then they shift. And now they're with a new partner. So that's something we can recreate in Zoom. Or if you know that eternal mingle activities where students have a piece of paper and they're walking around the room and asking the other classmates questions, these are things that we can do with Zoom. And that's what I'll be showing you today is some ideas for these speed meeting activities. And so I'm first going to go over the logistics of how you make this happen. And then I will share with you some example lessons that you could use for these activities. So the first step, of course, is you want to make sure that you share your list of questions with students or maybe it's a dialogue that you want them to practice. Share that with them in advance. Go over some practice, let them think of their answers to the question. Examples could be working on self-introduction with their classmates. It could be used for targeted vocabulary practice, grammar practice, whatever discussion topic you would like, whatever the theme of the unit is. These could all work for creating speed meeting activities . Then step two is where you want to set up your breakout rooms. You want to keep them very small. So two students in a room so that you can maximize their opportunities for speaking. If there's an odd number, then you'll need three students.  And so you just want to make sure, if you can tap it again, Dana, you want to make sure that you click, before you open the rooms, you click settings. Oh, I can't touch it. You click settings and then you'll see it. You want to make sure that automatically move all assigned students is checked so that students just automatically get pushed into the breakout room. And they don't have to click anything. Then you also want to make sure that auto-close rooms is selected and that you have whatever time you want to close the rooms to allow is inputted there. And so you want this to be very fast. So usually it's anywhere from two to five minutes that you can enter. And then lastly, you want to make sure that you have the countdown selected so that once you close the room, students have a little bit of warning. Maybe 10 seconds, maybe 15 seconds. Then step three is once students are in the breakout rooms, you want to share your screen with them in the breakout room so that they can see the question that you want them to talk about. A lot of people think that if you haven't, that you need to stop sharing in order to start sharing to breakout rooms or saying for audio, you don't have to. From within your Zoom meeting, you can just up at the top when you're sharing your screen, you see all your tools. You just click the more button with the three dots, then you'll see the dropdown menu. You'll click share to breakout rooms. And then you can always confirm that you are actually sharing because the green bar up at the top will say, you are screen sharing to breakout rooms. There is one thing to keep in mind when you're sharing your screen to breakout rooms. That means that you cannot leave the main session. So your students are all talking to break out rooms and you're sitting in the main session alone because you're sharing your screen. So one way around this is having two devices. So you have your host device, which is usually your laptop or computer that you're using. And you share that's the one that's sharing the screen. Then you log on with from your cell phone or tablet. And that is the co-host device. And that's the one that you use that device to join all the breakout rooms and you can listen and talk with students. You just want to make sure this is very important that you leave computer audio on the host device. So whichever device is sharing the screen, you want to leave the audio so that you're not hearing the echoing. And you can do that by clicking the little carrot next to the mute button and select lead computer audio. And then just make sure you join audio when you return. Step four, you want to give students enough time to talk about the questions in their breakout rooms. So this is usually two to five minutes depending on the activity. But again, there's a seed meeting. So you want it to go quickly and it's a way to energize students and engage them. While students are in the breakout rooms, it is very helpful to monitor them in a quick way without having to enter every room, especially because these are very short breakout room sessions. You can just click on the participants button. And then you can see a list of all the students. You can see who is muted, who's not muted, who has their video on or off. So I can quickly see in room four, Meng Yao is muted and has her video off. So I don't think she's a very good partner right now for Yinon. So I'm going to quickly just moving on into a group where she was able to participate with her classmates. So it's a great way to quickly maneuver students around to see who doesn't have a partner to talk to. Okay. Step five, you're going to close the breakout room, bring everyone back to the main session, and then you're going to click recreate. So if you, you'll see on your breakout rooms that there's a recreate button, that's going to automatically shift everyone around. And then you open the rooms again, and now students have a new partner to talk with. So it really works the same way as our Meng Yao activities in class where it's moving them around. Sometimes it pairs the same students together. And that's fine, because oftentimes you're talking about a different question, your different questions. So it doesn't usually become too big of a problem. That is a question. Yeah. Are you a student to another room? Oh, yes. If we can go back in order to do that. So you can see on room four that I would want to move Yinon. So on the right side, I can just select move to, and then I could choose which room I would like to move her to. So that far right side I'll click move to. Thank you for the question. Okay. So now I just, I went over the logistics of that pretty quickly. Does anyone have any questions about those steps other than how to move students? Are there any questions in the chat? No. Okay. Great. So now I'm going to show you some of those examples of the activities. So we do have links here for you to access these resources later. But I will show them to you right now. And let me see if I can. Move that down. Okay. Okay. So this is the Google slides of different activities that you could use. Or just get inspiration from. And you can see that their color coded. So on the left here. So each section of one color is one lesson. And one example. So the first one. Here is an example of just a quick get to know your craftsmates activity. And this is an activity where the teacher when she was sharing their room, their screen to break out rooms. So the same example that I just went over with those steps. Is there a question. When you say a screen to break out. It goes to each pair. Yes. Yeah. So each breakout room will see the same screen that you see from the main session. And you just to clarify. You cannot leave the main session. Because once you leave the main session, it will stop the screen sharing. And that's why you would need the two devices. Okay. And so then this is an example. You have your list of questions for students. These are for them to get to know each other. You might want to give them some time to read the questions and respond. You could do this the night before class, or you could do this during the day. You could give them some time to read the questions and respond. You could do this the night before class, or you could do this during class. You provide them the instructions that they'll be, they'll have three minutes to spend in a breakout room. And then they'll be moved to a different group with a new classmate. And then this is what I would be sharing to break out rooms. So the students in every breakout room will see these four questions. They'll have three minutes to talk with their partner about the break out rooms. And then I bring everyone back to the main session. I recreate breakout rooms. And now I'll share this screen. And they'll see these questions. Talk about these questions. Come back. I'll recreate the breakout rooms. And now I have a new question. So instead of just having one partner to talk about all 10 questions for 15 minutes. That's also interesting, but this makes it a little bit more interesting where they can talk about all 10 questions. So they're five different classmates. And afterwards my students always, they feel so energized and they're excited. And yeah, I want to do that again. Let's go. I want to talk to more classmates. So it's just a really fun way to get them talking. And then this is set up as a similar activity. But this time there's some images. And this was set up as a pre-lesson discussion before we started talking and learning about job interviews. And so this was just to get them thinking about job interviews and their experience with job interviews and what they already know and think about job interviews. So they have the pictures with the questions. And this is the screen I would share when they're in the breakout room. And then same thing, they'll switch rooms. They have a new set of questions. And again, a new set of questions. So they'll be in a different room each time. And this one has five different groups that they will participate in. So by the end of this, they could have talked to, you know, maybe five or more different classmates. You can also do this with dialogues. So you can see this example is conversation practice. It was a more of a strategy for students to remember people's names when they first meet them. And it's just to help students remember to repeat the other person's name in a conversation. So we talk about, you know, what are some strategies that can help you remember names. Then we practice a dialogue where two students are, you know, having this conversation and they repeat the other person's name. And then we have the sample dialogue where they actually go into the breakout room and introduce themselves to one person. And they each have to have this conversation and say the other person's name. And this is the, I will share this screen. And this time this is the same dialogue that they keep practicing. So the dialogue doesn't change. The partners change. And so they just get a lot of repetition with the same dialogue speaking with different classmates. And so you can do this with all kinds of, you know, conversation strategy, such as asking follow-up questions or clarification questions. And you just have that one dialogue that all students can practice in different breakout rooms. Yes. Karen, let me say hello. My colleagues put links in the chat during break afternoon. Yes. And I do have that example coming up. So that is definitely true. You can do that as well. But that could be more complicated for students. Right. Where this is maybe more complicated for the teacher, but less complicated for the students. Because right when they go into their breakout room, the questions are there and they see them. Yeah. And this is another example for. Beginning level. So this is from a website. All things topics that I will show you a little bit more. We have time later, but this website has so many resources for teachers. It's not a website that you'll take students to, but it is a website for you to have teach teachers go to, to access and retrieve different documents and videos. So I really recommend checking this out. But for example, I have this video. That is from the, from the website. And it's not going to work to play it right now, but it's just a short dialogue. So students can listen to the dialogue. And then they go into breakout rooms and they have the dialogue. This is from the website. All things topics. So I didn't have to come up with this. It's all there on the website for me and students have this dialogue. This is what I would share to breakout rooms. They practice this dialogue. They can practice this dialogue, same dialogue with multiple partners. And maybe that's the only dialogue we focus on for day one. Then day two, we have dialogue too about daily activities and morning routine. The listen to the dialogue will practice. Then they go into their breakout rooms and they get a lot of practice with the same dialogue with different partners. And so each day you just focus on one of these dialogues. And again, these are from all things topics. And they have an all things topics general website. And then there's also all things topics listening, all things topics grammar. So lots of resources there. This is one where you would not have to share your screen. And this would be for vocabulary practice. So for example, you have your list of questions. You want students to complete these questions using whatever vocabulary you're focusing on. So for this, we're focusing on phrasal verbs. So they're completing these questions with phrasal verbs. We review the questions. And then in order to pick the question, we can have a little fun and we can spin the wheel. And we can decide which question are you going to talk about in your breakout room. Numbers one through eight. You could have a very long list of questions with even more.  And once I copy the link, all of my inputs are saved. I don't even have to create an account. So I have all these numbers. Spend the week. Also input some names here. That's how you want to call on students randomly. It will land on a number. We're going to talk about question number eight. Then I can hide the choice so that we don't see question eight again. And you can see it's no longer checked, but it's later. I want number eight there. I can just check it again. And so now we'll talk about number eight. So I could then just put number eight in the chat. So I just put that question in the chat. Students go to their breakout rooms and only talk about question eight. Then they come back, we spend the wheel again, choose a question. I put that in the chat. We talk about that. So that could be an alternative to sharing your screen every time if you would like. And I think those are, that's it for me. Those are the activities I'm sharing. I think we have a question. Elizabeth said this would be great practice for answering job interview questions. Students would have to practice answering briefly so that people have time to answer. Yes. And you can increase the amount of time that students spend, but yeah, and you could focus on one interview question each day. And today we're just focusing on tell me about yourself and you're going to practice that question with four different classmates. And tomorrow we'll focus on a new question. So yes, that is, that would be a great use of this activity. So thank you, Elizabeth. And we're going to go back here so that Diana can share her information. Oh, and I do want to just mention, I do have this activity. And you don't have to escape really fast. Sorry, it's not an activity. It's a resource for you. So I just want to make sure that you know it's there before my students go into breakout rooms. I usually will just show this screen to them as a reminder, you know, introduce yourself to your classmates, try to turn your video on if you can ask questions. And if you have, if you need help from the teacher, if you need to ask questions, I'll just leave it at that. So that's for help. This is available on the slides as a Google site and PDF. So you're welcome to use any of these resources. As you would like. Okay. Thank you. I think we're right. Well, thank you. Everyone online and here in the classroom. I'm going to talk about a website similar to the one that Monica mentioned. I'm going to talk about a website similar to the one that Monica mentioned. And ESL discussions have. Many high interest discussion topics and activities. By many, I mean over 700 discussion topics. They have 14,000 questions within those 700 topics. And they are. The levels are high intermediate to advance. But remember. If you're in your lower level class, you can take ideas from this, right? Maybe you'll use that topic and just change the wording on the question to match your students level. Okay. So we're going to go to ESL discussions quickly. I'm going to go through that page. I wanted to let you know, I'm the coordinator. So I'm always looking at copyright. And they do have, I'll let you peruse that at your time. I'm not sure. But they do have a copyright permission spelled out on their site. And then this link is more information on the site. Okay. So let me see if that works. I'm going to try it.  I'm going to be afraid. Okay. And again, this is one of those websites. That's for teachers, not for students. Again, they have over 709 discussion. So I'm going to go through that. And then I'm going to go through that. So in person, there are ready made printouts that you can print out with their copyright permission. And that copyright permission states that their website has to be at the bottom. So do not erase their website from that bottom, bottom of that worksheet. There's everyday conversation. There's actually conversations in here about politics. So, I mean, there's over 700 choices. They have controversial topics, but if you go through the site, the really nice thing is there an alphabetical order. Okay. So some of, sometimes they'll, they'll have people's names. Sometimes they'll just, they'll have people's or countries, just different topics. And again, this is a site for instructors. So you can just go through, as you see, there's one on dancing and I'm going to click on it because I've used this one before and I know it's pretty good. And there are a lot of ads. So you can just ignore the ads. So what it'll have are at least 10 questions for student A and at least 10 questions for student B. So on the site, the way that they recommend using it is that if you're in a in-person class, it says, do not show these to student B. So when I was teaching in person, I'd have student A facing the class, student B facing the back. So they're just on the opposite side of the table. But I teach online now. So I created some activity slides to show you of how you can do this online. And there's a question. How I said one way to talk about politics that is less inflammatory is to focus on students' experience of politics in their own country rather than currently U.S. politics. But that can also be very important. So, you know, it's up to you. Of course, right? You have the freedom to do that as an instructor. But I just, I like to keep it safe. But of course, any topic can become controversial, right? So that's why it's a good thing for you to monitor. And I do the exact same thing that Monica does. I'm signed into two devices, my cell phone, or my tablet and my desktop. And I am monitoring because yes, any topic can become controversial, right? Any other questions before I move on? Okay. So let me go back. Okay. So we briefly looked at ESL discussions. By the way, this site, the link that I took you to is straight into discussion, but it's a part of a larger site. So, you know, feel free to look around. Okay. So I'm going to show you how I do this with my students online. Again, I use questions from ESL discussion, or if I don't like the wording, I'll just prepare my own discussion questions on slides, just like I have here. And then step two, I review the slides and I give students directions on how to use the information on the slides and the timer while they are in the breakout room. So what I do is I actually add a online timer to the slide so that students can see the time, right? And you'll see later on, I cut the time on some of them so that they really, you know, once they get into this, they go straight into the questions, right? And yeah. And then step three, I set up the breakout rooms like Monica demonstrated with two students per class or two per breakout room. And step four, I always tell the students because I do what Monica does. They switch around or they switch with different partners. I always have them introduce themselves. I always have that slide where they quickly introduce themselves. Right. Just give the name. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Right. And then I go straight into the questions. So I leave this slide in there for a few seconds. Right. And then after they do this, one time they'll get like, okay, she went really fast on that. We better get to the question. So here is where I give the students more time. Okay. I set up a timer for 10 minutes. And especially at the beginning, when I first do this activity, I give them 10 minutes as time goes on through the class. And then after they do this activity, I'll shorten this to five minutes so that they really, really get going through and have a lively conversation. I use those timers for our PLC meetings. Oh, yes. It works for us. Yeah. Right. We created either with students. Yes. Yeah. I give students time to discuss the questions. I give them 10 minutes for each set of questions and include the countdown timer. And at the end, I take a timer that has noise that starts going. Right. But I don't play it for very long just to get them going. And they know when they hear that.  Yeah, how do you have time for two years? It's a user countdown timer from YouTube. So I just get the embed code and I embed it in my Google flight. And how long are your online classes? My online reading class is two hours. And I also insert the general insert. You can. That's advanced. Yeah. Yes. There's several ways. So again, I give a student B. 10 minutes to ask the questions. And then they're answering going back and forth. Okay. So it is the same topic, but a new set of questions. Okay. So if the topic is meeting or traveling. For the first set of questions, the second set of questions will also be travel questions. And again, I start the timer. So you control the timer because you control the slide. Okay. The students don't control that. Yes. Okay. So do you have any questions or answers to the questions? Or is it like they read and then they respond? Yes, they read and respond. They can. I mean, some students like to take a picture. Students always like to do that, but I share my slides with them in Canvas. So the slides, I actually add them before a couple of days before class. So my class is on Wednesday. I add the new unit on Monday. So they. They have a new module and they'll already have the slides. And that's fine with me because they've already practiced those that are really advanced or really want to get on top of the assignments for that week. They'll know, they'll anticipate the questions for the breakout room. Very follow up question. You find that that's like. So what level do you teach? Intermedia advanced. Okay. Do you find that they like can pick it up really quickly?  You give them a little bit more time at the beginning. And once they get used to the routine and used to the sequence of my modules in Canvas used to the sequence of my online classes, you know, by the second week, they're on it. They know what's going on. So yeah, so I changed the topic. I don't change the structure of my class. Any other questions? Okay. All right. So I'm going to take you to a sample activity. And this number two is actually the same activity, just your own copy. So when you click on it, it'll just open up that Google copy and then you can do whatever you want with it. Okay. I'm on. Yay. I just have to be patient. Okay. Which one is it? I think it's that this one, right? You think so. Yeah. Yeah, that's the one. Okay. So I'll stand over here. Okay. So here are my slides, the actual slides that I use. So I go through the first four slides with the whole group. Okay. So there's, you know, I introduced the, the topic that we're going to talk about travel. As soon as you get in there, you're going to introduce yourself. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Melinda. So as soon as they, I tell them, as soon as you go into the breakout rooms, you're going to introduce yourselves. These are the questions that you're going to ask each other. You're going to ask questions. You're going to ask questions. Remember that you're going to. Take turns being the question reader. But of course I want you to have a natural dialogue. So if that question number one leads to another question in your mind, that's okay. As long as you're having a conversation about that topic. And then when they're in the slides, I tell them, you're going to see this slide, right? And then I'm going to go straight into the questions. So I prepare the students of the sequence. And then after. Two times that they do this, I don't have to prepare them. They already know. So here are the slides with the timer. And you see, is it up here? Yeah. So again, there's the timer as the instructor. You just start the timer and it doesn't make any noise. It's just a countdown timer that the students. See at the end, they will hear the noise. And. Then you could hear what it sounds like. So they'll be able to hear that. Okay. So again, they come out of the breakout room. And then they go to them. Well, no, if you're a student. Ask them the questions. Naturally. If you want to have a follow-up question. As long as you're having a natural conversation. And we can use some questions that you could start your conversation with. But if it's natural to you to ask the follow-up question to question one or question two, then that is your conversation. And then. The next set of questions, again, they get the same. Instructions. Now you're, you know, instead of answering the question, you're going to be the ask your student being, you're going to start asking the questions. So their roles reverse. And then. Here. And then they get the ready. And then the next set of questions with the same. And again, I allow that natural conversation. They're just reading off the question, but as they get a question to it, they, they come up with their own. And students always want the company, right? So if you have an almost that you knew that was that I always post my slides and the lesson for that week. And one day we may go through. So they have that. So. I'm going to give you a quick answer. I have my student right after that. So. Instead of this, responding like a organic conversation. So. I have a student right after that. So. I have a student right after that. So. Instead of this, responding like a organic conversation. So. So it was a comment that. That somebody made that they like the idea that it's an organic conversation that students don't. Write down the questions and the responses so that they can truly have an organic conversation. And that's. All right. Welcome to new. Okay. So again, you'll have your questions. So the next site I want to talk about is. Basic English speaking. And it's a website that takes common English structure and sentence patterns to teach students how to produce basic. Language. So the activities can be used in a person. Or online. A little setup. And for me, it's like. This website has 75 kinds of conversations. And the nice thing about these is that they're professionally recorded. So there's a lot of ways that. Teachers can use this. So. Each recording has a YouTube video option of the. Here. People having this conversation. And you'll see the words. On the screen. So that's one way of using them. You can also use the audio option. And then the third recording is a sentence by sentence. Option. So you. Basically. On the top. We have. Scaffolded. To. One question. One sentence. So this is the one that I like to do. With. So let's take a tour of the site. And you'll see what I mean by this. Okay. So again, they have. Conversation practice questions. This is a larger one. But. We have. Scaffolded. To. Only one question. One sentence. So this is the one that I like to do. With my. Figuring intermediate students. So let's take a tour of the site. And you'll see what I mean by this. Okay. So this is a larger website. Well, I have to do some things like. The website that. Monica showed you. So if you scroll down. You'll see the 75 different topics. And. They're nice. Very, very professionally. So let's take a look at coffee shops. Today. There's lots of commercials. And again, this is a website. You can use your YouTube videos. If you want to. Put students a link to that. So they can practice. You can do all kinds of things. Okay. So here is the YouTube recording. I'm going to play. Just a few seconds of it. So you could see what I'm talking about. What's your favorite coffee shop. My favorite one is the coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. The coffee house. My favorite one is the coffee house. A local coffee shop in my neighborhood. Where is it? It's 500 meters far from my house. How often do you visit that coffee shop? Every weekend when I hang out with my friends. The coffee house is always our first choice. Who do you go with far from my house? Okay. So I'm going to stop it for a second. So as you see each slide. I'm going to show you the conversation. That the. Two people are having. So you don't need to use the closed captions on this because it's already on the screen. Okay. The second recording is the exact same conversation without the words only the audio. If you want to practice listening. So let me just play a few seconds. What's your favorite coffee shop. A local coffee shop in my neighborhood. Where is it? It's 500 meters far from my house. How often do you. So as you see it's the exact same conversation. Just the audio. Okay. And then you have the exact same conversation down at the bottom. Recorded sentence by sentence. So you can use all three of these in three different ways. The way I use the last one as it is as a dictation. Okay. So that's really fun. Because they speak at a normal pace. So here's the first. What's your favorite coffee shop. And then you could play it again. Right. What's your favorite coffee shop played as many times as you want. I usually do three or four times once students get the hang of it. So that they can write their dictation. Okay. When I do this as a dictation, I usually only do five. Questions may or five. Sentences maybe the next day I'll do another five as we continue. And then at the end, I'll do an activity with the full conversation. Okay. So I'm going to show you how I do that. Any questions. Are you going to sound better? Okay. All right. So that was just a tour of the site. So let's go to the activity. And let's see if it opens up. No, it's the second global slides. This one. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Okay. So this is the way that I use it in class. Or online. Actually, I use this online. So I have usually the, the topic here with some background. Of the topic. And then I let students know that we're going to be practicing their listening skills. I give them some reasons why this is important. Right. It's good listening habit or good listening habits are important for learning English. It will help their brain. And then it will help them improve their conversation and they'll become more confident. Then I have a slide about how to get them ready. So get a piece of paper ready or your notebook and something to write with. I tell them that to make sure that they're in a quiet area free from distractions. I want them to focus. And then I'll let them know that they're in a quiet area. I want them to focus. And then I'll let them know that they'll hear the sentence three times. Okay. I remind them that correct punctuation is important. Okay. And then we begin. So this slide is for you at this point I stopped sharing. Right. Because I'm, it's a dictation. And then I have a link for myself. I'm going to click on the link here to go to that link. And then I'll play the recording. Okay. Once I play those five sentences. Then once we finish that. Then we're going to correct their sentences. And then I'll put one sentence at a time. Right. We talk about. Oh, did you add the question mark at the end? Did you capitalize? You know, did you spell the words correctly? I let them correct their sentences. Right on their own. And then I go through the five. Okay. So as you see here, I go through each of the sentences. And we talk about them. Right. You know, if they have mistakes, you know, this is where you can engage the students, you know, like what questions do you have or what, what were the words that were the most difficult for you. And we talk about spelling or whatever that.  So as I go through the sentences. Oh, that's another thing. I don't erase the previous one, right? Just in case there's a slow writer, right? They still have the opportunity. If they're still on number two, but I'm already on number four, right? They still have the opportunity to continue correcting. Or sometimes they make comparisons. So I go through the five or six, in this case, six questions, right? It's six questions because it's that dialogue, right? Two people talking. And then after we correct the sentences, they go into their breakout rooms. And this time they have five minutes. And I have a practice conversation here. I want them to practice the conversation that they just correct. But since they have five minutes, I give them an idea to have their own organic conversation about the topic of, in this case, coffee house or meeting at a coffee house. So I give them some example sentences, but they can create their own or just have that organic conversation with each other. This time again, only five minutes. And then here is a suggestion when I was teaching face to face. I was in class. I was using this activity as well. So you can use the worksheet. They provide, actually, you know, the site doesn't provide a worksheet. I have a transcription activity. Where I have only include maybe like the first couple words in the sentence or maybe the last two words in the sentence. But there's a link to that worksheet for you. Five minutes. Okay. And then here's the rest of the questions because what I do is the next day I'll do the same thing with those questions. I just, I just leave them prepared for me so that the next day I continue on these same slides. And that way at the end, the students have the whole conversation. Okay. Any question. Okay. And that's it. For mine. Okay. So the resources that I talked about are here, the ESL discussion and basic English speaking. Another fun site that I like to use is lyrics training. Have you seen that one before? So lots of my students love to sing karaoke. I don't. I have a horrible singing voice. But they do, they love it. And lyrics training is a practice. Specifically made for ESL students. And it's similar to karaoke. They see where it's on screen. It's a lot of fun. So we don't have a lot of time, right? Monica. Yeah. So I'm just going to talk about some of these. The other one I use is answer garden. And I use this at the end of the video. I'm going to talk about some of these. The other one I use is answer garden. And I use this at the end of our Quizlet. Activity in canvas. So students practice vocabulary before we do any of this. Other speaking, we practice the vocabulary and Quizlet. And at the end of their. Page on Quizlet. I embed an answer garden. In a lot of ways. I have a lot of questions. But it's, it embeds nicely in an LMS. And students, I'll have one question. Like, what was the, what was the new part of the new word or words that you learned this week or something like that? So that's in there. So that's my. And yes, answer garden. And beds really nicely in campus. It's really cool. And then I have the links here. All things topics is the website that I talked about where there's a plethora of resources for you with YouTube, that everything's reproducible. I even emailed the creator of the site and he is very responsive and I just asked him, oh, is it fine if I copy from a PDF and just use your dialogues and put them in my own format? And he said, totally, that's fine. So if you have any questions about what you can do with his material, he's super responsive. Google pronunciation tool, this is a great easy to use tool that students can actually use to check their pronunciation and practice and you literally just type in how to pronounce beautiful and then Google will bring up the tool and show you how to pronounce it and show a visual of what your mouth positioning should be. And I've included a video tutorial that I've created here for students so that it walks them through how they use the tool and how they can check their own pronunciation. And then we also have some fun wheel centers here. One nice thing is you can input your entire student roster on one wheel and then whoever is not there for the day, you just uncheck their name and then you just spin the wheel and it will call on any of the students that are in attendance for that day. Oh, I just went to go switch it up. And then I think we have some more sites for you here. Yes. So this is my English Club. I like this as well for dictation practice. They have an elementary, intermediate and advanced level. This is a student site. So you can add the link to the site for a specific conversation that you see in there and you can just have students just to practice homework. Yeah. I'm going to get this slide there. That's what I wanted to get to. Yeah, let's skip this. Yeah, cause we're done. So this is the QR code for our slides. There is a link at the bottom if you can't scan it. So you have access to everything we shared today. Feel free to copy anything, modify, reuse, however you would like. We are sharing it all with you. Thank you so much. And thank you everyone for attending.


Some basic question, I think, that concerns many of us is the idea of the center of teaching the causes forgiveness as a way of undoing the ego and the guilt and the unconscious fear and all that. And we're called to shift our perception, to join the Holy Spirit, to shift our perception so that we see it, we look through the eyes of forgiveness, so to speak, and we see the world of ego disappear and we have another vision. In your experience, how do you experience that? In other words, I've heard different views on that in terms of if it is something completely abstract like an attitude change or if there is a visual experience, you know, not a visual experience, I mean mental experience, accompanying that. Any comments you have on that? The feeling of peace is our one trigger point. I mean that's how we can know when we're in a state of non-judgment. But to really get at the real depth of what forgiveness really is, you know, I think it takes study and in a sense understanding of what forgiveness is. There's many different approaches that Jesus takes in the course to try to meet the mind at different levels. For instance, he even uses visualization exercises in the workbook, you know, where think of someone you're having difficulty with, you have thought of them by now and envision them in light and transfer the light and so forth. And I would say these are more initial kind of experiences. But beyond that, you get down to the deeper realms where basically Jesus says at one point that, you know, that there is nothing to forgive and that you forgive your brother for what he has not done. So now we've got to really get into that like, well that's an interesting idea. Forgive my brother for what he has not done, you know, but I just saw him proud of me or I just saw him, you know, he didn't pave the money back to me that he said he would or whatever. You know, I've got the behavior right here. What am I supposed to do?  And this is where the course really gets into perception. And when we talk about perception, I think probably the most helpful way to start to look at it is in the workbook where you've got these things. The course calls our real thoughts, which are way down in our mind. This is the light. And then these things that are like the attack thoughts that the mind ran away from the light and the attack thoughts are on top of that. And the world of perception is on top of the attack thoughts. In other words, the world is to keep the mind distracted from looking at these silly thoughts and seeing that the attack thoughts aren't real. So in that sense, forgiveness is being able to, in a sense, to be able to step back in your mind and be able to turn within and look at these thoughts without being horrified. Now, the mind believes that it is these thoughts. You know how identified we can be to cars and houses and bodies and body image and everything? And that's just a projection of the thoughts. Just imagine your own private world, the course calls the private thoughts, where you start to close your eyes and meditate and you hear all this chatter going on and everything. And you've got all these judgment thoughts about the lady down the street or the boss or whatever. The mind is really horrified of these thoughts. It feels at times almost like, what can I do? My mind is just filled with these thoughts. And in a sense, the ego is saying, right, you know, you're guilty. You don't want to look at these thoughts.  Get your life real busy so you can become so distracted in things and stuff that you won't ever have time to be quiet. That's too scary to be quiet and look at those thoughts. And the course is a process of gradually helping us to see that these thoughts aren't good. These thoughts aren't bad. They're unreal. They're nothing. But the mind is very convinced. They're more than nothing. They're me.  I'm a controlling person. You know, all these attributes that we attribute to ourselves have to do with these thoughts that are in there. So the course is a process of forgiveness is stepping back from those thoughts. Another way to approach forgiveness, which I think is just brilliant when you really look at it, is Jesus says that the mind is causative. That the mind is where is the cause of everything. And that once the mind bought this crazy puff of an idea, cause and effect were split off and turned around backwards so that once the mind falls asleep and now believes that it's a person in a world, it seems as if the cause of our state of mind is everything that's happening around us. In this world it's like, yeah, what do you do when a tornado is coming? There's danger. If there's a killer loose that's going through your neighborhood on the news, if the body seems to be ill or to be sick or to have cancer or something, what do you do? This seems to be taking away my peace of mind. This is like a real problem. I've got a sick body or something. And the body as well as the entire world are part of this screen that the ego counsels is where, that's where the problem is. So what he's saying is forgiveness in the alderman sense is the reversal of that is slowly being able to transfer these ideas and more and more situations as you go through your daily life and experience and to bring cause and effect back around so that that my mind is the cause that this is a decision that I'm making. And the world, my state of mind is an effect so that literally I can choose peace in a concentration camp and when my Toyota cars is suddenly vanished from my eyes. In any situation that peace is a choice. So the next thing is a lot of times when we get into these things like when we get into sickness or we get into things like that. Wait a minute. Now you're telling me that my state of mind is a choice, which in a way can be very empowering, because I'm not victimized in the alderman sense by these projections and by these things on the outside that I it's always a choice. But I but wait a minute. I don't know about this idea. When I'm sick, I feel even more guilty because look what I'm doing to myself, you know, and this is a common thing that comes up in a common track. And then ultimately, to really get down to sickness and to start to look at what's happening with that is that the course teaches in lesson 136 and back in the back of the book, how is he accomplished that it's a decision that the minds making and the mind feels guilty. So what it does is it projects the sickness out onto the body and then it kind of it's like calling a witness to up on the stand and saying, See, God, I'm not whole and complete and eternal and changeless. I'm this weak little frail body and I'm right about it. You know, I'm little and I'm right. And in a sense, sickness is comes about out of the fear of healing every time this this warm gentle reminder of light comes in our mind and this deceived mind is afraid of this light. It chooses a defense mechanism to kind of provide a witness that will say, You're wrong, God, I'm right. And that leads us into, in a sense, the authority problem, which the course tells us is the basic underlying problem in our mind of everything, that there's an authority issue going on in the deceived mind. It believes between itself and God. And it's that's too big of a thing to think about like me, I've got an issue with God. It's too monstrous of an idea. So the mind, literally, once again, projects it out into the world. So that now I'm a person in the world. And I don't have authority problem with God.  When really the central authority issue is, was I created by God as spirit and changeless and eternal? Or can I make myself up? Can I make myself up as I go along? Can I make something that that is different than that? And everyone who seems to come to this world and believes that they're a person in the world has that authority issue only within their deceived mind going on. In reality, of course, you know, God knows his son is eternal, changeless, but within the dream within the dreaming of the world, there's an issue going on with God. And this is not a conscious issue. I mean, how many of us have come started off in all kinds of different routes to come to unity in the course.  And then we finally come to unity in the course and we come to God is love. And there's something about that idea. God is love that just resonates, you know, yes, always known that had to be the truth. And then the course comes along and it says, Okay, now every time you get angry at someone, every time you're you make a special love or special relationship, every time you start to try to justify your thoughts with something in the world, you know, I'm angry, I got a good reason for it or whatever. This is just an expression of that authority problem that you may even come to a conscious thought that God is love. But the course is helping us really get down to changing our perceptions so that we can we can literally see the world differently. So that's kind of a synopsis of forgiveness.  And we're projecting this and we're doing this and telling people things. I mean, that once again, we get back into that, that like talking about, you know, where it can become like another religion, we don't need another religion, we've got we've had enough religions, you know, and Jesus says that that that the course doesn't aim that there can never be a universal theology, there's never going to be a time on this planet where everybody has like one religion and everyone goes, Yeah, do you believe that? So do I. The ego is this fragmented thing where everybody has a perceived different self concept and different beliefs and within the perception of the world, you know, that there won't be any universal theology, but there can and must be a universal experience.


Bloom House launches horror games. The media company launched Bloom House Games on Tuesday to make and publish indie budget video games, below $10 million, in the spirit of its film business to encourage innovation and push creative boundaries. The new companies President and CFO are veteran video game producer Zach Wood and ex-playstation executive Don Sekler. Bloom House Games will collaborate with independent game developers on horror-themed console, PC, and mobile games. Bloom House president Avijay Prakash said the company had been considering forming a team to start exploiting the growing opportunities in interactive media for some time.


Welcome to Flagstaff, Arizona! Today, this adventure is taking us to the Nordic village here in Flagstaff, Arizona. This place is just so wonderful to visit, especially during winter. If you are craving some winter activities like snowshoeing or cross-country skiing, or if you just want to play in snow. It seems like they have some yurts out here as well that I'm guessing you could rent and stay. And that's what we were told by some other people on the trail. There are definitely a lot of people who are staying here. This is a beautiful place to be. And for families and kids, it's definitely family friendly. And we are out here today snowshoeing. It's one of the things that we love doing during winter time. They do have rentals for snowshoes and cross-country skis together, right? Correct. So you can get to the visitor center. You can rent the gear from there. And you'll have to pay for your gear, but you also have to pay for a pass. Yeah, I think it came out to about 50 bucks for the two of us combined to both rent and get our pass. And there's a dog trail here as well where we see a lot of people taking their dogs out on jogs or walks. And they're just on their cross-country skis as well. So we'll take you around. We'll show you a little bit around here. There are a lot of trails. Some of them are multi-use. Some of them are just for cross-country skis. And I hope that you guys enjoyed this video today. They have a pretty good system of trails here. Some of them are easy, moderate. And I think we were told that the most elevation gain is 600 feet of climb, which is great if you never snowshoed or cross-country skied before. And you want to give it a try. This is a good trail system to try and see if it's something that you'd like. They are closing today around 3.30 p.m. And we will have to return the rentals by then. So if you plan on spending the day here, it's a good idea to get in early so that you have as much time as you possibly can here. And for us, we need to show up until noon. But still a few hours and we're having a blast right here. I'm going to try to get a little bit closer to the earth and cabins out here to show you guys. I think that will make for a great stay. These are some of the earths right behind me. I don't want to make a lot of noise in case people are sleeping or whatever. So there are a few of them right here. They have picnic tables. There's a bench right here, although it's pretty buried under snow. And they have a grill, which is pretty neat if you want to make your food out here. They look pretty small and compact, but if you're adventuring out here during the weekend or a long weekend, that's all you need.  I think that's it for us for today. We did enough snowshoeing and I'm going to take off mine so that I can return them. And I will show you inside of the earth right here just to see what it looks like inside if you are renting equipment from here. But if you have your own snowshoes or cross country skis, you just bring yours. Double camera. Just returned the snowshoes over there. And as you can see, they've got a lot of equipment and rentals. Where do you want me to set the boots? You can just let them on the ground. There it is. They've got shoes for skiing. They've got cross country skis, poles. Everything that you need. So we just asked about the rentals for the yurts out here. And it seems like they do have two types of yurts. Right, so they have large eight person yurts. And then it seemed like the smaller ones were meant more for two to three people.  And then they also said cabins as well, which she didn't describe them very much. The yurts though, way in the back country, do have their own woodsheds and their own porta-potties. And yeah, so they said they're basically back country yurts. You have to drag your gear, whatever you need on a sled to get to the yurt. Or you can use some of their transportation vehicles, which... Snowmobiles, they call them shuttles for gear. Yeah, so the shuttle can take your gear up to the yurt. Or there are front yurts, like the one I showed you earlier. And this is the one that you can access directly from your car. And for the front ones, for the front country yurts, is that what she said? For the country yurts, you can use the restrooms at the lodge. And then for those in the back country, they have portable potties. If you are interested in making a reservation, you can do it in their websites. I'm going to walk you through it quickly right now. For all reservations at the village, you would want to go to Arizona Nordic Village.com. This is their official website. And here you can read about all of the events that they have going on. They have races, they have events, they have lessons. And this is where you can also rent a yurt or a cabin. They also rent their venue for large events, like weddings. And you can read about all of that in the website. Now, for yurts and cabin reservations, we're going to scroll down to where you see yurts and cabins. And I'm going to go ahead and click book now. And that is going to take me to this page. Let's pick back country yurts, if that's what we want. And then you can see right here that there are a few options to choose from. Like we mentioned earlier, there are some yurts that can accommodate up to eight guests and some of them up to four guests. So let's go for this one right here as an example. And they have some photos where you can see what this yurt looks like from the inside as well. Okay. And then right here you can specify when you want to rent this yurt. Let's pick April 8th to the 10th. You can see right here for one night, it's $40. Let's say we want this for two nights. And there are a few details that you can read through right here to understand where the things that you should be packing with you and some notes about amenities and good etiquette and things like that. So make sure to read through that. And then let's go ahead and hit book. That is going to ask us for our contact information. First name, last name, phone number, email. And from there you'll probably be asked about a payment method. So the booking process is pretty straightforward. And if you are facing any complications, you can call or reach out to the Nordic village to get some help. This is the office where you would register and pay for your rentals before you grab them from the yurt over there. And you pretty much just tell them what size of snowshoes you are and then enter your information, pay, get your pass if you're wondering that's the pass. You want to make sure that it's visible.  Yeah, very nice view from right here. There's a little seating area. Ooh, and I forgot, restrooms. That's very important. Look at that. They have a penini express. We're going to go grab some peninis. We were told that they are pretty good. I just ordered the turkey pesto and I'm very excited to try it. Getting a little hungry. We just got our peninis. And oh my God, they are so delicious. I got the turkey pesto and I got a vegetarian one with spinach and mushrooms and mozzarella. Oh my God, they're so great. These are delicious. I'm definitely getting one to go. This is the s'mores penini. I didn't even know that a s'mores penini is a thing. It is now. Oh yeah. Is it good? Oh yeah. Let me try it. It's got a little graham package in it.  Mmm, so good.


Hi, my name is Danny, and welcome to Esoteric Moment. Today I have another book review for you. It is Living Druidry by Emma Russell Orr. This author is fairly prolific and has quite a few titles on Druidry. This was the first one that I had read of hers, although I had read bits and pieces of them, kind of as I was looking at other books and where she's quoted online. So I was familiar generally with the tone of the author, but it was quite exciting to get into this book, mainly because it is one of those books on Druidry that isn't solely focused on the newbie. I would say this book is geared more towards the intermediate to advance, not because what's talked about in the book is really difficult or high flutant, but really because it calls the reader to critically evaluate their own path, their own choices, and what to think of the world and what they're consuming in this book on a higher level than the typical beginner book does.  In fact, the author assumes that the reader is making significant changes in their life and that they are drawn to this work because they're looking for ways to really make an impactful difference in their path and in their life, which I so appreciate. This book is set up pretty simply. There are nine chapters and an index at the end. The chapters are told mostly like a story, not so much educational or textbook, but from the personal experience and thoughts of the author. The chapters range from the nature of Druidry, a priest alone, to powers of nature, god, tree and dewdrop, letting go, drums, drugs and screaming, change, magic, and the impossible. Hidden amongst the pages are different excerpts of the author's own personal meditation, transcendental experience. There are also excerpts that describe what the author experiences or thinks when carrying out different priestly duties that they associate with their Druid practice. It's really powerful to read someone show so much of their practice and be so open about the glorious highs and the lows that can come through that personal practice. Generally, the author's tone and writing is gorgeous and flows effortlessly. You really enjoy reading the even more educational parts of the book because it's just so perfectly put together. There are some aspects of the book that were more of a stretch for my personal path and aren't necessarily things that I'm going to incorporate. But it's really wonderful to have that information presented and give me something to think about. I might come back at a later date and kind of incorporate some of those ideas or experiment with them. But for the most part, I really resonated with a lot of the book and loved reading about the author's personal experience. In some ways, a hard book to describe because it's so personal to the author and yet so artfully written that it's in a different class than a typical beginner book. So if you are on a paid-in-path or involved in nature of spirituality and you're looking for something beyond the beginner and can inspire you and really make you think about things in a different way, I would highly recommend this book. It's definitely geared towards those of a wild soul and those who really want to get muddy and connect to the earth and all of its raw richness. In the comments below, I'd love to hear if anyone else has read anything by Emma Russell Orr. And if you have, what book of hers should I read next? Also, last month on Pagan Perspective, my substitute video was kind of a music mashup. I think it turned out pretty well. So there's a link in the description to that video and that channel. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do. If you like getting book reviews and hearing about Druidry and other kind of esoteric things in my life, please subscribe and I will catch you later. Have a great week and as always, may you find peace in the sacred grove.


think something called integrated masking is the way forward. What is integrated masking? You may ask. Well you probably will ask that because it's something that I've made up myself. It's a term that I've made up to just describe the process of getting yourself together, understanding who you are, what autism is like for you, how your interactions with other people, really understanding who you are as a person through unmasking.  You can pick and choose what to show.