Elevic Pernis - My Life

My First YouTube Video

2010-09-25T05:38:00.000-07:00

My first YouTube video is titled How to Access PLURK without Signing in. It's about how I use Google Reader to access updates from some of my cool PLURK friends. I am embedding that video below.

Repost: Deciding to Read a Book Can Change Your Life

2010-09-23T22:26:00.001-07:00

This is my first Ezine article titled Deciding to Read a Book Can Change Your Life.

In 2003, I came to read Og Mandino's book University of Success. It's a compilation of different chapters and excerpts from various inspirational books. These books were written by well-known authors such as Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Dr. Maxwell Maltz, and so on. It's the first self-help book I've ever read.

It taught me to appreciate and to enjoy life. I've learned how having a definite purpose is crucial to success in life. I've discovered how one's self-image affects how we act in the world and that we need to develop a healthy, positive self-image. This book is the first place where I've learned that failure is a part of life, and we just need to muster the courage to bounce back. There were other valuable lessons which I did not mention, but suffice it to say that deciding to read it was very fortunate. That year was a period when I felt so uncertain with myself. I had heavy feelings of doubt on whether I can handle my future, or perhaps if I actually have one. That was the time I really needed inspiration, and this was provided by reading University of Success.

This phase of my life made me to realize one valuable lesson: one book could change your life. I had seen the book lying around a year or two before, but it was only when I've decided to read it that it made a difference in my life. So I offer this advice to as many people as I could influence. Start reading that book! It doesn't matter if it's a religious book like the Bible, a business book like Rich Dad Poor Dad, or a philosophical work like The Enchiridion of Epictetus. Is it a book that you've purchased look ago but it's gathering dust? Is it something you've promised many times to read but has been putting off? Putting off reading will not do you any good. Until you have turned the pages and the author got his message across, you will experience no change and no growth. So stop avoiding it, and start reading that book, no matter how slow it might take you to go through it. You never know. One line from it may help transform you from a person of little or no success to someone who inspires others to achieve greatness.

http://elevicpernis.com

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The grammar god and his sense of humor

2010-03-02T21:50:00.000-08:00

In my recent online communication, a contact admonished me in a matter-of-bitch way that my grammar sucks. Ironically, this person committed a grammatical error in the very same reply. So much for being very meticulous in grammar! The venial sin was a comma splice.

A comma splice, which is also known as a run-on sentence, is committed whenever two independent clauses are merely connected by a comma (,).

e.g. I love you, you love me.

The proper way of connecting two independent clauses, according to the arbitrary rules of English prescriptive grammar, is to add a conjunction after the comma. Conjunctions are connecting words such as and, but, for, or etc.

e.g. I love you, and you love me.

An alternative way of doing away with comma splices is simply to use a semicolon (;).

e.g. I love you; you love me.

This is especially useful if each independent clause in a compound or complex sentence is short.

Indeed, if there were a grammar god, he must have a good sense of humor. Nevertheless, this incident has given me enough motivation to upgrade my command of the English grammar. I shall write a follow-up entry where I explain why I became less particular with grammar during the past several years.

The bottom line: If a person wishes to brag about his allegedly exceptional command of the English tongue, he should be careful not to commit any grammatical error, which communicates otherwise.

Speak soon,
Elevic Pernis