Pep Rally Suggestions

Will Sunday Be 'Debt Deal Day' for Nation?

The White House said late Saturday that it now "strongly supports" a bill being considered in the U.S. House that incorporates both Democratic and Republican ideas and would raise the debt ceiling to early 2013. The bill would require two-thirds approval in the Republican-controlled House to pass.

"It is imperative that the United States not default on the nation's obligations," the Obama administration said in a policy statement, Reuters reported. "If the bill were presented to the president, his senior advisors would recommend that he sign it."

In addition, two other developments Saturday provided proof-positive that the tone is changing in Washington from acrimony, to "this can be done," and "we can bridge the divide."

Mild overtures like the above may not seem like much for those unfamilar with beltway-speak, but after two weeks of heated rhetoric from Democrats and Republicans that sparked concern from Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, and Tokyo, it's an accomplishment.

A New Tone In Washington

The first development was totally unexpected: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., met Saturday afternoon with Vice President , D-Dele. -- the first conversation between the two since Wednesday, The New York Times reported Saturday night. Biden, who headed the earlier bipartisan debt talks that broke down in partisan recriminations, had four more conversations with McConnell later in the day.

The second development was more conventional, but still had to improve the spirits of every bond trader or investor who holds U.S. Government bonds. Top leaders in the Republican Party confirmed that after more than two weeks of acrimony and, arguably, the most heated rhetoric Washington has seen since the Watergate impeachment process that resulted in President Richard Nixon's resignation, they are now in serious talks with President to raise the debt ceiling and avoid what most Wall Street analysts and economists believe would be a credit market-contracting and economically-damaging U.S. Government default on its debt.

Triumphal Writing: PEP Rally: Ideas for When You're Stuck

The productivity activity this week might seem pretty rudimentary, but trust me, it’s not as easy as you might think. A few weeks ago, in my first PEP post, I talked about keeping a time diary to see where you are wasting time doing other things that could be spend writing. I suggest you take a day or several days to try that out first, but you don’t really have to if you’ve got plenty of time on your hands. Once you see where you are free, take a sharpie and block out an hour or two, more if you’re lucky, where you pledge to do nothing but focus on your work. Create a fake contract with your old Crayolas, sign it, and tack it up on the wall for you to see every time you think about opening just one more game of solitaire. This may sound a lot like a recipe for how  to stare at a blank white page and tear out your hair in frustration, but it doesn’t have to be! Notice I didn’t say time where you do nothing but write. Lean back in your chair and have a conversation with your characters. Think about your setting and marinade on minute details that won’t make it into the actual narrative, but are important to you. Some people make writing out to be this incredibly arduous process that chains you to your computer and turns you into a drone. Surprise, it’s not! You get to create entire beings from scratch, build worlds from the ground up. Who else can say that? Writing should never be something you have to do. This is what you want to do! The reason you sit down to write should be because you’re excited to delve into the universe within your pages. That contract you signed isn’t really a contract to add to your word count. It’s a contract to fall in love with your writing again because when you love something you can’t stay away from it - i.e. me and chocolate. And if you can’t keep yourself from writing, you’re going to be doing a ton of work! There are a lot more aspects to you other than your writing.  We’re all pretty flowers who need to be tended to once in a while. So for this week’s ego activity, get away from your writing and do something else that you enjoy. Yes this sounds a little counter-productive, especially after I just said cut out time spent on frivolous things and focus on your work. But I never claimed that you had to do all of these things!

Coaching cheerleading successfully

Complete Cheerleading

Complete cheerleading

The Official Cheerleader's Handbook

The high school principal's calendar, a month-by-month planner for the school year