British roundabouts: opposed to the psyche of our modern society?

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Rotondas británicas: ¿Opuestas al psiquis de la sociedad moderna?

Jim Brainard is the Mayor of Carmel, Indiana, a city which according to himself, has more roundabouts than any other city in the US. Besides the aesthetic advantages and the saving of fuel claimed by Mayor Brainard, his revolution is supported quoting, among others, a study of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which suggests that the implementation of roundabouts in place of traffic intersections would mean an average decrease of 40% in all traffic accidents and a 90% drop in fatal ones. Some drivers see the implementation of roundabouts as awesome, beautiful, whereas some others resist to them because they are confusing. Of course, to be for or against is a democratic right; however, which  captured my attention where the comments from those pedestrians interviewed which claimed that British roundabouts are opposed to the American psyche. Literally, those comments claim that this

Rejuvenation tips for young "tenured" professionals

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http://www.tiwy.com/ (will upload my own pic soon)

Tips de rejuvenecimiento para profesionales de planta.

Motivation is key for each of us at every stage of our life. Motivation is what keep us searching for more; it is what move us towards our goals; but overall, it is what keep us young and alive. The motivation does not necessarily pursue satisfying our immediate needs: it is sustained by a major objective. Navigare necesse est, vivere non necesse (1) (Pompey, 56 BC), which after few modifications/add ons, I would translate as "No need for exploring, means no need for living".

Naturally, throughout our lives the motivation follows non-constant trends. Both academically and professionally, our motivation is very high when we face challenges ahead; e.g., when we struggle for entering the desired school, or when we prepare ourselves for getting that dreamed position. Later on, our motivation is likely to recede when the challenge is no longer so, or when our expectations were not reached at the exact moment we had been expecting. What are the options then? Either to fall asleep, to accept the fate, or to get up, look for another challenge and remember ourselves that we are alive. An interesting article written by Elisabeth Pain (2), featured in the prestigious Science Magazine, shows the opinion of several experts who give some interesting tips on how to keep our soul up, at those moments when our life tends to stagnate as a result of our tenured position.

The key question is: What to do when we recognize that the thing (research, job)  you previously lived for does not excite you anymore?

Psychopedagogics. Learned helplessness: accepting what is inacceptable

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Psicopedagogía. Desamparo aprendido: Aceptar lo inaceptable.

Having started my course on psychopedagogics, I found interesting to post a short comment on an old concept proposed by Dr. Martin Seligman (1975) (cited in Feldman, 2006): Learned helplessness, which in simple words is the learned belief that it is not possible to take control of the circumstances that define the surrounding environment.

Let´s recall the description of the experiments used by Seligman to explain the concept better (see Feldman, 2009 for a complete reference on the topic).

Concepts: Entrepreneur

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Published in La Razon, May 2006.

Conceptos: Emprendedor
 
Entrepreneur.- A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture. From the old French entrependre, to undertake,  (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company).

According to the Wikipedia (sorry for citing this source), during the XVIII´s this term was applied to persons in charge of building roads, bridges, and also to architects. Civil Engineers and engineers in general are entrepreneurs by nature. But, is our spirit aware of that? or, have we merely become survivors? A short discussion with my cousin (you will find interesting material in his blog) reminded me that those are some of the questions that took me to pursue the graduate school in Tohoku.

In summary, defining the term entrepreneur using the three illustrations above, the term entrepreneurship is key in graduate programmes, but beyond that, the term entrepreneurship (difficult to me to pronounce) establishes the difference between the developed and the developing world, and magically holds the secret to bridge the apparently wide gap.