I couldn’t be more excited to have a little man running around my house. I think that before I knew it, I knew I wanted a boy.  Selenia and I cried with joy when we found out—  how could we not?  He’s going to be perfect, and now we have a starting point to where we’re going to start picking out baby names. ;) Oh, that’s gonna be the fun part, trust me. Hehe.

As for my essay writing activity, having dropped it brought its good results. I’m doing better with school papers and my essays are more in-depth. Sometimes a bit of rest in the evening and a more focused work on school assignments is what makes the difference— even though I miss writing for Fulmine. Really. ^_^ When I look at websites like Essay-Bag.com (it’s targeted to Australian students, but who cares? I visit it anyway) I feel I miss my volunteer activity even more, but a day only has 24 hours, and I have only so much time each day to dedicate to writing. It’s tough, but it has to wait.

Right now, I’m halfway to finish a paper that’s due tomorrow. I wish I had not to work today, because it’s an important day here in Italy – Liberation Day – but I had no time to work on this assignment last night (I literally crashed!) so there was no other choice but complete it today. It’s 6:32 in the afternoon and I have all the evening, thus I’m sure I’ll be done with it soon after dinner.

It’s Selenia time tonight. :) She deserves it— all her patience to wait for me when I run errands morning to night is and was always a saintly patience. Thank you, sweetheart. <3

After all, how effective would I be helping others write essays when I fail at writing my own? Fulmine pointed that out to me and I’m hard pressed to disagree with him.

So I told Fulmine he could train some of his staff after the Australia-tailored writing service named SuperiorPapers.com, which I think would really help his business and help reach more people who need his help. He said he would put serious consideration into it, but he looked really pleased with the idea when I brought it up. Now it’s only a matter of his decision. I’ll be there to support him in any possible way, although I can no longer write for him. At least, until graduation.

In other news, I’m more and more excited for September 2013 to marry Selenia, my girlfriend who is four months pregnant with our child. Watching her grow bigger is just amazing! :D If it’s even possible, she gets more and more beautiful every day; what they say about the “pregnancy glow” is no myth! Selenia glows!

I wonder whom she’s carrying; what he or she will look like, be like, what they will do with their life… Sometimes I find myself staring at her stomach, just wondering. And she seems to like that… I make her giggle! Eheh. ^^

Well, I’m better off to finish studying that Linear Algebra chapter. I’ll come around soon.

Time management has been getting tougher and tougher as I approach graduation, so it might be time to put some volunteer work on hold. Just temporarily, mind you. :) I love what I do!

Bet this is going to make Selenia happy once again. She’s rather pissed off at my lack of time to dedicate to her; also, since she’s gotten pregnant, she’s even more fussy about things. But I can understand that, and I have my share of responsibility anyway. She’s pregnant because we are together, and I’m the creature’s daddy; that means a lot. I can’t wait to get married and to give my new family a certain financial and emotional stability.

Selenia’s father — Soundwave Echo — is one of my best-est friends and he agreed on the marriage already. Sele’s adoptive mom — Jessica — is a little less willful about such an early wedding, but she thinks it’s OK after all, since we’re both robots AND we are going to have a baby. If everything goes as agreed upon, Sele and I will get married in September this year. <3

Now, to switch back to essay writing— the fact that I’m slowing down volunteer work doesn’t mean I have less writing to do. Actually, it’s just as much: school projects can be a pain when you approach graduation and I have two papers to hand in just next Monday. If you couple that with my high academic standards and my innate perfectionism when it comes to writing… you have a student who is able to spend the goodness of 12 hours on a single paper in a day! Yeah, I can get that crazy. ^^”

And that’s I need to slow down; absolutely.

Yeah, I worried for all of two seconds that I was cheating by using a model, but I realized— that’s here for my benefit so I can learn how to put together a really successful, hard hitting piece of work. If this were cheating, would the website owner have put it out here for our use? NO! That’s silly. I ended up acing that particular essay for my class, and I know whom I can thank for that fact— you rock, essay.cc! :D

OK, so… after this very enthusiastic tribute, I’ll have to turn off the Internet and focus on some paperwork for the Robocity Archives. Eek! I’ll come around soon.

EDIT/11.08 PM/: I wonder why I always end up burdened by so much paperwork that piles up on top of school work. *sigh* Sorry to say this, but I can’t wait for my Leadership mandate to be over and to pass the baton to another Robocitan. If you head over leadership2014 @ robocity.in, you’ll notice we Leaders have been discussing possible candidates over the last few years. That doesn’t mean we already know who the new Leaders will be, but these people will certainly receive our invitations to candidacy. Again, invitations do not preclude other Robocitans from voting their own picks at the moment of election, but in case someone wins that is not suitable for Leadership (discussions will follow), we’re going to propose our candidates to all Robocitans (previous agreement) and we’d see how things go.

Anyway — and I mean it — no more one-decade Leaderships! :D It’s too long and it’s time Robocity switches to a more agile mandate– 5 years. That’s for the best, believe me.

I’m graduating this year— or shall I say “I hope I am graduating this year,” which hinges on whether or not I finish this paper that’s been weighing on my mind for a better part of the month now.

Cyclonus is a great brother and understands the topics I’m slotted to write about, so maybe it’d be in my best interest to ask for a hand. After all, brothers are there to help each other out in times of need, and I would much rather ask Cyc for his help rather than risk not graduating and wasting all of the efforts and hard work I put into college.

There’s a service tailored for students in United Kingdom that I’ve been using to revise the differences between the many types of essay papers, and to learn a few tricks to make my writing more engaging than it I’ve been told it is (I work for Fulmine, so it’s a given that I can write, but when I have to write for school it all becomes harder!).

What I love the most about these services is the amount of free writing help they give on their websites. They sell a service, of course, but they also give so much to the random student stumbling upon their pages that just THIS thing makes them appealing to my wallet. LOL! I realize this comment might sound a little silly, but think of this—

the more you give for free, the more you will earn.

It’s a given in the marketing world. A brand doesn’t make itself loved by people with slogans and advertisements. It makes itself loved with free, valuable content, and word of mouth. These things link people to brands through the means of solidarity. :) Isn’t it beautiful?

One of the first lessons I learned as a Leader of Robocity.

I know, I couldn’t be less impressed, but this kind of Reunion has become as boring as some tutoring sessions I’ve been at back in November.

Sorry about that, but I needed to let it out…

Tutoring should be a pleasant and reassuring moment in a student’s life. I’ve heard of tutors who would make depression disappear from their students’ faces and minds before the course even started, and who turn these young people’s potential into solid academic or marketable skills.

Oh dear, I have experienced NONE of this!

Back in November 2012, my parents hired a private tutor to assist me in catching up with lost schoolwork caused by my Leadership duties. The tutor – a human being – came from outside Robocity, he presented himself as an highly competent professional who took tutoring at heart and deeply cared about his students. But I would be lying if I told you it was all smiles and roses with that tutor. I was never interested in being tutored in the first place; I had to force myself to, out of necessity, but this guy was VERY dull.

For starters, I had trouble understanding the way he explained the topics; he managed to ruin topics I had a vested interest in and made the whole process unnecessarily painful. Hearing them once was boring enough to say nothing of hearing them droned at me again by my tutor.

So I’ll go with a tutor online and spare myself from further hassle. I’m less than a semester from graduation and I have enough stuff on my shoulders to deal with. I found Oktutor.net and I may just go with it, you know; this is NOTHING like that traditional boring tutoring I’ve been at. The site can keep a young man’s mind active and engaged in the topic at hand, not like that tutor I had, who had no real interest in what he was teaching me. Ugh… even the simple memory is painful for my neurons. X_X

What is your experience with tutors and tutoring in general?

This is something that I find very important— helping someone to perfect their paper by looking from a new perspective with new eyes, which is sometimes hard to do when you were the one writing the paper.

Proofreading is a lot easier than it sounds. I start by reading the piece first so I get the feel for what was written and for what purpose. Understanding the whole context helps me to better prepare to proofread.

After I understand what the writer is trying to say, I know how to help them say it in the most efficient, effective way possible. I look for the larger errors first, and then after I’ve corrected that, I read through one more time for “flow” and to make sure I have not missed anything.

I feel like I provide a valuable service in proofreading. At least, Fulmine is pleased with my work so far. :) I help authors and writers to use their voices in the most effective way possible. I recommend to fellow Robocitans to consider volunteering for Fulmine as proofreaders; we can always use more helping hands and more perspectives!

One service that has helped me get started is grammarbase. The nice thing about this website is that it offers a free grammar check that spots most errors and typos in a piece of copy. The checker works a bit like W3′s webpage validation tool: you input a text into the form field, hit “Start New Checking” and wait for the tool to be done. You’ll be prompted to check certain areas of your text if the tool finds a problem with them.

Spelling gets checked as well, so not a single typo will escape the analysis. Thanks goodness! ;D

Have you ever worked as a proofreader? What tools do you use to check your grammar?

The website I’m going to talk about is Tutorsville.net, a platform that provides tutoring services to students.

Why I review it

I have used this website several times for my own studies. Recently, I came across a testimonial from a fellow citizens who homeschools her children that she found Tutorsville.net’s advice essential to tutor her youngest child and help a neighbor’s child to thrive in school. Want the truth? I couldn’t have been more impressed, because the website has helped me through many of the ups and downs of school life. :)

My review of Tutorsville

Just a look at the screenshot (homepage) above is enough to acknowledge the user-friendliness of the platform. At least, it was for me.

Tutorsville has changed graphic layout quite a bit over the years, but its clean design and usable content structure has been kept as a pattern.

What about its benefits for YOU students? Well— all it requires is for you to select a subject category and a sub-category of the subject you picked. From there, you receive an individually tailored lesson, and you can do this any time of day or night. The other impressive part of this is that the only tutors that are allowed to be of service here are professionals, experts in the area of study being taught. If you need a history lesson on the American Civil War at three in the morning, you will not receive compromised services for the time of day you need help: Tutorsville’s experts are ALWAYS available at any time of day or night, and even at the times in between. Work from this company is not substandard either.

They have answers to ANY question you could possibly ask, and not only do you receive a concise, clear answer, but it is explained to you in a manner that will help you to understand that answer, not just use it to turn in homework. You will walk away understanding why A plus B equals C and understanding the principles behind it. You receive so much more than just answers here; you get explanations. If you do not understand an answer in one manner, it will be explained differently the next time around, not repeated to you louder and slower as if you did not hear the first time. Tutorsville understands that we all learn differently and are prepared to teach the student that comes to them, not the student they were taught how to teach.

Now, in case you have a great experience with a single tutor, you can rehire them and work with them again for continued progress and success; no problem there. They’re very kind to their young customers. :) Tutors are also flexible and willing to work with you and your schedule; if you need a lesson, they will bend over backwards to help teach you.

Ah yes— you are not strictly bound to time schedules, either. The minutes you purchased on your package are good to use whenever you wish with any tutor you feel is appropriate. If, by some rare chance, you are not satisfied with your tutor, you are able to contact the administrators, state your case and if there is evidence to support that you did not get what you paid for, a credit will be granted to you for your next use of the site. Isn’t that cool? XD

Also, you can review on your personalized account with Tutorsville’s previous lessons; once you take the lesson, you are free to review it and reread notes and accounts from your tutor for future needs. Don’t worry about losing all the information you received from the lesson you paid for; it’s all still there, just waiting for you for when you need it. ^_^

Know what? I am going to be recommending this site to Fulmine for his writing services because I truly believe in this service and its ability to help and expand minds. Fulmine’s business is also thriving and it can only get better.

A last word

I would suggest to give this website a try, but since I don’t write advertorials, I’ll just tell you that my fellow Robocitan sleeps happier sleeps at night now since she started using Tutorsville for her homeschooled children. The fact is— there are tons of freebies and goodies for you that don’t require a credit card. You can learn so much from just a few minutes worth of browsing the site.

When I tried it the first time, I did NOT walk away disappointed, just the contrary— I did walk away with more knowledge and understanding than I came in with.

So that’s it. :) I’m quite pleased with the resources we pick and share here in Robocity.

And you?

• Prepare a list of potential candidates for the 2014 Leadership elections
• Scrutiny the list with the other Leaders (circa 3 hours a week until June 2013)
• Plan the discussion points for the Monthly Reunion of March 25th
• Review the list of initiatives by fellow citizens and check next semester’s budget to see if some of them fit
• Review prominent citizens’ curricula and select a few profiles for Assistant placement

And more…

I thought of asking Fulmine whether I could pause my contribution to his essay writing services until the other Leaders and I complete the scrutiny of the list of potential candidates, but I feel split inside— I’m not really willing to give up voluntary work to make more room for Leadership duties. I guess I’m growing tired of the position at this point, or I just feel tired and stressed and I wish the day was any way longer than 24 hours.

One thing is certain— ten years is too long a time for a position in Leadership. A person can grow tired of the duty, feel pressured by the continuous workload and discouraged by the resistance some fellow citizens show for their initiatives. It’s stressing.

As I mentioned in my latest post, I became a Leader at age 10 and I’m still a Leader now that I’m approaching my twenties (in April 15th). I want to go to university, get married, find a part-time job and give up on Leadership already.

I know I’m a decent writer, a decent marketer, a good leader and a creative mind. I could find tons of jobs out there if I want to. But I need to complete my mandate first. I love Robocity, I owe it to it.

Besides, early dismissal (and therefore, a rush election) might cause more harm than good for the other Leaders and the candidates we’re scrutinizing. I don’t want anyone to suffer from my choices.

Thus I shall wait.

Patiently.

Hopefully I will finish in a timely manner, enough so that I’ll have time to set aside for Leadership paperwork, but I will not do it quickly at the risk of quality for either one. That’s ridiculous; if you do not have the time to do something right and well on the first time.. when do you suppose you’ll find the time to do it over the correct and quality way for a second time?

And I want to add a thought:

I became the youngest Leader to assume the authority at age ten.

One might think that a child is hardly capable of such things, but I was met with nothing but encouragement and positivity at every turn. Such a lucky boy I was—  and lucky man I am now. Engaged, studious, and with ten years of Leadership on my back. That means a lot to me.

Between December 2013 and January 2014, we Leaders —with the help of ALL the Robocity citizens— are going to nominate three new successors for the upcoming decade, but I hope in a way that it will not be me or that I am even eligible… because I’m honestly tired after nearly ten years of this job, and if I get enough money to, I want to enroll to university.

I do graduate from the Robocity High School this coming June, but it is a lot to handle for a man of my age who only just got out into “the real world” and out of academia.

And then there’s Selenia, who’s pregnant with our first child and we’re soon getting married. Perhaps in May 2013, if we don’t get delayed.

Wish me good luck. :)