Rad

My word for today is rad. I have a long history with this word; I grew up in a surf town in southern California, and this word was very popoular at my school. It's a short form of radical, but it means great, cool, wonderful.

I used to associate this word with surfers and surfer wannabees, but I see it and hear it now in all kinds of places. On the blog zenhabits, for example, you can see it: "rad readers."  My friend Harriet uses this word, and it sounds good when she says it.

So, I hope you're having a rad week!

Young-ha Kim: Be an artist, right now

In my opinion, is a great TED talk!

Downtime and quality time

These two expression with time are very commonly used, especially by speakers of American English.

Downtime officially means time that a computer system is not available, but it has come to mean time when you're relaxing: not working or doing much that is very structured.

Quality time means time with a person, or people, that's focused. For example, drinving your kid to football practice might not be quality time, depending on how distracted you both are. On the other hand, time playing with your kid, or having an experience together, would probably be quality time.

Here are some examples:

You: After this project, I propose that everyone have some downtime, at least a few days to relax and get ready for the the next one. What do you think?

Your colleague: I think that's a great idea, but some people won't want to do it.

*****

Your boyfriend: We really need to have some quality time as soon as possible! I feel like we're always running around like chickens with our heads cut off!

You: Yeah, I totally agree. What about going away somewhere next weekend?

*****

If you're interested in finding more time for downtime or quality time, I really recommend zenhabits. This blog has a lot of great ideas for freeing your time for what's really important to you!