• Search for:

• Get Erin’s blog updates sent to your email

  Enter your email address:

  Delivered by FeedBurner

• Recent Posts

  • Now Hiring Interns
  • New Book Cover
  • 8 Years
  • Free GFB Seminar – June 6, 2009 in Estes Park!
  • May E-Newsletter

• Categories

  • Erin Weed's Blog
  • Girls Fight Back!
  • In the News
  • Peace & Happiness
  • Public Speaking
  • Safety & Self-Defense
  • Social Entrepreneurship
  • Video

• Blogroll

  • Angela Shelton
  • Denise Brown
  • Girls Fight Back!
  • Giulia Rozzi
  • Jessica Weiner
  • Kris Carr
  • Nancy Colasurdo
  • Shawn Decker
  • Stayin’ Alive on Spring Break

• Archives

  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005

This has been one crazy week. It started off in my hometown of Hoboken, NJ where I was invited to speak at the Hudson County Rotary Club. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as I’d never really known what Rotary was all about. And in this town, we have a pretty strong reputation for mobsters controlling everything, so I was rather anticipating walking into a situation that resembled the set of “The Sopranos.” It couldn’t be further from the truth. There were a bunch of women, young women, no less! And everyone was very cool and supportive. I hadn’t planned on actually fighting anyone during this talk, since they had asked me to speak about the business end of Girls Fight Back. But someone asked a question about vulnerable targets on an attacker, and I simply couldn’t resist. I pulled some poor guy out of the crowd and had the audience yell out what targets on his body would cause pain or disability if struck. Before long, the usual chaos that my GFB program seems to spark became apparent.

From there, my travels took me via train to lovely Virginia. I love trains! Especially the little dining car where you can buy food like hot dogs and pizza. Awesome. Got to Charlottesville where my friends and fellow speakers, Shawn and Gwenn, picked me up. Spoke to a fantastic crowd at Bridgewater College that night, and was back on a train first thing the next morning.

The next day, I was on an airplane headed to southern Illinois. Gave a GFB program at the beautiful Knox College in Galesburg, IL where I met some real genuine fight girls. Many of them had already gone through the R.A.D. program at Knox, so they were all riled up to fight. Thanks for the invite to campus!

And that brings me to today, where I shall rest. (i.e., laundry, grocery shopping, giving the dog a bath…)

Most of us know someone who’s in a terrible relationship, and we just pray for the impending break-up. It’s just a matter of how it’s gonna go down, and how much drama will be involved. I’ve always told the women in my Girls Fight Back program that not all relationships are healthy, and if someone ever makes you feel bad or scared or small in any way, it’s probably somewhat abusive. Most people have a real hard time hearing this, and the relationship continues until the inevitable blowup months or years later…leaving people to marvel at their past self and say, “What was I thinking?!”

I might be the only twisted gal on earth who finds certain break-ups inspiring. I think people who have the confidence and the self-love to say to their partner, “This just ain’t working out” are incredibly brave and courageous people. It’s scary to be alone.

This past week I heard two stories of inspiring break-ups. First was a close girlfriend of mine. She had been dating this guy for quite awhile, and found out he had been text messaging things like “I miss you” to some other girl. She wasn’t snooping. It just kinda found her. Faced with the decision to address it or ignore it, she addressed it in a major way. She booted him out of the house and banished him from her life forever. You go girl.

Then I have another guy friend, who was recently standing at the seafood counter at his local Whole Foods store. His boyfriend had asked him to pick up grilled salmon, but they only had poached. He knew if he brought home the poached salmon, there was going to be hell to pay. And that’s when he realized his boyfriend had been controlling him and using fear in the relationship. So he bought the poached salmon, went home, his boyfriend broke up with him over it and my friend was totally okay with that.

Our mothers always say that cliche after a break-up, “You’re better off without him.” Isn’t it hard to grow up and start realizing on a regular basis how right your mom is about so many things?!

When referring to those who speak publicly for a living, people often call us as “motivational speakers.” In my speakers bureau, CAMPUSPEAK, this is not considered a compliment. We immediately think of the Chris Farley skit on Saturday Night Live, jumping and sweating around the family living room telling the teens they need to get their life together before ending up living in a van down by the river.

So I’ve always just thought of myself as a fight girl, who just so happened to address large crowds for a living. (and thus classifying me as a professional speaker by default) In most speeches I give, there’s usually some element of ass kicking going on. That all changed yesterday while speaking at the Mid-American Greek Council Association. This is the largest conference in the country that brings together fraternity men and sorority women to learn and grow and make their Greek systems better.

I gave a program called Panhellenic Power, which was for the sorority women about how to make a difference in the lives of others and how to turn a tragedy into an opportunity to create needed change. Dare I say that it was a…motivational speech??!! I didn’t fight anyone until the last 5 minutes of the program, and only did that because someone in the crowd asked for it.

Maybe it’s time for me to buy that van down by the river after all….

So what’s the history of Valentine’s Day? Frankly, I’ve never really thought about it before now. Thanks for our friends at HistoryChannel.com the explanation below was provided. Not quite as innocently romantic as I had thought…

“One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first ‘valentine’ greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl — who may have been his jailor’s daughter — who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed ‘From your Valentine,’ an expression that is still in use today.”

Holy schnikes! Yesterday we got 26.9 inches of snow in New York’s Central Park. It was the big mama of all blizzards, and my little Beetle convertible is buried. Guess what I’ll be doing all day today? (dig, dig, dig…)

Last night I spoke at University of Califoria at Irvine. What a fantastic crowd of over 200 fight girls! A huge thanks to Lauren, who set up the whole thing. And rock on to all my new pals who sent me friend requests on MySpace.

So this morning, I was at LAX airport in Los Angeles, waiting to catch a flight back to the east coast for the weekend. It was really early, and I was ravenously chowing on a Burger King breakfast croissant. After devouring it, I walked over to the garbage can to toss it. As I turn around to walk back to my seat, CRASH! A woman who was plowing down the aisle with her child in a stroller totally pummeled me. I quickly realized there was a little boy in tow, so I somehow managed to throw my weight away from the kid and tumble down to the ground.

I have never, ever been the main focal point of such a public debacle at an airport in all my years of traveling. The woman pushing the stroller half heartedly asked me if I was alright as I tried to peel myself off the floor. She had this really mad face on, like, how dare I get in the way of her stroller and break her stride. Everyone stared at me as she rushed away in a huff. I did a quick queen’s wave to the shocked crowd of onlookers.

I kept wondering if this little stunt was to be added to my list of Unsavvy Traveler Offenses. (See post below from Jan. 23) Was this my fault? I made friends with this guy named Greg sitting next to me on the airplane, and explained the situation that occurred just minutes earlier. I didn’t have to detail all the madness, because Greg had seen the whole thing go down. He gave me 100% assurance that I was nothing but an innocent bystander who rather unfortunately found herself in the blazing path of a mom with wheels. So apparently I’m not an unsavvy traveler after all…at least for today.

Last night I was in Portales, New Mexico speaking at Eastern New Mexico State University. Portales a quite an interesting place, and you have to work pretty hard to get there. (2 airplane rides and then a 2 hour drive) But it’s always worth it, because the people there are awesome.

During my program I was telling the crowd that my last name is Weed. In college, it pretty much served as my first name. And before you come up with a good weed joke, I can assure you there’s no lap slapper I haven’t heard yet. I used to get so many prank calls about my name that often times I’d just take the phone off the hook.

After the program was over, a girl came up to me and said, “I just want to tell you that I know exactly what you’ve gone through.” I wasn’t exactly sure where she was going with this until she said, “My last name is Beer.”

Hilarious.

Reprinted from The Guardian (A British Publication) by Ben Goldacre

For the past week I’ve been tracking my girlfriend through her mobile phone. I can see exactly where she is, at any time of day or night, within 150 yards, as long as her phone is on. It has been very interesting to find out about her day. Now I’m going to tell you how I did it. First, though, I ought to point out, that my girlfriend is a journalist, that I had her permission (”in principle …”) and that this was all in the name of science, bagging a Pulitzer and paying the school fees. You have nothing to worry about, or at least not from me. But back to business. First I had to get hold of her phone. It wasn’t difficult. We live together and she has no reason not to trust me, so she often leaves it lying around. And, after all, I only needed it for five minutes.

I unplugged her phone and took it upstairs to register it on a website I had been told about. It looks as if the service is mainly for tracking stock and staff movements: the Guardian, rather sensibly, doesn’t want me to tell you any more than that. I ticked the website’s terms and conditions without reading them, put in my debit card details, and bought 25 GSM Credits for £5 plus vat.

Almost immediately, my girlfriend’s phone vibrated with a new text message. “Ben Goldacre has requested to add you to their Buddy List! To accept, simply reply to this message with ‘LOCATE’”. I sent the requested reply. The phone vibrated again. A second text arrived: “WARNING: [this service] allows other people to know where you are. For your own safety make sure that you know who is locating you.” I deleted both these text messages. On the website, I see the familiar number in my list of “GSM devices” and I click “locate”. A map appears of the area in which we live, with a person-shaped blob in the middle, roughly 100 yards from our home. The phone doesn’t go off at all. There is no trace of what I’m doing on her phone. I can’t quite believe my eyes: I knew that the police could do this, and telecommunications companies, but not any old random person with five minutes access to someone else’s phone. I can’t find anything in her mobile that could possibly let her know that I’m checking her location. As devious systems go, it’s foolproof. I set up the website to track her at regular intervals, take a snapshot of her whereabouts automatically, every half hour, and plot her path on the map, so that I can view it at my leisure. It felt, I have to say, exceedingly wrong.

By the time my better half got home, I was so childishly over-excited that I managed to keep all of this secret for precisely 30 seconds. And to my disappointment, she wasn’t even slightly freaked out. I don’t know if that says good or bad things about our relationship and I wouldn’t want you to come away thinking it’s all a bit “Mr & Mrs Smith” around here. Having said that, we came up with at least five new uses for this technology between us in a few minutes, all far more sinister than anything I had managed to concoct on my own.

And that, for me, was the clincher. Your mobile phone company could make money from selling information about your location to the companies that offer this service. If you have any reason to suspect that your phone might have been out of your sight, even for five minutes, and there is anyone who might want to track you: call your phone company and ask it to find out if there is a trace on your phone. Anybody could be watching you. It could be me.

Just got back from a few days on one of my new favorite places in the world: Turks and Caicos. It’s a little country made up of a few islands just above Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It’s simply a gorgeous and peaceful place.

The trip started out a little rocky, though. It began with yet another offense of my being an unsavvy traveler. This was my most blatant move yet: I tried to go through security with a Swiss army knife attached to my keychain. I actually took it out of my pocket, put it in the little plastic dish and sent it through the metal detector without thinking twice. The guy working the machine had this incredulous look on his face as he grabbed my keys and confiscated the knife. Seriously, I have GOT to get a grip.

But the madness didn’t stop there. On our flight from Charlotte, NC to Turks and Caicos our plane’s wing was malfunctioning. You know it’s not good when the pilot comes on the intercom and starts with, “Umm…okay. We’ve got a little problem.” Apparently the fuel door on the right wing was flapping in the wind, and the slats couldn’t extend for landing. (Meaning, the plane wouldn’t be able to slow down. This could transform an airplane into a flaming fireball…very bad.) So we proceeded to circle around Charlotte for 2 hours dumping fuel on lovely North Carolina. I kept imagining some poor guy sitting on his porch having a nice cup of coffee when SPLASH! Have a little jet fuel with that java, sir!

But anyway, we finally got to T&C safely. And let me tell you, the beaches in the Caribbean are AMAZING. Turquoise blue water, white sand, great people and just an overwhelming sense of peace. I did a lot of writing, and played lots o’ guitar on the beach. It was a great recharge trip, so I’m now rearing to hit the road this week and teach some college girls how to kick some booty…