You've done it- you have traveled the world and now are relaxing at home. Pretty amazing huh? You'll have memories you will keep forever and friends for a lifetime. Now many travelers wonder what the next thing to do is. After the glow of welcome back parties fades and you tire of telling the same stories, what do you do next?

Coming home from traveling around the world is the hardest part. There's a mixture of emotions: excitement, anxiety, fear, joy, and nervousness. After the grace period is over and reality sets in, people are left feeling a little lost. You spent a long time preparing for traveling, a long time traveling, and then suddenly, it's over. Just like that. It's as though someone slammed on the brakes to your life and, for many people, that can be kind of gloomy. Coming home is more about dealing mentally than doing anything in particular.

Here are some methods that can help you cope with those emotions and get yourself happy again:

Stay Busy- If you sit around thinking about the good times, you're only going to resent being home and get depressed. Go out, get a job, get a hobby, join a gym. Even if you are super psyched to be home, the first few weeks are always rough as you adjust back into "normal" society. The best thing to do is to stay busy. One great way to stay busy is to be a tourist in your own city. Since you have been gone so long, things have probably changed. Go explore your town like you would Paris or Sydney. You're bound to find something new and you'll be able to feel as though you are back on a holiday while adjusting to home.

Plan Another Trip- If the thought of staying home is killing you, get out! Plan your next trip. Even if you never go. Go start looking up destinations. Buy a guidebook. Plan some routes. Look at flights. You'll get in the mood and you'll get excited. Even if your trip never materializes, at least you will be taking your mind off from the reality that it's time to settle in one place for a bit. It makes coming home seem like a pit stop and not the finish line.

Get a Job- Getting a job ties into staying busy. By getting a job, you can take your mind off things and begin to put all your energy and new found sense of adventure to good use. It also helps you replenish your bank account so you can get to traveling again.

Read Travel Blogs- Because if you aren't traveling, live through the people who are traveling and get the motivation to get going again or even get motivated.

Returning home from the road is about getting back into the world you left and focusing on taking what you learned and applying it to your daily life. Most long term journeymen end up departing again, afflicted by a virus that will never be cured. Others stay home because their journey taught them that what they wanted the most was what they left behind at home. Either way, we need to know how to cope with that experience.

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You have probably seen them on the internet or on your everyday cartoon shows. Yes, anime cartoons are taking the world by storm and now you can get to learn how to draw your favorite anime cartoon character. If you are a budding cartoonist or animator then you probably want to learn how to draw anime.

Learning how to draw anime is not as easy as you might think it is and it takes hard work and determination to get the art just right. You can always come up with your own characters and make a cartoon series for yourself. There is one such anime cartoon that I found quite entertaining. It is called little Ninjai and can only be watched on the website online. The little Ninjai series shows a young ninja boy going through his own adventure as he meets various dangers that almost get him killed. Usually you can write to the creators of the Ninjai online cartoon series on ideas of different episodes which they will take and review before putting it on.

For you to learn how to draw anime of your own, it would be best if you first start with a pencil and paper. First try creating characters that you already know before creating your own character. Once you have mastered the art of drawing anime cartoons you can now create the same using your computer.

You will have to think of various ideas of what kind of characters you want your anime cartoon to depict. Such as do you want your cartoon to be about fantasy and fiction or to depict today's growing times. Your story can be about epic adventure and can show stories on olden times.

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I'd venture to guess that many people stumble into social media just like I did without realizing the great potential this form of networking has to absolutely revolutionize our current forms of communication.

You have Facebook where you can update hundreds of people (even thousands for the really popular peeps) in a matter of moments.

You have Twitter where you can communicate and network with others who share the same field you do, or just like I did the other day, you can connect with celebrities (MC Hammer was appreciative of my comment about his nice tie, so he replied to me on Twitter).
Then, there's YouTube, where you can make and upload any type of video imaginable and someone will tune in.

These are only the most popular, I didn't even get into the other 20 social media sites that are changing the face of communications.

But, in light of all the options and considering that I'm an internet marketer focused on making sales for my home business, what do I need to do to tap the potential of social media and begin to gather customers who will loyally follow me for years to come? In other words, let me tell you how to (begin to) succeed in social media.

You have to begin somewhere, so let's start here, PATIENCE:

Social media is about building relationships and that takes time. If you don't want to build relationships and you want to go out and make quick sales of whatever you're selling, figure out pay-per-click, that will get you customers almost immediately.

But for those of us who desire to build relationships and enjoy the party that is social media, I much prefer gathering customers from a group of folks who trust me. This takes time in social media, and therefore you must, absolutely MUST be patient. Social media success will only come when you are willing to stop selling your product and provide real quality content and friendship to people. Then, trust me, as they trust you, sales will come!

Second, you must be resilient. I don't have to be very detailed to get this point across, social media is work and you have to continue to be working at it to succeed at it. Make a habit of every day spending time on social media sites building relationships, making videos for others to enjoy, commenting on other people's thoughts and feelings, and finally offering good advice and content. Success in social media will come if you work hard at it and are resilient to a fault.

And, lastly, never ever ever never ever quit! Why spend a month or two really working hard, not seeing any sales or results, and then quit? You may very well be on the cusp of a breakthrough. Believe me, people will like you in social media, they will. If you quit, you will never find them, and you will never have anything meaningful to sell them. So, don't quit!

There, how to succeed in social media; be patient, be resilient, and don't quit!

Travis Fitzwater

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One of the most exciting parts of learning how to play guitar is being able to play your favorite songs. Most beginners, when they start out, dream of being able to shred their favorite songs by their favorite bands. While the ultimate goal should be to learn how to read music, the best way for beginners to learn songs quickly is to learn how to read guitar tabs.
Guitar tablature is very similar to sheet music, only you don't necessarily have to know the notes and values of traditional sheet music to read tablature. One of the biggest differences there is between sheet music and tabs is that sheet music has only five lines, while guitar tabs have six lines, each representing a string on the guitar.

Reading Guitar Tabs: Step 1 - Learning the Strings

One of the first things you'll need to know in order to learn how to read guitar tabs is how the strings (the six lines) are arranged in the tablature. The high E (thinnest string) will be the very top line, followed by the B string, the G string, the D string, the A string, and finally the very bottom string will be the low E.

Step 2- Learning the Frets

The next step in learning how to read guitar tabs is to learn what all the numbers mean that are on the various lines (strings) of the tablature.

The numbers located on the lines represent frets on your guitar. Frets are the spaces between the little metal bars on the fingerboard of your guitar. If there is a number 5 on the line that represents the low E string, this means you press the low E string down on the fifth fret and play that note. If there is a 0 on the line, this means you play that particular string open.

Step 3 - Learning the Symbols

It's also extremely important when learning how to read guitar tabs that you know what the symbols on the lines represent. If there is an "x" on the line, that means that string isn't played at all.

Sometimes when a particular guitar chord is tabbed out, there will be a few strings with the "x" on it in between some of the notes of the chord. This means that those strings are not to be played as part of the chord. If you see a "b", this means the note bends; if you see an "r", it means to release the bend. If you see an "h", this stands for hammer-on, and if you see a "p", this stands for pull-off. "PM" stands for palm mute, and "t" stands for tap. If you see a "/", this is indicating a slide. (Consult your favorite "how to play guitar" guide for detailed explanations of how to play what those symbols are indicating. Check out my favorite list of resources right below this article!)

Learning how to read guitar tabs is one of the most crucial skills a beginner can learn. Once you've acquired this valuable skill, you'll be able to start learning some of your favorite songs, and your practice time will become a whole lot more fun. Learning how to read guitar tabs will put the wind in your sails as you endeavor to become a true guitar hero.

Have fun!

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Getting the most out of your digital video camera can mean being able to create some really cool stuff. You just have to step outside the manual a bit and find the cool things you can do with your digital video camera and your editing software.

We have all seen them in a movie or a TV show, those very cool shots where they speed up time and capture a long segment of time and condense it into a very short amount of video. My very favorite example of this technique was an arty movie of many years ago that was called Koyaanisqatsi. (view trailer) In that movie they had some very interesting segments where they did time lapse effects to show driving on a bridge, flowers growing, clouds flying by and so on. Another example is many of the TV news stations nowadays have a camera that captures the day’s weather and then they process it down to a 20 second clip to show the clouds and weather racing by on screen.

Well this technique is not just a tool in the hands of the movie makers or the big TV stations. You can do this with your digital video camera gear too. I will go into two ways that you can accomplish this effect and get some cool results for your next video project. This one is worth playing around with in order to find the right settings to get the most dramatic effect.

Technique number one is to use the camera itself to do the time lapse recording for you. Almost all digital video cameras have the ability to do an interval recording. What this means in a nutshell is that you tell the camera how long you want to record for and how long in between recordings and it will go on autopilot for you for as long as the battery lasts or the tape runs out. This is what those

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Long before you and I were born, photography has started out as a hobby. And it is from there you got the digital photography today. People go into this as passion or as a way to capture the special moment in their life. Although digital photography can be fun, sometimes getting the right digital camera for the job can be a headache.

So, let's look at how to buy the right camera for yourself:

1. Answer these questions

Are you new to photography? Why do you need a camera? Is it for holiday snapshots or are you trying to make money with photography? Every question you answered will determine what kind of camera you should get.

When you are new in photography, you don't need to get a DSLR camera even when you can afford it because there are too many functions in the DSLR camera that you might not be able to appreciate. What you can do is to get a compact digital camera and learn from the basic. Some of you might think that point and shoot is only for picnic people. Then, you can start with a bridge camera which has similar manual controls for you to familiarize for a DSLR camera.

2. Do your research

Before you buy a digital camera, shortlist some of the brand in the market. Then get to know about the models of your interest and make a wise investment. You can read magazines and photography blog to find out more about your desired models.

If you still have question about the model you need, post your question on the photography forum. The members will be more than happy to share their experience with you.

3. Stick to budget

This is not going to be easy because the more you learn about digital photography, the more you want a high end camera. It is quite depressing when you know what you want and fail to afford it.

What you can do is to stick with your compact digital camera (if that is what you can afford) and learn all about your camera. Maximize your camera and look for ways to make money with photography like selling your pictures online to accumulate your budget for your next upgrade.

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With the painstaking work of writing and polishing your song completed, how do you get it to the music industry professionals who can help make it a Billboard hit? Where do you find their contact information? How do you approach them? This article will answer those questions.
First, your song needs to be presented in a form known as a "demo" recording. A demo does not necessarily need to be engineered to the level of a master recording intended for public release but it must be close- it should be completely professional in terms of performance and sound quality. A slightly off key vocalist, low signal levels, music that isn't tight as a drum and other amateurish mistakes will likely earn your song a trip to the nearest trash can. You're making a huge time investment in both writing and marketing your song, be sure your product is quality. Unsure if you're on the mark? My company will send you free mp3 samples of our recent work, request a few and compare (contact information is in the blurb at the end of this article).

The most popular submission formats are CD and mp3 so have each song you intend to market available in those formats. You'll be presenting them to song publishers, music producers, artists, managers, and others who receive a steady stream of demos, probably every day. Your song must stand on it's own, hyping it in person or in your cover letter ("This is going to be a huge hit!") will only mark you as an amateur. If you submit by mail, include a cover letter with just a sentence or two explaining why you are sending the song to them (as a possible addition to their song catalog or for a specific upcoming project). Type everything including the address and return address. Enclose your CD. a 6" x 9" envelope will be sufficient.

Presenting in person? Be on time, offer no hype, and don't talk as the song plays. Certainly, don't try to do their job for them ("This is blues but add some fiddle and steel guitar and it could be great for Kenny Chesney...") let them listen, and above all, make no excuses. At that point, it is what it is.

Not all industry people are eager to listen to new songs. But you can find an abundance of those that are through various song marketing tipsheets, books, and your own legwork. I recommend the book Songwriter's Market which is available at Amazon.com and Row Fax, available at rowfax.com. They are probably the only two sources you'll need. Your initial contact should be a phone call or a letter with a self addressed and stamped envelope (a.k.a. SASE) enclosed.

Another method of getting songs to an artist is through their band members or the artist during meet & greets after a concert. I've heard of a few successes doing this but in my opinion, it's a long shot. Having been a musician in that situation the last thing I wanted to do at the end of long day of travel, soundcheck and show was to review a CD or keep track of one, so it may get lost before they get around to it. And musicians are very uncomfortable taking a song to the other band members or to the artist they play for as a bad pitch could damage their credibility, it has to be stellar work to even be considered. But it happens and if you're positive you have a song for a specific band or artist, it's the most direct route.

I hope this article has given you some insight into the arcane world of song marketing and will inspire you to go out there and pitch your songs until you get that contract or hit you deserve!

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