If you didn't grow up speaking Greek, you wouldn't expect to leave home and instantly be fluent in it, would you? So why is it that we expect to suddenly be "fluent" in Happiness if Happiness wasn't practiced in our homes? Happiness as a Second Language teaches happiness the same way you would learn any language that wasn't spoken in your home. It starts with the most basic concepts of being happy - learning how to say you're happy and how to count the things that make you happy. The lessons then turn to more complicated techniques - happy days and weeks, happy colors, happy nouns, verbs and adjectives, and ultimately to advanced concepts, including overcoming the negative form and understanding the past, present, future, and "future uncertain" tense. The writing is simple and straightforward, the instructions easy to follow, and the sample situations familiar, touching, often heartbreaking and sometimes hysterical. The true value of Happiness as a Second Language is that everyone who diligently works to achieve the happiness promised in the premise will find positive results from the very first page. This book is the ultimate textbook. The writing is simple and straightforward, the instructions easy to follow, and the sample situations familiar, touching, often heartbreaking and sometimes hysterical. Start now, and you will be fluent in Happiness before you know it.
About the Author: Valerie Alexander started her career in the Silicon Valley during the Dot-Com gold rush of the late 1990s, where she worked on some of the most high-profile transactions of the decade as a securities lawyer, an investment banker and an Internet executive. From 2000 to 2001, she returned to Indiana to care for her mother, and in her absence the Internet bubble burst, leaving her no choice but to move to Los Angeles to write and direct movies. As a screenwriter, Valerie has worked with Joel Schumacher, Catherine Zeta Jones, Ice Cube and others. Not satisfied writing scripts that never got made, she co-wrote, produced and directed the award-winning short film, Making the Cut, as well as numerous commercials and public service announcements. Valerie received her B.A. from Trinity University and her J.D. and M.S. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. In the spring of 2010, she returned to Berkeley Law to teach the legal ethics seminar, "Representation of Law in Film," and she continues to lecture at colleges and film schools across the country with her entertaining talk, "How to Survive in Hollywood (Despite Having a Female Brain)." Valerie lives in Los Angeles with her husband, writer and producer Rick Alexander, and their ill-mannered German Shepherd, Pepper.