Last Monday

Last Monday, I did something that I don’t recall doing ever before: I played hooky from work. Because of an overly full weekend and getting little homework done, I decided to stay home from work and do homework instead. I thought I had a dental cleaning appointment too but when I got there, I found out it was scheduled for later in the week. So I just rescheduled it for April so I wouldn’t have to take another morning off in the same week. It was a good way to get me out of bed.

Since I was out and about anyway, I went to Wal-Mart to get some groceries and be sure that I was well-supplied with munchies for the day. Then I went home and did some reading and writing. I was amazed that I didn’t have to take a nap at some point.

I left the house at 2:00 to go to the Kentucky Library on campus to read some old newspapers. What a drag!! I have to write a two to three page paper for my Western Civ class on what I learned from old newspapers. So I read up on the execution of Louis XVI in the Kentucky Gazette from 1793. The Gazette puts it this way “and at twenty-two minutes past ten, his head was severed from his body.”

On Monday evening in Sociology class, Dr. K did an interesting experiment. It was to show the difference in group dynamics and productivity.

First, she numbered everyone off into six groups. She sent groups one, two, & three out into the hall with one sheet of paper, a pen/pencil, and five minutes to follow the instructions on the paper. Then she had groups four, five, and six gather together in their individual groups in the classroom. Each person in the group had their own paper, pen/pencil, and five minutes to follow the instructions on the paper.

The instructions was to think of as many ways you could use one million “pipe cleaners” or those twisty wires with the fuzz on them. The groups out in the hall were to brainstorm collectively and the groups in the classroom were to put down their individual ideas and then compile them, eliminating duplicate ideas to come up with a number of ideas.

After everyone was gather back into the room, she asked each group for their number of ideas and wrote them down on the board. She then averaged the number for the two styles of brainstorming. Which style do you think was the most productive?

It was the group in the classroom that did their own thoughts and then compiled them. The Hallway group had an average of 36 ideas (I think) and the Classroom group had an average of 42 ideas.

Now if you had asked my opinion on which group would be more productive, I would have firmly said the Hallway group, as would have many others. Dr. K said that she has done this many times and nearly every time the results are the same.

So the next time you need a committee to come up with some fabulous ideas, it might be better for everyone to do some preliminary brainstorming before gathering together to do some collective brainstorming.

By the way, my best idea was to tie the pipe cleaners together, end to end, to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for the “Worlds Longest Pipe Cleaner Chain” title.

Last Weekend

On Saturday, I slept a bit later than I usually do and later than I intended to. After I finally got up, I tried to do homework between processing loads of wash but wasn’t terribly successful.

Kris & I packed our bags to go to Louisville for the weekend and left around 3:00. Kris had to go to an art museum sometime this semester for her Art Appreciation class and since she had promised a friend at the Concordia College that she would attend their performance when they come to Louisville, she decided that she would catch both the same weekend and since the motto around our place seems to be “All for one and one for all” I had to go along. (Not that I would have missed the Concordia Choir performance, but the art museum??? Blah!)

Before heading to Louisville, we stopped at the university to catch the WKU/Bradley basketball game. It wasn’t a particularly spectacular game but fun anyway. After the game, we headed for Louisville and got there is a fairly prompt fashion.

On Sunday, as tempted as I was to just sleep as long as I could, Kris rousted me out of bed so we could get dressed and then try to catch a bit of homework before going to the art museum which had a scheduled tour at 12:30. I moseyed around getting ready and by the time I was ready to sit down and get some reading done, it was time to leave for the museum. Could it have been a bit of subconscious procrastination? Very likely…knowing how I love to do homework.

After checking out, we went in search of a good restaurant for breakfast/lunch, hoping for a place that serves breakfast 24/7. We came upon a Cracker Barrel and decided it was just the place we were looking for. Kris pulled into the parking lot and only one pass through changed our minds. After we took the one-hour time change into account, it was just the time that people were getting out of church and the place was packed. We settled for Arby’s.

After lunch, we made our way to the U of L campus and found the art museum with little trouble. With more than just a little sarcastic muttering on my part, we locked the car and went into the museum. We were about 45 minutes too early for the guided tour, so after checking with the lady at the front desk and finding out that admission is free except in the special western-themed display in the basement, then the lady added “except for students.” Okay, I like free.

As we went to enter the art area, a little old lady with entirely too much coral-colored lipstick on stopped us and told us that we had to hang our jackets in the coatroom because “you can’t carry them.” We hung our jackets in the coatroom and then decided that since the western display was free anyway, we would just get our tickets before heading into the bowels of the museum. We got the tickets to the display in the basement and went to become thoroughly cultured.

After wandering through the first gallery, we were stopped by one of the many “guards.” She saw that Kris was taking notes and inquired as to whether she was using a pen or pencil. Kris told her it was a pen. The lady told her that rather than let her go on and have someone turn her back further into the museum, she would need to go back to the front desk and get a couple of little pencils. She was nice enough about it but didn’t bother to go into detail as to why the rule exists. She told us to get a Picture Rules card while we were at it anyway so Kris wouldn’t break any of those while she was taking pictures.

So back we went and got the pencils and the rules. We then retraced our steps and about two galleries later we found the painting that Kris decided to do her paper on. Now it was truly art and a person could tell that there was talent involved. I could make some of the abstract pieces myself, I think. It was a painting of flowers and fruits. Now, I don’t really care for pictures like that but this one had such amazing attention to detail and such vibrant colors that it was truly beautiful.

Kris started taking pictures and we were studying the picture and pointing to different features when there came another guard. “Ladies,” she said. “I know you’re not touching the painting but from over there [across the room], I can’t tell that. Please step back from the painting a bit.” Sigh. So we stepped back.

After viewing all of the art upstairs, we went to the basement and used our tickets to get into the western-themed show. For the most part, I found it incredibly boring, certainly not worth the $8 they wanted to charge.

Kris finally took mercy upon me and we left the museum. We drove around for a while looking for a Barnes & Noble type place to read some of our homework assignments but couldn’t find one. We finally resorted to getting drinks from Starbucks and driving to a mall and sitting in the car in the parking lot.

I read Intruder in the Dust for awhile but couldn’t seem to stay awake, so I lay my seat back partially, got my fuzzy blanket, and took about an hour nap. Kris tried to accuse me of moaning in my sleep, but I think it was a tactic to try to embarrass me into waking up. But if by some off chance I did moan, I’m sure I was dreaming about my literature class.

After Kris finished her book, we went to Panera Bread for supper, taking our books inside to read while we ate. I was incredibly adventurous and tried a smoked turkey panini with a “dried tomato ale mustard” on it. The tomato thing was almost enough to make me cancel the sandwich but I braved it anyway. The sandwich was okay but I think it’ll be a long time before I go back to the restaurant, too many foreign things on the menu. Well, as luck would have it, the restaurant, being attached to the mall, closed while we were inside, so we just had to chow down and then leave instead of lingering and reading.

After leaving the restaurant, we drove around some more and finally killed enough time that it was time to go to the church to listen to the Concordia Choir. We entered the church and were standing there looking for just the right spot to sit when we spotted, What was this?, Mennonites in the audience. We quickly figured out that is was my boss's brother Michael, his wife and child, and a cousin, so we went and sat with them. It was interesting to watch their faces as we entered their pew; not many people will drive 2 ½ hours one way to see a choir sing.

The Concordia College Choir has some magnificent sound. It was a great program and it was absolutely inspiring. I hope that someday I can be a part of a group that sings with even a little of that quality.

We got home a little after 11:00. It was a nice change of pace but the homework…

Shakespeare's Sonnets

Oh, the horror of it all!! On Thursday evening I had my first, and hopefully my last, exposure to Shakespeare's Sonnets. Thankfully, I didn't actually have to read them; Mr. K had an audio recording of someone reading them while we followed along on printed copies.

This is for those of you who have never read them, just in case your curiousity is killing you:

Sonnet VI.

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee;
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

Isn't it perfectly awful?? How can anyone appreciate this stuff?? It must take a really gifted, finely-cultured person to appreciate Shakespeare. Unfortunately, not my forte.

According to Mr. K, a sonnet must consist of 14 lines, which all 154 sonnets do except one. And that one, disappointingly, has 15 lines. (tsk, tsk) Can anyone tell me exactly what this sonnet means??

After lecturing us about not using contractions in our essays, he makes us read stuff that has more contractions than a birthing center!

Painfully enduring...

Prodigal Definition

Well, on my quiz I put down my definition as wayward. I had forgotten to look it up but lucky for me, Mr. K went over the definition in class. He doesn't collect quizzes; he gives us a folder at the beginning of class that has our assignments in it and we put any finished assignments back into it. Whew!!

I wonder how many preachers really know the meaning.

For anyone that hasn't already gone and looked it up, dictionary.com says:

1. Rashly or wastefully extravagant: prodigal expenditures on unneeded weaponry; a prodigal life.

2. Giving or given in abundance; lavish or profuse: prodigal praise.

3. One who is given to wasteful luxury or extravagance

Apologies and Prodigal

This evening I went to my torturous literature class. The most fun that I have in that class is the discussions we have before Mr. K gets there.

The guy that usually sits in front of me & I were discussing the writing assignments and I told him how stressful I find this class. He agreed with me and said that this week he blew up at a couple of guys that he works with. Later that evening he got to thinking about it and thought that the guys really hadn't done anything they don't usually do so it was really unreasonable that he'd blown up at them. He thought that maybe the gloomy weather has been affecting him but was pretty sure it wasn't the problem. He came to the conclusion that the stress of this class is what has him short-tempered. "I had to go back to work and apologize to those guys and tell them that it wasn't their fault, I'm the one that's the @!*!$," he said.

I found it kinda amusing, but also found it neat that he was able to go back, acknowledge his problem, and apologize.

So far, I've managed to keep up with all of the reading but I'm two writing assignments behind. *sob* I spent several hours last Saturday trying to write a paper for the class and came up with all of two (yes, just two) sentences.

Next week, I have a Sociology test on Monday, a Western Civ test on Tuesday, and a Literature test on Thursday. I need to go study!!

By the way, do you know what the definition of the word "prodigal" is? The story of the prodigal son was one of our short stories this week and one of the questions was "What does "prodigal" mean? I didn't know what the real meaning was. Thank goodness that Mr. K said the meaning in class a bit later. So think of your definition without looking the word up (or at least what it was before you looked it up) and see if you know more than I did.

Sweet Words

"Sharon, you've been excused from jury duty."

Sweet, sweet words!!

Kudos to the patriarchs, Dad & Uncle Joe. I'd still be floundering, were it not for them. I love 'em!!

...and I'm off to speech class.