Conspiracy of Knowledge

I realized, after a discussion in Survey of Children's Lit. on Monday, that almost all my favourite books contain a conspiracy of knowledge. My teacher, Dr. Bishop, explained in class that kids will get excited about reading if they know they are learning something that very few other people know about. Then she read us Faithful Elephants, a World War II book set in a zoo in Japan. The managers and trainers at this zoo worried that their animals would get out and hurt people if bombs fell on their zoo cages, so they finally decided to kill their animals so that they wouldn't become a problem. I've been thinking about books with the conspiracy of knowledge lately, especially since I've been reading Someone Named Eva, a book about a Czech girl who was taken away from her family during WWII and brainwashed into becoming a respectable Aryan Nazi German girl. After two years of learning the Nazi ways in a training center, she was adopted into a German family. The book taught me a lot of stuff that I never knew before. I know lots about the Jewish people during WWII and a lot about the prison camps during that time, but I don't know lots about the German eugenics program or how German brainwashed children to become Nazi leaders. I found the book bursting with a conspiracy of knowledge.

I think that for our fiction-writing project I want to write something that leads the reader into a conspiracy of knowledge. Something that hasn't been written about a million times before, something that should be written about, something that people ought to know. I have a few ideas, but I'll have to do a little more brainstorming before class tomorrow. If you can think of any ideas, let me know.

Riddles

As promised, here are some riddles. I used the riddle template provided in my Survey of Children's Lit. textbook. Beware though, I'm not much of a riddle-writer. Remember, the template was made for children so these might be slightly juvenile. Oh well, it's all for fun anyway, right? Enjoy!

--------------------------

Fuzzy and winged,
I come in several shapes and sizes,
But usually I'm always the same two colours.
I like to fly, work, and taste sweet flavours.
Who am I?

Cold and white,
I can be used for outdoor fun.
In a group with my peers we look all alike,
But examined alone I'm completely unique.
Who am I?

Silently swimming,
I can smell blood a 1/4 of a mile away.
People say I am a ferocious predator,
But I seldom attack humans on purpose.
Who am I?

--------------------------

Now it's your turn. Post your answers in my comments. Good luck!

Teaching tricks

Chapter 2 in my Survey of Children's Lit. textbook, The Wonder of it All, is probably the most interesting chapter I've read in any textbook all year (and that includes last winter semester, too). I thoroughly enjoyed reading the entire chapter, titled "The Presence of Literature to Build Community." In fact, I enjoyed it so much that, by the end of my reading, I was nearly ready to change my major once again and become an elementary teacher. Never fear though, I said nearly, not definitely. I figure I might as well graduate with Mass Communication before venturing off into another major. Anyway, one section in the chapter talked about how students could introduce themselves to their teacher and classmates through writing. One idea, from Margaret Wise Brown's The Important Book, uses a poetic pattern. I've tried a few verses using objects in my apartment that I can see from my desk and then using myself:

______________________________

The important thing about a refrigerator is that it keeps food cold.
You can store things on top of it,
and you can stick lists and papers
to the front of it with magnets.
But the important thing about a refrigerator is that it keeps food cold.

The important thing about a dresser is that you put clothes in it.
It can hold a mirror,
and it's a good place to put picture frames and books,
and it's very useful to stand on if you have to reach high places.
But the important thing about a dresser is that you put clothes in it.

The important thing about Alison is that she is a writer.
She likes to climb trees and read books,
and collect coins and watch lightning storms.
She loves traveling in cars, planes, ships and trains.
But the important thing about Alison is that she is a writer.

______________________________

And now that you're completely captivated, I shall bait you with the promise of riddles to come in tomorrow's blog post. See, didn't I tell you this textbook was great?

Cookies

*In honour of our recently-completed poetry section

On Friday evening we had three friends over to make cookies. While they were in the oven baking (the cookies, not the friends) we were inspired to write cookie poetry. Each of us in turn wrote a line of the poem. Our original plan was to have an AABB rhyme scheme, but the ever-mischievous Tim kind of wrecked that when he wrote the word orange at the end of line three. So the rhyme scheme became AABA. We called the poem complete after writing two stanzas. It's kind of strange (although not as weird as the ones from that poem generator). Here it is:


Cookies by AQ, BQ, CS, JG & TG
Flour, sugar, eggs and salt,
But it won't work without some malt.
Shall we add some peel of orange?
Its bad taste is not your fault.

Make sure the cookies don't get burned
Or else a lesson you'll have learned.
So watch those cookies with a care,
And you will a mighty cook have turned.


It was a fun evening and the cookies tasted great. Oh, and we also defined the newly invented word rickle as a very long, curvy licorice (with each of us contributing one word to the definition). I felt very creative by the end of the night!

Water-soggen

Today was awesome. We had communion at church and then had a bunch of people over for lunch. Our friend, Stephen, made curry, which was nearly too hot for me, but still yummy. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it too (plus our apartment still smells really great from lunch). Then most everyone left and Bryn and I cleaned up. After that was finished, Jonathan, Bryn and I went water-slogging on the Greenway. We almost got swept away a couple times, but we had a blast! After getting totally water-soggened, we went back to our apartment and changed. Then we brought our perogies over to Jonathan's apartment and made the best supper that I've had in a long, long time. And that's why today was such an awesome day.

Fixed

My car is fixed. I'm so happy to be able to use it again. It was an interesting week having to arrange rides from my sister and friends. I'm glad I'll be relatively self-sufficient again. If only I had a bike here I could have done quite nicely without a car. Oh how dependent we have become.

State of dead

I read a book yesterday ("North of Everything," great book by the way) and started wondering why all books where someone dies say that the person goes to heaven. I wonder why there's NEVER a non-Christian book that says anything about dead people just being asleep. It's kind of religionism. I wonder if I'll be able to change that in my lifetime.

What to do?

Here's my dilemma. I love reading, a lot. In the past couple weeks I've bought tons of books. But I have no time to read them. I'm dying to grab one from the bookshelf and lose myself in its pages. But I can't. I have textbooks to read, articles to write, people to see, places to be (and no, that wasn't a forced rhyme). I really just need to find a job where I would be paid to read, every day, all day. If any of you think of one, definitely let me know. That would be the perfect job for me.

Mastering words

Here is the concluding blog post that was inspired by last Tuesday's (Sept. 15) discussion in Creative Writing class...

Topic 2: Becoming a master
In high school whenever I started learning a new piece, my violin teacher always reminded me that I had to learn the correct notes, the right rhythm and the ever-changing dynamics as they were written in the score before I could take the song and change it around to make it my own. I had to know the piece so well, so completely, that I could play the entire thing exactly as the music indicated. Then, and only then, could I take that music I knew so well and start changing it - holding certain notes for longer than they were supposed to be held, playing with roboto and adding my own feeling and expression - to make it my own.

Last week in Creative Writing, Janelle mentioned something similar in class about how before a person can become a master at poetry (s)he has to follow all the guidelines and obey all the rules. She was using that idea in the context of poetry, but, as I explained above, I understand the concept better in the context of music.

I wonder if I'll ever get to the master stage in my writing. Will a time ever come where I can break a rule or two here or there? Will the rest of my writing be so solid, so unmistakably perfect, that I can tweak a word, a spelling, a punctuation mark, to make the writing 100 percent my own? All I can do is try to make the switch in my brain from music to writing. Wish me luck.

Car Trouble

I went to drive to class today and got halfway down my street before my car died. It was very distressing. My sister had to take her own car today and was leaving just behind me so I pulled my car as far over onto the side of the road as I could and then jumped in Bryn's car. It didn't help that today was The Day of the Nearly-Autumn Flood. So now I have to figure out how to get my car fixed on top of everything else I have to do. Superb...

Soccer

Today I was woken up by Tucker standing beside my head loudly whispering, "The phone is ringing, the phoning is ringing, the phone is ringing..." Finally I realized it wasn't a dream and clambered out of bed. By that time the home phone had stopped ringing and the Unicorn Kid song that's Ty's cell's ring tone started playing. Just as I reached the bedroom door, Ty emerged from the other bedroom and beat me down the hall to get his phone. It was Mark making sure that we had all survived the night OK. I got breakfast for the kids and apologized that they were eating at 8:15, a whole hour and fifteen minutes late. They didn't seem to mind too much. I actually think Coral was rather pleased she got to sleep in. For the rest of the morning, Bryn, Ty and I took turns showering while the other two played with the kids. Bryn played Tucker's Canadian Geography game with him and then I taught him how to play Slaps. After that Ty played Trouble with Tucker while I read some books to Coral (books that I had to read for Survey of Children's Lit. - what a great way to get homework done!). Later Bryn and I taught Tuck Dutch Blitz and then we ended the morning with Bryn, Tuck and I playing Skip-Bo. Mark and Terrie got back sometime during the reading/Trouble-playing time and then we headed back to campus (with most of the leftover pizza!). After taking Ty back to the dorm, Bryn and I stopped at our place to drop off our stuff and then drove over to Tim and Jonathan's apartment. We thoroughly interrupted Jonathan and his classmate who were doing homework and then Tim, Bryn and I went to the soccer field by the Greenway. One of us stood in the net while the other two took shots. Very early on, I was trying to stop a goal and slipped right into a muddy puddle. Even though we were all totally muddy by the time we finished playing, we had tons of fun. Now I'm going to get busy and do some homework. Soon I have to go to the Mac lab to finish my web design up for Tuesday. We'll see how that goes...

Babysitting

Today after church, my sister and brother, Bryn and Tyler, and I changed, packed up some stuff and left for Soddy Daisy. We're currently babysitting our nephew, Tucker, and niece, Coral, for today, tonight and tomorrow morning. We got to their house around 1p.m. and ate a yummy haystack lunch. By that time the kids were telling their parents to leave so they could start having fun with their aunts and uncle. So my older brother, Mark, and my sister-in-law, Terrie, gave us a few directions, said good-bye to the kids and left for a night away for their anniversary.

We spent the afternoon doing awesome aunt-and-uncle-ly things with Tuck and Coral. We taught them how to play that wonderful Adventist Review & Herald game, Animals, and they really enjoyed it. Coral played on Auntie Bryn's team and they tied with me for a winning four sets. Then the kids needed some running around time so we put them in clothes that could handle the rain-softened earth and took them into the backyard. We taught them "What Time is it Mr. Wolf" and played that until the mosquitoes and other assorted Tennessee bugs drove us back inside. Then Tucker showed me his coin collection (and I inwardly drooled over some of his specimen) and Auntie Bryn introduced Coral to her camera. Coral became the family photographer and captured the rest of the afternoon on memory card. Not sure how many of the pictures turned out, but it should be fun to look at them later. Then we had Lupi's pizza for supper and spent the last hour or so before Quiet Time playing more games. We played a couple rounds of Uno and then taught Tucker and Coral some new games including Pit (rather hilarious since Tucker couldn't remember that the point of the game was to get a spoon, not worry so much about his cards) and 7-Up (the game with Rook cards, not the game kids play in elementary school). Then it was Quiet Time and the kids got their blankets and "buddies" (stuffed animals) and snuggled onto the couches with us while we listened to "The Sheaf of Grain," one of my personal favourite Aunt Carol and Uncle Dan stories. When that was over we made them a camp-out nest of pillows and blankets on the floor in Tucker's room, said prayer with them and shut the door so they could have some sister-brother talking time before falling asleep.

Now Bryn, Ty and I are hanging out in the living room eating leftover pizza and ice cream. It's great babysitting these kids!

Tree Climbing

I went tree climbing tonight. It was really awesome! First, earlier in the afternoon, Bryn and I cleaned our apartment. We cleaned pretty much everywhere except the garage. Then later Jonathan came over and adjusted a set of shelves. Then we organized our garage and now it's super awesome! It's so awesome in fact that Bryn and I think it'd make a great watching movie area. All we'd need would be more couches and something to watch movies on. Probably won't happen. Then the three of us ate a great supper of rice and a stir-fry that Bryn made. After that we decided to do something instead of just hang out in the apartment. So we went tree climbing while the rest of the campus was in vespers. We climbed four trees in an hour and 15 minutes (and talked while we lounged in the trees). Now we're back at our apartment to eat cinnamon-sugar toast. It was a great start to the Sabbath!

Ways of thinking

Topic 1: Critical Thinking vs. Creative Thinking
(a continuation of yesterday's post)

While I have the challenge of doing both creative writing and AP style news writing this semester, there's more to the situation. Curious? OK, here it is...I have basically two types of classes this semester: Classes that require critical thinking (World Religions, Principles of Entrepreneurship, Intro to Web Design and Symphony Orchestra) and classes that require creative thinking (Survey of Children's Literature, Creative Writing, Web Design and Symphony Orchestra). I'll bet you noticed that two of my classes overlap into both categories. It's true. I have two classes that definitely apply to the critical thinking category and two others that certainly belong to the creative thinking one. But then there are the other two, the odd-balls, the ones that belong in both categories. In Intro to Web Design we have to think creatively to design our Web sites, but then when we start using Dreamweaver to turn the designs into HTML, we use critical thinking. In orchestra we use critical thinking to read the notes and understand all the things contained in the music, but then we have to interpret what we read from head-knowledge into feeling and passion. Of course, someone could argue that both creative and critical thinking are required for every class. Yeah, yeah, we all know that, but it's not really what I'm trying to say in this post. I'm just saying it's intriguing to see such an equal split between my six classes and interesting how I have to adjust my thinking before I step into each classroom. What makes it all the more challenging is that my critical-type thinking classes are pretty much perfectly alternating with my creative-type thinking classes. It's just kind of a weird phenomenon I've noticed so far this semester.

And, in other news, I just got done interviewing a Collegedale city commissioner at his house. I think that's a rather an unordinary claim to fame and one that I'll probably never get to have in my own hometown. The interview went really great, so I'm excited about that. Can you tell?!

Style juxtapositions

I have been thinking about two potentially blog-worthy topics for a couple weeks now. Although I've been planning to blog about them, I just haven't got around to it yet. So when both topics came up in class yesterday, I decided now is a good time to write about them. I'll blog about each separately so neither post becomes too long. First, the juxtaposition of writing styles...

Topic 1: News Writing vs. Creative Writing
As you heard in class yesterday (and have probably gleaned from some of my previous blog posts), I have an interesting issue to deal with this semester. I'm in Creative Writing class, but I regularly have to use or edit news writing. So far it's been interesting, but I'm starting to be able to separate the two. With news writing, I must always follow AP style. The AP Stylebook is my journalistic bible, my rule book, my lifeline. If I write news stories without a Stylebook nearby, I feel somehow slightly not-right. Using AP style is what I know, at least in writing news. I feel comfortable falling back into the old stand-by, knowing that if I ever have a question about anything, I can refer to my Stylebook and usually find a concrete answer. At heart I am ruthlessly organized (although, with school work and other interests getting in the way, it doesn't always get put into practice). Knowing a certain style inside and out, forward and backward makes me feel safe and secure when I write. I have rules to follow and a recipe for success. While AP is currently my preferred writing style, I'm comfortable with others as well. In high school I learned the style my English teacher (yes, I had just one English teacher from grade eight to grade twelve) was looking for and became an expert at giving her exactly the writing she wanted. In college English classes I discovered MLA and adapted my essays from the Corbel (my English teacher) Style to fit into the MLA Style. Then I learned AP Style, a handy formula for consistency among journalists. I loved it!

Conversely, when I need to write creatively I have to remind myself that I can think more openly. If I see intriguing diversions along my writing path, I am allowed to take one just on a whim and explore it further. I can write more freely and take more liberties with trying out new ideas, writing styles or punctuation uses. Now I'm learning that although writing styles are good and serve a useful purpose, I need to develop my own style. The AQ Style. I need to craft it, mold it and, most of all, use it. And this is why I'm taking Creative Writing.

Busy Day

It's really hard to track down some people at Southern. It was a very on-the-phone-a-lot type of day. I finally was able to get a hold of the people I needed to so I could get some stuff accomplished. More recently, I was in the Accent office from 6:30 p.m. until 10 p.m. tonight. It didn't even seem that long since I was busy editing and working with the other Accent staff members. It was fun tonight...a lot more fun that last week when I didn't have much of a clue about what I was supposed to be doing. I think I might be getting the hang of this whole News Editor thing. So here is the best and worst of working tonight. Best: I finalized my news budget for next week's Accent, ran it by our editor and e-mailed it to the people who needed it. I feel like that's a huge accomplishment in itself. But there's more. I also got writers for the last two stories in next week's issue that needed writers. Yay! Now I only have to write one story for next week and I already have it half finished. Worst: I had to miss the David Payne drama. I'm so disappointed. I really wanted to see it. Maybe somebody took a video I could watch though. I hope so...

Library

I walked into the library five times today. Actually it's really been five times just since noon. I think I spend way too much time in the library. I usually go in there if I only have an hour between classes and don't want to go all the way back to my apartment just to come back to class a bit later. I also go there to use the computers or get on the Internet. The computers come in handy if I have an improptu interview and need to quickly type up some interview questions. Usually I use the library's Internet to check my Southern e-mail, write e-mails to Southern Accent staff or track down contact information for a source I'm trying to get a hold of for a story I'm either writing or verifying. Today I was in the library doing all those things. I'm glad we have a library at Southern. I'm not sure what I'd do without it. Plus, now that there's all those neat paintings of planes (and most of them are orange, my favourite colour) decorating the walls near the entryway I've got something interesting to look at!

Audition

Today I had my orchestra seating audition. I never really get scared for auditions, but I never really do all that well either since I have some eye problems that make reading music really difficult for me. I basically just listen to the pieces lots and memorize most of the music by the time we have our concerts. Anyway, Bryn and I went over to the music building around 11 a.m. and practiced until our auditions, which were just before 1 p.m. I felt like mine went all right at the start because the first few sections were the ones I knew pretty well and could mostly play by memory already. The ones further back in the piece were more difficult for me, but I think they went semi-OK. In any case, auditions are over so now I can relax and not worry about that anymore. Yay, one more thing crossed off my list of things to worry about!

Quarry

Today after church, Bryn and I had friends over for a pasta lunch. Then after cleaning the kitchen up, we called a few more people and got ready to go swimming. Our friend, Jonathan, knew of a quarry to swim in and so we decided to go. In the end three vehicles headed out to Hixson for a short hike and a good swim. There was also cliff jumping available and always the ever exciting game of keep-away-the-scum. Later most of us came back to Jonathan's apartment to make supper and play games after sundown. All in all, it was a good day with great weather and awesome friends.

Owl City

Last night my sister and I and a friend of ours left Collegedale as soon as orchestra rehearsal finished at 6:15 p.m. We somehow made it to Atlanta just before 8 p.m. and to the concert venue a few minutes later. We called my brother, Tyler, and he came out to meet us and escorted us in to let the ticket lady know we were with him. Ty and three of his friends had left Southern around 5:30 p.m. and only got to Atlanta a bit before us. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that we went to an Owl City concert in Atlanta and it was great! They even performed my two favourite Owl City songs, so I was pretty happy about that. The only bad thing about the concert was that there were two opening bands before Owl City and they weren't that great. Bryn, Jonathan and I walked around downtown Atlanta after listening to the first band, Unicorn Kid, for a few minutes. We wanted to rest our ears up so we could actually hear when Owl City played. It was a good thing we did, because Owl City was awesome and not too hard on the ears, loudness-wise, either.

Today carried on the goodness from the concert. I went to McKay Books and bought 28 children's books. The cheapest book was 10 cents and the most expensive was $3.75. I felt like I made a pretty good investment and a great addition to my library. I love McKay's!

Notebooks

I'm addicted to buying notebooks. Seriously, it's bad. I should probably go to Notebook-buyers Anonymous. If any of you hear of a program that caters to impulse notebook buyers, let me know.

I have notebooks of all shapes and sizes. My tiny Moleskine permanently lives in my pillowcase, just in case I wake up in the middle of the night with some amazing inspiration that I might lose if I don't write it down right away. I have several other small notebooks that are half filled with lists or ideas or quotes. There's also the normal, full-sized notebooks for each school semester. These I use for note-taking (hmmm, probably what notebooks were originally intended for). Then I have my travel notebook. It's the one that goes with me on every trip. I record anything and everything random in this notebook. Funny things that happen along the way. Amusing bits of conversations I overhear. Reactions to my favourite past-time, people watching. Possible itineraries, distances driven, things seen. Yep, that all goes into my travel notebook. It also comes in handy for keeping scores for card games. Many a game of 7-Up is recorded in my travel notebook. Oh, and on the SAU orchestra tour to Europe a year and a half ago I got every person in the orchestra to write down all the countries they'd been to. Our orchestra conductor won that contest with 41. We bought her a chocolate bunny in Brussels.

Last week while browsing the school/office supply aisle, I saw an awesome notebook that I just had to look at more closely. I ended up buying it (Give me a break...it has a spot-the-Sasquatch cover. How cool is that?) even though I have an almost new notebook to use for taking notes in class. I'll save this notebook for my second semester notes though. That's the thing about my notebook buying. I always have to buy them, but I save them in their pristine, unblemished condition until I need to use them. The funny part is, while I LOVE notebooks, I can't stand diaries. Wonder why that is? My best guess is because notebooks are so open and versatile while diaries are so restricting and constricting.

Snowbirds

Since the first time I heard about the Snowbirds I've wanted to fly with them. For awhile I aspired to be a Snowbird pilot, but that was short-lived when I found out that to be a Snowbird pilot requires years and years of military flying. Since a job in the military is probably dead last on my jobs-I'd-like-to-have list, I changed my dream from Snowbird pilot to passenger in a Snowbird plane. I even told my parents that if I ever got a life-threatening disease and was granted a wish by the Make a Wish Foundation I would ask for one of two things: 1) to play the amazing second act violin solo with the Phantom of the Opera orchestra or 2) to fly with the Snowbirds. (Of course I wasn't hoping to get a life-threatening disease, I just believe in making plans and being prepared for unexpected things in life.)

To this day, every time I watch the Snowbirds perform an air show, the dream of flying with them comes back to me as strong as ever. This summer they flew for the opening of a community festival in a town an hour away from my house. I convinced my parents that we should go see them and the three of us drove all the way there to watch a 15 minute show and then spent quite a long time at the airport watching mechanics check out all 11 planes and refuel the nine that flew in the show. (Only nine planes fly together, but there are two extras just in case something goes wrong with planes #1-9 while they're traveling around Canada.)

This evening I had a little time to catch up on some recent news. I happened upon an article by a cbc.ca columnist who lived out my dream yesterday. For your reading pleasure I've turned the awesome picture below into a link to the column just in case you're at all interested in learning more about this unique Canadian flying squadron.

Snowbird Demonstration Team flying over Niagara Falls
(photo credit: cbc.ca)

I'll probably never actually experience the flying-in-a-Snowbird dream of every patriotic Canadian aviation enthusiast, but that's OK. I can live out that dream, and many others as well, through the words of fellow writers. This is exactly why I love reading. I can be anyone or do anything or go anywhere because of writing. I only hope I learn to be as inspiring and dream-fulfilling with my own words. Oh, and I'm totally putting that Snowbirds calendar on my Christmas list!

Find more interesting Snowbirds info at their Web site.

Changing Tastes

This week I realized how much I've changed since the start of fall semester last year. Last fall I was terrified to take News Reporting class and get my articles published in the Southern Accent (with my name attached no less!). Last fall I took News Reporting and ended up not hating it...too much. Last winter I was super-terrified to take Advanced Reporting and go out into the community to find stories. Last winter I took Advanced Reporting and enjoyed it...mostly. Last year I loved writing articles, but hated doing interviews and research and fact checking. Last year I pushed myself to do all those things and grew from the experiences.

This year things are different. I have a new challenge. This year my reporting classes are behind me. This year I'm the News Editor of the Southern Accent (who would have guessed at this time last year?!). This year I organize and edit articles from the current News Reporting class. And I realized this week that, most astonishing to me, this fall I'd rather do all the information gathering than actually write up my articles. How do things change so completely in just one year?

Love That Book

I read Love That Dog by Sharon Creech yesterday. It immediately catapulted right up near the top of my "favourite book" list. Since reading it I've been wondering how in the world people write like that? It's utterly amazing to me. One of the reasons I love reading books written for the pre-teen to young teenager age group is because of the writing. Usually when I finish reading these books, my heart aches to be able to write like their authors. To capture the readers attentions right from the first sentence and keep them captivated until the very last line. I've read books from most every genre and from numerous age categories and I've found that books for young teenagers touch my heart in ways adult books rarely can. I've always claimed that everyone, even adults, can learn from these books. I certainly learned a lot from Love That Dog. Now I need to find the sequel, Hate That Cat.

Family visits

I got acquainted with LibraryThing.com today. It's a pretty neat place to catalog the books you read. For most of the afternoon I was reading kids books and putting them into my LibraryThing catalog. I took a break for a bit when my older brother and his family stopped by for a visit. We haven't seen them since we left Collegedale at the end of the semester last spring. My nephew, Tucker, was really excited to show me all the new coins he got earlier that day from his great-grandma to add to his coin collection. I was impressed with his English farthing. I kind of wish I had it in my collection. When I was six and a half I'm pretty sure I didn't have any foreign coins in my collection. Hmm, maybe I hadn't even started a coin collection at that age. While my brother and I talked, my sister and sister-in-law played hide-and-seek with Tucker and our niece, Coral. I'm pretty sure they discovered every hiding spot possible in our apartment, including the top of our fridge. It wasn't the most productive afternoon, but it was enjoyable and I think that's just as important as doing homework.

SwingFest 2009

I just got back home from SwingFest 2009. It was a blast! There was only one awkward moment: when this guy asked me if I wanted to dance. I was so surprised I just stared at him for a couple seconds before saying, "What?" After he repeated his question I still didn't have a coherent answer. My cousin saved me by jumping in with an, "I do!" and so she danced with the guy. It was just as well because I'm a pretty terrible dancer and just went down to Coolidge Park to have fun. Breanna and the guy danced really well together and he probably had more fun dancing with her than he would have with me. I definitely had more fun capturing their dancing on camera than dancing with him myself.

I did do some dancing though. The group I was with went up near the front of the crowd close to the band and found a good-sized group of Southern people. We all learned different steps from each other and switched partners back and forth. There was a definite lack of guys, but we still had a great time.

When I got home and turned on the light in my apartment I noticed how exTREMEly dirty my feet are because of kicking off my flip-flops during the dancing. I guess I should wash them off before going to bed. I'd better do that now before I forget. Night.

Lemon [Meringue] Pie

This summer my friend, Stephen, requested that I make him a lemon pie for his birthday. No meringue, just the lemon filling. So I committed to do that for his birthday present. Today was his birthday so I teamed up with my cousin, Breanna, to make his pie. We went to Wal-Mart for groceries (I'm sad to admit) and looked for a lemon meringue pie mix. We had no luck, even after asking a worker. So we went to Bi-Lo and had the same experience. We did manage to find some lemon filling in a can though, which I thought was rather strange. It was my only option, so I got two cans and two pie crusts and headed home to make the pies.

Breanna knew how to make the meringue without a mix (she actually knows how to cook...I just pretend to), but before she could start mixing the egg whites and sugar, she spilled a bunch of sugar all over the counter and floor. I grabbed our vacuum to clean up the floor, but apparently it doesn't do well with small granules. It scattered them all over the rest of the kitchen floor and into the living room. I was not impressed. I tried one of the smaller vacuums our landlord left in our garage. It did a slightly better job, but not by much. My feet were covered in sugar. This proved to be a problem when I had to run get something from my room. I tracked sugar all the way there, but thankfully the room is carpeted so by the time I came back out my feet were semi-clean. They got sugary again the moment I stepped into the kitchen.

By that time Breanna had the meringue ready and we assembled the pies, the one for Stephen with only lemon filling and the other for the rest of us to eat with both filling and meringue. Stephen's pie was finished, but we wanted the other pie to have that lovely golden brown look of perfection to it. We put it in the oven and started cleaning up (really just licking meringue off the electric beater prongs). I checked the pie once and it hadn't started browning yet. By the time we remembered to check it the second time, we smelled burning meringue. Breanna raced to the oven and yanked it open. I ran to all the doors and windows and flung them open. The smoke detector went off. I remembered why I hate smoke detectors. Breanna waved a tea towel under the device and soon it stopped its ghastly noise. We took a look at our ruined pie and decided it could be fixed. We peeled off the burned meringue and Breanna started to make some more. She let an egg yolk fall into the whites...then accidentally tipped the bowl. The egg splatted onto the floor. I cleaned it up and Breanna tried again. This time things went smoothly and we managed to get the meringue made and nicely browned. We put the pies away for lunch tomorrow then got to work cleaning up all that sugar. It was an interesting afternoon. That might be the last time I try baking for awhile.

A Bee-ing Adventure

Today marks one week since we found bees in our apartment. My sister, Bryn, and I moved in the Wednesday before school started. On Thursday Bryn discovered a bee buzzing by our bedroom light. She called me for back-up. (Like I know anything about bee removal!) When I got there I discovered the bees (yes, more than one by this time) were only worried about our light and completely ignored us — the human invaders of their territory. Using a garbage can and my book list, I trapped a couple and let them go outside. But it didn't help. Bees were still flying around our room. I decided that we should leave them alone and see what would happen. We disappeared into our living room, shutting the bedroom door behind us. When we ventured back into our room the bees were on the floor. Most were dead. One or two were trying to move. I used my book list to shovel up the bees, both dead and alive, and dropped them under some plants in the front yard. We were bee-free for the rest of the day.

Each day since we've seen bees. Dead ones and live ones. (Except for Tuesday. We only saw dead ones that day.) I disposed of the dead ones with my book list and tried to save the live ones by putting them outside, hoping they'd get revived by the fresh outside air. Finally, on Monday night I told our landlords. I'd held off until then because I didn't want the bees to die. They weren't hurting us. They actually didn't even seem to notice we were their neighbours. But I finally decided that the landlords needed to know. So now they know, but they haven't done anything about the bees yet.
Secretly, I'm rather pleased. I foresee bee poetry in my near future.

Photos
Top left: Apparently this bee likes Creative Writing textbooks.
Bottom right: Trying (and succeeding) to pet a bee without getting stung requires much concentration.

Phoning

Today I made ten phone calls. That's a lot for one day, at least for me. I'm not too fond of phoning people. I'd much rather just talk face to face with the people I know. As for people I don't know, I'd usually rather not talk to them at all (eg. people calling to do a random over-the-phone survey).

Until I took Advanced Reporting last semester, I relied on either e-mailing my sources to make appointments or just going to see them in the hope that they could take a few minutes to talk with me. That method worked all right for News Reporting when almost all of my stories were on campus. It didn't work so well in Advanced Reporting. My news beat in that class was the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library. It just wasn't logical to drive downtown to the main branch whenever I had a story due and the closer branches didn't always have the information I needed to know. Finally I realized calling my sources over the phone was a pretty efficient way to get information from them. Plus, I quickly learned that taking notes in a phone interview is a whole lot easier and way faster than writing them all out in a face-to-face interview.

I still am not a huge fan of the phone, but being able to effectively use it was an asset today. Of the ten calls I made, nine were to writers (the other was accidental). Three of those nine gave me the results I wanted. None of the e-mails I sent to those same contacts even got answered.

Notes vs. Words

Back in my early years of high school I had a brief aspiration to become a composer. Of course, that was before I started music theory. Soon after beginning theory lessons I realized I wasn't a very good theory student. While I reluctantly followed the traditional rules of music, I felt constantly cramped and constricted by them. Following the rules simply because "that's how it's always done" bothered me. Many times I'd ask my theory teacher why I couldn't just write music the way I wanted it to sound. I never got a satisfying answer, but I continued taking theory lessons, to compliment my violin and piano lessons, until I graduated from high school (although my fantasy of being a world renowned composer disappeared somewhere in the middle of my first year of theory lessons).

Thinking back, I'm glad I had the desire to be a composer even though it was short lived. It reminded me, during those years when my career goal changed every semester (or sometimes every month), of my true dream — to inspire others. The difference is that now, instead of trying to use music notes, I use words.