March 10th, 2010

Following Directions

I never realized how imperative following directions was until I became an online teacher, and I observed how many of my students lose the easiest of points for not following my directions. And it makes me sad because I’m all like, “I want to GIVE you these points! I want you to succeed! BUT THROW ME A BONE HERE!” And they don’t. And they FAIL. And let me tell you, it doesn’t feel good to fail a student. Teachers don’t take great joy in watching a student fail. (OK, some of us take joy in having students drop our classes but that’s just because that’s a million hours of grading we now don’t have to do.)

And I’m wondering how many adults have failed to learn this one simple thing and are now suffering the consequences every day because they can’t follow directions. Isn’t following directions on the list of  “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten“? If it isn’t, it should be.

Thoughts?

Category: gigantic idiot       Tagged:       3 Comments »

March 3rd, 2010

Book Review | Lily Chin’s Crochet Tips & Tricks

My 8-week B-block classes begin next week, and I am drowning in class preparation. Who knew that condensing a 16-week course into an 8-week course is like completely redesigning the original class?! Anyway, I’m so fed up with my inability to crank out a blog post, that I am biting the bullet today and giving you something. Something is better than nothing, right? Bleh!

I haven’t exactly seen my crochet hooks since I started teaching in January, but I know they’re still there. And I have a small handful of projects that I want work on for funsies when classes slow down (or when I slow down, not sure which). I’ve been meaning to review this book for a few weeks, and now I’m making time to do it! I bought Lily Chin’s Crochet Tips & Tricks this fall after reading a review of it in one of my crochet magazines. If you are a crocheter, here is why you should buy it:

  1. It’s orange, which is my favorite color. Not that I ever need a reason to buy a book, but the cover sealed the deal for me.
  2. It’s well organized. It starts with explanations of your tools (hooks and yarns) and instructions for basic stitches. Chin then follows the creation process to starting, working, and finishing a project.
  3. It’s a quick read. Seriously, I read it through in an evening.
  4. It’s a good reference guide. Once I read through the book, I found myself coming back to some sections, so I could practice Chin’s speedy techniques.

In particular, I found the section about yarn weights most informative, and I’ve already used that information for selecting yarns for my projects. I’ve also put to good use the sections about blocking and joining. My favorite tip?

Bread-tie bobbin. Of course you know what happens when you add extra yarn to the chain, right? You wind up working with the tail of the seaming yarn rather than the yarn from the skein. To avoid this, many crocheters roll the long tail into a ball, which either gets all knotted up or falls apart. To keep the seaming yarn separate, clean, and tidy while you work, use the notched plastic bread tie that comes with plastic-bagged bakery products. Think of them as free mini-bobbins, perfect for wrapping seaming yarn.

Actually, the whole seaming section is really good, now that I review it.

I learned to crochet as a 4-H project when I was in elementary school. My instruction didn’t go much past the basic stitches, so it was up to me to learn how to seam, join, block, etc. This book would’ve been really handy to have. That said, if you’re a new crocheter (like I was a million years ago) or if you’re an experienced crocheter (like I claim to be), this book will fit nicely into your crocheting library.

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February 26th, 2010

How I Met Chris | TIBF

Today is Take It and Blog Friday over at SGFblogs.com, and this post is a response to the question, “How did you meet your significant other?” If you like my post, trot on over there, and read what everyone else has posted, too!

Chris and I have a funny little story. At least I think it’s funny, but I am terrible at telling stories, so I’ll just give you the timeline and fill in the details.

  • My Summer 2003: I am a junior in college. I move in with Betsy. I’m working at Applebee’s. I take a month-long mission trip to China. When I get home, Betsy is busy with the college and young adult departments at our church, and we have a constant influx of friends flowing through our house.
  • Chris’s Summer 2003: Chris just finished his first senior year of college; he has four semesters of 1-2 classes each to finish. He spends much of his summer hanging out with/pseudo dating a cool gal named Mel, who is a ballerina and English major. All of us run in the same crowd, so our paths cross quite a bit, though we never officially meet until the fall.
  • My Fall 2003: When I’m not at Applebee’s, I am working on my overloaded course schedule and spending my Friday nights editing a massive document for my editing class. I am volunteering on Tuesday nights with the college and young adult ministries at our church–hospitality/meet-and-greet stuff are my responsibility, which is ironic because I truly suck at being hospitable to strangers. Seriously. When we officially meet early in the fall, I learn that he has a history of ballroom dancing; I tuck this tidbit of information in the back of my mind. I think to myself that I should get to know Chris, but I take no immediate action. (Truth be told, I was more interested in someone else in our circle.)
  • Chris’s Fall 2003: Chris is directing the production for the Tuesday night ministry. He and Mel have stopped pseudo-dating to pray about the future of their relationship. In September, they decide they are going to start dating. Two days later she is killed in a car accident. He and I both struggle spiritually with her death. At one of our weekly leadership meetings, we are grouped together to pray, and he learns that I am taking ballet classes at school this fall.
  • Winter 2004: I begin a web development internship with our college ministry. Chris and I begin emailing back and forth about the vision of the web site because he oversees all creative communication for our ministry. One of the ministers in charge of our ministry announces that he will be planting a church in Ozark later this year. He asks Chris to join him as Director of Creative Communications, and he accepts the offer. Meanwhile, I am looking for graduate schools away from Missouri, and my mom and I travel to Colorado to check a few out. Had I not been on my way out of town, I would’ve begun meeting with the core group for the church plant.
  • Spring 2004: Because Chris will be leaving our ministry, he needs a replacement to direct production and oversee all things creative. He begins training me to take over. One night, after a ministry event, a group of us go to dinner. Actually, I think I organized our group dinner as an excuse for getting to know Chris. At dinner, I ask him, “So tell me, what one thing do I need to know about you, if we’re going to be friends?” His best friend Barron pipes up and says, “You should know that Chris almost went to jail.” The full-length version of this story takes Chris about 20 minutes to tell. (I can’t do it due justice in this blog entry, but I will try to get Chris to write it on his blog soon. Let’s just say that you only hire Dee Wampler as your lawyer if you’re guilty.)

This is point in the story where destinies are reversed and we begin “running the race” together. From that night forward, we were pretty much on a fast track to true love, much to the annoyance of Betsy (and I think Barron). (Little did they know that they’d be married in what we predicted would be the far-distant future.) Of course, there is much more to our story since this is just the beginning, but I’ll save those juicy details for another blog post.

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February 25th, 2010

Boomtown Run Half Marathon Training

So I’m training for half marathon. Have I told you that? I’ve been hesitant to tell you all, well, because you all jinx me. I announce my plans to run a long race, and then I get injured or discouraged and quit. Anyway, I’m three weeks into training, and so far, so eehh. Let me explain.

  • First, I am training with Linden. Running with Linden makes everything better. +2
  • Second, it is February. And no one seems to have given Spring the memo to arrive as normally scheduled. We have been 20 degrees below normal all winter in the Ozarks. -1
  • Third, we’re only training three days week while using the FIRST half-marathon training program. The rest of the training is 2-3 days a week of cross training. (This Runner’s World article explains the program very well.) +1
  • Fourth, we’ve been doing speedwork indoors. Sharing the two-lane track with 10-year-old baseball players and Springfield’s Rugby Club. On this track, 10 laps equal a mile. I hate running indoors. -1
  • Fifth, my shins are sore and my calves are tight, but I’m icing them regularly. 0
  • Sixth, my knee and the ITBS is not bothering me, but I’m icing it regularly anyway. +1
  • Seventh, I have five days off. We missed our medium-tempo run this week because it was 17 degrees, and we were not willing to freeze our patooties off. (Though I think we both wouldn’t mind losing some of our backsides–and front sides and side sides–in this training.) Training resumes with a long run on Monday then two weeks of every-other-day running for two weeks. +1

I’m not sure how many potential points my little list could have earned, but according to my count, half marathon training has earned three points. Yes, I am enjoying myself. Yes, I am ready for spring. Yes, I am ready to move all my runs outside.

The race is the Boomtown Run Half Marathon in Joplin on June 12. We are training to finish the race between 2:12 and 2:30; anything under 2:30 (or 2:37 in my case) would be a PR for both of us.

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February 7th, 2010

theOatmeal.com | Snarkiness and Grammar Combined

A quick mini review today. I am in love with theOatmeal.com and the snarky little illustrations about using semicolons, misspelled words, and using apostrophes. The author/illustrator draws up how-to comics of common mechanical problems and other enlightening topics (e.g. How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You) (And yes, my cats are plotting to kill me). His graphics are protected from copying, so I won’t post them here, but I strongly encourage you to check out his material. Just don’t drink milk while you read, as it might come spraying out your nose.

P.S. If you’re looking for a Christmas present for your favorite English teacher, you can buy posters of these illustrations. Personally, I’d like semicolons, misspelled words, and apostrophes hanging on my wall just for funsies!

P.S. 2. Matthew Inman, if you read this post, may I request a poster about how to use the word everyday vs every day?

Time to votey voterson. Brilliantly creative or gigantic idiot?

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February 6th, 2010

Book Preview | Dancing On My Ashes

Book preview? Yes, the book I am sharing with you today is not yet available in stores. No, this is not a review because I am much too close to this project to talk to you about it objectively. Dancing On My Ashes was written by my dear friend Heather Gilion and her sister Holly Snell, and I had the privilege of editing it before it went to the publisher last year. (A huge shout-out to my college editing instructor Tracy Dalton for equipping me to tackle such a huge project!)

In the book, Heather and Holly first chronicle the story of their family, specifically the health issues their dad faced when they were young and how they overcame his health problems by their faith in God. Once in college and on their own, each sister goes to college, falls in love, and marries the man of their dreams. And the kingdoms they’ve built for themselves come crumbling down. Their dad dies when his body finally caves to its health problems. And then their husbands die in a canoeing accident.

And their response was not to run away from God but to run to God. The rest of the book chronicles their journey of healing and how God turned their mourning into dancing. They now dance on the ashes that once covered them.

This book has a special place in my heart, not just because it’s the highest profile project I’ve worked on, but because I know Heather, and I got to watch her work through many of the lessons she shares. God is funny. When you meet Heather and her husband Dallas, it’s natural to assume that this beautiful (because they are both awesome–inside and out), talented (you should hear the songs they write together) couple with these two beautiful boys have never had a care in the world, but then you read this story and realize that God wounded them and scarred them and healed them and that what you’re looking at is what God has healed. A.maz.ing.

If you know someone who’s lost a loved one, specifically a young widow who’s lost a husband, you must share this book with them. Or if you’re just not happy with life’s status quo, you must read it. The book is not available in stores until April, but you can order it directly from the publisher. And you can find the girls on Dancing On My Ashes’ Facebook page, which also has listing of their speaking engagements.

As a bonus, here’s an interview they did with my pastor last year:

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February 5th, 2010

Taking Time to Blog

Today is Take It and Blog Friday over at SGFblogs.com. This is my response to the topic Taking Time to Blog.

Time. Right. You may have read Monday’s post about the top 10 things I should be/want to be doing while I am letting online teaching take over my life. Blogging is one of those things that I want to be doing with my “free” time. And so here I am this morning (actually, it’s Wednesday morning, and I’m going to schedule this post for Friday, so I’ll look cool and “with it”), and I am taking time to blog.

Nike’s advice comes to mind. Just do it.

Yeah, it’s not that simple, but it is that simple. Just sit down and write. For five minutes. For five hours. It doesn’t matter. Just sit down and write. Don’t tweet about blogging. Don’t tweak your blog design. Don’t check your statistics. Because nobody is going to read your blog if you don’t give them something to read. Readers don’t care that you spent three hours adjusting the padding on your sidebars last night. They come to your blog, subscribe to your blog, because they want to read your blog. Or they’re family members who are afraid you might say something incriminating about them on your “blarg.”

Matt said it well when he reminded me that blogging involves more than writing. It’s “pimping” your blog to the world: social networking, commenting, designing, pleading, tweaking until the whole world reads it. And that’s overwhelming, so it’s no wonder that blogs have incredibly high abandonment rates. It’s a lot of frickin’ work!

My time is almost up, so to summarize: However much or little time you have to blog, spend that time writing.

Okey dokey artichokey. Time to vote. Brilliantly creative or gigantic idiot?

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February 3rd, 2010

Bad Chris and My First Tire-Changing Adventure

By a miracle of God, my car has been in working order for two weeks! Yea! Since I don’t have a current yarn to weave about the Blazer, I am sharing my first tire-changing adventure today. (And yes, there was cursing.)

During my sophomore year of college, I was living on campus across the street from a frat house that had been shut down; the house and its parking lot were empty. Parking around the dorms at MSU was always at a premium, so naturally, I and several other smart people in Scholar’s House decided to take advantage of these wide-open parking spaces. Everything was cool for two weeks when somebodies (presumably some jaded frat bros) decided to take ice picks to one tire on each car in their parking lot.

Joy. Especially when you discover the flat tire just before you’re supposed to leave for work.

Whatever. A roommate took me to work, and my boyfriend picked me up. Now if I were a guy trying to win the heart of a cute college coed, I would’ve volunteered to change her tire. But did he? No. This is why he is fondly referred to as Bad Chris by my family and friends. (We certainly don’t want to confuse him with current, good Chris.)

Next morning, I bundled up in as many layers as I could find and headed to the parking lot to change my tire before my 9:00 class. I knew how to change a tire; changing a tire is just like fixing any other car part. Take the old part off and put the new part on. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

No, it wasn’t. It was difficult difficult lemon difficult.

Changing the tire wasn’t the hard part; figuring out how to unscrew my jack took me an hour. I wasn’t stupid; the jack had never been used, and the screws were screwed in so tightly that it was all I could do to loosen them. I called my dad, who took the brunt of my frustrations with a very colorful voicemail. And every time the MSU shuttle passed me by, I just knew the driver was laughing at the poor girl trying to change her tire.

Once I freed the jack, changing the tire hardly took any time at all. Because changing a tire is really simple: Block your tires. Put on your emergency brake. Jack up the car. Remove the lug nuts. Take off the bad tire. Put on the new tire. Screw in the lug nuts, tightening in a star pattern. Jack down the car. Release the emergency brake. Unblock the tires. Kill the “boyfriend” who is asleep in his warm bed. Be late for history.

It’s no wonder, really, why that relationship didn’t work out.

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February 2nd, 2010

Brulee Bot | You’re Never Gonna Be Jello

Another Christmas crochet project to share with you today. This one is an amigurumi from Crobots, another crocheted creature book I bought last year.

Her destination? My best friend forever Jenny. (We’ve been best friends for 17 years–more than half of our lives!) We decided to make gifts for each other, and she made me a flashy new apron and two embroidered dish towels.

Her name? Brulee Bot. Why? My and Jenny’s movie is My Best Friend’s Wedding. And we like to remind each other that creme brulee can never be jello. You’re never gonna be jello.

Her task? To keep Jenny company while she’s far away in St. Louis and working on construction sites (QA gal) during the day and sewing at night.

Don’t you love her? Tell me: brilliantly creative or gigantic idiot?
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February 1st, 2010

10 Tasks (This) Online Teacher Should be Doing But Isn’t

Teaching has a way of infiltrating and taking over every area of my life. After wrapping up my full-time job’s tasks every day, I work on my classes. After dinner every night, I work on my classes. During my formerly sacred Saturday and Sunday afternoons, I work on my classes.

Thankfully, I only have two weeks left at my full-time job, so come February 15, I should be able to better schedule all of my class to-dos alongside my real-life want-to-dos.

In the meantime, here is a top 10 list of things I should be/want to be doing while my classes preoccupy my mind, time, and computer:

  1. Sleeping. I laid in bed an hour-and-a-half last night and outlined my B-block classes in my head. Finally, I turned on the light, grabbed my calendar from the living room, and wrote everything down. Purging my brain of these thoughts is the only thing that lets me get to sleep.
  2. Dishes. Remember last week when I told you how Chris and I are eating at home in 2010 to cut down on the calories and costs associated with eating out? Yeah, that yields a lot of dishes. And I’ve been going an average of four days without doing them because as soon as dinner is over, I’m back at my computer working again.
  3. Blogging. An editorial calendar for one’s blogs is a great idea, but it doesn’t write the blog posts for you. I’ve made revisions for this week, and we’ll see if I can write ahead of schedule and keep you all interested.
  4. Exercising. Yes, it’s winter, and I don’t have a gym membership, but I do have a Wii Fit, and I can’t seem to muster the mental energy to be told, “You’re a little shaky.” I’m looking ahead to the middle of February when spring starts to shows its face every few days, and I’m going to work toward a daily walk/run in my neighborhood.
  5. Sewing. Did you know that Chris was an awesome husband and bought me a sewing machine for Christmas? Did you know that it’s been sitting on my office floor since then patiently waiting for me to christen it? I have a project planned, but I need to buy the material for it, which should happen on Friday morning. Cross your fingers.
  6. Reading. Remember that list of books I said I was going to read in 2010? And the stack of magazine subscriptions I get every month? I’ve made a little progress, but not nearly as much as I would like. (And the next book on my list is maybe 50 pages. Maybe.)
  7. Crocheting. I have a project sitting out in the living room that’s been getting a little attention here and there. It’s a baby blanket for no one in particular, and I’m assembling it. This part is time consuming and not as much fun as whipping out an afghan.
  8. Showering. Because sometimes I lay awake at night for so long that I’m exhausted in the morning and don’t give myself enough time to take a shower. Gross, I know.
  9. Laundry. And I’ve been wearing shirts and jeans over and over without washing them. In my defense, I did wash all of my jeans this weekend; they walked themselves to the laundry room.
  10. Eating (well). Oh, I’ve been eating. Eating crap. And lots of it. I’ve been eating through the giant tin of popcorn we got for Christmas. I’ve been eating the bag of peanut butter M&Ms I bought for Chris. I’ve been eating the chocolate chocolate chip cookies I made for Bible study last week. To my credit, I am eating/drinking a chocolate protein shake (with/without a banana tossed in) every morning for breakfast. And I’ve been packing healthy lunches: oranges, hard-boiled eggs, grapes, canned soup, 100-calorie packs of popcorn, nuts, etc. But come the weekend, and I’m noshing on whatever junk food I can find!

As you can see, I welcome Monday, February 15, and (hopefully) the eight hours a day I can schedule to my own liking.

What do you think? Brilliantly creative or gigantic idiot? Vote below:

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