On Friday, Doc challenged me to a writing contest. My first reaction was to ask if the contest was who could write more, or who could write better - he acted like I stabbed him in the back XD
The rules were to write as many radio scripts as possible before midnight on Sunday. We had to include an introductory bit of audio as well, which I usually do last, so that made it a touch harder. I didn't expect to do very many; it can take a while to do one of these well. It's easier if it's an author I'm already familiar with, and considerably more difficult if it's an author that Doc gave me to looks up. He's assigned me to some pretty obscure people in the past, which is part of the reason finding audio is the hardest part for me.
I'd say I put some seven or eight hours into writing nine scripts over the weekend. To make an already difficult task even worse, my Internet spent a large part of the weekend broken. We've had problems for a long time, but it's lasted without much issue for the past couple of months. Figures that it would start acting up when it did. On Sunday, I spent literally an hour and a half on hold trying to reach the Internet technician. Never did get a hold of them.
So at 8PM Sunday night, I packed up my laptop and went to my parents place to wrap up this contest. On the way, Doc texts me and offers an extension for me to Monday at 6:00. I turned him down because I knew I'd be babysitting in the morning (grandparents had a funeral). Even with that, I still stayed in Little Rock past midnight, swapping witticisms and taunts with Doc through e-mail. He conceded defeat ten minutes after midnight. Finally made it home around 1AM, knew I would have to get up sometime around nine.
Basically, I spent the weekend earning my nickname. I've become very attached to being called Rodette.
The authors I chose were Brian Jacques, Dorothy Parker, Dostoyevsky, e.e. Cummings, Margaret Mitchell, Nabokov, P.L. Travers, Dante Rossetti, and Jesse Stuart. I've only read three of these authors XD
I'll have to revise them of course, but I think most of them are already in pretty good shape. I'm still the most proud of my Agatha Christie and Rod Serling pieces, but I think the Nabokov is going to end up being one of my favorites. I think he turned out well.
Today we were nearly late for Drama. We wasted a lot of time going back and forth about the competition. He had a ridiculous amount of fun, and I'm happy for that. I know he's been stressed lately. It was nice seeing him relaxed and happy.
The blue W is my trophy. He'll be wanting that back, so I'm sure we'll do this again. Not anytime soon - I'm not writing him another script for a while XD
Cracked... you were one of my favorite websites. Why are you killing yourself like this? D=
Have a read over those comments folks. This is what gets you banned at Cracked - sane, rational, civil discussion. Not one of those comments exists anymore. Strangely, not one of them violates the User Policy either. I can't imagine why someone at Cracked feels the need to hide these comments.
This is only four screencaps - I didn't make more. I didn't feel the need to, but over well 500 comments are missing from the comments section and now it seems the moderators are just deleting them as they come.
For those not in the know, allow me to quickly summarize the situation:
John Cheese writes this article. It's a bit condescending, but nothing to be all that upset over. Cheese follows up by specifically stating on his Facebook and Twitter that the article was an attack on the comment section of Cracked and continues shooting himself in the foot with some pretty horrific insults that I'm not comfortable repeating here. The comment section (rightfully) explodes with indignation.
I have managed to get myself banned altogether - not just my account, my IP address. For the post in the first picture.
I had commented perhaps half a dozen times since having an account with Cracked, if that, before this incident. I haven't so much as uttered a "damn" over the whole incident, so why the deletion and ban? I don't even know how to react to this much douche.
So we did this thing in Drama class a few weeks ago, right? That role play loose courtroom drama thing that I really loved. Remember that post? I literally just got the joke with that lesson.
This morning, I woke up after a dream I barely remember, but I know it had something to do with
a similar role-play. It got me thinking about that role play we did about a month ago. And in the haze of half-awake sleep I think to myself we
never did find out what happened to Tessie Hutchinson and snuffling back
down into the warmth of the blankets.
And promptly
bolting upright when I realize – yes we
did. Minnick is just a crafty bastard and my estimation of him has just shot up once again..
Because we did a
totally different role-play two weeks later based around a short story
with the exact same characters from the original fragment. He gave us just enough time to forget about
the character role-play and reintroduced the real story in its proper and full
context later (on his birthday in fact). And it literally took me a month to make the connection. I don't know why it took me so long to realize the names were familiar, but there you are.
So anyway, tomorrow afternoon after I drop off the laundry, I'm marching down to UALR and giving the guy a high five for making my life into a brick joke.
So today my family and I are going to a pizza place. Even my brother is off, so he has no excuse not to bring his soon along. This morning's fireworks notwithstanding, it turned out to be a pretty good day.
Larry's Pizza is one of those places that serves the weird stuff. Like BBQ Chicken pizza or Taco Pizza weird. They've got the usual stuff too, but that's not really what ya go there for. Personally, I go for the dessert pizzas - they have this amazing Bavarian Cream pizza thing. And the Cinnamon Sticks are pretty awesome too.
But anyway, I had to leave early; I had some hospital gowns to drop off at Mom's old office and then I was going to class. Said goodbye to everyone, even the baby. Well, baby decides he's not having any of that. I didn't know it, but he apparently squirmed his way out of my cousins lap and followed me all the way to the door. And we were all seated at the back of the restaurant too. I had no idea until I was already in my car, putting it into reverse, and looked back to make sure I was clear and there's my Dad behind me. Then I turn back to put it in park and see what he wants, and there's a little head just below my window XD
So Russ says goodbye again (via headbutt), and I'm off for real this time.
Today was also the last day of Drama, which means I'm going back into my little bubble of solitude until school starts again. Minnick has invited me to visit the English lounge on occasion during the summer, which I think I just might. Maybe on more laundry days. It would be nice to work at an actual table a few hours every now and then. He also gave back the journal I'd been using for Drama, so now I have a notebook to write in again! He left some comments in as well, and he really is a very nice man.
And of course, it's Flash Fic Month! I did really well last year, and I'm hoping to establish a pattern :)
Pixar hasn't made a bad movie yet. Brave was indeed darker than the usual fair and earned its PG rating. Much of it simply had to do with atmosphere - this doesn't take place in a part of the world known for its abundance of happy sunny days after all. It's cloudy and gloomy, damp and foggy, marshy and lots of trees and shade everywhere. The visual appeal alone is really stunning.
I won't be able to say how it stacks up in comparison to other Pixar films until it comes out on DVD and I can watch it a few times. I would have liked to see some of the major side characters fleshed out more - as it is, we essentially have three characters with some real depth to them (that being Merida and her parents). Perhaps it's one of those things I'll pick up more of upon more viewings.
So that was part one of my day; I thought the movie would be the end of it, but I knew Gram would likely want to do lunch. I just didn't know where.
Turns out my aunt had some coupons for Playtime Pizza. Think Chuck E. Cheese - but badass. She found some deal online that went twenty bucks for two free hours of playtime on any attraction that didn't spit out tickets. That sounds lame until you realize said attractions are black-light mini-golf, laser tag, bumper cars, bowling, and go carts.
To be honest, I didn't care for most of them, but the laser tag is effing sweet. And each attraction usually costs X amount per play - I think golf and go carts are four dollars and a game of laser tag is seven. I played three rounds of that, made a round through the golf course, and managed a round of go-carts, so it more than paid for itself. Oh, and the deal came with pizza. Yeah, definitely a bargain there.
My second round of laser tag, the cousins ditched because they're impatient little brats - I ended up in a round with a bunch of teenage guys. I don't think they were expecting me to be good at it XD
The one thing is, I wish I'd known this was the plan so I could have worn shoes with more support that flip-flops. My feet were killing me by the time Drama rolled around. And this is after bruising my toe rather badly; I still can't bend it without pain (it's fine I think, just swollen and turning purple around the tip). But, I do finally get to college and settle into the English lounge for a bit of reading.
And I overhear Minnick chatting and it's apparently his birthday.
And everybody knows I have a generosity complex. Luckily, Silvek's bakery isn't far away. So he got cake. And an apple because I'm a dork like that XD
I love Drama; I really do, but after Brave and laser tag, the experience is rather dulled. Not to mention I was nearly dead on my feet by this point. It didn't go unnoticed either; he quipped at me on the way out that I had been less enthusiastic than usual.I'm not sorry.
So my day began at 8:00, I left by 9:00, was out and about for 12 hours before I went home, all on bruised feet with terrible support and finally got to turn on my laptop and check my messages about four hours ago. Long day has been long (and awesome).
I don't know if that's true or not, but I can take some comfort from the fact that it's at least higher than my brother's.
So my day began with a toothache. Not a bad one, just enough to be annoying for a while. I took my antibiotics and got on with the day. Baby Russ was in a pretty good mood today too, so nothing I can't handle.
Middle part of the day; getting ready to go to Drama class. Trying to change pants, I lost my balance. I somehow manage to slam my leg down at just the right angle on my storage ottoman to get a bruise going on the toe next to the smallest one. Hard enough that I couldn't bend it without pain until I got home again and put some ice on it for a while. I've been hobbling a bit since, but still bearable.
So I do get to Drama and participate just fine by and large. I didn't move around as much as the activities required today, but it's alright. During the break, I ran (well, no I didn't, but you know what I mean) down to one of the water fountains to take my pills for my teeth and a Vicodin for the pain in my foot.
I have a weird relationship with Vicodin. The first time I took it, it made me stupidly dizzy. The second time had no effect that I could see. Sometimes it makes me loopy, sometimes it doesn't. It didn't this time, but it did leave me tired. I decided to wait the effects out in the English department lobby. I read for a little while, until I put my head down and that was enough to go to sleep. I woke up to Minnick yelling at me and giving me a look that reminded me of an Irish Setter.
You know the look.
And kept giving me that concerned look on the way out before telling me to e-mail him when I got home safely. The comparison is enhanced (or maybe exists), because he does have curly hair similar to the ears of the breed.
So yeah, that was my day. It seems like my most dramatic injuries occur in the most boring ways. Like the time I broke my leg by falling of a swing.
Anyway, pain or not I'm going to see Brave in the morning because fuck yeah Pixar. I shall report tomorrow!
Drama was, as usual, entertaining. Our theme this time revolved around stress and homelessness, but what I really learned from the class was that Dr. Minnick roleplays a very convincing seven year old runaway =B
Some context then: he played the runaway - the rest of us played various people in her life. The family, friends, and any other significant adults. And we did a kind of improvisational set of scenes that way as he moved from group to group. I was supposed to roleplay a teacher, but didn't actually manage it due to laughter; one of the other people in our scene was a grandmother with Alzheimer's who kept forgetting her dog was dead. And I'm not going to be able to suffienctly explain why that was so hilarious, so I won't even try XD
In other news, it's nearly time to give away a notebook. I happen to have cash on me for a change, so I'll be able to send it along without much delay once a winner is chosen. I'm a little sorry to see this one go - it's a pretty good one I think =)
Today was a sort of mystery roleplay exercise thing. I'll skip the lead up stuff and jump right in. We were given a fragment:
On June 27th, the body of Tessie Hutchinson was found by the road that runs from the village to Moose Creek, as it passes the farm of Mr. Summers and is on the route Mr. Graves, the postman, takes daily. Tessie was the wife of Bill and mother of Nancy and Davy. No one spoke of her death. No gravestone marks her burial place.
The first thing he does is trick us into a close reading by asking what we notice about the story. What are the facts, what can be inferred, ect. Then we're given some time to come up with questions we would like to ask. 15 of them are written on the board. We spent a lot of time on questions this session and learning how to craft some good ones, but we haven't gotten to the fun part yet. The fun part comes soon after; we've broken into groups, and we need to identify what character can tell us the most about what happened. We can pull them from the story, or make some up (within reason).
In addition to the ones from the story, we also add in Tessie's best friend Jon-Clement (who is apparently female), the sheriff, and the local drunk and founder of Wendy's, Dave Thomas (I'm not sure how they got this one o_O). As a class, we pick out the five characters that we think will be key in unraveling the mystery. These characters will be roleplayed. So we get;
The husband, Bill
Mr. Summers, whose property the body was found near (and who I would roleplay)
The best friend
The sheriff
The local drunk/ fast food tycoon
So basically we all end up in a very loose courtroom drama. Each of us that volunteered to roleplay had an interregation session, showed where we were in relation to the body on the night of the 27th, where we were at the funeral and so forth. The story had no official ending, so we were really free to make up whatever the hell we wanted and have fun with our Q&A sessions. The guy playing the husband was hilarious:
Guy 1: How long were you and your wife married before she died?
Husband: I dunno - a few months?
Guy 1: Do you argue a lot?
Husband: Not anymore.
Guy 2: Did you take out any life insurance policies before your wife died?
Husband: Yes.
Guy 2: How much?
Husband: A lot.
The guy playing the town drunk got some good lines as well, though my favorite came when everyone did a roleplay as a townsperson showing where they were during the funeral. Minnick had us all freeze in place and had everyone say a line about what they were thinking/ doing/ what question they had as the body was lowered into the ground. A few people apparently decided to go to Wendy's:
Dave Thomas: Would you like fries with that?
And after all that brouhaha, everyone got back into groups and wrote an ending to the story based on what we found out.
Where were these lessons when I was in school? D= This was fun. I could see this sort of thing being stretched out into a day long lesson plan. Even though it was on the fly, it felt so much more natural than writing and performing a skit for class. My ribs were aching by the time we were out of there it was so much fun. I've still got a bit of a stitch in my side.
I'm starting to think Minnick and his classes need their own tag here as often as I talk about them.
One of the more memorable college classes I've ever attended =P
I don't actually like The Tell-Tale Heart that much, or finger-paint honestly, but Minnick is great when it comes to dramatic reading. And I managed to paint without actually using my fingers, so day well spent.
I'm super texture-oriented, so I'm rather picky about my hands. I don't like things that stick to them. It bothers me on this fundamental level. I think it's part of the reason I can't stop biting my nails; I hate when things get under them. It's not that I mind getting dirty necessarily, it's just that feeling of mud or dirt or paint in this case covering my skin. I don't like the way it won't stretch when I flex a muscle; it might not be so bad if it were like a glove or something but it isn't it's like something latched on and won't let go.
Bah, I'm not explaining it very well. Suffice to say I don't like it.
Six years ago, in 10th grade, I took an Art History course for the first time. I loved it - the teacher was this fantastic lade who loved her subject and went out to the way to make it interesting and made probably the best brownines I've ever had because she was totally boss that way. For many years, I wanted to pursure a career in Art History because I had so much fun in that class.
My second Art History course was as a sophomore in college and I hated it. The professor was not an Art History teacher, but an Art teacher, something that was made very clear on the first day of class. There was no enthusiasm in the material she was teaching and seemed to resent the job all things considered. Even so, her incredible ability to take a subject as fascinating as Art History and make it boring wasn't enough to crush the love I held for it (though I'll always hate her for doing her darndest to make us hate it the way she did).
The third time I took an Art History course was after I transferred to UALR. The professor had a much deeper understanding and respect for the material, but seemed to hate her students. Not an Umbridge or anything, but she didn't bother to hide the condemnation in her tone when correcting a wrong answer - that is to say, any answer with an interpretation she disagreed with.
So we have here three teachers:
- One who loves her subject, but hates her students.
- One who likes her students, but hates the subject.
- One who loves her subject and her students.
I'd hate to know what happens when you're unlucky enough to snag a teacher that doesn't like either half of the job.
I bring this up because I'm taking a course right now called "Drama in the Classroom," a course primarily directed at teaching Education majors how to incorporate dramatic techniques into teaching. There are certainly obvious reasons why only one of these teachers was effective and the other two weren't, but there are undoubtedly reasons I won't be able to properly explain - reasons that have to do with the way a class is structured and planned.
I already liked this class by default of Minnick being the one to teach it, but I'm certainly interested in removing my own bias as best I can to examine the mechanics of why only one of these classes sparked an interest that continues even now. Certain things like discussion sessions and class exercises stand out right off the bat - only in the 10th grade class was discussion encouraged for example. In the second it was in the way of getting out of class faster; in the third, it was belitted. As for class exercises...
The thing I'll always remember about that 10th grade class was when we were studying Gothic architecture. We had been learning about the symbology behind the design, but also the practicality of the whole thing - those ribbed vaults you see on cathedral ceilings aren't just there to look visually interesting; they divide the weight of all the stone that's pressing down from above. Nor are flying buttresses just a funny word; they too are responsible for dividing up the weight and channeling it to keep the cathedral from buckling in on itself.
Which is fine and dandy - all it really takes is a chart to explain. But one lesson, she has us all file out into the common/ cafeteria and shows us how to build a human cathedral. She lined us up by height and built a floorplan out of our bodies. The ones towards the middle composed the ribbed vaults - they had their hands and arms connected to form the basic structure of the building. At one end, the shorter ones composed the apse and would hold the counterweight which I'll explain in a moment. Those of us surrounding, including myself, were the flying buttresses. We stood there with out arms outstretched straight in from of us, almost, but not quite touching the person composing the ribbed vault in front of us.
The shortest person in the class would become the counterweight. Thus far, all we created was a skeleton of what a cathedral was supposed to be. The people of the apse all had one arm in the half-circle they composed and it was from this that the counterweight would hang. Angela, our counterweight, grabbed hold and had to lift her legs off the floor and the rest of us could feel the weight distribution with our own bodies. As one of the buttresses, my job was to stand there with my arms out and support - not push back, but just stand, which was why we weren't supposed to be touching the person in front of us, but had to be very close - when the pressure came, you could feel the vaults very subtly bend under the weight. The people on the outside kept that bending to a minimum.
I don't know if I'm explaining this very well, so here's a video I just found when I finlly had the bright idea to look up "human cathedral" on Google:
It's a bit messy, but you get the idea. This one is just a single vault, but it's the same principle ours was built on (though ours didn't have the gargoyles XD). But you can see, especially towards the end when the girl is demonstrating the strength of the vault, how it works. The counterweight is supported by the vaults which are themselves supported by the buttresses when sufficient pressure is applied. The vaults alone would collapse on themselves without the buttresses and wouldn't stand at all if they weren't ribbed (this is why she has two sets of arches, and has them cross arms and connect to the arch alongside them). Gothic architecture is still my fave <3
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was I'm only two classes into Drama and I already really love it and you'll probably have to hear me talk about it a lot in the future.
Just put together a tenative schedule for next semester. I don't want to put it up as these things have a way of changing suddenly on me. I really, really hope, if nothing else, that I keep the 6:00 PM Monday/Wednesday math course. I think having it in the evening will be much more effective.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be my full days. 10:50 to 5:50. Though, to be fair, the last one is purely optional and I'm planning to take it for fun, not an actual grade because I just love Adolescent Literature that much <3 I'm not sure how I'll manage to work around my writing class sessions every other Thursday though - the ones I have at 6:00. It won't kill me to leave Lit. early, or show up to the library late, but I'd rather have to do neither :/
One more class on Wednesdays; Career Perspectives with Dr. Minnick. Nothing on Fridays, so it'll be an unbalanced semester, but a manageable one I think XD
I'm also taking a summer course for the hell of it. Apparently I'm a bigger nerd that even I realized. To be fair though, Minnick is teaching it, and if you can't tell yet I love that professor for being totally awesome this semester <3 I'm actually rather nervous about my final papers for his class because I hate to let him down after everything. Adolescent Lit. has been a needed reminder that this whole education thing really is worth my while sometimes.
