Blogito, ergo sum (I blog, therefore I am). A Diary Entry.

I like putting things in Latin. Even the most menial phrase can make you sound impressive and well-educated if you say it in Latin. Exempli gratia: Non somnuo, ergo sum. Google translate THAT one out, dear readers.

As the weekend passes, I'm making a list and checking it twice, but instead of names of children who will be receiving gifts this year, my list contains APA formatting tips, multiple genres of research papers based upon using humor to teach, linking them together, and organizing the group.

Throughout the project, I often reflect back to elementary school when we had an arts and crafts project to accomplish in a group. Our teacher would assign the task that we needed to accomplish, and then within that group we were each supposed to assign specific roles. There was a cutter (the person who cut the paper), the gluer (the person who glued the paper), the writer, and the leader. I often shied away from the leader task, since it involved keeping track of too many things at once. Reliably, I was forbidden to be the writer since my handwriting is terrible, so I was often the cutter or the gluer. That fact was fine by me. With those tasks I had a very concrete goal which left very little room for mistake by interpretation. The writer drew the shapes, and I cut them, or I glued them on the paper. It required accuracy, and I accomplished it well.

During this project, I often thought back upon those days when everyone in the group had an assigned role within that task. It's harder with this project because each person needs to fulfill each role. There is no single task for each person to accomplish, and there are very few concrete requirements for each task. This has caused me some frustration.

The week of November tenth gave us a small amount of relief. Rachel and I got together on Sunday to flesh out our final genres, and we determined that we would have Thea do a personal essay about using humor in her teaching, and Mitch was to conduct an interview with one of his associates. Naturally, the interview was not without its suspicious hitches. First the interviewee didn't write back, then the changes didn't save, then the e-mail wouldn't attach, and Mitch seems to like to take care of the problem and THEN communicate to us the details. The lack of a willingness to communicate which is present some of the group members often leads to hair pulling and teeth gnashing. We'll see how these final genres go.

I am so Lutheran...

Since I'm Lutheran, I have an inborn, genetic sense of guilt. Catholics get Original Sin, Lutherans get Original Guilt. In no small way, this guilt affects every aspect of my daily life; from work to Internet browsing, it's there. And every time I see the little "Blogger" bookmark on my Internet browser, I feel just a little bit guilty.
"I could be Blogging right now" a nagging voice inside my head will say. So, guilt, be slaked for another week. Here is a blog.

Class seems to end with frustration and confusion lately, and I can't decide what's making me feel worse: The amount of work I have to do for each class or the confusion surrounding the assignments. Everything seems to make sense while I'm there but then I sit down and try to accomplish what was discussed in class, and I suddenly, everything I "figured out" in class seems to disappear. Is anybody else feeling this?