Class Participation

I attend a fair amount of classes in my day to day life. Undergrad classes, graduate classes, Sunday school class and Relief Society meetings (an all woman's class held as part of our church meetings). Sometimes I enjoy noticing patterns in participation.

In mixed classes with men and women more men seem to speak up then women but the women who do speak up also tend to be the ones that speak up readily in all women classes, which isn't particularly surprising.

Personally, I participate better in classes of under 30 then larger ones (although I do remember raising my hand to identify a coati in an auditorium when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade). I have also found that I am less likely to raise my hand in new classes. I usually wait a couple of weeks before being willing to participate regularly. It is also easier to participate when I'm on the front row because I have a tendency to answer questions under my breath and so if I'm closer then the teacher will here me and ask me to repeat it. I usually sit in the back.

Also, the way I feel about the teacher changes how I participate. If the teacher is a friend or at least someone I feel bad for I am more likely to participate even if I don't have anything particularly great to say. If the teacher seems competent and reacts well to other participants' comments I am more willing to comment. If the teacher reacts badly to participants' comments or if they rub me the wrong way and have bad questions even if I have something to say I probably won't volunteer it.

All this is probably fairly common and what most people do so I am only posting this because I didn't have anything more profound to say.

Sincerity and Optimism

"Being sincerely Christlike is an even more important goal than being authentic."

This was a quote from Elder Quentin L Cook, an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints given in a talk today.

I liked it. As I have mentioned before I really try to be sincere, but I also try to stay positive. That is basically how I took that comment. It is good to he honest and sincere but it is most important to be kind.

I recently moved into a new apartment and I mean brand new. Never lived in before. The day I moved in the kitchen table and chairs hadn't been put together yet. I've had some people ask me how I like it. Every time I end up saying something about not having hot water for showers. I wish I wouldn't. They are nice apartments, spacious, clean, comfortable but honestly most of those things I don't really care that much about or take for granted and instead I tend to notice the things like the lack of hot water and how I had to buy a trash can and a dish drainer. I'm not really upset by any of these things but I'm not in love with any of it either so I think that is why I bring up the negative. After I do though I feel like I'm complaining and I don't mean to do that either. So even if that original statement seems fairly simple I think it is trickier then it sounds.

It is even trickier when it is something that is truly meaningful, or something that I struggle with. How do you discuss something that is painful in a positive light but also be honest about it. What I have found (in the more meaningful stuff, not the apartment thing) is that I have to come to terms with it first which takes some soul searching and thinking and some divine perspective before I can answer with sincerity and optimism.

Fish Watching or Why I Would Have Been a Natural Historian

Last Saturday I sat on the banks of a river. That sounds far more picturesque then it really was. Really, I clambered down the steep bank that was littered with fallen leaves and spiderwebs to sit on the rocks on the edge of the water. I sat there for a while off and on writing and watching. After a few minutes I realized that their was fish in the river there, quite a few actually. I've often walked along that river this summer and I had noticed previously that it had been stocked, obviously stocked. Some areas seemed so filled with fish that if they had all frozen in place I could have walked across on their backs. So realizing there was fish wasn't really surprising in the sense that they were there, just surprising that I hadn't noticed them earlier. It was amazingly hard to spot them when you are on about the same plane and the water is half in sun and half in shadow.
Anyway, I noticed these fish. Then I sat watching the surface of the water and every so often I caught sight of a flash of something a little too sharp to be water. I realized the fins of the fish were poking out of the water periodically. That was kind of cool. It reminded me of the scene in the Princess Bride with the screaming eels churning the water.
After a while I realized that the fish were coming quite close to me, if I just shifted over one rock they would be within touching distance. So I went and crouched on that rock, as soon as I was on it they made their casual way farther away and out of reach. I crouched there for more then 5 minutes and they never came back. I moved back to my original position and within a minute they were back in range. Who knew fish were so sneaky? I went back to writing but then I realized I had my camera with me. It can take pictures underwater so I tried again. This time it worked, partially because I didn't need the fish to get as close.

I wouldn't say that I got any amazing pictures but they are kind of fun. These are two of the better ones.

The reason I described that experience in probably more detail then anyone would care to hear is because I just really enjoy that kind of thing (I think I would have been a Natural Historian if I lived in the 1800s) and even feel like I need it to some degree. Its refreshing or something.
My old roommate that I talked to quite a bit asked me how I thought the next semester would go. I told her among other things that I was a little worried that at my new apartment I wouldn't have any green space within easy access. She was a little surprised. Despite our many conversations she hadn't realized that that was important to me. Maybe it's because I don't talk about fish. :) Or rather observing nature doesn't really seem like something that naturally comes up that much, and it just seems a little weird to explain (as mentioned above).

Decorating

It is the time of year for moving, at least for those in the college world. I helped some of my old roommates decorate their apartment. They painted one wall.

I think it ended up looking pretty good, but I'm still not sure I would love living there. I think I might be constantly looking at it and noticing the imperfections. I can understand it more then the other wall though.
The other wall was filled with pictures and a mirror. Way to many in my opinion but it was kind of interesting because from a design point of view I had a feel for whether pieces should be higher or lower on the wall or if the colors matched, etc. Basically, I realized I could do it. I could decorate with too many pictures and trendy sayings, and do it well. I just would rather not and probably never will. I'm not saying it's bad, it just isn't me.
It reminded me of Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander where Taran tries various crafts and is actually pretty talented at all of them but isn't interested in any of them until he tries pottery and loves it but isn't actually very good at it. (At least I think that's how it goes. It's been more then 10 years since I read it). I wonder how frequently that happens that people have talents for things they don't actually care about pursuing.

Deadlines and Writing Ramblings

One more week. That is all the time I have left before school starts again. This is rather a depressing thought, but there is at least one thing that I find useful about change such this, I am doubly motivated to accomplish things.

I crammed the last month and a half or so before I left on my 18 month mission full of finishing projects including a cross stitch project I had started when I was 6 or 7.

At the beginning of August I realized that my summer was drawing to a close and I set myself a plan to write more diligently in the hopes of more or less finishing the first draft of my second book. I'm not sure that will happen because my book keeps getting longer... but nevertheless I have been doing quite a bit of writing. It is a Robin Hood retelling. I have always loved Robin Hood and retellings but not historical fiction. When historical fiction is done well, meaning well researched and accurate as well as all those other pesky things like a good plot and character development it can be great, but the problem is that it often is not particularly accurate. I thought anyone who choose to write a Historical fiction was crazy.... and yet here I am writing one. It puts me in mind of a certain symmetrical black ceramic plate I saw in a museum on a fieldtrip I took with my ceramics class. We were supposed to pick an item and then recreate it. I blatantly told my professor the person who choose it must be crazy. And then I picked it myself.

I have set my Robin Hood story in the 1270s which is later then many of the Robin Hood stories (meaning King Richard and Prince John are not characters). I have done some research but there are still many questions I have, and still more questions I am sure I have not even thought to ask. Some of these questions I have put off but I will definitely have to research them eventually.

Another thing that has been interesting about writing this is that one of my main point of view characters is very different from me. Both of my point of view characters in Legend Speaker react to situations similar to how I would react. They are almost like different flavors of my own reactions rather then completely different but Hob is different and as a result I might have to go rewrite many of the earlier scenes because I hadn't gotten a very good feel for that difference yet.

Anyway, enough ramblings. Here is to natural deadlines.

Archaeology and Paleontology

When I was studying archaeology people would often ask whether I was digging up dinosaurs. Now that I am studying paleontology people ask me if I do archaeology.
I like Latin roots so here is their literal meanings based on the Latin roots based on this page on wikipdia.
"archae" means ancient
"pale" means ancient or old
"ont" means being

On my recent paleontology dig I found it interesting to compare archaeology and paleontology.
The similarities:

• the artifacts/bones are mapped on a grid system
• Artifacts/bones are closely labeled 
• a clean hole is a happy hole (as in get the dirt and the rock bits out of the hole so you can see what you are doing)
• it takes a little bit to get your search criteria right but once you have it isn't too bad
• people always stand around and take pictures of you because you are on the "inside of the zoo"

The differences (well a few of them):

• In archaeology you dig square holes, in paleontology you dig around what you want to take out
• In paleontology you take home some of the rock still stuck to the bones, in archaeology you get rid of all the dirt
• In paleontology there is a more overall interest in the geologic history of the area

Also, sometimes when I worked in Archaeology I would get annoyed that people would just stand around and watch instead of helping out, just get in and dig. On this trip I stood around a lot because (1) I didn't know what needed to be done and (2)even when I did know what needed to be done I didn't really feel qualified to do it. So overall, I felt a little more sympathetic to those I had been annoyed at before.

Being Capable Or Allowing Others to Be Capable

When I was a teenager my Mom asked me and my older brother's friend to fix some shelves in the basement. Or maybe she just asked him. Either way I kind of hijacked the work and kept trying to do everything. I wanted to use the drill and the saw etc. Afterwards I felt really dumb. I ruined his chance to be helpful and acted like a brat. After that I have been more cautious about "showing off" with manual labor especially when there are males involved. I have heard that it is important to the male ego to be able to be strong and helpful and capable.
This week I went on a dinosaur dig with some people, many of them guys. At one point we had to change a tire and several other times there was things to be carried or lifted. Some of it I physically could not do or it would have been very awkward but some of it I knew how to do, and would have enjoyed doing but I stood back and let them do it. And hence was bored and felt kind of useless.
I am assuming the guys weren't saying I couldn't do it they just wanted to take the brunt of it, which is nice. I guess I just haven't figured out a good compromise.