Back to School

Well kind of....

After nearly 10 years of being out of college, I signed up for a 6 week continuing education class at our local community college. It's a basic html course, but so far it's been helpful in getting a broader background into the whole html world. I've been doing a lot of html coding for work but haven't really known why I was doing certain things. So it's been nice knowing the meaning behind the language.

The best part of the class has been just learning. I had been so intimidated by trying to take a class again fearing that I wouldn't have the time or that I wouldn't be able to keep up anymore. But 6 weeks has seemed manageable and since what we're learning is so practical to my job it's felt easier than trying to learn something totally new.

In short, it's been fun and I'm already thinking about what class to take next.

InterVarsity Alumnus Lendol Calder

InterVarsity Alum: Lendol Calder on "Uncoverage" from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Interviewing Lendol Calder this past month was fun for multiple reasons. First I got to coordinate the interview with Matt which means not only was this a written piece but also a video piece. It was different thinking through what elements of Calder's story would be better communicated through written words verses via video. In the end I like how the article and video complimented each other.

The other reason I loved interviewing Lendol was that Lendol Calder basically influenced my whole college history experience. Some of you know that I was a history major in college and at the time I distinctly remember there was a shift in the way certain history professor began presenting their materials. And I'm willing to be that much of that was due to Lendol.

Lendol was named the 2010 Illinois professor of the year and he's been in the spotlight primarily because of the teaching method he encourages. He strongly advocates that survey history classes shouldn't just try to cover large amounts of materials and focus on time lines but rather history classes should help students think through various events in history and find meaning within various accounts. So instead of reading a history textbook, students might read various primary sources of an event and are then asked to write papers about those events. From my experience, the classes I took that didn't focus on the textbook were much more challenging, fun and are the ones I still remember today.

It's fun to know that InterVarsity alum like Lendol are having an impact in the academic world today.

You can read the full article on Lendol here: http://www.intervarsity.org/news/intervarsity-alumni-lendol-calder

Glass Blowing

It's Art Fest time at the office...well actually it's the Spring Art Institute where different people in the office put on classes to hopefully inspire everyone to create something for the Art Fest in the fall. One of the classes that was offered was a glass blowing class at The Vinery (http://www.vineryglass.com)

To be honest, I was slightly intimidated by the idea of playing with molten hot glass and blow torches but I decided it might be fun. It was.

I have to say the whole process to get a glass ornament hot and then blown into something resembling a round object was really quick. I was kind of surprised by that. It only took about 2 or 3 minutes per ornament. But it was fun. Half the fun was not really knowing what it would look like in the end. But I think I got a few pieces I'm happy with.

Now that I know what I'm doing, I kind of want to go back and try it again. Anyone want to go with?