(Sorry this is a full week late. Hopefully I will soon be caught up on all the posts) - KatieWe are heading into the second week of classes and we have started projects in all of them, or at least by this point we have started to get down to what we are going to be spending the rest of the semester doing. I so much prefer when a class has really started to move. We are done with all the introducing ourselves and have gotten the basic facts out of the way! First, a comment on e-books. People either seem to hate them or accept them for the features they provide. I have never run across a person who loves e-books; its really hard to love a digital file. Its not like owning a book, sometimes I love the physical book as much as the story. That being said, I love my e-book reader because of the practically and the functionality it brings me. I’m a college kid, and I’m also a huge reader. When I was in high school I read about a book a week, that has changed to about a book every three weeks in college. If i were to get all of those in printed form my room would be full and moving would be more of a nightmare. I could get them from the library, but lets be real, I have never had luck doing this. I get too attached. I'm also very weak willed when denying myself that new bestseller THAT I JUST MUST READ NOW AND NO, I CAN'T WAIT A MONTH ON THE WAITLIST! My Nook (my ereader of choice) is always by my side. It’s in my backpack everyday, its on my nightstand, its in my purse when I go anywhere (I do mean everywhere, including school functions, soccer games, and yes, partys). I can always have something to read, no matter where I am. When this relates back to a school book, you would think that’s a good thing. If I can get the book you want me to have and read for your class it will be with me, I will read the homework you assigned when I have a good time to do so, maybe between my bus ride and my class. Because of this, I will not put it off and end up reading it right before class. But no, all the teachers cry, you will then not be giving your reading the analysis and the critical thinking that it deserves, you can't write in the margins and highlight things for later. This just shows they are outdated in their thinking, as I can do all of that and more; there is a highlight, note, and bookmark function on my Nook and even the Kindle. This also brings up the point that even if it was not an ebook, there is no way I am going to write in the margins. I hate that, a pen is not going to touch that page, something about that just seems so wrong, so that cancels that out. Then there’s the objection that if I’m reading the book when I bring it to class, for all the teacher knows, I could be sitting there and reading something else. This might have been somewhat valid objection in high school with 24+ people in a class, but for our classes that usually max at 16-18, you can tell when someone is not engaged and has no idea where the conversation is going. My final point is that most (not all, but a lot) of the books you are given to read in class are older, they are established reads, and when a book gets older it gets cheaper, or often goes into the PUBLIC DOMAIN. Oh how i love public domain, it means the ebook is free, or if you want it with a bit of work (interesting footnotes and such) it’s really cheap. This is wonderful for a book I'm being forced to read in class (I don’t mean the book is necessarily bad, I may enjoy it, but I'm still being forced to read it). The best price is free! For all of these reasons I get a bit frustrated when a teacher bans us from getting their chosen texts in ebook form. They just make my life harder, and therefore their assigned homework harder to accomplish, not their goal and not what I want either, so no one wins.
Now that that’s all out of the way here’s the better stuff;
Like I have said, I am enjoying all my classes., In Jewelry II our first project is due next week. I told you all about it, it’s to make a thimble and a display for it. At the time of the last blog post i was going to do Lillian Gilbreth, a women I really love to learn about and really admire. However I have reached the conclusion that a thimble is not enough space to represent her as a full person, I needed someone a bit more focused. Instead I’m doing Ada Lovelace – a person who has much to recommend her (to find out more about the person who was called “The Enchantress of Numbers” click here). I have the design and how I'm going to make it all worked out but I'm still not set on a display yet… I will do a whole blog post later on the process and the project, so never fear, I will explain how to make a thimble. History’s going well, really interesting but not a lot to say on that. English is going well too, although its not really going to push me at all, so far it’s been similar to my senior high school class. My workshop class is fantastic, but weird, for instance we have now had a lecture on hacking Ikea stuff and a random overview of a ton of different materials and how to use them. I’m not really going to try to describe it because it will just sound weird. I will blog about it when I have something to show you all. In furniture we are starting our band saw box its a very standard opening project just to give us a low stakes way to get us on the tools and such. I have also found the kind of table I want to do. I’m going to make a really nice, functional, and collapsible lap desk. I know that much but I’m still playing around with design and hinges and so forth, but will give you images when I can.
On a last note during a walk around the neighborhood I found that there is a little stream that goes through a few blocks down from the house and there is a kind of walking tour art project on it. It consisted of these large monuments that when you look though you see some small sculpture by the pond of a kind of native animal.
They look a bit old and not all of them work well, but my favorite is this one with the snake, it looks so real, but trust me, its metal.
