WTTW VI: Ice Cream

It has recently been discovered that there are unspoken rules concerning the etiquette of making and eating ice cream.

First, if you have an urge to get any kind of ice cream, you MUST ask all of those in your presence if they would like some too.  This goes for ice cream bars, pints, bowls, dots, and cones.  Evidently, it is downright rude to get yourself some ice cream and not offer it to everyone in your *vicinity.

Second, if you decide to make ice cream, it is most helpful to use all the parts that are included in your ice cream maker.  This includes the agitator (that waffle-like apparatus that stirs the mixture as it freezes).  Not doing so will result in a poorly mixed, half-frozen concoction that others will taste and grimace once they heap a spoonful into their mouth.

Third, you must be aware that the liquid mixture will expand when frozen.  This is important to know just in case you offer to bring homemade ice cream over to your friend’s house, and need to borrow their smaller ice cream maker because you didn’t use the agitator in your own machine.  Though the half frozen mixture may fit into their smaller container may fit at the beginning, it will most certainly overflow into the ice & rock salt mixture.

Any other words of wisdom regarding ice cream etiquette may be left in the comments.

*Vicinity includes if you are in a state where one of the spouses of seventonine currently reside.

First Days

are awesome.

WTTW V: Office Nudity

Word to the Wise:  If you’re changing clothes in your office (say, after a workout) it’s wise to check that natural reaction to say “Come in” when you hear someone knock.

One Could Spend a Lot of Time Here

http://www.dipity.com/user/tatercakes/timeline/Internet_Memes

[fimoculous]

And So It Begins

Just got around to digging all the crap out of my boxes and decorating my office here at school.  Posters (one promoting reading, another celebrating Chavez-Cesar not Hugo, Postcards (Crazy Horse, Holden Village, Chichen Itza, etc.), and a little printout of an interesting little exercise called “Books that Make You Dumb.”  You can see it here.  Basically it correlates SAT/ACT scores with 10 most popular books as aggregated from Facebook for each university.  Thus we find that students at the school with the highest scores (California Institute of Technology) list the following books as their favorite: Enders Game, 1984, Harry Potter, Dune, Lord of the Rings.  The Bible or The Holy Bible is basically tied for first place among most popular books with the entire Harry Potter series but has a standardized test score correlation that places it in the lower 10% of the books.  In other words, you could conclude (erroneously) that reading the Bible will make you stupid.

So I posted the full list of books on my door along with the institutional profile for my university which includes books like The Bible, Harry Potter, 1984, Catcher in the Rye, DaVinci Code, and an standardized test score ranking which places us pretty much near the middle of the pack.  Then I posed the question: Is this good social science?  The correct answer is that of course it’s not.  Correlation does not equal causation.  There are a myriad of other factors that predict this relationship, and furthermore, SAT/ACT scores don’t actually predict anything other than one’s ability to perform on standardized exams (I’d provide the links to the studies, but I’ve got other things to do), causing many schools to drop them altogether.

Anyway, today a student/person felt the need to tape the following email forward up over the Books that Make you Dumb printout:

We have enjoyed the redneck jokes for years. It’s time to take a reflective look at the core beliefs of a culture that values home, family, country and God. If I had to stand before a dozen terrorists who threaten my life, I’d choose a half dozen or so rednecks to back me up. Tire irons, squirrel guns and grit — that’s what rednecks are made of. I hope I a m one of those. If you feel the same, pass this on to your redneck friends. Ya’ll know who ya’ are.

You might be a redneck if: It never occurred to you to be offended by the phrase, ‘One nation, under God.’

You might be a redneck if: You’ve never protested about seeing the 10 Commandments posted in public places.

You might be a redneck if: You still say ‘ Christmas’ instead of ‘Winter Festival.’

You might be a redneck if: You bow your head when someone prays.

You might be a redneck if: You stand and place your hand over your heart when they play the National Anthem.

You might be a redneck if: You treat our armed forces veterans with great respect, and always have.

You might be a redneck if: You’ve never burned an American flag, nor intend to.

You might be a redneck if: You know what you believe and you aren’t afraid to say so, no matter who is listening.

You might be a redneck if: You respect your elders and raised your kids to do the same.

You might be a redneck if: You’d give your last dollar to a friend.

If you got this email from me, it is because I believe that you, like me, have just enough Red Neck in you to have the same beliefs as those talked about in this email.

God Bless the USA !

Oh, but here’s the best part.  The words “no matter who is listening” from the third to last item have been replaced with “no matter what professor is listening.”  Oh, and those words have been bolded just in case I might have missed them.

We’re still three weeks away from the beginning of the semester, and I’m already making friends!  I can tell that teaching here is going to be very interesting.

Is this the same old record? Part II.

You might recall that a couple of months ago, I wrote about how my church had decided to focus on where we needed to head as an organization. I lamented about how in my experience this turns into an opportunity to complain, make superficial changes, and ultimately pat ourselves on the back for succeeding in doing something different.

I really don’t like the way that kind of process has gone for me and the staffs that I’ve worked with over the years. But, I let you know that this time I was a bit more optimistic that this time it could be different.

Over these past couple of months, I watched as this process began to spin in what I think is its typical pattern. I grew frustrated and bitter about how the whole thing was playing out. In fact, my wife finally looked at me at some point in June and asked when I had lost all of that optimism I had when we first began dating. She ultimately let me know that I had become a rather negative person.

This was one of those moments in which I was faced with looking at my true self, and I’ve got to let everyone here who reads this know that I really didn’t like what I saw. It’s pretty humbling when what you see in reality doesn’t match your perception.

Our staff took several afternoons to sit down and discuss our ministry. We went through the process that I explained in the last post, getting to the point where we had no real ‘change’ or focus on what we needed to be about. What we did come up with was an understanding that our area of ministry needed additional help to do some of the things I’d been doing a bit differently. I can’t tell you that I wasn’t hurt by this realization. After all, I’d been doing those things before—what made them think that having another person do it would make it much more successful?

I got to a point where my frustration and hurt was affecting how I interacted with everyone—and I realized that I needed some help. I felt even more frustrated as I couldn’t find the help I needed. Here I was, needing to take some time to tend to my spiritual side—and at the same time I was being asked to help make decisions for a congregation seeking to tend to their spiritual side. It was one of the toughest spots that I can remember ever being in. I mean how can you possibly lead when you have no clear direction yourself? (A side note: I’m not claiming that I felt as though I needed to be somewhat better at faith than my congregation to lead them. I’m simply telling you that I had somehow lost the ability to listen to God.)

And so, looking at this process that seemed to be at a place where nothing really changes, and knowing that I needed to do some soul searching (for lack of a better description) I took the leap to find the help I desired. I went to see a spiritual director for a couple of sessions and made the decision to take some time off as soon as my busy season wound down. I realized that the one thing that I could change in this process of figuring out a focus was to seek change myself.

More to come.

Just to Get You Through the Day

Some of us are back at work for the first time in weeks.  That one of us might need just a little something to get him through the day.  If this doesn’t do it, nothing will:

http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2008/06/19