Mahna Mahna

With the weather outside below freezing for the past two days, the human form developed a large amount of ptential energy as we sit inside thinking of all the "work" we could get done if we could just.....go.  A lot of times we don't know where to go, or how to go, or where we'll go after we get to where we are going, or how we'll get back, move on, or even stay there.....but we know we just want to go.  With that in mind, Let's blog!!

Four Things I've learned since being stuck here in my tiny house:

1)  10 years ago I used to sigh, shrug my shoulders and say to myself Hakuna Matata (which means no worries for the rest of our days.  It's our problem free philosophy), but I have since been reintroduced to a song and phrase we have all heard, but didn't really understand.  I still don't understand what in the world someone was thinking, but it sure is catchy...and it sure does make you feel good.  The next time you feel like you are stuck, and you want to say "What are you going to do?", just sing Mahna Mahna:

Thanks Muppets, and that English band that came up with it but didn't have little puppets to make it popular!!

2)  There are lesson plans for everything online.  Teaching communities are a wonderful place to share ideas....and in my case homework!!!  (Professors, my lawyer says that there is no copyright infringement on blogs.  Well, at least none that my daughter, I mean my lawyer, knows of).  Check out the blogs that I follow on the right side of the screen and you will see just a snippet of shared creativity in the classroom.  The web is a wonderful place for transfer of information, and a wonderful place for my optometrist's balance sheet:(

3)  Photo Story 3 for Windows.  A great piece of software for someone new to the digital world.  It allows you to record a story you tell onto your computer and then add pictures and music.  A great idea, but this software limits creativity in what it doesn't allow.  As someone who works with video editing software I was a little miffed at some of the limitations.  It seems to force you to match a line in your story with one and only one picture.  If I have a line such as "The many faces of the children in my classroom provided inspiration for me to go home, grab Doritos, and watch the grass grow."  I would want to put several pictures of my students sullen faces and then end with a quick shot of my sitting on my front lawn eating Doritos.....but I can only use one picture.  Yes, I would need to be creative in how I go about this, but I know how I want it to be shown and this software limits what I can do.  Wow, I'm being way too harsh and serious here....it is free after all!!

On the positive side, it is so intuitive and easy to use that I am truly excited to see what awesome stories my classmates produce. 

4)  Bicycle breaks tend to freeze when it is under 20°.  It was about 8:30pm and I had just finished watching "Grown Ups".  The adventure of riding my bike up to Blockbuster to return the movie (yes you can return the online movies there) was just too much to pass up.  I prepped myself in my snow gear then hopped on the bike.  I made sure not to change gears in the case they had already frozen, but I never even thought of testing the breaks...oops.  I had unusually good traction for the amount of ice that was out there, which allowed me to quickly accelerate to about 20 mph...that's where the fun began.  You know when you are up skiing and you have a big time fall (aka Yard sale) and it always just happens to by right under the chair lift?  Well I hadn't seen a car on the road for 20 minutes when the moment came when I realized my break pads on the bike were frozen solid and unable to provide the friction required to slow me down.  When I looked back up to see what options I had available, there were FIVE cars converging on the intersection that stood about 50 feet in front of me.  Knowing I couldn't stop, and assuming none of them could either, I had to try a move I'd only seen attempted once before in my life:

You can tell I'm still here writing, and you can see why this was only attempted once before.  But now I can say I've ridden my bike in a rain storm, wind storm, snow storm, and now sub 20° temps.  Yes, I did get the movie returned!!

Happy Thanksgiving Y'all



P.S. Today is the one year anniversary of you know who running into a you know what and unleashing the largest fall from grace ever witnessed by humanity.  Epic Oops!

Cheerio