JOURNEY TO JOY (23): The Learning Curve

I've been taking some online classes recently, and while I'm enjoying myself and feeling challenged, I have to admit that my brain is a bit rusty.  In my recently completed 12 assignment term, I got a 90%-100% on all assignments except for ONE: and I couldn't seem to pass it -- even with open book assistance.  Let's admit it folks, this was my best subject during my formal education.  I redid the assignment several times, and based on the response of the 'instructor' - it got worse each time I tried to fix it.  Either the instructor was an imposter, or I'm nuts.  I passed the course with a 90%, but that one stray assignment is still frustrating me.

A few weeks ago I sat in the Marriott Center watching my middle son graduate from BYU along with 6,000 other students.  One brother and sister walked across the stage with their mother.  It was really touching.

After we got home, we were having dinner with my daughter and her family.  My grand-daughter, Amber, who is finishing up first grade, was showing me how she can multiply in her head now - that is really impressive!

All this got me to thinking about how lucky we are to live in a time where information and knowledge are so available to us!  I don't even need to go to the library to look for a book.  I can power up my e-reader and download it from my bed in the middle of the night if I want to, and I can continue my education online. 

Five-year-old Zack and I were playing Angry Birds on my tablet last night.  I was struggling, and he was trying to explain to me how to make the bombs blow up, make a red bird turn into three birds, and make the yellow bird speed up -- all in an effort to kill the pigs.  He said, "Grandma, just do it the way that I'm showing you.  You can learn how if you watch me."  Hmmm.

Who'd have thunk it?

COUNTING MY BLESSINGS (16): The Club House

My sisters and I love to read novels.  We like romances, mysteries, historical fiction, vampires, series, young adult fiction.  You name it.  I'd like to say that we only read the best in what's out there, but to be honest, we just like to be entertained and taken away for awhile.  Now that our daughters are grown, they have also joined our passion for a good read.

We have joked in the past about buying a small condo or renting an apartment for our book club.  No one could use it unless their intention was to sit around and read, preferably in jammies and slippers, maybe have some snacks, and talk about books.  I remember one year the three of us were at a parade of homes touring huge, too expensive residences.  Each one had a library-type nook in them, and we decided that we needed a club house for our reading club. 

I've been thinking recently about the club house again.  We really do need one.  I imagine it lined with bookcases containing all of the books we've read, sectioned off by genre or age group.  There's a fireplace for cozy winter nights, smelly candles, delivery menus tacked to a bulletin board, and cushion covered couches to sink into.  Elizabeth can make the quilts for us to wrap up in, I'll do some artwork for the walls, and Tina can bring the snacks.  Then, as each of the girls in the family turn 16, they can be inducted into the club and receive a key to the secret location...

What makes this so alluring?  Maybe it's the idea of a physical escape to go along with the mental escape that a good book provides.  Or is it that all of the books we read feature a woman who rises from the ashes and kicks her antagonist in the rear?  Maybe I just miss my sisters.

I have a camper.  Maybe the three of us should just redecorate it with some girlie fabrics and colors, park it in the back yard, and put up a sign that says "Private, no boys allowed."

COUNTING MY BLESSINGS (14): Fanged!

The girlies in my family are a tad vampire obsessed (well, most of them).  We all love a good story, especially the tales that contain some mystery, monsters, and romance!  Having things to share and enjoy together, even silly ones, is a great blessing in families.  My three granddaughters have been taken with the Twilight saga phenomenom, and are all firmly planted on the side of Team Edward.  (No, they have not watched all of the movies, they just like them.)

I recently saw just how much children internalize what they see and hear:

Beautiful Paige (4) was having a hard day at Grandma's house, and our conversation went something like this:

Paige:  "Grandma, tell Amber to give me the Belle doll - I want to use it!" Me:  "Paigey, Amber is already using that one.   Here are 5 other dolls you can use, you can have all of them." Paige:  "NO!   I WANT BELLE!   GIVE ME BELLE!   GIVE ME BELLE!   GIVE ME BELLE!" Me: "Paigey, settle down, it's OK.   There are lots of dolls to play with.   It hurts people's feelings when you take what they are playing with."  (Aren't I such a sweet Grandma?) Paige: Throws herself around, knocks over the chair, starts screaming words I don't understand. Me:  Hugs, "Oh Paigey, let's calm down." Paige:  "LET GO OF ME!   [Insert showing of fangs and hissing here.]   YOU ARE RUINING MY LIFE!   DON'T TOUCH ME!" Me:  "Okay......" Then she falls asleep.   Where's Edward when I need him?

COUNTING MY BLESSINGS (8): Inquiring Minds

"What does 'realize' mean," one of the grandkids asked me this past week when I used it in a sentence.  "It means ... well, it means ... um, to figure something out."  "Oh, why didn't you say that?"

I remember when every sentence contained something new to think about, and television and movies opened up new worlds full of exciting of ideas.  Then I got old-ish, and it seems like there just isn't that much new and shiny around.  But that's not really true. 

In addition to conventional education, over the years I have taken or taught workshops and courses in art, piano, textiles, knitting, spinning, leadership, communication, diversity, operational management, scrapbooking, child-rearing, quilting, cooking, dog training, and a potpourri of other subjects.  I'm fairly sure my appetite for learning comes from my Mom, who was always teaching herself how to do the next great thing.  (She once taught herself how to make Victorian doll house furniture from dog food cans.)  Right now she's writing a cooking course for children.  She heard about e-publishing, and is all worked up about that.

If my brain is like a computer, then my hard drive is going to eventually run out of space or memory.  Unless someone invents a flash drive that plugs into my ear or a way to connect an external hard drive so that I can download some of that data, I wonder if I should begin rationing what I fill my mind with? 

Not a chance.  I'll just keep learning and trying new things until an upgrade comes out.

COUNTING MY BLESSINGS (7): Book of Lies

What did people do before the age of books for escape?  Did they take their tallow candles into caves and draw pictures, then call all of their friends with their horns to share beef jerky and tell them a story?  Did they pass around scrolls filled with tales of danger and romance?  Everyone presumes that ancient cave drawings are records of actual history; what if they aren't?  What if someone was bored, couldn't sleep, or ate too much buffalo and had indigestion.  Maybe she got out her mortar and pestle, ground up some leaves and spices, stirred in some spit and just started drawing, imagining a steamy love affair, mystical creatures and huge mythical animals?  (Wait, has Stephanie Meyers been climbing around in caves??)

I suppose that in the absence of books, friends got together to spin thread for cloth and gossiped about their cavemen and neighbors.  I wonder what people from those times would think of all of the literature of today.  I suspect a juicy piece of fiction would have been considered sorcery at worst, a book of lies at best.

A well written novel filled with suspense, unrequited love, or outright terror transports me somewhere else for awhile.  I love books.  I love the smell of a new book, the feel of the paper and shiny cover in my hands, and the anticipation when I open the front cover and prepare to dive in.  My love affair with fiction started with Nancy Drew and all of her mysterious adventures, with the handsome Ned making my pre-teen heart skip a beat.

Stephen King came next, but I spent so many sleepless nights (including one night at the age of 18 rolled up on the end of my parent's bed after finishing The Shining) that I swore off the really scary stuff.  I spent a year or so immersed in the life and times of the women who live inside the pages Victoria Holt novels, read every Mary Higgins Clark who-done-it, and still think about by the lives and traumas of the protagonists in Jodi Piccoult's observations of today's societal dilemmas.  I truly love Anne (of Green Gables), and think Jane Austen is one of the best story tellers of all.

My heroes aren't the characters I've become for a few days.  They are the talented magicians whose imaginations are so vivid, that their words can transport me out of myself for a time.  Here's the thing about fiction.  I don't have to agree or disagree with anything written.  I'm not obligated to learn anything from it.  I get to love the bad boys, hate the perfect girls, and hide behind someone when I'm scared. 

So, on Friday night, you can find me happily tucked into bed with a nice fat book of lies, and maybe a couple of sea salt chocolate caramels, just in case I get hungry.