A Lunchtime Surprise

I was sitting at my desk thinking about lunch. I do that a lot between the hours of 8:00 am and 12:30 pm. Then after lunch I start thinking about dinner. Sometimes those thoughts are along the lines of wondering where I should go to eat, or what I should do during my free hour. Sometimes it's simply "why isn't it lunchtime yet???" But generally speaking, if you walk into my office during the morning hours, those are probably all you'd be interrupting.

Like I said, today I was sitting at my desk thinking of lunch. I had heard a commercial for Subway's "Five, five dollar foot-longs. . ." and I was imagining what I should put on mine when I go down to the one at the bottom of the hill. I had settled on a chicken, bacon and ranch (which has also been my recent Domino's usual lately). I was trying to decide what I would do after I got my sandwich, since I no longer have homework to do and I forgot both my book and my cell phone (with a fun bejeweled game on it) at home today, when a tall man in a hat walked in.

What a surprise to see Derrick! He had the day off and had some business to take care of on this side of town, so he thought he'd stop in and say hi. So I asked if he'd like to join me for lunch.

On our way down to Subway, Derrick called Grandma to see if she'd be interested in having a couple of grandkids over for lunch. Of course she was delighted to have us visit her. So we stopped and picked up sandwiches for me, Derrick, and Grandma, during which time Derrick and I had this conversation with the sandwich maker:

Derrick: You don't have Swiss cheese by any chance, do you?
Sandwhich Guy: No. But this stuff here is very similar.
Derrick: Nah. It's got to have the holes in it. It's not the same without the holes.
Me: Yeah, the holes are the best part.

It's alway funny to make a joke during a lunchtime rush because it takes them a second to register what was just said. Then they laugh and then the rest of the lunch rush seems a little less stressful to them.

Anyway, the rest of lunch was nice because I got to spend it visiting with my brother whom I rarely see (despite the fact that we share an apartment) and my grandma (who sees my brother even less than I do).

A very nice surprise indeed.

Another Day at the Park

Today was such a nice day that we decided to take the kids and the dogs to the park again. I won't bore you with yet ANOTHER post of pictures of the kids on swings and slides and the dogs carrying sticks. Well, at least not ONLY of the kids and dogs.

Today I decided to wander a little more around the park and check out the skate park area. It was pretty cool watching the kids doing their tricks and stuff.

Oh, and something I've never seen before: an iguana in a pink tutu.

By the time I got the pic, they were removing the humiliation from the poor creature. But it was there (and it was pretty funny!)

Ballet, Pez, and Toto, Too

Grandma and I decided to take in a show.

The Vancouver Dance Theater was putting on a ballet version of The Wizard of Oz. We thought it sounded interesting, especially since it's a program you don't really think of as a "ballet". The direector said it was challenging because the dance and music all had to be created from scratch. Most of the music was the soundtrack from the movie, but with some surprising, creative, and fun additions (for example, imagine Dorothy, Glenda the good witch, and the munchkins of Munchkinland sending the Wicked Witch of the West out of the city with a little taste of "Hit the Road, Jack")

The play was very fun and entertaining. Grandma and I really enjoyed it. Especially the cute seven-year-old who played the part of Toto She was just SO cute!

During the intermission of the ballet, Grandma and I decided that we wanted to be sure to do our part to support the Theater, so we bought raffle tickets, two for each of us. The raffle would be drawn at the end of the performance and the winner would receive some kind of Wizard of Oz item.

Imagine my surprise when the end of the performance arrived and they drew the ticket and called out my name. I was so shocked that I was completely speechless. Seriously. As in, complete silence. They were expecting to hear some kind of "Woo-hoo" or something, but instead crickets chirped as they began to wonder if they pronounced the drawn name incorrectly. Just to make sure, they started spelling it out. My brain kicked my legs into action and I stood up (naturally, I was sitting in the back balcony area, so I was about as far away as I could get) and made my way up to the stage where I accepted my prize: a Wizard of Oz Collector's Set of Pez. Pretty cool.

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Oh, Oh, It's Magic

I mentioned not too long ago the new Do Life groups at my chruch. I posted about the first meeting of our photography group. Tonight was our first meeting for the scrapbooking and paper crafts group. It was a lot of fun. There were several women there and together made Easter cards and a candy bag. It never ceases to amaze me how we can take a few scraps of paper, some stamps and ink, and a little ribbon and end up with Hallmark-worthy creations. Simply magical.

Card 1:

 

Card 2:

 

Card 3:

 

Candy Bag:

The Final Grade

Tonight was my math final. I've so enjoyed math and I've done so well on my past assignments and tests that it was hard to be nervous about the final. Math just seems to come naturally to me. Unfortunately, procrastination also comes naturally, so at 5:00 this evening, I sat down with my books and realized that I was an hour away from a comprehensive final and I hadn't looked at anything for at least a week. Oops.

So, I pulled out my trusty note cards, my extensive notes, my heavy textbook, and a hot cup of Chai tea (with a side of Snickers, of course) and pulled an "all nighter" in 50 minutes. Probably not my best idea ever. . .

But with only seconds to spare, I raced into the classroom in a whirlwind of notebook papers and dropped into my seat, just in time for her to hand me my test.

The test itself wasn't too bad. The multiplication couldn't be too big because she doesn't allow us to use calculators on the test. I only looked at my note cards twice and both times were simply to verify that I had all the signs right in my formulas.

I moved through the test pretty quickly, like usual. 5 pages isn't that bad when you consider that there are only a few problems on each page with lots of room for showing your work. In the middle of the test I came across the the first bonus question: What is the quadratic formula? Without looking at my notes I quickly wrote it out in math form (-b + or - the square root of "b squared minus 4ac" all over 2a) (it looks much prettier when written out correctly) and hoped she wasn't asking for a definition of how we get to or why we use the formula itself.

At the end of the test was our final bonus question. After breezing through the rest of the test, this brought me to such a sudden halt that I almost felt whiplashed. For the life of me I couldn't remember how to condense several logarithmic equations into one complex equation. I remembered working on it last week. I remembered thinking that it was rather simple. I remembered that it made perfect sense. But how to do it was completely gone. I sat there for a good 15 or 20 minutes writing out what I could think of about logs, hoping I'd stumble onto something that turned the light on in my head, but to no avail. Finally I gave up. I would have to be satisfied with my confidence in the rest of the test and accept whatever grade I got, even if it was less than perfect.

As soon as I handed in the test and left the room, I sat down and opened my notes to the section we covered last week and looked at how to do it. I was so close! If I had just trusted myself a little bit more, and given myself a few more minutes, I would have got it. Dang!

And that's when I realized that for all the teasing Terry has been giving me the last few quarters, there was no denying my newly developed Hermione-like habits. I really am one of those students. You know, the overachieving ones we all hate to be in class with. Yep, that's now me. Oh well.

Oh and in case you're wondering, I got online later this evening to check out my grade (she said she'd have the tests graded and posted tonight) and I scored 119 out of 118. Guess I didn't need that last bonus question after all.

Final grade for the class: 101.48%

One-A-Day

I've been doing some research online at tips and suggestions to improving my photos and the most common suggestion is to practice, practice, practice.

Well, duh. I knew that. I was looking for something a little more inspiring to keep "practice" from becoming repetative and boring. I  mean, I can only take so many pictures of my dog and the kids in nursery before my computer explodes out of redundency.

Naturally, scrapbooking offers many ways motivating me in my photography (afterall, that is why I want to take better pictures), but that also takes up a lot of time and creativity in itself. So, what else could I do to showcase my "art" and keep myself motivated?

How about "Project 365"?

I read about someone who committed to taking one picture every day. He told the reader about being able to look back on the year and not just remember, but also SEE the changes that happened over the year. He also said that by taking at least one photo every day, it was impossible not to improve his skill.

I had been toying with the idea of setting up a Photo of the Day type of blog, but I wasn't sure I was willing to commit to every day. But after reading his article, I feel like it might be a wise idea. The most important way to keep me motivated, he wrote, is to get my friends involved so that they can hold me accountable.

So, here it is, my newest, everyday (*gulp*) commitment: Through the Lense (my photo blog that is not on flickr). Enjoy the photos and please feel free to offer comments and suggestions. Feedback is how we grow.

Do Life: Photography

The church started something new recently as a way of giving us a chance to get to know other people with similar interests. It's called Do Life and there are so many hobbies and clubs and interests, it's hard to imagine that there are any people left in the church not involved in something.

I signed up to be a part of the Photography club. We'll be meeting the first Saturday of every month and today was our first meeting.

It seems like it's going to be very interesting for me. We'll talk about different things that make good photos and learn new tricks and techniques to making our pictures stand out. Everyone in the group is at a different level of experience and we all want to learn for different reasons, so it should provide plenty of learning opportunities. It's like finally getting into the photography class I've been wanting to take (and not positive actually exists).

Each month we will be given an assignment to work on. We'll have the whole month to take the pictures asked of us and then we will choose our favorite and email it to the group leader to use for our class critiques. We'll also bring in a few of our other "good" photos on flash drive to work with on the computers.

It's a good thing I took the creative writing class last summer. It's gotten me more familiar with the idea of peer critiques, so that I don't feel quite so intimidated. It's good to know that my classes are giving me more than just an academic education.

This month's assignment is Patterns and Repetition.

After we were shown what that looks like and some ways of getting the great shots, I started thinking about what I see around me and how I could fulfill the assignment. Amazingly, once I started looking for it consciously, I couldn't stop. I've already thought up several shooting locations I'd like to attempt. I'm really excited to get started. It's going to be a fun month. Here's one of my first attempts to locate a nice pattern in life:

I have to admit, I'm pretty proud of this one. I just hope I can keep getting better ones as the month goes on.

The other cool thing we'll be doing is learning about the photo software available to us and how to make our photos better by using it. That's the stuff I'm really interested in learning. I'm starting to get the hang of seeing the shot and I'm already starting to see a difference in my pictures. Now I want to learn how to enhance the pictures even more. I'm really excited about this group.

I was considering setting up a blog to show my pictures as I grow with this group, but I've decided that instead I'm just going to set up a flickr account to showcase my pictures. Each month I'll set up a new set to fill with my assignment shots. I'd love feedback so to help me decide which ones to take into the group the next month. Even if you don't have input, feel free to follow my progress: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48127570@N03/   Like I said, I'd love to know what you think.