Grid Project - Week 1

So, after I posted last week's blog entry, I went through some bookmarks and caught up on other peoples' lives, no longer feeling about not blogging myself. One blog I checked up on was that of a good high school friend. She lives out in Pittsburgh and for the past few months, she's been doing what she calls the "Grid Project". It's based on this article (http://www.taoism.net/articles/seizeday.htm) on a Taoism website that stresses the importance of using the time that is given to you and, as the article is aptly named, seizing the day.

My friend turned into the "Grid Project" by recreating this grid in her apartment without enough space to write things into each square. Her goal is to do something everyday that is "new/exciting/fulfilling/exceptionally awesome" and record it on her grid. After a year, she can look back and see not only what she accomplished, but how she has grown based on her experiences.

I really like this idea. Like the 365Days Project, it's something that can't be done in one fell swoop, it requires small efforts over a long period of time. Yes, I know it's odd to talk about a time management project when the one I just referenced is far behind schedule. (Fortunately, I have a number of days off in the following week so I'm hoping to have some buffer time to catch up on things like that.) Plus, this is kind of trivial, but I needed to go and buy a new calendar anyway and I thought "you know, I don't really use my calendar for writing events down, so I might as well use it for something". Things just sort of fit together.

You may remember that in the last post, I was having a rejuvenating experience for the month ahead. I just hope those come often enough to get through the hard times. This is definitely a good time to write about what is on the Grid for this past week...

Wednesday, September 1: made the "fire charts"
After thinking about it since sometime last spring, I went ahead and took a copy of the building's floor plans and marked out the location of every fire extinguisher. I guess it's one of my little Gold niches and my boss said we did have anything like that on file, so the "you just contributed to a larger body" feeling was nice.

Thursday, September 2: formal declaration and purchase
Okay, so it's kind of odd, but I decided to have a Grid Project of my own on the 2nd rather than the first day. I guess I wanted to start the month anew but just didn't put my finger on it while checking fire extinguishers. I also had to go to the bookstore and pick up a calendar since my calendar from last year didn't have September. Now that I think about it, it feels weird to purchase a calendar in September but it's a 2011 calendar with different wonders of the world. I'm hoping the pictures can inspire me.

Friday, September 3: Kingdom City voyage and a tiny branch out
Every month, we have shuttle buses for students who want to go home for the weekend. Even if it doesn't go right to a student's hometown, it saves the parents the hassle of driving all the way to Maryville (which can be a two-day trek for a number of families). The farthest we go out is Kingdom City, which is about 2 hours west of St Louis, so it's a decent trek. It's 4-5 hours non-stop, which is equatable to a trip between Bemidji and Minneapolis, but when you add stopping to pick up/drop off students, waiting for parents who got caught in traffic, and sitting in one spot without little stops to stretch your legs, it just seems like a long time. The last one probably seems counter-intuitive, but the little trips/pit stops/refueling times break up the monotony... Anyway, I never had this shuttle trip last year so this was my first time to Kingdom City. It's not too riveting, but it's certainly new. Oh, and as for the branch out, when we got to Kingdom City, I went and grabbed some things for a quick supper and tried out "spicy cheddar sausages" that were sitting next to the hot dogs. I never really grew up with spicy food so I wanted to try it out... it was pretty good, I have to say.

Saturday, September 4th: reviving a machine and a game
Okay, that description was a little poetic/vague. One of my day's projects was to get my dishwasher working again although thanks to some swapping, the one I have now has 4 functional wheels! I probably won't use the dishwasher that much because it uses up so much water. In the evening, I was working the front desk and some students came by to keep me company. We ended up playing some games and they taught me how to play Settlers of Catan the way they had learned how to play. It's based on one of the expansion pack's set of rules, but the map is left a mystery (you don't know what resources or numbers are where) until someone builds something on it. It seemed to ramp up luck's importance and fortunately enough, I had really good placement and was able to win the game.

Sunday, September 5th: planned out a week of ACT Prep sessions
(I decided to be more blunt about my description this time.) So, I sponsor the ACT Prep Club and the first ACT is on the 11th. Now, the reason this was my grid-worthy item of the day was that when I started the day, I didn't have anything really set for the week. At the end of the day, I had 10 different sessions planned, which included multiple sessions on the same topic (to help students with busy schedules) and I had a partial math review. It was kind of choppy and didn't cover half of the stuff I wanted to talk about, but the big thing was the initiative to simply plan everything out.

Monday, September 6th: ate at/on an Iron Skillet
The end of the shuttle weekend meant another ride on the bus to Kingdom City. Fortunately this one was during the day, so I was able to work on ACT prep material. When we (the bus driver and I) got to Kingdom City, we had lunch at the Iron Skillet there, which is apparently a big place for truckers. In fact, a number of the tables had "Truckers only" signs right behind the bench seat. The signature piece to Iron Skillet is that food is served on skillets rather than plates; they weren't actually iron, but it was a nice touch. As a little extra note to add to the grid, I tried out some of "Iron Skillet's famous steak sauce" on my fries - it wasn't quite my style, but hey, I can at least say I tried.

Tuesday, September 7th: having another go with ACT math
Tuesdays are our busy days on staff, so I only planned one ACT study session. The topic was the same algebra and coordinate geometry I covered on Sunday (since a lot of people were gone then). Thinking about it afterward, I felt much better about tonight's session than Sunday's session of the same material. I think it was a combination of already knowing what I was going to talk about and not feeling as rushed. Unfortunately, we didn't cover all the material I wanted to cover, but I do think I did a better job today than on Sunday. This is a tangent (ha! math humor), but one of my goals this year is to determine what graduate program is best for me. I haven't done the extensive research but I have a short list of programs to pursue, which includes the Masters in Teaching Mathematics. I still have to talk to a number of people and get more information, but times like tonight make me feel like this is something I could do for a while. I would have to go back and take basic education courses and figure out how I would student teach, but at this point, I should wander and gather.

That concludes my week and I should definitely get some rest. I do have the next two days off, but I don't want to start them off by sleeping until midday. There haven't been many videos I've been surfing on YouTube although I am still listening to Frank Ticheli's pieces. Down below is a link for "Earth Song" which is really cool, in my opinion.

Oh, and before I go, I just want to send out a prayer request for all of the students here in general. It seems like a number of students have been encountering physical/emotional/mental hardships and while we as a staff have been doing well to respond to these situations, it's something we don't enjoy having to do. I'm definitely an empathetic person so when I hear of a student having a panic attack after the first day of physics, I just naturally have concern vicariously.

Until next week at the latest!

Earth Song (Frank Ticheli): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUPaoBZ1GbM&feature=related