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	Welcome To My Home... March 12, 2003 The Element of Surprise I remember wandering across campus in high school, thinking to myself "I wonder what we're doing in English today..." It was something to think about. Something to talk about. We'd get together at break and discuss the possibilities. "I wonder," wonders one student, "what will we do in English today..." "Well," joins another student, "I already had English, and we painted fish (or whatever) in my class. Maybe you guys'll do the same." "Hmmm," the first student would say. "Somehow I doubt that. I think we were going to discuss practical applications of birdwatching." And thus, both students would continue on to class, feeling the sheer excitement of not knowing what to expect. I went to political science the other day, and I realized that I was being deprived of this fundamental essence of education. There's no surprise, I thought. It's not like my history class, where the basic topic of the lecture has been previously revealed, but the exciting details are still yet to be uncovered. Or my logic class, where the teacher is so eccentric that nobody knows what she might do. Or like my art class, where I sometimes don't even know what the heck we're doing even after we've finished it. Nope. For political science, the surprise - the magic, if you will - is gone. I know precisely what we will do; I know precisely how long it will take; I know exactly what he'll say - and I know what parts I won't be able to understand. Now, I hear your concern. How could a class be reduced to such a meaningless form, you ask? It's simple, really. A class tends to become predictable when you reduce it to only one activity. For illustration's sake, I'll just give a quick rundown of a typical day in political science. The period always starts out pretty much the same way: we take roll and go over the vocabulary for the chapter. After that, class is over, so we all leave. It should be known that my teacher is obsessed with the "vocabularies." That's what he calls the vocabulary terms. He asks us, at least a couple dozen times a day, if we've "done the vocabularies." "Feeeno." He says to me. "Fero. Yeah?" "Feno?" he points at me accusingly. "Did you do the vocabularies?" Now, I should probably give some context for this conversation before proceeding. You see, my teacher's idea of "going over the vocabularies" (I know! Doesn't that word bug you?) is to call on each student individually and ask him to define a random vocabulary (Yea. Now I do it just to be annoying). The first person he calls on usually doesn't know. That's understandable. The teacher certainly hasn't done much to inspire us to actually do any of the reading. So he goes on to the next person. In this case, we'll say that's me. You should know, in this instance, that I've typed up all the vocabularies from the chapter, and I now have them layed out on my desk. In addition, I have, during the time it took him to ask the previous student, located the term in question in the index of our book, turned to the page on which it is referenced, and read the relevant information. And just in case, I've got the study guide within reach. My teacher either doesn't care, or doesn't notice. I'm leaning toward the former, since it's not like anyone's trying to hide his book or notes - but I can't be sure. "Yes." I respond to his inquiry regarding my completion of the vocabularies (the meaning of which I have still yet to determine). "Can you tell me," my teacher stutters, "what is meaning by the term 'cowmonger' (Or, again, whatever)?" Simple enough, I think. I glance down at the definition sheet that is sitting on my desk, verify the information in the book, and respond by reading, almost word for word, the definition in front of me. Silence. I rephrase the definition in my own words and tack on an example from the book. "Not quite." So he moves on. "Jonis. Did you do the vocabularies?" "It's 'Jones'. Yea." "Can you tell me what is meaning by the term 'cowmonger'." Well, Jones, at that moment, is looking at the same page in the book, at the same definition I just read. He has no idea what to do. "Uh... I pretty much would've said what he did." He rearranges some of the words in the definition, but to no avail. After hearing the same definition read by about six different people, my teacher is finally satisfied and gives someone a point. "But, isn't that," some alert student innevitably points out, "Isn't that the same thing the first guy said?" So now, perhaps, you can see how going over the vocabularies (hehe) might take an entire hour. Just to spice things up, we had a test today. It was actually supposed to be on Monday, though, despite his original announcement that put it on Wednesday. And, of course, his syllabus doesn't give any clues. Anyway, Monday came, and the general consensus within the class was that he should have told us the test would be on Monday if he wanted to give it on Monday. So, being the nice guy he is, the teacher pushed the exam back. This left us (of all things unholy!) with no 'lesson plan' for the day. So guess what! Instead of doing what we 'normally' do, my teacher decided we could go over the vocabularies! But not without the stern reminder that this was only because we had no lesson plan for the day, and that we'd be back to our 'normal' routine after the exam. So... I wonder what we're doing on Friday! Comments March 12, 2003 It's That Time Again You know it's time to go to the grocery store when 'dinner' refers to cheese and mustard on a whole-wheat hotdog bun. Dark Horizons. Don't get me wrong, here - I love the site... but I think they're aiming to have the the most annoying ads on the internet. Not only do they have the usual pop-ups, standard ad banners (some of which are even complete with sound effects and shaking), and now a nice Flash animation that plays out over the text you're reading. But now they have (and this, I believe, is a first) replaced their entire main frame background with a huge, stationary advertisement picture. I hope that movie bombs. March 14, 2003 Sorry No new post today. I was too busy looking at this site. This guy painted, among other things (hundreds of other things), a bunch of the matte paintings for the Final Fantasy movie. I am completely in awe. March 16, 2003 Idle thoughts I wonder if any of you notice when I update the sketchbook. I wonder if any of you know I have a sketchbook. My goal from now is to add something daily. Let's see how that works out.		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