Em’s Blogtime Fun

At sunset on Halloween, take a second to see the best treat you will get all night!

The crescent Moon will sneak up on Venus for a close encounter.  The gathering is best seen just after sunset, when the sky glows orange.  Look southwest and you will see Venus, the brightest light in the sky, and the slender Moon will creep in a few degrees below.
  

[Venus and the crescent Moon. (c) Dan Bush.]

The fun isn’t over.  The next day,  November 1st, the Moon and Venus will be side by side.  If you look closely at the moon, you will see a ghostly image of a full moon inside the horns of the crescent.  This phenomena is called “Earthshine” or sometimes “the da Vinci Glow.” 

Catch these great sights before they slip away into the night!

     Firstly, let me get this out of my system: MIDTERMS ARE OVER.  I am very glad to report that midterms went smoothly and I think I did well on all of them!  I wasn’t really stressing over them or anything, but it is nice to have them out of the way and off my mind.
     Lately I have been doing a lot of doodling, especially in class.  I don’t know what it is, but classtime just puts me in the doodling mood.  I think I am bad at listening.  Either that or the speaker’s voice is just good background noise for my thoughts.  Or I just get bored.  Probably the latter.  Whatever it is, though, it makes me doodle.  I have put some of my doodles online to share with you guys.  Click on the thumbnails below to see the full doodles!  Some of them are actually very neat.  However, I might be biased.  At any rate, click click look.
                                            
                                            
                                            
     On another note, I might be buying a car!  I am very excited to be driving something new.  We’ll see if I can get the right price.. that is the tricky part.  I am not a wealthy college student.  I really don’t think many of us are.  So I am sure some of you can relate.  I am considering just buying a bike and using the rest of the money on fun, new art supplies!  Or maybe a scooter and art supplies.  Or a segway.  Yes, I think I will buy a segway.
   

     I have been meaning to post about this since I started my position as a blogger here at IWCC.  One thing that can always tick me off, and has since I’ve been a little kid in elementary school, is working on group projects in school.  I remember being about nine or ten years old and being stuck in a group at school.  Now, it’s not the social interaction that I disliked, but the fact that I could never trust the other kids in my group to do their work.  It’s not like I hadn’t tried to trust them to do what they were suppose to do; they have failed me time and time again in many ways.  Which is why I am so bitter.  Bitter bitter bitter.  All because of some little kids who can’t cut in straight lines and don’t color their parts of the project.  Bitter.
     I’m not really bitter because of the kids.  It was just the beginning point on the line of group-project-hatred.  It seems that whenever I work in groups, I somehow get stuck with the students who really don’t want to do anything.  And, you know, that would be fine if we weren’t graded as a whole.  That is where the problem really lies, I think.  Too many teachers grade the project as a whole, giving everyone in the group the same grade.  Which, would be fine, if we lived in some sort of utopia of scholars and every person felt like giving the project the same amount of attention and care.  But, that does not happen.  There is always that one member who doesn’t want to do anything, or doesn’t come to class, and then there is another student who is persistent on what they want to do– no compromises, and then there are others who just float through.  Any way you look at it, the members aren’t doing the same amount or quality of work.  Most of the time they aren’t even collaborating correctly or producing something a 2+ group should.  Mostly, what I am saying is that a grade cannot be based on the group as a whole; it would be best to divide the duties and grade on whether or not that specific duty was filled by the designated person.
     In college, I don’t think group projects should even be an option for teachers.  I pay my thousands of dollars and spend countless hours of my time to get the grade I deserve for the work I do.  I don’t think I should have to depend on others for my grade.  It’s all too common to have someone in your group that doesn’t come to class, doesn’t care about their expenses, doesn’t try because those of us who care do the work, etc.  It just isn’t fair to give someone like that a free ride.  If teachers were considerate of that fact and graded on an individual scale, then it wouldn’t be as bad.  However, when you’re in a group, you can’t do what you want to do to your potential.  I was talking to my friend who is working on a group project, and her teacher told her that group projects ‘help prepare them for the real world.’  That might be so, however, I do not think that is something the teacher can do in regards of group projects.  I think the teacher’s position is to give the student the tools to do what he or she wants when they leave the school.  Meaning, the teacher teaches.  I don’t think it is their place to put you in a position that holds you back from what you want to achieve in your own academic career.  You are not in school to help others succeed.  Just as you are not there to ride on others’ success.  College is an individual process, and I think that group projects take away from that.
     Mainly, I hate group projects.  Nothing ever gets done to the extent or quality I want it done, and it isn’t fair to be graded on it.  On another note, though, I got a new film editing program and tested it out tonight.  Below is a cartoon I made about group projects and a personal experience of mine.  You know, minus real people and stuff.  Just click the picture below to be linked to the cartoon.  Watch it.  Love it. Down with group projects.

     So I was reading my weekly NASA newsletter and I stumbled across something wonderful!  NASA has an archive where they post a new picture of something every day!  You can check out the archive here.  Shortcut it, bookmark it, write it on your hand– whatever you do to remember things.  They call it the Astronomy Picture of the Day.  It’s really cool.  Looking at it and reading the short description is like having a delicious snack between meals.  You know, not enough to make you full, but enough to make you satiated and happy until later.  So, you should sign up for the NASA weekly newsletter.  Here’s the analogy: the NASA weekly newsletter is to a meal as the Astronomy Picture of the Day is to a snack.  Sign up, sign up, sign up!  You will be happy you did.  You can sign up here.  Below is a piece of the picture posted on the archive for today.  Just a little taste for you.  Now go have the whole snack!  Do it.
 

     If anyone is bored on October 10th or 11th at 7 P.M. there is a fantastic art show (+ music) that you should attend!  There will be a lot of great art, including some by me, fitting a “ghost stories” theme.  Spookily fun!  Come and check it out.
                              

     It’s October; the tenth month on the Gregorian calendar, 8th on the old Roman calendar, and first in line on my list of favorite months!  October not only has the best weather and overall feeling, but also holds the day of my glorious birth.  Which, incidentally, is considered a holiday.  By me.  Happy birthday, Emily!  I am turning twenty this year; where the past 19 years of my life went, I really do not know.  Maybe in some alternate dimension I am still five, or maybe I have already passed, or maybe I do not exist as a human.  Maybe I exist as a blowing of wind or perhaps I exist everywhere all the time doing everything, giving me room to make the choice to be here now, blogging for you.  Doesn’t that make you feel special?  I choose to be here with you.  I think that is incredibly special.  Not that there are tons of demands for my time, but evenstill.
     With the coming of October and my birthday, we grow evercloser to Halloween.  I am a huge fan of Halloween.  I love the twisted innocence of everything.  You know, little kids dressing up as zombies, dead whatever, bloody something-or-other, etc.  Of course you’ve got the kids who dress up as super heros, princesses, animals, etc., too.  And all to get candy.  Free candy.  I mean, what is better than giving a seemingly zombified little kid a lollipop?  Probably a lot of things, I will admit, but it’s still fun.  And what’s better, is being that little zombified kid getting the candy.  I still dress up for Halloween.  Not solely for candy anymore, but I’d say it’s about 40% of the deal.  I just like dressing up; usually something with cool face paint or lots of sparkles or something I’d want to be if I were not myself.  Like a magical mermaid-detective for example.  Aside from dressing up, Halloween brings a lot of other fun activities.  Like Halloween coloring books!  I got a new Halloween coloring book this year and my goal is to color all of it by Halloween.  The picture below is a werewolf I colored the other day.  Enjoy!
                                        
     You know what else October brings?  Midterms and tests.  Which is quite unfortunate for the month.  It would be so perfect if we could just push them to November or something.  Or maybe omit them alltogether!  What do you say?  I think it’s a brilliant idea.  If not that, though, November can handle them.  It has Thanksgiving to keep it a good month and balance out the not-so-goodness of midterms.  Maybe I should propose that to IWCC.  I’ll color them a page from my coloring book and write my proposal on the back.  Genius.  I will let you know how that goes.
     I would like to take a moment in this public blog to let everyone know that the 53rd Annual Gem and Mineral Show is on October 4th and 5th from 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. on Saturday and 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. on Sunday.  It is at the Westside Community Center at 3534 South 108th St. in Omaha, NE.  According to the flyer I have been anxiously holding onto for about 5 months, there will be special displays and exhibits, dealers from six states (!), local artists making glass beads and jewelry, a raffle for a cool amethyst cathedral, and you can learn how to polish stones and make arrowheads!  How cool does that sound?  And let me say that I am in no way affiliated with official advertising of this show, I just am really, really excited about it.  I am more of an advertising agent of nature; letting people know about cool things that Mother Nature puts out there for us to experience.  She pays me in good sights, sounds, smells, etc.  And sometimes she lets me stumble upon super sweet rocks that I can put into my ever-growing collection.  Also, speaking on Mother Nature’s behalf, there will be a meteor shower, the Draconids, from October 6th through October 10th, peaking on the 7th or 8th.  The Draconids, spawning from the Giacobini-Zinner comet, can be seen in the northern evening sky.  They will come from a point that almost coincides with the constellation Draco the Dragon.  From njnightsky.com, “This shower is a real oddity, in the respect that its radiant point is highest in the sky as darkness falls. The shower is definitely a sleeper, producing only a handful of languid meteors per hour in most years. But watch out if the dragon awakes! On occasion, fiery Draco has been known to spew forth hundreds – if not thousands – of meteors in a single hour. Since the moon is at first quarter this year during the shower’s peak, this hard-to-predict shower is worth checking out. Unlike most meteor showers, more meteors are likely to fly in the evening than the morning hours after midnight.”  So, everyone, cross your fingers for clear skies and keep an eye out!