Curiosity Journal: April 25, 2012 - Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

Each Wednesday (or thereabouts) I’ve been recording a Curiosity Journal to recap the previous week using these tag words: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

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Reading

Still reading Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. I finished a chapter on memory and stopped halfway through a chapter on sleep. I set the book to one side and took a nap. Seriously, if you don’t feel free to take a nap while reading a chapter on the effect of sleep on the brain, when will you?If you’re interested in a summary of the entire book, Laura Boggess published a review at The High Calling this week.I’ve also been reading The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer (free Kindle version). He described how the worshipper moved closer and closer to the Presence of God in the Old Testament tabernacle, but remained separated from His Presence by the veil. That veil, however, was rent when Jesus “gave up the ghost on Calvary,” opening the way for every worshipper to come “by the new and living way straight into the divine Presence.” The following thought wasn’t new or clever; it was just so inviting, I wanted to share it:

Everything in the New Testament accords with this Old Testament picture. Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push on into His Presence and live our whole life there. (Location 319, 27%, Kindle edition)

Learning

Today I created a simple “texture” background for my blog. I thinks it looks like a closeup of a canvas; my husband thinks it looks like chain-mail. [Updated 4-28-12 to a more canvas-y looking texture.]

Playing

The Festival was so fun, it felt like three-and-a-half days of play.

Writing

I’m continuing to process information and inspiration from the Festival of Faith and Writing, reading through notes and other people’s summaries, working up plans for what to do next.Ideas are gestating.

Reacting

This week at our homeschool co-op, I was chatting with some of the moms in the kitchen where I’d plugged in my laptop to charge the battery. Before I realized what was happening, a young boy about 10 or 11 years old rushed into the kitchen and whipped out a long swab, hovering expectantly over my computer keyboard. “Do you mind?” he asked quickly, excitedly. “It’s for science class!””Uh, sure,” I replied, watching him swipe the fluffy white tip across the letters G, H, and J, and then slide it across the space bar. He plunged the swab back into its sterile plastic packaging and raced off.I was left standing at my computer, wondering how many times I sneeze or dribble cookie crumbs onto my keyboard. I thought of all those Dr. Oz, 20/20 and Oprah shows there they swabbed public telephones and door knobs and grew germs in petri dishes to discover bacteria, viruses and horrifying things like E.coli. I never clean my keyboard. What will they find?I thought about it all the way home. Finally, when I arrived at home, I wrote a note to the science teacher:

If something horrifying grows in the petri dish, can you accidentally destroy the evidence? We can call the scandal “Coop-gate.”Seriously, though, I couldn’t believe it when I saw vague things on the notecards saying, “stair rail,” “door handle,” and then there was one labeled: “Mrs. Kroeker’s computer.” Ack!

She made no promises to protect my dignity.We shall wait a week to find out what lives at my fingertips. She said her goal was to help them identify the dirtiest places in the building where we meet for our weekly co-op…in order to avoid them. “I’ll let you know about your computer,” she said.I can just picture the kids walking past the kitchen table where I grade papers, wrinkling their noses and shaking their heads in disgust, giving me a wide berth.

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