Curiosity Journal: August 30, 2012

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.

Care to join me?

Last week I launched two books that seem interesting: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains and Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine. Just as I sank in the third and fourth chapters of each book, writing class started and I committed to grading 14 papers within 36 hours. So the books were set aside as I read paper after paper after paper.

The first assignment for the class: write a narrative essay about a moment or event in life that represented a moment of change. The change could be dramatic and life-altering or small and subtle.

Monday evening, the papers rolled in. What variety! Stories ranged from such tragedies as ruined honey buns and failed swim tests to crashed cars, broken arms and bloody head wounds. Others told of successes such as traveling to a foreign country and conquering a fear of roller coasters.

I pulled it off, by the way. I typed up detailed recommendations for 14 papers ranging in length from two to seven double-spaced pages.

This week the students will revise their narratives and turn in the final copy. Even though young writers initially question and resist revision, they eventually appreciate what that editing stage produces: cleaner, clearer, stronger stories.

As much as I would love to return to my books, I must brace myself to read and review the next round of papers.

Learning

Two weeks ago I experimented with a plugin on my self-hosted WordPress blog. Unfortunately, I hadn’t updated WordPress and the plugin was incompatible with the old version of WordPress. The result of this pairing?

“Fatal error.”

I was locked out of the dashboard and presented with this ominous message. The blog itself looked fine to visitors, who could continue to read my existing posts and leave comments, but the dashboard was inaccessible. I couldn’t publish anything new. I couldn’t apologize, explain the situation, or most important of all—I couldn’t get in to fix the problem.

I was stuck.

It seems I know just enough WordPress to cause problems that I can’t solve on my own.

Enter EmmanuelPress.

Chris Cree launched EmmanuelPress to provide ministry-oriented organizations and individuals with WordPress sites running on the Genesis Framework. These flexible themes include a robust SEO package to increase visibility on the Web, which is important for ministries to consider as they reach out to communicate with people all over this big, wide world.

By slipping annkroeker. writer. under the EmmanuelPress umbrella, I not only benefit from the functionality EmmanuelPress offers but I’m also protected from…well, myself. That is, I can trust that everything is up-to-date while accessing plenty of safe, effective, and compatible plugins.

I learned my lesson. While I love to tinker with technology, some things are best left to experts. I’m leaving my behind-the-scenes support in the capable hands of EmmanuelPress so that I can get back to what I do best…um…whatever that is. Storytelling, I suppose. And pointing you to helpful resources. And being silly. I’m not sure how ministry-oriented that is. Chris, bless his heart, knows my love for the Lord and trusts I’ll impact the Kingdom…somehow.

Playing

Somebody celebrated a birthday today.

Eleven years old.

And he made his own cupcakes. “Because it’s fun,” he said. And a guy should do as many fun things as possible on his birthday, right?

His eldest sister handled icing, sprinkles, and candles.

Next-eldest sister serenaded him by employing her recently acquired picking skills on the guitar.

Third-eldest sister made him a Pokemon Oshawott.

I don’t know precisely what this Pokemon creature does, but my son recognized it immediately and hugged it close.

Reacting

A friend of mine crochets rag rugs out of long strips of fabric torn from old dresses, tablecloths, curtains, blouses, skirts and sheets. She brought some out for show-and-tell one summer evening when we were finishing up dessert on their deck.

As she was stacking them up for us to examine, I spotted two rugs that stood out from the rest—two that seemed like a great fit with the style and colors of my house. She names each rug, so I pulled out “Sky Lark” and “OH Shucks!”, spreading them across my lap and running my hands over the thick, nubby texture.

Yes, these would work. The Belgian Wonder handed me some cash to pay her, and I came home with an oval rug for my kitchen, and a rectangular rug for our downstairs bathroom.

They wear well, wash well, and come with a lifetime guarantee, my friend said with a wink. These beauties fit in so well, they look like I custom-ordered them.

Writing

I don’t do much writing while teaching, but I have two assignments I’m working on.

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