Studebaker workers voting under the bleachers of a stadium in South Bend, IN circa 1950-1960. I’m a sucker for performing important civic duties…..and black and white photography. So I decided to craft this impromptu voting poster today with the help of the United States Library of Congress and their awesome digital collection. While I really don’t have much to say this morning beyond the trite "go, vote" mantra that even the least engaged citizen can accomplish, I wanted to point out that the LoC has a fantastic collection of images, legislation, websites, audio, video, and more! If you happen to be in the patriotic mood, go help yourself to one of their "voting images" from the photo, print, and drawing category (most of them are public domain, or available under free use exemption), load it up in an image editor of choice, and have your students create some propaganda for the simplest civic duty any of us can perform. I particularly enjoyed shifting through the LoC archives for a few minutes, to see see examples of political advertisements and images from a wide range of U.S. history, including the image above, which was taken not too far from where I live, about 30 minutes away in South Bend, IN. It’s a simple way to knock out a few technology standards in the K-12 arena, a brief exploration of historical imagery related to Civics standards, or a simple ds106 Visual Assignment in a pinch. Don’t live in the U.S. or want to explore other historical media from other nations? Check out the list below! Library & Archives Canada - http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/index-e.html Europeana - European Cultural Archives - http://www.europeana.eu/portal/ National Archives of Australia - http://www.naa.gov.au/ National Diet Library (Japan) - http://www.ndl.go.jp/ The MOTHERLODE - Links to Major National Libraries of the World - http://www.publiclibraries.com/world.htm

I’ve had a LOT of traffic on a Google Document that I created last year while exploring the Common Core State Standards. At the time I created it I was looking for a way to impress upon the teachers in my district that technology standards are now for the first time being embedded within the content standards (at least here in Michigan). Previously, the technology standards were published by the state separately from the core content areas, which created a convenient excuse for many teachers to basically say "well, they aren’t my concern, because they aren’t in my standards." Walking carefully away from that statement (which I know is far over-generalized), I wanted a positive way to show the teachers I work with where technology is being asked to be integrated within their instructional practice. For better or worse, all educators at the K-12 level are now responsible for ensuring that technological tools, student publishing and collaboration via the web, and many other technology-based instructional practices happen within every classroom. I decided to start by pulling every single Common Core Standard related to technology (including the College Readiness and ELA in Science, History, and Technical Subjects standards) from the 180+ pages of the Common Core that have been published. You can find the link to those below, but what was more fun was taking a bird’s eye view of the Common Core standards using Wordle, which I posted last school year. I present them again below without any markup or annotations. High Frequency Words in the Common Core State Standards High frequency words within the Common Core State Standards High Frequency Words in the Common Core State Standards related to Technology High frequency words in the Common Core State Standards related to Technology While this is certainly not a definitive look at how we should be using technology throughout our instructional practice, it is interesting to note that the words "produce, publish, writing, and collaboration" are quite prominent in the Common Core standards related to technology. This could suggest the shift towards a growing acceptance that students should be narrating and sharing their learning with forms of media beyond just pencil and paper. The internet, computing devices (including graphing calculators and other technological aides), and various forms of collaborative software are now being expected to be a regular part of a teacher’s "toolbox" for instructional activities. For the production and distribution of writing alone, every level of K-12 is mandated by the College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards to do the following: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others. That one simple line is listed for both the K-5 and the 6-12 levels, and is one of the most straight forward guidelines for what teachers should be doing, as a bare minimum, with student writing. More specific requirements of that standard are repeated in the Writing Standards for each grade level starting in grade 3, as well as the Writing standards for Literacy in History, Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects at the 6-12 levels. I won’t even get started with all of the technology related standards found deeply embedded within the Math standards. It’s not about just using technology and the internet as a resource anymore, it’s about adapting, infusing, and transforming instructional practice at every grade level to acknowledge that digital tools and the internet are here to stay as an integral part of student learning. If you’d like to explore the list of technology related standards in the Common Core documents, feel free to click the link below to view the Google Document I created, and please share with others! Click here for Every Common Core Standard Related to Technology

I’m not sure why I’m even posting this. Maybe because it’s 3:00 on a Friday afternoon, I’ve spent a good portion of this week running around doing "lunch and learns", mini-workshops, planning for and leading the district technology leadership meeting, cleaning up lots of Google Docs, setting up some WordPress sites, helping run a community learning night, and managing to keep myself relatively sane thanks for copious amounts of caffeinated beverages. You can blame me for posting the following videos on the fact that my brain is mush, or praise the teachers in them for being courageous enough to do the videos. I leave that call up to you. I hope you enjoyed your Friday. The following video was the first teacher version of Friday, which is more or less the teacher’s just having fun doing a lip dub. Curious about the teacher holding the baby while sitting in the driver’s seat.   The first actual parody I found that changes up the lyrics for the song AND makes fun of a lot of things that I’ve experienced in our school; mysteriously cold or warm rooms, fountains at odd heights, and teachers looking rather awkward dressing up like their students.   One music teacher’s rather humorous parody of Friday, including confetti, jump ropes, and vacuum cleaners!   Last, but not least, this one is probably my favorite of the bunch. Just about as closely accurate to the actual video as you can get (sets, camera angles, etc.), it also has some great "hand dolphin" out the car window. My favorite part? They call their professional development "Pro-D" day. I’ve never heard that one before, it struck me as rather odd, not sure why.

In my constant effort to try new interventions and create flexible spaces and times with which to meet with teachers and introduce new or changing technology tools, I’ve been trying out "Lunch and Learns" for the first time this year. Andy Losik, a fellow instructional technologist in Michigan, has been doing lunch and learns this year with his staff in Hamilton Schools, and after reading a few of his blog posts about his experiences, I felt encouraged to try a few of my own. As of today I’ve held 3 of these lunch time meetings across our school’s campus, and I felt as though I needed to get a few thoughts out now to make them better for next month. nom, nom, nom…sandwich! What I’m Trying to Do The idea and need for the lunch and learn is simple enough. Teacher’s time is precious, and it seems like every professional development (PD) hour is filled with looking at assessment data, restructuring curriculum guides, Common Core discussion, a bit of technology, and a whole heap of others topics. Far too often there are tiny little "tech tools" that undergo changes, or introduce new features that don’t warrant the same priority during PD days that a serious look at Common Core crosswalks and data from student assessments merit. I mean, let’s face it, we don’t need to slice out PD time to discuss every single time Google changes the icons and layout for Docs or Gmail (which seems to happen more frequently than you would think). However, the change over that Google made from the basic "Docs" app to "Drive" is big enough, and brings about enough changes that I felt like I should offer something for my staff other than just the occasional "calls for help" or videos. So I setup a small list of goals for myself with this first set of lunch and learn gatherings: No more than 20 minutes (keep it simple) Introduce new features or tools in a way that’s not "mission critical" and warrants a full PD session or workshop Show teachers how the tool can be leveraged in their instructional practice, not just what it does Make it completely optional and obligation free so people don’t feel compelled to attend, and those that do will (hopefully) value the time Make it casual and comfortable (hence during a lunch period) I tried to apply this to the big change that Google has made to their cloud based document and file storage system (Google Drive), as most of the changes it has made won’t really affect those in my district using it; for most they’re fine knowing that clicking on Drive means essentially the same as Docs used to. They can continue to create & share documents, create folders (previously known as collections), and keep working the way they have grown accustomed to. However, by taking just a short time (say, 20 minutes during lunch), I thought I could interest some of the "power users" in my district that quite often serve as either go to people in their buildings and cheerleaders for spreading tech use throughout the district. I even made a humorous "scary" movie trailer to try and entice people to come that might be curious….at least I hope it’s humorous. My Thoughts on Lunch & Learn Thus Far As I said earlier, I’ve done 3 lunch & learn sessions in three of the four buildings on my campus. I’ll have to wait until after Thanksgiving to get to the High School, so I might have more to reflect on once I’m done. However, I thought I had enough to reflect about, so I’m putting fingers to keys and pounding out this quick reflection. Plan AROUND conferences - A lot of people warned me about planning lunch and learns during conference season. Not wanting to wait until December to start them, I pushed through and scheduled them anyways during conference weeks. My experience as a former "specials" teacher obviously gave me a skewed perspective of what conference prep means, as I rarely had to prepare (I would average a dozen or so visitors during conferences in a school of 900 students). Lesson learned, stay away from conference week. Fridays aren’t always the best day of the week - I choose to hold these lunch and learns on Fridays because I thought it might be the most relaxing and casual day of the week, and teachers might feel relaxed and ready to just chat about something simple. Fridays in our schools are "casual dress" days, and most teachers are doing end of unit or chapter assessments if they can. Turns out, in at least one of the buildings, the grade levels have this nice ritual of "lunch time" together where they can all chat about the week and connect if they weren’t able to earlier in the week. I knew that this happened, but I gambled that they might be willing to have that same casual connection with me present talking about some tech stuff. It didn’t happen, so lesson learned, other days of the week are a go for next time. Providing examples of integration into instructional practice is great! - One of the things that has gone well was my inclusion of a few examples of how other teachers in the district are using Google Docs or plan to use Drive. Teachers getting to see what’s happening in other classrooms, grade level, and buildings is a huge motivator for them to try new tools and ideas for themselves. They see that they might not be the first to try, and are more willing to experiment knowing others have had some success. That, and it was great to actively develop new ideas on using Google Drive as we were talking about it! One 4th grade teacher was excited about students creating shared "Writing Portfolio" folders that students could drag and drop exemplary work into from their Google accounts throughout the year. Making the gatherings optional and "come if you can" has paid off in spades! - While I’m certainly not connecting with a large number of teachers (less than a dozen in each building), the casual conversations I’m having with the teachers that attend goes a long way in developing and strengthening my relationships with them. I used to work alongside many of them and have existing relationships, but many I am still trying to "figure out" and connect with on a professional level, so this has been a great way to have conversations in a very informal and comfortable setting; their own classroom. As I said before, I’m sure I’ll have a bit more to add when I’m done with my first full round of lunch and learn sessions, and on the whole I’m glad that I’ve started this. It makes me wonder what other people in my position are doing to build connections and relationships with their colleagues as they try to work in some of the smaller "bits and pieces" of technology tools without the need for full blown workshops and professional development sessions. image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nuskyn/4462573611/

It’s only 2 days until one of my most beloved holidays here in the United States, Thanksgiving. A day for families far flung around the country or close-knit to come together and be thankful for all that we are be blessed to have. Whether you’re thankful for your family, a roof over your head, a car that gets you to work in one piece, or perhaps something as simple as a pen and paper to journal your thoughts, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to thank both the extraordinary and mundane. While I’m thankful for many things is my own life, I didn’t want to drone on in length about the "Thanks" that I have to give, so instead I created a short assignment that any teacher (or parent) could give their students and children as a quick way to reflect, share, and comment on what we all have to be thankful for. I’m not nearly as green as this in real life, but I’m thankful that I have the time and tools to be creative in small bursts throughout the day. I’m going to call it, "10 Seconds of Thanks!" And the rules are simple, straightforward, with one big requirement, your efforts must be shared online in some way, shape or form. If you’d like to play along or have your students complete the assignment, please feel free to link back here so I can comment and share with others! 10 Seconds of Thanks! Using a timer, write what you’re thankful for in just 10 seconds! Anything and everything that you can think of being thankful for is fair game, but stop at 10 seconds. Share what you’ve written on a blog, wiki, or some other digital space that others can comment on. Bonus! Complete a 10 second drawing of yourself to accompany your writing, inspired by the November 19th, 2012 Daily Create. Besides, being simple & quick, it’s relatively low-tech in application; you could easily do the assignment in a single shared Google Doc, or post some thoughts to Corkboard Me to produce a nice collection of thanks from your entire class. The real payout though comes in the conversation, collaboration, and potential for creative writing either directly afterwards or when you return from Thanksgiving break (if you and your students are in the U.S. that is). You could use the simple short writings as prompts for students to compare their "Thanksgivings" with someone else in class, or even start a small persuasive piece on what the most important items to give thanks should be and why based on your community of learner’s own answers. So here goes! I’ve already completed my 10 second drawing above, but here’s my "10 seconds of thanks!" "I’m thankful that I have the time and tool to be creative in small bursts throughout the day." That’s it! Simple right? I suppose it isn’t terribly inspiring or well thought out, but I enjoyed putting the small activity together. This should be no small thanks to ds106, the students and staff at my school walking through the halls today smiling as they wished everyone a "Happy Thanksgiving", and the digital tools that I have to be able to create, publish, and share my ideas in less time than it takes to accomplish "bus duty" at the end of each day.

As seen on TV, Peter Coyote has one of those unmistakable voices, most recently heard narrating the excellent Dustbowl documentary on PBS. Where I didn’t expect to hear his voice, but am glad that I did, was narrating one of several of Edutopia’s videos about Assessment. I’m not sure Peter Coyote’s voice can calm hurricanes, but I’m pretty sure it could soothe a room full of cranky retirement home residents. I was actually assigned to watch the video as a part of a course I’m taking about blended learning environments, and besides making the totally meme-worthy image above, I couldn’t help but compare it to another video that I had watched from earlier in the module about assessment in a blended learning environment. While there are countless resources, media artifacts, and website to point to for a brief look at the differences between Formative Assessment and performance-based Comprehensive Assessment, The juxtaposition of the two piece of media I was given to watch struck me as oddly humorous. For a quick overview of what Formative Assessment can be we were given an example of a teacher-created Photostory (yes, some districts still use it on aging Windows XP machines, including our district) that uses Comic Sans quite prominently. You can view it below, or on YouTube. Gotta love that awesome Photostory synth music, eh? Now transition from that overview of Formative Assessment to the much more polished video taking a look at Comprehensive Assessment (it’s professionally produced by Edutopia and has a very "PBS/NPR" feel to it). Besides the fact that the Comprehensive Assessment video includes many teacher and student voices, including footage taken from an actual classroom, the soothing voice over narration by Peter Coyote means you could gladly listen to the short 3 and a half minute video for easily 60 minutes or more on loop play. Where am I going with all this, besides an unabashed willingness to purchase anything Peter Coyote wants to sell me? Just highlighting a moment of dissonance that I experienced this weekend while trying to better myself and the way I practice my craft. Maybe there’s something deeper too….the "straw man" that Comic Sans has become and represents in the educational world can be easily overlooked and dismissed in favor of more polished productions despite the importance that of both the forms of assessment that these videos offer a glimpse of. image credit: Aspen Ideas Festival -  http://www.aspenideas.org/sites/default/files/pictures/people/Peter_Coyote.jpeg

Regular perusal of my blog feeds has long since gone by the wayside as I juggle the responsibilities of the quasi teacher/coordinator possession I hold at work, the demands of  fatherhood, and still trying to hold onto a few tattered shreds of what used to be my social life both with friends and my wife. Not all is lost though! I did manage to read a book for professional benefit thanks to a great group of educators, and just today I found myself with a few minutes during lunch, reading through some back posts on Brian Bennet’s blog. I was drawn to his most recent post about the "Point of Learning", and found myself both in agreement with his thoughts, with a few caveats of my own to sharpen some of the details. Not entirely sure that this is anatomically correct…I only minored in general Science. Brian is having a rough year. He’s teaching in an urban independent school in South Bend, IN. Having grown up less than 45 minutes away from South Bend, and having had former colleagues in both the traditional public schools and charter schools there, I understand a little bit of what a struggle it can be to work with students who are coming from a questionable background of home support. Compound that further with high school-age students that have gone through many years of traditional "schooling" in which they’ve learned how to effectively shut down with three simple words, "I don’t know", and you’ve got a recipe for any teacher to have a rough year. Brian ponders if whether it’s just his students’ way of resignedly letting him know that they really don’t care about thinking too critically, but don’t want to just come out and say it. Which gets him to the point of the blog post, in which he postulates that the "point" of learning, regardless of content area or age level, is to establish a careful balance of pushing and supporting. From Brian’s original post: I think the point of learning is when students feel challenged and supported at the same time. This balance comes from every teacher, administrator, and student in the building working toward the same goal. The point of learning is the hardest part of school because it is in an educational "sweet spot" where everything is working together the way it is meant to. Without coming right out and saying it, he’s talking about finding that Zone of Proximal Development in which students can achieve new learning, understanding, and accomplishments, but only with the help and guidance of another, in this case the teacher. There are many tools and techniques that educators use to help discover and establish a learner’s ZPD, but short of an entire dissertation about how to find it, it’s probably best to start by simply getting to know what makes your students "tick". Which is where my thoughts on the point of learning would sharpen down to a narrower point than the one Brian makes. For me, the point of learning is to figure out who your learners are as individuals; what they’re passionate about, what irritates them, how far you can push them or joke with them, and what brings them back to "normal" after a meltdown in which a student destroys a classroom as he tries to "calm down" (it’s happened to me, it wasn’t pretty). Before I could even attempt to connect with learners’ needs through assessments, collaborative peer work, or the arrangement of my instructional space, I need to attempt to connect with them as individuals. Maybe it’s some latent life lesson learned while being the often over-looked "nerdy kid" that never really learned how to make friends and connect with a wide range of individuals, but the point of learning for me is to identify with my learners on a level that lets me figure out what makes them tick as a person first, and a learner second. It’s really not that different from what Brian was getting at, just slightly off from the mark he made. image credits: School, by Elizabeth Albert - http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizabeth_albert/4998473663/ Gears Icon by Dima Yagnyuk, from The Noun Project - http://thenounproject.com/noun/gears/#icon-No2174  

For anyone who may be in their mid 20s to late 30s, and grew up watching PBS, the following remixed and auto-tuned video may bring on sudden waves of nostalgia. Please be advised that those under the age of 12 may exhibit signs of confusion. Please ignore them, and then share how amazing Reading Rainbow was with them! But wait, there’s more! Although Reading Rainbow went off the air in 2006, Levar Burton has managed to revive the essence of the show in an app for iPads, and it’s free!! Read books by yourself or with a narrator, play games, or watch special videos exploring the world with Levar Burton! There’s really a lot of great stuff in the app, but this is a much different model than what you would expect from the old PBS television show. While the show was free (tax payer funded, and free for actual consumption as long as you have a TV and an antenna), this new app has an in-app subscription service built in. In other words, like many other "free to play" apps, you get the basics (and one free book), but in order to "check out" more books and get access to more features it’s either $9.99 a month or $29.99 for 6 months. Levar Burton has to make a living somehow, right? You can have multiple children’s accounts in the app though, so one subscription is good for unlimited books for every user of the device….which is kind of nice. Oh, and if you aren’t already, you most definitely should be subscribed to the PBS Digital Studios Channel on YouTube. They have a small, yet growing collection of other great classic PBS shows remixed, and while you’re there, go blow your mind with the awesome PBS Ideas Channel!

Public educators in Michigan have been under an extreme amount of pressure and stress lately. Our state legislature is getting ready to completely overhaul the funding model of public education, create a state-wide school district that is untethered from meeting assessment standards should the Governor choose, and then this happened earlier today. I’m not going to go into more detail (for now) and debate where I stand on any of these issues. The unfortunate reality is that what I feel is good or bad in all of this news is moot; elected officials making these changes are in the majority, and pointing out positive or negative highlights in any of the legislation isn’t what’s going on right now in our state. In fact, just about the only thing happening in our state right now is both sides pointing fingers at each other and trying to both yell the same thing simultaneously, "I’m right, you’re wrong!". So in the spirit of trying to briefly lift the spirits of people that might be weary on either side of the debacle debate, you should take a moment and just enjoy the following Youtube clip. It’s one of just many in a series subtitled (Kids Tell, Adults Act), a hilarious premise for short skits in which children’s conversations are over-acted and made gloriously funny by adult actors. Enjoy, and if this didn’t make you smile, I’m sorry, I’m not sure what will today. It worked for me! P.S. Special thanks to Derek Braman for sharing this with the #michED people last night.

It’s back….from the archives of blogs posts long lost! From the farthest reaches of the internet, comes….."My Animated GIF Day!" Poor setup, I know, but for those who didn’t see the original animated GIF day post back in February, I’ll be telling the story of my day through animated GIFs all day long, so feel free to leave a browser tab open to this post to follow along with my day using that most meme-worthy of digital storytelling devices, the animated GIF.   My son, the YouTube junkie, getting his fix at 5:15 in the morning. 5:15 am My son, like my daughter and myself, is an early riser. While this makes for some unpleasantness when certain people want to sleep in at our house, it also means that if he’s quick enough, my son can run into our bedroom in the wee hours of the morning, snatch my wife’s iPhone from the bedside table, and manage to sneak in a few minutes of his current obsession; watching home-made Thomas the Tank Engine videos on YouTube. We usually don’t let it go on for too long, but some mornings he can get in a good 15-20 minutes of watching before either my wife or I are awake and aware of what’s happening.   My daughter, bless her heart, would gladly spend all day reading if she had a stack of books large enough. 5:44 am My daughter has grown into a love of reading, much like her mother. While I used to "pretend" to be a reader, I was never as enthralled with books as much as this little one. After finding her brother obsessing over the exploits of Thomas, I found my daughter re-reading (for the 4th time) one of her "Faerie" books. I could easily spend the entire morning reading with her tucked under some comfy blankets, with the smell of fresh pine from the Christmas tree permeating the house.   Scrambled eggs for breakfast, yum! 6:34 am I made scrambled eggs and sausage this morning for the family. Usually my wife makes us something special for breakfast at the end of the week (she doesn’t have to work on Fridays), but I took the opportunity of being up early to get started on breakfast for her. Kindly ignore the faded blue tile and grungy-grout countertop. It was in the house when we bought it, and would cost somewhere between "new countertops cost how much?!" and  "ha, we wish we had that much money to spend on remodeling!"   Some criticize me for the amount of cream I drink in my coffee. I typically criticize them for the amount of coffee they drink in their cream. 8:28 am Morning coffee. It’s a ritual, an addiction, and a nice quiet time of the morning for me to collect my thoughts and chat with our System Administrator who happens to sit on the other side of the wall behind the coffe maker.   Forget iPads, we’re going retro cool with iPod Touches…refurbished to boot! 9:05 am After reading and responding to a number of morning emails, I helped our System Administrator get some new iPods destined for our Early Elementary school ready. We had to asset tag them with barcode stickers, put some screen protectors on them, get them snuggled into their new silicone cases, and then make sure they were good to go. We purchased older refurbished 4th generation iPod Touches rather than splurge on new ones, so there’s always that feeling of "are we sure they’re going to be ok?" They will very shortly be used as modern listening centers, replacing old CD/tape units in classrooms. We have some enterprising teachers turning their analog audio into digital formats (with publisher permission) so multiple students can listen at once with a listening station, and then repurpose the iPods for classroom use the rest of the day.   Warning, rapid scrolling may lead to "repetitive stress injuries" for your pointer finger. 10:03 am I left a comment on a particularly well written, and even better visualized, recap of a presentation that Tom Woodward presented recently at the annual Virginia Society for Technology in Education conference. Tom and I go way back to 2005, although curiously we’ve never met in person. If I recall correctly, we were both teaching in 1:1 environments  he in Henrico County, Virginia and me in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He may have been drawn to the community that I once tried to foster and facilitate on my site through a connected forum, and I was certainly drawn to his DIY ethos when it comes to education. I feel like Tom is probably the closest and dearest friend that I’ve ever made online, but have yet to actually meet (don’t worry Jim, you’re high on the list too). He’s a very thought provoking individual, and I’ve certainly taken more from his ideas and work in education than just about any other colleague that I work with.   Mixed nuts….the snack of champions…..and squirrels. 11:34 am Most days I spend this time eating lunch, but today I got busy finishing up a number of smaller tasks from earlier in the week. I helped out with a few tech issues, answered some email, worked on a grant amendment, and journeyed down into the "dungeon", the old locker rooms underneath the bleachers in what used to be the High School. We use it as a central store house for technology past its prime, or waiting to go into service. When I don’t have time to eat, I snack….healthy of course, for the most part. I keep this tin of mixed nuts by my desk for when I feel the munchies, but know I shouldn’t be wandering down to the donuts that I know are in the teacher’s lounge, or the chocolates in central office.   F3, F3, F3, F3, F3, F3……. 12:47 pm After lunch I started to really dig into the grant amendments that I had been tasked with earlier in the day. While a large part of my job is helping teachers with technology, leading professional development workshops, and troubleshoot minor problems, I spend a good portion of my Fridays doing administrative work. This afternoon I’ve been reworking elements of previous grant applications and expenditures into an amendment for our school’s current consolidated grant application. I don’t have a decent workflow for this yet, as disparate leaders in our district share through various ways (email, Google Docs, print out, etc.). I’m grateful for F3 on my mac though, as Expose helps me make sense of it all.   as the world turns…. 2:14 pm There are some afternoons at work when it’s so quiet in the office that if I were to get down on all fours and put my ear to the ground, I could almost hear the crust of the earth shifting beneath me, and the magma churning along deep within the mantle. I spent a lot of my afternoon piecing together the grant amendment that I mentioned before, walking around from building to building to talk to various parties and people involved with some of the projects and initiatives that we fund with the grant. I hate working in isolation and not including voices in work that will affect a good number of people, so I typically try to get a few conversations going as I work. Since my amendment isn’t due until the middle of next week, I started some small conversations now, and will finish up with those I couldn’t get a hold of next week. In the meantime, the world keeps spinning, as it always does.   Round and round they go! 6:28 pm After coming home and having dinner, our family headed out to the Tree Lighting Festival in our small town, walked through the brightly lit shops, and enjoyed hot chocolate, treats, and merriment. I love living in a small town, especially a small tourist town, because we get to reap the benefits of the extra "charm" and "down home cheerfulness" (if there is such a thing) that comes with living somewhere where everyone is trying to relax and enjoy themselves. These lights are easily 5 times as obnoxious in person. 7:49 pm The evening is just about over for a family with two young ones that have spent a very busy week filled with birthday parties (my youngest turned 3) and the excitement of having the house decorated for Christmas. My mother-in-law is visiting for the weekend, so we went down to the bluff above Lake Michigan to see all of the lights. While some find it beautiful, I find it rather obnoxious when every single tree is flickering spastically in rhythm with the sounds of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra being pumped over loud speakers through the park. When walking around with family though, it becomes quite pleasant, and I enjoyed the way the children laughed as they hid behind the trees and ran in circles around the giant lightbulb-covered snowflakes.