Chaplin, Sombrero and Turnips

Hey there..

Today I ran out of clothes.. So the choice was simple; buy new ones, or wash the old ones. I chose the latter. For some reason I felt the urge to wash them in the backyard, and that is exactly what I did. I scrubbed out and sanitized a recycling bin, and filled it with detergent, fabric softener and my clothes.. It seemed to go well.

Later, I made some music by downloading some free software. Using a microphone, a mandolin and a guitar, I wrote and composed a little ditty. I strummed out a chord progression on my guitar and played the melody on mandolin, before laying in 4 harmony tracks in different octaves.. I think it sounds really decent, but I unfortunately damaged it irreparably by using some cheap effects that came with the software. It still sounds beautiful, albeit the kind of beauty that is not marred, but improved by imperfection.

Tomorrow, I am going to go over to KSC to meet with the head grounds keeper, in order to apply for a job with them this fall. I am doing this because I may not be able to be a dishwasher once school starts, as one of the reasons that I was hired to my current position was that I am currently able to work erratic shifts. However, once school starts this talent must be pushed aside to make room for my educational development.

Speaking of education, I have had some.. "What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul." Indeed.. What block of marble would be complete without a soul? I like this quote, not because I have an uncontrollable quote fetish, but because it also points (at least to me) to something that the purpose of education should never be.. The goal of the sculptor is not to change his raw material into something different; if it was, then he would not be a sculptor but an alchemist. In education, educators should not attempt to change who their students are, i.e. sculpting them into who they would like them to be, with only the knowledge and world view that it is thought they should have.. If our public educators did this, then they would not be educators, but indoctrinators.

Today I took part in a political phone survey.. I have always wanted to. I started the interview in my normal voice, which went on for about two minutes.. I then switched over to by best Irish, finishing with a not so believable Mexican. The interviewer seemed confused, and after each voice change asked if she was still speaking with me, to which I answered that I should hope so. As for the questions themselves, I messed with my poor interviewer even more. I told them that since 1989, I had voted straight republican, also telling them that I was in fact a lifelong democrat. When we got to the questions that start with "On a scale of 0 to 100" , I answered 99.5 to everything.. I had a very good time.. Simple things please simple minds.