Archive for February, 2007

A recent study at Vienna’s Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Urban Ethology is showing that women send mixed signals! Are you serious? This is crazy! Who comes up with this stuff? The article at Psychology Today describes how a man and woman were paired under the pretense that they would be rating a video and were then left alone for a time. It was discovered (!) that women lead men on only to justify their first impressions. The observations and hypothesis were validated by a survey taken by the women after the encounter asking them to rate the attractiveness of the man and whether they would date them or not.

Now stop winking at me!

Today was the due date for Honors Contracts at my college. I ALMOST forgot about them. Luckily I foresaw this problem and printed off several copies of the contract and placed it into every class folder I have so it would constantly be in my face. Long story short I have a contract for Public Speaking and Religion and The Modern World. I have never done an Honors Class before but it seems simple enough, just extra work and a show of effort. I am motivated, I can do it. Below is the gist of the contracts.

Public Speaking:

• Extended Persuasive Speech (+15 mins)
• Required Q and A Session after Speech
• Book review on Aristotle’s Rhetoric contrasting between book’s lesson and semester’s lessons.
• At least 10 sources
• At least 1 in-person interview

Basically, my initial idea is that the speech will argue the importance and difference it makes in a student’s life to set goals and define a purpose as well as excelling at public speaking. There will actually be more than 1 interview. It would be nice to talk with various people about the difference setting or not setting purpose/goals has made in their lives. I will also incorporate the semester’s lessons into the speech. YAY. Additionally, I am toying with the idea of interaction and motivational style. In the Honors Program it is said that the project should benefit the class as a whole. What better way than to walk people through a short Purpose Workshop and Goal setting session?

Religion and the Modern World:

• Extra Speech about 10 – 15 minutes
• Included handouts
• Report (for instructor) covering, in more detail the speech’s topic
• At least 10 sources
• At least 1 in-person interview

For this one I am going to draw comparisons between Purpose (yes again), Somatics, Baby boomers and other religions. Obviously as the semester continues I will be able to define more thoroughly the similarities and differences. Personally I feel there are many more similarities than differences. This will be slightly interactive as well. I want the class to know more about how people’s lives change when they have worked past there life goal (Retirement), need to redefine their life, reshape their body, and the experiences and enlightenment they gain from it.

A video recording would be great to have, so if anyone wants to buy me a new video camera (one with an extended battery and hard drive instead of tapes/discs) I would be more than happy to record and send them a copy.

Adieu…

 

I said Good Day!

My HP Scanjet 5200C doesn’t work with Vista, I cannot even ‘trick’ it into working. Argh. I almost had the same problem with my HP Deskjet 3320 printer but HP had a how-to fix on that. I guess I am in the market for an all in one at last. I guess in the end it will be okay. The scanner takes up a lot of real estate and the printer has its own little table, it will be nice to combine the two…when I get the next one. Anyone want to donate an All-in-one to my school work?