The Closet Intellectual

Lunch break at the desk FTW!  

Seriously.

I'm not much of a people person {I'm introverted, but not even the remotest bit shy, if you know what I mean} & with all the meetings & panels we are having to attend today {& will have for the next week or so} I need a little quiet time in my lover-lee office to recoup.  So I shall eat my delish blueberry pomegranate trail mix crunch, sipping a diet red bull & texting my wonderful hubby  while doing a bit of web surfing & chatting with y'all.

Meetings are meetings.  Here they are relatively entertaining-- though today's are campus wide so they tend to be a bit stagier than I like.  This morning they threw pig footballs at us...

...so there is that.  Pig is an acronym for...for...oh hell, I don't remember.  I would say I wrote it down, but I'd be lying.  Besides, I really don't think cute acronyms are going to solve the problems in our education system.  Grumble grumble, rabble, rabble.  Relax,  I won't get started-- I'm sure you aren't interested in my ranting about the education system, so I'll save it for tomorrow lol .

Freshly re-fabbed desk picture frames & a mercifully empty to do clothespin.  And a lucky piggie.  Ahha another pig!  The swine are destined to dominate my life this semester.  At least they are considered lucky.  A picture frame how to will be posted next week.  From left to right:  Thing 3, Thing 2, Thing 1, hubby & me kissing said hubby~*

One corner of my office with Thing 3's umbrella hanging rather lonely-like off my empty coat rack.  Am I sufficiently professorial?

In a few minutes I have to run out to my car to grab my quietly charging kindle fire, which I wore out during the last set of meetings, and plug in my phone, which is on its last battery bar.  

My educational focus is on civil disobedience in American history, remember?

 

On the left of the photo are some are pieces students have done for me.  The small canvas & sketch, which you can't really see...hold on...

...were done for me by a student I had in both history & humanities, who has since graduated & is currently teaching art.  He's planning on travelling in to South America to teach there for a while...he'll be a great ambassador for our country.

The bottom poster...

...was done by another student for an assignment in HUM2020 Honors {humanities since the renaissance for smart people}.  Her interpretation was so clever I asked if I can keep it.  The assignment was to pick or create a piece of art & a piece of music that she felt summed up America's current mood {the whole class focuses on how art & eventually music became a bell weather for what a country is going through at the time...I'm not explaining it very well, but I don't want to copy & paste the assignment for you, so you'll just have to trust me that its cool}then write a 5 page paper explaining the choice.  Anyway.  She went to the major new sites of each state, printed up a picture of the headline story & cut it out in the shape of that state. The writing says Divided on top & Yet United on the bottom.  Clever monkey.  Great student.  She got an A.

The large framed piece is a poster of a painting hanging at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I got it when my mom & I went to the museum, but here's one that is available online {if you too love the 1st amendment}.

Its the American flag with the 1st amendment written out & the names of all the groups that have been protected by it, for better or worse, over our history...

Its my most favoritest amendment~*

You know, a lot of people are flinging around the saying "freedom isn't free" lately, & yet they seem to have no understanding of what freedom really is.  I know that saying is meant to honor the men & women in the armed forces {& justly so}, but the people saying it aren't generally making any sacrifices on behalf of freedom.  Freedom means Freedom.

free·dom

   [free-duhm]  Show IPA

noun

1.

the state of being free  or at liberty rather than inconfinement or under physical restraint

2.

exemption from external control, interference, regulation,etc.

3.

the power to determine action without restraint.

4.

political or national independence.

5.

personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery

You know.  FREEDOM.  In American history, it is definitions 2 & 3 that are most apropos.  Yet we Americans seem to spend a great deal of effort trying to take away freedom from other Americans while protecting it for ourselves.

The bit of freedom not being free is true-- but the price most of us pay is not physical.  Rather, our dues are paid by having to accept & live in the same country with people that do not share, agree with or even like our religion/ideology/politics/philosophy/hair color/whatever, & in allowing & defending such people's freedom to disagree with us.  A price a stunning amount of Americans are seemingly unwilling to pay.

Freedom means the right to disagree &, so long as my disagreement does not physically offend your own right to the same, be protected in that disagreement

Sigh.  I ended up ranting anyway.  Ah well, the best laid plans...

Its almost time to get back to the meetings.  Not so much wandering the web today as wandering my office...but here are a few links anyway!

1.  I want an owston's civet, you?

2.  Stockholm does a subway the right way.

3.  Daisies are my favorite, but tulips run a close second.

Looking forward to getting home tonight to surf your blogs & see what you've been up to!