More New Things

New things this week:

• I had dinner with my brother, sister-in-law, and dad. 
• I had asparagus stuffed chicken for the first time. Yummy!
• Watched a BBC show called Top Gear, and learned that a Nissan pickup converted to an amphibious vehicle (correctly of course) can make it from England to France across the English Channel.
• While playing a game of Trivial Pursuit I learned that Ben and Jerry's retired flavors go to the Flavor Graveyard. I love that the cartouche on each gravestone has angel wings on the ice cream cone. My brother pointed that out to me. That still cracks me up. http://www.benjerry.com/fun/halloween/?fg=1  
• Chemistry:
• Well, I learned that I need a lower lever class right now, since I've forgotten so much. I don't know a covalent bond from a Sean Connery Bond. ;)
• Switched to Principles of Chemical Science.
• The first video lecture was an introduction of the professors. Both are women, which makes me happy. 
• Calculus:
• I learned that I can take 3 pages of notes and still not understand what he was writing on the blackboard. :)
• I'll have to do some background reading on polynomials brush up on Algebra III.
• I was reading the lecture notes for the chemistry class and they mentioned rules and policies regarding 'clicker use'. I had no idea what they were talking about. The first thing that came to mind was those noise making clickers that some dog trainers use. I knew that couldn't be right. So I found out that many colleges are using 'clickers' to encourage interaction in classrooms. Village Voice wrote an article about clickers last year.  http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-01-05/news/the-rise-of-clickers-is-starting-to-change-how-college-professors-run-their-classrooms/2/
• Oooo! And, I learned how to turn off the 'Sidebar' and the 'Ticker' on Facebook. Woohoo! 





To make the ticker go away. Click the icon (circled in purple in this picture) on your Facebook page. 



To make the sidebar go away. Click the icon (circled in pink in this picture) on your Facebook page. 

Not A bad job for my first week of learning new things. :D

Oh! Also, I learned that Google Chrome's built-in spell checker, is kind of lacking. It didn't recognize 'cartouche' or 'covalent' and I double checked them on Dictionary.com. 

New Things

I lack discipline. Let me clarify. I lack discipline when it comes to doing things for my own benefit. I can focus on a project and be so organized and driven you'd think I was powered by Duracell when that project involves other people. But I can always find an excuse to put off doing something for myself. Soooo I'm challenging myself to learn, learn about, or do at least one new thing each week and write about it here.

To start off I've selected a new theme for my blog. The raspberry colored theme I used previously was evidently the same theme chosen by a friend for her blog. Oops. Great minds, right? :) But that' s not the real reason. Now I have one of my paintings as the background and that makes me smile. Now on to things I've learned.

This past month there has been an image going around Facebook regarding the Girl Scouts. The image looked like a news bulletin with a broken Trefoil cookie as the logo. It listed several reasons why Girl Scouts should not be supported. Each of which made me want to support them all the more. However I don't take things at Facebook value without digging a little deeper. At the same time I saw a friend from high school posting about her daughter joining American Heritage Girls. So then I start wondering about this other group? I looked up the websites for both organizations and did a little research. Now I know more about both.

Girl Scouts

American Heritage Girls

In researching I found a link to another (non-scouting) organization called The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.

Lastly I went looking for something math and/or science related to learn. What I found presented me with so many choices I think my brain shut down from over stimulation. Apparently M.I.T. (yes THE M.I.T.) has a program called OpenCourseWare that compiles lecture notes, class assignments, videos and exams for almost every course offered at the real live 3D version of the institute. While you can't take courses for credits, the information is available for free, to everyone with internet access. You don't need to register or join or pay any fees of any kind. Just click on the website and pick something to learn. I have decided to learn a little 'Principles of Inorganic Chemistry II' and brush up on 'Single Variable Calculus.' Sadly I remember very little from the last Calc. and Chem classes I took over 15 years ago.

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

I'll report back next week to see what I've learned. :)