In Eckleburg's Eyes - 3/9/2009, Part 1

News & Notes from Friday, March 6th, 2009

-On Friday night, my Adult Learning Class at UT met for the first time since January 30-31. The class meets from 5:30-9:30 PM on Friday night and 8:30 AM-5:30 PM the following Saturday in the Jane and David Bailey Education Complex. Once again, I struggled to find parking as “Event Parking” closed most lots. This is beginning to be a pet peeve.

-In the Friday night session, we covered self-directed learning (SDL). My professor, RGB, is one of the nation’s leading experts on this topic. I found it ironic that he could have taught self-directed learning on himself. He began the class by showing a YouTube video created by Justin Vacca as part of a course at Northern Illinois University. If you would like to view the video, click here.

-The second portion of the class was spent on presenting class projects. There would be four on this night, four the following night, and fourteen in the class’ final weekend in April. Two of the presentations were done via tri-fold display boards while the others were a web site and a wiki.

-The class went four minutes long. This may sound trivial, but in a long weekend, this seemed like an eternity. To make matters worse, our small classroom was packed with several projectors and numerous laptops. The room felt like a furnace, and not just to my hot natured self.

-After class, on the way to meet my friends at Applebees, I stopped by my house. There, I perpetuated a practical joke on my parents. Earlier in the day, my mother had set the alarm with me in the house. Unbeknownst to me, I triggered a silent alarm and the police were called. Fortunately, my father intercepted them before they got to the house. I thought it would be funny to return the favor. Long story short: I was the only one amused.

-Little did I know it would be a night of alarms and arrest news. The MoFoS crew closed the store early to meet me at the restaurant. In their “hurry” JTH activated the alarm.

-Not only did I get to see JTH and TJK but I was thrilled by a surprise visit from PAT. Since our last visit to Applebees, our beloved waitress, AFH, had been arrested for driving on a suspended license. This would not be the only recent incarceration we would learn of on this night.

-One person who did not join us was NHH. He had left his shift early to bail his friend GAV, with whom we are all acquainted, out of jail. We spent a good deal of time speculating on GAV's offense. Our only clue was that bail had been set at $500. Our initial response from NHH, whom we were texting, was ““lol some stupid s!@# he did”. We then made our guesses. PAT picked indecent exposure. I guessed public intoxication. TJK selected statutory rape. JTH was busy on his phone and missed this discussion. When asked, he guessed theft. We were impressed when he nailed it. We were very disappointed when it came out that he had insider information. (Note: I realize this discussion may seem inappropriate, but if you knew GAV, you would not think so.)