rose marshack : whyamistillawake.com

This has been a very rich day. Lots of things to think about and good to practice having the right attitude about things. I just wrote a Hub article about how it might be nice to instead of trying to use all your brain, only use something like 3%.

Uh Oh. Another “Pep Talk”
Tonight, instead of doing a ton of work for the museum (I have all these pet projects that I could be spending more time on; not really necessary but just trying to make things BETTER) I took gram to the Dojang with his dobok (uniform) on - yes, he has a uniform now and he looks so cute in it, and he loves it; he knows how to bow and everything. I had a meeting with KJN (head instructor) and Ms. Hoddeson, whom I teach Tae Kwon Do with at the Urbana Park District.

Anyway the meeting was about the Martial Arts Festival, which I had the bright idea of volunteering to run. And then the other bright idea of asking the Director of the Krannert Art Museum, WHERE I WORK, if we can have the Martial Arts Fesetival there! The Champaign-Urbana Martial Arts Festival has normally been at the HMD Academy in Savoy Dojang, open to the public, but people don’t know about it. I thought to open it up and have it at a neutral place would be awesome, plus would have both “Town” and “Gown” interested in the event, which is something that the Director says she wants; she believes that the museum can be a place that has events that interest both the general non-academic public and the scholars. This event will do that.

Anyway, tonight at our meeting, KJN pretty much decided he was going to take control of the event and gave me what I call a “pep talk” which consists of being mean and yelling and not listening to anything I am saying. Ms. Hoddeson was pretty horrified. He even insulted my character, which he apologized for later. My biggest problem was he was telling me to tell the other martial artists some RULES for the festival, and I had told them already (under his directive) that the group will make the rules together. Anyway he totally relented and even apologized for insulting my character, so really I couldn’t be mad.

I drove home and tried to be angry at him, but just ended up feeling sorry for myself and sulking a bit. He is so much like a god to me, which is strange, because he’s very imperfect and has said terrible things in the past. But he has also said so many amazing things and has such a great program, I guess that’s why I worship him so much. And I also worship him because he can say this kind of crap to me, and then make me feel horrible, and then I have to be strong and get over it. Lose my ego, and ignore his.

The Silver Coat

The other Boss thing that happened that made me think a lot was silly; I have this beautiful Silver Coat that cost more than I usually spend on clothes, and it was finally cold enough this morning to wear it to work. Then my boss came in and said, “Don’t feel badly if you see me wearing this same coat sometimes; I own it too! I don’t want you to feel like I went out and bought it after seeing you in it!” I thought that was so cute, but then I started feeling really weird, because my boss dresses so beautifully, she’s like a work of art. It’s an honor to own something that she owns too! But then I don’t want her to think I spend this much money on clothes, or to feel like she’s paying me too much!

So I thought about what to say for a long time. Should I tell her about all the royalties our band gets from the 13 records we made? How do I tell her that, so that it immediately triggers the thought in her mind, “Oh, thank goodness, I’m not paying Rose too much. She bought the Silver Coat from Junior Citizen royalties.”

How about Tae Kwon do? I make money from teaching that too. And from some other freelancing jobs. I think I do way too much stuff. And probably do own too much clothes.

VTS Redux

Last but not least, I got to see VTS (Visual Thinking Strategies) in action again today. I actually have never seen it happen in person, in fact. This is the ‘art education’ system where you as a facilitator can ask only 3 questions; 1) What is going on in this picture? 2) What makes you say that, and 3) What else can we find? The beauty of this system is that it enables anyone to engage with a painting; not just someone who knows the background, context, history of the painting. I LOVE this system, because it empowers people, levels a student population, and forces people to ground their observations in language and proof. “What do we see in this painting?” “I see a mommy who just yelled at her daughter.” “What makes you say that?” You have to think and then articulate why you made up this story.

A lady at the museum gave this talk and then the New Director Of Education, who is an absolute Gem, gave more speech; the VTS instruction was for a group of Rhetoric Teaching Assistants who had the collective personality of one of the new bricks in our sidewalk, and Anne tried to get them to talk about how they could apply this technique to their teaching. No one bit. I wanted to give everyone the answers, but I thought maybe as a museum employee, I shouldn’t be allowed to enter the contest. So I sat and listened.

There was one instance that I really loved. One of the students being VTS-ed said, “I believe that castle back there was Belgian, perhaps mid-17th century.” The facilitator replied, “So you are trying to figure out the architecture of what you see in the painting; to place it in some way.” You’re not supposed to tell anyone any answers, you’re just supposed to get them to talk and then re-phrase what they said. It’s so damn cool. http://www.vue.org has tons of info on this.

And that’s my review of the day. I am sure I missed something. Tomorrow is going to be hell; I need to be at the Union to load in about 300 pounds of computer equipment - and there will be no parking within 10 miles of where the load-in occurs. Just like playing at a college.