The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me.

My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

* I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

* What I create will be with you in mind.

* It'll be done sometime this year (2009)

* You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be something written, some physical thing made, a mix CD, could be anything at all, but I will make it myself. It's entirely my choice what it is. No quibbles, no refunds.

Oh, and the catch is that you put this in your journal as well. If you don't, you don't get anything.

Whoops! I let this new LJ vow thing go for a while, but you know how life is one day it seems like you have all the time in the world and the next you're grasping at minutes. Lets re-cap the last cupla weeks shall we?

VOTE!!!

So as you know I spent a goodly chunk of my weekend studying for all of the midterms and shite I had to do today, when I woke up at 5am to do a little last minute review before my 8'oclock I luckily checked my e-mail. There was a message from my loon of a teacher saying that he was down with the flu. There was much rejoicing. And cursing, 'cause I was up at 5am and had wasted my life away memorizing terms. This evening I get this...


400 quiz 2 updates.doc

Quiz 2 as a Journal – a heading now available to you on Moodle.
When you click on this activity, you will see the following instruction screen:

If you can enter here, then you can cut and paste the text of your 4 essays - please try this!

This is an activity in which you have the text of your four essays open in a word processing window. At this site you will copy and paste the content of the word processing file into your "Journal". Select the option to start or edit your journal - as soon as you have a window open, go for it! You can come back and revise this 'journal' as often as you wish, until Thursday Oct 16 at 8 PM.

After that closing time for revisions, I expect to make all journals available for all class members to read!

When you open the Quiz 2 as a Journal activity, you will see these brief instructions. The full instructions are also there, but many computers will block the pop-up. Look for activity on your pop-up blocker, and tell it to let the pop-up through. When you do, you will see the big text below this copy of the brief instructions:

Brief Instructions:
Look up which group you are in.
Write down the questions which members of that group must answer.
Do a quality job of answering those questions.
On Moodle, click on the assignments option "Quiz 2 as a Journal". Have your word processing file in a window so you can copy and paste.
In the Assignment display, click on start/update a journal.
In the text box which appears, paste the contents of your word processing file which is showing your four essays.
You can enter this text box and make changes as many times as you want before 8 PM on Thursday, Oct. 16.
The text box isn't a convenient work space. I suggest that you update your master file, copy it, open the Quiz 2 as a Journal activity, and replace the entire contents with an updated version.

Updates to the Quiz 2 assignment:

This is not an invitation! Some students are having some problems with the changed exam form and schedule, and since I was the one who was not able to come to HSU to deliver the exam as scheduled, I can certainly understand that the new form, which I made up quickly, would not actually work well for everyone. That said, students can be just as weird as faculty, and I certainly notice such things. So I am working to improve on easily corrected aspects of the Quiz 2 assignment, and for some who have written to me with simple problems such as not being able to post during the two-hour block I originally described, you will find that this revised description takes care of our problems. For anyone who reads this note and thinks “Oh wait! Maybe I can still get through this without working!” I would like to remind you that I taught my first college and University classes in 1967, and this has been pretty much my working life. I feel like I’ve seen it all, so please don’t write up some complex explanation as to why you need an assignment other than the one posted...

Anyway, here are some additions to the posting requirements:
- I will open the Quiz 2 assignment as a forum, I will do that effective almost immediately, and I will keep it open until 8 p.m. this Thursday.
- Everything you submit for this exam will become public record to the members of this class. I will make all forum answers visible to all class members, but as I read Moodle I can assign your grades to each essay and you will be able to see those numbers. Other students will not, however, be able to see those numbers. This part I cannot guarantee, so I will grade a few students and then email other class members and see if those grades have become public or not. If the grades are showing, I will not move forward with grade marks entered in the Moodle forum. I will only try this with the truly exceptional students, so if I entered your grades and they turned out, by quirks of Pat + Moodle, to be visible, it will still be quite a compliment: you will have been identified as ‘truly exceptional’.
- the forum will include entries for all of the questions and for one new question. As I read through entries, I will register scores for students based on the first five entries I happen to read for each student. I would like you to begin each entry with your last name followed by your group number. I’m in group three, so every essay I entered in the exam would begin: “Wenger 3:”. As an evaluator, if a student answers the assigned 4 questions and no others, each question will be graded on a 25-point scale, with the difficult-to-obtain possibility of up to 5 extra points. On the other hand, if a student answers any question which is not one of his/her assigned group questions, and answers only 4 questions, I will grade on an absolute maximum for that question of 20 points. If you elect to write on a non-assigned question, please begin: “Wenger 3: non-assigned question.” Finally, if a student writes on extra questions, for example writes on 5 questions, then all of that student’s questions will be based on a maximum score of 18 points per question. If a student writes on more than 5 questions, the random order of questions that I read in encountering your first 5 answers will determine which 5 of your questions will be assigned scores of 1-18. The other answers you submit will be scored 0.
- I hope you watched the Matrix or are reading literature about weird permutations of culture - - the more weird this note becomes the more anxious I am to get back to bed...

The NEW Question, or Question N from Mars: In a rich essay and graphic presentation, organize and present the content of some important class materials.
In answering this question, I want you to look closely at important content from the second 1/5 of the class, and organize it so that your essay helps other class members to understand the importance of the material. You could focus on the Peace Corps speaker or a video or the first chapter of Kleinman. Go over the material carefully, make tables, charts or graphic illustrations, and outline the major content clearly. Your brief essay, which others will read, will help them to understand something that they may have missed.

In summary, just complete the assignment. If you can’t do that, then write on the four assigned questions and on one extra question of your choice, or drop one of the four assigned questions and substitute a question of your choice. If you are not doing exactly and only the questions assigned for your group, you need to say that clearly. If I discover it instead of being told in the essays, I’ll be in a funk. Please do not think of any recent email you have sent me as being an official communication – write what you have to say at the beginning or end of an answer to a question – you might say, for example, “I am unable to complete the quiz as assigned because I missed the video.” Then I will put you on the alternate grading mode, and be fine with our communication. ALWAYS TAKE THE TIME TO MENTION WHAT QUESTION YOU ARE ANSWERING!



I am more than slightly concerned. I believe that my teacher's brain is being devoured by flesh-eating-microbes determined to let him live long enough to drive our entire class insane. I can't even pick my way through a paragraph let alone devine what he actually wants from me!

Its Friday and it is looking to be a highly productive weekend interspersed with good fun times! So far this morning I had a Print Club Meeting, man those folks are awesome it looks like this is really going to work and the possibilities are endless! I currently have all the lights on in my house, my ipod is on a great shuffle streak and I am slowly cleaning my way through from the bathroom out. However when I finish my room I am allowing myself a break to go thrift shop for a costume to attend Josh and Ari's 70's Birthday Extravaganza! Their invite was hilarious, hosts: The sons of Valhalla, Location: Ragnarok's Fortress of Funk. Nice.

The bummer is that I have everything in the world due on tuesday. YAY MIDTERMS. Journal for Curriculum Development, 2 tests, and my jewelry project. I also should be working on the Design Challenge for Print Club, my silkscreen project, the 7 deadly sins in Tin fund raiser, my art based research project for the other section of CD, and various other readings and future assignments. This is not to mention all the fun projects I am working on for myself, the lonely leg-warmer who longs for a mate, the hot air balloon I am sewing to hang with my print in the show, my halloween costume and the secret project I am working on that none of you pirates may know about. Heh.


Another HUGE highlight of the weekend is PUNKIN' HUNTIN'! I am going with Amanda, Eric, Aric, and Ashley to the lil' punkin patch and we are going to have a carving party! Yay halloween! Tonight I am also going to try and convince Ari and Josh to host a party at their house for that friday.

Other Things:
~Pushing Daisies is back and TEH BOMB!
~I have taught myself how to make Pad thai.
~I have not yet gotten over my fear of lustful teenage vampire werewolf angst to finish the Twilight series.
~Cookies always make friends.
~The economy sucks.
And...
~Above all Ghana taught me the love of a good poo.


I love you ALL!

Look at me! Another post? Qua? Amazing. I actually amaze myself. I am fully aware that I am almost entirely incapable of maintaining focus long enough to stick to something. Hopefully it will last.

It rained this morning. It was lovely the smell on the hardtop mixed with the crushed blackberries and early morning left a tang on your tongue and made me want to crawl back into bed to just listen to it patter on the leaves outside my window. It was not to be so, Sarah has abandoned me to go to a Print conference in Fargo North Dakota and I had to teach her class this morning, which was actually lovely. There are some great kids (and a few old ladies) in that class and I gave them a big leg up on their waterless litho project. There is something about the 8am-11 classes that is far superior to the 11-2pm version of Beg. Print. Those other ones gave me some sass.

Sarah is up for tenure this year and I have been writing a letter for her file for over 3 weeks, it just keeps getting longer and longer! I am realizing more and more what a profound impact this woman has had on my life, i.e. my whole trajectory. Printmaking has become such an integral swatch in the quilt of my being! I have been in exchanges with noted mexican-asian printmaker Sr. Takeada. I have traveled to Kansas City and met with some of the greats of modern day printmaking. I spend all of my free time and much time that is not free (borrowing heavily from such things as sleep, food, and other class work) to live in the Print-lab. WOW. I never would have told you this is where I would be after 4 years of college. How cool is that. What it boils down to is that Sarah, art, and printmaking are my college experience and I am so so so grateful that this is so.

I promised the good stuff in my last post and that is a huge part of it. Man I love what I do. It is so rewarding! And Etching?? ACH! SO GOOD! Playing with acid? How could you go wrong?? I will probably spend all weekend working on my aquatint and although I may complain out loud I secretly wouldn't have it any other way. Another major major aspect of this is the fantastically hilarious, wonderful, talented folk who are in Int. Print. this sem. You have no idea how amazingly gelled this class is, from the ridiculous bike riding, dinosaur fighting, emo-hipster Draeger, Patch and Mark (yes that is their names). To the ever surprising goofy Kristina. To Jordan who is a gem of hilarity, spontaneity, rad dressing, and the subject of many a nude drawing of mine. Annie who never seems to deliver a less than stellar print, who even on her worst day is such a sweetie you could rot your teeth. And last but not least, my partner in crime, the peanut to my jelly, the delicious delightful Amanda. I have love love loved getting closer to her!! Hooray!! And not only is she way too much fun to be allowed, she is a rock-star cook. Um, can you say Steak wrapped in maple bacon with blue cheese, spinach, mushrooms, and cheesy ranch potatoes?? *drool* I may or may not have reverted to my black hole personality and inhaled everything that was put before me.

Ari and Josh's joint birthday is coming up and they are having a 70s theme! Whoot! They are such sweeties. I miss my boys, especially Ari. A more snuggly hugger you never did snuggle. It is still a bit awkward with Veronica but there is a minimum of passive aggressive behavior, which is just grand because I probably would have slugged her if she had continued last years trend. Kelly is all wrapped up in finally having a local boy friend and Mo and Roo have been off on adventures without me, but I'm sure I will catch up with them in time.

I love finally having the space, time and concentration to finally do all the things I always half-assed when I lived with other people. Baking baking baking, pumpkin scones, blackberries crumbles and so many more! Knitting and finishing what I started (YES SHOCK! Jess, Leah you have long awaited presents coming) Beading. Painting. Masks! Writing. Its like my world was jammed full of all of this white noise clouding and confusing and now I can just focus on me. Now don't you worry, I am not going to take off into the woods to live in a hut alone forever! I love living with other people most of the time, I just feel like now is the time to find the bits of myself I left discarded on the road, gather them up and cement them into a foundation I can stand on.

As promised here are some bad photos of the etchings I did for the first project. The theme was Ex Libris which translated means 'from books' and is the title for that cool little thing in the front of books that says whom it belongs to. Neeto huh?

I now make a solemn vow.

My friend Amanda is absolutely fabulous about keeping up her livejournal, it’s a blast reading about her life, and I am always thrilled when one of you all post. When you haven’t in a while I get nervous and start to stalk you on facebook. I happen to be one of the worst offenders in the disappearance category. I rarely answer my phone, never update anything and then sporadically have these bursts of news. I say, NO MORE! I shall update my livejournal at least once a week in the hope that I can inspire others to do so as well! Even if I am boring and all I am doing is school, still it shall be so!!!

I guess I should start right now then huh? Well. This semester so far has been a major kick in the patootie. In both good and no-so-good ways, the overarching theme being ‘I am now an Adult! Oh god…HOORAY…oh god.’ Living by myself is beyond amazing. I often just run around the three rooms laughing maniacally and mumbling ‘mine, all mine!’ I can dance around naked to annoying music after I shower. I can leave a dish in the sink and not feel guilty about it. I can come in late and not worry that I am going to accidentally breathe too loud and wake someone up. There are so many good things about this I would bore you gushing. Paying the bills however equals the suck. I was late on a credit card bill because they hadn’t effected my new address to send my bill to. I was late on my rent check because they didn’t even send me a bill. Bah.
School is nuts. Leave alone the fact that I grew far too accustomed to the pretend type school in Ghana, this semester is going to be a shredder. I am taking the least amount of units I have ever taken (only 17, I usually take about 22) but three/four of those are studio classes. On Mondays and Wednesdays my schedule rules. I have Print from 11-2 and I probably don’t have to tell you how much I love that class, then I have section one of the Curriculum development class from 2-5 we have been making masks and its like we have all regressed to elementary school! Paste and Papier-mâché, huzzat. Then I have lab hours from 6-10pm and then I go home and do home work.

Tuesdays and Thursdays however are stinky in the worst way. I have this Self, Health and Culture Class from 8am-9: 30 in which we talk about how cultures view death, dying and illness. SO DEPRESSING. Not only that but the teacher is this little old man who wears a leather fanny-pack sandals and socks and sits up there for an hour and a half rambling about relativity and telling this story over and over about this anthropologist who listened to a burn victim who had to have her skin pealed off once a week. Then I go to World Religions from 9:30-11, which isn’t too bad because its with Steve and I love him (Some of you may remember Leslie and I named our Jasmine plant after him) But I have taken all of these upper division classes with Steve in which he talks about all of these things in more depth with opportunities to actually have discussions. The other rotten thing about this class is that Humboldt is trying to catch the tech-wave and so is telecasting Steve’s class to another room full of 80 kids. So that means that every class is fraught with tech failures and request to repeat and check the mike. Then I have Jewelry from 11-2. This should be fun, but no. Its just hours and hours of filing, and a teacher is more than a little controlling. As you may have noticed I have no breaks in my day, so I was counting on the fact that usually in a three hour class over the lunch period we get a break long enough to get some food and eat it. Chris demands that our break is only 10 minutes and we should only take one. BAH. At 2 I scramble to clean up and then head to Section 2 of Curriculum development to work on the logistical aspects of teaching and planning out subjects.
So in summation I have 8 hours a week of lecture, 24 of Studio, 13 hours of work (I have been working without pay on Saturdays, that will change) And each of my studio classes say that you should be spending at least 6 hours working in the labs. That means 24 extra hours. Then I also have Studio School on Saturdays from 9:30-12. So that means roughly 72 hours of scheduled time. Which is nutz. Nutz I tell you!!! I keep forgetting to eat and I have been consistently staying up until 2-3 in the morning to get everything done. This happens to be a lame side effect of the whole adult thing; in the past I have been known to prioritize sleep and food over homework. Now I find that I just can’t do that. I set a standard for myself and I need to live up to it.

This is getting long, and kinda depressing so I think I will end for now and then go on to the more exciting/fun things going on in my life in my next post. ie. Leg warmers, 10 pounds of blackberries and the resulting bakery, teen-vampire-lusty-angst, midgets making art and a sundry dance parties.

Yep, Started a Travelblog! HURRAY! So if you want to read the 'for the masses' updates on what I am doing I would suggest checking it out! It can be found here:

http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Lizlah/

I will probably still be posting entries about which teachers, parents, and grandparents should not read but it won't be everything.

Love you guys!

My loves!!!
I am having such a blast! Classes are finally getting underway and it looks like I will be taking drumming, traditional African songs, Textile Design, African Myths and Symbols, Twi and possibly dance. Heavy workload huh? So far the only classes that have officially met have been Twi, Myths and Symbols, drumming and Textiles. I am SO excited about textiles! We have both theory and practicals and will be working with batiking, tie dye and possibly even printing!!! Perfect huh? My twi is expanding in leaps and bounds because I can use it around my house with they people who I am starting to think of as my community. Last weekend we went to the Aburi Botanical Gardens and a woodcarving village where it has been proven that out of all 55 of us I am quite probably the best bargainer. Booyah.
I share a room with two other girls in the CIEE house which is super super nice. There are ten of us total and we have a full kitchen, living room, dining room, porch and a bathroom for every bedroom. I love my roomies Stephanie and Suni they are hilarious and bubbly and have many hidden talents like sneak burps and 4 years of high school synchronized swimming. I have bonded most with another of my housemates Kelsey. She is fantastic.
Another awesome aspect of the house is Natalie. Natalie is doing the full year and so has been here since September and is a wealth of knowledge. Her boyfriend Kwame is part of a band called Gouda and we have all become friends with the whole group. I have two great guys who are kind of looking after me, Tony and Kwasi. They help fend off marriage proposals and poser rastas, and make sure I never pay too much for a cab. One of my favorite pickup lines so far has been..." We are born in a moment, we die in a moment, and in just a moment we can fall in love."
There has got to be something wrong with me because I really haven't had that much homesickness at all. Well there was one incident, but it wasn't really homesickness...more like homestupidness. I was getting kind of annoyed because the only times my parents would talk to me were when I called them so I gave them a week and they didn't call so I decided to do the grownup thing and call them. My mom didn't answer her phone so I called Julia. The phone call went something like this..." HI! Wow! How are you? Guess what? I pierced my nose!...when? Two days ago." I am sorry to say that I burst into tears. Not because I wanted to be home but just because no one had thought to call me and tell me. Not even my parents to complain! BAH! Oh well, they seem to feel sufficiently guilty about it.
I feel like time is slipping away too quickly! It is already an eighth over and I feel like I really haven't done anything yet!
To answer Elpethys questions, yes! I have had a fanchoco! But I have to say that I am more partial to Fanpops(cousin to the otterpop and tastes vaguely of bubblegum). Trotros are probably my favorite mode of transportation and traffic shopping is one of my favorite hot and sweaty pastimes. I love the generic 'stew' that comes with everything and I mourn the lack of veggies and more and importantly cheese. I adore your newsie e-mails and really appreciate how much time and energy you spend on them! You too Allie-me-love! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!

I am trying to set up a traveblog so that I don't have to keep sending giant stupid e-mails to everyone in the world, and I will be sure to let you know when it is up. To get you ready here is the link to my friend Kelsey's Blog (http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/KelseyD/). There are some pictures of where we have been and even some of me! Whoohoo!

Love you miss you!