My first class in my new grad program, Liberal Studies, officially started yesterday. Two things are totally remarkable:
1) Blackboard (UNCG's preference) is a far superior vehicle than WebCT (Syracuse's School of Information Studies' preference)
and
2)
Dr. Marsha Paludan has successfully translated her in-classroom course,
Global Arts—Windows into the HeARTS of Other Cultures into a dynamically presented Web-based course, with the BEST content AND design combo I have ever seen.
One of the discussion questions this week is "Ice Breakers." A typical intro kind of assignment but with a twist: Dr. Paludan is getting reflective and thoughtfully answered profile article kinds of responses because she asked a specific set of "interview" questions. Good move!
Here's what I wrote and posted:
During the last few decades, my formal education occurred at several universities and I majored in several different subjects. In 2000, I made my mind up to put all my courses together at one university and get an undergraduate degree. I went full time, all semesters, and graduated May 2005 with a BA in English and a minor in horticulture from N.C. State University in Raleigh.
Beginning in May 2005 and until spring 2006, I was a distance education graduate student at Syracuse University School of Information Studies majoring in Library and Information Science. I loved the program, even its quirks, but when tuition topped out at over $1000 per credit hour, I decided to look elsewhere for an online master degree program. I am now beginning my first semester in love with UNCG’s MALS program.
When someone asks me about my work experience, I find it easier to say what work experience I do not have: I have never been a nun.
I chose to take this Global Arts course because it is being offered online, it fits a requirement for my degree program, and I have a background in the Arts.
More curiosity:
• Where did you grow up? I was born in Charlotte and was a member of the first graduating class at Independence High School – back when the last days of segregation were just barely turning into the first days of integration. Charlotte’s mindset back then was dominated by its leaders’ desires to be just like Atlanta. Seems like there was always a “wish” propelling the city’s New South decision makers toward what, in retrospect, was a path of unbridled growth and acquisition. However, during the 60s and 70s there always seemed to be some hurdle that caused delays in growth gratification. Charlotte may have had the desire to be the “Atlanta” south of D.C. but nuts & bolts – the population of Charlotte was way too small in both numbers and sophistication. For instance, I had only met one foreign-born person in my life when I graduated from high school. After I got out in the “world” I realized my Charlotte experience made me want to see and know MORE.
• What do you remember about the home you grew up in? The house in which I did most of my growing up was the third and last house my parents ever owned. We moved from the Wilmore Drive area, an urban neighborhood, to Hickory Grove Road, way out in the country, to a 1930s bungalow style on two acres. Today Hickory Grove Rd is called Sharon Amity Rd; my home place is now close to Eastland Mall. The land the Mall sits on was 80-acres of woods with a lake during my childhood and high school years.
• Describe the room you lived in as a child. I now realize that my parents bought the Sharon Amity Road house as a “fixer-upper.” The walls in my room were horizontally laid wood boards covered in so many layers of hideous colored paint that I could pull big chunks off like they were puzzle pieces – and did. When I started taking piano lessons in elementary school a black, monster size, ancient and smelly, upright piano was moved in to my room. It negatively existed in my life in more ways than one.
• Where was your favorite place to play? My favorite place to play was out in the woods. During the summer before I started seventh grade, my brother and our friend Jimmy, raided scraps from a nearby construction sites in a new development called Windsor Park and we built a tree house worthy of Swiss family Robinson. I went there a lot, so much so that during the fall of seventh grade I was called into the McClintock Junior High School principal’s office to answer, Why are you not doing your homework? I remember answering that I was involved in building a tree house and we weren’t yet finished with it. I admitted that I guessed we should have gotten the idea earlier in the summer. The principal agreed. I told him the problem with my homework would probably be over soon seeing as how I’d be forced into doing my homework as the days were getting shorter and my mom didn’t allow us out at the tree house after dark.
• Where do you live now? I have just moved from a townhouse near NCSU campus in Raleigh to an apartment complex near Lake Lynn in North Raleigh. I’ve only been here about ten days and so far, it is the first place I’ve lived in six years that is anywhere close to a quiet writer’s retreat. I’m still discovering the place and haven’t yet walked the two and a half mile long exercise trail around the lake. I’m saving this experience as a reward.
• I feel most comfortable outdoors. I like large spaces and small spaces and respect the character and use of each. Between my art training and my life partner for fifteen years, a retired landscape architect with whom I'm now only friends, I’m extremely conscious of space and the placement – or removal – of things in a space.
• During my life, I’ve traveled quite a bit and I’m currently not very interested in taking another vacation but as the question has been asked, my dream vacation would be to ride the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station and get off.
• What country other than your own would you choose to live in? I’m torn between Canada and Mexico. Right now I’m sort of fluent in Spanish, so Mexico would be easy. However, I plan on taking French lessons soon because Canada gives points toward immigration permits for people who speak French. Ignoring language requirements, I’d like to think that I’d prefer to live in Scotland where the language is acquired through blood transfusions.
• Do you currently study/practice any art form? I’m sort of laughing at this question because I'm startled to think about my answer. Had I stayed on the track I was on beginning back in elementary school, thru high school, and on to late 60s vintage East Carolina University, I’d have ended up an art teacher in studio ceramics with a minor in Northern Renaissance art history. I’ve never stopped drawing or painting but for the past six years I’ve been concentrating on my writing. However, I just realized that I have a collage in progress at the moment. It’s the first visual piece I’ve worked on in quite some time. Also, this summer, I uncharacteristically got up on a stage as part of a standup comedy class at Charlie Goodnight’s Comedy Club. All in all, I wish in the mix that I played a better tin flute.
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