html=death

For three days now we've been working on HTML coding. I've never really been exposed to the language before and was pretty much completely lost the entire lecture that Andrew gave on day one. A few connections started to happen on day two when I got to play around with dreamweaver on my own. Finally I jumped on Lynda.com and went through their basic html tutorial to be able to piece together a workign three page website. I probable put in five or six hours of work for a smurf-blue-barely-passable website.

So! A few things that I would have done differently, had I taught HTML to myself. Start with the wire frame. I need to see the overall picture before I can start visualizing what goes where and what to type when. From the wire fram pull out a column of HTML coding to the left, and CSS coding to the right, explaining how HTML and CSS interact. Then I would get into the dirty with specific codes for headers, columns, links, etc. I just didn't have a very good overall picture of what the heck was going on when I was supposed to be learning it.


Disciplining my Neighbors

I'm finding that the same skills and tactics taught to manage a classroom of children are useful in managing the adults around you. I manage an apartment complex for families, mostly students, in Orem. There are 32 units divided up into eight fourplexes that are built around a cul-de-sac. There are certain rules and regulations that the owner likes us to encourage tenants to follow. Rules such as: pay your rent by the 5th of the month or you'll be charged a late fee. Or: don't park in the circle or you'll be cited for a parking violation. As soon as I let a few people get away with parking in the cul-de-sac it seemed like the entire complex was parking in the circle. I couldn't all of the sudden tag them all with parking tickets... that just doesn't seem fair? So! I decided to turn over a new leaf, and bring along some consistency. I posted a parking notice on everyone's door saying that we would begin enforcing the parking regulations the following Monday (today). I printed up a bunch of parking violation warnings and plan on citing each car that I see parked in the circle, even for only a moment. :)


Elders Quorum - Picking on Richard

Our presidency thought it would be a good idea for the elders to review the Priesthood Ordinances from our handbook. We don't carry around our misisonary hand book in our white shirt pockets anymore so most people are pretty rusty. This last week was my turn, and I thought it would be fun to talk about dedicating homes.

I put together a little handout that would have made any RS president proud that included instructions and suggestions for dedicating one's home. I had this awesome anticipatory set mapped out in my mind where I write on the chalk board, "I want my home to be..." and then list a thousand things that the body of the quorum shouts out to me. I wrote my sentence on the board:

I WANT MY HOME TO BE:
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I looked around the room to see who was following so far and called out Richard's name. I fully expected him to be on the same page as I was and be able to participate in my little activity. Instead, Richard says, "Yeah?" It took me back for a moment, thinking, how could you not understand what I'm asking for? So I gently asked him to fill in the blank after my prompt, "I want my home to be..." Next I called on someone else for additional help. They knew right what to do.

I learned two things from this. First off, I should have vocalized the question, "What do you want your homes to be." And second, it probably wasn't a good idea to randomly pick on Richard.