Tag Archives: humour

Reflections from a 2-week social media vacation

No big aha moments. I had a few moments where I read something and my instinct was to share it on Twitter. I missed a chance to do a podcast with some friends I haven’t connected with in a while. And a former students and a few current students took some time to welcome me back with some ‘doctored’ images of me. (I’ve been uwuify’d.)

https://twitter.com/laefk/status/1358230779302580224

I think if I did this social media vacation 5 or 6 years ago, I would have missed it a lot more, but I don’t engage on social media nearly as much as I used to. Also, my school days tend to be long and I’m very rarely on social media at school, unless it’s for the school, or maybe while eating lunch. So, this self-imposed break really just stopped me from vegging out on TikTok when I’m tired, (I find it far more entertaining than TV and have a time limit on it so that it’s like watching a half-hour show).

I’m not sure if I’ll take a break like this again any time soon, but I also think that I might come back slowly. I’d also like to experiment and play a bit more with ClubHouse. I’m a huge fan of audio and I can see some real value in this new platform. If you haven’t heard of it yet… you will.

The Big Shebang

Part 1

I had a really funny exchange in the office with three Grade 10 students. They were talking to my secretaries when I came in and they told me how good their presentation was in their last class. The Grade 10’s are in scrum teams researching books like: Good to Great, Dare to Lead, Atomic Habits, and The Practice, and creating presentations that summarize the book and run students they are presenting to through an activity to learn a concept or two from the book.

One of the girls was sharing some strategies they used to keep students engaged, and another one said, “It was so good, we were awesome. I wish you were there to see it… Actually, no, I’m glad you weren’t because we were already nervous enough.” To this I responded, “You see me in your class all the time and I stay and watch presentations whenever I can. Have I ever been scary? Why would me watching make you nervous?”

She responded, “Well… because… you’re the Big Shebang!”

I laughed and told my secretaries that I needed a new name plate for my office.

Part 2

One of the other projects that Grade 10’s are working on is to make improvements at the school. Four of the groups have decided to do murals and part of the process created by the teacher is “Mr. Truss’ approval”. This has been great and has given me the opportunity to share some feedback. Often, I’m very aware that my suggestions can come off as instructions, and I have to be careful not to derail their plans or vision by making an off-the-cuff suggestion that they think they now need to meet to get approval. While on the other hand, some suggestions just make sense and should be done.

An example of the latter is a mural with 3 panels, and in the middle panel a small item (a blueprint) was coloured a different colour than everything else in the mural. I suggested they use one of the colours of the image the blueprint was about, visible on both the other panels. This simple change took attention away from this small item, and created continuity for the piece. That suggestion was given as, “Try changing the blueprint colour to one of the colours of the item it’s a blueprint of, and see if that ties the 3 drawings together.” And they came back agreeing that it did.

I was far less pushy with another suggestion about an identical grass silhouette at the base of each hill they are drawing, to suggest that these panels are of the same hill rather than 3 different ones. While I like this idea, I didn’t push it the same way, because it was a suggestion that they could take or leave. It would tie things together, but it’s not as compositionally important, compared to an out-of-place, uniquely coloured item pulling attention to it unnecessarily, like the blueprint.

What I’ve really enjoyed is that “Mr. Truss’ approval’ is a big thing. It’s an affirmation that their work meets a standard of expectation. What I’m keenly aware of is that as the approval giver, I can overshadow or derail the vision of the students if I’m not aware of how my feedback can be taken.

Part 3

Inquiry Hub is a very unique school. As principal I get to see students visit my office with ideas, suggestions, and permission requests all the time. While I’ve dealt with minor discipline issues, they tend to be so minor that they don’t even make it into my office. So, I don’t hold the presence of a scary principal. Furthermore, I’m invited into classes all the time to see presentations (I wish I had more time to actually go sometimes). Yet, there are still times when students get nervous that I’m watching. There is the Big Shebang effect. To me it’s humourous, but I need to remember that to some students, it’s a big deal.

The not-so-handyman curse

I have this curse on me. It goes like this: Whenever I do a repair job, I will never go to the hardware store just once. More often than not, it’s three times per job.

Last weekend I replaced the insides of one of my toilets. Hardware store visit 1: buy the replacement items. Visit 2: a pair of pliers large enough to remove a large, seized nut and pick up a replacement flexible water hose that I should have bought in the first place. Visit 3: replace the flexible water hose with the same length hose but a wider screw nut… I thought it was a universal size, it wasn’t and I lost the 50/50 chance of picking the right size the first time.

Today it was replacing the silicone seal around the kitchen sink. I asked the guy at the store what I needed, and he recommended the best sealant to get. After doing all the prep I decided to look up how to get the best bead on my silicone line on YouTube. The last time I did this years ago, it was messy. Three videos later, the secret was obvious: use non-ammonia glass cleaner after putting the bead down, then the excess silicone won’t stick to my finger or smear on the counter or tiles. So, back to the store a second time to get the glass cleaner. I almost count this second visit as a win, since it was only two visits and not three.

I remember replacing a faucet not too long ago. I was so proud of myself for only needing one visit to the store, but once I started the water up, it constantly leaked. I purchased a faulty faucet. Back to the hardware shop I went and had to repeat the entire replacement a second time.

Cursed.

I am not a handyman. I know that attitude sucks. I know I should believe in myself. But I believe in the curse.., and the curse has got me. If anyone knows any voodoo to reverse the curse, I’m open to trying it.

Nev-ADDING up them votes

Time for a little comic relief.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the whole world is watching as a few states count their final votes in the US Presidential Election.

Here are some creative people poking fun at Nevada taking so long…

Warning: This last one is rude, but it cracked me up and it’s where I got the title for this post.

And here’s a news flash, it looks like both Pensilvania and Nevada have finally counted enough votes and the election is now decided… Back to the serious politics we go!

((Source: The Guardian at 9:25am PST, Nov. 7, 2020))

A dose of humour

I’ve been sharing a few funny posts on Twitter recently. I don’t mean to make light of a serious situation, and I’m sharing messages from experts too…


But I don’t see a need to preach here, and I’d rather people pay attention to experts, not just misguided leaders, but actual experts.

Yes, the Coronavirus pandemic is serious. Yes it likely will get more serious before it gets better. But we can’t spend our time in constant stress, in a continual state of heightened concern. We also need time to laugh and have fun.

Here are a few laughs I’ve shared recently:


In the coming days, remember to find time for (harmless) humour and fun!

5 ways people are coping with a pandemic on social media.

Just a quick observation about the way people are coping with the Coronavirus pandemic via social media sharing:

1. Complaining/Blaming.

2. Oversharing bad news.

3. Using humour.

4. Sharing the struggle.

5. Sharing ideas, and resources.

The first 2 ways accomplish nothing, except to build anger, excite fear, and actually reduce the ability of others to cope well. What wasn’t done before isn’t as important as what can be done now. I’m not saying everything needs to be positive, but rather that some thought should be put into how much energy is spent spreading negative things that do not contribute to a more positive outcome.

Humour can be a wonderful escape and it can also be biting commentary that invites as much anger as laughter. I’ve caught myself reading some of the commentary on funny tweets and can tell that the joke isn’t always seen as funny. That said, I’ve been sharing some very clever jokes that I think can help us see that we are all in this together.

I’ve also seen some people sharing their struggles and others wrap around them for support. This is really beautiful to see.

Finally, I’ve seen some very informative posts that actually help people cope.

More than ever, it’s a good time to pause and think before you post.

Sometimes features are actually bugs

I am not a fan of vertical (portrait) video. It’s not just an aesthetic, it’s wasted real estate. Seldom does more room above and below a subject being filmed give you as much information as more room to the left and to the right. That said, we will end up watching vertical videos that people choose to take. If you are one of these people taking vertical video, please do me a big favour: Do NOT use the Apple iMovie ‘feature’ that fills the black sidebars on a vertical video viewed horizontally with a magnified, blurry copy of the video.

This is a bug, not a feature. It actually takes away from the video. It’s a distraction. Worse yet, it creates a horizontal video with the side bars out of the vertical video so that even if you watch the video vertically, then the video is even smaller.

Here is a vertical music video:
Billie Eilish – bad guy (Vertical Video)

It was an intentional choice to film the video this way. Here is a horizontal screenshot of the video:

And since she left the video as vertical and didn’t fill the sides, or worse fill the sides with distractions, here is a screenshot of the video viewed vertically:

And here is the video vertically if she had forced the video to be horizontal after the fact:

I didn’t share any images with the sides blurred, but just know that this is even worse. Sometimes features that are added are actually bugs, they don’t make things any better no matter how they are used.

Here are some public service announcements regarding the tragedy and horror of using vertical videos! 😜

And one more short one, but the cover image has a swear word not seen in the video, so I’ll just link to it.

Fun with words

I remember going shopping for a fishing rod with two friends, when I was in my early teens. My buddy Dino picked a rod up, shook it in his wrist and said, “I like this one, it has good grippage. We instantly knew what he meant. It was years later, when I used this word at university that another friend said, ‘That’s not a word.’ We argued about this, and I was so convinced, I recall that there was a wager made. I lost the bet, but it wasn’t until days later when we found a big enough dictionary that I was satisfied that I had lost. (We can sometime forget that Google wasn’t always there to help us.)

Last night, after responding to a comment by Aaron Davis on my blog post We need a new word: Memidemic, (where I was having fun creating a new word), I was on Twitter and came across this post:

Which shared the following 4 words:

I retweeted this with the comment:

Dr. Kay Oddone quickly responded:

To which I responded:

While I think that internest is rather punny, I don’t think of it as having much utility. However, I love when new words make it easy to say something precise and poignant, needing little explanation. My attempt with memidemic is to express something spreading virally, without the negative connotation of a virus or an epidemic… good things can be spread too, why can’t we have a word that expresses that?

Textrovert, cellfish, and nonversation are brilliant! They need little explanation, and they say in a single word what would normally take at least a sentence. I could use all of these tomorrow and, with a little context, people whom have never heard the words before would understand what I was trying to get across. I think in their own way, these words have grippage, and they are probably going to stick around for a while… I’m pretty sure I’ll be using them!

 

I am…

I am not a slam poet,
too many stutters and ‘ummms’ would I make,
I could never recite this all in. Just. One. Take.

I am not a storyteller that captivates,
enthrals, excites, and engages,
I don’t have audiences that applaud me,
on pedestals and stages.

I am not an actor,
I don’t dream of the limelight,
I’d rather be the stagehand
working out of sight.

I am not, I am not,
I am not all of these things,
I can’t dance, I can’t play an instrument,
can’t hold a note when I sing…

It would be easy to go on.
To cut myself up critically.
It’s what ‘most’ people do,
and we all know ‘most’ is at least 51% statistically.

But for everything that I am not,
there is yet something that I am.
For every I can’t,
there are things that I can.

I can write a blog post,
and share it each day.
I can develop my ideas,
and put them on display.

I am creative,
I am thoughtful, and reflective,
I may not alway be right,
but I’m not afraid to share my perspective.

I am a writer, not a poet
though I may try,
I can still be witty, sarcastic,
and sometimes even wry.

I can share my thoughts,
I can express what I think,
For I am artist of words,
typing digital ink.

I am the thinker and creator
of this rhyming verse,
Somewhat embarrassed,
though I know it could be worse.

I am a blogger,
I express ideas our loud,
I am a digital writer,
often humbled, yet proud.

For I am a writer, daily,
and I publicly share,
My words start of private,
until I put them ‘out there’.

Out in the ether
goes my digital text,
and you’ll have to wait until tomorrow
to see what’s next…

Poor Visibility

Our destination was 40 feet away, we just couldn’t get there.

I was in Montreal for a water polo tournament, and three of us decided to stay an extra couple nights, so that we could ski at Mont Tremblant. When the ski day arrived, we woke up early and began the drive to the mountain. Unfortunately the snow started around the same time and visibility was horrible.

The Honda Accord I was driving was good in the snow, but my windshield wipers were on their last legs, and I had to constantly use the washer fluid to help with visibility… then we ran out of this fluid and things got bad. Visibility was awful, but the snow wasn’t wet enough, and my wipers smeared the dirty windshield and the wipers started to tear. Visibility was so bad that I had to pull off the highway.

This was not an era of cell phones and GPS, and the map we had was a brochure, with basic highway instructions, which didn’t include the small exit we just took. We had no idea where we were or where we needed to get to in order to remedy our visibility problem.

Then we got lucky. The first road we took ended at a ‘T’ intersection and as we were pondering which way to go, we saw a Honda dealership just to the right of the intersection. What luck! We drove in and picked up new windshield wipers, but they didn’t have windshield wiper fluid. We asked directions to the nearest gas station and used a few plastic cups of water from their water fountain to help us clean the windshield. It also stopped snowing so other than very slippery roads, our situation was much improved. At least we could see!

It only took us about 5 minutes to get to the intersection of the gas station, and that’s when the trouble started. The gas station was at the top of a very small hill, but the grade of the hill was pretty steep and I couldn’t get the Honda up it. My all-season tires were no equal to this snowy incline.

My friends got out and pushed. No progress. I gave one of my friends a chance at the wheel and I pushed. No success. My other friend took a turn. The gas station remained 40 feet away. We weren’t going to get the car there.

We weren’t going to get the car there… That was my defeated sense, before the very simple realization that you, the reader, have probably already come to. But for me it was both a stroke of insight and also a moment to laugh at myself and my dejected friends.

I walked 40 feet up the hill, purchased the windshield wiper fluid, and brought it to the car. Minutes later we were on our way to the mountain with new windshield wipers and a full talk of washer fluid.