Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Perfectionism and the Blog....

My perfectionism equals infrequent blog posts.... I've been really busy doing lots of stuff... so why haven't I updated in a few days? I think I had a post in mind that needed a picture or something silly like that....so I was waiting to update it... and then I got busy and I can't post all the new stuff until I post the old stuff... and how ridiculous is that?

So we're going to play a bit of catch-up on this post... pictures... or no pictures....

Scrapbooking
Saturday's crop was fun, but it went by way too fast. You'd think that 7 hours of scrapbooking would drag on forever, but I swear... hours went by in the blink of an eye. Considering that this was the first crop in 6 years that I didn't hold in my stamp room....it went well. But, I definately felt handicapped by not having access to all my papers and accessories.

When someone scraps at my house I can look at their layout and think...hmmm... you need a little layering there... how about Barn Red? Pull the paper and they're all set... In the rec room, I can think they need Barn Red all I want, but if it's not in their paper packet....my suggestion isn't all that helpful.

The other side of that is the fact that you really can make do with what you have and make gorgeous layouts. I guess it's kind of like this blog. I can choose to do an update with the info I have....or wait for the perfect info and never get it done.

Overall I think everyone was fairly pleased with the crop. I know there are improvements to be made, I just haven't quite put my finger on it yet.

Road Shows....
Ok, so one improvement in the crop would have been for it to keep going.... we didn't want to stop... but I had to go watch the road shows at church.

First - what is a road show? The Stake decides on a theme, tells the wards and they develop a skit based on the theme. The basic premise is that you develop a skit, costumes, props etc. that can be loaded into the back of a truck. You go to a building, do the skit, load the props into a truck and travel to the next building... where you unload the props and do the skit.

The variation in the skits, costuming and props is absolutely amazing. Everytime I go to one of these I am amazed at how they all come together and how talented everyone is. Most of them were absolutely hilarious. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I love how even the most serious teenagers get into the spirit of it. It's almost as if, for one night, it's cool to be a dork.

Scripture Chase
And in a weird twist of opposites... Sunday night we went to the annual seminary scripture chase. Seminary is a class for 9-12 graders that is held from 6:00am - 6:50am before school. This year they are studying New Testament. In addition to studying the NT, they memorize 25 key scriptures. At the end of the year they hold a scripture chase.

There are four rounds. In round 1 they are given a clue and 20 seconds to find the scripture. In round 4 they only have 5 seconds to find the scripture. I graduated from seminary 20 years ago and I STILLL have many of the scriptures memorized....of course I like to remind Joshua that we had to memorize 40 each year!

This was Joshua's first scripture chase and his team came in 6th out of 17 teams.... not too shabby! I had a great time being one of the judges. The judges rotated around the tables. First round I was with an all girl team from our building. They were VERY serious....and VERY good. They finished 2nd. Round 2 I was at Joshua's table. They did really good. They only missed a couple of points during the round. Rounds 3 and 4.... were hilarious. I went from tables where the kids were REALLY into it... to tables with kids who showed up.

Round 3's table had real potential. It turns out that they were all freshmen and apparently they didn't really see the "vision" of this whole thing. They weren't all that prepared.... but I think they wish they had been. They were so far behind in points that it didn't really matter... so when I knew things that would help, I'd give them little hints... like reciting more of the scripture, repeating the clues.... etc. Ok, so maybe I wasn't being the most impartial judge, but I think the bigger picture here was to get the kids familiar with the scriptures. We laughed and goofed around and I think I helped them feel a little less dorky. Maybe they had enough fun that they'll be more prepared next year.

Round 4? Ok so they each picked a scripture and opened the book to the same page for every clue. They played the odds... and eventually their scripture came up and then they picked a new one. Out of 125 points possible... they got 17. I'd say that they'd probably improve next year, but I'm pretty sure none of them really cared.... they were nice kids though.... and hey... they showed up.

1 comment:

Anna said...

Oh! I LOVE scripture chases!!!! Yay! When I was in high school we called it the seminary bowl. Three stakes would get together and we would all scirpture chase. In addition to the scripture mastery scriptures, we also had to know about certain articles in the New Era and were quizzed on that as well. My junior and senior years in high school our class was seminary bowl champs 2 years in a row! WooHoo!!

I, too, still remember a lot of the scripture mastery scriptures. I think it important to learn them. They are very helpful to know.