Even My Dog Can Play Better Than Me

 

 

       

 

This is how my week went.  The dog is Alexis and she likes to make noise on the piano.  When I forget to close the door she hops up and plays.

 

Last week we had to create a briefing about Constructivism which is fine with me except I thought we had to create a Wiki and didn't figure out I was a week ahead for one assignment until 3 days before the true assignment due arrived.  I don't think I could have done any worse than I did.  I thought oh that's easy a brief.  During my military career I created and presented so many briefs that by the time I had hit Major I could almost do them in my sleep.  I have briefed 4 star generals and once had to do a research paper that I presented to a congressional committee about protecting the force (as in military force like Star Wars). I have an archived document in the congressional library, me who’s writing skills equal that of a 5th grader.  I thought how hard could it be to put a brief together on a subject that I had some prior knowledge?

Because I was already behind the curve ball I read the requirement very carefully and discovered it had several steps.  First I had to do a Power Point, any second Lieutenant could do that, that's when I briefed my first general officer. Requirements said slides should have three words, NO that wasn't going to cut it in my mind.  Keep the words simple, don't read the slide, the audience can read and don't have the slide up for more than 5 minutes (unless the general says, leave it up). I did 10 slides and stuck to military standards, I was behind and had too many other things to learn how to do just 3 words.  Then we had to download Zentation (and learn how to work it) and finally use YouTube to do the briefing I created on my computer.  Well, I lost count how many times I did the briefing. Then I had to take my glasses off so my brief didn't reflect on the lens, now I couldn't read my notes.  I finally felt like I had it almost perfect (I had to look down a couple of times, bad form).  When I went to put it into YouTube it said, "too big, must be less than 15 minutes.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Now I had to figure out how to cut parts, you know the scenes you can watch after you finish watching the DVD, I could have had that special selection. I did the best I could because I was running into a deadline, it was Super Bowl Sunday, I'm from Colorado and I'm a PE teacher, to miss the game would have offended both parts of me. I had stayed up the night before until 0430 working on the assignment and didn't skip church the next day, but I wanted to.

I get it to 14:59 put it in YouTube and then into Zentation and now I have to sync the two, syncing was not an option in the army, exactness was the requirement. I once worked for a general that would through things at you if he didn't agree or like what you had put on a slide or said (I made sure that was never me he aimed at). To make it worse I had spent 12 hours during the week trying to learn just ONE MEASURE of music and finally gave up, I was spent.

My team lost, but I don't have any General Officers (GO) to brief in my life any more except as friends (no briefing required) so I finished the presentation figured out how to work Zentation and all the other things (that was the point of the assignment after all) and once again I have learned a new skill.

         Alexis on the other hand never learned how to climb up the tree to get the birds in the nest.