Just Pick One Job

This is a confusing telephone shot of
what it is really like to attend a zoom class
at the university.  Only the middle white part
is relevant to the class.  The rest of the shot is insterts.
Subject material? Clear.  Online delivery?  Difficult.

I am listening in on Rebecca's Business Associations Law class which meets Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.

If I wake before 4:30 am on one of those days, I need a quick nap before her 3:30 pm class begins. Bonnie Wyora asked me if I had any suggestions as to what she should do for those 3 hours ( not needing a nap herself).

I thought of 10 things I wanted her to do, and then said, “Of all of the things you want to do, just pick one, and when you are finished with it, spend the rest of the afternoon doing something pleasurable. 

The tree Bonnie cut is the one on the 
lower right hand side of the picture.

Do nothing for me.”

I couldn’t have done that second task I asked her to do: find something pleasurable and do it. 

Hard for me – that task of finding something pleasurable and immersing myself in it, at least when the work ethic is so deep in me, that pleasure is seen as wasting time, maybe close to sinning. Just moving to pleasure can fill me with the feeling of ongoing anxiety – shame that I am choosing that instead of the task of getting everything off of my job list.

So it wasn’t a kindness to put Bonnie to the same task – to find something pleasurable to do -- after checking off at one chore, of course, which she insisted she would do.

I only had time to brush my teeth and then I decided to bring my phone up from downstairs.

That is when I came upon her with our Christmas tree, already cut and dragged into the middle of the front room.

I burst out with laughter.

My first real tree, after deciding never to buy another real one back in 1970.


I don’t know if it was an environmental impulse then, or an impulse to be thrifty and reuse a fake tree over and over, or an action from a hope to never have to clean up pine needles all over the floor.

I don’t know why I really did something or anything 55 years ago. 

I am sure that now I don’t have to be stuck in a loop that is 55 years old.

“How did you do that in three minutes?” I asked.

“You had pointed out that you wanted that tree cut down. I walked home with Dave Wood this morning and he gave me his saw. we had measured the height of the place and where you wanted the tree. I had figured out that I had to lean into the tree as I cut it, so that it wouldn’t get jammed in the tree unable to move if I sent at it from a horizontal position. What more was there to do that to cut through 4 inches of its bole and drag it into the house.”

Bringing in the Christmas tree – a five minutes job.

Arta

Turtle Slippers

... the turtle comes swimming toward me ...

Rebecca receives a number of projects to mark from her Business Associations Class.

 Some of the projects have come in the form of a meal – with the breakfast tray included.

Right now Rebecca has a pair of beaded slippers that were done by Chelsea Boucher.

Of course, the slippers also come with a paper describing the why of how this object is an engagement with the book, Take Back the Economy.

And this pair of slippers was one of the projects that Lurinda Fraser choose to curate in the IdeaFest show that was held last week.

All of that being said, now that the exhibition was over, and the slippers returned to Chelsea, she then gave them to her Rebecca as a gift.

... the water flows behind ...

Now Rebecca and I had a discussion about these over breakfast one morning, me bringing them right to the table and saying.

I would have been studying the craft of the slippers, not really thinking about the paper “These should go back to Chelsea, or to her mother – far too precious to be worn,” I thought.

Rebecca arranged for the slippers to go back to Chelsea who brought her mother to see the slippers and to sit in on tonight’s Inuit Law and Film class.

The second mom to come to class.

I love that part.

Chelsea Boucher, Tracy Boucher, Arta Johnson

... selfie before Law 343: Inuit Law and Film begins ...

The slippers went to Chelsea’s mom who gifted them back to me.

No cold feet on the floor for me for the rest of the year.

Arta

Business Associations -- Part 2

a selfie on top of Mt Tolmie
 ... taken weeks before our class begins ...
the wind is making Rebecca's feather earrings sweep back and forth
I can't keep my hair in my clip.

We are on the second day of class. 

Business Associations, Class 2. 

Rebecca is teaching. 

I am in one of the groups in the class. 

Although I am a visitor to the class, she makes me work as well. I am not sure I like that. 

We are figuring out the how an Income Statement and a Balance Sheet are different. I can read these sheets, but I don’t like to take data out of a problem and make the sheets.

At the top of Mt Tolmie I should be taking
a picture of the 360 degree views.
Instead I am studying what rocks look like
before the ocean begins.

She organizes for everyone to be part of a Hogworth group in the class. Five groups. I may be with the Pets, although I am not sure.  I can't remember anything about Harry Potter's Hogworth.  I hope this won't impact my performance in the class.

Rebecca  makes everyone in the class uncomfortable by having us sit in groups and talk with each other over problems she has distributed. We are all new and don't even know each other's names.  She tries to mitigate our discomfort by playing some café jazz music in the background. She believes that most learning occurs in these groups, though she does lecture as well.  That part of the course is a lot of fun.  Ideas from all over the room bouncing off of the walls.

I think the purpose of the music is to make white noise so that the voices of people in the other groups isn’t that clear for us – more like muffled conversations over in a club, over dinner or sharing a drink.

At the end of the class a student comes to her and asks, “What should we read for next week?”

“Ideally as much as you can. If you are overloaded then take care of yourself and don’t read too much. It is early in the term. If you have time, read away.”

“I am not good with open ended assignments like this,” replies the student.

She wants a discrete assignment.

“Then read chapters 2 and 3. If you have time then do one, and four is a thin chapter which will be easy for you.”

“Alright,” the student says and walks away satisfied.

Rebecca has not handout out the kind of syllabus that most students see in most classes.  You know.  Day 1, we do such and such.  Day 2, we do x.  The signal of where we might be in that regular system only comes at the end of the second class where she says, you have probably already noticed that we are talking about sole proprietorships in this class and the last class.

For a student like me, I needed to see that on paper, not "get" it as we are going along.

But to speak to order of the first kind, she has already handed out a an orange paper on which are listed all of the kinds of business, and then how they differ from each other.  What I do "get" is that I had better see how much of that I can put to memory.

I tell Rebecca, I am that student. I need to know exactly what to read for the next class. I want a precise road map. Tell me what to read. I will do it. I need everything in a box with black line around it. Your first answer would have caused some anxiety in me.

Rebecca smiles and says nothing.

We pack up and prepare to go home, me to her house, and she, to London, Ontario for the week-end.

Arta