Experience-"'Yertle the Turtle,' No Longer the Authority on Turtle Stacking"

http://patricksexpandingexperiences.blogspot.com/2011/02/assignment-gluttony-week-6-mental.html

Experince experienced, will be posted tomorrow evening.

Assignment - Gluttony - Week 6 - Mental

Objective - Consumption to the point of waste
Duration - 4 hours (7 days to complete)
Assignment - Read "A Briefer History of Time" by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Miodinow. Explain some of the concepts (without referring to the book).

Experience-"Spare the rod."

            I do not have children.  I do not particularly like children (even as a child myself).  I do not know that I ever want children—perhaps, we will see.  I do know I have to deal with children on a daily basis, however, and the way their parents choose to raise them, or NOT raise them does effect me, and society in general, so I do take an interest in the general practice of child rearing.  Which is not to say this project is superfluous or redundant to my life, because I actually rarely ask people-on-the-street their opinions on the matter; I prefer to consult the professionals (SUPERNANNY, FTW!).  Ahem, anyway…

            I took some liberties with this one, and posted the question to Facebook.  To be fair, I do not actually know everyone on my Facebook ‘friends list’ very well, or even at all (there are a couple friends of friends, and even just people who found me through shared interest groups).  The hypothetical was “How would you punish a child who intentionally puts gum in another child’s hair, the child is age 6”—I was specific because the infraction, intent, and age all matter in the type of discipline appropriate.  I got a few “Beat the shit out of the child” responses, but mostly from people who a) were not totally serious, and b) do not actually have kids.  One creative answer was to give the child a surprise haircut, because ‘kids seem to hate those.’  My favorite idea, however, is the idea to simply take the child aside (optional:  put them in ‘time out’), and then explain to them what they did wrong, and WHY it was wrong, followed up with an apology (again, SUPERNANNY!).

            One of my biggest complaints when getting punished when I was little—which was a truly rare occurrence—wanted to know why exactly I was being punished.  Why did it matter enough to send me to my room, put me in the corner, or give me a spanking.  In order for a child to rise to the level we expect them to be as adults, we have to treat them as such.  A person will raise or lower themselves to your expectations of them, especially when so young and impressionable.  My mother was not perfect, but she never treated me as simple, and I never acted such.  Children are amazingly versatile, and can be reasoned with if given a chance.

           

            As a personal aside:  I don’t believe in spanking.  I was spanked, not often, and I don’t think it damaged me terribly.  However, I do believe there are better ways.  I also find it interesting that a study was done which showed all the individuals who hid Jews from the Nazi’s during WWII were themselves never spanked.  I feel, in the long run spanking does more damage to a child than good.

Experience-Mental Lust...SEXY BRAINS! (yeah, I'm tired...)

            I actually still fully intend to write this erotic short story.  The reason I did not was due partly to exhaustion, partly to the fact it is a huge undertaking, and I was already hella behind on my experiences (and still trying to catch up by actually DOING them at this point), and also partly to the fact my laptop power adapter decided to die.  It sucks, but there you have it.  I will not be giving away any plot points, or general overview of this one, because I do not know when I will finally have it ready, and I do not want to whet your appetites just yet.  I will tell you that it is based on mythology (a Greek inspired mythology of my own concoction, actually), and does not actually involve much fetish of my own interest.  The concept, however, was too enticing to pass up once the idea popped into my head.  And hey, the parameters merely stated erotic short story, not erotic short story you personally find arousing and titillating.

            I think Brad’s point with this one was to get me writing creatively again.  I know he wants me to get back in the habit of writing pretty much daily with these little blog posts, but this specific task required creativity, a work of imaginative fiction rather than an analytical dissection of real-life events.  What he may not realize is I actually kind of do this already.  Not on this level, and not like I should, but I do semi-regularly contribute to a few (much fewer now than once upon a time) online RPGs (not MMOs, mind you).  Text based games that are really more co-authored fan-fic than one typically thinks of classifying RPG.  I enjoy them greatly, and even occasionally create O.C.s (Original Characters), but it is not quite the same.

            The creative process in these games is collaborative, dealing with a shared play-space, and often times based in a ‘universe’ actually owned by some major company (not going to lie, kind of a total geek here) or at least established professional author.  It can be terrifying creating in this kind of space, because you have a standard to live up to.  However, you also have a crutch, an already established cannon that you know works (to one degree or another) because enough people enjoyed it to buy into it (movie tickets, book sales, etc), and now create games based on it.  When creating your own world?  It’s just you.  Your failures as well as successes are all on you, and that can be a terrifying though.

Assignment - Temperance - Mental - Week 5

Objective - Learn the prudence to judge between actions
Duration - 1 hour (7 days to complete)
Assignment - Discuss with both someone who has a child and someone who doesn't how they would punish a child to prevent that child from repeating some offense. Weigh the two viewpoints against each other, and determine which is more appropriate.

Experience - "As your body grows bigger, your mind grows flowered..."

            Amidst the whir of industrial dryers, an urban symphony in the background, I sat down at the local Laundr-O-Mat/Gas-N-Go—across the street from the local bakery which supplies semi-free wifi—and began to fiddle around.  No stranger to the blogosphere (MySpace, Livejournal, InsaneJournal, etc), confidence levels ran high going in to this particular project.  Blog layouts vary minimally from host site to host site, with levels of professionalism and customizability (it’s a word…maybe) the only somewhat-large difference.  And how did Blogspot compare?  Favorably.

            The user-interface is incredibly simple.  There isn’t even a need for basic HTML skills (which I do posses).  The entire system is designed to be visually manipulated.  Prospective changes are seen instantaneously, and any would-be confusion can quickly be cleared up with a brief trip to your local FAQ.  So I continued to fiddle about, HTML or not, first choosing an appropriate, attractive layout, then adding gadgets, moving gadgets, considering adding a revenue stream (google ads), changing fonts, colors and size of headers, body text, titles, and time stamps, deciding against adding a revenue stream, background colors, images, and so forth.  Finally, it was all coming together.  It was basic.  Pretty, but basic.  Dragging the cursor over to “Apply to Blog” I clicked down.  Again.  A double click.  Triple click.  And finally, defeat.  Sadly, the local bakery across the street sets a 20 minute limit on free internet access per day.  I had timed out.

            Still, the point of the exercise was accomplished.  I learned how to edit the layout and design template of the blog.  I had educated myself!  Emboldened by this new knowledge, empowered by my humble-yet-growing band of ‘followers,’ and invigorated by my nigh godlike control over my own blog, and thus their own experience of it I vowed to continue these modifications.

            Though Blogspot doesn’t require an understanding of HTML, it does allow for HTML modifications.  I look forward to altering and modifying the layouts I have with perhaps my own background images, custom polls, video and who knows what else.  This exercise has made me fairly confident this blog will be an ever growing, expanding, shifting creation.  Not only in the addition of new weekly assignments and writings, but in the layout and style.  It will evolve with me, not force me to conform to its rigid or limited forms of expression.  I hope you all reading this look forward to seeing what may come as much as I.

Assignment - Lust - Week 2 - Mental

Objective - Embrace sexual thoughts
Duration - 4 hours (7 days to complete)
Assignment - Write a pornographic short story.

Assignment - Chastity - Week 1 - Mental

Objective - Purity of thought through education.
Duration - 4 hours (7 days to complete)
Assignment - Graphically redesign this blog to reflect you expectations of the upcoming year and generally familiarize yourself with all Blogspot functionality.