Wow, blogging has soooo not been at the top of my priorities list lately. My second niece was born on May 10th! Blog, meet Evelyn Rose!

I admit, I did not take this photo. I nabbed it from my sister-in-law’s Facebook page. I managed to leave my camera at home both times I’ve seen her thus far. I’m not always so good at the Auntie thing. I think there might be plans for a photo shoot pretty soon though.

So, I haven’t actually held her yet. Is that weird? It is, I’m sure. But, I’m kinda freaked out by infants. They can’t do anything on purpose yet. I like babies just fine, but they don’t get to that stage until they’re a month old or more… before that, they just can’t really do anything. It sucks that she’ll be turning into a baby right around the time she’ll be moving away. They’re going back to Ohio to be near my brother-in-law’s family and their close friends.

It’s a really good family decision for them, truly, but it isn’t fun knowing she’ll be leaving right around the time she’ll start smiling on purpose. At least she can’t be offended that I didn’t hold her, since she won’t remember me anyway. *sigh*

P.S. I ended up getting a 96% in that awful class. I definitely did not expect that. Maybe the professor had to grade on a curve because so many people did bad..? Oh well. I’m just glad it’s over!

I am so, soooooo, ready for my class to be over for the semester. I’m not sure if I’ll take very many more online classes. It seems even more time consuming than actually going to campus. I don’t think I’m taking a class this summer, but we’ll see. I have a couple more weeks to decide.

Also, you’d think that attending a liberal arts University for 3 years would have covered all the pre-reqs I could possibly need, but apparently not. When I reapplied, the community college decided that I’m missing the equivalent of ‘College English 1′ (they gave me credit for ‘College English 2′ though!). Even more annoying, I can’t even register for it unless I either take a placement test or fill out a form requesting exemption from the test. Lame. I should probably just get it over with.

Ooh, I wonder if there’s a test-out option for the whole class…? I may have to look into that!

I’ve been working on my research project for school quite a bit lately. I decided against the topic of minimum wage legislation, and instead went with a topic that is much more familiar to me, and more dear to my heart. I’m researching the benefits of using Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences in grade school curriculum.

During my first two years of college, I thought that someday I’d become a middle school teacher. I found MI theory incredibly fascinating and full of potential. Why has the standard of intelligence been so narrow in US history? Why have we placed so much emphasis on language and mathematics/logic? There have been many brilliant creators throughout world history that were more inclined toward music, dance, visual arts endeavors, etc. yet our country often seems to ignore the value of such pursuits. Anyway, it’s nice for me to be able to put my knowledge of MI theory to use for my current project. My years in education training were good for something, anyway.

If you’d like to find out where your intelligences lie, check out this Multiple Intelligences Test. This particular test is not terribly scientific, just as most internet personality tests are really only for entertainment purposes, but it will give you some basic insight into the theory and what your natural talents are!

Here’s my results:

I’m about half way through my Information Literacy course and it’s just about time to choose a research topic for my big project. I always hate having to choose a topic to study. It’s difficult to decide on something that I want to learn about in depth. I am curious about a lot of things, but I’m not necessarily excited to spend a lot of time on one thing. Maybe I’ve just become too used to the vague awarenesses that I collect. Is that a feature of our generation? Or is it a feature of my personality? If I feel I know how to acquire additional information on a topic, I often won’t. I could do it in the future if I wanted to, so there’s no need to do it now, right?

So yeah, I have to actually pick something and delve deep for once. I’m contemplating doing something on minimum wage laws. It’s a very contentious issue though slightly less so now, since there was an increase not long ago. I do have to wonder, in this economy, how much pain has the new minimum wage caused? Is it partly to blame for the job losses and underemployed worker levels? Combined with the poor lending climate, can small businesses really afford to keep their staff level steady? If a full time person quits or retires, are they more likely to only hire a part time replacement?

One problem I see with the minimum wage law is that is makes certain wages sound like less. Before the increase went into effect $8.50/hr didn’t sound too terrible as an entry level retail wage. It was several dollars above the minimum! Now, it’s not even $2 above the minimum. I know, it sounds like a silly argument in the grand scheme, but perception and ‘consumer confidence’ has a real effect on the way people operate. There are also a lot of arguments about how higher minimums price low skill workers out of the workforce. If a business is forced to pay $7.25/hr for a worker, they will probably look for a person they feel is worth that investment. Thus the increased minimum sometimes hurts the exact people it is most intended to help.

It does seem like it might be an interesting subject. We shall see.