Weekend Assignment # 338: A World of Their Own

NOW CLOSED!

 

On Wednesday, someone shared a link of Facebook about the discovery of a "Goldilocks planet." That's a planet whose orbit around its sun makes it not too hot, not too cold, but potentially "just right" for life to develop. Within an hour the link attracted a large number of comments, some humorous, some political, about who should pack their bags and move to this other planet, twenty light years away. That's the inspiration for this week's Weekend Assignment:

"Goldilocks planet" illustration by Lynette Cook, 
National Science Foundation.

Weekend Assignment # 338: A World of Their Own

Even as astronomers discover planets that may be capable of supporting life, such destinations remain out of reach of would-be human colonists, even if the world is "only" twenty light years away. But if some science fictional technology were discovered in the next year or two (warp drive, matter transmission or whatever) that made it possible to leave Earth behind and go live on another planet, would you be tempted to do so? If you choose not to relocate, would you be interested in just visiting the place instead?

Extra Credit: If you did go, whether on vacation or as a colonist, and you were only allowed to bring one small suitcase with you, what would be in it?

Here are the guidelines if you'd like to participate. Please note that while Carly is on hiatus I've loosened up the deadline just a little.

**1. Please post your response no later than than 12:01 AM on Thursday morning, October 7th, your local time. You can do this either in a blog entry of your own or in the comments section of the assignment entry. No submissions will be accepted after that time unless I really want to.

2. Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to the original entry. Using one of the logos shown here is encouraged but not mandatory.

3. Please come back here after you've posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments to the assignment. Please post the URL itself rather than a live link.

4. Visiting other participants' entries is strongly encouraged!

5. We're always looking for topic ideas. Please see the "Teacher's Lounge" page for details. If we use your idea, you will be credited as that week's "guest professor." Help me out, folks, because sometimes I run dry when doing this week after week!

6. We reserve the right to remove rude or unpleasant comments (not to mention comment spam), and to leave entries off the linking list if the person has been rude or unpleasant, or fails to mention the Weekend Assignment in the entry.

A few brave souls responded to last week's Weekend Assignment #337: Lone Wolf, or Part of the Pack?. Please click on each person's name to see their full entry:

Anne said...

Myers and Briggs will tell you that I am an extrovert.  I talk with people all day long and you can't shut me up.  I think out loud and sometimes I say too much.  My mother will tell you that I become more introverted every year.  I go to lunch by myself and want the world to shut up and let me read my book.  The last two vacations I have taken were by myself (which the Canadian at Customs refused to believe).

Stephen Watkins said...

Personality tests were an inconstant source of insight on the issue as well.  They often indicated that I was an Introvert – but not always.  There were times when the results were a little more inconclusive.  I accepted that I was, but at times I didn’t really feel like I was.  I wanted to be a part of the pack.  It was when I took the Birkman test at the start of my Master’s degree that I came to better understand my relationship with the group.

Karen Funk Blocher said...

It probably won't come as a huge shock to you if I identify myself as basically an introvert, a mildly shy, socially awkward person whose emotional life is largely inside my own head. I very rarely go to any sort of party, I don't go out clubbing or drinking, and I don't currently belong to any active fan clubs or other social groups. Even the annual Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles, Gallifrey One, which I attend as often as I can, is nearly as painful to me as it is rewarding. I'm just not all that good at making social connections. My social life consists of online stuff, hanging out with my husband (mostly at home), and taking a few friends to lunch on Sundays.

That's it for this week! I hope you'll join in this weekend, and tell us about any planet-hopping you would or would not do, given the chance. Be seeing you - and watch out for that wormhole!

Karen

Weekend Assignment #337: Lone Wolf, or Part of the Pack?

NOW CLOSED!

 

This week it's crunch time for me, trying to finish sorting out and carting over our many boxes of donations of items for the English Faire at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, catalog them all for tax purposes and price everything for sale this weekend. That's got me thinking about my degree of involvement with the church, and whether it means that after all these years I'm more gregarious than I once was. Thus:

Weekend Assignment #337: Lone Wolf, or Part of the Pack?

Some people are happiest when they're part of a group. They may be leader of the pack, or actively contribute to the group's efforts, or simply hang out with the others for companionship, and any scraps they may get. Other people are more the lone wolf type: the explorers, the loners, given to solitary effort and independent thought. Where do you prefer to function in human society: as part of a group, or your own, or in some combination of the two?

Extra Credit: Is there a group with which you're currently affiliated that is especially important to you? What is your relationship with that group?

Here are the guidelines if you'd like to participate. Please note that while Carly is on hiatus I've loosened up the deadline just a little.

**1. Please post your response no later than than 12:01 AM on Thursday morning, September 30th, your local time. You can do this either in a blog entry of your own or in the comments section of the assignment entry. No submissions will be accepted after that time unless I really want to.

2. Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to the original entry. Using one of the logos shown here is encouraged but not mandatory.

3. Please come back here after you've posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments to the assignment. Please post the URL itself rather than a live link.

4. Visiting other participants' entries is strongly encouraged!

5. We're always looking for topic ideas. Please see the "Teacher's Lounge" page for details. If we use your idea, you will be credited as that week's "guest professor." Help me out, folks, because sometimes I run dry when doing this week after week!

6. We reserve the right to remove rude or unpleasant comments (not to mention comment spam), and to leave entries off the linking list if the person has been rude or unpleasant, or fails to mention the Weekend Assignment in the entry.

We had a limited response to last week's Weekend Assignment #335: History. Please click on each person's name to see their full entry:

Anne said...

I am sure there is an answer here involving world peace and saving the whales and feeding the homeless.  But I am feeling selfish today. The easy answer is that I want a magic button to give me money. Every day. $1,000 should do it – don’t want to be greedy. I have a long, long list of things that I would do with an extra $1,000 each day.

Stephen Watkins said...

If I had a magic button, it would stop time.  Heck, I’ll even give myself a limit on it.  Let’s say it stops time for only three hours (though I’d surely take longer, but let’s be modest in our impossible wishes, shall we?). I figure there’s got to be a time-limit because I only get one button-press a day, but if I press the button and stop time, then I don’t get to press it and start time again until the next day, except that since time is stopped it’ll never be the next day so time would stay stopped forever…

Karen Funk Blocher said...

I'd love to hit a pause button, and have time moved forward only locally around me. I would go to bed, sleep until I'm not even a little bit tired, read, take a bath, watch a DVD, eat lunch, read the email and message board stuff that was already there when time was paused, and get some serious writing done. When I had finally done all the sleeping, reading, writing, housework and hanging out that my body and mind craved, I would hit "unpause," jump back to real time without losing the benefits of my actions in "local time," and get on with my day.

That's it for this week, but I'm really looking forward to seeing where you see yourself in our little wolf metaphor. I have a theory about where the results will skew, but I need data. Please jump in with your entry this week, and prove me right or wrong. I promise not to growl or bite!

***

In other meme news, I've decided to give up on

at least for now. For both weeks of this meme, which was meant to fill in for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot while Carly is on hiatus, only Jama and I participated. Thanks, Jama!  I may give this, or something like it, another shot later. For now, though, when I'm really busy with other things, a meme with almost no response isn't really worth my time. Sorry!

Karen

Weekend Assignment #336: Magic Button

NOW CLOSED!

This one is based on a question posed by Michele Agnew on http://micheleagnew.com, way back in 2005.

Weekend Assignment #336: Magic Button

If you could have a magic button that would do one particular thing for you, up to once a day, what would that function be?

Extra Credit: Would your answer to the above change if it were a person doing the task (for free and without complaint, using ordinary human abilities) rather than a magic button?

You know how to do this, right? Here are the guidelines. While Carly is on hiatus I've loosened up the deadline just a little - but don't push your luck! ;)

**1. Please post your response no later than than 12:01 AM on Thursday morning, September 23rd. You can do this either in a blog entry of your own or in the comments section of the assignment entry. No submissions will be accepted after that time unless I really want to.

2. Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to the original entry. Using one of the logos shown here is encouraged but not mandatory.

3. Please come back here after you've posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments to the assignment. Please post the URL itself rather than a live link.

4. Visiting other participants' entries is strongly encouraged!

5. We're always looking for topic ideas. Please see the "Teacher's Lounge" page for details. If we use your idea, you will be credited as that week's "guest professor." Help me out, folks, because sometimes I run dry when doing this week after week!

6. We reserve the right to remove rude or unpleasant comments (not to mention comment spam), and to leave entries off the linking list if the person has been rude or unpleasant, or fails to mention the Weekend Assignment in the entry.

We had a great response for last week's Weekend Assignment #335: History. Please click on each person's name to see their full entry:

Duane said...

I actually do live near the site of a battlefield (several, in fact), and I'm very aware of the area's history. I live in northwest Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The region's main moment in the historical spotlight happened nearly 150 years ago during the Civil War. Chattanooga was an important railroad center, where several lines met that connected most of the South. There were several battles fought for control of the town and there are historical markers and monuments scattered all over the region.

Anne said...

Off the top of my head..I can tell you that Glenview was founded in 1890, but our landmark dates back a bit further.  Our park district still maintains the estate of "one of its most famous sons" Robert Kennicott.  He was a (oh, hell.  Now I have to go look this up) naturalist and explorer.  The Grove is part history museum and part nature preserve and our school classes would visit about once a year for one reason or another.  Sometimes it was about pioneer history - churning the butter and that kind of thing.  Sometimes it was about the nature trails and native plants and insects.

Stephen Watkins said...

In Atlanta, you can’t throw a stone without hitting a sign for a historical marker declaring the site of “so-and-so’s last stand” or “the charge of somesuch brigade”.  It’s part of the fabric here.  Heck, this is largely true of much of the American Southeast.  In the rest of the U.S. the Civil War is an important historical event.  It’s something that happened.  It’s important but it’s over.  The good guys won, the bad guys lost, Honest Abe freed the slaves and everyone lived happily ever after, the end.  Except, in the South, it’s not over yet.  It’s a living part of the culture and personality of this part of the world.

Sandrine said...

Of course, I love the ancient ruins. Who wouldn't? And I do spend a big part of my professional life talking and writing about people who lived in those ruins, so I have more cause than some to find them fascinating. Some of it is disappointing because there's so little left, some of it is done up too heavily and looks like a movie set, and some of it is simply charming. But it's all over the place. Even Ankara has its sites. There's a big column and some Roman Baths.The column used to be topped by a giant nest inhabited by all sorts of birds.

Mike said...

According to what I can find out here, this is an actual working Dutch windmill that was assembled in 1875 in what is now Lombard, Illinois for two farmers. It was Dutch-built prefabricated kit that was shipped out there to be put together. I guess houses aren't the only things that you can buy prefabricated. It was bought in 1915 by General Fayban and moved in 1917 to its current location. Again, it was disassembled and re-assembled. Not unlike a big Erector set. It stood, and was used, in the current location until 1937 when the county acquired it after the general passed away.

Karen Funk Blocher said...

On January 22, 1934, a fire started in the hotel basement and spread upward. After John Dillinger and his gang escaped down a ladder, one of them bribed two firemen to retrieve their luggage, which included "a small arsenal and $23,816 in cash," according to the hotel website. One of the firemen later recognized the gang members in True Detective Magazine, which soon led to their capture in a private home nearby. Although Hotel Congress is also known these days for its music venue, Club Congress, for good food and for general coolness, the whole Dillinger thing is kind of a point of pride in Tucson even today, even though the legendary robber later escaped from authorities using a fake gun carved from a piece of wood.

Julie said...

You might wonder (as we all do) whatever possessed someone to name a town "Plano." Well, with many stories, we must reach into the mists of time, to the deep, dark past of the town history. Essentially, the town needed a Post Office. And in order to get a Post Office, a town had to have a name. So a guy (after whom many public buildings and parks have been named) decided that it would be a good idea to name the speck on the map after the current resident of the White House. The current resident at the time was named Millard Fillmore, and so it came to pass that the town Postmaster suggested the name of Fillmore....

Carly is taking a well-earned break from the three memes she's been hosting or co-hosting, although she may jump in as a participant from time to time. She'll be back at the beginning of January. I'm holding down the fort on the Weekend Assignment and the The Round Robin Photo Challenges, so please help me keep things going while she's gone, okay? I've also started another Monday meme as a fill-in for Carly's Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot. You may be interested in this one. It's partly a writing prompt - a very short writing prompt! I call it:

The second one is already posted, and it's about shoes! Please stroll over and take a look!

I look forward to seeing your entries on both memes, plus the Round Robin if you're into photography. See you soon!

Karen

Weekend Assignment #335: History

NOW CLOSED! Thanks for participating!

Hi, folks! I don't quite remember what my inspiration was for this one. I hope you like it:

Weekend Assignment #335: History

We don't all live near the site of a battlefield or other world-famous event, but any place has its own history: political, cultural, even natural history. How aware are you of the past of the town, city or state where you live now? Share with us a story of local history.

Extra Credit: Have you ever participated personally in an historic event? (This doesn't have to be anything earth-shattering.)

You know how to do this, right? There are the guidelines, as usual.

Here are the guidelines for participating:

**1. Please post your response no later than than 9:00 PM EDT on Wednesday, September 15th. You can do this either in a blog entry of your own or in the comments section of the assignment entry. No submissions will be accepted after that time.

2. Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to the original entry. Using one of the logos shown here is encouraged but not mandatory.

3. Please come back here after you've posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments to the assignment. Please post the URL itself rather than a live link.

4. Visiting other participants' entries is strongly encouraged!

5. We're always looking for topic ideas. Please see the "Teacher's Lounge" page for details. If we use your idea, you will be credited as that week's "guest professor."

6. We reserve the right to remove rude or unpleasant comments (not to mention comment spam), and to leave entries off the linking list if the person has been rude or unpleasant, or fails to mention the Weekend Assignment in the entry.

Meanwhile, for last week's Weekend Assignment #334: What Are You Looking Forward To?, three us us told Carly what we're looking forward to. Please click on each person's name to see their full entry:

Anne said...

I am looking forward to lots of things, thank you very much. Let’s see:

1. September Apple picking with Alex. My brother and I have taken the nephew to Oriole Springs Orchard to pick apples every year.

Sandrine said...

Scroll back to last autumn. Max and I taking our weekly walk around campus, picking crab apples on our way. Then forward to December. The apples are scarce, but if I shake the trees, there's still a few that will drop to the floor....

Karen Funk Blocher said...

Last night I spent the evening pasting together every chapter of my unsold first novel, Heirs of Mâvarin, into one large document for the first time ever, reformatted it all in Courier New and started breaking my chapters into smaller size. This is all in preparation for one more revision and sending it out again, this time to a publisher that Sara G. told me about. I hate to look forward to that; I've been disappointed too many times to want to get my hopes up now.

Carly is taking a well-earned break from the three memes she's been hosting or co-hosting, although she may jump in as a participant from time to time. She'll be back at the beginning of January. I'll be holding down the fort on the Weekend Assignment and the The Round Robin Photo Challenges, so please help me keep things going while she's gone, okay? I've also started another Monday meme as a fill-in for Carly's Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot. You may be interested in this one. It's partly a writing prompt - a very short writing prompt! I call it:

The first one is already posted, and it's about bunnies! Hop over and take a look!

I look forward to seeing your entries on both memes, plus the Round Robin if you're into photography. See you soon!

Karen

Weekend Assignment #334: What Are You Looking Forward To?

NOW CLOSED!
Weekend Assignment #334: What Are You Looking Forward To?

We are about to begin the last quarter of 2010, tell me what you are looking forward to. Will it be the coming holiday season? The cooler days of autumn? The kids going back to school? Family gatherings. Tell us all about it!

Extra Credit: Tell us what you are least looking forward to in the upcoming months.

Here are the general guidelines for participating:

**1. Please post your response no later than than the deadline day and time given in each week's original assignment entry. You can do this either in a blog entry of your own or in the comments section of the assignment entry.

2. Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to the original entry. Using one of the logos shown here is encouraged but not mandatory.

3. Please come back here after you've posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments to the assignment. Please post the URL itself rather than a live link.

4. Visiting other participants' entries is strongly encouraged!

5. We're always looking for topic ideas. Please see the "Teacher's Lounge" page for details. If we use your idea, you will be credited as that week's "guest professor."

6. We reserve the right to remove rude or unpleasant comments (not to mention comment spam), and to leave entries off the linking list if the person has been rude or unpleasant, or fails to mention the Weekend Assignment in the entry.

** This assignment closes at 9:00 PM, EST, next Wednesday. No submissions will be accepted after that time.

Last week, we took on Weekend Assignment#333: The Writing On The Wall. Here are your responses...

Anne

Trevor

Karen

Carly


**This will be the last Weekend Assignment I will be doing for 2010. I am officially on vacation until the first week in January. I will be stopping in from time to time to see how things are going and maybe participate, so be good while I am away! :)

-Carly