r ransom

Now I think back on it, sudden changes in humidity aren't kind to wood.  I am thinking of oiling the outside of the ukulele to help protect it as it's definitely going to be an indoor-outdoor instrument.

The finish on it now is just stain.  Some walnut oil aught to do the trick.

You have a few days to talk me out of it if this is a bad idea.

It is now established that goose likes ukulele.

Was tired of chasing an eagle away from my birds and couldn't think of a noise worse than someone new to music trying to teach themselves...except maybe violin.   Surely my ukulele and I can scare the sky monsters away. (It worked)

Then one of the geese came up and stood about 2 feet away and watched me play practice.  Then more geese.  13 geese lined up memorized in a tight semicircle around me.  All very quiet (unusual this time of year) and attentive. After a couple of minutes, they started drifting back to their daily tasks, except the first goose.  It was so happy and curious and calm, I've never seen a goose like that.  

So I kept practicing that fingerstyle song i mentioned a few posts ago (because that's the only music I had with me) in a loop and started timing how long the goose would listen.

Just under an hour.

Geese are pro ukulele.

Now, chickens....

I remember a moment in high school when I unlocked the cheat codes to get perfect A+ in every single long answer test or asignment.

At the time I had undiagnosed dyslexia and it took me about 12 times longer to read and write than the other students.  I was having an especially bad day and then there was a very important exam they forgot to tell us about that afternoon.  

So incredibly tired.  I try so hard and fail at EVERY F-ing THING in my life.  Why is it so hard?

The exam was five very long essays in under two hours.

In my horrible state of mind, I can barely understand the question.  So I took each question and re-wrote it in point form.  Then I wrote a short version of what each answer would look like or what information I am missing so I can't answer.  

And two hours were up.  I didn't write the five essays.  I didn't write nearly 3 thousand words demanded of us.  I wrote fewer than a hundred words.  Not a single essay.  Not a single paragraph.  Not even a single functioning sentence.

---

I'm the only one who got 100% score on that exam.

Everyone else got below 80%

I asked the teacher why.  What happened.  Am I going to get in trouble because you confused me with another student?  Do we quietly need to switch scores with Mr Over Achiever over there?

The teacher responded - you are the only one who showed they read the questions.

And with a bit more pressing, I found out the teacher had to mark 200 of these 5 essay exams overnight because of the same admin mix-up that meant we had no notice of a massively important exam - the scores had to be in by 9am the next day.  All this on top of having an even worse day than myself.  The exams that got to the point, had legible hand writing, and were basically kind to the teacher - these got high scores.  The rest, did not.

---

Prove I read the question
Prove I care about the teacher marking the exams

Could it be that easy?  

---

Yes.

I tried it for the next exam.  Show I understood the question, show I knew how to answer it.  Stop adding fluff to my essays or doing things that make life harder for the person marking the exam.

It worked.  It kept on working well into university and even the post grad classes I was taking.  So simple.  But working!

It was about taking responsibility to make my work as easy to approve as possible, rather than blaming the teachers for not figuring out what I ment.

And it extends to essay writing assignments too.  Remember to be kind to the poor person marking the thing.  

First paragraph non boring showing I understand the question
answer the question as quickly and simply as possible
show my sources
conclude by restating the question in a different way.

I went from being the worst student in the school to graduating with honours and some of the best marks.  

All because one day I accidently learned that the easy path is to make my teachers life as easy as possible.

---

Or to make it relevant to this thread.  To be as kind as possible to the person evaluating the BB.
- show you read and understand the instructions
- make it super easy to say "yep, done good".

For this badge bit, you will prepare 800 plates of food!


Requirements for all Food Prep and Preservation Wood BB's:
- 98% of the food for this badge is “organic or better”
- 75% of the food comes from homesteading, preferably from your own homestead
 - Nearby homestead or wild harvest (forage/hunting/fishing) is ok
     - Their food values need to be “organic or better”
     - Acquired with muscle power (bike/horse/foot/dogsled)
     - Trade, purchase, or gifted is fine

Minimum requirements for this BB:
 - “Plate” means a meal averaging 500 calories
 - Food prep log (your thread at Permies) showing each meal with a description of where the food came from
     - Each post covers at least 3 meals
     - Summarizes the source of the ingredients (store or homestead)
     - Maintain a total count of plates produced

What part of this is still vague?

An example.

Maybe I made the 6 plate casserole.  I can show it in a casserole dish, but this is difficult for a person to judge the size.

I can show it on 6 different plates.  That would be extremely easy to judge.

But what if I don't have 6 people to eat it, or 6 plates to display it?  If it said displayed on 6 actual plates, I could not complete the bb.  Thus leaving it up to the person to show they did it in the most obvious way possible.

This is the vague part of the requirements - how to show this in a way that makes it easy for the VOLUNTEER to approve.  But one still has to meet the requirements set out by the first post of the bb.

Over the last two days I've spent a lot of time in this discussion.

How much of past approvals do we apply to future ones?

If past approvals and approvers didn't meet the requirements, are we going to decertify the bb years later?  Just to avoid people saying "well, so and so got away with it, i demand i can too"

We haven't decided a path for those old ones.


There are two things becoming clear in the many hours if discussion

1. We are improving on how we enforce the bb requirements when evaluating a submission.  

Just because someone slipped by before you, doesn't mean you can too.  The requirements on the first post supersedes the previous approvals.

Trying to cheat the system with  "well, so and so got away with it, i demand i can too" is annoying the heck out out the volunteers and potential otis (who have expressed time and again that they value the ability to follow directions over the actual task done).  

2. The first principle of permaculture is to observe and adjust.

With each submission, we learn more about how the SKIP system interacts with reality.  

What this basically ends up looking like, is the first few people to do a bb, tend to um...have an easier time of getting through... while we observe and adjust.

The requirements to fulfill the bb are not vague.

What is a plate and how to show it - that has wiggle room right now because people have different sized plates, different diets.  My dietitian says a plate of food for the main meal (aka, the meal with more than 500 calories)  has all 7 food groups...not everyone eats all 7 food groups.   That's where vague comes in.  That's why it's not asking for the health authority definition of a "plate".

I think it is a little bit vague on purpose as there is so much variety in what people eat.

However, the bb says

Minimum requirements for this BB:
 - “Plate” means a meal averaging 500 calories
 -

Personally, I would err on the side of caution and make it as easy as possible to be aproved.  Make most plates well over 500 calories.  You can always have leftovers if the person can't eat it all in one sitting.

If the person has to ask "is that an average of 500cper plate...over 800 plates?"  There will probability be a long delay before it gets approved.   It isn't fair to the volunteer judging the submission to make them do that work for you.

So...if I was judging the submission, I would want to see at least one portion on a plate next to the casserole so it's obvious that there are 5 more plates worth in the casserole.

Just pretend I am the one judging and make it so simple a 6 year old, or me, would have trouble finding a reason to reject it

Bump

That helps a lot.  Thank you.

Especially

What this means essentially is that it is not the particular note you have that matters, but the relationship of the note to all the other notes

I have a capo , i think.  It's the scary string clamp thingy?

I can see how useful it could be, but I don't feel anywhere near ready to deal with that.

Although, I'm going to file it in my "ukulele later" mind box, near the "find out why there are dots on the fret board" because i suspect a relationship.

(I tried to build a mind palace, but ended up with a cellar full of musty boxes for a memory)

I understood less than five percent of todays lesson.  Can anyone tell me if this is something I need to know now or if I can store it in my brain as "you can change the key with magic later, but first let's get those fingers moving in the right direction"