The Office: Rock My Wordle!

From the desk of Cathy Harvey, Administrative Assistant to Shepherds College

My boss rocked my world today—my lil' ole world of schedules, emails, computer trials, glue sticks, pens, and scissors.  He introduced me to Wordle, a world of “Word Clouds” made beautiful by the power of technology and endless possibilities.

What in the world is “Wordle” you ask? 

It is the brain child of IBM’s Jonathan Feinberg, a software engineer of Collaborative User Experience (CEU) Research Group in the Boston area.  Feinberg created this fantastic idea of making colorful word collages out of any number of words you enter and giving emphasis to the most used words in your collection.  In the “olden days” we did something similar by cutting out words from magazines of all shapes and sizes and creating a collage of meaningful words about ourselves or about our life, family, friends, or goals.  “Wordle” is the electronic version of that old-fashioned cut and paste craft.

 Below is an example of the real assignment Mr. Terrill gave me today that had my creative juices spinning until I was dizzy!  Type “Wordle” in a search engine such as “Google” you will see something like this:

Search results

1. Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source ...

www.wordle.net - Cached

• Create
• Gallery
• English Notebook Cover
• Period G
• Us Constitution
• Advanced Tools
• FAQ
• Credits

More results from wordle.net »

Mr. Terrill gave me a block of words he gleaned from an assignment he recently gave our students -

respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect students students students students students staff staff staff staff staff right right right chores chores chores others others others others authority authority clean clean clean helpful helpful helpful helpful helpful helpful helpful listen listen listen listen listen volunteer volunteer kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind leader leader leader leader encourage encourage community community community community responsibility responsibility responsibility responsibility responsibility responsibility initiative initiative initiative integrity integrity integrity integrity truth truth diligence diligence diligence discernment discernment discernment positive positive prayer prayer prayer prayer prayer others others others others others others others homework homework homework serve serve serve choices choices, role-model, role-model, role-model, leader

The assignment was for each student to write out three things they were personally going to do to improve the Shepherds College community.  His assignment came on the heels of a difficult month of behaviors.  Yes, we have those kinds of days too!  It was the Shepherds College way of creating a concrete way for students to apply the character of kindness toward their classmates.  It was hands-on life skills in getting along and being part of a larger community.  It was applying the six character traits we strive to teach throughout our program: diligence, discernment, initiative, integrity, respect, and responsibility.  This was just one of many ways we try to inspire our students to rise to a higher calling, of caring for others in all they do, here, at home, in church, or at a job.

Students were to bring their lists to Mr. Terrill.  He made copies of all their goals and compiled the word list based on how many times specific words showed up in their goals.  Based on all that, he asked me to copy and paste the words into “Wordle,” and it produces hundreds of possible designs that can be used for endless ideas: bulletin boards, T-shirts, posters, party themes, note cards, banners, stickers, and any number of advertising products.  

For a basement artist like me, this sent me straight to the hog heaven of design!  Mr. Terrill asked me to print out some samples for him, so I included just a few of the twelve I printed out in this blog.  I am not sure how he is going to use them, but it will, no doubt, be a delight and surprise to see where these show up in our future.

Mr. Terrill, you rocked my world today with “Wordle”! Now someone, please, help me find my way out of this crazy and colorful word maze!

Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.

The Office: Thanksgiving Humble Pie

Today's blog was written from the heart of Cathy Harvey, Administrative Assistant to Shepherds College

I.  Setting & Sin

I was rushing and I was irritated.  Trying to get out of the house on time for work, my mind was multi-tasking to the hilt, spurred on by my irritation with everyone in the house who didn’t pick up after themselves.  The little foxes were eating the vine and they were fueling my mood minute-by-rushed-minute.  Pride stepped in, gloating on how good and organized I was and why couldn’t everyone else be like that?  “It is so easy,” I thought; “Would it kill you to take 3 seconds to put your shoes away so we’re not tripping on them?”  Take 2 seconds to drop the dirty clothes in the hamper instead of on the floor, “etc., etc., etc.”  I whisked through the house in my last ditch effort to get out the door in time, snatching and tying up a bag of garbage to toss in the trash on my way out to the car.

I was also energized by my latest art project -- a-d-o-r-a-b-l-e -- Thanksgiving Day cards (in my humble opinion-not!) that I was making and hoping to send.  A wedge of pride slipped in there too, going beyond thinking they were cute to puffing myself up in the fine details of individually cut pumpkins, curled wires around the stems, hand drawn details and a spiritual message on the inside, of course.  I was so organized I had even written our Christmas letter and had them copied, folded, and ready to include in the cards.  I had spent evenings making and cutting all the pieces parts, and I decided to spend my lunch hour at work gluing them together.  I scooped up the cards, the pumpkins I had stamped and cut-out with the curled wires, envelopes, scissors, glue, & Christmas letters, and carefully, but oh so quickly, stuffed them into a handy plastic bag of just the perfect size, and with a handle, thank You, God!  I dashed downstairs to grab my jacket, lunch, purse, and keys, and scrambled out the door.

My arms were full so I hurriedly stepped into the garage to toss the trash bag I had tied up.  Without turning on the light, I barely had an empty finger to push open the lid of the trash can before tossing it in. On to work with all my “stuff” piled on the passenger’s seat, I daydreamed about my lunch hour when I could craft to my heart’s content.  And wasn’t everyone going to love those cards?! With prideful thoughts bursting like pus out of infected wound, I carried on in my mind unaware that “pride cometh before a fall.”

I was so excited I considered taking my lunch at 10:00, but held off until 11:00 when I finally told my co-worker I was going to lunch.  Grabbing my lunch bag, I looked for my craft bag, but I didn’t see it.  Did I leave it in the car?  Surely not, I was so excited about the whole project, but I did have a lot of stuff to carry, maybe it was there.  I ran out to the car but couldn’t find it.  I went back to my office and looked again. Hmmm, no bag.  I sat down and retraced my steps and everything I had carried out to the car.  I ran the Instant Replay tape in my mind: my hands were full, the garage was dark, and I was hustling like a maniac to get out the door to show everyone just how organized I could be without their help.  Oh, noooo!  With a sinking feeling I realized that I had let go of my craft bag when I tossed the trash—and it was trash day in our neighborhood!

I immediately called home to see if the garbage men had come yet.  Of course they had, I knew they had, because in the split second of realizing what had happened I heard His (God’s) still, small voice.  It was so very clear.  “So you think you’re better than everyone? So organized and puffed up over yourself and your gift which I have given you.  I’ll show you what I can do.  I will let you throw out your craft with your own hand.” 

II. Conviction & Remorse

I can’t really describe how utterly smitten with conviction I was: guilt, shame, embarrassment, horror, remorse and repentance all rolled into one devastating realization. I could hardly focus on my work the rest of the day.  All that work, all the time, so hard to come by, thrown away—“by my own hand”! 

I was remorsefully depressed for the rest of the day.

III. Forgiveness & Healing

But God— (I love that phrase)

But God is a God of forgiveness—after the chastisement and consequences had been served.  I knew He was right.  I felt His loving correction.  It was swift, perfectly targeted, and just.  He spoke the truth in love to my heart.  So, I began to create the pieces again, but with a new, humbled attitude.  A few days later I received an e-mail from a very dear friend of mine who had introduced me to the Christ of the Gospels in high school.  She wrote because she was giving up her stamping craft.  Would I like to come over and see if there were any supplies I could use?  Would I?  I had just received an unexpected Christmas check, so off I drove to her house, several suburbs away. 

III. Reconciliation & Love Abundant

When I walked in she had craft supplies covering her dining room table and floor of everything imaginable for crafting cards!  She had crafting tools I didn’t even recognize.  I was a little overwhelmed at first, but she handed me a box and told me to fill it up!  I started with the supplies I had thrown away.  God did not replace my supplies item for item.  For every thing I had tossed, He replaced it many times over!  I had tossed one glue stick.  Nancy had unopened packages of glue sticks in sets of 3 or 4.  She told me to load up with whatever I wanted!  She had a rainbow array of cardstock already cut to card size, stamp sets, colored markers, doubled-sided tape, glue dots, glitter and much more.  I was ecstatic!  God had forgiven me and let me loose in an art supply store with a credit card that had my name on it!  I gave her my Christmas check and she gave me two boxes filled to the brim to carry everything home.  I’m sure it would have totaled more than my check, but it was a win-win situation.  She was de-cluttering and gaining back time and space in her life for other priorities, and I felt a little like Job who was given back many times over what had been lost.

I think of this lesson every time I sit down at my table to craft.  It was a good lesson.

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.

The Office: The Spice of Life

Day 24 of the 31 for 21 Challenge

From the desk of Cathy Harvey, Administrative Assistant

I recently attended a featured session on “The Lure and Lore of Spices” at a local library in Mundelein, Illinois led by Tom and Patty Erd who are spice merchants.  They’ve had a family business since 1957 and travel the world purchasing spices for their stores in Illinois and Wisconsin. Fascinating!  They had an ancient-looking world map to regale us with stories, history and folklore, separating the fact from the fiction.  (Pepper, not salt, is the king of spices and cinnamon is sawdust from the bark of the cinnamon tree.)  Their pointer for the map was a 3-foot long stick of cinnamon!  The Erds opened a cabinet of stories that kept us spellbound.  Their specialty after years of experience is creating spice blends based on local culture.  They know just how to spice up a meal with fragrant and unique blends.

There’s a good bit of spice in my life here at Shepherds.  The broad variety of things I am asked to do in my role as the Administrative Assistant spice up what could be an otherwise mundane role.  Besides coordinating travel for 45+ students every holiday and summer break, besides posting and mailing report cards, and planning much of the graduation week, here are some of the unusual tasks I’ve been asked to do that put a little kick in my office life!

·         Day 1 on the job – “Go around and check every apartment to make sure there are no problems and no one is fighting with each other.”  (WHAT???  I don’t know what to do to break up a fight! I thought I’d be filing and typing, stuff like that).  The Dean wasn’t talking about fist fights; she meant helping students cope with new school year stress--something like, if one student took someone’s cereal bowl off the counter and it upset another student who did not know how to handle it or think of an alternate solution.  Help them work through it.  (Day 1 on the job, I did not know the students and had not yet worked with students with disabilities.)

·         Week 1 on the job – “Can you come up with a Fitness plan for all the students, with charts for each one of them and a destination we can go to, with anything you want to advertise this?  And we need that by Monday.”

·         “Schedule a tour of the Capitol in Madison, and a trip to the zoo, and Olbrich Gardens.”

·         “Go outside and find nature items.”

·         “Take pictures.”

·         “Call the church hosting the Bethlehem Market and ask them to please turn off the strobe light when we come through.”

·         “Find out where we can get foreign currency in Yen for our student flying home and connecting through Tokyo. Try the bank down the street, call Milwaukee Airport, call O’Hare, try the Triple A in Racine, how ‘bout the one in Brookfield, or try Wauwatosa; make me a summary so we can email the parents all the options.”

·         “Go to the area hotels and check them out for cleanliness and amenities, so we can book rooms for Orientation.”

·         “Make a chart of what every student is doing for Christmas break, including who’s picking them up, what time they are leaving, what they need to pack, if they get meds, what flight, what airport, what time, what driver, who’s bringing them back, what day and time, and print gate pass letters so we can walk them all the way to the plane. Oh, and if they have a connecting flight, make a letter for that too so they don’t get lost, and make sure it has all their flight information.  Then make bag breakfasts for everyone on the day they are leaving so they don’t mess up their clean apartments before break, and go buy the food too - here’s a list - and find out what they all like to drink for juice.”

·         “I need a balloon and a rock, like a pretty big rock.  I need a robe and a wad of money.”

·         “Drive the students to O’Hare Airport.”

·         “Please look online and see if the eggs in this carton were part of the recall; one of our students got very sick immediately after eating eggs this morning.”

·         “Cathy, I need about a 1/4 cup of mud, but not soil because I don’t want it to have any fertilizers or chemicals.  I want to put it on someone’s face.”

·         From a student during 8 a.m. med pass: “Mrs. Harvey, can you please check our toilet?  It’s been running for about 35 minutes.”

·         “Cathy, can you please go up to the Findley Center and get my keys; I left them in the freezer.”  Imagine my puzzled expression, “You left them in the freezer?”  “Yes, I think I left them in there when I was getting ice.  I shut the door and forgot them.  Joy found them this morning”

A little spice never hurt anyone, right?

Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.