Random Topics

 I was trying to decide what to blog about tonight and decided to hit Google for a random topic. Since I was there...I typed in "random topic generator" and would you believe it...there are some!! First going to try "Blogtap's Random Topic Generator" - which even has subjects to choose from. Going to be brave and select from "All". And the topic is (drumroll) - The Wright Brothers. Seriously...that is what popped up first.


At least I know something about the topic (unlike a topic suggested to me earlier today - diminishing Arctic ice...which I will need to research first). I have even been to the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kitty Hawk, NC because it is in the area that I vacation. I will say that the $5 I spent when I visited several years ago was  about right (it is down to $4 now!). At the time, the museum was housed in a couple of trailers but had very informative exhibits. Then you could walk over the area that the First Flight took place. There are markers showing the distances achieved in the first flights that Orville and Wilbur took. I learned that the brothers had made hundreds of glides - the flight in December 1903 was the first heavier-than-air powered flight.

One thing that I always wondered about - how did they decide that Orville was going to be on the flyer? Rock, paper, scissors? Flip a coin? Chicken wishbone?

One more Random Generator: Random Questions at Conversations Starters.com - and the questions is (drumroll...) What was your favorite subject in school?  Really?

Well...I was quite the nerd in school, so I can't go with the goofy response of "lunch". And being an uncoordinated nerd, my answer can not be "gym" or "PE". I think that the answer would depend on what grade we are examining. In first grade, my favorite subject was definitely Math. I grasped the whole concept of numbers, sets, addition and subtraction very quickly. I had a really cool teacher who let me keep going in the workbook and by the end of the first 6 weeks...I had run out of math to do. So she arranged for me to join up with the second grade math class. That teacher didn't let me get ahead of the class and I got bored. By third grade, after memorizing the multiplication tables (which took the rest of the class FOREVER) - I was bored again.

I always liked reading - I read to my kindergarten class because my older sisters had taught me to read when I was 4. That was pretty advanced back then. I think my four year old nephew and niece are reading Spanish now. One day I went to my first grade homeroom and she said that they were moving me to the second grade. So I spent the last 6 weeks of that year in a new class. The reading teacher spent part of the first day assessing my reading skills and when she found that I could read all the way up to the silver books, she put me in charge of my reading group. I wasn't trying to be smart - I just wanted to keep reading new stories...and I had finished all the ones in the other levels.

But if I had to answer what my favorite subject in high school was...it would probably be Advanced Algebra. Not because of my love for math...but I got to sit next to Derek Jennings...and he was cool. Or maybe it would have been English because I sat in front of Kevin Parr.

I did enjoy some of the subjects in high school. I liked Chemistry because the teacher was a short wacky woman who let us play with chemicals and stuff. I loved Creative Writing but the teacher was pretty tweaked out on coke most of the time (not the stuff in the can...). Speech class and typing class probably gave me the most useful skills that I still use today. Journalism was fun...I was layout editor of the school newspaper. We actually did physical paste-ups then. It was printed on the presses of the local paper. We only managed to get about 4 editions out that year...but I enjoyed working on The Amherite.

This has been an interesting look back....thank you Random Topics!!