Calendar Conundrum

I am looking at one of those desktop day calendars where you rip off the day once it is done.  This happens to be one of those learn a word a day types.  I can't say this is completely wrong, but I can't say it is completely right either.  I feel so conflicted.

I received the calendar as a stocking stuffer last year.  I appreciate the gift because it does, in fact, seem very suitable.  I am an English teacher, I like learning and I like words.  This last point is evident because I am writing a blog and I do crosswords almost every day.

There are two problems with this calendar, though.  The first is that I really don't look at it every day.  I look at it once a month.  I attribute this to the fact that it sits in the corner of my desk I am least likely to look at, or most likely to ignore.  I cannot, in good conscience, blame the calendar for this.  I could put it in a more conspicuous place on the desk, though no space seems to be offering itself.  The problem is that once the month is gone, am I gone to look through thirty or so words?  Most likely, I will rip off the stack of words until the day in question.  I might glance through them, but will study them?  I have used the word unlikely already, so I will answer that it is improbable.

The other problem is that most of these words are not new to me.  As I said, I am an English teacher who does crosswords.  Yes, I have learned a few (sanguine, for one, which really didn't mean what I thought it did) and I have come across words that I had no idea existed (October 16 was ailurophobia--and now Microsoft's spellchecker is rejecting it).  Will I remember these words?  Does glancing at them mean that I have somehow absorbed them?  Can I learn through osmosis (no, I didn't get that one from the calendar, but there are still two months to go).

Christmas is soon upon us, and perhaps I will get another one of these calendars.  While I cannot say I would reject getting one, I would say the idea of it doesn't thrill me.  As I gather up these papers and prepare them for the recycle box, I wonder if I should give one to the person who gave me this one.  Retaliation--that word was in the calendar.

Wrapping Conundrum

Unwrapping is more fun than wrapping.  Okay.  No surprise there.  I am basically stating the obvious that people have known from time immemorial.  I just had to get it off my chest.  I also needed some way to start this blog entry.

It is the Christmas season, and with it comes presents.  This year I was tasked to buy a lot of stocking stuffers.  That was the easy part (I mean, can anyone say dollar store--though, there seem to be fewer and fewer things there that are still one dollar).  I had no problem amassing all the required items, and, if I do say so myself, managed to avoid anything too crappy or too tacky.  The only problem was what to do with the stuff--to wrap, or not to wrap.  Since the actual gift exchange was going to work somewhat differently, I decided to wrap.  I guess I feel that unwrapping is a fundamental part of Christmas.

When I lived in Japan, whenever I bought somebody a gift, I always asked the store to wrap it up.  This was great and it was free.  They did it easily, and it always looked great.  The best part was that it only took one piece of tape (usually a store sticker) to wrap it up.  One piece of tape.  Amazing.

If only I could do that.  Usually I have to fumble around, hoping that I have cut off the correct amount of paper, though I have either cut too much, or too little, or the angle is so askew that nothing will line up.  I usually have presents that look like they were wrapped by a guy wearing oven mitts and dark glasses in a dark room.

Normally, nobody complains, and the unwrapping takes mere seconds so any evidence is long gone.

On an environmental note, one person wrapped their gifts using recycled newspaper.  They looked better than mine, and saved money.  Kind of wish I had thought of that.