St. Paul under the northern lights

Ah, Lou you're a great man.

Me and another girl have been working for a year on this instruction manual for a distance education course, it's a terribly boring task, which is why we had to ask for an extension on the deadline, which is also why we he had to meet with the guy that's overseeing the construction of it all. Somehow this guy finds all of this stuff very exciting, he says to us, "What you want to do is think about making 'the manual' fun and engaging, try incorporating some of these exercises..."

"How about giving some lectures on tape, you know, so you can really explain all of the finer points, talk right at them."

"Or, how about reading some scripture on tape, you know, give them a real sense of the oral quality of this inspirational material"

"What about crossword puzzles,"

(I wonder what sort of clues he was thinking of...."raiser of Lazarus," "reader of the writing on the wall," "dreamer of butterflies and men," "Charioteer, of South Asian fame," "killer of all first born children (Egyptian)"...)

"Oh," and this one brought a spark to his eye, "you should think about dressing up in costume and acting out some really key scenes in religious history."

Despite the absurdity of his suggestions, I got into his excitement.

The girl I was working with maybe less so, though her responses were great, which I think only added to the absurdity... "hmmm, I'll keep that in mind." This humoured him just enough to keep going. It was a very amusing hour.