I was offered free ice cream for writing 16 sentences.  I would have written more for less reward, so I guess NMC and I both thought we got a good deal.  It was not that hard, considering that it was only about two sentences a day.

Actually, it was less than that.  There was usually something that struck me oddly during the day, so I would jot down a sentence.  By the end of the week, I had 6 sentences that did not relate to each other, except for the common element that they had something to do with teaching at NMC.  It would take probably two sentences to introduce the loose collection of thoughts, a sentence between each one to link it to the next, and two sentences at the end to provide a conclusion.  By the time I was done, I had 6 original sentences, 5 transitions, and 4 sentences to introduce and conclude the whole collection.  At that point, it was not that hard to put in one more sentence to plug the Lions, time travel, video games, or whatever was going on outside the window that day.  Sometimes if I clicked on the “ABC Spelling & Grammar” the computer would recommend another sentence, so I was done, and all I would have to do is sit back and wait for the ice cream.

Over the four weeks, I also got free coffee, a free lunch, and a final reward that I have not picked up yet but will soon.  Free stuff may not be the best stuff ever, but as far as I am concerned, the price is right.  Food and ice-cream are near the top of my list as essentials.

A recommendation for future writing projects at NMC:  Expand on my 6-sentence approach to writing a 16-sentence musing.  Take the 27 or so submissions collected during this exercise, put them in alphabetical order based on the first word in each essay, and write a 5-sentence paragraph linking one to the other.  We now have a short book, probably 50 pages or so (use big font for even more pages), as a record of NMC’s first faculty generated published thoughts on education.

I’d give a bowl of ice-cream for that.