Any guesses as to what this is a map of?
A traffic map of sorts. If this world map vaguely looks like it’s highlighting a remnant of the British Empire, that’s no coincidence. This map shows which side of the road traffic drives on.
Dark blue: drives on left (mainly British ex-colonies).
Light blue: used to drive on right, now on left (Namibia).
Purple: used to have mixed system, now drives on right.
Light red: used to drive on left, now on right.
Dark red: drives on right.
As one might gather from the map, the story of left or right hand side driving is more than just a derivative of British Imperialism. Right-handedness, a trait shared by 85 to 90% of people, is the reason for the initial preference for left and for the switch to right side driving.
In my mailbox at the Service-Learning office today, I retrieved my Valentine’s Day card. Myra created a card for each person, and everyone was able to sign any other person’s card. Mine contained these five affirmations:
| John, Here’s a challenge, since you always have a joke for everything, find one for this (arrow pointing to a gecko-looking lizard-type thing on the card). Thanks for all you do and for always making me laugh! Happy Valentine’s Myra |
Myra, my joke is in the form of a riddle: What’s orange and looks like a gecko-looking lizard-type thing on a Valentine’s Day card? Ba-dump bump. I’m here all week folks. Be thankful for limited engagements.
Sorry, Myra. I’m good, but I need material to work with!
| John, It has been a treat getting to know you! You always put a delightful spin to usually mundane things, making the day much more interesting. Happy Valentine’s Day! –Elizabeth |
| John, I am so glad you are here! When we get to see each other, you always make me laugh! We’ll miss you and your puns at the hockey game! Alissa |
| John- Happy V-Day to my #1 go-to-man for organizing faculty! Great to have you on board. Patti |
| John John John- Take me dancing for V-Day, huh!? At least save me a dance 🙂 Dani’ |
I spent five hours at the office today, with at least an hour of that spent meeting with Patti in an über-productive meeting about many aspects of the Engaged College project.
Afterwards, we had a very interesting, highly intellectual, discussion about ethics vs. character vs. morals vs. universal good and truth. I only know that it was highly intellectual due to the pain in my brain when we were finished.
We had a good bunch of dancers tonight—most of the time more dancers than there were other people in the bar. The roster included: Geromy, Carl, Bill, Michael, Rick, Alan, Ernie, Sean, Todd, Mark, and myself.
The funnest part of the night was at the end of the night. Just Alan and I were left, and I said to him, “I haven’t heard that song you love yet tonight.”
“That song? Which one?”
I said, “The one with ‘it starts with an I and ends in a U,’ that one.”
“Oh my god, that’s about four years old,” he said running to Van in the DJ booth.
That song came up next, which he belted out. Following that came on “Harper Valley, PTA,” which he had also requested, and I belted out that one. Fun.