Dances, Dates, and Data

 

Dances and Dates played a fairly big role in my college years.  I  didn't really get asked out on dates during my high school years, and I rarely attended dances.  What fun is it being a wallflower and never being asked to dance?  To tell the truth, I was still somewhat of a wallflower during my college years, so rarely attended dances without a date after the first orientation dance.  That being said, there seemed to be more girls or ladies choice type dance events than there were in high school, and during our freshman year my roommates and I often all invited one of our group of friends to the dance and prepared dinner at our apartment before the dance.  I actually don't remember the dances so much as the fun we had together as a group.   I didn't really have single dates during this year, but we had a fun time as a group doing other activities besides eating dinner and going to dances.  There were many low cost movies on campus, times to just go out for ice cream together, or even all going on hikes or cross country skiing.  

My dear husband is a much better dancer than I and enjoyed dances, so we did attend a few more school dances when we were dating, mostly during the summer we met while attending the summer semester after my junior year.   And we dated almost every week that summer.  I have kept and treasure a large Ziggy Calendar that my roommates had given me that year where I wrote down almost every paper and exam . . .  and every date and activity that we did together during that momentous summer before we separated for a year and a half when I went to Colombia to serve as a missionary.  But that is a story for another day or another blog post or two or three.  

Data . . . data is everywhere, and is a large part of what I do every day in my work at the community college.  Names, addresses, educational history, courses, biographical information, contact information . . . it all needs to be collected, corrected, updated, stored and analyzed.  Data entry is for the most part automated in these times, with students initiating the input when filling out online applications and forms, but back in the beginning of my working career, the data was mostly manually entered from paper forms submitted by the students, or even faculty when submitting grades.   The data is essentially more accurate now that the middle data entry person has mostly been eliminated, but managing the data, keeping it safe and secure, and preparing accurate reporting is still a big job.  

Dances, Dates, and Data.  What part do these D words play in your life?

Myself and my dear (future) husband at a dance the summer we met in college.