Annoyance Challenge | Annie Fox's Blog

Day 9: Asking teens to weigh in

June 16, 2009

Hey! Whachoo lookin' at?

Yesterday I expanded my Annoyance Challenge exploration by emailing a survey to one hundred tweens and teens. The topic: annoying behavior at school. Here are the six straight-forward questions.

At school what things annoy you? (Lots of details please but no names!)
When someone’s behavior annoys you, what do you usually do about it?
At school, what do you sometimes do that annoys OTHER PEOPLE? (whether you mean to or not)
At school, what do you sometimes do that annoys YOU?
How have you tried to change your own behavior so that it’s less annoying to others or yourself?
If someone else’s annoying behavior didn’t get to you so easily, how would school be different?

So far I’ve heard back from twelve students. I’m thinking 12% teen response to a random email questionnaire is pretty good. This may indicate either that the topic of annoyance is a hot one and they’re eager to vent or that even though school’s only been out for a week, they’re already bored and willing to reply to anything that wafts into their IN Box. Maybe it’s a little of each. Anyway, I’ve already gotten some really interesting answers. I’ll be sharing the results over the next several days.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a 10-14 year old in your house and you can manage to get them to respond to these questions (anonymously, of course) I’d really appreciate it. They can email me here. If they’re not up for it, that’s cool. I certainly don’t want to annoy anyone!

Filed under: Annoyance Challenge,Parenting,Quizzes,Teens — Tags: school, teen survey — Annie @ 6:56 pm

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Day 8: Art = Annoyance Relief

June 15, 2009

Thanks, Leonardo and friends!

Yesterday, the end of the first week of The Annoyance Challenge, was annoyance-free. Seriously. David and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Italian Street Painting Festival in the neighboring town of San Rafael and everything about it was cool. The weather. The crowds. The music. And, of course, thanks to the artists who sat on the asphalt for two straight days drawing… the street was transformed into a patchwork of glorious images inspired by Italian Renaissance Masters, the Impressionists, Mother Nature, portrait photography, animated heroes, and pure imagination.

What a show!

I’d gladly give you the exact location so you could come check it out for yourself, but the annual Street Painting Festival, a fundraiser for Youth in Arts, is a bit like Brigadoon. At 8 pm on the second day, everything is washed away. Vanished into memory. I guess that could be annoying, except that’s the brilliance of the whole deal. 48 hours of totally focused energy on the process of creating art for public consumption. And boy did we consume… walking through the space, drinking in the vibrant colors, congratulating the artists and sharing the whole scene with people who appreciate such devotion to art.

See you next year.