Origami Madness

Somehow Kate C (nee H) has become the freshman advisor at her school and the freshman class' theme is Japan. How and why would I know this? I received a slightly garbled message on my voicemail late last week instructing me to make as much origami as possible and place it in a bag today. Cryptic. Stacey investigated and found out that Mrs C. (as her kids call her) is planning on decorating the entire Freshman Hallway with hanging origami. (current team member Felicia is a Howard alum and commented "that sounds good. The Freshman Hallway always sucks") I am not one to shirk from a challenge and owe Kate big for favors she has done in the past. On Sunday i checked four origami books (Origami for the First Time, Easy Origami Animals, Step-By-Step Origami and Origami Birds) and an origami DVD (DaVinci Kids presents Origami with Leonore) from the library. I read all the books. I suffered through the DVD (someone should tell Leonore that if a DVD is for kids it should not suck or at least it should be interesting). I meticulously cut paper into various size squares. I tried and tried, only to find out what i already knew: I SUCK AT ORIGAMI. I don't know why. I LOVE paper and really rock at other paper crafts, but origami just escapes me. It must have something to do with my spatial relation skills, but i don't get it. I managed a butterfly (ended up using scissors and some glue), a hamster (not sure what's going on with his tail) and a big duck (who looks good, but can't sit up on his own; he isn't attacking the hamster, just propping himself up). I found one fish pattern that i could do because it uses the same folds as a squash book, which i have taught before in my journalling classes. This week was crazy busy, but i did manage a small school of 17 fish. Late last night i was working on a pig that ended up being so disturbing (if Satan had a pet pig i now know exactly what it would look like) that i ripped it into tiny pieces (no coming alive in the middle of the night, thank you) and gave up on the origami challenge. I delivered my paltry 20 creatures to the high school and can only hope they pass muster. Kate has promised pictures of the project when it is done. I hope her other friends and colleagues have better paper folding skills than me!