When I was in high school, the guidance counselor used to speak really scornfully about easy electives like "underwater basket weaving" but I have contemplated this for 35 years, and I still think underwater basket weaving sounds really hard.
Replies
I cannot believe this thing is still going. Godspeed, you wild horses.
dec 4, 2024, 11:00 pm • 19 0 • view
My brother drowned weaving a basket. Its hard on the family also.
dec 4, 2024, 10:50 am • 2 0 • view
My high school teacher used to talk about underwater basket weaving too. Like where did this study come from, and can people really major in it? I want to meet one person who has studied it. Bet they are fascinating.
dec 4, 2024, 1:35 pm • 17 0 • view
My local community college has offered an underwater basket weaving class for decades. I think my mom took it, probably in the early 70s
dec 4, 2024, 9:27 pm • 1 0 • view
Hahahaha, very clever!
dec 4, 2024, 11:53 pm • 0 0 • view
Yeah I remember underwater basket weaving… tho as long as the basket is the only thing underwater… I really wonder where the idea came from
dec 4, 2024, 2:54 pm • 9 0 • view
Plus, you’d get an interview anytime someone looked at your resume if it said “Actually took underwater basket weaving”
dec 4, 2024, 2:38 am • 7 0 • view
Especially 2nd semester when you have to hold your breath.
dec 4, 2024, 11:22 pm • 7 0 • view
I hear it’s a preliminary degree to underwater welding
dec 4, 2024, 4:28 am • 3 0 • view
Once, at a job, when I was in my 20s, I made a joke to my coworkers about how X was easy like basketweaving. A male coworker with a sad countenance, looked at me, and said, “my (beloved) mom weaves baskets.” Never again did I crack jokes about basket weaving.
dec 4, 2024, 3:49 am • 3 0 • view
Are they underwater baskets that you're weaving, or are you weaving normal baskets while underwater? I've wondered about this for years.
dec 4, 2024, 5:41 am • 1 0 • view
That’s ALOT of skillsets. Underwater demolition or whatever the reverse is. Concentration. Building up lung strength. Physics on how you are able to fight the forces of the water against you. That’s Legit navy SEALS training stuff!
dec 4, 2024, 2:45 pm • 1 0 • view
Sounds harder than being a guidance counselor..
dec 4, 2024, 3:10 am • 7 0 • view
Real
dec 4, 2024, 3:13 am • 4 0 • view
And more enjoyable...
dec 5, 2024, 1:43 am • 1 0 • view
I never paid my high school guidance counselor any mind. He wasn’t too bright.
dec 4, 2024, 6:09 am • 1 0 • view
If one had a snorkel or scuba for air... Would it keep the canes wet & more supple to weave? 🤔😎
dec 4, 2024, 6:19 am • 4 0 • view
Yes! Let's get to the heart of the practical questions. And also, does it make a difference to the canes if it is salt water or fresh water?
dec 4, 2024, 6:36 am • 3 0 • view
A basket weaver once told me salt acts as a preservative. Woodworm supposedly doesn't attack wicker soaked in seawater.
dec 4, 2024, 8:30 am • 3 0 • view
God if I had a dollar for every time I heard about that class in college I’d be retired.
dec 4, 2024, 2:27 pm • 2 0 • view
I always thought the same thing. 😂
dec 4, 2024, 5:41 am • 1 0 • view
I just listened to a recent @ologies.bsky.social episode about it, very interesting!
dec 5, 2024, 12:55 am • 5 1 • view
Afaik there was one university in Washington state that offered a course in basket weaving as an elective in the Anthropology department, at some point in the 80s or 90s. And the fascist has been whining about it to justify education cuts and vilify the academcy every since then.
dec 4, 2024, 3:06 am • 37 0 • view
Yep. It became a meme for boomers to regurgitate at GenX.
dec 4, 2024, 4:41 am • 1 0 • view
Basket weaving and textiles is incredibly important to human development and civilization. It would make sense in an anthropology department. But anti-intellectualism crossed wit sexism ...
dec 4, 2024, 3:33 am • 33 1 • view
At a minimum you’d think it would matter to conservatives who want to preserve traditional homemaker values in the face of modernization.
dec 4, 2024, 4:30 am • 16 0 • view
They don't any to preserve traditional homemaker values. They want to entrap women. The modernization they fear is equality and equity.
dec 4, 2024, 5:35 am • 1 0 • view
Word. It's never been about any kind of tradition. Fascism raises a call to a lost golden age that never existed, built out of foggy childhood memories and really really silly readings of religious and mythological texts. It's all made up to appeal to the libido of miserable people .
dec 4, 2024, 6:15 am • 2 0 • view
They actually don’t care about anything to do with homemaking, they happily sneer at the housework their wives and mothers do yet expect a hot meal to be ready for them.
dec 4, 2024, 5:29 am • 16 0 • view
It's definitely more widespread than that. Sierra College in California has offered an underwater basket weaving class for decades
dec 4, 2024, 9:33 pm • 2 0 • view
That's a follow haha
dec 4, 2024, 3:41 am • 4 0 • view
this sounds like one of the electives from community
dec 5, 2024, 2:30 am • 1 0 • view
LADDERS! *enthusiastic applause*
dec 6, 2024, 2:59 am • 2 0 • view
You've got to get the b breathing j u s t r I g h t.
dec 4, 2024, 10:43 am • 3 0 • view
there's something to be said about implying that studying a particular discipline is just a means towards a comfortable schedule and good grades, and not about learning the material.
dec 4, 2024, 2:25 am • 14 1 • view
I got a BFA in Underwater Basket Weaving.
dec 4, 2024, 9:05 pm • 0 0 • view
I've always wondered if the whole process takes place under water...like you plus materials, or is it just in a sink or something.
dec 4, 2024, 6:30 am • 1 0 • view
:-)
dec 4, 2024, 4:43 am • 1 0 • view
That's going to be a high priority job when we no longer have power and the southern states are flooded!
dec 4, 2024, 9:33 pm • 0 0 • view
Does it help your mental health and how do you basket weave with scuba equipment on? The mind boggles.
dec 4, 2024, 11:21 am • 2 0 • view
Only the basket-weaving part has to be underwater--soaking keeps the reeds flexible!
dec 4, 2024, 11:41 am • 2 0 • view
It was a little joke about scuba diver doing basket weaving.
dec 4, 2024, 2:17 pm • 2 0 • view
Relevant podcast featuring a very cool canistrumologist: www.alieward.com/ologies/cani...
dec 4, 2024, 9:55 am • 1 0 • view
Probably tougher than my women's studies class!
dec 4, 2024, 3:15 am • 2 0 • view
i always just heard basket weaving.
dec 5, 2024, 12:16 am • 3 0 • view
I couldn't do it. You'd have to be a mermaid I think, or an octopus.
dec 4, 2024, 7:37 am • 2 0 • view
I always imagined this happening at like the deep end of a public pool but recently learned you just put your arms into a deep sink or something, you don’t even need a snorkel
dec 5, 2024, 3:42 am • 0 0 • view
that is so disappointing
dec 5, 2024, 4:43 am • 1 0 • view
Why was this always the go-to example? That’s the exact class my own teachers used to use to warn us to pick a good major lest we leave college with a degree in underwater basket weaving. And this was back in the days before the internet was as big as it is now…
dec 4, 2024, 4:36 am • 1 0 • view
You need scuba training and gear for starters.
dec 4, 2024, 4:48 pm • 1 0 • view
This is very true, extremely hard...
dec 4, 2024, 8:12 am • 3 0 • view
As an undergraduate I took sculpture as my easy A. In my entire university career it was the only class I dropped.
dec 4, 2024, 5:41 pm • 27 0 • view
Being able to weave a basket is a useful skill.
dec 4, 2024, 4:44 am • 58 0 • view
Hence the "underwater" part.
dec 4, 2024, 8:45 am • 0 0 • view
If you can do it underwater that just shows a degree of expertise at being able to make a craft.
dec 4, 2024, 10:43 am • 0 0 • view
That doesn't make it useful to do underwater.
dec 4, 2024, 10:54 am • 0 0 • view
Might be more fun to weave while swimming. I haven’t tried. 🤷🏻♂️😂 I’m also not familiar with the hypothetical course content. So I can’t say the role the water would play. But presumably yes, the idiom for being a waste of time would be a waste of time. Basket weaving isn’t though.
dec 4, 2024, 10:59 am • 1 0 • view
I will stand on business here. It’s not outright useful, but compared to other skills it is lower in priority. In the same way someone who can recite digits of pie has a skill that is not necessarily useful
dec 4, 2024, 5:40 am • 11 0 • view
If you can weave a basket that’s a relaxing and productive hobby. You can make something useful. You can make a gift for someone. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s like saying knitting is useless. A bought scarf isn’t the same as a one made for you.
dec 4, 2024, 10:42 am • 13 0 • view
Yeah, but as a college major which was the example we used…?
dec 4, 2024, 2:11 pm • 1 0 • view
The example was for a high school elective? Which tends to be things like art, music, career and technical classes. I understand the idiom is used to describe degrees that are considered useless. I’m just saying being able to make a basket is a worthwhile pursuit.
dec 4, 2024, 3:21 pm • 1 0 • view
But why doing that underwater?..
dec 4, 2024, 1:15 pm • 0 0 • view
The plant materials baskets are made out of generally need to be soaked in order to be flexible enough to weave with. (It's not saying that the basket *weaver* also has to be underwater.)
dec 4, 2024, 1:33 pm • 2 0 • view
Then wouldn't it be called *wet* basket weaving?
dec 4, 2024, 1:34 pm • 0 0 • view
Just in case you haven’t heard it before. Underwater basket weaving is an idiom to describe classes or degrees that are considered useless.
dec 4, 2024, 1:40 pm • 1 0 • view
How do you keep dry materials wet for the extended length of time it takes to make a basket?
dec 4, 2024, 1:36 pm • 0 0 • view
dec 4, 2024, 1:42 pm • 2 0 • view
About as useful as learning to use a slide rule.
dec 4, 2024, 6:33 am • 2 0 • view
"lower in priority" to a system setup to increase the wealth of the immorally rich at the expense of the majority of us whose labor it exploits. Skills are de-prioritized unless somehow construed to feed the economically immoral status quo which is all too often propagandized as "progress"
dec 11, 2024, 2:15 pm • 1 0 • view
and all of that is unsustainable even to those teetering at the top in their misguided belief that -- they are winning at anything other than an incredibly immoral & myopic game; or that taking is better than giving.
dec 11, 2024, 2:20 pm • 0 0 • view
Maybe not with scuba gear. You have to soak the materials for weaving baskets anyway.
dec 4, 2024, 4:53 am • 3 0 • view
It's a girl/boy scout badge if I'm not mistaken.
dec 4, 2024, 3:57 am • 1 0 • view
And yet, what would be the point?
dec 4, 2024, 3:42 am • 2 0 • view
Did we have the same guidance counselor? He also blew me off when I asked for help in figuring out how to apply for colleges and find/fill out scholarships. Yay for shitty counselors. Thankfully, the librarians were far more helpful.
dec 4, 2024, 3:14 am • 5 0 • view
when I was at university, I took swimming as an elective. Holy crap. It was so hard and the final was treading water for 45 minutes as well as other activities. Yes, we had a final. I took an acting course as an elective. Oh my God, the amount of work I had to do, papers I had to write.
dec 4, 2024, 5:17 am • 8 0 • view
They’re still all talking about underwater basket weaving. I didn’t know it was *a thing*
dec 4, 2024, 11:33 am • 2 0 • view
Personally I don't think guidance counselors should be speaking scornfully at all. Their job is to inspire.
dec 4, 2024, 5:50 pm • 1 0 • view
Is it though?
dec 4, 2024, 6:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Time to let it go. But don’t be scornful. The guidance counselor misspoke. The weave is a difficult thing to do.
dec 4, 2024, 1:31 pm • 2 0 • view
I have tried basket weaving and I found it to be difficult even out of the water.
dec 4, 2024, 6:32 am • 2 0 • view
I've woven several baskets, and I can tell you that while the reeds need to be wet, doing the actual weaving under water would be impossible. I remember my high school guidance counselor saying that exact same thing. As a weaver I find it both validating and insulting to be dismissed like that.
dec 4, 2024, 5:32 am • 0 0 • view
😂 😂
dec 4, 2024, 3:37 am • 1 0 • view
I did, too, and made a whole lot of fun about this 'course'.
dec 4, 2024, 4:40 am • 2 0 • view
When I was in high school, the only electives for girls were cookery and sewing. For the boys, it was woodworking and metalwork. The girls weren't allowed to do the boy's electives. Underwater basket weaving would have been a sell-out course!
dec 4, 2024, 6:56 am • 0 0 • view
Both the weaving and the being under water. Not easy. My grade school guidance counselor apparently killed himself. Long after I was gone so it wasn’t because of me. That time.
dec 4, 2024, 10:29 pm • 1 0 • view
LOL
dec 4, 2024, 7:34 am • 2 0 • view
I'm not sure that's an issue anymore, it seems they are preoccupied teaching a new way to add numbers, and replacing writing with tablet 101. 🙄
dec 4, 2024, 6:10 am • 4 0 • view
Given that it's the basket that is underwater, and not you, means the reeds/fibers they're using are really really stiff, so it probably is hard. Plus you're probably visually impaired from the water and your own movements.
dec 4, 2024, 7:20 am • 3 0 • view
As a person who has made multiple baskets.. it ain’t as easy as people think.
dec 4, 2024, 11:44 am • 7 0 • view
Seriously, though. If you take electives that teach a skill or a trade, that can be your gateway to not starving through a bad job market. Make baskets, do joinery, engage in metal work, weld... Those are the essential workers AI can't replace. I am an unemployed writer in his 40s with no skills....
dec 4, 2024, 6:30 am • 1 0 • view
And is the basket under water or is this a pool/goggle/snorkel situation ?
dec 4, 2024, 4:30 am • 1 0 • view
😂🤣😂👍🏼mine used to bitch me out for skipping classes and then going to the barn to get my horse and ride it in the football field 😂🤣😂
dec 4, 2024, 11:02 am • 1 0 • view
Actually I thought my useless engineering courses turned out to be the most useful.
dec 4, 2024, 3:58 am • 2 0 • view
I always wanted to try it, at least.
dec 4, 2024, 2:57 am • 4 0 • view
LOL funny but so true
dec 4, 2024, 3:23 pm • 1 0 • view
The high school guidance counselor scoffed at useless degrees? As important as guidance counselors SHOULD be, in the modern US they are, in all likelihood, the least productive people in that building. And I'm counting all of the potential stoner burnouts in that list.
dec 4, 2024, 6:48 pm • 8 0 • view
Mine told me not to do my A levels because I'm not that academic. I have a master's degree 💕
dec 4, 2024, 6:58 pm • 11 0 • view
That's what I mean. Guidance counselors are kind of worthless in the US education system.
dec 4, 2024, 8:13 pm • 3 0 • view
As someone that made her first basket recently it is incredibly hard! The skills you get and patience are totally beneficial.
dec 4, 2024, 4:09 am • 1 0 • view
Yeah what was up with that underwater basket weaving thing anyway?
dec 4, 2024, 10:04 am • 0 0 • view
Mine too!
dec 4, 2024, 11:33 am • 1 0 • view
I took classes over the summer to learn how to make Nantucket-style baskets (not underwater, but still...) and it was indeed HARD. Getting everything perfect takes patience and precision. (My baskets are not perfect 🤣.) No "easy elective," that's for sure!
dec 4, 2024, 3:50 am • 4 0 • view
You had an underwater basket weaving elective in highschool? That sounds awesome, I would have signed up for that.
dec 5, 2024, 12:44 am • 0 0 • view
My wife graduated from art school with a major in fibre arts. Basket weaving was the hardest course she took. She was weaving from morning to midnight for weeks.
dec 4, 2024, 5:14 am • 16 0 • view
I agree. This was a common statement back in the day and it never made sense. I never heard of a single school that offered it either.
dec 4, 2024, 3:44 am • 1 0 • view
Not as hard as underwater bb stacking
dec 4, 2024, 3:18 am • 1 0 • view
As a freediver who often struggles to put my fins on in the water, I concur.
dec 4, 2024, 4:43 am • 14 1 • view
It is unbeweavaly hard. :D
dec 4, 2024, 4:15 am • 2 0 • view
I think it would be. But, that's just me 🤷🤣🤣
dec 5, 2024, 12:02 am • 0 0 • view
Why not go back to school and give it a try?
dec 4, 2024, 3:48 am • 4 0 • view
Baskets definitely don’t maintain their integrity in salt water.
dec 4, 2024, 11:26 pm • 2 0 • view
That's an elective?? Dude If I had that i would've picked it in a heartbeat that sounds cool
dec 4, 2024, 2:45 am • 1 0 • view
Oh my God
dec 4, 2024, 4:21 am • 2 0 • view
I plan on taking "Woody Plants" class next semester.
dec 4, 2024, 2:49 am • 1 0 • view
Was that a boilerplate script for guidance counselors? Did we all get that chat between 1985 and 1999? I mean? Stamina, dexterity, knowledge of reed properties?
dec 4, 2024, 12:13 pm • 5 0 • view
Folks will say the same about an art class until they have to draw a roll of toilet paper.
dec 4, 2024, 4:27 am • 2 0 • view
😆
dec 4, 2024, 5:20 am • 3 0 • view
And yet so fun… what is so wrong with having a learning experience that is also enjoyable?
dec 4, 2024, 11:17 am • 4 0 • view
High school guidance counselors were, for the most part, as USELESS as tits on a boar!
dec 4, 2024, 2:25 pm • 0 0 • view
It's as if there were no good reasons to take an easy elective, like you're taking four AP courses at the same time and on the soccer team.
dec 4, 2024, 12:43 pm • 16 0 • view
Oh I've got a video for you! 😂 And it's indeed a very hard thing to do youtu.be/yr1E3NUhDio?...
dec 4, 2024, 10:28 pm • 0 0 • view
It makes the reeds more pliable. ;)
dec 4, 2024, 3:10 am • 5 0 • view
The one I had suggested the kids who were struggling do "Jam making" in the middle of nowhere in Ireland. I checked and there is no such course. I would have loved to have done that.
dec 4, 2024, 3:14 am • 1 0 • view
A basket weaver talked about this recently on @ologies.bsky.social! In essence, weaving like that is a Native skill passed down through generations and by no means easy, much less underwater. So we really need to retire that phrase.
dec 4, 2024, 2:19 am • 120 1 • view
The oldest known baskets carbon dated to between 10,000 and 12,000 years old. The oldest known examples of Native American basket weaving are found in caves and shelters in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah. These artifacts are believed to be around 8,000 years old.
dec 4, 2024, 3:47 am • 4 0 • view
Right?!
dec 4, 2024, 2:21 am • 25 0 • view
My high school had a class called Tree Identification. To be fair, NH has a lot of trees and non-trees
dec 4, 2024, 3:28 am • 4 0 • view
I had to take four semesters of PE in college. I took Beginner Tennis, Beginner Rollerskating, Beginner Bowling, and Advanced Bowling. ADVANCED! I absolutely would’ve taken Underwater Basket Weaving - bet it’d be a crossover PE/Fine Arts credit.
dec 4, 2024, 3:17 am • 6 0 • view
I bet you they are pretty expensive to buy too. Sounds kind of like a relaxing arts and crafts project though. I wonder if they have something like that on Etsy...
dec 4, 2024, 2:41 am • 2 0 • view
Guidance counselor suggested at 15 I join the army as she felt I had no prospects in the professional world. 55 years later still going hard at it in professional advisory world and never been happier. Mostly they are idiots who cant get a real job themselves IMHO
dec 4, 2024, 4:22 am • 2 0 • view
Seems it’s always classes requiring creativity and skill, such as music composition or watercolor. When my kid’s grade school began issuing actual earned grades in art and music, suddenly parents claimed the hit to their future MD and CPA’s gpa’s “wasn’t fair”.
dec 5, 2024, 12:45 am • 2 0 • view
I never thought of it that way.
dec 4, 2024, 6:25 am • 2 0 • view
I have always understood this to be derisive of those who write about 'underwriting basket weaving', and not those who can actually perform whatever cultural niche thing. Mad respect to weavers, but boo to the critic.
dec 4, 2024, 9:07 am • 2 0 • view
Like when I was an English major and people said "Oh, you're majoring at cocktail party conversation," but I still find cocktail party conversation really hard.
dec 5, 2024, 1:02 am • 2 0 • view
Oh I can help with this! Just talk without pause about cheese. Share random cheese facts until people walk away. It's foolproof.
dec 5, 2024, 1:05 am • 3 0 • view
Try getting a masters in it. … he was right though. I’m unemployed.
dec 4, 2024, 2:51 pm • 24 0 • view
dec 4, 2024, 4:06 pm • 1 0 • view
OMG I had a high school history/government teacher that said the same thing! LA, California - where were you?
dec 4, 2024, 5:30 am • 1 0 • view
You can tell he dodged the draft.
dec 4, 2024, 10:09 pm • 0 0 • view
Have not heard that term for decades. How did it become so well used?
dec 4, 2024, 6:32 am • 1 0 • view
Been hearing about underwater basket weaving since childhood and never was offered the opportunity. Started to think it didn’t exist. Then saw a museum exhibit on Native American underwater basket weaving so apparently it’s real
dec 4, 2024, 7:08 am • 2 0 • view
Ive actually done it. Maybe 4th or 5th grade some tractor trailer “mobile classroom” from the university archeology or history dept rolled up and we all took turns going in it and weaving a wee basket underwater.
dec 4, 2024, 5:35 am • 4 0 • view
If I remember correctly (it’s been like 20 years ago) you like dunk it in the water so its pliable? Maybe put it under water to tuck the end in easier?
dec 4, 2024, 5:36 am • 3 0 • view
Yes! That’s what always makes me laugh about the phrase— you do in fact have to put your reed in water so you can more easily weave your baskets.
dec 4, 2024, 6:19 am • 3 0 • view
Lol
dec 4, 2024, 5:49 am • 4 0 • view
This AI used underwater basket weaving to roast me, and it just made me want to learn how to make baskets 🤣
dec 4, 2024, 3:54 am • 4 0 • view
yeah i think i’d run out of breath and drown before i finish the basket. maybe that’s the point though!
dec 4, 2024, 2:49 am • 4 0 • view
Isn't it easy if you life your face in the water?
dec 4, 2024, 5:49 am • 3 0 • view
I read this as "underwear basket weaving goes really hard" and chuckled a bit.
dec 4, 2024, 9:07 am • 13 0 • view
I spent the last ...six minutes pondering the significance of underwear and basket weaving until I saw this comment. Then I reread the post again and I'm unable to explain to my colleagues why I'm laughing myself silly.
dec 4, 2024, 10:13 am • 4 0 • view
Maybe it was about the ridiculousness of some course content rather than the difficulty.
dec 4, 2024, 6:48 am • 3 0 • view
I passed basket weaving. I failed the underwater portion.
dec 4, 2024, 3:14 am • 1 0 • view
It really does.
dec 4, 2024, 11:26 am • 1 0 • view
I would rather take Calculus as an elective. :) and I did. It was an easy A and the great thing is, I still use it!
dec 5, 2024, 12:18 am • 1 0 • view
Love the insight! Two of my favorite classes were: Waves and Beaches, and Dinosaurs and other Failures. Great 1 credit classes. Learned a lot in both. Perhaps the counselor should have been a teacher. Seems they needed to gain some appreciation.
dec 4, 2024, 1:43 pm • 2 0 • view
Someone once wrote of "beetle-counting and button-sorting," and I thought that was a great description of make-work electives.
dec 4, 2024, 3:16 am • 2 0 • view
That’s so interesting that UBW was treated as an easy elective because when I was a child it meant deep esoterica like first you had to learn weaving, then basket weaving THEN take it underwater
dec 4, 2024, 4:16 am • 2 0 • view
Only true cat lover knows.
dec 4, 2024, 4:51 am • 1 0 • view
I made 160 baskets last year. I thought that was a real accomplishment until my friend said yeah, but did you make them underwater? Now I have to start all over again.
dec 4, 2024, 5:35 am • 5 0 • view
Just spray them with a hose. Nobody will be none the wiser.
dec 4, 2024, 6:55 am • 4 0 • view
Bet you aced geometry
dec 4, 2024, 4:49 am • 1 0 • view
'cause it is...😜
dec 5, 2024, 7:37 am • 0 0 • view
I think this would be a great skill to have. We've lost a lot of skills. Like even preserving foods.
dec 4, 2024, 3:00 am • 3 0 • view
In order to weave a basket, you have to soak the material. Underwater may be easier.
dec 4, 2024, 4:40 am • 2 0 • view
Yeah I failed that class
dec 4, 2024, 4:47 am • 1 0 • view
Underwater basket weaving… WAT?!
dec 5, 2024, 2:10 am • 0 0 • view
Haha. I was a high school art teacher. I did teach a fibers class where we wove baskets, but not underwater.
dec 5, 2024, 1:10 am • 2 0 • view
#BatmanProbably would consider this a useful skill in the event of sea level rise.
dec 4, 2024, 2:45 am • 1 0 • view
Give it a try!
dec 4, 2024, 6:28 pm • 0 0 • view
Jelly. We were told “underwater left-handed basket weaving.”
dec 4, 2024, 9:34 am • 1 0 • view
I remember hearing that when Joe Namath was asked if his major was basket weaving. He replied oh that’s too hard for me, I’m studying journalism.
dec 4, 2024, 2:57 am • 6 0 • view
Basket weaving period is hard work, especially if you source your own reeds and materials. Why do we feel compelled to demean someone else's craft or hard work?
dec 4, 2024, 12:21 pm • 3 0 • view
We were never told it was easy or hard; just that it was a useless skill to have. But I agree, weaving baskets underwater sounds like an overly difficult job to attempt.
dec 4, 2024, 6:05 am • 1 0 • view
Yo diria que puede ser un curso avanzado.
dec 4, 2024, 8:48 pm • 0 0 • view
When did underwater basket weaving become the poster child for this kind of complaint, I heard the same thing in highschool
dec 4, 2024, 5:43 am • 1 0 • view
I've always thought that, too, especially since "on dry land basket weaving" is pretty hard!
dec 4, 2024, 6:49 am • 2 0 • view
That actually sounds really hard.
dec 4, 2024, 8:49 am • 3 0 • view
I'd think you'd have to have a pretty solid background in basket weaving on land to even have a shot
dec 4, 2024, 2:43 am • 3 0 • view
Basket weaving alone! Very skillful work to make a good basket
dec 4, 2024, 2:58 am • 6 0 • view
A guy sang Randall Munroe's "Every Major's Terrible" and when he got to the line about "you'll achieve / slightly less than if you learned to Underwater Basket Weave" he ad-libbed "at least then I'd have a basket."
dec 4, 2024, 5:19 am • 5 0 • view
Ha ha ha. I had a father who used that term with my electives and I thought the same thing. It sounds hard as hell. 🤣
dec 4, 2024, 2:24 pm • 4 0 • view
👍
dec 4, 2024, 12:43 pm • 1 0 • view
My guidance counselor in high school insisted I take the so-called easy electives not just for myself but also my mister and she took A sewing class and I had to do all her projects for her because she couldn't sew.
dec 5, 2024, 4:25 am • 0 0 • view
Who ever described it as "easy"? That was always an example of a skill that you weren't going to use.
dec 4, 2024, 2:43 am • 2 0 • view
Been a long time since I've heard about under water basket weaving...
dec 4, 2024, 3:00 am • 2 0 • view
It depends on how long you can hold your breath.
dec 4, 2024, 3:20 am • 3 0 • view
clivethompson.medium.com/in-defense-o...
dec 9, 2024, 6:25 pm • 0 0 • view
I completed my required classes early, so my last semester was almost all electives. College level Driver’s Ed and college level First Aid were probably 2 of the most practical courses I ever took.
dec 4, 2024, 3:30 am • 12 0 • view
HAHAHA
dec 4, 2024, 2:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Time well spent 😉
dec 4, 2024, 5:15 am • 4 0 • view
You know… I never could understand this process description when I heard it. I need clarifiers - was the basket underwater when woven? Was the person? Both? Is oxygen provided or do you have to hold your breath? Is chlorine involved or ocean water? Who certifies this? It sounds unsafe. 😹
dec 4, 2024, 5:59 am • 1 0 • view
I think the saying wasn’t “underwater basket weaving” but rather “basket weaving OR underwater fire prevention”
dec 4, 2024, 12:34 pm • 1 0 • view
www.jpost.com/archaeology/...
dec 4, 2024, 7:53 am • 9 1 • view
My parents thought I wasted my time studying history, with an emphasis on nations, nationalism, and Eastern European revolutions in college 20 years ago and this has only become more relevant daily
dec 4, 2024, 11:59 am • 1 0 • view
Underwater what
dec 4, 2024, 1:06 pm • 2 0 • view
I've always mentally equated underwater basket weaving with sports like extreme underwater ironing.
dec 4, 2024, 3:31 am • 2 0 • view
I totally agree. Underwater basket weaving would hold so many challenges
dec 4, 2024, 6:36 am • 3 0 • view
dec 4, 2024, 3:29 am • 1 0 • view
I think I would have been an excellent underwater basket weaver.
dec 4, 2024, 1:44 pm • 2 0 • view
Hard but not very useful.
dec 4, 2024, 12:03 pm • 3 0 • view
It would definitely be hard! (Or I'm outing myself as a bad scuba diver and basket weaver...) I've always heard the term in reference to things that are useless - easy or hard. As in, basket weaving isn't a very profitable endeavor, and doing it underwater doesn't make it any better.
dec 4, 2024, 9:47 pm • 7 0 • view
That's how I've always heard it used.
dec 5, 2024, 12:40 am • 1 0 • view
A friend of mine actually took underwater basket weaving at Washington U (St Louis) in the early 1980s. It was a student-led class for P.E. credit. Started with Scuba certification, then got to weaving.
dec 4, 2024, 7:10 am • 6 0 • view
Those who claim, don't know Those that know, know Yeah, I know, that's dumb, but true is true
dec 4, 2024, 11:18 am • 6 0 • view
And if a banana duct tape piece of "art" can sell for millions, underwater basket weaving should prove to be even more lucrative. Lol
dec 4, 2024, 3:21 pm • 12 0 • view
The actual piece of art was purchased for $120k. The $6.2mil is for the right to reproduce the piece. This is a private investor spending his own money. Why are we allowing the right to foster their personal outrage. I cannot stress this enough: Who cares?
dec 4, 2024, 6:03 pm • 3 0 • view
I only care if someone comes at me saying I no longer have the right to duct tape a banana to my own wall. (Not that I ever would!)
dec 4, 2024, 7:14 pm • 3 0 • view
🤣👍
dec 4, 2024, 8:31 pm • 0 0 • view
Definitely a challenge
dec 4, 2024, 4:14 am • 2 0 • view
If you know you know 😂
dec 4, 2024, 6:18 am • 4 0 • view
It would be a breathtaking experience, for sure.
dec 4, 2024, 7:06 am • 7 0 • view
🤭
dec 4, 2024, 8:14 am • 3 0 • view
Weave baskets underwater; make YouTube videos about it; sell baskets on Etsy. Sounds like a decent business model.
dec 4, 2024, 11:16 am • 20 1 • view
I was going to say. People would buy hand made baskets. If you make them, people will buy them.
dec 4, 2024, 9:00 pm • 1 0 • view
And kinda cool - I’d try it 🤷
dec 4, 2024, 2:14 pm • 1 0 • view
Impossibly hard. Navy Seal hard
dec 4, 2024, 2:56 am • 5 0 • view
Lol
dec 4, 2024, 4:03 am • 1 0 • view
When I was in high school it was just plain old basket weaving, which to this day still sounds really fun, and I’m disappointed it was not an actual elective.
dec 4, 2024, 3:45 am • 7 0 • view
My mom used it as "even if you have a degree in underwater basket weaving, it opens doors". Although tbh, I think if I got a degree in something she thought was silly she'd still scorn. Smdh
dec 4, 2024, 2:40 am • 1 0 • view
I took a basketweaving class as an adult with my then-teen daughter. I was SO BAD at it that the very nice seniors in class consoled me with "at least your daughter can do it! She will make you baskets." It was so so hard, and my hands bled from 1200 "paper cuts" from the reeds.
dec 4, 2024, 5:32 am • 46 1 • view
Glad you shared how awful it was. I have kicked myself recently for never learning how to weave baskets. I'll stop right now. So, did you daughter weave you baskets?
dec 4, 2024, 6:35 am • 0 0 • view
Okay, so in my first year of junior college, I took a PE class: Progressive Relaxation. I got a C. I got a C in relaxing. I'd probably get a D today.
dec 4, 2024, 5:38 am • 16 0 • view
dec 4, 2024, 6:52 am • 0 0 • view
Oh that’s me in Yoga. I’m happy to contort my body and stretch, but that whole breath & be part always has me squirmier than a toddler after a sugar cookie. I relax by doing not staying.
dec 4, 2024, 5:53 am • 2 0 • view
Yoga, I can manage to quiet my mind, sometimes. If I need to relax I put on a video of a rushing river and just zone out.
dec 4, 2024, 6:04 am • 1 0 • view
FWIW, it was also fun to try, and I giggled a lot. My basket was really crooked though—like 6in shorter on one side. Idk how is was THAT imbalanced. I tried several more, and my best one was a sorta bowl shape that was too round & tipped over. No regrets. Just also no skills :)
dec 4, 2024, 6:40 am • 22 1 • view
This is why we lived in tribes, your daughter could make the baskets and you could tell the stories, we all have our skills 💜
dec 4, 2024, 6:58 am • 33 1 • view
Wait my college advisor used to talk about this same elective as a joke, how wild 😂
dec 6, 2024, 1:14 am • 0 0 • view