2011
Round 3 of my yearly blog is up and beautiful.
Join me again, and this time, talk back. Silent readership is like no readership.
http://threesixtyfive2011.blogspot.com/
July 27, 2010
Reading (Link) of the Day:
The System
Being Productive
Daily Rituals.
Make a pot of coffee.
Pour coffee into cup.
Set cup of coffee down.
Refill cup with coffee.
Write for 8 hours interrupted with various clients and preparation for clients.
Make another pot of coffee.
Read email & drink coffee.
Gloss RSS feeds.
Read comics.
Read to the children.
Watch old Top Gear episodes.
Fall asleep holding coffee.
June 30 2010
Word of the Day:
Coffee.
My pot of coffee was postponed by my son dumping Biology Day all over the kitchen floor when he tipped the shelf over.
The coffee grinder dial refused to stay put. I need a new coffee grinder.
Making coffee made me late to work.
I won a coffee-flavored contest.
It smelled like coffee when we left the programming room at the library. My student and I said so at the same time.
Coffee house for knit night tonight.
June 7 2010
Teaching Link of the Day:
Adventure of the Day:
First day of Summer School with my One-Room Schoolhouse:
1 kindergarten girl, 2 boys, 2 3rd grade girls, 2 4th grade boys, 1 5th grade boy, 1 6th grade girl, 1 8th grade girl.
Thoughts of the Day:
Some supplies are better off distributed at the time of the activity and not in individual's boxes.
Boxes should be better labeled with names and such.
I burned my hand on a pan on the stove cooking the agar for the bacteria cultures. Review kitchen safety with students doing kitchen projects.
4 cups of water to 4 tbs agar is WAY too much for 14 petri dishes. I recommend 1/2 cup to 1/2 tbs per 10 dishes. I put cherries and apples from lunch into the remaining gelling agar and it's kind of bland--much better with lime juice or something under it. Texture is better than Jello.
Room fans and paper do not mix.
Long rolls of paper across the table are awesome for students to do group projects.
Cheek cultures are best taken when kids are in a line and things are prelabeled.
Prelabel stuff. It may get the younger kids to learn how to spell their name, but reduce their workload on the other end, then.
Have lots and lots of water available. Juice is nice but not as effective as water. Set your own cup somewhere where you will remember its location, and somewhere between workplaces so you can grab a drink as you go by.
Letting the older kids debate something as simple as "What makes it alive?" is good enough to keep them busy while you work with the littlest ones on name writing, and giving the littlest ones some rulers and having them trace the rulers and "measure" things is enough to keep them busy while you join the discussion.
If you have a one-room schoolhouse planned for any reason, do not expect to stop moving for the duration.
Remember to ask the quieter kids to answer specific questions sometimes instead of just throw questions out there.
I do not want to run a classroom for a living.
I had fun. I can't wait until next week.
June 4 2010
Teaching Link of the Day
Scripps Spelling Bee
As we have no television, we went to a family member's house for the Spelling Bee. My daughter--an avid reader reading at 2x her age level--is a mediocre speller. She doesn't find it interesting, or particularly useful. She did not want to watch the Bee. Then the ten kids walked on stage--kids! She was intrigued. The live show and the profiles of the spellers kept her spellbound for the entirety. She was breathless as the timer counted down, and when they got it right (she read the letters at the bottom of the screen) she jumped and clapped and sighed in relief, and when they got it wrong, she was bummed. Maybe she will want to study for Spelling Bee 2016 after all.
June 2 2010
Thought of the Day
The following is an article I wrote for the personal finance blog right about the time I stopped writing for them. I never submitted it and it's never been published. I've been hoarding this article for a year, and it's time to let it out into the world. Unfortunately, the topic of the post is as relevant today as it was a whole year ago. Oy!
The story goes something like this: My husband hates recycling. I've been trying for years to turn recycling into something that is natural not only for me but for him. Different bins, different locations, different methods. Certain things we recycle and certain things we don't. I manage to keep up after him, but it's still an ever-present thing.
About a year ago a coupon book came in the mail advertising five cents more a pound for aluminum. This peaked his interest and gave us some direction. It's pretty easy to drive some aluminum cans to a place not a whole mile away. We started saving our aluminum. Instead of hauling it to the curb with the recycling we have to pay to have picked up, we figured we could offset that cost by taking the aluminum downtown. It turns out, we are not very prompt people. Our pile grew. We added to that the full bag of crushed cans my mother-in-law accumulates in a month. And our aunt's aluminum. Bags came home and overflowed a box. A big, wooden box.
One day I loaded up the car to take them down to the metal recycling place. Before I took off, I decided to call around and make sure the coupon which came in every coupon book was the best deal. It wasn't, and the recycling place with the best deal wasn't open that day. So I waited. The next day was not convenient. Nor the next. Then the kids and I went (in the car without the aluminum, the seats in that car were all taken) to the recycling center for a field trip. I learned that the aluminum prices are greater during the winter. I came home and removed the cans so we could use the car again, and waited for winter.
Unfortunately, with winter came snow, and buried my bags of cans. As spring approached, I was faced with a big, wet pile of aluminum cans. All for a few cents a pound more, I'll have to spend several hours of a day to rebag, dump, and reload all my cans.
Is it really a small price to pay? Is it worth it?
I start to wonder --as the idea of going out there and "taking care" of my aluminum recycling haunts me-- if there are more things I am doing for the sake of saving money that are really just causing me stress and extra work. It is not pleasant to hoard. What is it? My quiet desperation to revive my xeriscape and kill my weeds every summer? The piano that isn't tuned because I don't own the tools? The sacks of things to fix in my basement because throwing them away and replacing them is out of the question?
It would not cost me any more to put the cans on the curb with the rest of the recycling, but it will cost me time and gas to load them up and drive them down.
Tomorrow is recycling day. I can't...let...go...
June 1 2010
Teaching Link of the Day: National Summer Learning Association (formerly, National Center for Summer Learning, of John Hopkins University)
From the site:
A recent Johns Hopkins study found that 65 percent of the achievement gap in reading between poor and more advantaged ninth-graders is due to unequal summer learning experiences during elementary school years. That gap makes a difference in whether students decide to drop out or go on to college.
Adventure of the Season:
Summer has arrived!
Time for new students, a new schedule, and faster progress.
I am hosting a Summer School for 10 family and friends. It is a one-room schoolhouse, K-8th grade, cross-curriculum, immersive design. It is 3 hours one day a week. Each week's day has a theme, with each day contributing to the development of the others as well as proving independent development. (It's also free!)
The 10 week curriculum looks something like this:
Biology Day
Hammer Day
Park Physics Day
Magnetism and Electricity
Water Day
Fire Day
Rock Day
Lego Day
Paper Day
Uncle Remus Day
For details on the curriculum for each day, tune in every Monday starting June 7 through August 16. I'm not sure if I'll post on the day of school, the day before, or the day after, but I'll include assessments of the activities and the experience of the schoolhouse design, which I've never done before.
In addition, I have six signed contracts, three pending contracts, two potential contracts, and three potential call-backs. That makes 14 potential students by the end of the summer. I expect to be quite busy!
Plus:
10-15 hours/ week on medical advertising copy writing/editing
Homeschooling my own children, the kindergartner learning to read, write, and perform sums and the elder learning American History and multiple-digit sums and preparing her end-of-year train project.
Random Fact of the Day:
National Summer Learning Day is Monday, June 21. This is Park Physics Day. I'll be registering this event, and any additional attendees are welcome. Contact me for details.
May 31 2010
Thought of the Day
Courtesy of XKCD
(Hover over pic for original title text)
My definition?: A nerd is a well-rounded geek. A geek is someone versed in a particular field or set of related fields.
Hence, I was always a band geek, a lit geek, a math geek, an internet geek, a grammar geek, a chemistry geek, a biology geek, and I always ended up at a table alone because of it, being that I never shut up about anything because there wasn't a topic I could stay on for long or that would stump me, making me Queen Nerd, as my mother called me, or "The Biggest Purple One In The Box" as my sister called me, or "The Annoying One" as everyone else called me.
I'm careful to distinguish between Geek and Nerd. Geeks don't know as much, but are invaluable in furthering my own knowledge.
May 28 2010
Thought of the Day
The interwebs are buzzing about Facebook: May 31 is Quit Facebook Day, apparently.
A few thoughts:
Being On Facebook:
If you spend more time on Facebook than you do in front of the TV, kudos. You have more of a social life than the couch-potato generation. I like to see social web-works grow and TV shows get the boot. People talking to people is awesome.
Facebook Privacy:
If you think Facebook has privacy issues, maybe it's you. You choose what you post on Facebook. If it's private, keep it to an email. If it's okay to be public, list it. Just because Facebook asks you to fill out a field does not mean you have to type something into it.
If you are worried about Applications sharing your information, don't use the applications. How many people have the Snowball Fight app still? It's the middle of May, and Snowball Fight is using your information for whatever it wants, because you said it could. Weigh fun against privacy, please.
If you insist on listing things and using applications, learn to adjust your privacy settings. Who cares what the default is? I don't even know any more. Every time I log in I check the privacy settings to make sure it is doing what I want it to be doing. If you're a parent of a minor, do it for your kids.
Photographs and Privacy:
Speaking of parents of minors, why post pictures of your children on Facebook? (or MySpace, or anywhere?) Every picture of my children I have is locked up for limited visibility, or of the back of their heads. Don't jeopardize your children's future privacy for your own fun and entertainment. If a friend of mine posts a picture of my kids, I make sure I'm not tagged on the photo, so that no one can see that monster belongs to me anyway.
Most people don't look at pictures of your kids, anyway. Or of your drunk nights out. People look at what their interested in: If they haven't seen you in ages, they want to see how wealthy you are, what's your car? your house? the interior of your house? your job? Sometimes people respond to shock value, like "That's a BIG dog!" or "You let your kids do WHAT?" They also like to reminisce, "That picture was 20 years ago! I can't believe you still have that!" (which I'm not sure why that is so unbelievable. People are pack rats.)
The Internet and Privacy:
When was the last time you did a websearch for yourself? What information about you is available from other sources? Did you set up a Yahoo! profile page some time ago and have forgotten? Did you know that anybody can look at county records of your house? How about online newspapers: have you ever been quoted, have a marriage, birth, or death listing for you or your family? Had a picture printed? All that is available online, too. And in libraries. Ever have a landline? Most landline numbers and their owners from the past 10 years or so can be found online.
And all of that is for free. If I really wanted to, I could find out much, much more about you by dropping a bit of cash.
And that's only just the start of a search. If someone were after your children, they could use county records of where you live to determine where your child goes to school, and then the school website to find out when school is in session. They could even find out what the names of the teachers your children have, having found their birth announcements in the newspaper online and knowing their likely age and grade.
Are you afraid?
Are you afraid of what people can find out about you from your Facebook page? I've determined a girlfriend of a friend had still been talking to her ex fiance. I've determined where's she'd likely to be on a Thursday night between 6 and 10. I knew what income bracket her family was in, her graduation year, the school she was attending and a narrow field of likely classes she'd be in. And that was before I ever met her. How? Because she didn't take control of her own information. She let it all hang out.
Are you afraid of what people can find out about you from the Internet? I've found a friend I haven't seen in 12 years, know when he got married, that his wife won the raffle at a church, and that he works somewhere that gave him an employer-based email account. I know where he lives, what his phone number is, his wife's name, and his email address. He has no internet presence, no social networking. It wouldn't be his thing.
I don't hack, I just search savvy. The internet makes the world a small, small place, and all your friends a little creepier.
Some Links:
Get your Facebook Privacy Back: ReclaimPrivacy.org
The Mesa County Assessor's Office webpage: Online search for properties and their owners
Simple place to type your name and see what comes up: Search
Mesa County School District: Listings of all the schools, hours of operation, and links to teacher pages
Mesa State College Student Directory: Search
Simple phone book search: SuperPages
May 26 2010
Show of the Day:
*Caution Spoilers*
It's over, and it was a bit odd, kinda hokey, but I loved the montages. They made me tear up. If anyone wants a synopsis of LOST, they could watch this one episode. It said everything.
Anyway. Another good show bites the dust and I'll have no more story to look forward to. Where did the pilot end up? What happened when the plane got off the island? What did Hurly and Ben have to face? Who was next? Why did Desmond know? Why did Juliet say that the bomb worked, that they got off the island? And what was ABC thinking when they let this be the last season? Eh, at least it wasn't another Firefly.
Also, I want to make thorough fun of everyone who watched this show one week at a time. What were you THINKING? Suck it up for a summer and get the DVD so you can watch every episode commercial free and in marathon until your brain turns to mush. In short, I am very happy never to have seen an episode of LOST at its original airdate. We watched this last season on Hulu to avoid being spoiled on accident.
May 22 2010
Thought of the Day:
"The Pledge of Allegiance, a debate in small bites."
Pledge History: Written by the NEA's* chairman for the 400-ennial celebration of Columbus Day 1892.
I say: For the nation's schoolkids to feel patriotic for the European's hostile takeover of the continent. Great note for the pledge to start on.
*NEA: National Educational Association
Part 2 Pledge History: The original 1892 wording was "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Oct 1892 "to" was added between "to my Flag and ^ the Republic."
I say: I'm a linguist, and I can't find purpose for that second "to," unless we're trying to separate the Flag from the Republic.
Part 3 Pledge History: "My" changed to "To" and "Of the United States of America" in 1924 because the American Legion and the DAR* thought it was better.
I say: I like to think of it as MY flag. Personally patriotic. But being specific of which flag is good. Specificity is good.
*Daughters of the American Revolution
Part 4 Pledge History:The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal benefit society, campaigned for the 'under God' addition to the pledge, with no comma separation from the 'one nation', making our patriotic symbol a prayer. This passed in 1952, during the Cold War, the same year we exploded our first H-bomb.
I say: Congress in 1952 must have thought God likes H-bombs.
Part 5 Pledge History: The current pledge is recited "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."
I say: Do we really need to be redundant naming the country of the flag and then again our allegiance to the Republic? And do we really need to continue to suggest our nation can (could, tried to) disband by saying it is "indivisible?"
Part 6 Pledge History: A Republic is generally defined as "not a monarchy," or more specifically, "governed by the impact of (at least some) of the people."
I say: How many people who recite this pledge can name the congressperson partly responsible for 1 of 3 parts of every national law's passage? How many people vote for anything other than President, such as those people who govern us? Why is the President treated as a king?
Part 7 Pledge History: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag..."
I say: Why are we allies with a FLAG, a symbol, an inanimate object, something that is not immutable, as we've seen over the past 234 years, where we've added 37 more stars to it? What if they've added a star to the flag since the last time I said the pledge? (ask people since Utah, 1896) Do I suddenly become UNallegiant? What is it really that deserves my allegiance?
Part 8 Pledge History: Prior to 1892, a philosopher argued that American political tradition was built on 'equality, liberty and justice for all'. The word "equality" was left out of the pledge because some NEA members were against equality for women and African-Americans.
I say: Every day our pledge stands by that bigotry.
Part 9 Pledge History:The pledge has changed. The pledge is likely to change again.
I say: "I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the servicemembers who fight beneath its Flag for Equality, Liberty, and Justice for all." I left out God re: equality for religious choice. I left out Republic and Nation re: no need to be redundant (USA). I left out indivisible re: again, redundant (United). I added equality. I added mention of those people that keep this a Republic. I shifted allegiance to the Nation, not a symbol. I expanded the realm of "for all." I am an ally of my nation and of the people fighting for which it stands. That is what I pledge.
What is your suggested modern pledge?
May 14 2010
Garden of the Day:
More on rescuing your plants from pests: ReNest
We had four freezing days in two weeks after we put our garden in.
We used bed sheets (vegetable bed--ha ha!) and luminaries to keep them warm enough to survive.
May 10 2010
When really bad things happen to my friends
people who are close to me
I feel really, really terrible.
Everyone is a piece of me
and their pain is my pain
and it's weird.
People are used to living isolated
with their pain and their fears
while the world spins around them.
I am not that way.
I am not much without my friends.
I am just a bit. A little bit.
May 9 2010
I want to share all the things about today
But I don't have pictures so you will just have to imagine it all with me:
I hosted Mother's Day here at my house,
with 10 people I re-arranged the tables and chairs in my house to fit everyone
with the kids they sorted the rest of the toys I found hiding behind the bed
with Flyin' Roosters or Hooters as previous suggestions I had Husband barbecue up some wings
and concoct some buffalo sauces
with his delight in all things hot sauce, he barbecued up some crab legs
I sliced the rabbit food
I served on my purple place mats from our wedding
with red napkins from christmas, or maroon napkins from the matching set that was GiGi's (another mother we miss)
and on yellow plates handed down from Granny
The salad was fruit: strawberry, banana, orange, pear and mango. I chopped up what I had around.
I set out chips and salsa while we were waiting. We decided the salsa was not spicy.
We ate so much food
The buffalo sauce was decided to also be not hot
but it burned my lips and made my nose run and definitely made me happy
Everyone was stuffed
Only the kids and I ate the ice cream cake leftover from my birthday for dessert. Everyone else stayed stuffed.
My son got in trouble for throwing things.
My daughter got in trouble for not minding her own business.
My nephew decided a dark, long-sleeved shirt would suffice in the heat of the afternoon, in the sun.
My niece played guitar. And got antsy. And played guitar some more.
My husband cooked food and I prepped the other dishes and the table.
My mother-in-law brought me a hen-and-chicks.
My sister-in-law made that ice cream cake, which is the most awesome ice-cream cake ever imagined.
My brother-in-law wore a shirt that was not black.
My aunt-in-law gave out hugs from her daughter on the East Coast who called during dinner.
When things wound down the kids and I ended with a game of bingo and the adults discussed music and parts of music.
Then I sat down and uploaded pictures for my own mom.
As lemons for the crab dripped down my scraped knuckles and cracked calluses and scratched hands
and as oranges refused to be removed from their peels so I ate them
and as the knife sliced through banana in a mocking "this is overkill" kind of way
and the pit of the mango proved a formidable foe
the one person I was not prepping for was my own mom
I only get one, I only have one, and whether or not anyone actually remembers Mother's Day for anything other than florists' deliveries and stamped and wrapped card stock from Hallmark, she has made all the difference
and as I caption all the pictures as I upload them and after I load them and send her the email, after she has gone to bed, I'm sure
I see the faces of the creatures that gave me that title, the name "Mom"
as they evolve over the course of a year in one slideshow
and know that I am the only mom they get, too
their own mom
and whether anyone remembers Mother's Day as something more than giving mom a nap or a pedicure,
I get to make a difference
April 29 2010
Thought of the Day:
For a restful night's sleep, don't break this rule
A) never accept a client you had a hard time working with before because they complained about your rates, back when your rates were half what they are now, even for barter
B) especially if they expect you to cut your old rate in half for one of their own clients which you will be working for at the complaining client's house
C) instead, refer them to someone who either doesn't know what their work is worth, someone whose work is worth a quarter of your rate, someone so starved for work they don't care what they get paid, or someone who doesn't do this for a living.
C) instead, refer them to someone who either doesn't know what their work is worth, someone whose work is worth a quarter of your rate, someone so starved for work they don't care what they get paid, or someone who doesn't do this for a living.
posted after 2 hours and 40 minutes of lying awake in bed agonizing over how the meeting with my complaining client's client will go as they learn that there is no way I am improving the quality of life for less than what they pay for childcare. I am not a babysitter. Why do people think they can pay tutors what I pay my niece to watch my kids?!
April 18 2010
According to all my lovable Facebook friends, this is the weekend for bubbles. An extraordinary number of friends have chosen to update about bubbles this week, friends that don't know each other and live on opposite sides of the continent, friends of different backgrounds and with different life paths. Today I celebrate the universality of bubbles.
April 8 2010
Thursday Bus
5 am
Drive to airport in Nashville after eating a muffin and drinking a coffee and an orange juice.
Missed the car return lane (who can read at that time of morning? Use pictures! Graphics! Logos!)
Got it the second time around
Infernal beeping at the gate: 45 minutes of 2-toned beeps even the security guards couldn't turn off--another airline guy did it.
Load the plane, sitting next to a candidate for a job at the Christian Sports Camp in Durango
She didn't like sitting in front of toddlers so she moved.
I didn't mind, but I didn't sleep much, either.
Landed early, and waited on the tarmac.
I couldn't wait to get off the plane. I started to ache.
Off the plane and down to baggage claim
where I was the baggage, since I hadn't brought any and that was where my ride was claiming me
--my scrubby ride, with his pseudo daughter, his girlfriend's (I guess she's his girlfriend) daughter
Through Denver to the bus station
And a lovely walk with language of social mischief (like mooning the camera at a model's shoot in the park) after I bought my ticket
My seat on the bus was next to a baggageless, pistachio eating gentleman with a t-shirt over his long-sleeved shirt and a scrubby days-on-the-road face topped with a ball cap.
He was on his way to San Bernardino.
We looked at the bus station in Idaho Springs where no one got on.
Stops like that slow us down.
Then the bus broke down.
Proper woosh and more infernal beeping.
The driver pulled over and got out.
And in. And out. And in.
And turned the bus off. And on. And off.
At least when he turned the bus off, the beeping stopped, and when he decided he was having a smoke, he left the bus and the beeping off.
Then he told us we would be there a while and we could get off it we wanted.
I wanted.
I had wanted to make a snowman since we'd stopped.
I had wanted to throw snowballs since I started aching from all the sitting.
So I went.
And I built a snowball but all my fight offers were declined.
So I built a snowman.
I put a chain belt on him.
I put a chunk of wood as his arm, and a plastic, ridged tube as the other arm.
I hunted for a hat.
I found a newspaper to fold into a hat.
But by then he was wearing a hubcap. The gentleman in the baseball cap going to San Bernardino had helped.
My snowman was cheerful.
I marked his location on my garmin.
I followed the footprints across the field and up the hill to watch the interstate traffic with the others who had preceded me.
One man had lost his phone tromping through the snow.
He found it on his way back to look for it. Just *plop* in the snow. He must have just dropped it.
The snow had made my fingers cold. I kept rubbing my hands together.
Someone headed down the hill with a guitar. He had been odd. He was still odd. He had bemoaned not getting off at that stop that was useless. He should have gotten off there.
Some others took their luggage off the truck. They headed up hill. Hitchhiking. To the nearest ski town.
Some others took their luggage off the truck. A friend came to get them. For skiing.
The rest of us took our luggage off the truck after the mechanic (who finally arrived) said he couldn't guarantee the air brakes would work for the rest of the trip.
A new bus came. The hitchhiking passengers left us with more sitting room.
We didn't need to stop in Frisco for a smoke break. We were 5 hours behind schedule.
The boy behind me would get to his destination just before 9 am if there were no more delays, said my garmin.
He said good, he was getting off leave from the navy base where he worked on a nuclear reactor. He would get in trouble if he wasn't there by 9.
I said good, because nuclear reactors aren't something you should be willing to allow people to be late to work for.
(Then I thought of the price for Maggie Simpson, and the corresponding beep.)
In Glenwood Canyon we passed the hole in the highway where the rockslide took out a chunk of asphalt the size of my living room. We could see in it while they worked on it. Buses are tall that way.
We stopped for food in Glenwood Springs where no one saw the fast food place but me, and no one listened while I announced it, and everyone complained that I had a burger and they had convenience store food.
Then I ate my burger and wished I had potato chips.
Then it got dark. I told the girl sitting across from me who I gave my apple to that I would wake her in Clifton to call her ride.
Then I tried to sleep. Then we got to Clifton. Then woke her. Then I called my ride.
Then I got off the bus and was picked up and then I picked up my kids and went home to bed with a kid nestled on each shoulder.
I had been gone a long time.
April 7 2010
Word of the Day:
Irony of Fate - The concept that the Gods, Fates, etc. are toying with humans for amusement by using irony.
I promise, I was amused.
I know you don't know the story, but I'm writing it and if it publishes--when it publishes (staying optimistic) I'll publish it for you. I fully went looking for a good story, but the story couldn't have been more perfect if I had fictionalized the entire event. It just happened as a good story.
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