sometimes I still can't believe Barack Obama is really going to be our president. (The dress looks better a week later.) (And I love the way she sits with her knees and toes pointed in--like a real person!) (And call me a white girl, and, yes, you've heard me say it before, but I just love the Bidens.)
[link from Sandra]
Monday, November 10, 2008
Sunday, November 09, 2008
The Idea of Order at Our House
[I feel that I have used this title before.]
I did not go on the computer from Friday evening to late Sunday afternoon.
Friday evening I was frantically finishing up some work, because it was the first weekend since I can remember that--if I frantically finished the work at hand on Friday night--I did not have any work to do. I finished the work, and told various people that I would be unavailable over the weekend. Then I thought, why not really be unavailable? There's no work that needs to be done, nobody I need to be in touch with who's not in my phone/in-person vicinity...why don't I see what it's like to stay off the computer?
It was awesome. On Saturday, there were a few moments of down time here and there where I felt the urge to check my email. But I didn't. There were moments of wanting to look something up or tell someone something, but I figured either I'd remember to do it later, or it didn't matter. By Sunday it was a non-issue.
What did I do instead of work or be on the computer? I'm not quite sure. Let's see...
Friday night I watched a movie (stupid) and a Friends episode (funny, but especially funny in concert with how funny E found it) with the girls, then read my book for three seconds and fell asleep.
Saturday I cleaned the house, went for a run, took M and E on a shoes/tights/purse-shopping expedition, went to a bar mitzvah, drank vodka gimlets, convinced my friends to drink vodka gimlets, told hitchhiking stories while drinking vodka gimlets, watched children play silly bar mitvah games, came home and fell asleep.
Today I went for a run, had coffee with Lucy, went to E's last soccer game of the season, started cleaning the sunroom, threw out two big trash bags of destroyed games and art projects, packed a big box of outgrown games for the homeless shelter, read the NY Times, helped M with her geography project, and watched another Friends episode.
It was the most relaxing weekend I've had since I can remember. Now the question is: how much of this was the absence of work, and how much the absence of computer? I'm not quite sure, but I will say that it was awesome to not be on the computer, and I'm hoping that a weekend of cold turkey will help me generally decrease the computer time--not the productive time, but the poking around, reading things I don't need to read, playing games I don't need to play, based on the subterranean fantasy that I will somehow find the thing I didn't even know I was looking for that will finally satisfy me (you know, Lacan and all that).
We also, at dinner this evening, renegotiated the girls' screen time rules, because we have once again fallen into the them-heading-for-screens-all-the-time-and-me-being-made-crazy-by-them-heading-for-screens rut, which is as much a problem of my craziness as their screen obsessions (we had the same old discussions too, E pointing out that they are well-balanced children, M pointing out that we always have this problem in winter), but something had to be done. So we came to a new policy, which is not that different from the old policy, but shaped a little more specifically to current circumstances (we have now differentiated between productive or playful activities that just happen to take place on the computer--like checking email, reading, writing, or dancing to YouTube videos--and activities that are valuable only as mindless leisure--like dressing up supermodels or staring at Zack and Cody--not that there's anything wrong with mindless leisure, which is why there is some time allotted to it, but it's a limited amount of time). It was a very cheerful, agreeable conversation, and we are generally good at sticking to our policies for some time, until we all forget that we need them, so I am optimistic that the screen situation will become more copacetic on all fronts.
Cleaning the sunroom (go back three paragraphs, if you've forgotten) is part of the slow but steady effort to prepare for moving half the downstairs upstairs, which is just ten doorknobs, eight cabinet knobs, four light fixtures, and some bathroom accessories away. But the irony is that, through the preparation effort, the downstairs has become so much more livable that I almost feel like we don't need the upstairs, and that renovating has been a ridiculous act of financial and cultural hubris!
Hmm, it's more complicated than that, though, because of course the hope inspired by the renovation has inspired some of the changes--like finally cleaning off my desk in the corner of the dining room so I can actually work at it, which means I no longer feel desperate for the office I will have any day now. But of course the desk was a disaster because the apartment is so small that there is no place to put anything which is what the new office will remedy. Ah, it's late and I'm starting to go in circles.
But what I really wanted to write about was the living room, which has practically nothing to do with anything said above. Our living room has always been wrong, but I've never had any idea of how to fix it. Basically, the layout of doors and furniture made the living room as much a hallway as anything else, and about as not cozy as could be. I felt this especially a few weeks ago, when I had some friends over, and we were sitting in the living room after dinner, and I just thought: this is not right. It just so happened that that weekend I was taking in our downstairs' neighbor's mail, so the next morning I walked into her living room, which is just below ours, and almost identically laid out, and realized how I could rearrange the furniture! So I went upstairs and rearranged it that very day (basically by myself--S was out of town, and I wanted to surprise him, and for some reason it was easier to move heavy furniture by myself than with two children), and it was transformed! It's cozier, it's happier, it's less prone to chaos, and it makes me like the whole apartment better!
So really, we didn't need to renovate after all. We just needed to stop spending so much time on screens and rearrange the living room. Now I wonder if I can return all those doorknobs...
Friday, November 07, 2008
Can We Talk About Eliot Spitzer?
I know: he's so last year. Now it's a new day in America. We have a Black president. Who cares about a disgraced former governor? Uh, me?
Spitzer is not going to be charged "for his role in a prostitution scandal," according to the AP. Go read the article. You don't even have to read the whole thing, just the first two paragraphs.
Did you see it? The money quote? In case you missed it, here you go: "federal prosecutors typically do not prosecute clients of prostitution rings."
Does that bother anyone else the way it bothers me?
The NY Times provides a bit more detail on the rationale:
The policy [of the Department of Justice with respect to prostitution offenses], detailed in the Justice Department’s manual for United States attorneys on how to carry out their duties, advises that unless minors are victims, prosecutions “should generally be limited to persons engaged in commercial prostitution activities.”
Hmm. Here the money word seems to be "commercial," and I'm guessing we're supposed to interpret that line as meaning that if you're making money from prostitution, you get prosecuted. Which means that if you're paying money for prostitution, you're off the hook?
Am I missing something here? Isn't prostitution itself a crime (whether or not you think it should be, currently it is--unless you're in Nevada)? In which case, shouldn't all participants be prosecuted, i.e. those who sell and those who buy? What's wrong with this picture?
Oh yeah, silly me...I forgot all about entrenched racism, sexism, and class privilege! What a goofball I am! I wasn't even thinking about the fact that the people who pay prostitutes HAVE money, and the people who are prostitutes NEED money. Which means, you know, the people who pay tend to be, like, men of means. And the people who get paid tend to be...women of no means.
Oh no! Does this mean that the practice of law is biased against...the underprivileged!? Well, shoot me with a watergun. Maybe this does all lead back to Barack Obama. And maybe it's a great thing to weep and celebrate when a Black man gets elected president. But maybe we've still got work to do.
Spitzer is not going to be charged "for his role in a prostitution scandal," according to the AP. Go read the article. You don't even have to read the whole thing, just the first two paragraphs.
Did you see it? The money quote? In case you missed it, here you go: "federal prosecutors typically do not prosecute clients of prostitution rings."
Does that bother anyone else the way it bothers me?
The NY Times provides a bit more detail on the rationale:
The policy [of the Department of Justice with respect to prostitution offenses], detailed in the Justice Department’s manual for United States attorneys on how to carry out their duties, advises that unless minors are victims, prosecutions “should generally be limited to persons engaged in commercial prostitution activities.”
Hmm. Here the money word seems to be "commercial," and I'm guessing we're supposed to interpret that line as meaning that if you're making money from prostitution, you get prosecuted. Which means that if you're paying money for prostitution, you're off the hook?
Am I missing something here? Isn't prostitution itself a crime (whether or not you think it should be, currently it is--unless you're in Nevada)? In which case, shouldn't all participants be prosecuted, i.e. those who sell and those who buy? What's wrong with this picture?
Oh yeah, silly me...I forgot all about entrenched racism, sexism, and class privilege! What a goofball I am! I wasn't even thinking about the fact that the people who pay prostitutes HAVE money, and the people who are prostitutes NEED money. Which means, you know, the people who pay tend to be, like, men of means. And the people who get paid tend to be...women of no means.
Oh no! Does this mean that the practice of law is biased against...the underprivileged!? Well, shoot me with a watergun. Maybe this does all lead back to Barack Obama. And maybe it's a great thing to weep and celebrate when a Black man gets elected president. But maybe we've still got work to do.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Will Miracles Never Cease?
My god, even Maureen Dowd abandons the snark for the heartfelt. It's a new day in America. (As I try to wean myself of my political/news junkie habits.) (Though we are all about Malia and Sasha over here, being a two-girl family ourselves, with a similarly responsible older and goofball younger.) (Love the dresses. Curious about the school. Jealous of the puppy--some of us, at least.)
NPR
My friends have been hassling me about not listening to NPR (it is, perhaps, my greatest point of deviation from my demographic). So I decided to give it a shot.
Yesterday it was all election rehash, nothing I hadn't read in the newspaper, plus I listened three times (driving in c. 7 a.m.; driving from one place to another c. 2 p.m.; driving home c. 4:30 p.m.), and basically they said the same thing each time. This morning I listened driving in. First I heard Norman Ornstein, then I heard Bob Kagan, both talking about how people's high expectations for Obama are going to be dashed (talk about the media driving the story) then I heard John Weaver (scroll down) talking about where the McCain campaign went wrong. Later, driving from one place to another, I turned it on again, and I heard some woman whose identification I missed talking about how race doesn't matter because we are colorblind and if we're not we should be, and she just voted for Sarah Palin because she identified with her. This is our liberal radio? This I need? I put on Smile and gave up on NPR once again.
Now before you go all "Don't make judgements on so little evidence" and "But what about Terry Gross?" and "You didn't listen to the right shows" on me, I know all that. I know why I'm supposed to like NPR, but seriously, every single time I turn on the radio, determined to give NPR a chance, it's either offensive or boring (OK, the last time I gave it a chance was 1987, when I tried listening in the mornings while getting dressed, but the time at which I got dressed was apparently the Reviews of Pretentious Cultural Events Across the Country segment...in a word: boring).
What I realized, though, as I switched to the CD of my choice, is that my dislike of NPR is more about my...hmm, what's the word...aesthetic? sensory? I think both...my sensory and aesthetic proclivities.
#1: I'm just not an aural person. About the only thing I like to listen to on the radio is baseball. Listening to music is fine, but I rarely put it on myself unless I'm in the car and most of the time, frankly, I end up spacing out. Same thing with books on tape. If they're great, I can engage, but listening just isn't my preferred way of taking in information. I'd much rather read. Which leads to #2: I think, I realized this morning, that I like to control my information too much for radio. I'm totally down with serendipitous discovery, and I'm always reading things I didn't expect to read, but I like the way that, with text or the internet, I can survey what's out there and choose what I want to consume. Whereas with radio, you're a captive audience. It goes where it wants to go, for as long as it wants to go, and you can't go away and find something else (I mean, obviously you can turn it off, like I did, but you can't skip to another page).
Oddly, this preference, I believe, puts me firmly out of my demographic and into the entitled media demographic, which is generally, I think, considered to be younger than me. So maybe that's why I don't like NPR: because I am such a fashion-forward media consumer!
Yesterday it was all election rehash, nothing I hadn't read in the newspaper, plus I listened three times (driving in c. 7 a.m.; driving from one place to another c. 2 p.m.; driving home c. 4:30 p.m.), and basically they said the same thing each time. This morning I listened driving in. First I heard Norman Ornstein, then I heard Bob Kagan, both talking about how people's high expectations for Obama are going to be dashed (talk about the media driving the story) then I heard John Weaver (scroll down) talking about where the McCain campaign went wrong. Later, driving from one place to another, I turned it on again, and I heard some woman whose identification I missed talking about how race doesn't matter because we are colorblind and if we're not we should be, and she just voted for Sarah Palin because she identified with her. This is our liberal radio? This I need? I put on Smile and gave up on NPR once again.
Now before you go all "Don't make judgements on so little evidence" and "But what about Terry Gross?" and "You didn't listen to the right shows" on me, I know all that. I know why I'm supposed to like NPR, but seriously, every single time I turn on the radio, determined to give NPR a chance, it's either offensive or boring (OK, the last time I gave it a chance was 1987, when I tried listening in the mornings while getting dressed, but the time at which I got dressed was apparently the Reviews of Pretentious Cultural Events Across the Country segment...in a word: boring).
What I realized, though, as I switched to the CD of my choice, is that my dislike of NPR is more about my...hmm, what's the word...aesthetic? sensory? I think both...my sensory and aesthetic proclivities.
#1: I'm just not an aural person. About the only thing I like to listen to on the radio is baseball. Listening to music is fine, but I rarely put it on myself unless I'm in the car and most of the time, frankly, I end up spacing out. Same thing with books on tape. If they're great, I can engage, but listening just isn't my preferred way of taking in information. I'd much rather read. Which leads to #2: I think, I realized this morning, that I like to control my information too much for radio. I'm totally down with serendipitous discovery, and I'm always reading things I didn't expect to read, but I like the way that, with text or the internet, I can survey what's out there and choose what I want to consume. Whereas with radio, you're a captive audience. It goes where it wants to go, for as long as it wants to go, and you can't go away and find something else (I mean, obviously you can turn it off, like I did, but you can't skip to another page).
Oddly, this preference, I believe, puts me firmly out of my demographic and into the entitled media demographic, which is generally, I think, considered to be younger than me. So maybe that's why I don't like NPR: because I am such a fashion-forward media consumer!
Monday, November 03, 2008
E in a Rage
"I hate you! I hate everyone in this room! I hate you all! I hate you, Alice! I hate you, Mad Hatter! I hate you Laura, and I hate you Mary! I hate you, Meg! I hate you, Jo! I hate you, Beth! I hate you, Amy! I hate you, Mrs. Roosevelt!"
First Election Results
M's school: John McCain (175), Barack Obama (853).
May it be a harbinger of everything to come.
May it be a harbinger of everything to come.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
La Vida Chez Moi
My kids are playing--and I quote--"pirates in Hawaii who steal clothes from the Queen of England."
OK, then.
(This post makes me think that maybe I should be twittering...)
Edited to add: I was working in the living room, and then they started to play in the living room, so I moved to their bedroom, specifically to M's bed, but somehow their game moved to their bedroom, and came to involve much checking in with me as to the realism of various costume options. It's really time for this renovation to be finished and me to have a place to work. Not that that would necessarily help. (I believe the game now involves teenagers in LA on Halloween--not sure what happened to the Hawaiian pirates.) (E: "Mommy! M just called me snobby.")
(Perhaps twitter is not for me after all...)
OK, then.
(This post makes me think that maybe I should be twittering...)
Edited to add: I was working in the living room, and then they started to play in the living room, so I moved to their bedroom, specifically to M's bed, but somehow their game moved to their bedroom, and came to involve much checking in with me as to the realism of various costume options. It's really time for this renovation to be finished and me to have a place to work. Not that that would necessarily help. (I believe the game now involves teenagers in LA on Halloween--not sure what happened to the Hawaiian pirates.) (E: "Mommy! M just called me snobby.")
(Perhaps twitter is not for me after all...)
Hope
Last night, we were listening to The Seeger Sessions as my dad, the girls, and I drove back from Country Town. "We Shall Overcome" came up, and I said to my dad, "Listening to this, I just can't believe* we might elect a black president on Tuesday." "Me too," he said. "It makes me want to cry," I said. "Me too," he said.
I love my family.
*This is really what I said, but what I meant, which may not be adequately conveyed in the plain type of print, was that I am overwhelmed by the idea, especially in light of the last half century, not that I don't believe it will happen.
I love my family.
*This is really what I said, but what I meant, which may not be adequately conveyed in the plain type of print, was that I am overwhelmed by the idea, especially in light of the last half century, not that I don't believe it will happen.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Postscript to Previous Post
What it comes down to is that E and Z were intellectually engaged with every aspect of the task, from doing the academic work, to addressing challenges, to engaging with other people.
Now, I could argue that a different kind of classroom--one devoted to inquiry and exploration in a holistic way (i.e. the endpoint is as open as the process, not just a worksheet)--would engage some of these other kids more intensely, and I'm sure it would. C (different C from previous post) and A would be on fire in an inquiry-based classroom, and so would little Y who never said a word in kindergarten. But, E and Z would be positively explosive, and I'm guessing R would still be lost and C (a third C) would still space out.
So differences, albeit different differences, would remain, though more kids could very well be served...
Now, I could argue that a different kind of classroom--one devoted to inquiry and exploration in a holistic way (i.e. the endpoint is as open as the process, not just a worksheet)--would engage some of these other kids more intensely, and I'm sure it would. C (different C from previous post) and A would be on fire in an inquiry-based classroom, and so would little Y who never said a word in kindergarten. But, E and Z would be positively explosive, and I'm guessing R would still be lost and C (a third C) would still space out.
So differences, albeit different differences, would remain, though more kids could very well be served...
An Analysis, Not a Brag (I Hope)
In our house, we pretty much take E's capacities for granted. On the soccer field or singing Hannah Montana songs, she totally blends in with her peers, so we just figure she's a normal second grader, and we don't really think about the fact that she also does things like have conversations about genetics and multiply fractions and write chapter books (with a problem and a resolution).
Yesterday I was in E's class for their "Harvest" (i.e. NOT Halloween) party. In kindergarten, I was in E's class every other week, so I really knew the kids and their work. In kindergarten, E was a total outlier: she could read, she could behave, she was writing five-page books when most kids were still drawing pictures. We didn't think much about that either, though, because she was older and doing her second year of kindergarten (for birthday/preschool availability reasons that you either remember or don't care about). In first grade, the other kids started catching up with her, plus she made a best friend who is a lot like her, so we figured the maturing thing was happening (differences are largest in younger grades, when the kids are, in fact, farther apart in age, relatively, plus boys and girls have significant developmental differences). But I wasn't around much in first grade.
It was quite exciting to see, yesterday, how far all the kids have come since kindergarten. Their writing is awesome, and they are just a super-nice group of kids (for the most part--let's say 95%). But I also saw, in just an hour, how truly different E is. Unlike kindergarten, she's not alone: there is one boy like her, and there are another boy and girl who are similar, but a little different. But, wow, what a span in a single classroom.
Digression on teacher: E has a fabulous teacher. The kids love her, she has total control of the classroom, they are doing a lot of content, and they have fun. But she is definitely of the new breed of all academics all the time, even though she also makes it fun. So yesterday they had Halloween all day (aside from the party which was HARVEST, in case you don't recall). In the morning they drew haunted houses and wrote poems about them. Then they listened to scary music and chose from scary writing prompts to write stories. The party was all about the orange food: canteloupe, clementines, cupcakes, candy corn (ooh, orange C-food, though we didn't go there), and, uh, Munchkins and juice boxes. Then there were four stations--math (which was also science), science, literacy, and fun pack--through which the kids circulated in small groups. They were totally into it, but, you know, it might have been fun to make pumpkin pies or leaf collages or our own witches' brooms...only it's not that kind of school...
Back to the kids: I was momming the math (science) table where we had a scale, a small pumpkin, and a big pumpkin. The task was to weigh ourselves (themselves), estimate the weight of the pumpkins (one at a time), weigh the pumpkins, and figure out the difference between the estimate and the actual weight. All the kids loved the estimating and the weighing (though most of their estimates were off by a factor of about 40). Not all of them could follow the directions--they were writing their numbers down all over the page, when there was a specific place and sequence for each number. And the math? It wasn't that they didn't love it--the kids who got it were totally into it--but that some of them just drew a total blank. The teacher said they knew the concept of difference, but for most of them, it sure didn't seem like it. I'd ask the question in several different ways and get dreamy stares. Then there were a few who got it, but didn't know how they got it (these were usually kids who guessed things like 118, when the big pumpkin actually weighed 18, so it was easy to get to 100).
The other issue was the small pumpkin which turned out to not weigh enough to register on the scale. In the first group, we figured out how to solve this problem: weigh the kids holding the pumpkin, which everyone loved. Luckily the pumpkin weighed one pound, so almost every kid could figure out that if I weigh 56 pounds by myself, and 57 holding the pumpkin, the pumpkin weighs one pound. But some couldn't even figure that out: one thought the pumpkin weighed 57 pounds.
So what was the difference with E and her friend Z? Well, they read the directions, were a step ahead on the tasks, understood the difference concept, and did the math. Not only that, but when I asked their group how we were going to figure out the weight of the small pumpkin, E immediately suggested weighing ourselves holding the pumpkin (I had to coax that solution out of every other group). And not only that, but when I asked them to help the other kids in their group with the math, Z came up and said to me "we haven't learned borrowing yet, what should I do?" He knew how to borrow, but he knew that the other kid didn't, and he wanted to help him appropriately, not just do the math for him. In other words, what E and Z are is academically capable, creative (i.e. problem solving), and meta-cognitive. S, a boy who shares their skill level, completely lacks the meta-cognitive piece, and C, a girl who did some creative thinking (she compared the weight of the big pumpkin to her little brother's weight) is not quite there in skills.
So I guess E is different, but she's not a total outlier. I'm glad she has Z, and S and C, and, frankly, all the other kids in her class, because that's life: a whole lot of different people who need to negotiate the world, individually and together. And I am in total awe of her teacher for teaching all these kids at once: I only did it for an hour, and I was exhausted.
Yesterday I was in E's class for their "Harvest" (i.e. NOT Halloween) party. In kindergarten, I was in E's class every other week, so I really knew the kids and their work. In kindergarten, E was a total outlier: she could read, she could behave, she was writing five-page books when most kids were still drawing pictures. We didn't think much about that either, though, because she was older and doing her second year of kindergarten (for birthday/preschool availability reasons that you either remember or don't care about). In first grade, the other kids started catching up with her, plus she made a best friend who is a lot like her, so we figured the maturing thing was happening (differences are largest in younger grades, when the kids are, in fact, farther apart in age, relatively, plus boys and girls have significant developmental differences). But I wasn't around much in first grade.
It was quite exciting to see, yesterday, how far all the kids have come since kindergarten. Their writing is awesome, and they are just a super-nice group of kids (for the most part--let's say 95%). But I also saw, in just an hour, how truly different E is. Unlike kindergarten, she's not alone: there is one boy like her, and there are another boy and girl who are similar, but a little different. But, wow, what a span in a single classroom.
Digression on teacher: E has a fabulous teacher. The kids love her, she has total control of the classroom, they are doing a lot of content, and they have fun. But she is definitely of the new breed of all academics all the time, even though she also makes it fun. So yesterday they had Halloween all day (aside from the party which was HARVEST, in case you don't recall). In the morning they drew haunted houses and wrote poems about them. Then they listened to scary music and chose from scary writing prompts to write stories. The party was all about the orange food: canteloupe, clementines, cupcakes, candy corn (ooh, orange C-food, though we didn't go there), and, uh, Munchkins and juice boxes. Then there were four stations--math (which was also science), science, literacy, and fun pack--through which the kids circulated in small groups. They were totally into it, but, you know, it might have been fun to make pumpkin pies or leaf collages or our own witches' brooms...only it's not that kind of school...
Back to the kids: I was momming the math (science) table where we had a scale, a small pumpkin, and a big pumpkin. The task was to weigh ourselves (themselves), estimate the weight of the pumpkins (one at a time), weigh the pumpkins, and figure out the difference between the estimate and the actual weight. All the kids loved the estimating and the weighing (though most of their estimates were off by a factor of about 40). Not all of them could follow the directions--they were writing their numbers down all over the page, when there was a specific place and sequence for each number. And the math? It wasn't that they didn't love it--the kids who got it were totally into it--but that some of them just drew a total blank. The teacher said they knew the concept of difference, but for most of them, it sure didn't seem like it. I'd ask the question in several different ways and get dreamy stares. Then there were a few who got it, but didn't know how they got it (these were usually kids who guessed things like 118, when the big pumpkin actually weighed 18, so it was easy to get to 100).
The other issue was the small pumpkin which turned out to not weigh enough to register on the scale. In the first group, we figured out how to solve this problem: weigh the kids holding the pumpkin, which everyone loved. Luckily the pumpkin weighed one pound, so almost every kid could figure out that if I weigh 56 pounds by myself, and 57 holding the pumpkin, the pumpkin weighs one pound. But some couldn't even figure that out: one thought the pumpkin weighed 57 pounds.
So what was the difference with E and her friend Z? Well, they read the directions, were a step ahead on the tasks, understood the difference concept, and did the math. Not only that, but when I asked their group how we were going to figure out the weight of the small pumpkin, E immediately suggested weighing ourselves holding the pumpkin (I had to coax that solution out of every other group). And not only that, but when I asked them to help the other kids in their group with the math, Z came up and said to me "we haven't learned borrowing yet, what should I do?" He knew how to borrow, but he knew that the other kid didn't, and he wanted to help him appropriately, not just do the math for him. In other words, what E and Z are is academically capable, creative (i.e. problem solving), and meta-cognitive. S, a boy who shares their skill level, completely lacks the meta-cognitive piece, and C, a girl who did some creative thinking (she compared the weight of the big pumpkin to her little brother's weight) is not quite there in skills.
So I guess E is different, but she's not a total outlier. I'm glad she has Z, and S and C, and, frankly, all the other kids in her class, because that's life: a whole lot of different people who need to negotiate the world, individually and together. And I am in total awe of her teacher for teaching all these kids at once: I only did it for an hour, and I was exhausted.
Friday, October 31, 2008
On Not Having Faith
I made a Chocolate Banana Cake tonight, and it took forever to set up (that would mean bake, to you non-bakers, or maybe just to everyone else in the world). I'm thinking maybe I used too much banana (did not measure, just mashed four); maybe the bananas were not ripe enough (usually I use brown ones from the fruit bowl, but I bought these today, at Whole Food [so I could also get Valrhona chocolate], and apparently at Whole Food bananas do not go brown]); maybe I didn't mash them enough. Or rather, I believe I did all those things--too much banana, not ripe enough, insufficiently mashed--and perhaps they are the reason the cake did not set, but combined with the cake not setting (OK, finally it set, but I don't know if it set enough, or if the 20 extra minutes of baking ruined it), they make me very anxious about the cake, which really needs to be a good cake, given its audience.
I have made one bad cake in my life (a Guinness Chocolate, where somehow the baking soda clumped, creating these nasty little nuggets of bitter saltiness, though everyone else who ate it insisted it was delicious, but surely they were just being polite). My neighbor said tonight that the only desserts she likes are my cakes and I am the best baker she knows. Yet every single time I make a cake, I am convinced it is going to be a disaster.
I had lunch with my interns this week, all recent college graduates, trying to find real jobs in fields they want to enter. They pumped me for information and insight: my career trajectory, my advice, my thoughts about them and their prospects. I had lots to say, of course--by now I'm something of a professional jobseeker--but one thing I said, that I used to say, but haven't said in a while, but realized is still true, is that just about every single meaningful job I've ever had has come to me. I would say that I've had nine meaningful jobs in my adult life (along with my fair share of meaningless jobs). In seven of the nine, someone approached me (rather than me applying, or otherwise making the approach). I have been unwillingly out of work for maybe four months of my adult life. Yet I am convinced that I will never find another job, even when I am fully and gainfully employed.
I don't get this attitude--it's more than an attitude: this deepseated conviction--I really don't, and I wish I could make it go away.
(This is completely different from election anxiety which is a combination of superstition and disbelief, based on heritage [Jewish] and recent experience [2004, 2008]. The thing about these convictions, as I've just tried to show, is that not only do they have no basis in experience, but experience shows them to be completely wrong. You would think that I would be able to play my reality principle here--pretend that objective reality is correct, even when you don't believe it--but I seem to be completely incapable of doing so. I know that my life would be immeasurably improved if I could--have faith, that is--and yet, I just can't.)
I have made one bad cake in my life (a Guinness Chocolate, where somehow the baking soda clumped, creating these nasty little nuggets of bitter saltiness, though everyone else who ate it insisted it was delicious, but surely they were just being polite). My neighbor said tonight that the only desserts she likes are my cakes and I am the best baker she knows. Yet every single time I make a cake, I am convinced it is going to be a disaster.
I had lunch with my interns this week, all recent college graduates, trying to find real jobs in fields they want to enter. They pumped me for information and insight: my career trajectory, my advice, my thoughts about them and their prospects. I had lots to say, of course--by now I'm something of a professional jobseeker--but one thing I said, that I used to say, but haven't said in a while, but realized is still true, is that just about every single meaningful job I've ever had has come to me. I would say that I've had nine meaningful jobs in my adult life (along with my fair share of meaningless jobs). In seven of the nine, someone approached me (rather than me applying, or otherwise making the approach). I have been unwillingly out of work for maybe four months of my adult life. Yet I am convinced that I will never find another job, even when I am fully and gainfully employed.
I don't get this attitude--it's more than an attitude: this deepseated conviction--I really don't, and I wish I could make it go away.
(This is completely different from election anxiety which is a combination of superstition and disbelief, based on heritage [Jewish] and recent experience [2004, 2008]. The thing about these convictions, as I've just tried to show, is that not only do they have no basis in experience, but experience shows them to be completely wrong. You would think that I would be able to play my reality principle here--pretend that objective reality is correct, even when you don't believe it--but I seem to be completely incapable of doing so. I know that my life would be immeasurably improved if I could--have faith, that is--and yet, I just can't.)
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Most Depressing Thing I've Seen on the Internet Today
the Cody's on Shattuck is now a Spirit Halloween Superstore. [from Facebook, so I can't link]
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Giving In to the Imminence of Winter
We went over to Grownup E's house this evening and picked up the suitcase with the boots, the suitcase with the gloves and hats, and the suitcase with the parkas.
Speaking of winter, I really don't know if we're going to be able to maintain the 62 degrees thing. It's damn cold in here.
Speaking of winter, I really don't know if we're going to be able to maintain the 62 degrees thing. It's damn cold in here.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Tearing Up
I never used to cry. I mean, I cried in my life all the time--way too much. But movies? Books? The whole sentimentality thing? Or public grief? Not me. I didn't cry when Deborah Winger died in that movie--or was it Shirley Maclaine who died? I didn't even cry at real-life funerals. If you were supposed to cry, I didn't.
But lately? I think I'm getting old. I'm becoming a machine o' tears. I cried when my friend told me about her friend who died. I have cried at the last two bat mitzvahs I've gone to. I even got wet eyes (yes, Dawn, I'm outing myself to the world) during Gabriella and Troy's final duet in HSM 3. I KNOW. Pathetic.
But you know when I'm pretty sure I'm going to cry, and be proud of it. When I vote for Obama. Even though I haven't been his biggest fan. Even though I don't think he's going to save the world and make us live happily ever after.
The idea that I am going to vote for a liberal Black man for president--and that he might very well win--I mean, just typing the words makes me almost start to cry.
But lately? I think I'm getting old. I'm becoming a machine o' tears. I cried when my friend told me about her friend who died. I have cried at the last two bat mitzvahs I've gone to. I even got wet eyes (yes, Dawn, I'm outing myself to the world) during Gabriella and Troy's final duet in HSM 3. I KNOW. Pathetic.
But you know when I'm pretty sure I'm going to cry, and be proud of it. When I vote for Obama. Even though I haven't been his biggest fan. Even though I don't think he's going to save the world and make us live happily ever after.
The idea that I am going to vote for a liberal Black man for president--and that he might very well win--I mean, just typing the words makes me almost start to cry.
Gender and the Musical (and Halloween)
At M's dance on Friday night, they played two songs from Grease. Apparently all the girls went wild, and the boys had no idea what they were hearing. One asked, "Is this Hannah Montana?"
That tells you something, though I'm not sure what (M's friend A is going to be a Pink Lady for Halloween, though she doesn't know which) (M is going as Desperately Seeking Susan-era Madonna, and E will be....Hannah Montana!) (and one of the wacky neighborhood boys is going to be Sarah Palin, which we're all looking forward to).
That tells you something, though I'm not sure what (M's friend A is going to be a Pink Lady for Halloween, though she doesn't know which) (M is going as Desperately Seeking Susan-era Madonna, and E will be....Hannah Montana!) (and one of the wacky neighborhood boys is going to be Sarah Palin, which we're all looking forward to).
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Notes on HSM 3
I miss Sharpay's nose.
Zac Efron is way past his expiration date.
Those new kids are quite funny.
I totally called the winner of the Juilliard scholarship.
The last 20 minutes--the show and graduation--totally redeem the whole thing, which up till then is completely ridiculous, though not in any kind of franchise-divergent way.
I mean, let's face it, musicals are ridiculous--can you say Busby Berkeley? Singing in the Rain?
And, really, the choreography is pretty great, in a ridiculous musical kind of way. Especially when it involves basketballs or graduation robes.
Gabriella does not have enough to do.
Shouldn't Gabriella and Troy be having sex by now?
The true talents of that gang are Corbin Bleu and the guy who plays Ryan. We like Sharpay and Gabriella too. But Zac Efron? I just do not get it. The guy is lame.
That gay subplot from HSM? Gone, gone, gone with the wind, steamrolled by the purely opportunistic Ryan-Kelsi hook-up (Vote No on 8!).
E: It was GREAT!
M: It was stupid.
Can you say target audience?
(And, if you're wondering, the target audience for this post is Dawn and Landismom--and maybe C? But if you know what I'm talking about, more power to you, and all my empathy!)
Zac Efron is way past his expiration date.
Those new kids are quite funny.
I totally called the winner of the Juilliard scholarship.
The last 20 minutes--the show and graduation--totally redeem the whole thing, which up till then is completely ridiculous, though not in any kind of franchise-divergent way.
I mean, let's face it, musicals are ridiculous--can you say Busby Berkeley? Singing in the Rain?
And, really, the choreography is pretty great, in a ridiculous musical kind of way. Especially when it involves basketballs or graduation robes.
Gabriella does not have enough to do.
Shouldn't Gabriella and Troy be having sex by now?
The true talents of that gang are Corbin Bleu and the guy who plays Ryan. We like Sharpay and Gabriella too. But Zac Efron? I just do not get it. The guy is lame.
That gay subplot from HSM? Gone, gone, gone with the wind, steamrolled by the purely opportunistic Ryan-Kelsi hook-up (Vote No on 8!).
E: It was GREAT!
M: It was stupid.
Can you say target audience?
(And, if you're wondering, the target audience for this post is Dawn and Landismom--and maybe C? But if you know what I'm talking about, more power to you, and all my empathy!)
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