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Sunday, August 26th, 2007 06:28 pm
productive sunday
Thing One: Recent Developments
Junior the Freaking Bearded Dragon passed on Friday; it was kind of expected and not. He'd been acting odd for weeks, but we couldn't tell from the books whether it was this weird reptile semi-hibernation they did or something else. So he's buried with teh bunnies; I am not buying another animal; at lesat, not for a while. I feel like having a pet cemetary in the backyard is not something I want to achieve.
*sighs* Child took it hard but seems okay now. School starts tomorrow, so he'll have the distraction. His class schedule is insane; they do equivalent six days of math (we did something similar when i was his age, but it was called math reinforcement for the sixth hour) and it looks suspiciously like prealgebra.
Thing Two: School
I've been pulling pretests from the local community college to retest myself in math; I'm okay through precal but not *complete*, and I don't have the ability to proof anymore. So it looks like either this spring or summer, I'm going to need to add precal to my schedule somehow, even if I have to audit it; I have to relearn how to write and check actual work, not just slide through it with half-assed answers.
I'm unfortunately teaching him all my shortcuts, which are fine for getting the answer but not so much in understanding what he's learning or prepping him for the stuff that shortcutting causes problems with. And frankly, he doesn't think like I do in some ways. I had entirely differnet problems with math, though both of us lack the attention necessary for sitting down and working a single problem for an hour. So I learned it by oddments; aka, I learned algebra before prealg and trig before geometry, then worked my way backward to the stuff that at the time made no sense to me. In other words, he needs the grounding I always lacked. And I can't think of another way to give it to him than to learn it all myself from the ground up. This should be fun.
The schedule changes daily; there's a pattern, but it does make things a lot less repetitive in general, which I think will benefit him a lot, since he gets bored with routine very easily. They also instituted a new homework thing I like a lot--all homework is taken from them at every class and kept in a folder in their home room. All kids have specific chorse during the day involved in collecting homework and announcments and other school-related wokr, and all of it is given to them before they leave school. When they come back to school, the folder is taken immediately and the homeworks sorted between the classes.
At first, it seemed a little odd, but I think I see the habit they're setting up for them to follow this routine, and as they advance, they'll slowly remove some of the failsafes one at a time. I approve immensely; it'll make my job a lot easier as a parent if I *know* what's supposed to be done. He can easily do all the work; his problem was remembering it at all. I met with his homeroom teacher, his English teacher (regarding his handwriting, which is execrable) and his new science teacher. She and Child are two of a kind; he wants to do something on cloning for the Science Fair; she was very excited. I really want to lie down now.
*sighs* God. Scientists.
I did not go looking for hot math teacher. I am strong. Yes. That is the word.
(Also, class in electronics once a week. Child and I are both gleeful. We have a broken DVD player and several keyboards to play with. I can hardly wait. Er. To watch him. But glee)
Science Fair is scaring me to death. Will probably post sadly on that later.
Thing Three: Potential
Still have to make appointment with pulmonologist. We got rid of all insect sprays in the house; so far, that's the only thing we know I was exposed to in both November and in March/April and now that insects are flying, we have--well. Venus fly traps. This is perhaps the creepiest thing I have ever seen in my life, but it seems to work; one right by the rabbit suddenly led to a colony vanishing into thin air.
Have you--have you *seen these things*? God. I have no idea what disturbs me more; all those tiny mouths, or the way I have yet to see one atually catch anything, but knowing the closed--er, leaves, mouths, *things*--mean they did catch something. It's--freaky. Very very freaky. But it seems to be effective. I'm assuming this will not end in Little Shop of Horrors.
Which leads me to this.
Thing Four: Emergency Contact Information
Emergency contact info.
I don't think I've done this before, but just in case. I see no reason to tempt fate, esp with school coming and allergy season among us. And because lets face it; I was hosptialized two times this last year and I might as well just set a plan; though honestly, I think at this point I can tell the signs of it degenerating from bronchitish-symptoms to not-able-to-breathe symptons and can get to see my doctor before it goes to the hosptial-food place. I seriously don't think I can function on their idea of breakfast for one more day. Or their coffee. God, that was horrible coffee.
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svmadelyn is my emergency contact; she also has all my passwords and contact info for my family and is the only one other than amireal who is allowed to post for me or on my behalf. Besides the DVD Commentary Challenge, there isn't anything I can think of that would come up that anyone would need me for, but she's the one to contact if there was. amireal is her backup and should have my current list of passwords and information as well.
(in other words, if someone who says they are my sister/best friend/cousin/estranged imaginary astral husband shows up, you are free to troll them to your heart's content; I am always open to troll flammage. I promise to read it later and laugh a lot. If it's actually me pretending to be my own sister/cousin/estranged imaginary husband, my expectation is that someone quietly email Madelyn that I've gone insane, then flame to your heart's content. You'll know if I ask for lipg blam (not gloss!) and a forty-two inch TV. My insanity will always be practical.)
general_jinjur, of course, is contact for all things DVD Commentary Challlenge and probably would barely notice if I vanished. *G*
Thing Five
Okay, for years I've been quietly guilty regarding Christmas cards. I know me--I will forget, put it off, etc. So I almost never sign up. HOWEVER! I have a stash of cards ready, another stash I have promised to buy, and dammit, I like sending and receiving cards. Poll below if you are interested.
(I am doing this insanely early. Yes, it is August. Yes, trust me, it is better this way.)
Fill out poll if interested. I swear they will go out if I have to pay off someone to remind me hourly over all of November.
[Poll #1045658]
Thing Six
I have done so much organizing this weekend. Child's room is almost perfect. Even my closet is in shock. And threw away my old shoes, his old stuff, boxed up unused toys, started moving his science stuff around. And trash. And stuff. And my books! Are now on shelves! Not organized yet, but I was excited to find The October Horse. Also have acquired The Everything Wine Book since one of my friends is a big wine drinker and apparently wants my blank expression every time she orders to stop being quite so--blank.
Junior the Freaking Bearded Dragon passed on Friday; it was kind of expected and not. He'd been acting odd for weeks, but we couldn't tell from the books whether it was this weird reptile semi-hibernation they did or something else. So he's buried with teh bunnies; I am not buying another animal; at lesat, not for a while. I feel like having a pet cemetary in the backyard is not something I want to achieve.
*sighs* Child took it hard but seems okay now. School starts tomorrow, so he'll have the distraction. His class schedule is insane; they do equivalent six days of math (we did something similar when i was his age, but it was called math reinforcement for the sixth hour) and it looks suspiciously like prealgebra.
Thing Two: School
I've been pulling pretests from the local community college to retest myself in math; I'm okay through precal but not *complete*, and I don't have the ability to proof anymore. So it looks like either this spring or summer, I'm going to need to add precal to my schedule somehow, even if I have to audit it; I have to relearn how to write and check actual work, not just slide through it with half-assed answers.
I'm unfortunately teaching him all my shortcuts, which are fine for getting the answer but not so much in understanding what he's learning or prepping him for the stuff that shortcutting causes problems with. And frankly, he doesn't think like I do in some ways. I had entirely differnet problems with math, though both of us lack the attention necessary for sitting down and working a single problem for an hour. So I learned it by oddments; aka, I learned algebra before prealg and trig before geometry, then worked my way backward to the stuff that at the time made no sense to me. In other words, he needs the grounding I always lacked. And I can't think of another way to give it to him than to learn it all myself from the ground up. This should be fun.
The schedule changes daily; there's a pattern, but it does make things a lot less repetitive in general, which I think will benefit him a lot, since he gets bored with routine very easily. They also instituted a new homework thing I like a lot--all homework is taken from them at every class and kept in a folder in their home room. All kids have specific chorse during the day involved in collecting homework and announcments and other school-related wokr, and all of it is given to them before they leave school. When they come back to school, the folder is taken immediately and the homeworks sorted between the classes.
At first, it seemed a little odd, but I think I see the habit they're setting up for them to follow this routine, and as they advance, they'll slowly remove some of the failsafes one at a time. I approve immensely; it'll make my job a lot easier as a parent if I *know* what's supposed to be done. He can easily do all the work; his problem was remembering it at all. I met with his homeroom teacher, his English teacher (regarding his handwriting, which is execrable) and his new science teacher. She and Child are two of a kind; he wants to do something on cloning for the Science Fair; she was very excited. I really want to lie down now.
*sighs* God. Scientists.
I did not go looking for hot math teacher. I am strong. Yes. That is the word.
(Also, class in electronics once a week. Child and I are both gleeful. We have a broken DVD player and several keyboards to play with. I can hardly wait. Er. To watch him. But glee)
Science Fair is scaring me to death. Will probably post sadly on that later.
Thing Three: Potential
Still have to make appointment with pulmonologist. We got rid of all insect sprays in the house; so far, that's the only thing we know I was exposed to in both November and in March/April and now that insects are flying, we have--well. Venus fly traps. This is perhaps the creepiest thing I have ever seen in my life, but it seems to work; one right by the rabbit suddenly led to a colony vanishing into thin air.
Have you--have you *seen these things*? God. I have no idea what disturbs me more; all those tiny mouths, or the way I have yet to see one atually catch anything, but knowing the closed--er, leaves, mouths, *things*--mean they did catch something. It's--freaky. Very very freaky. But it seems to be effective. I'm assuming this will not end in Little Shop of Horrors.
Which leads me to this.
Thing Four: Emergency Contact Information
Emergency contact info.
I don't think I've done this before, but just in case. I see no reason to tempt fate, esp with school coming and allergy season among us. And because lets face it; I was hosptialized two times this last year and I might as well just set a plan; though honestly, I think at this point I can tell the signs of it degenerating from bronchitish-symptoms to not-able-to-breathe symptons and can get to see my doctor before it goes to the hosptial-food place. I seriously don't think I can function on their idea of breakfast for one more day. Or their coffee. God, that was horrible coffee.
svmadelyn is my emergency contact; she also has all my passwords and contact info for my family and is the only one other than amireal who is allowed to post for me or on my behalf. Besides the DVD Commentary Challenge, there isn't anything I can think of that would come up that anyone would need me for, but she's the one to contact if there was. amireal is her backup and should have my current list of passwords and information as well.(in other words, if someone who says they are my sister/best friend/cousin/estranged imaginary astral husband shows up, you are free to troll them to your heart's content; I am always open to troll flammage. I promise to read it later and laugh a lot. If it's actually me pretending to be my own sister/cousin/estranged imaginary husband, my expectation is that someone quietly email Madelyn that I've gone insane, then flame to your heart's content. You'll know if I ask for lipg blam (not gloss!) and a forty-two inch TV. My insanity will always be practical.)
general_jinjur, of course, is contact for all things DVD Commentary Challlenge and probably would barely notice if I vanished. *G* Thing Five
Okay, for years I've been quietly guilty regarding Christmas cards. I know me--I will forget, put it off, etc. So I almost never sign up. HOWEVER! I have a stash of cards ready, another stash I have promised to buy, and dammit, I like sending and receiving cards. Poll below if you are interested.
(I am doing this insanely early. Yes, it is August. Yes, trust me, it is better this way.)
Fill out poll if interested. I swear they will go out if I have to pay off someone to remind me hourly over all of November.
[Poll #1045658]
Thing Six
I have done so much organizing this weekend. Child's room is almost perfect. Even my closet is in shock. And threw away my old shoes, his old stuff, boxed up unused toys, started moving his science stuff around. And trash. And stuff. And my books! Are now on shelves! Not organized yet, but I was excited to find The October Horse. Also have acquired The Everything Wine Book since one of my friends is a big wine drinker and apparently wants my blank expression every time she orders to stop being quite so--blank.
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From:Whoa, I never thought about that. I wonder if they'd live in the backyard, and could trap mosquitos? Because that could be awesome.
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From:Though now--hmm. I wonder if it *would* work in the backyard. I'm not sure how well they live outside, but taking them out in the morning and bringing them in at night might work. I need to look that up.
You should *see* these things. There are like, ten little--mouths is the only word I can use to describe it, all tiny and it's just *creepy*. But apparently effective; there is a *lot* less gnats around and almost no flies, and we're in the season now to get a lot of both inside.
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From:You got me thinking about it, *G* I went looking.
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From:I'm pretty sure your son is about the same age as mine, is he going into middle school? Cause if so I hope you keep posting about how his year goes with the whole changing classes-thing and weird schedules, cause mine is headed that way next year and I'm kind of worried about whether or not he can handle it. *uses Jenn and her kid for random fact gathering*
Dr. appts are good things, good luck with that.
Fly traps are, I think, the creepiest plants I've ever seen. But cool in a morbid kind of way. *G*
Good luck with the Christmas cards! I always mean to send then out and never ever have. Maybe I should start in August *ponders*
And in conclusion (I'm very bored right now can you tell?) have a perky Rodney. :)
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From:Although you've gained teh Venus Flytraps, so maybe it's kind of like an even exchange in creepiness?
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From:Good luck with Child in school. Sounds like he should have an exciting year ahed of him. And good luck with the cloning project- sounds like way more fun than anything I ever got away with in school.
Venus flytraps- I am right there with you. Creepy as shit but cool at the same time.
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From:thanks!
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From:I hope one turns up for you anyway :)
Your son always sounds so fantastic - mine is not so hot on science - though at the current rate of going he'll end up being a doctor - but he totally gets the maths. His handwriting is also awful but is mostly excused by his being lefthanded (though I know it's no excuse really)
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