matching tracksuits

Showing One’s Needs

Wednesday 23 January 2008

I'm starting my related arts class this quarter. I was scheduled to teach "Study Skills," but after looking at my roster and talking to folks in guidance, I switched. I'm teaching "Self-Advocacy," which I'm interpreting as socials skills (i.e., learn the skills to deal with problematic situations and come out positively).

And some of these students really need social skills.

Yesterday, while talking to the new students, I asked one of them her name. She mumbled something, and at the same moment, someone in the front of the class said her name as well. I really didn't catch either one, so I asked her again.

"She already told you. Why do I gotta tell you again?" she responded, with -- as the students would say -- attitude.

If I were teaching anything other than social skills, I don't know that I could have kept my cool as well as I did. I simply turned it into a teachable moment when I had a one-on-one moment with her.

But it's that kind of response that just floors me. "What in the world are you hoping to accomplish by responding to an innocuous question like that with such disrespect?" I thought.

Another example today: I was handing out note cards. "What are these for?" one young man asked -- a young man who has a reputation in the school as one who would talk back to a brick wall. I didn't say anything immediately and he looked at the note card, looked at me, smacked his teeth, and asked again, "What are these for?!"

Again: "What in the world are you hoping to accomplish by responding that way?"

Waking Up

Tuesday 22 January 2008

When L wakes up, she often will lie in bed talking to herself or playing. We often know she's awake because we hear the thump of her empty bottle falling to the floor. I guess she sometimes feels upset by being cheated: she woke up with a bottle, but the blasted thing was empty. Other times, she'll just suck on the empty bottle, perhaps wistfully imagining how nice it would be to have a bit of her warmed 10/90 juice/water mixture.

The point being, bottle tossed or no, L doesn't often wake up and begin crying. Which is pleasant enough.

Mike’s Personal Beliefs

Monday 21 January 2008

On his "Issues" page regarding marriage, Huckabee writes,

I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life. (Mike Huckabee for President - Issues)

If it's a personal belief, why literally make a Federal issue out of it?

Eating Alone

Monday 21 January 2008

L has begun eating by herself. Cheerios, small crumbs of bread with jam, and blueberries are her favorites -- they all fit perfectly in her wonderfully chubby hands.

Earlier this month, K was giving L some yogurt one evening earlier this month when she decided to let L have a go with a spoon. Of course the paparazzi was there.

Kitchen Door

Sunday 20 January 2008

Our kitchen door is not the best quality in the world.

Las Vegas

Saturday 19 January 2008

It's been some time since I posted any videos. That's because it's been a long time since I had access to the computer on which I edit them. It's in the guest room, which is now Dziadek's room, making the computer Dziadek's computer.

I'm so far behind, it's not even vaguely amusing. Still, I had some time today while the Girl slept and K and Dziadek were out, so I went through the footage I had and put together a little something from Las Vegas.

On the way: Grand Canyon, Sedona, eating with a spoon, and more...

04/19/93

Friday 18 January 2008

I was taking a modern American history course. The professor sent us home to watch television — ostensibly to watch history.

Little did we know.

I watched the fire and assumed an evil man had ordered mass suicide.

I assumed that for almost fifteen years.

I no longer assume that.

Waco: The Rules of Engagement.

Netflix members can watch it online.

“Base to Tree Shaker”

Thursday 17 January 2008

Once upon a time there lived a man named Ned who worked as a dispatcher for a southern county's municipal services. One day, after a rare snowfall, Ned received a call from an elderly lady eagerly waiting for the county Tree Shakers.

"Will you please send the Tree Shakers out to my home as soon as possible?" she asked.

"Um, mam, I'm not quite sure I understand you."

"Oh, you know -- my trees are filled with snow and I'm afraid the branches will start breaking. I need the Tree Shakers to come out shake all the snow out of my trees."

"Ah, I see. Well, mam, all our Tree Shakers are out on call at the moment, but the instant one radios in that he's done, I'll send him straight over to your place."

When the next one's available, Ned, send him over here.

Snow Day!

Thursday 17 January 2008

When it looks like this at night

it's pretty obvious you're going to have a snow day.

"Snow day?" my Polish students once asked. "Why, we'd never have school if we had such a thing here!" they declared enviously.

Snow in South Carolina -- who'd have guessed?

Stalin’s Gifts

Wednesday 16 January 2008

One of the great things about Stalin was his gift-giving sense. Take Warsaw, for example: he supposedly gave Poles a choice between a subway and this:

The Palace of Culture and Science (photo by koelk_h).

Apparently, Stalin liked to recycle his gifts...

Riga Daily Photo: Academy of Sciences

Not What I Wanted To Hear

Tuesday 15 January 2008

When the latest of a string of HVAC technicians goes rummaging through your system, tugs on a wire, breaks the wire, looks at it, and says, "Oh, crap," the only thing left to do is laugh at the whole situation.

Gas [Gone] Pack[ing]

Monday 14 January 2008

The heating system in our house is what's known as a gas pack: gas heater combined with an air conditioning unit.

It's great, when it works.

The trouble is, it often decides to stop working. The obvious solution: call a heating/cooling specialist to come take a look. We have. Four of them have come. They've all suggested and done different things. The gas pack still refuses to work.

That's an exaggeration, though, because it does work. It just never works when we leave for a long period of time. It doesn't matter what we do -- turn off the heat completely or turn down the thermostats -- the results are the same: it won't turn on when we get home. Or rather, it won't turn back on wants it thinks the temperature is correct. It'll crank up, blow hot air for a while, and then shut off. For good. But not quite -- it's still running. I go outside and put my hand on the exhaust vent (which blows out a fair amount of warm air when it's working) and it's cold, though the exhaust fan is working.

Here's the trick, though: I can get it working again. Beside the unit, there's a breaker, installed so repair folks don't have to go all the way to the breaker box to turn off the power. When I reset it there (disconnect the power, reconnect it), the machine turns on, warms up, and everything is fine. However, when I restart it from inside the house, by flipping the breaker off and then on, it will restart a couple of times (repeating the whole blow-for-a-while-then-never-turn-back-on process), and then it won't restart again. However, when I restart it from outside, it continues working longer. In fact, it works like normal sometimes.

Thankfully our real estate broker insisted on the seller buying a home warranty. We really haven't had to pay that much for all these visits.

Which leads to the delicious dilemma: to restart or not to restart? The repair guy is coming again this morning. He asked me not to restart it next time it's doing it's little on-again-off-again dance, but what can I do? My house is cold; Dziadek gets sick easily; I have a little baby. Of course I'm going to restart it.

"Can't you deliberately cause the malfunction?" you might ask. No -- that's the annoying thing. Once I restart it from outside, it runs fine more often than not.

The only solution I've come up with so far is to take a weekend trip, then call the repair people while we're still on the trip and have someone be waiting for us when we return.

Or sell the house...

35

Sunday 13 January 2008

"You Say It's Your Birthday"

Well, it's my birthday too...

When I was leaving for Polska the first time, my parents played a little joke on me. I had an old, almost-working laptop that I was planning on taking, and one day, Mom came to me and said she'd bought me a battery for my laptop. "I don't know if it will work with yours or not, but..."

I looked at it and thought, "Oh dear. Mom's wasted money. I hope she can take it back." But I gratefully thanked her and said, "Well, you might be right. I don't know if it will work with that old lap top." At which time Dad blindsided me, putting a new laptop on my lap and saying, "It'll work with this one."

They did it again.

This time, with a saw and goggles.

"Dad's always wanted one of those," Mom/Nana said.

"I guess he has one now," I said, "With a place to store it."

Dziadek was equally impressed, but declared that it was not for a beginner like me. Probably not, but I'll learn.

Grand Canyon

Thursday 10 January 2008

All photos are links to more pictures at Flickr.

The main goal of our trip West was to see the Grand Canyon. Dziadek, having been a geography teacher, had wanted to see it for as long as he could remember; K and I, not having had a vacation for years (literally), were eager to take him; L really didn't care.

I first went to the Grand Canyon when I was eleven. During the intervening twenty-some years, I never forgot about how awe-struck I was when I first saw the canyon.

"I knew it was big, but that big?!"

K and Dziadek had similar reactions.

The GC in winter with a baby is a hectic schedule -- into the car, out of the car, into the car, out of the car, into the car, out of the car, into the car, out of the car, into the car, out of the car. Coats on, coats off, coats on, coats off, coats on, coats off, coats on, coats off, coats on.

It soon became clear to K and me that this was just a reconnaissance trip, for we must go back and hike the canyon.

A note to photographers: the rocks reflect a lot of light. We found quickly enough that it was necessary to underexpose most shots by 0.7 steps.

The cliche is that a picture is worth some ridiculous amount of words. That really depends on the author, I'd say, but all that notwithstanding, even pictures don't do the GC any justice. It's just enormous on a scale that is incomprehensible.

Two hundred and seventy-seven miles long. An average of ten miles wide, with the shortest trail from rim to rim being twenty-four miles long. Five thousand feet deep.

Six million years old, with the oldest layers of rock being well over a billion years old.

It's like staring into infinity.

Quick Development

Tuesday 08 January 2008

During the last few days this evening, L's begun doing several new things.

While cleaning up, L chipped in. She picked up blocks, brought them to the box, and dropped them in -- on request.
L loves yogurt. Today, she reached out for the spoon while K was feeding her. With a little help and about five or six practice runs, L was more or less daubing yogurt on her spoon and then smearing it in the vicinity of her mouth.
K bought L a little toy cell phone this afternoon. Say "Halo, halo" (you can probably figure out the translation) and L puts it up to her ear.

Her understanding of communication is simply exploding.

« Older Entries

Next Entries »