Friday, December 28, 2007

Hello Kitty Coma and Star Wars Bliss


Merry Christmas everyone (3 days late)!! What a nice nice week we are having...I am just loving this week off (thank you university closure and holidays!) I have been off work since Friday, and we have been goofing off almost all week.



Monday afternoon the kids opened up their presents from grandma K from Arizona--mostly clothes, but my kids love getting clothes so they were happy. Monday evening was my family's Christmas party where we went to my oldest brother, J's, house and had a Christmas dinner and presents for all the cousins. Simon and Gwen have ten cousins from my side of the family, so he had fun playing with all of them and being silly all night.

This was the first year we actually went out and bought presents for all of my nieces and nephews. My older sister and I always try talking everyone into picking names or adopting a family or something but no one else E.V.E.R. wants to do this, and we usually opted out of the *buy-something-for-every-kid* part of Christmas due to limited funds. However, I guess I was feeling guilty about not buying presents for people who have been buying presents for my
kids every single year and decided to try to find something for each cousin that they would like this year. I think we did ok--except for my nephew, S, who is 13 and some kind of mad scientist. :) The remote control airplane we bought seemed pretty lame after we saw the *lightening machine* he built in the basement. I'll have to think more high tech next year.

Tuesday morning Santa had delivered presents to our house and the kids were happy that Santa got them EXACTLY what they asked for, and not some extra stuff Santa thought they might like but then never use. So, this year Simon wanted an inflatable solar system (which was a lot bigger than I expected, but he loves it!), the latest 3 Star Wars Movies, and the strategy guide for Star Wars Lego: The Complete Saga (which, btw, is actually useless to us since we don't have this game nor do we have the proper system to buy it, however Simon insisted he get this particular strategy guide--ok!). All Gwen wanted was a doll house and a teddy bear, however Santa did bring her a Hello Kitty blanket because we have a thing about blankets around here. The kids also opened up their presents from our attorney ;) and they loved the card game and Beatles lullaby CD. (Thank you also for the cool T-shirt, game and chocolate!! Oh, how I love the chocolate!! It rocks!!!)

After opening up presents from Santa, we loaded up the car and made the long drive to Grand Rapids where grandpa I and Aunt S gave the kids even more nice things, so they were having an extra special spoiled Christmas. Gwen is officially Hello Kitty and Disney Princessed out. I never ever thought in a million years I would have a princess girl. I know I say this over and over, but I have given up and let the pink side take over. The girl has never even SEEN a Disney princess movie, but I tell you whatever evil mastermind at Disney decided to combine the likes of all princesses and market it to little girls better have received some really big bonus (and have a special dark place in he77 reserved for him/her) because I haven't been able to get the girl out of the pink pajamas in 4 days now. Sigh...I give up. Hello Kitty is cool, but princess? I just give up...she loves it...she is 2...I will just keep repeating those things over and over again.

Simon watched all three Star Wars movies already and read most of his strategy guide...and our house is full of planet beach balls...he is a very happy boy.

As if this wasn't enough, Aunt M from Georgia and their other cousins from Georgia sent a bunch more presents for the kids which they opened on Wednesday morning--mostly clothes again which is nice because then I don't have to buy any new clothes this year :) and again the kids really love clothes...this is so weird to ME since I remember being horribly disappointed at Christmas if Santa brought me clothes instead of a toy...ha ha ha....oh, well!!

But presents aside, this has just been a nice nice nice week. The presents are nice (but unnecessary--but GREATLY appreciated) but just having time to wind down and rest and relax and do absolutely nothing except watch bad movies and eat gobs of chocolate (I received a lot of chocolate this year--woo hoo!) is all I care about. Not having to work, write papers, think, etc...I am really thankful and amazed at what a nice week this has been. I am glad we opted to be pretty darn lazy after Christmas because last year was a bit too chaotic for me trying to make sure we saw every friend on the planet. This year it is couch potato week and I am enjoying every bit of it!!

Tomorrow is gaming day for the guys at our house, so the house will be filled with gaming buddies and what not...however, it is also my older sister's anniversary and I had already agreed to babysit before this game day was planned so the kiddos and I will be over her house tomorrow night. But then I still have 3 more days off after that, so I will be enjoying every lazy minute of it!!!!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Yeeee Haa!!!


The semester is finally over. This one was more grueling than the previous two, for some reason. Especially December. Since Thanksgiving, until yesterday, we never had a day to spend together as a family. I had to take every available moment to go to the library to work on papers for one class or another. But, now I can take a break.

Over the last few days I've made the rounds to the local game stores (video, not board) and picked up a few tidbits to keep me occupied until I return to classes in January. I bought Star Ocean, Dark Cloud 2 and Bard's Tale for the PS2. So far, Simon and I are both enjoying Dark Cloud. It has a very cartoony feel to it, but also very deep gameplay on both a story and mechanical level. Along with fighting your way through dungeons and moving through the plot, the main character also has a camera with him which he uses to document "ideas" which are then used to "invent" new items that you use in the game. It's quite well done. I haven't had the chance to try the others yet. It is nice that he and I can play games like this together now. It's a single player game, but we can take turns with the controller. He likes to explore more than he likes combat, but its a blast that we're enjoying the same hobbies.

Also, based on my attorney's recommendation, I sneaked out alone last night to see the new Will Smith movie, I am Legend. I'm a big sucker for last-man-on-earth movies, and also zombie movies so I couldn't resist the combination of the two. I was a bit annoyed by the hokey religious element at the end, but overall I quite liked it. To sum up, I liked that it was introspective and was more about humanity than about zombies. I liked how the struggle to save humanity was mirrored by the protagonists personal struggle to stay sane and I enjoyed implication that the zombies were somewhat sentient. The basic story element to save the zombies was also a nice change from the usual plot to kill them. Good stuff.

I should probably re-rent 28 Days Later, and I've never seen its sequel, 28 Weeks Later. I'm also kind of interested in 30 Days of Night, just because I also like vampires and Alaska, but I have a feeling any fun in these films will be primarily on a visceral and not an introspective level.

All in all the holidays are off to a good start. Good games, good movies and more time to spend together as a family. Also, we're planning a big board gaming day at our house on the 29th and it is looking like we may have 10 or 11 players going from noon until we all pass out from gaming-related exhaustion. Woot!

Oh, and lest I forget, Simon has been saving up for 10+ weeks to buy a Lego X-Wing fighter. It was on backorder but it arrived in the mail at the same time that he saved enough of his allowance to buy it. We finished assembling it together yesterday before I went out to shovel. I always wanted an X-Wing when I was a kid. I'm overjoyed that my son is willing to save for months to buy toys that I've been wanting for 30 years.

Like I said, "Yeeee Haa!!!"

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Who Ordered All This Snow?

The weatherman was right--we were buried in snow today...makes us wish that we had a working snowblower...poor Hawksbill shoveled it all by hand today while I tried to clean the inside of the house, so we are both exhausted now.

Hawksbill finished his final exam and papers (woo hoo!) and other than having to go in one day for his internship next week, he basically has the next 2-2.5 weeks off!! Woo hoo! Again! One more semester to go!!

We never ended up getting Indian food the other night...just cheap pizza and cheesecake...good enough for me. Maybe when things clear up a bit we can go out. We did all go out Friday night and see, Alvin and the Chipmunks, which was cute, not great, but what do you expect? I was suffering a bit of sticker shock, however, when the ticket bill came to $29 for two adults and two kids!! Geez!! It hardly seems worth it when you know you could buy the DVD in a few months for probably half that price.

Simon and Gwen decided they needed to tell jokes today...they usually start out with some standards and then make up their own. Gwen's favorite is, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" to which she always takes about 10 minutes to get out her answer, "Because he wanted to... because he getted to the other side!!!" This is followed by her repeating this joke 100 more times....Simon's favorite today was the classic, "What time is it when the elephant sits on the fence?" Which we all know the answer to...but then he starts making them up...so we get...
"Why did the chicken lay an egg?" "Because it had CHEESE in it!!"
"What time is it when an ant sits on a lego?" "Time to get the ant off the lego!"
"Why did the chicken cross the road?" "Because he was walking!!"
"Why did the chicken eat cheese?" Because he was a CHEESE chicken!!"

I don't know about their future in stand up, but they were certainly amused today. :)

Thursday, December 13, 2007

2 More Hours....

I am taking my countdown very seriously...Hawksbill is taking his last final exam as I type this and should be finished by 5. I cannot wait until he gets home in (hopefully) about 3 hours. Of course, I would feel better in two more hours if I didn't have to go to work next week, but alas, I do...oh, well...

I am trying very hard to enjoy today but it isn't working out very well. I worked all day yesterday but then put in another 2 hours last night before going to bed. I don't think dreaming about work counts as work hours, but that is all I had to dream about last night...only to wake up to emails that made me less than happy from coworkers who work very hard to avoid doing anything...I usually don't write about work and I try VERY hard to avoid the topic, but today happens to be my birthday and I really wanted to take today off and not work at all...so instead of baking a cake or cookies, I am yelling at the babies to stop climbing on top of the kitchen counter and jumping through the window leading to the funroom, cleaning up a full cup of hot cocoa that darling Gwen spilled all over the counter which had the really sweet birthday card from Hawksbill, my mom, plus a few new Christmas cards, trying to keep Gwen from formatting our hard drive (she is going to succeed one of these days, I can feel it!), and trying to get twenty hours of work done in less than eight hours so we might be able to go out to dinner tonight.

So, dear Simon and Gwen, I am sorry mommy is a crab today, but it isn't going exactly as planned...

Sorry for the whiny post. In general life is wonderful and I am thankful for everything, my babies, and Hawksbill...but I would really just like some sugar cookies and Indian food...or maybe Pizzapopolis (sp?) or some other incredibly comforting food :)

Thursday, December 06, 2007

One more week

So, Hawksbill is at school today for his last day of Thursday classes. Next Thursday is final paper/final exam day, but this is the last week of classes. I don't remember the last day we all hung out together--maybe Thanksgiving???

Hawksbill gave me an early birthday present of a digital camera!! Yay!! No more running to have pictures developed and then having to scan them all in!! Woo hoo!! Also, no more spending a ton of money of developing a bunch of pictures that didn't turn out quite right...of course, now I am worried that I won't have anything developed but I guess I can keep online photo albums, right?

Simon and Gwen are enjoying this 1/2 inch of snow we got this week. I, for one, am NOT enjoying the cold this week. Maybe it will snow some more and warm up a little.

Just one more week...I can make it, right? I am so over this semester. Then next semester is it for Hawksbill...I still can't believe it. I think I posted before that I told a friend when HE completed Grad School, Simon would be three and I couldn't imagine Simon being three...but I told Hawksbill Simon would be 6 and Gwen would be 3 when he finished Grad School...and it will be happening in about 4.5 months...wow...time flies...I don't know ...I am glad time is passing quickly so Hawksbill will be finished with school, but I miss Simon and Gwen being babies and tiny...they seem so big now...ah, well. Enough babbling for me...I just can't wait until I can see Hawksbill again when he ISN'T working on a paper or studying for an exam :)

Thursday, November 29, 2007

A Fowl Discovery

Tonight I was putting together a quick dinner of leftovers and grilled cheese sandwiches. While I was cutting up some chicken for Simon, he pointed to something and said,

"What's that?"

"A bone," I answered.

"What do you mean, 'A bone'?" he asked.

"A chicken bone."

Looking completely surprised, "Um, do you mean a chicken bone? The animal chicken?"

"Yes, Simon, an animal chicken."

"You mean, that chicken is a chicken????"

"Yes, Simon, this is an animal chicken and we eat it. We eat the meat. Just like when we eat a hamburger, it is cow meat."

"I didn't know we ate animals."

"Do you still want the chicken for dinner?"

"OK...well, no, I think I'll have an apple instead."

Sigh...so anyway...it happened. Simon has finally put two and two together. And his decision to eat an apple instead of his chicken doesn't have me jumping to the conclusion that he is destined to be a vegetarian or anything (which if he chooses to be one, that is fine) but the fact is, the boy eats so LITTLE as it is, I am going to have a hard time if he decides he can't eat the few morsels of meat that he will stomach each week. If he liked beans or peanut butter or some other form of protein, I wouldn't care so much, but he hates almost everything so I hope this new found discovery doesn't decrease his tiny appetite even more.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Let's Zopp!

I was just browsing around on the geek and found Zopp! I've been trying to figure out what I want for Christmas and this just might be it! Here's a video of it in action. It is kind of pricey, but damn, it looks like fun! It also looks like a great dexterity game for both kids and adults.



Also, I found these lists of games for kids:

Playing "real" games with 5/6 year olds

Games that Daughter the Elder will trade bedtime books to play

EDIT:
Taking the advice of one of these lists, I introduced Simon to Carcassonne yesterday. He took to it pretty quickly, but we did simplify the rules a bit. We only scored the roads, cities and monasteries and we didn't score anything after the last tile was played. I won, but only by two points. He was very excited to play a game that daddy plays with "the guys."

Friday, November 23, 2007

3 More Weeks

Hawksbill's classes end three weeks from yesterday and I cannot wait. I think we are both stressed to the gills for various reasons (mostly work and school, obviously) so when he finishes his classes this term, we will be sooo happy to have a week break (almost 2 weeks for him) after he finishes this semester.

We are packing this Thanksgiving Weekend with too much, too, but that's life, right? We drove to Grand Rapids for Thanksgiving dinner with Hawksbill's dad, then back again last night. Today his friends are all sitting in the *dining table room* as the kids call it playing board games and drinking a lot :) so the kids and I went to my sister's house for a second Thanksgiving dinner today (her turkey didn't thaw yesterday, so she made it today) and then I did some Christmas shopping (yes, I went to the mall--I really don't mind the psychotic shoppers as long as I don't have to drag anyone along with me). Tomorrow we will go to a German restaurant to celebrate my cousins', A and H's, 70th wedding anniversary. Yes, they are my cousins (I think they are my 1st cousins twice removed if I have figured that out correctly) and YES, they have been married 70 years. I think at this point they are just staying together for the kids ;)

I heard my cousin, A, however, was in a car accident this week (yes, he is in his 90's and still drives) so he may be wearing a neck brace tomorrow. I am just thankful the accident wasn't worse than it was.

I believe Hawksbill and I (or maybe just Hawksbill) have plans tomorrow night. Then Sunday is my sister, A's, birthday but Tuesday is my parents' anniversary, so usually there is some birthday/anniversary mixed party so I imagine something will be going on Sunday, too. I know Hawksbill has too many papers to do something Sunday, so it will probably be just the kids and me going somewhere on Sunday.

But, the most important news of all, my absolute most favorite pizza place in the universe, Vendetti's Pizza, now renamed, Vendetti's Spanky House, has reopened after over two years of being closed for relocation purposes. The pizza place was originally located at 23 Mile and Mound Roads right behind the Ford (and later the Visteon) plant that I believe has since closed. The new store was supposed to open at 24 Mile and Van Dyke, but for some reason the new store location wasn't being built fast enough, so they settled on a store on Van Dyke closer to 26 Mile Road. I have to say, this place was the one reason I would visit my parents' house weekly. Their Spanky sub sandwich, which consists of a specially made pepperoni roll just packed with real pepperoni, their spaghetti meat sauce, and (I would have to estimate) a full 2 cups of mozzarellas cheese on one sub, well, my mouth is watering as I type this. It is pure heaven. It rocks...I would eat them every day if I could, but I don't think I could justify the mileage on my car right now in order to do this.

I wanted to go to the grand opening the week of Halloween, however, my brother said he tried to order something that week and was told it would be a 3-hour wait. And then, the first week they sold so much food, they had to close down for 3 days to reorganize...apparently a lot of people had been awaiting the second coming of the Spanky. I patiently waited until last week Sunday to purchase my first Spanky in 2 and a half years, and I tell you, it did not disappoint. I will be back.

I am tired just typing this now....tomorrow will be another busy day and I really really cannot wait until our break in 3 weeks. Until next time....

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

So sad...

Yesterday I was digging through my jewelry box to find a bracelet when I noticed my small gray box containing my grandmother's pearls was missing. Gone. Disappeared. I ripped apart my room, Gwen's room, anywhere I could possibly think of, but I can't find them. On top of this, I am trying to remember the last time I saw them in there--was it a week ago? A month? Two months? I am not 100% sure the last time I saw them, but I know they were there this summer.

My dad had these pearls strung into a choker and bracelet and bought me a pair of matching earrings for my wedding day. I hardly ever wear them, but still hoped to someday pass them on to Gwen. I don't know what they are worth, but the sentimental value to me is priceless and I am so sad. I know the jewelry, in theory, could be replaced, but not my attachment to the ones that belonged to my grandma who died a little over a year before Hawksbill and I were married.

It seems there are only a few possible explanations: 1) I put them somewhere to keep them safe and forgot where they are 2) They were accidentally thrown away somehow, or 3) they were stolen (but by whom and why take this one box as it appears nothing else is missing??)

I know that a million worse things could have happened to me yesterday, but I am still really blue about this.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Cryptography for Kindergarteners

This is just a request for information here because I keep forgetting to ask people in real life, so I am just going to post this on the blog hoping the 5-6 people who read it occasionally can help. :) Does anyone know where to buy some books with little code breaking puzzles for little kids? Simon received a book like this as a gift with little codes (you know, A=1, B=2, etc. or shapes in place of letters, etc) and he really really loves to do these puzzles, but I can't find them anywhere.

I have tried Target, Meijer, Barnes and Nobles, Borders, K-mart, Kroger, Toys R Us, and a few other random grocery stores, but I can't seem to find any books like this anywhere. The one book he has is just a coloring book that has these types of *code* puzzles in it, but it also has some *find the hidden picture* and other little puzzles, but I can't seem to find any books that have these particular secret code problems in it and he really likes them. Hawksbill found some individual sheets like these on PBS kids the other day, but it was only 1-2 pages.

So, anyway...if anyone has seen something like this in a store or online or has any other search suggestions for finding this type of puzzle book, please let me know!!!

Thanks!!

Barbnocity

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Shapes, Math and the Danger Rangers

I should be working on school stuff right now, but as usual I can’t focus without a looming deadline so instead I’ll write a post about the kids.

My apologies ahead of time if this just seems like bragging. I guess it is, but I can’t help but being proud of them. It’s in my job description.

Gwen keeps surprising me with what she’s learning, even though we’re surely not trying to teach her anything. We used to sing to her every night but she’s no longer interested and instead favors board books, like Hippos go Berserk or The Eye Book. She makes us read to her at bedtime and also first thing in the morning. She won’t get out of bed or let us change her diaper in the morning for less than 6 books.

She recognizes pretty much every letter of the alphabet now, at least the upper case ones. Also, she really surprised me the other day. One of the board books we have is called The Art of Shapes. On every page is a piece of modern art on the left side of the page and then an isolated shape from that piece of art on the right side, along with the word for that shape (triangle, square, etc.).

I grabbed the book off the shelf just to add to our repertoire. I don’t think she’d seen it before. I opened it up and started to read it to her but before I could begin she looked at the first shape and said: “square”. Then I turned the page and she said: “triangle”. Then we went all the way through the book and she, without my prompting, correctly identified a rectangle, a circle and even a cone. She got stumped by “cylinder” and “spiral” though so there was at least something I could teach her. She still has trouble with “cylinder”, but she has “spiral” down. To be fair, the picture of a cylinder in the book isn’t very good. I should find a plastic tube or something in real life and show it to her.

My favorite thing, though, is that at least once a day lately, out of the blue she’ll say: “Daddy” and I’ll say: “What is it Gwen” and she’ll respond: “I love you”. Awwww... And then I’ll take my eyes off her for a minute and she’ll go down to the basement and pour an entire bowl of cat food into the cat’s water bowl. Truthfully, she’s very tough to live with sometimes and she occasionally pushes my patience to the limits, but she is a sweetie for all that.

Simon is also surprising us lately. We’ve been doing math lessons most every day (although I’m not totally happy with Saxon math, and we’re thinking of changing). We mostly focus on simple single digit addition and subtraction and recently we've gotten a bit into telling time, weighing small objects and playing with tangram-like toys to do spacial relationship stuff. However, on his own and without us guiding him he’s been demonstrating a basic understanding of fractions, multiplication and division.

The other day he watched an episode of Cyberchase about fractions and afterward he brought me a piece of construction paper. On it, in crayon, he’d written: 148/160. He said to me: “See daddy, here’s how many gold bricks we’ve collected in our Star Wars Lego game (for the PS2). I asked him to tell me about it and he told me that the numerator (pointing that the 148) told us how many bricks we’ve collected so far and the denominator (pointing at the 160) is how many there are to get altogether.

He was excited because it told him how many more gold bricks we needed to collect. I was excited because he just correctly told me what a numerator and a denominator was.

Also, the other day he told me that “2 times 2 equals 4”. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was probably distracted by Gwen pouring cat food into the water bowls or something. But, last night we were out at Target and I remembered it so I asked him: “Simon, what is 3 times 4?” and he said: “12”. Then I asked three or four more simple multiplication problems and he got them all right. (He did miss “what is 4 times 6” though. He said “48”, but even that told me that he understood the basic concept of multiplication, because he got 8 times 6 instead. (if he’d said “19” or something I’d have figured he was just guessing. I don’t know where he’s getting this. It’s not from me. Either he just has his mother’s genes or he’s been watching more Cyberchase. Cyberchase ROCKS.

Finally, he’s been learning the concepts behind division because of his allowance. He gets $5 per week and he always saves up for large Lego sets that cost $50 or $70. So, when he sees something he wants he first asks how much it is, then he translates that into how many weeks it will take him to save for it. Then he recalculates how many weeks it would take Gwen to save up for the same thing (she gets $2 per week). We don’t call this “division” but he’s obviously understanding the concept.

And then yesterday he did something that told me that he’s the sweetest boy on the planet with a heart of gold (despite his occasional temper tantrums when Gwen touches his toys).

Here’s what happened.

One of his favorite shows on PBS is called Danger Rangers about a team of animated animals who rescue kids from trouble and then teach them safety tips. Yes, it is corny, but he loves it.

He asked me to help him send all the Danger Rangers a letter because he wanted to write to them. So, I made a fake gmail account for the Danger Rangers and we wrote them an email. He dictated it to me. He invited them to all come over to our house for a special play day on November 25th (he picked the day after consulting the calendar). He had it all planned out about what games and toys they would play with. So I wrote the email and sent it off to this dummy account I created.

But then I thought, wait a minute… he really believes they are real characters. I hadn’t understood that before. I’m not sure if I did the right thing here, but I chose not to tell him that they weren’t real. Instead I sent Barb a quick email asking her to check the dummy account and to respond to Simon as the Danger Rangers telling him that they couldn’t make it on that day because they were too busy rescuing kids who needed help.

An hour or so later Barb told me that she’d done this so I said: “Hey, Simon, let’s check our email to see if the Danger Rangers wrote back to us.” He was all excited. I read him the email thinking, wow, he’s going to love getting real email from his heroes! Instead, after I read it he crawled slowly off my lap, went over to the couch, pulled a blanket up over his face and started crying. My heart broke right then and there.

He was SO sad that the Danger Rangers couldn’t come to see him. He really thinks they are real. For better or for worse we’re not telling him the truth yet. The disappointment that they can’t come to visit is enough for now. Other harsh realities can wait until later, when he figures it out on his own.

But today is another day. Today he and Gwen are spending the day with our friend Housefairy and her four kids, who Simon and Gwen love hanging out with. If he can’t have the Danger Rangers, at least he has real life friends to make up for it.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Catching up with Fall

We did a lot so far this fall, and since my favorite holiday, Halloween, was last week, I figured it was about time to catch up and have my photos developed. As promised, Simon and Gwen were Princess Leia and Han Solo for Halloween. Hawksbill and I, however, cheaped out and didn't dress up this year. But the weather was perfect and the kids had a blast.


Leia and Han Solo


Closeup of *the hair*


It was so hard to get Han Solo to stand still for a photo...


Simon and Gwen playing in the backyard with leaves...

I won't lie--I made them hug for this next picture...




One of our trips to the apple orchard...Simon's favorite part was the animals



Gwen's favorite part of the apple orchard was the donuts :) (mine, too!)



One of the many trips to the Nature Center--Simon loves climbing rocks



More rocks to climb on



Gwen liked to play near the water



Simon's ill-fated sunflower--this was as big as it got...I think it had a diameter of about 3 inches before the bugs and wind got to it.


Gwen playing with a party hat from Hawksbill's birthday


I just like this picture so I had to post it. She looks so innocent, doesn't she? It's hard to believe with a face like that she is capable of destroying everything she touches.... ;)

Friday, November 02, 2007

Stress Man

I've been stressed to the gills for several weeks now so I thought I'd write about it in hopes of alleviating it. I get like this in the middle of every semester so far. It feels like that guy in Hellrazer with the fishhook things that are pulling at his skin from every direction. I keep waking up at 3-5am with my mind racing about one or all of these things:

Balancing the crazy schedule. I have four 3-hour classes per week plus 2 full days of internship at the hospital. My lovely bride is taking care of us by working at least 40 hours/week, sometimes more. I have assignments to complete and research papers to write. Daycare is absurdly expensive and generally not part of our child rearing philosophy so someone always has to be at home with the kids. Managing all that puts us both on edge. At least it only lasts until next April.

Too much damn school work. This is actually a bit better this week. I just got beyond the mid-semester crunch and I only have a few small assignments to worry about this weekend. Several big papers coming up though. Just the level of reading they ask us to do each week is comical. Every week it totals out at about 150-200 pages of articles / textbook chapters per class. That's sometimes about 1,000 pages over all per week for all classes. I've resolved this issue by simply not doing the reading anymore . We don't have in class exams so I only have to read enough to write the papers or take-home exams so there's no point in trying to get everything done.

Our professors know that we've all stopped reading and they joke about it in class. They are apparently pressured by the "curriculum committee" to have us read as much as possible so they give us 3-6 textbook chapters and 8-10 articles per week to read just to pad their syllabus and satisfy this committee. Some of them are kind and put asterisks by the articles that are actually important and not just part of the scholarly game they have to play.

Will I get a job that can support my family? Once April of next year comes around I have to get my ass back out there and re-enter the workforce. Homeschooling necessitates one parent spending the majority of time at home. This means that my income will have to maintain a relatively comfy middle class lifestyle. Very difficult in a country where two incomes are usually required just to keep folk's heads above water. And, for some reason I decided that being a social worker was the career to do that with.

I don't really feel bad about leaving my old job, though. I might, except that the corporate / cubicle life I used to have literally gave me recurring thoughts of suicide every Sunday night as I dreaded having to return there the next day. I have a hard time thinking of a more spiritually vacant, soulless place than a cubicle farm at an automotive company. I did have the chance to work with some really nice people who I respected and admired, but automotive consulting just wasn't for me. I'm really happy so far with my new career choice. I really, really like helping people / families in times of personal crisis. It just sucks that it pays for shit.

Is school teaching me what I really need to know? A whole classroom of us were talking about this the other day. It has become obvious that the things we are being taught in class are not preparing us for our future careers. A lot of my fellow students are very angry about this. Our actual training comes from our internships. The actual "school" part of our time is so far not very helpful. Interesting sometimes, but not helpful. For example, drug and alcohol addiction is a pretty damn huge problem out there in the real world and one which I will have to help people with in some way on a pretty regular basis. You'd think that my very prestigious school would know this and would focus a lot of energy in helping us to understand addiction and how to help people with addictions. Nope. I just found out that they recently added one elective class in the subject. I'm going to try to take it next semester if it fits into my schedule.

Also, I keep waiting to be taught a specific type of therapy. Instead, they keep teaching us about therapy in vague, superficial ways. They teach us that specific theoretical approaches exist, and we discuss each of them for an hour or so in a class here and there, but that's it. Apparently graduate school is not the place to go for detailed and specific knowledge in a subject matter. Apparently you get this kind of knowledge and experience on the job.

What freaks me out is the idea that I'll need to have that knowledge BEFORE I'm able to get a job.

I like my current internship, but it makes me really sad. I'm at a local hospital where I have two sets of responsibilities.

First, I do what they call "hospital social work" with kids who range in age from a few weeks to 18 years old. I interview these patients and their families to determine one or both of two things.

First, I try to see if they need help with anything. This can range from getting them bus tickets to helping them find furniture because their home burned down (hence, the visit to the hospital). Sometimes people don't have insurance or they don't feel like their child is getting proper medical care or something. Second, I have to determine if the reason the child is in the hospital is due to abuse or neglect at home. So far I have called CPS (Child Protective Services) twice on different families.

I hate this part. I knew when I went into this field that I wanted nothing to do with taking people's kids away. Let's face it, foster care is not a guarantee of a non-abusive, non-neglectful environment for children.

We worked with a family last week who was simply poor. They were not abusive. They were not neglectful. They were just broke and had lost their home and had no place to go. One of my colleagues spent all day trying to find them a shelter to stay in, but there wasn't one. In the end she called CPS and had this family's 11 year old son taken away by the police because we couldn't allow him to be living outside on these cold November nights. My colleague had no other choice. The mother, father and child were all crying and trying to hold on to each other while the cop led the child away and took him off to a foster care.

The family said that someone stole their SSI check and this set off a series of events that left them homeless and childless. All we know about the end of the story is that the child was taken away from them and that the mom and dad were asked to leave hospital property because they had no business there anymore. They walked out into the cold night with no money, no car, no home and without their son. Yay us! I didn't hear about this case until after the fact. I'm not sure if there's anything I could have done differently.

The other part of my internship is more of what I'm actually interested in, but it still makes me sad. I think I've mentioned this before, but just to clarify....

The hospital offers psych counseling to children and teens who have witnessed really violent things and are experiencing symptoms of PTSD / trauma. In some cases the kids might have watched while one parent murdered another, or they might have witnessed severe domestic violence. In some cases they might even have been the victims of attempted murder, where their father stabbed them several times and then committed suicide, leaving them for dead but instead they had it in them to call 911. These are kids. The cases I mention above involve children 3-8 years old.

These kids are experiencing a huge amount of grief, but beyond that they are terrified. They often have trouble sleeping or eating. They have recurring stomach or head aches. They might be very angry on top of scared and are acting out at home or at school.

What we do is try to initially address to fear; to create a very safe environment and to create a trusting and accepting relationship in which to help them grasp and understand just how afraid they are... to reassure them that whatever hurt them before isn't going to hurt them again. If we can do that, then we can try to begin addressing the grief itself. There is an organization nearby that offers specific training to become a "Trauma Consultant." I'm thinking of getting this certification after I graduate.

The kids I work with are often the same age as my kids. This creates a lot of anxiety for me because I see these kids at the hospital and I imagine my own children going through horrible experiences like this. It is irrational, I know, but it freaks me out.

Every day at the hospital I see so much extreme pain... families at their worst and going through a kind of hell I have a hard time imagining. Last year, working with adults with schizophrenia, I found it easier to separate myself from their situations. This year, because I'm working with children and families, it is harder to not become emotionally involved and to take those feelings home with me.

I want to help them, and I think we do help, but what I want to do is take their pain away and make it "all better", which just isn't possible. Still, this is so much better than my old job. Despite my stress lately, I'm a much happier person now than I was 2-3 years ago. Even if I can't do everything to help the people I'm working with, just trying to help as much as I can makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile in the world. I never felt worthwhile in my previous career.

Ugh... apologies for allowing this post to get so long. There was just a lot on my mind this morning and, as usual, I couldn't sleep worth a damn.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Laugh if you will...

...or just don't bother reading on, because I want to write a post about diets. Or maybe I should just say, "diet," and not *diet* such as in, "I am on a diet!" but diet as just in what I am eating or not eating, or eating too much of...etc.

I am not really sure what I want to say, but I have been thinking about eating a lot lately, mostly because in the last few years I seem to eat as much as possible when it comes to *free food* and I want to STOP IT. As much as I love food, I am also a terribly picky eater, so I don't know what my problem is. I even went so far to go back and re-read some of those terrible diet books we have, you know, Atkins, South Beach, French Women Don't Get Fat, WW Points, etc. The first three suck for plenty of reasons, but the biggest reason being the recipes. Stop giving me f*cking recipes that involve some weird herbs or ingredients that I need to travel to five different specialty stores to find and then never use because I am too tired after trying to find them all...not to mention I just spent $100 trying to make some meal I won't even like. I don't like brown rice and I don't like fish (or any seafood for that matter). I can't pretend so don't make me. I don't want to eat only meat for 2 weeks straight so don't make me. And I cannot and will not go to Eastern market and spend hours pouring over the perfect pear or something because that's what the French would do. PLEASE!!!

And then WW points. Sounds ok--you want to eat something, but you have to figure out how many points it is and then keep within your little limit...that is fun, for about a week and a half and then it tends to backfire on you. You start questioning portion size, "Gee, these McDonald French fries seem a little light today, so maybe I'll knock off a point," or, "Well, I didn't eat all the sauce in my lean cuisine, so maybe it was really only a 2 point meal!" Ha! Please....save me.

Even worse than WW points was some weird computer program a couple of graduate students gave me at work that you had to type in your weight, your goal weight, the date you wanted to reach your goal, and then it would calculate how many calories you could eat each day, but you had to make sure you logged in every. bite. of . food. all. day. long. until you maxed out for the day. Who has that kind of time or patience??????

My work is offering these *wellness* sessions on healthy eating or healthy lifestyles and I went to one on Wednesday called the *virtual grocery store* where a nutritionist proceeded to tell us for an hour we need to eat more fruits, veggies and whole grain foods, and stop eating things like potato chips and processed food. Really? I was shocked (note sarcasm here). But I nearly lost it when she told us that a fun food would be microwaving a sweet potato, adding a pinch of brown sugar, a packet of Splenda and mashing it all together and it was "just like dessert!" Are you f*cking kidding me? Did you really smoke crack before you showed up to teach this session? Even worse were the people in the audience chiming in with, "I make sure I eat 45 grams of fiber daily!" or, "I like to mix in spinach leaves into a smoothie for my kids, and they just love it!" I felt like I was sitting in with a group of nutritional Stepford wives. You should have seen the looks everyone gave me when I admitted I still drink whole milk. The horrors!!

So, my latest purchase in trying to understand my great need to stuff my face like a pig has been the book, Intuitive Eating. Another quick read, and I could sum up the entire book in about 2 sentences, but the thing I liked most about this one was no recipes. No freaky ingredients...no one telling me that I would learn to love to eat x, y, or z in my new *lifestyle change*...just intuitive eating. What is it? Eat what you want, but stop when you are comfortably full. If you want a snickers bar, don't eat carrots or rice cakes, eat a snickers bar. If you want ice cream for dinner, then eat ice cream for dinner, just don't gorge yourself...stop when you are comfortably full. How, well...intuitive! Now if I could just convince my brain to start thinking that way again. I especially like the part where (paraphrased, of course) they said if you started eating something and it tastes like crap, don't FINISH it--throw it out (unless you are a a situation such as a relatives' house where you would clearly offend the host if you didn't eat their prepared meal).

Kids are natural intuitive eaters--they know when they are hungry and WILL stop when they are full until they are taught by an adult that it is BAD to leave food on their plate because people are starving in (insert some starving kid country here) or they must eat everything on their plate or they can't leave the table and we'll sit for 12 hours until you finish that soup!! Or, "Are you sad? Here, have a cookie!" Stuff like that....I was lucky being number 7 of 8 so that other than the occasional prodding by my mom to "eat just ONE kernel of corn", I was never really hassled into finishing my plate or eating something I didn't want (but I honestly think it was because my parents figured, hey more food for the rest of us if you don't want to eat!) but lately...the free food, especially the unbelievably large amounts available free at work makes me gorge.

Take yesterday--we had our annual Halloween potluck and had dishes from every corner of the globe. There were twice as many desserts as there were main dishes, and I just wanted it all...it was so good I ate until I felt physically sick for the rest of the day and I don't understand why I do this now when I would never have done something like this in the past.

Then there are the invited lecturers or conferences where there is gobs of free cheese and crackers and fruit...or the Ph.D. dissertation defenses where the defender brings in soda and cake or cookies and sandwiches trying to win over their dissertation committee with food...it is all there, in the workroom, begging to be eaten...or the birthday every other week with cake...why why why can't I just say, no, anymore? What has changed where food has become such an obsession?

So, my real hope with writing this post is that if I actually write it down and put it *out there* so to speak, I will force myself to do this...to really think about how I feel when I eat and just stop when I am full. Just because they give me 500 lbs of food at the Chinese restaurant at the mall doesn't mean I have to eat it all.right.now. It will still be there tomorrow...and it is ok to throw out food...I don't need to eat food just because one of my kids wants to *share* their goldfish or cheese....and just because there is *free* food in the workroom, doesn't mean I have to eat it.

So maybe I do not need to lose 20 lbs, but I don't want to gain it, either. I want to have some energy again at the end of the day...I want to exercise more...I want to be healthy...but I don't want to be brainwashed by some new fad, either. I know when I am not obsessing about it, I do eat fairly healthy. I know some days I could just eat whoppers all day long, and others I just want fruit and veggies. Eating less seems reasonable to me...if I could just get my mouth to work with my brain and stomach, maybe all would be well.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Sexual Abuse in US Schools

Here's a recent article from msnbc.com suggesting that sexual abuse in US schools much more prevalent than people usually think. In fact, the article suggests that schools have been covering up extensive abuse in much the same way that the Catholic Church has done.

I was never aware of anything like this happening in schools I went to, but Barb describes some pretty scary stuff from her high school, including teachers dating, impregnating and marrying students.

This disturbs me for two reasons, first because of the prevalence of the abuse itself, but also because they make people very wary of having men work with young people in any way. And, it makes men think twice about dedicating themselves to such careers because of fears of being labeled an abuser.

In my current internship I've been working with kids who have been traumatized by witnessing terribly violent acts (sometimes even having witnessed one parent murder another). I really like these kids and I'm enjoying learning the therapeutic techniques associated with helping them, but I'm also very cautious about being alone with a child while their parent sits in the waiting room.

Because of that, among other things, its more likely that I'll direct my future career more towards working with adults.

As far as abuse in school goes, fear of that isn't the reason we're homeschooling, but at least its something we don't have to worry about.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Laundry and dishes, laundry and dishes....

I think "Laundry and dishes" has been Hawksbill's and my mantra this semester. That is pretty much all we have time to do and the number one and two things that need to be done in our house. Sure, it WOULD be nice to clean for real one of these days, and it seems like 2-3 weeks the house gets a "wash down" as Simon likes to call it, but on a day to day basis, all we focus on is laundry and dishes and cleaning up only major disasters. Right now, the house looks like a tornado hit it, even though I know Hawksbill straightened everything up on Tuesday. Oh, well...there is a holiday break between December 25th and New Years and I am sure one of those days we'll clean again.

I took the day off yesterday, and we all went to Romeo to a pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins and buy some apples and donuts. I am not a big cider person, so I skipped that part of the apple orchard. I took pictures, but as always, I do not have a digital camera so it will be weeks before I see how things turned out. I keep meaning to post pictures that would go with some of the previous posts I had written, but it seems so far away, it hardly seems worth it now.

We are still focusing mostly on math and reading this semester for homeschooling. However, Simon informed Hawksbill on Tuesday that his math worksheets were "boring". Sigh...but he is right...the pages where he has to fill in the 20 math questions (which are really 5 math questions repeated 4 times) ARE boring. He doesn't mind the pages where they ask him to color in things, or write his own math problems. He also hates it when they list 3 numbers and ask him to write the number that is one larger than the number listed. For example, it will say, " 13 ____, 27 ___, 18 _____," and Simon will tell one of us, "I don't want to write 14, 28 or 19, so I am going to put in my own numbers," and then proceeds to write down any darn number he wants which is fine by me.

Simon has also been asking a lot about how to read numbers in the thousands, ten thousand, hundred thousands, etc. I think he wants to do this so he can read his score off of his Star Wars Lego games. He wants to be able to tell us how many coins he has. Also, this way he can tell us what the numbers that are on buildings when we are driving.

I want to find some more puzzle books for Simon because he likes to do word searches and mazes and puzzles...so we will probably go to Target tonight and see what we can find. Simon is also becoming an expert in Star Wars Lego I and II on the playstation. I feel bad when he asked me questions about Star Wars because other than the characters' names from the first 3 movies, I know nothing about Star Wars. Hawksbill bought him a couple of "I can read" books on Star Wars that he LOVES, so those are the books he is asking me to read over and over again to him right now.

Gwen is really into being read to now. She really likes these alphabet books that we bought when Simon was a baby, and she knows probably half of her letters. I think it is funny because when Simon was 18 months, Hawksbill and I read those over and over and over drilling the alphabet into his head so he knew his letters by the time he was 2, and now with Gwen, I am not so worried. If she knows them by the time she is 3, that is great, but I am not psycho-obsessed with forcing them to learn things by a certain age.

We all have been watching Northern Exposure lately in our little Alaska fantasy. Gwen informed us she only wants to go to Alaska if she can see moose!! I have been wanting a kid to be obsessed with moose and it looks like it is going to be Gwen. We also tivoed (is that even a word?) some travel channel shows on Alaska, but I think they were narrated by the same guy who narrates the Texas hold-em poker tournaments, so they weren't exactly what I was hoping they would be. I guess what I wanted was more of a National Geographic kind of feel. Ah, well...it would be nice if we could save up enough for a trip for 4 to Alaska. Simon said he wanted to go next week, but we had to disappoint him and tell him it wasn't possible. Maybe in a year and a half we can save up enough to go, but for now, we will just have to keep watching old reruns of Northern Exposure and movies that use Alaska as a setting.

Please forgive the typos. To say I am tired is an understatement...I will worry more about grammar when it is truly necessary. :)

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

A rough week....

Last week Wednesday was a sad day. Early at work my sister, A, called to let me know that my brother, B's, mother-in-law had passed away the night before. Mrs. B was such a nice person--always smiling, always happy. She was a welcome face at any gathering. I was sad that I hadn't asked her more about her life because it wasn't until I read her obituary that I found out she and her husband (who preceded her in death 16 years to the day) had worked at the Octagon House which is one of my favorite landmarks near my parents' house. Although it wasn't completely unexpected, Mrs. B had inoperable cancer, it was still a shock to hear that she had passed.

But to make matters worse, less than an hour after my sister had called, Hawksbill called me to tell me my Aunt Mary had just called to let me know my Uncle Mike had passed away the night before. I actually hung up and called Hawksbill back to make sure I heard him correctly. Uncle Mike was so sweet--another happy face--always always smiling and laughing. He will truly be missed.

I spoke to my Aunt Mary on Friday, and she told me that when at the hospital on Tuesday, Uncle Mike told the doctors that his brother (who had died years before) came to him to tell him that it was his time to die. His brother said that Uncle Mike would have a massive heart attack and that he was coming to take him that day. Apparently, the doctors laughed him off and told him he wasn't going anywhere today...but then Uncle Mike laid down smiling, had a massive heart attack and died. Aunt Mary said he was so happy when he went because he truly believed he was going to a better place and she was happy for him.

Goodbye Mrs. B and Uncle Mike...you will be missed....

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Damn you, Farley Mowat!!!

When I was younger two of my favorite authors were Jack London and Farley Mowat, both of whom wrote adventure novels of the Alaskan and Canadian wilderness. Everyone knows Jack London, so I won't bother describing his work, but Mowat is mostly known to Canadians. He wrote the book "Never Cry Wolf", which was turned into a fairly successful movie back in the mid 80's. Also, his book "A Whale for the Killing" was made into a pretty good made-for-TV movie around the same time. And I've never read his book "The Snow Walker" but it was made into a movie back in 2003 (directed by Charles Martin Smith who starred in "Never Cry Wolf"), which we rented earlier this year and it re-invoked my desire for wilderness adventures.

For the most part these wilderness desires of mine are kept far back in the recesses of my mind and labeled "unrealistic" by the sensible adult in me, but every once in a while the foolishness is rekindled. Back in 1995 when Barb and I were finishing our undergraduate degrees we both applied for grad school at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. We were in middle of the application process when I got hired for my consultant job at Pcubed. We decided that I should stay at that job and save up some money, but then they kept promoting me and giving me more money... we bought a house and had kids and left those Alaskan dreams behind us.

I haven't really thought of it a lot since then. I had more of less written it off as foolishness, but a few weeks ago something happened that brought it all back again. I was at school chatting with some other students waiting for class to start and we were talking about job hunting. One woman, who is graduating in December said she'd been looking at Alaska jobs because they pay so well. I said, "huh?... tell me more..." It turns out that Social Work jobs in Alaska do pay quite well and there are quite a few of them. In Michigan starting salaries can range from $25K-45K or so, but I've recently found Alaska jobs that range from 45K-70K, and they often include signing bonuses, living stipends and moving expenses (up to 5K just for moving).

And, on top of that, Alaska has no sales taxes and the state has a NEGATIVE tax for residents. They pay you to live there.

Then, I mentioned this to my attorney and HE started looking at Alaska jobs as a public defender and found out that they pay really well also. He's even gone so far as to apply for one in one of the most remote places on the planet, the city of Barrow, which is along Alaska's northern coast, right on the Arctic Ocean. I'm very jealous.

That far north might be a bit too much, though. I've been looking at Anchorage, which is south, central, AK, or in the S.E. of the state, perhaps even including Juneau, which you can't even drive to, but must fly into or take a ferry boat. However, I did see a job involving helping kids at an orphanage on the ocean in N.W., Alaska that paid well and offered some nice benefits (relocation costs + signing bonus) so that is something to consider too.

Barb still seems willing to consider the idea and sounds interested by it, if not entirely as excited as I am. We've talked about whether or not we'd have to sell our house or if we could rent it out. This latter option would be nice because we could maybe move to Alaska on a "temporary" basis (2-3 years) and then come back to our own house if it wasn't something we wanted to do permanently. That would also give time for the housing market in the Detroit area to improve.

If we do decide to move to the far north, it won't be immediately. Most of the jobs that I've found require a state Social Work license, which would require 1-2 years of post graduation work experience anyway. But, at the very least, this goal might help me figure out what kind of work experience I'd need for that move. I've become very interested in trauma therapy lately, because of my work with kids at my current internship, but I think I'd also need to focus on working with drug & alcohol dependency. I'm thinking that if I could work at a local Veteran's Administration after I graduate, that would cover both bases and would set me up both for getting my LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) and would provide the experience needed for many of the Alaskan jobs.

Anyway, I can't keep my mind off Alaska again. Here's a couple of interesting items:

fairbanksorbust.blogspot.com is a blog about a public defender in Alaska. When it begins it is about a lawyer and his pregnant wife living in California and dreaming about Alaska, much like I am. I'm working my way through it now.

Arctic Cam is an online cam of Fairbanks.

Top 100 Things I Love About Living In Alaska. Actually, it's only 26, but it is a good list. My attorney sent this one to me when he got the bug too.

Living in Alaska FAQ. Lots of good info by the same author as above. Both of these make Juneau sound very attractive. The cost of living does sound a bit high, but that is true all over Alaska. The large number of boats sounds pretty nice though. I've always wanted to learn to sail.

Librarians in Alaska. All around the state, librarians describe what life is like up there.

Life in Alaska. Nuff said.

Life in Alaska Another Blog.

Most importantly, though. It turns out that homeschooling laws in Alaska are just as flexible as those in Michigan; meaning that there practically aren't any. No documentation or registration with the state of any kind is required. Woot!

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Yoda music video

Uh oh... we just found another Weird Al Video...

Monday, October 01, 2007

Blokus, Star Wars and Super Bunny

The last post was too serious. I'd meant to write about some of the fun we're having at home, but didn't get that far. I'll try again.

As I mentioned a while back, now that Simon is of an age where we can enjoy some basic board games together, we've decided to follow the general rule of buying a new board game each month that we can play with the kids. For September we picked up a copy of Travel Blokus. Travel Blokus is just like regular Blokus, except that it is a 2-player instead of a 4-player game.

In it, each player has 21 plastic tiles made up of 1-5 small squares that look a lot like Tetris shapes. The players take turns playing 1 tile at a time on a 14X14 grid with only one rule about tile placement: each tile you place must touch at least one of your previously placed tiles at the corners, but they must never touch sides. The winner is the player who gets the most of their tiles on the board. Very simple.

Simon, Barb and I have been playing at least a couple of games a day for the last week or so and it is quite fun. Simon is getting better at it as we go along and has even developed a strategy all on his own (he places his biggest pieces first). So far he's kind of inflexible with this strategy, but it is a strategy and I'm pleased that he figured it out without help. (I'm also pleased that he learned the word "strategy").

Also, Simon's interest in Star Wars has hit a new high. I taught him how to search around YouTube and he's discovered a treasure trove of Star Wars related videos of one kind or another. He's also been playing the PS2 Star Wars Lego game a lot again because he discovered a YouTube video describing all the "cheats" and hidden goals in the game and now he's trying to unlock all the "gold bricks". Where does he get this from?

The other day I was watching TV and Simon was on the computer watching YouTube videos again. I noticed that he was watching this one over and over again:



I'd never seen this before, but apparently its been out for a while. I thought him watching this was funny for about 8 different reasons, not the least of which is how much I love it that he and I share obsessions. Here's another version of the same song with a montage of scenes from the movies and other sources. Oh, and here are the lyrics to the Weird Al song.

Simon still hasn't seen the actual Star Wars movies yet. Maybe over Christmas this year.

Gwen has been having fun all her own. She loves running around the house with a small blanket tied around her neck and carrying a "magic wand". She'll run in circles and stop periodically to cry out: "Super Bunny to the World!" I tried to get her to replace the word "world" with the word "rescue", but she wouldn't have any of it.

Also, Gwen has been much more interested in books lately. For the last year or so she's preferred singing songs at bedtime instead of reading. Lately, though, she's changed her preferences and we've been adding board books to the mix. She really likes Hippos Go Berserk, Blue Hat Green Hat and Dinos to Go. (We're big Sandra Boynton fans around here.)

This isn't to say that we've stopped singing. We still sing the same three songs at bedtime every night. They are "Yesterday" (Beatles, of course), "You are my sunshine" and "Hush Little Baby". I try to add new songs to the mix occasionally, but she's seldom interested. Maybe I can memorize the Weird Al Star Wars song for her...

Next up we have to prepare for Halloween. We let Simon decide on all of our costumes. He's all ready as Han Solo and Gwen now has the cutest little Princess Lea costume complete with fake hair-buns. Now Barb and I just have to figure out how to get her set up as Luke Skywalker and me as Obi Wan. Shouldn't be too hard. Plus... we get light sabers! Woot!

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Back to School for Hawksbill

As Barb mentioned, things have been very busy around here lately. I'm back in school, with the same crazy schedule as last year. The big upside, though, is that my internship is at a hospital close to home this year instead of way out in Ann Arbor again. This means I only have to Drive to Ann Arbor twice a week, instead of 4 times a week. This is a huge improvement. If things go well, I'll only have to make the trip once a week next semester.

My classes are a bit more interesting than last year. I got most of those required policy and community organizing classes out of the way and I'm just taking classes in counseling, of one type or another (with individuals, with families, with groups, etc.). And, as I mentioned, I'm interning at a local hospital where they have a program to help children and adolescents who have suffered a traumatic loss (violent death of parent or sibling usually) and have PTSD as a result.

In general, I'm liking school, but sometimes the supreme-ultra-hyper-Liberal thing makes me cranky. Before going to the UofM School of Social Work I didn't fully realize how capital-L "Liberal" the place was. I generally consider myself to be leftish in nature, but it occasionally bugs me how far it is taken.

Here's an example: In my class about interpersonal counseling for individuals we've been discussing how important it is for a "therapist" to be sensitive to cultural difference between him/herself and the client. The subject of tolerance is drilled into us in many classes at almost every opportunity. I agree whole heartedly with this, but the length they go to drill this into us borders on the patronizing, which bugs me to no end.

To emphasize the idea of tolerance last week our instructor showed us a few video clips from an old episode of "Northern Exposure" in this episode Maurice discovers that he unknowingly fathered a child during his military time in Korea some 40 years ago when his former lover, their son and the son's son make a surprise visit to Cicily, Alaska. Maurice has a real problem with his son being "some kind of Chinaman", but DJ Chris gives him a talk about racism being learned behavior which he can unlearn and he thinks about that.

Later Maurice and his new Korean son (who speaks no English) are at a bar together, trying to communicate. Initially they have difficulty crossing their cultural boundaries, but at some point they begin to bond through a) drinking whiskey, b) arm wrestling and c) a shared love of electrical engineering... all of which they manage without speaking a word of a language that the other can understand.

I loved this scene because I thought it did a great job of showing how people can get around their preconceptions of others and find common ground despite their differences. It was very touching.

Our instructor said as much as well, but then added: "Does anyone see the problems here? If Maurice were your client and you were his therapist, what guidance would he need next" None of us understood what the teacher was getting at, so he clarified by saying: "Don't you think that this kind of male bonding just propagates negative masculine stereotypes?" Basically he was suggesting that "masculinity" as seen in drinking and physical competition is just the first step along the road to alcoholism and being physically abusive.

I raised my hand at this point and suggested that, if the characters have solved their interpersonal problem, and no one is being hurt, what's so bad about that? I asked if it was our place to impose our values on the client and try to solve a potential future problem that has not become a problem yet and may never be a problem at all.

This didn't sway our teacher who basically insisted that masculinity is something bad which needs to be corrected in some way and that it is our place as future social workers to help our clients which such problems.

I shut my damned mouth at this point. A few other people tried to back me up, but not with much effort. The woman next to me did lean over and whisper this to me, though: "Would he be complaining if the two characters were women and they bonded by going shopping and painting each others nails?"

For several other reasons I was already disliking this particular teacher... but this interaction sealed the deal for me.

In general there some strong attitudes about social relationships that are emphasized, but not discussed openly in the UofM School of Social Work that I struggle to get my head around and which conflict with my own view of the world. I've taken classes there on social policy, community activism, individual, group and family therapy and I've noticed the following set of underlying principles.
  1. If I am not always feeling guilty for being a white man, then there is something wrong with me.
  2. If I am not always fully comfortable discussing and proclaiming this guilt in public with people I hardly know, then there is something wrong with me. This includes many written assignments in which I am graded on my ability to convincingly express my shame at being privileged.
  3. Any expression of masculinity is bad and interpreted as an attempt to (or a foreshadowing of an attempt to) oppress and dominate somebody.
  4. Cultural and racial diversity is good. Gender based diversity is bad. All differences we perceive to be based on gender are not only purely culturally created, they need to be eliminated.
  5. It is bad to be an individualist. Especially a "rugged individualist". Such people really just want to use their privilege to oppress and dominate others.
  6. It is good to be a member of a group, to be aware of and follow group norms and social rules. People like this are aware of the needs of others and look out for each other. The group knows best. Group involvement is the best source of resolution to individual and social problems. It is good to be in a group. The only exception to this rule is...
  7. Families are nice and all, but really they are the source of many individual problems. Children are invariably either too alienated by abusive or neglectful parents or they suffer from overly close and intense familial relationships (ala Norman Bates) and fail to mature properly because they are overly dependent on a parent. In general, families are something that people need to gain independence from in order to be happy.
  8. The worst thing you can be is dependent on someone else. Close, personal relationships run a real risk of causing interpersonal dependence. Independence is the way to go. It is much better to be independent, except where it might cause someone to be an "individualist". Then you've gone too far.
These things aren't stated explicitly at school, but are implied by the way discussions about individuals, groups and families take place separately. They are never bluntly compared with each other. My impressions are gestalted together from many classroom lectures.

One of the things I've concluded from all this is that the far Left (as represented by Ann Arbor academia) is very conflicted with the idea of intimacy, and long term, permanent relationships... especially if men are involved in those relationships. It is almost as if the idea of permanent, unbreakable relationships has become synonymous with oppression, which needs to be escaped from. But, at the same time, individualism is viewed as bad. This is very confusing to me. Individualism is bad, permanent family relationships should be viewed with great skepticism, but ephemeral, transitory group relationships with friends, school-mates and colleagues are not only good, but where we should find our real sense of identity and empowerment. This bugs me.

I believe that long term, permanent, intimate relationships are what life is all about. Usually these relationships are family, but some friendships last for a lifetime and we should be damned grateful if we have friends like that.

I take a Nash's Equilibrium view of these kinds of relationships. I believe that, in these groups (permanent, intimate relationships) it is bad for an individual to make choices solely out of individual need or desire. At the same time, though, I believe that it is bad for an individual in a group to make decisions solely based on what is good for the group. In my opinion, it is best for both the group and the individual if each person makes decisions that are simultaneously best for both the individual and the group. If something is good for me but bad for the rest of you, I'd reject that option. Likewise if something is good for the group, but bad for me personally, I would only accept that option in the case of an emergency where heroic sacrifice was necessary. The only acceptable choices are those that benefit us all.

In other kinds of groups, in which I don't have permanent relationships with others, I view it a bit differently. I try to apply the above rules until and unless the demands of the group become oppressive, annoying in some way, or just plain no longer useful, and then I abandon that group. This would apply to people at school, work or other ephemeral social relationships that aren't constructed to last very long. My only real loyalty is to the permanent people in my life as I view them as a source of real happiness and satisfaction.

The ultra-super-duper-capitol L-Liberal school of social work seems to be giving the message to its students that it is wrong to make sacrifices for our families, but that we should be comfortable making many sacrifices for people we don't know, especially the under privileged. That is to say, in school we encouraged to believe that family relationships are somehow bad for us, that the worse thing we can do is be dependent on our family, but that we should apply our loyalty to groups of people we don't know at all, people we aren't really that close to, or people whom we suspect we'll just separate from eventually anyway. (In an environment where "starter marriages" are seriously discussed in the media.)

The frustrating thing is, I can't raise these ideas at school. The faculty there are supremely tolerant of other people, unless you question the basic tenets of their philosophy. I think they are fairly quick to label dissent as being "racist", "sexist", an "individualist", "intolerant" or "not a team player" if I don't agree with the party line in all matters. This could effect my grades and my ability to get letters of recommendation for future jobs, so I keep my mouth shut as much as I'm able.

It isn't too terrible because I do agree with quite a bit of the Liberal perspective, there's just some things I have to let go of while I'm at school. Oh well... only 7 more months.