Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
From Choreography to Musical Composition
If you liked the dance video I posted yesterday, maybe you'll also like this video of Nora the Cat playing the piano. The music was composed around what the cat played and I must say, the composer did a pretty amazing job. (Full disclosure: The cat's mommy is my husband's aunt. Does that make the cat my cousin-in-law or something?)
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Another Homeschool Conference
Today and tomorrow I'll be attending another homeschooling conference. This one is a Northern Virginia group, whereas the last one was for the entire state. Still, there's enough homeschooling going on around here that even this organization was able to get Susan Wise Bauer as their Keynote Speaker. She is the author of The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, which is my next homeschool read, for sure.
I also just finished listening to Lisa VanDamme's lecture, The Role of Hierarchy in Education. Ms. VanDamme runs a school in Southern California which is a model for what I want Samantha's education to be. Her writings and lectures have taught me more than anything else what a real education should be. At the school's web site, you can sign up for The VanDamme Academy's newsletter, Pedagogically Correct, which is a great way to get a taste of what Ms. VanDamme's method is all about.
I also just finished listening to Lisa VanDamme's lecture, The Role of Hierarchy in Education. Ms. VanDamme runs a school in Southern California which is a model for what I want Samantha's education to be. Her writings and lectures have taught me more than anything else what a real education should be. At the school's web site, you can sign up for The VanDamme Academy's newsletter, Pedagogically Correct, which is a great way to get a taste of what Ms. VanDamme's method is all about.
Addiction
I've tried to restrain myself from writing too much about my favorite show, So You Think You Can Dance, but I just must post this clip from the show last night. This is some of the greatest choreography I've ever seen. Mia Michaels is an evil genius.
The Tyranny of the GPS
For Independence Day weekend, we took a short trip to North Carolina to visit my parents, where they are staying in their RV for about a month. This was our first road trip with our new friend, GeePee, the GPS.
I felt bound to name the machine after I heard how my parents talk about their own "Carmen": "Carmen told us to take the 123 but we didn't listen," "I was just doing what Carmen told me to," etc. If you're going to anthropomorphize a machine, the GPS is a fun one. It might also be a solution for road rage, as people can now just yell at their GPS devices instead of other drivers: "Goddamn it - that's the wrong way!" or "How was I supposed to get over in time to make that turn, you stupid machine?" I mean, somebody has to be the scapegoat for our bad driving, so why not a computer?
You'd think that having a virtual back-seat-driver would eliminate the need for real ones. But when Adam was driving us back to the campground after fireworks on the Fourth, none of us could resist telling him where he should turn or which way would be faster. Oh well, I guess technology can't solve all our problems, after all.
Our GPS doesn't have traffic information and we forgot to check before we left, so we probably didn't take the best route out of DC. Since we had consciously decided to let GeePee guide us, we didn't bring maps or make alternate plans like we might have otherwise, and we didn't have much of an idea of where exactly we were going. That was a mistake, since we got caught in tunnel traffic near the Outer Banks area. We tried pressing the "Detour" button on GeePee but I guess we didn't trust him quite as much as we thought we did because we chickened out of actually changing course. Next time, GeePee, I promise, I'll listen!
We sure spent a lot of time fiddling with GeePee. On our way home, we wanted to get off the freeway so we tried the "Avoid Highways" function, but it would have taken us way out of our way. When we tried to turn off that function, we found a bug in the software which threatened to keep us on surface streets forever - the menus were not displayed properly and it wouldn't let us go back to normal mode. You mean, we can never drive on the freeway again, GeePee? Please, don't do this to us! Fortunately, Adam was bright enough to find the "Restore Defaults" button on another menu and we were back in business. But then, how could we get it to guide us up Highway 1 instead of the I-95? I tried entering intersections, I tried to "Detour," and I tried who knows what else. Finally, we just left it alone and listened to "Recalculating" for 2 hours as we fought our way back to DC on a Sunday afternoon at the end of a holiday weekend. God forbid we turn off the machine! Do you think somebody might have programmed an Easter Egg in there so that if you reach 1000 instances of "Recalculating," the machine will instead start saying "Why'd you buy me anyway?"
The defining moment of our travels occurred on that drive home. We'd been stuck on the streets of Fredericksburg for about 20 minutes when a man in a truck in the lane to the right of us rolled down his window. He said, and I quote: "Excuse me sir. My GPS is telling me to turn left and no one will let me in. Will you let me in so I can turn? I only have point-six miles to go and no one would let me in so I thought I'd ask someone." Talk about an appeal to authority!
I think that's when Adam started talking back:
It's a contentious relationship, but we're working on it.
I felt bound to name the machine after I heard how my parents talk about their own "Carmen": "Carmen told us to take the 123 but we didn't listen," "I was just doing what Carmen told me to," etc. If you're going to anthropomorphize a machine, the GPS is a fun one. It might also be a solution for road rage, as people can now just yell at their GPS devices instead of other drivers: "Goddamn it - that's the wrong way!" or "How was I supposed to get over in time to make that turn, you stupid machine?" I mean, somebody has to be the scapegoat for our bad driving, so why not a computer?
You'd think that having a virtual back-seat-driver would eliminate the need for real ones. But when Adam was driving us back to the campground after fireworks on the Fourth, none of us could resist telling him where he should turn or which way would be faster. Oh well, I guess technology can't solve all our problems, after all.
Our GPS doesn't have traffic information and we forgot to check before we left, so we probably didn't take the best route out of DC. Since we had consciously decided to let GeePee guide us, we didn't bring maps or make alternate plans like we might have otherwise, and we didn't have much of an idea of where exactly we were going. That was a mistake, since we got caught in tunnel traffic near the Outer Banks area. We tried pressing the "Detour" button on GeePee but I guess we didn't trust him quite as much as we thought we did because we chickened out of actually changing course. Next time, GeePee, I promise, I'll listen!
We sure spent a lot of time fiddling with GeePee. On our way home, we wanted to get off the freeway so we tried the "Avoid Highways" function, but it would have taken us way out of our way. When we tried to turn off that function, we found a bug in the software which threatened to keep us on surface streets forever - the menus were not displayed properly and it wouldn't let us go back to normal mode. You mean, we can never drive on the freeway again, GeePee? Please, don't do this to us! Fortunately, Adam was bright enough to find the "Restore Defaults" button on another menu and we were back in business. But then, how could we get it to guide us up Highway 1 instead of the I-95? I tried entering intersections, I tried to "Detour," and I tried who knows what else. Finally, we just left it alone and listened to "Recalculating" for 2 hours as we fought our way back to DC on a Sunday afternoon at the end of a holiday weekend. God forbid we turn off the machine! Do you think somebody might have programmed an Easter Egg in there so that if you reach 1000 instances of "Recalculating," the machine will instead start saying "Why'd you buy me anyway?"
The defining moment of our travels occurred on that drive home. We'd been stuck on the streets of Fredericksburg for about 20 minutes when a man in a truck in the lane to the right of us rolled down his window. He said, and I quote: "Excuse me sir. My GPS is telling me to turn left and no one will let me in. Will you let me in so I can turn? I only have point-six miles to go and no one would let me in so I thought I'd ask someone." Talk about an appeal to authority!
I think that's when Adam started talking back:
GeePee: In point-two miles, turn left on Courthouse Road.
Adam: No! I reject the tyranny of the GPS!
GeePee: Turn left on Courthouse Road.
Adam: No! I tell you, no!
It's a contentious relationship, but we're working on it.
Objectivist Round Up
For your reading pleasure this week, you can find the Objectivist Round Up at One Reality.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Teach Me Time Clock
Ever since Samantha learned to open doors, I've been looking forward to, and dreading, her first foray into leaving her room on her own during the night. As you can see by my comment in the linked post, I decided to buy a digital clock so that Sam would know when it is ok to come out and when she should stay in her room and either sleep or play quietly.
While browsing clocks at Target, I noticed one that advertised changing colors. I thought, "What a perfect way to signal that it is morning - the clock changes color instead of sounding an audible alarm!" Upon closer inspection, however, this clock simply changed colors when you pushed a button, not as an alarm function. But once I had the idea, I knew somebody must have invented my dream clock.
[caption id="attachment_1543" align="alignright" width="115" caption="Teach Me Time Clock"]
[/caption]
Here it is! We got this cute little clock a couple of weeks ago. Besides having a color-change alarm clock, it also has a digital and analog display (well, the "analog" display is really a digital reproduction of an analog display) and a game you can play to help your child learn to tell time. It is super-versatile: you can adjust the volume, the brightness, the colors, whether the "child buttons" on the front do anything or not, and whether you want digital, analog, or both types of time displayed. All the important controls are in a latched panel in the back which I'm sure older children can open, but hopefully by the time they can do so they can also understand why they shouldn't.
I set it up so that its backlight would turn green at 7:45am each morning and so that it displayed the digital time only, but I turned off everything else. Sam was very excited to have her own clock. She knows a little bit about time, clocks, and watches, and I explained how this clock would tell her when it is morning. She still hadn't ventured out of her room at night, but I told her that when the clock is green, she could come out of her room. She listened without interest for a while, but at one point in my explanation she looked up, thinking. I paused, and after a moment she said, GO DOWNSHUSH, PLAY TOYS? I said, "Yes, when it turns green, you can open your door and go downstairs to play with your toys." Her face lit up in understanding. The very next morning, I awoke to a sweet little face at my bedside. She said, TURNED GREEN, MOMMY! GO DOWNSHUSH?
Every morning since, Sam has waited until the clock turned green and then come out of her room on her own. She positively loves it! A couple of times she obviously woke up after it turned green and came right out, but many times she has turned up at my bedside right at 7:45, so I know she was waiting for the signal. Today she woke up screaming at 7:30 (she is not a happy-waker-upper), but didn't come out until it turned green. With that one exception, our mornings have been so incredibly pleasant. Instead of waking up to someone yelling at me to come get her, I wake up to a sweet girl whom I can pick up and cuddle in bed with me for a few minutes before starting my day.
She hasn't gone straight downstairs yet, but that day will come!
While browsing clocks at Target, I noticed one that advertised changing colors. I thought, "What a perfect way to signal that it is morning - the clock changes color instead of sounding an audible alarm!" Upon closer inspection, however, this clock simply changed colors when you pushed a button, not as an alarm function. But once I had the idea, I knew somebody must have invented my dream clock.
[caption id="attachment_1543" align="alignright" width="115" caption="Teach Me Time Clock"]
[/caption]Here it is! We got this cute little clock a couple of weeks ago. Besides having a color-change alarm clock, it also has a digital and analog display (well, the "analog" display is really a digital reproduction of an analog display) and a game you can play to help your child learn to tell time. It is super-versatile: you can adjust the volume, the brightness, the colors, whether the "child buttons" on the front do anything or not, and whether you want digital, analog, or both types of time displayed. All the important controls are in a latched panel in the back which I'm sure older children can open, but hopefully by the time they can do so they can also understand why they shouldn't.
I set it up so that its backlight would turn green at 7:45am each morning and so that it displayed the digital time only, but I turned off everything else. Sam was very excited to have her own clock. She knows a little bit about time, clocks, and watches, and I explained how this clock would tell her when it is morning. She still hadn't ventured out of her room at night, but I told her that when the clock is green, she could come out of her room. She listened without interest for a while, but at one point in my explanation she looked up, thinking. I paused, and after a moment she said, GO DOWNSHUSH, PLAY TOYS? I said, "Yes, when it turns green, you can open your door and go downstairs to play with your toys." Her face lit up in understanding. The very next morning, I awoke to a sweet little face at my bedside. She said, TURNED GREEN, MOMMY! GO DOWNSHUSH?
Every morning since, Sam has waited until the clock turned green and then come out of her room on her own. She positively loves it! A couple of times she obviously woke up after it turned green and came right out, but many times she has turned up at my bedside right at 7:45, so I know she was waiting for the signal. Today she woke up screaming at 7:30 (she is not a happy-waker-upper), but didn't come out until it turned green. With that one exception, our mornings have been so incredibly pleasant. Instead of waking up to someone yelling at me to come get her, I wake up to a sweet girl whom I can pick up and cuddle in bed with me for a few minutes before starting my day.
She hasn't gone straight downstairs yet, but that day will come!
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