?

Log in

[icon] Accomplishing the impossible as a matter of course
View:Recent Entries.
View:Archive.
View:Friends.
View:Profile.
View:Website (Dandelion Studios (Minions For Hire)).
You're looking at the latest 10 entries.
Missed some entries? Then simply jump back 10 entries

Security:
Subject:To-Do list for February
Time:08:42 am
I have too many things. I need a to-do list. And I need it somewhere that allows strikeouts, so I can look at my progress and feel satisfied. And this LJ is still followed by like 5 people, so I don't have to do it in a vacuum, even though this post will probably be exceedingly boring.

1) Pay maintenance bill
2) Fold dry laundry
3) New load of laundry
4) Buy more vegetables and eggs (forgot the eggs!)
5) Read the paperwork from the new property manager. Make sure I understand it.
6) Email my mother
7) Draw a tiktaalik (or anything really)
8) Scrub bathroom (or two)
9) Make dr's appointment for me
10) Find a motorbike mechanic who can make house (parking garage?) calls for the motorbike's dead battery
11) Find out how to transport Melody
12) Sort out correspondence with County of Barnstable
13) Establish correspondence with Alan Winter
14) Look into rehoming Melody in the US
15) Find the weird smell and see if cleaning makes some of it go away
16) Sew the kid's swim trunks
17) P&G registration and settings
18) Go to post office
comments: 3 things people said * say something Share

Security:
Subject:New Year's Resolutions
Time:08:03 am
I used to post my New Year's resolutions onto LJ every year, and also look back at the previous year's resolutions and evaluate how I did. I don't care about failure and stuff like that. After all, my natural state is a state of rest. But it's fun to see if any successes arise.

Avoiding solid goals, and focusing mostly at doing better at things I do anyway, helps with that.

So here are my 2017 resolutions:

1) Work on my flexibility. I've always been proud of my flexibility, but it takes constant work, and I'm getting older. So, more stretching so that I can keep stretching.

2) Read some books. I used to read a lot of books, but with no public library around, my access to the books I want to read has declined. I haven't really taken to the Kindle. It's all right, but it's not getting me to read more books.

3) Further my education. Even if it's just free online courses or whatever.

4) Language studies. French, Chinese, whatever, just learn more of it.

5) Doodle more. Doodling is fun and productive. Do it more.

6) Serious art. Nothing is stopping me there except inertia. And lack of inspiration. I never know what to draw.

7) Work on my upper body strength so that I can punch creepy guys in the face lift heavy objects with ease.
comments: 1 thing someone said * say something Share

Security:
Subject:Absence
Time:10:12 am
I don't mean to be absent again, but i'm busy packing. We're spending 40 days in the USA, starting the very day school ends - June 8. It might be a while before I post again.

I'd call out to those of you in the New England area for a possible visit, but i'm not sure a possible visit is possible. i'll be very busy playing respite caregiver for a couple of family members. Also, there's the house to deal with.
comments: 3 things people said * say something Share

Security:
Subject:I'm back
Time:06:15 am
I haven't posted since 2014. But I think I'm going to revive my LJ. I've set the login on this laptop, and now I'm going to bookmark it.

My online presence lately has been limited to Facebook, but Facebook isn't quite doing it for me. I have to be more guarded there. I have family and comics-industry acquaintances and just too big a mix of people to really talk about personal stuff. And filters aren't easy enough to work with. And it's lousy for when I feel like complaining. I haven't complained much in a long time, except when I make it humorous. I'm still human. I still have feelings (even if they're not very dramatic feelings anymore). I still have problems. Facebook is my site for showing how nice it is to live in Vietnam. But I miss the LJ days when I could type at length about just being me.

I don't know if any of my old friends are still here, and whether they'll read this. Maybe I should go fishing for some new friends. Or maybe I should not worry about it and just start typing.

I've been overcome lately with the worst kind of chonic fatigue, so that even basic levels of responsible adulting have become challenging, and that leads to a whole bunch of petty gripes. So please bear with me as I try to type out all the boring, everyday issues I'm currently struggling with. I hope to soon get a handle on them and then move on to something more interesting.

We only have a month before we visit the US for the summer, so I feel like I'm under pressure. And it's frustrating, because some of my struggles are stupidly basic.
comments: 11 things people said * say something Share

Security:
Subject:The dreaded behavior chart (ooooooooh.)
Time:09:53 am
My son's teacher has implemented personal behavior charts. She wanted to make one big behavior chart for the classroom, but another teacher talked her out of it - publicly tracking kids' behavior turns it into a competition and rewards the kids who are good at behaving well, whle humiliating the kids who need the most behavioral support. So we have private behavioral charts.

At least five kids in the class have them, according to gossip. It might be six. One mom said, "All the boys and none of the girls! Boys are just loud and make problems." Her son is loud, with a big personality, like mine, and in fact our boys have a sometimes contentious friendship. Yesterday Kiddo was lamenting, "Ben Tan wouldn't give me a lollipop!" Today he said, "I shared my raisins with Ben Tan!"

But another mom's daughter got a book, not because she's a problem in class, but because she has trouble paying attention in the art and PE classes. Her mom thinks this is BS. Her mom is pretty sure the art and PE teachers have classroom management issues and that her daughter is simply acting six, that's all. Her mom should know; she's faculty. I have to wait until the other moms tell me these things. But I'm glad they are telling me, because, just going by the behavioral chart, I'm not entirely sure what the problem is.

In my opinion, Kiddo's problem is multilayered. First, his anger issues are legit. He has always had anger issues. When he gets angry in class, the teacher gets to see a small but powerful rage storm. I see it at least once a week after school, sometimes every day for a week or two at a time. The kid is boiling inside.

Second, Kiddo is happy. Loudly happy. He shrieks and cackles and gushes. And the school building echoes something awful, so all noise is magnified tenfold. It'll drive you insane to have to sit there and listen to one kid constantly laughing, nevermind 15 of them. And scolding him to use his 'indoor voice' is futile, because the echo is going to turn even his very best stage whisper into a stadium voice. I've been there. I've shushed him in that big, cavernous lobby.

Third, if it's true that some teachers have poor classroom management skills, then that's going to be a problem. Kiddo needs to be managed. When he is well managed, he's a delight. He thrives. He learns. He's learning anyway, but sometimes it's hard to get to the academics when he's being scrutinized for behavioral issues.

I've been supplementing his math by reciting addition tables with him while we walk to the bus stop. The math sheets he's doing at school have a lot of 'math theory' in them - let's look at the numbers this way! And another way! Draw three birds in the tree and four birds on the ground - how many birds are there? Fun and easy stuff if you know the basics. But he doesn't know the basics. And he thinks better when he's walking than when he's drawing. The wheels in his head are propelled by the wheels in his feet. I was more of a draw-and-add kid (and I'm kind of sad that we didn't have these fun exercises back then!) but for Kiddo, it means tears and frustration.

But I think we're making progress, because he has some math problems memorized now, and he hasn't cried in a while. He has whined, avoided, and negotiated, but no actual screaming and tears.

So back to the behavioral chart.

It has a row of boxes for each day, and the teachers are supposed to put smiley faces in the box for good behavior, emotionless faces for not-great behavior, and frowny faces and a chapter of explanation for truly bad behavior. Of course, this means that bad behavior gets the most attention. We're expected to give him a little token prize each time he gets all smiley faces in a day, and a slightly nicer prize if he gets though the week.

Of course this means that that stupid prize becomes the holy grail.

At first it really, truly seemed as if they'd set him up for failure. He was so angry at being scrutinized! But I can't say his behavior got any worse. Before behavior charts, he hit Ben Tan. Just hauled off and whaled him. He has not done anything like that since the behavior charts. He has argued with his PE teacher (*snicker*) gazed into space in art class (*giggle*) and been banned from the library for having an inadequate 'indoor voice'. (Just temporarily, thank goodness, but I wrote a note saying I was very sad that they felt they had to banish him.)

Then last Friday, Kiddo and I had a big argument. He got off the bus and started begging for a treat. I started to agree to that, but then I felt like I had to check the chart. The chart had one not-exactly-happy face on it and a critical note. So I said, "argh, I guess, though that's not really treat-worthy," and then I bought him a twisty stick, and then I started to feel as if I'd been cornered. But it turned out that Kiddo felt cornered too. Everything was always about the chart. While I felt that everything was always about begging for snacks.

So we made a deal: I wouldn't check his chart, ever, and he wouldn't ask me for treats, ever. ("ever" meaning "on the way home from the bus stop.")

And I didn't mention it all weekend.

On Monday, I gave him a few general reminders ("Be good, indoor voices, be patient with your friends") and then that afternoon he came home, for the very first time, with all smiley faces.

So Rick took him to the mall and bought him a Matchbox car. A super-cool flatbed truck with pandas riding on the flatbed. And I drew a little cartoon guy cheerfully throwing confetti in the smiley-face book, because teachers deserve to be rewarded with smiley faces too.

On Tuesday, he explained to me frantically that his Vietnamese teacher put a neutral face by accident, and that she'd actually meant to put a happy face because he was good in Vietnamese class, so very very good. And he wanted another car.

But he took 'no' for an answer, because, Rick explained, the awesome toy was the reward for the very first all-smiley-face day, and now we're aiming for a whole week.

I really don't know if that's possible. But I will still stick to my agreement not to look at the chart if he will continue to not bug me for treats. That's the part I care about. I don't want all my interactions with my kid to involve a moral dilemma. No, the factor in whether or not he gets a treat is whether I feel like getting a treat.

Unfair? So is life.

So that is my introduction to the world of behavior charts. I'm not entirely sure what to think of it. I've read some posts on a teacher's blog about the problems with behavior charts, but otherwise I'm brand new to behavior chart practice and philosophy. I never had any such thing growing up. We had a chore chart at home for a while, and I did all right at that, but my mother is barely more organized than me and so it didn't last.

Teachers and parents, any thoughts?
comments: 6 things people said * say something Share

Security:
Subject:Testing again
Time:08:13 am
Okay, here I am in Chrome. I don't like Chrome. Plus, the adware I can't seem to find might be affecting Chrome. It chewed up and spit out Firefox. But I don't see any suspicious ads today. So maybe Malwarebytes or Norton finally caught it.

And my typing seems to be fine.

So that's good.

I still don't know what the fate of this blog will be, though. I guess I'll sit on it awhile longer. I'm hoping to get Firefox back someday. Chrome has a lot of ads, even without adware to help it.
comments: 2 things people said * say something Share

Security:
Subject:Okay, that was just comical.
Time:04:34 pm
LJ, you prankster you.

Hey, now it's wrking.

Still orkig ? Nope, no lger wking.

LJ ou are very annoying.
comments: say something Share

Security:
Subject:Posting a new entry
Time:04:32 pm
H

e

l

l

o

,



'

m

r

y

I

ng

 t

h

I

s

 a

g

a

In

.





F

I

v

e



d

a

s



u

n

t

I

l

 w

e



l

e

a

v

e

.



T

h



h

o

u

s

e



I

s



m

p

t

y

I

ng



f

a

s

t

.
comments: 4 things people said * say something Share

Security:
Subject:Come on, LJ, work for me!
Time:06:32 pm
I am trying again. I have been reassured that LJ's typing problem is not constant or permanent, even though it happened to me four times in a row.

So fa, o good!

Oops, nope, I spoketoo soon. ts ack again.

t's t worthwhile to goback and reair althe typos, so I'mjust going to pos it ikethis again.
comments: 5 things people said * say something Share

Security:
Subject:Trying again
Time:11:38 pm
Okay, I'm trying another LiveJournal entry. Is it working this time? Seems like it.

That's the thrd tie tat happene.
Oh, lok. t's appening agan. Oay, now I know the problem isLieJournal.

Too bad. I wastarting to revive this journal aain. But this rely is't woring. Isuppose there's ot much I can do except give up. And maybe kill thi journal. That would eall be the end of n era - I've had this LJ since 2001.


comments: 2 things people said * say something Share

[icon] Accomplishing the impossible as a matter of course
View:Recent Entries.
View:Archive.
View:Friends.
View:Profile.
View:Website (Dandelion Studios (Minions For Hire)).
You're looking at the latest 10 entries.
Missed some entries? Then simply jump back 10 entries