Friday, July 28, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Spelling Lessons
I picked up the book, Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary, at the library. Spelling has never been my best subject. I try to write most of my posts in Microsoft Word before publishing them to my blog so I can remove all the red underlining indicating misspelled words. Well this post has three red-lined words in the first line. It’s the title of a book about spelling and these are three often misspelled words. It’s an entertaining book of lists of facts about English spelling, with the subtitle: “or why can’t anyone spell?”
I was intrigued to learn from the back cover that the author of the book, Vivian Cook, was inspired to write it out of frustration with those who assume he is a woman because of their lack of familiarity with the difference between the British spellings Vivian and Vivien.
I also enjoyed reading the scathingly practical Letter of Lord Chesterton to his son from November 19, 1750, which can be found in its entirety at Project Gutenberg.
From: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3354/3354.txt
I was intrigued to learn from the back cover that the author of the book, Vivian Cook, was inspired to write it out of frustration with those who assume he is a woman because of their lack of familiarity with the difference between the British spellings Vivian and Vivien.
I also enjoyed reading the scathingly practical Letter of Lord Chesterton to his son from November 19, 1750, which can be found in its entirety at Project Gutenberg.
I come now to another part of your letter, which is the orthography, if I may call bad spelling ORTHOGRAPHY. You spell induce, ENDUCE; and grandeur, you spell grandURE; two faults of which few of my housemaids would have been guilty. I must tell you that orthography, in the true sense of the word, is so absolutely necessary for a man of letters; or a gentleman, that one false spelling may fix ridicule upon him for the rest of his life; and I know a man of quality, who never recovered the ridicule of having spelled WHOLESOME without the w.
Reading with care will secure everybody from false spelling; for books are always well spelled, according to the orthography of the times. Some words are indeed doubtful, being spelled differently by different authors of equal authority; but those are few; and in those cases every man has his option, because he may plead his authority either way; but where there is but one right way, as in the two words above mentioned, it is unpardonable and ridiculous for a gentleman to miss it; even a woman of a tolerable education would despise and laugh, at a lover, who should send her an ill-spelled billet-doux. I fear and suspect, that you have taken it into your head, in most cases, that the matter is all, and the manner little or nothing. If you have, undeceive yourself, and be convinced that, in everything, the manner is full as important as the matter. If you speak the sense of an angel, in bad words and with a disagreeable utterance, nobody will hear you twice, who can help it. If you write epistles as well as Cicero, but in a very bad hand, and very ill-spelled, whoever receives will laugh at them; and if you had the figure of Adonis, with an awkward air and motions, it will disgust instead of pleasing.
Study manner, therefore, in everything, if you would be anything.
From: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3354/3354.txt
Monday, July 24, 2006
Friday, July 21, 2006
Why Study Latin?
I’ve been brushing up on my High School Latin this summer. I’m working through Wheelock’s Latin grammar and workbook. I’ve been working on it in the gym while Aimee works out. One of the moms who homeschools her children asked me what I was doing. When I told her I was studying Latin she asked me why I would want to do that. She said that she knows it’s a good idea to learn Latin but she’s not sure why. We started to talk about the advantages of learning Latin but were interrupted by the end of her daughter’s class and she had to leave.
For me Latin was the language that started my love of language learning. It improved my vocabulary and opened up English grammar to me. It provided me with a foundation to learn the 10 plus other natural languages that I’ve studied since High School. (Not to mention assorted computer languages) It appealed to my love of logic and I believe it helped me to think more clearly.
I found a great curriculum for starting a young learner on Latin studies. It’s called Prima Latina, the first level of Latin curriculum from Memoria press. It incorporates many of the suggestions that Dorothy Sayers makes in her essay. Children can start it as early as 2nd grade. I covered some of it last year with Aimee, but this year we are resolved to study Latin with consistency.
Just last night I came across this essay by Dorothy Sayers about her own study of Latin and her recommendations for teaching and learning the subject. I’d like to share some of it here with a link to the rest of the essay.
Read the whole essay here.
Part II: Latin grammar: the most practical subject
By Dorothy Sayers
I call this a very lamentable history. Yet there are two things I feel bound to say with all the emphasis I can command. First: if you set aside classical specialists and the products of those public schools which still cling to the great tradition, I, mute and inglorious as I am, and having forgotten nearly all I ever learned, still know more Latin than most young people with whom I come in contact. Secondly: that if I were asked what, of all the things I was ever taught, has been of the greatest practical use to me, I should have to answer: the Latin Grammar.
An early grounding in the Latin Grammar has these advantages:
1. It is the quickest and easiest way to gain mastery over one's own language, because it supplies the structure upon which all language is built. I never had any formal instruction in English grammar, nor have I ever felt the need of it, though I find I write more grammatically than most of my juniors. It seems to me that the study of English grammar in isolation from the inflected origins of language must be quite bewildering. English is a highly sophisticated, highly analytical language, whose forms, syntax and construction can be grasped and handled correctly only by a good deal of hard reasoning, for the inflections are not there to enable one to distinguish automatically one case or one construction from another. To embark on any complex English construction without the Latin Grammar is like trying to find one's way across country without map or signposts. That is why so few people nowadays can put together an English paragraph without being betrayed into a false concord, a hanging or wrongly attached participle, or a wrong consecution; and why many of them fall back upon writing in a series of short sentences, like a series of gasps, punctuated only by full stops.
2. Latin is the key to fifty per cent. of our vocabulary—either directly, or through French and other Romance languages. Without some acquaintance with the Latin roots, the meaning of each word has to be learnt and memorised separately-including, of course, that of the new formations with which the sciences are continually presenting us. Incidentally, the vocabulary of the common man is becoming more and more restricted, and this is not surprising.
3. Latin is the key to all the Romance languages directly, and indirectly to all inflected languages. The sort of argument which continually crops up in correspondence upon the teaching of Latin is: "Why should children waste time learning a dead language when Spanish or what-have-you would be much more useful to him in business?" The proper answer, which is practically never given, is the counter-question: "Why should a child waste time learning half a dozen languages from scratch, when Latin would enable him to learn them all in a fraction of the time?" When I wanted to work on Dante, I taught myself to read the mediaeval Italian in a very few weeks' time, with the aid of Latin, an Italian Grammar, and the initial assistance of a crib. To learn to speak and write the modern tongue correctly would demand tuition and more time—but not much and not long. Old as I am, I would back myself to learn Spanish, Portuguese or Provencal with equal ease. But knowing French would not have helped me very much to read Italian, and I doubt whether, without the Latin substructure, Italian would help me very far with Portuguese; although, of course, the more languages one knows, the easier it is to learn more. It is difficult to be sure, because it is impossible for me to empty my mind of the Latin, even in imagination. But I know how very different a task it would be to start upon a language like Czech or Chinese, which would not open to the Latin key.
And I remember, too, in my own school-teaching days, being confronted by a class of girls of fifteen or sixteen, who had to have some German pumped into them for an exam. They had done French in the ordinary way, but now had to offer a second language. I remember saying—stupidly and without thinking, for I was still young—"No, you can't say, 'Ich bin gegeben ein Buch', 'I have been given' isn't a true Passive". I remember their bewildered faces. And I remember realizing that we had come to the Wood where Things have no Names, and that everything would have to be laboriously thought out and explained from the very beginning. And that they hadn't got much time.
4. The literature of our own country and of Europe is so studded and punctuated with Latin phrases and classical allusions that without some knowledge of Latin it must be very difficult to make anything of it. Here we are getting away from the uses of grammar to the benefits of background and culture. I will therefore not say very much about it at this point, except to point out that the student of English history or English literature or English law is always encountering the odd tag, the Latin title, the isolated phrase, and that it must be quite maddening to have to stop and look them up every time in a reference book.
5. There is also the matter of derivation, as distinct from vocabulary. I cannot help feeling that it is wholesome, for example, to know that "civility" has some connection with the civitas; that "justice" is more closely akin to righteousness than to equality; and that there was once some dim and forgotten connection between reality and thought.
For me Latin was the language that started my love of language learning. It improved my vocabulary and opened up English grammar to me. It provided me with a foundation to learn the 10 plus other natural languages that I’ve studied since High School. (Not to mention assorted computer languages) It appealed to my love of logic and I believe it helped me to think more clearly.
I found a great curriculum for starting a young learner on Latin studies. It’s called Prima Latina, the first level of Latin curriculum from Memoria press. It incorporates many of the suggestions that Dorothy Sayers makes in her essay. Children can start it as early as 2nd grade. I covered some of it last year with Aimee, but this year we are resolved to study Latin with consistency.
Just last night I came across this essay by Dorothy Sayers about her own study of Latin and her recommendations for teaching and learning the subject. I’d like to share some of it here with a link to the rest of the essay.
Read the whole essay here.
Part II: Latin grammar: the most practical subject
By Dorothy Sayers
I call this a very lamentable history. Yet there are two things I feel bound to say with all the emphasis I can command. First: if you set aside classical specialists and the products of those public schools which still cling to the great tradition, I, mute and inglorious as I am, and having forgotten nearly all I ever learned, still know more Latin than most young people with whom I come in contact. Secondly: that if I were asked what, of all the things I was ever taught, has been of the greatest practical use to me, I should have to answer: the Latin Grammar.
An early grounding in the Latin Grammar has these advantages:
1. It is the quickest and easiest way to gain mastery over one's own language, because it supplies the structure upon which all language is built. I never had any formal instruction in English grammar, nor have I ever felt the need of it, though I find I write more grammatically than most of my juniors. It seems to me that the study of English grammar in isolation from the inflected origins of language must be quite bewildering. English is a highly sophisticated, highly analytical language, whose forms, syntax and construction can be grasped and handled correctly only by a good deal of hard reasoning, for the inflections are not there to enable one to distinguish automatically one case or one construction from another. To embark on any complex English construction without the Latin Grammar is like trying to find one's way across country without map or signposts. That is why so few people nowadays can put together an English paragraph without being betrayed into a false concord, a hanging or wrongly attached participle, or a wrong consecution; and why many of them fall back upon writing in a series of short sentences, like a series of gasps, punctuated only by full stops.
2. Latin is the key to fifty per cent. of our vocabulary—either directly, or through French and other Romance languages. Without some acquaintance with the Latin roots, the meaning of each word has to be learnt and memorised separately-including, of course, that of the new formations with which the sciences are continually presenting us. Incidentally, the vocabulary of the common man is becoming more and more restricted, and this is not surprising.
3. Latin is the key to all the Romance languages directly, and indirectly to all inflected languages. The sort of argument which continually crops up in correspondence upon the teaching of Latin is: "Why should children waste time learning a dead language when Spanish or what-have-you would be much more useful to him in business?" The proper answer, which is practically never given, is the counter-question: "Why should a child waste time learning half a dozen languages from scratch, when Latin would enable him to learn them all in a fraction of the time?" When I wanted to work on Dante, I taught myself to read the mediaeval Italian in a very few weeks' time, with the aid of Latin, an Italian Grammar, and the initial assistance of a crib. To learn to speak and write the modern tongue correctly would demand tuition and more time—but not much and not long. Old as I am, I would back myself to learn Spanish, Portuguese or Provencal with equal ease. But knowing French would not have helped me very much to read Italian, and I doubt whether, without the Latin substructure, Italian would help me very far with Portuguese; although, of course, the more languages one knows, the easier it is to learn more. It is difficult to be sure, because it is impossible for me to empty my mind of the Latin, even in imagination. But I know how very different a task it would be to start upon a language like Czech or Chinese, which would not open to the Latin key.
And I remember, too, in my own school-teaching days, being confronted by a class of girls of fifteen or sixteen, who had to have some German pumped into them for an exam. They had done French in the ordinary way, but now had to offer a second language. I remember saying—stupidly and without thinking, for I was still young—"No, you can't say, 'Ich bin gegeben ein Buch', 'I have been given' isn't a true Passive". I remember their bewildered faces. And I remember realizing that we had come to the Wood where Things have no Names, and that everything would have to be laboriously thought out and explained from the very beginning. And that they hadn't got much time.
4. The literature of our own country and of Europe is so studded and punctuated with Latin phrases and classical allusions that without some knowledge of Latin it must be very difficult to make anything of it. Here we are getting away from the uses of grammar to the benefits of background and culture. I will therefore not say very much about it at this point, except to point out that the student of English history or English literature or English law is always encountering the odd tag, the Latin title, the isolated phrase, and that it must be quite maddening to have to stop and look them up every time in a reference book.
5. There is also the matter of derivation, as distinct from vocabulary. I cannot help feeling that it is wholesome, for example, to know that "civility" has some connection with the civitas; that "justice" is more closely akin to righteousness than to equality; and that there was once some dim and forgotten connection between reality and thought.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Blog Me!
I've been tagged! My friend and blogging mentor, Donna, at socalmom tagged me to do an on-line self-interview in preparation for the upcoming BlogHer Convention
BLOG ME SELF-INTERVIEW (See the complete list of questions here.)
When did you start blogging and why? Or Talk about your blog. What can I learn about you in under 5 minutes?
I started blogging in October 2005. I started blogging after I met Donna at my daughter's gymnastics and she told me about her blog. I actually had created a blog about a year before I started but I didn't know where to start. After seeing Donna's blog and others that she links to, I realized it was something I could do. I love to write and I've always aspired to be a writer, but I needed an outlet to get the juices going. I've also kept a journal on and off for almost thirty years or so. There's just something very appealing about blogging. I'm constantly thinking of topics to blog, or writing something in my notebook to blog about later. I'm hooked on it!
How do you use blogging to build friendships?
Well I haven't been very proactive in building on-line friendships. That's something I need to work on. I'm kind of shy. I enjoy reading other people's blogs, but so far I've mostly been lurking. I'm setting a goal right now to be more proactive about commenting on other people's blogs and promoting my own.
How would you describe your writing style?
I think it varies with my mood, but I like to either say something that will get someone to think or to laugh. I also think that the more I write the better my writing will get so I want to write more often.
How do you feel about meeting bloggers in real life? Are you nervous? Will you have great expectations? What do you home to take away from the BlogHer experience?
Too bad I couldn't get it together to go to the conference. Maybe next year. I'd really like to meet more bloggers.
What don’t you write about? Anything considered a no-no in your book?
I try not to write anything that would hurt someone's feelings.
So soon we’re going to meet each other at BlogHer. Important question. How do you party?
I'm not much of a party type.
BLOG ME SELF-INTERVIEW (See the complete list of questions here.)
When did you start blogging and why? Or Talk about your blog. What can I learn about you in under 5 minutes?
I started blogging in October 2005. I started blogging after I met Donna at my daughter's gymnastics and she told me about her blog. I actually had created a blog about a year before I started but I didn't know where to start. After seeing Donna's blog and others that she links to, I realized it was something I could do. I love to write and I've always aspired to be a writer, but I needed an outlet to get the juices going. I've also kept a journal on and off for almost thirty years or so. There's just something very appealing about blogging. I'm constantly thinking of topics to blog, or writing something in my notebook to blog about later. I'm hooked on it!
How do you use blogging to build friendships?
Well I haven't been very proactive in building on-line friendships. That's something I need to work on. I'm kind of shy. I enjoy reading other people's blogs, but so far I've mostly been lurking. I'm setting a goal right now to be more proactive about commenting on other people's blogs and promoting my own.
How would you describe your writing style?
I think it varies with my mood, but I like to either say something that will get someone to think or to laugh. I also think that the more I write the better my writing will get so I want to write more often.
How do you feel about meeting bloggers in real life? Are you nervous? Will you have great expectations? What do you home to take away from the BlogHer experience?
Too bad I couldn't get it together to go to the conference. Maybe next year. I'd really like to meet more bloggers.
What don’t you write about? Anything considered a no-no in your book?
I try not to write anything that would hurt someone's feelings.
So soon we’re going to meet each other at BlogHer. Important question. How do you party?
I'm not much of a party type.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
25 Years
Today is our 25th wedding anniversary! Yes, it's been 25 years since we stepped into this great unknown state called marriage, and here we are! If anyone would ask me, "What is the secret of a successful marriage?", my answer would be, "Marry the right person." Only by the pure, unadulterated grace of God am I able to say with assurance that I indeed did marry the right person. I'm so glad that I surrendered that decision to God so many years ago and He heard the cry of my heart and put me and Chuck together.
Even though I can't say that our marriage is pure wedded bliss every day (close enough on this side of heaven though), there has never been a day where I doubted our marriage. Chuck is a great husband, a great father and a great man. I thank God for His grace in putting us together and I know the next 25 years will be even better!
Even though I can't say that our marriage is pure wedded bliss every day (close enough on this side of heaven though), there has never been a day where I doubted our marriage. Chuck is a great husband, a great father and a great man. I thank God for His grace in putting us together and I know the next 25 years will be even better!
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Farewell to Moose
I heard that Moose, the Jack Russell Terrier who starred in "My Dog Skip" and the TV show Frazier, died on June 26. He lived to the ripe old age of 16. Actually Moose is partly to blame for the fact that our family is now exploding with Jack Russell Terriers.
It all started about five years ago when our lovely first dog named Cassie was diagnosed with cancer. She had developed tumors and needed expensive surgery to the tune of over a thousand dollars to take care of it. At the time she was already fourteen years old, quite elderly for a dog. The vet told us to take our time to think about whether we wanted to spend the money for the surgery or not. Of course we thought about it, but what else could we do? Cassie was our first baby. We got her from the Pet Adoption Center in Canoga Park when she was three months old, years before our son Eric was born. So we did the only thing we could do and went ahead with the surgery.
Cassie lived for three and half years after the surgery, to the ripe old age of seventeen. But the surgery and the fact that Cassie was fourteen and not getting any younger got us thinking that we should get another dog, a puppy, to lessen the sting of the inevitable day when Cassie would no longer be with us, especially for the kids. So we started thinking about what kind of dog we'd like to get. Around this time our family saw the movie "My Dog Skip" and my son Eric decided he'd like to have a Jack Russell Terrier. Moose did such a good job playing the perfect little boy's dog that we were convinced.
Of course now I know that he was only acting. Because the real Moose was rescued from being given to the pound by his owners because:
That was the start of our Jack Russell Terrier explosion. We found Skip (guess who he was named after) and brought him home in 2002 when he was only six weeks old. They told us he was the calm one of the litter. We liked to joke about how if he was the "calm one" we'd hate to see the other puppies bouncing off the walls.
It all started about five years ago when our lovely first dog named Cassie was diagnosed with cancer. She had developed tumors and needed expensive surgery to the tune of over a thousand dollars to take care of it. At the time she was already fourteen years old, quite elderly for a dog. The vet told us to take our time to think about whether we wanted to spend the money for the surgery or not. Of course we thought about it, but what else could we do? Cassie was our first baby. We got her from the Pet Adoption Center in Canoga Park when she was three months old, years before our son Eric was born. So we did the only thing we could do and went ahead with the surgery.
Cassie lived for three and half years after the surgery, to the ripe old age of seventeen. But the surgery and the fact that Cassie was fourteen and not getting any younger got us thinking that we should get another dog, a puppy, to lessen the sting of the inevitable day when Cassie would no longer be with us, especially for the kids. So we started thinking about what kind of dog we'd like to get. Around this time our family saw the movie "My Dog Skip" and my son Eric decided he'd like to have a Jack Russell Terrier. Moose did such a good job playing the perfect little boy's dog that we were convinced.
Of course now I know that he was only acting. Because the real Moose was rescued from being given to the pound by his owners because:
"He was extremely mischievous, always escaping, chewing up things and running off. When he killed a neighbor's cat and chased some horses, that was it."
That was the start of our Jack Russell Terrier explosion. We found Skip (guess who he was named after) and brought him home in 2002 when he was only six weeks old. They told us he was the calm one of the litter. We liked to joke about how if he was the "calm one" we'd hate to see the other puppies bouncing off the walls.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
The Fourth of July
One of my all-time favorite books is the biography of John Adams by David McCullough. McCullough tells of John Adams pivotal role in the colonies’ declaration of independence, which happened by the way, on July 2. (quoted from page 129-130)
Later, at the end of the book, McCullough recounts how Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day in 1826, July 4(!), the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
He writes (page 647):
So Happy Fourth of July! Enjoy your solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty with “pomp and parade, shows, games sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other.”
It was John Adams, more than anyone, who had made it happen. Further, he seems to have understood more clearly than any what a momentous day it was and in the privacy of two long letters to Abigail, he poured out his feelings as did no one else.:
"The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other from this time forward forever more."
That the hand of God was involved in the birth of the new nation he had no doubt. “It is the will of heaven that the two countries should be sundered forever.” If the people now were to have “unbounded power,” and as the people were quite as capable of corruption as “the great,” and thus high risks were involved, he would submit all his hopes and fears to an overruling providence, “in which unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe.”
Later, at the end of the book, McCullough recounts how Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day in 1826, July 4(!), the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
He writes (page 647):
That John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died on the same day, and that it was, of all days, the Fourth of July, could not be seen as a mere coincidence: it was a “visible and palpable” manifestation of “Divine favor,” wrote John Quincy in his diary that night, expressing what was felt and would be said again and again everywhere the news spread.
So Happy Fourth of July! Enjoy your solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty with “pomp and parade, shows, games sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other.”
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Toxic Gym: Part Two
It will be a week tomorrow that we left the “gym from heck”. Thursday morning I finally spoke with one of our friends from the gym. After being away for only two days the drama continues. Here are only a few of the things that happened in those two days. Again, I can’t tell you what an incredible relief it is to be away from that place.
1. One of the moms slapped another mom hard across the face, after sticking her finger in her chest and face and telling her she’s just like all the rest of the bleep bleep bleep parents in this place. One of the coaches saw the slap and ran across the gym yelling for her to leave and never come back. In the meantime the one who was slapped was sitting in the office crying and the head coach came in and told her that nothing like this happened in the gym until she came.
2. Various parents were taking sides on the issue of what to do about the situation, with comments such as “She and her daughter should both be banned from the gym, no telling when she might come back with a handgun.” There was a parents meeting and I’m told that the outcome of the meeting is that parents are no longer welcome to stay and watch their daughter’s work out. They can only stay in the gym for a maximum of thirty minutes.
3. Another mom who was in charge of coordinating the purchase of leotards for an upcoming meet was accused of appropriating ten free leotards given to the gym to sell as a for her own daughter.
4. One of Aimee’s friends stepped on something sharp in the gym while she was running for conditioning. No one saw what it was or where it came from but she was bleeding all over the gym. She ended up needing stitches in her heel and will be unable to compete in running and jumping events at the meet in Vegas. Her mom wasn’t there at the time this happened but all she was told from the gym was that she owed three dollars for the tape they used to tape up her foot so it wouldn’t bleed all over the floor.
All this happened in only two days. Did I say how happy I am not to have to go there anymore?
1. One of the moms slapped another mom hard across the face, after sticking her finger in her chest and face and telling her she’s just like all the rest of the bleep bleep bleep parents in this place. One of the coaches saw the slap and ran across the gym yelling for her to leave and never come back. In the meantime the one who was slapped was sitting in the office crying and the head coach came in and told her that nothing like this happened in the gym until she came.
2. Various parents were taking sides on the issue of what to do about the situation, with comments such as “She and her daughter should both be banned from the gym, no telling when she might come back with a handgun.” There was a parents meeting and I’m told that the outcome of the meeting is that parents are no longer welcome to stay and watch their daughter’s work out. They can only stay in the gym for a maximum of thirty minutes.
3. Another mom who was in charge of coordinating the purchase of leotards for an upcoming meet was accused of appropriating ten free leotards given to the gym to sell as a for her own daughter.
4. One of Aimee’s friends stepped on something sharp in the gym while she was running for conditioning. No one saw what it was or where it came from but she was bleeding all over the gym. She ended up needing stitches in her heel and will be unable to compete in running and jumping events at the meet in Vegas. Her mom wasn’t there at the time this happened but all she was told from the gym was that she owed three dollars for the tape they used to tape up her foot so it wouldn’t bleed all over the floor.
All this happened in only two days. Did I say how happy I am not to have to go there anymore?
Friday, June 30, 2006
Toxic Gym, Part One
I feel like we’ve been exposed to the “dark side” of the sport of gymnastics. We’re done with the far-away gym with the ever-present pressure. I recently read The Devil Wears Prada. (Can’t wait for the movie to come out.) The sad thing is that as I was reading I found myself relating to the pressure the main character lived under, but it wasn’t due to the “boss from heck”, but to the “gym from heck”. I related to the way that she couldn’t really explain why this job was consuming her life.
I’m going to attempt to put some perspective on this experience of the last five months by setting down some of my thoughts and feelings. I chalk the whole thing up to experience and I’m thankful that my daughter is very resilient and that she still loves gymnastics and still wants to pursue her dream. I’m thankful that Chuck and I are still willing to help her pursue her dream. I’m thankful that over the last five months she’s become stronger and more physically fit.
The best words I’ve heard recently were on Monday night after her six hour workout. We were still in the gym and Aimee was reaching in her locker to pull out her shorts and shoes for the ride home. She said, “I want to move gyms right now.” “I don’t want to go to Vegas and I don’t ever want to come back here.” My heart leaped because those were my feelings exactly but I wanted it to come from her.
I’m going to start out by relating a conversation I had with a Mom last summer when Aimee went to gymnastics camp at UCLA. We were both watching our daughters from a look-out window above the gym where the girls were working out. I asked her about her daughter and how long she’d been doing gymnastics. She told me that her daughter started rather late in the sport because she had done everything she could to keep her out of it and tried every other sport to try to get her hooked on something else, anything but gymnastics. When I asked her why, she told me a little bit about herself and her past life in gymnastics. In the eighties she had been a world class gymnast and an Olympic alternate.
I can’t remember exactly her age when she was sent away to a training facility in
Washington state? ( I think it was eleven or twelve). Anyway the girls who were selected for the training lived away from their families and only saw their parents occasionally. The coaching was done by intimidation. Their diets were strictly monitored, After every practice they were weighed. If anyone put on a pound or so they were humiliated by having their ponytail lifted up and mocked with “Look at the little piggy’s tail.”
If anyone complained to parents or said anything that got back to the coaches against the treatment they received they were either kicked out (which was horrible because it was their dream to be there.) or intimidated into denying everything. Of course the parents weren’t around to observe the mistreatment so they were left on their own to deal with the mental and physical intimidation.
She said she was left with permanent physical injuries an eating disorder, and only after years of therapy was she mentally able to put the past behind her. That was why she didn’t want her daughter involved in the sport and why, even though her daughter was ten, she was standing on the observation deck, watching. I listened to all this wide-eyed and taking it as a caution to observe coaching styles and any sign of mental abuse. I actually had forgotten all about this conversation until I started thinking about what to write for this blog and I came back to mind.
Of course what I’ve observed over the last five months is nothing so severe as what this Mom related to me, but the accumulation of things I’ve seen has left me very wary, exhausted, and very relieved to be moving on.
I'll post more later...
I’m going to attempt to put some perspective on this experience of the last five months by setting down some of my thoughts and feelings. I chalk the whole thing up to experience and I’m thankful that my daughter is very resilient and that she still loves gymnastics and still wants to pursue her dream. I’m thankful that Chuck and I are still willing to help her pursue her dream. I’m thankful that over the last five months she’s become stronger and more physically fit.
The best words I’ve heard recently were on Monday night after her six hour workout. We were still in the gym and Aimee was reaching in her locker to pull out her shorts and shoes for the ride home. She said, “I want to move gyms right now.” “I don’t want to go to Vegas and I don’t ever want to come back here.” My heart leaped because those were my feelings exactly but I wanted it to come from her.
I’m going to start out by relating a conversation I had with a Mom last summer when Aimee went to gymnastics camp at UCLA. We were both watching our daughters from a look-out window above the gym where the girls were working out. I asked her about her daughter and how long she’d been doing gymnastics. She told me that her daughter started rather late in the sport because she had done everything she could to keep her out of it and tried every other sport to try to get her hooked on something else, anything but gymnastics. When I asked her why, she told me a little bit about herself and her past life in gymnastics. In the eighties she had been a world class gymnast and an Olympic alternate.
I can’t remember exactly her age when she was sent away to a training facility in
Washington state? ( I think it was eleven or twelve). Anyway the girls who were selected for the training lived away from their families and only saw their parents occasionally. The coaching was done by intimidation. Their diets were strictly monitored, After every practice they were weighed. If anyone put on a pound or so they were humiliated by having their ponytail lifted up and mocked with “Look at the little piggy’s tail.”
If anyone complained to parents or said anything that got back to the coaches against the treatment they received they were either kicked out (which was horrible because it was their dream to be there.) or intimidated into denying everything. Of course the parents weren’t around to observe the mistreatment so they were left on their own to deal with the mental and physical intimidation.
She said she was left with permanent physical injuries an eating disorder, and only after years of therapy was she mentally able to put the past behind her. That was why she didn’t want her daughter involved in the sport and why, even though her daughter was ten, she was standing on the observation deck, watching. I listened to all this wide-eyed and taking it as a caution to observe coaching styles and any sign of mental abuse. I actually had forgotten all about this conversation until I started thinking about what to write for this blog and I came back to mind.
Of course what I’ve observed over the last five months is nothing so severe as what this Mom related to me, but the accumulation of things I’ve seen has left me very wary, exhausted, and very relieved to be moving on.
I'll post more later...
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Waxing Nostalgic?
We're back from our wonderful time at the Lake. We drove back Monday morning from Big Bear in time to get Aimee to gymnastics at noon. (That's another story.) Since I didn't have my camera cable with me at the lake. here is a picture from the deck of the house. It was so relaxing! You can see Chuck and Aimee fishing off the dock down below the house.
Ssturday in our rented Big Bear Cabin we were making sandwiches to take for a picnic lunch on the fishing boat. I realized we didn’t have any plastic sandwich bags, so I looked in the cupboards to find some. There weren’t any, but there was some wax paper in the back of the cupboard. This brought back to my mind memories of the school lunches my mom used to pack for me before the invention of plastic sandwich bags. I wrapped the sandwiches and rolled the top of the wax paper just the way my mom used to do it. I realized that before the invention of “baggies” that was how school lunches were packed, at least in my family. It must have been some time when I was in elementary school that “baggies” came out. I’m calling them baggies because that’s what I remember calling them as a child.
Wow, this also brought back memories of smelly lschool lunch boxes, milk that we used to purchase from the school to drink with our lunches which always made me feel sick to my stomach. Then there was the time when I took a big gulp of sour milk! Maybe those school lunches weren’t such great memories after all. All that and more from a bit of wax paper.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
From Big Bear Lake
I’m sitting here on the deck of a beautiful lakefront cabin that we’re renting in Big Bear for the weekend. I thought I’d have a picture or two of the awesome view of the lake from the deck, but I brought the wrong cable to connect the camera to the computer, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I’ll post some pictures when we get home. Right now I’m enjoying the incredible peace and quiet, clean air, pine tree smell and wireless networking right here on the dock outside the cabin. It’s almost too good to be true, pinch me, I must be dreaming. And, you may ask, where are the kids and how is it that they’re so quiet? Well they are off on a grand fishing adventure in the fishing boat Chuck rented. I opted to stay behind because 1. I hate boats; ever since the deep sea fishing trip when I was ten I’ve had to fight seasickness. 2. I’m way overdue for a few hours of alone time to do whatever I want.
I just came back from a leisurely 45 minute or so walk up the street to gaze on the beauties of nature and the way cool cabins on the lakefront. Then I came back, got connected to the wireless network and started blogging.
This is our first vacation in two years? Can it be? I think we just get so caught up in our kids’ activities, like gymnastics, that we forget to take time to sit back and smell the roses, or pine needles in this case. . I’d forgotten how nice Big Bear is. I can’t believe it but it’s actually been about eleven years since we were here last. Eric was three when we sold the vacation cabin we owned and we haven’t been back since. I guess we thought it’s just not the same when you don’t have your own cabin to come to, but this is fantastic!
We got here yesterday around four o’clock, settled in, did some fishing off the dock on the property and then went out to eat at Evergreen’s restaurant. Chuck and I ordered prime rib(the waitress came back to say that they’re out of it, we had to settle for rib-eye instead, too bad), Aimee the kid’s 7 oz. steak and Eric the swordfish special. We ate outside with a beautiful view of the sunset over the lake.
Okay here comes the fishing crew back from their adventure. I don’t see any fish in hand but the day is still young; Chuck rented it for 24 hours so they can go out at dusk and early in the morning. Tonight we’re barbequing steaks on the deck and then hopping in the hot tub. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it, right?
I just came back from a leisurely 45 minute or so walk up the street to gaze on the beauties of nature and the way cool cabins on the lakefront. Then I came back, got connected to the wireless network and started blogging.
This is our first vacation in two years? Can it be? I think we just get so caught up in our kids’ activities, like gymnastics, that we forget to take time to sit back and smell the roses, or pine needles in this case. . I’d forgotten how nice Big Bear is. I can’t believe it but it’s actually been about eleven years since we were here last. Eric was three when we sold the vacation cabin we owned and we haven’t been back since. I guess we thought it’s just not the same when you don’t have your own cabin to come to, but this is fantastic!
We got here yesterday around four o’clock, settled in, did some fishing off the dock on the property and then went out to eat at Evergreen’s restaurant. Chuck and I ordered prime rib(the waitress came back to say that they’re out of it, we had to settle for rib-eye instead, too bad), Aimee the kid’s 7 oz. steak and Eric the swordfish special. We ate outside with a beautiful view of the sunset over the lake.
Okay here comes the fishing crew back from their adventure. I don’t see any fish in hand but the day is still young; Chuck rented it for 24 hours so they can go out at dusk and early in the morning. Tonight we’re barbequing steaks on the deck and then hopping in the hot tub. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it, right?
Saturday, June 17, 2006
8th Grade Graduation
My son, Eric, graduated from eighth-grade on Friday. It was a pleasantly nice ceremony, (I was going to say, surprisingly nice but I was pleasantly surprised only because I didn’t know what to expect.) There were approximately 430 or so graduates from all over Southern California. An added bonus was that it took place less than five miles from my house at the new auditorium at College of the Canyons. The last two years of home school my children have been enrolled in California Virtual Academy, (CAVA), which is affiliated with K12.com.
I didn’t realize that there were so many eighth graders enrolled in the school. Since it’s a virtual school we never see all the students together and they are scattered all over the state. Each graduate was asked to provide a brief statement describing their “post-secondary” aspirations. This statement was read as they were presented on stage to receive their diploma. About half-way through the presentation, I found myself wishing that I had been jotting down all the college majors\career choices that were mentioned. It was an interesting lesson in what life choices appeal to the fourteen-year olds. I can’ document this since I didn’t catalog it but the top three choices appeared to be: 1. entertainment; 2. culinary arts 3. forensics. Could this be because of the popularity of cooking shows and CSI type shows?
The keynote speaker was Dr. Thomas Boysen who is the Senior Vice President of K12 inc. He gave an interesting talk on the subject of learning and read the following quote from T. H. White's, "The Once and Future King" which I found very interesting. So interesting that when I got home I googled it so I could have it.
Thus ended Eric’s illustrious homeschool career. He’s been homeschooled since 3rd grade. Next year he’ll be attending the local public high school I’m very confident that this is the right choice for our family. He needs other teachers. I’m confident in his ability to make right choices for friends and activities. Congratulation Eric!
I didn’t realize that there were so many eighth graders enrolled in the school. Since it’s a virtual school we never see all the students together and they are scattered all over the state. Each graduate was asked to provide a brief statement describing their “post-secondary” aspirations. This statement was read as they were presented on stage to receive their diploma. About half-way through the presentation, I found myself wishing that I had been jotting down all the college majors\career choices that were mentioned. It was an interesting lesson in what life choices appeal to the fourteen-year olds. I can’ document this since I didn’t catalog it but the top three choices appeared to be: 1. entertainment; 2. culinary arts 3. forensics. Could this be because of the popularity of cooking shows and CSI type shows?
The keynote speaker was Dr. Thomas Boysen who is the Senior Vice President of K12 inc. He gave an interesting talk on the subject of learning and read the following quote from T. H. White's, "The Once and Future King" which I found very interesting. So interesting that when I got home I googled it so I could have it.
“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting."”
By T.H. White
The Once and Future King
Thus ended Eric’s illustrious homeschool career. He’s been homeschooled since 3rd grade. Next year he’ll be attending the local public high school I’m very confident that this is the right choice for our family. He needs other teachers. I’m confident in his ability to make right choices for friends and activities. Congratulation Eric!
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Promise
I promise, I'll blog more once school is out for the summer! I feel like I'm neglecting my blog, but I'm in sort of a funk, and I don't like to write much when I'm feeling this way. I know, I should make myself write and it'll help me get out of the funk. I'm just not sure how personal to get on a public forum like this. I really want to keep it positive because I am a positive person.
The big thing right now is what to do about Aimee's gymnastics. As you know, my daughter loves gymnastics.We switched gyms about four months ago. It's just so much time (six hours a day, five days a week, more in the summer) and so much driving (38 miles one way down one of LA's busiest freeways) and some red flags about the style at the gym, so we're praying about what to do and when to do it.
Eric is graduating from eighth grade on Friday! Congratulations to him! We've decided to send him to the local public high school for 9th grade so big changes are afoot. He is looking forward to it and also to summer vacation! (Update on bagpipe playing: We found a local person for lessons and he's been learning on the "practice chanter". We've promised him a bagpipe for Christmas or birthday.)
We're having a pool party here on Thursday for our home school co-op group. Eric and Aimee's Grandma is coming in on Thursday to be here for Eric's graduation We're really glad she can come. It should be a fun and busy week. And after Friday, school's out for the summer!
And I promise, more blogging!
The big thing right now is what to do about Aimee's gymnastics. As you know, my daughter loves gymnastics.We switched gyms about four months ago. It's just so much time (six hours a day, five days a week, more in the summer) and so much driving (38 miles one way down one of LA's busiest freeways) and some red flags about the style at the gym, so we're praying about what to do and when to do it.
Eric is graduating from eighth grade on Friday! Congratulations to him! We've decided to send him to the local public high school for 9th grade so big changes are afoot. He is looking forward to it and also to summer vacation! (Update on bagpipe playing: We found a local person for lessons and he's been learning on the "practice chanter". We've promised him a bagpipe for Christmas or birthday.)
We're having a pool party here on Thursday for our home school co-op group. Eric and Aimee's Grandma is coming in on Thursday to be here for Eric's graduation We're really glad she can come. It should be a fun and busy week. And after Friday, school's out for the summer!
And I promise, more blogging!
Thursday, June 08, 2006
About Books
I started re-reading Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. (see the previous post) I read it years ago and enjoyed it. I also like the movie version with Sean Connery. It’s a kind of medieval murder mystery. The first chapter contains a description of the book which I especially appreciate:
It fits right in with my current kick of reading books about books.
Umberto Eco is one of my favorite authors, and one of the things I like about his writing is how he inserts Latin, Greek, Hebrew you name it into his text with no translation. My high school Latin is a bit rusty but I knew the quote had something to do with books (cum libro), so I googled it and here is the translation:
A particularly apropos statement since lately all I want to do is get home and curl up on the couch or in bed with a good book.
For it is a tale of books, not of everyday worries, and reading it can lead us to recite, with ‘a Kempis, the great imitator: “In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro.”
It fits right in with my current kick of reading books about books.
Umberto Eco is one of my favorite authors, and one of the things I like about his writing is how he inserts Latin, Greek, Hebrew you name it into his text with no translation. My high school Latin is a bit rusty but I knew the quote had something to do with books (cum libro), so I googled it and here is the translation:
Everywhere I have sought rest and found it not except sitting apart in a nook with a little book.
A particularly apropos statement since lately all I want to do is get home and curl up on the couch or in bed with a good book.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Take a Classic Literature Quiz; Which book are you?
I did and this is the result:
Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose. You are a
mystery novel dealing with theology,
especially with catholic vs liberal issues.
You search wisdom and knowledge endlessly,
feeling that learning is essential in life.
Which literature classic are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose. You are a
mystery novel dealing with theology,
especially with catholic vs liberal issues.
You search wisdom and knowledge endlessly,
feeling that learning is essential in life.
Which literature classic are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Monday, May 29, 2006
Memorial Day
Happy Memorial Day! Our family is enjoying a day off to catch our breath, do a little backyard barbecue and relax. This is, I'm sure, what the majority of Americans do on this great holiday. I do want to take some time to remember the meaning of the holiday. It's a day to honor all of our fallen soldiers who gave their lives so we could have such a great country. In spite of its faults, I believe our country to be the greatest country. I'm thankful to live in such a great country and don't ever want to take it for granted. As one of the founding fathers of our country once said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." GOD BLESS AMERICA!
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Balzac and Coffee
This is the coolest coffee maker ever. All you do is pop one of the "p-cups" in the coffee maker and push the button. Voila, instant cup of great coffee! And there's no coffee grinds to make a mess, just throw away the used p-cup. We got the coffee maker for half-price a while back at a Robinson's May store closeout sale, and it's been great. The only drawback is that to get a good price on the coffee, you have to order it online and that means planning ahead so you don't run out of coffee.
I like my coffee in the morning. I used to drink it all day long but now I only have a couple of cups in the morning. I recenly read this little essay by Balzac on coffee. He takes coffee drinking and caffeine addiction to another level. It makes me wonder what kind of coffee he's using.
By the way, I recently read about half of Cousin Bette by Balzac. I tried to like it becauase I wanted to like Balzac. But I didn't like any of the characters and Cousin Bette was the worst. So I just returned it to the library half-read. There's a certain freedom in deciding to not finish a book. There are too many good books out there to waste my time reading about people I can't like. I'm collecting quotes about books as friends which I'm sure will show up on the blog sometime or other.
But here is the Balzac essay about coffee:
“The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee”
by Honore de Balzac
translated from the French by Robert Onopa
Coffee is a great power in my life; I have observed its effects on an epic scale. Coffee roasts your insides. Many people claim coffee inspires them, but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring. Think about it: although more grocery stores in Paris are staying open until midnight, few writers are actually becoming more spiritual.
But as Brillat-Savarin has correctly observed, coffee sets the blood in motion and stimulates the muscles; it accelerates the digestive processes, chases away sleep, and gives us the capacity to engage a little longer in the exercise of our intellects. It is on this last point, in particular, that I want to add my personal experience to Brillat-Savarin's observations.
Coffee affects the diaphragm and the plexus of the stomach, from which it reaches the brain by barely perceptible radiations that escape complete analysis; that aside, we may surmise that our primary nervous flux conducts an electricity emitted by coffee when we drink it. Coffee's power changes over time. [Italian composer Gioacchino] Rossini has personally experienced some of these effects as, of course, have I. "Coffee," Rossini told me, "is an affair of fifteen or twenty days; just the right amount of time, fortunately, to write an opera." This is true. But the length of time during which one can enjoy the benefits of coffee can be extended.
For a while - for a week or two at most - you can obtain the right amount of stimulation with one, then two cups of coffee brewed from beans that have been crushed with gradually increasing force and infused with hot water.
For another week, by decreasing the amount of water used, by pulverizing the coffee even more finely, and by infusing the grounds with cold water, you can continue to obtain the same cerebral power.
When you have produced the finest grind with the least water possible, you double the dose by drinking two cups at a time; particularly vigorous constitutions can tolerate three cups. In this manner one can continue working for several more days.
Finally, I have discovered a horrible, rather brutal method that I recommend only to men of excessive vigor, men with thick black hair and skin covered with liver spots, men with big square hands and legs shaped like bowling pins. It is a question of using finely pulverized, dense coffee, cold and anhydrous, consumed on an empty stomach. This coffee falls into your stomach, a sack whose velvety interior is lined with tapestries of suckers and papillae. The coffee finds nothing else in the sack, and so it attacks these delicate and voluptuous linings; it acts like a food and demands digestive juices; it wrings and twists the stomach for these juices, appealing as a pythoness appeals to her god; it brutalizes these beautiful stomach linings as a wagon master abuses ponies; the plexus becomes inflamed; sparks shoot all the way up to the brain. From that moment on, everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.
I recommended this way of drinking coffee to a friend of mine, who absolutely wanted to finish a job promised for the next day: he thoughthe'd been poisoned and took to his bed, which he guarded like a married man. He was tall, blond, slender and had thinning hair; he apparently had a stomach of papier-mache. There has been, on my part, a failure of observation.
When you have reached the point of consuming this kind of coffee, then become exhausted and decide that you really must have more, even though you make it of the finest ingredients and take it perfectly fresh, you will fall into horrible sweats, suffer feebleness of the nerves, and undergo episodes of severe drowsiness. I don't know what would happen if you kept at it then: a sensible nature counseled me to stop at this point, seeing that immediate death was not otherwise my fate. To be restored, one must begin with recipes made with milk and chicken and other white meats: finally the tension on the harp strings eases, and one returns to the relaxed, meandering, simple-minded, and cryptogamous life of the retired bourgeoisie.
The state coffee puts one in when it is drunk on an empty stomach under these magisterial conditions produces a kind of animation that looks like anger: one's voice rises, one's gestures suggest unhealthy impatience: one wants everything to proceed with the speed of ideas; one becomes brusque, ill-tempered about nothing. One actually becomes that fickle character, The Poet, condemned by grocers and their like. One assumes that everyone is equally lucid. A man of spirit must therefore avoid going out in public. I discovered this singular state through a series of accidents that made me lose, without any effort, the ecstasy I had been feeling. Some friends, with whom I had gone out to the country, witnessed me arguing about everything, haranguing with monumental bad faith. The following day I recognized my wrongdoing and we searched the cause. My friends were wise men of the first rank, and we found the problem soon enough: coffee wanted its victim.
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