Multi-Pass

Happy St. Patricks Day!!

Why Teach Music?

"Using Technology to Humanize the Classroom"

"Educating kids out of their creativity"

Like Stars on Earth

Determination, and thinking outside of the box

Dare you not to smile.....

Math, the emergency subject....(maths and 999 for ya'll across the pond)

....Ah, yes, the start of the school season is upon me.....

You're only as old as you feel...

"An elderly couple walked into the lobby of the Mayo Clinic for a checkup and spotted a piano. They've been married for 62 years and he'll be 90 this year.

Check out this impromptu performance. We are only as old as we feel, it's all attitude. Enjoy! They certainly do"

"So Far, So Good...."

Thought for the Day

And, as frustrating as the interruptions can be....I do love and appreciate this moment in time, when they're still nesting at home with me... :D

Request to sign 14yr old cancer patient's guestbook

Hi all,
This is a request for you to say hello to a stranger. His name is Brandon, he's 14yrs old, and he has cancer. He's my coworkers son. Here is his 'background story' as told on his website:

"Brandon's journey began with a slight limp on his right side. We thought that maybe it was a sports injury or growing pains. When it didn't go away and he started having pain in the middle of the night, we knew something was wrong. Brandon was diagnosed with chondroblastic osteosarcoma of the right proximal femur in July 09. By August he had gone through a total hip replacement ,metal prosthesis insertion, and hickman insertion. He will undergo 30 weeks of chemo."

If you're reading this and feel moved to give encouragement to this brave, and no doubt scared, young man, please do so. I thought it would be neat if people from around the States, and around the world could say "hey, we're thinking about you, hang in there!!" or something like that.
Hope for tomorrow is strength for today. :)

thanks! :)

Brandon's site:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/brandonrussell/guestbook
(you can just put your first name, nickname, and/or last initial for the anon-minded people :))

"Confidence and hope do more good than physic."
~Galen

Life's merry-go-round

Busy day with guests tomorrow, so I wanted to have at least one more post for my thoughts. As the kiddies have grown older, it's been so fun to see their personalities and characters developing, or should we say, evolving. They've had certain personality traits and aptitudes since day one, so I find it very interesting to see what they're drawn with regard to interests and career potential.

I often think of the road I've taken, and the road I might have taken were things a bit different with regard to choices made in my early Uni days, for good and bad. Perhaps in a cosmic way, Lucy and I connected, because she only just recently wrote a poem on her reflections. I draw attention to Lucy, her above photo, and her poem, People Watching.

Homework assignment: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Well, September brings the start of the school year for the kiddies (although this year the eldest started her first semester of college just last week-of which I'm still in total denial :/).

Now, this homework exercise doesn't quite apply, since my kids are older, and we home school.
I still have the liaison teachers that we work with, however, so you never know. Sometimes the teacher will give a writing prompt at our meetings to gauge progress....

Credit for the following goes to Scots, so I hope he doesn't mind me borrowing it, (do you? ;)

A teacher gave an assignment to her new classroom of students: "What do you want to be when you growup?" One of the students drew this picture and gave it to the teacher...




(Here's the reply the teacher received the following day)

Dear Mrs. Jones,
I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer.
The truth is I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot.
>From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Smith

Mamma's love

Nature at its best. For a wonderful post on man's best friend, visit over at EasyPeasy. :)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
these pics came via email with this info:

I have never seen anything like this. This is a newborn offspring of Taskin, Gypsy Stallion
owned by Villa Vanners that was born in Oregon.

These pictures were immediately after his birth on April 6. The mare laid down and
then he trotted around and crawled right up into her lap.

Castles and Flying Cars

Was over at another blogger’s place for a fun set of questions; you should visit if you like a good challenge to your mental faculties. :) Interestingly enough in this post, he had a picture of the Neuschwanstein castle. Now I love castles. The architecture intrigues me to no end especially given the tools of the time. I was able to tour this particular castle when I was working over in Austria. The Univ summer school program (I was the liaison/clinic nurse) scheduled a trip up to Bavaria. The castle and the surrounding area were incredible. It’s a rather ‘new’ castle, built in the 1800's. Inside the castle, are huge murals of Wagnerian operas.

Although I had never been to the castle, nor really even heard of it before that time, I felt a strange familiarity, a feeling that I had been here before. It wasn’t until I walked into the inner courtyard that I realized this castle was used as a set in a much-beloved film from my childhood, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. :)

Welcome to "Vulgaria, darling". :D

Can't see the forest for the trees

(pic: Summer 08, Eastern Sierras)

....."An expression used of someone who is too involved in the details of a problem to look at the situation as a whole."

Raising a teenage boy has definitely been much different from raising a teenage girl. If it can be broken, he will break it. If it is a chore needing to be done, he will wait to the last minute, half do it, or come to find out later didn't do it at all. Schoolwork...hahahaha...right. Don't get me wrong, my son is a good kid; just, well, a 14yr old boy who is stuck in the tween state of child and adult.

While I've been busy with uni, my hubby and son have become well absorbed with an X-Box live internet game; and, have developed a team of people from all over the world who play together and take on challenges from other teams, etc. I've encouraged it, as it allows for 'male bonding' time. Now, why am I speaking of this, you might wonder? Back to the teenage boy. He's managed to decimate three pair of not that inexpensive Turtle Beach headsets. The first pair were somehow mangled...the 'boogeyman did it'...(they were probably trampled during a running-thru-the-house nerfgun war with his friends (they had somehow forgotten that the house was neutral territory). The second pair were vacuumed over; he was too lazy to move the wires. The third pair my hubby had just bought. They were in the house about thirty seconds, when teen boy, eager to help open the package because he knew he had just wrecked the second pair....managed to cut the wires to the headset as he was opening the package..........

He knew he blew it, and went to his room upset, very upset. My hubby wasn't sure whether to laugh or be angry. The teen daughter had just warned the teen son to slow down, be careful with opening the package. You see, the teen son has a problem with paying attention to detail and hurrying through things. It's an ongoing battle; an ongoing sit down and talk; an ongoing trying to help form character; ongoing test of patience to let them grow at their own pace, rather than forcing the issue. We could have chosen to punish, to yell, to become angry at the money wasted; however, I really think that would have crushed his spirit. He really was honestly sorry, honestly angry with himself. The one thing I do love from these situations is turning them around for teaching times. This is not always easy, mind you. It's easy to become emeshed in just the immediate problem before you; see only what is going on in 'the now'.

I'm really hoping this lesson of the headsets will forever be a reminder for him in the future...to slow down, pay attention to detail and not hurry through things...when driving a car, operating machinery, or anything else that may come his way as a young man. The hubby sat the teen boy down, and managed to repair the vacuumed head set using some old parts from one of the other pair; the teen volunteered to pay for the replacement wires for the newest set. Hopefully another lesson of resourcefulness and responsibility was taught. Sometimes raising a child means that you have to not only see the individual trees but also the big picture of the forest. Being a parent isn't always easy, but it's been the best 'job' yet.

Is it School break, yet?

Why must we learn advanced algebra and trig? I suffered through it barely passing, and now my eldest daughter is asking me, ME, for help with her class. I told her, best of luck, can I hire you a tutor.... Luckily for me, she is one smart cookie, and is doing well enough with her teacher's help. I told her, just Pass the class, that's all.... I also told her real math is important, like balancing a check book, or in my case for work, I do use basic algebra, or her dad who uses geometry with his carpentry. And, since I don't expect she's interested in building a space lab any time soon, I whispered it one more time.....just pass the class.

Cops say 3rd Graders ( 8-10yr olds) planned attack against teacher.

Topic continued from TB's place.

I read the article. To be honest, I'm not sure if I'm more concerned with the fact that these kids actually put into motion such a heinous idea, or with the 'experts' who seem to be poo-pooing the whole thing. Sure, there are a lot of good kids out there who would never dream of putting together such a scheme. However, my schoolteacher friend only last year had Purex put into her coffee by a student, albeit he was older than these children in the article. (this 13yr old's father was reportedly an absentee father out womanizing mostly, and the mother was a stay-at-home drunk).
In one of my older posts, 'Are the Monsters in Charge', I bring up the topic of child-rearing, and what is being, or not being taught to today's children. Not to mention the dysfunctional factors as with the above 13yr old's situation. I feel for the kid who has to grow up with abusive, or just sh*tty and/or absentee parents. But really, does it excuse the dangerous behavior or can we say it merely explains it, and, they still need to be held accountable (and the parents, as well). Which then presents the difficult dilemma in defining the level of accountability in correspondence with the age of the child and the depth of the crime.
Mostly everyone I know has mentioned lately, or should I say, moaned lately over either the economy, rising fuel/food prices, and the current political candidates. (prices for things here are still by far better overall comparatively with other western nations, which honestly takes the wind out of 'my moan')
However, what does it all matter if our youth, our next generation, are not raised to become well-functioning and positive participants in today's society? Are we going to have even a larger Criminal and Welfare class?! Are the Leaders of tomorrow, only going to get worse?! Are we as Nation, as a Society spiraling out of control?! Thoughts?