Obama on school

08. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I can’t believe the controversy that’s surrounded Obama’s planned speech today about school. It’s bat-shit crazy. If I felt certain that smart people always won the day and that dumb people who take their kids out of school because they think the President of the United States is indoctrinating our children, I would have no concern over it whatsoever. However, I know that sometimes dumb people win out, especially if they’re loud enough. Sigh.

I just read the speech and it’s really good, and I hope that kids do listen to it and take much of it to heart. The main message is that it takes hard work to succeed, a message that I think is important to any of us. He also connects the lessons of school to future work:

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

I love the “if you want to be x, then do x in school” logic of this and other sections of his speech. If my kids don’t see it in school today, we’re going to watch it together later. Kids need to be inspired and the President, any president, regardless of party, is inspirational to kids. What kid doesn’t think they might be President some day? I feel a twinge of sadness that this whole thing has become a controversy, fueled by ignorance and hatred. What a small-minded country we’ve become.

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Fun Friday: Hollywood does Science

04. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

If you haven’t seen this, it’s really hilarious. One of my favorites–the benefits of electrocution!

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Careening into the New School Year

03. September 2009 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

Mr. Geeky took Geeky Girl to work with him today at her request. How’s that for boredom? She’d rather go to work with her dad than be at home. As a result, I had the morning pretty much to myself since Geeky Boy doesn’t rise until nearly noon. I sent off an article I was working on with my partners in crime, Leslie and Barbara. I blogged. And then I went through the accumulated pile of mail and paperwork. From now on, I’m not letting that stuff pile up. I’m dealing with it as it comes in. I’m not quite done with the pile yet, as I set aside some things that need to be filed or otherwise looked over more thoroughly. But I’ve got the kids’ schedule for the entire school year filled in on the calendar. I made note of important IDs and passwords. I made a list of stuff to get at Staples. Then I continued to dig through Geeky Girl’s room.

Yesterday was insanity itself. I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning and was trying to work on the article before that. After the appointment, I connected with Barbara via GChat and we worked on the article together. Then lunch. I had planned to take Geeky Boy over to the high school right after lunch–we settled on 2:00. The athletics coordinator called to let us know that actually, freshman soccer has already begun and there’s a practice today at 3:00. Okay. But. No soccer equipment. So, we go to the high school as planned. I run to the township administration building to buy a recycling container, then go back to pick up Geeky Boy. At 2:45, he finally appears and we rush over to the sports store, buy shoes, shin guards, socks, and a ball and make it to practice at 3:15. I go home, change, then go to farmer’s market. Afterwards, I go for a walk, come home and make dinner: fresh chicken, fresh corn, and salad with heirloom tomatoes and goat cheese. After that, I’m off to a parent meeting for the high school.

Crazy, I tell you. Today has mostly been an attempt to not let that kind of day happen again. None of that would have been bad except that about half of it was completely unplanned. Not good. And now I’m off on a round of pick ups and drop offs again. I have no idea how any of this would have been managed if I hadn’t been home.

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The Casualties are Female

03. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

Dr. Crazy has a really great post and follow up, to which Historiann has responded about how things tend to turn out for women in academia. That is, women can’t have it all–career, family, life–if they choose academia as a career. Men, both she and Historiann argue, never have to make the kinds of decisions women do about privileging family over career or vice versa. Maybe men should, but they don’t and people don’t ask them whether they’re going to quit or slow down when they have kids nor do they ask men who haven’t married or had kids whether they’re going to. It’s just assumed that whatever men are doing is fine and dandy.

While Dr. Crazy (and some of her commenters) lament the holes that not having a partner/family have left in their lives (while acknowledging that they feel pretty satisfied), I find myself at 41 lamenting the career hole. I wonder if what I’ve done career-wise will add up to anything. I wonder if I will ever be in a full-time career again. I wonder if I want to be. Which makes me wonder if there isn’t something in our culture that makes us think we *should* have it all. I’m a firm believer in moderation and balance and I think most work of any kind is short on moderation. The more intellectual the work, the less moderate it is. I think I’d be going crazy right now if I didn’t have some work. But I think, at this moment, I’d be equally crazy if I didn’t have my family life. But that’s only two things. There are others, as this quote from a recent David Sederis story, points out:

Pat was driving, and as we passed the turnoff for a shopping center she invited us to picture a four-burner stove.

“Gas or electric?” Hugh asked, and she said that it didn’t matter.

This was not a real stove but a symbolic one, used to prove a point at a management seminar she’d once attended. “One burner represents your family, one is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work.” The gist, she said, was that in order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.

I think I’ve got the family one on and the work on. Friends? Not sure. Health? Working on it. Can you have them on low? I’m not sure. And I feel like it shifts quite a bit. For a while, I was focused on work and friends. Then, friends and health. Maybe I’m kidding myself.

One thing I do know is that I sometimes feel overwhelmed trying to juggle them all. Maybe women are striving for this balance more than men. Anecdotally, how many men do you know who manage to have even two of these burners going? Most men I know, including Mr. Geeky, focus mostly on work, with family a close second. Friends? Health? Only a handful.

I commented on the second post about negotiating the juggling act with Mr. Geeky and how I don’t always do such a good job of delegating non-work stuff to him. I’ll admit that it infuriates me sometimes the ease with which he can simply ignore what’s going on outside of work. I have never been able to do that. The few times I have, I’ve been bitten in the ass. And I think it’s because I didn’t concretely say to him, “Hey, I’ve got to focus on work for the next x days. You need to deal with this and this.” Certain things are easy to manage, like scheduling kid pickups. But making sure the laundry gets done, remember permission slips, preparing meals? Mr. Geeky is more inclined to let those slide until I’m back to taking care of it. Unless I specifically tell him not to let it slide. In other words, I’m the default house person and the default position is difficult to change. Part of that is me and part of that is him. I would hope that the default would change if it needed to.

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WoW Wednesday: Gear

02. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

A friend wanted me to title this “Still Not Def Capped.” For you non-WoW’ers, let me explain. Each type of player needs a certain level of stats to do well in higher level dungeons and raids. Stats include things like defense, spell power, attack power, hit rating, etc. Players who mostly deal damage strive for a hit rating cap. Tanks strive for def (defense) cap. The way to achieve these stats is through a) leveling/talents and b) gear. I’m going to ignore a) for now, but suffice it to say that as you level, you can select talents that increase certain stats. Once you reach 80 (currently the highest level), gear becomes more important. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was slightly undergeared for tanking. Where I’m undergeared is in my defense stats. I’m not def capped. And here I am, two weeks later, sitting in the exact same spot. As my guildies told me last night, I have no excuse. All I need to do is slap the right trinket on, put a couple of jewels on it and I’d be golden. Which is true, really.

I have a strange relationship to gear in the game. I’m probably not alone in this. A lot of people research what gear they need, find out where to get it and then set out to acquire it. Gear can be obtained in two main ways: dropping from a boss in a dungeon and purchasing with currency that drops from bosses in dungeons.* So, getting good gear requires going through dungeons. So a lot of people figure out what they want, which boss drops it, and then start running that dungeon until they get what they want. All good. I like going through dungeons, but I don’t like being that prescriptive about my adventures. I’ve been in dungeons with people where they say at the very beginning, “I want the boots that drop in here.” And I’ll be like, boots? what boots? Which I don’t say out loud because then I’d be declaring myself a noob. Basically, I like to be surprised. Whatever drops after we kill a boss I consider a gift. And I don’t like to open my gifts before it’s time. I get a little thrill from the unexpected. If I knew what I was likely to get ahead of time, I’d lose that thrill. My kids laugh at me all the time because I get giddy over getting new stuff. But usually only when it’s a surprise (or, in some cases, I’ve worked hard for it). “Look at this cool new sword I got!” Not too many moms who say that I’m guessing.

All that said, I do take advice. So, if someone says to me, you should get those boots that are in such and such dungeon, I am willing to go get the boots, especially if my adviser is going to go with me. Gearing up is more than just slapping on whatever falls on the ground after a kill. Once I figured that out, I think I became a better player. But I still can’t bring myself to obsess over it, running dungeons over and over just to get one pair of pants (well, okay, I have done that once or twice, but it’s not my usual mode). I also don’t do this in real life. Shopping for clothes wears me out. But I promise to be def capped by next week. Really.

*I should note that gear can also be made by blacksmiths and some relatively good gear can be purchased with gold from special vendors.

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School Can’t Start Soon Enough

01. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I’ve reached that point that all parents reach, where they’re actually looking forward to having their kids out of the house. With one week left to go, I’m ready to finally have the house to myself. Since my house is also my place of work these days, I’m even more anxious. Work has been accomplished this summer, but far less than I wanted. It has been a joy, truly, to spend time with my family, to have mostly unencumbered time where we can all decide what to do with ourselves. There’ve been visits to the pool, leisurely walks to the farmer’s market, and lazy rainy afternoons spent playing games.

But now I want to get some things done and this week, what I’m staring at is a list of things that have (mostly) nothing to do with me. There’s back to school shopping, a high school tour for Geeky Boy and then for the parents, laundry, general cleaning, etc. Yesterday, most of my day was occupied with this stuff. I took the car to the mechanic, went to the grocery store, cleaned out the fridge. In between, I worked on an article that is due today (on which we got an extension). I’m kind of tired of my stuff happening in between everyone else’s stuff.

I set myself a few goals while I was on vacation, which I will discuss in another post, but I’m finding it nearly impossible to work on them while the kids are here and the schedule is still crazy. I woke up this morning hating that it looked like I couldn’t work on at least one of them and cursing myself for putting it off until next week. Lame, I said to myself. Lazy. Excuses, excuses! But seriously, when your day is filled with a) trying to get the kids out of bed, b) feeding said kids, and c) getting them to finally finish their summer homework, it’s hard to focus. Sigh.

And then there’s the guilt of feeling like you don’t love your kids enough because you want them out of the house.

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Parents knowledge of kids’ social lives

01. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Social computingImage by lorda via Flickr

The New York Times has this brief article on how parents don’t really know how often their teens are checking into social networking sites. My first thought was, duh. Even tech savvy me who sits next to my kids while their on the computer probably doesn’t know everything. And I don’t think I should know *everything*. My parents didn’t know everything. Sometimes, when they dropped me off at the mall, I went somewhere else. Sometimes, when I said I was at Jennifer’s house, I was really somewhere else. Not behavior I’m proud of, but fairly typical. And it’s why my kids are not allowed out of the house. :) Not really, but I certainly will be checking in with parents, etc. when my kids go out.

I went digging for the original research (can I say I hate it when people don’t link to that stuff), and I couldn’t find it exactly. The web site for Common Sense Media, the group responsible for collating such research, seems like an interesting place. They seem to have the right idea about approaching media, teaching kids to be critical of the media they consume, and helping parents learn what’s going on in their kids lives. I’ve actually forwarded the link to some local educators. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about such sites. I feel like I work really hard to keep up with what my kids are doing, and obviously, my field keeps me abreast of the latest trends. But, I do know there are parents out there, who are just oblivious to a lot of the technology their kids are using. They either come down on the “no way am I letting my kid have a cell phone” side, or the “I have no idea what this stuff is, but surely it can’t be bad.” The hard part is that even with a lot of information, it’s hard to figure out how to help your kids manage their social lives, whether they’re mediated by technology or not. I suppose a site like this helps, but I still think parents need to use that information and be critical of it. New reports come out all the time, for example, about the effects of video games and other media on kids. I worry that parents sometimes rely on these kinds of places to tell them what to do. And no site, no matter how good, can sort out all the complexities of parenting in the digital age.

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