Gwen's Sententia: June 2007

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

If I could stop time

I’m busy. I mean, I’m really busy. I have a job at Sun. I have an equivalent of a job with clients. I’m homeschooling my kids, and transporting them to and fro various classes including ballet, swimming, gears, and dinosaurs.

I don’t have time to goof off writing in my blog. Yet here I am, writing in my blog.

I was working on a project for one of my clients. I’ve been playing in Excel and wondering how I’m going to do three hours of work in one hour so I can go to bed and get some sleep. It’s impossible, of course, so it occurred to me “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could stop time around me?” I’ve come to the conclusion that the stopping-time superpower wouldn’t be as cool as I think.

If time stopped, would I actually work on something productive? Nah, I think I would play more games and just play with robots. Or I might read a trashy novel. I think I’d have to play several hours of games and read a novel before I’d get around to actually doing something useful.

I’ve learned several things from this. Firstly, I like my break time. Secondly, a fantasy super power isn’t going to help me, so I better get cracking on that spreadsheet and stop writing in my silly blog.

Labels: clients, jobs, sun, super power, super powers, time, time management

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Swimming with Dolphins

It’s illegal to swim with wild dolphins in most oceans. So, if you want to swim with Flipper, you have to an aquarium with dolphins.

I had to get over the mental problem of “If I let my daughter swim with dolphins in an aquarium setting, then I am helping to pay for captive dolphins.” After a bit of research I came to the conclusion that in the United States the great majority of captive dolphins were either born in captivity or rescued and can’t be returned to the ocean. Whew.

Nevertheless, when we went to Disney World in January, we didn’t detour to Sea World to swim with dolphins. My daughter, Anna, who is the one obsessed with dolphins was not quite old enough. Sea World requires a kid to be 6 years old and 44″ tall.

A few months after our Disney trip my youngest sister told me that her family was going to rent a condo on the beach in San Diego, spend one day at Sea World, and our parents were going to join them. I invited myself and my family along.

This time I booked two reservations to swim with the dolphins. One reservation was for Anna and the other was for my husband. I didn’t think Anna would go near the dolphins without a parent present and I didn’t trust my husband to get proper photos and video.

The day came and I helped Anna don her wet suit and rubber booties. She was excited and nervous. I do think, however, that perhaps my husband enjoyed the experience more.

Anna and Leon enjoyed about 45 minutes with Maggie, a four-year-old bottlenose dolphin.

It was totally worth the cost.

Labels: dolphins, education, educational, home school, homeschooling, swim

Monday, June 11, 2007

I don't want my kids socialized

I don’t want my kids socialized. For the most part, I think socialization is a bad thing.

Now, before you call social services, let’s talk semantics. There’s a big difference between socialization and social development.

Socialization is the process where people learn their place in society. For children, socialization means raising your hand to go to the bathroom, changing your mental frame of mind when a bell rings, and waiting in line.

Social development, on the other hand, is about creating and nurturing meaningful relationships with others and integrating into society in such a way to help yourself and society.

Some socialization is obviously necessary to survive in society. For instance, if a kid doesn’t know how to queue up, he’ll get tossed out of amusement parks and not get to ride roller coasters. If a kid doesn’t have the sense to respect other people’s property and lives, he’ll end up in jail.

Some aspects of socialization seem silly to me, though. Why, for instance, should a child spend a year in a classroom with 20 or more other kids of the same age? Where else in our lives does that happen besides school?

Instead of “socialization,” I am teaching my kids “good citizenship.” For social development, I am providing them with opportunities to make friends of their age, older, and younger; however, I’m also providing them opportunities to make friends with adults, seniors, and much younger children.

Labels: children, friends, parenting, social development, socialization

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Post vacation blues

We’ve taken a lot of vacation time this year.

We started off the year with a week-long trip to Disney World. Fun was had by all. I liked Animal Kingdom the best; Leon liked Epcot; Quinn and Anna liked the Magic Kingdom the best-even though they got to meet Mater and Lightening McQueen at MGM.

When we came home from Disney World, I had my traditional post vacation blues. My theory is that I spend a bunch of time high on epinephrine (and spending money) and then I come home and I need to clean the house. Bye Bye Little High. My customary method of dealing with the post vacation blues is to give my husband a choice: take the kids and I out to dinner and a movie, or walk us to the park to play.

That method usually works fine. It’s sort of an intermediary. While dinner and a movie can be expensive, it’s not up there with plane tickets. If it’s sunny out, a walk to the park usually does the trick too. (It’s a treat to get Leon to walk with me to the park.)

My usual methods didn’t work for this last trip, however. We didn’t get home until 8:00 p.m. San Diego, Sea World, visiting with Grandma and Grandpa and my sister, brother-in-law, and nieces–and staying in a penthouse with a wonderful view–was loads of fun. Coming home at 8:00 p.m. didn’t make either of my normal trip fixes much of an option. (When you split a penthouse ten ways it’s much less expensive.)

So I did the next best thing and read a bit (to keep my mind occupied so I didn’t cry) and went to sleep.

You know what? Sleep worked wonders.

Labels: blues, sad, San Diego, vacation

Saturday, June 9, 2007

That nagging question

When I was in grammar school, about thirty years ago, I was taught that a species was a group of animals that could mate and produce fertile offspring. That seemed like a reasonable, simple definition and I was content with it for about 29 years.

My definition of species has been tested over this last year, and it has failed. While writing a polar bear unit study (www.UnitStudiesByGwen.com) I discovered that polar bears can mate with brown bears and produce fertile offspring; however, polar bears are grouped as a separate species.

Polar bears have longer necks than brown bears. Polar bears have smaller ears and tails-a cold weather adaptation. Polar bears have re-developed their carnasial teeth and primarily eat meat. Brown bears have lost their carnasial teeth and are omnivores. Brown bears hibernate over the winter; polar bears never actually hibernate. Brown bears cannot survive in the arctic and polar bears don’t fare well in warmer areas.

The two types of bears definitely have a pile of differences-but, but, but they can mate and have fertile offspring.

So, “What is the modern definition of species” is my nagging question. I have started researching this, but I haven’t yet answered it to my satisfaction. I think I’ll end up with another unit study on Taxonomy before I have the answer.

Labels: definition, polar bear, species, taxonomy, unit studies, unit study

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