Summer Time

I know just about everyone relishes the idea of summer. I do not particularly enjoy the increased temperature, but the time is very gratitude inducing. And for the record, I don't enjoy the cold, either. I'm more of an 80 degree type of person with low humidity and partial cloud cover with no threat of rain. Yeah, I know it's not often I get this ideal weather. Perhaps that's part of the reason I enjoy it so much.

But I'm writing about summer. At the moment (and for the last 4 years) I teach college courses part-time at a local high school. I'm basically on loan (lease?) during the school year. This means that I am pretty much free during the summer. Well, I would be completely free--and completely insane--if I didn't have at least one summer class to teach. This year I happen to have just one class (a blow to the old bank account, but better than being completely unemployed) during the day when my daughter is in summer day camp. We decided to try a different summer camp [Note: these are all day camps that begin at 9am and end at 12pm, 2pm, or 4pm, depending on the particular camp] each week. My class begins after her camp starts and ends before she gets out of camp each day. And, the college is central to just about every camp location. This means that my daughter and I get to spend more time together than we do during the regular school year.

No, I don't spend every free moment with her. As an extreme introvert this would drive me nuts, no matter how much I love my daughter. I need some me time each day or I would completely lose it. But, I've managed to find time to work on filling in some gaps in her education--going into 5th grade, she was never taught phonics in school!--and keep her mind sharp in fun ways without turning it into homeschooling. We work on math a little--compete worksheets found online and play Yahtzee! together. We emphasize reading each day--she reads for close to an hour then writes a blog about what she read. Once a week is "science" day--biology/botany in the form of planting and caring for a garden, chemistry in the kitchen, etc. We will also play games like Operation or Lego building games to emphasize other sciences. I haven't quite figured out the "history" day yet, though I'm sure it will include ancient cultures--reading more Percy Jackson for Greek culture, Egypt stories, etc.--and American history (I love the History Channel's educational shows). Plus, we'll probably play something like Risk or some other historical based game that my husband tends to collect. As an avid crafter, we are throwing in an arts & crafts day each week as well. This will be an opportunity for both of us to stretch our creativity (and work on our Dragon*Con costumes!) at least once a week. I am not forgetting physical education. That will be covered with swimming or shopping. Yes, shopping is exercise, especially the way I do it--wandering around the store for an hour or two before finally settling on a purchase.

All-in-all my daughter is and will be learning quite a bit this summer, and I will be "teaching" her much. We have the first opportunity this year to actually spend some real quality time together without worrying about sending her away to visit the grandparents or anything like that. Believe it or not, this will be the first summer that I get to spend with my daughter, minus the week she's going to Disney World without me--I don't have the luxury of taking vacation until after my class is over because the time frame is so condensed. I feel confident in my plan and so far it seems to be working out well enough.

Overview of her camps:
Week 1: VBS camp at our church
Week 2: world cultures at the college
Week 3: dance camp
Week 4: Disney World with her dad
Week 5: camp at zoo
Week 6: science/engineering camp
Week 7: performing arts camp at the college

It's very likely that the next series of posts to this blog will be an overview of each of the camps as they conclude. No, I will not forget the squirrel of the month on the 28th, either.

Sea Monkeys

In reality, sea monkeys are a sub species of brine shrimp. In my world, they are the perfect pets.

I grew up with a menagerie of pets--cats, dogs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, little brother (I'm kidding!), lizards, turtles, fish, rabbits, frogs, and maybe some I'm forgetting. The one thing I learned was that I don't want to be responsible for the well-being of an animal. Taking care of myself and my child and husband is hard enough. It helps that they can do things for themselves. But a pet means constant responsibilities that I know I don't have the discipline to tackle. I don't want to torture any animal through unintentional neglect. Plus, even though I do like cats (okay, I can tolerate dogs, too), I happen to be allergic to them. Petting either a cat or a dog causes minor swelling in the hand that touches them and breathing is a little harder for me when I am around them. I won't go into a full-blown asthmatic attack, but I won't be comfortable either.

The conundrum is: I like the idea of having a pet and my daughter likes the idea of having a pet. So, I managed to find the perfect pet for me. Sea monkeys are easy to obtain--and cheap!--and even easier to take care of. They usually hatch within 36 hours, assuming you follow the directions, and begin growing and reproducing quickly thereafter. You only have to feed them once a week at first. Once the algae begins growing, however, you can reduce the feeding time even more. I'll be honest, it's been at least 2 months since I last fed my sea monkeys and they are still thriving. Of course, I have them in a large (for sea monkeys) tank--it's actually a small travel terrarium, but to a sea monkey it's huge--with a couple of fish tank bobbles. This gives more surface area for the algae to take hold. It is important to keep the tank by a natural light source for the algae to grow. I do also add more bottled or filtered water when the tank level drops due to evaporation. That's the extent of the maintenance I do for my sea monkeys. These ones have been alive for almost a year now.

The other upshot of sea monkeys is that they are self-replacing. When your cat or dog dies you have to go out and get a new one, go through all the training all over again, etc. When the entire sea monkey tank dies off (this is my third tank since we began "caring" for sea monkeys 5 years ago) you can either go out an purchase a new packet of eggs or simply let the tank completely evaporate. Then you purchase the "conditioning agent" (it creates the proper chemical balance for the little guys) and simply refill your tank as is. If all goes well, there should be some preserved eggs from your previous tank attached to one of the surfaces and they should simply hatch and begin a new society all over again.

Yep, for me sea monkeys are the perfect pet and I am thankful that I discovered them when my daughter began asking for pets in the house. Plus, they can be fun to watch.

My Faithful Car, Sam

Yes, I am one of "those" people who name inanimate objects. Usually it happens when I am frustrated with said object or extremely grateful for the object. In the case of Sam, however, I was on my way to work (very different job from what I'm doing now) before 7am and it just struck me that my car felt like its name was Sam. Sometimes Sam is female in nature, sometimes it's male. It doesn't really matter, truth be told. Sam seems to fit it very well.

The main reason I am posting this second entry for the week [don't expect it, as I'm surprised I can keep up with one post a week at the moment] is that it is time to say "Good bye" to Sam. We are trading him/her in for a new car for my husband. I get his current car, which my daughter and I have finally dubbed Joe (another unisex name, of course). It's a little hard on my daughter right now. She has known Sam literally all her life. We got him [please forgive me if I switch gender terms; I get tired of "it" and Sam is androgynous] less than 2 months before our daughter was born. While Sam did not get nearly as much wear and tear as the average car my mom drove--Mom does not like flying and she has kids on both coasts now, so she tends to drive A LOT--he has certainly been there for us in many situations. The farthest we've driven her is to New York (Long Island area) from Melbourne (Orlando area) and back. She's also taken a few trips from one end of Florida (the panhandle) to the other (down by West Palm). She's never broken down and I've only had 2 (maybe 3) flats with her, as far as I can remember. There was one instance in which I drove Sam on worn brakes to the point that they literally fell off, but he was back with us within 24 hours. When my husband was in his car accident in 2007 (that was a hand-me-down mini van we did not have long enough to name), Sam faithfully chauffeured everyone to work and school and everywhere in between until we procured Joe. I have pushed Sam many times, sometimes out of ignorance or a busy schedule, sometimes because I needed to wait another week (or another month) before my paycheck was enough to get his oil changed and/or rotate his tires. Any time gas prices rose more than 7 cents I would wonder how long I could run Sam with the windows down and no A/C in order to stretch my gas budget for the month. And Sam kept chugging along. As I said, she never broke down on me. She always seemed to have at least enough fuel to make it to a preferred gas station. I was only in 1.5 fender benders with her. The first one was reported, but the other guy's vehicle suffered damage while Sam was untouched because he bumped into the spare tire on the back. The 1/2 was a quick incident in which a mom behind me wasn't paying attention as we were driving out of the drop-off lane at my daughter's school and didn't hit her brakes in time after I stopped at the stop sign. That was a no-harm-no-foul incident that didn't get reported because I didn't see the need to do so.

Just some of the many things that rode in Sam

When we lived in Melbourne, Florida, Sam was the only car we had. I was working two jobs (at 3 sites), eventually three (at 4 sites), while my husband finished up his master's degree. Since our apartment was across the street from the college and my jobs were 45 to 90 minutes away, depending on the campus at which I was teaching on any given day, Sam became "my" car. He was originally purchased with my husband in mind. My husband is a full foot taller than me, so the car had to have plenty of leg and head room. However, I found that I didn't need to adjust too much for me to fit in Sam. The more I drove her, the more we tended to synch together. She suffered through my temper tantrums--my road rage never got to the homicidal level, but it did lead to a lot of "colorful" language--and my lead foot. She handled my impulsive turns and my quick braking. There were times when minor things malfunctioned. I went a week or two without air conditioning and power windows & door locks because of some weird electrical issue. The inside light in the middle of the roof has been out for at least 6 years. The CD player didn't always work, but that's what my tape (yes, Sam has a cassette deck!) adapter for the iPod is for. Yet, nothing major ever let us down--no engine or transmission failure and IF we ever had a dead battery, it was only once, though there were some close calls.

Sam, our 2002 silver Honda CR-V EX, has seen numerous soccer and softball games and practices. She's brought gifts to many birthday parties and visited friends. She's brought home many gifts and hauled home many purchases. She's carried countless donations and even a few unexpected passengers, inside and out (a lot of frogs and lizards have taken short rides over the years). She's held our daughter in safety and sleeping comfort after a long day of school, work and activities or a long trip to visit friends a couple hours away. Sam has heard hours of singing--good and bad--and absorbed years of memories. He has witnessed many temper tantrums, suffered slammed doors and over-stuffed spaces. He's provided a quiet place for mother-daughter after school talks. He's given me a great place to catch a nap (while parked, of course) during dance classes or practices. Sam has seen my daughter grow from a baby into a young girl who can no longer stand up in his trunk space, even though she still enjoys climbing in back there.

On one level, I know that Sam is "just a machine" and it was inevitable that we should trade her in. I am glad that we can trade her in before she does fall apart. However, on the other hand, Sam has been with us for a very long time. He is one of only a few things that we have had since our daughter was a baby. Sam was (and still is) a very reliable part of our quirky family. We will miss him and I pray that whoever owns her next will come to appreciate Sam as much as we have.

Goodbye, faithful & reliable Sam! You were much appreciated and you will be missed.

May 2012 Squirrel of the Month: Slappy Squirrel

Okay, I know some people pick their "[blank] of the [month/day/week/year] at the beginning of said time frame. However, I wanted to pick it toward the end of the month. I will most likely--if I can remember--try to keep it around the 28th of the month, as all months have a 28th. So, it's time to build upon my earlier "Squirrels" post.

Image borrowed from http://webspace.webring.com/people/wd/danichg/0063.jpg. I do try to post my own original pictures when I have them. Of course, given that this particular image has also been "borrowed" from the original copyright owners, I think I might be forgiven for sharing in this case....

 

For the Month of May 2012 I highlight Slappy Squirrel from the 1990s cartoon series Animaniacs (and a brief appearance on Pinky & the Brain, as well as the Animaniacs movie Wacko's Wish). Slappy, voiced by Sherri Stoner, is an old bitter spinster aunt to Skippy (he may be highlighted in another month, so stay tuned). She likes her naps--always valuable to anyone at any age--and suffers no fools. She does care for Skippy, just in her own way. She shows us that 1) you're never too old to be funny and 2) one-liners never go out of style. Anyone who can revive the fast-paced bullet puns from the bygone era of comedy (think Abbot & Costello or Martin & Lewis) and pull it off in squirrel form deserves their own pedestal. So, thank you, Slappy Squirrel, for teaching another generation of kids that it's okay to be funny AND smart, that sometimes a well-placed slap can bring you back to reality, that there are many ways to care for your loved ones outside the expected conventions, and that sometimes an explosion is just the sort of solution a problem needs. Oh, and thank you for reminding us that naps are awesome. :-)

The Wonders of YouTube

I know, I know, everyone and their grandmother knows all about YouTube. It has become an everyday household world like Google and Facebook. There are many reasons why YouTube is a valuable resource, beyond its entertainment value. There are many reasons why some people consider YouTube a work of evil. This is about positivity, so I'll focus on the good points, specifically two points: education value and nostalgia value.

In one of the courses I teach my students have to create a personality profile on a fictional psychological professional. Characters such as Dr. Ben Sobel from Analyze This and Analyze That are fair game. They just have to have a psychology degree and, preferably, be "working" in some psychology-related field. That's not too hard to do, since there are over 50 divisions of the American Psychological Association, representing thousands of career opportunities. Recently, one of my groups [waiting to the last minute, of course] discovered that they could not obtain their source material (i.e. the original movies in which their character appeared) and I did not have a copy. So, I did a quick search on YouTube for the [character] + [movie] and found several clips from the films in which their character appeared. They will hopefully be able to observe enough of the character's behavior to put together a decent personality profile and it will probably end up saving time in the long run since they won't have to watch the entire movie, just the main clips with their character. I will admit, though, that I hope more of my students will plan their projects better (I give them the entire semester to work on it) and not have to resort to this, but I am glad that YouTube is there as a last resort so I don't have to fail anyone.

Also in the teaching category, while I do try to show The Simpsons [see previous post] in my classes as often as possible, sometimes I can find a quick, shorter video on YouTube that illustrates one of our topics more quickly with a similar entertainment value. One of the two videos I've used most frequently is a clip from "A Bat Divided" (Batman the Brave and the Bold) showing Batman split into the three parts of Freud's personality--id (slacker eating nachos), ego (logical science), superego (raging crime fighter). The other clip I like to use is a short segment from Robot Chicken involving a giraffe progressing through Kubler-Ross's five stages of dying--denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The ideas stick in my students' minds so that all I have to do when we review for a test is mention the clips and all the information comes flooding back to them.

On the nostalgia front, raise your hand if you are a child of the 80s/90s. I am. I, like many others of my generation, grew up with a lot of great cartoons. Do you remember Tiny Toons, Anamaniacs, or Freekazoid? I know a lot of the old shows we watched as kids have been released on DVD and I'm glad because I can relieve my childhood while sharing them with my daughter. Sadly, many studios--Warner Brothers, especially!--have not gotten around to releasing their shows to DVD, Netflix, or syndication. But I was lucky enough to find clips from these and other shows on YouTube. Now my daughter understands a little bit about my weirdness and she loves the shows just as much as I did. Sure, sometimes you have to sift through a lot of detritus to find the treasure, but the nuggets found are worth it.

What do you use YouTube for, mostly?

The Simpsons

The Simpsons has been running so long for a myriad of good reasons. The storytelling is great and multileveled, which makes re-watching episodes a joy instead of a nuisance. The characters have developed quite a lot over the years, while still maintaining the core of their personalities, much as a real human being would. The only difference is that they don't actually age. If they did age, Bart or Lisa (the timing of their births is a little weird and hard to pin down exactly) would be my age. I think one of the success secrets of the show is the acknowledgements of the fans that they slip in every now and then--referencing past episodes in later ones, openly questioning things as a fan would ("Which Springfield?!" "Wait, if Marge is 34 and Bart is 10, then she didn't have him right after high school!" "'I thought you were dead.' 'No, I've just been gone for a while.'"). It's a geeky show with a main stream appeal. The Simpsons is the first family show we shared with our daughter and she's just as hooked as we are.

What appeals to me the most, however, is the fact that I can use the show to illustrate concepts in my classroom. There is at least one episode for every major topic in psychology. Stress and coping have several episodes ("Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala[annoyed grunt]cious", "Hurricane Neddy", "Make Room for Lisa" are just a few I use in my classroom). There are many that concern therapy and mental disorders (e.g. "Stark Raving Dad", "There's No Disgrace Like Home", "Fear of Flying"). I have found episodes that are appropriate when discussing intelligence, critical thinking, work and team development, vocation selection, parenting, morality, compliance, conformity, obedience, cults, mob rule, hypnosis, drugs and hallucinations, sexuality, gender issues....The list goes on and on. I'm pretty sure that I could design an entire psychology course centering around The Simpsons and still get the point across to my students. In fact, I hope to do just that some day, when I'm not too busy working on my pet research project or teaching classes/grading papers. Sadly [or maybe, since this is an optimistic blog, luckily], only the first 14 seasons (and season 20) are out on DVD at the moment, and some of the more recent episodes fit in to some topics better than older ones. Yet, I still try to incorporate an episode in my class whenever I can. It breaks up the monotony of lecturing. Infusing humor into a class also helps my students see a lighter side to these sometimes heavier subjects.

Perhaps the show works so well as a teaching tool because it doesn't try too hard. I'm sure the writers did not design the episodes to work hand-in-hand with my lectures. They just naturally fell into place that way. I mention many other shows in my class and many characters, books, movies, etc., as illustrations of the topics, but nothing is used more often than The Simpsons. It's just endured for so long for so many good reasons. I would not mind it sticking around for another 20 years, as long as the quality of the storytelling stays at the same level it has since the beginning.

Squirrels

 Yes, I am thankful for squirrels. Perhaps it's my strange experiences, perhaps it's just the friends I've gathered over the years. It's certainly affected by Pixar's Up, but that was just more fodder for the joys of squirrels (and before you argue with me, I know there were no actual squirrels in Up, but the lines forever cemented them as a part of my life).

I'm willing to bet that anyone reading this post has some kind of story to tell or can think of a squirrel they've come across at some point in their lives. I'm going to relate a couple of semi-rambling stories of my own, in no particular order, just to show you (and me, really) how much I've been influenced by squirrels. This list is nowhere near comprehensive and, much like the squirrel and the attribute I identify with most, it is relatively random and not overtly organized. That, by the way, is what I love most about squirrels and the idea of a squirrel. They jump all over the place in no apparent pattern. They skitter quickly and then sit and relax, only to take off in a new direction once again. And they are not always looking for food. Sometimes they just wander for the sake of doing something. This, by the way, is what my mind is like. Being a mental nomad means my mind has a tendency to wander around, sometimes returning to an earlier thought, sometimes venturing way out into the unknown for no particular reason, sometimes just relaxing long enough to find energy to take a 37-degree turn and wander off again. So, if you can handle it, let the wandering squirrel tales begin (and feel free to share your own squirrel tale in the comments).

Many college campuses are populated by squirrels. I don't like to think of them as rodents, even though they technically are. They are certainly fascinating to watch. The first college I attended was UNT in Denton, TX. It was there that I formed my first real friendships. I'm extremely introverted, not attractive (fat automatically means I'm ugly based on my personal experiences and the way I was treated by others), and occasionally overly verbose, so it's no surprise that I didn't have too many friends before I turned 16. Oh, yeah, I went to UNT as a junior in high school. It was quite an experience to be away from home for the first time, especially since my family was all I really had. I talked to kids in school, but after school the only ones I had were my family. That, by the way, is how I determine whether or not someone ends up in the friend category versus the acquaintance department--if I only interact with you in one type of situation, then you're an acquaintance, but if we interact outside of work/church/whatever, then you might be moved into the friend realm. Getting back to UNT...I wasn't the only high school student who skipped those last two years of traditional high school for an opportunity to start college early. TAMS (Texas Academy of Math & Science) was designed for that purpose. My graduating TAMS class had about 200 of us. I ended up befriending a small handful. I guess it's a lot easier to make friends when your fall-back (my family for me) is hundreds of miles away. Okay, okay, I'm getting to the squirrels, I promise. Anyway, even with friends I still managed to take random moments to watch the squirrels on campus darting around doing their squirrelly things. Sometimes my closest friends noticed me and joined me in watching them--yes, weird people are drawn to other weird people, go figure. David seemed to notice my fascination more than the others. He even used the squirrels to help me get rid of one of my bad  habits. I'm a almost obsessive gum chewer. I have been since I got my braces (ironic, I know) in the 7th grade because I became overly self-conscious and paranoid about bad breath and food stuck in my teeth. Unfortunately, gum doesn't retain it's flavor forever and my jaws get tired after too long, so I used to spit it out into the grass. I was thoughtful enough to avoid sidewalks because I've stepped in many wads myself and didn't want to do that to anyone. However, the grass isn't always the best place either. David tried to convince me that I needed to throw out my gum in a proper receptacle. When I didn't see the harm in what I was doing, he pointed out that a squirrel could inadvertently pick up my discarded gum and choke on it. "Do you want to be responsible for killing that squirrel," he'd say while pointing out one after I spit out my gum. I didn't really believe it would come to that, but I got his point. In fact, that was probably the only New Year's resolution--to dispose of my gum properly--that I've ever kept for any length of time. No, I don't spit my gum out on the ground, any ground. So, thanks David and the UNT squirrels for breaking that nasty habit.

Another squirrel experience at UNT lead to my significant dislike of April Fools Day. [Wait! This is supposed to be a gratitude blog! There's no hate in thankfulness!...I'll get to the silver lining, I promise.] The first time I really had cable was when I went to college. It was never a necessary expense for my parents, and that was probably a good thing. We spent enough time watching TV as kids without 100s of channels. My greatest personal discovery on cable was the Cartoon Network. I happen to have time after classes to watch shows like Johnny Quest (the newer version) and the Cartoon Cartoon offerings [another post for another time, I assure you]. Well, I only had 1 class (or maybe no classes, I honestly can't remember) on April 1st that year and I was looking forward to a relaxing afternoon of watching my favorite shows. I turned on my TV in the morning and I saw a "Screwy Squirrel" cartoon playing. I thought, "This is kinda neat. I get it, it's an April Fool's Day cartoon. How cute." Then the show repeated immediately after finishing. I knew sometimes channels repeated shows back to back, so I though nothing of it. After over an hour (I'm naively optimistic sometimes) of watching the same cartoon--I was doing homework, too, okay!--I started to feel aggravated. I went to lunch with my friends and told them about my day. Of course they laughed at me and explained that I had fallen for an April Fool's joke. My optimism, however, hoped that it would only last the morning and I would be able to at least catch Johnny Quest before my night class--3 hours of physics is easier to sit through when watching cartoons beforehand. Unfortunately, the Screwy Squirrel played right through Johnny and everything else that day. So, I don't care for April Fool's Day. The silver lining is that I am more cautious when people tell me things that are shocking, extreme, or somewhat unbelievable. I am more likely to look for more data before deciding to believe. So, in a weird way, thank you, Screwy Squirrel, for leading me on a path toward critical thinking.

This post is perhaps getting too long, so I shall try to wrap it up with just a few more points about the influence of squirrels in my life. For one thing, the picture above was taken on the campus where I am currently employed as I was on my way to my office. I saw this little guy munching on something and I just had a moment in which I felt compelled to stop and see what he was doing. He was munching on a large mushroom by the edge of the sidewalk. I stopped to snap a picture, he (or she) almost ran away, but proceeded when he noticed I wasn't going to chase after him. It turned into one of those days that I just took my time with things and decided to stress less about my always growing to-do list. While I spent my Star Wars day working the entire time and not getting to the fun I had planned, at least I was able to accomplish my work without frustration or anger. Thanks squirrel!

I use "squirrel" often in my class, too. Remember in Up every time Dug or the other dogs were distracted. They would say "Squirrel!" and look away, then come right back to whatever they were doing before the interruption. I do the same in my classroom. When we get off topic I will say "squirrel" and then redirect the discussion back to the point. Squirrel moments are nice in class because it breaks up the monotony--even fascinating subjects like psychology can have long lecture moments. I think it helps my students express their thoughts, also, if I allow a few squirrel thoughts to run wild in the classroom. When too many are set loose, we just reel them in and move forward. It lightens the mood and they can see that I am a human being, as well.

Okay, rambling is over for the moment. I'm putting my squirrelly mind to another task. But, I always have squirrels around me to keep me on my toes and looking for new or rediscovered things to interest me. Perhaps I can share more squirrel tales, perhaps I'll forget. But I bet you can think of your own squirrel stories now.