STEVEN
HARPER PIZIKS
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An
Intermittent Web Log about Writing, Science Fiction, Fantasy,
Autism, Adoption, Harps, and Sundry Other Topics
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November 25, 2005: Our
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day brought freezing cold and blowing snow with it.
I slept way, way in--still recovering from camp. I took the pies
out of the freezer to thaw when I got up in preparation for
baking. As a family we spent the morning indoors, though I had to
go to the store for a few things and discovered all kinds of baking
stuff on sale, so I stocked up on stuff for Yule. Drove back
carefully because the roads were covered in ice, and no salt trucks in
sight.
When I got back, I found two big pieces missing from the blueberry pie
crusts. Mackie had grabbed a handful of crust from each pie and
eaten them. I was furious. I had to run back to the store to buy
some crusts to repair them. (No time to make my own.) But
this was eventually done and the blueberry pies went into the oven,
taking the last of our frozen blueberry crop with them.
At last we bundled everyone into the car to drive over to Uncle Paul
and Aunt Kristi's house. The rest of my family was there, which
was great--I wasn't sure if my sister was going to make it or not,
since she lives far up north.
The children were shooed into the basement rec room. Poor Brie
was the only female in a roomful of boys and periodically came upstairs
for air. However, the children all played together wonderfully, and we
didn't have to referee a single fight. (!) I see this as no
small feat when you put six boys in a room with a single video game
system.
Dinner was delicious, with some amazingly tender, juicy turkey.
The pies were well-received as well, especially by Sasha.
:) After supper we talked and played Balderdash, just as we did
last year. I forget who won, though it wasn't me. Heh.
On the way home, Sasha announced that he had a new favorite food:
pie. He thought a moment, then said that his favorite American
foods also included hamburgers, french fries, chicken, Coke, Sprite,
Fanta and that his favorite people in America were Daddy, Mamma, Aran,
Maksim, Grandma, Granny, and a long list of others.
"You do know what he's doing," I said to Kala. "He's listing what
he's thankful for, all without realizing it."
Once home, we rushed into the house to get out of the wind.
Whooo, it was cold!
November 24, 2005: My Favorite Simile
My GET FUZZY calendar recently turned up the strip that
contains one of my favorite similes. Rob says to Bucky, "You ran
by my door faster than a French border guard with track shoes and a
coupon for cigarettes."
I =still= laugh.
November 23, 2005: A Thanksgiving
Blessing
Several years ago, Kala and I knew a Witch named Lady
Serenity, a plump, jolly woman with a catchy sense of humor. Her
way of being thankful, she once told us, was to recognize that she
lived in abundance, with more than what she needed.
One day at a gathering, Kala and I decided to do a town run and we
asked Serenity if she needed anything. "Soap," she said.
"I'm out of soap."
At the store, we came across a huge display of soap on sale dirt cheap.
Whimsically, we loaded up over a dozen bars. Back at the camp, we
arranged them on a platter and paraded solemnly into Serenity's
campsite to present them to her.
"May you always live in abundance," we said, to laughter and applause
from her camp-mates. Serenity accepted them with gleeful abandon.
The next day, Serenity came to visit us and said, "I thought about you
this morning while I was naked."
As a result of all this, we now have our favorite blessing: "May you
always have enough. May you always live in abundance!"
Absolutely appropriate for this time of year. So:
May you always have enough. May
you always live in abundance!
November 23, 2005: An Evening
With Snow
Today I slugged through school, doing the minimum. Too brain-dead
for much more (though I had to run a full-blown, regular class for my
bratty freshmen, since the majority of them are unable to handle any
kind of down time).
And it began to snow. And snow and snow and snow. My drive
home was slow and careful. After supper, I wanted nothing more
than to conk out on the couch with a book or some TV, but Sasha begged
and begged me to play outside with him in the snow. Since he
would never have another first snow in America, I finally agreed.
Mackie and Aran wanted to play to, so I decided to haul them and Sam
down to the meadow so Sam could get some exercise and there is more
room to play. Bundled everyone into the car and drove carefully to the
field, whereupon they all exploded out of the car.
We had snowball fights, tried to build a snowman (the snow wasn't
sticky enough), played tag, played Fox and Geese, played Follow the
Leader, played Red Light, Green Light, and played a game from Ukraine
that Sasha taught us. There was much running and shouting and
wrestling as well.
Eventually Mack got cold and tired, so we came home. The boys
munched on popcorn while I drank hot cocoa (which none of the brood
wanted). Now I'm
even =more= tired!
November 22, 2005: Long Days at
Camp
Late Sunday morning I loaded up the car with sleeping bag,
pillow, clothing, snacks, and Corey for a camping trip. In late
November. Dearie, dearie me.
Leadership camp is an attempt at Whereever Schools to teach 50
students how to break boundaries and become better communicators.
(The idea is that these students will spread what they've
learned.) This is done by having the students and the trainers
participate in several large-group activities interspersed with
"communication training sessions" in small groups.
It's exhausting work.
We arrived at Nameless High School with all our camping stuff on
Sunday. Once
everyone had arrived, we loaded all the equipment into various cars and
vans, got the students onto the bus, and drove to the Whereever
Outdoor Educational Center. We weren't tent camping at this time
of year, of course--the Center has lots of indoor facilities and a
two-floor bunkhouse, which we divided into male and female floors.
Once everyone was settled in, we met in a large group for lunch
(nothing, including eating, begins until every single person is present
in order to foment group cohesiveness), then did some large-group
icebreakers. We also broke into small groups for our first
communication training sessions.
The small group sessions are always with the same group of students and
the same male/female team of trainers. Trainers are drawn from
the staff of Nameless High School, and they included teachers,
counselors,
custodians, and para-professionals. We went over the format of
the sessions with the students, then brainstormed a list of topics to
discuss, chose one, and ran with it. For confidentiality reasons,
I can't give specifics on what went on in the group, though I can say
that the group was tentative at first, but very quickly grew into a
cohesive, open group.
More large group activities followed, with a second communication
training session after supper. Then two people from Oakland
Community College came in to give a swing dance lesson as a social
event. The students were hesitant, even scornful, early on, but
then got into it.
That ended at 10:30, and everyone had free time until the 11:30
bedtime. The night was clear and crisp, if a bit chilly, and a large
group went down to the volleyball court to play in the semi-darkness
afforded by the outdoor lights. I brough Corey down and played
for an audience that grew steadily larger and larger. I even sang
some ballads and told "The Theft of Thor's Hammer" and "Dragon Lovers,"
both of which the students seemed to like quite a lot.
Once everyone was in bed, it was lights out at midnight. The
trainers slept in an adjoining bunk room, meaning we weren't in the
students, but I still didn't get much sleep. Different place,
strange noises, etc.
Monday dawned dark and early. Once everyone was up and
breakfasted, we split into groups to go through various teamwork,
puzzle, and trust activities. The most dramatic of these was the
trust fall. One person climbs up onto a head-high platform while
the rest of the participants form themselves into a human net.
The climber turns his or her back on the others and falls backward off
the platform into their arms. Everyone in the group did it,
though one of the trainers had to overcome considerable fear to do
so. (No one was =required= to do it, of course.) I'm always
completely fearless when it comes to these things, so I did it without
a tremor.
The weird thing was the pair of women who led us through these
activities. We walked out into a place in the woods and met them
there. They took us through the activities, returned us to the
meeting spot, said some final words, and bid us farewell. Then
they walked into the woods and disappeared.
"So where did they go?" one of the students asked, mystified. We
never did find out.
The rest of the day was large group activities broken up by meals and
many, many communication training sessions that continued even after
supper. Late in the evening we had a bonfire. When I
arrived there, it turned out that several students had been asking for
me. News of my harping and storytelling had spread, and they
wanted more. I was willing to oblige despite my
exhaustion--performing would relieve some of the stress.
Another trainer was telling a strange-but-true ghost story when I
arrived at the fire, and when he finished, I stepped in and asked, "Do
you want another story?"
This was met with a huge "YES!" So I told "How Humanity Got the
Gift of Fire, or Why the Eagle No Longer Has To Hunt For Lunch" (my own
twisted version of Prometheus stealing fire). They liked it quite
a lot and immediately demanded another. I sang "Mother Berchte's
Coming To Town," then told the story that goes with. They liked
that a lot, too.
A bit of drizzle sifted down just as the story ended, and most of the
crowd dispersed back to the bunkhouse. I and a few others stayed,
and the drizzle stopped a few minutes later. We had the fire to
ourselves!
Yesterday when I was harping, I met a student named E--- who was
fascinated by Corey and who did a fair job of playing him. E---
had his guitar with him, and at the bonfire, we played around with each
other. That's always fun, especially around a campfire. We
weren't able to do it for long, though--Corey can't keep his tune when
his front is warm from a fire and his rear is cold from the air.
At last it was time for bed.
After breakfast the next day, the students had some free time while we
trainers had a meeting, after which we did wrap-up activities in both
small and large groups. The bus arrived to bring everyone back to
Nameless High School just after lunch, and we went our separate
ways. An
exhausting but productive three days.
I arrived home just before the boys got out of school. I was, in
fact, unloading the car when I heard a thin, "Daddy!" float down the
sidewalk. I looked up and saw Sasha running toward me from the
bus stop, thrilled that I was home at last.
The evening was spent in unpacking and catching up on e-mail. I
also watched SUPERNATURAL and SMALLVILLE on the couch with Sasha
snuggled up to my left side and Mackie snuggled up to my right.
(I had to cover Mackie's eyes a few times during SUPERNATURAL.)
They refused to budge. It was very cute.
November 19, 2005: Sasha,
Hamburgers, and Harry Potter
When I got home from school on Friday, I asked Sasha and
Aran if they wanted to go see HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF
FIRE. Aran said he didn't want to because "Harry Potter is too
scary." Sasha was reluctant because he was playing City of
Heroes. I finally announced I was leaving soon and anyone who
wanted to go with me could. Sasha shut down the game and got his
coat. It was just him and me.
First stop was at a fast-food place for hamburgers. Sasha was, as
usual, chattering away at a mile a minute in a mixture of Ukrainian and
English. When he paused for breath, I said to him, "Sasha, do you like
America?"
Sasha knows enough English to understand this question. He said,
"Yeah. I like."
"But America is scary," I observed. =Scary= is another word Sasha
knows, and he nodded.
"America scary, yes," he said, gesturing at the window and the country
beyond it.
"When Mama and I went to Ukraine," I said, "Ukraine was scary."
Sasha's eyes widened in disbelief at this ridiculous statement.
"No," he said.
"Oh yes," I said. "Ukraine very scary. No talk. No
understand. No nothing. Very scary for Mama and me."
He thought this was hilarious, and he burst out laughing. "No!"
he gasped.
"Yes," I said. "But we go to Ukraine so you and Maksim come
home. With Mama and me. We want you in our family."
"No, no," he said, shaking his head.
"Yes. We go to Ukraine just to bring you home. You and
Maksim."
He looked thoughtful after that, and we went on eating.
That done, we went to the movie theater. It was 4:40, plenty of
time before the 5:00 show listed on the theater's web site.
Except when we arrived, the time boards said a 4:30 show was playing
now and the next show started at 7:00. What?? Fortunately,
I was able to snag tickets from the electronic kiosk. Sasha and I
bolted down the hallways and entered the theater just as the previews
were ending and the movie began. Whew!
The movie was wonderful, if a bit rushed. (Though it would be
impossible for it =not= to be so.) Sasha is very touchy-feely
after many years of emotional neglect, and he spent most of the movie
snuggled up against me, pretending to be more afraid than he was during
the scary scenes so he'd have an excuse. :) I don't know
how well he was able to follow the story, but he seemed to enjoy
himself.
We got home in plenty of time for him to dive back into computer games
for the evening. :)
November 19, 2005: Sasha and
Ukraine
At his last counseling session (I wasn't there but Kala
was), Sasha said he was unhappy with America and that he had decided he
should go back to Ukraine and live with his sisters.
Anya gently told him, "Sasha, if you went back to Ukraine, you couldn't
live with your sisters. You would have to go back to the
Internat."'
At this, Sasha burst into tears and fled the room. Anya went
after him and calmed him down, then told Kala that this is fairly
common among older adoptees. When things get frustrating in the
new country, they think back to their native land and see it as a place
where things may not have been great, but at least you knew the
language and the rules.
November 19, 2005: Sasha's
School, continued
Sasha told his classmates and his teachers that he was
going to attend a new school. I think to his surprise, his
classmates reacted with dismay. "Don't leave, Sasha! We like
having you. You can't go!" His teachers were also dismayed
and Kala received several phone messages from them.
When Sasha came home that day, he announced that he didn't want to go
to a different school after all. Sasha and Kala visited his
potential new school the day after that, and Sasha continued to
maintain he didn't want to leave his current school. So now we're
in limbo with it. We'll have to discuss it with him through
Anya. Fortunately, we don't have to decide right away. It's not
like the new school called and said, "We have a slot open now, but if
you don't take it, we have to give it to someone else." The
school has openings that have remained unfilled, so we have time to
decide pros and cons.
November 19, 2005: Thanksgiving
Prep
My brother is hosting Thanksgiving this year, which is
nice for us (he's much closer than my mother), but rather sucks for my
mother and sister (who live far away). Oh well. For one
year, everyone can put up with the drive. :)
I'm supposed to bring dessert. However, I'm leaving for the
leadership camp thing tomorrow and won't get back until late
Tuesday. I doubt very much that I'll be up to much on Wednesday
as a result, so the baking had to be done today.
Pies, of course, are the order of the day for Thanksgiving. I did
cheat a little by buying the crusts (too much else going on today to
make them myself), and baked two pumpkin pies. They smelled
wonderful, and I put them into the freezer. I also assembled two
blueberry pies =without= baking them (using frozen blueberries from our
stash) and froze them as well. Just have to pop them into the
oven Wednesday evening and everything'll be perfect! We're good to go!
November 17, 2005: Fifteen Years
Fifteen years ago today, Kala and I got married.
Whoa. Fifteen years!
November 11, 2005: Newspaper
Interview
I was interviewed a couple of weeks ago. The reporter also
visited my class one day to see what we were up to and to interview a
few students. A photographer stopped in as well. The story
appeared in yesterday's OAKLAND PRESS as the lead story in the Features
section (big picture above the fold of me teaching), and it was very
well done. The pictures were great, too. Unfortunately, I can't
post a link--the OP isn't on-line except to paying subscribers.
The story was about the media literacy class--what it's about, what the
students learn, and so on.
I got congratulations and positive comments all day. J---, our
principal, sent out a school-wide e-mail alerting everyone to it and
thanking me publicly for my professionalism and dedication. The
media lit class thought it was massively cool, too. I laminated a
copy and posted on my room's bulletin board so they could all see.
We had a staff meeting after school that day, and J--- made a special
mention of the article and how fine it was to see one of Nameless High
School's
teachers praised in the newspaper. The article was mentioned on
this morning's announcements (which are done by students on
close-circuit TV like a news broadcast), complete with a picture of it.
I'm living on my fifteen minutes of fame. :)
November 10, 2005: Sasha's School
I swore I would never do this. It never occurred to me there
would be situations where I might even consider it. Yet here we
are.
Sasha's starting to open up to his counselor some more. I was
startled to realize that Sasha didn't know we were aware of why he was
removed from his mother's home. On the other hand, no one had
told him we knew. I kind of figured he would have
realized Kala and I would have had the court documents, but no one
seems to have told him about how the adoption actually worked.
Anyway, I digress.
Sasha has been having trouble at school. Some of the other
students (not ones from his class) have been bullying him, calling him
names and making fun of the fact that he doesn't say much. Sasha
is small for his age and unable to defend himself verbally--and he is
unable to tell a teacher (or us) when a kid is bothering him. The
names of the other kids are foreign to him, difficult to remember and
pronounce, compounding the problem. At parent-teacher
conferences, his teachers said they're aware of the problem and are
working on helping, but of course bullies are masters at hiding it from
teachers, and Sasha, largely defenseless, is an easy target.
Sasha also struggles with the curriculum, of course. He says his
math teacher keeps giving him problems that are too easy (though he
won't do them to show he knows how) and the other classes are bad for
him because he doesn't understand what's going on. There are
exceptions (art class), but school is an overall bad place for him, and
he dreads going every day.
Anya suggested we put him in a different school and recommended one in
Ypsilanti. Anya's daughter, who speaks Russian, is a student there, as
do some other students who speak Russian.
It's a charter school.
I hate the idea of charter schools. They drain resources from the
public schools. The state's philosophy on them seems to be, "The public
schools are doing poorly, so instead of giving them more money to help
them cope, let's open competition schools instead and take money =away=
from the public ones." (In Michigan, the money follows the
student, so when a student enrolls in a charter school, the public
schools lose money.)
However, Anya thinks Sasha would do better in a smaller school, where
more--or even all--the students will get to know him and the staff can
keep a better eye on him. The charter schools in this area are
also a little more more European in structure, so Sasha might feel more
at home there.
We did some research. There are actually three charter schools in
our area, and all three are chartered under the same
organization. The one that Anya's daughter attends doesn't have
any openings for sixth grade and they have a long waiting list with a
lottery. The second school has openings, and the third has a
short waiting list.
Kala contacted the third school and is in the process of enrolling him
there. They have a dress code (dark slacks, white shirt, tie for
boys), so he'll need some more clothes, and there are no buses, so we
(and by "we" I mean "Kala") will have to drive him every day.
He'll start the Monday after Thanksgiving. His last day at the
current middle school will be Thursday.
We'll see how this works out . . .
November 9, 2005: UWG, With
Guest
Monday night we had our usual Untitled Writers Group
meeting, but with a difference--author and editor Esther Friesner
attended. She's visiting us folk in Ann Arbor to while away the
time between World Fantasy and WindyCon.
We had a full slate, actually. Our maximum number of submissions
for a given evening is four (manuscripts are handed out at the previous
meeting so people can read at their leisure), but last time a member
who was being critiqued missed the meeting, so we had five. We
also had an extra critiquer, so each MS had eight readers instead of
seven. Five manuscripts + eight readers = a lot of time.
I suggested that we start critiques at 7:30 instead of 7:45, and that
people arrive at the meeting site at 7:00 if they wanted to
socialize. Our host Jonathan was emenable, so that worked out.
As a final change, I suggested we put a temporary moratorium on our
custom of buying time. Each critiquer in our group is allotted
three minutes to speak. To fund the snacks, we charge fifty cents
per minute to critiquers who go over. We put a temporary halt to this
practice to save time.
I got there at 7:15, and the mini party was in full swing. Much
delicious food was laid out, including blackberry pie and chocolate
souffle. At 7:30 we cracked the whip and got down to
critiquing. Esther was initially reluctant to participate in the
critiques, but Sarah persuaded her to do it, and she acquitted herself
well. :)
The critiquing lasted (with two breaks) until 9:45 or so--pretty good
for forty critique speeches!
November 8, 2005: World Fantasy
My, it's been a bit since I've posted. Terribly,
terribly busy. Running like a chicken with missing head.
First chance to post.
So, World Fantasy Con. Fellow UWGer Anne Harris and I rose at a
horrifyingly early hour on Friday (4:30 for me) for the drive to
Madison. We had planned
to share the driving, but it turned out Anne hadn't driven a stick
shift in years. She tried it in a gas station parking lot about
halfway across Michigan,but it didn't work well, so I stayed in
the drivers seat.
We made excellent time--I drive like the wind--and arrived in Madison
without incident. Came across Laura Anne Gilman in the bar almost
immediately and spent
a great deal of time catching up. (I haven't seen her in almost
two years.) Laura Anne had lined up glasses of single malt and
was trying to convert everyone around her. I dutifully tried
them, but found most of them awful and only one vaguely
palatable. I'm a complete Philistine when it comes to alcohol,
I'm afraid. James put in an appearance as well.
Dinner was spent with the Seton Hill mafia (Jen, Maria, Mike, and me,
though more SH people were there). Afterward was some shopping on
State Street, a bit of party-hopping, and a fairly early bedtime.
In the morning I met Lucienne, Ye Agente. Most people do tea and
sympathy, but we did waffles and strategy. Afterward, the two of
us did a quick tour of the farmer's market that surrounds the capitol
building in Madison and spent extensive time at the excellent toy store
nearby. I bought remote control robots for Sasha and Aran for
Christmas (they're both robot crazy right now) and a bird flashlight
for Mackie. It rotates through different colors when you press
the tail, and he'll love it.
I spent the rest of the day doing . . . not much. I wasn't on any
programming and the day was fairly nice for November, so UWGer Karen
Everson and I went shopping down State Street. I enabled her into
buying a beautiful peackock shawl. I also bought Al Franken's new
book TRUTH as a Christmas present for Kala. (Don't tell her.)
I was forced to go into economy mode for this con, though. The
room was expensive (since I got a leftover that wasn't eligible for the
con discount) and right now, we're still deep in debt from the
adoption. I ended up eating at the con suite for the remainder of
the convention --the money I would have spent on food made up for the
hotel room. When a large group of friends went to an upscale
restaurant for supper on Saturday, I bowed out, much as I would have
enjoyed the company. Forty or fifty dollars will buy a lot of
holiday presents for the boys.
So I had lunch at the con suite (some nice sandwiches were available)
and then ran into Laura Anne, Sarah, and Karen. They hadn't eaten
lunch yet and were going hunting for some. I tagged along, and we
ended up at a bakery/coffee house, where the ladies dined on various
breads, rolls, and cheeses with tea. As the only male present, I
sat in the corner of the booth, my back against a stack of pillows, and
declared myself a pasha surrounded by my women, to everyone's general .
. . amusement.
We had some wonderful conversation. Somehow we got to talking
about both food and authors and I had an inspiration. "How would
you describe a given author's writing in food terms?" I asked.
We got almost two hours' conversation out of it. Mark Twain
(catfish which must be prepared well to be appreciated, served with
unexpectedly spicy tartar sauce), Terry Pratchett (creamed
herring--people who don't like it don't understand why afficianados
keep going back for more), Isaac Asimov (a buffet with a dozen
different tables and where most of the guests only eat from one
section), and many others. We even braved our own writing.
At 2:30 a worker came over and gently told us they actually close at
two. Oh dear! We quickly vacated, but not before Sarah
snabbed a bag of croissants (deeply discounted because the bakery was
closing for the day).
Forgot to mention the mass book signing! We authors all showed up
at 8:00 on Friday, collected a name sign, and found seats at tables in
an enormous ballroom. Sarah, Anne, and I clumped together, and I was
surprised to sign several books. Sarah and Anne did, too.
Saturday evening, as I said, I scrounged supper in the con suite, then
wandered around looking for something to do. Everyone was out to
dinner somewhere, so there wasn't much going. At last I ran into
Lucienne, who was also wondering where everyone was. We hied into
the bar for drinks (well, Cokes and mineral water, anyway) and vowed to
make our =own= Circle of Cool People. Within a few minutes,
another couple joined us (I forget their names), and then Esther and
Sarah came into the bar, and we had quite the Crowd of Coolness.
Ha!
We continued some of the conversation in Sarah's room (Esther did her
rendition of "The Lizard Washing Carol"), and when that petered out, I
did some party hopping and heard about an open-mike event down in one
of the conference rooms. Ellen Klages made up a song called
"Shadow Dirt" on the fly and John Haldeman sang a funny song about the
woes of the slush pile. I told "Mother Berchte," which was very
well received.
Conked out in my room just after midnight and woke up at 5:30
completely unable to get back to sleep. At 6:30 I gave up, rose,
showered, and packed. I decided to do a small splurge and look
for a reasonable place to get a hot breakfast (the hotel's was too
expensive for what you got), and found absolutely nothing around the
hotel. So I had bagels in the con suite.
Anne had a panel that morning, but we met in the lobby beforehand to
load up the car. I said various good-byes while Anne put in her
appearance, and then we drove home without major incident.
Very tired, though.
November 3, 2005: Conferences
Yesterday was Parent-Teacher Conferences, and it's a
horrible, long day. I taught all day, then went down to my table
in the gym, where I talked to parents all afternnon and evening.
Because the district delays the comp day for it, I had to teach all day
today, too.
November 1, 2005: Halloween and
Samhain
Hmmmm . . .
A bit of sadness. Our coven has pretty much evaporated.
After ten years (a billion in coven years), I think we're done.
It was the children that killed it, of course. It's really hard
to meet regularly when all of us have children under the age of
thirteen. So at the moment, Wyrd Roots is a family tradition
("fam-trad") coven.
We started with Halloween. Sasha discovered we had a Superman
costume from last year (when Aran wore it) and he really, really wanted
to wear it instead of the ninja costume, so we let him. This
meant we had Superman and Batman in a team-up! Mackie was very
cute in his Thomas the Tank Engine outfit, too.
Earlier in the day, Sasha indicated that he didn't really like the idea
of going trick-or-treat because he didn't speak English and he wasn't
at all certain about the whole thing. I told him all he had to
say was "trick-or-treat" and "thank you," both of which he could handle
perfectly well.
I also used the translator program on-line to tell him something about
Samhain:
Today is a sacred day for our
family. Other people do not celebrate in this day, as we
celebrate in this day. Today is New Year for our family. We
think about people which died last year. We talk also, that
ghosts can return tonight. We give food to the ghosts, and we
kindle candles for ghosts. We take the statue of goddess in a
house for the winter. We put on black clothes. Your mother
and I are happy, because you can join in with us.
Sasha didn't know quite what to make of this, either. I think he
was nervous that the whole Halloween thing was some sort of put-on and
he'd look stupid.
After supper, my mother-in-law arrived. She was going to hand out
candy at our house so both Kala and I could take the boys out
trick-or-treating, and she had a clown costume with her. Aran
excitedly dashed into his room to get his costume on, and Sasha began
to understand that yes, people really =do= dress up. He got into
his Superman costume, getting excited himself. A small bobble came up
when we realized we only had two plastic pumpkins for carrying candy,
but I found a red tote bag and asked Sasha if he would use that and let
Mackie carry the pumpkin. Sasha refused but Mackie seemed okay
with the bag, so it was all right. We lit the jack-o-lanterns on
the porch and off we went.
The weather was perfect--a hint of chill so you didn't get hot wearing
a costume but not cold.
At the driveway of the first house, Sasha looked at me and said, "I
don't know, Pop. I don't know. No, no." But Aran
trotted right up to the door, knocked firmly, and shouted
"Trick-or-treat!" Our neighbor came out to distribute
candy. The change in Sasha was instantaneous. He sprinted
to the second house and bellowed, "Trick-or-treat!"
Not long after this, Sasha realized Mackie's tote bag would hold a lot
more candy than the measely pumpkin, so he readily traded. Ah,
the motivating power of greed.
And so we went around the neighborhood. Aran and Mack tired out
before too long, so Kala took them home and I continued onward with
Sasha. Sasha wanted to go by himself, but I wouldn't let
him. Not only did he not yet understand all the rules about which
houses you could knock at, I wasn't going to risk him getting lost in
the dark neighborhood when he didn't speak enough English to ask for
help.
Sasha eventually returned home with a heavy, heavy bag. He and
Aran finished the evening by standing on the porch to hand out our
candy. A light rain started right after we ran out of candy,
ending another year's trick-or-treat.
After trick-or-treat time, my mother-in-law went home and we readied
the house for Samhain. I realized that although Sasha (and Mack)
may not entirely understand what was going on, understanding wasn't
necessary--only participation. Understanding could come later.
I baked cinnamon apples, scooped out pomegranate seeds, and poured
cider. My mother-in-law had brought over a giant cookie shaped like a
pumpkin, so we added that to the table. I had wanted to light up
the outdoor altar with candles so we could all go out and bring the
Goddess statue in, but it was still raining. Instead, I put the
statue near the sliding glass door to the back yard and put lit candles
at her feet. I set Aran and Sasha to putting candles all around
the house while Kala set the table, including a sixth place close to
the open sliding door.
Everyone went around the house and lit all the candles. Then we
shut off the electric lights. Mackie is scared of the dark, but
he seemed fine with all the candle light. Out near the back door,
the boys lit incense sticks which we stuck into the ground near the
Goddess statue. We sat down at the table, toasted the sixth seat,
and I served up the apples, seeds, cookie, and cider, including the
sixth plate. After everyone had eaten, we brought the Goddess
inside and placed her on the indoor altar. Kala removed the God
statues, wrapped them in black cloth, and placed them under the altar,
where they'll stay until Yule. Then we went back upstairs and
blew the candles out.
As the house grew darker and darker, Mack become more and more
nervous. I offered to pick him up, and he clung to me like a
nervous monkey. Downstairs we gathered around the altar and
extinguished the candles one by one until the entire house was
dark. Mackie had a death grip around my neck, but he didn't
cry. After a moment in darkness, we brought the lights back on,
and the Samhain rituals were ended for another year.
October 30, 2005: Weekend,
With Boys
This weekend the weather was quintessential autumn.
The trees splashed colors against a perfectly blue sky, the air was
crisp, the sun was bright. Sam the Dog hadn't gotten a decent walk in
days because I've been so exhausted, so I told Kala that I was taking
him out. Mackie wanted to come, too, so I decided to take him
along.
The nature area with the lovely trails, streams, and ponds where I used
to walk Sam has been destroyed for a soul-less housing development, so
now I take him back to the place where I used to take him--the field
not far from our old house. It's a meadow-y place with a few
trees scattered around. The ruins of a nursing home, now covered with
weeds, stand in the middle but are easily avoided.
Sam ran around doing doggie things and I realized it was the first time
I'd been alone with Mack for quite some time. We played with the
frisbee and looked at the airplanes Mackie pointed out. (We live
twenty minutes from Detroit Metro Airport, so there are always lots of
contrails in the sky.) We chased after Sam and explored piles of
dirt. Mack liked it quite a lot and so did I.
Back home it was lunchtime, and then I took Aran and Sasha to see
WALLACE AND GROMIT. It turned out to be a good choice because a
lot of the movie is done without dialogue, making it easy for Sasha to
follow. It was also great fun in and of itself, with a whole lot
of jokes for the adults in the audience (the signs were especially
good--MIDDLE AGE SPREAD on a jar of food and MAY CONTAIN NUTS on a box
used as a hasty piece of clothing, for starters) and a long hommage to
King Kong at the end.
I also wrote quite a lot that afternoon and rounded out the day with
CITY OF VILLAINS. :)
October 30, 2005: Difficult Week
This week has been difficult. On Tuesdays I have
training sessions for the leadership camp, and they go until
4:30. Thursdays I have a standing appointment in Ann Arbor and
have to leave right after school. That runs until 4:00.
Sandwiched in the middle I have Wednesday, when I can get home from
work at 3:00 or 3:30, a reasonable hour for someone who leaves the
house at 6:15 in the morning. Except this week I ended up having
to deal with a major legal issue involving my classroom and some of my
students. I can't go into details here for obvious reasons,
except to say that I'm not in any kind of trouble. However, I
still have to deal with the paperwork and the meetings. The upshot was
that on Wednesday I had to stay until 4:15.
Friday was the end of the marking period, and because my prep time and
after-school time was eaten up by the issue mentioned above, I was
behind on grading and recording, so I had to stay late =again.=
Very tired of being tired.
October 28, 2005: George Takei
So George Takei is gay. How interesting!
http://www.afterelton.com/people/2005/10/takei.html
October 25, 2005: Sasha's Counselor Again
This morning Sasha knew he was supposed to see his counselor Anya
today, and he made it clear that he hated the idea. He became
pouty and stubborn. Kala bundled him into the car after school today,
however, and hauled him over to Jewish Family Services.
Things went better than expected, however. He talked more with
Anya this time around, and she was able to explain more about upcoming
holidays to him and he talked a little about school. So maybe
he's getting used to the idea of talking to her.
October 25, 2005: Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks died the day before yesterday. Her life
and the power of her deeds, of course, are discussed at great length
elsewhere. I'm just wondering:
--Will the funeral be in Detroit or Montgomery? (Or will there be
a service in both places?)
--When will it be? (Detroit area residents like myself want to
know.)
--Will the President attend? (He will if he knows what's good for
him, but W isn't famous for knowing this.)
Operating on the assumption that the answer to question three is "yes,"
I love to think about:
--how the pre-bus Rosa Parks would have responded if anyone had told
her, "You will live to a ripe old age and the President of the United
States will attend your funeral"; and
--how the various citizens of Montgomery would have reacted if they had
been told (and somehow made to believe) that the President would attend
the funeral of the woman who started the bus strike.
Food for thought . . .
[later]
For the record, they =are= having services in both places.
Montgomery, AL first, then her body will be flown to Detroit for a
funeral on November 2. Parks will lie in state from six a.m. to
midnight and will be buried in Detroit.
October 24, 2005: Mackie Weirdness
This morning at 4:15 I woke to thumping footsteps out in
the hallway. I got up to investigate and found Mackie running up
and down the hallway with no shirt on. He saw me, sprinted to the
living room, and jumped on the couch.
"What are you doing up?" I demanded.
"Want watch TV!" he said.
"You need to go back to bed," I said. "It's too early for TV."
"No." And he pulled the afghan over himself.
I (and possibly Mack) knew that if I picked him up and put him bodily
back in bed, he would scream, cry, and wake up the entire house.
"No TV," I said. "You can sleep on the couch."
And I went back to bed. Sometimes ignoring the behavior is the
best way to stop it.
Mackie has also taken to hoarding food in his room. Although this
is a common behavior for orphans, it's unusual for Mackie. He's a
little on the young side for it, and he also just started it last
week. Most kids who hoard food, AFAIK, start right away, not
three months after they arrive in their new homes. We've found
jars of peanuts, bags of crackers, and entire bottles of juice in his
room. He'll get over this eventually, of course, but it's
annoying right now. One time he spilled all the peanuts on his
bed and it took forever to clean up.
October 23, 2005: Carving and
Crisp
Yesterday we went to a farmer's market and bought pumpkins.
Maksim refused to choose anything except a pie pumpkin, but Sasha and
Aran chose some
nice-sized ones. I got one, too, and bought a peck of apples as
well.
Today I made apple crisp, which we had for dessert after a dinner of
tacos. Aran and Maksim liked the crisp quite a lot, but Sasha didn't
much care for it. He wanted Oreos, the little traitor.
Then we carved jack o' lanterns. They don't do this in Ukraine,
of course, and the boys found it rather novel. We put them out on
the front porch with candles.
October 20, 2005: Little House
Yesterday I was in the bookstore when I saw they had Laura Wilder's
"Little House" books on sale--buy two, get a third free. I had
been looking for something
to interest Aran in reading (I'm secretly hoping to lead him into Harry
Potter), and it occurred to me that these books might do it. So I
bought the first six.
Yesterday evening, I sat down with him and read the first chapter of
LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS. He was a little restless at first
("We're going to stop after one chapter, okay?"), but then settled into
it right around the description of hog butchering time. The bear
and deer hunting bits also interested him quite a lot. ("We can
read two chapters, if you want," he said.)
I finished the first chapter, and then Aran read part of the second
chapter aloud to me. After a couple pages, he stopped and said,
"Can I look at this book myself?" And I agreed that he could, of
course.
We'll see if we can keep this up. We haven't been able to find
books that interest him now that he's outgrown Junie B. Jones.
October 19, 2005: Children's Television
We're doing children's TV in media literacy. For
this, I tape a selection of non-PBS kid shows. We watch them in
class and dissect both the shows and the commercials. Questions
we consider include:
--What age group is this show meant to appeal to and how do you know?
--What elements in the show appeal to that age group?
--How does the show try to hold a child's attention?
--What sales techniques do the commercials use to sell their products?
I taped four shows and we watched two today. The first was JOHNNY
TEST, a WB show about a kid who's supposed to be 10 but sounds and acts
like a teenager (since kids are usually interested in someone who's a
little older than they are). His twin older sisters are mad
scientists who have altered Johnny's dog so he can talk, and Johnny is
always getting himself and his sisters and his dog into trouble.
The show set our teeth on edge. The class sighed with relief when
it ended. The show rushes along in a series of sharp jerks, and all
scene changes are accompanied by a WHOOSH! noise. The animation
reminds me of THE POWERPUFF GIRLS cranked up on amphetamines. No
shot lasts for more than a second or two, and
loud rock music plays almost continuously in the background. Fart
jokes and other bathroom humor are given prime play. It was
awful, from beginning to end. I could see little kids coming away
from it, shaking, jittery, and over-stimulated. Just awful!
The second show was LOONYTUNES UNLEASHED, a really weird-ass WB show
(and I don't mean "weird-ass" in a good way). A meteor hits the
earth in the future, transforming all the people in the world into
animal versions of themselves. The Loony Tunes characters all
become superheroes. Jack Rabbit (Bugs Bunny)
is the leader. Wile E. Coyote is a gadgeteer. Tasmanian
Devil is a dumb, strongman type. Road Runner is a
speedster. And so on.
In the episode we watched, a company starts selling cute little
fluffball bio-pets that mutate into rampaging monsters if you feed them
chocolate. (Where have we seen that before?) The Toons have
to stop it, of course.
The show can't seem to decide whether it's comedy or adventure.
There isn't quite enough humor to make the utter ridiculous setup work
and the adventure is too serious for the silly setting. One of my
students called it "the whoring of classic characters." It was
definitely dreadful.
Tomorrow: BATMAN and POKEMON.
October 18, 2005: Costumes
Sunday afternoon we went costume shopping. There's a
warehouse-type store not far from us that opens every year for the
month of October, and it's great fun to shop there. Fantasy
Attic, Ann Arbor's best costume store and our usual choice, has
unfortunately become Too Expensive for our current family.
Sasha and Mack were utterly fascinated by the place. The inside
is all done in black, with acres of costumes, makeup, decorations,
animated statues, and other Halloween stuff. The gigantic
gargoyle near the front occasionally bursts into life, complete with
fog and rumbling music. This scared the bejabbers out of Mackie,
but Sasha and Aran loved it.
We warned Sasha beforehand that he would get one (1) costume.
There would be no going back, and if he changed his mind later, it was
tough cookies. On the way to the store, he wanted to be a
pirate. When he arrived he wanted to be a swordsman or
knight. He eventually settled on a ninja.
Aran, meanwhile, glommed onto a Batman outfit, and Mackie jumped up and
down when he saw a Thomas the Tank Engine costume. (He doesn't
watch the show, but he loves trains.) We also let the kids
explore the store for quite some time.
At home, costumes were donned, and role-playing commenced. Aran
teased me out into the back yard, where I became a super-villain.
Mackie was Aran's sidekick--it turned out his Batman costume had an
extra mask in it. The game went on for quite some time.
Aran asking to play let's pretend. Amazing how it comes naturally
to him now after all those years of teaching him how to do it.
October 18, 2005: Triplets
Ray and Kelly, friends of Kala's, have triplets. Ray
and Kelly are originally from Michigan but live in Arizona. Kelly
had her 20-year high school reunion, and she brought the whole family
for an extended stay "back home."
Kala, in a fit of insanity, volunteered to babysit the triplets (who
are seven) while Ray and Kelly attended the reunion. This would
involve the kids staying overnight.
"Goodness," I said pleasantly when she announced this fact, "you're
going to be busy."
"You are too," she said.
"True," I sighed with regret. "I'm under deadline and will be
writing this weekend."
So Kala roped her mother into coming over, too.
The visit actually went very well. They arrived a little early
(ten instead of noon) on Saturday, and after some initial visiting,
everyone except me headed out to the Henry Ford Museum.
Whoa! House to myself for the first time in . . a long,
long time. I spent the time at my computer.
Three hours later, the group returned. The trip had been highly
successful. All six kids enjoyed it very much and everyone was
well-behaved.
Supper came next (lasagna), followed by Ray and Kelly's
departure. I Melva arrived, and I vanished back into my office,
hard at work. The six kids played together, watched videos, drew
pictures, and did the usual kid stuff until bedtime.
In the morning, Ray and Kelly arrived at 8:30 and we all went out to
breakfast at the Bomber, a local diner we like quite a lot.
Again, the kids all behaved very well. ("Whose kids are these?"
Kelly demanded.)
And then the visiting family left. Overall a painless, if busy,
weekend.
October 12, 2005: My First Sale
Lordy, lordy. I just found out my first professional
sale is on line. It's at:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/library/1981_July_August/Mother_s_Children__I__a_Hare_Raising_Kid_
I was thirteen, and I got $100.
October 13, 2005: An Explanation
People often ask me how I manage to teach full time, write
novels, teach long-distance grad school, and raise three kids all at
once. Lynn Johnson of FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE provides the
answer. Michael's life is mine:
http://www.fborfw.com/strip_fix/archives/001426.php
October 12, 2005: Sex and
Evolution
This is a very interesting site, I think. Much fun
to read:
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/cat_human_mating.html
Some of the conclusions are a little farfetched (such as drawing a
conclusion between testicle size in various primates and the rate of
female infidelity within the species), but quite a lot of it is much
fun.
The blogger missed something, though. He quotes a study that
seems to indicate that women with high IQs are less likely to marry,
while men with high IQs are more likely to marry, then goes on to offer
several possibilities about why this is:
>>One possible cause of this result is that many smarter women
find it
>>beneath them to be wives. Or perhaps they are too choosy in
wanting higher
>>status men, whereas the men are not as choosy about status of
females and
>>hence can find a suitable mate from a much larger pool of
women. Men are
>>more driven to seek physical beauty and youth as a result of
selective
>>pressures to seek fertile mates. Whereas natural selection
favored a
>>female preference for higher status men as better providers.
He forgot the most obvious possibility: that men avoid marrying women
who are smarter than they are.
October 11, 2005: Sasha and the
Tutor
Yesterday Sasha was supposed to meet with his counselor, but our
insurance company hasn't approved the visits yet, so he met with his
tutor instead. I ended up
taking him.
Sasha did =not= want to go. He was pouty and stubborn and grabbed
his school binder with bad grace. When we arrived at Jewish
Family Services, he refused to get out of the car. I finally got
him into the building and met his tutor, Andre. (Kala and Sasha
had already met him once, briefly.) We moved into a little
classroom/conference room with slightly battered furntiure, a white
board, and a world map on the wall. Notes on English verb
conjugation covered the board. Push pins were stuck all over the
map, I think to indicate where various students came from.
I asked Andre first if he would translate a couple of things for
me. The first was to explain to Sasha what Halloween was about,
but he didn't want to listen. He folded his arms and turned his
back in his chair. I also asked Andre to ask Sasha what he might
like for Christmas, or at least to think about it. Sasha met this
with equal stoniness.
When I got out his notebook and opened it (he was supposed to have math
homework), I found nothing in it but a lot of blank paper. I
asked Sasha about this, but
he denied having any homework to do. This belied what his
teachers were saying, and I wasn't happy with him.
When we met with Sasha' ESL coordinator last week, she asked if we
could get a diagnostic test for math and reading done on Sasha.
So I asked Andre if Family Services had one. He left and came
back a few minutes later with a test.
Sasha refused to do it. He put his head down on the table and
sat. Andre and I tried to coach him into doing it, but he
wouldn't budge. We left him alone in the room for several minutes
to see if he would try when we weren't standing over him, but when we
came back, he hadn't even picked up the pencil. He kept repeating
"I don't know. I don't know" over and over, though I know very
well he can do some math because I've seen him do it.
At last I started showing him fingers. The first problem was 3+3=
, so I held up three fingers. "Skilka?" I asked.
"Three," he said reluctantly.
I put up three fingers from my other hand. "Skilka?"
"Three."
I put both hands together. "Skilka?"
"Six," he said.
I pointed to "six" among the multiple choice answers. "So you
=do= know the answer."
With more pushing and cajoling on my part, Sasha did the first set of
problems.
Except he got almost all of them wrong.
He was fine with single-digit math, but double-digit addition and
subtraction was beyond him. He had some idea of what was
involved, but his answers were based on guesswork and estimation.
I can't say I'm surprised. Before the Internat, school for Sasha
was nothing more than a place to get food and maybe wash up a
little. I didn't imagine school at the Internat taught him much,
and I'm seeing that I was right.
So now we have the problem of getting Sasha caught up.
October 10. 2005: Sasha vs. the
Tub
It came to our attention that Sasha wasn't getting clean
when he took a bath. That yummy corn chip smell was the first
clue. Not only was he not bathing well, he wasn't changing his
underclothes regularly. The last time she did laundry, Kala
noticed he only had two pairs of socks in it.
Now I supervise him in the tub, make sure he washes everything.
His hair is actually a little problematic--it's very thick and heavy,
meaning water and shampoo don't penetrate all the way unless you're
careful that it does. Sasha usually isn't. He wants to give
himself a cursory rinse-off in a shower, or dive in and out of a bath,
meaning he wasn't getting clean. Not sure if this is a
Ukrainian thing or a twelve-year-old thing. I don't remember
refusing to change my socks and underwear when I was twelve, though.
I suppose this is one problem teenagehood will cure. Watch this
space for future complaints that Sasha's bathing empties the hot water
heater and that he takes an hour in the bathroom.
October 10, 2005: Running the
House
I had a cold earlier this week (yet another one), and Kala
caught it. But she seemed to have gotten it much worse. She
called me at work today, asking me to come home right after school
because she felt awful and couldn't deal with kids. I arranged
for a sixth-hour sub and came home early.
Made supper for the brood, cleaned up, did some Seton Hill paperwork,
and then somehow ended up outside on the back lawn in a five-way
wrestling match with me, Sasha, Aran, Mack, and Sam. The
testosterone levels went off the scale!
The boys still fight amongst themselves, but they're learning to play
together better. Aran is making bigger advances in this arena
every day. In many ways, this is hardest on him--he has to learn to be
a brother, something Sasha and Mack already know how to do.
October 9, 2005: Weekend Away
So as I said, the boys spent the weekend at Uncle Paul and
Aunt Kristi's. Their son Caleb was all for it. Their daughter
Brie took one look at the prospect of having three =more= boys in the
house for the weekend and fled screaming to a friend's house for the
night.
Paul and Kristi took the brood to a petting zoo and to one of those
family arcade places. You know the type--where you run around
playing Whack-a-Mole type games for tickets you redeem for novelty
prizes, pausing only long enough to eat junk food. Paul said
Sasha's eyes went wide when he saw the place, then he gave Paul a hug
and said, "I love you!"
Ah, the keys to a child's heart.
They stayed up late, of course. Kristi reported that she put all
four boys in Caleb's room and put a movie in the DVD player.
Mackie fell asleep while Aran, Sasha, and Caleb watched THE MUPPETS
TREASURE ISLAND.
In the morning (late morning--my god, we both got to sleep in), we
called over to make sure everything was okay, then drove up to collect
the brood. Mackie didn't freak or cry once, apparently. This
possibility was our main worry. Not sure if he's just adapted
very well and not worried about abandonment or if Sasha and Aran's
presence kept him happy.
October 9, 2005: A Chosen One
Every year, the Whereever high schools send about fifty
students to a leadership camp for four days (two of which are over a
weekend). The camp is supposed to teach them leadership skills
and tolerance (usually of other races, but since Nameless High School
has so very,
very few racial minorities, I suspect it'll focus on stuff like
tolerence toward sexual orientation, avoiding clique behavior,
etc.). The idea is that these students will return from the camp
and spread the ideas and behaviors to others among the student body.
Naturally, they need people to facilitate, and teachers are about the
handiest. Every year they ask who wants to go, and every year the
counseling department gets a long list of interested people. For
although the idea of spending four days with a group of adolescents in
a campground makes many mortals shudder, most high school teachers (me
included) =like= working with teenagers.
I've put my name on the "interested" list several times but have never
been selected to go. Part of the problem is that they prefer a
mix of age, race, and gender, and white males in their 30s aren't
exactly in short supply. This year, however, one of the teachers in
charge of the camp zipped into my room and put out his hand to shake.
"Just wanted to come down and congratulate you," he said.
At first I thought he was talking about the adoption, but most people
don't offer to shake hands at that, so I said, "For what?"
"We want you to come to leadership camp," he said, and added, "I want
to hear you play the harp."
We laughed about that, and he went on his way.
So now I'm going to spend four days in November at a campground with 50
teenagers. Go me!
October 8, 2005: Unexpected
Silence
Um . . . sure. Okay.
My brother and my sister-in-law had offered to have Aran and Sasha over
for Saturday night. We jumped on that offer right quick! We
were a little wary of Sasha's reactions to the idea, but he got excited
when we explained it to him, so that was cool. Mack, however, got
upset that he wasn't going. Very upset. We told him that he
would visit Aunt Sarah, Uncle Tim, and Alexander later, but it didn't
pacify him.
When Paul and Kristi arrived to pick the kids up, however, Paul said,
"And where's Maksim's stuff?"
Eh? He had been planning to take all three of them. Kristi
had been thinking like we'd been, that it'd be just Aran and Sasha, but
Paul said he wanted all three of them, and Kristi was up for it.
I asked Mackie if he wanted to go, and he did.
"Ni Mama, ni Papa," I said. "Ce parasho?" No Mommy, no
Daddy. Is that okay?
He nodded firmly. So we threw together an overnight bag for him,
put the child seat in Paul's SUV, and off they all went.
Whoa. It's so =quiet= around here. You can hear the clocks
tick.
October 8, 2005: Unexpected Treat
I have in my Communication I class three exchange
students, one from Japan, one from France, and one from Korea. It
makes for an interesting time when speeches come around.
Today the Korean student gave me a ziplock bag with six pieces of sushi
in it, though she told me quite firmly that it wasn't sushi--it was kim
bop (I think that's what she said--she speaks very quietly). The
Japanese, she said, took the idea of packing raw fish in rice and
wrapping it in seaweed from the Koreans. So this was the
=original= stuff.
It was quite cold when she gave it to me, so I thanked her and put it
into the staff refrigerator.
Because of my earlier bad experience with raw fish (one that lead to
Ryder's Syndrome), I was wary. But the lunch schedule had been
shifted around that day because of the assembly, and I ended upt eating
lunch at 10:00 in the morning. By the end of the school day, I
was very hungry. So I ate the stuff.
It was very good. :)
October 8, 2005: Long-Ass Friday
This past week has been spirit week, leading into
homecoming. Nameless High School has had a homecoming week ever
since it
opened, despite the fact that this is the first year they've actually
had alumni who might come home. It always amuses me to see the
startled looks on my students faces when I tell them that Homecoming is
supposed to have nothing whatsoever to do with them--it's for the
people who have already graduated.
Anyway, Friday we had shortened classes to accomodate a pep
assembly. I hate pep assemblies, me. Why does the football
team get all this attention? Why doesn't the robotics team get a pep
assembly? Or the drama club? Or any other group that
actually deals with ACADEMICS? So I wasn't in a great mood to
begin with.
Then, during fifth hour, the fire alarm went off. I narrowed my
eyes. We'd just had a fire drill two days ago, and we had no more
scheduled until spring. I was pretty sure this was the result of
some stupid piss-head playing a prank during homecoming week.
Experience at Some School taught me that whenever the fire alarm goes
off
unexpectedly, I should grab my coat, wallet, cell phone, and keys, just
in case we aren't allowed back into the building. I did all this
as my kids filed out of the room and outdoors. The weather was
cold and breezy. We stood outside, far away from the building,
for about twenty minutes--a further indication that it wasn't a fire
drill.
Another teacher confirmed this while we were standing out there.
She said that the adminstrators had received a theat saying that
something in the auditorium would explode. Nothing did, of
course, and we ended up back inside.
This effectively wiped out fifth hour. My sixth hour is the same
subject, so it also destroyed that class, since I need to keep the
classes together. By day's end, I was very tired.
The police are working on tracking down the hoaxster, and they're very
good at it. The ones at Some School were all caught. Part
of
the problem, you see, is that high school students who do this sort of
thing almost never do it alone. It's never just A. It's A
and B and C. In order to look cool, one of them invariably brags
to a friend (swearing him to absolute secrecy), who tells another
friend, who tells two more, and so on. Eventually it reaches the
ears of someone who knows that (gasp!) it's =wrong= to make bomb
threats, and they let the authorities know who it is.
It'll be fun to watch them fry.
October 6, 2005: Disturbing
Marriage
This story greatly disturbs me:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/po/20051006/co_po/pakistanmenmarrygetdeaththreats
Two men were "married" during the past week in a tribal ceremony in
Pakistan, according to international news reports.
The union -- between a 42-year-old Afghan refugee and a 16-year-old
tribesman in the Khyber region bordering Afghanistan -- is Pakistan's
first same-sex marriage,
the BBC reported.
People of the same sex are not permitted to marry, however, in the
conservative Muslim country. Homosexuality is also punishable under the
country's sodomy laws, with possible prison sentences ranging
from two years to life.
An Urdu-language newspaper reported that the older man in the pair paid
the 16-year-old's impoverished parents for permission to marry their
son. The sum was reportedly 40,000 rupees (almost $700).
Tribal leaders in the region told the pair to flee or be killed,
because they broke tribal "values and ethics."
***
I'm not disturbed at the idea of same-sex marriage here. What
disturbs me is that this guy bought a teenager from his parents.
I doubt very much that love--or any serious attachment--was
involved. On top of it all, the tribe members are upset not
because a 42-year-old man bought himself a teenage husband, a boy young
enough be his son. They're upset because it's a same-sex
relationship. If a teenage girl had been involved, no one would
over there would be upset.
This is wrong in so many ways.
October 5, 2005: Maksim and Ronald Reagan
Maksim has something in common with Ronald Reagan--the idea that
ketchup is a vegetable.
No foolin'. Mackie puts ketchup on his plate and then eats it
with a spoon. Blarrgghh!!
October 4, 2005: Russian Finger Food
Kala went to the grocery store Sasha's counselor told us
about, and there she bought, among other things, a whole bunch of
frozen meat dumplings. They were small, just big enough to be a
forkful. Kala steamed them up and baked some tater tots.
She also put fresh grape tomaotes and baby carrot sticks on the
table. It was an evening of finger food!
The dumplings were very, very good, and terribly pernicious. You
eat "just one more" because they're so small, you see. Sasha
loved them. We'll definitely get these again.
October 4, 2005: Another Evening Out
My mother came down last Saturday so Kala and I could go
out for an evening, mostly so we could see SERENITY. Mom showed
up in the late afternoon, so we
visited until it was time for us to head out the door.
We started off by going to Miki for Japanese food. I had a bento
box and ate many tasty things that I had no name for. Kala had
tempura shrimp and we shared sushi for an appetizer. Yum!
Then we went to see SERENITY. I liked it except for one thing
which I won't mention here for fear of spoiling it. The movie was
nicely self-contained, too, so if you haven't seen the TV show FIREFLY,
you can still see SERENITY with no trouble. In fact, definitely
go see it.
And then home.
My mother stayed the night, and Mackie actually slept in until 8:30,
for a wonder! I made a big pancake breakfast for everyone, and
then my mother zipped off to visit my brother.
A fine weekend.
October 1, 2005: Today's Best
Line
On NPR: "A new poll shows that two-thirds of Americans
believe they didn't evolve. The other third agrees with them."
October 1, 2005: Who Gives a
Flying . . .
. . . fuck?
http://www.freep.com/news/mich/fanatic1e_20051001.htm
The whole school rivalry thing--such a massive, idiotic waste of time.
"Oook oook--U of M better than MSU! We crush you!"
"Oook oook! Will not!"
"Oook ook! Will too!"
Some people need to find a =real= hobby.
September 28, 2005: Married, With Corpses
On Sunday I took Aran and Sasha to see THE CORPSE BRIDE,
figuring it would be more silly than scary or gruesome. Far as
that goes, it was fine for both of them to see.
As for me, I found it decent enough. A fun view for the
animation, but not spectacular. The songs were cute but not
memorable. The humor was amusing but not hilarious.
Burton went, I think, a little too far in showing the world of dead as
bright and colorful while the world of the living was dull and
dreary. It was =too= dreary, in fact, and it was often hard to
see what was going on because everything was so monochromatic. We
got the message, Tim--you can turn down the loudspeaker.
Aran and Sasha qute liked it. As I said, a nice little film, but
nothing I'm panting to see again or rent on DVD.
September 28, 2005:
Eeeeeeyyyaahhhh!
Oh no! Nononononononononono! [sound of much
weeping]
I noticed yesterday that Sasha is showing signs of hair on his upper
lip. Ohhhhhhhhhh man. I thought we'd have a few months at
last, maybe even a year! He can't be hitting puberty yet.
Nooooooo! Not yet not yet not yet!
I shall go quiver in the corner now.
September 27, 2005: Step Thirty-Eight: Michigan Court
Michigan residents who adopt from a foreign country need
to file for a certificated of delayed birth registration, which is
equivalent to having a Michigan birth certificate. This is very
handy, since it puts a Michigan birth certificate on file with the
county, meaning if the original is lost, you can get another one.
This also gives the boys Michigan paperwork, which various offices and
officials will more easily accept. (Yeah, I =know= their
Ukrainian birth certificates are perfectly valid and legal, but try
convincing a bureaucrat who's never heard of Ukraine. Nothing
makes pencil-pushers more nervous than an unfamiliar piece of paper.)
To get these certificates, we had to make an appointment with a clerk
of the county court, and the appointment was today. I threw my
sixth hour out of my room the moment the bell rang and sprinted for the
parking lot--the appointment was for 3:30, and it was in downtown Ann
Arbor. All concerned children and adults must be present.
Kala had already picked the boys up from school and was heading down to
the courthouse to meet me.
After a perfunctory security check at the main door, I was admitted to
the courthouse proper. It's a weird mishmash--elegant marble
walls clash with grimy tile floors and fluorescent lights. Kala
and the troops arrived and we headed for the elevators. Mack
almost freaked--I had forgotten he's scared to death of elevators and
has to be held by Mama or Daddy when he's in one.
On the third floor, we found the appropriate office, alerted the people
on the other side of the high counter that we had arrived (a bit early,
as it happened), and sat down to wait. This was interesting,
since the boys had come in straight from school and had nothing to
entertain themselves with. Juggling three bored, active boys in a
courthouse waiting room--challenging at best. But at last the
clerk ushered all five of us into a tiny conference room.
We signed two forms. The very nice clerk took Mack and Sasha's
citizenship papers, their Ukrainian birth certificates, the adoption
decree, and my and Kala's IDs, left to photocopy them, and returned
everything to us. We wrote a check--$150 per kid for the filing
fee (ohhhh man--we thought this kind of stuff was over with) and
another $40 per kid to get copies of their new birth certificates.
And then we left.
Despite getting socked for more money, it was nice to deal with
efficient, polite officials who were actually in their offices when
they were supposed to be and who got the job done with minimal fuss!
September 26, 2005: JCC
The series of phone calls Kala made about a counselor for
Sasha led her to the Jewish Community Center. They have on staff
and on call several counselors who speak Russian and/or
Ukrainian. Kala made an appointment with one of the counselors
for today, and since I was home with "just" a cold, I went with.
The building is very much a 70s structure, complete with rock exterior
and raw wood flying buttresses. The interior was crammed with
boxes of foodstuffs--we assume hurricane relief supplies, not the
stereotypical "You're so thin!" thing.
We met with a very nice, plump woman who speaks Russian. The
three of us talked about Sasha's background and what sort of help he
might need. We eventually set up twice-weekly meetings for him in
the evenings. One meeting will be with a counselor, the other
with someone who can help him with school-related issues. The
counselor also gave us some ideas about motivating Sasha at school more.
The counselor we talked to said she was glad to see us getting involved
with this sort of thing so quickly. A lot of people, she said,
don't do this for a couple years. Dealing with Aran, however, has
made us very proactive with this sort of thing.
Mackie, meanwhile, played quietly on the floor with some stuffed
animals. He barely spoke throughout. He wouldn't even make eye
contact with the counselor when she spoke Russian to him. The
counselor noticed this and said that, at another meeting, she could
give us tips and warning signs for "the quiet ones." We laughed a
little at that.
"Mack is just very, very shy with new people," I told her. "He
didn't say a word to us most of the time we visited him in the
orphanage, and we worried that something might be wrong with him.
But the moment we got him to our flat in Kyiv and shut the door behind
us . . . yap yap yap yap yap. He wouldn't stop talking. He
rarely stops talking now."
So we'll see what happens next.
September 26, 2005: Yrrrrrrgghhh!
A cold is making its way through our house. The boys
barely noticed it. Kala slept a few hours and was fine. I was
floored by it. I'm functional, but I decided to stay home today
anyway. Didn't want it to get worse. No energy.
Bleah. I just got over strep and now this.
September 24, 2005: New Bread
We're getting fallish weather. This means the days
are in the seventies and the nights are in the fifties. This
always brings out the farmer in me. Harvest time! Use the
produce! And I end up doing stuff in the kitchen.
Today I bought some sun-dried tomatoes and found a recipe for bread
that uses them. It's in the machine now. This was followed
by cookies, and the dough for them is chilling at the moment.
Later today or tomorrow I'm going to make apple crisp--if the boys will
quit devouring the apples, that is.
September 21, 2005: Sasha and English, Part II
Having posted an entry about Sasha's resilience, we now
have the other side . . .
Sasha is resisting English. He doesn't speak it at home unless
he's forced, and his ELL (English language learner) coordinator says
that he's stubborn and pouty when she asks him to do work. She
also gets the impression that he has some anger issues, which we
already knew. Kala and I had been hoping that once school started
and he was with kids his own age, he'd start =wanting= to learn
English. Sasha's ELL teacher said most kids are eager to learn
English for at least their first year. After that, their enthusiasm
often tapers off. ("I know enough to get by. I don't need to
learn any more.") Sasha is unusual in this regard.
So. Now that we know things aren't really improving, we're moving
into "finding help" mode. We've set up a meeting with Sasha's
teachers to share ideas. Kala
did a whole mess of sniffing around (calling the Ukrainian Community
Center in Warren, posting a "help!" notice on various web bulletin
boards that deal with Ukrainian adoption, etc.) and finally came up
with the name of a counselor in Ann Arbor who speaks
Ukrainian. The counselor also knows someone who helps Ukrainian
kids with homework. Kala's made an appointment with him on Monday
to discuss what Sasha might need and how best to help him.
Meanwhile, I had a talk with Sasha via computer. I told him that
I had talked to his teacher and I was worried about him not learning
English. I told him that he needed to learn English and speak it
more often, and that if he didn't, I would have to start the one-on-one
lessons with him again. (A dire threat couched in kind
terms--Sasha hated the English lessons, even after we got Aran
and Mackie in on them.) The next day, Sasha took great care to
show me some of his English work from school. The subtext was
clear: "See? I'm doing my work! See?"
We'll discuss it with the therapist, of course, but I suspect one thing
we'll do is ask his teacher weekly for an e-mailed report on Sasha's
progress. If the report is good, he can continue using the
computer. If it's shaky or bad, no computer until the following
week. We'll also schedule regular sessions with the
counselor. With some luck and work, this'll help Sasha find his
feet.
September 20, 2005: Oh, Good
It's looking like the final manuscript for the Luna City novel has been
accepted and a check is on the way. Whew!
September 20, 2005: Relience
Sasha is an amazingly resilient kid. He lived a life
of poverty and neglect for the first ten years of his life, then his
father died and everything got worse, then he got yanked into an
orphanage, where he was separated from his baby brother. Then two
strangers who don't speak his language bundle him across the ocean to
America, where he lives in a new house with a new family and attends a
new school.
Through it all, Sasha has remained overall cheerful and happy and
affectionate. The touchiness he showed earlier has improved
vastly in the last few weeks. Kala and I have been watching
carefully for signs of problems and haven't seen any. As I said,
resilient.
September 17, 2005: Eating Out
Yesterday we piled the boys into the car and braved eating out with
them. Kala was tired of Red Robin, though, and wanted to eat at
Applebee's--technically kid-friendly, but not kid-oriented, either.
For some reason, Aran got it into his head that terrible monsters
waited inside the restaurant. Kala asked the greeter if monsters
were allowed at Applebees, and she said, "Certainly not!" But
even that wouldn't calm him down. We got settled in the booth
with Sasha and Maksim, but Aran was growing more and more
agitated. He kept bursting into tears and threatening to start
wailing, like he does when he gets seriously upset.
I took him outside for a walk. After a short time, he said
he wanted to back inside and "find Mama," so we did, and he was fine
after that.
Sasha tried to climb under the table to play with Mack's feet, and
I told him to sit up properly. A bit later, Aran and Sasha
started talking louder and louder, almost shouting, and Kala and I both
hushed them: "It's a restaurant. We talk quietly." Then
there were the obligatory trips to the bathroom, which had to be
arranged with minimal fuss and maximum subtlty. Until the food
came, in fact, it was full-time kid management. It would have
been easier to stay home and order out, but our philosophy is that the
younger kids eat in restaurants, the better they learn how to behave in
them.
We were about halfway through the meal--the boys calmed down
considerably once their orders came--when the older couple at the booth
behind us got up to leave. The man abruptly stopped at our table
and touched my shoulder.
"I just wanted to tell you it was nice to see you control your
children," he said as his wife nodded agreement. "Most people
don't do that."
Startled, I thanked him, and he left with his wife.
Huh. They must have seen a lot of out-of-control families.
:)
September 17, 2005: Writing Burst
On Thursday afternoon, I sat down at my computer and,
after several days of illness, started writing again. I wrote
eight pages in one sitting. Friday I wrote seven more.
Go me!
September 17, 2005: Post-Strep
I stayed home from school Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday
evening was the annual back-to-school night when parents can come in
and meet the teachers,
but I canceled out. Felt bad about that--I haven't missed one of
these in my entire teaching career, but I was sick, so that was that.
Thursday I taught again and ended up spending lots of time trying to
get caught up and do lesson plans for next week. It was a lot of
unsnarling, working out what the sub had or hadn't done--and yelling at
my fifth hour, who had been monsters on Wednesday, according to the sub
report. I don't tolerate my students treating subs with anything
less than angelic behavior, so I'm running fifth hour like a police
state until I'm absent again and the students have a chance to regain
my good graces.
September 13, 2005: Blargh
Yesterday after lunch, I started feeling a little achey,
like the inside of my clothes were burlap rough. Not good.
My fifth hour had an assembly, so I spent it putting together sub
lesson plans in case I was truly getting sick.
By sixth hour, I was feeling really crappy. I set my students to
writing in their journals so I could just sit and I left as soon as I
could get out of the parking lot.
At home, I checked my temperature. 100.3. And my throat was
getting sore. Checked my tonsils with a mirror and a flashlight.
Aw no--little streaks. Called the doctor's office and said I think I
have strep. They luckily had an appointment open in half an hour
that very afternoon. Feeling worse by the moment, I clambered
into the car and drove over.
Yep--strep. Got the scrip for anitbiotics, called the school for
a sub, called Comrade Sarah to let her know she should watch Alexander
carefully. I didn't give him a kiss or anything like that, but I did
carry him several times when we were at the park yesterday.
Mackie, though . . . we'll have to watch him carefully. He kisses
Daddy all the time.
Spent last night not sleeping well, despite lots of medication, and
stayed in bed until well after nine. Today I'm =very= tired and
feeling crappy. I hope I can go in tomorrow. I don't know
what my kids'll do, to tell the truth, if I'm not there.
September 13, 2005: A Day of Boys
Sunday Comrade Sarah needed a babysitter for Alexander while she and
Tim attended a local book festival, and we said she could bring him
over here. There were no tears or tantrums when Mommy and Daddy
left. About an hour later, I decided to take them all to the
park, since it was so nice out. At this announcement, Alexander
burst into tears that Mommy wasn't coming back. Spent a few minutes
reassuring him that Mommy was coming back, that we'd go to the park,
come back, have a snack, and then Mommy would come.
He finally seemed to accept this, and we all went to the park, except
for Mack, who was napping. Sasha wanted to ride his bike down and
meet us there, so I let him.
We all played at the park for about an hour and a half. Alexander
dozed off on one of the benches for a few minutes, then perked up when
we went to a nearby convenience store for juice.
It's weird hearing normal English coming from a child. I'm used
to Sasha's Ukrainian, Mack's mishmash of English and his native tongue,
and Aran's singsong lilt. So when Alexander comes to visit, I
keep expecting him to sound equally odd, and it's a bit startling when
he doesn't.
Thence home for a snack and more exploration of the playroom. I
was making potato soup for supper when Sarah and Tim arrived to pick
him up, and we invited them to supper. We had a big traditional
Sunday family meal, after which the kids went back down into the
playroom while the adults talked around the table.
September 11, 2005: Night Out
Last night Kala's mother came over to take the kids off
our hands so Kala and I could have a night to ourselves, our first
since we tripled the kid quotient in our household.
We were a little worried about how Mack would react. At least one
of us has always been home with him until now. He usually cries
when one of us leaves for somewhere, though this is in large part
because he loves going places in the car and feels left out. So
when Melva arrived, she distracted him and we slipped away. We
later learned that he looked through the living window and saw us
leaving, whereupon he climbed up on the couch and waved. "Bye,
Mama! Bye, Daddy!" No tears at all.
We first went to La Shish for supper and got the sampler platter for
two. It's enough middle-eastern food for four, actually, and we ate
until we could eat no more. Kala had the bag of leftovers in her
hand when we left, but a couple miles up the road, we realized it was
nowhere in the car. We still don't know where it went.
Dang! There were two or three more meals in that thing! But
it was nice to eat in a =quiet= restaurant that doesn't have a kids
menu.
Then we decided to go see a movie. Not much was playing,
though--we're between the summer and fall movie seasons--so we decided
to go see THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
Oh man. Major mistake. Bad, bad movie. It couldn't
decide whether it wanted to be comedy, horror, or BUFFY THE VAMPIRE
SLAYER, and it failed at all three of them. Heath Ledger's
dithering, stammering portrayal of Jakob Grimm made me want to hit
him. Matt Damon mumbled half his lines. The French General
villain character was neither scary nor horrifying. He was just
gross and sometimes grotesque. His Italian lackey was
embarrassingly badly done, both acting-wise and writing-wise.
Most of the writing was uneven and sloppy. The dialogue was often
ridden with cliches. The pacing was uneven. Every time the
brothers went into the woods and the movie started builidng momentum
and getting interesting, they would abruptly stop and go back to the
village. Even the technical side was poor. The makeup
=looked= like makeup. I could easily make out the eyeliner on
most of the male characters, and the female protagonist looked like a
cadaver half the time. They even managed to make Matt Damon look
ugly, and that takes some doing. It was absolutely dreadful.
Ah well. Two more weeks to SERENITY.
We left the stinker and drove to Depot Town, where we got ice cream and
took a nice nocturnal walk down by the river in Frog Island park. When
we got home, the boys were in bed. My MIL stayed the night, and
in the morning, she got up with the boys, so Kala and I were =both=
able to sleep in. A very nice night, even if the movie sucked.
September 11, 2005: Duck Season! Fire!
We have a set of Loony Toons cartoons on DVD. Aran
and Sasha's hands-down favorite is "Wabbit Seasoned," which has the
famous "pronoun trouble" scene. You know the one--where Bugs and Daffy
argue in front of Elmer Fudd about whether it's duck season or rabbit
season. They both think it's hysterical. A true classic.
September 11, 2005: Tears
I don't handle seeing Mack or Sasha cry well. Not
even when the tears are petulant, petty, or uncalled-for. I tell
Mack it's time for bed, he bursts into tears, and I find myself feeling
sorry for him. I tell Sasha that he's played City of Heroes for
two hours already so he can't play anymore today, he cries, and I want
to tell him he can play anyway.I don't, of course. Mack still
goes to bed, Sasha is still banned from the computer. But I still
hate seeing them cry.
Aran cries at the drop of a hat--low pain threshhold, low emotional
threshhold--so it doesn't upset me. Mack and Sasha, though . . .
I guess I still see them as deprived orphans who never got anything,
and I feel bad about witholding something. The image of Mack
crying when we had to leave him at the orphanage is also still hard
with me. I know they also need to learn that they =can't= have
everything. They have the potential to be spoiled, just like any
other children. But my first instinct when they cry is still to
give in.
At least they don't know my mind works this way. Otherwise I'm
sure they'd use it against me. :)
September 10, 2005: Awwww
A few days ago, Sasha had been put to bed. I was
downstairs on the computer when I heard footsteps on the stairs.
It was Sasha, out of bed way past bedtime. I was following him
into the playroom to scold him when he picked up a white teddy bear,
tucked it under his arm, and went back upstairs to bed. He sleeps
with it every night and won't sleep without it.
September 10, 2005: Names
When I was little, my family (and almost everyone else)
called me "Steve." But at school, there was often another Steve
in my class, and to differentiate my teachers often called one of us
"Steve" and the other "Steven." My grandmother and my aunt Lynne
have always called me "Steven." So I was used to hearing both.
When I entered high school and got a job at a fast food place, I
discovered that when someone shouts something from a distance,
you can't make out consonants, only vowel sounds. This means that
the words "meat," "cheese," and "Steve" all sound pretty much the same,
especially in a hot, noisy fast food place. It became really
awkward to turn my head or ask, "What?" every time someone said
"Cheese." So I told everyone to call me "Steven." Since the
fast food place had a policy of having the order taker at the
drive-through state his or her name ("Hi, my name is __________. May I
take your order, please?"), I got used to calling =myself= Steven.
When I started started college, I continued using my full name, and my
new friends there never knew me as Steve, only as Steven.
When I moved to Germany for a year, I discovered the Germans don't
shorten the name "Steven." So for an entire year, everyone I
talked to called me Steven.
Now just about everyone calls me "Steven." Only a handful of
family members shorten my name, but it sounds strange to my ear.
I think they all know no one else calls me "Steve" anymore. Half
the time I have to make myself remember to respond to that name.
I don't think of myself as "Steve" at all.
My sister was always "Beth" when we were growing up, though her full
name is "Bethany." I know my parents wanted a daughter named Beth
and thought about naming her "Elizabeth," but they were afraid people
would call her "Liz" or "Lizzie" instead of "Beth," so they named her
"Bethany."
My sister hardly ever uses her nickname anymore, I think. She
goes by "Bethany" much like I go by "Steven." She's never
actually told me this (rather like I've never actually told various
family members I don't use "Steve" anymore); it's something I've
figured out over time.
My brother Paul, of course, doesn't have to deal with issues
surrounding =his= name. :)
September 6, 2005: My Sister
My sister Bethany
was in the newspaper today:
http://www.cadillacnews.com/articles/2005/09/02/news/news10.txt
Dentist saves gas by riding horse to work
By Sally Barber, Cadillac News
CADILLAC - When gas prices skyrocketed Wednesday, dentist Bethany
Piziks decided enough is enough. Thursday morning she left her
Olds Bravada in the garage and rode her horse to work.
"It felt powerful not to drive today and use gas," she said.
Only kids on a school bus run gave the doctor and her four-legged ride,
Gypsy, a second look as they made their way to the office. But it
wasn't a trip Piziks made to garner attention.
"I'm for alternative transportation, like horses, bikes, walking,
scooters - anything that can save our resources," she said. "I'm really
passionate about that."
Piziks' alternative to the automobile, her 17-year-old quarter horse,
made the four-mile trek in 40 minutes. Her bike gets her to the office
in 15 minutes and the Bravada makes the journey in five minutes.
"We need to find other forms of transportation," she said. "I know it
won't go back to horses, but we have to do something because the gas
won't last forever. If we can do something before it becomes an
emergency, that would be great."
After her morning workout, Gypsy spent the day grazing behind Piziks'
Paluster Street clinic. Patients enjoyed their doctor's "take your
horse to work day." Many paid the horse a visit before leaving. Piziks
seized the interest and opportunity to share her belief that we should
all take personal responsibility for preserving resources.
"I'm doing my part," she said. "If everyone would do just a small
thing, it would make a huge difference."
September 5, 2005: So Glad
As a place to live, Michigan has many strikes against
it. Brutally hot, muggy summers, bone-crackingly cold, icy
winters. Dreadfully conservative politics.
But the more I think about it, the more I'm glad to be here.
In Michigan, we do =not= get earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, severe
droughts, or city-sized forest fires. The worst we get are
tornados and Republicans, both of which usually do small, localized
damage. (No, this is not an invitation to any deities reading
this newsgroup to make changes.) Nothing we get up here will flatten an
entire city, county, or province.
For this I'm exceedingly grateful.
September 4, 2005: Mack and
Bedtime
Mack's sleep problems continue. When we put him to bed an
hour earlier than Sasha goes, Mack stays awake until Sasha comes to
bed. Once they're together, Mack wants to play. He talks
and climbs into bed with Sasha and generally keeps his brother
awake. Sasha, never a morning person to begin with, is exhausted
in the morning.
We've approached Aran about him and Sasha sharing a room so Mack
can have his own room and not bother anyone, but Aran freaks at the
idea, so that's a no.
We've finally started putting Mack down in our bed at night.
Sasha goes to bed an hour later, and we go to bed an hour after
that. With no one to stay awake for, Mack falls asleep
faster. Then when =we= go to bed, Mack has had two hours to fall
fully asleep. Sasha doesn't wake up for much once he's out,
either. So we can carry Mack into their bedroom and put him to
bed.
Sheesh.
September 4, 2005: Sick Sasha
Yesterday Kala found Sasha wrapped up in the afghan on the
couch watching TV. He was half-awake and shivering. He
denied that he felt bad, but his forehead was terribly hot to the touch
and she checked his temperature. 103! She quickly gave him
some meds and his fever came down to 100. (We suspect it may have
been pumped higher because he was all wrapped up.) Later that
evening he threw up. By eight, he was in bed.
He denied he was sick until the evidence was incontrovertible. I
wonder if getting sick at the orphanage was a dreadful ordeal (no good
meds, being forced to lay in a bed with no entertainment) and that's
why Sasha denied it so vehemently.
This morning the fever was gone and he seems fine.
September 4, 2005: City of Heroes to the Rescue
Sasha likes to team up with other people when he plays
City of Heroes. The problem is, he doesn't fully understand
what's going on or how to be an effective team-mate--or even
communicate with the people on his team. I've given up trying to
police it, since he starts and joins teams willy-nilly.
A while ago, I decided to show him how teaming up is supposed to
work. I had him create a character on my account and I created
one on Kala's account. Then I teamed us up and showed him how to
do everything. I think he got it, finally, and he really liked
playing with Papa.
Today he asked if the two of us could team again. I really had
stuff I needed to do, but I gave in and we ran a few missions.
Sasha really liked it. When I told him I absolutely had to log
off (about two hours later), he asked Aran to team.
This surprised me. Aran and Sasha don't get along that
well. Neither of them can communicate well with the other, and
they fight more often than play together. But City of Heroes, it
occurred to me, might be an ideal "filter" to get them together.
They each created a new character on my and Kala's accounts. I
set them up as team-mates and let them go at it. They did very
well, actually, and cooperated (for the most part) on missions.
They played "together" for a couple hours, in fact.
Maybe this will start them down the road to becoming more like brothers
instead of just two boys sharing the same household.
September 4, 2005: Sasha School
Update
Sasha seems to be adjusting nicely to school. He now
rides the bus in, though Kala picks him up--he still isn't certain
about getting the right bus home.
He campaigned hard to ride the bus, actually. He was quite upset
when Kala wouldn't let him ride it on Wednesday, in fact. We told
him he could ride it on Thursday. He wanted to know how much it
cost, and was amazed when we told him it was free.
When Kala picked him up on Thursday after school, she ran into his
Title I teacher and learned a few things. The reason the
counselors signed Sasha up for drama
was at her behest. Turns out the Title I teacher is also the
drama teacher, and the class has only ten students in it. She
thinks the class would be a good way to get Sasha to speak and practice
English, and Kala agreed.
Sasha has a parapro assigned to him for the first four hours of the
day. (!) The parapro isn't with him during the elective
sessions (one of which is drama) or for the last hour of the day, but
this is more than we anticipated, so we're very pleased. His
teachers (and the parapro) are focusing on teaching Sasha English and
how to function in the school. This year, content is
secondary. One of the elective teachers went around and
photographed various things in the school and the parapro made
flashcards so Sasha could learn the names of different locations and
objects. We're quite happy so far!
September 4, 2005: Second Day Back
Thursday was the official first day for teachers.
The morning was taken up by a looooong staff meeting, as it always
is. We met our interim principal, too. Our original
principal was promoted out of the building, and the district hasn't
found a replacement yet, so they persuaded a retired principal to take
the job for a year.
Then it was more in-class work doing the myriad small things that need
doing. The biggest one of these was fiddling with the new
computer. The new system is ZenWorks and it comes with its own
share of annoyances and headaches.
It was a fairly laid-back day, since I'd gotten the most time-consuming
stuff done yesterday.
September 4, 2005: First Day Back
Wednesday was my first day of school.
I had actually come back one day early--my second day of religious
holiday makeup. I spent the morning setting up my classroom
(again). First I redid the boxes on the cabinets, then I dragged
the furniture around to where I wanted it.
The standard at Nameless High School is for teacher desks to be under
the
ceiling-mounted TV at the front of the room. I don't like
this. It puts my desk on stage and makes it a central
focus. It also means I can't sit at my desk and see what's on the
TV, a requirement for media literacy, a class where I often have to
pause and cue videos for discussion. The problem is, the only
phone jack is under the TV. In my old room I solved this with a
loooong phone cord and a lot of duct tape. This year, I
remembered our old cordless phone from home. (We're without a
landline now.) I plugged it in and discovered it worked.
Perfect! I can leave the receiver on my desk.
Once the desk and cabinets were where I wanted them, I reset the
student tables. There's just not enough room in the class with
each of them standing alone. The classroom gets crowded and
congested. It occurred to me that I was wasting a lot of space by
having to keep a set of aisles between every table. If I put the
long ends of the tables together (so groups of four students would be
facing each other), I would eliminate half the aisles and free up floor
space. Setting the tables sets on a diagonal and staggering the
arrangement lets all the students see the board. Only four can't
see the TV, but they can turn their chairs as needed. I also have
a huge "stage" area at the front by the board. Perfect!
Throughout the course of the day, three different teachers stopped in
my room for various reasons. All three of them admired my setup
and made noises about using it themselves. Go me!
After a quick bag lunch (I thought about going out, then decided I
shouldn't spend the money), I started in on lesson plans and making
copies. This was just time-consuming, since all the classes were
ones I've been teaching for a while: English 9, Communication I, media
literacy, mythology. The media lit class's packet had an Internet
worksheet on it about product placement, though, and I checked the web
site to be safe. The web site had been radically changed.
Drat. I had to redo the entire activity from top to bottom.
Made lots and lots of copies and laid them out on a table in the
classroom, and I was ready for students!
August 31, 2005: Black and White
from this Live Journal post by LJ user antoine_s
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/33784.html?thread=267000#t267000
The media.
White people "find:"
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos_ts_afp/050830071810_shxwaoma_photo1
Black people "loot:"
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530
August 30, 2005:
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
We hit $3.00 per gallon in Ypsilanti today.
August 30, 2005: What????
George Bush made a speech in which he called upon us
'mericans not to waver in the face of nearly 2,000 soldier deaths in
Iraq because American credibility was at stake.
What????
America =has= no credibility anymore. This fool destroyed it,
carefully, deliberately, and repeatedly. When Sasha saw Bush's
picture on the news story on my computer, he made a face.
"Bush? Blech!" he said, and made spitting motions at the computer.
An under-educated twelve-year-old from the sticks of Ukraine knows and
hates Bush. Doesn't that tell you something?
August 30, 2005: Sasha's Second Day
Today we decided to have Kala take Sasha to school.
Sasha tends to cling more to me, and we figured maybe he'd be less
reluctant to be left there if Kala was the one taking him. They
left at a quarter after seven. By eight, they weren't back yet,
so I drove Aran to =his= school and came back home. At nine, Kala
showed up. Sasha had eventually said she could go home.
Kala also told me that they'd brought in a parapro to help Sasha in
class and that the school knew of a seventh-grader who speaks Russian,
so they're clearly putting together a network to help him.
August 29, 2005: Sasha Starts School
Yesterday was Sasha's first day at school. Got up at
6:30 and forced Sasha to eat something for breakfast. (The boy
doesn't in the morning unless you stand over him and order him
to. Most days we don't care, but on school days he has to
eat--it's long time to lunch.) I figured I'd eat when I got home
from dropping him off, so I showered instead. Bundled Sasha into
the car with his new backpack o' school supplies, and off we went.
The middle school is attached to the high school, creating a huge,
complex building. The door connecting the two buildings, however,
is kept closed and locked during the so middle school and high school
students don't mix. Sasha stared at the place, wide-eyed. He'd
been there before, of course, but he hadn't seen it =busy=
before. He counted seven school busses lined up in front and was
amazed. I didn't tell him that Willow Run has way more than seven
busses.
Sasha, I knew, was nervous, even a little frightened at going to this
place, though he tried to hide it. Rather than just drop him off,
then, I parked the car in the visitor lot and walked with him into the
building. Signs everywhere told us to pick up schedules in the
cafeteria, but I'd gotten Sasha's schedule at the orientation, so we
gave that a miss and headed upstairs to the classrooms. They were
locked and empty.
We went back down to the cafeteria and I asked a couple staff members
where we were supposed to go. None of them had a clue. With
Sasha following me like a confused duckling, I interrogated more people
until finally someone said, "Try the gym."
A fair number of students were in the gym. A custodian hit a
switch, and the bleachers, which had been stacked flat against the
wall, hummed forward on hidden motors. Sasha thought that was
massively cool. Kids stampeded into the bleachers to sit
down. Sasha climbed up along one side and sat about five rows
up. I stood nearby where he could see me, and we watied. I
thought they were going to have an assembly to start the school year,
but a few minutes later, a computer tone sounded and all the kids
stampeded down the bleachers and out the door. Sasha gave me a
puzzled look and I shrugged. The gym must be where everyone goes
if they get to school too early.
We went up to the classroom, which was now open. I reintroduced
myself to his first teacher, Ms. Swanson. (Sasha has three
teachers all told.) We found Sasha a seat, and I asked him if he
wanted me to stay or leave. He definitely wanted me to stay, so I
did.
Once all the other students had arrived, the teacher started a
get-to-know people activity--write three questions on a card and
interview people you don't know. I wrote three questions for
Sasha and told him what they meant. With the teacher's help, we got
Sasha to interview a couple of his classmates.
Then Ms. Swanson got everyone into a circle and had each student
identify themselves by name and, if they wanted to, give one thing they
were wondering about middle school. Sasha was reluctant to join
the group, but eventually did, and he gave his name. Ms. Swanson
explained to the class that Sasha was from Ukraine and that he didn't
speak English yet, so the class would have to help him learn.
After that came a tour of the school. I asked Sasha if he wanted
me to leave or stay.
"Leave," he said. "No--stay!"
So I stayed. I was really regretting not eating breakfast, and I
was starting to get a lack-of-caffeine headache, but I stayed with him.
After the tour came short meetings with their elective teachers.
Sasha has a music class and a drama class. I might try to get the
latter switched to art, but we'll see.
By now, Sasha was starting to melt down. He asked to go home
several times, though he didn't seem =too= distressed until around
10:00. The first day ended at 11:00, so I decided to leave with
him. In the hall, I ran into Ms. Swanson, who had been checking
on English Language Learner information. She said the principal
has to deal with it (which surprised me--seems like a teacher or
counselor job to me) and he was going to make some phone calls about it.
And then we left.
Little worried. I hadn't counted on Sasha being quite so
intimidated. I can't go in to school with him after tomorrow
because school's starting
up at Nameless High School. Kala can't go with him because she'd
have nowhere
to
leave Mac.
August 29, 2005: Flying Spaghetti Monster
A group is trying to stop Kansas from putting intelligent
design into the state science curriculum. They maintain that the
universe was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster (may you be
touched by one of His Noodly Appendages), and that if intelligent
design is put into the science curriculum, then the intelligent design
theory of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster must be given
equal time with that of Christianity.
http://www.venganza.org/
They also conclusively show that global warming is tied to the
diminishing number of pirates in the world. No, really! Go
look.
August 28, 2005: NYT Sigh
Even the New York Times, that bastion of newspaper
integrity, can't resist using fear tactics to make us read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/28liblow.html?ex=1282881600&en=69414336488a2f70&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss
The entire story is about what =might= happen =if= a big hurricane got
as far north as one did in 1938. The winds =could= do this, the
floods =might= do that. And exactly what should we readers do
about it? Quiver in fear and desperately read the newspaper,
apparently.
August 27, 2005: Ukraine
Pictures
I finally sorted through all the pictures we took of our
adoption trip to Ukraine. (There were well over a thousand,
mostly thanks to Sasha.) I've posted a bunch of them so you can
see what happened.
Pictures are at http://www.sff.net/people/spiziks/adoption/pictures.html
My adoption journal, in case you haven't read it yet, is at http://www.sff.net/people/spiziks/journal.html
August 27, 2005: It's So . . . Big!
Finally saw the local newspaper. The YPSILANTI
COURIER ran a huge article on me, complete with photos and cover flats,
on page three. Whoo hoo! A
well-done article, too.
It's also on-line at http://www.ypsilanticourier.com/stories/082505/loc_20050825004.shtml
August 25, 2005: Eeeeek!
Today Kala and I decided to pack the kids into the car and
go out for breakfast. On the way in, I noticed gas prices at the
corner station had come down by eight cents to $2.51. "Hmmm," I
though, "better fill up on the way home."
We passed several other gas stations on the way to the restaurant, all
of which boasted the same price.
An hour later, we had eaten and were driving home. The first gas
station we passed had a new price: $2.75 per gallon. So did the
second and the third. What the hell? It went down eight cent
overnight, then a few hours later jumped almost a quarter?
The station closest to our house still had gas for $2.51, and lines
were already forming. I dropped the family off, turned around,
and waited in line for the slightly-cheaper gas. Then I drove
home, got the other car and the gas can for the lawn mower, and waited
in line again.
So what's the price where you are now?
August 25, 2005: Maksim Sick
Maksim's fever developed into a full-blown flu that lasted
almost two days. He was throwing up all night and feeling awful.
And since Sasha shares a room with him, he wasn't getting much sleep,
either.
Interestingly, whenever Maksim felt like he had to throw up, he ran to
the bathroom. Someone has clearly trained him in this. It's
weird that even in a child this young, someone else has had a major
hand in his early upbringing, a total stranger I'll never meet or know.
On Wednesday, he was feeling better. Kala took him and Sasha to
the doctor's to get their TB tests officially read. They were
both upset about going, though we tried to explain that there would be
no shots this time. Kala reported that when they got to the doctor's
office, Maksim started screaming, even after Sasha told him there were
no shots involved. He calmed down once it became clear that this
was the case.
The doctor also said that because Maksim had gotten so sick, she would
see about changing his immunization schedule so he wouldn't get so many
at the same time.
August 23, 2005: Supermyth!
Today I finished an essay for one of BenBella Books's pop
culture essay anthologies. This one's about Superman, and I wrote
an essay arguing that Superman qualifies as mythology. Since I
teach Superman as mythology, it was pretty smooth, easy writing.
Fun!
August 23, 2005: Orientation
Today Sasha's school held an orientation for sixth
graders. The vice principal gave a little speech and I got
various forms to fill out. Sasha and I stood in line to turn them
in to various secretaries, though in our case, turning them in
consisted of me saying, "I already filled this out when I registered
Sasha last week." I still had to stand in line, though, because
the secretaries who gathered the forms had to initial a list saying the
forms in question had been turned in. We had to trade the
initialed
list in to get Sasha's schedule.
Willow Run Middle School is based on the "house" system. For
sixth graders, this means the same group of kids stays together but see
different teachers during the day. I was expecting Sasha to have
five or six teachers, but he only has two. There was no English
Language Learner time on his schedule, and I asked the scheduling
secretary about that. She said that there are two ways WRMS
handles ELL kids. Either they're pulled out of class for English
lessons or a tutor comes into the child's classroom. They'll have
to decide which to do with Sasha. I suspect they'll give him
lessons.
There was supposed to be a tour of the school, but the crush of parents
standing in line at various tables kind of blew that out of the
water. We found Sasha's classrooms, though, and looked at the
library through the windows. Sasha was surprised to see all the
computers in the library.
Now we need to buy him school supplies.
August 23, 2005: Oh-Wutch
Monday morning Mac and Sasha had a doctor's appointment
for the first round of immunizations. They got three shots each
and a TB stick. Both of them were in some pain. Maksim got
most of his shots in the thigh, and he had a hard time walking.
Whenever he stood up, he would say "Oh-wutch," which is how he says
"Ouch."
Later that evening, he developed a fever of 101. We put him to
bed, but the fever meds wore off in the night and woke up at three a.m.
crying and feeling sick. He's still feverish today. Poor
little guy!
August 23, 2005:
Orientation
Today Sasha's school held an orientation for sixth
graders. The vice principal gave a little speech and I got
various forms to fill out. Sasha and I stood in line to turn them
in to various secretaries, though in our case, turning them in
consisted of me saying, "I already filled this out when I registered
Sasha last week." I still had to stand in line, though, because
the secretaries who gathered the forms had to initial a list saying the
forms in question had been turned in. We had to trade the
initialed
list in to get Sasha's schedule.
Willow Run Middle School is based on the "house" system. For
sixth graders, this means the same group of kids stays together but see
different teachers during the day. I was expecting Sasha to have
five or six teachers, but he only has two. There was no English
Language Learner time on his schedule, and I asked the s