#but lesson planning? lots of the materials are at the school anyway

[theflyingfeeling]

tomorrow-me's gonna hate tonight-me, part 3522

(an incoherent work-related rant in the tags, read if you will but it's boring lol)

[haydenigmatic]

writing update (how's it going so far)

I've still got a lot to make, change and process. School is certainly not helping, and will not as the month for lesson planning is near, observation week and now I will be working with 6th grade, make a bunch of class material, but at least I will only be working with six students -hope to survive-

So as you can see I did not have much time to be on tumblr or the forum, but I will try to make a schedule or something to create more time for me to write more, even sometimes I feel like I should do more but it's time that's stopping me.

Anyway, again I do not want to set a date for updates, as I think I would be pressured and hurry to deliver and I want to make something that I can be actually excited about, I'll be honest I didn't liked my last update, it feels as a filler bunch of choices and words so I've been working on that, so hope to finish that sooner or later rather than never.

-Hayden H.

[rigelmejo]

Dreaming Spanish, Paper of 1200 hours learning French only watching shows, Personal Notes

So I signed up for Dreaming Spanish's site yesterday. However: it quickly became clear I have absolutely no time for studying something on top of Japanese and Chinese so. I will not get to use it much.

The good: their website is very nice, I think. The free videos are listed, and part of all collections, and they can track on the website how many minutes/hours you've watched and skip videos you've watched before if you wish. Meaning if you're using DS videos to study, going on their site is useful if you watch on a computer or phone, because their site will track your minutes watched for the day and put on a playlist for you for your language level. So it requires much less navigation and keeping track from you compared to the youtube site. I am super bad at tracking time doing X and what video I was on in youtube, so these features are awesome. It also tells you how many days it will take to reach each study level they have.

I think this is a super good tool to keep you realistic, and accountable to your own personal goal. If you only set your goal on DS to the learner option of 30 minutes a day (do NOT set it to 15 minutes a day), then you're looking at hitting goals at these points: you'll know 1500 words in 299 days, you'll know 5,000 words in 1,199 days (~3.3 years), and you'll be level 7 comparable to a native speaker in 2,999 days ~8.2 years). As you can see... 8.2 years is comparable to maybe if you took Spanish all through elementary school for 30 minutes a day (if that elementary school spanish was an immersion class). Now, languages take years to learn no matter what, and sometimes it will just have to look like 8 years for you (I'm studying Japanese and definitely getting close to that lol, and if I only had 30 minutes to study I'd obviously have to settle with the pace I can do). But if you study 2 hours a day, you can make a huge amount of progress in just 2 years (see below).

If you set it to 120 minutes per day (2 hours, like I tend to recommend for decently paced progress) then you'll know 1,500 words in 75 days (great progress from absolute beginner to able to start doing basic graded readers and learner podcasts if you want, and about where I got to when self studying in Chinese in the first few months), you'll learn 5,000 words in 300 days (less than a year!) at which point slow native speakers talking and books for children should be understandable (and shows will almost be without any word lookups, easier shows like cartoons and daily life romance may be). That's AMAZING progress for less than a year. I know for an English speaker, learning French or Spanish takes less time to understand... but I forgot how much less time. I guess my Chinese progress was only a little slower but I did a lot of 4+ hour study days the first year. And you'd get to DS Level 2 comparable to a native speaker in 750 days (just over 2 years).

That's a perfectly snappy progression, to be honest with you. People complain that comprehensible input lesson plans/ALG plans take 1500-2000 hours (DS takes 1500 hours), but the Foreign Service institute suggests 750 hours in class for Spanish then another 750 outside of class study, which is 1500! Same time period FSI suggests. For Thai it recommends 1100 class hours and 1100 out of class study, which is 2200 hours. So the CI lesson plans/ALG plans take about as much time as FSI estimates it takes their learners, the difference appears to be that ALG plans just do NOT include in any outside time spent studying. (A note: Dreaming Spanish does suggest doing lots of listening outside of their materials, but gives you the option to log that time on their site, so I am guessing outside listening you understand the meaning of would count toward their hours required of study).

Anyway, back to my point about Dreaming Spanish's tracking: I deeply appreciate how it shows you the goal study time per day you set, how much you're actually reaching it (so you know if it's unrealistic for you), and how long the milestone goals of understanding should take if you study at your goal study time per day. I think this tool on their site is incredibly useful. And even the Levels area on it's own, listing hours to get to each level and what you should be able to do at it, is quite good as a guide for what you should expect as a language learner.

Their guide matches up fairly well with what I could do in French, Chinese, and Japanese at various levels, very well. I read earlier and watched shows earlier than the guide suggests - I started when I was between level 2 and level 3 (so when I knew between 300-1500 words... I usually start graded readers ASAP so I started Chinese graded readers at 500 words studied, and with Japanese I waited longer than usual and read them at 1500-2000 words but read manga before that ToT, with French I started graded readers at 300 words and normal reading material at 1500 words... but also keep in mind, I was looking words up whereas the DS method does NOT suggest you look any words up, so me looking words up likely made harder materials like novels and shows understandable at an earlier point). And I found French reading material readable with no dictionary around level 4 (far earlier than DS suggests native speaker reading material being doable), I found Chinese shows understandable without word lookups earlier for me around level 4 (earlier than DS suggests - but I tolerate ambiguity okay and am Great at guessing new things from context, it's my favorite way to learn).

Semi Related things:

I read a whole paper a man wrote about learning French entirely through shows for 1200 hours, then an additional 300 hours of talking to people in French, a little grammar conjugation table reading and wikipedia in french reading and comic reading, and taking the B1 and B2 test and passing at the conclusion of 1500 hours. I recommend reading it if interested, I found it fascinating. The man looked up NO WORDS AT ALL in the first 1200 hours. The man did not pre-study much, he did not even know French was not spelled phoenetically much until 1200 hours in when he finally saw the writing system. He switched to watching cartoons a couple hundred hours in, because he could figure out new word meanings much faster with the direct visual context for what characters said (compared to shows for adults having discussions of things not happening on screen), and switched to shows for adults later once his vocabulary rose. (*Note: I did something similar with Chinese, I started with action wuxia because they would say 'get her/grab it/kick him/run/fight me/she's X' and I could learn a LOT of verbs and nouns by guessing instead of having to look up words every minute, back in that early point... action shows generally do more describing of whats actually on screen happening, and then comedic romance daily life shows, if you don't want to watch cartoons). His experience was brutal, he watched 5 hours on average a day, paid attention and made concious guesses of new words and features. It worked though!

And it is a great point to use as comparisons. His method worked, so the ALG/CI method type lessons should work as they are also 'watching audio visual' stuff in the language. While also being LESS exhausting than what this man did, since the ALG/CI lessons are structured to make it much easier to figure out new word meanings without as much uncertainty, are spoken slower to be understandable to learners, and are designed to teach you specific vocabulary and grammar.

He mentioned in his method, that if he were to do it again, he thinks he'd make faster progress if he'd allowed himself to 1. watch with French subtitles (to work on reading skill at the same time as listening), and 2. to look up words meanings to compare with the guesses he was making so he could quickly confirm correct meanings and move on.

I personally, based on my own experience, think he was somewhat right in thinking this and ALSO somewhat wrong. What I think is true about his guess that looking up words would've sped up the process: I know it does, I learned 2000 Chinese words in 6 months, then another thousand at least in the next 6 months, and while I cram studied an SRS app for 2 weeks (and 2 review) I think the bulk of reinforcement of remembering was me watching shows and confirming word guesses by looking up key words. If I'd done zero SRS app, and just watched shows from day 1, I would've looked up 1 keyword per minute at first probably. And it would've got me a similar pace of progress. I learned all my Chinese vocab after that first SRS app cram, by looking words up as I read or watched stuff. It definitely sped up progress. In French, I took 6 months to get where that guy got in 1 year... I was reading instead of listening mind you (and listening seems harder), but looking up words sped up my ability to comprehend more faster.

I think his assumptions about watching with French subtitles were wrong though: I think while subtitles DO help with reading (helped my Chinese reading a ton), I think (especially with similar alphabet languages - if you know another language uses that alphabet too) seeing the written form gives your brain more space to sub-vocalize the WRONG pronunciation mentally. You tend to prioritize reading subs over hearing actual dialogue, and so also I think you'll fail to develop the skill of parsing real muddled and slurred and muffled and sped up together language as fast as learners who do NOT use subtitles. When I watch Chinese shows without subtitles I have a noticeably more difficult time parsing what's said, and when I watch audio dramas and audiobooks I feel a whole comprehension level Lower than I feel when reading a book. I'm years into studying and specifically working on my ability to parse speech with no reading aid, so that's what only watching with subtitles did for me lol. (Also in French, I can't comprehend listening anywhere close to how well I can read, but that's more of an example of "what happens if you study primarily through reading and ignore listening skills"). So I think while practicing reading and seeing the spelling of new words IS useful (especially if you desire to train reading skill), it's also useful to spend at least SOME time watching shows or listening to audio with no subtitles or transcript to rely on... to practice parsing the sounds.

I did find it interesting he picked up reading so quickly, after all the work on listening. I had personally hoped, that learning to read things you already know in listening, might be easier to do than learning to read Brand New words. Based on his experience, this seems true. And I'm hoping I can eventually do something similar with Japanese... have a listening skill above my reading skill, and then work on reading (but either way I plan to use reading-listening at once, so even if there's new words in reading I don't want to develop a totally wrong pronunciation guess in my head).

And then, a note about Dreaming Spanish and my personal experience with Spanish: When I actually watch the Dreaming Spanish videos, it's the Intermediate Level videos that feel correct for me - I hear some new words and can understand/guess them in the context of the video, they speak at a pace I find understandable, they're not so boring I want to tune out, they're not so difficult I feel exhausted (interestingly when I checked out Lazy Chinese the intermediate level feels easier than this but a comfortable 'easier' spot for listening skills, and Comprehensible Japanese's intermediate videos feel a bit more focus-intensive for me than Dreaming Spanish's but also provide the right amount of new stuff to learn in context). I would assume knowing some French helps A TON with comprehending Spanish, and I have read several Spanish nonfiction books and don't find trouble with nonfiction (fiction Spanish books have enough unknown words though that I do need to look things up). I did also read Madrigal's Magical Key to Spanish self-study book back in college, and do a few months of Language Transfer Spanish podcast, so I saw a couple thousand cognates and basic grammar rules from those.

Anyway... I just find it curious that the actual content Dreaming Spanish has, I don't feel Superbeginner matches me despite being a beginner overall. The Superbeginner videos do have new words for me (tall, old, eyes, head, nose, hand), with context they're immediately understandable of course. Then also: some of them sound just like French to me or like words I've heard before. Garden is jardin, like french. Apprend is learn, like french.

Another interesting thing I noticed... some Spanish accents are easier for me to parse than French. I'm not super surprised, because that summer I was focusing on Spanish in college on my own, the goal was to MAKE IT SOUND DIFFERENT than French in my head, because mentally I'd confuse spanish and french when reading. I succeeded and developed a better ear for Spanish, and a slightly better ear for French (but clearly not as much as Spanish now that I'm hearing Spanish and parsing words better than I do in French). There's a few Spanish accents that feel almost as difficult as French to parse - the JARDIN video accent, with J like a Y but a way different Y sound than the French jardin threw me off a lot. The dropping of certain letters pronunciation also confused me... I think Spanish maybe does some ll sounds as y/i sound, so maybe that's what I heard? And the 'th' sound instead of s, my ears struggled with but I was more aware to look out for that in Spain pronunciation.

Then again, who knows how much my knowledge of French was simply interfering with Spanish: making a lot of cognates way easier to understand, but making certain pronunciations harder to parse. That could be both what helped and what makes things more confusing to me.

I have no time to study Spanish or French right now, so I can't really dive into what kind of work it would take to separate French and Spanish more in my head (but apparently they do need to be more firmly separated...still, in pronunciation). But it was interesting to see that effect.

[alyjojo]

March 🌞 2024 Monthly - Gemini

Preshuffle: You already know all you need to know about a situation you’ve gone back and forth on. Enough to start planning your next step forward. I’m getting you feel like you don’t but you actually do, even if it’s just intuitively, then you’re being validated in that case. A decision that’s being made is the right call.

Meditation: Omggg this video. Idk what it’s called, something with Candy Mountain, it’s one of the OG YouTube videos to not make any sense but go viral anyway. I choked on my coffee, the first thing I heard was “Candy Mountain Charlieeee” and I died ☠️ It’s been a long time. You could have a couple of excitable goobers (kids?) around you, ready for adventure, maybe getting on your nerves and purposely poking you if you’re grumpy. It should make you smile (or make you hide and take a looooong shower) 😶‍🌫️

Main energy: Wheel of Fortune

Yours is kinda similar to Taurus’s, you could have that in your chart too. Different but similar, they’ve already healed their past and Spirit is like “you’re next”. Wheel of Fortune is change, karma, things outside of your control, Spirit always moving in the background to help little serendipitous events aid you along the way, sending messages and sparking your intuition, whether conscious or not. This also feels like Jupiter, especially with Luck attached to it. That’s coming soon, this Wheel can show time, and before Jupiter moves into Gemini in…June? I think, you’ll need to let some old stuff go. 2 Wands is here with Discovery, your future is ahead of you, not behind you, exploring new possibilities, not the same old traumas ❤️

What’s going on in March:

8 Cups:

You’ve inevitably had to leave some things and people behind, and some things and people have left you too. For some this could be material, a house, a job, your favorite car, a lot of money, some actual 3D thing you can touch. It’s also inevitable you’ve had to leave behind some plans, maybe childhood plans. You always wanted to be a vet but never really wanted to go to vet school - now you’re a whatever-you-are, beating yourself up over not just being a vet. Contracts or partnerships may have left you in financial debt. Loneliness is at the bottom of the oracles, you lost people too. I see 6 Cups here and The Hermit rev, some of you may wonder if all is lost or can you bring the past back to life in some way? So far I just see the new is ahead, Discovery, looking forward. The past had some great times but it had a lot of pain too. And things have changed - Wheel of Fortune - how they needed to.

The Moon:

This is what you fear, what you can’t see, things that give you anxiety, because they are unclear to you. Whatever you lost, or left behind, had an opportunity come in with it - Ace of Pentacles. You couldn’t see that at the time, maybe you’re well on your way now. Moon Capricorn seems to mirror this Page of Pentacles, you left behind things that weren’t good for you, The Devil. Toxic even, had you in chains, wrapped you up in addictions or other unhealthy things that would’ve made things so much worse had they/you held onto them as it had been before it ended. This can be financial too, tied up in something that wouldn’t have given you what you thought it would - or hoped it would. Friends or people around you could’ve fit under these descriptions too, and it was unconscious to you at the time. Whatever has happened was for your benefit - or for a lesson. If someone or something has left - it’s to avoid a thing getting worse, or toxic, or it already was, that’s why it had to be this way. You could blame yourself or assume things that aren’t true but fit with a narrative you tell yourself - could be a fearful/paranoid one.

6 Cups:

Heavy nostalgia, old friends, the way things were, childhood, memories. You’re heavily connected to these things, maybe to the point of being lost in them. 5 Cups is deep sadness, regret, remorse, and being ruled by Scorpio, obsessive *fixation* on what’s been lost - not what’s still here. 2 Cups is still here. Someone or something you love, something very dear to your heart. But you focus on the loss, could be friends, plans, dreams, things you signed up for (or contracts you signed) that you wish you never would have because it kicked your bum later on. You can’t change it, and this is saying you’re only stuck if you keep yourself stuck. Maybe you have been on purpose. Practicality is here and again is mirrored with this Page of Pentacles - it’s like logic has been overcome by emotion and that’s what’s taking control or has for some time. It keeps you stuck. It’s possible you’ve gone through mourning something, not all but for someone this energy is very heavy, and if so I’m giving you a great big hug 🤗

10 Swords:

This row brings some depth to the pain you’ve felt, 10 Swords is betrayal, feeling stabbed in the back, maybe by several people - 5 Wands. Arguments and fights you’ve gotten into may have been due to toxic behaviors or old mindsets that don’t even exist anymore, but they’ve changed everything. You could regret a lot of things. For some there are literal contracts you regret, Commitment being the other Oracle specify binding contracts and Page of Pentacles shows the same thing here. Things your name is financially tied to, may not have gone well and left you in a lot of debt you’re trying to dig yourself out of. Could be a divorce you regret (or a marriage that ended in divorce), partnerships or agreements that ended in betrayal, bankruptcy, I’m seeing one of those Title Loan places, etc. Why couldn’t it be healed, or delayed a little longer? Why didn’t you apologize at the time or do xyz? For someone, there could be regret over sex, a soul contract even, wishing you’d never have even gone there. You’re also thinking of apologies & closure to things you’ve never gotten, and probably never will, for most. Things you never said. Heavy energy this month, but it all has a purpose in this reading - to feel it, hopefully start releasing it, and looking forward.

The Hermit rev:

Clarified by 9 Cups, you just want to go back to whatever specifically is on your mind. A person, a time period, the good old days, whatever the thing, you’re heavily fixated on moving backwards when Spirit is trying to move you forwards. Death follows, you can’t bring things back, and even if you did it wouldn’t be the same. You’ve changed! Wheel of Fortune. Others have changed too, everything has, we can’t even keep a business open over by me for more than a couple years nowadays, everything changes constantly, and seemingly faster the more time passes.

Advice: Can Gemini bring this thing back? 6 Swords…moving away from the drama of the past, taking your experiences, lessons, family, children, and all of the demons hovering in/around your mind & moving on altogether, because you have to. It’s leaving 5 Swords, bitterness, conflict, tit for tat energy, irritation at how things went vs how they could have. Caution at the bottom of the astro Oracle deck. But Wheel of Fortune with Luck is very positive, and so is 2 Wands, there is a lot to look forward to if you look ahead instead of behind. Discovery has an enthusiastic vibe, finding new things to fall in love with, new friends, new experiences altogether. People tend to only miss the past if the present isn’t that great, so what could be done to change right now - to recreate things you miss in a new way? Maybe you miss your old cat, but she’s gone now…you could get a new cat, or even something totally different that changes your life. A lizard, who becomes your best friend, who’d have thunk it? What’s something you’ve always wanted to do, you’re about to have the green light 🚦

Side note: It could be a good time to start playing the lottery, regularly 💯

Signs you may be dealing with:

Heavy Pisces, Scorpio, Virgo & Sagittarius

Oracle: ✨

12 Truth 🦅

The eagle proudly surveys its domain from such a high perch that all pertaining to this situation are revealed. The shadows hide nothing from your keen vision. Once you can remove yourself from the muck that lower vibrations keep you in, you can attain a viewpoint that enables you to see the truth of the matter. This card advises you to search for the truth of the situation, regardless of the emotions it brings up. Are you or someone connected to you unconsciously suppressing the truth? Hiding from the truth can only intensify the lesson later on.

Commitment 🪢

Binding - Obstruction - Contract

Luck 🍀

Jackpot - Fortune - Reward

We enter into March as:

Rose Without Thorns 🌹:

“It is time to face my true feelings.”

You are most fortunate. As we mature, we learn that to enjoy the beauty of a rose, we must occasionally risk getting pricked by a thorn. You are not facing “the same situation”, this is the dawn of feelings being awakened and a new truth being born. You’re being presented with a different way to live. Trust you will know what to do. Stay open. Time changes us all if we’re lucky, it’s time to surrender and make the change. The best incentive to change is often love.

What is to be learned in March:

Sun Sparkler 🎇:

“Integrity is what turns on the light.”

Sun Sparkler reminds us that it is through kindness to others and being of service that we are abundant. Are you living your life as fully as you can? Are you being honest and kind to others? Do you hold the door open for people on the elevator, or let it close? Do you let people merge over in traffic, or pretend not to see them? When we put a blinder on one area of life, it creates the same blind spot in every area. You can’t shut out pain without shutting out pleasure too. Sun Sparkler reminds you of the miracle of honesty, it leads to integrity. You may have done work for another but do not expect a reward, revel in alignment with Spirit, self-esteem is the gift. You’ve been elevated to a new level spiritually, continue to serve others and life will prosper beyond your wildest dreams.

Yellow may be a lucky color 💛

[pinkiepiebones]

First night of a new year and the dreamwalker shows up.

Dreamed started in a grocery store. I was apparently looking in clearance bins for summer hats and sandals because "winter is the best time to buy that shit" I told myself. Contemplated some weird heel-less "high heeled" sandals (they had the height of a heeled shoe but no actual high heel and had more material on the front than a sandal usually does) and a floppy purple sun hat but didn't take them. Saw a display of, like, cartoon character cereal and flavourings? Like the Flintstone Pebbles cereals but also Jetsons cereals and fried chicken seasoning? Took a picture to send to @senpaichan because apparently in both the waking world and dreamscape I love to inflict grocery pain on him. Then I heard the opening of "Zombie Queen" and donned a Prequelle-era ghoul mask and made my way to a small stage in the middle of the grocery store.

And by small stage I mean, like, something a middling high school with very little theatre budget would have. A barely elevated flat stage and no seating so everyone just kinda sat criss-cross on the floor. No lighting, no backdrop, nothing. And there were no ghouls, nor Papa. Just Tobias sitting on the edge of the stage- well, the stage was so short he was more like leaning his hips against it than sitting. His feet were firmly on the ground. I'm bad at explaining. Anyway. It was just him with an accoustic guitar and a small projector screen just over his right shoulder. And I got to sit right in front of him because a lot of people left as soon as they saw that it wasn't a proper Ghost show.

And even though there were a couple dozen people there on the floor with me, it felt like Tobias was only really speaking to me. He barely played guitar; instead he spent most of the "performance" talking about art. Lot of eye contact with me. The projection screen showed art his kids had done when they were younger, things he himself had sketched or painted, some little abstracty sculptures he had attempted ( "asparagus poodle" ), landscape photographs he had taken on Ghost tours... I was desperately trying to take down information on carbon paper(?) for future lesson plans. He at one point asked us all if we had heard of Dan P-something (Pavlovic? Parkochev? It was a P name with a V sound at the end) and when I said yes he came over and put his hand on my head and looked me in the eye and said "how old are you?" To which I answered "older than you think" and he said "good enough" and went on talking about the influence this Dan guy had had on his own house drawings, then showed off some surrealy houses he had drawn- like, a house but all of the windows were on the left side, a house with an upside down roof, a house with no front door, etc.

TLDR- Tobias Forge walked into my dreamscape again to give a presentation on art.

[fizzingwizard]

(Complaining)

Today I got to work. The first hour was teaching my extracurricular class. Then I went directly to my homeroom class, taught their lesson, then sat with my wigglers for the next teacher's lesson because otherwise they run around in the back of the room screaming. (IMHO our school expects two year olds to sit for lessons for way too long. It's 45-50 min total. But I've suggested at least breaking up the lessons before and am always told no by the leaders. I do let the wigglers check out and go read a book or do a puzzle when they really can't sit, because I just think it's ridiculous that two year olds should have so little freedom... but Japan... anyway)

After that I had to frantically get ready for our craft and activity time. Usually I do that during my co-teacher's lesson, but this year there are too many wiggly kids, and my third co-teacher tries to help but because we have so many kid she also has too much she needs to do during that time... After that, we get ready for lunch. Got a lot of kids this year who refuse to eat anything but rice. More than usual. So lunch is pretty much us standing to observe and sneaking quick bites of our own lunches when we can between helping kids eat and encouraging them to eat a teeny tiny bite of literally anything besides rice.

Then they play. We have to take them to the bathroom, clean the tables and chairs, clean the floor, pack away the lunches, change the diapers, log information about lunch and daily activities in their individual notebooks, help the kids pack their bags, and refill their water bottles, while watching them play. Then we do a gross motor activity, then we read a storybook, and then the kids go to nap time.

It's four hours of constantly moving, talking, standing, squatting. Never sitting, lol. Now we do our best to convince the kids sleep is a good idea. I stay through part of my "break" finishing those notebooks. Then I go do my cleaning duty. Then I go to the computer and fill out the required report on our day. Then I have to do 20 assessments, go through all the photos we've taken so far to make scrapbooks of 24 photos for all 20 kids, organize all their crafts and worksheets into the scrapbook, review and upload our class time videos for the parents, plan events, go shopping for materials, make the materials for the next craft, write the newsletter for the parents, and create my lesson plan for next month. I have an hour to do this. I am not being paid for this hour. (Also it's often not even a full hour, but 30 min here, 15 min there.) It is so fucking impossible lol. And the assessment and stuff, it's worse because it's redundant as well as ridiculous. We JUST assessed the same sort of stuff in the kids' progress reports less than a month ago, and now we have to do it all over again with very slight variation for every single kid, AND this assessment will be used to evaluate the kids' readiness for next level, which is just silly because the majority of those who haven't reached certain benchmarks yet will have reached them by the end of the year... utterly silly.

So during this hour I do as much of that as I can, which today meant I did the reports, did some lesson planning, and managed to finish ONE assessment. I have sooo much left to do. When when when. Where is the time for it. I'm not paid a salary. I'm hourly. They literally expect me to do it on my unpaid breaks and whatnot. And it's not even stuff that can be accomplished in an hour - especially when everyone else also needs to accomplish the same things, we're all off duty at the same time, and first come first serve at the computers haha.

Now that hours up, so I go to wake the kids, all 1-3 yos, from their nap. One of the kids throws a tantrum, so my co-teacher takes him outside. They're gone for fifteen minutes, which is precious time right now because there is, again, so much to do. Wake all the kids, get them in their shoes, sitting at the table, drinking their water. Clean up their futons. Take their temperatures. Document stuff in their notebooks agaaaain. Hand out allergy snacks. Hand out home snacks. Hand out school snacks. Check everything off on a plethora of checklists. As they finish, wipe their hands and faces, make them drink more water, help them clean up, check their diapers, change their diapers, watch them play, send them home with their parents or to extracurriculars, clean up the crumbs, clean up the tables and chairs, clean the floor, vacuum, clean up the garbage, watch the kids play.

Because the co-teacher is gone for 15 minutes, I'm the only one, the ONLY one, taking care of all the kids who are eating. I have a kid who will stuff his mouth so full of food that he'll start to choke, so I have to diligently give him one bite at a time until he's finished, in between cleaning. There are two other teachers in charge of diapers and the notebooks (who for some reason just didn't do the notebooks today?? I'm not really sure what happened there). It's supposed to be two and two, so there's no one to help me. I have to do all the cleaning, wiping, diaper-checking, and breaking down by myself. By the time my co-teacher comes back, she's off duty. So I have to deal with tantrum kid too, whose current mood is "say no to everything." He screams while I desperately try to put away all the tables so there's room for kids to walk, and sweep the floor so they don't have to walk on squashed grapes and cake. Between doing all the overseeing and cleaning myself, I was on my feet doing physical stuff for 55 minutes. Usually we're cleaned up in 40 minutes. Ah, there's that 15 minutes. (Not my co-teacher's fault though - the kid needed to be taken care of. It's just that we're expected to do SO MUCH in a single hour.) Also it's really freaking hot, and yeah we use AC, but there's a lot of bodies in the room and when I checked the thermostat, some alien person had set it to 25. I was like nope nope 23, 23 it is. Suddenly the room was a lot more bearable (9_9)

So now I can FINALLY sit down with the kids who are playing. It is literally four minutes till clock out time. I find a kid who threw a fit about changing his diaper, who I'd managed, while cleaning up, to cajole into doing it by himself. He had put his diaper on backwards. I tried to fix it, he tried to run away, he fell and started to cry. This is that kid with the hypersensitive parents I've mentioned before. Guess when his mom decides to arrive? Yup, just that moment.

She acts fine, I fix his diaper, he stops crying and goes off happily. When I go to clock out, I see mom changing his entire outfit. The parents have told us that if their kid sweats, we need to change his clothes. We already change kids' clothes if they get wet or are sweaty. Today we didn't go outside because it's too hot. Their kid didn't get particularly sweaty staying inside. His shirt wasn't wet at all. But the mom changed all his clothes. I am bracing myself to hear about it tomorrow.

But I keep thinking. When the hell was I going to think to change this not sweaty kid's clothes?? At what point during the day did I have a moment to do anything except frantically run around doing as much as I possibly can? I have not sat down all day except to work through my break. I've eaten nothing but a little bit of rice myself because lunch time was so busy. I'm exhausted, hungry, and hot. Someone give me a break to change my sweaty clothes, lol!

I want to do everything possible to keep the kids happy and healthy but I absolutely have no idea when I or my coteachers had a moment to think about anything not 100% essential. I'm just fried.

I felt a little... not vindicated, but seen, I guess, the other week after some leaders came for yearly observations, and their feedback was that our class is doing great, but I'm doing too much. They really encouraged my coteachers to help me more. And while I am most DEFINITELY doing waaaay too much, it's also too much to expect more of co-teachers, because the veteran teacher is also doing a lot more than she should be, and the rookie has only been here a month. She's trying but she hasn't developed the skill for behavior management yet, and she doesn't know how to anticipate what I'm doing. Plus I know she is EXHAUSTED everyday. Last Friday she was so anemic that she had to go lie down and I stayed late to cover her shift. I don't blame her one bit. This is too busy and fast-paced a school for a first-timer learning the ropes. I'm glad it wasn't my first school. She is working really hard and doing so well, and my other co-teacher is amazing. It's none of our fault we just have TOO MUCH WORK, not enough time, and not enough staff.

I'm just counting the days until Obon break, ugh.

[enthusispastic]

so what do you teach? why did you choose it? how did you get there? what do you love/hate about it? i’m also a teacher (preschool) trying to figure out my path

I currently teach mostly middle school science, though I have also taught high school biology and other life/earth sciences and high school theater and speech. I chose these subjects because I love them deeply. I chose to teach middle school and high school because teenagers are really cool people and working with them is very rewarding to me. They can connect with the subject on a deep and amazing level and can connect between subjects in a really cool way. Plus they're just cool and fun and funny.

I got into teaching in a really conventional way. I went to college for education and got my BS in secondary ed in my subjects. I was already planning to do science, but I got into theater during college and added that one later in my college career. Since I went to a religious school and started my career in religious private school, they had a call/placement program and that's how I got my first job. After stuff at my first school got shitty and we moved back to my wife's hometown, I applied to my current school and got the job because my arts background set me apart for their program (arts integration focus).

I LOVE working with kids. It's an energy drain to be sure, but the everyday functions of teaching lessons, organizing labs, working with students, and heck even grading are all somewhere between fine and awesome. If that was all there was I'd love it. My current school has a huge community of neurodiverse kids and nerds of every stripe and staying connected to a community of young neurodiverse, queer, and artsy nerd kids by default of the job is heartwarming to say the least. I love seeing kids grow, and the "lightbulb" moments almost make me feel like maybe I don't want to quit at the end of this year. But...

I CANNOT continue teaching though, because that's not all there is. Important and necessary functions of the job that are extraneous to classroom teaching pull me down so bad. I can't keep up with lesson plan documentation, differentiation documentation, constant staff meetings, IEP/504 meetings that pull me out of class, curriculum development, politely kissing admin ass (moreso at my last school than current) to keep my job safe, dealing with parent demands and complaints, keeping up school communication culture, preparing materials for various conferences and showcases, attending school events to "support a culture of school spirit" and every other thing that teaching does to eat your life whole. My disability (ADHD) definitely plays a part here, but even if I did have a typical brain, teaching is a career where you have to give up your own life and individuality, and do it for an audience of people who are VERY often not remotely grateful for it, or only performatively grateful one/two weeks per year. Admin and parents all want to tell teachers how to do their jobs despite limited or no experience, and that's another kind of exhausting. Kids may be cool, but they're also people who are learning their social stuff, and a lot of times that means that they don't know how to be kind or respectful or decent to teachers. I try to be patient and respectful about it and guide them to understanding, but through no fault of the kids' that is not something that a teacher can do 5 days a week for months and not feel like we're dying.

Anyway I hope that helps you. It certainly helped me to put it all out there.

[rhysintherain]

Okay, consider the accuracy and detail of the animals in these cave paintings. We see animals so accurately depicted that thousands of years later, we can identify them to the species level - even for species that are extinct and we've never seen except as bones.

They seem less like entertainment and more like scientific illustrations. As a young stone age hunter, you could sit in those caves and learn to identify large game species on sight without any of the dangers of going out to find it without proper training.

And what do we get when we have detailed visual depictions on the wall in a chamber with excellent acoustics, meant for a single speaker to communicate with a large audience about the material presented?

Well, back in university we called that a lecture theatre. And honestly, if you turned off the power most of the ones I've spent time in, they would also feel like a cave chamber with good acoustics.

There's a good chance these caves were the places experienced hunters taught students what animals were good to eat, which ones were dangerous, and where to place a spear or arrow for the quickest kill.

Hunting big game is dangerous work. A classroom like this, with cave art as an educational resource, would allow younger hunters to be prepared in a safe environment for a job where they'd need to be ready for split-second decisions when time wouldn't allow for instruction in the moment.

Now take the next bit with a grain of salt, since I have very little experience with the lighting technologies paleolithic teachers would have access to, but it would take considerable resources to light an entire painted surface in these caves:

If you're using a torch or other 'domesticated' fire to illuminate these images, it makes more sense to do so one at a time, with a single light source. Especially so in that second image (that's from Chauvet, which has some beautiful detailed work), where the images are presented less as a landscape (like Lascaux in the first image) and more like figures in a textbook.

By illuminating each image as you discuss it, these paintings could act like a PowerPoint, allowing various examples for study in a single space.

The red dots and lines marking high quality acoustic areas also remind me of something we see a lot in the modern world:

We also use high contrast paints to mark places where we know something we might need to access is located when we can't see it.

So what happens if things change, and you need to add new educational resources to your paleolithic school? Well, it probably helps if somebody found and labelled the best areas to put a new lecture theatre ahead of time, predicting that this might happen. These marks might be the construction plans that, for whatever reason, were never actually built.

Anyway. If these were educational spaces, they're some of the most successful humanity has ever created. We're still studying their lessons and learning things about ecosystems that no living human has ever seen. We can still look at their work and discover things we didn't know about their world.

In the 1980s in France, musicologists and archaeologists Iégor Reznikoff and Michel Dauvois used their voices to explore caves with notable Paleolithic wall paintings. By singing simple notes and whistling, they mapped their perceptions of the caves’ acoustics. They found that paintings were often located in places that were particularly resonant. Animal paintings were common in resonant chambers and in places along the walls that produced strong reverberation. As they crawled through narrow tunnels, they discovered painted red dots exactly located in the most resonant places. The entrances to these tunnels were also marked with paintings. Resonant recesses in walls were especially heavily ornamented.

In a 2017 study, a dozen acousticians, archaeologists, and musicians measured the sonic qualities of cave interiors in northern Spain. The team, led by acoustic scientist Bruno Fazenda, used speakers, computers, and microphone arrays to measure the behavior of precisely calibrated tones within the cave. The caves they studied contain wall art spanning much of the Paleolithic, dating from about forty thousand years to fifteen thousand years ago. The art includes handprints, abstract points and lines, and a bestiary of Paleolithic animals including birds, fish, horses, bovids, reindeer, bear, ibex, cetaceans, and humanlike figures. From hundreds of standardized measurements, the team found that painted red dots and lines, the oldest wall markings, are associated with parts of the cave where low frequencies resonate and sonic clarity is high due to modest reverberation. These would have been excellent places for speech and more complex forms of music, not muddied by excessive reverberation. Animal paintings and handprints were also likely to be in places where clarity is high and overall reverberation is low but with a good low-frequency response. These are the qualities that we seek now in modern performance spaces.

Sounds Wild and Broken, David George Haskell

[tia-amorosa]

Sunset Died - The younger ones

The Otter and the Private Plan

The lessons were split up a little. While the teenagers dealt with written material, the younger ones were given a little visual instruction. And some of them had questions about this, as they didn't seem to know the animal on the poster very well. “What do you think the otter likes to eat best?"/ ‘hmm, maybe apples or carrots?’/ ‘Yes, so that it always has healthy teeth, haha“.

Bella is a clever girl. Because she was able to learn a lot from her father when he was still alive… “no, an otter is in the water all the time, there are no apples or carrots”/ “that's right, in the water there are only plants and fish”/ “and it has big fins for hands, so it can certainly swim fast”.

.Later. Lessons are slowly coming to an end. And some of youngsters already had plans for the afternoon. “You really want to go to the gym with me? I'm not sporty at all…“/”I wasn't planning to lift weights or run on the treadmill with you either… There's this relaxation room, but no one ever goes in there“/”um, so?” .

Michael looked at Peter. By now he was familiar with certain looks from him and recognized what he was getting at. And so far, there hadn't really been an opportunity for the two of them to be alone for a while. “And you mean… it's really quiet there?"/ ‘I've been to the gym so many times and I've never seen anyone go in or out.’/ ‘hnhn… so we'll sneak off after school?’/ ‘that was my idea, mhm.’. Michael blushed a little and smiled. And nodded in agreement. “O.k.”.

The older Bunch siblings also chat for a while. “Oh man, I'm glad it's finally out now with the Alto baby"/ ‘don't tell me you knew about it?’/ ‘Holly told me about it a long time ago, I just had to promise not to tell anyone’/ ‘not even your own sister? pff’/ ”you would have told VJ and eventually word would have spread everywhere. That's the point of a secret, sis, you don't tell anyone”.

School is over for the day and Bella would like to finish with a ghost story. After all, Mortimer has given her plenty of material for dark stories. There were a lot of ghosts in his family. Unfortunately, he no longer encounters them now that his family's large estate has been destroyed. And with it the small cemetery. After the story was over, the rest of the children made their way home.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bachelor/Clavell/Wan Household

While Peter and Michael are on their way to the gym to have a little privacy, Bella is walking home at a fast pace. She was eager to tell what she had experienced in the classroom today.

In the house Pauline was already preparing dinner for later. “Mh, not even ready yet, but it smells pretty good, what's it going to be?”/ “Hn, something tasty. I'm really glad we can cook some good things, thanks to Jolanda's garden"/ ‘right…hardly anything grows now because it's too cold, the season is practically over’/ ‘mhm, and we have to be economical with resources…’/ ‘Uncle Xander!’.

“Yeah, what happened?"/ ”Nothing bad. We looked at a map of our town at school today. Everything was still green and all the houses were still there"/ ”hm, I see, and that was okay for you? I mean…"/ ‘Oh, yes, we talked about our memories and what we liked to do and stuff’/ ‘mhm, you must have been sad’/ ”no, not so much. And do you know what an otter eats?“/”Chewing gum, right?”.

“hihihi, no, he eats fish"/ ”aah, sure, I knew that. Where's your brother anyway, didn't he want to come home after school?"/ ‘no, he wanted to do something with Peter, but he didn't tell me what.’/ ”aha. Oh man, that boy”. Pauline had to smile a little. Because she could imagine that Peter and Michael also wanted to spend some time alone. They are young … and they would surely do their homework before anything else … right?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

@greenplumbboblover😊

[sohushygrayness]

Project Number 15: The Strenuous Life

Introduction: (Project number: 15; Project type: Purpose; Goal: to live a strenuous life).

Planning: (Materials: N/A; Time: A Whole Life; Budget: £ N/A (will gradually calculate)

Learning: (Research: which virtues constitute a strenuous life? Skills: Self-Discipline)

Execution

Sometimes project ideas happen because of a thought I had in conjunction with another idea that I’ve worked on. This idea was, to a certain extent, the same. However, it was more a combination of ideas which had been allowed to marinate in my mind like prepared chicken in a tikka masala. A while ago, I came across 2 separate schools of thought which I have now combined. A while ago (and I can’t tell you exactly when) I became aware of Theodore Roosevelt. I have a suspicion it will have been due to the Epic Rap Battles of History featuring him (not literally) and Winston Churchill (again, not literally). I have, perhaps answered my own question so allow me to re-phrase my initial thought: when did I have the idea to want to learn more about Theodore Roosevelt's life? (edit: I believe at one point I was building a scene in mind for a movie and Winston Churchill’s speech in the Darkest Hour film came to my mind which may have triggered me to search Theodore Roosevelt, I’m still not sure).

Edit: 21/08/2024. I'm confident in saying that my first exposure to Theordore Roosevelt came when I read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I don't think I'd internalised though who he was until years later.

Fortunately, YouTube is awash with plenty of content about the man but one video stands out in particular for a one-stop shop which is the Biographics (I’m a fan of the channel) video about him. 

Theodore Roosevelt: The Old Lion - YouTube

Then, my interest in the man waned but YouTube then suggested 2 videos on the man from the channel called Today I Found Out (also with Simon as host). These videos detailed Theodore’s escapades which are enough for many lifetimes, let alone one mans.

The President Who Randomly Liked to Challenge People to Fist Fights (youtube.com)

That Time Teddy Roosevelt Got Shot in the Chest But Gave a 90 Minute Speech Anyway (youtube.com)

The 2nd school of thought started as a musing. For a while now, I’ve seen articles that talk about Andrew Tate's influence on young men and I can clearly recall saying to my partner “Who do young men have to look up to these days?” 

YouTube, randomly recommended the following video to me: 

Why Aragorn is the Epitome of Masculinity (youtube.com)

I listened to the entirety of the video once before then listening to it for a 2nd time and then it occurred to me… there’s a lot of overlap with Teddy Roosevelt here. Next up, I asked ChatGPT which of the values these 2 overlap and why. Here are the 8 it suggested (along with one of my own): 

Courage and Bravery

Leadership 

Compassion and empathy

Honour and integrity 

Humility

Resilience and endurance 

Wisdom and knowledge

Physical prowess

Service 

It’s from this starting point that I begin this challenge. 

Reflection:N/A

Outcome: a life well lived.

Lessons: N/A

[rigelmejo]

I am very frustrated I am not finding many blogs or videos or subreddit/forum posts about people discussing their results after doing 1000-1500 hours of studying with automatic language growth materials and plan. According to the David Long interview I saw, spontaneous small amounts of speech would occur at 800-1000 hours (like a toddler who says "want milk" or "give me" I would guess), and that once speech occurs spontaneously more often (around 1500-2000 hours) then the learner can simply keep speaking more and should eventually talk well. So I wanted to see the results for learners who were at the 'beginning' speaking stage, and at the more developed 'speaking a lot' stage.

If anyone has any links to learners who have posted their experiences speaking in the language they studied after ALG lessons/study, please let me know.

I've found a few people on reddit who did ~1000 hours and are spontaneously speaking a little, one learner who did ~1500 hours and speaks okay (which is the speaking level they should in theory be at based on the David Long interview I saw) but the learner did a lot of on-purpose speaking after 1200 hours (they did ~200 hours on purpose shadowing or talking with tutors and language exchange partners) and I'm not sure if that's something a learner will need to plan to do in order to see similar progress.

I'm very curious on the 'learning to speak' period of ALG. The initial period, comprehensible input lessons, is approached differently in ALG (no concious word lookup or flashcards or textbooks), but is similar enough to stuff like general comprehensible input study (Youtube channels, the nature method textbooks ONLY in the target language, TPRS lessons, graded readers, consuming content in the target language for native speakers once you have the ability to comprehend it) which I have done. And which I can confirm does result in quite decent passive skills of listening and reading: if you study enough hours with input you comprehend (whether its ALG lessons, comprehensible input lessons on youtube, graded readers, or eventually comics/shows/novels/audiobooks) you WILL learn enough common words and grammar to read books and watch shows and follow the main idea, and from there you will keep learning enough to eventually understand More.

And at that point it's just like increasing vocabulary in your native language: you started as a child only able to understand perhaps a cartoon but not a complicated political drama for adults, and then you watched more cartoons and movies and more complicated plots and talked with friends and learned new words from non-fiction your school made you read or lectured to you about, and at some point between age 9-20 you found that complicated political dramas became understandable but challenging to follow. And then again, you learned more words from the show - and maybe college, or getting involved in politics and learning the terms, and talking with friends - and the next political thriller drama you watch is way more understandable. (My point is: as a child in your native language, you eventually understand more by either reading/watching/listening/conversing more and picking up new words from regular stuff you do).

So I know getting input you can understand the main idea of (whatever input that is), does eventually result in increasing vocabulary you understand. Which makes reading and listening easier over time. It's why at this point, in chinese and french, I can just learn more words by reading or listening to stuff I'd want to read/listen to anyway.

My speaking skills did not increase very much though. It would be awesome if speaking skills may simply improve with practice like talking to people and shadowing, or I may need to eventually explore speaking exercises with a tutor who corrects mistakes and fills in gaps. I've seen people study with Refold method - which is similar in some ways to what I did, vocabulary study on purpose in the beginning with flashcards/apps/lists, then immersing in materials for native speakers and looking up unknown key words for a while, then immersing with less lookups. And the people who've done Refold tend to do some writing practice, correcting errors (and sometimes drilling correct sentence patterns with anki flashcards), and talk to tutors (who can push them to increase active vocabulary they may have not needed prior - and correct mistakes), to improve their speaking in a few months to a year. (I'd prefer to just shadow and chat with people... but if a tutor is in my future one day then it is what it is...)

So I'm curious how the learning-to-speak portion of the ALG process goes. What those learners do at that stage, how much of it they do, and at what points they hit milestones of 'can talk about X things, to Y things, to Z things" with comfort. Or milestones of a few hundred active vocabulary words, to a few thousand.

[joinsideke]

The bar for public teachers is actually not that high anyway. Don't get me wrong, I've had a lot of great teachers, but just as many were god awful. Some of them clearly didn't give a shit, some seemed to genuinely resent the students, and some were just straight up unfit for the job; but they got it anyway. A few of my most memorable teachers include:

Middle school history teacher who dedicated a day going over how aliens "might" have built the pyramids. Like he was teaching the actual history but kept inserting "how difficult it would have been for them to build it that way" and that "some people" (read: obviously him) theorize blah blah blah... even in middle school we all thought he was crazy.

A twenty-something English teacher who's previous experience was one year at one of those behavioral schools they send juvenile delinquents to. She was just bad. She didn't seem to make lesson plans, she didn't understand the material she was supposed to be teaching (nearly every class was just us students reading aloud from Required Highschool Classic), and she tried way too hard to be friends with the students. To point of adding and messaging them on social media from her very personal account. Everyone who had her hated her. There was even a petition started to get her fired. She wasn't, but she didn't return to our school the following year and we had a normal English class again. (Not holding out hope for the delinquents.)

A music/band instructor who had anger issues and was seemingly unaware that he was teaching middle schoolers and not a professional orchestra. Also one time I asked for help adjusting my saxophone, and the dude put his mouth on it to test it, right after I had just put a new reed in. Fuck you, Mr. Campbell.

A gym/health teacher (they're always both) who was definitely on something. Also, sometime after I had graduated, he got busted for sexually assaulting a student. (At least, I think it was the same guy, but it could have been another one!)

And then there were just the generally mean ones, but you get the point. All this isn't to say that homeschooling is necessarily better, but I don't think it's necessarily worse either. In the very least, parents who decide to homeschool are probably going to actually try. (Whereas my parents couldn't even help me with my math homework cos they were taught it differently.) Also it's not like homeschool kids aren't allowed outside. I knew a few growing up and they were totally normal.

Homeschooling is indoctrination. You are cutting off all exposure to the real world.

[lilacevans]

the math cubes are the bomb and an absolute necessity i never had anything explain math to me so well (as someone who was homeschooled). I wish I could donate to help but I am financially struggling right now, but I do have some advice?

Just a tip: there are so many ways to homeschooling now you don't have to do it all yourself and get burnt out. Obviously it is dependent on what curriculum you use, if any. I know my friend creates their own entirety, which means they set up lesson plans and what the kid learns. Meanwhile I know their cousin does this curriculum where they send these videos and you watch the videos then do the work. Theres even online school for kids now. Granted, idk how any of those methods work because i don't do them myself.

Also, idk how old TD is, but as they get a bit older and can answer questions more comprehensively, have them do a learning styles quiz if you don't already know. Do they learn the best by listening? Explain things or record them so they can listen to it over and over. Visual learner? Math blocks and science experiments, things that actually make it visual. Reading learner? Give them the written material etc. I learned this in university and my god, it was like a breakthrough (not that I didn't get taught when I was younger but it was like a brick wall sometimes and my mother would get frustrated and we would fight)

Homeschooling groups, now obv you would have to investigate, cause there are some good and some bad. Some that almost read cults because what the hell are they indoctrinating their kids with, and some where the parents pulled their kids cause of bullying. Also, some school districts allow homeschooled kids to participate in sports, you have to look up the guidelines for your district. But I recommend a sport (i did gymnastics at a gym) to get that good PE time because I was a kid who only wanted to sit in my room and read

Anyways idk if you even want advice but its all I have to give right now. I hope things go well with you.

i loved them too as a kid! they were a godsend for a girlie with dyscalculia!! we’re following what she wants to do. so lots of history, lots of physical/practical science & maths! as she loves maths. and she’s also learning drums (when she’s with dad) and oh! and lots of reading (she’s currently re-reading the dog man series) and has just started her first big book!!! harry potter!!!! i love her sm. we’re following what she wants to do. for now, it’s home ed. but if she ever wants to go back in the future and the school were confident with has a space then we’ll talk but i’m really excited about home ed!

i’ve also made myself a twinkl acc and if anyone has any other learning site recommendations and places for recourses (free or really cheap) then that’ll be a HUGE help as well. my dad has got me ink and some paper so i have a chance to get a head start with printing off some resources and start to plan lessons around them!!

🎀🤍 wish list here 🤍🎀

[1-deadgirlwalking-1]

3/23/2024

i woke up and then went back to sleep again a few times, i actually woke up at around 3pm. my head hurts and i feel very sluggish. i was productive yesterday, i did the dishes two times, put my laundry in the wash, took a shower, and started my late schoolwork. but today i am not. today i am a blob.

i don't feel like doing anything but i think it's only because my head hurts. i'm getting better though. sometimes i feel bad because i'm like "the other day i was doing so good but today i suck" but my bad days used to be my good days, and my absolute worst days used to be my normal. i'm getting better. i can see the progress as it's happening. and that's good. i still don't brush my teeth hardly ever though, even on my good days. today my teeth are hurting because of that.

anyway i've been learning kana. the only ones i have memorized are あ い う え お き く ア イ ウ エ and オ. which isn't a lot but it's a start. i get very happy whenever i click on a japanese video and am able to recognize characters in the title or subtitles.

i also got signed up for my classes next year. right now i have all A's, my highest grade is 100% my lowest is 90%, so my counselor was encouraging me to take all the honors and AP classes i'm eligible for, but i couldn't say that the only reason my grades are stellar right now is because of me cheating on everything. i don't know hardly any of the material we've learned this year. i finally got a notebook for math class and i'm planning on going through all of my old math lessons and writing everything down so i can actually remember it all. spring break is coming up so that will give me extra time.

for next year i'm signed up for algebra 2, honors english, honors biology, AP history, and japanese. i'm eligible for honors algebra but i'm hesitant on taking it because i'm afraid of getting bad grades, i still have some time to decide. i'm also going to sign up for dual enrollment and if i'm eligible, the two classes i take will replace whichever high school ones i'm signed up for now.

my mom thinks i should take german because i am part german (ethnically) and no one in our family can speak a lick of german, it's been completely forgotten in our family now. and my dad thinks i should take spanish because we're american and that's the most logical to learn. but i don't want to do either of those. i was already planning on learning japanese and my school has a japanese class. why would i not take that?? the only downside is both my family and guidance counselor now think i want to learn japanese because i like anime and that feels extremely slanderous. T^T

i have 7 late assignments to do today. which is a lot for me. but last year i had 60+ late assignments at one point, so it's not that bad.

im typing this last bit out later !!! today started out bad but ended good. i watched mlp and drew myself as a pegasus pony, the anatomy and proportions wasnt correct on some parts but i didnt want to redraw a whole bunch.

my uncle, aunt, and family friend came over today and while everyone was in the kitchen me and my uncle watched television together. it was fun. my uncle has been watching rottmnt with me every time he visits for the past few months, and while we were watching he kept pointing out things he likes about the show and it made me very happy.

he said he loves how the animation goes all out for the fight scenes, and he likes the little easter eggs and references. i told him about my rottmnt AU/OC thing and he was like "do you have a little fanfiction thing going on here?" and i was like "yes" but i haven't actually written it all out as a story, i have the whole timeline and some episode plots written down in a document, but that's it. he told me if i felt comfortable showing him any of my writing he'd love to read it and i told him i write sometimes but i haven't finished anything yet. he said not to worry about finishing anything, which i agree with it, but it would be nice to have at least one finished product to show. then we talked about writing and how we both like it.

my family friend spent most of the time in the kitchen with the rest of the family but sometimes he walked over and would watch some of the show with us for a few minutes. the first time i put it on while he was visiting he didn't like it because it was so different from the version he watched as a kid (87'), but today when we were watching it i told him he has to not think about the other version at all and just watch the show, because if he's only thinking about the ways it's different from the thing he likes, he wont be able to enjoy it as it is.

my uncle also said to think of it like a multiverse where this is a different timeline and all the characters are completely different people from their last version. like obviously that's donatello but it's not YOUR donatello, so it's okay that he's different. which is true but the thing is, i thought that's how everyone thought about remakes and different iterations? i didn't think anyone would watch a NEW iteration in a franchise being like "oh gee oh boy i hope this is a 1 to 1 replica of the specific version i like of these characters and there are no changes whatsoever, otherwise they've ruined it and it sucks." (not that the family friend thinks that way, he doesn't) but it all makes sense now why people act the way they do on the internet when a new version of something comes out.

anyway "they changed this and it's different from the thing i enjoy, therefore it's bad" is not the same as "they changed this and it caused a genuine detriment to the story (and lifeless remakes of existing media for a quick cash grab is bad)" and i wish people understood that. i wish people understood the difference between personal taste and quality.

that's the end of my rant, byebyeeee.

[buttonpusherdiy]

2000 Trees 2023 Review

Now in it’s 15th year 2000 trees returned to Upcote farm for a mostly sunny edition with an absolutely stacked lineup - we caught around 30 different artists this year and discovered some great new music.

Arriving a little later than planned on the Thursday morning we found a spot to camp which seemed ideal but later turned out to be a mistake as we realised we had camped by the entrance to the forest school which had a little drum kit set up in the woods which meant festival revellers would play drums all throughout the night but it’s 2000 trees so we just let it slide and popped our earplugs in before calling it a night. Anyway I digress. Onto the bands....

Projector were one of the bands we really wanted to catch but only managed to catch the very end of their set on the Axiom but it seemed as though the Brighton based trio had a great reception and we'd clearly missed a banging set. Onwards to our first full set of the weekend with ITHACA on the main stage all dressed in white and Djamila in Orange as is now tradition they blitzed through material from their latest release “They Fear Us” with a message to the UK scene for more inclusion and diversity, A solid set from a band currently at the top of their game. 

Ithaca - Photo Credit (Gareth Bull)

Up next were Graphic Nature, admittedly a band I haven’t heard before but they definitely left an impression and I’ll be sure to catch them again in future as they chanelled their inner Slipknot and got the crowd pumped and ready to take on the rest of Thursday afternoon. 

Graphic Nature - Photo Credit - Gareth Bull

Martha have been held in high regard in our circle of friends so I decided to pop along to see what all the fuss was about and while I enjoyed the first half of their set I found myself feeling it all a bit samey and decided to move on to catch the remainder of Svalbard's set over in the Cave, The post-metallers are very much engrained within the UK music scene by now and deliver an epic set to a packed out tent.

It’s actually surprising how many heavier bands are on the trees lineup this year and it’s Bristol's finest purveyors of doom Sugar Horse up next in the darkened Neu stage with their crushingly heavy world ending riffs before some uplifting math/post rock from Belfast’s And So I watch you From Afar who played an absolute blinder and treated the crowd to some new songs. A band that know how to whip a crowd into a frenzy guitarist Rory Friers spent a lot of time in the thick of it among the party people before we headed off into the forest for BAT SABBATH which was Cancer Bats performing a set full of Black Sabbath Classics and one of my highlights of the day as a massive Sabbath fan. 

Bat Sabbath - Photo Credit - Gareth Bull

I ended up watching The Bronx as my headliner and did not regret my decision, having never seen them before this was a lesson in how to get crowd fired up and the tent was brimming full of energy which was unleashed in full force for the duration of their set and ended with one of our crew being taken to get his knee bandaged up following a pit injury!!!!

THE BRONX - Photo Credit - Gareth Bull

Another hot and sweaty day on the Farm as Friday begins and we had an absolutely stacked day ahead beginning with one of our favourites The St Pierre Snake Invasion assaulting the crowd with a mix of new and old bangers on the Main Stage, having released my AOTY so far I was curious to see how the songs would translate on a bigger stage and it just works so well, definitely a band made to play bigger stages they just deserve more attention! 

Following on from that was my discovery of the weekend in Canada’s Motherhood who played a quirky set full of twists and turns that reminded me in parts of a mathier PILE. Definitely looking forward to hearing more from this trio in the future. 

Lakes - Photo Credit - Jez Pennington

Firm bUTTONpUSHER faves LAKES performed a beautiful set full of songs from their latest album Elysian Skies in the Forest and were joined by some guests on vocals and trumpet and I genuinely think the Forest stage is one of my favourite places in all the world to watch bands.

Northern Irelands New Pagans were up next for us and it was a real nice contradiction in sounds as the raw punk rock energy from the band is on full display mixed with gorgeous vocals from Lyndsey. The Irish contingent was strong at this years trees but it was time for some Belgian action from Brutus over on the main stage and again the trio put on a fierce show as always as they hold the crowd in their hands in the blazing sunshine.

Empire State Bastard - Photo Credit - Joseph Singh

Feeling the burn from the heat I enjoyed Empire State Bastard from a shady spot outside the tent but thoroughly enjoyed the noise from Biffy boys Simon Neil and Mike Vennart who are making the rounds on the festival scene this year ahead of the release of their debut album. We closed out our Friday in the Forest with another Irish band, The Scratch, they were easily one of our favourite bands last year but this year their set was shorter and consisted of lots of new songs which unfortunately just missed the mark with me and I feel they should have had a longer set on a bigger stage. 

Photo Credit - Gareth Bull

Before arriving at the festival I assumed Saturday would be the more chilled out day for me but damn was I wrong. Not having a list of bands I wanted to see meant I ended up catching lots of great new music that I otherwise probably wouldn’t have known about.

I started my morning with a coffee and a bacon sandwich before heading off to see Witch Fever on the main stage, the Riot Grrrl vibe was strong and they played a rager of a set as the weather tried to make up its mind about what to do. 

Modern Error - Photo Credit - Gareth Bull

Modern Error had an air of NIN about them which I enjoyed but quickly tired of as the sound just wasn't that great for them and so I left to go check out High Vis on the main stage where someone recommended yet another Irish band Enola Gay who brought some post punk/ hardcore action to the afternoon before it all got a bit silly with Electric Six and one of the biggest crowds I’d seen down at the main stage all weekend. 

Electric Six - Photo Credit - Gareth Bull

Time for a quick break before we caught One step Closer and Holding Absence who admittedly aren’t really the kind of thing I’m into but both put on solid perfomances and the latter were clearly delighted to be on the main stage after playing every stage at 2000 trees now over the years.

Frozemode and Cody frost were both on fire and definite highlights on the forest stage with Frozemode enjoying some sunshine and Cody Frost playing through a set filled with torrential rain and a surprise guest appearance from Enter Shikari's Rou Reynolds, the Shikari fans all made a beeline for the front ensuring this was a set Cody Frost will remember forever.

Hundred Reasons had the misfortune of playing the main stage during the worst weather of the weekend and it all becomes a bit much so we decided to go see TSPSI for the second time this weekend as they had replaced Loathe who unfortunately had to pull out last minute. 

The St Pierre Snake Invasion - Photo Credit - Joe Singh

Pitchshifter were a band I never managed to see growing up so off we headed for some nostalgic riffs from the Nottingham rockers who while putting on a sterling show seemed to be more obsessed with the fact they are an old band now which became quite cringey very quickly as JS Claydon showed off his “Dad Bod” - one of the bands i wish I’d seen when they were doing it the first time round instead!

Time for a hot take but American Football are not a band for a festival in my opinion, despite being great on record they just don’t keep your energy levels up enough so we left after a couple of songs and decided to close the festival out with an absolutely thrilling set from Belfast’s Kneecap who were phenomenal. The Hip Hop trio mix Irish and English language and gave fair warning to the packed forest that if you are on psychedelics you aren’t going crazy their just mixing up the two languages and to great effect. High octane energy and plenty of laughs from the two frontmen while their DJ wearing a balaclava drank cans in the background. I would highly encourage anyone to go see these lot if they get the opportunity. 

Kneecap - Photo Credit - Joe Singh

So as we donned our silent disco headphones and closed out another year at 2000 Trees it’s say to say this was another successful year and there’s probably way more we could have written about how great this festival is, it's an absolute credit to the organisers who manage to smash it every year!

We’ll definitely be back next year!!!!! 

[suzyblue0292]

@r7skt sorry it took so long to reply. Had to do the teaching before I could type about the teaching.

Two quick misconceptions about teaching:

1. We are not 12month employees. We are contracted employees for the months school is in session. Some if not most schools with hold part of each month’s paycheck so we can survive in the summer. A few schools expect you to do this yourself. Which is hard because if there’s an emergency then that money is very tempting.

Despite that most teachers work on their curriculum, classrooms, and professional development (all of which we often pay for out of our own pockets) during those non-contract months.

Many of us also work other jobs during that time - and the school year.

2. We don’t just work the hours school is in session. We have stated contract hours we are to be on campus- generally around 30 minutes before and after first and last bells. Most teachers are there hours before after or both at least a few days a week. And that’s just teachers - coaches, principals, counselors live at the school. Coaches have to run practices, there has to be a principal at every school event, counselors and principals are drowning in paperwork. And that just covers the work we do at school- most of us work at home as well. The reason any teacher protest/walkout begins with a contract hours only step is because schools don’t function when those are the only hours we work.

The kids are the worst part of teaching. The kids are the only reason I teach. There’s nothing better than seeing a kid “get it.” Or building relationships with them. They are sweet and helpful and funny. Loving them is so fucking easy.

There is nothing more exhausting than being insulted to your face by people you care about more than anything just for doing your job/the right/adult thing.

When I worked in tech one of my supervisors said that 10 percent of your clients cause 90 percent of your problems. Same thing in teaching. Most kids know when they’ve screwed up and will own it. But oh my god the ones that don’t. Whatever they did or didn’t do is your fault not theirs. And 9 times out of 10 their parents will come for you and maybe your job as well. And the thing is you love the kids anyway. Which is why it hurts so much.

Just Google Ed laws if you’re not already familiar with the BS going on in various states right now. Ryan Walters in particular will bring you a wealth of insanity.

Trying to create an ELA curriculum is beyond headache creating in our current political climate. Granted I teach in a rural school (although I have taught at large ones) in a Bible Belt state.

Do not believe anything you see on the inspirational teaching movies. It doesn’t work like that.

Teaching is a lot more than standing in front of a room talking or even marking papers. You plan the lessons for each week (I prep 20 a week - each 50 minutes long because I teach English I, II, III, IV). Once you know what you’re teaching you have to get together the materials for all the lessons printed/posted, etc. then you teach it, then you grade it, then you analyze the data from the grades work to see if the kids learned it or if you need to reteach it. Generally while fielding emails and verbal complaints about why you’re not grading faster, because someone has always turned something in late that they want graded immediately. You’re also dealing with discipline issues, tech issues, issues from whatever club you sponsor, setting up testing dates, taking webinars. I am also my school’s coordinator for our states career portfolio program that all kids have to complete before graduation. And if you teach English every branch of the military will come to your class to give recruitment speeches multiple times junior and senior year. In fact anyone the school allows to speak with the kids that isn’t an assembly will happen in English because it the only required 4 year course so they get to everyone. Same with paperwork- need to get it everyone- English dept.

How much time do you have in your day to complete all these non teaching tasks? 50 minutes. And your 20 minute lunch. I’m fortunate enough to work at a school where they allow you to work at your desk if the kids are working, but some schools require teachers to be on their feet walking the room if there are kids present.

If you have questions hit me up!!

I’ll continue if I can think of anything else, but I’ve got lesson plans to finish for Monday😭🤣😭🤣

I know a lot of people hc Jason as an English teacher. I like it, I do. But let me be real with you 9 days out of 10 this is the conversation he comes home to:

“How was work?”

“I fucking miss being a crime lord. That’s how.”