Make it so
I've been meaning to sit down and update for, no joke, the last three days. In every case, either fighting with Two, or shiny things on the Internet, or some other Life distraction has gotten in the way. So, here it is, again, approaching bedtime, but I'm GOING to post, darnit. Also, there's a 99% chance that tomorrow will be a snow day, in which case, once the Superintendent wakes us all up with the 4am phone call, I can go back to sleep. :-P
First up, some amusements:
1) Am I the only one to see the disconnect here?
(Display at local convenience store.)
2) A realistic house-cleaning guide for moms. LOL!
Next - general catch-up:
1) MiniPlu survived midterms, although she didn't do as well on some of them as she would have liked. Midterms and finals are scored strangely here - they don't affect the current quarter/semester grade at all. Rather, there's a slot on the report card for midterm grades, and one for finals, so they are incorporated with the four quarter grades all together, to determine the final end-of-year grade. She hasn't brought home her report card yet (another oddity: at the high school they only get semester report cards, not after 1st and 3rd quarters) but according to the portal she has a B+ in geometry, squeaked out an A- in Latin by virtue of rounding up (she does fine on vocab but the teacher hasn't properly taught the grammar, so MiniPlu has a very poor grasp of it), an A- for Honors English (teacher was a tough grader), solid As for biology and Honors World Civ, and an A+ for gym. Perfectly respectable. English is over now, so MiniPlu has public speaking this semester, instead, and Latin II instead of Latin I. She has an entire quarter of health instead of official gym, which means an entire quarter of not having to change clothes and, you know, exercise, so she's delighted. Math, science and social studies remain the same.
Unfortunately, I fell a little behind on checking with parent portal, so it was a bit of a rude surprise when I took a look yesterday - knowing that report cards were about to come out - and found out that Two not only had a C in math (not a huge surprise - he's still testing badly) but also in his supplemental reading class, which he'd been doing pretty well in, first quarter. He even likes this class so it's even more frustrating to see that he's struggling there. As for the math grade, it didn't help at all that he had FIVE 50% marks on homework, where he used to get only 100%. Look, kid, you need every point you can get - don't throw them away! I asked him what that was about, and he said it was if he didn't show all his work. This is a chronic problem with him, because he has a very intuitive grasp of math, and stopping to write down all the steps is not only stupid, in his mind, but also difficult. It's like trying to explain to someone how you start the car or put your shirt on. You don't know, really - you just do it. But, anyway, need to sit on him more to do that. Which will result in more fights, sigh, but c'est la vie?
He kept his A/A+ in gym/health and engineering, raised his science grade from a B+ in 1st Q to an A- in 2nd Q, but did the reverse (A- to B+) for English and social studies. I'm okay with those grades: it's the Cs that have to get better!
I'm honestly tearing my hair out over him. He needs help so, SO much in certain areas, but he only interprets that to mean he's stupid. I don't know how to help him, steer him, advise him, without blowing even bigger holes in his self-esteem, and yet I don't want to lie or sugarcoat his (dis)abilities, either. I wish I had an education specialist with us here at home, someone who could tell me what to say or do because it always seems like the wrong thing, there's always so much fighting even when I try to be encouraging, and he's so angry all the time over anything school-related. *wibbles*
2) Kids were supposed to have eye exams on Monday afternoon. So, we used to go to the Vision Center at WalMart for a long time, before our eye doctor moved to another location and we went with her. The eye doctor R&K see - and that Will has now been to - is, like much of everything around here - about 30 mins away. Given that MiniPlu's time is particularly precious, I thought I'd see if I could find another doctor closer - the trick is finding someone who takes our PA-based insurance (which the distant place does). But! It turns out that the local WalMart did, too! The only catch was that MiniPlu is now old enough that she only qualifies for every-other-year exams now, rather than yearly, and she didn't qualify for the next one until yesterday (I was trying to make the appointment a couple of weeks ago). So even though she's been the one complaining about her vision, I made her wait the couple of weeks, in the name of not paying $75 just for the exam, if I didn't have to.
So, we showed up Monday and ... we're not in the appointment books. The clerk called another local WalMart to see if I'd made the appointment with the wrong location, while I dug through my phone's log to find the number I'd called - but, no, I'd called the right one. When I explained that I was sure we had an appointment today, because it was the earliest I could get MiniPlu an appointment with our insurance, the clerk suddenly brightened because she was the one who had been talking with me, and she remembered the conversation. And she said that, no, she hadn't actually MADE the appointment. The 6th was just the day they would call to get authorization from insurance, and then she would call me once they had it, and make an appointment afterwards. (Keep in mind that it was 4pm and they hadn't called for this yet.) But also keep in mind that she had not explained any of this at ALL. I mean, I could have SWORN that we changed my original appointment (from before we realized the insurance issue) to this date, at this time, but she said, "Oh, no - I just cancelled the original appointment, that's all." And I really don't think that was the way the conversation went, but even if it did, I know, 100%, that she never explained the whole "I'll call on that date and get back to you." So, I was pretty pissed off.
The clerk did manage to appease us when she said they could still fit in one person right then (which was definitely going to be MiniPlu) and handed me the paperwork to fill out. Meanwhile, I hear her and another clerk saying, "Is the doctor in his office? Did he go to lunch?" Like - they can't even keep track of him. It was only after I'd finished the paperwork that the clerk returned to say that the doctor wouldn't be back until 4:30p and only had a free slot at 5:30p, after all, since he, you know, wasn't there right now like they thought. Because they're just that disorganized. I said no thanks and walked out, and when they asked if I wanted to reschedule, I said, "Nope." Because, honestly, the level of incompetence, poor service, etc, was just staggering.
(And now I have to make MiniPlu an appointment at the 30-min-away place. Oh, and she was supposed to have a dental checkup tomorrow that will be cancelled because of the snow forecast.)
3) On a cheerier note: summer plans are starting to come together (yes, already). Will and I desperately wanted a nice vacation - nobody got one last year, except for the long-weekend trip for my friend's wedding, and even that wasn't exactly what we all needed, you know? Plus, Two was DYING for us all to attend family camp at his camp - a long weekend around Labor Day - and was willing to sacrifice his solo week there for it, but we said he could still go to that. So: mid-July, he goes to camp. Early Aug: we're all off to Hawaii! First time since 2007, and I do hope it goes better than last time. I've gravely informed the kids that nobody is allowed to get stomach flu this time. :-P And hopefully the rest will be smoother and more successful, too. Still working on hotel for the Big Island (I want to see the volcanoes!) and using R&K's vacation club points to stay at Aulani on Oahu. Then, on Labor Day weekend, right before school starts, it's back to New England for family camp. We could use some fun.
I also finished reading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street two days ago. Overall: loved it. In fact, as soon as I was done, I went over to AO3 to read all 10 stories they had there. (Most were quite good.) I'm kind of flipping back through it now, because there are some things that still feel a little murky to me, and also because the book took a TOTAL left turn about 3/4 of the way through, and I want to go back and see if I can see the steps leading up to that, now that I know what to look for, because I really did NOT see those things coming. I really liked how the book pulled me in right away - I could easily picture Thaniel's life, and it wasn't the first time I'd heard of synesthesia, either, so that didn't throw me. Piecing together Mori's abilities was tougher. Even after it was explained, the exact nature of it still puzzled me, like - how, as long as nothing is said aloud, Mori would forget. But if it WAS said aloud, then he would remember the future. (Such a weird concept - remembering the future.) Although that did lead to possibly my favorite line, from Grace towards the end of the book: "I'm in disguise and running away from my husband's best friend, who can remember the future. I'm trying to beat him back to his house now, so that I might steal his clockwork octopus, which runs on random gears."
(It's no wonder that the gentleman she said it to responded, "Young ladies ought not to drink." Hee!)
But, anyway: Mori's clairvoyance, and his personality. He seems like such a gentle soul, and yet, the way he orchestrated the accidental deaths - or near deaths - of several people he disliked, that wasn't so hot. Anyway, I still feel a little murky on what he could and could not portend, under what circumstances, but it was still neat.
Less clear: why was Grace running away from him? The most obvious guess is that she feared he would create an "accident" to get her out of the way, too. And yet, what on earth was the point of stealing Katsu? Why would framing Yuki for a bombing do anything to Mori? Did she have that use for Katsu in mind when she took him? Did she just take him because she knew it would hurt Mori and wanted to use it as leverage? That whole thing just seemed so weird, and was part of the whole "sudden left turn" the plot took that really took me by surprise. I'm still not sure I get her motives.
(I'm also still unclear what causes the clockwork fireflies to light up. Motion sensing? If so, was Mori the one out in the garden on Thaniel's first night in the house? Or did they light up for some other reason?)
As for Mori: no joke, at one point, I had literally set the book aside right after the wedding, when Thaniel sneaks out and goes to Mori and hugs him. I remember thinking, "Aww, that's sweet - slash-shippers will have a field day with that!" and I seriously, never ever considered it would be anything else. I really did think that Mori avoided the wedding because he was upset his best friend was moving out, and that Thaniel missed him because: best friend. You want your friends at your wedding. So, when, literally, less than a page later, Mori and Thaniel ended up kissing, I seriously just stared at the page in disbelief, then re-read the passage again, just to be sure I wasn't making it up in my head. I mean, it was adorable, and the way Thaniel's feelings were blazingly clear after that were nicely laid out, but, yeah, that was Left Turn, Part II (or, Part I, really, since it came before Grace's adventure). On the other hand, Morimoto's feelings for Grace were abundantly clear from the get-go, even without the whole matching "swallows" thing on her watch and his buttons.
Katsu: best character ever. Although I don't believe for a moment that his actions were truly random. Nobody reliably steals socks and ties out of randomness. *g* It breaks my heart to think he probably didn't survive the blast, but I can pretend whatever I like in my head. :) Also an awesome side character: Six. I'm glad the men took her in, permanently, in the end.
Back to Grace for a moment: were her studies of the ether supposed to mean something? Because it feels like it was a completely random thing thrown in there just to give her something steam-punky to do, not because it had real relevance. Yes, she uses it to theorize how Mori's abilities work, but it doesn't seem like she was ever able to solidify those theories into provable evidence, and we never hear anything more about her plans or what she learned after the big experiment failed.
Ok, that got kind of long. Apparently I had a lot of thoughts rumbling around in my head after reading this book, lol. But, yeah, I really did like it, despite some of the quibbling. Thank you again, hamsterwoman!
Some final bits and pieces: Picked up an application to be a sub here. I'm still not entirely sure if I'm ready to do it for a school system I don't have a firm grasp on, but I know they need subs and maybe it's time.
My dad's memory continues to get worse. :-(
This morning the librarian kindly bought me a bagel from a local place that's supposed to be really good. And, holy smokes, it was. I don't know what was different about it, but it was outstanding, heaven on a napkin. Definitely have to visit that place for myself now and then, for a wheat splurge.
Ok, better go to bed. Need to get at least some sleep in case this storm unexpectedly fizzles or something, and there's school after all.
First up, some amusements:
1) Am I the only one to see the disconnect here?
(Display at local convenience store.)
2) A realistic house-cleaning guide for moms. LOL!
Next - general catch-up:
1) MiniPlu survived midterms, although she didn't do as well on some of them as she would have liked. Midterms and finals are scored strangely here - they don't affect the current quarter/semester grade at all. Rather, there's a slot on the report card for midterm grades, and one for finals, so they are incorporated with the four quarter grades all together, to determine the final end-of-year grade. She hasn't brought home her report card yet (another oddity: at the high school they only get semester report cards, not after 1st and 3rd quarters) but according to the portal she has a B+ in geometry, squeaked out an A- in Latin by virtue of rounding up (she does fine on vocab but the teacher hasn't properly taught the grammar, so MiniPlu has a very poor grasp of it), an A- for Honors English (teacher was a tough grader), solid As for biology and Honors World Civ, and an A+ for gym. Perfectly respectable. English is over now, so MiniPlu has public speaking this semester, instead, and Latin II instead of Latin I. She has an entire quarter of health instead of official gym, which means an entire quarter of not having to change clothes and, you know, exercise, so she's delighted. Math, science and social studies remain the same.
Unfortunately, I fell a little behind on checking with parent portal, so it was a bit of a rude surprise when I took a look yesterday - knowing that report cards were about to come out - and found out that Two not only had a C in math (not a huge surprise - he's still testing badly) but also in his supplemental reading class, which he'd been doing pretty well in, first quarter. He even likes this class so it's even more frustrating to see that he's struggling there. As for the math grade, it didn't help at all that he had FIVE 50% marks on homework, where he used to get only 100%. Look, kid, you need every point you can get - don't throw them away! I asked him what that was about, and he said it was if he didn't show all his work. This is a chronic problem with him, because he has a very intuitive grasp of math, and stopping to write down all the steps is not only stupid, in his mind, but also difficult. It's like trying to explain to someone how you start the car or put your shirt on. You don't know, really - you just do it. But, anyway, need to sit on him more to do that. Which will result in more fights, sigh, but c'est la vie?
He kept his A/A+ in gym/health and engineering, raised his science grade from a B+ in 1st Q to an A- in 2nd Q, but did the reverse (A- to B+) for English and social studies. I'm okay with those grades: it's the Cs that have to get better!
I'm honestly tearing my hair out over him. He needs help so, SO much in certain areas, but he only interprets that to mean he's stupid. I don't know how to help him, steer him, advise him, without blowing even bigger holes in his self-esteem, and yet I don't want to lie or sugarcoat his (dis)abilities, either. I wish I had an education specialist with us here at home, someone who could tell me what to say or do because it always seems like the wrong thing, there's always so much fighting even when I try to be encouraging, and he's so angry all the time over anything school-related. *wibbles*
2) Kids were supposed to have eye exams on Monday afternoon. So, we used to go to the Vision Center at WalMart for a long time, before our eye doctor moved to another location and we went with her. The eye doctor R&K see - and that Will has now been to - is, like much of everything around here - about 30 mins away. Given that MiniPlu's time is particularly precious, I thought I'd see if I could find another doctor closer - the trick is finding someone who takes our PA-based insurance (which the distant place does). But! It turns out that the local WalMart did, too! The only catch was that MiniPlu is now old enough that she only qualifies for every-other-year exams now, rather than yearly, and she didn't qualify for the next one until yesterday (I was trying to make the appointment a couple of weeks ago). So even though she's been the one complaining about her vision, I made her wait the couple of weeks, in the name of not paying $75 just for the exam, if I didn't have to.
So, we showed up Monday and ... we're not in the appointment books. The clerk called another local WalMart to see if I'd made the appointment with the wrong location, while I dug through my phone's log to find the number I'd called - but, no, I'd called the right one. When I explained that I was sure we had an appointment today, because it was the earliest I could get MiniPlu an appointment with our insurance, the clerk suddenly brightened because she was the one who had been talking with me, and she remembered the conversation. And she said that, no, she hadn't actually MADE the appointment. The 6th was just the day they would call to get authorization from insurance, and then she would call me once they had it, and make an appointment afterwards. (Keep in mind that it was 4pm and they hadn't called for this yet.) But also keep in mind that she had not explained any of this at ALL. I mean, I could have SWORN that we changed my original appointment (from before we realized the insurance issue) to this date, at this time, but she said, "Oh, no - I just cancelled the original appointment, that's all." And I really don't think that was the way the conversation went, but even if it did, I know, 100%, that she never explained the whole "I'll call on that date and get back to you." So, I was pretty pissed off.
The clerk did manage to appease us when she said they could still fit in one person right then (which was definitely going to be MiniPlu) and handed me the paperwork to fill out. Meanwhile, I hear her and another clerk saying, "Is the doctor in his office? Did he go to lunch?" Like - they can't even keep track of him. It was only after I'd finished the paperwork that the clerk returned to say that the doctor wouldn't be back until 4:30p and only had a free slot at 5:30p, after all, since he, you know, wasn't there right now like they thought. Because they're just that disorganized. I said no thanks and walked out, and when they asked if I wanted to reschedule, I said, "Nope." Because, honestly, the level of incompetence, poor service, etc, was just staggering.
(And now I have to make MiniPlu an appointment at the 30-min-away place. Oh, and she was supposed to have a dental checkup tomorrow that will be cancelled because of the snow forecast.)
3) On a cheerier note: summer plans are starting to come together (yes, already). Will and I desperately wanted a nice vacation - nobody got one last year, except for the long-weekend trip for my friend's wedding, and even that wasn't exactly what we all needed, you know? Plus, Two was DYING for us all to attend family camp at his camp - a long weekend around Labor Day - and was willing to sacrifice his solo week there for it, but we said he could still go to that. So: mid-July, he goes to camp. Early Aug: we're all off to Hawaii! First time since 2007, and I do hope it goes better than last time. I've gravely informed the kids that nobody is allowed to get stomach flu this time. :-P And hopefully the rest will be smoother and more successful, too. Still working on hotel for the Big Island (I want to see the volcanoes!) and using R&K's vacation club points to stay at Aulani on Oahu. Then, on Labor Day weekend, right before school starts, it's back to New England for family camp. We could use some fun.
I also finished reading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street two days ago. Overall: loved it. In fact, as soon as I was done, I went over to AO3 to read all 10 stories they had there. (Most were quite good.) I'm kind of flipping back through it now, because there are some things that still feel a little murky to me, and also because the book took a TOTAL left turn about 3/4 of the way through, and I want to go back and see if I can see the steps leading up to that, now that I know what to look for, because I really did NOT see those things coming. I really liked how the book pulled me in right away - I could easily picture Thaniel's life, and it wasn't the first time I'd heard of synesthesia, either, so that didn't throw me. Piecing together Mori's abilities was tougher. Even after it was explained, the exact nature of it still puzzled me, like - how, as long as nothing is said aloud, Mori would forget. But if it WAS said aloud, then he would remember the future. (Such a weird concept - remembering the future.) Although that did lead to possibly my favorite line, from Grace towards the end of the book: "I'm in disguise and running away from my husband's best friend, who can remember the future. I'm trying to beat him back to his house now, so that I might steal his clockwork octopus, which runs on random gears."
(It's no wonder that the gentleman she said it to responded, "Young ladies ought not to drink." Hee!)
But, anyway: Mori's clairvoyance, and his personality. He seems like such a gentle soul, and yet, the way he orchestrated the accidental deaths - or near deaths - of several people he disliked, that wasn't so hot. Anyway, I still feel a little murky on what he could and could not portend, under what circumstances, but it was still neat.
Less clear: why was Grace running away from him? The most obvious guess is that she feared he would create an "accident" to get her out of the way, too. And yet, what on earth was the point of stealing Katsu? Why would framing Yuki for a bombing do anything to Mori? Did she have that use for Katsu in mind when she took him? Did she just take him because she knew it would hurt Mori and wanted to use it as leverage? That whole thing just seemed so weird, and was part of the whole "sudden left turn" the plot took that really took me by surprise. I'm still not sure I get her motives.
(I'm also still unclear what causes the clockwork fireflies to light up. Motion sensing? If so, was Mori the one out in the garden on Thaniel's first night in the house? Or did they light up for some other reason?)
As for Mori: no joke, at one point, I had literally set the book aside right after the wedding, when Thaniel sneaks out and goes to Mori and hugs him. I remember thinking, "Aww, that's sweet - slash-shippers will have a field day with that!" and I seriously, never ever considered it would be anything else. I really did think that Mori avoided the wedding because he was upset his best friend was moving out, and that Thaniel missed him because: best friend. You want your friends at your wedding. So, when, literally, less than a page later, Mori and Thaniel ended up kissing, I seriously just stared at the page in disbelief, then re-read the passage again, just to be sure I wasn't making it up in my head. I mean, it was adorable, and the way Thaniel's feelings were blazingly clear after that were nicely laid out, but, yeah, that was Left Turn, Part II (or, Part I, really, since it came before Grace's adventure). On the other hand, Morimoto's feelings for Grace were abundantly clear from the get-go, even without the whole matching "swallows" thing on her watch and his buttons.
Katsu: best character ever. Although I don't believe for a moment that his actions were truly random. Nobody reliably steals socks and ties out of randomness. *g* It breaks my heart to think he probably didn't survive the blast, but I can pretend whatever I like in my head. :) Also an awesome side character: Six. I'm glad the men took her in, permanently, in the end.
Back to Grace for a moment: were her studies of the ether supposed to mean something? Because it feels like it was a completely random thing thrown in there just to give her something steam-punky to do, not because it had real relevance. Yes, she uses it to theorize how Mori's abilities work, but it doesn't seem like she was ever able to solidify those theories into provable evidence, and we never hear anything more about her plans or what she learned after the big experiment failed.
Ok, that got kind of long. Apparently I had a lot of thoughts rumbling around in my head after reading this book, lol. But, yeah, I really did like it, despite some of the quibbling. Thank you again, hamsterwoman!
Some final bits and pieces: Picked up an application to be a sub here. I'm still not entirely sure if I'm ready to do it for a school system I don't have a firm grasp on, but I know they need subs and maybe it's time.
My dad's memory continues to get worse. :-(
This morning the librarian kindly bought me a bagel from a local place that's supposed to be really good. And, holy smokes, it was. I don't know what was different about it, but it was outstanding, heaven on a napkin. Definitely have to visit that place for myself now and then, for a wheat splurge.
Ok, better go to bed. Need to get at least some sleep in case this storm unexpectedly fizzles or something, and there's school after all.