| well i give you back yer keys! |
[Oct. 22nd, 2008|10:41 pm] |
Tonight was my turn to put Zara to bed, and we read some books, sang a few songs, cuddled a bit and before I could make an excuse to leave she was already asleep. Several hours later as I sit here pouring over my notes and trying to figure out what really is the purpose (statement) for the evaluation I'm planning for some of FCM's school programs... and thinking of evaluation questions.... Zara stumbles out of her room, hands The Boy (who has gone to meet/intercept her) my keys, which apparently fell out while we were snuggling, and heads back to bed. She then gets up again and asks the Boy to come snuggle, they lay down for a few minutes and here I sit supposedly working on my evaluation plan (which I am), but I had to take a minute to share what a funny boo our kiddo is.
Sorry for my extended blogosphere silence, it's been a crazy busy summer and I've been channeling as much writing as I can into schoolwork... but I'll slack less in the near future, I promise... (again this is for the 4 of you who even read this... ;) |
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| When we last left our intrepid traveler(s)... |
[Jun. 5th, 2008|09:29 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | kiddo, school | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  hot | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova - When Your Mind's Made Up | ] |
Here I was, feeling all productive, and like I was making some academic headway on aforementioned comps. We finished the video voice over, the final cuts are all to Larry (education guy), and I've just got to send a long a few curriculum ideas. So that's done... like dinner. And while I haven't made so much in the way of comps progress, i think i've found an outlet for my ID comp, and i think I can start writing my history one, which is also a part of the pilot study write-up for a different journal. Phew.
Lots of other exciting non-school news though. Z was super on our 8 state tour (VA -> WV -> MD -> PA -> OH -> MI, followed by MI -> IN -> IL (and the return), then MI -> OH and OH -> WV -> VA.) Basically C'ville to Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor to Oak Brook (other side of Chicago for Dr. Rach (and Ed)'s wedding! Mazel Tov!), Oak Brook to Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor to Attica, Attica to Columbus, Columbus to C'ville. A lot of driving, and Taki Ototo is faboo. Speaking not of, we sold Bjorn. Bittersweet, really - we were hardly driving him with Taki, but yet I have way too much fondness for that car. Maybe because he's Dante's heir. Who knows. Anyway, he's off at his new home and we're back down to a 2 car family. Z was a super trooper, drawing on her doodler, singing up a storm, taking long though slightly fitful and often late naps, and generally being really funny. Also, made it to the bathroom every single time, no accidents the whole trip! What a big girl!
Excitingly we're going to Scotland - a few days in Glasgow followed by a few more in Edinburgh, where the Boy is attending a conference. If anyone has some must sees or must dos, share away. I'm hoping we can find a Ceilidh - Z would LOVE the music and dancing! Other than that, a lot of parks, brief trips into many museums (research!), a lot of walking and architecture gazing, and hopefully some time by the water, too.
Still have C-dawg. Not washed out... yet. He continues to be super cute and sweet, but just LOVES other dogs and has a hard time ignoring them. Z goes to CBI camp 3 days a week for 4 weeks this summer. Big trip to Upstate NY for Grandpa's 90th birthday, followed by Z spending some quality time with Marmee while the boy and I go off and do... something. Possibilities abound!
Must get back to comp outline, but watermelon calls... |
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| It's a masquerade party she said I'm invited... |
[May. 5th, 2008|10:55 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | school | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  ecstatic | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Push Stars - Shy | ] |
Short but sweet... I turned in my last paper for the term, a 39 page inquiry on family groups in a living history museum, using Erickson's model of analytic induction... research isn't done yet but it's pretty close, 1 or 2 more family groups to observe and then the follow up interviews...
Now it's onto my comps and starting to get my dissertation proposal together... yikes! Also need to finish the voice over for the pre-visit videos... but that's all fun. Yay fun!
In the meantime, however, this cracked case, broken cd/dvd drive, flickering backlight mac's gotta get into Apple for some serious TLC if it's going to make it through my dissertation next year... I'm taking program evaluation in the Fall, but that's an optional this would be interesting class and not necessary credit-wise.
I should hear back about my proposal for the NAI National Workshop in Portland, which would be swanky cos it would fulfill my preso/publication requirement and we'd all go to Portland in November. So that'd be nice, too. Never been to Portland before. Portland, Oregon that is. Been to Maine. Several times.
So apologies to anyone I've been ignoring for the past few weeks, I still adore you all, I've just been in super get stuff done mode. I'm now moving on to kick back and enjoy it mode. In particular, when not having 'sodes, Z has become a ton of fun... she's so damn funny! |
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| Our new Ototo, and why I have no time to write |
[Apr. 11th, 2008|09:09 pm] |
We've been threatening for a bit, but 2 Fridays ago while Marmee and Abuelo were in town, the Boy and I went out and bought a new (to us) car. It's a 2006 Silver Toyota Prius. If it's possible, I think it might be a slightly more popular car in C'ville than Bjorn (Silver Volvo XC70), which seems crazy since the V/XC70s is everywhere... anyway, the car is still unnamed, which is weird and disconcerting for me - I'm a big car namer. Both Bjorn and Dante were named within a day of me first driving them, and I've had "new silver car" for 2 weeks now. 2 weeks, no name! Z insists the car is a "she" but otherwise, not so much with the name. Before we ever bought the car Z called it an "Ototo" (that's oh-toe-toe) largely because, I think she couldn't remember "toyota." Since then we've had names such as Bento, Taki, Nohai, Sudoko, Elektra, Akira, and who knows what else suggested. None of them have stuck. So, Internet, beloved audience, friends, and random blog readers... what should we call the car? Comment away!
Also, you will hear little else from me for the next few weeks, since I have no time to write since all I'm doing is writing. Oddly enough, I might, if I had some time, actually be able to read since I don't do that much, but I'm still almost 4 hours behind in field note write-ups with another 2-3 coming up on Sunday, plus interview scanning and transcription of relevant passages, plus a bunch more memos, plus constant data analysis, plus journals, plus... yeah. I'm swamped. Big class paper due 5/5, actual research paper for pilot class due on my schedule, which will include follow-up interviews, probably by the end of May. In June I'll find out if my preso for the National Interpretation Association Workshop was accepted (whoot Portland in November :) and that all has implications as to whether I get my dissertation proposal together before fall or not... comps need to get done either way, but I can't defend my proposal until I have something accepted for publication or presentation...!
Crawling back under my grad student stone... :) |
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| IRB = Approved! |
[Mar. 20th, 2008|10:43 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | kiddo, school | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Java Java | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | optimistic | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Counting Crows - A song I don't know but that's certainly Adam Durvitz singing | ] |
Two important things to share - I've received IRB approval for my study, and data collection starts this weekend. Data collection will continue over the last weekend in March, and then maybe the first weekend April if I don't have enough hours/families. Plus there's some miscellaneous interviewing, to be completed.... soon. yay.
No less important is that the Boy and I are sitting in a cafe on the downtown mall, working, while Z is at her first day of preschool at CBI! Coincidentally it is also Purim, so she wore her buddy Claire's maple tree costume to school today. How many toddlers get to start school in a tree costume? Pics to follow, I'm sure. Anyway, she's going 2 days a week (Th/F) as a late in the game replacement - they had an open spot in the young 2s class, so we took it for the next 2 months or so (end of May). She'll be going to CBI in the fall in a 3/4s class (we think with the same teacher she has now, another reason to send her to Kadima this spring) so this is a little warm-up to get her ready for that, and to give her some big kid time on her own and to hang with some peers.
And that's 6 more hours a week to do data analysis and coding and maybe get started on my long suffering but really need to get them done soon comps! |
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| IRB = Submitted! |
[Feb. 28th, 2008|11:48 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  pleased | ] |
And so we begin the (hopefully not too) long process of revising, clarifying, and doing the bit I gotta do to get UVa to OK my pilot research.... hopefully by Easter, which is the weekend I'd really like to be out in the field collecting data.
So keep your fingers and toes crossed for me that my nascent research career isn't thwarted too quickly by institutional bureaucracy ;)
more updates soon, I think while I'm playing the waiting game I'll have a bit more free time to write. Speaking not of, anyone have a good qualitative faux-research question that can be addressed (in part) by 15 minutes of observation in a coffee shop? :) That's this afternoon's challenge... |
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| If it isn't one thing, it's another... |
[Feb. 11th, 2008|11:55 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | kiddo, life, school | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Guster - I Spy | ] |
Warning: The following blog entry contains much talk of puke, though not super graphically. Those of you who this might bother don't actually read my blog, last I checked, but in case you've been sneaking since you know I can't grep through the access logs to tell, you've been warned. So there.
So, starting way back on... Tuesday? 2am-ish? Zara's all with the puking, every couple hours, though the night. Sucky for all of us, and comparatively nerve-wracking for us parental types as no one else was sick (that we knew of) and Zara really doesn't get sick much. Of course, with a half-sister and a cousin (not actually related through genetics, but what's that got to do with a good paranoid parental moment?) who both had appendicitis as toddlers, I was, while not half-asleep, at least somewhat concerned that could be Z's deal, too. Morning brought some respite from puke, and a quick call to the house pediatrician in Brooklyn brought great reassurance. Cos ya know, no one thinks best on 1.5 hours of totally interrupted toddler puking sleep.
Thinking we we're in the clear, The Boy and I took Coda to class at Lowe's to work on the autism training as well as some basic field work. Got a call from Laura that Z was back to puking, so home we go. Uneventful evening, Z wakes up having thrown up in her bed at midnight, we transfer her to our bed, ensconce her in towels, and I go on to clean up all the sheets, woodstock (her blankie), etc... of course, this is not easy for me. I'm not big fan of puke. I'm actually kinda vomit averse. I mean, not one loves it, sure... but with M-doggie, for instance - i cleaned up nasty poop and The Boy was on puke patrol.
Anyway, days whiz by, busy with school, life... and by Friday night I'm sick... nauseous, achy, feverish, no patience for Z... but good thing The Boy's there to get my back, right? But, uh oh, he's starting to get sick! Luckily, he channeled his awesomeness to get Z to bed by himself (while I felt horribly miserable, puked, and then, while still feeling bad but considerably better, did a bunch of dishes and got the house in order for impending DOOM) and then the Boy gets really sick, and as i lay on the couch in misery i start making plans for how we'll ever make it though til morning, thinking who owes us some favors we can call in to get Zara out of the house in the morning, cos The Boy and I are in no position to take care of the world's most inquisitive toddler... all of a sudden, she who has not been sick in over 48 hours wakes up crying... and upon entering her room, i discover that once again, there's puke...
[side note: we once tried to think of singers who had died, directly or indirectly, by choking on their own vomit - a la The Commitments as well as other inspirations - for IMAP server names. That theme never really took off]
Forget why she's resumed puking after a 48+ hour hiatus - here's the rub - i'm sick as a dog, though not as sick as I had previously been, but still... and I need to get Z back to sleep, The Boy's bowing to the porcelain goddess, and there's a ton o' puke in Zara's room... get Z back to sleep, make sure The Boy's hair is out of his face for a clear shot, and then go and change the sheets and soak the blankie all over again... puke, puke, everywhere! Ah, the things that necessity/crisis/love for a little human will empower you to get done. Meanwhile, The Boy's sleeping on a makeshift yoga mat bed on the bathroom floor, and somehow, we all end up back in bed and sleep for a few hours.
Saturday's a slow day, no real food for anyone, long naps, doggie playdate for poor Coda, the victim of this whole deal... I'm almost well enough to finish my research proposal for Advanced Qual on Monday, but decide to call it an early night and get caught up on sleep...
Sunday brings high winds and power outages. It's like I'm really not meant to get these damn consent forms finished. Or something. Luckily there are laptop batteries, and I can take notes on paper and quite a few of my sources are books... paper ones! Post-naps brings a lovely party for Z's friend G's mom Caitlin whose mom Judy throws the best parties. Lucky coincidence Judy fed us a delicious dinner, since upon our return home power, which had come back before we left the house, was back out. Z got to have her first candlelight teeth brush and bedtime show, and I prepared for the long cold night of typing by candlelight... power was restored for good about an hour later, so I did actually get all my work done.
If you haven't checked out The Angsty Germans, or the soon to be completed "Yeoman Party", you should - these are the rough cuts of my independent study project at the Frontier Culture Museum, a place I will be spending even MORE time very soon, seeing as it's the site of my pilot study...
In other news, thanks to pioneering ground work by my awesome Mom, I left Z's room (after some nursing and cuddling and one song, yeah...) while she was COMPLETELY AWAKE and she put herself to sleep... this is probably the 4th or 5th time she's done this in the last 2 weeks. On the downside, she's become ridiculously fearful about having her hair washed. Baths are fine - wet hair and soap not so much... maybe when my Mom next comes to town she can fix the baby again? :) |
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| Coda - service dog in training... or future tv star? |
[Feb. 3rd, 2008|10:22 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  giddy | ] |
There's a 5 minute blurb on the local SPCA show "Whiskers and Tales" that features the fabulous Coda aka Snuggles the Wonderdog - his bit starts about 13:30, and you may want to skip the bit before (graphic animal cruelty images).
Enjoy! |
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| welcome to my world... |
[Jan. 26th, 2008|02:13 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | kiddo, school | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  thoughtful | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Suzanne Vega - Gypsy | ] |
I know, I know, Z has one of those paper baby book things, but it just seems like its easier to mention these kinds of things here, since I'm thinking of a bunch of other things anyway. Could you vague that up a bit?
Which is to say, she did her first math problem today (while sitting on the potty - not sure how this bodes for the future...) when I asked her if I gave her 2 bear gummys and 1 snake gummy, how many gummys did she have. She counted them up and said "three"! I'll now skip over the part where I confess that we've started re-bribing her to sit on the potty (at least while at home) and likewise also omit that she's had more accidents in the last 2 weeks (all but one at home) then she did when we we're actively "training" her months ago... Not that it matters, but I'm pretty sure this is tied up with me going back to my (last semester!) of school. Or the fact that I can't finish a thought without interrupting the thought to insert a parenthetical tangent. Except for the immediately preceding sentence. Oh, irony, you are a harsh mistress!
Also, while we're not mentioning any of my parental shortcomings, Z also took it upon herself to get dressed completely on her own - undies, shirt, pants, socks - all on in the conventional (right seems so judgmental - there I go again!) order and functionally optimal position (ie not inside out or backwards :). She was pretty pleased with herself, but I was ecstatic. Just one more of those many tiny baby steps towards independence! Maybe tomorrow I'll let her pick the clothes, too... she has a very daring and bold sense of fashion ;)
Tomorrow's a golden birthday of sorts for the 2 of us - she'll be 31 months and I'll be 31 years. To celebrate I think we'll all go running, have brunch, maybe try to sneak a quick ice skate in before naps, and then go for a swim in the "warm" pool at the gym. All of this physical activity will hopefully yield a pleasant but tired Z so that she will be not too much work for my Mom who will be staying with her and C-Dawg while the Boy and I... wait for it... go off to Wintergreen for the night! And probably some snowboarding (yes, everyone, I will wear wrist guards and a helmet :) in the morning, time and weather permitting. For those of you playing along in the home game, yes, the upcoming 18 or 20 hours will be, by far, the longest I've been away from the Z.... the Boy, too, actually. Neither of us have spent a night away from her in the last 31 months.
Well, just yesterday the Boy hid out in Z's room for a good chunk of the night cos she would not settle and was using us as human focus pads, and we learned early on that 2 parents with no sleep is distinctly inferior to one well rested parent and one parent who does fine with a little sleep deprivation here and there, so in such cases the Boy goes away... and at least sometimes that settles her down anyway. Not 2 nights ago... but sometimes.
Classes are looking good, ironically I've only had 2 of 4 - 1 meets for the first time next monday (Advanced Qual) and 1 is an online 5 week class which starts mid-February. If you think my online residences are sparsely inhabited now, wait til that class kicks in - its a pure, un-adulturated time suck. Other classes are Stats 4 (multiple DVs MANOVA, Factor Analysis, Discriminant Analysis -like that) and my pilot research, which looks like it's going to be on the nature of learning embedded in the interactions between family groups and historical interpreters at living history museums. Details still hazy, though I need an update by Tuesday... maybe even an actual research question...? I'm pretty excited, should be a lot of fun and interesting and hopefully downright educational! :)
Of course there's more. There's always more. Why I can't blog in smaller more frequent chunks is also beyond me. Gotta hunker down and get some good work done today so we can frolic tomorrow and Monday - 2 whole days of fun! Well, partial days - class is at 4 on Monday.
And last but not least, happy new year! |
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| The ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming |
[Dec. 15th, 2007|08:57 pm] |
So, as I type this, the Boy's in Z's room trying to get her back to sleep so we can go play games at the house of the Canada 4. She went down easy enough (the first time), and with nearly 20 minutes to spare before our planned arrival at Chez Ontario-tians, I was all "ooh, let's show your mom (awesome mother-in-law is here visiting and is one of the key prongs to this go play plan) how to play the DVD on your big mac so she can finish up watching The Good Shepherd (which we all started last night) and will hencefore and hitherto have something fun to do while we're gone..." but of course, thinking the coast was clear and fun was ours for the having, Z woke up. This pretty much *never* happens. Apparently she got the memo that we had some fun planned (without her! shock! horrors! call the toddler police and file a report!) and wasn't about to let us get away with it.
Or, ya know, maybe something was actually bothering her - last 2nd year molar settling in, bad dream, too cold, too hot, so many stuffed animals on the bed she has no room to move, etc. Hard to say, really. All I know is it's 9:03 and we could have already been at aforementioned house of Canadian fun, sipping GnTs (thanks Andy) and saving/kiling dr. lucky, rockin' out with canadian cranium, playing one of the other games with a lot of jumping around and yelling and silliness, etc. But no. I'm typing, the Boy's cuddling the Z, and no one's go their GnT vibe on. yet. I'm still holding out hope.
In other news, and the reason I'm so very looking forward to game night, is that I'm all but nearly done with course work for this term - i've got my video project still to shoot and edit, but the ideas all there and square and we just need to find interpreter time... the museum is amazingly busy with wintry caroling and holiday rituals of days gone by, and then there's the babysitter goes home for the holidays so it all gets more complicated problem... but the project just needs *doing* now - it's a great idea that we'll make a good reality.
Which leaves me with sharpening a pilot study -> dissertation research agenda. So far I think I'm interested in getting people (kids, adults, school groups, families, etc) to ask better questions, or have more betterer interactions with the interpreters, in order to have a more personalized, contextual, situated and meaningful learning experience/museum visit. As a society we tend to make a lot of statements. Shouldn't we ask more questions? More open-ended, perhaps? What might it look like, this brave new question asking world? And how might i facilitate improving question asking? How might technology facilitate the improvement of question asking? How might i re-phrase the term "question asking" so it doesn't sound quite so silly? Or is it merely the repetition of any particular term, be it question asking or "spam", that just makes it funny? This grows out of the whole "entryways and exits" idea I had before, but it's kind of a fork... So pilot project ponderings will be pursued.
More school musings to follow, but since the Boy has surfaced from cuddle-land, I think we're gonna run for the 49th parallel... but not before I mentioned that Z's been wearing actual underwear (not training pants, not waterproof, but the actual thing!) more often than not these days, with about 97% success. She's a potty rock star! |
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