Entry tags:
metablogging
I think that this is the correct word for blogging about blogging... Today, I realized just how good it is that I have a blog. Over the past three days, I listened to my mother tell the same story of my grandfather's decline and death what felt like a zillion times. I, on the other hand, have told the story only two or three times - because the rest of you either read it on my blog or told each other. This evening, one of my friends who does not read my blog called to offer condolances and ask me all the details. I didn't want to tell him. It was hard, not in the emotional sense but in the I've-heard-this-story-a-zillion-times-and-I-don't-want-to-hear-it-for-the-zillionth-and-first-time-because-I-am-telling-it-myself sense. So it made me really appreciate the convenience of blogging.
A few minutes ago, my sister-in-law introduced me to a mildly entertaining website: the llama song: www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama
She also told me that one of the first sight-words she teaches her first graders is come, because she doesn't want them to spell it phonetically. Think about it for a moment.
And speaking of first graders, my cousin of yesterday's blog entry fame came over this afternoon and I got to help her with her homework. She was a bit overtired - she slept well last night, but yesterday included the funeral and a little league game (she hit the ball twice, or so they tell me) - so she got rather silly. But we eventually got through it. Good thing her math book is the same as the one I was exposed to in my student teaching in the fall... have any of you ever heard of a function machine? It goes a little something like this: you put the number 6 into the machine and the number 7 comes out. What is the rule inside the machine? What does the machine do? +1. (It gives more than one example.) I guess it's the newer version of 1+__=2. (that would be in: 1, out: 2. What's the rule?) And any of the three parts can be blank: the in, the out or the rule. My cousin calls them in-out machines (a perfectly reasonable name for them). She walks in and tells me how in-out machines are hard, and I actually understood what she was talking about! Anyway, so I helped her with that. I taught her how to figure out if it is addition or subtraction (which numbers are bigger, the ones in the "in" column or the ones in the "out" column.) Well, I don't know if she internalized that... and I helped her with her Hebrew homework (apparently, math is "English" homework - gotta love dayschool.) She uses the book with the lions (the same one A's students use - no, not that A, the other A. (Engineers have no use for first grade Hebrew books with lions in them.)) (And I have a feeling I'm not supposed to use parentheses inside parentheses. Oh well.) Anyway, she got to read to me. They are learning how to write in script.
Other than that, today was quiet. One or two visitors at a time, if that. A very calm day. And I got to hear all sorts of stories - not that I really remember most of them... It just gets a little crazy after ma'ariv. That's the most overwhelming time of the day. That's when A (yes, this time it is that A, the one I wasn't talking about before) and M left, right when I was most overwhelmed. Of course, that's when A called me today (still the same A - gotta find a better way to differentiate between the names. Perhaps I should call you two AF and AB), so that was really nice. And once all the people were gone, it got better again.
And now, we still have visitors, but they are my brother's in-laws, which means it feels less like a shiva visit, and more like hanging out. Plus, I get to have my computer in the main room! Yay wireless! Dial-up is soooo slow.
Anyway, that's today's update. As of now, I am coming back Thursday night, but this may change. Either way, count me in for Shabbat. But it's been good to be home and with my family.
AG to O: "Hey, O, you know those little things things that tell you how you're feeling when you write an e-mail?" - this, misquiting her father. (He had said that tell other people how you're feeling. The response: "You mean emoticons?" "No, this is different." But the misquote is funnier.) (This quote has been inspired by the LJ mood options)
A few minutes ago, my sister-in-law introduced me to a mildly entertaining website: the llama song: www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama
She also told me that one of the first sight-words she teaches her first graders is come, because she doesn't want them to spell it phonetically. Think about it for a moment.
And speaking of first graders, my cousin of yesterday's blog entry fame came over this afternoon and I got to help her with her homework. She was a bit overtired - she slept well last night, but yesterday included the funeral and a little league game (she hit the ball twice, or so they tell me) - so she got rather silly. But we eventually got through it. Good thing her math book is the same as the one I was exposed to in my student teaching in the fall... have any of you ever heard of a function machine? It goes a little something like this: you put the number 6 into the machine and the number 7 comes out. What is the rule inside the machine? What does the machine do? +1. (It gives more than one example.) I guess it's the newer version of 1+__=2. (that would be in: 1, out: 2. What's the rule?) And any of the three parts can be blank: the in, the out or the rule. My cousin calls them in-out machines (a perfectly reasonable name for them). She walks in and tells me how in-out machines are hard, and I actually understood what she was talking about! Anyway, so I helped her with that. I taught her how to figure out if it is addition or subtraction (which numbers are bigger, the ones in the "in" column or the ones in the "out" column.) Well, I don't know if she internalized that... and I helped her with her Hebrew homework (apparently, math is "English" homework - gotta love dayschool.) She uses the book with the lions (the same one A's students use - no, not that A, the other A. (Engineers have no use for first grade Hebrew books with lions in them.)) (And I have a feeling I'm not supposed to use parentheses inside parentheses. Oh well.) Anyway, she got to read to me. They are learning how to write in script.
Other than that, today was quiet. One or two visitors at a time, if that. A very calm day. And I got to hear all sorts of stories - not that I really remember most of them... It just gets a little crazy after ma'ariv. That's the most overwhelming time of the day. That's when A (yes, this time it is that A, the one I wasn't talking about before) and M left, right when I was most overwhelmed. Of course, that's when A called me today (still the same A - gotta find a better way to differentiate between the names. Perhaps I should call you two AF and AB), so that was really nice. And once all the people were gone, it got better again.
And now, we still have visitors, but they are my brother's in-laws, which means it feels less like a shiva visit, and more like hanging out. Plus, I get to have my computer in the main room! Yay wireless! Dial-up is soooo slow.
Anyway, that's today's update. As of now, I am coming back Thursday night, but this may change. Either way, count me in for Shabbat. But it's been good to be home and with my family.
AG to O: "Hey, O, you know those little things things that tell you how you're feeling when you write an e-mail?" - this, misquiting her father. (He had said that tell other people how you're feeling. The response: "You mean emoticons?" "No, this is different." But the misquote is funnier.) (This quote has been inspired by the LJ mood options)
