Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I'll get a quick status update out of the way first: Slept, woke, discovered that my VCR mysteriously stopped recording ten minutes into the show before Crossing Jordan on its recording schedule on Sunday[1], planned to pick up drugs and groceries after watching Everwood, developed severe headache, now waiting for pain meds to kick in so I can see whether I feel up to a midnight grocery run. Now on to what I fired up the editor for.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a poll about learning to read, and at the bottom I wrote, "I'll explain why I'm asking later." I'm finally getting around to that.

realinterrobang observed, "Boy, you have a bunch of early organic readers," at which point I realized that I'd only asked part of the question I really wanted to know the answer to. I got about four score sets of answers, containing part of the information I wanted, but what I'm lacking is any sense of how the ages at which this subset of my friends learned to read compares to the general population, except that the comment suggests that y'all are atypical in both timing and method. (I'll search for that info in a bit, but I've a hunch that I'll need to argue with Google for a while to close in on it.) I do know that I'm unusual for having started school at age three (this is not unusual for Montessori, but Montessori itself is somewhat unusual in the U.S.) but I have no idea how much most children pick up before they get to school.

What I did learn is that three fourths of you learned to read before you were five years old, two thirds of you don't remember not knowing how to read, and half of you don't remember learning to read.

Here's why I was wondering. midwinter asked for information about Montessori in response to a comment I left in her journal. While searching for web resources to point out, I ran across this statement:

"When the children come into the classroom at around three years of age, they are given in the simplest way possible the opportunity to enrich the language they have acquired during their small lifetime and to use it intelligently, with precision and beauty, becoming aware of its properties not by being taught, but by being allowed to discover and explore these properties themselves. If not harassed, they will learn to write, and as a natural consequence to read, never remembering the day they could not write or read in the same way that they do not remember that once upon a time they could not walk."

1. Whether most people could remember not knowing how to read,
2. Whether not remembering not knowing how to read was really linked to the Montessori method,
3. Whether not remembering not knowing how to read was linked merely to the age at which one learned to read.

(I'm a major proponent of the Montessori method, by the way.)

Based on this possibly seriously skewed sample, here are my current hypotheses:

• That not remembering not knowing how to read is linked mainly to the age at which one learned, or
• That not remembering not knowing how to read is related to having learned "organically" (assuming realinterrobang means what I think she does by that), and
• That if not remembering not knowing how to read is linked to the Montessori method, then it is because Montessori mimics the "organic learning" process (which would be consistent with what bits I've read of Dr. Montessori's own writings about her teaching method and child development, and therefore unsurprising).

Thank you, to the folks who answered my poll. I got part of the answer to the question I was trying to find an answer to, and further insight into the nature of the question.

"There is nothing sadder than a sad dog, and nothing more ecstatic than a happy dog (although a happy rat or mouse comes close). I love dogs; they are so present about what they feel. I get tired of mixed emotions; sometimes I aspire to evolve to doggishness." -- singingnettle, 2004-05-04

Just woke from strange dream in which I lived with unspecified number of housemates in the suburbs, and anniemal was visiting and got really upset that a housemate's girlfriend said she had to move her car because it was blocking hers in, and I went to go take care of it and discovered that nobody was blocked in by anybody else but folks were trying to figure out how to attach a trailer full of small pigs to housemate's girlfriend's car to take them to market (only now, on waking, am I noticing that the pigs were awfully small for that ... but even in the dream I thought, "pigs in the suburbs?"), and the car in question had a trailer hitch but the trailer only had a loop of coat-hanger wire attached to it. In order to get lots of stressed people to calm down, I figured out how to attach the trailer to the car anyhow, but worried about speeds higher than 25 MPH. When I woke up I discovered that something in the house was squeaking terribly (maybe that explains the dream pigs?), so I woke up the rest of the way and found out that a box-fan in the living room was making the noise. Well, the weather has cooled off, so maybe I won't need that again until spring ... I hope simply cleaning and lubricating it (if I can figure out how to get it apart to the right degree) will suffice, and that the bearing isn't completely shot.

Now struggling towards coherence; Perrine is asking for food but she's left a fair amount sitting in her bowl from last night. Did not make it to the grocery store last night.

Last night as I was drifting off to sleep I was wondering whether they could use ground-penetrating radar to get a better idea what a volcano (specifically Mt. St. Helen's) was doing. Since I hadn't heard of anyone doing that, my guess was that it only works through soil, not rock. Now that I'm up I can hit Google to find out.

Got to close a bunch of windows 'cause I'm running out of RAM, so ...

• This sounds like the kind of thing I'd expect the Frob Mob to do: there are groups who go vadding in the unused, sometimes forgotten, and poorly documented caves and tunnels under Paris, and one group built an underground cinema with restaurant and bar attached, which seriously freaked out the authorities when it was finally discovered. "The biggest hassle was that everything - tables, chairs, bar, projector, screen, the lot - had to fit through a 30cm by 40cm hole on the surface, When the police finally worked out where we were getting in, they couldn't believe it was the right place. It was so small." (Thanks to twistedchick for pointing out the link.)
• And this is something I wish I'd seen (much linked already, but in case someone still hasn't seen it...): Broadway show tunes versus obnoxious subway preachers. Hmm. With 62 pages of comments, it looks like most people have not only read it already, but written about it.
• A dead-on parody for folks who make the annual pilgrimage to that city that only exists two weeks out of fifty two, King of Horde Hill presents SCAdian versions of the King of the Hill characters. (Probably also somewhat amusing and possibly slightly educational for folks who have not been to Pennsic.) Dale versus ground wasps ... Hank's a heavy fighter, of course, and Luanne falls for a fencer, leading to, "Luanne, a fencer's even worse than a bard! They fight with toothpicks and have helmets that look like they're made out of an old screen door." It's close enough to the original that I could actually picture an episode made from this script. (Thanks to syntonic_comma and anniemal for pointing it out.)
• Mysterious maybe-art-project #1: Hundreds of Ronald McDonald dolls suddenly appear on several roads in the middle of the night. "It was so scary, all those Ronald McDonalds staring at us in our headlights. It gave us a very, very funny feeling. If you hadn't seen them with your own eyes, you wouldn't believe it,"
• Mysterious art project #2: Mysterious bottles containing pictures of hands bearing cryptic messages keep appearing on a lake in Maryland; Washington Post reporter manages to talk to artist using anonymous email. (Okay, pseudonymous really.) "Imagining this art project and developing it felt similar to writing a detective novel -- without the last chapter." (Thanks to cchan8 for pointing it out.)
• A page I know I've read before, found interesting to read again when various people linked to it recently, and really wish I could get more detailed information on: differences between fannish and non-fannish communication, a review of a presentation at a convention by a mundane speech therapist who had had several opportunities to observe fen. " [...] she realized that they were using different social cues, different body language, different eye contact, and even different ways of forming vowels than what she jokingly called 'my people', or what for convenience sake I'll call mundanes." The eye-contact signal being inverted from mundania is interesting enough by itself, but then there are things like moving our mouths differenly to form speech: "We use our lips a lot, but at the same time, we use our cheeks and our chins not as often as would be expected. We stabilize the cheeks and the chin, and we "prolabialize". (When, while sitting at a table, I leaned my chin on my hands while talking to her, she became uncomfortable. She can't do that easily; her chin moves more when she speaks.)" The magnitude of the differences would be less surprising if we were a regional population or an insular community, but most of us interact with non-fannish culture most of the week.
• How to Stay Stressed, an set of simple instructions. "Although the De Anza Health Office long been an advocate of stress management, stress, tension, and burnout are still common complaints of students, faculty, and staff alike. On account of this, we have come to the following conclusion: you all want to stay stressed! The following provides you with a few reasons why. [...]" followed by, "Are you worried now about how to stay stressed? You'll have no trouble if you practice the following clinically proven methods: [...]" (Linked to recently by someone on my friends list, I think, but I can't remember who.)
• Giving in to temptation and including a political item[*]: Miskatonic University political science professor goes on disability leave. "I begged the Dean not to make me teach 'Modern American Politics' this semester. I knew that in order to teach it properly I would have to delve into the secrets of the Bush administration. I knew that I would learn THINGS THAT HUMANS (as we say in these post-sexist times) ARE NOT MEANT TO KNOW. I feared that this would drive me insane -- into shrill unholy madness. And so it has."
• A chain of links: axiomaxiom muses on the larger cultural meaing of television series crossovers (and historical perspective on media crossovers in oher media is examined in the comments), in response to an entry by postvixen's entry riffing on how some 168 television shows are all "just a dream" in one character's head once you examine the consequences (one of the comments to the entry suggests that part of the fallout is that crossover slash suddenly makes more sense) of extensive cataloging of television character crossover appearances by Keith Gow and Smash. Uh, but it might actually be two different characters having a shared dream. Spooky! (Did you realize that "Green Acres" and "The Addams Family" are linked, and both connect to "Joey"?)
• And another item linked to by several people: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says, "sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged." Not that other people haven't made similar statements before, and he may well be right (hey, can we get government funding for a proper scientific study? ;-) ), but Scalia's a surprising voice to hear it from.

[*] I keep meaning to get around to posting an all-politics link-sausage entry sooner or later, so folks whose blood pressure will rise too much reading the links I'd want to point out can be properly warned and skip it. Until I get around to that, y'all should just add twistedchick to your friends lists.

Good: Sometime after waking up and posting dream-entry, finally feeling, well, awake despite not having slept quite enough. Awake enough for a "link sausage" post, even.

Good: Text message from friend I hadn't seen in way too long, saying he was en route to Baltimore and would be free until about when I should leave for rehearsal.

Bad: Starting to feel crashy -- my body telling me I'd been up too long -- shortly before he arrived.

Good: Hanging out and talking.

Good: Pizza!

Bad: Missing 3LF rehearsal 'cause I still don't feel steady enough to drive.

Good: Getting to show off the draft mix of the second HCB CD.

Bad: Feel I need to crash now (VCR will catch the debate, as it would have if I'd made it to rehearsal). Too many things not done.

Good: I have a cute cat.

I actually didn't fall asleep during the debate after all. Immediate reaction: I'm not happy with either of them. I noticed more lies from Cheney, and he was a little unsubtle with the "repeat the lie often enough and people will start to believe it" trick (I hope unsubtle enough to undermine it, but probably not). I got annoyed at both of them for ducking the hard questions. Because I wanted Edwards to do well, it was frustrating to see his "oops, I said the name again" clumsiness. And I think Edwards fumbled some points that could have been slam-dunks.

I'm inclined to think of it as a draw, but what matters is the effect, and that's based on what most other people think.

As for my own opinion, I'll have to see whether it changes after re-watching the tape, reading the transcript, meditating on it more, and/or reading others' observations. But for now, I feel it was a poor showing by both.