Lena, my 7yo, started taking violin lessons in January at her own behest. It’s been an interesting few months. I’ve learned some things about my daughter that surprise me.
Surprise number one: she gets foot-stampingly frustrated when she’s practicing. There are tears at least once a week. (I agree with her teacher, who said: “But she’s not supposed to cry while practicing until she’s in high school!”) It’s surprising because first of all, Lena’s generally phlegmatic. Not easily fazed. And second, all her life thus far she’s shown a pretty remarkable ability to persevere. Even as a toddler, she’d set herself a task, like jumping with both feet off the ground, or learning the alphabet, and she’d cheerfully work at it to the exclusion of all else until she achieved mastery. I rejoiced that my child was born with good study skills — something which despite many years of schooling I still don’t possess. But alas, this ability doesn’t seem to extend to violin-practicing. When we practice I am on shifting ground, unfamiliar territory, and I have to learn to navigate it better.
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I finally managed to wrestle WordPress into submission and thank you for coming to see the result. It wasn’t easy, either. Up until now I managed to avoid using the Box Model Hack in my work, but for this design I had to use it twice. For those not in the know, and just to give you an idea, part of it looks like this:
Read more on Victory!…
This is the reason I’ve been able to get so much reading done lately. Can you tell? It’s a sandbox filled with water. My god, it keeps him happy for hours at a time. Hours, I said. On nice days, anyway. So I just get out a lawn chair and sit there with my book while he splashes and digs and fills and empties and swirls.
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It’s May and that means it’s time for the annual high school musical. Our high school — and this is not only the high school where my husband teaches, but also the one we both graduated from — has a pretty amazing music program. Not to brag or anything, but this year the orchestra won a Grammy award for being the best in the entire country. I said, the best in the entire country! And let’s just say their musical theatre program is not too shabby either. They did a great job with Hair last year, and before that there was a truly amazing production of Little Shop of Horrors. This year: Tommy.
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My first foray into the wonderful world of Penguin Classics: Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions, by A. Square (Edwin A. Abbott), first published in 1884.
This was an odd little . . . volume. I can’t really call it a novel, although it’s certainly novel. It takes place in a world where — well, A. Square describes it better than I can:
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Laura’s comment on my earlier post, “I was at Borders looking for something new . . . I browsed and browsed, getting more and more frustrated,” reminded me of a little anecdote. Here in Ann Arbor we are blessed with a couple of really good independent bookstores, so we’re not stuck supporting the big corporate stores (perish the thought!).
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Drop City, by T. Coraghessan Boyle. In 1970, a bunch of turned-on, tuned-in, dropped-out hippies living in a commune called Drop City decide to move up north. Up north, that is, all the way to the heart of the Alaskan wilderness, miles from nowhere, inaccessible except by boat (summer) or mushing (winter). The story of these inept, ridiculous, pathetic hippies alternates with the story of the people who are already living in the wilderness, the guys & gals who know how to survive the minus-sixty degree winters and even enjoy doing it.
Read more on When worlds collide . . ….
Posted on May 7, 2006, 4:59 pm
by Julie
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Posted in Reviews
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