Seven Quick Takes

You might remember that I've taken to calling my automated disambiguator Vlad, and I'm getting to know him better and better. It's all right; no need to call the mental health professionals on my behalf. I'm at 205/301 transcripts, baby, and Vlad and I only have another ten days or so to spend in each other's company. I probably will avail myself of his services again in future research, though, because he is fast even if he is stupid. "Vlad, honey," I kept telling him over the past week, "these are second-graders. They are not using 'people' as a verb. Especially not in the phrase 'those people.'" He wouldn't listen, so tonight I reached in and snipped out part of his brain to compel him to cooperate. (This is where my anthropomorphizing sets off a little frisson of alarm in me. I have never snipped out any parts of any brains belonging to actual people, just in case you felt a similar frisson.)

Vlad is quirky: sometimes he gets in a kid's groove and I can whip through a transcript with hardly any cleanup. Sometimes a kid's "accent" will cause him to lose his little disambiguating mind, and I will spend FOREVER saying, "It's only pluperfect, Vlad. You can handle it." The funny thing is that I really can't tell what trips him up. For some kids, he can parse complex sentences beautifully; for others, he falls apart. I think this would be a faster process if I could figure out why.

You might also remember that I'm a long-distance TA for this semester. I graded their first assignment last weekend and spent hours trying to be reasonable and fair. I hate giving bad grades. It pains me. I put in a lot of time looking for the best in their work, and I was put out when the professor told me there would be some questions about the results coming my way. "Next time," said Elwood, who has much more grading experience than I do, "save some of your patience for after the grading's done." Sensible as usual.

When my babies are small I sing them "The Wheels on the Bus while they lie in front of me. I bicycle their feet for "round and round." I honk their bellies for "beep beep beep." I stretch out their arms for "open and close." Baby Stella and I were singing wheels on the bus yesterday and I sang, "The baby on the bus goes goo goo goo." I paused and she chimed right in: "Goo!" I loved it -- one of those moments when I can see her trying to connect and respond, little as she is. Pete chimed in. "That's not how it goes," he informed me. "The baby on the bus goes wah wah wah." I told him to listen, that our baby wasn't saying "wah" at all. Obligingly, she did it again, cooing at just the right spot. Magic, right? Not for the 3yo, apparently, who said, "When are you going to sing it the right way?"

The 12yo is going to the regional spelling bee after placing in the county bee this week. He studied not a whit by my reckoning, though he would disagree. "I have too been studying," he insisted. "Dad says the best way to study spelling is by reading." Elwood said, "I'd rather see him reading than studying spelling words" -- sensible as usual. (Is there an echo in here?) I am wrestling with a mothering question raised by his tenth-place finish, though. One of his brothers struggles terribly with spelling and is sad that he can't compete in the bee. I pulled him aside this morning and said that his recent success on spelling tests meant more to me than Alex's finish, because I had seen how hard he'd had to work at it. I told him, "No one puts your picture in the paper when you get 100% on a spelling test, but it's more valuable to persevere at something that's hard for you than it is to sail through something that comes easily." He didn't buy it. And I also don't want to put Alex down. Sibling rivalry is tricky stuff. If you have any insight, I'd love to hear it. The math team competition is tomorrow and I might be dealing with more of the same.

The GQ (that stands for Geekiness Quotient and not Gentleman's Quarterly in the Gladly house, where smarts are always in fashion and fashion is rarely viewed as smart) is high around here, as you might surmise. For a long time I have been comfortable with my geekiness, but I've had a funny experience this week. I am now Facebook friends with a bunch of women from the neighborhood where I lived in junior high and high school, when I attempted to contort my geeky self into something less likely to be mocked in public. (FAIL.) I find myself thinking about them before I post a status update, which is often something about my work. It is strange, very strange, to be thinking about what the popular girls will have to say about my geekiness. I roll my eyes at my inner sixth-grader and post it anyway, but it's odd that sixth-grade pecking orders can cast such a long shadow.

I am continuing to struggle with balance, with an inner voice that says if I don't work frenziedly I'll never get done. Frenzy is no good, though of course slothful inaction isn't either. Before Stella's arrival I thought, "Maybe I won't be able to get anything done for a few months, if she's colicky." Instead I have a baby who usually sleeps through most of the morning, allowing me to work steadily while Pete is at preschool. I have been worrying in advance about the months to come: it is going to get harder when she sleeps less and moves more and cuts teeth and and and. Better to trust and work faithfully than to to worry, I know. As always, the execution is tougher than the recognition. I will work more accurately tomorrow if I go to sleep tonight instead of editing this post, so it's going up as is. Over and out.

Comments

[Lilian]

Great post... no need to edit, really.

Anyway, here at our house, we value the Geekiness Quotient too ;-) (although I think my little one will be the odd one out with mama, papa, and older brother all geeks, he'll be the jock) and I loved this: that at your house "smarts are always in fashion and fashion is rarely viewed as smart" Good stuff.

Hmmm, I wish I could be your facebook friend. Most of my blogging friends are my friends at facebook (although I don't mention there that I blog -- even my former advisor is my contact!).

Well, I hope you can be productive and finish with great success even as your surprise baby girl grows.

I can TOTALLY empathize with how hard grading is.... doesn't it take a terribly long time? That's why I got totally in trouble in my online teaching at the for-profit institution which I don't like more (I've recently linked to it in a post if you're curious to know).

[Tracy]

anthropomorphizing

THIS is the word I've been trying to remember all weekend. I'm home since 11:10 and I am reading blogs in my reader instead of going to bed (but I can't sleep yet, it's hard to unwind after driving 4 hrs, KWIM?). And for some odd reason I was going to use this word in a sentence and I could not remember it!

And I'm home less than an hour and here it is! Yeah! Thanks ;-)

[Karen]

Is there a way to explain to our children that we are trying to build on their strengths and that everyone has different strengths/weaknesses?

I would also say that from my experience as a successful scholar with a younger, more challenging brother, my parents projected a whole lot of insecurities onto him that he just did not feel. Is it possible that the brother with the spelling challenges can compete in the bee at the start and then understand when/if he loses that he has done his best and that is enough?

[afc]

rather than worry/even think about your status updates, just set up a friend list comprised of those you want to exclude from being privy to your status updates! works like a charm, i've done it to avoid having all of my neighbors/casual acquaintances involved in the nitty gritty!