*Transcendental *Logic

Hello again [TEACHER],

I would like to ask you about a display in [KID]’s classroom. According to my husband and mother-in-law, there is an "alphabet" display for the children that represents the letters of the alphabet as corporate logos.

[ED. NOTE:

]

If that means what I think it means, that our community’s kindergartners are being taught to recognize brands as part of their early language-education, it concerns me very deeply. Too much exposure to advertisement, and focus on obtaining consumer goods, has already been shown to cause negative psychological consequences in children. Needless to say, for [KID]’s generation, this problem will be even more acute, since children her age have been exposed to more advertising from an earlier age than any children in history. As parents, I think it’s very much our responsibility to mitigate any psychological damage or bad habits this could cause. To this end, I have always worked to control [KID]’s exposure to advertising to the extent that I am able, and to talk to her about it when I can’t.

I do not see how learning brand names and their associated logos benefits [KID]’s education, and I do not think the "benefit" of grooming her to be a loyal consumer is a legitimate one. I think it does more harm than good to children in the long run to be taught such things as part of their primary education. If you disagree with me, I would of course be interested in your point of view.

Furthermore, I understand that supplies for the classroom don’t grow on trees, so I’m offering to replace the display in question with one of comparable size and value. I have seen alphabet displays which feature butterflies, plants, animals, people in different poses, famous landmarks, and many others that I believe would be of greater educational value than corporate logos. If you’d like to pick what type you’d prefer, I would happily buy (or make) it for [KID]’s classroom.

Thank you very much for hearing my concerns. I hope we can resolve this situation in a way that benefits all the children involved.

Thanks!
[ME]

Okay, this made me so happy, I was clapping at my desk, and screw what anybody here thinks.

Four stars for musicianship and mega-protest-eriffic awesomeness:

Rage Against the Machine grabs a megaphone and performs a capella after cops shut down the PAs at their (legal, scheduled) anti-RNC concert. That’s just beautiful. I’m totally buying their new album no matter what’s on it. It could be 100% Elmo covers and I’d still buy it, maybe twice. I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud of a band. *yayz*

Original post @ BoingBoing

(Also, can’t help but notice that their security guy is not fscking around. Good job, security guy!)

WHEW!  Hi world; it’s been a crazy, crazy time over here lately.  An accurate summary would be, "Damn near everything that could possibly be in flux, is."  Eek.

None of it is stuff that you care or would benefit from hearing about…except this.  Amidst trying to hold together various aspects of my body, mind, professional and family lives, I actually went monophasic!

It wasn’t by choice, at first — my "vacation" was an emotional rollercoaster the likes of which you really ought to be much bigger than me to ride, and so for a whole week I mostly slept like this:  Stay up embroiled in either drama or insomnia until 4 a.m. or later, crash for 2-4 hours, catch a 20-minute rest period (I mostly couldn’t actually sleep) in the afternoon if possible.  Rinse shake repeat.  Even after I got home, for a few days I couldn’t sleep during naps, and could barely sleep at night. 

So, then what happens?  Bereft of immediate fuel, the insomnia eventually subsides, and I sleep for ten hours one night last week.  Not surprising, really.  I even managed to nap once or twice the following day…but then the next night, I slept for eight more hours, and then found that the following day I couldn’t nap (and didn’t really bother with trying, since I wasn’t tired and in fact, was rather sick of sleeping!). 

Third night, I was semi-voluntarily monophasic.  I didn’t want to stay awake and deal with my own f’d-up brain, and actually I was curious; I haven’t slept like that (you know, like a normal person) for over two years, and I wanted to try it out.  I thought, maybe it’s time to go monophase for a while again; who knows?  I’ve certainly proved my experiment, that one can be polyphasic for a long-ish period of time and not go nuclear.  And lord knows everything else is changing, so…

So I went to bed "early" (11p.m.) in preparation for waking up at my usual 4:30 a.m.  Except that I forgot that, you know, when you’re monophasic you have to sleep a lot, not five or six hours, especially if you’re me.  So I slept through my alarm and woke up at 6:30.

And oh, what a waking-up.  The second I opened my eyes I remembered….I hate monophase!  

I’d written it off the first two nights as a result of being exhausted and/or sleeping too long, but that third morning I remembered…this is what waking up always feels like when you’re monophasic!  The sticky eyes, the aching back, and the feeling that you’re prying yourself out of a coma or general anasthesia…oh, ugh, ugh, ugh.

Yeah, you can keep that crap, normal people.  I got right to work getting my old schedule back, and I’m happy to report (third day back on it) that it wasn’t even that difficult to do; I was sleepy for a day, and a bit slow the next day, but today I’m fine (so far, anyway), and thank the lord my back has stopped hurting and getting out of bed this morning didn’t feel like being reborn as Frankenstein’s monster. 

I really might never be monophasic again, at least not voluntarily.  It’s funny, doing this long-running experiment, I sort of forgot that I used to loathe getting up in the mornings, and how much that’s changed…I still don’t enjoy it, but I’d forgotten how much it used to suck before, and thus lost my basis for comparison.  My few days as a monophaser-again reminded me right quick:  Give me the grogginess of having only snozzed three hours over the aching lethargy of having slept eight, any day.  …Plus, as soon as I got back to work, I started really wanting my naps — they really do a lot for me by way of breaking up a tedious day, and "resetting" my brain so I can jump back into difficult work without burning out.  (For example, if it weren’t for my polyphasic evening nap, I can’t imagine how I could have come home from work and done 2-3 hours of homework every single day, and more on weekends.  So maybe I even owe my degree to this sleep schedule!)

Okay, back to dealing with everything else…I’ll write more when something relevant comes up, eh?  Until then, enjoy your various lives and sleep-schedules!

PD

You know, I have several Latin text & sourcebooks laying around, as (big secret here) I often use Latin rules to devise new words for my sci-fi stories. I think it gives things a nicely-rounded, every-language feel — except when I want the words to seem more “alien”; then I use an Asian or ancient Oceanic base to build from. I R Linguistics Scavengar, heh.

But maybe I’ll start actually learning some Latin. It just sounds fun, and I haven’t tackled a language in a while. Plus, it makes a good pair with ancient Greek, which is the only other language I have a decent grounding in (er, besides English, but since English is basically Common now, it doesn’t feel like it counts!).

If you were going to start learning a new language now, which one would you pick?

(Sorry for the lack of updates…I’m in a fiction-writing phase, which I’m not about to argue with!)

Two days ago — Aug. 26 — was the anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment, the one that gave women the right to vote. If you’ve never read the story of Alice Paul, the Silent Sentinels and the amazing and harrowing protests that led to that amendment’s passage, I strongly suggest it! (They made a film about it, too, called Iron Jawed Angels — the pic is from it.)

And this is not Personal Mental Health Awareness Week, but I’m declaring it anyway: Take some time to learn your own mind and its quirks — what sets you off and how to combat the effects of negativity — so that you can survive weeks like I’ve had with maximum grace and minimum medication!

…In all seriousness, if you don’t make a habit of surveying your brain and learning its strengths and weaknesses, please do, for your sake and your loved ones’. You pay attention if you have a bum knee, don’t you? And perfect mental health is about as common as perfect physical health.

As I often explain in real life, I haven’t gone fifteen years without taking psychotropic drugs for my depression by simply "not being depressed" (I love how many people think that’s possible–again, can you just "not have a bum knee"?), but by learning as much as humanly possible about what my situation is and how to handle it. …You might be amazed at what you don’t know, too. For instance, I never realized I was claustrophobic until I made an active effort to figure out why I felt so disoriented and uncomfortable in certain situations!

—–

On the flipside, what are your superpowers? Come on, everybody has some. I have abnormally good luck with words. I know people who have no body odor, who can’t get lost in the woods, and who can spot the smallest detail at great distance in spite of wearing glasses for normal seeing! It’s fun to figure out, not only where you’re amazing, but where the people you know are, too. And it promotes gratitude, which is a darn useful thing to have around for Mental Health Week, too.