Oh, I know. It just...it shocks me. Even my grandparents know this stuff. I know we're a technological family and all, but...my goodness...

I think the point where I totally gave up on even pretending to pay attention to phonics was in third grade. The day before, I'd gotten into some argument with my teacher over something in math -- I think it was something like the teacher had said that you can't subtract a big number from a small number, and I said, "Yes you can. The answer's a negative number," and she told me that we wouldn't be learning that until fifth grade and to sit down and finish my worksheet. (Possibly in a nicer way than that, but that's how I heard it.) I went home all indignant and complained about the unfairness of this to my mother, and she pretty much sighed (she'd heard this same sort of stuff from me before) and gave me one of many lectures I got about how sometimes you have to just sit down and shut up and play the game by someone else's rules, and it's not fair but that's the way the world works, so deal with it.

Fine. Next day, phonics. We're learning about how, if you've got a verb with a short vowel sound in the last syllable, if you want to add an -er, then you double the final consonant. So "run" becomes "runner," "spin" becomes "spinner," etc. We have a worksheet on this. I'm fine with most of it, until the base word is "mix." I write "mixxer," and I know that doesn't look right. But then I remember that I'm supposed to be following the rules, so I leave it like that and hand it in. I get it back, and of course, "mixxer" is marked wrong, and I totally hit the roof. I think I went home crying and screaming about how unfair everything is, because I'm wrong whether I follow the rules or not, and pretty much refused to pay any attention to phonics for the rest of the year.

Thankfully, the next year, our spelling lessons switched over to the kind where we have a list of words for each week, and by the end of the week have to know how to spell those words and use them in a sentence. That worked out so much more easily for me.

Emily, bwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Did you tell him that you know me well enough to know that I won't bother?

Nope. But I figure since he said, "If she's interested in anything there," he won't be waiting by the phone for you to call.

Good point.

Did you find your coffee?

Yessss...

Man, including mixer in that worksheet was patently unfair.

The first named storm of the season (Arlene) is coming our way. Yee-haw!

(((libkitty)))

I'm sorry, hon. No fair!

Hil, I was like that in grade school, but I was fortunate enough to have teachers who knew enough to just get out of my way and let me do my own thing. I couldn't even pretend to be following along when it came to phonics, since I was already reading Shakespeare in the 1st grade. (No, really.)

I taught myself to read at age 2 or 3, and it was totally just memorizing whole words.

Heh. I taught myself to read at 2 or 3, by phonics. My parents didn't even realize I was really reading rather than memorizing until my grandmother caught me at age 4, doggedly trying to sound out dinosaur names from her coffee table book on "Marvels and Mysteries of the World Around Us." Mom and Dad then made this big production of getting a book I'd never seen before from the church library that was somewhere around 3rd grade reading level and making me read it to them, and I was all, "What's the big deal? I've always been able to read." Which from my perspective, I have--I can't remember a time before I learned.

Hivemind: I'm 90% sure I didn't take my morning dose of painkillers, but the brain is a little foggy today. I'm taking 800 mg of ibuprofen at a time. Will anything terribly disastrous happen if I accidentally take 1600 just the once?