I have Y membership now. Whee? It's a nice facility, only a few years old. Pool!
One of the neighborhood cats was sitting outside the french doors (I have them open, screens shut) and wow! the sounds coming out of Loki! He was all inflated and WAILING! He's got such a high pitched voice, it's funny. Other cat just sat there, watching, nose to nose, unperturbed. This is one of the cats I've found on my porch roof (and scared the shit out of me sunday at 5:45, clawing at the bedroom window), my entry roof and specifically who has tried to follow me in. Ballsy little bugger.
Yay, pool! I just got myself a swim cap that allegedly will handle long hair, so I'm going to attempt to swim tomorrow. Also got goggles on the theory that maybe I can wear my contacts under them and see while I'm swimming, which is a totally foreign idea to me but I might try it.
Pushy cats crack me up.
Oh, I can't (couldn't? It's been a decade since I swam) go without goggles. Just because my eyes can't take it and I can't swim straight otherwise. I could go without a swim cap, most likely, with pins, since my hair is shorter than it was when I swam before. But not gonna.
When I had access to a pool with painted lane lines on the floor I could follow those okay without goggles, but I don't have that anymore. I have swum with my (decades out of date) prescription scuba mask, but it's packed away somewhere and even that level of being able to see was very strange. Good, but strange.
God, I hope swimming is as good as I remember it. I loved it; it just wasn't at all convenient once I moved up here. Too many logistics. But now? 5 minute walk away, if that. Full locker-room. Unlimited access. I no longer have almost an hour of commute. Almost more convenient than when I was in college.
And I'm liking to have my body working for itself again. Hadn't realized it was missing.
Someone in my neighborhood has a kitchen timer that sounds just like mine. It's very confusing.
Hm. Looking at this [link] and at tivo and I'm wondering if I shouldn't just continue to watch tv on the computer (even though I sometimes miss the window for free streaming of an episode or two) and get a Wii.
The band director can't buy new music for the band, all of the kids have to either rent or buy their own instruments from an outside source because the school can't afford to buy instruments for the kids to borrow (which was the norm when I was in band)
When I was in band (in a rather wealthy district public school) everyone had to buy or rent their own instruments except for percussion and a few of the huge brass instruments. I started band in 1991, and I think my sister started in 1987, and she also had to buy her own clarinet. (I started off on glockenspiel, then switched to drums, then back to tuned percussion, so the only things I had to buy were drumsticks and a practice pad.)
But I also suspect that if you took any underperforming school and spent a big chunk of money on it so it had good facilities and equipment and well-supported well-trained teachers teaching small classes it would improve VASTLY and just about immediately.
I don't necessarily agree with it. Lots of underperforming schools get money thrown at them. Money isn't the answer, and I'm coming from a relatively underfunded district, with some pretty decent schools (according to Academic Decathalon and college admits).
I think the onion analogy is way more apt.
As a teacher in a single-subject classroom (meaning I teach 150 kids over 5 or so periods), I see my students for approximately 2% of their life that year. If I taught in a K-6 room it would be 12% of their life. I cannot make up for what is missing in the REST of their life, basic things, like conversation. Or even having had someone read them a bed time story for the first 4 years of their life or someone who sang nursery songs to them.
There is way more to the problem that money CAN'T fix and it's not always the school that needs to work on the fixing.
