Exploding with happiness and medieval dolphins

We went to a birthday party this evening for a little friend of Phoebe's. There was an inflatable water slide that dumped the kids straight into the pool. Zoë knocked herself in the forehead with her knee during a failed cannonball. Phoebe swallowed a bunch of pool water and threw up all over the deck. Alexander broke his watch.

But...

They had an amazing time! 

Phoebe was overjoyed to get a birthday bag. She sang about it all the way to the uber (such a savvy kid—we all stared at the elevator, not quite sure what to do, and she just walked right up, punched the G and said, "G for ground! Going down!" so that solved that—to be fair, we had G, M, C, L, A, and B as options, in addition to the numbers. But G was the right call). 

"I'm so happy, happy, happy!" she sang as she got into the uber, which made the driver chuckle. "I am exploding with happiness!"

Books from Memory Lane

One of my favourite childhood book creators is Pat Hutchins. 

We have a well-worn copy of And the Doorbell Rang at our house and every time I read it, I find it delightful. Just last night Phoebe and I read it again and she wanted to know whether the cat had been there all along and belonged to the family, or whether it had sneaked its way inside along with some of the many visitors the family welcomed that day. So we went back and found the cat on each page—and the cat kind of has its own little story within the story, which was fun to discover together. Pat Hutchins hides so many details—and alternative storylines—in her pictures. 

We also have Where, Oh Where is Rosie's Chick (though I believe that one is in our shipment, may it arrive in one piece), which is great for teaching children to look for information in the pictures that is not shared in the text. 

"You know, Pat Hutchins wrote a book that I really like called Which Witch is Which? But I've never been able to find a copy to share with my children and now that my children are all grown up, it doesn't seem worth it to find a copy at all. But I just love that book!" I said to Phoebe as we closed And the Doorbell Rang. 

Phoebe snuggled in closer to me and looked up into my eyes. 

"I am not all grown up," she pointed out. 

And she's right! There's still time to find and share my favourite books with my kids!

Though it seems as if it's a little bit out of print, judging by these prices:

To be fair, it is possible to order a used copy for a much better. I just haven't ever done it. 

The parable of dumping all the silverware into the bottom drawer

This morning was rough. 

It didn't really stop at the morning because the whole day was a little bit rough, if we're being honest. 

But the morning? It was rough.

I won't tell on everybody, but I will tell on the four year old. 

I interrupted Phoebe's play to ask her to help me unload the dishwasher, which—granted—was rude of me. Like, why should she have to do chores? Pretty rude. 

But she eventually decided that the dishwasher could be on the plane, so unloading it could be part of her game. But, like, if any turbulence happened she'd have to go back to her seat...which sounded fair enough.

Though...also...things did get turbulent.

First, though, here's a picture of her earlier in the morning setting the stage for today's pretend play:

Celestial Patterns and Perspectives and things

The children are taking an astronomy course at the moment and the first lesson focused on the difference between astronomy (a science) and astrology (a pseudoscience) and how the two terms are often confused. 

We also started reading a book called The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye. I read a poetry book of hers over the summer. She's Palestinian-American, but this particular book is about a boy from Oman who moves to the states for three years. So far the kids have noticed a lot of similarities in the preparation phase of the move (which we recently finished experiencing). 

Phoebe was surprised that Turkish Airlines was mentioned in the book because we just flew on Turkish Airlines! And then she wanted to know if Oman was close to Qatar because the book described it as being hot and close to the sea—and we are hot and close to the sea. So even though we looked at the map yesterday and pointed out where Oman was and where we were...we talked about it again. 

Considering she's still not 100% sure where her bedroom is in our apartment we probably can't expect her to remember where Oman is in relation to Qatar.

Anyway, we talked a bit about culture shock because Aref's mom said that the first day would be scary but then things would start to feel like home. The kids did agree that the first day was the scariest—both the leaving and the arriving—but they disagreed that things already feel like "home" because things still feel pretty new. 

So I mentioned how culture shock lasts from months to even years as you adjust to all the many things that need to be adjusted to. One thing that I like to do in a new place is to notice and recognize the signs of the seasons changing, like knowing that oak worms and Joro spiders start popping out in August in Atlanta. 

Here we keep hearing about the al-Nathra period, which we recently entered. This is typically the hottest period of the summer, when the al-Kulaibain star rises in the sky, but it also marks the end of the hot-hot season, because once the Suhail star rises...the hot weather typically begins (ever so slowly) to moderate (see here).

All that talk about different stars set off astrology bells in the children's minds. They said it sounded like superstition more than science.

A special treat

 I think this makes the third post in a row that includes ice cream.

Phoebe had ice cream on the plane. 

We had ice cream at IKEA yesterday (which Phoebe threw up).

And now I'm going to write about ice cream again. Moving is wonderful. But also stressful. And it turns out that a little bit of ice cream really can help soothe raw emotions (particularly with preschoolers involved, but I am pretty sure that drowning sorrows in ice cream is a rather common trope). 

*****

Today was our first somewhat official day of school.

True, we just got here and are still getting over jet lag.

True, we're in temporary housing so will have to move again in a couple of months. 

True, I feel like just being here is a pretty big learning experience. 

But it's been a long and rather hectic summer and we really needed to build some structure into our days. 

Phoebe, sweet Phoebe

This morning, Phoebe brought me a paper that said: "Phoebe, sweet Phoebe."

Technically it said:

PHOEBE
SOET
PHOEBE

Graduate Awards and Recognitions Event

 

This past December I was awarded the Carol J. Fisher Award for Excellence in Research (in memory of Hugh Agee) and today was our awards banquet so I got to receive the award there. I'm two years into this program now, which means I've spent about five years in the department as a graduate student...with a few more years to go before I'm finished!

A.C.T. now!

Today was my last full day of classes (I technically still have a class on Thursday but it's not a full day), which means I have no readings left to do. On the one hand that's nice because now I can just focus on getting my writing projects finished. On the other hand it's kind of unfortunate because I don't have a "productive" way to put off the writing that I need to do (and, um, it's kind of a lot of writing). 

So instead I'm writing this!

This morning, Miriam and I were walking from the parking lot up to Aderhold and she was saying how relieved she was that she didn't have anything to worry about (just rubbing in the fact that her semester was over, I guess, while mine is so painfully lingering). 

"Except for my ACT score..." she said with a pout, then screamed, "I GOT MY ACT SCORE!"

Because at that exact moment she got an email telling her that her ACT score was in.

Sometimes it feels like we live in a sitcom. 

Spring and time

Have you ever looked at your syllabus to see what your weekly readings were only to realize that—being the brilliant being you are—you read ahead in the syllabus over spring break? 

You probably did this mostly because those readings seemed useful for the big project you have due on Friday and since you're supposed to reference readings from the course in your project it made sense to read these particular articles a little early. But that doesn't really matter because you don't have any readings immanently due so you could breathe a little easier this afternoon.

Thank you, past self. 

Scheherazade

Miriam just finished a major project for her history of fashion design course. From the list of available time periods she chose the Edwardian Era, which she has loved for ages. She dressed up as Mary Poppins for Halloween when she was four (her choice). And she cherished the Edwardian fashion sticker book Naanii sent her years ago, carefully placing each sticker in its correct spot and referring back to it frequently (though admittedly it has spent more time on the bookshelf than in her hands in more recent years). 

She was thrilled to get to sign up for that era...she was less thrilled with the group she had to work with, but group projects are an evil we all must endure, it seems.

Anyway, one of the odder fashion trends from the time, in my opinion, was the hobble skirt (though to be fair and completely honest, I did wear a long pencil skirt to church today and realized that the hobble skirt never entirely went away).

Miriam asked for help pronouncing Paul Poiret's name, a French designer often credited for the invention (she had to give an oral presentation so wanted to be sure she was pronouncing things correctly). We practiced and practiced saying Poiret together until she felt comfortable with it. 

Later we were on a walk and I asked how Poiret even conceived of such an idea in the first place. What an absurd thing to do—tie women's legs together so they could hardly get a good stride in (this was before I willingly put on that aforementioned pencil skirt, revealing my hypocrisy). 

Women used to even have hobble skirt races! 

Anyway...she said it was inspired by Orientalism and ballet. 

Phoebe's a reader! She reads things!

Here's Phoebe and the kitty enjoying the sunny window together: 

Monday, Monday...

This week seemed like it was going to be incredibly stressful (and looking at the weekend's current events I think the week will continue to be at least a smidge stressful), but on Saturday one of my professors emailed and instructed the class to hold off on a major assignment due Tuesday because she wanted to talk to us about it more before we started it (I had finished all the readings for it but was still kind of like..."Uhhhhhh???"...and was going to cluelessly make something up...but now maybe I can create a more...informed...project) and then another professor emailed on Sunday evening to say that she was extending the deadline for our major project due at the end of this week for two more weeks. 

So that was all quite a relief, considering I was about to implode from stress.

I did have revisions of a paper due today (that is accepted for publication...with revisions) and I also had to review an article. And I, of course, have to be working on the aforementioned (and other upcoming) assignments. And I need to write a talk for Sunday and prepare another conference presentation for mid-March. And...so forth...

But I took the kids to the park this morning (since I didn't have a meeting this afternoon) and let them play for a while.

Interesting...very interesting...

Currently our read-aloud book is Radiant by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson. This morning we read the part where the two sisters are pooling their money to buy a Beatles album but are still coming up short, so they appeal to their brother to loan them fifty cents. He agrees to this—with interest. 

"Oooh! What's the interest?" Alexander asked.

"Do you mean how much interest? Or what is interest?" I asked.

"Ummmm..."

"Okay, so you mean what is interest..." 

"Sure."

Puddling and Panopticon

We did, in fact, make it outside to play in the rain. 

Alexander and Zoë got up at 6:30 this morning and finished all their (individual) school work by 10:00 this morning, so they were free to go outside and play. Benjamin slept in a bit so he had to do math hour.

Sometimes we have issues with...accountability...at our house. 

But I was talking to my friend Bekah in class on Tuesday and she mentioned that the teacher she's observing has this, like, surveillance screen on their computer where they can see the screen of every child in the classroom at once to know whether they are on the appropriate screen or not. And I was like, "Ummm...what program is this, precisely??" 

She told me, but it is not priced for private use. It's more of a thing a school district buys. 

But I was telling Andrew about this and so he, of course, came up with a solution—screen-casting through Discord! Apparently a lot of people do this for study groups and things, just for an accountability measure. And it seems to work for a lot of people. So Andrew made a channel where the children can stream their screens and I can see them all at the same time. That way I can easily see whether they're working on their math lesson (or whatever) or whether they're watching a YouTube video (or whatever).

And because the kids don't know whether or not I'm watching...they act as if I'm always watching.

The potential of being watched is motivation enough. 

Andrew initially called the channel "Panopticon" and we explained to the children a bit about what that was (some of them had listened to a 99% Invisible segment on Panopticon so they already knew about it), but he was like, "We can rename the channel to be less threatening...like "study hall" or something instead of the foucauldian panopticon. School-time to match gaming-time..."

So he changed the name to boring ol' "school-time" and there was quite an uproar about that.

It's back to Panopticon. 

Here's a shot of Benjamin looking at his own screen through his own screen through his own screen through his own screen through his own screen...

Screen-ception

Wet and rainy

It's a wet day today. Our gardening co-op is cancelled because it's simply too wet to be out in the garden. Phoebe would like to go outside to play. 

"Please can we go out and play in the rain?" she begs. "We won't get struck by lightning! We promise!"

We've only just come in from walking the neighbour's dog. 

It was drizzly and we came home wet—but the way the rain is coming down now offers us a real opportunity to get soaked. Why would we want to miss that?

Math whiz?

We were talking about how to calculate one's h-index the other day in my post qual class—ironic because the very idea of measuring and tracking one's productivity in that manner seems rather against everything poststructuralism stands for. But, nonetheless, that's what we were talking about. 

The h-index was imagined into existence by Jorge Hirsch in 2005 and it claims to be a measure—or somehow representative—of productivity. Calculating one's h-index is pretty simple, at least in my opinion. You simply find the highest number of papers that have been cited that same number of times. And that's your h-index. 

So, for example, I have two published articles, one of which has been cited twice. My h-index is, therefore, 1 because one article has been cited at least one time. 

Andrew has an h-index of 16, which means sixteen of his articles have been cited at least sixteen times. 

Michel Foucault has an h-index of 309. That mean 309 of his articles have been cited at least 309 times. 

My classmates seemed baffled by this idea, however, so I explained it quickly to them and they got it and then someone asked, "Are you some kind of math whiz?"

Which...if you know me...is a very funny question because a math whiz I am not. 

I have never once claimed math as a strong suit. Not once.

In elementary school, I completed one timed multiplication quiz...ever... So I learned early that I was not a whiz when it came to math. I was a math...opposite of whiz...

A math slug? 

I will brag that I scored in the 95th percentile on the GRE...on the verbal reasoning section.

On the quantitative section?

Arabic ramblings

We frequently bring up and laugh about the fact that one of the first words introduced in the Arabic curriculum Al-Kitaab is United Nations (الأمم المتحدة). Granted, the curriculum was developed somewhat specifically to train foreign service officers of varying capacity—to read the news, to act in diplomatic capacity, and so forth. So it makes sense. It really does. 

But it's also hilarious. 

You learn things like "hello" and "my name is" and "how are you?" and..."United Nations"...in like the first week! It's...hilarious. 

We aren't into Al-Kitaab at our house yet. We're still slowly chipping our way through the alphabet in Alif-Baa. But we're encountering some of these seeming incongruences. 

Today we worked on "faa" and "qaf." 

The kids were saying words that they knew, like elephant (فيل), that begin with "faa." Butterfly also begins with "faa" (فراشة) and we actually know all the letters for that word! But the book suggested with just write the name Farid. 

Here's a little "faa"-shaped elephant (فيل) that Zoë made (the dot is the sun above its head):

Grown ups come back

After a long week of Daddy being away, we sure are happy to have him home again! Here are the kids eating some wafer cookies from Thailand that Andrew brought back to share with the kids:

Although Andrew has never been to Thailand, he has partied with people who have. 

Thus the cookies.

Gardening Club

We had our first day of Gardening Club today! A bunch of families rented out a garden space together in our pool's community garden and the lady in charge said she'd give gardening lessons to the kids every week or so, to talk to the kids about how to tend their plants and use what they grow. She's been running the garden for about 15 years now so she knows what she's talking about!

That's nice because...I don't!

They also put a nice deer fence up this winter. It's about 12 feet tall and has a lovely gate, so our produce has half a chance at surviving until we're ready to eat it. Our deer population is so plentiful right now that the city is talking about doing a cull of sorts. 

Anyway, today the kids weeded our plot. Here they are after the job was done:

Groundhog Day (and other nonsense)

Phoebe was so excited that today was hedgehog day (I mean groundhog day) and I meant to do some fun activities with her...but it ended up being a much busier day than I had bargained for. But she had a lot of fun creating her own mythology around what groundhog day means. 

According to Punxsutawney Phil, we're getting six more weeks of winter, but these kinds of prognostications mean very little when you're this far south. 

Our county had a digital learning day while we continued to recover from the weekend's snowstorm. 

And our friends in Durham have had kids home from school since January 23rd! 

I think everyone's aching for life to go back to normal. I hear they're even protesting against ice in Minnesota. So that just goes to show how much people would like the winter weather to pack up and go home. And maybe it should.

Phoebe was actually terribly upset when she looked out the (sunny) front window and saw no snow because she had eaten a big salad with her dinner last night (of her own making). Andrew had made some delicious pizza and we had salad fixings on the side, but Phoebe created a huge salad for herself, which she mentioned looked like a bowl of ice cream, with sprinkles on top (all kinds of peppers that she cut into small pieces). 

There's some inside joke about getting a large bowl of ice cream...if one has had a large bowl of salad...between Andrew and his dad. So they joked about that and then Phoebe was like, "Ice cream...sounds like a good idea."

We don't typically have ice cream in our freezer, though, so I told her she could lick the snow if she wanted to.

She did not want to...because it was dark. 

I told her she could lick the snow in the morning, but then there was no snow left in the front yard!

So we checked the (shady) back deck and there was still snow out there so she licked it before breakfast...to celebrate both her large bowl of salad and groundhog day (or hedgehog day or whatever funny animal day we were calling it...quizzically something to do with both snow and shadow...what is this nonsense? She had no idea but was more than willing to play along).

*****