The millions of ideas

There is a million things going on in my head.  I really need to focus on just a few things, but no, I try and tackle as much as I can.

I'm trying to get through school work.  I like it and much of it is interesting, but this week, I have 31 pages to read.  That's really not much, but every time I sit down to read, I fall asleep.  Or my mind starts to think about the other ten projects I'm working on and by the time I've finished a page, I can't remember a single thing that I read and I re-read it, but continue to have a wandering mind.  I still haven't made it through those 31 pages yet. 

My theater is holding auditions this coming Saturday.  I'm excited.  Recent theater experiences in the last few months have given me great ideas to do with the kids for auditions.  I'm going to have every kid go through the audition, but depending on the number of kids that show up, if they want to be in the play, I can put them in it.  It's a great little show because the cast size is very flexible.

Oldest son really wants to have a comedy troop.  We've had two meetings, but only one kid showed up and that's tough for him.  My kids and I have been playing these funny games for month, but he never has, so it's hard for him to jump into our family's insanity.  We discovered that one of our neighbors is a theater major graduate and he spent a year and a half in an improv comedy group while he was in school.  We've invited him to our next meeting to come and really help us do some fun stuff.

I've given up on writing right now.  The only thing I write these days is this blog and my school papers.  Sad, but it's a trade off in the middle of the semester.

I need to figure out how to record sound with my computer.  I can run the camera, but I don't want video, just sound and I can't figure it out.  I've asked Hubby for help, but he is so busy with everything he is involved in, he hasn't had time to help.  If I ever do figure it out, watch out!  I've got a funny idea brewing.

The kids are good.  My oldest daughter and youngest son have birthdays next week.  Ahhh!  I haven't even thought about those yet.  I had a parent/teacher conference with my daughter's teacher a couple of weeks ago.  She told me what they are learning in school and she told me, "don't teach her multiplication yet,  we need to get the addition facts down first."  OK.  Well, today, for fun, daughter was at the table, writing out her own math problems and figuring them out.  She realized that 12x6 is just 12 six times. She thinks of things that I never would have thought of at her age. She's smart, like her dad.

OK, Peanut, who I am holding, has fallen asleep.  Now it's time to put her down and see if I can tackle those reading pages again. (yawn, maybe not)

Upcoming blog entries will include:  Mincemeat adventures and my lifelong love for Peter Pan.
Oh yes, I know you're excited now.

The digital hybrid

I haven’t said much about school this semester.  We are only beginning our 5^th week, so there hasn’t been much to say.  Last week we had a group project to do.  That isn’t easy when the members of the group span 12 time zones.  Most of them are in the UK, but there are a few of us in North America and several in Asia and Africa.  By the time I get all the kids to school and I’m ready to sit down and do school work, it’s around 4pm in the UK.

It’s really amazing, when you think about it, how students from many countries on six of the continents are in one class together.

Also this past week, we discussed “digital natives.”  What are digital natives you ask?  People born since 1993.  They know no life without the Internet.  The rest of us born prior to 1993 are called “digital immigrants.”  An interesting idea, but as I see it, it is not entirely true.  The generation I am from (sounds like a bad sci-fi movie) have lived with computers all of our lives.  We didn’t get the Internet until we were young adults, but we were the first generation to have personal computers, game consoles, and VCRs.

We had an Atari.  I never did get very good at those games.  The joystick was awkward in my small hand, but that didn’t keep my brother and I from trying to get the moving square (the ball) to hit the moving bars (tennis rackets, I think.)

When I was around 8, we got our first computer – an Apple IIe.  Those old things had no memory at all.  They didn’t run unless they had a disk in them.  Yes, the 5 ¼ floppies.  If you turned it on without a disk inside, it made a lot of rude noises.  We had a word processing program.  It was where I wrote all my plays and my first novel.  We also had a couple of great games – Jumpman, Nibbler and Math Blaster. 

We got our first VCR around that same time.  Great fun.  It was such a novelty to go down to the shopping center near our home and pick out videos from the brand new home video rental store.  This is way before Blockbuster.  We recorded TV shows and could watch them whenever we wanted!

Our first cell phone must have weighed about 10 pounds. They weren’t even called cell phones.  They were mobile phones and despite their name, they weren’t very mobile.  It was too heavy to carry around in your bag and your arm would cramp while trying to talk on it.

I think my generation should be called “digital hybrids.”  I don’t think of myself as a technological immigrant.  I grew up with the stuff.  Someday when I’m old, have a purple bouf, and whacking teenagers with a cane, I’ll be able to say, “Back when I was young, you whippersnappers, we didn’t have these smart phones.  Our first cell phone was as long as your arm and weighed more than a newborn baby.”
Oh yes, that will be the day!

School chats

School has been going for two weeks for me.  Some of it is interesting, some, not so interesting, but I guess that's the way school goes.  Of course, it's only been two weeks.  Today we had two "chats" in a chatroom.  The first one was at 10am, Scotland time.  That was 3am for me.  I was awake and alert and participated and towards the end, I thought of a good question and decided to save the it for the next chat session later in the day.  I got to go back to sleep for about 2 hours after the chat finished and before it was time to wake kids up for school.  When the second chat started, it was 8pm Scotland time, one in the afternoon for me.  I sat down to participate in the chat and couldn't remember anymore the question I had so brilliantly devised at 3:50am.

The next chat is next month and will be at 7am for me.  That will be hard as that is the hour I'm getting kids out the door for school, but it's better than 3 in the morning.