Tons of thoughts

Found the magic

2004-12-07T11:14:00.000-05:00

Magic definitely hit me several times this semester, in ways I never thought it would.
I found blogging to be one of my main outlets to stress, am I'm shocked at how gutsy and personal I got, like I never thought I would put in stuff about my love life, but when one sits down to a blank page one just has to pour out what's on ones mind.

I expected the first blogs to be like they were, where i was still trying ot please the audience and write well, but it was my poetry, my moments of despair where I am thrilled at what poured out.

I have loved blogging ounce I got into it, and heart wrenching to look back at my blogs and better understand myself from them.
some of my favorite posts:

Pattern of my writing this semester seemed to be always trying to please someone. Trying not to lose myself in the pleasing.

This is my absolute favorite:
http://cuppy123.blogspot.com/2004/10/ive-been-busy-with-us.html

The rest are good old favs
http://cuppy123.blogspot.com/2004/10/clan.html

http://cuppy123.blogspot.com/2004/11/emily.html

http://cuppy123.blogspot.com/2004/11/what-do-we-do-with-pieces-left.html

I love blogging especially when magic shines through!

http://cuppy123.blogspot.com/2004/09/home.html

Remember that kid

2004-12-03T11:17:00.001-05:00

Remember that kid.
Ha, remember when I started college. Almost one whole semester ago.
Hot humidity of moving in, the strange new smell of the dusty halls, the sinking look as I watched my parents walk off leaving me holding a crumbly corn muffin in my hand as I trudged back to my new home.? I remember the entering of my roommate and how I took one look at her and realized that this was going to be hell, total opposites moving into one space. I remember taking my first shower and having to get used to wearing shoes during it, and how I cut my leg shaving that first night and of course hadn't brought the Band-Aids in to the bathroom, how quickly one learns ot adapt. And that the toilets no matter when they were cleaned always look disgusting ( always use the bathroom in the library they are the cleanest). I remember eating the first meal of colorless glop at the DC soon discovering that the fruit and vegetable groups of home were non existence here. The first Monday of classes how I had a job interview for work study (turning out to being gods send in my life) then went to my first class, a dance class where I found my passion, and one of my biggest school time crushes.
I remember meeting my first neighbors in my dorm, all of us freshman trying out our new lives..
I remember my first date here, my first kiss here, and my first sleepover.
The first democrat club meeting where I and three other people showed up, but hopeful I stuck with it and today the club is wonderful.

What a fun ride it's been, sure there's been the ugly days the ones of disappointment and heartache. So much has happened, and so little, life as been easy to me, the academics here are easy, too much time to have fun. One gets distracted to go off and play, well playing is fun. I have grown up a lot this semester but also regressed too, I've learned so much about myself... Life has been good to me; I've had a great time.
Thanks college for being a blast.

Next semester I'll do you proud!

I want to be six again!

2004-11-27T11:29:00.000-05:00

I don’t want grow up.

I want to be six years old again. When you’re six you have no stresses that a lollipop and a hug can’t mend. You run around spending you’re playing in the very best fashion, creating worlds that you can only see, becoming anything you want to be!
What happened so those worlds when one is stuck being a teenager like me. I still want play, I still run through dewy grass, throwing away everything I’ve done. Is it too late to say I want be just a kid again, I want to eat cookie dough, bang on fences and yes, turn circles in the wind, jump in the air and catch myself again. Curl in front of a fire place and say “turn on Winne Pooh I have nothing else I have to do”…..

Aww wouldn’t it be cool, to turn the clock back and not go to school, to sleep late again, and not wake to have to worry, about all the things I should really do. How to please everyone in my life, including me.
How can others influence me so much? I’m stuck being the child without power between two adults that love me so much, but hate each other, have war with each other, how can I please both of them???……..
That’s why it would be easy to just be six, again, forget about adult games, and roll down grassy hills, stretch like a cat and not worry. A worry that I’m not measuring up, not pleasing everyone, not doing it all right….. I thought love was about not being a mediator, but I seem to get stuck with the extremes, I am running around with grownups and they want grownup things of me…
They want me to think! Damn who’s wants to do that.
They want me to love them! Ok easy up to a point.
They want utter loyalty to only them! Hard when they hate each other.
They want…. What do they want? If I only had the easy solution I’d mix the magic potion and say, “hell there you go you can both be totally happy,” and if your both totally happy I can be free to find out who I am, with me, I can run through those fields, I can eat myself sick on cookie dough, and I still laugh, cry, and know you have utter my utter loyalty, utter happiness, you have the best girl there inside of me…..

But it seems like it would be much easier to just six again!

Emily!

2004-11-27T11:01:00.000-05:00

( This is a tale of Emily who I was asked to meet this Thanksgiving break but mundane grownups kept us apart, so this is my dedication to her, the little 5 year old she is that is still so greatly inside me.)

“Emily!”
I turn my long sausage curls flipping past my shoulders, my mini belled Old Navy Jeans crushing the large silk orange pillow under them, my large dark blue eyes flashing.
My hands submerged in the long lovely lace curtains, finger tips stretching though the flowery holes in them as if I am wearing great rings. Its quite a stretch to turn around toward the voice because of the plush cinnamon colored chair that I am perched on the shoulder of which is now sighing and slightly tipping towards the window as my weight conducts it in my turn to look at the speaker.
There she stands plump and polished, her nails are a shiny red today, her dark slacks are a deep rose, her long shiny hair tied back in a wooden carved clip, her eyes are narrowed in an anxious frown.
With a slight grin twitching at the corner of my mouth I play dumb.
“Yes Aunt Cindy?”
Aunt Cindy sighs and opens her mouth to say something….
What could she possibly have a problem with this time my mind reels?
Was it that I wasn’t wearing my new shoes and instead had my bare feet linked monkey style into the plush arms of this magnificent chair. Could she tell I had not brushed my teeth and had just had a tiny taste of chocolate cake from last night (it had been my birthday cake so I felt justified) that yes had smeared a little on my shirt, but it was a dark blue shirt and mommy had always said it was much easier to get stains out of darks. Was it that she could see where I had stuffed my socks? Underneath the cat bed in the corner, but the cat Flash was so thin these days and so had enjoyed chewing on my socks that I thought if he wanted to eat them he should get a fair chance; besides daddy said I always had way too many socks.
Or could it be that she didn’t love the fact that I was so adoring her lace curtains?
For the last 20 minutes they had been a treasure trove of imagination let lose for me. The long feather light wave of sunlight kissed lace was first princess hair I so wished I had, and then it had turned in to the wedding dress that I was going to wear when I married Peter Pan (because he was the most wonderful boy in the world.) Then it had switched to this the glory of lacing my fingers through the flower holes, a tactile sensation not to be missed. I was now a countess and these holes my rubies and diamonds, my sea captain of a husband (who still looked very much like peter pan) had brought back to me from strange and far way places like Milwaukee.
And the chair, (sigh) this perfect chair was my camel and I was riding through the great dessert of New Jersey nodding to all my subjects as they stopped their work in the fields to bow low to me. Clearly Aunt Cindy could see them? See the peasants bowing, see that I was very busy conducting my camel with my lovely rings, she surely could see how if I made it to the end of the square by noon Peter Pan would be there waiting for me with Tinker bell to go have tea at the secret lake where the lovely swans would dance for us, Aunt Cindy you must see it! Slightly my eyes begged her to see the rings the camel, it all…..

“ Could you get off the chair dear, its not safe to sit that way.” were the dead words that flowed so easily out of her mouth. She was grownup the heavy, boring words of a grownup that was blind to the peasants, the camel, the rubies. Blind to the wonders of the dessert in New Jersey, blind to it all.

I merely sighed it pointless to argue with a dead adult mind, which had years ago given up curiosity and imagination for mundane tasks that grownups do. I let go of the curtains and did a perfect seal dive off the chair on to my great polar bear rug that caught me, aww to never get old this is my dream for life.

My paper is about Gender sterotyping!

2004-11-16T22:29:00.000-05:00

Gender stereotypes.

Ok, my paper is about why I think we have the “girl toys” and the “boy toys”; the Pink for girls and Blue for boys in today’s society.
Toy markets and toy commercials have created no middle ground; we have the extremes on both sides and no ware to be neutral.
Hence, why we have gender stereotyping, society has created gender stereotyping, and is promoting this full out. This is we have to keep in mind because children become what they play with, by only giving them gender stereotypes roles to be they can only become that.

Today’s toy market has taken gender roles to the extreme and we are only human beings, no one is an extreme as the media makes us out to be. No child is born to be all into only one way of playing and thinking, it is trained into us. By what toys we are given, by what TV shows we watch, what commercials we watch, and who trains at home, what is the message we are getting from our parents and peers about gender roles and behavior?

We are not all army trucks and all Barbie dolls, especially with today’s society changing it’s gender roles, men and women equal opportunity at education and the work force yet the media has created the far right girlies girl and the far left macho boy and with a child offered no middle ground they are forced to accept this image that is mainly untrue today, so we’re giving them an untrue way to practice being adults while they play.

My paper is about that commercials and toy manufacturers, about teaching just this one thing gender stereotyping. That this isn’t a healthy way to be teaching our children because we live today we have some biological tendencies to like different toys (boys seem to like active games girls care about relationships and interactions.)
Still we aren’t biologically inclined to be so pink and blue, we’re told to be that. And that’s not healthy.
Kids are absorbent of that they care about what they play with and what their peers are playing with, the media does a such a good job at getting into their lives that they can request toys by brand name.

We should as a society recognize and starts preventing only this one message of how to play go out to our children, we should become united in giving them gender neutral toys so that they, the children, our future, can decide what roles they wish to take on.

(Sorry if this paper is so blatant. I was using the mentality of being cornered in the elevator and made to spill what my paper was about and I groggy from lack of sleep coughed out this response!)

SIGH!

2004-11-11T13:54:00.000-05:00

People are oh so amazing but also oh so annoying.
I was up till 2am last night fighting with people. People who want to start fighting at 2am is stupid on their parts, and I am all the more stupid to take the bait and go with it, ( sigh).
Why do the deep probing questions of the world come out so late at night? Why when ones defenses are down? And why do we feel that then when our brains are half dead that we somehow can work it all out right then? That somehow the magic answer will arise from the ashes if one just debates it more.
Are we meant to live life, screwing up 50% of the time? or is there a way that we could do better? Is there something better out there that someone else has achieved will you world please clue me in?
I’m laying it all out on the table for him, don’t let be rejected.

I’m taking the time to invest in you, is it a good investment or not? Who knows? But I’m plotting the courses, taking out the loans, writing the checks, intrusting the funds, and is all really worth it? Should I run now before it’s all done?

Boys, men are so hard to read sometimes, at points one thinks they are just a different species and you have to throw up both hands and sigh. Then something snaps and weighs out in your mind of “what am I doing? I haven’t a clue?” and then you find something that makes it all worth it again, it all means to much to end but I couldn’t tell you what it was if I tired, we’re just meant in this world to do it alone.
It’s life making you leery of a day of being by oneself. Are we meant to just go crazy and throw away it all on someone? I don’t know?

What happens to ones past though during this staking? If one brings it all to the table? Will it get laughed at? Could we look past the different piles the lack similarities? Could we get past the fact that both of us have been through completely different lives, completely different experiences? Is it worth it? To throw it all out? To say “hey that doesn’t matter at all” when this is our lives right now, are we disclaiming everything we’ve been brought up to believe?
Should one hold back how much? So that if was all crushed one could run, run fast and free again, run faster then the wind allows one to do.
Is it right to be trying this world out with you?
God why are there so many differences? Is it just people in general that have so many differences or is it us? I’m a blue state he’s red, we’ve got so little in common from that it can be said, but is that worth to look past that? I’m a passionate person, vivacious with life and I love him. He nothing like anything I’ve ever known, he’s a scared wounded creature that got hurt not so long ago.
Yet he fits a need, we both have this need, this need to be fully filled. And its lovely to be loved, its wonderful like nothing I’ve seen before, we have so much we can share yet how long will total opposites last? And is it reasonable to expect them to last at all?

Could it be I’m meant to get serious here, or could it mean we are just fools?
I am living up a cloud again and I love it up there with you.

But still if I crash, I will walk away on my own two feet, I could still get away still only small wounds, but don’t let that crush us, I’m still to young to begin being serious about anyone. So let’s stop worrying, let’s stop arguing, let’s just keep walking on.

LIFE IS MEANT GET MESSY. SO I’M BUSY GETTING MESSY.

What do we do with the pieces left?

2004-11-05T13:11:00.000-05:00

My room is littered with 77 Kerry Posters, 50 bumper stickers, and a bag of 200 Kerry balloons. I am the secretary for the our chapter of the democrats here at Keene state and I was director of visibility on campus on November 1st and 2nd .And after busting my butt running around for 48 hours, campaigning till I had no voice, my knee was swollen so I couldn’t bend it, my hands are cut and bloody, I can think proudly of the fact that I helped win NH, but frustrated at prospect of four terrible years ahead.
Today is the first time I have had an hour alone at peace since the election.
I collapse in my parents’ home in Concord and look bleakly at the floor plastered with my Kerry stuff. Knowing that with this week’s outcome of the election the war has just begun for all of us. The deck is stacked against us and all people of this country. We now have to start four hard years to get through, years that will only bring us all more pain, suffering, and utter wincing as the rest of the world shuns us more for our choice in government.

However, despite the outcome of this election it did teach me many things about myself, most importantly that I love working for my country like this. That working with politics and on campaigns is a passion I’m not going to miss out on, I loved it. Working the campaign trail my freshman year of college, doing this election is a mere warm-up to what I’ll be doing next election. This is too important, too wonderful to miss out on. I intend to get even more heavily into campaigning as the months go on. This looks like my future career. At age 19 to have had the opportunity to get 5,000 students to vote, to have on the 2nd led packs of 60 people to holding Kerry signs and marching for Kerry was beyond amazing.
I believe we can survive these next four years, though my life and many of my friends will be shattered, our rights are already disappearing faster then one can blink, we will be having to bust every ounce of strength we have left only to survive the next four years. But perhaps it will be worth it. The outcome will I know make us stronger if we survive.

And though working for my country may have cost me all my time this past month, shunned away many of my friends because I was never around, this is worth it all, I get to look myself straight in the eye and say “ I got Keene state to vote” and next election I will get the entire youth population of this country to vote.

Introduction and conclusion of my research paper.

2004-11-04T21:35:00.000-05:00

( This blog was already edited by my classmates on paper this morning since I had a little bit of trouble with the blog world yesterday. So comments were already made and used to improve by dropshots and Jen. Thanks guys.)

Introduction

Gender stereotypes: how we are shaped by our toys

Walk into A’s room, the carpet is dusty rose, there are tiny plastic jewels and high heals littering the ground intermittently, out of a purple plastic carte hangs costumes of pink and lace that depict princesses from Disney, across from the crates lays a heap of and cocktail dresses, and makeup kits, as Barbie and her many spin off dolls lie in wait for play time, every toy has the face of excited wide eyed anticipation, every color in the room is soft and light. This is a classic little girl’s room.
Walk across the hall to B’s room, the carpet here is dark blue, the floor is littered with action figures and tiny soldiers, sports posters cover the walls. Balls and toy guns peak out of a red toy crate, Ninj Turtle bed sheets. One can spy from under the baseball blanket, the faces of the toys are covered in muscle strain and aggression, strong blatant primary colors depict this scene. Here is the classic little boy room.
These rooms are as different as night and day. Why?
Who picks? Who creates? Who reinforces what we play with? Fundamentally why do we have such huge gender stereotypes in our toys?
Who created those stereotypes? What is the role or those who create us, the Media and Caregivers that hold the deck to what creates today’s child.

Childhood play is how we mold and create our adult roles for life (Serbian et all. 2001).

Gender stereotyping is role play. One acts out what one is taught which molds us to what we will become.
Almost all research done into the field of gender identity and gender stereotypes points to the fact that gender stereotypes are a 50% to 50% nature and nurture. Children are hard wired to be different genders and to react to life differently, 50% of our existence is biological programming to be who we are and no outside influence can penetrate that, an example is a study done a few years ago. This study gave a large group of boys ad girls the same stuffed animals, and in less then five minutes the group was treating them differently, the girls were nurturing and cuddling with them the boys were whacking and throwing them, what doesn’t that mean? Was that only biology showing through? What is so fascinating is the other 50% of toy psychology, the nurture half, the equal half that has the influences to mold out how we express, understand, and emulate our own gender. The half that by age three makes some children recognizes and requests toys by brand name. The half that allows one to look at a child’s caregivers, look into a child’s toy box, a child’s friend’s houses, schools, and pretty much determine what that child’s stance is on gender identity by what’s exposed around them.
I want to know which one has greater influence over the other. Which piece controls the other, does the media tell us what to play with or do our parents buy what the media tells them we should play with. Who controls who?
Children are moldable creatures they are influenced by everything they are exposed to whether they can contemplate it or not. So who takes the lead?

Conclusion

Now picture a C’s bedroom. You’d walk in and the floor would be littered with legos, tinker toys, stuffed animals, molding clay would lie on a crate, action figures and rag dolls would litter the bed, the colors would be of pale earth tones, the toys equal representation of both genders, war and sex symbols would not be found. This is the room of the future, the room a child could have today if we didn’t have and enforce gender stereotypes.
Do we want this room to exist?
Parenting is being shaped today by the media. Do we really want to admit and accept the TV has greater power over the unmotivated parent? If we so chose we could refute this, disclaim the images media makes for us but where would we start?
The experts say this is how to start: education, we have to show our young an alternative standpoint then what the media is implying, one that shows that girls are equal to boys. That boys and girls can play with whatever toy they choose. The best education status helps boys and girls to become their full potential without labeling them or giving them a toy that they have to stick to because it’s their gender’s toy.
“Once we understand that our culture has been shaping us, we can take charge of our own personalities and re-create ourselves” (umn 2004) deciding what we will play with not what the pop culture tells us to play with.
“We become more intelligent by exercising our power to think, by reading serious books, having important discussions, and by writing down our new insights and further questions. In short, we learn to think by thinking.” ( umn 2004)

50% of our lives are dictated by what we are exposed to, if we like gender stereotyping we should keep on the same path we are now. But think what an amazing effect could happen if we offered options for our young that didn’t follow the media’s lead, if we took the incentive and stood on our own. Let our children be children without having to worry if they all fit the pop cultures mold. If we just let our children play, imagine how amazing the future generation of playing could be.

I've been busy with an " us"

2004-10-22T19:45:00.000-04:00

Creating a couple.

The harder you grab me, the faster I’ll melt away. But there is always the endless temptation to grab more and fast, because the minute one stops grabbing it could all disappear.
If one puts the brakes on it could jam up the clutch, but if we don’t put the brakes on we could crash, if we did would it be a fatal?

We’re worried we’ll hurt each other. He’s worried he’ll hurt me by not needing me, but what he doesn’t know is I’m not the type to be hurt.
Because though I’m thoroughly enjoying myself being with him, I’m only acting one side of myself. How much of this is really acting combined with reality? I do not know. We’ve used the words of love without the time to build a relationship, will that last? Or will it break us? Nurturing that there is an “us,” an us that is newly being formed and growing.
Every day we begin to share more of one another’s emotional burdens, but we’re still holding back walls inside ourselves, walls that are being slowly unlocked, will we loose the keys? Do I want to unlock any of those walls and share them yet?

I’ve never had to do total romantic loyalty before, though somehow that always seems to get asked for. I always felt I’d be the needy one in a relationship, I’d be the one to pity, to beg, to be the dumpee not the dumper. But I was wrong, completely and utterly wrong, and I’ve found out the unfathomable that I am the one that would want to roam.

I guess it’s wrong to want to have it all, to love and be loved with out having to commit; there is a security with not committing, but also that tantalizing danger of what happens when you are committed? We’re playing with fire and wearing a fire suits. But someone I fear something is turning up the heat, and my fire suit is cracking, am I getting sucked into commitment?

We had a lovely day today, my prince pampers me with compliments, showers me with gifts and praise, though he was different today, he’s pulled slightly away.
He’s pulled away because she stepped back into his life.
The arch rival his X.
He’ll run back to her I fear, the lady he had before, the one that is mentioned in every conversation, she wants him back, back to manipulate, back to torture and he may go. He’s terrified that this would break my heart. But if he goes at this point in the relationship I think I would laugh and then I’d run. Run so fast and free, give and take as I please, I can do it as a couple, but I love the utter freedom of being alone though the nights are dark and lonely.

Still whatever happens I’m not the type to be sad. I’ve never been sad for long in my life. I’ve had low days, down days, but I love being able to take on the world, and nothing so terrible has happened in my life that I have been scared away. I hope there will continue to be an “us,” but if there is not I’m hoping there will be peace.

So that’s where I’ve been if you all have missed me, I’m busy these days grabbing all I can get with a new man in my life.

The packer

2004-10-16T01:30:00.000-04:00

Its funny traveling home almost every weekend I seem to need to bring enough stuff with me to start my own mall.
I was born to always carry, I can not leave my room without at least something in my hands, be it a water bottle, cell phone, or wallet. Now with almost two months into college I never can seem to make it out of the dorm to get back home without at least four bags that are stuffed to the brim. It makes getting to the parking lot a group effort every time since I never can walk out to it alone because of all my stuff. On those unlucky days when I can’t find a sucker to help me "drag the bags", I’ll try to carry them all myself and will end up looking like I’m in one of those old black and white silent comedies where one bag falls off one shoulder and then you pull it up, and then the bag on your other shoulder falls off, and you try and pull it up and then both bags fall off at the same time and it becomes a thoroughly humiliating experience just to exist.

What may you think am I carrying in all these bags? Nothing illegal I assure you, no the stuff I carry is completely boring, but I seem to have more of it then the rest of the college put together. Textbooks, dirty clothes, all my dirty dishes ( don’t ask me why they come home but they always seem to) all my toiletries ( and something all ways gets left behind making my weekend miserable without my correct facial products). The lap top (an almost sacred object to me ), the purse , the day-planner, and the junk of my life: Those messy bits of papers that are covered in cracker crumbs ( roughly resembling homework), the post-ets that run my life with all the jotted down notes on them that tell me when to do what, the masses amounts of pens and pencils (all that seem to be broken or inkless), the computer disks (holding countless crappy blogs), CDs, hair wax, hair gel, etc. I’m looking at the floor of my room now after coming home last night and am in shock because it is covered with enough stuff for 10 people.

I’m reminded of the 7 page essay I wrote last year on the contents of my purse, 7 pages to describe how it came about, how I’m a packer, a pack-rat, carrier of duplicates, and if one can’t a have dup I have five other things that could be used as substitutes, this lifestyle seems to be only getting worse as I get older since I have also picked a work field that encourages this terrible habit.

I find I get especially loaded when I pack to go out in the field and work with children. I spent 2 hours this summer packing the “bag of tricks” for the kids the night before we went on a really long field trip. This back pack had to have everything including entertainments, food, first aid, sun protection, and extras of everything: “ extra socks ( water play someone always needs them), extra towel, extra food, water ( because it is amazing how many kids bring just soda to drink in 100 degree weather to drink and end up dehydrated), and extra first aid. For the first aid packs most staff are given these days are really under filled and don’t have equipment one needs out at work i.e there was a time this summer I was alone with 10 children out at a city park and a child got covered in dog poop ( kids are just so darn clever that way) and she rushed to me to get it off of her, now in the “staffs” first aid pack there were rubber glove sand band aids ( ha, what can we do with that?) I had however in my pack, the hand sanitizer, tissues, and water which is what got the job done.

Or there was that time at that crucial big family event when someone got a poppy seed stuck between their teeth, and all the mothers and sisters went running to their little purses that contained nothing but those cell phones, makeup and cash, that really aren’t good for much; they finally had to turn to me with the largest purse in sight that was packed with the “useful stuff” (dental floss in this case).

I have always felt having this stuff made me ready physically for any situation, any catastrophe, any drama; I will be there for and able to help anyone and everyone who needs it. I plan to keep on carrying it all even though it means looking like a fool every time I leave my dorm for the weekend. (Hey you know who to hit up for dental floss).

Counter arugment

2004-10-13T17:16:00.000-04:00

Review of : Sex differences in 1,3, and 5-year-olds’ toy-choice in a structured play session.
By Anna Servin, Gunilla Bohlin and Lisa Berlin
Department of Psychology, Uppsla University Sweden.

What is research? It is the comparison of old studies and sum up of a new perspective? Is it lab tests or field observation? Is it hypothesis and theory? Over all how can we judge what pure facts are? When is research totally unbiased without second guessing? When is a study proven to be true?
To me the most interesting work in research is done in studies like this one, sticking hands on research of an observation of variables, and seeing what happens just by watching.
This 1999 study in Sweden made sure that all its research was going to be unbiased, but by trying so hard be unbiased this controlled setting became very biased.

The study is taken strictly first hand form observations of children, it was hoping to determine if sex stereotypes exist with children and their choices of toys, and if they do is it psychological or biological?
The overall the method was taking a group of children ages 1-5 placed in a room with their parents encircled behind them, and with a bunch of toys that were gender stereotyped and gender neutral spread out in front of them. A video camera droned on and the children got to play with anything they wanted by themselves for 7 minutes, then with their parents and the toys for 7 minutes. At the end of each of these studies they were offered from three choices a toy to bring home as a “gift” (i.e a truck and doll and a ball) the children chose a toy and skipped out.
Charts were made up about the length of time a child played with a particular toy, and about what toy the children chose as “gifts” to bring home. The ending result was declared that yes, gender stereotyping is happening and it’s completely biological (parents and media have little to no influence on a child’s toy preference.)

But a lot of other research counteracts this:
By doing this in a controlled environment using toys that children already recognized and had in their homes gives thought that perhaps the children only played with the toys they recognized before ever seeing these toys in the laboratory, that naturally they’d be drawn to the toys they had at home, the toys they had seen their siblings play with, and not by the toys they were biologically attracted to.

Everything was manipulated in this study, from how the toys were positioned ( i.e what kind of toys were in closest reach of the children,) to how the parents were positioned to play with their children, to the timing a child was allowed to play with a toy; every choice made in this study if done differently could have so many different results.

An equal amount of research has been made to prove that a child’s toy preference is strictly psychological and taken from observing the society. What we are taught to play with. That girls are more attracted to dolls because that’s what society gives them to be attracted too, boys are trained from birth to be warriors it’s the way our society focuses how we are going to raise our males. But those roles change with how we’re taught as children with what we are exposed to in pop culture, what we are role modeled has as much an influence on us then biologically being drawn to different toys.
For this reason I disagree with what the study proved in saying that parents have no influence on their children’s play, if one actually meets parents and observes children ‘s real playrooms at home one can tell definitely these children are being influenced by what their parents encourage and purchase for their child’s entertainment. Just by the dramatic contrast playrooms have across this globe: How some boys are trained to be macho men’s men, some girls are trained to be weak women and given the toys and the media as role models and become exactly what they are taught. Where as other children are given a chance to play with whatever they want (including dolls) then grow up deciding for themselves if they or don’t always choose the populated role model.

This isolated study proves little, proves what casual observation of any childcare center across the globe proves— that yes, boys and girls pick up different toys to play with yet it offers no explanation to change or refute the outcomes of how our children play. What can we do with this material to add to research or lessen it? In the end I fear it will be placed in the stacks of research that lie untouched.

I think the study should have been done in finding out what play things were in every child’s home, and then coming up with new things a child had never seen before and seeing then what they were inclined to pick up then with objects foreign and unknown.
Are we biologically programmed or physiologically to play with what we play with? It still leaves to be proven so.

Servin, A., Bohilin G., Berlin L. (1999). Sex differences in 1-,3-, and 5-year-olds’ toy-choice in a structured play-session. Journal of psychology 43, 43-48.

THE CLAN!

2004-10-12T11:08:00.000-04:00

MY BASE.

"I am commanded to remember that the world doesn’t revolve around me everyday."

"The clan: the hommies, the people, the blood of my blood, the ones who we would all kill for, or be killed for to protect one another; the family, the one’s that made me who I am.
Fundamental loyalty."

In all my stories thus far on this blog site and really all through my writing has always contained an " us, we, my people."
This group ( the family) has the greatest influence ove me, its what I devote my time to "thoroughly monopolizing me all day."

We have fought for our rights to remain as a pack and go by our own rules.
To never have to take tests, raise the young in a why indifferent and separate from the popular culture. And we were taught to be so proud of that difference.

"We" decide what laws and rules are going to be conditioned in this family no matter how silly they are:
Example, "when I was little gum was upheld in my family as an elitist treat, one that was passed out like it was one of the last of a dozen left in the world. Gum was to me almost better then candy or money in those days. With such great deference to this almost sacred object there was also an etiquette about how one was able to chew it: " one must always chew gum with one's mouth closed!" my mother instructed to us numerous times " one must only chew gum in casual society and never in front of your grandparents.""

"We" went to select our pets trouping in as a group:
"Where it's too bad there’s not a counseling session one can have with a newly acquired cat, one where you both sit down in a nice clean office and really get your feelings out on the table.( Cats are notorious for not sharing their feelings, someone going into therapy should get to the bottom of it.) "

I was brought up to care, to nurture, and love since I was so loved by this group and that particularly comes out in my work as I care for children.
"you are solely responsible to guard and protect, guide and defend, and take the blunt of whatever this troop of eight children decides to do out on field trips. Make us proud."
That's my credo in life, given to be by my wolf pack, to care and defend those you love and are trusted with.
It's part of what I have chosen for my research topic how through toys we can effect our "caring" for a child by what toys they play with.

This is my base in life, one that I will fight to the death to defend and uphold for the future generations of our clan.
"Not as a battle to win anything, but one of shear survival, one that would take all we had to get the whole party back home and alive."
Let the world accept us for being different, let it never shatter our clan.

Thank you family for making me who I am.

This was written by cutting and pasting my old blogs!

My motley crew.

2004-10-08T20:22:00.000-04:00

Expectations and agendas, isn’t it amazing how greatly they often differ from one another.

I was supposed to come home for a weekend to study, to finish all the boring assignments I’d been given. This weekend was going to be about regaining strength, catching up on sleep, creating a time of solitude, of prayer, of getting back on track; eating less, and thinking more. Ha. Not today, not in this home it seems am I ever going to get anything done!

This is my time I self righteously announce, but every time I go home I am commanded to remember that the world doesn’t revolve around me (go figure?)
That even if this is my time, I am still to take the trash out, do the dishes and not start every sentence with the words “I think” because this crowd doesn’t care if I have an opinion, they’re the ones that will tell me shut up like no one else can.

However, this troupe thoroughly monopolized me all day. I spent the last twelve hours doing nothing with school work, it was all time with the clan: time with the hommies, the people, the blood of my blood, the ones who we would all kill for, or be killed for to protect one another; the family, the one’s that made me who I am. This lucky crowd still has the greatest influence over me; these are the ones that if everything else, fails, falls through, disappears, are still the ones that will wake me up and tell me what a wonderful little pain in the neck I am.
Still, even though we all have absolute fundamental loyalty for each other when I come back from a time spent away we all have some adjusting to do, and we go through different stages to rub out the wrinkles it causes:

First is the “cat” stage: we prowl around each other like felines on the hunt, sizing up who has changed, and poking fun at how they’ve changed. This usually starts after the initial opening hugs and rundown reports of what we have been doing, however ounce we’ve found one another’s flaws it’s time for the next stage.

“Show down,” like two old cowboys my mother and I will head off, challenging the offender to start thinking more like the other, because of course we can’t both be right. A psychological pistol shot bangs through the air (no bloods is drawn this time, for we spat quickly and stop, not finding big enough reasons to continue). We’re not at war; we just are too much alike to be totally at ease with one another. After tempers cool it’s time for round three.

The “pestering session,” a time when my ego is always shrunk down to size as my sister and mother, for without mercy they mock and taunt anything and everything I do or say (this stage can go on for hours.) I have never been a verbal fighter and become always tongue tied at all their caustic humor. Yet again I am made to feel the innocent puppy, and they the trained fighters who are letting me see what’s what, gnawing me down to seize.
But as suddenly this act ends and it’s intermission, for while the curtain is down our roles are reversed, as act two starts with the “whining stage.”

I announce hotly that I’m off to do homework, and they like cookie faced children follow whining. Their target is walking out, so they’ve suddenly become board, they want to play; they plead “its Friday don’t do homework!” They want me to forget it all, and do something with them, something fun, they plop on my bed, legs swinging, riveted to tugging me verbally off my laptop (which they unplug the internet from so I can’t IM for help.) Sigh, who can resist them? I am not one for sulking, for licking my wounds and making others suffer, I’m someone who enjoys making others happy, plus who wants to do homework?

With a tremendous dramatic heave of the chest, off slams the lap top, off the desk flies the text books which still now sit untouched.
I leading the way head our party out in the search of childish enjoyment: off to play ball, off to dance, off to watch movies – plus their outtakes to put off ending watching movies; off to eat all the chex mix in the house, off to plug the internet back in and play on the IM for hours on end, off to bake brownies and to settle in with a hole pan still hot from the oven.
Sigh.
Its fun to feel the renegade, to feel like the martyr that buckled under pressure, I like to justify this wasted day that I had no choice but to admit defeat with this heckling crowd.

Plus isn’t this what coming home is all about? It’s a time to play again, and not worry whose watching you play, or judging how you do it, it’s a time to reconnect with the kid you were, and still are (forget about lofty ideas of sleep and prayer). Sure this family drives me up the walls, makes me nuts, and makes school look like an attractive alternative; but this is the clan, this is blood of my blood, this is what I’d die for. A day of playtime is a mere token I hope to let them know.
Plus hey, it’s Friday, and no one does homework on Friday.

TOYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2004-10-07T10:47:00.000-04:00

Toys!
I mainly want to focus my research on the psychology of toys, but this is some sites I found in the 10 minutes in class we were working on research.

This site is a run down on some toy history at colonial toys .This site however assumed a lot about how toys help children and about the history of toys, I want more evidence to prove it, this one gave a bunch a statements and didn't check the facts ( but I skimmed it so don't quote me).

This on was a list and quick explanations about what ages children are attracted to what toys. From having spent 5 years working with kids I think the evidence given at this sight is pretty sound. Toys and children. Fundamentally anything can be a toy.

This article is about children and technology helping children think and learn better, I think the flaws is that is a child's' intelligence and imagination will always be a step ahead of these folks that are trying to create toys to get a child's imagination starting tech and toys

Overall toys are fun, toys are a blast. I'm just starting to see that mainly when you start research into toys you get nothing but commercial sites and toy adds, which are fun, but slow down the research!

Thanks,
Scribble

PS quick I found a cool site about what I want to do my paper on here it is : guns and boys

Now I'm just using this site to gather reserach the crediblity of it all is TBA

whats the buzz

fox and guns

http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20030617-114826-6331r.htm

cool little bit on toy design

your opion on toy guns

more gun stuff

who lets them play with guns

sum up on no commericials sort of

computers might not be that great

fantasy role

toys aren't dilvering

ehost stuff

brand names

gender media

gender stuff

Review a cool article from that cool paper!

2004-10-06T15:37:00.000-04:00

Review of: Children’s perceptions of aggressive and gender-specific content in toy commercials. By Lori J. Kinger et al.

Of all the research I have undergone in the past month about toy psychology this article stood out striking me incredulous that the findings of this particular study could actually be true.

Aggression and sex-stereotypes; there has never been I time I fear when the media was more predominant in both then it is right now “children spend more time watching television then in any other activity except sleep” (cited in Myers, 1996; Liebert & Sprafkin, 1998). More then ever violence is prevalent in our children’s media, i.e. 73% of all programs shown to children show violence with no remorse ( Klinger).
The effects of this are only just being taken into account, 1000s of studies have been done on the influence of media and child aggression but there has been much less done on commercials. This study performed in 2001, marked its results as surprising; I have to admit I was surprised too.
The study was done on impact commercials have on products that lead to aggression.
To prove or disprove, that children are influenced in their play by the advertisements they see, and not the products themselves, i.e that an action figure could be harmless except shown in a packed violent commercial trains a child to act violently with an action figure.
The aggressive content of toys is predominant in the toy market, and is a huge public concern, today 98% of all houses have TVs, children learn to be aggressive from what they are exposed to (i.e what they watch), and with today’s cultures great acceptance of violence in television it seems to have legitimized violent play and highly gender stereotyped play.
The study was done on two large groups of children: one group was shown all the labels/ packing and commercials that went with a toy, the other group were just shown the toy in a slide show without any of the advertisements. Results were surprising: the toys themselves influenced the children more then the media labels, children were actually more violent just seeing the products and imagining what to do with them, than seeing them in the context of commercials.
Half the commercials were focused on girls, half on boys, and few extra were neutral. The male commercials were ranked more aggressive, and the girls in the study ranked boy-toys more aggressive then boys, (boys rated girls milder then they actually are.) Both sexes indicated that “they would rather play with boys-toys than girls-toys” (Klinger) and both were surprisingly more aggressive in their play then was predicted.
I disagree with this point of the study, I’ve observed countless girls play of all ages and very rarely have I found many that prefer to play with boys’ toys; or particularly that are more violent then boys. I agree that individuals can be exception to this, but majority wise I wouldn’t think girls more violent then boys, or that they have a natural aggression to surprise the predicted.

The pros and cons of this journal article.

Pros: This article did a fascinating study and covered it in depth and posed some intriguing questions. Such as imagination still being greater then what we see.

Cons: I really disagree with the findings of this article and think that even if it did not show in this study that the media has much greater impact on our aggression then our own imagination ever could. That gender stereotyping is something we are taught, not something we are born with. But this could all be mere opinion on my part.
Thanks,
Scribble

Klinger, L. J., Hamilton J. A., Cantrell, P. J. ( 2001). Children’s perceptions of aggressive and gender-specific content in toy commercials. Journal of social behavior and personality, 29(1), 11-20.

Bare it with dignity!

2004-10-02T16:47:00.000-04:00

Bare it with dignity.

I walked into a bathroom in a dorm that was not mine at 2:30am last night, it was crowded with strangers on cell phones yakking about parties, poker games, soccer and hairspray, and fundamentally who was doing what with whom that night. The room was poorly lit, the walls were covered with cheap Halloween decorations that were pealing from the walls like plastic dead leaves; twinkle lights spread the counter area, and torn out magazine articles about sex and relationships littered the stalls, toilet paper smothered the floor in long ribbons of mindless waste. A large plastic bag covered the urinal in the corner, the shower curtains were old and broken and don’t cover the full space, there was fine dust on the window sills as if someone had painted it in a smooth gray ribbon.
I washed up in a dirty sink feeling the eyes from the cell phone holders, knowing they knew I wasn’t from this dorm, and all inquiring slightly what was I doing there at 2am taking a shower and getting into my pjs? I wouldn’t have told them even if I could.

The water was burning hot, soap got in my eyes, my flip flop slipped, my razor was dull and didn’t work well. But all this I felt subjectively as if I was a third person, a reporter carefully watching and evaluating, but not living in this scene. My mind was reeling, my head was throbbing and burning hot, my heart felt like it had been hit, my throat was silently screaming to me like a drill sergeant at boot camp: “stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Stupid, it was Friday night and I was in the midst of a breakup, a low blow breakup, one that an hour a go I could never have for scene, one that maybe I could have prevented?
Had I’d bent it out of proportion? Had I acted wrongly? No my gutt said, “ it was for the best but it still always hurts.”
Now what the drill sergeant in my mind is yelling is “there’s someone else out there, don’t get tied down the first week of school, stop letting him mess with you, you’ve got homework, get on move on .”But it hurts and I thought it wouldn’t hurt.

But I’m proud of myself, I walked out of that bathroom tall, I walked out holding all the cards, I walked out knowing that I wasn’t a winning or losing game. It wasn’t who could hit the lowest blow, it was let there be peace. Let us both find the peace, let him forgive me for I forgive him. I wish world was easier where relationships didn’t have to get so tangled. Tangled like one is walking into a sticky web, tangled where someone gets caught and someone ends up cutting free and leaving the other behind. I miss you and wish you well, let the sun go down on your anger. I’m sorry that at 2:30am I was in that bathroom that I will never be in again.

GRAMMAR!

2004-09-28T11:27:00.000-04:00

AWWWWWW! Grammar its stinks!
Here is my little attempt at probably doing the 6 sentence structures wrong!

6#
Tests just make me freeze up, and stop thinking; hence I become less then myself when I test.

5#
Tests just make me freeze up, and stop thinking.

4#Testing is biased; testing brings out only one kind of thinking.

3#Tests just make me freeze up, stop thinking.

2#Personally, I think the competitive comparison of testing is one of our greatest problems with the entire educational system .

1# With the turning of the leaves, I suddenly feel alive again.

HOME!

2004-09-24T13:39:00.000-04:00

Home
What’s home?
Home is clean fluffy towels and a large deep filled bathtub.
Home is the rumble of the dishwasher, the whistling of the tea kettle as steam fills the kitchen. Home is the old clean couches, lumpy throw pillows, and well snuggled fleece throws.
Home is chewed pencils that have lost their erasers, inky pens that are almost dry, dog eared scrap paper of old essays.
Home is used cds and tapes that are stacked precariously around the room silently singing all the songs of yesterday.
Home is the smell of old well loved books filled with endless temptation that sit tantalizingly within my reach.
Home is the chipped white china bowel that I slosh cup of grape nut flakes into and drown in skim milk.
Home is the warm clothes that come out of the dryer and cover my bed in unmade cozy stacks.
Home is the dusty stairs that are draped with shoes and old mail waiting with endless patience to be cleaned up.
Home is the whimsical knickknacks that embrace the mantelpiece in close companionship, is the curtains that hang theatrically in dusty folds.
Home is fall decorations that are put up in September and taken down in November, winking and twinkling from behind the crockery and curtains of the kitchen.
Home is the purple ink pad that I pressed all over my desk and now is sticky and smells of pigment.
Home is the old summer dresses hanging in the closet reminding me of occasions that were completely uninteresting, but good memories just the same.
Home is looking in the fridge and finding no fried foods only prune juice and wheat bread, declaring loudly that “some people don’t eat just French fries when they grow up!”
Home is old cloths, holey jeans, socks that didn’t make the cut to be taken to school, baggy sweatshirts, unbrushed hair, and worn-out underwear.
Home is the private bedroom with a double bed and seven pillows at ones disposal.
Home is the fluffy cat that flops on my stomach in the morning and yawns, digging his back claws into my quilt and gut.

Home is safe. Home is escape. Home is where you can get away, away from the rush of the crowd, away the tumblings in bed, away from the long conversations and fights, the dancing and sensual sweat, the classes that make your eyes drop shut, the public face, the hyper activity of never ending entertainment body.
Home is turn it all off.
Off with the instant messenger, off with the Email left unchecked, off with the cell phone and landline that goes unanswered. Home is where I can take off the mask, relax, regroup, get more sleep, drop my barriers, drop my guard, remember who I am, and what purpose I have in this life.
I love coming HOME!

journal reserach in 10 minutes in class

2004-09-23T11:33:00.000-04:00

Well I completely switched topics to start my research in journals. From the quick flip troughs of articles I noted an added degree of professionalism, these are not advertisements or "soft-stories" of subject these are not babbles or blog world, this is mainly carefully thought out and researched information, presented in an more formal setup ( i.e I'm not being distracted by the pretty pictures and glossy covers of the articles) it's the straight words, the true meanings, and hopefully an added credibility to the stuff I learned ( heck I only skimmed it so we'll see when I start reading.)
Bye everyone
Scribble

Journals......Hmm are the more credible is it the best of the best when it comes to reserach? What do you all think?

Assessment testing

2004-09-22T18:25:00.000-04:00

Testing!

Nothing makes me more tense then hearing that one little sentence "you are going to be tested on this."
I don't think there is anyone on the planet who hates tests more than I. Tests just make me freeze up, stop thinking, I become less then myself when I test. I hate the whole set-up, one just has to churn out the right answers, forgetting about having any personal opinions, I hate the conformity, the passivity one has to have to be good at tests. I would rather sit in the blazing sun of some jungle being eaten alive by huge mosquitoes if it made it so I would never have to test again.

So as I wandered into the library two days ago in search of articles to do this research blog on I was thrilled to see two cover articles on the very subject I dislike the most, testing. But not just any testing, but the very kind of testing I hate above all other tests, assessment testing. Assessment testing to me is finding who goes where and what their abilities are; who goes ahead, and who has to stay behind, it is the ultimate judgment in academic success. However as I started reading I was pleased to see in these articles that someone else out there in the world had risen the question that perhaps assessment testing isn't the easiest way to get good results out of students, or get students ahead, perhaps there is some re-evaluating that we need to do with the mentality of testing.

First off what is assessment? According to Phi Delta Kappan: the professional journal for education -- assessment is how we get students to learn better, by stacking who's smarter and who's dumber in the particular areas, and then to use that knowledge to help improve. Personally I think the competitive comparison of testing is one of our greatest problems with the entire educational system ( Pg 10).

According to Education issues A-Z By Kathryn M. Doherty.
Assessment testing is a hot issue in schools today, ever since the "No child left behind" Act of 2001 that mandated all states conform to using one standard test for their grades or a modified version of that has made the issue of testing come to a head. Today all states have some form in place for testing, however there is a disagreement as to whether it's better to have everyone conforming to one test, or whether one test might not benefit everyone, in fact the question has arisen that it may not be giving different kinds of intelligence any representation (what a concept). So today there are three things states are doing with testing: they're either matching the states tests (complying all the way), coming to a half way point with the "hybrid" test where only part of the martial is directed by the state test (being slightly less complaint), or a few states are going all the way and making their own tests and standards and saying screw to the state test.
There is also the controversy on whether spending so much time studying for tests in school is a good idea, whether the tests could infact be biased, and that perhaps they are giving whites and wealthy an advantage? There also has to be taken into account the tremendous pressure these tests have on schools and students, both for the students passing school, and for the funding schools are getting by the grades their students are receiving, many are starting to question if this is really a smart choice for our educational system to be so focused on?
The most exciting part this article is that people are starting to speak up evaluate today's education and looking for new ways that may not be the same as a unified state test.

Next two articles I looked at focused mainly on giving clues and advice to teachers in how they can improve their assessment testing and what has been done and proven to have worked.

In Phi Delta Kappan
The cover article of this months education journal was a 22 page report on assessment testing, the report was on a study that was done with teachers and classrooms to discover answer to three questions: do assessment tests help education? Hinder? And if they do help is there a way we can make them better?
What they fundamentally learned was yes, assessments tests if done right can be a tremendous benefit, here are the key points they discovered:Getting students to participate is crucial, getting students to think instead of giving one word bored responses. Encouraging and coaxing out interests in what they are learning about by creating open discussions, not continuous lecture. Leaving time for questions in a discussion, giving the student the opportunity to not have to ask for permission to speak i.e stop having them raise their hands!( I know to this day I do not raise my hand because I find it irksome.) It was studied that to get good responses from a class one has to ask good questions that will open up a conversation i.e a person has to be interested enough into giving an intelligent response. Giving "feedback through grading" is also critical, I get so annoyed when I'm handed back a paper and its marked wrong and there isn't any comment on what I did wrong or how to fix it, I just lose any interest I had in the subject. Giving students' time to redo assignments as part of class is another thing the studies found to be important (I wasn't taught how to do rewrites till community college and then it was like awe inspiring challenge to have someone actually care enough to see my work redone.)
Self analyzing was studied favorably, and its true if one is motivated one is ones harshest critic. Allowing time for that in lessons was essential for students to get empowered into learning and thinking, giving them time to rewrite and do peer coaching, which if done with a motivated team can get such amazing results( I know that when I work with peers I have a tendency to monopolize conversations so I'm learning to improve that.)
Fundamentally students have to be start caring about the material they're learning instead of having knowledge thrown up on them and then taking a test to rub it off. This article advised that the schools challenge, coax students to stop assuming that it means nothing to them. "Feedback improved performances in 60% of the studies."
It takes efforts to change, it takes guts to challenges old ways, but there are some amazing results when we stop testing and start thinking.

Phi Delta Kappan September 2nd 2004 issue 82 Working inside the black box: Assessment for learning in the classroom by Paul Black, Christine Harrison, Clare Lee, Bethan Marshall, and Dylan William

The other cover article from this magazines August issue is:
A is for assessment by Shannan McNair.
Where Phi Delta Kappen was looking at high schools and middle schools with assessment testing McNair is focusing more on the younger crowd mainly elementary aged children. Her assessment teaching tips suggest that before starting a new topic one should find out how much is already known, an obvious answer but when you think about it one can really see how it's almost forgotten. One should look for comprehension from a child before assuming or not assuming anything; and asking the simple question do they get what they learned? Or are they just memorizing answers to be quickly forgotten? After learning a subject with a class one should go back and show a child the accomplishment of how much they now know and the tangible evidence to prove it.
Different ways to find out if the child gets something can be done through: art work, creating hands concepts with pictures and figures. Face time with individual students, setting discussions that just share information. Gathering a large sampling of what a child has been doing reads clearer on what they're learning then why Jimmy or Susie got their test wrong, by evaluating what a child is really thinking is so much more helpful to how make not only testing effective but teaching and educating so much better

Testing will continue in this country but it looks like someone is starting to make them more bearable, starting to hear the voices like me that scream out how much we hate the TEST.

Phi Delta Kappan September 2nd 2004 issue 82 Working inside the black box:
Assessment for learning in the classroom by Paul Black, Christine Harrison, Clare Lee, Bethan Marshall, and Dylan William

Science and Children volum 42 Aug 19 2004 A is for Assessment by Shannan McNair

Education issues A-Z September 9, 2004, By Kathryn M. Doherty
http://www.eweek.org/context/topics/issuepage.cfm?id=41

Toys boiling the topic down

2004-09-21T11:11:00.000-04:00

I guess I'm torn between two topics right now, the obvious one of gender differences and toys and how that all comes about and how that all works. I know I've seen research on this, I know I could do research on this interviews on favorite toys how the media dictate toys, go to the mall and look at the " blue" isle for boys and the " pink" for girls. But what I'd really like to look into is the attachment of toys, the psych of how some of us had to one certain toy " teddy bear" why was teddy so important to us? Why doesn't it mean to have that attachment to a toy and why do only some of us have it?
Well we'll see where it all goes!
I love toys still I just am screwed up on a focus.

The collections

2004-09-18T16:43:00.000-04:00

The collections.

About a year ago I was making a new acquaintance over a Scottish high tea and we were discussing the art some people have for collections, we'd mentioned stamps, dolls, tea trays, etc. And she at last turned to me and asked what I collected, I replied readily "anything that will fit in my room," the gathering erupted into mirth, I smiled and took up another scone, how little did these proper people know what I had said was so true.
My collections.

I'm a packrat by nature, I will collect anything and everything. I am a "consumer" in all the senses of the word, especially for the free stuff. I go bananas over free stuff. Be it the left overers from tag sales, 75% marked off items in department stores, or old funky things I find in my grandparents basement. I take it all , gather it, offer it all a home, and give every cast off item a second chance.
I am a danger to all public dumps; keep me away from garbage piles by the side of the road, away from the college dumpsters that are full of such treasures, away from the cast off clothes my aunts and friends so readily offer. Because if I see it, I'll grab it, take it and tear it up and turn it anew. Keep me away from all brochures in museums, historical sites, junk mail, and old books (last time I was at MFA in Boston I grabbed so many brochures that it took a shopping bag to get them out of there.) Keep me away from me any odd object that has the possibility of becoming something miraculous: fabric scraps, yarn bits, beeswax, hair dye, you name it, it can become inspiration in my hands. But apart for the junk I pack in there are many other collections as well.
Here are some of my big ones:

The great white way.
I was 12 when the star light of the Broadway stage struck me. To me it is the greatest form of entertainment and beauty the theatre possesses. Thus, I began collecting everything and anything to do with Broadway. First, it was the Broadway original cast recordings on records, I own over 100 records, some of them original casts and some of them movie mock ups of the shows, and others are just sound tracks from old movies that sneak in. I use to display all my albums tacked to the walls of my room until I ran out of wall space, so now they now lie in alphabetical order in the closet, silently throwing out all the great love songs, ballads, and joy that Broadway processes they are my archives to the theatre. But that is not all I collect.

Paper dolls
I own 300 or so paper dolls. No, I'm not an obsessed doll collector, in fact I have not touched this collection in five years, but as a kid I found paper dolls were my best playmates and toys; every birthday, every Christmas they were at the top of my " I want them" lists, all of my speeding money went towards adding to the collection. I created a time line of fashion dolls from today back to the early 1600s with every decade in between. I was playing creator with these dolls, making new clans and couples, new fashions and cultures, new tribes and gangs, it was genealogy at it's best. However there is an etiquette to what kind of paper dolls would be admitted into the collection, only one paper doll designer will suit me, Tom Tierney. In my mind Tierney is the one greatest paper doll designers in the world (and holds quite a monopoly I've gathered on the paper doll market) his work makes up 90% of the collection and is the only kind I'll buy personally, my dolls lying in stacks of boxes make up my archives to the arts. But many of my collections are not all so decorative.

World War two paraphernalia.
When I was 14 I became obsessed with World War two paraphernalia and books, I began with a collection of biographies of British prisoners of war centered mainly around their escape attempts and successes. As I got more into studying prisoners of war I grew hungry to hear more about this half a decade, I started buying and borrowing books about the prisoners of war from every source I could find. In particular I was interested in what prisoners used to escape. These men became my heroes and I took to trying to copy and carry the supplies they had on hand to when they had made their runs for freedom: string, pocket knives, wire cutters, nails, etc. This collection gradually moved into buying small army kits, and antiques from the 1940s, and though this is one of my smallest collections at this time I still adore finding the original tools, the tangible pieces of such amazing human courage.

So I keep collecting, I keep searching for the gold that will be under ( I'm sure) the next rock, I keep digging to the bottom of the barrels for the hidden treasures, and I keep my eyes open for what my next great passion of collecting will be.

Toys!

2004-09-16T11:17:00.000-04:00

Toys.

Toys I love toys, ( hence why I love working with kids cause heck you get to play with the toys) here's a bunch of my questions and where I would look for the answers.
I'm interested in the history of educational toys ( battery operated toys as opposite to all natural toys.)

I'm interested in the parenting that goes with toys, what kind of parents buy what kind of toys for their children? And how that is influenced by the media and peer culture around them ( sociology?).

I'm interested in the marketing of toys, who decides what children will be playing with what and how that concept sells to the culture?

I'm interested in the gender differences with toys the psychology of why boys and girls play with different toys.

I'm interested in the psychology of why one child gets deeply attached to one toy ( i.e teddy bear etc.) and what role mentally that toy fills for a child.

I'm interested to see how the media and pop culture creates images that are then turned into toys ( fashion dolls, TV character toys etc. ) The business that goes with marketing.

I cant' wait to start answering my questions.

English and technology

2004-09-15T16:19:00.000-04:00

English and technology

One of the big things going on in the English field today is the use of the computers in writing. Growing up in the early 1990s computers were just being introduced to classrooms, my family didn't own a computer till 1992 and then it was just one for the whole family (a staggering idea many a family to visualize today.) I didn't learn how to type on a computer correctly till I was nine years old; email, blogging, IM, were all distant whispers of the future. It wasn't until high school did I get heavily into using the computer, now in college I'm on it at least three hours a day. And it is with English and technology that I plan to use to finish this paper, when twenty years ago I wouldn't have been able to pull it off.

To kick my research off about technology I began with an interview with my English professor, I asked her her opinions of what were the major things going on in the writing field today.
She mentioned many things that I hope to someday research entirely, but what I picked up is what we talked about with technology in English.
First off just even to talk about English one has to realize that they're are two major divisions, there is the literature division and then there's the composition writing division, both approach writing differently and have different approaches to writing and technology. The biggest effect on writing after Microsoft is definitely the internet for the first time writing is out there without concrete evidence of the written word, it's the first time so much material is available without effort or cost. Here's what writing on the computer and publishing on the internet means to me: speed and less privacy, power yet less presence, every word can be out there but they can all be copied, stolen, and deleted in just one little click. The world wide web is today emptying the attic of the written word, and throwing it out for the world to see, of course many bugs are crawling out of the ruble but also plenty of masterpieces.

I only briefly looked into some research that contains info on technology and English today and was depressed to not find as much as I was hoping pop out at me but this is what I gathered: Mason.gmu.edu presents almost a timeline about English and technology stating that technology and English go hand and hand they depend on each other to keep one-another alive. Yet they add that many people feel English teachers are running towards technology and embracing it too openly, (i.e. they were mostly concerned with today's students and plagiarism) still they think if that if kept in check English can only benefit from technology.

One of the amazing things that have recently popped up in technology and English is the BLOG SITE and how that now is affecting writing.

Talk about bloging, I'd never heard of it till about three weeks ago when it was announced in class that I would be keeping a blog in writing class. Well what was a blog? And who the hell reads them? Our EN professor has been keeping her blog since December 2003 and although teaching many classes online we are her first college class to be blogging and maintaining our own blog sites as a group project, we are the guinea pigs to see if this format works (which I think is going quite well)
When I asked my professor what she thought the purpose of the blog and basically freely publishing all ones crap out there to the world, her answer was that a blog gives a writer a stronger voice and lets them become a stronger writing because its publication.
I kicked this idea past my mom and some of her chums in her MA long distance writing class where they are all passionate emailers but they weren't too keen on the free publication to the world, and thought the online journal entry blogging is stupid.
So there are the two different sides of the track of writing and technology.

A great little article about blogging I found was on elearn space .org states a little bit about the writing and technology. How email is merely an extension of existing writing systems, but how blogging uses knowledge, management, experience, tracking, and storytelling, to create its amazing multiple perspectives. Blogging is conversation vs. lecture instead of handing in a report one is opening up a discussion. One of the new benefits to blogging is ideas are evaluated on merit not from source of origin; blogging breaks down social and economic levels allowing anyone to write and be heard by anyone in the blog world.
Blogging is an amazing tool for today, many articles I ran across were interested about blogging and the ability it has to make one loners voice so powerful.

So where are we going with technology and writing? Who knows, it changes every second someone clicks a new button. I suspect that we'll continue to see the lines blurred between cyberspace and the concrete world around us, I think technology will continue to build sped change the way we share our stories and I think technology may eventually circle back to when there was no written word at all but we merely speak our stories once again. I would love to hear what the world thinks about technology and English.

PS.
First off I hate pulling writing out of my ear but I spent the last two nights researching and writing a cool paper on bug spray, then I looked down at my syllabus in the middle of class and @%@#^$^$@&@$ I had completely miss read the assignment (or rather not read it at all) so having to start from ground zero again, plus although time for all my boys was a struggle.

Writing in 30 minutes

2004-09-14T11:06:00.000-04:00

Writing.
Its my favorite past time, I could sit back and write till the cows came home, give me a blank page and I will pour out my dreams my passions, anything that comes to mind I love it unconditionally, it's my life pouring out.
Here's how I write, I just spew it out, I go nuts I write 20 pages when a paper calls for 4 ( I'll take more time with my writing homework then I'll do with anything else) I have this weird habit in thinking that if it's long it must be good stuff ( great stupid deception on my part but there you go). I write because its true love to me I would never kill my relationship with writing, it's my life. But suddenly the mist will die after I get that first draft out on paper and in will walk my two greatest enemies to kill my true love.
REVISING!
SPELLING/GRAMMAR!
God do I stink at revising! I hate cutting the stuff I've written I hate rewrites I find it a misery to it's down and try to fix something, I know my first draft is crap but I love it so much it feeling I have to go through surgery to get it off of me so I'll get hacked , I get chopped up, I'll get in a fight with my revising and end up with 8 pages cut from the 15 I started with that should only be 4 pages in the end but I can't get it there. ( Hence I try to never double space my work because then I'll get caught on all the extra writing that I like to do.)
Spelling and grammar, don't make me write anything on the spot and then hand it in it mortifies me. My spelling is so terrible and coupled with my bad handwriting it makes me cringe at the sight, I have this terrible fear and it really blocks me when I do have to write on the spot that my meanings and great creativity will not show through because the paper is illegible, is crap, because I can't write clearly, it really is torture to me to let anyone see any of my raw writing.

So everything I write on paper is , first the true love meeting where I just create then it's war time on what will really be kept, what is legible, and how much time did I leave for that revising ( I usually don't leave enough time since after the fun creating I hate going back over it, its something I have to work on.)

My advise about writing still goes, is just do it. Spill out your passions, no one wants to read something boring, show your audience that you have a soul and a mind behind it all that you are the amazing person that you hide.
Write with passion and then figure out how to fight the grammar and revision battle.

I think everythign ELbow is saying about writing rocks!

CAT

2004-09-10T14:52:00.000-04:00

My cat is the fattest, the fluffiest, and the most obsessed about food creature I’ve ever met in my life. Here’s how we got him.

A year ago we had nothing to do on a Saturday and I and my sister had been campaigning for a pet ever since our last one had died, so finally that day we had caught the parents in a weak moment. We set out as I'm sure many families do everyday to the SPCA. Now, don’t get me wrong I really like the SPCA, and I think it’s a great program, but you walk in there whether it's sunny, or rainy, and it’s just slightly depressing. Perhaps I remember it being especially so because we went there in March, and everything is depressing in March.

We trooped in wearing our bulging ski jackets, and I inhaled the warm air, the air that always smells the same at the SPCA, its the odor of fresh woodchips, dog food, animal hair and flee powder, there are flies circling the cages waiting to zap in the minute a creature’s guard is down. We walked over to the front desk and mentioned the word “cats?”
The creature encrusted, frazzled looking lady sitting there in her blue smock frantically trying to do ten things at ounce, looked up and murmured “they’re off to the left, along with the other small creatures.”

We moved down the white linoleum, wandered past the first a cage of kittens. Why is it that everyone always puts puppies and kittens up in the front of a building? Is it to get everyone to feel warm and fuzzy? It really strikes me as kind of morbid ounce you start envisioning all those little creatures who are put out on display as if they were the clearance items in a mall, out to get people to buy. Still automatically just gaining sight of that calico gray and tabby brown ball of fluff one will start to croon. We kids looked up eagerly at our parents, hoping that they’d agree that these little ones were adorable, but the parents were holding strong. "Kittens aren’t what we’re after" they unitedly declared. They've declared this every time we’ve ever run into kittens, my parents don’t like the thought of training a beast, but prefer to purchase a used one that is well reviewed specimen off the lot. "No, we’re looking" my father declared again “for a fully grown, adult mouser, that will kill all the vermin in our house.” “That’s fluffy" we add. “That has claws” declared my dad.

We headed on. Past the guinea pigs and hamsters, “ the large rats” my mother says ( I apologize, but she’s always had a prejudice against anything small and furry other then cats.) We then pass the door where the dogs are kept. Now, a dog is a nice concept, and a well trained dog is a pleasure to have around, but I find even the nicest dogs get under my skin. Its that whole “crouch smelling” thing that they’re inclined to do .( You know how dogs make a bee line for one’s crotch on a introduction) it’s just a complete turnoff to me. Plus, it’s that panting and the drooling that they do, why do dogs have to pant and drool? I think slobber is something that just isn’t necessary to see in polite society and no matter how lovely the canine, the slobber the drooling, and the crotch sniffing is always what's made me annoyed. It's kept me from ever being a dog lover ( I’m shuttering as I think of dogs at this moment) so on the adult cats.

Cats, we’ve had cats in my family all my life, but finding the right cat for a family is a toss up. Its so hard to tell when one is cat shopping what the fluff balls are really like inside. It's too bad there’s not a counseling session one can have with a newly acquired cat, one where you both sit down in a nice clean office and really get your feelings out on the table.( Cats are notorious for not sharing their feelings, someone going into therapy should get to the bottom of it.) So shopping for cats is really chance, when one gets a cat one really hasn’t a clue about the layers of sensibilities this creature will expose over the course of your relationship: hoty, snotty, shy, fearless, rude, polite, cruel, kind, etc. Cats seem to have their own agenda, and personality that goes with it.

But we were just reaching the cats when this was all running through my mind.
First we passed a few of the “rock cats,” one's that lie unmoving in their cages, then we passed a few of the “mean cats,” that hiss and scare one way at the sight, and there was the “depressed cats,” that seem to have lost all spirit and are withering away, then there's “the yellow eyed creepy cats,” that look at you as if you a bug on the head of a pin, then there’s the “meowers.” Our last cat was a meower, meower's are most like the crotch sniffing dogs to me for they make me cringe ( don’t worry our last meowing cat didn’t get disappeared by some horrible unknown cause, she died a natural death. )

Then we saw him. Like an immense gray bolder there he stood, casually licking a paw and looking about interestedly. He was the fluffiest, the cutest, the fattest, the playfulist, cat we’d ever seen, he was love at first sight for my sister and I. It only took 10 minutes to talk dad around to getting him, (he was favoring the hunting cat around the corner) but he agreed on our puff ball when he saw the immense claws this creature possessed. It only took a few phone calls to our references, the slash of a pen over large check at the desk (where the blue smocked lady looked slightly more cheerful. ) Then we were off in the car with our new member of the family.

On the way home our puff ball went through 10 different names, since the name “boots” which is what he came with didn’t appeal to us. I declared the final name for our new cat, it's one that I would never have thought of, but somehow “ Pooka” fell out of mouth and the name stuck.
Pooka is now six-years-old, he is the “ baby” of our family and though he’s been on a strict diet ever since he arrived he’s still the fattest cat ever, and he has more fur puffing about then in a carpeting warehouse, still I love him, and I’m sorry to admit that on occasions he meows.

Scribble

How to fix my chewing gum entry

2004-09-09T11:25:00.000-04:00

First off, I love being casual when I write I think I can grab people's attention with personal stories but what I would do now, and hopefully get a chance to is get more research on chewing gum. Make my research tie in more with my stories ex: find out the marketing value of gum , find out the demographics ( who seriously chews more gum?) I found history on gum and didn't take it anywhere ( I basically like my English professor says chatted casually on a subject and "threw up" some research to make someone else do the leg work if they want to learn more on gum. So there's a lot more networking to be done, a lot more attention grabbing headlines that need to be made, I'm going to get better at this or die in the process. Only September give till December.
Thanks
Scribble

PS. There is so much pressure I believe in having to publish your work to the " world" I think blogging is a useful tool when you have time but forced publication like right now ( I have five minutes in class to write this) isn't writing to me it's " throwing up" words and then running from the scene and hoping you don't get caught. So from that aspect I wish we had more time, time to produce the work I am capable of to share with the world.

Trying the link love again ( whew)

2004-09-08T15:27:00.000-04:00

Ok, Since everyone saw me get stuck in class yesterday ( and have to stay after class for "extra help" I must prove to the world that I can make this darn love linking work with me.

In particulars I wanted to point out some of the cool things my classmates are writing about
Like in
A different view from here ( very cool skateboard thing going on there)

A world through my eyes ( extremely good kickass writing going on there)

Not worth reading at .... ( contradictory to the title is worth reading and you all should check it out.)

Sigh, well I hoped this all worked.

Scribble

Chewing GUM!

2004-09-08T08:26:00.000-04:00

Chewing GUM!

" Can I have some gum?"
When I was little gum was upheld in my family as an elitist treat, one that was passed out like it was one of the last of a dozen left in the world. Gum was to me almost better then candy or money in those days. With such great deference to this almost sacred object there was also an etiquette about how one was able to chew it: " one must always chew gum with one's mouth closed!" my mother instructed to us numerous times " one must only chew gum in casual society and never in front of your grandparents."
Nodding with deference we'd all hold out our little sweaty hands promising to uphold the rules.
" Furthermore, " mom would add "if anyone is caught chewing gum with their mouth open it will give off the impression that they are a slut, and it will be taken away from them on the spot."

Well hopefully I learned the correct etiquette for my favorite chewing occupation for as I got older gum became less and less a sacred treat and more and more a sociological dependency for intelligence. Any test and soon any college class I was taking had to be coupled with the perfect piece of gum. Gum helped me think I believed ( and still do) gum helped me focus, and gum is the best way I can think of relieving stress in the stressful situation ( i.e a TEST!!!!!!) So of course, as I sit chomping on " cool mint" Trident I was thrilled to get the opportunity to research gum.

Here's what I found out, first off I have to say I was taught long ago that .com sights are not very trusty on their research so I ask everyone to be skeptical of the material I found.
What was cool about researching gum ( in particulars the history) is that I learned the answers to many of my long chewing questions.

Joy's chewing and bubble gum. This one was one of my favorite sites because it went into what is inside gum and how you can make your own ( a heads up, watch the different info that is said about John Curtis and Tomas Adams in all these history bits, clearly someone messed up on who was first to patent the product.)

Gum trivia facts. Ok, this is the one that just has a difference in the history ( however I skimmed it so I might have messed up) just another slot of gum history which I thought was cool.

New Science. This gives me justification that chewing gum is not only a good idea but a great idea when it comes to thinking. ( Yippie.)

About.com. This site is always one of my favorite places of research so I had to see what they had to say about gum.

Overall I was pleased to hear about the history of gum but mostly I was fascinated by what's in gum and the recipe on how to make my own ( time to start cooking.)

Well hope I " linked" this correctly this bloggining/linking deal is all very new to me!

Thanks

Scribble

2004-09-07T11:29:00.000-04:00

cool link!
words weights whatever

THE DRAMA OF MY LITTLE ARMY!

2004-09-06T10:26:00.000-04:00

I spent all summer working at a camp that was all girls, and every day there was just one word to describe what it was like there: DRAMA, DRAMA, and DRAMA. Little kids I now believe are the most dramatic creatures on the planet. It still leaves me astounded to see how many things a group of children can make so complicated and hysterical in everyday life. One image that I fear will hunt me for the rest of my life is the numerous times I took a group of girls out on field trips. (Harp music please....)

"Caitlin, Jess, Sophie, Jackie, Sara, Liz, Olive, and Amanda you are all going with Scribble to the pool."
I still can hear the dreaded sound of that list of who was to go swimming being bellowed out of the large mouth of our head councilor. Little did it seem she knew that she had just commissioned me to the leader of an army that I now had to take out to battle. Not a battle to win anything, but one of shear survival, one that would take all we had to get the whole party back home and alive. I was handed the yellow scarp of paper with the eight names on it, slammed with the overly large, but (under-filled) first aid pack, and told to head out.
First thing was to get the troops under control.
I turned and roared out the orders:
"Ok, get your sun block, towel, bathing suit, and head into the bathroom and change; leave your backpacks and dry clothes here, keep your shoes on..."
You would think these instructions would be easy to follow for eight, five-to-seven-year-olds, but my girls seemed to have more trouble with this then anyone could imagine, even before I stopped speaking the little voices started chiming in:
"I forgot my towel!"
"She stole my sun block!"
"Do I have to wear my shoes? I lost one."
"My hair clip went down the toilet!"
"I'm hungry!"
It takes 20 minutes minimum to sort this whole scenario out. 20 minutes to slap sun block on eight faces and arms, to get eight little girls into string bikinis (that they can't tie up themselves,) 20 minutes to get these dithering creatures organized in a simple functional pack.
At last we head off, as I step out of the building I remember the words said at staff orientation "you are solely responsible to guard and protect, guide and defend, and take the blunt of whatever this troop of eight children decides to do out on field trips. Make us proud." I look over my shoulder at the herd and sigh, it is wishful thinking that we'd be making anyone proud, and for already I could hear the bickering that had started:
"She cut me in line!"
"She stepped on my toe"
"She picked a flower, why can't I?"
"She said a bad word about me!"
"I want to go home!"
"I'm hot!"
"How much further is it?"
"I'm hungry!"
Under the blazing sun with 70% humidity one can start feeling after a few of these comments that this isn't a summer camp at all but really a war, you are solely in charge of getting these troops to the new destination, or you're going to die trying.
The hysteria continues every second: someone's flip flop will have fallen off, the little voice in the back of the line has started to cry, and in the center of the group one begins to hear a spat starting as the trio of blondes begin singing " tweet, tweet, tweet, I'm a chicken on a log" which annoys the brunettes in the back who begin declaring that they have to "shut up." This will continue the entire ten minutes it takes to get to the pool.

The pool, every staffer who has ever taken a crowd of kids to a pool can cringe when you talk about the pool. In 30 seconds flat everyone has plunged into the cold water, and you gritting your teeth while someone small (and really too young to be wearing that kind if skin bearing suit) has started tugging at your hand, towing you into the deep end, where they are demanding that you watch them dive. Someone else is howling off to the right because they were splashed by a kid (who isn't even in your camp,) and still someone else has forgot to take off their watch and she has dashed out of the water and is now flinging not only the watch off but also her bathing suit, and then.... You freeze. Its time to stop and do a head count.
"Head counts should be done every 10 seconds or so" I remember hearing the large beefy water safety trainer roar in my ear at staff training, "every ten seconds!" I dare anyone to try and do a head count every 10 seconds! There honestly isn't enough time I believe. But trying to be make my bosses proud I put out the effort "one two three," there are the "chicken singers" doing dives off to the left. "Four, five," there are the brunettes playing in the fountain part of the pool. "Six and seven," are the little creeps that are tugging my hands into the deeper, colder, water. "Eight.... Where's the red head?????" Panic would start to tense me up in a heartbeat, I'd turn a half circle prepared to dash into some part of the pool and drag out a body that I would have to perform CPR on, five precious seconds disappear before I complete my strained circle which ends with a sigh of relief, there she is. Weighing about as much as a paper clip my number eight has gotten too cold and climbed out of the pool to huddle in her towel.
The head counts will continue for the next hour in a half that we remain at the pool, where my troop during that time will continue to surprise me with their amazing ability to make such great confusion out of their lives.
Someone has found a dead worm and is screeching to have the others come see, someone else smacks another child in the pool for being in "their spot." Still another has decided to wear her towel in the water and now is crying because it's now all wet. And always there is the passionate cries of hunger, they're all hungry, they are all always hungry, they were only fed an hour ago and one would think from their cries that it had been a week. There is not one second when they are all content, happy, or enjoying themselves at camp, always there is just this endless drama.
Finally it is time to hustle the troops back on shore, where resentful, covered with goose bumps, and water droplets they will unleash the only action that they are all united on: "the great shoe drama."
Every one of them, without exception, will be completely unable to get their wet feet back into their sneakers. United they will need your personal assistance, requiring you to go from foot to foot cramming them back on, which they will fuss at because you in your horrible ignorance will have not done correctly. This can take an additional 20 minutes, including the numerous trips that the little read faced, cherub cheeked child has you make with her to the bathroom.
Then at last we are able to head back to camp. The walk back will be full if not more full of melodramas then the trip to the pool: someone will step in dog poop, another will have run into someone else's yard after a squirrel, you will turn at one point and see the two brunettes eating each others hair. You fear that you've just about lost the war.
When we finally return there are no trumpets declaring your great success, no cheers for your triumphant entrance, no confetti is thrown at your feet, instead I'm met at the door by the large head counselor who looks at her watch and comments "you're 10 minutes late what took you?"
I sigh, drop the first aid pack on the table, and say just three little words, "drama, drama, drama."

Written By Scribble 9-6-04

Hey it's fall!

2004-09-02T10:45:00.000-04:00

I love to write! I'm starting this blog because it will give me the opportunity to write in a new way.
So.....Welcome world listen up I'm going to be writing!