Fan Fiction

The following is a Harry Potter fan fiction piece that my kids wrote together. Thing Two (a.k.a. Stella, age 4) dictated the text, Thing One (a.k.a. Mirah, age 8) wrote it down, and they both collaborated on the illustrations. I have no words for how awesome I think it is, but I'm their mom so of course I love it. Without further ado, for your amusement and edification, I present you with "Stella the Auror."

The End!

Almost...

There's also the teaser page that Thing One drew for the back cover:

Them's fightin' words...

Yup, it's a political post. I usually stay out of political discussions because in my experience they mostly boil down to Your Party vs. My Party backed up by talking points that may or may not be based on factual information or logically sound reasoning, and to me those are not worth losing friends over.

The problem with staying disengaged is that I miss out on the occasional valid point that I haven't heard before that makes it clear where those on the other side of the issue are coming from. And I want to know! I sincerely want to believe that my fellow American voters actually DO have really good reasons for their various viewpoints, and that they aren't just buying into propaganda. If I'm going to have heated disagreements with my friends on policy issues, I want us to be able to walk away respecting the validity of each other's positions, even if we still disagree about the specific goals of policy or the methods for achieving those goals.

So, at the risk of starting something that may degrade into the intellectual version of Rollerball, I'm going to state my case on a hot-button issue in the hopes of getting some insight from the other side. Because frankly, after years of listening to the back-and-forth, I still have no idea why the other side's position continues to be supported.

The issue? Marriage equality!

I support it. Of course. I want to live in a country whose legal system treats people equally. Totally equally, not 'separate-but-equal'-ly or some more equally than others. I do NOT want to live in a country where I may be subject to different treatment under the law than another person in my situation based solely on personal characteristics that I can't change. And, no, sexual orientation is not a choice. There's plenty of research out there to back me up on that. Google it.

So far, all the arguments I've heard for restricting marriage laws boil down to one of three things:

1) Same-sex couples can't have children, and the historical purpose of marriage is to provide for reproduction and raising of children.

Not only does this argument completely ignore the thousands of couples who are bravely raising children in spite of the current hostile political and social climate AND the thousands upon thousands more couples who would love more than anything to raise families together but aren't willing to do so in the current climate, but by that logic opposite-sex couples shouldn't be legally recognized as 'married' either if they don't intend to have children. Next?

2) Homosexuality goes against the Bible.

Well, maybe...so does eating shellfish, and as far as I know nobody's trying to criminalize that. It's true that our legal system takes inspiration from the Christian Bible and its predecessor the Torah...and also from a lot of other cultural and historical traditions. The laws of our religiously pluralistic country cannot and should not be defined by one religion's dogma. That bit in the Constitution about making 'no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof'? Yeah, that goes both ways. If Congress can't dictate religion to the people of the US, neither can religion dictate the law. What else ya got?

3) Homosexuality is unnatural/pathological/icky.

That's a matter of opinion, not fact. All the available scientific evidence suggests otherwise. The American Psychological Association defines sexual orientation as an aspect of personality, not as a matter of normal or abnormal psychology. Incidentally, at different times in our nation's history, the above has been said about all kinds of things people didn't like, including interracial marriage, women participating in the workforce and left-handedness. It wasn't a valid legal argument against any of those things either.

So, to all you marriage "traditionalists" out there: What gives? Do you guys have an actual LEGAL basis for wanting to exclude same-sex couples from your club? If so, I would love to hear it!

Never underestimate the healing power of bacon

My therapist suggested that I could counteract the first-winter-away-from-home blues by engaging my senses with more things that sound/look/smell/taste/feel good to me, like happy music, scented candles, etc., etc. The idea is that by kicking up the level of positively-associated sensory stimulation a notch, you can distract your brain from focusing on whatever it's depressed about which, even if it doesn't solve the underlying problem, will hopefully help you get through your day without bursting into tears every ten minutes.

So, to that end, I have been eating more bacon. A lot more. And it's totally working.

It's true what they say: bacon really does make everything better. Even homesickness and seasonal depression.

Who knew self-medicating could be so tasty?

Not a New Year's Resolution

I don't really go in for New Year's resolutions like some people do. I'd like to, and there have been years when I've sat down and tried to write out a list of things to work on for the year. But I find that once I start thinking about things I'd like to change or do differently, those things start snowballing in my mind until they quickly grow into a tall, steep, imposing mountain of Things That Could Be Improved that is cold and windy, especially up above the snow line, and I start feeling like maybe I'm better off staying warm and comfortable down here on the plains of The Way Things Currently Are.

So this year, no resolutions.

Instead, I'm going to try something new in 2012. I'm going to do a project. If it doesn't work out, no big deal, I'm not out anything except some time. If it does, I'll have learned a lot of new and interesting stuff that will serve me well in the future. By the way, I'm also not starting this right now because of the New Year...I just happened to think of it in January.

So here's my plan: during January through October of 2012 I'm aiming to pick one course a month from MIT's OpenCourseWare offerings and work through as much of each one as I can. I'm planning to pick a variety of topics, some familiar, some not, some useful, some just for fun. And I'm going to do it all for free, using the OpenCourseWare content, my local library, and the Internet.

If you're not familiar with OpenCourseWare, it's an amazing learning resource. Reading lists, discussion questions, assignments, lecture notes, and other content from MIT's classes are available free of charge for use by the general public. Because content is made available at the discretion of the professors and departments who offer the courses, some courses have more content available than others. Still, it's a great starting point for exploring topics you might be interested in. For example, say you want to learn the basics of computer programming...you can navigate to the Introduction to Computer Science & Programming class, track down and read the books/articles listed on the "Readings" page, watch the video lectures that are available for the course, and work through the assignments. If you get hung up on something, you may not have access to a real live professor, but you can post questions to the discussion forum for the class and get answers from other students who are working through the course.

Why am I doing this? Two reasons:

First, because there are a lot of really interesting things out there in the world, and I don't know enough about any of them. I'm starting with the Introduction to Political Thought class because, this being election year and all, I really want to have a better grounding in the basics of political science than I do. I'm also planning to do the aforementioned Intro to Computer Science class and probably a class in the basics of accounting and finance. I'm also looking seriously at the music, art history and urban planning offerings. My educational background is in linguistics and anthropology, and I may revisit those areas as well.

Second, I'm hoping to use this as a career development tool. I have a lot of skills, a WHOLE lot of interests, less professional experience than most people my age and no direction to speak of. I'm planning to use the OpenCourseWare classes to explore how and where I can apply the skills I already have, and to identify areas where I might need or want further training. It's not really an issue now, because for the near future (at least the next couple of years), I'm going to be homeschooling at least one of my children full time, but at some point I would like to go back to work. My family is in the extremely fortunate position of not needing two incomes to survive, but the current economic climate makes the security of a second income - even a part-time income - look very appealing. Even more importantly, I'd like to find a use for my skills that will benefit more people than just my immediate family. I'd like to have the satisfaction of doing something constructive to improve the world in some way. And I'd also like to have the satisfaction of getting paid at least the current market rate to do so.

I'm only planning to go through October because I'm FINALLY going to do NaNoWriMo this year come hell or high water and the only projects I plan for December involve making holiday crafts with the kids. And also because ten is such a nice round number.

Oh yeah, and I'm also going to blog more in 2012. But that's not a resolution either. It's just a prediction.

So here's what happened...

Last time I wrote a post, I was living in Southern California. Since then, I have relocated to Providence RI, along with my hubby & kids. That's pretty much what has been happening for the last eight months. Some other stuff probably happened too, but it pales in comparison.

Okay, you're saying to yourself, so that's a BIG move. Yes. Yes it is. It's huge. How did it happen, you ask?

Well, the short version is: The hubby got a job. (You can check out his blog for part 1, part 2 and part 3 of the long version.)

SO I MOVED. Yes, I did.

We flew out to Rhode Island in May, stayed at the Residence Inn for a month and then in a corporate apartment downtown for another month while we waited out the process of buying a house, then had our furniture delivered and settled in to our new home in Providence's lovely East side.

And here I am.

There are many things to love about New England, and Rhode Island in particular has, considering its size, more than its share of awesomeness to offer. For example, Providence is renowned for its food culture, and I've been delighted to find that it lives up to its reputation. Fresh, local and in-season is the standard here. Family farms are well supported and farmers' markets are a mainstream shopping option that are utilized by most people to some degree. Restaurants proudly display on their menus the names of the local farms or towns from which they source their ingredients. People here are more tuned in to where their food comes from and how it's produced than anywhere I've lived before.

And that's saying nothing of the rich history of the region, the support for the arts, the proximity to many of the most respected universities in the world, the spectacular scenery (including beaches!) or any of the other amazing things that make this such a great place.

On the other hand, I'm now spending my first winter in New England after living in California for eighteen years. And it totally sucks. I miss my friends. I miss my house (the one in the OC, which we still own & are renting out to one of those friends I miss so much). I miss being warm. And I miss SUNLIGHT!

Anyway, that's what happened.

I'm hoping things will look better when the days start getting longer and I thaw out a little. Meanwhile, I'll be stepping up my caffeine intake, dressing in layers and shopping for full-spectrum light bulbs.

Popsicles...they're not just for breakfast anymore.

My kids are on a popsicle kick. They love popsicles right now more than any other edible thing on the planet. It's the middle of February and, as I'm typing this, they are sitting at the table shivering, mouths covered in popsicle residue and chanting, "more pops! More Pops!! MORE!!! POPS!!!"

For those of you who don't know me that well, I should explain that I am kind of a nutrition nut. I had a terrible relationship with food as a kid and as a result my health (both physical and mental) was not all that it should have been when I was younger. And here I am giving my kids popsicles for breakfast?!

You betcha!

I should also mention that my kids are extremely picky eaters. I have been beating my head against the wall for six years trying to get my oldest to eat her veggies. Well, it turns out my kids will eat almost ANYTHING as long as it's in popsicle form. The shape, temperature and texture are what counts, as far as they are concerned.

So here's what I do:

1) Get some sturdy reusable popsicle molds - I think the ones we have in the freezer right now came from Ikea, but you can find them lots of places. Do a web search for 'freezer pop mold' or 'popsicle mold' and you will find lots of information. If you can't find actual popsicle-shaped molds in the stores, ice-cube trays will work too.

2) Hit the local farmers' market - fresh, local, in-season fruits and veggies make the best-tasting popsicles. You can also find a wider variety of things at the farmers' market than you can at the supermarket, at least in Southern California. If you live somewhere with cold winters that limit the availability of fresh produce, you should be able to find packages of organic frozen berries, squash, carrots and the like at your local supermarket. And don't be afraid to experiment with things that don't sound popsicly...my kids love roasted pumpkin and butternut pops with cinnamon & ginger blended in, and they've unwittingly eaten greens, carrots, sweet potato and lots of other veggies blended in with apple or berry pops.

3) Round up some other ingredients - my kids like their popsicles creamy so I usually add yoghurt, peanut butter or sunflower seed butter to our popsicles for extra texture and protein. Other things you could add include cottage cheese, cream cheese, almond/cashew/macadamia/other nut butter, kefir, tofu or just about any other creamy, proteiny thing you want. Or feel free to skip that stuff if creamy pops don't appeal to you.

I don't add refined sugar to my pops because I prefer not to have to scrape my kids off the ceiling after they finish eating, but if I think a particular mix of ingredients would benefit from being a little sweeter I will add a squirt of agave nectar, which has a substantially lower glycemic index than sugar and therefore doesn't amp my kids up as much. You can also add supplements like flax meal, flax/borage/cod liver/other omega-rich oil, wheat germ, wheat grass and other stuff that you might want in your kids' (or your own!) diet but aren't that appetizing in their raw forms.

4) Get out the blender - mix all your ingredients thoroughly. If your mix is too thick, add a splash of milk, apple juice or other liquid to help soften it up. As a side note, my kids always like their pops better with a banana mixed in, regardless of what the other ingredients are.

5) Pour the mix into the pop molds - follow the directions on the packaging if you're using a set of molds designed for popsicles; if you're using ice-cube trays, just pour it into the compartments, wrap freezer-safe plastic wrap or aluminum foil over the top and insert toothpicks or wooden popsicle sticks through it. The wrap supports the sticks/toothpicks while the mix is freezing.

6) Pop them in your freezer and let them freeze for at least 4 hours, then...

Presto! Healthy frozen treats for everyone! For breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert or snacks!

Oh, and if your kids are impatient and don't want to wait for their popsicles to freeze, you can always pour the mix in a glass, pop in a straw and call it a shake.

Why do we homeschool?

Next week is National School Choice Week, and to celebrate I am helping some other local moms organize a town hall meeting featuring a panel discussion about educational options in our area. I don't plan to serve as a panelist but the process of organizing, coordinating and publicizing this event has made me think really hard about what I would say if I were one.

First, a little background information: I'm not married to homeschooling from an ideological standpoint. I don't think our public education system is "broken." (I do wish it were better funded and better organized, though.) I am not a religious fanatic. I'm not a granola-crunching hippie type who thinks public education is an industrial-military brainwashing scheme. (But for the record, I do like granola a lot.) I'm not a wealthy snob mom who thinks my kids are too good for school and can afford to pay private tutors to educate them instead. Nor am I an example of any of the other various and amusing stereotypes of homeschooling parents.

So why do we homeschool? In short, because right now, in the area where we live, it is the best option for our family. Public school works really well for a lot of families, and that's great. Private schools offer a lot of different approaches and philosophies to education, giving parents who can afford it a lot of choice in how their kids will be educated, and that's great too. Community-supported charter schools can focus their efforts on serving the specific educational needs of the students in their communities without wasting resources on things those students don't need, which is wonderful. Homeschooling, in all its many manifestations, works too. If you're skeptical, read this article.

We didn't start out planning to homeschool. We settled on it as a temporary fix to tide us over while we explored what other schooling options might meet our daughter's unique educational needs. After two years of visiting schools, talking to other parents, reading volumes upon volumes about educational theory and practice, and exhausting myself in the process, I have come to the realization that what we are already doing is better than any of the other options we have explored.

Special needs, you ask? Yes. My daughter is gifted (highly gifted, we think, although we haven't had her assessed yet), and it turns out that giftedness is one of the most severely underserved special educational needs there is. My daughter started reading organically at age three. For a six-month period starting just before she turned five, whenever people asked her "What's your favorite animal?" her response was "Australopithecus afarensis." I'm not making that up. She started reading chapter books at age five. Shortly after her sixth birthday, she picked up a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate factory that I had bought intending to read out loud with her, completed it within 24 hours and, as I discovered when I quizzed her about it, retained 100% of it and understood about 80% - not only was my kindergartener reading at a 4th grade level, she was SPEED-reading and, for the most part, comprehending at a 4th grade level! At the beginning of her (technically) 1st grade year, she became interested in evolutionary biology. She read everything about it that she could get her hands on for several weeks, at the end of which she could summarize the various theories of the origins of life on earth, name and describe the different kingdoms of living things (all of them!), explain the difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, and give you a lecture on the importance of cyanobacteria in the development of the earth's atmosphere. And that, I realized, is the most beautiful part of learning at home...she is free to study everything she is interested in, to whatever extent it suits her, without wasting her time on things she already knows while she waits for everyone else to catch up.

But what about GATE, you ask? Our district's Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program starts in 3rd grade and mostly consists of keeping gifted kids in class with their same-age peers but giving them extra work to do. When we were looking at kindergarten options I left several messages for our district's GATE office inquiring about testing and other services for my gifted five-year-old. They never returned my calls.

But surely, you say, there must be private schools with gifted programs in your area? Well, yes, but the very few schools in our area with truly individualized curricula aren't equipped to cope with my daughter's other special need, which is OCD. She's had periodic episodes of obsessive-compulsive behavior since she was three, and, being that it's an anxiety disorder, her condition causes her to freak out and scream at the top of her lungs occasionally, without stopping and for no obvious reason. Schools aren't equipped for that. Teachers aren't trained to deal with it. However, with the help of a very good family therapist, we have been able to manage it at home very effectively, without disrupting anyone else's learning experience or inspiring any well-meaning "experts" to try to "help" by diagnosing my child with all manner of behavioral and/or developmental disorders. I'm not just being paranoid about that last part - I've actually been warned by three different actual experts who know & understand my child that we should expect to deal with that if we ever go the public school route.

So, that is why we homeschool. We might school some other way in the future if it turns out to be the best thing at that time, and that will be good too. For now, though, we will stick with what works at this moment, in this place. My daughter is thriving. Our family is thriving.

Why would we do anything else?