OMG! The roosters were crowing all night. One of the big attractions to my spot in Hawaii is the silence. There are places were this is disturbed by the coqui frogs. These came to us courtesy of Puerto Rico, I believe. What I do know they are valued there for their chirping. There must be a natural enemy there; there isn't one here. In Hilo, it is hard to hear Mass becomes the noise is so overwhelming. We had some on our property when we planted a row of bromeliads. We had to pull those plants out to get rid of them. But now it is the roosters.
This all started recently. I thought maybe I was just becoming more aware of the noise because I was confined at home, and I was listening less to the radio. I asked Yvette. No, indeed, the amount of rooster noise had increased, and it was at all odd hours.
Last night they woke me up at 4:30 in the morning. Rooster crowing is very different from the lovely sound of bird song, even if the function is the same. Each bird is declaring, "This is my territory." I did some research. Someone wrote that the sound of a rooster crowing is the same as a dog barking. I find dog's barking less annoying because it doesn't go on all day. Right at this moment, there all the roosters are silent. Ah!!!
Yvette had me send my neighbor who has a commercial farmer, on how to silence a rooster. He wrote back that he was planning on culling his flock. He was raising the roosters for their meat. He said the man who lived right below them had nine roosters. Yikes! Someone speculated that he was raising them for their meat like my neighbor. I doubt that. Around here, they like cockfights. The man is on the police force. Good luck getting him to obey the sound ordinances or the laws against cockfighting.
I have heard from various sources that our police force isn't the best. I had thought to ask the police to keep an eye on our house during Mike's funeral. Yvette said that wasn't the best idea. Someone else told me this incredible story about police inaction if not downright collusion. The niece of one of his employees stopped to help a woman on the road. When she got out, she saw a man crouched behind the car with a rope in his hand. He tried to grab her, but she got away. (Note: We have problems here with young women being kidnapped and trafficked.) The car involved was a blue corvette. The police were unable to locate the car. Now, remember, this is an island. While it is the biggest one in Hawaii, it is still limited. No one drove from three states away. No one even brought their car over for the day from another island. Locating a blue Corvette through the DMV should be a piece of cake. If it's unregistered, just asking around should have yielded results. All this to say, I have little hope of getting relief from my neighbor's nine roosters.
I was feeling somewhat down this morning from a variety of causes. Working on the book is hard. I am basically starting from scratch. I don't know what I'm going to do with the three hundred pages I've already written.
The conversation with Dorothy resulted in several good insights. One related to the book. My book talks about learning to read by becoming aware of the relationship between the basic sounds of English and its spelling, consciously, explicitly aware. For those of you not involved with teaching reading, you are probably unaware of the 'reading wars.' Yeah, that's what they're called, and they can be fierce. One branch says to teach phonics, another says just give students interesting books to read, and viola they will learn to read.
Dorothy talked about a similar war in the field of foreign languages. Apparently, now the preference is not to teach grammar explicitly. Yes, that's how young children learn to speak a language, and yes, we can all learn something about a language at any age without learning grammar. However, if someone wants to become better at what they do, they'd better see the grammatical pattern on their own if they're going to master the language, even those of us who are good readers and well-educated.
I talked about this conflict as an argument about metacognitive skills: how much should the conscious mind be involved in the learning process versus the nonconscious. Which one works better to foster learning? My position is both are important. I teach children to become aware of these two aspects of their minds, how to use them, and when to use them. These are the objectives behind all my teaching. I am rarely, if ever, just passing along bits of information. Everything I do is intended for teaching metacognitive skills and how to apply them to learning – anything.
Dorothy said she finally got what I am trying to communicate. She planned to reread the chapters I had already sent her from that perspective and see how they could be revised to make that clear. Even I have not been clear what my primary objectives have been. As I changed the introduction the other day, I added on the use of conscious and nonconscious mind as the last item, almost an afterthought. It is certainly should not be an afterthought.
I spoke to Judy. I told her about the vacuum cleaner I ordered. Judy said she bought one five years ago and never liked the way it worked. She said it left the floor streaked. Oh, how sad. I'll see how I feel about it. So far, I am so excited about this machine. If it has decent suction, it sounds like it will be better for me than the Rainbow. On the video demonstrations, it looked good.
I also talked to Judy about the changes I was making in the book. I told her I was making the metacognitive principles more explicit. Judy said she had inferred that from what I said. Of course, something being obvious to Judy doesn't mean it would be that way for anyone else. Her thinking is a lot like mine to start out with.
My Microsoft customer service provider called. I got involved with this company, which is subcontracted by the central Microsoft company. I think they're okay. I suppose I could call the main customer service company to see if this is for real or if I've been taken for a ride. They seem to be okay. I'm just too overwhelmed by the whole system to be bothered taking any action.
As I type, I can hear a rooster crowing nonstop. I found out when speaking to Judy, she has a cock on her property. Her son has a coop of hens. This rooster has discovered them and is wooing away. Adam, Judy's son, is considering allowing the rooster access so they can increase their flock. They are already collecting eggs from the girls. The boys would be raised for their meat. Judy is freaked out about killing these animals. But as Adam pointed out to them, at least they're free-range; they just wander around the neighborhood and would have had a happier life than any commercially raised animal. I hate the sound of these roosters.
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