Monday, December 7, 2020

            I got up before 6 am although I wanted to sleep in.  I can't do that anymore.  My leg bothered me this morning again, and I only completed 4,000.

            I had decided that I wanted to pay my taxes before the end of the year.  I know the stock market looks good, but I'm not optimistic. I'm hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.  Anticipating that I would have no money in April, I paid what I expected might be the bill for 2020 to both the federal and state governments.   My tax accountant emailed me copies of the estimated tax forms. Because they were already filled in, I downloaded blank forms from the Internet.  

            I packed two boxes of books yesterday. After securing the checks and forms in sealed, addressed envelopes, I carried the boxes, the letters, and the charging cord to my car. I had problems with charging my car.            The last two times I charged it at home, the charger stopped working shortly after starting the process. 

            Today, I took my car to Kia to charge it there using my charging cord.  I suspected they had just plugged it in, seen it was working, and unplugged it.  I wanted to see that they used my charging cord to do the job for myself.

            The garage wasn't ready to deal with me when I arrived; I hadn't made an appointment.  The garage's shuttle was out. Ryan actually apologized to me. He said he wasn't expecting me.  True. I sat down at their picnic bench to read.  When the shuttle guy arrived, I told him not to make himself too comfortable.  I had him drive me to the post office. I could have walked except that I had the two packages to mail.

            The line of cars pulling up to the post office was impressive. I've seen it before, but I wasn't concerned.  When I got inside, I changed my tune. The line snaked through the post boxes and doubled back on itself. I must have been the fortieth person on the line. Someone reported it was worse the other day; it went out the door and snaked around the parking lot. Explanation: Christmas rush. Packages have to be mailed out by the 15th to arrive in time for Christmas. This meant most of those 39 people before me had multiple packages to mail.  It was going to be a wait and a half. It wound up being something like  forty-five minutes to an hour. Not bad at all. I mailed two boxes of books to the seminary and two registered letters with checks to the federal and state tax departments. 

            After the post office, I walked to Long's to buy a battery-powered pencil sharpener.  I had so many pencils in need of sharpening. They also had a sale on candy- four Hersey's Milk chocolate bars with whole almonds. Hmm! Want to guess what I did?

            I made it back to the garage by 11:30. The mechanics had started charging the car at 10 am.  I could see the monitor blinking its green light. It was working just fine. This means the problem has something to do with my outlet or the extension cord I'm using. 

            I was going to stop off at Costco on my way home but was way too tired.  It was nap time.   I felt okay when I woke up.  I had two tutoring appointments.

            At 1:26, I got a text from J. asking me for the ID number for the Zoom meeting. This kid is incredible. He's more anxious to meet than I am.   I had to cut our session to 20 minutes today because H.'s mom wanted me to meet with him at 2 pm.  At the end of our last session, J. wrote "over" at the bottom of the screen.  It took that to mean that not only was he anxious to end our session, but three hours a week was overload for him.  I asked him about it directly.  No. He wants to continue with three hours a week. Really?? Okay. He said he wants to do a session on Friday to make up for our lost time today.

            He asked when we would be doing a writing exercise next. I told him whenever he wanted. The writing exercise, the way we do it, would help him with his reading. I once did nothing but co-writing with a student in 7th grade.  She told me that she jumped from a 3rd-grade level to 7th in a few months. Wow! 

            I heard a bird chirping in the background. I asked him about it.  He chose to write about how his family got that bird. Fortunately, his younger sister Ju. was in the room.  Besides not providing background for the information for the story, he really didn't have the information. Ju. knew exactly how that bird came to the house. J. did not. He misses a lot of information. I suspect an auditory processing problem.

            He still hadn't listened to the phonemic awareness audio file.  He is resistant. To compensate, I did a sentence or two at the beginning of each session.  While his decoding skills were excellent, his audio processing skills for language are not. Ju. 's English is much better than J.'s.  If he listens to the tape, his listening and speaking skills will improve.  I have had children with serious speech problems listen to the audio file, and boom, their problem was resolved. I'd say it's magic, but it's not. It just makes sense.

            Getting the initial information out of J took time. Then we had the shortened session; we couldn't finish the story. We'll do it in our next session.

            I had a two o'clock appointment with H., the autistic brother of M.  I was nervous about it. I'm really flying by the seat of my pants with him. I have worked with one or two autistic kids, one with limited intellectual abilities who wasn't talking by age 11. I did good work with him. I'm good at flying by the seat of my pants.

            H. had picked some books he wanted to work on. He chose Hop on Pop, the Dr. Seuss book, and said he wanted to work on rhyming words. I am using all our activities as a form of play therapy.  They provide opportunities for us to negotiate with each other. 

            After the session, I spoke to his mom briefly.  I told her that I didn't feel fully qualified to handle his problems. She finally copped to hoping I would get him to 'hold a conversation.' I told her there is no way to hold an unstructured conversation with a seven-year-old, no matter how precocious.  I also told her that I felt there were moments of conversation.  She really doesn't want conversation. She wants negotiation and back and forth exchanges. That could be while playing a card game.  The point is getting him to respond to my needs in the exchange. Their big complaint is that he will walk away from someone after asking them a question. It's very disorienting for people.  As I write this, I realize we, they, don't know why he walks away. They say he could even be interested in the answer and still walks away.  Yesterday, mom told me that when he gets excited, he jumps around.  I understand that.  Is it possible that he walks away because he is excited about the answer and can't stand still?

            I also talked to mom about M. I want to do some writing with her to get more practice with colloquial speech.  She tends to speak 'stiffly' and formally.  I can guide her to a more relaxed style with co-writing. I would like to try that with H. too.

            I was exhausted after the two sessions. I remained tired for the rest of the evening, which is unusual. I did watch some TV.  Sadly, East of Everything came to an end.  The characters were people I would be happy to spend years with.  I had found another series, but it was about corporate corruption- too stressful.  I found another show starring Richard Roxburgh.  Sadly, it isn't a comedy like Rake or East of Everything. I don't know if I'm finding it okay because of the afterglow of Roxburg's other characters, or it's a really good show without too much stress. As I think of it, I suspect it's the former. Okay, I'll take it.   I went to bed early last night after eating more of Deb's turkey soup and Judy's apple pie.