Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

 

I did the magnesium before-bed drink for the second day. I didn't use 6 oz of water, more like two. I slept better as a result. I didn't have to get up and pee as many times. I woke at 1:30 feeling rested, as after a good nap. I was able to fall back to sleep by meditating. I found high levels of tension in my body. I worked on applying Daniela's 'relax' idea. I used my own visualization methods. That tension is created by fear. I'm not sure what I'm afraid of, but there must be something lurking out there that my unconscious is alert to. I talked to my unconscious and told it thanks for its vigilance, but I didn't think that fear was useful in any of the circumstances I was facing. I released anything negative about my hatred for the tension and kept anything positive or anything I still needed. I then did the same for releasing anything about my love for the tension. I always do both. If I'm hanging on to it, there must be a reason. I fell back asleep.

An hour later, I was pulled up out of a sound sleep by the unexpected sound of running water. Where was that coming from? It sounded like the bathroom shower was going full blast. This required checking. It took me a while to realize that the sound was from a torrential downpour. Man, it can rain here – impressive. I had to get up to check. I opened the door to the side lanai. Sure enough, it was the rain. I went back to bed and fell asleep.

When I got up around 5, it was still raining hard, but not so hard that I confused it with running water. So much for my first-thing-in-the-morning walk. I opened the door to let Elsa out to do her business. She went out and came right back in without doing her business. She's not a big fan of rain. I locked Elsa in the bedroom/bathroom area where it is all tiled- no wooden flooring and no carpets. There was one wee-wee pad down already; I put down a second. I went into the living room, got into my old lady's chair, and meditated. 

Around 6:30, the rain had stopped. I harnessed Elsa, and we headed out. She both peed and pooped. She must have held on for dear life. This relief came an hour later than usual, and she was on a full stomach because I had already fed her. 

 I headed out to the Civic Center to the DMV. My registration fee is over $40 higher this year than last. I have not been able to figure out why. I got there by 7:30. I wanted to make sure I was home in time for my 10 am tutoring session. There was already a line when I got there. It took me until 8:30 to get to the front of the line to ask my question. "Why is my registration fee so much higher than last year?" Answer: my car is electric, and there's a service charge. "Service for what?" She answered for my electric car. I had to ask explicitly, "What service do I get?" Apparently, the state owns the public electric charging units. "Does that mean I get to charge for free?" She said yes. My guess is this means I only have to pay for the electricity, and I don't have to pay an extra service fee. Since I never use one of those gadgets, I would rather pay on-site when I use it. This is some ruse.

When I got home, I called the mother of the adolescent boy I would be meeting with at 10 am for the first time. I had told her she should be present for the first meeting. I like having the parent present at first as a "protection" for the child. I'm an unknown to the child. They have no reason to trust me. However, I had a chance to speak to him briefly the other day when I set up the appointment. He seemed more strong-willed than she was. I told her that I thought it would be best if it were his choice. If he wants her there, fine with me.

When I met the boy, he was alone without his mother, as I expected. I thought he would be hostile because his mother had engaged me without talking to him first. Quite to the contrary, he was very cooperative. We discussed some of his problems. I had asked him to write a description of his fishing trip over the weekend. He emailed it to me. He typed up a  brief news report of the day's events; it was lean for his age level. He also had handwriting problems. His mother said his problems were so severe that he had problems filling out an application form. He also confessed that he didn't enjoy reading. I asked if it felt like bumper cars in his mind when he read. He said yes. It sounds like a job for BrainManagementSkills. However, it didn't feel right to engage them yet. I saw him as someone open to unusual concepts, but I still thought I should wait. We did a cowriting activity, expanding his written piece. We got three paragraphs out of his first sentence. He's fun to work with. I had to make sure that I stopped the session. 

The other day, Jean R. called to thank me for the gift. I didn't know what she was talking about at the time. It was her copy of Mike's doctoral thesis from Catholic university on Simone Weil.

I rerecorded the PowerPoint video for the Phonics Discovery System method on Zoom. I finally recorded a video without any missing slides. Piece by piece, I'm learning what I have to do technically to make sure the video works. Tommy, my on-hand tech, told me that you can't stop a video and start it again within the same meeting. You have to exit the meeting and start a new one. Then I learned through a YouTube video that you should be able to pause and restart the recording by pressing AltP, which doesn't work consistently. I could stop the recording with Alt P, but then I couldn't get it to start up again. Initially, I had no way of telling if it was recording when I was in Share mode. Again, YouTube came to my rescue. A light red light on the share-banner goes on when you're out of pause and recording again. However, I have found the only way to ensure the recording process starts up again is by going out of share and then back in. Once I was back in, I pressed AltP and got it back in recording mode.

I had a session with my 4th grade D at 11:30. We're down to one day a week since he started school. He is doing so much better. I see him applying all the procedures I have taught him. I saw an improvement since he started back to school. I didn't know what made the difference, but thank, God.  

I haven't touched the math with D. Last I worked with him, he didn't remember a math fact for two minutes. His mother told me he could remember it if you used a multi-sensory approach; he could do it when she used it. I asked her what math facts she had worked on with him. She told me it was the ones I had given her. I had to tell her that I had just asked him those facts, and he didn't have a clue. At least I got him on the radar of the special ed team. They will have to evaluate him in both reading and math. I think he is close to grade level in reading. It's the math that's the problem.

I had the Grief workshop through Yoga Farms Ithaca at 1 pm. I usually fall asleep during these sessions. I see it as a healing experience. I can always listen to the talk the next day. I'm awake and alert for the breakout rooms. I saw a woman I thought I had recognized from the other day. However, this woman talked about her sister committing suicide three years ago. She had gotten her mother to participate in the workshop. The mother spoke about her son's suicide. The woman in today's breakout room recognized me. She explained her sister was transgender. Her mother lost her 'son,' but this woman lost her 'sister.' Oh, boy.  

We're supposed to participate in a Facebook site specifically for the Grief workshop. I can't even find it, no less figure out how to post on it. Oh, well.

I had M at 3 pm. She chose to continue working on the Barnell Loft inferencing activities rather than working with a story or writing a story. Today, we ran into a glitch; I thought it was a tricky item. It talked about the shape of a raindrop being spherical rather than with a point on top. The sphere is more 'economic.' I had a job and a half explaining the meaning of economics in this context. I was able to show her that it required less energy to move a sphere down a hill than a rectangle. Still, I didn't think I adequately defined the meaning of 'economical' in this context. I'd try again when we meet on Wednesday.