Monday, February 21, 2022

 Monday, February 21, 2022

    I finished watching Inventing Anna last night. It’s hard not to feel sorry for such a lost soul, at least as she is portrayed. It does seem she has some feelings about her place in society. A true psychopath wouldn’t care one way or the other.  

    I woke up early with that buzzing body feeling. I don’t know what it is about. I’m wondering if it’s from the Kangen water I started using. Elsa rejected the water, preferring to go without water than drink it. That was scary. When I told Judy she rejected it, she expressed concern that I was getting too high a PH. You’re supposed to start at a lower level and build up.   I have no idea why I feel so rattled; is it physical or psychological? Either way, I was more shaken than usual.

   As I prepared my blog post, reading last year’s entry for this date, I discovered I was still getting between zero and two blog visitors per day. Now, the numbers are near a hundred every day, at least. What a difference a year makes. 

   I had the M & W sisters this morning. I usually meet with them in the afternoon after school on Mondays. Their mom texted me asking if I could do it in the morning; they would fly back to the Big Island from Oahu in the afternoon. They visited their grandmother over the three-day weekend.

   The work with both is going well. First-grade M is more exploratory. She is noticing patterns more and utilizing her knowledge of phonics when she reads. She still is showing some memory problems. We read the same passage today as yesterday, and she didn’t remember the word pie, a keyword in the paragraph. Of course, I didn’t do anything with comprehension yesterday, just word recognition. I assumed she would comprehend the passage as we read it. Maybe not.

  When fifth grade W got on, she warned me she was exhausted. She had stayed up ‘all night’ playing video games. All night meant she fell asleep from exhaustion around 1 am and got herself into bed around 3 pm. She still did reasonably well.   She seemed less distressed about doing this work despite her exhaustion. She feels better to me. She finally just faded. I proposed quitting five minutes early.  

   At 11, I had my Reading & Writing Office hours. I had four people, one from last week. Maria was there to say she had used the method and had some success. I wish I could have gotten more details. I would be happy to hear how it didn’t work and how it worked. Two of the other participants had problems with comprehension. I showed them the WbyW approach I developed. I hope they got how complex sentence comprehension is.  

  One of the women had worked a year with a child who sounded like he was on the spectrum. He can’t sit still. I gave her everything I had, but I don’t know if any of this would work. Two people got off before the end of the session without saying goodbye. Maria got off, saying she had to go. She stayed on even though I wasn’t addressing a question of hers. I had a vision of people signing on just to hear what I would have to say, turning these sessions into a salon. However, I felt shaken after I got off. I was overstimulated. Of course, I’d been feeling shaken anyway. I have no idea what is going on. 

     I got the Wordle word today in four tries. I entered my three standards and quickly got the correct words.

   I got a text from Colleen, who will be my house guest, asking if I could drive her to work for a 7 am appointment on Thursday. Usually, I would be happy to. However, 7 am on Thursday morning will be the first driveway yoga class for over a month. I would vastly prefer not to miss that. It was a good thing Colleen texted me. I had to get her room set up for tomorrow. I had to dust and vacuum the guest room and clean the bathroom. 

  My first response to the text from Colleen was confusion. I didn’t know who it was from. I had her name in my address book not once but twice. All I remembered seeing was the number. Afterward, I noticed that there was a CP above the number. There was a text thread. I glanced at it quickly but didn’t recognize it. Little glitches like this make me think my mind is not what it once was. Of course, I’m under stress.  

  I called Paulette to ask her what PH level she set for my water. She said 9.5, which is the correct starting level for the beginner. I’m wondering if it’s still too high for me. Again, I’m looking for a cause for my shaken feeling. 

   When I asked Paulette how she was doing, she said not well. She caught the stomach bug going around the family. Luke must have brought it home from school. So far, everyone had it except Howard. Somehow this man is immune from everything. Thank God. He’s not in the best health.