Friday, March 3, 2023

 Friday, March 3, 2023

 I got up shortly before eight. When I usually get up at 5 am. I could have slept a lot longer. I fed Elsa before we walked. I couldn't ask her to wait until we got back. We only walked briefly this morning because I had to print tax forms. The law says all tax information should be distributed by the end of January. Large companies don't feel obliged to follow this rule. A company had sent some forms, but others come in late every year. Some forms contained new information, some updated information, and some were duplicates.

  The company had already sent me a secure email. I still didn't see a download after going through the necessary loops to open the email. I emailed the company before I went to bed. It was there in my email in the morning. I printed it out. I tried to check which documents were duplicates and which were new. I thought I would save the accountant some work. I couldn't figure out what I was looking at. She was going to have to do it. When I saw the accountant, she thanked me for not trying to sort it out alone. Other clients do that and create problems.

   I made several stops before I went home. First, I went to Long's to check if they'd restocked the Heresy's milk chocolate nuggets or kisses with almonds. Nope.

   My next stop was the UPS store to drop off the Oofos sent to me in error. This was the third package of shoes I hadn't ordered. I do hope they find a way to stop this. The shoes they were sending weren't even in my size or style. I also dropped off some packing material. UPS recycles it.

    I went to the bank to cash a check. There was a long line with only two clerks. I was in no hurry. I had my Kindle and a good book, Time of the Magicians, about the great philosophers in the early part of the twentieth century. After fifteen minutes, I was halfway through the line when my phone rang.

      It was Shelly, my therapist/life coach. I thought she was on vacation this week. I left the line and sat in the car. I talked about how lonely I felt. It's bad because loneliness is an old, familiar feeling. I remember feeling it before my sister was born. I had hoped that her birth would bring relief. My mother was distressed when anyone related to another family member without her control. The only time I remember her being at peace was when we were all in the car together, each of us in our assigned place.

   Ben finally called. He is the guy Fr. Lio assigned to glue the engraved granite plaque to the cement wedge. He planned to glue the wedges to the composite lava base and the plaque to the wedges. I told him to nix that idea. It would make it too heavy to move to get me into the grave after I died. He proposed taking the items home and working there. I told him each plaque weighed seventy-five pounds and each wedge at least two hundred. He groaned. He said he would rough up the undersides of the plaques to make it easier for the glue to work.

   I had Adolescent D in the afternoon. Last Friday, when he wasn't feeling well, I started a new procedure. I modeled Phase I of the Phonics Discovery System, asking what the first sound in a word is and leaving a pause- time for his mind to answer the question- but not having him tell me what came to mind. Then, on Monday, I did a variation of modeling. I had him say "Yes" when he had something in mind or didn't and was ready for me to move on. At the end of that session, he said it was "engaging." Yes, that was the word he used. On Wednesday, I tried modeling Phase II using the same procedure I had used on Friday rather than the one I used on Monday. He zoned out. D does that when- I don't know all the reasons. It could be because he has trouble paying attention or freaks out whenever he doesn't know something. Today, I applied what I used on Monday to Phase II. It worked like a charm.

   I can hear people saying, "But you have no idea if he's getting it right." I do know he's engaged. I know he will learn more if he is engaged than if he's not. I also know that making mistakes is part of the learning process. The only question is, is it more critical for him to be engaged or for me to know what he's learning? If the student is engaged, that's the best chance of getting the student to learn. Having a student learn to pay attention regardless of the stimulus is an important goal. I will work on that with D. He is not ready for that right now. I just want to ensure that he learns to read.

   In addition to being engaging, this method reduces the stress on his ego. He doesn't have to worry about what I think if he gets something wrong. He can focus all his attention on what is being presented instead of spending energy defending himself from real or imagined criticisms. The only problem this doesn't solve is his attack on himself for failing to do it perfectly.