Monday, January 23, 2023

 Monday, January 23, 2023

   I was up reasonably early, before seven, and out hoofing it for my morning walk. After my walk, I meditated, sitting in my old lady chair instead of in bed.

   I had a 10 a.m. Zoom appointment with the Step Up Tutoring Office hours for help with the Near Pod math program. I was out of it during the session. I missed the verbal instructions. I wasn’t interested in what the instructor was talking about. She explained how to connect to the program and get it running. I wanted to see the lessons so I could learn more about how to teach math. I wanted to see how they teach particular concepts. I signed off after clarifying my interest and asked her to forward the training modules.

   I had my Literacy Office hour at eleven am. I had two participants. One had met with his student and wanted help teaching him accurate word recognition and vocabulary. A second came on. She wanted to know how to get her tutoree assignment and how to shadow another tutor. She signed off early.  

   The young man who wanted support for his teaching started by saying he was in a lab. I asked what kind of lab. He was a neuroscience major at UCLA. I told him how interested I was in the topic. My interest is limited to the intersection of neurology and learning. Dahaene is the only neuroscientist I know who has written nonprofessional books on the subject. I’ve read each and every one. I love the topic. Talking about my approach to teaching was fun, at least for me. I find teaching very exciting. I always learn something new with each student about the material I teach and the learning process.

  As I came home from one of my short walks, B drove into the driveway. He told me the other day he had an appointment to go to Oahu for a medical examination. I asked him when it was. He said the second of next month. I said, “December 2.” We were both alarmed by my response. B asked me if I was okay. I have no idea why I had that reaction.

  I had Adolescent D in the early afternoon. We started with letter tracing. Then, we switched to reading the text of Investing for Young Adults. He did not follow my instructions. He balks when I ask him to isolate each syllable or each phoneme before blending it. He worked on decoding the word secure. I told him to isolate the syllable -cure. He kept trying to say the whole word. He admitted to feeling an aversion to the work.

  I started him on an EFT tapping series: “Even though I hate the work, I love and comfort myself.” Then it switched to, “I forgive myself.” And then, “I forgive myself for being stupid.” He resisted that term until I clarified that I referred to the feeling interfering with his learning. It was not a statement of fact about him. It was his feelings about himself.

  I told him reducing the impact of these feelings might help him learn better. It could make a difference. More importantly, it will free him to adapt if we can’t lick his memory problem.  

  I called Oofos customer service this morning. I ordered four pairs in different colors. When they arrived, I discovered they were the wrong size. I had misordered. I asked for a size 8. Being a woman, they reasonably assumed I meant a woman’s size eight. Nope. I needed a man’s size 8, a woman’s size 10. I had to return all four pairs. I could only get replacements in the correct size in three of the colors. I asked for a refund for one pair and ordered the remaining three. Then I waited and waited.

  Today, I called. The customer service person told me they had never sent out my order because only two colors were available. I had never received a notification. I told him to refund one pair and send the other two.  

  I finally got through to the Hawaii Radiologic Associates to make an appointment for my Dexa. I went to see the doctor for a full-body skin check. While there, I mentioned a weird experience with pressure in the center of my chest and back. If it was a heart attack, it was mild and short-lasting, but it was worth mentioning. She ordered an EKG immediately, a stress test, and a chest X-ray. When the orders came through online, I saw an order for a bone density test, a Dexa. That was a surprise; the doctor hadn’t mentioned that. I thought there was some confusion. She told me my last one was five years ago; I was due for a new one.

  I had second-grade M later in the day. She did addition and subtraction without regrouping well but continued to have problems when regrouping was required. She is still trying to do it in her head. That works reasonably well when there’s no regrouping. She added 37 + 13=. She correctly got 40 and 10. She concluded the answer was 51. Hmmm! I also worked on subtracting by counting up. She doesn’t get it. I modeled. I am going to have to force her to copy what I do.

   I am listening to YouTube videos on Buddhism. Wright says that you can think of dukkha as dissatisfaction. Batchelor continued this until a native speaker told him that dukkha means pain. He went back to preferring suffering as the meaning. As I see it, our response to dissatisfaction leads to dukkha, suffering. That makes them both true.