Tuesday, December 13, 2022

 Tuesday, December 13, 2022

    I applied a meditation principle Batchelor wrote about. All Eastern meditation emphasizes, "Watch your breath." I learned that in my Vipassana training. S.N. Goenka instructed us to watch the breath move over our upper lip, feeling the air cool as it went in and warm as it came out. That never worked for me; my nose is too big. The breath doesn't hit my upper lip. We were instructed to watch our breath, not to control it. Focusing on the breath and not trying to control it is a challenge. Batchelor says to watch the breath with curiosity and to be surprised by what comes next. This I could do. 

  I had a problem with my Surface Pro tablet today; the screen was dark. I used the tablet for my Zoom tutoring sessions because it had a touchscreen, which my Mac did not. I contacted my tech support person frantically. He didn't get back to me in time. I used my Mac without a touchscreen. It sufficed. My tech told me, "Turn the tablet off and restart it." It worked like a dream. 

   I had an appointment with my chiropractor, Lisa. She does good work, but boy, she yaks away and not about something interesting. She talks nonstop about problems in her personal life. She doesn't want my advice; she is just talking story. That would be okay. But she often stops what she is doing while focusing on her story. However, she does good work. Today, I was not in a good mood. It was hard to listen to her. Fortunately, she continued working while she talked.

  I went to buy a mat from an art store at Christine's suggestion. Christine, one of my guests over Thanksgiving, is an artist. I talked about how I love to see outdoor scenes framed. I associate this image with Magritte's pictures. When I checked his paintings online, I could only find one such picture. It must have had an impact on me. 

  I started with the art store in the old industrial area. They only carried made-to-order mats. I went to Pictures Plus near Lowes. They had ready-made mats, but they were a little small. I bought the largest one they had. The opening is eighteen inches by eighteen inches. I held it up against the lanai screen overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The frame wasn't big enough. I will try it on my bedroom sliding doors, looking at the back garden.

  I had planned to nap when I got home. Instead, I read more of my niece Shivani's book about her relationship with her husband, particularly the time before he died of brain cancer. I enjoyed reading the first six chapters. The writing was good, and I loved learning more about her story.

   Lemus, the man I had contacted to restore the irrigation system, called to say he was in my neighborhood. He was planning to arrive before my three-thirty appointment. Scott was prepared to meet with him if I couldn't. He came before my scheduled meeting. He wanted to have the water turned on to see where the leaks were and figure out where the pipes ran. This didn't make sense to me. How would he figure out where the pipes were if there weren't any leaks? We agreed he would come back when Josh and B were here. They knew more about the system than anyone else did.

   I had my first appointment with third-grade J. His mother asked me to work with him on his anger. He worked with a therapist to no effect. She hoped I could reach him. She had me work with him once during Covid and was impressed with how I related to him. He didn't want to work with me. 

   Among other things, he thought he would do tutoring with me as his sister was. His mother had told him I would do life coaching. Therapy and life coaching are different. In therapy, we focus on what is wrong with us; in life coaching, we work on becoming better without viewing ourselves as deficient.

  J's problem was that he didn't want to talk about his anger. While talking about something, particularly excessively, can be counter-productive, so can not talking about our problems enough. He said he hated thinking about himself more than he hated the anger. That can sound like selflessness or not. 

   I tried to get him to focus on body sensations. The direction he was going in was disastrous. I believe in respecting someone's boundaries. If it's too painful, it's too painful. His mother said he would have to work with someone else if he didn't work with me. Avoiding the problem was not an option. I proposed story writing. He would give a topic, and we would write together. He could set limits about what I write. I talked to his mother about it. It's the best option I have right now. The therapists he saw did play therapy. It did nothing for him.

   Then, I had J's first-grade sister. In our last session, I discovered she needed help with the most basic form of inferencing. She could not use context clues. I do not advocate the exclusive use of context clues as some reading programs do. But you can't read English if you don't use context clues at all. I teach the student to start with phonetic decoding and supplement with cueing. 

   I used Barnell Loft's Using Context Clues. I. is a bright child. Her problems with inferencing came as a surprise. I asked if she was afraid of making a mistake. Yep. There is no surer way of being error-prone than being afraid of making mistakes. 

   The first item in the Using Contexts workbook was, "Here is a _________ for you," said Tom. The possible answers were 1) ball, 2) jump, and 3) how. She chose jump for the answer. This was going to be interesting. We finished ten items in Unit 1. I asked her if she wanted to continue. No. I switched to decoding using the Carpenter materials. She struggled with Story #4. She made mistakes with several words and couldn't use context clues to correct her errors. When she mispronounced a word and couldn't infer the correct one, I gave her three choices for the word, sticking as close to her mispronunciation as possible. This looks like a fruitful direction. 

  We had time to read Story #5. She zipped through that. Got it! She has a good memory. She over-relies on it. She thinks she should 'know' everything and that learning is memorizing. She needs a little push in the other direction. I'm glad I caught her young. Kids get caught in cul du sacs and have terrible problems learning. They overuse a strength. Her memory is just that, a strength she is overusing.

   I had eighth-grade K immediately afterward. He had a written assignment to write about an incident in his life in blank verse, incorporating some metaphors and similes. Fortunately, I was in touch with his teacher. She told me the objectives and sent me a copy of what he had written in class. I knew what to ask him when the session started. It was like pulling teeth. I couldn't even get a straight answer from him about the sequence of events. Did he sign in before he went to the gym or after? I put in more than I should have. I wasn't the soul of patience. If I believed he was cognitively impaired, I might be more patient. But I don't. I don't seem to have much patience with his 'I don't know" responses. I sometimes think he would respond, "I don't know," if I asked him if he was alive or dead. 

  His teacher got a good start with him. I finished it off. I required pulling some teeth. But he did come up with the 'as wind.' I don't know if his teacher will accept that metaphor; I think it's great.

   

 

It was my first tournament

for jujitsu.

I flew to Oahu 

with my dad and my brother.

I was feeling nervous

Like a mahi was flopping around in my stomach.

 

When I got to the tournament,

I had to sign in.

We went to the gym.

 

 

I watched the people

I had to go against.

I wanted to know  

what they would do

when I versed them.

 

After the first match,

I had to go against

the loser.

He was easy 

as wind.

 

I won.

I gained 

My confidence.

I was like ( I expected him to finish this in class.)

 

Then I had to go 

against the winner

of the first match.

I felt good. 

I felt like

I could beat him.

 

I won again.

I was proud.

I won a katana.

 

I told my friends I won.

I felt proud like

 A champion.

 

 

Below are his original notes. I don't know how much his teacher put in to get this out of him.

 

When we got in the gym, I watched the people I had to go against so I knew what they will do if I verse them. Then I had to go against the loser. Then I won and gained my confidence. After I won, I had to go against the winner. I won again. I was proud. I won a katana.