Baylee was asked by a friend to go to a Homecoming dance tonight. Baylee agreed, which meant she got a chance to get dolled up and wear a dress again that she bought for a wedding and hasn't had occasion to put on since.
She looks nice, doesn't she? Of course, this is the same kid who often accidentally goes around with her clothes on wrong. One time this past summer she went swimming with a group of friends and found out quite a ways into it that her bikini top was inside out. She's also gone to the SoR a couple times with her shirt inside out. I think sometimes she struggles with leggings, too.
When it's pointed out, Baylee's response is always, "Oh. Huh." In other words, she doesn't care, isn't the least bit embarrassed, and may or may not even bother to fix it.
So, yeah, she's going to homecoming, but she's definitely still a homeschooler. lol I love that kid.
Drew brought a bad cold into our house a couple weeks ago. He had it, then Mike had it, and now I have it. My throat hurts, I've got a fever and aches, and my nose is running. Blah.
A few days ago...before my cold was full-blown...I woke up with a lump on my neck. It was just one lump, but it was big enough that I could see it in the mirror, and it hurt. I figured it was a swollen lymph node, but I was a little bit concerned about it, because it was pretty painful. My mom and I were talking on the phone and I mentioned it, and she made me (even though she lives thousands of miles away and I'm 46 lol) go to the doctor. I was right; it was a swollen lymph node. It's okay, though. Better safe than sorry.
I'm up to 550 flashcards with CleverDeck. I have it set to give me 30 new flashcards a day (plus in the first couple days I had it give me a couple hundred or so), so I'm going pretty fast through the 3,000 word deck. I'd probably be doing even better, but I'm taking the opportunity to learn the gender of each word, which is something I've let slide.
The Seattle SoR has accounts on FB and Instagram, and they put this picture on both of them.
Both Zach and Drew started college classes this week at their different schools. This is all new to Zach, and he's a little shell shocked by how much work is required, especially in his math course. He's only had it twice so far, and in those two days he's had about 15 pages of homework. I don't blame him for disliking it. He said it's a big class...the kind that has tier seating...but that half the students have already dropped out. One girl cried. His other class is an English class, and that one, he says, is going well.
Drew is kind of an old hand now, I guess. He's taking four classes this quarter and he said they're "fine." He's taking Intermediate Algebra (he was going to take this a couple quarters ago, but decided to drop it and do it this quarter instead), Theory 4, Jazz Improv 2, and Career Development (a required course about working in the music industry).
I'm still working my way through that CreativeLive class (CreativeLive is really cool, by the way. They have classes on tons of different things.) So far my overall feeling is that I've bumbled my way into already doing a lot of the things he says are helpful for language learning. There are a few things I haven't been doing (flashcards) or haven't been doing right (watching shows without subtitles), so I'm fixing those.
Here's my plan, which I implemented a couple days ago. Every day my goal is to:
Go over flashcards. This is easy with the Cleverdeck app. It automatically sorts your flashcards using spaced repetition.
Do my Frantastique lesson, which takes about 15 or 20 minutes. This is the most "school-y" I do. It keeps me moving forward with things like verb tenses.
Either read or watch something in French. It can be a little or a lot, depending on my mood and if I have time. The point is to practice and just enjoy the skill.
I mentioned yesterday that I watched some French in Action and found I could understand it perfectly. I know it's a class and not a real TV show or a movie, but I'm still so excited! It's a weird, wonderful feeling to be totally immersed and to completely follow what's going on.
For example, I was watching the professor talking to a student, and I realized that even though I've seen this certain exchange once or twice before, I've never fully understood it until now. They were talking too fast for me, I guess.
In that clip the teacher welcomes everyone, then he says they're going to continue inventing a story. The first thing they're going to do is come up with first names for the two main characters.
A student asks, "Why?"
The professor responds, "Why??? It's elementary my dear Watson! [That's the part I never got before.] We give a first name to the two young people, because everyone has a first name!"
A bit later on another little conversation happens between the teacher and that student, and I know for sure I never followed it completely until last night.
Basically, the teacher is saying that the main character, Robert, is going to have a few complexes, because he's an only child, his parents are divorced, and his mom remarried. The student in the front row says that he's glad, because it's "amusing" to talk about complexes and "useful for learning French."
The teacher responds that maybe that's so, but they'd have to do it later because they don't have time.
Anyway, this is fun! I feel like I'm...well...on the cusp of the cusp of fluency, and it's awesome.
Today in my Become Fluent in Any Language class the teacher talked about how to use TV to get better at the hardest part of learning a new language: listening. He said reading books in your target language is great, but it won't help you become a better listener, even if you simultaneously listen to the book on audio. He even said that watching movies or TV shows with subtitles (even if they're in the target language) won't help you. Both of those things will only make you a better reader. He said that the best way to get better at listening is to watch entire seasons of TV shows without subtitles. That way you stick with the same characters long enough to know them and how they speak, and you're familiar with the ongoing plot, but you're not reading. At first you'll be lost...maybe for the first several episodes...but over time you'll start to pick it up. Oh, yeah, and he said that dramas and soap operas are the best things to watch, and comedy is the worst. Comedy requires a subtle understanding of the language that you don't have yet (and may never have).
All that to say: I got excited to try out his advice, but I couldn't find exactly what I need on YouTube. I think I'll have to order seasons of French shows from Amazon instead. I did remember French in Action, though, which is that French-immersion college class that's got a soap opera built into it. I watched some of it (after having not watched it for several months), and I'm excited to say that for the first time ever I understand every single thing! That feels good.
PS: By the way, this TV show thing is something that you'd do after you have a good amount of vocabulary under your belt.
I bought an 18-hour class on a website called CreativeLive called Become Fluent in Any Language, in which a man details the method he's used to teach himself and others how to speak a new language, up to a level of fluency, in the most efficient amount of time possible. He's also written a book about it. I've only gotten a little way into the course, and so far he's only talked about step 1 of his method, which has to do with using an extensive flashcard system. He recommends not making the flashcards yourself, but using an online resource.
To that end, I found a really good flashcard app! It's called CleverDeck and it has everything that the teacher says is necessary: spaced repetition, pictures, the option to take the English words off the cards, audio, and very large decks. (The teacher recommends around 4000 cards in a deck for C1 level fluency. Edited to Add: I should say 4000 in a deck for an easy language like French and Spanish. A harder language like Russian needs around 8000, and a really difficult language like Chinese needs around 16,000 cards, I think he said.) It's great! I've been messing with it all day. I've realized that I'm very good at reading French and understanding it, but I need practice going the other way around. That is, I need to work on coming up with the French words and sentences on my own from memory. This will help a ton with that.
Later in the course he talks about stuff like setting your phone/social media sites/etc. to the language you're trying to learn, reading books and watching movies in your target language, and finding people to talk to. I'm excited to hear his ideas.
The only thing I don't like is that the teacher has one too many buttons of his shirt undone. Ugh. What's he playing at?
PS: I'm still doing (and loving) Frantastique as well. I've completed 68 lessons so far!
Me: Have I ever given you any advice about beauty that was just bad? Her: I don't know. Why?
Me: Because I was thinking about a time when I was around eight or nine years old, and my mom told me never to start plucking my eyebrows. She said I'd be stuck having to do it forever, so it was better never to start in the first place. Can you believe that? Is that not the worst advice ever??
Her: Yeah, that's not good.
Me: Because of that I didn't start any sort of eyebrow maintenance until I was in my thirties!
Her: Hmm. I don't think you've ever given me bad advice, but, let's face it, when it comes to beauty you and I go our separate ways.
LOL That's her way of telling me that she wouldn't dream of taking any advice I gave her on make-up, hair styles, etc. and vice versa. We're very different and that's alright.
Speaking of that sort of thing, though, one time when I was in college a friend of mine showed me her legs. They were shaved from the knee down, but above the knee she was hairy. She said that several years earlier her mom had told her that she shouldn't shave her upper legs, since the hair was blonde. As long as she never shaved it, it would stay blonde and be more or less invisible. Well, guess what. Her mom was wrong. She looked like a blonde Sasquatch from the knee up. My friend asked if I thought she should go ahead and shave it off and I answered something like, "Umm...I mean...probably." So she did.
I told you awhile back that Zach was seriously thinking of starting college at Lake Washington Institute of Technology this year, but what I didn't tell you is it really wasn't a sure thing. He went back and forth about whether or not he wanted to do it. He jumped through the hoops, though...registering, finding out about the cost, and taking the placement tests for English and math...all the while not knowing for sure whether to go for it, put it off a quarter, or not do it at all.
He called me this afternoon. He had gone over to the school straight from work and had a meeting with an advisor. He said she was very nice and helpful and that he's 1) signed up for classes for this quarter and 2) got a payment plan set up. He's planning to get his Bachelor degree (which he can do completely at that school) in computer science.
Now that she's back safely I'll tell you about the "field trip" Baylee took this week. (I'm calling it that jokingly, because she went during the school week.) A couple weeks ago Baylee came home from...hmm...I think it was from her second audition with TMA, telling us that the bass player, Stephanie, asked her if she wanted to go camping with her and some of her friends.
(Stephanie is the one in front with the curly long hair and bangs and sunglasses on her head. The one in back with the hat is the lead singer, Bri, and the one to the far left is the guitarist, Asti.)
My first reaction was "no," and not for the reasons you might think. I actually like and trust the girls in the band. From everything I've seen so far they're responsible, kind, hardworking, and clean-living. My issue wasn't Baylee spending time with Stephanie and her friends, but that she'd be traipsing around in the wilderness, hours away from home, without a parent. I was worried for her safety. Baylee sat down with Mike and me one day, though, and gave reasons why she thought we should allow it, and finally we agreed. She left on Sunday evening and got home yesterday evening. They were actually supposed to stay for one more full day, but they got rained out.
Bullets:
They camped near Lower Lewis Falls, which is a beautiful place in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest by Mount St. Helens.
Baylee took these pics of the falls...
And I found these online...
They also visited and walked through Ape Cave, which is really close to Mount St. Helens as well. Baylee didn't take any pictures of that, but here's one I found online...
All of the people on the camping trip were vegan, so Baylee ate vegan the whole time.
It got so cold at night that they piled in the car and slept in there.
The tent floor filled with puddles of water. (Another reason to sleep in the car.)
When they got there they found out they weren't allowed to make a campfire, so they ended up eating cold vegan hotdogs with vegan mayonnaise and tomatoes for supper.
Despite all that, Baylee had a great time and felt like she really got to know Stephanie. It's good for a bass player and a drummer to be friends, did you know that? They're the underlying structure of any band, and it helps a ton if they're locked into each other.
Okay, today I want to talk about something that's totally inappropriate. Consider this your warning.
Is it just me or do periods...I'm talking about the menstrual kind, not the punctuation kind...seem to be separate, sentient entities with the ability to plot and scheme? If not, then explain to me how they so often come upon us when it's absolutely the most embarrassing and/or inconvenient. That can't be a coincidence!
Case in point: One time when I was in high school I was on a 9-day camping trip in the deep wilderness of the Smoky Mountains. There wasn't a bathroom or shower at any point in there, and, oh yeah, we were allowed one change of clothing. I got my period on day 2 or 3, and I had nothing...not. one. single. thing...in the way of feminine hygiene products. Just take that in for a minute. Outdoors. No bathroom. One change of clothing. No products. Luckily, other girls in the group weren't as unprepared (re: stupid) as me, and they let me have what they brought. That got me through it, barely.
Now that's my worst story, but it's by no means my only one. I can think of quite a few other horrible incidents from my life and from the lives of others. (Like my friend who got her period on her honeymoon.) I know it's just the way it is for women and that we have to put up with it for close to 40 years, but I sure don't have to like it.
This has been a nice, quiet weekend with weather that's finally fall-like. I'm honestly so glad about that! I'm done with summer and totally ready for cool, rainy days.
Yesterday Mike and Baylee put up our 6-man tent in the backyard. Baylee's going camping with some people for a few days this week, and for awhile we thought they might need to borrow it. (Turns out they don't.) Putting it up beforehand was a good idea because 1) it taught Baylee how to do it and 2) it made sure that the tent was in good condition. It's been awhile since it was used. The only thing wrong was it was missing all the stakes, but those were easy to replace with a trip to Walmart.
Today it's been dreary out, which made me want to create coziness inside. I cleaned, baked bran muffins, and made homemade pea soup. Mission accomplished! It's cozy in here.
Baylee is in a perpetual awkward stage when it comes to pants, because she's a weird combination of tall and tiny at the same time. If she gets something that fits in the waist, it's too short in the legs. If it fits length-wise, it's like clown pants in the waist. This is even true of shorts. In fact, she had on a pair of shorts this morning that I made her change out of, because they were too short. (Maybe she's grown over the summer??) When I informed her that I wasn't taking her anywhere in her current outfit, she said, "Mom, if it was up to you I'd be wearing Amish clothes!" Then she did an impression of me being really excited about her wearing a polyester dress that buttoned up to her chin. "Baylee," she said, pretending to be me, "I promise you, you look really good! You look beautiful! This is the best you've looked in months!" I laughed so hard I choked on the Oreo I was eating. She still had to change, though.
Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.
Can deal with most situations likely to arise while traveling in an area where the language is spoken.
Can produce simple connected text on topics that are familiar or of personal interest.
Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions and
briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.
It's funny because I actually feel stupider than ever before, and yet I'm at the highest level I've ever been. I think it's just that I'm aware of how much I still don't know. It's frustrating. I know for sure Frantastique is evaluating me correctly, though, because I took a test from a different place online, and it told me the same thing.
Patty came to visit for the weekend. She and I upheld our tradition of renting a new(ish) release from Xfinity and watching it while eating junk food. This time the movie was Gifted and the treats were marionberry pie and ice cream. (I'm not sure if marionberries are a thing in other parts of the country, but here in the PNW they're pretty common. They're like blackberries.) That movie, though! It was wonderful! If you get a chance you should definitely watch it.
The other thing that happened was Baylee had a SoR show called Prog Rock, which stands for progressive rock. It was extremely difficult and, to be honest, probably shouldn't have been attempted during the summer season. This season is a whole month shorter than the other ones, and kids are constantly gone on vacation and missing rehearsals. They pulled it off, but there were a few rocky moments.
Here's a picture of the whole group taken at the end. Baylee is standing next to the director, Robbie.
Here's an instrumental that features the amazing ability of Luke, the kid on keys wearing a cape.
Here's a little bit of a song called "Roundabout." Baylee is singing harmony.
And here's an extremely difficult song called "Lateralus." The four kids on it, including Baylee, were in over their heads on this one to some degree, but the singer and the guitar player were way out of their league. Another problem with it was that the bass drum broke earlier in the show...the pedal went right through it...so they had to MacGyver the hole with a piece of cardboard and some tape. That meant Baylee couldn't use the double kick pedal, which she loves. Anyway, I'll show a clip of a pretty good section of the song, and if that's all you want to watch, cool.
Here's the whole song from beginning to end. I'm putting it on here because I'm proud of Baylee and I want to show why. She's friends with Sophia, the singer, and Sophia was scared. She knew she was onstage in front of a lot of people, and she just wasn't ready. At the very beginning of the song Baylee gives her a quick "you can do this" hug,* and then at 7:25 and again at 7:40 Baylee starts mouthing the words to her and smiling encouragingly, because Sophia's kinda lost. I love that. I think Baylee's best quality has always been that she's a good friend.
There was more that happened this weekend, involving a hedgehog and people knocking on my door at three in the morning, but I'll save that for another day.
*Also at the very beginning you can see Baylee trying to get that double kick pedal set up, and she just can't.
It's only 3:30 in the afternoon and I'm sitting in a totally clean house, school's done, and there's a pork roast in the oven. Woo hoo! Things aren't usually quite that organized around here. Patty's coming over, though, so I worked a little harder than usual.
This has been a great first week of school. We've already settled into a system that seems to work well:
Baylee does the three "table" subjects that she can handle totally alone: NT Survey, American Lit, and American History.
She moves over to the computer and does all the subjects that are either online or on DVD: Latin 2, Chemistry, and Typing.
She and I move back to the table and together we do the subjects that she wants a live teacher for (that teacher being me): Algebra 2 and SAT Prep.
Hopefully it'll keep going as smoothly as it is now.
Yesterday Rachel and Molly, who both go to the high school across the street, came over during their lunch break. There was lots of chattering and laughing going on in our kitchen for about 25 minutes, and then they were gone again. They only get a half hour to eat.
Tomorrow is Baylee's last show ever at the SoR. It's called Prog Rock and it's in the early afternoon. She's also got a house band gig in the morning. To be honest I'm not very happy about that, and neither are the other parents whose kids have to do both things in one day. It's too much...not for the kids, mind you, but for the parents. We're old! We're tired! Anyway, It'll be a full weekend.
I woke up this morning to the eeriest yellowish-orange light coming in through the windows, and that light hasn't changed much all day. It's like there's an Instagram filter over the world. It's from the wildfires in Oregon. The wind is blowing that smoke and ash here, and it's just hanging in the air. Literally, there's a fine layer of ash on everything and the air smells like a campfire. Here's a picture of downtown Seattle from the local news website:
This is the second time this has happened this summer, but this time is way worse. (Last time it was wildfires in British Columbia.)
All that said, we still started school today. Aside from both of us being tired from having to get up early and be on an actual schedule, it went well. Here's Baylee's first day of 11th grade picture:
This year she's taking:
American Literature
American History
Chemistry
Algebra 2
Latin 2
New Testament Survey
Music
Typing
She's also studying for the SAT using a flashcard system.
Happy Labor Day! We were going to spend this weekend in Leavenworth, but we postponed because Baylee had a dress rehearsal for her SoR show last night. Blah. Nevertheless, these last three days have turned out to be really nice and relaxing here at home.
For one thing, I got a NordicTrack! I actually went on OfferUp looking for a treadmill, but those were a little out of our budget, so I settled for this. I don't mind, though. And, bonus, it was free!
All three of the kids tried it and were absolutely terrible at it, but I got on and was able to handle it just fine. That's because Mike and I owned one back in the '90's, and I guess my body still remembers. There's a knack to it.
We're not actually putting it in our bedroom, though. I had it there...and that's where I took the picture...but then Mike got home from a bike ride, and we had this conversation:
Him: I'm going to trip over that and kill myself in the night.
Me: You'll be fine! You won't trip over it, and I'm sure not going to trip over it.
Him: Yeah, I will, and you totally will.
Me: [thinks about it for five seconds] Okay, let's move it.
In other news, I took this picture of Zach and Cooper this morning.
Now Mike is grilling burgers, and soon we'll have a nice dinner together as a family.
PS: Tomorrow Baylee and I are starting school. I'm ready as far as having everything we need (except dry-erase markers, dang it), but I haven't mentally prepared at all.
Do you ever go on Facebook and get overwhelmed by the dumbness of people? I'm in a Slimfast group on FB, and it's one that I actually really like. It's active, and there are several members who have had a lot of success and are generous about sharing their advice and encouragement. Plus, for the most part folks are kind and well-spoken. That said, today I posted this:
I just discovered a 100-cal (ish) snack that I love: buttered toast! I
wanted comfort food, so I toasted a slice of white bread and put 1 tsp
of Can't Believe it's Not Butter on it. It came to 90 cals and totally
hit the spot.
And I got this response:
Not healthy though.your blood sugar shoot right up
Grammar and punctuation aside, is this or is this not totally annoying??? There's always that one person, am I right? She just had to tell me that. What I wanted to respond was:
I mean, we're all doing Slimfast, so it's not like we're whole food health nuts up in here.
I didn't, though.
(Now I feel like I need to explain to you guys that I do often eat decent snacks. I eat fruit, cheese sticks, deli meat, and hard boiled eggs. Those are healthy, right???)
Guess what? I started Slimfast (again) on August 26th, and so far I've lost 7 pounds. That means I lost 7 pounds in the month of August.
I've got some new things in place to help me stay motivated, and so far they're working well. I'm hopeful that I'll get to my goal by the end of 2017...or at least really close.
We've got big news around here! Yesterday Baylee went for her second audition with the band that I talked about here and here. There was a month between that first audition and this second one, during which time the band auditioned more people and Baylee learned all 20 of their songs. Also, some of those songs she'd be doing back-up singing on, so she had to learn that, too. She managed it, though, and was ready when they called her back. To get to the point: She got in!
Honestly, I don't love the name of the band, which is why I haven't mentioned it yet. I figured if she didn't get in then I'd never bring it up, but since she did I'll tell you: It's called The Morning After. It's an all-female, Seattle-based punk/funk/alternative band.
Here's the picture and blurb they put out on social media yesterday:
Its official!!!! Everyone meet Baylee, TMA's new drummer! This young lady has got enough talent and energy to rock your socks off, and we're excited to continue our adventure with her!
Those three girls are really, really nice, and they're excited to have Baylee join them. That picture is of them celebrating by immediately taking Baylee out for ice cream after they told her she got in. They've got plans to write new songs and do another album, and there are shows lined up. Baylee will be busy!
Which brings me to my last bit of news: She's basically quitting the SoR. She'll still go there for a 45-minute lesson every week, but she won't be in their performance program anymore, and she won't do House Band. She's sad about it. She told me last night that the SoR has been practically a second home for her for almost three years now, and she recognizes that they've literally taught her everything she knows about drums and music. She loves that place and those people, but she can't do it all, so it's time to move on. That said, she will be finishing out this summer show season and hopefully (unless they tell her she can't) the House Band season, which goes until the end of October.
