In-Between Reflection: Still in the Game?

"But we are still in the game/ If we should lose there's only us to blame..." I am lifting Dan Fogelbers's line pretty far out of context here.

In those practical areas of life... I interviewed at a new test prep school in Bellevue, who told me she'd add me to the roster and contact me when she had students for me, worked with a new CLEP student, and am in the process of possibly picking up some lucrative classes elsewhere (auditioning, so to speak?

These are dry months in more than one way. But.

Reflection: As April Draws to a Close...

Just a few general updates here as April is slip sliding away. Getting ready, during this next week, to go to a geneticist and a job interview -- in no particular order. Times are the tightest they've ever been, but... now think about it. What was the biggest reason I needed thousands of dollars in reserve? The kitty, of course. There's no one in my care right now, and money is... well, money is just money.

Now it's a silver-gray Seattle morning and I'm busy with my online life: a get-together for online tutors, updates to my pages on Squidoo. One of those webpages has seen 69 visitors this week -- I think that's the most any has seen in a single week thusfar. I do add links to some of my webpages writings there on the sidebar from time to time.

Reflection: A Global Netbook

The picture is of my six-year-old niece with my netbook, taken when I was in Arizona. I was tutoring ESL via petite netbook this morning (a Cambridge student of Chinese background).

Just occasionally someone sends a session request via eduFire for a subject I don't necessarily promote a lot, like conversational ESL. I thought I might encounter difficulties this morning -- or issues regarding mechanics being in and out of the apartment (loudly) replacing the pipes -- but no, it went quite smoothly. (Hey, one needs to earn a bit of money to survive -- and it's been tough.)

Now about the talented little netbook that does tutoring... it has a Squidoo page: My Acer Netbook (Snookums). One of the first I put up after getting my giant squid status.

Reflection: Phantoms Who Ring in the Night

Usually I take the phone off the hook when I'm online tutoring -- there's more than one reason for that, as people who know me know well. But there I was talking to a student in Beijing... and with the phone ringing in a way that was hard to ignore. It was a little after 8:00 -- prime time for sub-finding machines. That's who it most likely is, I told myself, a machine. It's no news from loved ones, nothing that could faze me emotionally; I'll pick it up -- easy peazy -- then I'll hang up on it, and resume tutoring.

"I usually take it off the hook," I was saying to my student as I lifted the phone. "Hello," I said into the receiver. No machine was there to greet me. I spoke again; I spoke several times before I heard the faint click that told me I was no longer connected.

I resumed work with the phone off the hook and my mind on the phantom caller -- on people who go ring in the night, then aren't there. Was someone fazed by my words to my student, deliberately unwilling to intrude on my session with so much as a voice? There were questions in my mind as I drifted off to sleep quite a few hours later, with the phone back on the hook, and two diphenhydramine in my system (a higher dose than I've been taking of late). I felt better when the drowsiness wore off (today early afternoon). The phone's been reassuringly quiet. It was probably not a crisis or calamity that prompted someone to call, but then slip away without a word of greeting.

I communicate with people on a daily basis from all over the world; I experience little if any anxiety because I don't love those people or fear losing them. That seems so logical to me -- it's hard to imagine experiencing fear in connection with a person unless one is fearful of losing the person -- yet it's brought home to me again and again that that's a perspective that's not shared by a lot of people. Now then, whatever the LinkWithin widget picks as 'related posts, I give also: Plase Don't Email the Drops.

Reflection: Updates

There's only one street in Seattle that's named after people I know -- or appears to be. I cross the street regularly on the 43 or the 48. The sign is a bit washed out in that photo -- it's more so in another picture where a semi is just rounding the corner. The artist, "I'm singing, though rather poorly" will probably be releasing another verse of "Time After Time" soon, so those photos will probably be seen again....

This weekend, it is the pragmatic work-oriented projects that have me very busy. I need to thoroughly wake myself up, as there are more sessions to teach, here on my little computer. I have a little Google site up for my CLEP class. Times are tough in the pragmatic day-to-day ways, too; it's mainly at the request of a particular student that I kept the CLEP start dates as originally scheduled instead of pushing them back some as colleagues are doing. I can open up another session a little later, and it will be less work, as I already have put in so very many hours organizing resources out there in cyberspace.

Some people who know me will realize that it's my fear of crises and bad news, and not just my responsibility, that causes me to "make hay while the sun shines" in a manner of speaking -- work ahead, accomplishing things in the now that might not have to be accomplished until weeks hence, and put in near sleepless days of work before... well, before things can happen that takes the wind out of these sails. Phobic fear is a type of fear that can be planned for -- and, yes, that's a topic I've been doing some writing on, as well! And I'll link to off-site writings again soon.

Reflection: The Velveteen Rabbit... and Internet Magic

The notion of someone in Saudia Arabia listening to my recording of The Velveteen Rabbit via its Drop.io link -- well, that's pretty fnny, but pretty cool, too, I think. Someone from eduFire has been posting links to Hannukah and Christmas songs on the "Fireside chat" forum for a while now; I believe someone else posted some children's holiday activity sheets the other day. Yesterday, I posted my read of The Velveteen Rabbit. Another tutor commented, on the forum thread, that it was actually the first he'd heard of "this Velveteen Rabbit". According to his profile, he lives in Saudia Arabia.

The Velveteen Rabbit was the first thing I recorded with my USB headset. The link to the Drop.io file has been on the sidebar for some time. I put up a link to my Velveteen Rabbit Multimedia Squidoo page recently. Some of the projects that seem whimsical are actually rather pragmatic. I'll post more soon.

(Credit: Photo derived from this Flickr pic)

Reflection: All Things, Strong and Fragile

That's my mother on a mule. She was a bilingual flight attendant in the years before I was born. I used her picture on a slide in the online class I taught last night; the particular slide was about which languages are supported by the knol platform. I'm not including the slide itself as a picture, even though it's in png form; it's a big file so it uses so much more space to host it. (If all my pictures were that size, it would still take about 500 posts to use up the picture hosting capacity Google has alloted me -- ah but, like most things I do, I am in this for the very long haul!)

The 'CLEP channel' will be launched next week on a particular e-learning platform. There are six of us -- two in the US, two in the UK, one in Bolivia and one in India -- holed up with our computers, writing CLEP prep syllabi, each responsible for a subject, but collaborating by wiki... It's pleasant work. It always amazes me how so much of the world assumes that it's the unknown that causes anxiety. I experience very little fear of the unknown, and am pretty low, too, when it comes to performance-based anxiety. Oh no, it's the people I love that cause pain and fear, that turn me into the kind of glass ornament you see in kiosks before Christmas. Does that mean I don't want them in my life? Heavens, no! -- glass is beautiful, and some is priceless. Says The Little Prince: "You run the risk of tears when you let yourself be tamed". There are moments when it does behoove me to leave my phone off the hook while I concentrate on some "matter of consequence" (I take for granted that my performance will be high if I shut out all incoming news) but the phone will go back on soon.

The song that's playing in my head is "The Riddle" aka "There's a reason for..."

PS Just edited this -- The Little Prince discusses "matters of consequence" not "matters of nonsequence". (Then again...)

Reflection: In Seattle and Online

My "Step Into Seattle" lens. It debuted last night at number 800-and-something thousand (I guess that's how many pages there are on Squidoo!)... but it's got ambitions. I took some creative liberties with this one. Amidst the more pragmatic and informative stuff, I have snippets of the 'Steve Salamander' Seattle piece (written and audio versions) and various pictures, including a photo nature slideshow.

Seattle is still a beautiful city... It's been a painful couple of years, and, yes, it's reflected in my finances, but it's not something I spend a lot of time fretting about. I figure 1) I'll survive and 2)I've got more pressing things to fret about. Why spend time fretting about money if one doesn't have a loved one needing bunches of it for their survival/security?

It looks like I'll be getting an eduFire CLEP English composition course. I've mentioned the eduFire e-learning platform before -- a good site. One can use their platform to teach just about anything that's legal, but certain areas do have an application process, and those tend to be ones that are more lucrative, and that the company is really promoting. They want their CLEP courses run something like real-world test prep courses, with a detailed syllabus, and enough homework to really push people to achieve.

The class I'm teaching on eduFire this next week is more of a for-fun thing. A lot of teachers teach free classes as they're establishing themselves (and sometimes beyond). This one is about freelancing. I called it "Upload Yourself to the Internet" -- that's something that I do indeed do on a regular basis...

Reflection: Watching through Windows

This picture is a screen capture done on my computer. I used it for an article about eduFire that I posted on Squidoo. My little netbook is so proud of its first modeling gig!

Now I'm thinking about casting the bitty computer in a video (something personal, not my eduFire teaching video).

A few weeks back, I posted a blog entry with a play on words, drawn from the Cyndi Lauper song, "Time After Time": "You're watching through Windows, you're wondering if I'm okay..." With the same free program that snapped the one screenshot last night, I can also capture up to a five minute recording of my computer screen as video; I'm thinking about opening up places and faces in Windows, to the tune of that song. I've already scanned pictures of both long-ago housing co-ops -- the Spadefoot picture shows snow coming down on an Easter (yes, Easter) morning.

I am linking to the Squidoo page I put up yesterday. It's about an e-learning platform, and most of what I wrote is reasonably serious and informative. I did link to one particularly silly eduFire forum thread. People from long-ago would recognize me in the 'chocolate laptop discussion' -- but they might not recognize me amidst the technology. Ah, but I've learned that technology is very handy for giving a voice to the likes of me!

Reflection: Not Quite a 'Rock Star Teacher' ... But Working On It

Soul Reflections

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I am doing a bit like I sometimes do on 'the other blog' -- my teacher blog -- and talking about some internet sites I've happened into. First off... there's Edufire, an online learning (and teaching) platform for adolescents and adults. I studied them for a few weeks before taking out an account. At first it seemed that all the networking and the forums made the platform just too much of a free-for-all. Ah, no, I've come to think very highly of them, and I'll be talking about some of our projects. There's a lot more going on than people just posting their own tutoring services and classes. For instance, there's a group organizing to try and make free classes (English, microenterprise, and medicine) available to people in Afghanistan.

I believe the slogan, "Be a Rockstar Teacher" is intended to refer to a bit more than just doing video of oneself in action and uploading it to YouTube! They do encourage the YouTube thing, though. When I am ready to put a video up, I think I'm more apt to go through TeacherTube. Now here's a music video message from TeacherTube: "...I'm fat, I'm thin, I'm short, I'm tall... I'm deaf, I'm blind -- hey, aren't we all?" I think the message in this song is applicable to more than just the elementary school set.

As for the musical presentation embedded within this post... another useful multimedia site, AuthorStream. (I've linked to two 'reflections' presentations on the sidebar as well.)

Reflection: My First Squidoo

I am including a link to my first Squidoo 'lens', both here and on the side margin. I am also including the link to another Williams Syndrome video here -- this one featuring the antics/communication of a small child. There are folks I know who may find this interesting.

I will continue to add 'modules', which are units of text, links etc., to the lens. I decided it was ready to post, though, and that I'd add more over time. I'll improve the visuals, too, eventually. I recently signed on with an online tutoring company, Edufire, and a fellow tutor is teaching a free class in using very basic HTML -- that's so we can add custom graphics and have more choice about where we insert hyperlinks. That skill should help with these lenses, as well. Since I haven't uploaded a profile picture, Squidoo gave me an avatar of two orange octopi holding hands. Unbeknownst to them, that may actually prolong the time until I upload a picture of my own. I like the octopi -- they kinda go with the 'hands' theme. (See previous post.)

Reflection: Out and About in the World

I did decide to make Evening Nigh Reflections a public blog, searchable on Google Blog Search and elsewhere. It's been out and about in the world for over a week now, cautiosly poking its head here and there, visiting a couple other wee bloggies to leave comments. I listed it as my website for a Poets & Writers author directory listing that was confirmed today. The 'Steve Salamander' Seattle piece I've been reading from isn't listed as a credit. It may just not have confirmed yet; either that or the anthology listed it as some category other than creative nonfiction (creative nonfiction being the only genre I have enough credits in).

My teacher blog doesn't admit to knowing this blog -- and isn't apt to -- but I make get Evening Nigh a little button that says it's an Edufire writing tutor. I'd been conversing in an online forum with language teachers, and maybe that's why I did such a double take when I went in Trader Joe's this afternoon. Trader Joe's guarantees there's nothing on their labels that you can't pronounce! Wow! They must be pretty durn good at accent reduction, because I doubt the most skilled among us tutors would make a claim like that...