Oh dear, just when you thought you were safe from any more smiling girls in holiday poses - here comes this one. Just sent by my darling friend in Dallas, it's the two Dallas nieces and my friend's daughter (my god-daughter) in the middle. She was home from college in Santa Fe for the holidays, and this was the enduring traditional Christmas Eve party. This friend is a friend of most of my sisters too, in fact, she is an Honorary Sister.
The first week of the year is flying by on winged feet and soon I will be working all the time again. I feel I should journal like mad while I have the time - but I am in a state of some bewilderment about focus here in this journal. For the past year the focus has been mainly political, with the occasional personal entry. As time went on, I narrowed the focus to mostly environmental politics, with swerves into other areas as needed. Now, here we still are with the same old suspects running the show (a few minor changes, and who knows what will happen re Atty General, but the main cast remains onstage), and many of us feeling like we've fallen from a great height without benefit of parachute onto jagged slabs of granite.
Goddess knows the state of environmental politics remains atrocious, and looks to grow ever worse as the regime continues its mad course of destruction. I remain committed to doing what I can, reading as much as I can, trying to pass information on to other readers. I continue to feel/think that this is the most important path for me personally to follow. As someone who loves, enjoys, and I could almost say "worships" the natural world, and as someone with many young people for whose future I constantly worry (what kind of air will they breathe? water will they drink? how many species of bird, beast, insect, plant, will they never see or know? what future diseases will they inherit from the cornucopia of chemicals and altered-genes that we are pouring into the air, soil and water?), this is all I know to do.
I follow as careful a path as I can, personally: use no chemical cleaners, pesticides or fertilizers, eat as organically as possible, recycle everything possible, compost all compostible material from yard and kitchen, reuse as much as possible, try to be a conscious consumer in every way. For the time being this way of living, as well as donating to the environmental organizations who are fighting the good fight for us (Environmental Defense, EarthJustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, and others), is all I can do. So I guess that here in this journal I will continue to post my own environmental entries as well as articles and news I find on other sites. I am also planning to make entries about sites that will help readers stay informed and become more active in the fight to preserve and protect the planet.
Some commenters have expressed interest in my teaching entries, and I know I will continue to write about what I'm doing - with my afterschool kids especially. On that subject, I have news that I myself find utterly thrilling. One of my kids is a fifth grade special ed kid who had lead poisoning as a baby. No one gave me any info about him when he started showing up to get helped with homework. I quickly learned that he couldn't read at all, and that there was a big problem of some kind. When I made enquiries I found out his history. I've been giving him a lot of one-on-one help with the homework he brings in, and today a miracle happened. We were working on making sentences with his spelling words, something he has been utterly unable to do. How I've handled it is that he tells me the sentences, I write them down for him and then he copies them. Today I had followed this procedure with the first five words, then I was working with someone else on some math problems - when I got back to Enrique he was forging on ahead writing a sentence with the next word! I helped him fix things like putting "Dad" instead of "bad," but in fact he wrote the entire sentence. And then continued to write the next set of sentences mostly by himself. Then we turned to math work - he hasn't been able to read word problems at all. Today, he tried by himself and did a great job with most of the words. He's reading! He's reading! And he's feeling so good and proud about himself. If I were Donald Trump I can't imagine I'd feel any better about a corporate merger than I feel about what this kid is accomplishing. So there.
4 comments:
I certainly appreciate everything you share regarding the environment. We are of one mind where that is concerned. Bring in on!!
Congratulations to Enrique! That's a terrific accomplishment.
First, thank you for the pictures of your nieces and E. Three gorgeous women... Second, I'm thrilled to read of Enrique's success (and YOUR success too teacher). Learning to discriminate between a "b" and a "d" is one of the first challenges all of us face. You might help him understand the difference between "right" and "left"; this, too, is a discrimination which might be hard for him to make. In my own quasi-dyslexic development I couldn't distinguish right from left until some teacher asked me which hand I used to pick up my pencil. It was my right hand. So she said, "Well, always remember that you write with your right hand -- and the left hand is the other one." Of course, what I heard was "you right with your right hand." For many months whenever any one said "move right" or "move left" I would first have to imagine picking up a pencil and "righting" before I could discern the direction. In "b" and "d" the ability to discriminate assumes you understand right and left. We're not born with this understanding; it's one of the first lessons we must be taught and it takes a heck of a lot of practice before it becomes second nature to us. Continue the good work... and thanks for your dedication.
I'm sure you feel much more fulfilled that the Donald at any merger or anything else he might do. I don't believe the man has a conscience. Thanks for doing the environmental research and passing on your findings. I really like being a lazy scholar. Paulette
What else can be done but do our part, and you are certainly doing more than your fair share.
Pshaw, there's no such thing as too much of these girls' photos. Look at those precious faces. Keep 'em coming.
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