Mgaic

Adrconicg to eprxet oniiopn lses tahn fftiy pcernet of the patlpuooin wlil be albe to raed tihs, and olny twtney pcernet wtih any seped. Leartite aseltcenods wlil bset altuds. I'm gsnieusg taht the pcernetgaes wlil be hgheir hreh on Giaa. We wlil see. I am trierlby bsuy, but usntnadred taht I am lninareg so mcuh mroe aoubt jsut how azinamg the biarn ralely is so the bdreun is bbarleae. All rghit, I wnat to aovid finyrg my own biarn so I wlil stiwch to 'naorml' lteter seuqcene. Bdeseis, my selpl ckceehr is ninareg mowdletn. I'm in this training, you see. Orton-Gillingham. And it's a challenge intellectually, physically, and emotionally. I'm thinking of language and learning differences 24 by 7 and am in class for eight hours a day and have about that much reading and homework to do each night. I'm working with my first 'demonstration' student,' a big old Iowa farm boy who speaks with clarity and ease on complex agricultural and business topics, but who cannot read or write above the second grade level. His eyes light up when I tell him that our goal is to get his reading and writing up to the same level as his speaking. I remind him of this at the start of every class. The first time I told him he said that that's what he's always wanted and started to cry. It turns out that his public school classmates made fun of him for years and called him Dim Tim. With a WISC full-scale of 145+ he's not dim by any measure. The fact that the 'teaching the teachers' class I'm in is being taught by an ex-partner of mine, an ex of the wifely persuasion and the mother of my daughters, is exceedingly strange. For whatever difficulties this person may have with close relationships, she is a gifted teacher of the first rank. I understand why her students, child and adult, think so highly of her. I always thought her writing was overly dense, even pretentious, but her knowledge of the language, and her ability to analyze and synthesize complex issues in this domain and come up with perfect examples on the spot, is astounding. Three of my old group graduated the school's 'regular' program Friday, regular in the sense of wilderness, academic, and therapeutic elements combined. It was a surprisingly emotional experience. I'm beginning to understand how teachers feel when they send their charges off into the world and wonder how they'll do, wonder if they learned all they need. I'm going to miss them, and I know they'll miss me. On top of all that, the school asked me to do the engineering and installation of a new fiber-optic computer network on campus. I'll have help but most of the work will fall to me. So between now and July 21, when I'm officially on the academic side of the school, all I have to do is complete the OG training, work with my demonstration student, see another of my guys graduate, and engineer and install a fiber optic data network. Piece of cake. I'd write more but I'm gonna go do a nap-in-advance now.

I Want Women's Panties...

There, now that I have your attention - …to be sent here. I ran across this gem from J.K. a few minutes ago. So I did a little research. I asked myself, “Is this little guy (below) really afraid of women's underwear, not to mention of what might occasionally fill said items?” Than Shwe Well, I don't know about you, but I think he has 'panty-fear' written all over his face. Probably kills peaceful monks too because he's thinking that's what they're wearing under those sissy robes. D'ya think? Next on the cogitation trail, of course, is answering the question “What potential leader in Myanmar doesn't fear panties?” I came up with this: Suu Kyi Not only does it look like she doesn't fear panties, but I'll go out on a limb and hazard a guess that she occasionally wears them. At the very least I suspect that she doesn't want to kill monks because she imagines that they might be wearing them. For those of you who are wondering what on earth panties have to do with modern nation-state leadership, I can only say that they have everything to do with it. 'Nuff said. Now, if it happens that Shwe slips the surly bonds, or slips on a banana peel, or starts wearing slips, whatever, and Myanmar finds itself with Kyi as her new leader, please do not stop sending panties, preferably unwashed, to the above address. Kyi plans to hold them in reserve in case a new panty-fearing General comes along, when she will simply issue them to the monks and have them chase the bad guy back into the jungle. Lastly, there's this post by Vladimir Chang on the 'Guns and Butter' blog. The last paragraph is particularly apt: Myanmar to crack down on kittens, bunnies next RANGOON – Fresh off a bloody crackdown on more than 2,000 peaceful Buddhist monks, Myanmar's ruling junta announced today that it was targeting kittens and bunnies next. “After last week's fun in Rangoon, I was quickly left bored and listless. I found myself wanting some other group to crush ruthlessly, and I wondered, 'What could be even more defenseless and wholesome than a Buddhist monk?' And I thought, “Kittens!” said Senior General Than Shwe, head of Myanmar's government. “So I decided to kill me some kittens. And after that it'll be bunnies.” Myanmar's army won't even have to use its own weapons for the kitten kill. China is contributing submachine guns and ammunition, while Thailand has sent thousands of hungry dogs. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that if Myanmar ran out of its own kittens, he would gladly supply Russian ones. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning the act, but saying that it has no jurisdiction over hostile acts against felines and rodents. And even if it did, the council declared, it wouldn't have the authority to act. And even if it had the authority, it would just sit by and watch because at this point that's all it knows how to do. Hey - all's fair in love and war!

Dreamtime

I had the most amazing dream last night, and that's saying a lot because all my dreams are amazing…. ;-) What's most amazing is the feeling of partaking, being more than just an observer, the utter clarity of it, and the absolutely effortless remembrance of it in its entirety. And it all happened in the course of an evening's nap. A lifetime in a microsecond. I'm within my familiar Escheresque staircase dream, the one where I know I'm dreaming, where I explore my dream like I'd explore an island I'd never been to. Ever upward, darkness giving way to light, women in plain white cotton dresses, educators, path lighteners. A door opens off the staircase and I step through onto a grassy field. A woman and a man stand there, naked, beautiful, eyes glinting with mirth, sorrow, power, and vulnerability, all at the same time. The man sits yoga like and smiles, the woman speaks but I can't understand her even though I know she's using English. “Patience,” she says. That one word I do understand. I remember thinking, though, knowing, that what I beheld was surface, not substance. I think they're aliens and remember the woman in the movie “Cocoon” and wonder if this woman will peel her skin off and reveal the light too. I remember in my dream Star Trek's “law of convergent evolution” and feel satisfied that they can look just like me but be wholly different as well, even truly alien. The woman sits near the man and both beckon to me to sit with them. I wonder if they're sexually compatible (with me), if they think of things the way I do, and sit with them. Each puts a gentle hand on my forehead and I fall back and sleep within my dream. In my sleep within my dream I dream anew, a layered dream that my dreaming self is fully aware of. In my dream within my dream I am sleeping on a jet bound from Alaska to Tokyo (this part actually happened in the 70's) via the polar route. I awaken to the sound of the Captain's voice over the intercom saying: “It's sunny and beautiful, and also a balmy 77 degrees below zero outside the aircraft. I watch hour after hour as frozen mountains slide under the belly of the aircraft. I shift to a room where I'm reading a book about the doctor at the South Pole who developed breast cancer (dr = Jerri Nielsen, book = Ice Bound - I actually did read it). The C130 aircraft sent to rescue the doctor, even though it was fitted with skis and special ultra low temperature equipment, could not rescue the doctor until the temperature climbed above 55 below zero. (They had to wait several weeks.) I awaken back into the first dream asking myself “How did I fly when it was 77 below?” and feeling like I'd just been lucky, that the plane couldn't possibly have flown in air so cold and should have crashed. I feel my heart pounding a bit. The naked man and woman are there waiting for me. The man says “Patience” too, which I understand, but the rest of his English is familiar but incomprehensible. Suddenly I'm back in the staircase and the floor is covered with three kinds of chess pieces: pawns, kings, and queens – no bishops, rooks, or knights. Stepping on them my bare feet hurt, like I'm walking on sharp gravel. I walk back down the stairs to full wakefulness, each dreaming step taking me closer and closer to the everyday world. I hear a voice, again speaking an English I don't understand, but it's not a bad sound. I'm awake. I look out the window and see stars. The bottoms of my feet tingle, even burn a little, like I'd just walked across sharp objects. It was a good dream….