h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the major reasons my ex and I split up, I think was that we couldn't communicate. Neither of us were good at discussing things that were upsetting us (he could sulk for England), so the feelings tended to get stuffed down and fester.

The first thing I thought when I saw your reply was:

if you always do what you've always done,
you'll always get what you've always got.

If you're happy with that, OK.

I'm getting much better at dealing with negative feelings, although it's not a comfortable thing.

'Spansule' - a proprietary name for a capsule that when swallowed releases a drug over a period of several hours, or that releases various drugs at pre-arranged times. OED

Finally got it out!

Guess I picked that up from the nurse I'm married to.

I don't understand relationship dynamics. But there is a kind of a mini-culture thing that goes on. That makes it hard to compare with other relationships.

The bad parts never overwhelm the good parts, it's just that we both aren't working on the same thing at the same time, which is a blessing, because we can seriously get in each other's way.
We need a house as big as a barn...

Yes, relationships can be - what's the word I'm looking for - no - too tired. Sprog's not well - coughing loads.

As I said, mind foundered because of lack of communication. That shouldn't happen these days, as I'm much more up-front about things (I think). Someone did my horoscope and said I needed as much space - no *more* - in a relationship as I did commitment. True, I need alone time sometimes.

I think these days, I seem to need sleep - quality sleep, as much as anything. Refreshing sleep is something I seem to miss out on.

I've a homeopath appointment tomorrow. I'll see what that brings.

Yeah, my sleep is still weird. I'm trying to get back around to being awake during the day. But I keep waking up at 2:30 AM or so and staying up...

I have to go get the frozen cookie dough the unit and the kid have been selling for the band. My wife made the appointment. At the last minute, I find out that I am nominated to go get it.
My directions consisted of one sleepily murmured sentence.

I'm still trying to get the daughter to perform simple tasks simply.
She's picked up her mother's habit of parting out tasks into steps that are performed in no particular order, but involve:

1. thinking about it
2. getting ready
3. almost there
4. doing it at my own pace, leave me alone
5. still doing it
6. leave that there, I'm not done with it
7. if you care so much, why don't you do it?
8. almost finished
9. what happened to it? I put it right there two days ago?

Number 7 is a killer, isn't it!

I'm writing an entry on 'mindfulness' at the moment. Perhaps your daughter ought to read it.

A746336

The practice has the benefits of stilling the 'monkey mind' and promoting harmonious concentration. It does require persistence to achieve it, however.

Perhaps ths judicious use of praise for things done well or in an orderly fashion might be helpful?

I found that when I started praising my son more often, he would admit to mistakes more readily and be sorry for them.

I've had the day off with mine as he's had a bad cough. Back to school tomorrow, though.

I wish you a restful night tonight!

I managed to get to bed around midnight and get up at five or so.
The wife has a UTI and she's miserable and she's going to the doc today.

Read the entry. Little intense for a twelve-year-old.
Little intense for me.

I have a little phrase I often repeat:

If you prepare to please yourself,
eventually you'll be pleased.
If you prepare to disappoint yourself,
you'll never be disappointed.

Is "Mindfulness" a way of saying "pay attention"?

If I remember correctly, the ancient Lamas had armies that were a little interesting. Tibet itself has diverse tribes that were "converted" in the past. If I remember correctly.

Read the entry. Little intense for a twelve-year-old.
Little intense for me.

I have a little phrase I often repeat:

If you prepare to please yourself,
eventually you'll be pleased.
If you prepare to disappoint yourself,
you'll never be disappointed.

Is "Mindfulness" a way of saying "pay attention"?

If I remember correctly, the ancient Lamas had armies that were a little interesting. Tibet itself has diverse tribes that were "converted" in the past. If I remember correctly.

Yes, mindfulness is paying attention. It's different in quality from concentration, which involves more of an effort of will. The two can go hand in hand. Mindfulness can tell you that you've wandered away from the subject, concentration can bring you back to it.

I think the difference between the two is intensity. Mindfulness is like a light shining on a piece of paper, lighting all of it evenly. Concentration is like focussing the light through a lens.

Your phrase if a good one and so true. You get what you expect. If you expect to be disappointed, you will be.

I can remember going on holiday to Greece (when I was married and we had money for foreign holidays). I was really looking forward to it. There were some problems on the way, airport delays at both ends and then a difficulty being allocated a room in the hotel. Now I know that these things happen and I wasn't about to let it spoil my holiday. We were on holiday with another couple and the bloke grumbled and moaned all the way through, letting it spoil his holiday. Me, I had a great time. The hotel was really near the beach and once we'd got in it, it was fine.

I think this is also illustrating the difference between someone who can only be satisfied with perfection - that way, there's only one way you're going to be happy, my way allowed for flexibility.

I think you're right about lamas taking up arms. The Dalai Lama himself said this, and said that it had been wrong. The rest I don't know about, but I'm happy to learn.

Hope your wife is over the infection now and that things are going more smoothly for you.

The wife went to an in-service at work yesterday and came home enthusing about Bariatric Surgery, which I promptly looked up online and printed out a small book for her on the subject at her request.

The daughter came home with a progress report the other day.
She's blazing along in all subjects except Language Arts (what a term!) and Math. She got four "100s", in P.E., Art, Band, and lunch...
Ha! No, I forget the fourth, but it was... Geography? Social Studies? Something like that.

Unfortunately, I took her cookies, instead of adding to them.
I told her that math and language arts would help her later on, but getting a 100 in P.E., which basically requires you remain awake and not fall down, is not a sign of success.

Once again, I get no support from the unit, who believes that the child is doing the best that she can and all we can do is hope for the best. The unit is working on a regular basis for a new temporary service, which has been telling her that some of their clients specifically request her. They've been telling her that she is wasting herself as an LVN (Licensed Vocational Nurse) and that she should go back to school to become an RN (Registered Nurse)... At 49?
Actually, she wants to get out of nursing altogether.
The management are getting to her.

I don't believe that the unit is applying the same criteria to the child as she is to herself.
It is a sad thing, in some ways, that parents cannot allow their children to be trained in their trades, at least enough that they can see if they like it.
Something is missing when jobs regard children as nuisances that might reduce productivity.
Which makes you wonder what kind of parents the managers are...

They gave the wife some meds for the UTI.
She seems better and she was proudly displaying the color of her wee to the family last night. It is bright orange.

Bright orange? Probably needs to drink more water.

My work let me off early two days a week to collect son from school. It's an unofficial arrangement and I make up the hours during the rest of the week, but it's quite an enlightened thing to do.

What's Band? Music? What instrument does she play?

Don't you believe that she is doing her best then?

I'm sure your other half must be pleased that she is being specifically requested. It shows that she is being appreciated. What in particular do the patients like about her?

We went to a fair a little earlier. Offspring should have gone to both Saturday club and swimming lesson today, but he's got a poorly tummy. Keeps saying he feels fine, but the evidence is otherwise.

We also missed going to a Hindu Temple, which I am assured was a wonderful place with a really sacred feel to it. Apparently, it's the biggest one in the UK if not in Europe and has tons of marble from Italy carved in India, plus a rather tacky shop (reminiscent of 'oggetti religiosi' - Catholic souvenir shops selling stuff.

I think I saw that temple on "Teletubbies" Again, again!

It's the medicine that gives the color.

The daughter plays the trombone. We've been renting, but the pastor is selling us his old one for 50.00.

I think it is not the patients but the nursing homes that like the businesslike way in which the spousal unit sweeps into the place and gets to work.

With regard to the daughter's education, I think that what her teachers expect out of her is what matters to her most.

The fact that she is getting along without too much noise from the teachers is enough for her.

I'm going to have to apply some thought to this over the summer.
I'm going to introduce the child to the joys of lawn mowing.
She'd already expressed an interest in gardening. Dug up a small patch in the back yard to plant some watermelon seedlings in, but hse hasn't gotten it properly turned.
The unit's got some plants she wants to torture by introducing them to the yard and she gets the shovel next.

I'm not really sure what the child can or can't do.
I guess I'm going to have to find out.

I did a qualification in teaching a while back and some of the stuff I learned there was fascinating. There were two things I particularly liked. The first was some research I did (well truth to tell, I did a literature search then put together an essay) on gender stereotyping. It was fascinating. Some student teachers (two groups) were given student profiles, one entitled John Smith and one Jane Smith. The group with John Smith said he has a promising career ahead of him, needed a bit of help in a couple of areas, should go to University etc. etc. The group given Jane Smith, with the same profile said that she had definite limitations, should become a secretary and should not be encouraged to go into further education.

I did a presentation to the group and when I finished, you could have heard a pin drop. One teacher (a metalwork teacher) said he would definitely change his teaching methods/approach as a result of it. A result, I thought!

The other interesting one was some research, done with teachers. They were given false information about students. They were told that the bright students were the failing ones and vice versa. So what happened in the term? The now 'bright' students did very well and the now 'failing' students didn't do so well. The student performed up to the teachers expectations of them.

What do the teachers expect of your daughter? What do you?

Another, and rather sadder thing I found during my research was some interviews done with pupils. It concerned how quickly the teachers learned their names. The teachers got to know the bright boys first, then the bright girls, then the other boys, and the quiet girls came last. When asked how they felt, the quiet girls said stuff like 'Well, we're just like wallpaper really'. They were undervalued because they were quiet and it showed in their feelings about themselves.

I have no way of knowing what my child's situation in the school is without being intrusive...you know, the old thing about the observer changing the observee...
On the other hand, beyond a bit of modesty, I don't think children are
entitled to "privacy"...

I have tried to get involved with those of her teachers who care...
but we don't talk often and I have this face recognition problem...
all of them have grey hair and glasses and are on the skinny side...
so, unless I see their nametags, I get mixed up. Which they see as a kind of ... strangeness. And there are so many more normal parents to deal with who remember their names...

The daughter is a loner. She has no obvious friends. She reads when she's not bothered. She has no social skills. She dresses her own way and she finds teenage girls to be silly and stupid. They make fun of her when she tries to deal with things on a factual basis, rather than that obnoxious thing that I hate also, the "that's just your opinion" remark, when faced with facts, rather than blather.

She suffers from the fact that while her mother has a wonderful voice, she can hardly carry a tune in a bucket. Her trombone lessons have made her more conscious of tone and pitch, but... I, on the other hand, can sing with direction, but it takes a bit for me to find the notch in my ear that allows me to duplicate the proper notes.
I hear a bit more in the sound spectrum, so I sometimes duplicate the harmonics of a recording.

I expect my child to do her best. I expect another growth spurt, soon, so she may be as tall as me next year. Last thing we need on top of the rest of this dreck is awkwardness.
I can't find out what her best is if we're always playing safe.
Possibly it's the Army speaking, but sometimes you have to stress test somebody to see where the seams are, so you know when you can depend on them.

Her idiot school is giving her girly P.E. And very little of it.
She's strong. I've made sure of that. She can walk miles in the summer sun without falling out. She can run. Not fast, but consistently.

I don't particularly trust teachers, per se, I think of them a little like lawyers. We'll be here, no matter who comes or goes.

It does matter having teachers you can trust. Is there one? Does she have a teacher she likes above the others? Maybe you could make an appointment with that one to discuss what would help her?

I know from personal experience that school is not always the happiest time of your life. I was teased and bullied at school for a lot of the time because I was fairly serious and grew up at a faster rate that a lot of the girls. The boys I didn't have any trouble with.

It all evened out by the time I got to the 6th Form (what you would probably call years 11 and 12). I quite liked school and the teachers, but I found mixing with the girls difficult. I dealt with it by having friends from older years. Most of my friends were two years older than me.

I suspect I had problems because I hadn't been taught how to deal with negative feelings in others. My mother would go out of the way for there not to be 'an atmosphere'. That's how she dealt with having a violent father.

This meant that I've had to learn how to deal with negative feelings in others (eg stand up for myself) at a much later stage (and I'm still learning).

I think she needs lots of encouragement, as if you're constantly told that you're awkward, slow or stupid, that's what you tend to become. If she's going through puberty and pre=teenagerhood, she'll have hormones, which will mean it's more difficult for her to hear what you're saying. It probably takes time and effort and patience.

I'm hoping I can find a way to get through to her this summer.
I've got a little bit more of an idea why this family's minds work the way they do, now.

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