July 27, 2009: how to use English good

I've seen various forms of these rules, which totally crack me up. The scary part for me is how many people don't even get the joke! Anyway, here's one list, which I found while trying to figure out where the list originated. This was the best explanation, in my opinion, and below is a partial list. Enjoy!

Make sure each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.

Just between you and I, the case of pronoun is important.

Watch out for irregular verbs which have crope into English.

Verbs has to agree in number with their subjects.

Don't use no double negatives.

Being bad grammar, a writer should not use dangling modifiers.

Join clauses good like a conjunction should.

A writer must be not shift your point of view.

About sentence fragments.

Don't use run-on sentences you got to punctuate them.

In letters essays and reports use commas to separate items in series.

Don't use commas, which are not necessary.

Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.

Its important to use apostrophes right in everybodys writing.

Don't abbrev.

Check to see if you any words out.

In the case of a report, check to see that jargonwise, it's A-OK.

As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong.

About repetition, the repetition of a word might be real effective repetition - take, for instance the repetition of Abraham Lincoln.

In my opinion, I think that an author when he is writing should definitely not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does not really need in order to put his message across.

Use parallel construction not only to be concise but also clarify.

It behooves us all to avoid archaic expressions.

Mixed metaphors are a pain in the neck and ought to be weeded out.

Consult the dictionery to avoid mispelings.

To ignorantly split an infinitive is a practice to religiously avoid.

Last but not least, lay off cliches.

July 9, 2009: My beach history

Okay, so I was born in Southern California, in a place called Oceanside, which is even actually right by the ocean, and we apparently went to the beach on a regular basis. But I don't remember it at all, and we moved north when I was 3 1/2 or 4. The first time I actually remember being to the beach was when I was 12--we went to Disneyland and camped near the beach, and I loved it. As I recall, it was all stones--no annoying sand. The next time I remember was when I was 18, went to Disneyland again (this time with my high school graduating class), and I hated it, but I don't think that had to do with the beach itself, even though it was sandy, but with the fact that I did NOT want to be on that trip and had a bad attitude about it the whole time. I'm sure I'd been to the beach other times during my childhood, but I honestly don't remember them. Mom? Sibs? Do any of you read my blog?

When I was 18 I went to Mexico for a year, lived six hours from the coast, and went with the youth group to the beach over a weekend, which also happened to be my birthday. Except for getting sunburned after sitting in the back of a pickup truck for six hours, and the campfire where they all sang happy birthday to me and each and every person gave me a hug (I love Latin America!), I don't remember much from that time, either. Is it possible I didn't even go in the water?

I've also been to the beach several times in Costa Rica: once with the group of exchange students when I was there the first time in 1988, once with my host brother and some of his friends (I think in 1993, but not sure), and once with most of the family two years ago. We did have a wonderful time, but the sand was all over the place and irritating. Having the outdoor shower in the house where we stayed was very helpful.

During my 17 1/2 years in Germany we made several day-trips (three-hour drive each way) to the beach in the Netherlands, but the last time was five years ago, and I'd also been to the Baltic Sea a couple of times, the last time 11 years ago.

I shouldn't forget that last year we lived in Muizenberg, South Africa, for four months, literally a five-minute walk from the beach...and I went to the beach a total of three times.

Oh yes, and we spent a couple of days at the beach in Thailand three years ago. I didn't want to be there (at the beach, that is--I loved the eight weeks in Thailand that we spent with the PEOPLE), hating being surrounded by tourists and sand. I annoyed my family and my friends by singing Sandra Boynton's wonderful song, "Tropical Sand." Here's my favorite line from the first verse:

You like the tropical sun and the tropical sea, But hey, mon, Alaska sounds good to me.

Then the brilliant chorus:

I got de sand in my toes and de sand in my nose,

de sand in my ears and de sand in my clothes.

I got de sand in my hair and de sand in my face.

I think I got de sand most everyplace.

And we now live in Cyprus, where the furthest distance from the beach isn't very far, and we live in Larnaca, right on the coast. Without children I could probably walk to the beach in 20 minutes, we can certainly drive there in less than five minutes (parking and getting into and out of the car take longer than the drive), but I DON'T LIKE SAND. People had been telling me since January that we'd be going to the beach regularly once it got hot, and I was skeptical. I love being in the water, but I don't like sand, and I don't like the sun much, either. When my brother visited at the end of March we did go to the beach for an hour, but it was cold (which was nice) and only three of the children even went into the water. Wind kept blowing sand in my face and I sang my favorite beach song again. In the middle of May a friend took us sailing, and the beach there was all stones, which I liked very much, but the children missed sand.

So...by the end of May, my husband had found the perfect beach for us, in Pervolia, about 15 minutes away. Once I've gone to all the hassle of getting everyone and all the stuff into the car, I really don't care if we drive 15 minutes instead of five, especially for this perfect beach. It has stones where our stuff all stays sand-free, and right at the water it has sand for the children to play in. It stays shallow for a very long way, so I'm not paranoid about the children, and the very best part: when we go around 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon, we have SHADE--even in the water! And there are hardly any people there, and most of the people we've seen are Cypriots, not tourists. I've even had a couple of good exchanges with non-English-speaking Cypriots, and they're very hard to find. So for the last five weeks or so we have been to the beach three or four times every week, and we've been loving it.

Yesterday, however, we couldn't go to "our" beach, because we had a homeschool families get-together at the beach here in Larnaca, which is all sand. We did find a little bit of shade from the lifeguard station, but there was sand in everything and on everything, and there were people all over. I did enjoy the part where I was in the water, and I very much enjoyed having the time with the other parents, but I'm looking forward to going to Pervolia tonight. I'm going to have to get used to sand, though, too, as the homeschoolers want to meet at the beach every week, and our housegroup will be meeting at the beach every other week throughout the summer, starting tomorrow. And yesterday I promised my husband that I would NOT sing the best beach song that was ever written, so I didn't. And that's the point of this post--getting to sing the song! :-)

You like to be playing in the sun when it's hot.

I wish I could find me some shade where it's not.

You tell me the islands are very, very pretty,

but me, I find them...a little too gritty.

Any sand-coping strategies out there?

June 15, 2009: Do you like homeschooling?

First, a semantics disclaimer: the word "homeschooling" for me does not say anything about our "homeschooling style", just that our children don't attend traditional school, public or private! We're fairly relaxed, which translates to wildy disorganized in the eyes of the highly structured, yet far too structured in the eyes of the true "free-learners." I can live with that. :-) Anyway, as I was saying...

Last week, with the whole family in the car, and for no particular reason, I asked my oldest daughter (Marie, 11 years and 9 months old) if she likes being homeschooled. She said, "Umm...yeah, I guess so." I asked why, and she said because she hates getting up early. (She went to public school for six months in third grade, nearly four years ago, and yes, she hated getting up every single school day of those six months.) I asked if she would want to go to school if she could start at, say, at 10:00, and she said maybe. Then I told her that it's really okay to say what she thinks, that I wasn't trying to get her to answer what she might think I would like to hear, but that I really wanted to know. So she went on to say that at school she really liked art class and misses that, and she enjoyed recess and playing with the other children, and the rest was okay except for P.E. We talked about it a little longer and she admitted she likes math at home better (that surprised me--at the time, she seemed quite happy with the ridiculously easy busywork, not bothered in the slightest by not being challenged), and she likes all the reading we do, and she likes having lots of time to read on her own. It came down to that if she could do "flexi-schooling", which I recently read about in a book called "Free-range Education", she would probably like that very much, but that if that's not an option, homeschooling is better than going to school, although kind of in a "lesser of two evils" type of way. Not very encouaraging, really, but a good chat.

Then I turned to my 10-year-old son, Jacob, and asked him the same question. From him came the enthusiastic, "YES!! Of course!" I asked why, and he said, "Because I can get up when I want to and read what I want to and learn what I want to and however I want to and wherever I want to and I can think what I want to and say what I want to and nobody teases me and I can play with the friends I want to play with and do the things I want to do." I purposely didn't put any punctuation in there, because he definitely didn't use any while speaking! We talked a bit more, but there wasn't much more to say. From my point of view, he totally "gets" why we're homeschooling. (He attended first grade for six months, at the same time Marie was in third grade.)

Just to finish off, I asked my nearly-seven-year-old son, Lukas, if he likes being homeschooled, and the little ham said, "Yes, because I get to spend more time with my mother." As a friend of mine wrote on her blog about her son a few weeks ago, he would probably make a great politician, but we have higher hopes for him. I did talk a bit more with Lukas, but as he's never been to school, he doesn't have anything to compare it to, and it boiled down to the fact that he's quite happy with his life.

Then Katie (will be four next month) said, "Mommy, you didn't ask me!" so I said, "Okay, Katie, do you like being homeschooled?" She put on her silly little "I'm-pretending-to-be-shy-because-so-many-people-think-that's-cute" face and said, "Yes." I dutifully continued with, "Why do you like it?" and she said, "Because I get to do math!" When Lukas finished Earlybird 2B several months ago, Katie took over his book, constantly asking me to do it with her. I finally got her her own book, Earlybird 1A, a few weeks ago, which was a bit silly, because she finished half of the book in about three sittings. Whatever.

Just to be silly, I then turned to Helen, nine months old, and said, "So, Helen, do you want to be homeschooled, too?" and Marie responded extremely emphatically, "Yes, definitely!" I was rather surprised, after her own rather wishy-washy response, and asked why she was so sure that Helen would like being homeschooled. Marie's response, "Because Helen has strong opinions." Very interesting. I asked then if one can't have strong opinions at school, and Marie got kind of quiet again and finally said, "Well, yes, but you can't do anything about them. You're sort of supposed to think the same things the other kids think, and like the same things and have the same things, and you're not really supposed to like math or like the teachers or anything like that." I asked her if she didn't have any strong opinions herself, and she said she does now, and wouldn't let people change them anyway, but that would be one reason she wouldn't want to go to school ALL the time, because it would be too exhausting keeping her own opinions.

Insightful, I thought, and rather more encouraging than the first conversation with Marie! Overall, my children like homeschooling. :-)

April 29, 2009: Accidents etc.

Just a quick list of what we've had since arriving in Cyprus January 14th this year:

January 15th--I broke a filling, had it replaced. Now I know a dentist who speaks very little English.

A week later--Jörn had a crown come off, had it glued back on. He went to a different dentist, who speaks very good English.

Middle of March--Lukas cut his thumb with a pocketknife, we opted not to bother with stiches, but he'll have a nice scar.

Later the same day--Jacob ran through a (closed) sliding glass door, one big cut on his knee, two more smaller ones on his leg, we opted not to bother with stiches, but he'll have a nice scar.

End of March--Jacob had an ear infection, now we know an English-speaking GP.

A week later--Katie had a fever and ear pain for two days, on Katie's second day of fever, Helen screamed for two hours, then had a fever in the night. Katie was fine, Helen had an ear infection, now we know an English-speaking pediatrician.

Two weeks ago--someone kicked a soccer ball into the side of our car, denting the front fender so that the driver's door wouldn't open. A neighbor straightened it, we haven't done anything else about it.

A week and a half ago--I let chapped lips get out of control and had a hugely swollen and infected lip that spread to lymph nodes, but it got better after about four days. The pharmacist is getting to know us quite well.

Last week--Jacob dropped something in the bathroom sink and it (the sink/washbasin) broke. It was replaced yesterday. Now we know a nice English-speaking plumber.

Last night--Katie was running down the hall and tripped and fell. She has a swollen gum, a loose tooth, and a fat lip.

This afternoon--Lukas was climbing up the side of the veranda and he and the concrete slab on top of the brick planters that make up the walls of the veranda crashed to the concrete ground. Now we know where the hospital is and Lukas has had his first x-ray, but his ankle is thankfully only sprained, not broken. I'm supposed to keep a six-year-old boy still and with his foot up for five days.

Cost so far: 10 Euro deductible (excess) for Jörn's dentist, 50 Euros for replacing the sliding door, and that only because we forgot to ask for a receipt, we were so shocked at it being done within two hours.

German health insurance and liability insurance rock!

April 21, 2009: Katie's speckled frog and a cockroach

Katie came to me very excited this morning, because she had found a toy frog and wants to take it to playgroup next week for a reverse-counting song we sing about frogs: "Five Little Speckled Frogs."

Five little speckled frogs sat on a speckled log,

Eating some most delicious grubs, yum yum!

One jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool,

So there were four green speckled frogs. Hum hum.

So she played with the frog for awhile, singing some version or another of this song, but then decided the frog needed speckles, as it was only plain green. After a long family discussion about the frog's ownership, it was determined that it was Jacob's frog, but he never denies his little sister anything he can grant her, so he carefully speckled the frog with a permanent marker. Delighted, Katie continued to play and sing, and this was her latest version of the song, fitting the melody perfectly, with the text as near as I can remember it:

One little speckled frog sat on a lilypad

Eating some yummy yummy bugs, yum yum!

It jumped into the pond to go-o swimming,

And wa-as very, very dead. Oh no!



Her explanation was that as it landed on its back (she'd of course tossed it up in the air to land in the "pond"), it was dead like the cockroach we found in the shower this morning. Which reminded us that we'd found a dead cockoach in the shower this morning and hadn't done anything about it, so went to look at it to think some more about it, and discovered that it WASN'T dead, after all!! It was on its back, but wiggling its legs. We put a yogurt pot over it while we decide what to do next. Yuck.

April 12, 2009: Snail slalom

I've been wanting to write a blog post with this title for a week! Several times since we moved into this house, I've managed to wake up and GET up before Katie did, and have gone for a walk down by the salt lake. Last week when I did that, there were snails EVERYWHERE. Not wanting to step on them (in all honesty, not so much because of caring about snails, but because of not wanting yucky squished snail on my sandals...), I spent most of the time watching carefully where I was walking, which involved a lot of back-and-forth, or slow motion swerving. Snail slalom. Almost all of the snails were crossing the path from south to north, except for in one short section where they were crossing north to south. Very weird.

I went for another walk the day before yesterday and played snail slalom again, but there weren't quite as many, so I got to enjoy the scenery a bit more. I also discovered that we're pretty much right in the middle of the four-kilometer-long path--it took me 21 minutes to walk to one end of it, and 23 minutes to walk to the other end. Since it's about half a kilometer down to the path, that's a five-kilometer walk if I go to one end only and back home. Not very far, but a first step towards my goal of running a marathon before I'm 58. I take Helen with me in the sling, so I can't jog even if I could jog, which I can't.

April 12, 2009: sunrise and Son-rise

When I played snail slalom the day before yesterday, I didn't wear socks with my sandals and got blisters on both big toes and on one heel. I feel like such a wimp. I would have liked to go down to the salt lake this morning to watch the sunrise, but I pretended that the fact that my favorite sling is in the laundry was the reason I didn't, not my limping.

So...this morning I actually set the alarm, for 4:55, and went up on the roof, instead. The sunrise is officially around 6:30 a.m., but it's light long before that, and the part I like best is watching it get light. I got Helen back to sleep and left her in bed with Papa and went up at 5:15, just in time. Because of the lights from the airport, the streetlamps, and the brightness of the moon, I'm not sure if there was any light from the sun or not yet--east didn't really look any different from any other direction. By 5:30, it was definitely dawning, and the streetlights went off at about 5:45. Despite the telephone lines and the buildings and the lack of mountains, I enjoyed it very much.

Having celebrated the Son-Rise by myself on the roof, I came back downstairs at about 6:15, in a much better mood than I'd been in yesterday, ready to continue celebrating the Resurrection with my family. I made Easter bread, using Greek yogurt instead of Quark, guessing at the amount of baking powder because my recipe said "a packet of baking powder", adding a lot more flour than the recipe said to get the right consistancy, and leaving it in the oven for about twice as long as the recipe said, and it still turned out fine! While it was in the oven I put eggs on to boil and went outside to take down laundry and completely forgot about the eggs. 10 of the 12 were cracked, but I dyed all of them anyway, and set the table with a miniature chocolate egg on each plate. Everyone liked the bread and the eggs and the children were glad that we had a treat after all, after we'd cancelled the egg-dying yesterday due to the enormous gap between parental expectations and children's behavior.

After breakfast the children even made butterflies and eggs with coffee filters, paper towels, and the left-over egg dye. I felt very domestic and organized. That does happen, once every couple of years or so, but it wears off quickly.

At 10:00 we went to the worship service of a church we've sort of kind of decided that we might mostly go to semi-regularly, and then afterwards went to a multi-lingual house church for lunch and fellowship (and learning Greek!), and didn't get home until nearly 6:00 p.m. And now it's 8:00 and I'd actually like to be getting the children ready for bed, but we didn't eat lunch until nearly 3:00 and haven't even had dinner yet, and now a friend is here playing Ligretto with the children, so I'm at the computer. I'm not sure what we're doing next Sunday, which is when the Greek Orthodox celebrate Easter.

Okay, the friend is going to continue playing Ligretto with the children, and Jörn (and Helen) and I are going to walk to the bakery ALL BY OURSELVES and buy bread! Yay!