Speaking of books...

I got Adi her first chapter book this week. She wanted "a book with lots of words, and no pictures, and I'll use my imagination for the pictures."

What we found were cute books about princesses with about 70-80 pages each - plenty for a new-ish reader - and a few pictures per chapter. I figured that turning her to something other than princesses, once she'd seen them, might be a lost cause, but at least I was able to steer her to one about a "daring princess" instead of the more vapid-looking ones.

And then, today, as the kids played shove-each-other-off-high-surfaces at the local play area, I sat down to skim through it before she started reading.

The book starts innocently enough. In Chapter 1, the king announces that his daughter, not his step-son, will be his heir.

Then in Chapter 2, the stepmother retires to her bedroom, draws a red star on the floor, stabs herself, smatters her blood into the center of the star, and recites a prayer to summon "Nur, the Lord of Darkness and Prince of Demons" to help her kill the princess. This works, but the devil is annoyed that she didn't just handle it herself and sends a demon in his place.

So. Yeah.

I realize that many popular kids' books and stories have some very dark parts to them, and that the darkness is part of what makes them so good (eg. Mulan, the Little Mermaid and the Lion King all had murders, none of their terrible sequels did). But do the 5-9 year olds this book appears to be written for really need the full text of the prayer to summon the devil? Do we really need to have Nur (portrayed in one illustration as a creature made of red flame in half-goat, half-human form) thank the stepmother for "giving me the life of Queen Matilda" (the princess' mother - we learn in Chapter 2 that the stepmother murdered her with poison)?

So at this point I need either a spell to make Adi's new book disappear without her noticing and crying her eyes out about it, or a way to convince her that Chapter 2 has always been missing, and in fact most modern books skip straight from Chapter 1 to Chapter 3 - it's just one of those things.

Any ideas?

and one more

When I Get Bigger (biography)

In this book, a little... critter... talks about what he'd like to do when he gets bigger.

My review: Most children's books are timeless. Stories like Cinderella and Snow White have been around for various forms for hundreds of years. Which is weird, since they are so obviously completely messed up. Why are generation after generation of parents telling their kids the story about the little girl whose stepmother took a hit out on her?

Anyway. This story is not timeless. In fact, if you're older than 26 or so you're virtually guaranteed to feel old and out of touch as you tell it. "'When I get bigger, I'll have a real leather football, my own radio, and a pair of super-pro roller skates'... what's that?... Oh. Umm... those are things that kids Mommy's age used to like to play with .... Yes. Yes it was a long time ago."

("'I'll spend my allowance on anything I want'... That's right, sweetie, 'allowance' is another thing people used to do when Mommy was a little girl.")

If you're 26 or younger, you may just be confused.

I would suggest an updated version, but I can only imagine how out of touch that would make me feel... "'When I get bigger, I'll have my own Twitter account, and post pictures of myself wearing whatever I want.'"
*shudder*

My rating:  2 of 5 stars. Stop making me feel old, Little Critter.

*****

I am also reading a new story, called Bobok. I'm making vague attempts to read the Russian before giving up and looking at the English. So far it seems to be the most boring zombie story ever, but I'm still not even halfway through, so we'll see how it turns out.

Book Reviews continued

Thanks to Hanukah break I've been too busy to clean the house or do math homework. But fortunately, I haven't been too busy to eat several hundred latkas, write Curious George fanfiction (more on that later) and read new books, which I'll review here for your convenience.

A Feast for Crows (Fantasy)

Book four of the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Yes, I read book four almost immediately after finishing complaining about book three. I'm like that.

A lot of people like this book less than the others, because it has a bit less action and fewer plot twists (only a few dozen murders, compared to the usual one per page or so). But I loved it. It took the books from an amazingly detailed fantasy series to an insanely detailed fantasy series.

I can see why people are comparing George Martin to Tolkien. Tolkien invented languages for his books; the history and religions of Martin's imaginary world could be the subject of several college courses.

There is one fairly major downside, though, at least for me. Martin's ability to keep track of his roughly 30,000 characters surpasses my own, so new plot points not infrequently go over my head. The book will be following Asha (one of the several dozen characters followed in at least one chapter) and suddenly Tristifer says something important, and instead of thinking, "Woah! What a crazy plot development!" I'm thinking, "Wait, who's Tristifer?"

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Angelina’s Birthday (Fiction)

A plot summary, for those of you who aren't familiar with this literary masterpiece: Angelina is messing around and breaks her bike. Her parents suggest she earn money to buy a new one. Angelina and her friend Alice work hard, but don’t earn enough money for the bike she wants. In the end, her family surprises her by buying her a new bike for her birthday.

My review: This book is nicely paced, well illustrated, and teaches children a valuable lesson about hard work. Namely, that hard work isn’t nearly as important as your ability to dupe people into buying you things by looking cute and pitiful.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Ten Apples Up on Top (Philosophy) 

Plot: A lion, tiger, and dog (?) compete to see who can balance the most apples on their head. For whatever reason, this involves breaking and entering. When they are discovered the entire town turns out to chase them away, only to run into an apple cart. There is a surprise ending.

My review: This is a nice, gentle way to introduce young children to Objectivist philosophy. Competition spurs excellence among the talented, while the non-talented seek only to tear down the "apple carriers'" success, all on a level even a preschooler can understand.

This could be an alternative to Randian classics for adults, as well. Not only is the entire book shorter than any single sentence in Atlas Shrugged, making it something you might actually read and not just Google, but the surprise ending (*spoilers* - all of the villagers end up with apples perfectly balanced on their heads and decide to join the apple-balancing fun) is far more realistic than that whole thing about geniuses abandoning society in favor of their own private paradise (because if there's anything rich businessmen dream of, it's escaping from all those younger, poorer, far more attractive female hangers-on and going off to live independently with their overwhelmingly male associates).

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Pride and Prejudice (Awesomeness)

Plot: It’s semi-complicated. Luckily, it was made into about a kajillion movies, so you can just look it up on IMDb.

I love this book. I love it from the first chapter, where we meet a beautiful, demure, kind-hearted young woman – who isn’t the main character. It’s her less attractive, overly critical sister who’s the main character. 

I don't know why this book seems to be consistently described as a romance. The breakdown is more like this:

15%: Hmm, Mr. Darcy may not be so bad after all.

2%: England being pretty

3%: England being all old-fashioned

80%: Oh dear lord, I'm surrounded by idiots.

It's less of a standard romance and more of a "if The Catcher in the Rye and a Katherine Heigl movie had a baby and it grew up reading the thesaurus, it might look something like this."

It's a fun read if you feel like you're surrounded by morons. It was fun for me even though I suspect I may sometimes be one of the morons.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

If You See a Cow (Language Instruction)

Plot: If you see a cow, say “mooo.” If you see a sheep, say “baaaa.” Etc.

This book gets credit for teaching children about our diverse world and the importance of learning new phrases in order to greet new friends in their own language.

However, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that my attempts to speak Cow were wildly unsuccessful. I don't know if my pronunciation was off, or if "Moooo" doesn't translate the way the authors think it does, but the cows seemed more hostile than happy to hear a human speaking their language.

Saying "Cockadoodledoo" to the chickens produced similar results. From their reaction it seemed that perhaps chickens view this word as appropriate only when it is used by cultural "insiders," but find it offensive when used by Homo Sapiens.

It's a good concept, but ultimately this book needs a major overhaul. An audio guide would be a good start.

My rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars.

******

My Curious George fanfiction in which I reimagined the mysterious Man in the Yellow Hat as a cold-blooded killer-for-hire using his monkey as a cover and occasional partner in crime was, unfortunately, not a critical success. Some (like my darling stistar) even found it inappropriate.

I can only hope they will feel more kindly toward my upcoming Angelina Ballerina fanfiction, in which the real reason for Angelina's ballet lessons was to allow the nymphomaniac Mrs. Mousling the opportunity to pursue her illicit affairs.

Potato (aka Learning to Speak Child)

*****
Also, I recently had a child asking me where "the thing that's the breaking thing" was.
The thing that breaks things?
Yes.
You mean like a hammer? Something like that?
No.
Scissors? A knife?
No, the breaking thing.

So what did she mean?
....
Corn on the cob.

I get 10 SuperMommy bonus points for getting it right within two minutes.

Sleepover

Adi is having her first sleepover tonight.

The news that she would be sleeping at a friend's house was met with mixed reactions.

It was hard for N to part from her sister/best friend/worship object. My attempts to console her were fruitless. Fortunately, she thought of something to cheer herself up during bathtime.

Things went much better after that. The only other snafu came when N and D were "falling asleep" (rather loudly and bouncing-ly) together.

 I trust regular readers have a sense of who's who in the above picture.

When I got the offending party off, she offered up the following excuse:

Now to wait until morning and see how things went with Adi.

SNAN and Birthdays

In honor of SNAN's birthday, another round of SNAN and ALIRSNAN (normally this is as close as SNAN would come to getting a present from me, but since she's going to actually come see me in person, I'll make her a cake too. SNAN, you like double-chocolate mocha cake as much as I do, right? If not, I'll live).

SNAN and ALIRSNAN: the Birthday Edition

SNAN is always up-front about her age. What's there to hide?

ALIRSNAN finds honesty difficult - for mental reasons.

People are often surprised that SNAN has done so much at such a young age.

People are surprised by ALIRSNAN's age, too.

SNAN likes to think about the year that passed, and her goals for the upcoming one.

ALIRSNAN also makes birthday resolutions.

SNAN doesn't make a huge deal out of her birthday. She goes about her daily life, but with extra well-wishes.

ALIRSNAN is a big believer in birthdays being a special occasion - when it's her turn.

But ultimately, for both SNAN and ALIRSNAN, birthdays are about being in touch with family.

Calm

I was remarkably calm today.

I managed to stay calm through my desperate attempts to complete even half of my math studying for the week.

I managed to stay calm through a screaming contest between two three-year-olds (the second being a friend who's basically Boy Dani).

I managed to stay calm through seven kids turning my bedroom into a massive fort (no picture available. I'd rather not remember it long enough to draw it.).

Then I unleashed a day's worth of frustration at some hapless pancakes.

Oh well.

********

Here's a nice story: http://www.israelhayom.co.il/site/newsletter_article.php?id=24200&hp=1&newsletter=04.12.2012

Summary for English speakers: Police were called to a house in Migdal Haemek because of complaints about garbage all over the yard. When they got there, they realized the owners of the house were a handicapped couple and had left the garbage outside because they couldn't move it alone. So instead of giving them a ticket, they called in more police, to help them move the garbage themselves (a process which took over two hours).

I thought it was sweet, and a nice counter-balance to the stories I've posted about human stupidity (although both of the previous stories I posted do have human caring, too, come to think of it).

War souvenir

I spent my brains on math today, but I still have a story to share. Fortunately, it's not my story.

But first, a quick quiz. What's the most appropriate way to remember a brief but traumatic period of shelling in your home city?

a. A new-found appreciation for life.
b. Gratitude that you and your loved ones were spared.
c. An active rocket head in your living room.

If you went with c, you'll find you have something in common with the guy in the story told here:
http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/247760

For English speakers, the basics:

Guy lives through war, guy finds rocket head containing several kilograms of explosives, guy decides best use of rocket head is to be kept in his living room as a combination souvenir/toy for his young children (yes, really).

Ultimately, guy is robbed of a richly deserved Darwin Award by a neighbor who happens to be a police sapper who overhears someone mentioning his "souvenir" during a basketball game.

Police demolish rocket; police are forced to issue the most superfluous warning to the public since they started putting nut allergy alerts on peanut butter.

Since the star of our story has kids, he's probably married. Too bad, he might have been a good match for cockroach lady. 

This post contains sexism. And math.

I told you about Russian. But unfortunately, for all of its tongue-twisting words and incomprehensible grammar (I may have complained about this already, but three genders, Russian? Really?) Russian is not the reason my brain's been taking a pounding recently.

You see, I'm also in what my university jokingly refers to as Calculus. I'm not sure why it refers to this as Calculus, because any connection between this and what, in my experience, is generally called calculus is purely coincidental.

The difference, for those math-y enough to care:
Real Calculus Step 1: Learn about limits as tangent lines.
"Calculus" Step 1: Learn about limits in terms of epsilon and delta.
RC 2: Learn about derivatives.
"Calculus" 2: Learn about limits in terms of epsilon and delta.
RC 3: Use derivatives to figure out minimums and maximums.
"Calculus" 3: Learn about minimums and maximums in terms of limits in terms of epsilon and delta.

Etc.

Some relevant background: I don't like to prove things. It's kind of offensive, for one thing. Hello, I said it, and I'm awesome - why is that not enough for you?

Secondly, it's never enough that it makes sense, you have to say everything in math-speak. "You can tell it goes to infinity because when x gets close to the limit the numbers get really big. Like, super big" <-- this will earn you a -50 on any homework assignment.

This "calculus" course is just proving things (or attempting to, anyway). Over, and over, and over. It's like the brain equivalent of someone poking you really hard until you say "uncle" (and then prove it for any real epsilon greater than zero, by finding that for any such epsilon there exists a delta such that aaaaaahhhhhhhhh).

I see this semester ending one of three ways:

********

"But where is the sexism, Alirsnan?" none of you are thinking right now. "You promised us sexism!"

My recent math experiences have led me to formulate a new theory about why there are relatively few women in math and computer science (it's a sexist theory, of course - it would almost have to be). It goes as follows:

1. Math and computer science people are often stereotyped as nerds with poor social skills.

2. This is, shall we say, not always completely inaccurate (present company excluded! unless your social skills are so bad that you didn't realize that what I'm saying could be construed as an insult).

3. After years of intense math training (I'll refer to only math from here on out, but comp sci is included), math TAs forget that there existed a time that they didn't intuitively understand this stuff.

4. Based on points 2 and 3, we can guess that math TAs are somewhat less sympathetic than others when it comes to helping students who are struggling (my small-scale "research" bears this out). As in, raise some outlandish theory in sociology class and the teacher will say, "Hmmm. That's very interesting. I don't think there have been any studies indicating that, but it's an interesting idea," mix up theory 111.3 and theory 111.4 in calculus class and the teacher will look at you like he's afraid that breathing the same air as you might be making him dumber.

5. Women tend to internalize bad feelings, men tend to externalize them. As in, women tend to think, "I got it wrong. This is so embarrassing. I'm so bad at math. I don't know why I thought this was a good idea." Men tend to think, "Huh. This TA is a jerk. I was probably right, too. He just doesn't know what he's talking about."

6. The result of 4 and 5: women leave hard math classes with snobby TAs feeling stupid, men leave feeling the TAs are stupid - and by the second year, you get a significant gender imbalance.

In other words, if I, as a woman, successfully complete a math degree, a large chunk of the credit will be due not to my (non existent) study skills or (suspiciously difficult to prove) superior intellect, but rather, to my arrogance. See, mom and dad, it's a good thing that I know I'm always right about everything.

Now if someone can just prove this theory for any epsilon greater than zero, we'll be all set.

Progress

Remember a few months ago, when I mentioned my limited Russian skills?

A reminder: this is how it used to sound to me when people talked to me in Russian.

I am pleased to announce that after months of hard work and (semi) daily flashcard review, I can now not only understand some of what people say to me, but even respond! It goes something like this:

There may be some room for improvement.

But still - progress!

I also read Goldilocks and the Three Bears in Russian. I hate to be a language snob, but I have to say, the story is much better in Russian.

For one thing, the bears have names, and their relationship to each other is never quite clarified, which automatically makes it more interesting. They could be single roommates, hanging out and having fun in the bear equivalent of the big city. Or in some weird love triangle. Who knows.

Also open to interpretation is the substance they had cooling in their bowls when Goldilocks traipsed in. I looked up the word in multiple online dictionaries with no luck. Now I don't even want to know anymore, because the possibilities beyond "porridge" (did Goldilocks bust a bear-operated meth ring? were they preparing deadly chemicals for the first wave of attack on the filthy humans?) make the story so much better.

So that's how Russian is going. Math, now... let's not talk about math for today. 

Sick days

Viggy has been sick. That's my excuse for not updating this blog last week, falling behind in math, falling behind in Russian, the messy bedroom, and a few other things I haven't thought of yet.

He's doing better, but for a while he was really out of it. I, of course, did my best to be a good and supportive wife. Unfortunately for Viggy, my best isn't all that great when it comes to supportive.

Fortunately, after a few days of rest and lots of medicine he's doing better. He was still home today, including during the early afternoon when four of the girls' friends came over.

I think he'll be doing any further recuperation in the office.

********

I've been considering a daily feature that would serve as a warning to prospective parents with no need for creativity on my part. It would be called "Why are we crying today," and would be only explanations I heard in the last 24 hours for heartbroken sobbing.

Here are four from this afternoon:

- Because Daddy opened the front door, and I wanted to be the one to open the front door.

- Because Daddy put ketchup on my plate when I asked him to, but it was only a little bit of ketchup and I wanted a lot of ketchup.

- Because I fell on my knee and it hurt - two hours ago.

- Because my best friend is leaving and I won't see her until tomorrow morning, which is like five whole waking hours away. 

Maybe this does deserve its own Consider Yourself Warned, under D for Drama. But in the meantime, I'll be working on my next set of book reviews - unless the delightful miss SNAN inspires me to write about her again.

War, hot chocolate, etc

Last week Adi realized the situation was not usual, so I decided to try to explain a bit of what was going on.

Me: There are some bad people who want to hurt people. So they're trying to throw bombs at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and lots of cities. But there are soldiers working on stopping them by bombing their bombs so they can't hurt anyone.
Adi (wide-eyed): That must make a HUGE explosion.
Me: Yes. Yes, it does.

That was her entire reaction until the next day, when she suggested that we invite everyone we know who lives south of us (I'll spare you all the list...) to come stay at our house.

******

A random conversation over lunch:

N's Friend: N, how many teeth does baby S have?
N: Ummm.... four?
Me: She has four on top and three below. Do you know how many that is?
N: *starts counting on fingers*
N's Friend: Seven!
Me: That's right, seven.
N's Friend: And I didn't count. Not even in my head.
Me: How did you figure out the answer without counting?
N's Friend: God told me.
N's Friend: God tells everybody everything, but sometimes we forget.


******

Sunday night I offered to make hot chocolate for dessert.

This offer was met with considerable enthusiasm.

The girls were very interested in how hot chocolate is made

and even managed to help a bit with the preparation.

In the end, it wasn't the tastiest thing ever to be deceptively called "hot chocolate," but the kids didn't care. They had a beverage referred to as hot chocolate, just like Dora in that story of hers (it's only like their sixth favorite Dora story, so I've only read it about 400 times).

Sometimes the eating experience is half the fun.

Totally prepared

I meant to post earlier, but I got distracted what with the war and all.

Being where I am, we haven't had to run for shelter, which is good, because one of the laws of going anywhere with young children is that the more children you're traveling with, the slower you go, until at some point you're actually traveling backward. Which would make it hard to reach the bomb shelter in time.

So my main source of stress, beyond worry for everyone I know (including those of you on the east coast of the USA - what if there are more freaky stray tornadoes??) has been reading the foreign media. Which is basically:

title: DEAD PALESTINIAN BABY

subtitle: Parents wail in anguish over the body of their child, killed in an Israeli airstrike.

article: Israel continued its aggressive retaliation Saturday... blah blah blah.

Which sounds pretty anti-Israel, until you get to the comments, which make it look positively Kahanist.

Not that I'm bitter. Not that I think they're complete hypocrites who would expect Israel's support in face of 1/10th the aggression Hamas has displayed. Not that I think all of the reporters who wrote the last 15 articles I read have the collective IQ of a squid that was somehow, in defiance of the laws of physics, dropped on its head many times as a baby.

Anyway. All this state-of-emergency-ness has me thinking about our emergency preparation. So far we have stocked up:

- A six-pack of water, which, in case of emergency, I will presumably remain incapable of carrying for more than three feet without dropping, immediately tripping over, and then cursing.

- A four-pack of tuna,which makes me sad not because of how it symbolizes the fear of war that is perpetually lurking in the background and the inevitable need for my children to be exposed to the cruel reality that there are people - a lot of people - who would love nothing more than to destroy all of us, but because holy crap, tuna cost just 18 shekels when I bought that. That was, what, three months ago? And now it's like 24 shekels! What the heck happened? I miss tuna.

I did hear that they might lower the VAT on tuna, so at least there's that.

- Crackers. Because why not?

- Matches. Which, in case of emergency, I will leave untouched. There's no emergency so bad that me with a pack of working matches can't somehow make it worse.

That's pretty much it. Unfortunately, it won't help with my main concern, which is shoes. It takes us 30 minutes to get everyone in shoes on a good day. On a bad day, I imagine everyone else would be evacuated, housed for several weeks in a facility in a different part of the country, and returned before we would all have appropriate footwear.

I though of taking the shoes we can most easily do without and putting them in a pack somewhere. Unfortunately, aside from the fact that sparkley pink slippers are probably not the most practical footwear for a war zone (/post-earthquake pandemonium/ zombie apocalypse), there's also the issue that I don't recall ever, in all of my (nearly 30!) years of existence, remembering where the totally smart place that I put that thing so that I would be sure to remember where I put it later was.

Oh well. My shoe dilemma will remain for the time being, and will give me something to puzzle out in between inviting friends from Tel Aviv to come visit (they won't come. all that yoga keeps them calm even under rocket fire. Tel Avivians, what can you do) and cursing out the BBC (and AP. Jerusalem is Israel's "self declared" capital? What exactly makes a city a capital other than the leadership of that country declaring it to be so? Did we miss the capital fairy coming to dust it with her magic pixie dust? Please clarify, AP).

For Zeidie

A conversation for Zeidie:

Adi: Are we having crembos for dessert?
Me: No.
Adi: Oooooooooooofffff (readers: imagine the dramatic groan of a person in serious pain.)
Me: We'll have crembos for dessert on Shabbat.
Adi: Why, is Zeidie coming for Shabbat?!!!
Me: No. We'll buy our own.
Adi: *mind is blown*


And now an aside to my parents:
Let's talk business here. How much are you willing to pay for this list not to be forwarded to SNAN?

Consider Yourself Warned - A - Avoidance

So here's a cool thing about parenting: it gives you a form of super senses. The lamest possible form, but still.

You can see tiny dangerous objects on the floor from a distance of at least 20 feet.
You can hear a snack bag rustling softly from two rooms away.
You can feel that the room is 0.1 degrees too cold for your baby (may apply only to women).
You can smell... let's not get into what you'll be smelling.

So your baby is born, and you get all these special abilities.

And then spend the next 18 years pretending not to have them.

See, when parenting in a duo, it doesn't usually pay to be the first to notice the problem. This is one of the unwritten Rules of Parenting in play - whoever hears the screeching first is supposed to deal with it. It's like the grown-up version of "he who smelt it, dealt it." (Which is why you will often see otherwise perfectly intelligent and observant adults turn into silent lumps the minute they hear a voice saying "I'm thiiiiirsty.")

Even when you're alone with the terrifying creatures adorable children it's sometimes better to just develop selective hearing and see if by some miracle things resolve themselves without you rather than to go in and do all the scolding and mopping that would be necessary if you *knew* knew what they were up to.

This may sound like the most juvenile attempt at problem avoidance ever. It is, but it's also surprisingly effective. I could honestly classify this as a "tip" nearly as easily as a warning.

So my advice to my fellow parents, and parents-to-be: use your super-vision to get all the dangerous junk off the floor, then turn your senses to a higher purpose (like enjoying the subtle variances of shade along the back of your eyelids) and let the kids do their kid thing. If there's a real problem, it's unlikely you'll need super-senses to detect it.

Alirsnan Goes to School

Yesterday I did something I haven't done in a very, very long time - I attended a lecture.

I've taken several courses in the past few years, but I haven't actually gone in person to listen to teachers lecture for a while. Technically it's not required with the program I'm in, but it's supposed to be helpful.

So since I'm all about "helpful" I decided to go check it out. 5:45 saw me heading out the door for class. The rest of the evening went roughly as follows:

5:50 p.m.: Yay!! The bus! Wait, was I supposed to take this one? Crap! Viggy just told me this!

5:51 p.m.: Oh no wait, there's the right bus. Yay!!

6:00 p.m.: I probably should have asked Viggy where I get off the bus, too.

6:20 p.m.: I'm only 20 minutes late. That's not so bad.

6:22 p.m.: Wow, so many classrooms. I probably should have figured this part out in advance, too.

6:25 p.m.: My stomach always feels all twitchy in these situations. Maybe I'm actually allergic to school?

6:30 p.m.: Only half an hour late. That's not so bad. I'll just sneak in quietly between these chairs. Good thing there was an open seat in back.

6:40 p.m.: It's a good thing I came! I didn't get to any of this in the reading yet. He's explaining it well, too.

6:42 p.m.: No pen??? Auugggghhh. And the emergency backup pen Viggy snuck into my bag doesn't work, either. This is all his fault.

6:45 p.m.: The teacher just said that problem he just reviewed was like the first problem in the homework set. But he's explaining the connection between continuity and derivatives, and the homework is about limits.

....

*light goes on over Alirsnan's head*

Whoops.

6:47 p.m.: Wait, am I in the wrong classroom, or have I been learning the wrong material and doing the wrong homework? It could so easily be either.

6:55 p.m.: Wrong classroom.

7:30 p.m. (break time): Who the heck names one course Calculus I and the other one Calculus A? Anyone could get confused by that. Anyone at all.

7:45 p.m.: This class is a lot smaller. It might be kind of hard to pretend I've been here the whole time.

7:47 p.m.: Make that "impossible."

7:50 p.m.: My real teacher is scary.

9:05 p.m.: If I run, I can still catch the bus. I see at the stop right now.

9:06 p.m.: Trying to run hurts. That doesn't seem fair somehow.

9:30 p.m.: If only I'd caught the stupid bus, I'd already be at home doing productive stuff like cleaning and finishing the homework. Instead I'm just standing here doing nothing.

10:10 p.m.: *ignores messy house and incomplete homework in favor of watching old episodes of House*

Reading list

For the past few years I’ve had a lot more recommendations for good books to read than actual time to read good books. People (by “people,” I mean of course “my dad”) have recommended books like The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, She, A Civil Action, and more titles that I can’t remember at the moment but definitely have floating around in my brain somewhere, because I was totally listening at the time.

Recently I finally found some time to sit and read books. So, naturally, I didn’t read any of the above books.

What I did read were the following: A Storm of Swords and Vampire Diaries, once each, and Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory and Goodnight Moon (way, way more than once each).

And now, for your convenience, I will review them all for you here.

A Storm of Swords (Fantasy)

This is book three of the Song of Ice and Fire series by George Martin. It’s a fantasy novel, but the focus is on political intrigue and war more than on the occasional warlock or dragon.

The best and worst thing about the series so far is that there’s no apparent direction to the story. On the one hand, it’s great: finally, there’s a popular fantasy series where you really don’t know what’s going to happen. As soon as you start thinking “oh, now I get it, this second guy is going to defeat those other guys and become king,” Second Guy is brutally murdered by some new character and the plot rolls onward. And it’s genuinely surprising.

The downside of that is that after a while, it starts to get suspiciously, tediously familiar. Wait a second – a story about a bunch of would-be royalty who spend their time plotting together, betraying each other, waging war, killing people in various horrific ways, and drinking? That’s starting to sound an awful lot like history.

Could A Song of Ice and Fire be trying to make me learn something?

Damn it, George Martin. You wasted more than 2,000 pages of my life on useful information.

Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory (Non-fiction)

This book is a disturbing expose of the lax health standards at our nation’s chocolate factories. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but the intrepid yellow-hatted journalist manages to get a monkey carrying lord-only-knows-what diseases right onto the production line. And the workers not only don’t evict the animal immediately, or at least insist it wear gloves while touching the chocolate, they offer it prizes.

A must-read for chocolate lovers, and for anyone who wants Dani not to pitch a temper tantrum.

Vampire Diaries Part 1 (Paranormal Romance. Yes, that’s its own category now. I know. I feel your pain.)

This may be a book about a random, boring teenage girl in a small town who falls for a mysterious handsome guy who pretends not to like her back but it turns out that’s only because he cares for her so much, and oh yeah, he’s also a vampire – but it’s not Twilight.

There are several differences between this book and Twilight. For example, in Twilight the hot vampire rescues the personality-lacking heroine first from a boy named Tyler who almost hits her with his car and then from would-be rapists, but in Vampire Diaries that’s condensed into him saving her from a boy named Tyler who wants to rape her.

Also, while Twilight centers on a love triangle between a girl with no thoughts, hopes or emotions that don’t relate directly to the hero, a hot, never-aging vampire boy with eyes that change color and the ability to read minds who eats only animal blood, and a werewolf who is madly in love with a baby in a right-lets-all-pretend-that’s-not-incredibly-creepy kind of way, Vampire Diaries centers on a love triangle between a girl with no thoughts, hopes or emotions that don’t relate directly to the hero, a hot, never-aging vampire boy with eyes that change color and the ability to read minds who eats only animal blood, and a second vampire who is the first vampire’s brother and who doubles as one of the villains of the story.

I admit that there were a few small similarities that made me a bit suspicious that Vampire Diaries might have been inspired by Twilight. But when I checked the inside cover of Vampire Diaries, I saw it was written in the early 90s, meaning the author has the distinction of being the first (out of her and Stephanie Meyer, anyway) to imagine vampires as creatures who - being blessed with superhuman strength, eternal life, eternal youth, and superpowers – would naturally choose to spend their time hanging out in high school picking up teenage girls.

Disturbingly, they’re probably both onto something.

Anyway, while Vampire Diaries isn’t exactly Twilight, there was one part that was exactly the same: my sense of shame upon completing the book. (like realizing that all your one-last-bites of ice cream have added up to half the container, not that I'd know what that's like.)

Goodnight Moon (How-To Guide)

At first, Goodnight Moon looks like nothing more than a whimsical children’s book. But if you’ve actually lived through the scenario it depicts, you realize it’s nothing less than a torture manual.

Disturbingly, this book is not only being sold openly in stores, but is being marketed directly to those most likely to put it into use.

I recommend reading this, but only so that you’ll know what you’re up against. 

Vitamins

I went to get vitamins today. Actually, I went to get lice-killing shampoo (I forgot that winter has bugs, too - but why are the lice allowed to return before the cockroaches all die? why???) and got vitamins too.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with one child a few weeks ago, when we ran out of vitamins:

Child (sadly): It's all my fault the vitamins are gone.
Me: Aww, sweetie, it's not your fault. Everyone had some vitamins and now they're gone. That's what happens, when you eat it it's not there anymore.
Child (still sad): But it was my fault.
Me: Everybody ate some, not just you. And anyway, we'll get more.
Child: But I'm the one who did it.
Me: Why do you think it's your fault?
Child: Because in the mornings I sneak the bottle off the shelf and take an extra one.


The bottle is now well out of reach (I hope - I thought the last one was, too) so hopefully nobody will be getting extra-vitamin poisoning or whatever it is that happens when you eat too many of those things.

Nice to Meet You

A recent comment from Liyatle (friend of Snan's?) asks "Who are you?"

I decided it was a good question. I never introduced myself. Admittedly, that was logical, since 90% of my readers are related to me (whether by blood, marriage, or being former neighbors of Viggy's, which also counts). But still, I thought it'd be a good time to share some relevant information about me.

Name: 

ALIRSNAN. Also known as "hedgehog," in reference to my personality, which is small and mammalian. 

Age:

Still not 30, but only just.

Family:

The ever-patient Parental Units, my loving sister SNAN, the most excellent and ever-suffering Viggy, and children A, N, D, and S (all girls, a fact which never fails to shock at least one new person a week).

Education:

Let's not get into it.

Favorite food:

Popcorn, unless coffee qualifies as a food.

Favorite movie:

Even though I'm almost 30 - Finding Nemo.

Quote that never fails to make me laugh:

"Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't... nothing?"

Five-year goals:

Finish my math degree

Speak Russian

Have at least four toilet-trained children

Get a second toilet

Long-term goals:

World peace, under the iron rule of my despotic dictatorship.

Strengths:

High tolerance for noise and mess, ability to learn new languages, ability to pretend not to speak new languages in order to get out of unpleasant conversations, can chew gum and wash dishes at the same time.

Weaknesses:

Phobia of the-bugs-that-must-not-be-named, extreme case of Homework Aversion, complete physical and mental dependency on coffee.

I think that about covers it. Readers, feel free to introduce yourselves, too.

More birthday fun

Today we celebrated baby S's birthday. The celebration was pretty simple.

First, she got to join her sisters in the bathtub at bathtime. No points for guessing that she pooped a minute after I put her in, but you do get points and bonus points if you guessed that when I pulled the plug to let the poopy water drain out, it started leaving the bathtub and coming back up through the drain in the bathroom floor. Fun times.

Then I cut her bangs. OK, that was more something I did for myself. And by "more" I mean "entirely," and by "I did" I mean "three of us did." S is very talented at squirming.

Then we had the real fun, which was eating special sweet bamba (bamba = peanut flavored cheetos) with chocolate filling. The celebration ended with me attempting to get crushed bamba out of S's ears. And then - bedtime. Not for me, of course - I had a bathroom floor to clean - but for the kids, which is almost as good.

Me, I couldn't help but remember where I was one year ago. Around this time Viggy was calling an ambulance, and two paramedics who showed up a couple minutes later were very disappointed to find such a non-laboring woman in labor. As I recall, one suggested that I could have walked to the hospital and still made it in time (debatable, as it turned out). 

They were probably annoyed that I was basically using them as a glorified cab service. I probably didn't make things any better by explaining that I would have taken a cab, but I couldn't afford to pay for a cab driver to reupholster his seats if I leaked on them.

Anyway. I got there in time, there was pain, I finally got drugs for once, S was born. 

People talk about childbirth being a miracle. I guess you could say that, although "miracle" tends to conjure to mind images with a lot less bodily fluids.

But why do so few people talk about the other miracles of parenting? Whatever the reason, in honor of S's birthday I'll share a few:

1. The postpartum weigh-in miracle.

This is when you first step on a scale after giving birth, and find that despite expelling a small human being and more gunk and fluids than anyone wants to think about from your body, you somehow weigh exactly what you did right before the baby was born. Miracle!

2. The newborn poop miracle.

This is when you feel wet and realize baby poop soaked through to your clothing, strip the baby of his or her soiled clothing, open the diaper and - it's completely clean! Miracle!

3. The where-is-it-going miracle.

This is when your baby eats, then eats, then eats more, until you realize they've consumed more food that they physically have room for within that tiny body of theirs - and none has come out the other end.

4. The where-is-it-coming-from miracle.

Like 3, but the opposite.

I'm sure there are more. Really, the fact that certain children are still alive and well despite their many shenanigans is a miracle as well. I've stopped kids from trying to play with knives, play with razors, play on windowsills, get into the medicine cabinet, and take a secret bath alone - and that's all just the past few weeks. Not all the same child, for the record.

We should all spread more miracle awareness here, make new parents more prepared. New parents: you should also be aware that miracles involving kids tend to be a lot messier than you might have imagined.

SNAN and ALIRSNAN eat

I have math homework due tomorrow, and even though this is a course I've taken before (admittedly, not since high school, which was a frighteningly long time ago), it's not going so well.

So with a homework assignment due tomorrow and a Shabbat to prepare, what better time than now for pure unadulterated avoidance of responsibility (speaking of repeating high school... ) in the form of yet another round of SNAN and ALIRSNAN?

SNAN and ALIRSNAN: Nutrition

SNAN avoids frozen food for health reasons, and makes her own nutritious alternatives.

ALIRSNAN avoids frozen food so that she'll have more money to spend on diet coke and popcorn.

SNAN does her best to avoid chemicals in her food.

ALIRSNAN figures the more letters, the merrier.

SNAN tries to eat like her ancestors did.

ALIRSNAN looks to the more recent past for inspiration.

SNAN considers the latest health research when deciding what foods to prepare.

ALIRSNAN tends to buy first and find research that fits.

SNAN knows her self-restraint now will mean better health down the line.

The way ALIRSNAN sees it, she's helping to advance the human race by weeding out weakness.