Second thoughts on one of my chosen subjects of study

 Homeschooling, Psychology  No Responses »
Apr 302012
 

Re: I start crunching down on blog posts that I need to write and also realize that I need to go back and watch all three videos because the details are starting to blur and that’s yucky. But that’s not the point of this one.

I started studying psychology in a very loose, freeform way back in February. Since that time, I have used my skills in three different fights to hurt another.

And I really really, really hate being able to do that. It destroys things more than harsh but incorrect words, being able to poke at the insecurities of the people I love and stab them right where it hurts. It makes me feel despicable.

So my psychology study for the day has actually been considering whether or not I want to keep doing it, and if not, what to replace it with.

And I haven’t decided yet. There’s a piece of me that likes the power of being able to strike with my words right where it hurts someone. There’s a part of me that wants to know how exactly to crack into someone’s head and be a power there.

But at the same time, when I use my psych powers for good, I know what to say to help or comfort someone. I can see the hurting spots and apply ice and sugar and sweetness to them.

It’s a tough decision.

 Posted by at 11:42 pm

The delights of my family

 Aggravations, Homeschooling  No Responses »
Apr 272012
 

We’re a little bit more unorthodox than others that I’ve met. We eat some pretty specialized diets, half of us kids are homeschooled and our ideas of outings often involve walking around a graveyard for a couple of hours.

I certainly wouldn’t trade most all of this for anything, I love the wild uncertain flying of it all, of not being entirely sure what things are going to interest us next and what I’ll learn from it all.

But there is something that I would very much appreciate not being a repeat experience, and it involves the prepping of dog food.

Along with the humans in this house, we make sure that all of our wanted pets eat a healthy type of meal. The guinea pigs get lots of fresh vegetables, the cats eat fish as often as we can give it to them, and the dogs eat home chopped vegetables and raw meat with rice. I, being the lucky eldest of us gets to be the one who chops up the food and prepares it for them.

I thought that beef tripe and extraordinary bloody liver was bad enough, but the other night, we got a different kind of meat to give them because it was on sale. Given the type of meat it was, I’m not surprised. I can say that I don’t ever want to chop it again.

So for any teenagers who read this blog, if you exist at all and the people looking at it aren’t just spambots, you should be glad that your parents don’t make you chop up raw intestines from unspecified animals. Because it is disgusting.

This has been my soapboxing for the day.

 Posted by at 11:55 pm

Not quite algebra, but some amazing math all the same

 Homeschooling, Math, Science, TedTalk  No Responses »
Apr 262012
 

Today’s Ted Talk was about a “Mathemagician.”

I like math, I like playing with numbers and coming out to something that is right. Like a puzzle, all the pieces clicking into place as I go. I have some trouble with algebra, but it keeps going away the more I do it. (and why I’m linking to Algebra in this post, I haven’t done any fresh work in the book in a week and a half, so I’m doing a quick recap of the two previous chapters to catch myself back up)

He kind of puts all of my math abilities to shape. Actually, scratch that ‘kind of’, he just does. And I don’t mind at all, it’s absolutely fascinating to watch him put them all together, especially at the speed that he does it at.

There’s a rhythm to his math, and it isn’t because he’s memorized the numbers before going on stage. He explains it somewhat, where he breaks down some of the numbers in his head, squares them by themselves and then adds the whole of the total together. I’ve never done this myself, but when working with any number that size, I can see where it really helps to be able to do that.

And he doesn’t just do it with blank numbers, he also figures out what days people were born on with math; getting it accurate every time.

I’m rather in awe of what he did, so I’m coming off rather incoherent. I’m certainly glad that I chose to watch this video out of all of the ones I could have picked.

 Posted by at 8:08 pm

Beginning the posting of my homework for the day with a little something not really homework-y

 Celebration, Fallen feathers  No Responses »
Apr 262012
 

There’s a show that came out in 2010 that I heard of when it came out, but aside from a passing curiosity, hadn’t really felt like checking out.

Yesterday, I was looking at other videos on youtube, and I saw a video of a song I liked set to clips from that show. Out of (mostly bored) intrigue, I went and looked.

By the time that the next hour had passed, I had actually sat down and watched the first two episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

I don’t entirely know what I was expecting when I picked it up, but it wasn’t what I found. What I found in it were six female main characters, all of whom were different from each other in different ways…and that being completely okay with all the others. They saw nothing wrong with Fluttershy’s shyness or timidity, all they were was more patient with her when she got struck by shyness, and she came out of her shell of her own accord for them. Rainbow Dash was brash, yes, but with them, they learned how to listen to what she said under her attitude, and she learned how to, yes, tone it down some, but only just enough that she didn’t overwhelm the others with her energy.

It is a show for girls much younger than I, and yet perhaps because of the openness of it all, it has a massive following among people of all ages and walks of life. There’s just something about the show that draws others in. And I am no different.

In terms of shows that show strong diverse females, treated by the show itself like they are just people, there certainly aren’t enough out there yet, but strangely enough, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, is definitely there.

 Posted by at 7:38 pm

Not eating lunch /= starving myself to death

 Aggravations, Fallen feathers  No Responses »
Apr 232012
 

I ate breakfast. I ate a lot of breakfast to the point where I’m not yet hungry.

Just because I don’t feel like eating lunch does not mean that I am: A, trying to starve myself to being model thin, or B, secretly suicidal, or C, wanting to make everyone else take care of me.

I don’t always want to eat when others do. That. Is. Alright. It is a conscious choice on my part, it hasn’t done me any harm, and it is exactly no one’s job to make me do it.

Getting grouchy when subjected to all three above failuretastic facts does not mean that my hobbies are useless, that I’m useless or that I need something to do with my life other than commit suicide.

Please spend some time studying psychology before psychoanalizing me, it is not appreciated when you do as such and get it completely wrong.

 Posted by at 8:19 pm

Feeling awesome!

 Fallen feathers, My Daily Life  No Responses »
Apr 172012
 

So I haven’t yet managed to do my homework today; that’s okay, I still have some time left and most of what I need to do can be done in my hour of dog-free time.

But what I have done so far is go into my creepy scary basement for almost two hours and only have little freak outs, clean out a portion of it so that we can actually get back to using it, find a ton of christmas paper and see a really cute white kitty in my backyard.

Also, I managed to attach a really cool showerhead after my brother broke our other really cool one and left us using the yucky one that came with the house.

It’s times like this, post housework and making spaces pretty, that I really feel entitled to go “This is an awesome place to be.”

 Posted by at 10:11 pm

Threw us into the flame

 Fallen feathers  No Responses »
Apr 162012
 

I love this song very very much. I’ve probably listened to it about four hundred times since I discovered it right at the end of December, and that’s been on Youtube alone.

It’s one of those songs that rubs something good on my brain, makes it possible for me to hear it over and over again and not grow tired of it.

And listening to it after my strange weekend…it’s soothing. Balances something out of whack.

I believe that all good songs should be able to do this for at least someone.

 Posted by at 9:11 pm

Feeling a little bit bad about it

 History, Homeschooling, Literature, Psychology, Science  No Responses »
Apr 162012
 

Right now I’m reading a book called The Botany of Desire, and I’m finding it a little boring.

It’s rather sad; it’s well-written, it has turns of phrase and word usage that makes me want to swoon, it has history, it has science and psychology and it has a section on apples that makes my mouth water.

And yet I’m not finding the interest and energy to keep wanting to read it for more than ten or twenty pages at a time. It should be all the things that have me sitting down for an hour or six and reading nonstop instead of doing my other tasks…but it’s not.

And I feel rather guilty about it.

…now I want an apple dammit…

 Posted by at 9:07 pm

Magic is a willful illusion

 Homeschooling, Psychology, Science, TedTalk  No Responses »
Apr 162012
 

Today’s Ted Talk started with a piece of equipment that allowed magic to seem more real than we believe, but really dissolved into the fact that magic is storytelling.

As a budding writer myself, I share in the ideas that he brings about magic, and how we willingly want to be deceived by it, because the surprise of the unexpected causes us to be caught off-balance, and to discover something in a way we hadn’t though of before.

The technology that he used, from what I could see in the video, was a camera that saw what he did, and then gave him a little bit of magic depending on what movements he made. From sparkles to little yellow balls to a globe floating around him, it was fascinating to see what it interpreted for him on the screen.

Someday, I will learn to weave my magic just as deftly.

 Posted by at 8:48 pm

After the last couple of days, Algebra is refreshingly dull

 Homeschooling, Math  No Responses »
Apr 162012
 

It still makes pieces of my head hurt a little, but that’s really better than nothing, and I’d rather that familiar headache than the host of new ones that had shown up over the past few days.

When I finish this book, I’ll be a graduate, even though I won’t stop learning other things.

But I’ll have finished with this.

 Posted by at 6:59 pm
 Older Entries
© 2012 The Sound of Her Wings Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha