Woo hoo!  We’ve been eating strawberries three times a day, my hands are stained red with strawberry juices, I’m telling you, it is All Strawberries All The Time.

Let’s see, we’ve had strawberry shortcake…

Strawberry Pancakes…

Strawberry Smoothies…

Strawberry Sundaes…

And my personal favorite…

Strawberry Cobbler!

I’ve waxed on about cobbler before on this blog, including our recipe.  Today’s cobbler, though, was a weird case: it just would not cook.  We kept waiting and waiting, checking and rechecking, but no.  Still goop.  Was the oven not working?  Was the pan the wrong shape?  Were the laws of physics not operating in our kitchen?  Finally, after over an hour, we couldn’t take it anymore and we ate it.  It was still awesome, with the vanilla ice cream on top, all bubbling and hot and cold and sweet and sour and crunchy and gooey…cobber contains all of these mysteries, does it not?  I don’t know why it took so long, but good things come to those who wait and all that shite.

Oh, and of course, we’ve also gobbled bowls and bowls of just straight-up strawberries.  The best are the ones you sneak while you’re picking, warmed up by the sun and sweet like candy.

But we ate the last of this year’s fresh-picked strawberries just now.  There are 10 pounds frozen in bags for later, but the fresh ones are gone, down the hatch.  And Luc just said, “You know what?  I’m sick of strawberries.”  Perfect time to quit.

Strawberry Pancake Man says….

“Peace out, man.”

Until next year….

I’m not saying everything that is touted as “educational” is bunk—National Geographic is fantastic mag/site/channel that often is called “educational” and I love it…it’s not that I have a superstition about the word.  But I think it is used as a marketing gimmick to assuage parental fears and to get them to buy shit they’re kids don’t want because it will “be good for them.”  But I say screw that.  Life is too short.  We learn all the time, we don’t need boring, pre-packaged “educational” crap to learn.

Anyway, having read all that, you might be surprised to hear me recommend an iPad math app!  I’m tricky like that!  Let me back up.  We don’t “do math,” we don’t use curriculum here at the yurt, we don’t do worksheets of any kind around here.  But a mom I know who is as anti-curriculum, anti-anything- boring as I am told me about this ipad app named Dragonbox that her kid had been grooving on recently that secretly teaches algebra.  How the heck does one secretly teach algebra? I wondered.  Curious, I had to take a look.

And I discovered that Dragonbox is super fun.  Luc , 7, and I fought over who’s turn it was to play while Sophie did her aikido class yesterday.  After aikido, even though we weren’t killing time waiting, we kept playing until we finished the game (too soon!).

My seven year old now knows basic algebra.  No kidding.

Not that I care if he knows algebra at this stage in the game, not that it is a race, not that math is some holy grail of learning that we have now achieved, just.  WOW.  THIS is how math should have been taught when I was in school.  Because math classes were absurdly boring. Right?  You know I’m right.  And Dragonbox isn’t.

This is kind of a DUH because algebra is the ultimate puzzler, right?  Solve a puzzle using a complicated magic system…sounds like fun, right?  Isn’t that what algebra is though?

Here’s a screenshot from early in the game.

In the beginning, you’ve got something like this and you want to get the box (that red square with a sparkly box on it) alone on one side or the other of that central bar.  The box has a dragon in it, who wants to eat the other boxs.  The dragon grows as you progress through the levels.  You help the baby dragon out by doing various transformations on the other little monster characters in order to achieve this box-alone-on-one-side-goal.  For example, “night” and “day” versions of a monster cancel each other out (corresponding to positive and negative numbers).  Or you can put monsters on top of each other and that makes them disappear (when the numerator and the denominator are the same, the result is “1″).  The catch, any transformation you make to one side of the screen has to made to the other side.  Get the box alone…solve for x.  Sound familiar?  That’s because it is, you know…algebra.

You get more powers (more ways to transmute monsters) as you go.  Soon the screen looks like this:

And a little later it looks like this:

More and more letters sneak in until you are doing this:

Yep, it’s algebra all right.

Luc, who has no math-class-trauma, approached all of this as a gamer would, not as a math student.  Puzzles to solve using the rules of the game–he knows all about that and set to figuring out how this particular game system (algebra!) worked.  He loved it, sat in absorption from beginning to end.  Sophie, who is less of a gamer, played for a while and then drifted off to draw.  But I noticed she was playing again this morning.  I even sat and played for a bit while I waited for my haircut yesterday.  It’s just…fun.  Algebra is fun!  The shock of it all, right?

So many people I know have math trauma.  They think they “can’t do math,” or their brain freezes up in anxiety when they have to figure out the 15% tip, or they think they “hate math.”  In Adventure Time, one of our favorite shows, they acknowledge this general mathphobia by actually using “math” as a swear word as in, “Math that, let’s get out of here!”  I attribute all of this to the way math is taught in schools.

Along those lines and going into much more intelligent detail, here is a wonderful talk given by seasoned unschooler, Pam Sarooshian.  She is an economics teacher who has 3 now-adult children, all unschooled, all college graduates, all lovely people that I met at a conference several years ago.  She speaks here about about learning math without anxiety—it’s well worth a listen whether you are a homeschooler, an unschooler, or have math phobia of your own.

For more like that, here is a great page, a collection of links and writings by many unschoolers, including Pam, on math.  Some great stuff on that page.

But back to Dragonbox.  I definitely recommend it!  Real math is cool.  Dragonbox exemplifies that.

But the plan is for it to go to the editor this weekend, so I’ve been slamming to get through this pass quickly before said editor goes on vacation next month….Of course, I’m alternating between loving this new novel and thinking for sure that it is my worst one yet.  Pretty much par for the course at this stage in the game.

Anyway I’ve got blog posts in my head about learning Japanese, about Minecraft and education, about some great manga I’ve been shooting up reading late at night when I should be asleep (or writing), but I haven’t had a minute to put any of them down.  Either I wait till I can do them right, or lower my standards and just spout off the top of my head, hmm, let me see.  I can’t decide.

So, in lieu of a real post, I’ll leave you with a first look at a very rough mock up of the coming book cover to tempt you.  Typography is still in process but isn’t that a cool image???  Super happy about that.  I can’t wait to get this one out!

Needless to say, I can’t stay in UD for very long.  Which I figure is probably a big part of why they aren’t getting any better.  Master backbenders like Heather Morton (see freak out post above) say long stays are the key to backbending.  To me that’s like saying, just hold your hand in the fire longer!  Which is probably why I was not able to keep up the use of her video for long.  Yeah, right, I’ll just hang around in my agonizing fear for fun, every day. I tried, but I started to dread my practice, which meant I started skipping.  A lot.  So I gave it up.  I’m just not the kind of girl who can go all hard core and suffer for the greater good.  Spell it with me: i-am-a-p-a-n-s-y-a-s-s.

So, here we are, two years later, and I’m still struggling with backbends.  I was thinking about that “long stays” business, though, which led me to try to think up ways to accomplish such with less panic and more comfort.  Which led me to thinking of props.  This prop, to be specific.

It’s a folding chair (available here) that a smart person made that detachable arch thingy for, to make doing Iyengar-style supported backbends on a folding chair more comfy.  I got this chair maybe fifteen years ago when I was doing some Iyengar yoga back in my twenties and it has been in storage for the last decade in our mold pit covered garage, ever since we moved into the yurt.  But I dug it out and cleaned the mold off and have been using it lately in the evening for ten minute backbends.

That’s right, ten minute backbends.

Basically the attached arch keeps my giant, heavy head from hanging loose, sort of supports it from behind a bit, which radically diminishes my panic.  Huzzah!  Here I am on the chair.

Easy, even pleasurable.  Perhaps the panic comes from my neck being too far back or something, and the arch-thingy is helping it not do that?  Because look, below I am doing the same thing on the chair without the arch-thingy attached…

…and it is almost exactly the same backbend but I could only stand it for a few breaths.  Panic came on almost immediately.

Maybe if/when my upper back opens a bit more, I’ll have more bend in the thoracic and thus less extension in the neck?  So that my head would hang up and down more, instead of hyper-extending back?  Just a guess.  Perhaps even this slight increase in extension reduces (or threatens to reduce?) my airflow in some way, making me panic?  Like waterboarding for yogis?  I don’t know.  I just know that without the support, I panic.  With it, I’m fine.

So yeah, I can do ten minutes a night (most nights, sometimes I forget) on this chair.  I have been for the last two months give or take.  No panic.  And it has definitely gotten more  comfortable as I had to inch my way off the chair and into emergency paschimottanasana at first (muscle spasms), while now I pretty much just sit up and feel fine (I still do paschi though because it feels awesome.)

Any improvement in UD?  Let’s see.

Here I am three-ish months ago….

And here I am this morning.

Hmm.  Not so much different visually.  But this morning I stayed up long enough to talk to Sophie (who was taking the picture) while she fiddled with the camera, vs. the pic three months ago she had to grab the shot the instant I got up there.  So I guess I’m staying up longer with more comfort (although I would not say it is comfortable, yet, not at all).  In addition, I can push in my legs a bit now, getting my head more between my hands rather than behind them—while before there was simply no room for any give, any pushing.  The position itself was already at my body’s maximum.  So that’s something!

The limit of the chair, of course, is that if you want a greater arch, you can’t have it.  I’ve been wishing I could crank it down a notch for a bit more arch.  It would be cool if there were a couple of attachments with greater/lesser levels of arch.

Still, I want to try the chair for another three months and see where it goes.  I want to get my head between my hands and my legs a bit straighter—that push I was talking about.  Before the chair, I would have thought this was impossible, as nothing had changed in a year.  Now, with the chair, I’m thinking maybe.

quotes start here/

Dealing with Feelings of Suckage

….So, back to you, and the feeling you’re not progressing.

…Almost by definition, your feelings are illogical. So, sometimes I find it helps to illogical-ize (?) your motivations, to NOT have a good reason for the things you do.  So your new reason is “coz I feel like it” or “coz it’s there”. You can’t argue with that because there’s nothing to argue with. It’s openly reckless. Reasonless.
No traction.

…Scour your memory. Become aware of repeating patterns in terms of what gets you going [in yoga], and look to amplify those patterns. It could be a certain type of situation or a certain type of media, or a certain [teacher/dvd/asana/etc]. Mere “progress” pales in comparison to “oh sweet, this looks cool.”

“…if you’re not satisfied with the little successes, you’ll never be satisfied with the big successes.” ~ Anon. (quoted by Barbara Sher)

Being [an advanced yoga-person] is not going to make you happy if the process didn’t. Because you’ll be there and you’ll find something to hate about it. Something to put yourself down with.
Maybe you’re [great at surys], but you [can't do backbends].
Maybe you’re [great at backbends], but…what about these [arm balances?].
Maybe you’re [doing freaking Third series], but…your [stamina sucks].
There’s always a reason to feel bad, the key is not to play along.

….What does it matter whether or not you’re making progress? You don’t need to be making progress in [yoga]; you like it anyhow; you like it because it’s there. You’re winning right now. Not in some nebulous [yoga] future.

Call it the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of learning: you can’t have any momentum if you’re busy worrying about your position.

…How far could a car drive if its occupants stopped every five minutes, took out a tape measure and ran back to their destination to make sure they were progressing? You’re thinking: “that example’s belabored and stupid, Khatz”. Well, your constant freaking worrying’s belabored and stupid. You should be too busy moving forward to be worrying about this.

Imagine being on a couch, making out with someone, and every two minutes they go: “hey, so are we making out?”, “what base is this?”. You would have to conclude that this person was crazy and/or uninterested. [Yoga] feels like that about you right now .

/end quotes

I love this post from Khatzamoto.  It’s so very unschooling.  The fun and pleasure of the moment is when the best learning happens, where the best and most effortless motivation occurs, where life is good.  Duh, but I forget so easily.  “Hard is good for you” is so seductive, which is…bizarre really.

What is it that I love about yoga (or writing, or Japanese, or fill-in-the-blank)?  What is the “sweet, this look cool!” moment in those things?  Do that.  Do that more.  Forget the rest.

I’m not adverse to becoming enlightened, or, say, burning off samskara, or attaining mental one-pointed samadhi, or heck, just calming the fuck down.  I’m not against these things in principle, yet, I seem to remain, at heart, a shallow, lazy, undisciplined yogini (I probably shouldn’t even use that word).  I can’t help it.  It’s true.  Much of my motivation to hit the mat is for the worst, most embarrassing reasons.

[hangs head]

I can’t be the only one!  Shallow lazy yoginis unite!

Let’s make a list, shall we?  Here we go, 7 secret and pathetic reasons to do yoga.

#1 VANITY.  Amiright?  Tight buns!  Flat stomach!  Come on, let’s get real here: looking good naked…or at least, you know, looking semi-okay naked, yeah, I’ll settle for that.  I’m 42, I’ll take what I can get.

Which leads me straight into #2 SEX.  As in, sexual positions.  OPTIONS people, I want options.  Because, nothing is more of a turn off than arthritic joints that solidify your menu into one or two viable configurations.  You know what I’m saying.  Do I have to spell it out?

Which falls right into #3 FEAR.  Of aging.  Of said solidification.  Of not being able to bend over and pick something up, or climb stairs, or look up at the sky.  I want these things, and I want them for a long time.  I’m afraid of losing them.  That fear can get me on the mat like nothing else.

Here’s a good one no one ever wants to cop to, #4 COMPETITION.  This one doesn’t get me so much, because I don’t practice at a shala.  I mean at home, who am I going to compete with, Sophie my elastic nine year old daughter?  I lose.  When does that get fun?  But I can feel a kind of….yoga ambition, let’s call it, getting activated sometimes when I see someone (on the internet, because I don’t go to classes) do a beautiful asana.  And I can feel a certain…pride in what limited and sorry-ass asana I can do.  Definitely I’ve noticed that this ambition and pride can get me on the mat, can get me excited and interested in pushing further.  I’ve harnessed that at times, like strapping reins on mercurial grey hound who is hard to control but so fast when he really gets going.  I am so ashamed.

Okay, here’s the worst one, #5 yoga as EXERCISE.  Yoga for getting a work-out.  Oh the shame of it!  No self-respecting yogini would ever, ever call yoga an exercise system.  I know they are going to come for my toe rings for admitting this.  I might as well go on and say I’m just interested in GYMNASTICS!

Which, you know, I am, actually…. Here’s the thing.  We scored some nose-bleed seats at Cirque du Soliel last week-end and WOW and WOWOWOW and some more WOW just for good measure, and yeah, you know I was rocking the back bends after seeing that show.  Or, trying to.  Not that I will ever, ever, ever be able to do any of the stuff they can do—I mean, have you seen Cirque???  They are light years beyond even the advanced versions of Ashtanga yoga, ha!  Forget kapotasana, just go ahead and sit on your own head, while hanging from one foot, forty feet in the air, and then maybe you can talk to Cirque.  Maybe.  So yeah, that show was all kinds of motivating.   Sob!  I like gymnastics!  I shoot heroin, too, and beat my children!

Speaking of heroin, I do, actually like that #6 GETTING STONED feeling a good practice can give me.  This one isn’t so shameful, since internal, psychological motivations are worlds more noble than lame physical reasons.  But still, it’s kind of the Bill and Ted version of samadhi, isn’t it?  No honor.

Which makes me wonder…I’ve always said to myself, “whatever gets me on the mat,” as if yoga is so full of merit  it can burn away any negative karma that might accrue from my own low-brow motivations.  But maybe this isn’t so.  If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, can the road to heaven be paved with negative ones?  I just don’t know.  But if I have to wait until I want yoga for the right reasons, and only the right reasons, I may never get on the mat again.  That can’t be right.

Why can’t I be more pure?  Why can’t I get on the mat for only good and holy and selfless things?  You know what?  Maybe it’s that I just don’t see any stilling of the fluctuations of my mind happening in my own head.  Maybe mental focus would be more motivating if I had more of a taste of it?  Because it sounds good. Although I do enjoy my crazy, fucked up, mental fluctuations.  I am a novelist after all.  Okay, maybe I’m doing yoga wrong, since I haven’t seen more progress on this front.  I have to resort to lame-ass motivations because the good motivations aren’t showing up in any noticeable way.  Maybe that’s it.

Hey!  Maybe I should get my money back!  I want a refund!

Final Bad Reason for Doing Yoga, #7 BLOG POST MATERIAL.  I’m not guilty of this one though.

Obviously.

I should say that by “know” I mean, I know how to write them, and I know one English keyword related to meaning.  No readings (pronunciations) yet, and no actual words.  Just kanji shapes and keywords.  It’s vanilla Heisig (of Remembering the Kanji) in an Anki deck.  It’s a starting point.  A scaffolding, upon which to add further kanji knowledge.  In other words, it’s kind of the same thing as saying “I just learned the alphabet.”  A big, honking, complex “alphabet,” but still: only the babiest of steps in the direction of actually being able to read.

It’s been pretty painless.  25 new kanji a day.  At 1600 cards in my active deck, it’s about 250 cards a day (I grade pretty hard) which I break-up into several chunks throughout the day.  2000 kanji will be a bit more, but of course I won’t be adding new ones, so it should progressively get more manageable. Mornings are best, because my brain isn’t mush yet.  30 minutes at a time, max.  Maybe 100 minutes total each day, give or take.  I write the kanji out before showing the answer.  I do all the reviews first and then do the day’s new kanji all at once, in the evening.  Like I say, pretty painless.  Sometimes those last 20 are a bitch, but it’s okay.

I picked up a kanji book in the library the other day and flipped through the lists of kanji that they teach Japanese kids from grade 1-3 and I knew 90% of them by sight.  That was surprising!

I’ve also kept on with the immersion, but I’m not very good at it.  Maybe an hour or two a day of listening to Japanese podcasts, anime, or audio books.  Certainly isn’t all japanese all the time, but it’s something.

But I’m thinking about the next thing.  What will my Japanese adventure be, post-Heisig?  I’m thinking vocabulary.  Typical words in Japanese have one or more kanji, plus, often, some hiragana as a suffix, plus pronunciation, and I know none of that.  Readthekanji.com looks cool for learning words in the context of sentences.  That might be a place to start.  Another is iKnow.com which has the advantage of including audio files for each word and sentence.  Both stack their vocab according to use, top used 1000 words for iKnow Core 1000, while Readthekanji follows the JLPT levels used in Japan.  Either of those could be good.  Reckon I’ll try them both and see what I like.

Learning a language is so diffuse a goal…how do you know when you’re finished?  I like the idea of discreet tasks such as finish Heisig, or learn 1000 most used words.  Challenging, but doable goals.

Sophie is still adding 5 new kanji a day and is up to 260.  She likes to do her reps at night, before she goes to sleep.  I don’t tell her to do it in any way, she just does it when she wants to.  I hope she sticks with it, if only my selfish reasons…it’s fun to have a learning partner.