Sleepy?

If you go over here, you'll see a 30 second video of a dog doing head bobs.  Everything it possibly can to stay awake.

I know why humans do this, though I am somewhat mystified by toddlers who chose to, but dogs?  Why do they have to struggle to stay awake?  It feels so miserable too.

Why why why would they do that?

Run number 2

Went out again this evening, well ran outside for the first time this evening as I did the treadmill thing the first time -so I could return the shoes if they weren't comfy, after today's run, they're mine.

Went with Youngest and Chuck.  Youngest was very very game and keen but we had a pace problem.  If she tried to keep up with me she got horrible stitches and if I slowed to her pace my legs nearly died.

Hmm, not an ideal outing for either of us.

Chuck just seemed pretty darned reluctant.  Keen at first but his interest withered when he realised the opportunities to pee and sniff were limited.  Nothing like towing a dog when you run.

Except when he sees a cat, at which moment your stride suddenly lengthens miraculously! FLY be FREEEEEEEE!!!!!

Mice and snakes

I am currently babysitting a snake, which is fine, they are pretty low maintenance.  This year though we've had something of a crisis.  You see, this year they owners have decided to feed the snake live mice rather than dead ones.

The horror.

With some trepidation I agreed to this plan, but found myself procrastinating.  Good thing snakes have slow moving metabolisms, she/he had to wait an extra week.

After a couple of questions from the owners, promises from me and the kids away I went to the store to get the mice.  The owner of the store could see my rather extensive trepidation and I explained the whole story.  He said that he never feeds live mice to any of his animals and it isn't necessary to do so, rather it was the owners choice.

Then he told me I would have to put the mice in one at a time and be sure that the snake gets it, if not they mice can nibble on the snake and possibly kill it.  So that means that I would have to manually lower the mouse into the cage, in my hand, and watch it get taken.  Twice.  It eats two mice.

The horror.

I manned up and got the mice, they fortunately came in a closed cardboard box and I reluctantly left the store with them, got about halfway to the car with the pair of them running around inside the box and squeaking and turned back.

You have to understand, we had mouse infestations in our house in Toronto, I put out catch and release traps.  A momma mouse abandoned her baby under my chair when she discovered I was on it, I carried the baby to where she had gone and hidden, then left the room.  I am a total wimp as far as this goes.  Total.

Anyway, I turned back and got two dead mice.  I'm cool with that, no problem there.  I know the snake has to eat yadda yadda yadda, it's just my role handing them over to their doom that I have trouble with.

Telling the girls about it, I could, I believe, kill an animal if my children needed to eat.  I could do that.  For the snake though?

Not so much.

ps.  it ate them both and seems fine.

Racoons and running

Two unrelated items for today!

First, Chuckalicious has a wee bout of diarrea going on, fun wow!  3 am walk with the pooch.  Thankfully only the one walk.  The number of racoons I saw in a ten minute outing was RIDICULOUS!  I must have seen at least 10.  OMG

On an unrelated topic, I have started running.  Can I just say that I hate running.  HATE IT.  But.....it takes so little time for the benefits it offers, requires no equipment other than shoes and determination.  The back story is this.  I am not even faintly fat...not even remotely, but three years ago I put on a pound.  Nothing to worry about there.  Last year another pound and a half and this year another pound.  None of this is a big deal, but that puts me 3.5 pounds over my normal weight and if this goes on a for a decade I'll be 13.5 pounds over. The realities of aging metabolisms.  Ho hum.

 I eat pretty well, not too much and pretty healthy, but I have a little sugar in my tea and some chocolate from time to time.  I know if I cut that out I'd handle the whole issue, but you know what?  I like the sugar in my tea and a little chocolate from time to time is a great thing, so this seems the solution.  Good for my heart and lungs and all that too.  Running in Spain in the mountains with the dog would be fun, and any other exercise I couldn't combine with walking the dog and frankly having to fit both in would be a hassle; so running it is.

I was looking at the couch to 5k program, and asked about it when I bought the shoes, she said she had heard of it, but that the store has a 'learn to run' program, straightforward too.  During week 1, run three times with this pattern,  1 min of running followed by 1 minute of walking. Rinse and repeat till you have been out for 20 minutes.  Week two, again run three times during the week, this time run for 2 minutes and walk for 1, repeat till you have been out for 20 minutes.  Week three, three min running, one walking.  You can imagine how this works.  By 10 weeks, you're running for 20 minutes with a single one minute break in the middle.

That's all I want, I don't want to complete a race, I don't want to ever run further than 5k, but I'd like to nip this tendency in the bud as early as possible and as conveniently and cheaply as possible.

To help keep myself honest, I have decided to post when and how I run on the blog, might help motivate me.

Wish me luck.

Vanity sizing.

Bought a pair of jeans today.

First time I've fit into a size 8 since I was about 15.  I've put on a couple of pounds in the last two years too.  I'm weighing in at the upper end of normal for me.

Somehow, I think something weird is going on.

Do people really buy this, or do they just get frustrated when they have to make the fourth trip to the change room like I did today?

The compost bin is gone

Brought the garbage in the other day, more specifically it was recycling and compost day for the curb pick-up, but when I got home the compost bin was gone.

Just gone.

Who on this earth would want to steal a stinking green compost bin?

Really, who?

Am I the only one who finds this weird?

Photocopy queen

In my job here in the summers I do quite a bit of photocopying.  Not all day like some poor clerk in a law office, but sometimes the print run is long enough I'll bring a book.

The machine is HUGE.  A high speed job that whips out the copies at the speed of light.  Well that would be an exaggeration, but it is pretty darned fast.  It is, however, a wee bit temperamental and requires having it's innards scratched really fairly often.  It's pretty clear too, none of this lower...lower....a little to the left.... business.  Nonononono....it gives me a diagram and instructions so that I can reach into it's overheated innards and scratch away.

Every year I am less intimidated by the monster, to the point that this year, indeed today, I did a brave thing.  A risk, so to speak.  See, I hate to engage a long print run only to discover that the pages are going back to back one up and one down, or whatever.

Today though....I hit the staple button.

I know, a height of bravery not assumed by everyone, but....it is such a hassle figuring out where one copy starts and the next ends, and then patting them all neatly together and stapling them.

I went for it, and I didn't even do the prudent one-cop-to-see-if-you've-got-it-right.  Nope!  Just hit the button and waited for the staple to appear at the bottom right hand corner of the package.

That's be an interesting mental exercise for the students, though they do say that breaking our routines is supposed to be good for our mental development.

Guess what!  Came out just fine.

Who'da thunk.

More info

The Master's I am looking at doing would be a self-directed Master's of Ed - less work than an MA and I don't want to be an academic so there seems little reason for doing it.

The field I would be looking at I got to name myself, as it is self-directed.  Provisionally it would be something like, 'Management of Educational Settings within an Environmental Context'

Basically, what the goal would be is to take my current skill base, teaching both adults and kids, and move it up a level or two on the totem pole as well as giving me options to move out of the purely educational field I am in and allow me to move out into, well my preference would be to work within the environmental movement in some capacity.  Though the skills could also be translated within industry too.  

Not where I want to go.

If I am accepted, which is still a looooong way off, I would get to design the program with assistance from the university and my faculty advisor and create definitions of what I want to learn and how to get there.  

Should be interesting and useful as I know where I want to go, what I need to learn cause I don't know it and make sure it's a fun ride on the way.

Currently I have to write a several page plan for the degree and it is to include some of my history and reasons for studying.  I am busy debating format, it is emerging as narrative, which has strong advantages to it.  Fortunately there are people there to assist with the process.  That'll be one of my questions as I get further into it.

Fun to do even if I don't get accepted, though I hope I do.

Answered some of the questions?

It's official

I've paid up the money and I have applied to a master's program.  Due date for all paper work is the fifteenth of September to begin in the Spring term, which may mean after Xmas.

I am applying for a self-directed program cause I am just so special and can't seem to find what I really want to study any other way and I have no desire to go to all this time, effort and cost to just get a piece of paper in the end.

I could do that easily enough.

Wish me luck, m'kay?

THAT's why I do that.....

I was listening to WNYC Radio Lab's podcast titled "Where am I" and they were talking about - if I remember correctly - findings by Robert Sapolsky who has found that there is a physiological, physical, in-our-bodies aspect to emotions, for instance anger.  Now this would seem to be a no-brainer, and it is.  What he has done though, amongst other things, but what he did that gave me the big fat AH HA moment when I heard it, was analyse the gender differences in emotions ; at least in anger 'cause that's what they were talking about.

Seems that men and women get the physical sensations of anger with equal speed.  FAST.  About two seconds after being ticked off by someone, your body kicks in.  The difference is, though, that women gear down much more slowly than men do.

I do this.

Particularly with the kids. If they really tick me off, and get told off, it doesn't matter if they apologise.  I accept the apology, but they themselves will say to me that often the apology actually makes it worse.  I don't stop being angry with the apology.  


Now the podcast, and the neurologist said that this is what's actually happening: the argument starts, both partners get the anger response, raised heart rate, sweating etc etc etc.   If the man discovers that he screwed up, for instance, he stops being angry quickly and apologises.  For him, the issue is over.  You could substitute my kids here.....for her, on the other hand, while her brain is aware that it's all over and has accepted the apology, physically she is still very angry, and her body is madly sending her brain anger signals.  Her brain then, not the frontal part with all the reasoning, it may be trying to put on the brakes, rather something further back is still hitting the alarm buttons, so her brain figures that she is indeed still angry and  she finds something else to be angry about.


This would sound like, "Mom, I'm sorry, I'll never do it again."


Grumpily, "OK hon."


Contritely, "Really Mom, I'll never do it again, I am very very sorry."


Curtly, "OK.  OK. Thanks."


pause


Ramping up again, "BUT, what I need is not another apology, I need the BEHAVIOUR TO CHANGE!!!!........"  or some variation on the theme...


Sound familiar?

Maybe now that rational bit of cerebral cortex will have a better fighting chance and I won't do this as often.

Do you do that too?