![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Shadow puppet workshop-OMG chiddlers!
You know, i really don't know why I'm posting, because I may not be coherent right now. Got up at 3:30AM this morning to go do a shadow puppet workshop with Heidi, up in the D.C. area. It was technically VA but we passed the monument and the Iwo Jima memorial not far from the school. Heidi performed the Galapagos George show twice in a row in the morning, and after lunch we ran around and did this workshop for three different first grade classes in a row. I watched the kids some, which she'll be paying me to do next week, OMFG babysitting Yaigh! Kids smell fear!!! Her older daughter, Thea, just turned 8 and really doesn't scare me at all. She used to, but I was around her so much when we built and then performed the Baobab tree show that I actually know her and it's all good. She seems to like me fine, begging me to sit with her and make shadow puppets with her and all. But Tegwyn... Oh gods. She wasn't like an actual human being before, since it was all spit-up and laying on the floor and stuff before. Now she's approaching Two and walks and talks but is mostly incomprehensible. Two is an awkward age to me, because she's got a will of her own but still can't communicate clearly and is fond of screaming when she's tired or upset. She seems to be pretty happy overall, and it'll be brief babysitting during puppet shows, so it shouldn't be too awful. I honestly hadn't seen her since she started becoming cognizant, but she went from hiding behind Heidi in the morning to trying to climb on me and put food in my mouth by lunchtime, so I think she's cool with me. Unfortunately she's still in diapers and thinks peek-a-boo is the greatest game ever. In the car on the way back, after about Twenty 'Where's the baby? There she is!' Heidi turned to me and said, 'The thing about little kids is you basically have to give up all hope of intellectual discourse.' ;)
Puppet show workshop I could babble on about, but I've already done that aloud, so... yeah. We had five different sea creatures to choose from, but in every class about half the kids chose the shark, and then we had to spend a lot of time convincing them to do something other than make them all eat each other during their turns at the shadow screen. Also I cannot believe how many kids could not comprehend 'tape down the short end of the bendy straw...' I mean there was more to the instructions than that, and lots of walking around helping, but oh gods. The short end. The end that is shorter. No, the other end... Ah well. Other than that they mostly did pretty well, and a lot of times they had the metal brad for the hinge thing worked out before we explained it. I just don't get how they could work that out themselves and still not understand which end of the straw is shorter.
1. Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as The Controversial Survey?
Err... that's kind of a throw-away question here, isn't it?
2. Would you do meth if it was legal?
Ugh no. Why would they legalize it?
3. Abortion: for or against it?
The wording of this seems inaccurate, because pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion. I am pro-choice. I would be fine if there were a few limits put on this as far as restricting abortions late in term, but I do think that it needs to be legal. Rape victims, underage mothers, mothers whose pregnancy is in some way a major threat to their own life, these women need to have a choice.
4. Do you think the world would fail with a female president?
That seems pretty ethnocentric. No, I think the success or threat of a president depends on the individual, matters of gender have nothing to do with it.
5. Do you believe in the death penalty?
I do, but admitting it makes me feel awkward. I think it needs to be used very carefully, in very select cases, but I'm willing to believe that there are criminals who cannot be reformed. I think they're very rare though, and you'd better make damn sure someone is just that first.
6. Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
My answer to this is heavily biased by where I grew up, and I know it. It was hippiesville. I have never smoked it, but I've been around it plenty and could have had easy access to it. Most of the pot that went around my town was home grown and passed between family and friends. I knew people who smoked it once in a while, having gotten it from people they trusted, and also used it to make brownies for friends or friends of friends going through chemo. That doesn't bother me at all. These are people who are intelligent and good and law-abiding in all other ways. Now I know there's a market out there for marijuana that's grown gods-know-where and goes through gods-know-who and laced with gods-know-what, and that is some nasty stuff. It is my hope that if it's legalized that black market would dissolve, it could be regulated, and that would make it safer stuff overall. Yes, it can be misused/overused and that's no good either, but regular cigarettes are nasty and have all kinds of weirdass chemicals, and I guess I feel a little like you should either legalize pot or make cigarettes illegal, but the way it stands now feels like a double standard. They're both bad for you, about equally so, in different ways.
7. Are you for or against premarital sex?
It's personal choice, but because I cannot legally marry my girlfriend, what option do I have? Yeah, I know, there's more on that further down. Basically my stance is it's not the business of anyone except the specific people involved.
8. Do you believe in God?
Which one? I mean, yes! I do. My views are too complicated to type here.
9. Do you think same-sex marriage should be legalized?
... Do I really need to answer this? Yes, especially since the newer VA laws that seriously cut us apart if anything awful were to happen. If something were to happen to me, for instance, because I have no blood relatives around, it could be days before they could physically get here. In that intervenining time my girlfriend's right to have any say whatsoever, even to carry out my express wishes, could be legally challenged. Is that right? I could be in a coma, and have to sit around dying or something if somebody decided to protest that the person I've lived with for eight years shouldn't have the right to speak for me?
10. Do you think it's wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA?
Yes, I think that's a massive clue that there's something terribly amiss somewhere in the systems of both countries.
11. A twelve-year-old girl has a baby - should she keep it?
Twelve??? Okay, my first and immediate question is can she even reasonably survive the pregnancy? As a minor, does she get to legally decide? I don't think a Twelve-year old should be the one making that decision. Nor should she be pregnant in the first place.
OMG. I hadn't even had my period yet at Twelve.
12. Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?
No. Where I grew up, kids would go across the border to Canada on their 18th birthdays and after to booze it up. I think there's just so much about our cultural attitude that would have to change before that would be a smart move.
13. Should the war in Iraq be called off?
...Yes, but I don't know how. I admit I don't have the answers, but I think we're definitely in a doing more harm than good position, whether or not we were originally.
14. Assisted suicide is illegal: do you agree?
Yes.
15. Do you believe in spanking your children?
I think it depends on the individual child whether or not that's effective, but I think it should be an option, yes. I do think there's a clear line between spanking and abuse. You shouldn't be leaving a mark.
16. Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?
Damn I could use the money, and I'm a little confused by this question because I understand that's the respectful way to dispose of an old flag?
17. Who do you think would make a better president: McCain or Obama?
Oh god, this is the one I was dreading. I know I'm voting for Obama, but I honestly believe that in the end there's no way to know. You don't know what will come up in the next four years. You'll never know, because whoever wins, wins, and you don't get the option to try them both out and chose which parallel reality you live in.
18. Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
...I guess they might. I think most of my friends have fairly similar views, so I'm not too stressed about it.
Right. I am so running on empty. Going to bed.
Puppet show workshop I could babble on about, but I've already done that aloud, so... yeah. We had five different sea creatures to choose from, but in every class about half the kids chose the shark, and then we had to spend a lot of time convincing them to do something other than make them all eat each other during their turns at the shadow screen. Also I cannot believe how many kids could not comprehend 'tape down the short end of the bendy straw...' I mean there was more to the instructions than that, and lots of walking around helping, but oh gods. The short end. The end that is shorter. No, the other end... Ah well. Other than that they mostly did pretty well, and a lot of times they had the metal brad for the hinge thing worked out before we explained it. I just don't get how they could work that out themselves and still not understand which end of the straw is shorter.
1. Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as The Controversial Survey?
Err... that's kind of a throw-away question here, isn't it?
2. Would you do meth if it was legal?
Ugh no. Why would they legalize it?
3. Abortion: for or against it?
The wording of this seems inaccurate, because pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion. I am pro-choice. I would be fine if there were a few limits put on this as far as restricting abortions late in term, but I do think that it needs to be legal. Rape victims, underage mothers, mothers whose pregnancy is in some way a major threat to their own life, these women need to have a choice.
4. Do you think the world would fail with a female president?
That seems pretty ethnocentric. No, I think the success or threat of a president depends on the individual, matters of gender have nothing to do with it.
5. Do you believe in the death penalty?
I do, but admitting it makes me feel awkward. I think it needs to be used very carefully, in very select cases, but I'm willing to believe that there are criminals who cannot be reformed. I think they're very rare though, and you'd better make damn sure someone is just that first.
6. Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
My answer to this is heavily biased by where I grew up, and I know it. It was hippiesville. I have never smoked it, but I've been around it plenty and could have had easy access to it. Most of the pot that went around my town was home grown and passed between family and friends. I knew people who smoked it once in a while, having gotten it from people they trusted, and also used it to make brownies for friends or friends of friends going through chemo. That doesn't bother me at all. These are people who are intelligent and good and law-abiding in all other ways. Now I know there's a market out there for marijuana that's grown gods-know-where and goes through gods-know-who and laced with gods-know-what, and that is some nasty stuff. It is my hope that if it's legalized that black market would dissolve, it could be regulated, and that would make it safer stuff overall. Yes, it can be misused/overused and that's no good either, but regular cigarettes are nasty and have all kinds of weirdass chemicals, and I guess I feel a little like you should either legalize pot or make cigarettes illegal, but the way it stands now feels like a double standard. They're both bad for you, about equally so, in different ways.
7. Are you for or against premarital sex?
It's personal choice, but because I cannot legally marry my girlfriend, what option do I have? Yeah, I know, there's more on that further down. Basically my stance is it's not the business of anyone except the specific people involved.
8. Do you believe in God?
Which one? I mean, yes! I do. My views are too complicated to type here.
9. Do you think same-sex marriage should be legalized?
... Do I really need to answer this? Yes, especially since the newer VA laws that seriously cut us apart if anything awful were to happen. If something were to happen to me, for instance, because I have no blood relatives around, it could be days before they could physically get here. In that intervenining time my girlfriend's right to have any say whatsoever, even to carry out my express wishes, could be legally challenged. Is that right? I could be in a coma, and have to sit around dying or something if somebody decided to protest that the person I've lived with for eight years shouldn't have the right to speak for me?
10. Do you think it's wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA?
Yes, I think that's a massive clue that there's something terribly amiss somewhere in the systems of both countries.
11. A twelve-year-old girl has a baby - should she keep it?
Twelve??? Okay, my first and immediate question is can she even reasonably survive the pregnancy? As a minor, does she get to legally decide? I don't think a Twelve-year old should be the one making that decision. Nor should she be pregnant in the first place.
OMG. I hadn't even had my period yet at Twelve.
12. Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?
No. Where I grew up, kids would go across the border to Canada on their 18th birthdays and after to booze it up. I think there's just so much about our cultural attitude that would have to change before that would be a smart move.
13. Should the war in Iraq be called off?
...Yes, but I don't know how. I admit I don't have the answers, but I think we're definitely in a doing more harm than good position, whether or not we were originally.
14. Assisted suicide is illegal: do you agree?
Yes.
15. Do you believe in spanking your children?
I think it depends on the individual child whether or not that's effective, but I think it should be an option, yes. I do think there's a clear line between spanking and abuse. You shouldn't be leaving a mark.
16. Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?
Damn I could use the money, and I'm a little confused by this question because I understand that's the respectful way to dispose of an old flag?
17. Who do you think would make a better president: McCain or Obama?
Oh god, this is the one I was dreading. I know I'm voting for Obama, but I honestly believe that in the end there's no way to know. You don't know what will come up in the next four years. You'll never know, because whoever wins, wins, and you don't get the option to try them both out and chose which parallel reality you live in.
18. Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
...I guess they might. I think most of my friends have fairly similar views, so I'm not too stressed about it.
Right. I am so running on empty. Going to bed.
no subject
no subject
I don't like politics, and I don't like politicians, and I don't think we're going to see a likely candidate that is what we think we want up there, simply because the political machine being what it is you have to have a certain amount of backstabbing and slandering just to get to that position in the first place.
no subject
no subject
Heidi said it's one of their favorite games, and she joked someday the CPA will come around and go 'where are your kids?' 'Oh, in the closed box over there...' Tegwyn's big thing was pushing a baby stroller up and down steps. And up and down. and up and down. If I didn't help she'd stand at the top or bottom going 'Steps!'
Thea is homeschooled, and effing brilliant. She's 8 and she was doing sudoku puzzles. Correctly. Basically the kids are used to traveling around with them to shows. Heidi and her husband Sam set up the show, Heidi performs the show alone while Sam watches the kids. Sam does the driving (he has a CDL and drives the trailer like a genius). The kids are really good about it all. Heidi's puppeteering is the family business. You can see her at www.barefootpuppets.com
no subject
no subject