Puggle Update
I am Puggle.

I am Puggle.

"Would you like for me to juggle?"


"That wiggly Puggle. That wiggly Puggle! I do not want that Puggle to juggle!"


"Would you like juggling here or there?"


"I would not like juggling here or there. I would not like it anywhere! I do not like juggling Puggles. I do not like it you wiggly Puggle!"

"should I juggle with my feet? With my feet its very neat!

"Not with your feet, not very neat! I do not want for you to juggle. I do not like it you wiggly Puggle.

"You will like it you will see. You will like it when you see me."



"In bed. In bed. In bed. In bed! Here in a bed I can juggle with my head!"

Not in bed, not with your head. Not with you and not in me. I do not like it when you juggle. I do not like it you wiggly Puggle!


"If you you will not let me juggle do you think that we can snuggle?"

"Puggle, if you will turn around for me, we can snuggle from now til 3!"

[FLIP].

Current Mood: grateful

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Books
 Does anyone have some of the classic Hebrew children's stories? I'm thinking of Eliezer vhagezer, ma'aseh bchamisha ballonim, aryeh sheahav toot etc

If you do, can I borrow them for about a week?

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Parents, Children, and the New York City public school system
I have now figured out the one major difference between pre-k and first grade: pre-k is advised, but not mandatory- first grade is mandatory. This means that parents have to bother to sign their children up for pre-k and would therefore seem to have some interest in their child's education. If children don't show up for first grade the police get involved. The only parental interest needed in that case is not wanting to deal with the police, and has nothing to do with the child's education or lack thereof. This explains a great deal about the significant lack of parental desire to assist their children or advocate for them. Its really very sad: because the parents can't be bothered, the kids get screwed educationally. More on this subject when I'm more awake.

Current Mood: tired

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Annals of graduate school: reprise
So, I'm back at Bank Street in the Early Childhood General/Special Education program. This means that when I finish I'll be able to teach anything from infants to second grade either general ed. or special ed. Its a 54 credit program, and hopefully I'll be able to finish in three years. Starting in September I'll be able to work full-time teaching (hurray for earning an income!) and take classes at the same time(Bank Street classes are in the evening so we can do that). For now I'm student teaching three days a week and taking 13 credits at the same time. For the first part of the semester I was in a kindergarten inclusion (1/3 special ed. 2/3 general ed.) class in the south bronx, and now I'm in a first grade inclusion class on west 53rd. In mid-January I'll go to a kindergarten special ed. class for the rest of the year. I've decided that graduate school is both easier and harder married. On the one hand, I come home after class and don't have to think about food or laundry. On the other, I would rather spend time with Lawrence than do the mountain of homework I have every week. My classes are amazing, but I'm still behind after the Hagim! In terms of student teaching I have decided the following:

1. I do not want to teach first grade. The children spend entirely too much time sitting and working and entirely too little time playing and being children. The standards are not developmentally appropriate, and expect way too much of children who have limited educational support at home.
2. For every generation a family spends in poverty it is harder for them to get out. There is an attitude shift that is much harder to change than the actual financial hardship.
3. Children in poverty-stricken areas have an even harder time succeeding in school because they have little or no educational support at home. How can you ask a child to practice reading at home when his parents can't read?
4. Most standardized tests are written by people who are completely culturally divorced from the majority of children who are actually taking the tests: On a recent math exam for third graders, there was a question about buying a yacht. Most of these children have no idea what a yacht is, let alone how much one should cost!

All for now, time to go make pumpkin soup for dinner.

Current Mood: tired

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A rant on the subject of stupidity
Dear Parents:

You have been blessed with the gift of a child: maybe that child isn't exactly the one you wanted, but that doesn't absolve you of the obligation loving and caring for that child. Translation: MAKE HER WEAR HER SEATBELT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If she is too small for a seatbelt, PUT HER IN A CARSEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Context: I spend four afternoons a week working with children with varying levels of physical disability. Its amazing work and I love it. On the other hand, the parents of the kids occasionally drive me to insanity with theeir senseless stupidity and laziness. For instance, one of the five year olds I work with has spina bifida. By some miracle it only mildly effects her -- she can walk without a limp, can climb steps, and is capable of learning in a "regular" classroom. Several times in the past month, her parents have sent her to the hospital for treatment (occupational therapy and psych counseling) WITHOUT HER CAR SEAT. It seems they were lucky enough with her level of disability from a genetic birth defect that they want to play russian roulette with her future safety and continued lack of disability!

In a similar vein: I hate feeling helpless! I hate seeing a situation in front of my face that I can't change! I hate the fact that because of parental stupidity, a "normal" healthy young woman is reduced to an 18 month old in an 11 year old's body! I hate the fact that she needs more help than we can give, and that ultimately she is doomed to spend the rest of her life with the mental capacity of a child under 2 years of age, all because her parents were too lazy to make her wear a seatbelt!

Current Mood: angry

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grr, arg and other words of apology
I'm back after a long hiatus in the world of busy-ness.

Professional update:
1. The application is on its way to Bank Street. Finally.
2. Alyn offered me a job and then had to take back the offer when the government told them they couldn't hire me.
3. They want me to train the girls doing national service on the rehab side in how to run group for handicapped kids. Translation: they want me to be there more than 20 hours per week without getting paid. The sad part is I think I'm going to do it.
4. The social workers who supervise the after school kids and the school want to write me recomendations for my next job :).
5. I love working there: the kids are great and the staff is phenomenal.

Personal update:
1. I can't believe we've been married for almost 7 months. I feel like we've been together forever, and I feel like the wedding was yesterday. Its still a surprise to wake up next to him in the morning (and he looks so cute when he's asleep), but when I come home first I look for him automatically. Very strange.

2. Our apartment is great -- we had 26 people over for our chanukkah party, and it was only slightly cramped! Also, now that we have a heater it is only slightly chilly rather than freezing cold. We still haven't figured out how to heat the living/ dining room, but we're work on it.

3. For those of you who saw the little ones at the wedding: the girls are running around and starting to talk, and Josh is in the process of learning to read at 3.5. He is a little confused about where we are, but understands that when it is morning there it is night time here. Every time we talk to him his first question is: "Is it night time there?"

4. I love my classes at the yeshiva -- Talmud is incredibly challenging but I'm learning alot, and now that I spoke to the teacher, he only calls on me when I volunteer. Tanach is just fun -- less challenging but I like ny chevrutot, and are teacher is good at bringing in mefarshim none of us have learned before. She also muakes us support our opinions, which leads to less unexplained "oh, that must be from a different source".

5. Mom and dad are coming next week -- I'm looking forward to seeing them, but I'm glad they're only staying 10 days, any more and I'd probably go crazy. Trying to decide if we should invite people over for meals when they are here -- they want to meet our friends, but tend to get very judgmental afterwards. We have to think about it.

All for now -- I have to go bake a cake for dinner: some of Lawrence's classmates are coming.

Shabbat shalom to all!

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random silliness
From the mixed up files of the Lemur/Qat houshold:

"Can you make a wish on nose hairs?"

"sigh" (laughs and buries head under the blanket)

"And what about ear hairs?"

"Rabbi Yosi says he cannot wish on them because of the wax. Rabbi Eliezer says unless he intended to use the wax for shabbos candles. Rabbi Hanina says if he cleans off the wax he can wish on them."

"you have gemara on the brain!"

"I haven't actually studied gemara you know--I'm just channeling the mishna!"

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the bureaucratic nature of hospitals
In the U.S. most (if not all) hospitals are driven by the bottom line --patient care is determined by how much it will cost, rather than its therapeutic value. I had been told this was heavily related to the type of health care system we have in the U.S., especially the way insurance companies operate. Israel has socialized medicine, which theoretically would make things much better because the government pays for everything. Wrong! Although the focus is more on the care of the patient, the money to provide that care is still an issue. Also, the bureaucracy is even worse than in the U.S. because the government is more heavily involved. This means that of the 11 children who are supposed to show up for after school therapy on Mondays, only two came. We will see if more come tomorrow, but I'm not hopeful. WHat is the point of designing a special program of after school therapy for these kids if they can't even get there because the city, who provides them with transportation, is so disorganized?

On the other hand, the toy library is shaping up nicely, and I think it will be operational for the kids in a couple of weeks.

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When asking for volunteers...
I have Talmud shiur (class discussion where one person reads and explains the text while the rest of us follow along and the teacher tries to explain what we don't understand) 4 days a week. And every class, my teacher asks for volunteers and sometimes he gets them and sometimes he doesn't. Today, he didn't, so he volunteered someone. Whats the point of asking for volunteers if you're just going to pick someone anyway? I'd rather he have us sign up so we can prepare very well in advance, rather than surprising us on a day when we might not understand the text as well. With that, off to Mincha and Tanach class. Hurray for the plagues!

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mostly random musings
So I finally bowed to the not so subtle pressure of actually keeping in touch with everyone while 7000 miles away. Hence an update on my life: having survived the chaggim, I am spending my mornings at the CY learning Talmud, and my afternoons at Alyn (Israel's only pediatric rehab hospital). At Alyn I am spending two days a week working with children with spina bifida--accompanying them to different therapy appointments all over the hospital, playing with them between appointments, making sure they are doing ok emotionally. I'm a child life specialist without the title or the salary.

The other two days, I am organizing and running a toy library for the nursery school at the hospital. Some of the students have Down's syndrome or other genetic disorders, but 80% of them are in a therapeutic program because they were unrestrained passengers in car accidents. This drives me more than slightly insane: Any Israeli family can get a car seat free from the government, and I believe most hospitals will even help you install it properly in your car. Considering the way people drive here (it's worse than Boston) I can't believe any parent wouldn't want to protect their child. I also can't believe the government isn't making a bigger deal about this, since there is socialized medicine here which means the government pays for the results of not having a car seat.

In other news, I am engaged in reapplying to graduate school, since my first degree in child life seems to be less than useful on the employment front. (To a hospital bean counter, making the children do better emotionally is apparently not as important as having nurses to care for them physically) It's been interesting trying to write my admissions essay about my job last year and still be objective about the wonderful woman who was my supervisor and co-teacher, and who was borderline emotionally abusive to several of the students in our class. I guess its a learning experience in tact and objectivity. Assuming I get in, we will be going to school less than ten blocks from each other, and provided the gods of housing can be suitably mollified, we will be living within those ten blocks. Yay short commute to night classes!

In my spare time, I am getting used to married life and knitting sweaters as Hanukkah presents for Joshy, Maya and Liora. I figure that gives me til early December to finish them. For those who have heard me talk about them or saw them at the wedding: Joshy is 3.5 now, and enjoys writing his name (and his sisters'), hopping on one foot, school, and getting into various kinds of mischief. Maya and Liora are both walking and getting very frustrated with their inability to speak -- I'm giving it a month before they start.

All for now, time to make pasta for supper and read more about Lord Peter Wimsey. Many thanks to my former room-mate for introducing me to Dorthy Sayers.

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