[Author's note: here is another "calendar" entry, redacted from notes for the month of May, 2006. You get wildly unconnected fragments of here and there. The IDF is "Israeli Defense Force", I have long forgotten who Cheryl is, and my comment that it is easy for rich kids to pretend they are smart. Those kids are far more exposed to which behavior elicits the "oohs" and "aahs" of people they quickly learn to impress. And the picture is on Java, the island that loves to explode yet millions like to live there.]
Bob, my new guy was in today for an upbeat lesson on email. He is benefiting most from exact demonstrations that his email is not really on his computer and the material he sends and receives rarely tracks itself in a meaningful way. His mid-morning lesson is perfect for showing him that the email process is not instantaneous. He grasps these type of concepts rapidly and sometimes asks questions that are miles ahead of our position. Good, it shows that he will never go back to looking at computers the same way.
Also, he is very quick to learn the things that go wrong, I was able to reinforce this all along, as he said he had worked in a government office. Now he knows that using computers at work does not make you a computer expert and can hinder you when you try things at home. It is okay to point out to Bob when things happen that I have no explanation for.
He compliments me on a factor that I never rated as important. That is when I seem to know when a process has stalled or is misbehaving. I’ll click on a button and if nothing happens in the correct interval, I move on. This is nothing more than experience but he reminded me of the years it took me to get to that stage. He regularly asks me to back up and explain a decision that I gave no nevermind. He has progressed well into the middle-user grade in three lessons. Proof again that there is no substitute for private coaching when it comes to computers.
Interestingly, he now knows what to watch for on-screen. It seems his government job showed him that monitoring screens is not a good alternative to walking over once in a while and looking the machine over. He finds the split screens particularly intriguing. This is where you put two identical runs up on the screen and note that they both show differences in information and timing. A lot of people should be shown this so they will quit blindly trusting what they see. He now knows to keep track of his outgoing email.
His project, the heavily embroidered hat, is already growing extra legs. The Seattle outfit wants him to scan and send art-work. Hey, they should have told him about that expensive and tricky step before they got started. Plus, Bob is pro-American and did not appreciate them deciding to get the sewing done overseas. He wrote all the way to Seattle partly to avoid that situation.
He brought in a training DVD that defied all copy attempts. It is some kind of super-secret (yeah, then why did they put it on a DVD) training manual from the IDF . Counter-terror and anti-terror things, and yes, the two are different. It was a pretty piece, but once I got it home, I had it copied in 5 minutes 24 seconds. It contains such gems as, “Attempt to put a bullet into the terrorist’s head as this is the only certain way to eliminate the terrorist threat” and (if your gun jams) “hit the terrorist with the barrel or butt of the gun because these are the only two parts that must be made of metal”.
It is an interesting movie but in that occupation probably just common sense. For example, I always look with my eyes, not by turning my head. This is how most people determine what you are looking at. Hey, it is certainly something that should be done on the battlefield. Their tactics only work if the terrorist has not seen this DVD. Soldiers seem to love clearing buildings. Why? Surround the place and smoke them out. I suppose thinking is not what soldiering is all about.
Good thing is stayed home and made baked ravioli. Five billion calories, but so what, my heart can take it. Seriously, I cut way back on the cheese and added more tomatoes. It was not vegetarian, but close. I made iced tea and some small treats while waiting for some of the processes I am investigating around movie editing. It is tricky but nothing to stop me. I’ve got several of the major steps down to a science. Too bad one of them isn’t that Video_TS format.
I found out why Helene’s phone is not working. They have all decided to switch over to cellular. You know, I think cellular could very well be popular if the only reason was not having to ask others to borrow a phone. I got mine so I did not have to drive downtown to make a long distance call. I wonder how the new condo is doing, or was it a house she said. I can’t remember.
Cheryl is a strange one, I think I’ll keep her on as a source of amusement. She is a great for information about our gigs and Glenn, who if he does bullshit about his lot in life, has obviously learned not to do too much of it around me. She reports that his ad says he has a BFA, which I take to mean a Bachelor of Fine Arts. I have no idea what that entails and see no difference in [the Hippie]’s behavior that I have not seen in people who’ve never set foot on a campus.
Cheryl is constantly analyzing others, yet she seems to have no more than a teenage ability to do so. She is totally pragmatic against others and for herself though there is nothing uncommon about that. When I chided this Kathleen lady for being far too old to be using the “What’s your sign?” approach, Cheryl assumes it is because I don’t understand astrology. (False, my ex, Judy, knew all about it and still could not force things to go her own way all the time.) That kind of thinking is probably what has kept Cheryl in the bush league her entire life. She actually called it a “science” because it involved “calculations”.
I used to wonder what it was like to go through life living in that kind of a fog. You know, where you think you’ve got it nailed down, you are right, and anything you don’t or failed to know can be muddled in mythical and mystical that anyone smarter than you is just too unemotional to understand. Where every last thing you have ever done tells you that you are a dumb bastard but you never learn. Where you believe that your cleverness in such matters is enough to best all opponents, and anyone who has the facts has failed to understand the human side – toward which you are particularly sensitive. I say I used to wonder. Now I write such dipshits off.
When Cheryl insults you, she does so almost directly by sliding it into a sentence that is otherwise inert. For instance, that I am bullheaded enough to argue with the Hippie. You could take that either way. Now, in return, I’ll often describe a situation and finish the thing with “Do you know anybody like that?” Oh, she hates it when I do that, but hey, she started it.
In virtually every case, I had just described something she just did to a tee. Yet, where I would expect a cynical remark in keeping with her character, her response seems to be that I must certainly be talking about somebody else. Wrong. I don’t know anybody else in her world except Glenn. What I do like to point out to her (and anyone like her) is the dozens of occasions where I have solved one of their problems by duplicating the thinking that got them into the jam. The object being to emphasize that I have the “conscious option of adapting my thinking to any mode which better suits the situation”. Thus, anytime I determine that the way you think is better, I can easily switch it on. I notice, however that a lot of people cannot, in return, think the way I do even when the situation warrants it and they try damn hard to do so. “Do you know anybody like that?”
A lady called Martha came in today. She has a six-year-old who is a computer whiz. Why are we not surprised? I took a quarter-hour and discussed the facts with her. I was going to say no, that the child was too young to benefit from my methods. Then, she connected. She described a situation that made me realize my heart or what is left of it still had strings. The kid was being held back by the system. He was gifted in narrow ways, but there were no adults with the patience or skills to bring him along at full speed.
They tried putting him in special classes but quickly found out those classes are full of rich kids who are only pretending to be smart. They gave him special homework, but it was child-oriented and he lost interest instantly. They wanted him to be a different and funny kind of smart, kid smart where he has long since concluded that adults are not all that great a source of good information. The school is trying to channel his performance to out-dated standards, something I know an awful lot about. Martha had tried to help him with his homework and found that he already knew more about what he was interested in than she did. Mercifully unlike my parents, she admitted it and came for help.
Thinking it over, I am willing to try. She understands that my teaching does not always work for everyone and that I do not baby-sit. On the other hand, after a short while with me, I do produce genius brats. (Make sure you like me, however, for they begin to act and think like me.) I also create teachers who think the kid didn’t do the work himself. I added that effectiveness on a computer is not a matter of memorizing commands, but an overall approach to using a sophisticated tool.
She is to talk this over with her husband and call me back. I know all about being held back by ignorant adults and being refused knowledge over the assumption that I was as stupid as they were at my age. I know about the school system and its favorites and pets and the effect of personalities on high or low marks. I know all about forbidden knowledge and how hard adults can make it to find out anything they don’t think you “should” know. I know what it is like to waste years of youth on an idea I thought was original because no grown-up had the guts to tell me what I needed to know. (“If I teach you how to drive a car how do I know you won’t go steal one?” or “You can learn all that after you are 21.”)
And most, I know about the horrendous cost of having to learn things on my own that I could and should have been permitted to learn for free as a child. I was held back and trained not to think. I was punished for trying to start a business rather than work for somebody else. I was charged tremendous emotional prices for things I did not know I had a right to demand. I did not even know what a special needs child was until I was over 25 and by then it was too late. I remember being denied books by ignorant small town librarians. I remember being forced to do things the wrong and ignorant way or being forced to do without. These are not natural things to force upon a child. Maybe I can help this kid. If I can, of course, the price goes up.
She also has to consider the commitment, that I need the full time to completely teach a broad spectrum of knowledge; things that I know first hand to be severely inadequate in the public school system. That I have to plug gaps and often encounter damage that needs undoing. My training sessions for children are two hours at a time and conducted at a pace most adults would find exhausting. Only half the time is on the computer and no games are allowed even on the breaks.
I see that there is an inspector doing the rounds in the trailer court. Always a white guy who thinks he is tough or a black lady who thinks she is above criticism. I only noticed him because he was filling in a report on some guy who had “a dryer hooked up” in his trailer. I had not realized that was forbidden but nor did I read the rules before moving in. I think such inspection is wrong.
Ah, I did not say that all inspection was wrong. Inspect my car anytime, but inspecting the inside of my house is morally wrong, even if you do so indirectly or from the outside. (How did the bastard know there was a dryer in the house?) I’ve heard all the counter-arguments about how else are we going to make sure people obey the rules and I tell you that you have no business making rules for what people do inside their own home in the first place. If they do something that affects the public, catch them in public. I don’t care for arguments about how else are we going to make people obey the laws because such laws invade privacy. That, if you have not already guessed, is something I despise. How will you police your neighbors? I’m willing to let people go to a screaming, hand-wringing, writhing and sweaty early grave with that single searching question unanswered.
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