Gye Greene's Thoughts

Gye Greene's Thoughts (w/ apologies to The Smithereens and their similarly-titled album!)

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The meaning of drawing monsters

The Girl sure loves to draw: every day when we pick her up from daycare she has two or three drawings. And, she's at the developmental stage where people are actually recognizable as ''people''.

Since I'm the (semi-compulsive) archivist in the family, I tend to write her name and the day's date on the bottom corner, plus a brief explanation/ interpretation of the contents of the picture -- based on The Girl's explanation, of course. And, for the last few weeks, at least one drawing is of her, plus one or more family members -- plus, ''a monster''.

(Note: image of monster not her drawing; plucked from the web.)

I was a little concerned: does the monster represent some secret worry or fear in her life? So, today, as I was labeling one of her drawings (her, daddy, mommy, a scary monster, the sun, and the blue sky), I asked her "Why do you draw scary monsters?"

Her answer: "I like scary monsters."

OK, then.


--GG

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Aussie-ism

Our answering machine is a little garbled.

Thus, I was caught out by a person from church leaving his phone number: I thought he said "eight seven two, five seven nine". I tried phoning that, but kept getting someone else. I finally had to phone the church secretary to get his home number.

Turned out he had said "eight double-two, five double-nine". Aussies tend to say ''double'' -- whereas those of us from Seattle just say the number twice (really, neither way is faster than the other...). So, I had heard the two (garbled!) syllables -- "dwah-bah" -- and figured it must be "seven", as all the other single digits (except for zero) are one digit.

Tricky...


--GG

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Moo

My daughter has a friend at daycare named ''Moo''. However, none of the kids on the sign-in sheet had a name anywhere close.

For a while, we thought she might be an imaginary friend -- but if so, she'd be a highly specific imaginary friend, since she only existed at daycare -- and (apparently!) only attended on certain days.

Recently, they had individual and group photos posted at daycare, so we asked her to point Moo out to us. Turns out that Moo's real name is Cathy. But, my daughter says, everyone calls her ''Moo''.

We asked why she's called Moo.

And my daughter said, ''Because that's her name.''


--GG

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Re-awakening interests


I'm either cursed, or blessed, with a disparate range of interests: music (playing, recording), woodworking, computers (to a finite extent), and martial arts.

For the last few years, all of them have been lying fairly dormant, as I tried to focus on finishing my Ph.D. dissertation -- which, I finally did, about a month ago.

Martial arts stuff has totally fallen by the wayside. However, when my brother visits me in about a month, I'll go check out a dojo or two with him (we used to take a kung fu class together).

Computer stuff has simmered at a low-lying but consistent level: I subscribe to a Linux magazine, and I engage in episodic, task-prompted ''reading up'' on things -- such as when I need to choose a laptop for work.

Woodworking has percolated at a moderate level: there's three woodworking blogs I follow; I usually browse through the woodworking magazines at the newsagent's, and sometimes pick one up; and I semi-frequently ''dumpster-dive'' for offcuts at construction sites -- and will spend 10-15 minutes here and there pulling nails out of salvaged wood.

However, the biggest resurgence has been in music. I'm pleased with this, as music was the original -- and central -- interest. I'm still not playing much -- but I picked up three guitar magazines at the library a few weeks ago, and I'm pleasantly surprised at how much the guitar, amp, and effects pedals reviews engage me. Jotting down a few notes on gear that I need to look in to, for (eventual!) possible purchase.


I didn't include criminology or research methodology on that list. I **am** interested in that stuff -- but as it's work-related, I'm not counting it (even though I sometimes geek out on nifty new (to me) statistical techniques.


--GG

Monday, July 06, 2009

Laudable attitude

Found Mar. 21, 2009; from Laugh Digest Magazine (Archie comics), #127, “Josie and the Pussycats” story “The Octopus and the Pesticide”, first page:


“Melody, how can you be so sickeningly cheerful on [a] Monday?”

“By practicing it every week until I’m good at it?”


--GG