I’m a woman, wife, mother, pianist, teacher, friend, sister. Is it odd that how I describe myself is mostly in my relationship to other people? Guess that’s mostly right, although I still spend a lot of time trying to figure out who I am, or at least who I want to be when I grow up.
I love to read, watch movies, cook, dabble in photography, write a little poetry now and then, and try to keep up with my many jobs and my family.
I’ve spent many many years ranting to anyone who will listen, including to myself and to the radio in my car. While this may get some funny looks from passersby, it doesn’t do much to start a conversation. Hope you enjoy what you read, and please, please, please, comment! Otherwise I’m still just talking to myself, but even more publicly!
Just Sayin' 
Hi there. Just stumbled onto your blog and love it so far. But you should put something in your “About” page so we know something about you. You have some interesting things to say.
Sincerely,
John
I’ve tried but apparently I’m not doing it right! Can you tell me how?
Hey! I figured it out! And can I just say, um, “duh”?
It took me a while to figure out how to access the “About” page! I find the help button on the dashboard to be indispensable.
Pianist and performer! Oh, my, we have to talk! (But not now. I have a dentist appt. in a few minutes.)
Been reading and enjoying your blog all afternoon.
In the meantime, here’s a cartoon your rants on education reminded me of. The reproduction is a bit hard to read, but it’s worth squinting through, if you haven’t already seen it. (I cut this out of the newspaper when it ran back in 1986 and promptly framed it.)
John
Too funny! I’ve actually seen this before — but was a lot less disillusioned at the time so only laughed ~ half as much. (Or maybe I’m no longer disillusioned, since I now see things as they really are.)
Okay, back from the dentist. (Ouch.)
What kind of music? (pianist and performer)
I was thinking about your education rants, and I think one of the biggest reasons today’s kids don’t care is that they know there is no link (anymore) between education and success. The link is between social contacts (networking) and success. Take two people: one is well-connected, charming, sociable, quick on his feet, a genius networker, but not terribly competent–a classic Peter Principle person. The other is a loner, polite but distant, no influential friends, belongs to no groups or clans, just keeps his nose down and does his job quietly, then goes home at the end of the day. Who’s going to get downsized? It won’t be Mr. Popularity.
Kids know that. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. And that’s what they’re in school for.
My own bro-in-law is not the brightest guy around, but he’s fot a Rolodex with 14,000 names in it. He’s a real estate broker in SoCal. He has a fraction of the education I have, by his own admission. A typical note from him would be something like, “Were going to be at the Starbucks near 5th and Main accross from the libarry. Hope you can meet us their, but if its to late, thats OK.” Not kidding. And he’s rich. Can’t read at a tenth grade level, but he can instill confidence, sell you on his point of view, press flesh, he knows how to wear a suit, and he works every room he is in. Coaches little league and passes out business cards. Does public speaking to get his mug in front of everyone in ten zipcodes’ range. When he says he wants his kids to have a “good education,” he means a school where the parents of the other kids are well-connected.
It works.
America rewards those people. It does reward smart people, except in a few disciplines where competence is all their is. (No one cares what a brain surgeon’s handshake feels like.) So really, kids are just responding to what they see in the world about them. And they learn this at a very early age–kids aren’t stupid, they’re highly observant of subtleties, even if they can’t always articulate what they’ve observed. They learn about their environment from the media, and it’s instructive to note that there are no unattractive people lacking poise in the media, unless they’re playing the goon who gets sand kicked in his face. And ask yourself when the last time was you observed someone reading a book on a TV show or in a movie.
Hi John
So 13 years have passed since you wrote the above. I apparently forget to go to my About page to respond to comments!
You make a lot of interesting points. I think for the most part they are still, and perhaps even more, true. But not universally so. There are a lot of young people out there who are eager to learn and to make the world a better place. I think perhaps it feels more and more futile, since there are so many things stacked against them. Climate change, rampant shootings in the U.S., Putin ready to blow up the world. So I find it hard to blame them, and am continually astounded at how so many of them persist despite all of these decks stacked against them.
Really struggling this week after the MSU shootings and realizing that no matter how empathetic I think I am — and I’m pretty empathetic — the realities hit a lot harder when they hit close to home.
Thanks for reading. Hope you’re still here, although I’m here a lot less frequently than I was for a while.
Take good care,
sheriji
I found ur blog interesting.keep it up 🙂
Love your blog. And I love that I found someone who values literacy.
Hi, I stumbled upon your blog somehow and have enjoyed reading its entries. I appreciate your respect for and use of language. Your views are interesting and your style is refreshing to read. Thanks for the effort I know you put into your postings.
Here is my blog, if you are interested. Woody
http://orangebloss.wordpress.com/
I hear you. Functional illiteracy – like 25% of people using the cell phone can’t read or write. Bet that’s the new PC, intuitive, data-mining your online behaviour and serving up the apps to satisfy your every desire. Ta, Wordbone
I found your blog because of Freshly Pressed, but I read several more posts and really like it. I just wish you had an RSS feed for posts (I can find one for the About feed but not for actual posts), so I can keep up with you!
I tried to add the RSS widget — can you let me know if I did it correctly and if it works?
I love your blog; especially your “Functional Illiteracy” post. I’m in my mid-twenties and it infuriates even me to hear my peers speak that way; in fact, I blogged about it too – http://krurai.wordpress.com/tag/english-language/
I have added your blog to my RSS feeds and look forward to more rants.
Wow – new theme! I’m confused by it, though I love the banner. Ufizzi?
..and it changed again while the comment posted! Prefer this version!
…and again! Back to the old JUst SAyin’!
I liked some of the new options, but some of the widgets weren’t available, and I couldn’t figure out how to get it to do the “previous posts” settings the way I was telling it to. Unfortunately I had to go back and reconfigure everything one widget at a time, so now I don’t know if I have it back the way it was or not. That will teach me to try to tweak things beyond my ability to comprehend them. (Should have thought of that before I had children?)
Wish wordpress would let you use new layouts with old settings. Or maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing. Hope it wasn’t too crazy of a ride for you. 🙂
I survived! As for considering tweak-ability before children, who’s to know the children will need tweaking until after they have sprouted?
About the settings and things being different when you switch themes: there is info provided on each theme as to what it will do. So if you go to the theme page and find your current theme, and read about what options it has, then check that the theme you are switching to has the options you use. For me, being able to insert a background image is important – though am considering switching to a magazine format so I can have more columns on my from page – but I’d be sorry to say bye bye to alisonamazed’s crazy colors.
When you went to the really clean theme with what looked like the Uffizi, I really didn’t like the blog – it wasn’t you! It was too stark and white. I like the gray background you have here and the left hand column for blog posts. You might want to try uploading an image for your banner (across top of page) on this theme. Look in your settings at bottom of left column on dashboard – but if you’re doing widgets you know where that is.
I had created a banner I really liked, but had a hard time getting it to fit into the banner space correctly, so I abandoned it. Maybe I’ll try again.
And I understand about the switching themes information, the problem is you can’t seem just to transfer the widgets from one theme to another, and have to basically start from scratch. Then when I switched back I had to reinstall them back into the old format. There’s an hour I can’t get back!
I survived! As for considering tweak-ability before children, who’s to know the children will need tweaking until after they have sprouted?
About the settings and things being different when you switch themes: there is info provided on each theme as to what it will do. So if you go to the theme page and find your current theme, and read about what options it has, then check that the theme you are switching to has the options you use. For me, being able to insert a background image is important – though am considering switching to a magazine format so I can have more columns on my from page – but I’d be sorry to say bye bye to alisonamazed’s crazy colors.
When you went to the really clean theme with what looked like the Uffizi, I really didn’t like the blog – it wasn’t you! It was too stark and white. I like the gray background you have here and the left hand column for blog posts. You might want to try uploading an image for your banner (across top of page) on this theme. Look in your settings at bottom of left column on dashboard – but if you’re doing widgets you know where that is.
Just looked at it and you can do a custom header, so you might want to try that image of the piano you have on this page, or some other image that speaks about the tone of your blog. Your writing style is very straight ahead and you speak your mind – it’s really your personality and interests that I come here to experience. So you might want to try an image of yourself. 🙂 as a header – yes indeed. 🙂
I think I “read” better than I “look,” and I’m trying to keep a certain amount of anonymity for some reason. Not sure why. . .maybe down the road.
I did manage to work in a picture of a quill, but that seems kind of lame. I’ll keep thinking about it.
Thanks for reading! and commenting! I’m really in it as much for the conversation as anything, but don’t seem to generate as many comments as my views would suggest I could have. Any suggestions there?
My stats aren’t that high! I was surprised when I looked through my posts the other day and saw the number of comments, then I realised a lot of them were pingbacks from links in posts where I referred to them. You can read about pingbacks and trackbacks in WordPress notes somewhere – do a search.
The other thing about comments is building a conversation by responding to each and every comment you get, visiting other blogs, leaving comments – a lot of work. I’m in it to get myself writing again – think I’ve done that. Am stunned by how social it can get, not complaining, just really surprised. Being social around my writing is a new experience.
I don’t know about the quill – maybe a whole row of them? I see a wild image as your banner: like a stack of freshly washed laundry on top of a washing machine surrounded by dirty laundry, muddy runners, spilled laundry detergent (powdered). It speaks about you as a mother, living in a corrupt world, trying to bring some order with your blog. You could set it up and take the picture yourself. YOu might want to stick a sheet of music on top of the clean laundry, or poking out of it. Wow – I should design websites! I’m amazed at that idea.
What do you think? Thanks for challenging and inspiring me!
Wow! That’s great! All encompassing – Well done!
Wow! That’s great! All encompassing – Well done! Love Peanuts clutching his heart!
Er I mean Charlie Brown
I enjoy your blog. I’ve nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award, which I hope you’ll accept and enjoy!
The rules can be found on my page: http://quieterelephant.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/the-versatile-blogger-award/
Hey, sheriji: Just wanted to let you know I’m nominating you for a Versatile Blogger Award. Not really an award, per se, but it is a nice way of saying how much I love your work. If you want to participate, I explain a bit of what’s going on in the blog post where I nominated you: http://snoekbrown.com/2012/02/02/im-not-very-bendy-but-apparently-im-versatile/
All the best!
Sam
Hey, Samuel Snoek-Brown-
That’s really really nice of you! But I’ve already “won” — nominated a few weeks ago by “The Quieter Elephant.” Thank you, though! Really glad you are enjoying my blog.
So you were! How’d I miss that? I get your posts in my email. Anyway, congrats twice, then! Because you’re that awesome. 🙂
Hey there! I’ve nominated you for a Sunshine Award, if you fancy a bit of “bling”. You can read about it here: http://quieterelephant.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/showing-off-the-family-silver/
May you never split a finger-nail whilst typing.