Lydia Archives - Page 27 of 50 - Ramblin' with Roger

The Lydster, Part 144: An Even Dozen

She’s now #1 in New York State in First in Math

Earlier this month, the Daughter appeared in the church musical, for the third year in a row. This year’s effort was called SPEAK LOUD, SPEAK PROUD, and had readings written by the performers, as well as dancing, and singing, and rapping. My daughter wrote something about me, which was only slightly mortifying because it was true.

She continues to excel in school, particularly in math. She may be a tad obsessed with First in Math. She’s now #1 in New York State with over 20,000 points, in the Top 20 for her grade nationally, and trying to make the Top 100 nationally. More importantly to her, she’s helping to close the gap between her school and the #1 school in the district.

She enjoys reading but is less than enthralled about writing about the readings. The class requirements DO seem to have a bit of mechanical feel to it, with X number of paragraphs, all starting with certain words such as First or Then or Next or Finally, and X paragraphs, each with Y sentences.

To my surprise, she’s given up the clarinet. I thought she was doing well, and that she both enjoyed it, especially playing with her mother, and that she was pretty good at it. The Wife wants to sell the Daughter’s instrument, but I’m opposed; I think she might come back to it.

She had to deal with a bullying incident in school, which has been resolved. The principal to him noted that his remarks were not only hurtful to others but, taken the wrong way, dangerous to himself. It was difficult for her to report him, as it seemed to draw attention to herself, and perhaps even harder to hear his apology.

Her room is…not as tidy as it might be, even by my fairly lax standards.

There’s undoubtedly more to say, but I’ll just note that I love the girl.

The Lydster, Part 143: playing with Fire

My loving child regularly mocks me.

ALL of her friends had some sort of electronic device, and she did not, so someone (Santa? The Wife, and I? I forget) gave The Daughter an Amazon Fire for Christmas. It was one of the best presents I ever got.

For one thing, it ended the fussing over The Wife’s work iPad. It was entrusted to the adult, of course, but the child knew far better how to actually USE the thing. I was of no help in this arena either.

The Daughter getting her own device means The Wife doesn’t complain that her device is not charged, or not in her school bag in the morning as she heads off to work. Not hearing this repeated disagreement is GREAT, for ME, and for them as well.

Another thing: it made MY Amazon Fire, purchased some months ago, actually usable. For some reason, I had to change the password in our home WiFi last summer, and the Time Warner Cable guy said, “You’d better write it down because it’s unretrievable.” Well, I DID lose it, in fairly short order. I had my device but couldn’t use it at home.

Since The Daughter wanted to use her new machine at home, I called TWC anyway – something I wouldn’t have bothered to do for myself – and, lo and behold, was able to reset the password to something this Census geek can actually remember.

Oh, yeah. The Wife has a habit of putting all the plugs for all the devices in a drawer, but somehow, my Fire charger went MIA. Now, I can use The Daughter’s charger; yeah, I could have bought a new one, but I did not. My loving child regularly mocks me when she realizes things she can do after two days that I never figured out in four months.

The Lydster, Part 142: First in Math

At Thanksgiving, when we were at my in-laws, the Daughter became obsessed with being on the computer. But it wasn’t to be playing with the latest mind-numbing video trash. It was to play First in Math.

The variety of games include Measurement World, where one picks out the comparable length or weight in either metric, US customary, or mixed; Know and Show word problems; and Skill Sets. The latter uses the 24® Game, which, briefly, is getting four numbers and using the math functions, trying to get to 24.

For instance, if the numbers were 5, 6, 7, and 8, you could do: 5+7=12, 8-6=2, 12X2=24. But the actual timed play gets increasingly difficult, as the numbers include negative integers, fractions, and decimals. It gets even trickier when one has two sets of numbers, one number is unknown in each set and needs to be solved using the same missing variable.

FIM was designed to “Harness the power of digital gaming to build math skills.” Schools all over the country participated, but, as of the end of December, there wasn’t a New York State school in the top 100 of the country, less a matter of skill than a function of different emphasis.

Within the school district, the Daughter’s class was the last in her school, and her school among the last in the city to join First in Math, beginning in mid-October. At the end of the third week in November, she had about 4500 points, but by the time the turkey had digested in our stomachs, she’d reached 7500 points. And in mid-December, she obtained the coveted 10,000 points and got to first place in the city, overtaking some child two grades behind her at a different school.

Her class went from barely in the Top 50 in the state to the mid-teens. In the city, they are a solid #2, though it would be difficult – “Don’t say impossible!”, she implores – to catch them. A lot of that, though by no means, all of that rise came from her efforts.

I’d like to say that I have no idea where she gets this competitive streak. I’d like to say that, but it would be wrong.

The Lydster, Part 141: the Presbyterian

The stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church USA explained the denomination to the Donald.

Both the Wife and I grew up in the Methodist tradition. We didn’t become Presbyterians until the 21st century. Theologically, there’s not that much of a difference between the two Christian denominations, IMO, but some of the rituals are a bit different.

The Daughter has grown up in the Presbyterian church, so it’s more difficult for her when we go to other houses of worship, such as my parents-in-law’s Methodist service. For my spouse and myself, it doesn’t much matter, when we recite the Lord’s Prayer, if we say “sins” or “debts” (our usual form) or “trespasses” (the Methodist form). I WILL admit that growing up, all that sibilant “trespasses… trespass against us” ironically sounded a bit serpentine.

When Donald Trump was campaigning, he made some comments about Ben Carson’s Seventh Day Adventist faith. Then he noted, “I’m Presbyterian. Boy, that’s down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness.” The Daughter saw this on TV and grimaced. “He can’t be a Presbyterian, can he?” (The stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church USA explained the denomination to the Donald.)

I wish The Daughter was more familiar with the late Fred Rogers, who was a counterculture Christian icon, not just a wholesome American TV star. Here’s a lovely story about the ordained Presbyterian minister.

The Lydster, Part 140: PTX

The Daughter uses The Wife’s iPad more than The Wife does. Among other things, she watches music videos. Sometimes, while riding the stationary bike, she listens to her second favorite group (after the Beatles, of course.)

That would be Pentatonix, an a cappella quintet: Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Kirstie Maldonado, Kevin Olusola, and Avi Kaplan. From the website:

Since bursting onto the scene in 2011, Grammy Award-winners and platinum selling recording artists, Pentatonix, has sold more than 2 million albums in the U.S. alone and amassed over 905 million views on their YouTube channel with more than 7.8 million subscribers. Their latest holiday album – That’s Christmas To Me – sold more than 1.1 million copies in the U. S., becoming one of only four acts to release a platinum album in 2014.

The Daughter came up with her Top 10 favorite songs.

10. White Winter Hymnal. OK, I don’t “get” the song from their 2014 Christmas album, originally recorded by Fleet Foxes on their 2008 debut album.

9. I Need Your Love. I like this more than the Calvin Harris feat. Ellie Goulding original.

8. Daft Punk. I find the blue eyes…distracting, and not in a good way. This is a medley of Daft Punk songs, including Get Lucky. In February 2015, the group received their first GRAMMY® Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental and A Cappella for the medley.

7. Radioactive, featuring Lindsey Stirling. A cover of a 2012 Imagine Dragons song.

6. Rather Be. Originally done by Clean Bandit, featuring Jess Glynne. I’ll admit that I had never heard either version before.

5. Can’t Hold Us. I wonder if the Daughter’s seen the Macklemore & Ryan Lewis video featuring Ray Dalton from 2013.

4. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Now we’re into very familiar source material: Tchaikovsky. Let’s watch Nina Kaptsova dance to it.

3. Love Again. Is this an original? If not, I have no idea of the source material.

2. The Evolution Of Music. This is the first recording of theirs I heard, a medley of songs MOSTLY from the 20th and 21st century. I like how it changes from black & white to color in the 1960s. Here it is again, with the “thank you” tag. Here’s the list of songs covered.

My twin nieces and The Daughter performed this at the Olin family reunion in July. Let’s watch Minnie the Moocher by Cab Calloway.

1. Wizard Of Ahhhs, starring Todrick Hall. A Wizard of OZ motif, featuring a medley of these songs. I had no idea who Hall was – here’s his Evolution of Disney.

I need to listen to Somewhere Over The Rainbow, by Judy Garland and by Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwoʻole, plus the IZ medley of Rainbow and What a Wonderful World.