I played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while Shannon played an accompaniment of her own devising. I am Paganini-Grappelli.

Some schema resources:

Athey, Chris (1980) Extending Thought in Young Children: A
parent-teacher partnership. Paul Chapman Publishers: London

Meade, Anne; P. Cubey in association with A. Hendricks and C. Wylie
(1995) Competent children and their teachers: learning about
trajectories and other schemas. NZCER: Wellington

Meade, Anne, with P. Cubey (1995) Thinking Children. NZCER: Wellington
(there should be a 2008 edition now or soon).

Nutbrown, C. (1984) Threads of Thinking: Young children learning and
the role of early education. Paul Chapman: London.

van Wijk, Nikolien (forthcoming July 2008); Getting Started With
Schemas, Playcentre Federation of New Zealand.

Flow Chart

Notes in case you can't read the picture (I plan to make a better one, but this is the general idea).

Flow Chart
Susan Harper 27.6.2008

Are you having fun yet?

Yes!
Yay! Challenge, Competence and Concentration balanced.

No.
Oh. Why?

No focus.
Okay; so... try changing the environment and your mind; focus.

Bored. This is too easy.
Concentrate. Take care. Think of something to add or improve.

Too hard. Failure looms.
Choose an intermediate goal; a part-way success criteria.

Are you having fun yet?

Thank you Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.

Txt from Awesome Babysitter: Iris now ensconced on loo with story tape, heater and runny bum...

Why don't Willis and Bujold publish more often?

Hymn for Lloyd Geering

[Sung to The Old Hundredth]


The Bible is but people's words,
Around the sun we're yearly hurled,
Evolving, changing like the birds
On this our only precious world.

We choose the actions that we take,
Forgiveness comes from those we wrong,
We are the choices that we make,
Our lives are lived and then are gone.

Is this too bleak to understand?
Grace, love and fellowship remain.
Let us dwell on the Son of Man.
Is there still good we can attain?

4x in an hour; poor Hazel's got diarrhea again.

Iris thinks there's a girl David Attenborough and a boy David Attenborough. Does she know what their life cycle is?

Shannon played lead fiddle, I played harmony. Sean played piano, i played violin.

Good grief it's dark; bring on the solstice.

Reading Lloyd Geering and writing a half-hour introduction to schemas.

It's installation art day at work! Let the clients go hang, you've got a statement to make with the office supplies.

It's visible tattoo day at work! Cut a hole in that black outfit, bare your aesthetic incision.

It's retro-suit day at work! Squeeze into your first job interview suit and find your oldest tie.

Hazel brushes hair upside-down, capers and sings 'I love my bushy hair!' She's returning to either health or the 80s.

Brittany has grown up into a rooster. He crows and struts for Germaine and Barbie. They are, as yet, unconcerned.

Shihad with strings.

"Shihad have done the unthinkable. They have made a pop record. ....There is even a ballad, with strings."

Suddenly I remembered Hamish Laing's mother in bright sunshine, telling me at a Wilton Playcentre do a long time ago that he and some Wellington High mates had a band, that it was good, that they'd been experimenting with wiring up his younger sibling's violin. (I was reading Nick Bollinger's somewhat inflammatory Listener review of Beautiful Machine of which the gist is that Shihad have changed, but not too much).

Now I'm curious, did Tom Larkin, Jon Toogood or Phil Knight go to Wilton Playcentre too?

Wanda Harland's expectant!

I'm not getting around to reading the web much these days, but I'm not at Playcentre where I wonder if Iris is missing Rosa, I'm sitting with Hazel as she doesn't vomit some more (keep not vomiting Hazel; it's a good look) drifting through months of words and it turns out that Wanda Harland's expectant! Omigodomigod!

(Examines self for urge forth to go forth and do likewise... nope, it's still schadenfreude I'm afraid, I prefer other people to do the vomiting.)

'Tell me if ever you go to another world, like Narnia.' 'Okay' said Iris, Hazel gave me a searching look.

Hazel just threw up again, she's all wan cheeks and hoarse bravery.

After this cup of tea I think I'll jump up and swoop around the big empty air spaces above the exhibits.

Te papa's Moving Towards a Balanced Earth v good. Hilarious and interesting.

Sean leapt from bed to buy croissants for us, Iris heated Hazel's wheat-teddy, Hazel fed Moab. Odd unselfish morning urges.

I'm polishing my boots. I'm told Death wears Josef Seibel shoes too. I doubt hers are red like mine.

Where I used to live there is a sign; a shop called Minerva is selling quilt books and craft supplies.