I am in shock. Next year I will only have one student. So, this morning i was going over what he is going to be learning next year and what I need to buy/replace. After 24 years of spending at least $200-500 a year on educational material, I only need to purchase one thing, which will come to a grand total of $15. I had to tell somebody.

I thought of posting your link on facebook, then I read the whole essay. They do say, "Know your audience." Second thoughts won. 😄

Aack! Somehow I missed that we've already started The Story of Western Science. Now I have to catch up. I'm currently reading two books: The Wizard's Daughter by Barbara Michaels, which is my light read, and The Snow Leopard by Peter Mattheissen, which requires more concentration. With The Snow Leopard I am back in the himalayas. This account unfolds with a different feel than Edmund Hillary's. It is less mentally focussed on the quest and and more zen, literally. Mattheissen is a buddhist, his wife has died, and he is accompanying a field biologist. He philosophizes and reminisces while they travel. He also describes the landscape and people in much more detail than Hillary did.

I was so mad at the author. He has some lovely turns of phraseology too. I love his books. It's not like you couldn't see the end coming, but I didn't want to believe it. Can we just call this a "series of unfortunate events."

Okay. I'm not reading No Country For Old Men as my bingo western. Nope. Nuh uh.

I've read 15 on the modern classics list. I 've abandoned 1 and have plans to read a few others. This week I finished Mrs. Pargeter's Pound of Flesh by Simon Brett and Tregaron's Daughter by Madeleine Brent. Tregaron's Daughter was a typical light gothic romance, similar to a Mary Stewart tale. The storyline was predictable but entertaining. I was surprised to see that Madeleine Brent is actually a Peter O'Donnell. I think it's the first time I've ever read a romance book wriiten by a male with a female pseudonym. From comments in the text, Mr. O'Donnel must have had feminist leanings. He at least shows some respect for the female characters. Plus, the heroine is not a ninny. 😊 PS: If anyone is interested, I can pass on Tregaron's Daughter.

I don't see any of these things as unhealthy or problematic. To me they just look like personality differences that need to be respected. If something is causing anxiety it is probably because of uncertainty of how to navigate that particular situation. Coaching and being prepared for what to expect and how to react in "what if" events, relieves anxiety. Your daughter travelled to France okay on her own? That is awesome. She probably needed to be prepared for the party in the same way that she was prepared to take an international flight to a foreign country. Because they are similar kinds of adventures into unknown territory.

Yes. I think I would not have had the level of difficulty I did had my mother been accepting of my natural reticence. I was not a fearful child when young. However, my mom is extremely extroverted and believed that my approach to social life as i got older was unhealthy and not normal. I should have been grateful that she would allow me to go to parties, school dances, and other activities, but I was not interested. I should have had more friends and brought them home. I should have been interested in fashion and boys not literature and art. I was "naive, stuck up, and lived in a fantasy world" plus " people wouldn't like you if they knew what you were really like." Yes, my mother said that to me. It is permanently etched in my brain. She also refused to allow me to wear deodorant as a teen, because it would "clog my pores", plus she didn't need it so why should I. Eighth and ninth grade is not a good time to go to school with nerves and no deodorant. I could go on, but let's just say I was a very unhappy teen and probably depressed as well. I would come home from school everyday and go to my room to cry for an hour. I had frequent nightmares of flying to escape danger. The ironic thing is I didn't have much trouble getting along with people. I had friends. People treated me okay. I just couldn't see it at the time for all the negative messages being thrown at me, first by my mom, then by my own brain. I think there must be a natural tendency to mentally obsess about things in someone with social anxiety. I think some people naturally care more than others what people think of them. I cared a great deal once. Not so much anymore.

As someone who was labelled shy as a child, I like Sadie's definition in the other thread: "slow to warm up but OK once she knows someone." I dislike the term shy in this case. Reserved is a better word IMO. Up until I was about 11, I took a while to feel comfortable in any new group or situation, but after a few weeks my mother would get notes home that I was talking too much. I wasn't necessarily engaging with the group as whole any better, but by then I had usually found one or two people that I felt comfortable with. I'm still that way. After 11, I experienced social anxiety- the desire to flee social situations, dread, increased heart rate, lightheadedness, breaking out in a sweat, etc. This was about the time that I began to realize society, and my mother, expected me to act and look a certain way as a female. I cowered under the percieved judgement of the world, flustered by all the unwritten rules that I was having trouble figuring out. It was easier to disengage and become the nerdy girl who read all the time.

We were in a museum when my oldest son was a toddler. He ran up to a woman who was walking toward the exit and grabbed her hand, thinking she was me. The lady kept walking without looking around! I ran up and snatched him away. She laughed and said she had thought it was cute. I was too shocked to say anything to her, but it sure affected the rest of my years parenting toddlers.

Statistics teachers should not acquire a reputation of being "scatterbrained" by their students. I should not have to teach myself the subject and counsel fellow students on how to understand the content of the course better.

Umm. I found me. The prematurely old person. 😉 ETA because of another thread: I'm not the oversharing/ no boundaries type of old person, lol.

How much older was he? Maybe he had reached a point of no social filter. I was in a thrift store last week and an elderly woman came up to me and asked me if I still had my ovaries! I told her that was a highly personal question to be asking a total stranger. She proceeded to tell me the history of her ovaries anyway, apparently triggered by a hot flash. I also got advice as to my reproductive health. I smiled and listened non- committedly while continuing to browse the book shelves. My kids walked away.

I'm still working on Pratchett's The Truth. I'm getting in more Sociology and Statistics reading than pleasure reading. Sociology is definitely the more enjoyable of the two. Do textbooks count in books read for the year?

My deepest condolences.

My kids tell me i am a loud sneezer. It never occurred to me before a few years ago, when they brought it to my attention. Like others, if i try to moderate my sneezes they hurt, plus I'm more likely to blow something disgusting out of my nose from the force. My SIL sounds like a kitten when she sneezes.

Do you eat plum pudding? My mom used to buy that tinned as well. 😊 Anyway, pretend you have a plum pudding, minus some of the fruit and spices, made with whole meal flours of corn, wheat and rye. Steam it in a can instead of a fancy tin. You should try it. You might like it.

Brown bread is a New England thing. (My parents are from Maine and NewHampshire.) It's a very dense, moist, bread-like concoction, generally steamed in a can. No yeast, sweetened with mollasses, made with a mixture of different flours. Cornmeal is always one, sometimes rye. We always slid ours out of the can, sliced it into rounds, and ate it toasted with butter. It traditionally goes with Boston Baked beans, which has even more mollasses, a very fortifying, iron rich meal. Fogot to say: You can buy it ready made, in a can at the grocery store; I've never heard of anyone selling it at a bake sale. ETA: I have always noticed that many cultures around the world have some variation on the "grain and beans" meal. Even the US has many different versions that are staple in the various regions.

I love brown bread and baked beans. I also grew up eating them...from cans because my mom was not much of a cook. She did try to make homemade codfish cakes. Those were shudder worthy. I adored a toasted slice of brown bread slathered with butter. For the past few years, I've been on a quest to create the perfect brown bread style muffin.

Would anyone like me to pass along Pomfret Towers by Angela Thirkell? (Thanks to Aggieamy ) It was an amusing, flufferton, feel-good story. I admit to being startled a couple of times by the British terminology that would have definite risqué connotations in modern America. The story line set those thoughts at ease. 😊 I'm currently reading The Truth by Terry Pratchett. It appears to be about the power of the press, which seemed fitting. Also, it is crammed with puns and word play. I can just see the author making himself chuckle while he wrote it. Consequently, I keep reading passages over to make sure I'm catching everything. It feels like I've said this about another of his books...

My boys like Corner Gas and Studio C on YouTube. Studio C is comedy sketches based on real life. They are hilarious. Some Funny movies we like that haven't been mentioned: Arsenic and Old Lace What's Up Doc The God's Must Be Crazy Harvey

I dipped my toe into William Styron's A Tidewater Morning, and decided I was not up to it. While at the library, I grabbed The Marvels by Brian Selznick off the shelf on an impulse and am reading that right now. I had enjoyed his other similar books, and that's about all I can handle right now. Statistics class is frying my brain.

I'm afraid the only poem of Burns that I think of every time his name is mentioned is his ode To A Louse. I don't usually remember the words except for one phrase, but the visual has been strong in my mind since the first time I read it. 😀😜

I was picturing a dishcloth, but she could be an afghan, or even a coaster to keep coffee mugs from making rings on the table.

Adding my condolences, Sadie. Hoping your alternate plans will be satisfying for you. About visualizing books: Today I saw a current photo of Barbara Bush. The first thought that popped into my head was, "OMG, it's Mrs. Basil E. Frankwieler!" We are probably heading to the city library this afternoon. I'm planning on checking out Tidewater Mornings by William Styron for a bit of local culture. I didn't know he was a (relatively ) local author, and I was never all that interested in his novels. Has anyone here read anything by him before? What did you think?