LiG '09 photos

Looks like Facebook is the place to find LiG photos, but I'll put some links here as I discover them.

http://picasaweb.google.com/bandhsolutions/LIFEIsGood2009#
Joyful faces
Painted cars
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandaroo/sets/72157618800488673/
http://thewonderfulhappens.blogspot.com/2009/05/life-is-good.html (and then click Newer Post several times)

There are also albums on the Yahoo! group.

Here is Zombie Chloe, thanks to the gloriously gory makeup work of Chamille Cyphers.
(Photo credit: either Shonna Morgan or Matteo Cerullo. I think.)





The All Girl Kazoo Band
(Mary, Wendy, Qacei, MJ, Story, Chloe, Ren, ??, Heidi)


The Wyld Stallyns!—er, I mean, The Mötley Penguins


The Greybeards (Frank, Jeff, Russ)...


...and their three Sexy Backup Chicks (Ronnie, Shonna, Robin)


(Photo credit for all talent shows photos: Linda Peden Russell)

Me at the podium, delivering my second talk, "Unschooling the Wrong Way." The bumper sticker says, "Unschooling for a better TODAY."
(Photo credit: the Denga family)


Happy people. (Gillian, Frank, Ronnie)
(Photo credit: Crud, I forget. Shonna, I think.)


Frank calls this a Frank Sandwich. (Diana, Frank, Ginger)
(Photo credit: Beth Joling)

LiG '09 report - Slice 3 - A little reminder

LIFE is Good concludes each year with a lovely little picnic over at Esther Somebody park, near the hotel. As I was walking over there yesterday morning, I ended up behind a local family (not part of the conference) who were also on their way to the park. It was a mom, dad, one or two adult friends, and a little boy about 4.

At one point, he stopped to fiddle with a shrub in front of the Hilton. His mom scolded him and started counting. Then she said, "Don't you want to go to the park and play?"

Of course he does! I wanted to (but was too-polite to actually) say. He just wants to enjoy the journey, too!

While she "dealt with" him, the other adults continued on without them. So, her next move was to encourage him to "race" to catch up, running on his little 15-inch legs to catch up with adults who were too rude to wait a half a freaking second while he looked at a shrub.

Let's rewind and see what that would have looked like if those people had been part of the conference.

Walking to the park with his parents and some friends one day, a little boy stops to fiddle with a shrub. All of the adults pause and chat amiably while he explores. One or two crouch down to explore with him, perhaps pondering why leaves are green and branches are brown, or why these leaves are shaped this way when those are shaped that way. After a minute or ten (it doesn't really matter), they continue on their way, setting their pace to match the little boy's or (dare I suggest it?) picking him up to get across that last street faster and join in the fun at the park.

It is in our smallest interactions with our kids that we reveal the most about how we feel about them. I wish what that little boy learned that day about how his parents view him had been nicer.

LiG '09 report - Slice 2 - The kids

A couple weeks before LIFE is Good, my grandmother said that she'd like to come and hear me talk. I told her she'd be welcome, but I had to warn her that she might not be comfortable with the noise and activity level. After I described what it's like at an unschooling conference, she was inclined to agree.

I think it's hard for people who've never encountered free children before to see what's really happening. On the surface it looks like, well, chaos. The kids are VERY busy all weekend, scurrying from room to lobby to funshop to lobby to pool to lobby to raffle area to lobby to friend's room to lobby to game room to lobby to pool to lobby to boardwalk to lobby to another friend's room to lobby to toy room to lobby to funshop to lobby to yet another friend's room.

As you can imagine, that's a lot of kids passing through the lobby at any given moment. And they like to move fast.

But what's perhaps not immediately apparent—but that I think the hotel staff began to recognize last year and contributed to their welcoming us back this year—is that the kids are connected to parents throughout. Some carry walkie-talkies or cellphones. Others tow their parents or their friends' parents along wherever they go. Others simply touch base with Mom or Dad just about as often as they pass through the lobby. Even the teens touch base throughout the day.

And the parents are fully present for their kids. All the parents. I had dozens—hundreds!—of conversations with kids all through the weekend, ranging from quick "hello" hugs, to comforting Viola when the sign she was making didn't turn out quite the way she wanted, to helping kids pick something out at the raffle table, to talking about my lack of coordination with Vibrations drummer Akiva, to talking to Patrick about his piano playing, and so on.

I also played with a bunch of kids. I chased floatie toys in the pool with Fergus, bashed open dinosaur eggs with Kade and Wilhelmina and Cooper and Olivia and Violet and John and others, hula hooped with Gioia, spun in our pretty dresses (mine imaginary) with Vivian, and played peekaboo with just about everybody else.

Multiply that times all the parents and kids there, and you can see that it's a very connected, involved group. Our kids are free but never alone in their experiences.

One of the hotel staff told Mary Gold that we are more like a family reunion than a conference. That's a pretty accurate description, and I just love that our kids have so many siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews. They have a lot of parents, too. In fact, MJ and Chloe and several other teens spent the weekend collecting moms and dads. They found a lot of eager volunteers.

LiG '09 report - Slice 1 - The teen panel

The teen panel was amazing this year. A typical teen panel is about 8 kids, but this year we had about 20 people show up to participate or at least sit on the stage in support of their more talkative friends. They sat on the edge of the stage, while I stood behind them reading off questions submitted by the audience.

We had some good questions and some varied and interesting answers. There were moments of humor and a couple of tense moments. An example of the latter was near the end when one of the teens (a girl who has evidently had some tough experiences) asserted that her comrades are sheltered. The responses to that were firm. One girl acknowledged that she is sheltered and that she appreciates that about her life. Another said that even if they are, it doesn't mean they are unaware of the harsher realities of life.

One of the humorous moments was when someone asked how they deal with worried parents. I added, "Do you have worried parents?" MJ's response was, "Oh. My. God. She worries about EVERYTHING." It was very funny and played nicely into my "Unschooling the Wrong Way" talk the next day, where I spoke about coping with our fears.

But I think my favorite question was about what they would study if they were required to go to school. They all replied with classes that support their current interests—things they are, in many cases, already studying. I think it nicely illustrated how unschooled kids view school as a tool rather than an enemy.

I believe the teen panel will be available on .mp3. I strongly recommend checking it out.

LIFE is Good 2009

I know there are people anxiously awaiting blog posts about LIFE is Good, so I'll be posting my conference report in slices. To start, let me just say that it was an amazingly good weekend. We laughed and learned and played and partied and talked and tickled and swam and sang and romped and ruminated.

Today, we're tired and happy to be home but also wishing it could have gone on and on.

Note: Slacker that I am, I never got my camera out, so my report will be text only. I'll try to post links to other people's photos as I discover them. If you're on Facebook, you can start with the Photos of Ronnie link on my profile, which should lead you into a couple albums.

Paaaaaar-taaaaaay

We are having so, so, so, so, SO much fun. My first talk went well, and the other talks today were awesome, and the drum circle was thumpin' and the Vibrations and Amy Steinberg ROCKED THE HOUSE and then we had an impromptu dance party and now... we're tired.

Great, great, great day.

And tomorrow is looking pretty good, too...

Day 0

Greetings from LIFE is Good in Vancouver, WA. I am tucked up in our hotel room, savoring a few moments of quiet alone time. Frank is taking several people over to the Fred Meyer store for supplies, and MJ and Chloe are off with friends. (Last I saw Chloe, she and Qacei were perched on Matteo's knees in a big chair in the lobby, talking talking talking. I think MJ is off with the older teens. I'll probably see her tomorrow. Probably.)

We have already crammed so much fun into this day. We started off with a final at-home band practice, then broke everything down to fit it into the van. With some concentrated group effort, we were ready to start painting the van windows just about the time it stopped raining at about 11 a.m. Perfect! The rear window says "LIFE is Good" with lots of pretty flowers. The passenger side says, "Live Laugh Love Learn" and "Unschoolers Rock Socks Off." And the driver's side says, "Keep Right Except to Pass." (It's Frank's favorite thing to paint when we paint. The left lane hogs see it as we cruise past them in the center or right lane.)

Upon arrival at the hotel, we started bumping into Cerullos and Mayers and Anguishes almost immediately. We had lots of roadies to help us unload all the amps and guitars and such. Then Fergus showed me where his room is (taking me on a fast-paced tour of practically the whole hotel). Then we went in the nice and warm pool and watched lots and lots of cool people arrive. Then Frank and I went in search of dinner and our own supplies from Fred Meyer (where we had a mini-conference with about six other unschoolers). Then we hung out in the lobby, had an impromptu door sign-making funshop, and talked and talked and talked with old friends and new.

And now I'm totally pooped and making an early night of it so I will have loads of energy for the first official day of the conference tomorrow. Good night!

Remembering

Today, I am missing my forever-young cousins, Michele and Kevin Morris, as well as my Aunt Barbie and her husband, Ron Seibold. They were on a "critter count" family outing near Mt. St. Helens when it erupted on May 18, 1980. The blast wave engulfed their car, killing all four instantly.

When you act like a teacher,
it's usually because you're afraid to be the student.

—Byron Katie

Friday fill-in

Only a day late this week.



1. Apples are to oranges as Washington is to Florida. (credit goes to Frank for this one)

2. Unschooling is better than school, and that's all I have to say about that. (And if you believe that's all I have to say about that, I've got a nice bridge for sale.)

3. I think I hear starlings. But I'm a little paranoid right now.

4. I'm not yet over my Bush administration-inspired aversion to the American flag.

5. Do what you want to do, but be nice.

6. He was four and much adored by his mother, and behind him was a Radio Flyer wagon; in the wagon was a bucket filled with his very important belongings, such as toy cars, and a dinosaur or two, and a confused worm in a meager handful of dirt.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm last night I was looking forward to a peaceful evening (and I got it!), tomorrow today my plans include driving with Chloe, a long walk in the sunshine, and at least a couple of checkmarks on the to-do list, and Sunday, I want to enjoy a boisterous March-through-May birthdays and Mother's Day party out at the beach!

Firefly on XKCD

This saves me from having to send several e-mail messages.

Start here: http://www.xkcd.com/577/
Click Next three times.
Be sure to read the hover text on each page!

Thanks for the heads-up, Abbi!

UPDATE: There is a fifth installment! Click Next four times.

ALABBD: Put an ampersand in that BM

Bitch and moan, bitch and moan. Today is the day for it. Here I go:

Evidently it's March again. Rain, wind, more rain, more wind. And we had to turn the heat back up. Enough already!

It's too hot in Arizona for me to mentally escape to there now.

Frank is sick. I hate that. For whatever reason (or lack thereof), I get PISSED OFF when Frank is sick. I feel totally abandoned. It's just a damned good thing he hates being pampered when he's sick, because it might be a little hard for me to switch to pamper mode at this point.

Nobody would help me decide what to do for dinner, so, to please myself and in honor of Master Zhou, I got some takeout Chinese. Luckily, the family was pleased, too. I pity the fool who dared to complain at that moment.

Note to self: Scheduling two dentist appointments, two orthodontist appointments, a driver's ed drive that requires some preparatory practice time, and a tai chi class all on the same day is a Bad Idea.

Maybe if I were one of those women who can tell you with reasonable accuracy that they will be cranky on December 13, 2011, I would be able to plan better.

Maybe if I were a different person I would be able to plan better.

Maybe if I weren't such a big baby I would be able to cut myself some freaking slack.

ANYWAY.

To help with my fragile (?) mental state, I will throw in some bright sides now:

• The flowers like it.
• The cacti like it.
• There's no puking involved.
• They're not stupid.
• We were on time for everything.
• I don't hurt.
• Umm...
• Pursuit of excellence and all that crap.

In an amusing coincidence, the "street rat crazy" Jack in the Box commercial just came on downstairs. That's a good alternate name for ALABBD: Street Rat Crazy Day.

Wordless Wednesday

Chinese Chi

MJ and I had our first tai chi chuan class last night. After a brief set of warmup exercises (some seeming more soothing than muscle-warming), we attempted to follow along as our instructor, Zhou, went through the 24 Forms. I'm not sure how much I absorbed, especially with my left-right confusion surfacing several times, but I did all right with push and press, thanks to the exhibition I watched at Sakura-Con.

After, Zhou took some time to talk to MJ and me, the newbies. He described the origins of tai chi and explained that what we're learning is a short form of Yang tai chi chuan. But it was when he began speaking of his personal history that he really lit up and had us captivated.

He first came to America during World War II to learn to be a pilot. He trained on the "beautiful" P-51 Mustang, but, to his continuing disappointment, the war had ended by the time he was ready to fight. He returned to China and began flying commercially and instructing other pilots for the airline. When the communists came to power, he immediately came under suspicion due to the time he had spent in the U.S. and because he spoke English. Fearing that he would simply fly away one day, the government eventually grounded him.

At this point, he began studying architecture ("Self taught!" he emphasized) and ended up a well known architect there. But by 1972, his health was poor—liver problems and high blood pressure—and he didn't much care, because he disliked living under that government so much. Then President Nixon came. Suddenly, Zhou had hope that he would one day get to leave China.

To improve his health, he began studying tai chi chuan. As his skills and health improved, the political climate in China continued to shift. After decades of hiding his ability to speak English, he discovered that the government was beginning to value and seek out English speakers. He volunteered to teach others. "How can you remember so much English?" they asked him, and he admitted that he'd been reading and rereading an English translation of what he calls Mao Zedung's Thoughts (aka The Little Red Book).

He finally returned to America in 1990, the last of his family to do so. At his first medical exam here, the doctors found his blood pressure normal and his liver healthy. When he went home and told his family his results, they all asked him to teach them tai chi chuan. He's been instructing ever since.

LIFE is Good schedule is now available

The fabulous Zenmomma has posted the conference schedule! Hurray! Now I can start planning my conference days and being sad about the things I'll have to miss because I am not Multiple Man.

Multiple Man:


Not Multiple Man:

I hope to get to most of the talks, because those are my favorite part. But a lot of the funshops and chats look really good, too. Decisions, decisions.

Here are my personal contributions:

• Thursday, 7 p.m. - Share Your Skills funshop (hosting with MJ)
• Friday, 10 a.m. - "Unschooling Teenagers: RATS in the House" talk
• Friday, 4 p.m. - LIFE is Groovy Drumming Circle
• Saturday, 2 p.m. - Teen Panel (as Mostly Silent Moderator)
• Sunday, 2 p.m. - "Unschooling the Wrong Way" talk

Busy weekend! But thanks, Mary, for spacing my stuff out so nicely!

Counting to ten...a hundred thousand times

Here's a little teaser, because I think this story is in my "Unschooling the Wrong Way" talk, which I'll be delivering at LIFE is Good in approximately 20 days.

For Faith.

---

One day when Chloe was about six, we were visiting Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico. When we arrived at the park, the weather was nice, but we knew thunderstorms were on their way. This added a sense of urgency to our planned walk along the rim, since we would be pretty exposed up there.

Now, Chloe has always had pretty defined ideas about how things should be. Some of these are tactile sensitivity things: shirt tags must be hanging out, socks should just be left in the drawer thankyouverymuch, and so on. Others are simply clearly defined preferences, lifelong or momentary. On this particular day, it was probably a combination of the two. Chloe wanted her shoes just so. I don't remember what she wanted. Even then, I might not have been clear on her goal. All I knew was that she was being very sloooooooooooooow, and the lightning was coming, and I wanted my family off the mountain as soon as possible.

But I tried. I offered help. I suggested different things. Nothing was quite right. And my patience eroded. My own little volcano was bubbling.

At this moment, as the seismographs went wild and steam started escaping my ears, an older couple walked by. The woman took one look and accurately sized up the situation.

"Count to a million, Mom," she said.

Her phrasing was just unique enough, just different enough from the ubiquitous "Count to ten," that I paused. It bought me a little time to cool my jets, and a couple of completely inconsequential minutes later, our little family was on its way up the trail.

She was exactly right: that little six-year-old deserved more than a ten-count. Our kids deserve all the counting we can do.

I wish I could thank that lady.

Friday fill-in

Another twofer.

#121
1. Apparently there's some sort of conference coming up in about 20 days.

2. The grass is always greener on a sunny day.

3. 2009 is loaded with fun so far.

4. We discovered we both liked Dots with our popcorn, and that was it.

5. For too long I've been ignoring the yards.

6. I am not obsessed with Firefly; I am not! Unschooling, either.

#122
1. The first rule of working in an office and getting along is listen.

2. I'd rather have mussels than clams.

3. When I think of carnivals I think of cotton candy.

4. Lilacs are my favorite spring flower.

5. Things on my desk include a Pocket Etch-A-Sketch, a protractor, Frank's glasses, my wrist braces, and various items of trash (not to be confused with trashy items).

6. Sunshine makes me wanna go outside and play. Or sit and bake. Or nap.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to an early bedtime because the midnight showing of Wolverine cost me a few hours, tomorrow my plans include the annual Sons of Italy charity spaghetti dinner, and Sunday, I want to just be home!