T-Bird Anni Rides Again

I did try to evict her from in front of the PC for a while today by pointing out that in fact that strange lack of pitter pattering outside meant that it wasn’t raining.  but I failed so I turfed the Piggies out in the back garden instead so they could trim a bit more of the "lawn" for us. 

Then I whittled away at the towel mountain on Duke’s side of the bed by washing 4 loads and drying them all OUTSIDE!!!  ( Ah the simple pleasure of not having soggy towels draped round my house…. oh dear, I think I need help!   )  i will learn on day that his oblivion to the towel mountain’s growth and consumption of every last towel in our house will always outweigh my stubbornness about insisting that I only wash laundry placed in the correct receptacles on the landing but in the mean time I will wait until I find no fresh towels for me to have a shower before swearing in very un-surrendered wife-ly fashion about the foibles of my beloved and begin the excavation process.  Gosh, a sentence long enough to make even a German Romantic proud!  Sorry!

When I finally threatened to pull the plug and remove the extension cord  from her PC Aprilia came downstairs and Hama-ed.  We got the Lion kit as a bonus item from Merry with the Aqua beads and she decided we would do it together.  It’s coming on nicely but was rather tricky for her (and not that easy for me - the board is very irregular in order to make it Lion-shaped so it’s not so easy as the normal boards) so we are going to just do a bit at a time and get it right instead of rushing and making a mess, needing to pull loads off etc.  She tried to use the pen thing from the Aqua beads but it doesn’t work.  Knew I should have got some of those things for putting beads onto the permanent boards.  next time!  Having got the bug she then sat and filled a heart board whilst I read several chapters of a Roman Mystery to her. 

Now I am going to settle in the hammock for an hour with Faust (it’s the McDonald translation Tim, picked by the OU as it’s actually readable rather than the more mind numbing literal translations out there)  before enjoying a bit of eye candy with a certain star of CSI Miami (ah those crinkly eyed smiles….)

I was asked at the weekend about how I was doing wtih the OU and if it was helping me re-assess how I feel about my abilities adn so on.  I am afraid I was a litle flippant in my answer without intending to be as I couldn’t get what I wanted to say in a straight line to make sense.  But it got me thinking about what exactly I have got sorted out this year.

I think I have to accept that actually, on reflection, I’m not quite so stupid as I’ve always been led to believe by teachers.  I don’t think it’s possible to get marks in the high 70s at the OU and be thick.  Words are never going to behave properly inside my head but that’s not my fault and it’s not because I am globally dim, it’s one specific marker of inteligence out of quite a few, it just happens that the wiring isn’t right on that circuit.  The fact that the world gauges inteligence by literacy is unfortunate.

My short term memory is always going to be somewhat akin to that of a goldfish but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention, just that  things fall out of the holes in my brain never to be seen again.  It’s a nuicance but hardly earthshattering and nothing that writing down important things right away won’t compensate for. 

I am directionally challenged but that’s not exactly unique to dyselxics now is it?  Otherwise TomTom would be out of business.  And so what if I still need to look at my hands to remember which is left and right, it’s worked for 30+ years, why be awkward about a winning formula

I’ve learned that throwing everything I need to say in my essay into a mindmap and sorting it all out once it’s out of my head and on teh screen makes it much more likely that I will produce something coherent.  It’s interesting that the essay I scored badly on by missing the point of hte question was the one I wrote mostly at camp without the aid of a mindmap - had I stopped and thought about it I should have still done the map once I got home and just used my notes as the basis of that rather than type them straight up and hang a bit of grammar round it.  So that was a learning experience as they say.

I am (slowly) learning to ask for help.  I think I once very publically declared myself to be fiercely independent and was quite proud of being so.  That was my armour, my defence against being laughed at for not managing, not coping.  It very nearly drove me under.  The whole process of assessment, of being put under the microscope by professionals, has forced me to remove that armour, to admit and accept that sometimes strength comes from admitting I need help rather than limping on pretending nothing is wrong when inside I am falling apart.  It is not easy, I catch myself using every avoidance tactic in my array rather than sit down with something that is not clear and send an e-mail to the tutor with what I have "got" so far and a request for help. 

I am going to have to learn not to run away from situations where I could fail, I have an exam in October for which special arrangements are being made so that I won’t be disadvantaged by my foibles.  To run away from that would be rude as well as wimpy.  With my last course I deliberately "forgot" to log on for my final assessment rather than turn up and "fail".  I passed after my tutor steamrollered me into an alternative date.  

I’ve discovered that there are an awful lot of very successful people who also just happen to be dyslexic to some degree.  The moderator of the OU Dyslexia conference has a phenomenal mind and expresses himself really well - with the aid of whatever "assistive technology" he can lay hands on.  That conference is full of "stupid" "lazy" and "ignorant"  folks who actually aren’t but have spent so much of their life being told that they are that it sort of sticks.  The support in the group of people is fabulous. 

When I had my assessment and was "diagnosed" as moderately dyslexic I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me.  It wasn’t exactly a surprise to me, I think i had known for a very long time, but to have it confirmed and to have my weaknesses laid bare in black and white was hard.  Somehow to have my strengths similarly laid out was just as hard, I didn’t know that person, she wasn’t me was she?  But a few months down the line I’m getting the hang of it.  I’m getting the hang of accepting good days and bad days are normal.  I can laugh when i have the sort of day when I’m so uncoordinated that I poke my eye trying to clean my teeth (if ever there was a reason not to use mint toothpaste it has to be the agony that is menthol in the eye!)  I can say that one day I will have my degree, I may have to sample a few different types of course to find what fits but thanks to the way the OU works I acn do that, enjoy the ride, and get a few more points towards that degree on the way.  

So yes, the OU is helping me to get over the crappy image I had/have of myself.  And I wish I’d done it sooner. 

with the sound of our TV working overtime.  Today she was watching HP1 when I woke up (baaaad mama!!) and moved on to HP 2 when I was ready to sit down and watch it with her.  She’s enjoyed it and was not remotely bothered by it although I wonder how much of htat is down to her not really understanding the plot line terrifically well.  Then my Amazon parcel arrived with a few bits I want for September (did I mention I’ve given up on "school" until September when we start Core 1 and magically fall into a routine?) and a copy of The Sound of Music on DVD.  She really likes that film you know….

Well, okay, not quite half the time as we stopped for a McD and then for fuel adn finally because Aprilia had gluggd a huge bottle of water at McD’s and needed a wee but still, 5 hours down the the Beans and well under 4 hours to get home again.

The interval between the 2 adventures on the M6 was exceedingly pleasant despite Aprilia being slightly more wobbly than normal (as demonstrated by dunking one foot into the pond and making it sound like she had been drwoned to within half an inch of her life…..)

Thanks to the Beans for a lovely weekend.  And just to maintain the tradition, I have left something behind…. this time it’s a translucent "tupperware" wtih a blue lid (and muffins in) and possibly (although I’ve not checked the car in case I’d put it somewhere obscure) a slightly worse for wear baking sheet (that had the squdgy chocolate cake on it) 

if you are going to the Castle party adn I look all blotchy round the eyes, don’t panic, it just means the antihistamine is wearing off and I’ve been stroking the cats again   I’m not developing some highly contageous rash that will confine everyone to quarters for hte next 6 months (although with the weather we have had recently I feel that I have been confined to quarters   )

but for the life of me I can’t think what!  Well not qutie true, we swam in the afternoon and there was some AquaBeading - sticking them on top of the dishwasher where it’s warm gets them dry in no time   Aparently though I got the wrong set - she wanted the pen that you load a stack of beads into in one go, not the stylus that you have to pic up seperate beads with   Ah the hardship hey?  She has learned to love it though as of course, this way you don’t get the beads sticking to fingers which she did loading the pen at camp.  I like AquaBeads.

Oh, and I spent an hour hunting for the socks I should have taken to camp then found them hung in a bag  at the end of the bed where I wouldnt’ lose them  

I feel I should mention though that I have been a bit up and down recently so if I’m a bit glum at the Castle party just leave me to it, I’ll snap out of it with a few minutes peace. (ah, I see a flaw in that plan…)

Having been promising Aprilia some AquaBeads now for MONTHS I ordered them the other day.  And whilst I was there I ordered a reward chart - a think I swore I would NEVER, EVER use but which I have been begged for by the strange child I have spawned.  Oh, and I ordered Landlocked whilst I was at it.  It all arrived in one lovely big parcel this afternoon!!!!!  I have one utterly happy child who dutifully did her teeth just so she could put the magnet on for the day!  I’m planning to use it to remind us both to keep a routine going - we both need visual reminders of stuff (actually all 3 of us do but Duke forgets to look in the first place )

And, wonder of wonders, I have my car back!!!  Complete with a whisper quiet exhaust and a clean bill of health for 12 months (but a shock absorber that won’t see next year)    The best bit being that Pwergen need to refund me over £400 that I’ve overpaid so it’s not going to "hurt" nearly as much as I expected either.

Oh, and I’ve finished HP.  Blimey.  That was a rollercoaster. 

my car is still at the garage.  Aparently it’s an import and that makes all the difference.  What I don’t understand is that I was there when the ordering the **** exhaust and she told them the registration number as well as the make model and inside leg of the bloke who made it.  ALL the Versos of that age are imports, the registration number does give one a clue to the age of the car after all,  so how is it that it’s only now become aparent?????

And I have had a sinus headache all day

And Aprilia is being somewhat high maintenance

And I am supposed to be going to class tonight to "suport" one of the trainers who is being assessed.  It’s exactly the same lecture as she gave us last week (as a practice) and it was all I could do not to have a stand up arguement with her about her attitude last week, aparently there is only 1 way to do any sign language in the UK - no dialects, no regional variations and Macaton is a totally different language.  I beg to differ.  So I shall vote with my feet so to speek and not go. 

And due to not having a car since Wednesday I’ve not been to the shops, so we have no loo roll left, i had to raid that particularly flimsy stuff i buy for the camping loo this morning and it is really, really not suited to anything more than a gentle dab…. 

Somebody send me chocolate QUICK!!! 

I’ve started Harry Potter - the TMA can wait a few days!  ACtually this had an interesting effect as it dawned on Aprilia that me and Duke were reading for the sheer pleasure of it rather than for a learning purpose.  It sparked a bit of interest. 

She spent a bit of time reveling in having floor space in her bedroom today (and I’m hoping we can manage to maintain that - floor space is good!)  Tomorrow I’m dismatling her shelving which will mean the PC is on the floor for a few days but we’ll cope.

Towards bedtime she demanded multiple chapters of Roman Mysteries by bribery of "I’ll read a book for every chapter you read me Mummy"  She proceeded to read 5 booklets interspersed with me reading to her.  Going back to simple sight vocab type reading books to give her a rest from phonics seems to be doing her a bit of good and it’s nice not to be battling with her!

hmph, Duke has just sneaked in adn stole HP off me….. ah well, bed calls…. I’ll walk into town and buy my own copy tomorrow, no, wait, I’ll be good and do some work….. u-huh? 

Duke has left his copy of HP on the sofa on his way out this morning.  I’ve not opening it yet for fear I start quoting it in my next essay by accident

Aprilia has her "new" bed installed and is well pleased with it, the desk underneath isn’t big enough for her monitor though so we need to have a re-think.  I’m thinking on the lines of a re-con flat screen from the computer fair on Thursday as her current monitor is pretty rubbish anyway (starting to flicker and gets awfully hot)  That way we can wall mount hte monitor so it’s not going to get knocked flying and she will be able to move the keyboard out of the way adn have clear desk space to draw at when she’s not using hte PC.

Obviously we still have all her crap in our room, it’s going to be put back very selectively and sifted through over a couple of evenings (with a few tip runs) to reduce the amount of stuff in there.  I’m hoping to "accidentally" clear up some of the crap thats been lurking in our room for too long as well.

Looking forward to having a car again tomorrow, everywhere is a long way away from our house, especially when it’s raining.