Winter's here

By
They call it lake effect and it totally caught me off guard on Monday. After the mild weather we'd been having lately I wasn't ready for the sudden turn about to winter. The first warning should have been the light dusting of snow on the ground when I woke up that morning. It was icy cold when I took Isaiah out to the bus. But by the time I took Ethan out the sun had cleared the tops of the neighhbours' houses and it had warmed up a few degrees. Later I decided to walk down to Ethan's school for the classroom observation I had arranged for that day. It started snowing around mid-morning and I began to regret not driving over to the school. The kids went out to play just before lunch. They were all excited by the "blizzard" as one kindergartener called it but the grown-ups were eager to hurry back inside. The kids were running all over the place shouting, trying to make snowballs, and trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Ethan came back with his back all covered in snow. I suspect he was making snow angels somewhere on the play ground. Mercifully we were only outside for a sort while before the kids had to go in for lunch. I was saved from the folly of not checking the weather report before I left the house by Ethan's special ed teacher who gave me a ride home during nap time after lunch.


Today it is ice cold and windy with lots of snow. Ethan had a ball making snow angels on the front lawn and Isaiah and Sophia love making tracks and eating the snow.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

What's in a flower?

By
Specifically hydrangea flowers. In this post I pointed out that anthocyanin (a family of plant pigments) appears blue at high pH, red at low pH and is responsible for the wide variety of colours in hydrangea flowers. Ilona pointed out that , "in hydrangeas you lower the ph for blue flowers (more acid) and raise it for pink (more alkaline)." I did a bit of checking and found that this is the case . At lower soil pH hydrangea flowers do appear blue and at higher soil pH they appear red. But soil pH is not the only thing that affects the colour of hydrangea flowers. It appears that pH inside the plant cell has an affect as well: Sepal Color Variation of Hydrangea macrophylla and Vacuolar pH Measured with a Proton-Selective Microelectrode Anthocyanin changes its color depending on pH (Goto 1987, Brouillard 1988, Goto and Kondo 1991). In strong acidic conditions it shows red, in neutral, purple and in alkaline, blue. But generally the vacuolar pH of plant cells is weakly aci
Read more

Treating autism as traumatic brain injury

By
I've been doing research into autism, dyspraxia, how the normal brain works, and how an autistic/dyspraxic brain works (or doesn't work). Traumatic injury to different parts of the brain can cause the same problems suffered by autistic and dyspraxic children. Compare this list of the functions of different parts of the brain and the problems caused by injuries to those areas with these descriptions of dyspraxia and autism. What is Developmental Dyspraxia? Developmental dyspraxia is a disorder characterized by an impairment in the ability to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks. Generally, individuals with the disorder appear "out of sync" with their environment. Symptoms vary and may include poor balance and coordination, clumsiness, vision problems, perception difficulties, emotional and behavioral problems, difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking, poor social skills, poor posture, and poor short-term memory. Although individuals with the disorder may b
Read more

Battlestar Galactica needs more colour?

By
Here are the letters I mentioned in the previous post. The one that started it (I'm guessing these letters were written after the show's first airing at the end of 2003): Galactica Needs More Diversity The problem I had with Battlestar Galactica was there were no major and very few minor African American characters. There were no Black men in the show at all or if they were, they had virtually no screentime. In the original series, Boomer and Tigh were both played by African American actors. In this rendition of Battlestar, those characters were played by Asian and White actors. In the Caprica city, there no African American extras. On the Galactica's bridge, there was only one African American actress. Another Black actress could be found playing a religious official that swore in the new President of the colonies. This was very troubling to me. Do you not want African Americans to watch your show? Do you want to project the idea that African Americans are not part of the
Read more