Today was one of those days I wish it would've decided whether to be a
good day or a bad day instead of an "eh" day, if you know what I mean.
I really need to keep up my battery maintenance on my high-capacity
pda battery, but I HOPE I can get it to charge up. We will see about
that. I have backup measures though. I had to go into work today, on
my day off, to get something for Mr. Cat and to get the second
half-gallon jug of tea I accidentally bought Saturday that I THOUGHT I
wouldn't need but ended up needing. I had EXCELLENT timing though, as
I only went that way because I also needed to go to the grocery store
because I needed to get more cat litter before the box got low. I
thought I was going to miss the bus up and have to walk, but I beat
the bus to the bus stop by only a couple minutes, if that. I putsied
around the grocery store and at work because I figured I was going to
miss the next bus coming by, but when I got to the bus stop in front
of work, I looked at the time and saw I should've only had like 15
minutes to wait, but within (what seemed like at least) 5 minutes or
so, I could see the bus! Now that is good timing TWICE. Very nice
break for me. I'm still having troubles with my desktop and I don't
know why. I tried to do some reading about it online, but every
solution I thought it COULD be hasn't panned out. IF it is a virus,
it's not affecting anything, and my virus scanner didn't catch it. If
it's a trojan or backdoor, my other 3 scanners aren't catching it. So
I have no friggin clue whatsoever what is going on. I need an XP
expert geek to come over and tinker with it I think. I sure as hell
ain't hauling my cpu onto the bus up to Best Buy to have one of their
geeks look at it - it's too heavy and big for that, and I'm not
putting it in my backpack either. We do have a resident geek around
here, but he's a linux guy, not windows, so I'm not sure if he'd be
able to help. I'm in the market now for a bigger CF card, though I'm
not about to buy one yet, unless this one on ebay stays as low as it
is now. I did bid on one that was cheap, but it went up to $75
suddenly. No thank you, I'm not going above $30, shipping included.
I'll pass, thank you very much. You'd think 4gb would be enough for me
- and I only have this one half full - but I want more music on here,
some videos maybe, I don't know... I just am afraid to max out a card
and perhaps I'm being a little TOO far-sighted. But this is also why
I'm not in that much of a hurry.
I did ONE load of laundry today. I didn't even get quarters to do
more. I just got enough money to pay back an error we'd made this
weekend and bus money for the week, that's it. I still have laundry to
do, but I wasn't doing it today. I was merely doing the necessities -
and my work clothes (which would count in necessities, right) - this
time.
I just looked at the radar as it just started pouring outside -for
like a minute - and pulled up the map with the watches and warnings on
it (I use Intellicast). Talk about late-season severe weather in the
midwest... There are currently tornado warnings in Northern North
Dakota right near the Canadian border and in Northern South Dakota not
far form the Minnesota border. It's a wee late for twisters, though
it's not unheard of, but for being THAT far north, that's the rare
part. But this year has been very weird. There's been a lot of
tornados in areas that normally don't get many, a lot fewer tornados
in areas that usually get hit hard, and we have yet to have a real dry
season here. Our spring was wet, our summer has been wet, and now I'm
wondering if our winter is going to be wet - which usually means
snowy. Isn't global warming supposed to cause droughts here? Hmmm...
Sure... No warming here. Sheesh we've only had a couple "heat waves"
here, and even they were mild. Not a single 100+ day yet. Now granted,
summer's not over - YET - but we're not exactly in the dog days
anymore.
I was talking to my "adopted mum" on the phone last night, and with
her education background, we sometimes giggle about the stupidity
sometimes involved in her former career field. Back where I'm from
(and she still is), kids start school very soon. Here, they don't
start for nearly a month. Of course, kids back home are out before
summer is in full force, usually in mid-May. Here, they're still in
school in June. So that got us thinking which we'd prefer, an early
start but an early end, or a late start... And then to thinking why on
earth kids have to be in school before 7am in the first place, which
means the school bus riders are outside waiting on the bus just after
6am. And then the teachers wonder why the kids all sleep through first
period. Hmmm... Wouldn't it make sense for at least the older kids to
have a school day that at least closely resembled a work day that
they're likely to have as an adult? (Ok, don't go by MY work day,
that'd surely kill many kids lol.) I think an 8-4 school day would be
more reasonable in the long run for the older kids. Maybe have the
younger ones go 5 days but a wee shorter schedule each day, but have
the older ones do an an 8-5 but 4 days a week (if the district is
concerned about $$ - and most are). This would give the parents a
chance to get home before the kids and have some time to themselves to
perhaps start dinner if they eat early, or to just relax instead of
coming home to the kids already home screaming at each other. It would
also help keep the kids out of trouble as they would come home, eat,
do their homework, and go to bed (if they're disciplined right). But
then again, a lot of the mechanisms that are supposed to be in place
to keep kids out of trouble aren't existent nowadays either.
So that brings me to my thought of the day. Do you wish that you'd
been given a more life-realistic school schedule when you were young
or do you think your schedule was appropriate? And what do you think
of the school year-around schedule, which is more like adult
schedules?
That's all for me today. Now it's your turn.
5 comments:
You know lynx, Your question about School schedules as a kid, is just something I have never thought of, so I Guess my primary school days of 9-3.30 worked for me,as did the Secondary school hours of about the same duration but with an extra hour and a half each way added for transport as I had to ride a bike for 3 miles and then catch the Bus for the rest , instead of having mum drive us to and from the Primary school near home as previously.
In South Africa our Kid's day went from 7am to 1Pm, and worked out okay as I was able to pick them up at lunchtime as did most people there. As there was also one parent always home there was no real problem of them running too wild for the rest of the day. Particularly as they usually had sport at least two afternoons a week outside of school hours but as part of their curriculum.
As for making the school year all year long, I'm not really sure.
But as for hours more in line with real working Hours, I think you have a problem there, as you pointed out in your own situation. And that is that these days the traditional 9 -5 or even 7.30 - 4Pm. Jobs are becoming a thing of the past with flexi-hours and 24 hours of operation in some industry's. So it is probably best either left the way it is or change them local depending on local work hours. All in all I would probably stick it it the too hard to handle for now and not worth the effort for now, and leave it as is.
Yes it is a difficult situation, thus the reason why it's tinkering in my head lol. I don't think there's one answer, or even a few. But SOMETHING has to give as our kids keep falling further behind.
school hours here are 9am to 3.30pm some do start at 8.45am but that's the earliest and the latest finish time is as far as I know 3.30.
I do think the summer hols are far too long though
i think kids these days -- spoiled little brats-- ehem..cough...--- would die without some sort of break.. even adults take vacation.. but yep-- 3 months straight with no school is too much. it's just enough time to get em lazy , and in trouble-then back to school.
ugh.
i bet originally the hours were set like they are because back in the day-- we-- the kids-- actually cleaned and sometimes cooked BEFORE the folks --or mom- got home from work...
rather than argue-- come up missing-- or trash the house even more , making it a bigger nightmare to come home to.
bah.
so glad school is starting soon :))
and i don't work and only have one kid... i couldn't imagine a job and 3 or 4 little turkeys runnin around.
happy weekend!
Soul probably has a good point as to why the original hours and holidays are what they are. As Soul said the current hours were probably set to allow the "Children" of the home do all their chores and possibly arduous household duties before and after school. And the Long Summer break was probably demanded by Parents so that their children could " help " out in all the summer chores of harvesting etc. As still goes on in rural communities in other parts of the world.
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