Riot and Frolic

The Get Smart Book Club: F*ing Anna Karenina

You guys.

 

You guys.

 

YOU GUYS.

 

I finished Anna Karenina.  

Now, to refresh your memory, a million years ago, I figured up 91 books to make me smarter and then started the ill-attended, virtual book club (there's even a pseudo-book report to fill out for The Princess Bride!).  And then, THREE F*ING YEARS AGO, I started reading Anna Karenina... as Book #2.  

SPOILER ALERTS

I didn't know there was a need for spoiler alerts on classic novels, but when I told The [extremely well-read] G "well, you know, Anna has an affair and kills herself" as a prologue to my ranty retelling, he was a little surprised.  

Other fun spoilers: Frankenstein isn't the monster's name and DOCTOR Frankenstein is an asshole, and Huck Finn ISN'T dead.

So I'm a little behind on my book reports.  #historyrepeating

Anna, as I loathingly will refer to the book, is dreadfully boring until page 351 (in my 800 page version), where a fairly minor character is described, at the bottom of the page, as a "big glossy green Dutch... [turn the page]... cucumber".

... 

Apparently this is where Tolstoy remembered people actually want obvious plot progression, character development, and witty and insightful prose.  

Then it got interesting.  There's antisocial artists, boorish aristocrats, death-bed confessions, births, weddings, mysterious wealth, morphine, psychics, and of course, suicide.  

Anna, the character, is introduced to you as an extroverted, life-of-the-party, delightful lady who happens to be married to a total bummer of the guy who she generally ignores to attend balls and concerts and visit society types.  Poor Anna, you think.  Life would be pretty good without that lame, old husband of yours, you pity.  

But no.  Anna is the worst.  SHE IS THE WORST.  She's a jealous, crazy harlot who has no sense of consequence.  I went from kind of wanting to party with her to counting the pages until she hit that damn train station.

On the other hand, Levin, this dude who starts out as the most awkward, loner, country mouse, working man you would NEVER want to party with, turns into the sweetest, relatable, lovely, loving, hard-working antagonist EVER.  Love him.  He's the perfect antidote to Anna's self-centered, defeatist, depressing, spiteful life.  

Why couldn't the book be named "Konstantin Dmitrich Levin"?

No?  Too much?  Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue like Annakarenina.  

There was, as expected, some great discourse on politics, economy, religion and faith, distribution of wealth, and all those meaty topics.  I have several pages folded down that I've actually looked at since, because I found them so clever and inspiring.  On the small scale, I especially liked the insights to the male mind from Levin's perspective on his wedding and the birth of his first child.  

Do I recommend the book?  Yes.  Would I lock you in a well-lit closet and slip you tasty snacks and beverages to make you finish it?  If you asked me.  

Next up: Lolita (the most shoplifted book, according to my second-hand book store owner)

And then: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (I've wanted to read this one FOREVER)

 

 

 

In case you were wondering what the stupid list is:

Adventures Time : Part One

Okay, I'll admit.  I haven't been present for a full half of the ADVENTures this year.  But I've liked all the ones I've witnessed.  And that is something.  

Day 1 : pinecone ornaments

Is it just me, or does anyone else say "pinecorn"?

I grabbed some pine...coooonnneees, a few jingle bells, a couple sticks of cinnamon, some yarn, and my brand new glue gun and asked the girls how they wanted to glue it all together.  We got ornaments that are rustic, vaguely similar to the inspirational ones, and I got to use a glue gun.  BAM.

Day 2 : yarn-wrapped door

We've already discussed this here. 

Day 3 : make marshmallows

This one is so great.  Everyone has an easy job (Zoo prepped the pan, Mae Cake threw the gelatin in the water, V kept an eye on the candy thermometer, I handle the hot stuff), it takes maybe 20 minutes, watching the ingredients go from boring to marshmallow fluff is NEAT, and you GET MARSHMALLOWS OUT OF IT.  

I'm not even a big fan of marshmallows and I dig it.  

Day 4 -12 : things that I missed

We had an odd work and travel itinerary these days and we have amazing friends and relatives who will babysit our kids.  

BUT NOW IT'S ON!

Day 13 : Santa Lucia crowns

IKEA (where once a Santa Lucia parade happened upon me while trying to make a bottle for a baby) and the phrase "star boy hats" put the whole Santa Lucia thing high on my list this year. Plus, that whole Nordic thing of totally winning at winter made me want ALL THE NORDIC THINGS.

Day 14 : Santa Lucia parade

We played this and the girls walked (and twirled) solemnly around the house.  

 

Day 16 : cut paper snowflakes

My brothers- and sisters-in-law set the bar very high in this category and I'm always a little disappointed my small children aren't giving those artistic 20-30-somethings more of a challenge.  But you know, practice, and hand-eye coordination, and spatial reasoning and all that probably gets better after age 8, right?

How are your holiday adventures?  

Parenting and Perfectionism

In past years, I put together a list of ADVENTures (get it?  PUNNY) for the Christmas season.  The girls, doing that whole growing thing, have better hand/eye coordination, so we're totally upping our game this year.  But along with all the FAMILY TIME and CRAFTING and HOLIDAY SPIRIT, this mama is learning about PATIENCE and LETTING THE FUCK GO and GIVING GOOD DIRECTIONS.

For example, on day 2 of the annual Adventures, the activity was "wrap yarn around the attic door from which to hang holiday cards". Simple enough, right?  But there were three pairs of little hands that wanted to help out, and I had to do something since they weren't tall enough to reach the top of the door.  And I had an idea in mind of what I thought it should look like. 

I was reminded of a friend of mine who taught a programming class at Computer Camp (it's as delightfully nerdy as it sounds).  He would demonstrate how important it was to be highly specific and ordered when writing a computer program by bringing in a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, a loaf of bread, and a knife and asking the kids to tell him how to make a PB&J sandwich.  

"Put the peanut butter on the bread!"

And he would put the jar of peanut butter on the loaf of bread.

"Open the peanut butter!"

And he would lift the jar over his head like he was going to smash it open.

"Unscrew the lid from the top of the peanut butter jar."

And he would turn it to the left.

"Turn the lid to the right while holding the jar of peanut butter."

And then it would open. 

STEP ONE IS NOW COMPLETE.

STEPS 2-10 STILL TO COME.

Wrapping a door with yarn and the help of children was turning out to be similar lesson in communication.  

But once everyone was involved and had a grasp of their job, we were on our way.  I'd drop the yarn over the door, Mae Cake would hold the yarn on the bottom of the door and hand the yarn to V, V would slide the yarn under the door and hand it to Zoo, who would hand the ball up to me, aaaaaaand repeat.  

But as we wrapped and wrapped the door with green yarn, instead of parallel lines of thread, it was becoming a bit of a triangle.  Trying to explain "parallel" and "vertical" to small people while in the middle of a "fun thing" was failing.  Both in practice and my patience.  So, instead of NEEDING to have it MY WAY, I let it go.

Mae Cake became the commander of the operation, because for being 5, she has an excellent sense of aesthetic.  

"Let's make it look like a tree!" she yelled and then proceeded to carefully arrange all the yarn into a more perfect triangle.  "Keep it tight!" she'd yell as the tension on the yarn slipped.  "Another loop!" she'd yell as she found a hole in her design.  Hence, the pretty bad-ass yarn-tree-door was born.

Making circle ornaments, I could have been super-uptight about cutting out the circles on the lines, and really lining up the circles to glue together, and SUCKING ALL THE FUN OF PLAYING WITH SCISSORS AND GLUE, but I let them do their thing with minimal instruction and minimal stress about creating perfect Martha Stewart-esque heirloom-quality decorations.  

Did they have fun? Yes.  Did they make something? Yes.  Was it cute? Yes.  

THE END.

I will thrill you with a pictures at the end of the week.  Because right now I'm in the land of slot machines, rhinestones, no visible clocks, and 24-hour Starbucks.  

Adventures Time

It's that time of year again, where I put more pressure on myself to create fun, family memories for the gang and create extra work, less sleep, and more to do for myself.  But I LIKE IT!  And FUN! And CHRISTMAS!  So, DO IT!

If you haven't been here before, I make a list of neat things to do/make/watch/enjoy for each day leading up to Christmas.  And then do them.  And they are neat.  (Here's 2014, and 2013.)

I'm not exactly giving you a sneak peek this year since we're already on day nine, but you can start following along at any time.  And if you're lucky, the rest of this will rhyme.

ADVENTURES 2015

1. make pinecone ornaments
2. wrap yarn around attic door from which to hang holiday cards
3. make marshmallows
4. make santa beards
5. make pom-poms to...
6. play a snowman/Skee-ball game
7. sew a paper garland
8. make circle paper ornaments
9. unwrap saran wrap doodads
10. get candy
11. see Holiday Lights in the Park 
12. make Santa Lucia baskets
13. make Santa Lucia crowns
14. have a Santa Lucia parade
15. make paper snowflakes
16. eat cake with chocolate trees on it
17. make window clings
18. make perler gift tags
19. make paper beads
20. go ice skating
21. make paper bead garland
22. make egg crate doorbell
23. make reindeer ornament
24. play with embroidered stationery
25. make paper chain dolls

Some of these things are not reeeeeeally holiday-specific (um, eat cake on day 16? get candy on #10? unwrap saran wrap doodad?), but they worked with my birthday and desire to eat cake and make the cute chocolate trees, our travel plans, and not wanting to stress out my babysitters with craftiness overload.  FUN! CHRISTMAS! DO IT!

I also have fallback plans, like a list of movies in case of adult meltdown.  And we'll get a tree and decorate it in there, and go hide packs of M&Ms in public places, and read lots of Christmas books, and that sort of thing. FUN! CHRISTMAS! DO IT!

Dancing Downer

There's a concept of "dancing down" in competitive ballroom that I get asked about. A LOT. 

There's a couple ways I see it, one of which is okay and one of which is a bummer.

 

The Bummer

Let's say you see someone dancing a bunch of Silver freestyles and multi-dance events and also dancing in Bronze events. 

This doesn't happen very often, and when it does, it sucks. But different comps have different rules as to how many levels you can dance, and some teachers (teachers are generally to "blame" here, not the students) decide to take advantage of the looser rules and enter some higher level students in lower level events. So they can win.  And "look good".

On the plus side, I've seen very good Silver dancers get beaten in Bronze, or some dancers break the rules for that comp's level restrictions (accidentally or on purpose, who knows) and get DQ'ed.

On the minus side, sometimes the dancer-downer wins over people dancing at the actual level.

I usually mental DQ them in my head and award the next person first. But I have a very active imagination.

The bad-ass

Let's say you see someone whose proficiency level seems to be WAY higher than the level they're dancing in.  Like, they're dancing in Bronze and you can't tell who the pro is, or you watch them for a minute and say, "Are you kidding me?!"

The second example SEEMS to happen more often, but there's several reasons behind it.

Personally, The G and I don't let our students move up a level until they are KILLING IT at everything: both competitions and in lessons, technically and performance-wise (like all of that pyramid I did awhile ago).  Often, this means our Bronzey is dancing with Silvery technique.  

It is NOT only so we can win often (though that is sometimes a nice by-product), but so our students grasp all the aspects of movement required (or implied) at each proficiency level and really enjoy dancing and are good at it (which also makes it easier to enjoy). We know what information is needed at a lower level to make the higher level easier and will make sure all that info is clear and being performed before moving someone up.

I see SOOOOOO many dancers fail at the higher level because they just wanted to move up and their teacher let them (or the teacher didn't have enough info for them, or they both got bored, or whatever), yet they didn't have the foundation to build more difficult movement on. Boo. Hiss.

For many instructors, it's also a sense of pride in our craft. We want our students to dance the best they can at whatever level they're dancing at because we want to enjoy it also. It's REALLY fulfilling to see your student do a great crossover break or amazing back twinkle, whether they win or not.

Us teachers are mostly perfectionists, too, so it's hard to pass someone to the next level when they're still doing heel leads on 3 or can't keep their chin up in promenade. I would rather my Silver guys be dancing with Gold technique before they actually have to hit Gold patterns, so they aren't overwhelmed when the choreography changes.

Selfishly, it's infinitely easier to dance with someone who knows what they're doing. If a student is super proficient, I don't have to work so hard to my job (or sometimes his, too).

As an effect of all of this, having students dance really well also supports one's reputation, which makes it slightly easier to make a living. Yay for my mortgage!

Rules and Such    

I go back and forth about USADance's proficiency points deal. I've seen WAY too many couples get pushed up into levels they are so not ready for (ahem, THE OPEN LEVELS) and THEN even get all snooty about being in "Open" when they kind of HAD to be there, as opposed to learning and progressing there. 

While it's sometimes a bummer that the NDCA doesn't have a proficiency system in place, I've seen people change instructors and move down a level because they never learned those foundational techniques.  They became a better dancer by dancing "easier" steps, not for the sake of winning or taking opportunity away from someone else, but so they could really accomplish the mastery of something they hadn't learned.  

Or maybe an Silver Standard dancer wants to do Smooth, but has no idea what to do with their arms.  Yay for Bronze!  

Conclusion?

There's a HUGE scale of knowledge (I am nowhere near the top) amongst teachers, and a huge scale of perfectionism amongst those teachers, which makes for a huge scale in each proficiency level amongst students.  Ta-da!