I quit teaching over twenty years ago, but I still have dreams related to my job. A recurrent dream concerns IEPs--the required paperwork for each student, typically about 20 pages. I did 30 to 40 a year and never was late.
My dream is that it's May and I haven't started. I make futile attempts to find the necessary records and forms but can't. I seriously consider blowing the IEPs off and dumping the mess on other teachers. I've never done that in the dream because I always wake up first.
The other teaching dream involves being in the building on the first day, but I don't know what subjects I will be teaching or where my room is and I have no teaching materials. I used to get frantically worried in the dream but one night I thought, "Fuck it. This isn't my fault. I'm not going to feel bad. I am going to get mad instead."
So now that dream has a different story arc.
I have been trapped asleep but unable to awake multiple times, starting at elementary school age. I have taught myself to wake myself up by moving one of my arms. It can be very difficult, frustrating, and frightening.
I sometimes sleep with my eyes open and can see if there's enough light, but don't always know what I'm looking at until I wake up. I once dreamt of being chased by a helicopter during an afternoon nap and woke up to realize I was looking at the spinning ceiling fan.
I don't get the Corbyn hate/dismissiveness, there's something visceral about it that is completely irrational. When you look at his policies instead, they were popular with a broad majority of people:
To be fair, I didn't vote for him because of Brexit, but then Starmer cut a similar sorry figure in this regard. And the young voters don't believe in him. Neither of them are gifted politicians, but after all the gifted politicians we had in this country and the havoc they wreaked, that might not be a bad thing.
Now that I have an older man's prostate and bladder, I wake up once in the middle of the night because I have to pee. Sometimes I have trouble getting back to sleep after that, another common problem amongst the old. I have very vivid, complicated dreams, which are common side effects of the two long-term medications I take. I seem to dream more than I used to, but don't have any of the symptoms (like waking up fatigued) that indicate excess dreaming. None of the acting-out behavior, the normal REM "paralysis" seems to be working just fine.
I've long been interested in what kind of nightmares people have -- what makes you wake up huffing and puffing with the adrenaline pumping. The only ones that do that to me are dreams about vampires. For unknown reasons, while I know that witches and werewolves and such -- everything except vampires -- are just make-believe, part of me believes in vampires. I don't know if the fear pre- or post-dates the time I finished reading Salem's Lot in bed at 2:00 in the morning. I had to decide if I was going to walk across the room to turn the light off, knowing that I would have to walk back in the dark, or put my head under the pillow to sleep. I elected to put my head under the pillow.
I had a friend who, even as a young adult, would sometimes act out his dreams. Once, he tried to stuff his wife behind the headboard of the bed. A few years ago, in the late stages of Parkinson’s, he died after a fall.
This is great, as an add-on not as a replacement, which is what I assume was the intention? Does this now happen automatically, or does someone have to do things to it intermittently?
It's a very non-traditional add-on, intended to let someone get a feel for what's going on. State of the Discussion, not the discussion itself. CK MacLeod, the original author, figured out how to organize a lot of information into a little space. To be honest, despite the links back to the real pages, it tempts someone to jump straight to comments w/o reading the post proper first. That's a potentially serious downside. There's a widget version of the code that might be better, added at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar.
Every invocation generates a new page that's up-to-date. Speaking broadly, it doesn't require any attention except sometimes following a WordPress or PHP update. I got involved at the other site where it runs after cumulative updates had broken it completely.
This is great, as an add-on not as a replacement, which is what I assume was the intention? Does this now happen automatically, or does someone have to do things to it intermittently? If the former, win-win!
Thanks, Charles. As I've mentioned, I inherited this when it was orphaned by the original author. I've kept it running, but have never been through it systematically to clean up. I know there's a bunch of CSS that only applies when the widget (as opposed to page) version is run, and I suspect there's some CSS that's just dead. Once I get past the holidays, I'll apply these corrections and I also intend to address lj's complaint about the comment excerpts.
ETA: And it doesn't come anywhere close to the current practices for things that ought to be included in plugins.
The WordPress built-in get_comment_excerpt() strips out formatting tags. The SotD code I inherited has its own comment excerpt code, and also strips out formatting tags unless the excerpt is the entire comment. That's what happened in the middle comment in your picture.
After he collaborated with Eisenstein on Alexandr Newsky and Ivan Grozny, he refused to do any other film music since he thought he would never again get such a good working relationship.
But in politicians, and especially those who aspire to lead the country, with all the enormous complications and problems that involves, I feel intelligence (or at least the lack of stupidity) are a necessity.
I think lack of stupidity is closer. The US Presidency has metastasized to the point that one critical skill combines knowing what you don't know, being able (and willing!) to select staff who collectively do know about those things, and then being able to take their advice. That's by no means everything the job requires. But lack of that skill is a recipe for disaster. As we are seeing.
Kindness and human decency weigh a tremendous amount with me, and more and more as I get older. But in politicians, and especially those who aspire to lead the country, with all the enormous complications and problems that involves, I feel intelligence (or at least the lack of stupidity) are a necessity.
And most serious lefties of my acquaintance say he is also not very bright.
I can see that, though I have to admit, the past 5 or 10 years, I've gotten quite disenchanted with using intelligence as a yardstick for anything. I still get angry when people do stupid things, so I do give intelligence some weight, but I've gotten to the point where kindness and human decency weigh a lot more to me. Unfortunately, I think we are in a time where it is easy to railroad kind people.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “How are you sleeping?”
I quit teaching over twenty years ago, but I still have dreams related to my job. A recurrent dream concerns IEPs--the required paperwork for each student, typically about 20 pages. I did 30 to 40 a year and never was late.
My dream is that it's May and I haven't started. I make futile attempts to find the necessary records and forms but can't. I seriously consider blowing the IEPs off and dumping the mess on other teachers. I've never done that in the dream because I always wake up first.
The other teaching dream involves being in the building on the first day, but I don't know what subjects I will be teaching or where my room is and I have no teaching materials. I used to get frantically worried in the dream but one night I thought, "Fuck it. This isn't my fault. I'm not going to feel bad. I am going to get mad instead."
So now that dream has a different story arc.
"
I have been trapped asleep but unable to awake multiple times, starting at elementary school age. I have taught myself to wake myself up by moving one of my arms. It can be very difficult, frustrating, and frightening.
"
I sometimes sleep with my eyes open and can see if there's enough light, but don't always know what I'm looking at until I wake up. I once dreamt of being chased by a helicopter during an afternoon nap and woke up to realize I was looking at the spinning ceiling fan.
On “Weekend Music Thread #07 Sergei Prokofiev”
Same applies to me, though I'm on top of many other mainstream composers. I'll have to make an effort now, thanks.
On “It’s Your Party, you can cry if…”
I don't get the Corbyn hate/dismissiveness, there's something visceral about it that is completely irrational. When you look at his policies instead, they were popular with a broad majority of people:
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/22265-eurotrack-corbyns-policies-popular-europe-and-uk
To be fair, I didn't vote for him because of Brexit, but then Starmer cut a similar sorry figure in this regard. And the young voters don't believe in him. Neither of them are gifted politicians, but after all the gifted politicians we had in this country and the havoc they wreaked, that might not be a bad thing.
On “How are you sleeping?”
None of the acting-out behavior, the normal REM “paralysis” seems to be working just fine.
A couple of times, I've woken and been completely paralyzed. But recovered in less than a minute.
"
Now that I have an older man's prostate and bladder, I wake up once in the middle of the night because I have to pee. Sometimes I have trouble getting back to sleep after that, another common problem amongst the old. I have very vivid, complicated dreams, which are common side effects of the two long-term medications I take. I seem to dream more than I used to, but don't have any of the symptoms (like waking up fatigued) that indicate excess dreaming. None of the acting-out behavior, the normal REM "paralysis" seems to be working just fine.
I've long been interested in what kind of nightmares people have -- what makes you wake up huffing and puffing with the adrenaline pumping. The only ones that do that to me are dreams about vampires. For unknown reasons, while I know that witches and werewolves and such -- everything except vampires -- are just make-believe, part of me believes in vampires. I don't know if the fear pre- or post-dates the time I finished reading Salem's Lot in bed at 2:00 in the morning. I had to decide if I was going to walk across the room to turn the light off, knowing that I would have to walk back in the dark, or put my head under the pillow to sleep. I elected to put my head under the pillow.
"
i've had those kids of (RDB) dreams since my mid 30s.
Drs haven't been interested.
"
I had a friend who, even as a young adult, would sometimes act out his dreams. Once, he tried to stuff his wife behind the headboard of the bed. A few years ago, in the late stages of Parkinson’s, he died after a fall.
On “Open Thread”
Here's a Facebook post with some very nice art. And some photorealistic transformations in the comments.
Rakshy Tarik Kamal - Artist Kate Lewis
On “Weekend Music Thread #07 Sergei Prokofiev”
Hartmut, didn't know that, though I wonder if having your collaborators imprisoned and shot is another reason not to work with people.
On “Site Experiment”
When I've hit Enter or pressed <Ctrl> + Enter, the comment is posted.
But Enter works now, <Ctrl> + Enter doesn't do anything.
"
Question: How do you insert line breaks into a comment without causing it to post?
You can't just hit enter?
"
This is great, as an add-on not as a replacement, which is what I assume was the intention? Does this now happen automatically, or does someone have to do things to it intermittently?
It's a very non-traditional add-on, intended to let someone get a feel for what's going on. State of the Discussion, not the discussion itself. CK MacLeod, the original author, figured out how to organize a lot of information into a little space. To be honest, despite the links back to the real pages, it tempts someone to jump straight to comments w/o reading the post proper first. That's a potentially serious downside. There's a widget version of the code that might be better, added at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar.
Every invocation generates a new page that's up-to-date. Speaking broadly, it doesn't require any attention except sometimes following a WordPress or PHP update. I got involved at the other site where it runs after cumulative updates had broken it completely.
"
This is great, as an add-on not as a replacement, which is what I assume was the intention? Does this now happen automatically, or does someone have to do things to it intermittently? If the former, win-win!
"
Here's more. :)
stylesheet.css
main.min.css
Question: How do you insert line breaks into a comment without causing it to post?
"
Thanks, Charles. As I've mentioned, I inherited this when it was orphaned by the original author. I've kept it running, but have never been through it systematically to clean up. I know there's a bunch of CSS that only applies when the widget (as opposed to page) version is run, and I suspect there's some CSS that's just dead. Once I get past the holidays, I'll apply these corrections and I also intend to address lj's complaint about the comment excerpts.
ETA: And it doesn't come anywhere close to the current practices for things that ought to be included in plugins.
"
If the code in cwp.css is working correctly, these errors may not be significant. Functionally, they may not matter.
/* Original (Incorrect) */
padding: 6px; 6px; 8px; 6px;
/* Corrected */
padding: 6px 6px 8px 6px;
------------
/* Original (Incorrect) */
// max-width: 40px;
// max-height: 42px;
/* Corrected */
/* max-width: 40px; */
/* max-height: 42px; */
------------
/* Original (Incorrect) */
vertical-align: text;
/* Corrected */
vertical-align: text-bottom;
------------
/* Original (Incorrect) */
width: 100%
font-size: 18px;
/* Corrected */
width: 100%;
font-size: 18px;
"
oooh, nice. well done, Michael.
"
I dig it immensely! Thanks to Michael and lj for all your work, and to anyone else who's contributed to the blog's continued existence.
"
And just an observation about italics.
The WordPress built-in get_comment_excerpt() strips out formatting tags. The SotD code I inherited has its own comment excerpt code, and also strips out formatting tags unless the excerpt is the entire comment. That's what happened in the middle comment in your picture.
On “Weekend Music Thread #07 Sergei Prokofiev”
After he collaborated with Eisenstein on Alexandr Newsky and Ivan Grozny, he refused to do any other film music since he thought he would never again get such a good working relationship.
On “It’s Your Party, you can cry if…”
I think lack of stupidity is closer. The US Presidency has metastasized to the point that one critical skill combines knowing what you don't know, being able (and willing!) to select staff who collectively do know about those things, and then being able to take their advice. That's by no means everything the job requires. But lack of that skill is a recipe for disaster. As we are seeing.
"
Kindness and human decency weigh a tremendous amount with me, and more and more as I get older. But in politicians, and especially those who aspire to lead the country, with all the enormous complications and problems that involves, I feel intelligence (or at least the lack of stupidity) are a necessity.
"
And most serious lefties of my acquaintance say he is also not very bright.
I can see that, though I have to admit, the past 5 or 10 years, I've gotten quite disenchanted with using intelligence as a yardstick for anything. I still get angry when people do stupid things, so I do give intelligence some weight, but I've gotten to the point where kindness and human decency weigh a lot more to me. Unfortunately, I think we are in a time where it is easy to railroad kind people.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.