X ~ X Marks it WRONG

These are the continuing adventures of a Swedish immigrant during her first year as an American. She boldly went where she'd never gone before...please come along on Adventures in America.

It's time to talk spelling. My first year, which was as a third grader, much to my relief, I was a terrible speller. TERRIBLE. Swedish is almost 100% phonically spelled (and I do find it ironic that not even the word phonic is spelled phonically...but then again, you know I'm a word nerd...)

In Sweden, kindergarten is optional, but I of course went. I couldn't wait to start school. Here I am practicing hand-writing.

First grade is age 7, not 6 as in the US. However, I couldn't just automagically go from 2^nd grade in Sweden to 3^rd grade in America, I had to take HOURS of placement tests, which no one had warned me about, and frightened me to death. But I was deemed worthy of 3^rd grade. Consequently, I was always a year older than my peers and spent my life explaining about how they start school later in Sweden, which, by the way, I highly applaud.

Back to spelling. I knew how to SPEAK English. I didn't know very well how to read and write it. Can you imagine how confusing silent e's and gh being silent in “through” but “f” in enough? That's the tip of the ice-berg. Nonetheless, this perfectionist over-achiever realized she could spell words she'd SEEN before, so I started to read like a maniac. I of course knew nothing about learning styles or that I'm about 99% a visual learner, but at least I had a plan of action finally.

I remember one incident that was a big factor in me realizing I had to do something different than just try to learn how to memorize my 20 spelling words for the week. I was in Mr. Bones class and he was checking my work. I had written the word “just” like this:

djust

He looked at me like I was crazy and said, “WHY did you put a D in front of that word?"

I looked at him like HE was crazy and said, “Because there's a d in the sound of djust!” He had NO idea what I was talking about and put a big, red, X next to the word and told me not to be adding extra letters to words. I sat there a while realizing that it would be futile to recite all the English words I'd already learned to spell that had extra letters in them...

write

stone

thorough

eight

beautiful

coughing...

My reading plan worked. I quickly became an excellent speller. One of my teachers once asked me,”Why can you spell all these other words but yet you got ______________wrong?”

“I guess it hasn't been in any of the books I've read yet.”

She didn't get it.

Friday Flex Time

The time when I blog short bits about stuff that's bugging me, or has delighted me, or is just plain what I want to write about. Anything goes...

Teaching a 15 year-old to drive really is fun.
I'd thought it would be this big, scary thing, but I guess I'm lucky. The Transporter is so good, mostly what we talk about is various routes to places. He's excellent at knowing where places are around town after spending most of his teen years using his bike for transportation with his buddy, SkinnyBoy. However, cutting across parks and driving the wrong way down alleys is generally frowned upon when in a motor vehicle, especially when it's the big, blue, prison van, which has been my mode of transport since my lovely lady (1994 Volvo 940, smoke grey, and the youngest in our fleet) died on me over a month ago.

I miss my girl, and her turbo, but I do feel rather tall in the van (something this 5'4” girl doesn't feel very often) and invincible since it seats 12 and is 8 cylinders and a 350. Parking that behemoth is another story. Of course, The Transporter is an excellent parker too, which he never fails to tell me...

Good news is, that after the all the fixes that DIDN'T solve the '94's problems (though they were quite necessary, just not enough) THE problem has been identified , and as soon as we have a Saturday without snow I'll have my new fuel pump installed and be all set. So in other words, not this weekend.

I get totally irritated when those signs where someone in the establishment has control over the letters and changes the signs SPELLS THINGS WRONG.

This irritates more than just the fact that the sign MAKER can't spell. It means NO ONE there, NOT EVEN THE OWNER, can spell, or they'd get that sign guy out there to fix it. Either that, or everyone is blind. Or they've looked at it so many times they don't notice. Whatever the reason, if you want to showcase your stupidity for weeks on end, be my guest. I'll eat/shop/give someone else my dollars who CAN spell. Does this bother other people or is it just former English teachers like me?

We Coloradans joke that if you don't like the weather, just wait 15 minutes.

That couldn't have been illustrated better than today. I was outside after lunch checking in my backyard in prep for spring, and it was sunny and warm and I realized I'd have to change to shorts from capris before I went for my walk. So I sunscreen, I change clothes, I fill a water bottle, put the bare essentials in my pocket, and leave the house.

It's now a grey, cloudy, extremely windy day, and I'm very glad I grabbed a long sleeved shirt on my way out. I'm not deterred though, because I'm feeling good enough to drive to the park to do laps, thereby getting to walk further without a big commitment. This is necessary when your lungs are healing and you never know when they're going to scream “done”. Well lo and behold, they are nowhere near done when it starts to rain! I still ended up walking 50% further than any walk since my slow recovery started, though. So though this is a weather story, it's also a contentment update. Go me! I walked for 35 minutes. That seemed impossible in August when I couldn't even do the stairs.

What bugs you? How did it go teaching your child/children to drive? Does your place have weird weather? What are you content about?

~Tina

P.S If you haven't heard about The Blog Blitz yet, click on the badge to the right to learn more about this totally cool way of spreading some bloggy love.  The idea is from DL Hammons of Cruising Altitude 2.0.  You have to be signed up as a blitzer if you want to GET blitzed, and trust me, you do :-)  Not talking drunk.  Go check it out!

Friday Flex Time

Been an interesting week...and I don't feel like whining about it. Well that's SO not true. I do feel like whining about, it's just that you don't feel like reading about it. Be glad you haven't had to listen to me...seriously.

So I invented a new feature. I call it Friday Flex Time because it's not quite Tina's Ten Tidbits (which I did for a while) it's more a chance for me to write about what I want to write about.  How is this is different than what you usually do around here and in what way?? Shorter. That should make you concise people very happy. I can hit a topic on my mind, throw a few sentences up there, and be done. Doesn't have to be a long post.

One thing I still can't do is write a short intro...Cheryl! Help!!!!

Does anyone know how to clean antique copper like this?

I inherited this with from Farmor (father's mother – you'll learn a lot more about her when I write my challenge posts about moving to America) If you say "google it" I will scream. Yes, I'm aware of the wealth of info at my finger tips. What I don't have time is to read through all the suggestions for one that ACTUALLY WORKS because I've tried a lot of them and they produce no result. Regale me with your success, please. And thank you.

If you're drinking sake... and spill it, as in pour more in the thimble than it can take, twice in a row, then someone should drive you home. Not that I drank sake this week, or know anyone who did, just thought I'd share this important public service announcement. Why not drive? Because when you get home and get out of the car you'll spill all your precious left-overs in the driveway because you forget that your husbands car is missing that feature which lets the door stay open while you get out...so just sayin'. Be careful out there.

I know this will offend hordes of you.. but hear me out before you scream at me. Which you may do. I screamed at you about the google and the copper...When you name your child, please use the conventional spelling. You have no idea what it's like for a teacher to have Megan, Mehgan, Meggin, and Meagen all in the same class. AND, if you don't care about the teachers, think about the grandparents. How will they ever buy them a personalized tacky souvenir with their precious grandchild's name on it?

Oh, and Dear God,

Please give me less teachable moments with my children. I don't have it in me for anymore this week.

Best regards,

Tina