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In a message dated 1/5/2005 12:43:19 A.M. Mountain Standard Time,
DACunefare@... writes:

All life long it keeps popping up in supermarkets, kitchens, workshops,
offices, almost everywhere - even in the far reaches of the backwoods. When
it
does, the schools have left most of us no alternative to going into a trance
and trying to remember elementary textbook procedures...



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I know that feeling.

That book sounds pretty good! My kids are so calm and competent with
numbers... I'm jealous.

Kirby's staying at the dojo where he does karate while his teacher (who
lives there) is out of town for five days. He said he had been shown the DVD
collection and told me the big number of DVDs. I'm not good with numbers.

Later Holly asked me what Kirby was going to do while he was there, and I
said watch movies, because there were 1800 DVDs. Holly looked at me and
repeated "eighteen HUNdred"? But not like "really?" Sounded like, "That's not
right, you're mis-remembering."

So I immediately doubted myself entirely, because I have no internal
chalkboard for numbers it seems. A very funhouse-mirror one, anyway. So I assumed
I was wrong and said "I don't know, ask Kirby."

The real number was 1900.
But the whole thing was stress-inducing for me.
Re-telling it makes me feel ashamed.

Tacky, huh?

OH! Holly didn't know the concept "to be ashamed."

She was going to watch Stephen Lynch video (again) the other day, and she
said "I'm going to go watch that, okay?" (because we had been doing something
together upstairs) and I said, "Okay, as long as you're ashamed of yourself."
(The humor is embarrassingly offensive and horrible, which is what makes it
funny.)

Holly said, "What's 'ashamed'?"

Wow. Thirteen.
I knew it well before I can remember.
I knew the finger-wiping symbol for it (anyone know where that comes from,
pointing an index finger at the person and rubbing it donwards repetedly with
the other, like wiping something toward the other person?), and told the
northern-New-Mexico quiet shaming noise which she asked me how to spell and I
said I had no idea, but it's kind of like "OHmmmmbers..."

I have a lot of knowledge of shame and Holly had none.

That's why she doesn't feel guilty about liking Stephen Lynch, I guess. <bwg>

Sandra


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In a message dated 1/5/2005 6:24:28 AM Pacific Standard Time,
treegoddess@... writes:
What's his
style like? Can you describe it or should I just see it for myself?
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Musically, folky. Acoustic guitar (nothing fancy, simple accompaniments),
some times harmonies (he has a singer/foil), and once on the DVD, his brother
sings with them so there's a brief three-part harmony, on "D&D"

Lyrically, purposely shockingly offensive. The songs usually start off sweet
and turn halfway through, and it's the kind of stuff you might laugh at and
then be embarrassed you laugh, and then hear another line and laugh so loud you
miss the next line. And then those who know shame feel deeply ashamed for
having thought anything so disgusting was funny. Nasty, sexist, stupid,
politically incorrect, vulgar and funny.

Sandra


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This may well have been brought up before (I'm fairly new here and got
tired of clicking "next" when searching the archives to find out), but
my 8 year old daughter is really really enjoying "The Number Devil: A
Mathematical Adventure" by Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

A quote:

"Do you want to know something? Most genuine mathematicians are bad at
sums. Besides, they have no time to waste on them. That's what pocket
calculators are for. I assume you have one."

"Sure, but we're not allowed to use them in school."

"I see," said the number devil. "That's all right. There's nothing
wrong with a little addition and subtraction. You never know when your
battery will die on you. But mathematics, my boy, that's something
else again!"

-lisa near Chicago

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Angela S

>That book sounds pretty good! My kids are so calm and competent with
>numbers... I'm jealous.

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That does sound like a good book. I just ordered it for me. I got it for a
little over $4.

----------





>So I immediately doubted myself entirely, because I have no internal
>chalkboard for numbers it seems. A very funhouse-mirror one, anyway. So
I assumed
>I was wrong and said "I don't know, ask Kirby."

-

This is so me. Big number are all the same to me. (and I was very good at
school math and I still like playing with numbers.) When I heard about the
tsunami and all the people who were killed, 10,000 sounded like a lot and
now 150, 000 sounds like a lot, but I can't really quantify it so that I can
see how many people that is in my head. I guess if I stopped to think about
it hard, maybe. There are about 6.000 people in the biggest city near me.
So that would be more than 20 times the number of people in that city who
died. Wow!

---

>The real number was 1900.
>But the whole thing was stress-inducing for me.
>Re-telling it makes me feel ashamed.
---
>Tacky, huh?

---

No, not tacky. I understand. When I try to recall large number of
something, I might say "I think it was 10,000.no or maybe it was110,000, I
can't remember." Those two numbers are so far apart, but it's hard for me
to quantify them when I am remembering what someone said.

___

>OH! Holly didn't know the concept "to be ashamed."

---

My kids picked up that phrase from TV. One of them used it last night,
talking to her stuffed animal. I almost asked her if she could explain to
me what it meant, but I didn't. I figured she was just lucky not to know.
I had forgotten about that tsk tsk finger thing.



Angela

Game-enthusiast@...

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