Day 40/67, Five Month GED, Cheerful Facts About the Square of the Hypotenuse, and, Standing Like an Adult

      Adulting includes learning which languages work to help you learn best, such as the language of music: musical learning for facts vegetable, mineral, and mathematical, especially quadratical,

and maybe even songs for finding out where your law-makers stand.  🙂    How, by the way, would you find out where your Congressmen and State Assembly/State Senate representatives stand on various issues of concern to you?

Start of week 11/18

Day 40, Week 11

Grammar: Frequently confused words: affect/effect and here/hear

Math: Pythagorean Theorem!!!

Day 40 Exit Ticket

(Day 39 … Day 41)

(Extra points for online sources on “biogeochemical cycles” that do not come from ‘pedia! 🙂

Action Items:

1.) Where does this quote “…cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse…” come from, and do you like it?

2.) Please explain how it may (or may not) help learners, especially as part of Project Do Better…

3.) Write a book, story, blog post or tweet that uses those thoughts, and then, please tell us about it! If you write a book, once it is published please consider donating a copy to your local public library.

4.)  Feel free to answer the exit ticket questions in the comments, or pose any other questions you may have about the lesson, if you wish.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport

-we can learn from the past via Stayed on Freedom’s Call,

         by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plan list) in the present, to

                      We can  Do Better: a Vision of a Better World to create a kinder future

 

( 5 month GED lesson 21 of 67 plans),

   and  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective: story inspires learning, and historical fiction can also inspire courage…

Toward Peace,

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2022 CE = year 12022 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please let us know if you’ve read it!  

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Fun with Languages Fridays: Lupin, 1:3

 

                 Fun with Languages Friday:  mostly English, and a little stream-of-consciousness…

     ***Spoilers!!

French Fridays with Lupin, Omar Sy style!

   This third episode is all about how Assàne kidnaps Commissair DuMont, brilliantly.  And Dumont eventually asks his forgiveness.  And the school, paid for by the “generous donatrice” where this kid did not lack courage!  Launching at three kids all by himself!  🙂   So there we see his history of bravery, already shown back in the 2nd episode!   I’ve not yet read LeBlanc’s story  where Lupin kidnaps a person and never leaves the building, but the policeman afficcionado of the stories references it as he figures it out, leading his colleagues to Dumont.

 

Poor Guidira:  “Patron… Pas Lupin encore!”   He’s right, but no one believes him!  His middle name should be Cassandra!! 

 

And Dumont should have stuck to his guns, 25 years ago!!

Before he went back to smoking…

 

—

 

 

    And now, Dumont’s wife knows he’s a liar, and so do the police.  And best of all, Assàne knows that Pellegrini is implicated…

 

 

     I also have a short historical fiction series called  Ann & Anna.  I  hope that this series will move you to learn more ways to help use our history to build new tools.

  Chapter 2 was last Friday, and Chapter 4  will post this coming Friday.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how language learning may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.

Dear Readers, do you have ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking at least for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

-we can learn from the past by keeping Stayed on Freedom’s Call,

         by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans list) in the present, to

                          We can  Do Better: a Vision of a Better World to create a kinder future

 

( 5 month GED lesson 26 of 67 plans),

   and  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective: story inspires learning…

Toward Peace,

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

the year, 2022 CE = year 12022 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please let us know here that you’ve read it!  🙂

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Day 33/67 of GED in Five Months, coordinates, and area

      Adulting must include understanding how complex ideas fit together and affect other ideas, people, places, and/or things.  The Cartesian coordinate system also gives us access to yet another form of language, allowing us to describe the world around us more fully in terms of precise location.

     Figuring out the area of a polygon in a coordinate plane can also help us figure out other things, don’t you think?

Middle of week 9/18

Day 33 Wk 9

Grammar: coordinating conjunctions

Math: Area of polygons on a grid/coordinate plane

Day 33ExitTix

(Day 32 … Day 34 )

Action Prompts:

1.)   How important do you think mathematics are, especially more complex maths, and how might it help, if you think it does, with Adulting?  How might math fit in wit Project Do Better?

2.)  Write a book, story, blog post or tweet that uses those thoughts, and then, please tell us about it! If you write a book, once it is published please consider donating a copy to your local public library.

4.)  Feel free to answer the exit ticket questions in the comments, or pose any other questions you may have about the lesson, if you wish.

Dear Readers, do you have ideas to share on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport

-we can learn from the past via Stayed on Freedom’s Call,

       by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plan List) in the present, to

                                                                            help build a kinder future:  Project Do Better…

 

  Our society can Do Better to build Peace: Project Do Better might help…    

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

the year, 2022 CE = year 12022 HE

(5 month GED lesson 22 of 67 plans…), and

Babylon 5 review posts from a fictional Minbari Ranger’s point of view, and my historical fiction serial Ann&Anna,  escaping slaves’ learning to read…

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Book: L’Île sur l’océan Nuit, & let writers write, please!

        Ok,  I have to whine here, instead of working on my revision of Do Better:   Right after my review for a book that really needs more love!

  (updated title, too bad I didn’t think of this title when I posted it!!)

     Book: 

L’Île sur l’océan Nuit

     This is one YA heroic quest, by Michel Grimaud, that is a step above others -set mostly in a dystopian colony of earth, the STRESS (I love this acronym) – Société Terrienne D’EXPLOITATION du Système Solaire – keeps colonies ignorant and enslaved. Mar (our young protag.) must grow both courage and knowledge as he builds networks to change the system, and save his loved ones. 

    The story also shows the ideas in “It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us” and General MacArthur’s Long Gray Line speech: that those around us impart the values and dreams of our society, and that is how children frame the context of their actions.  So it is really important to keep that in mind, and also to pay attention to them when they come back after traveling somewhere: they may have things to teach us!

   Hopefully this is not a spoiler, but I love the last line (that I remember):

“The Debt Does Not Exist!”

Ok, mild rant, or whine, maybe:

   Why is it so hard to find a specific book when no one else seems to like it, and why are there not some sort of mechanisms for fairly and freely publicising all books in a particular genre, rather than making readers search ten different sites, while the authors spend half their time marketing instead of writing? 

  (and I guess it’s time to actually find and read that book again, if I can get a library to ILL it from France…)

 

   OK, no rant, I guess.  Sorry, back to editing.

We can definitely  Do Better.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.)  Share your thoughts on how we might make some way of finding and sorting all of the books out there in a way that really does help the well-written books find readers, without exhausting the writers!

 

    Thoughtful Readers, do you have any ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind?

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for COVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport

Read, Write

-we can learn from the past via Stayed on Freedom’s Call ,

        by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plan list) in the present, to

                                                                     help build a kinder future: Project Do Better

( 5 month GED lesson 29 of 67 plans),

   and  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective: story, especially historical women’s stories, can inspire courage and learning…

Nih sakh sh’lekk, sleem wa.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2022 CE = year 12022 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please let us know, if you have a moment, how you liked it.

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Fun with Languages Fridays: Lupin, 1:2

 

                 Fun with Languages Friday:  English translation right after the French!

 

French Fridays with Lupin, Omar Sy style!

 

   Wow!!

Bon il a bossé son technique d’évasion.

 

C’est vrai. Elle n’est pas innocente.   Et son fils, il sait déjà distinguer.  Mais pourquoi allait-il en prison?  !!

Son père était très attentive al ortographie quelque chose que seulement son fils  soura.  Mais non il n’y a pas de hasard dans la vie.  Sûr tout quand on avais une lettre, un mot de suicide comme ça. 

Évidemment il va utiliser les mêmes techniques qu’a utilisé Arsène Lupin en allant en prison lui-même.  Comme dans les histoires.   Le coût de menottes !  Chouette !!

Et voilà la fille de la Mère dans sa cage dorée parce qu’elle savent Ou son les cadavres.

 

Et le pauvre policier qui sait qu’il est en train de voir les histoires d’Arsène Lupin dans la vraie vie mais personne ne le croit.

 

Et le drame le plus haut et honorable possible :   nettoyer le bon nom de son père.

 

 

 

He has definitely improved his technique of getting away. It’s true she is not innocent and his son already knows how to distinguish. But why is he in prison?  !!

 And his father was very particular about spelling. That’s a detail and only his son would know. Nice.  And there is no such thing as coincidence when it comes to a letter like this a suicide note.

And obviously he’s going to use the same techniques, going to prison, as Arsène Lupin did in the stories.

 

Oh god, the Foster /orphanage place was just like the prison!

Ah, right, the one the daughter of the one who knows where the bodies are hidden.

 

Poor policeman!

And the best highest noblest drama possible to clear  the good name of his father.

 

 

—

 

 

    Wow!

 

 

     I also have a short historical fiction series called  Ann & Anna.  I  hope that the series about two (or three!) young women escaping bondage will move you to learn more ways to help use our history to build new tools.

  Lupin Chptr 1, and Chptr 3…  (and all of these reviews will be listed on the Lupin page…)

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how language learning may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking at least for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

         by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans ) in the present, to

                         We can  Do Better: a project for a Better World to create a kinder future

 

( 5 month GED lesson 25 of 67 plans),

   and narrative  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective: story inspires learning…

Toward Peace,

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

the year, 2022 CE = year 12022 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please do let us know here that you’ve read it!  🙂

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Fun with Languages Fridays: New Years Wishes

 

                 Fun with Languages Friday:  This week we go back in time a few years, and a couple of continents, to Turkey.  I learned much of my spoken Turkish over meals with neighbors, and  by watching this delightful family show in the evenings after work.  It has been described as a Turkish version of the 70s show Bewitched, but I’d call it more of a Bewitched meets Harry Potter ala modern Turkey.

   Minute 17:09 of this Sihirli Annem video episode clip: A beautiful wish for world peace

 

     I also have a short story series going,  called   Ann&Anna, the story of an escape.  I  hope that this series will move you to learn more ways to help use our history to build new tools.

Part 13 was last Sunday, if you enjoy historical fiction.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how language learning may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking at least for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

         by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

                         We can  Do Better: a proposal to create a kinder future

 

( 5 month GED lesson 24 of 67 plans),

   and  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective: story,  inspires learning…

Toward Peace,

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page, and please do let us know here that you’ve reviewed it there!  🙂

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Fun with Languages Fridays: Lupin, 1:1, aka P1e1

 

                 Fun with Languages Friday:   French Fridays with Lupin, Omar Sy style!

 

               I love how the first episode moves between excerpts from the Arsène Lupin book(s), and the present-day character played by Sy.  I had a very difficult time getting into the original work by Maurice Leblanc, at least as read on LibriVox.org.  It seemed to me that the first story was more of a cynical rip-off of Sherlock Holmes, and at the expense of a working class person, to boot, than anything I might eventually find uplifting.  I listened for a while, and decided that a story like that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Yellow Face” was beyond Mr. Leblanc.  Nevertheless, in the hands of a character played by Omar Sy, the Gentleman-Cambrioleur became a compelling one.  The modern story for why he turns his brilliant mind to crime provides the change of perspective necessary for me to pay attention, once more, to this apparently popular classic French series.

   I was going to comment only in English, but I did take a note or two in French, which I do more often as I get immersed in the series.   I hope you dear Readers do not mind:

Il semble que les costauds ne peuvent pas courir.

 

C’est parfait, avoir le livre comme cadeau de son père

 

10% par semaine !!

 

English:

 

So apparently, big guys can’t run and it’s perfect the way the book was presented as a gift from the father. 10% per week no wonder these guys are kneecappers!!

—

 

 

    I love Sy’s work, from Lupin, to the film Le Chant Du Loup, to his (I think) breakout film Intouchables.  I wonder where he stands, in the short line of Black actors who have made such a difference in western film?  He certainly makes a brilliant contribution.

 

 

   The review for Lupin Châpitre 2 will be the week after next…

 

Happy New Year, 12022 HE (Human/Holocene Era)!

Shira

 

 

     I also have a short historical fiction series called  Ann & Anna.  I  hope that this series will move you to learn more ways to help use our history to build new tools.  Part 12 was last Sunday.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how language learning may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking at least for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

-we can learn from the past via Stayed on Freedom’s Call,

         by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plan list) in the present, to

                         We can  Do Better: a Vision of a Better World to create a kinder future

 

( 5 month GED lesson 22 of 67 plans),

   and  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective: story inspires learning…

Toward Peace,

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page, and please do let us know here that you’ve reviewed it there!  🙂

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Day 23/67, Five Month GED, Learning languages, and Adulting in context

    If you are a compulsive completer, as I often am, you may find yourself filling in the chart below automatically, in the language of mathematics: perhaps the most universal of all human languages (and maybe of alien languages, if we ever make contact with non-human intelligent life?).

     Languages, both external (or, between people, i.e. French) and internal (aka “love languages” for each person), are a set of forms of knowledge that all Adult citizens of any democratic nation or movement must learn anew, continually, just as with mathematical language:

Mathematical Language is far simpler:

(3 ^ 0)(3 ^3) =(1)(3 cubed) = 3 cubed = 3*3*3 = 27

Day 23 Lesson Plan (pdf format)

Grammar: Essay writing 4/4 on paper

more Power practice: powers of products and quotients practice

Challenging exponents practice using The Power Rule

Day23ExitSlips

End of Week 6 of 18…

(Day 22 … Day 24)

And Multiplication as a triangular and universal language:  this is so cool, I wish I’d seen this when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade!

 

 

And how numbers convert from one form to another, but remain the same number:

Eight different forms to express the equivalent quantity

Action Items:

1.) Find three different secondary or tertiary sources for the origin or language family of your favorite language, (French, for instance, according to Encyclopedia Brittanica, the BBC, and National Geographic, is Romance…)

2.) Share your  findings with us, and write a book, story, blog post or tweet that uses those findings, and then, please tell us about it! If you write a book, once it is published please consider donating a copy to your local public library.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport

Read, Write

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

        by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

                     We can  Do Better: to create a kinder future

 

Peace    

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

( 5 month GED lesson 21 of 67 plans…),

       and Ranger M.’s Babylon 5 review posts, because story inspires learning, and historical stories inspire tool-building, right?  “Of course right!”

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

Shira 

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

How a missed trash can led to Formation Tortue, but learning languages may help…

This is a slightly edited re-posting, to finish the theme of how childhood trauma informs and affects our adult lives, that has been going this past few weeks of Some Tours being Worth Marching, and then Some Beatings being Worth Taking, after Floating on the ceiling as Punishment for hitting your elders in the Jaw, and learning that I Shouldn’t Exist?

—

Why did that paper ball flying over my head make me dive for the floor?

Shortly after I turned 51 years of age, a young coworker launched a simple balled up bit of paper at the trash can in front of me. It missed. What I saw was not a mere bit of paper becoming litter, however. Out of the corner of my eye, something came flying at me from behind. I reacted instinctively: by ducking. Since this was not the normally appropriate behavior for a 51 year old woman in an office environment, you can well imagine my embarrassment. My coworker apologized profusely: the poor thing had simply missed a trash can with a tiny bit of paper. What he saw was a reaction out of a Roman Turtle formation . I also apologized profusely, but the damage was already done. For the rest of the day, coworkers eyed me suspiciously and slowly walked over to place their trash in the bin. The awkwardness was palpable, and I was grateful when some of my Mexican coworkers began talking and joking in Spanish, drawing attention away from the incident.

As I sat on my afternoon break with a cup of hot water, I suddenly recalled a time I haven’t thought of in over 40 years. Another object was flying over my head from behind me, but it was not a simple bit of paper.

It was a belt buckle.

Pandemonium had broken loose as an old man bellowed his wrath, and swung his belt. I was the only person in the room not running away. For some reason, I could see the old man, the belt, and the other kids in the room. All looked either furious or frightened. But it all seemed to be happening somewhere else, with me simply frozen in place. The sounds were there, but muted as if in an old fashioned film.

It suddenly hit me that this event was from a time that I had worked very hard to forget. I’d been 9 years old, in the house overnight of a babysitter who was rather negligent. I told my mother, yet she did nothing. So, I forgot. But I never knew why objects flying over my head made me panic; until today.

Spanish, in particular Mexican Spanish, has always been my favorite language to switch into when I need to move my thoughts out of English. As a child, I’d always wished that I had magical powers to allow me to fight, or that I had a fairy sister to defend me, but the reality was that I was thrown back upon my own resources, so hiding or being ready to run usually seemed to be my best option. Hiding from my own thoughts was fairly easily accomplished, even in my dreams at times, by singing or thinking in Spanish.

It turned out that I could not hide from myself indefinitely. Things we’d rather not remember have a way of springing up, in the end. As I began to get therapy for events from my childhood it turned out that hiding and forgetting was not an effective way of dealing with those events. I had to relive them, again. This was probably more frustrating for my therapists than it even was for me, as I was told again and again that pushing away the memories would only make my #C-PTSD worse. But the focus on just being functional made it easy to ignore, once I was back in a job where I could pour my time and attention into something complex. (This 13-26 week cap that Medicaid puts on the number of sessions is yet another reason that we need full #UniversalHealthCare for everyone. Complex cases of many illnesses require long-term therapy that, when covered, will make for a healthier work force and population, not just the functional-to-panic-back-to-functionality roller coaster that kills so much time and so many people, in the end…)

The final straw arrived when the regional economy took a dive, sending myself and the vast majority of people I knew out of work. Some went to California, and I went overseas for work. In a new country and environment, stress flared up, and so did my panic anxiety. But this time I had to talk to a therapist in a language I was only just beginning to learn. As it turned out, I was finally able to access a good bit of the emotional content, while remaining present and able to stem the tide of anxiety during each session. As we began to unpack more of the childhood memories I’d been avoiding, being forced to express myself in a language I was still learning appeared to keep me emotionally distanced enough to prevent being pulled completely into the pain of the original event. When I came back to the USA, I found in California that having a Mexican therapist allowed us to switch from my native English, which was required to access the full emotion of the memory, into Spanish. So when she needed to lower the intensity level of the session, but keep me in the memory, she would switch into Spanish, distancing me just enough from the experience to process it. Who would have thought that #learning a #language could help in this case? But, it did.

So, what would Astérix do? He’d ask the Druid Panoramix, who would say: Il faut #ArreterdeFumer tout de suite !!

originally posted in  April, 12020 HE

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how this story may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind?

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking at least for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

We can  Do Better: to create a kinder future

Peace

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

( 5 month GED lesson 21 of 67 plans…),

and Ranger M.’s Babylon 5 review posts, because story inspires learning, and historical stories inspire tool-building, right?  “Of course right!”

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

What about Noah’s wife, and languages for empathy

This week’s Torah portion, called a Parashah, is the 2nd portion of the cycle, Parashat Noach and reminded me of a story I wrote, in a couple of different versions, a few years ago based on a question about some of those who stayed behind, in the Great Flood story. This image, btw, is an Islamic image of Noah’s Ark, which I found interesting.

—

Waves lapped at her breasts, the cold water raising goose bumps on her clammy chilled flesh. The matron shivered, lifting her head, drawing a deep breath from her belly, and pushing the words out with her diaphragm:

“Soon and very soon

we are going to see the King”

the others joined in, linking arms,

“Soon and very soon

we are going to see the King”

Was she seeing that right?

“What are they doing singing?!” tears stung her face as Naamah bellowed

“Get them in here, son! Now! Drag them by their idiotic hair if you have to, but get them in this boat! What do they think they are doing?! They …”

Her words were drowned out by her friend’s next call,

“No more crying!”

The others, lifting their voices above the waves, responded:

“No more crying there, for

we are going to see the king”

Naamah lunged at the railing, one foot already hooked over the side, as Shem and Yapeth dragged her by each arm, her third son linking his hands around her struggling waist, dragging her back inside as her husband slammed the door, lowering the massive bar, enclosing them all in darkness, muffling the cries outside the arc.

At last, when she her breath returned, over the already stifling stench of the animals,

“She told me, but I could not stop her. Demanding an audience, she said.”

All four men stared at her. What?

“An audience with the One who decreed this flood. Protesting the lack of input in this decision.”

“What a hell of a way to protest. They aren’t gong to get very far.”

…

ShiraDest.

Originally drafted in 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era)

AIso, is it still true, that empathy makes us stronger, not weaker?

Octavia Butler dealt with that question, too, in her last novel (I think), Parable of the Talents.

  More on my continuing striving with empathy next time, friends:

  Nos vemos!      ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different sources to translate the word “rest”  into both Spanish and Hebrew.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please.  (Anyone notice them in this story??)

3.) Share your thoughts on how you like each of the sources you found,  perhaps as an update on your GoodReads reading,

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that uses a Hebrew word, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

5.)  Can someone tell me why half of this is in block and half is in free format, and refuses to keep my formatting in the first half of the post, which has put itself into the new block editing format?  This is just bizzare.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport

Read, Write

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

     by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

           help build a kinder future: Baby Acres: a Vision of a Better World

(Online pdfs of 5 month GED lesson 5 of 67 plans), and

Babylon 5 review posts, how story inspires learning…

Peace     ! שָׁלוֹם

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

Shira Destinie Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.