tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21091503513758912792024-03-18T02:48:24.706-07:00Mathie x PensiveWriting. Mathematics. Time Travel.Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.comBlogger544125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-67025445716540463042024-02-25T18:29:00.000-08:002024-02-25T18:29:41.708-08:00Paw Patrol: Weird Science<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Here's a post that's been in the back of my mind for a year now. I'm pushing it out today, in honour of my daughter watching the first feature length PAW Patrol movie all the way through.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If you only want the scientific mysteries, you're going to have to skip over a couple paragraphs now, where I discuss my history with the show.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">PAW Patrol is a Canadian animated television series that came out in 2013. (PAW is supposedly an acronym for "Pups At Work", via a trademark.) If you are unaware, it features a world where people and pups (and some cats) co-exist as equals.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Thus it's perfectly normal to have a chat with a dog or see a stunt show put on by a cat.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The show's protagonists are the PAW Patrol, led by Ryder (10 yr old human), with Chase (police/spy pup), Marshall (fire/EMT pup), Skye (pilot pup), Rubble (construction pup), Rocky (recycle/repair pup) and Zuma (water pup).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Later seasons add Everest (ice pup), Tracker (jungle pup), Liberty (with the feature films), and a host of others, including some cats (the Cat Pack, Shade is best cat). Rubble even has his own spin-off show now.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't recall exactly when I first heard about the series, but my initial reaction was basically: "Papa Troll? Weird name for a show". Jump forward to Summer 2021, during the second year of the Pandemic, when PAW Patrol: The Movie came out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My daughter had recently turned three, and Mom would read her books on a tablet, through a website she'd signed up for. It included Sesame Street stories and the like - and that summer it was also promoting the movie. Meaning there was a short book with a bio of each pup, also showing their vehicles. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My daughter was intrigued, and in September 2021 when the promotion was removed, I bought her a short paper book from a bookstore (based on a scene from the movie) as a replacement. And we also found short episodes online, learned her cousins were watching too, and... here we are now, almost three years later.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It probably helps that I was also hooked in by the series, once I saw it. Mostly because of the pup houses that transform into vehicles, it's so exceedingly clever. Also the vehicles can transform into larger Ultimate Rescue vehicles. And the Paw Patroller can become a submarine, and Sid's pirate ship can do that too, and... look, if you liked Transformers growing up, how can you not find this cool?</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dx07HVEdKSDQ2nj_aGsDfj6SavmNp4F7OgcUqbQDeJSkT_z5vPbTC6hG7y9Aca7F9HcygaSgmfQvaRQCc9bQg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But there are definitely scientific questions that occur as you watch the show.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To be clear, I'm not talking about how Ryder is still 10 years old after a decade of the show (apply Simpsons logic), or how dogs simply seem to be an integral part of society and can speak fluent "insert dub language of choice", along with their vehicles that are made so that paws can steer them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm talking about more subtle details. Things about this Parallel PAW Planet Development that are particularly mysterious, but only when you stop to think about them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So, without further delay, here's the TOP 5 SCIENTIFIC MYSTERIES OF PAW PATROL, as chosen by me.</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">5) CHEMISTRY: GOLDEN RETRIEVER</span></h3><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This one is incredibly minor, but I wanted chemistry in here, and even though it's a single reference, it vaguely bothers me every time the episode plays.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Season Five featured Ultimate Rescue versions of the vehicles. Rocky's only such episode, "Pups and the Hidden Golden Bones" featured City Hall sinking because Mayor Humdinger smashed into the underground pillars that were holding it up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Rocky manages a temporary fix, then says they should make new pillars. Using the solid gold bones down there, for a more permanent solution.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7dn17v5KmXgw2QfdeHEoGRhyINN4jrhnZpC-vOAmdD8DhAZdk-nLyKRbdlNRwYdQWJlw4Ox2ngVkabWTRQHhHWQCdhFYyXQH-MMGOy0bMNIRNnTfNObpdmRBOSjOFGqIy0nTbA2xX5K_XZRCBiPARROuhfXEF6vCXQ5YB9O68KXB-yU8_obkMkv5Qw9A/s2206/PawBones_Screenshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1232" data-original-width="2206" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7dn17v5KmXgw2QfdeHEoGRhyINN4jrhnZpC-vOAmdD8DhAZdk-nLyKRbdlNRwYdQWJlw4Ox2ngVkabWTRQHhHWQCdhFYyXQH-MMGOy0bMNIRNnTfNObpdmRBOSjOFGqIy0nTbA2xX5K_XZRCBiPARROuhfXEF6vCXQ5YB9O68KXB-yU8_obkMkv5Qw9A/w400-h224/PawBones_Screenshot.jpg" title="Golden Bone Pillars" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Wait. Gold is one of the softer metals. Very malleable, and easily shaped. We're not talking decorative columns here. Is gold really a good idea to use as a support pillar?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Most of the (limited) research I've done agrees: Gold is durable, has a high melting point (so maintains shape), does not degrade through oxidation, and is great for decorative touches. It can even retain heat within a structure when mixed with glass. It is NOT good for singlehandedly supporting a heavy building.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But maybe gold in the Paw Patrol universe behaves differently? We see gold on occasion, including one time with Uncle Otis doing his prospecting. A huge gold nugget as big as a person survives a steep roll down a hill... though it also has a small chip easily pickaxed off it at the end of the episode.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't know. Is there something they can do with gold and architecture that we cannot?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's a mystery.</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">4) BIOLOGY: PLEAD THE FIFTH</span></h3><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We can certainly question why all the Pups can speak English (or dub language of choice). But a greater mystery for me is, how can some cast regulars also speak the languages of other species?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We can perhaps buy Rex, from Season 7, who speaks with dinosaurs. He grew up around them, never even meeting dogs until after encountering Ryder. We can similarly buy Coral, who speaks Merpup, as she lived with them for years. When you've no one else to talk to, you learn to communicate with whomever's around.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But Captain Turbot also speaks MerPup. This despite him only seeing them a couple of times in passing. Did he find old records, and is he that much of a linguist? Well, maybe. Since he also speaks alien. Yes, aliens appear in Season 2, and in Season 3's "Pups Save a Space Toy", Captain Turbot translates an alien message for Ryder. Yeah, that happened.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7QYDe-ORzPlSr8yu8Tdmonm2AAqc8ajSc0iBw0ba024jcanpGeEJh2wVjiK-KFtakRtpiuizcPMyt4kJZNnskcApVP5cNpGW45_tUS-P6zvMASFhQ0RXH65DpnmBiRbIo8sPMLD39G5-P2bP7j8Amnw0rkQGZ5fSWe1Fk6ZkE6UBjqJuMfIyJ6r9WaE8/s1926/PawAlien_Screenshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1072" data-original-width="1926" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7QYDe-ORzPlSr8yu8Tdmonm2AAqc8ajSc0iBw0ba024jcanpGeEJh2wVjiK-KFtakRtpiuizcPMyt4kJZNnskcApVP5cNpGW45_tUS-P6zvMASFhQ0RXH65DpnmBiRbIo8sPMLD39G5-P2bP7j8Amnw0rkQGZ5fSWe1Fk6ZkE6UBjqJuMfIyJ6r9WaE8/w400-h223/PawAlien_Screenshot.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But then, we also learn that Marshall can speak squirrel, and other animal languages. How? And how many others can do this?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's not like there aren't other languages on Earth for people to have devoted themselves to, as Tracker's first language seems to be Spanish. Why their focus on animals? Does it have anything to do with this world's ability for humans and pups to speak the same language?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Was it perhaps even a pup who managed to do all this linguistic research, to the point of elevating their society's animal understanding so high above our own? Is that why we can't do it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And if certain humans and pups living in the PAW Patrol world are able to talk to other animals in a "Doctor Dolittle" sense, why doesn't it happen more often? (Or does it?) And why is it only the Pups (and some Cats in later seasons) who have spoken English back, and who have been integrated into society?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Related, if humans can talk to animals and be understood, why are many of these animals still treated like pets? (Companions likely becomes a better word, yet Mayor Goodway DOES call her chicken her pet.) Is it an individual thing, for certain animals? A species thing, for all of an animal type? The PAW movie even shows an Obedience School for dogs, is that like having a Reform School for humans?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What I'm getting at here is, who speaks with whom, and what IS the animal hierarchy? I have no sense for the overall linguistics, but I feel like there's a societal impact we're not seeing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's a mystery.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">(Sidebar: The names of the pups themselves change in different languages, like Skye is Stella in French. Does this imply that a French version of the MerPup language exists, for instance? Different from the English one?)</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">3) BIOLOGY: ALL HANDS ON DECK</span></h3><p><span style="font-size: medium;">All humans in the PAW Patrol universe have three fingers, and a thumb. This is just their reality, and I wager the three finger thing likely helps with their engineering, helping to match human hands with a paw print.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But there ARE hands in the show with five fingers (aka four fingers and a thumb). Did you ever notice them?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">First, the suits of armour in Barkingburg. You can get a good look at them in Season 4's "Royally Spooked" (when they're remote controlled and snapping their fingers), and see they have full five fingered hands.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Meaning, did humans formerly have five fingers back in medieval times, and that changed over the span of a few centuries? Is it instead that armour recreations are just that bad? Or were the suits designed by AI ("artificial intelligence")?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Second, the elves. Not the Tolkien type, the Santa type.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, Santa is canon in the PAW Patrol universe, he's had three appearances over the years. In Season Seven, Percy the elf is a major character in one such episode, and he CLEARLY has all five fingers. We see it multiple times. (Santa only has the same number as humans, if you were wondering.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's not a mistake, as we also see some elves in the background of Season Ten's Christmas episode, and again, five fingered elves. This was a choice.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpVxkWurFYztkciFRUU3LbCmHUSMNWr1zzrlKiHk07IgbWsJh5khNooB0WvGyxYTcyXPmKDDzOihToi_3JiTSRzpj-dmoaFCneAvnNVD2GhSqnto7cHYb-MwDSPbaQLO_xWWaxnBYfT2-a8wO_eqgF3jeXEzSiHyA1ZgqRVkb3O59MI41wQwIAapVoFac/s2660/PawHands_Screenshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1480" data-original-width="2660" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpVxkWurFYztkciFRUU3LbCmHUSMNWr1zzrlKiHk07IgbWsJh5khNooB0WvGyxYTcyXPmKDDzOihToi_3JiTSRzpj-dmoaFCneAvnNVD2GhSqnto7cHYb-MwDSPbaQLO_xWWaxnBYfT2-a8wO_eqgF3jeXEzSiHyA1ZgqRVkb3O59MI41wQwIAapVoFac/w400-h223/PawHands_Screenshot.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But then, what is the story here? Are the suits of armour in Barkingburg actually depicting really tall elves? Or was the armour itself MADE by elves, is that why there's an extra digit?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For that matter, how many humans know of the existence of another finger? Do they wonder about medieval times? Why is it these elves have five fingers, while everyone else does not?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's a mystery.</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">2) PHYSICS: USE THE FORCE</span></h3><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The PAW Patrol Universe has impressive forcefield technology.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And I'm not talking about the magic forcefield power occasionally granted by the Super Meteor after Season Five, I mean actual Star Trek technology levels of forcefields exist. Namely, people have the ability to pass through a forcefield that can simultaneously keep water out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's like shuttlecraft leaving a launch bay for the vacuum of space.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is most obvious in Season Nine, when they're visiting the MerPups more often. Their vehicles seem to blast out into the water, at speed, and yet the water doesn't flood the interior of the main Patroller vehicle.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe there's some kind of airlock? But the "at speed" thing has me wondering.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOWelhwOYMmSWpSa0f2cfkwJe2_CFzRr7jylRVbAzygUpiIcMzJDSoZSDafKz0S3HU-fEQu9Z9ChJpdtAV0CNrx4MC5FqH15RnDf5HZr3t0c4FyfWvvU3b4DX0qO4UcLJtLFaAtOfAsHnZFIWCAVc_sj3A7cTNYeJ41Xuym1xwJynS2XR_UPdTpmnwBVU/s2406/PawForce_Screenshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1358" data-original-width="2406" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOWelhwOYMmSWpSa0f2cfkwJe2_CFzRr7jylRVbAzygUpiIcMzJDSoZSDafKz0S3HU-fEQu9Z9ChJpdtAV0CNrx4MC5FqH15RnDf5HZr3t0c4FyfWvvU3b4DX0qO4UcLJtLFaAtOfAsHnZFIWCAVc_sj3A7cTNYeJ41Xuym1xwJynS2XR_UPdTpmnwBVU/w400-h226/PawForce_Screenshot.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet, let's go right back to Season Four. The Sub Patroller in the Sea Patroller's hanger bay is lowered down into the water through a hole in the floor. Except - isn't that part of the boat ALREADY under the water? Why isn't that water flooding up through the hole?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It can't be an airlock here, there's literally an arm that lowers the sub, and then retracts.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Or, if you're certain the water level was accurate to the outside of Ryder's ship, same episode, but Sid Swashbuckle's submarine. His lower hatch is opened by Chase, and all of the pirate's ill gotten pearls and other gains start spilling out. Yet no water ever enters his sub. When Chase has to jump into the sub to retrieve the shell, which didn't fall out, we see breathable air everywhere.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Mayor Humdinger has this technology too, in his sub, in Season Nine. He exits his sub, and his kittens don't drown.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is pretty impressive selective forcefield technology! Yet it seems completely commonplace to them. And keeping liquid out but letting solids through? It should have a lot of uses in other places, like the medical field.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But we don't see those. We don't even know how they do it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's a mystery.</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">1) PHYSICS: SPACE IS WARPED AND TIME IS BENDABLE</span></h3><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Here is where we could absolutely question how some of Marshall's pratfalls work, given they can catapult him from town all the way to the lookout. We could also question how the patrol have the time to (for instance) take a call, get to the truck stop, have a briefing and deploy to the mountain, all in the time it takes a house on skis to only slide down about ten metres.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We could tackle those, but we won't.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Because if you didn't know that TARDIS technology was mystery number one, you really haven't seen the show.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The most common example of lots of things existing in a tiny space (other than perhaps the pup packs themselves) is Rocky's vehicle. It seems to hold any number of old odds and ends. Like, he can just pull a set of long skis out of there, no problem. In Season Seven's "Pups Save the Pupmobiles", tons of stuff is thrown out of it, including: a table, a long ladder, a barrel, and a kitchen sink (funny).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The next most common example of pocket dimensions is the various Patrollers. The Sea Patroller from Season Four (referenced above) somehow has enough space beneath, for not only the vehicle launcher and the Sub Patroller room, but also an entire set of wheels and axles that can extend to transform it into an amphibious vehicle.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Meanwhile, though the original 18-wheeler Paw Patroller had visible space in the back for the vehicles, the new upgrade in Season 8 does not. Instead, it has the vehicles come down from the ceiling. I'm sure there is no space up there, meaning they're either stored magically or being teleported in from elsewhere.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Actually, teleportation could explain a lot of this. But when some of the villains do it (like Codi Gizmody), it's presented as new technology.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Still, perhaps my favourite instance of things being bigger on the inside comes from the first PAW Patrol Movie. No, not the one that was in theatres, the FIRST one, the Mighty Pups made for TV Movie.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">During that movie, the Lookout Tower gets zapped with meteor power and levitates off the ground. You can even see a divot in the ground where it once rested. Yet... we KNOW there's an entire sub-basement to this tower. Much larger than is pictured.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That's where Ryder stores his ATVs. That's where the vehicles go to be transformed into Ultimate Mode. In fact, at the end of that very movie itself, their elevator goes down to a large storage area where they place the meteor (in a funny send-up of Warehouse 13).</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr0YDT_l8A5eowueHU9xftg_bBgQdNVPWTGc93qUkwBSTjWFl5Khq-DZXjNAQdxN29Pej-tYu7yUuFUlTtytRIn3ujtRGb5MUk_OlRutw3tfmdSfvVZpyTIMkQAKba8JmDfekbAFbbHQwnNeb5y53zScqoQEdWfFq4-lf9YNm34Sc6__bNWHbZKJ_SsA4/s4032/PawMighty13_IMG_2024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr0YDT_l8A5eowueHU9xftg_bBgQdNVPWTGc93qUkwBSTjWFl5Khq-DZXjNAQdxN29Pej-tYu7yUuFUlTtytRIn3ujtRGb5MUk_OlRutw3tfmdSfvVZpyTIMkQAKba8JmDfekbAFbbHQwnNeb5y53zScqoQEdWfFq4-lf9YNm34Sc6__bNWHbZKJ_SsA4/s320/PawMighty13_IMG_2024.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But when the Tower was removed, we saw none of that. Meaning the bottom of the Tower itself is just this pocket dimension of space where all the cool gear is kept. How did Ryder manage to acquire this technology? Where else does it exist in the PAW Patrol universe?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's a mystery.</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">IN CLOSING</span></h3><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We have now seen how, in all spheres of science, the mythology of PAW Patrol has some underlying mysteries. There's the composition of gold, the linguistic and biological history of the civilization, and the technological marvels of forcefields and pocket dimensions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, I have put far too much thought into this, but the mind wanders when you're watching an episode for the nth time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And as I said to start, now that my daughter decided to watch the first movie in full this weekend (we got it for her just over a year ago, but partway through a first viewing, she decided it was getting too scary)... who knows whether I mind find myself blogging about this stuff again. Would anyone read it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Rubble and Crew certainly seem to have the capability to build structures in hours that should realistically take weeks, after all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Either way, if you got this far, I do hope you enjoyed reading. Comment if you like (especially if you can solve the mysteries), and perhaps we'll see you again.</span></p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-75249827220080355192023-08-31T18:39:00.001-07:002023-08-31T18:39:04.571-07:00Summer's End 2022<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> It's the 9th annual "Year End" recap post. (Started <a href="http://mathiex.blogspot.ca/2013/09/tch-summers-end-2013.html" target="_blank">in 2013</a>, did not run in 2016 as that's the year I wasn't teaching.) As I've said before, the end of August is the true end of the year, no matter what the Gregorian Calendar claims. That's teaching life.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, in 2021, I didn't post until MARCH 2022. This time, it's A YEAR LATE, as we're talking about the year Sep 2021-Aug 2022, to be clear. And unlike in 2021, I didn't even start this until the actual new year, Jan 3rd.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMtfwOwzLNlcZImV8HxUQNDcWY2zEl53eNqfTDbG2NmfWOPE0H0DlRh-EkyFEn0XD_9kiAIaRWAieVUqn4EADkxp3KDk2KPaK3TLjOlXgbOv8DbwLF0z9paSwcNc8lzo5j8f6AyJX8Xo7YfX3UHNURgWjDEcPhAhtZhn-G8yLZSAiVlvAi7EvVhILdaoA/s2876/2022Banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1435" data-original-width="2876" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMtfwOwzLNlcZImV8HxUQNDcWY2zEl53eNqfTDbG2NmfWOPE0H0DlRh-EkyFEn0XD_9kiAIaRWAieVUqn4EADkxp3KDk2KPaK3TLjOlXgbOv8DbwLF0z9paSwcNc8lzo5j8f6AyJX8Xo7YfX3UHNURgWjDEcPhAhtZhn-G8yLZSAiVlvAi7EvVhILdaoA/w400-h200/2022Banner.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><p>The years are getting harder, despite the teaching being part time, and I don't know if it's the parenting, the teaching under a pandemic with a conservative government, or some mix. ANYway. Let's just get this out there so I have a reference.</p></span><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">WORK RELATED</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In September 2021, we were back to semesters (not quadmesters), but we ran alternating weeks. Meaning two weeks worth of math was done in a single week, then students went off and did another subject for a week, and then came back to math. So much like with quadmesters, the courses had to be completely revamped to run sensibly, as it doesn't work to test the first day back after not having done any of the course material for a week.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Generally speaking, since a period was double the time, two lessons happened in a single day. Ideally with some time in between to process the new work.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Fortunately for me, as I mentioned in last year's update, a request to shift to part-time was belatedly granted to me in August 2021. Because I was also having to teach a new course (MHF 4U), largely because the teachers who would normally have done it were either now at the virtual school, or were handling the new Grade 9 Destreamed Math Curriculum brought in without resources by the Ford government. (Destreaming, good. No actual provincial funds to handle it, bad.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This reduced schedule meant I could concentrate on getting MDM 4U (stats) to run in the new alternating system, while generating a bunch of new lessons for MHF 4U that could potentially run in either system (always looking ahead). The 3C course went to someone else, giving me more prep time. I only taught in the afternoons, 12-2:30pm.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The use of a portfolio as a culminating work for MHF (since there were still no exams), based on a posting I saw in Sept 2021, proved particularly useful. The data culminating works (split into spreadsheet stats and probability project) remained from the prior year.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As a final sidebar, not all school boards in the province (or even in our city) went with this alternating system. The provincial government was randomly approving different things, pretty sure they're trying to break us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">September saw my ceiling projector FINALLY replaced, about one year after it blew out (they had to replace the mount first), so we were off the cart sitting in the middle of the room. I had to upload my vaccine status, and lunch duty was back, but the grades were separated around the school (so in the caf, I only had to watch the Grade 12s). I also did an Australian PD. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The only school-related Covid Scare happened in December, with an explosion of cases shortly before the winter break. I was lucky not to be tagged for having to isolate over the holiday.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We then pivoted to remote teaching at the start of January, which of course we only found out via the media (conservatives don't talk to unions). I was still dealing with 4U course prep, and now had to check ClassFlow still worked from last year. A week after that, we ended up in HYBRID MODE.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Basically, I was mandated to be in school, and some students were there too, but others elected to stay online, so I was running things with a laptop on the desk. Attendance was fun to take, not. We eventually made it back in, and then there was a huge set of 4U cheating cases in January 2022; I needed sick leave to handle the end of the semester (in part with preschool shutting down, see below).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">By semester two in February 2022, things were on a rocky path back to "normal" (narrator: things were not normal), as I was again full time, and dealing with three 3U courses. I implemented the portfolio there too (again, no exams), with a better cap on the number of entries.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The February long weekend (PD and Family Day) was supplemented by two days of no busses for ice (that came in Tues afternoon and lasted through to Wed morning), meaning I saw some students on Thursday and then not until the next Thursday. I was out sick a bunch in March after the break (pretty much right after mask mandates were provincially lifted, coincidence, probably not).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In April we locally reinstated mask mandates here, which lasted until late May. Around when daily screenings ceased too. A derecho (sudden dumping of water) in May also closed schools on the Tuesday (after a holiday Monday); I was then sick the following two days. Aside, I ate all my lunches in the car, the only time I actually took off my N95 mask within the school building was late June one day, when there were some staff sandwiches.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Staff meetings were virtual. We learned start time will be shifting to 8:20 (from 8:30), because busses. Math contests ran, but with very low numbers (and with one parent asking about their child who was at a different school participating, though they ended up not needing us). I'm somehow still the COMA secretary, except we're known as O34ME.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">PARENTING RELATED</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This needs its own category. In September, I finished a Summer 2021 video for my daughter, four looping iterations of music (which was one more than previously anticipated). I managed a little video of her running her preschool in October 2021. She still doesn't sleep regularly, sometimes wanting chair when she wakes up in her crib.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Paw Movie promotional material went away on the tablet, so I bought her a PawPatrol book. We bought her a new clock showing colours when she could wake up. Her giraffe soother broke (bit through) within 24 hours of the clock showing up; she had to go cold turkey without (we had warned her). She handled it, in part with the giraffe stuffy itself.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The lamp in her room fell and died as she was getting over being sick in mid-September. We also had our first gymnastics class (Wednesdays, 5:30pm), and bought her a unicorn outfit for Halloween. And she had her first birthday party invitation (via preschool); we chose to attend (Mom not feeling well) which is good because not many did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Thanksgiving was in Carp; parents came in, we went to Cora's (1st time in 18 months, show vaccine certification). October also had a preschool pickup (then me driving back to teach the afternoon) and Covid PCR tests with negative results. Later in October was CHEO for her ear, in 6:30pm, out after 1am, which felt long at the time but is laughably short these days. (Antibiotics until last week of Oct.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">November had an actual preschool Covid scare, everyone was sent home the day I was finishing handling morning math contests (turned out to not be Covid-19), followed by a power failure next morning. December was the scare in our building (see above), then in January, a change to provincial regulations.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We had a positive case in her preschool in January, but they were NOT shut down (this was as I was learning our school was going remote). They didn't even have to tell us, but they did because they're awesome. We kept Alexandra home the next day (Friday), doing a round of RATs and we were all negative (her throat did end up hurting).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Another preschool case in later January prompted an early Friday pickup. And then at the end of the month, the preschool was totally shut down, resuming in February. I was already taking sick leave (for both physical and mental reasons) so we got it to work out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I believe January is the month she was showing more interest in the Frozen princesses, and by February she was sucking her thumb a LOT more. From every couple days to being multiple times in a day (something she learned from Haley?). A home, we did Preschool Cubbie play, with the Cubbies being below the island in our kitchen.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In February, she wore a mask to preschool sometimes (again to be like Haley?), and got scared the day we forgot to buckle her carseat. Right after March Break she was out for 4 days with a throat thing, had to give her a RAT to even see a doctor (then she did toothpick RATs with stuffies). I was out 3 of those days, not feeling great myself. (See above, mask mandates had gone, though I still wore one.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At the time, we thought she'd avoided a preschool Gastro outbreak, but about a week later she got it anyway, 2 more days out. In April, another change, where we can return to dropping them inside at cubbies. I gave her an Everest for Easter (to go with her Rocky). We attended virtual school sessions and enrolled her in Trille des Bois for September.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My notes for May say she is able to explain and self-play much more. Bonne Mama visited, and had to buy sleep pull-ups when we forgot for her sleepover. They both attended the Mother's Day event there, and I went to the Father's Day one in June. Her aunt came by for her fourth birthday, and she got her unicorn luggage for the summer. She also decorated her own cake.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Summer started with seeing the RCMP horses, getting a school bus from going to Group, an outdoor swim class, and a trip to Georgetown. Her preschool ended in mid-July, shortly before we headed out to France for three weeks. Summer ended with getting her started on a Covid vaccine, and building a cardboard house with me, that's now in the basement.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Quick aside, Fertility restarted in February and June, but it's looking like she'll be an only child.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">HOBBY RELATED</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm still so behind in webcomics, serials and everything else I used to read. I don't know when, if ever, I'll catch up from before the pandemic. It's all I can do to find time to write my own stuff.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I did keep up with videos and Lotus LPs that I like. My serial site shifted to recap posts that I could queue up months in advance, namely mathNEWS serials. Quantum Loop, General l'Hopital and Sinefield. I haven't run an "Epsilon" since the last one ended in April 2021.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I did write/finish a Log Parody song (technically most in Aug 2021) which I used in 4U. Then the annual Christmath parody in December (Walkin' Around Unit Circles). And I made a "Marmalade Mercury" video in July 2022 in preparation for the serial blog.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Time Untied" continues to be a behemoth, the yuri triangle (Carrie-Chartreuse-Peaches) kind of taking over into "Time Denied"; I wrote another 25,000+ words in November during NaNo, taking me from 2L into File 2M. Then July 2022 got us another 14,000+ words into 2N. (From "A", every file has about 20,000 words.) I got the Feedback from I&I about the "Denied" restart in early 2022 as well. (A to J being the full "Untied" book.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I did online Roleplay, continuing TORG RP with Ben (from the Eiffel Tower escapade in Sept 2021 to a virtual battle in Aug 2022). Having Avril now fully kitted out for September's new session. Unrelated, me and AL watched the new Bond Movie in Dec 2021 (while little one was with Tatie) and I saw some movies on the plane while flying Internationally in the summer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yuri, I finished Villainness Book 3, still reading a bunch more. Anime, I made time for "Birdie Wing: Golf Girls Story" season one, upon hearing it had yuri subtext (and that's all). Created a Scan File as I did, may or may not ever clean it up. Drawing, I got a math banner done in Jan 2022... for 2021.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In May I blogged about Ford being a terrible leader, then blogged again about him being terrible for Education. He still won the June election, because 57% of the province didn't vote. I started putting together a post trilogy about word puzzles in August 2022 but didn't get back to it at all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I joined Mastodon at the end of April 2022, when Musk talked about buying Twitter (I could see writing on the wall). But I didn't seriously post, in part because I wasn't sure about the different fediverse channels. I also found the #TimeTravelAuthors hashtag in August while on vacation, and joined a community of fellow authors there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That's about it. What even is spare time any more.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">UPKEEP ET CETERA</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Miscellaneous stuff! We bought new BBQ and had it delivered. It's still in the garage over a year later, because moving it out back requires a new BBQ cover.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The power off button on my phone broke at the end of March 2022. I didn't deal with it until the summer. In April 2022, I bought a home Hepa Filter and new Thermometer after all our illnesses in March. Also later that month, discovered our Fridge had an overheating issue (the strip between fridge/freezer was burning hot), so installed my personal fan in behind to cool until, you guessed it, summer. Ordered a new fridge, hadn't arrived by end of August, we bought a small bar fridge.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The AC broke in June. That needed a more immediate fix. We also got Alexandra a new bed that month (and new dining room chairs at the same time, as one broke when she leaned in it). Plus a yuri bookshelf for me then too. I could mention the provincial election that happened then, after we'd had a federal election in the fall.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I found I needed to buy a new hose when the broken attachment wouldn't come off from the end of the previous summer. I made it up to four Covid vaccine shots. There's always something.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">WHERE TO NEXT</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yeah, no. I'm kind of THERE now, and there's no way I could have really predicted a huge chunk of it, so maybe I'll just finish this post here.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Did you get this far? Amazing. As I've said before, if you have any particular questions about teaching or parenting, I'll see what I can do? Thanks for reading my mental rambling.</span></p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-82131866735270417462023-07-22T14:37:00.003-07:002023-07-23T00:55:52.203-07:00Time Travel Troubles: Meet Cute<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm debating a new column about time travel stories that have trouble with the time travel. This is prompted by a #TimeTravelAuthors question the other day about time travel that happens by magic versus science.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I feel like there are less troubles with stories using the latter, but that could be my bias. If you have any such stories you can think of, supporting magic being better or worse, feel free to drop me a comment.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The main problem I have (which applies to the movie I'll speak of today) is the "<a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic" target="_blank">Fridge Logic</a>" trope. Whereby something doesn't hold up as soon as you start to think about it. Which as far as time travel itself goes, tends to happen when I'm still watching the movie rather than an hour after the fact. Because I'm usually thinking about the topic.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">One prior example of this is the anime Erased <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2017/08/series-scan-erased.html" target="_blank">which I discussed six years ago</a>. The protagonist mind leaps back into their younger self for short periods of time. Elegantly crafted, interesting symbolism, but I shake my head about the temporal aspect.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But we're not here today for that, but rather to discuss the 2022 movie "<b>Meet Cute</b>". Spoilers ahead, in case you haven't seen the movie and plan to do so in the future. (Or in the past, I don't judge.)</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtOrvt0kGWapOLpItC7NwEUlEl3WScuW5XLAiU3Vs1X_EMGipmyv8wFZz-2fZeREamTeV56etD2OKkbY0fyMzILqrodybBqjv8wGgZyQ2fHN-2wu53jiTUttKlDefsurEy9a8-6CkHmXJ2SQad6qTaxFc1qAV-Hy7GaDN06lLaJz_OTia_1ZpbXWj8rM4/s488/MeetCute_GUEST_bd308638-f5dc-4461-97c6-171d6e38e278.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="488" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtOrvt0kGWapOLpItC7NwEUlEl3WScuW5XLAiU3Vs1X_EMGipmyv8wFZz-2fZeREamTeV56etD2OKkbY0fyMzILqrodybBqjv8wGgZyQ2fHN-2wu53jiTUttKlDefsurEy9a8-6CkHmXJ2SQad6qTaxFc1qAV-Hy7GaDN06lLaJz_OTia_1ZpbXWj8rM4/s320/MeetCute_GUEST_bd308638-f5dc-4461-97c6-171d6e38e278.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><p>Related, at times I'll simply reference something that makes sense if you've seen the movie, but may seem a bit weird for me to say otherwise. I simply don't want to go into extended explanation for this post; if it's too confusing, drop me a comment and I'll fix it in edits.</p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">NOTE: There is talk of suicide here too, because the movie itself brings that up. In case that's a trigger for you. With that out of the way...</span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">THE MOVIE</span></h2><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's an American romantic comedy film starring Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson, directed by Alex Lahmann. A cursory search shows around 2/5 stars on some professional review sites.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It is, as it's title suggests, cute. It's also rather dark (particularly for being a comedy). And it definitely leans into the romance more than the time travel. In that the time travel is incredibly logically inconsistent.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As such, I've decided the best way to address the problems (and demonstrate my hesitation for magical time travel) is to consider the <b>TOP THREE MAJOR TEMPORAL ISSUES</b> in the movie <b>Meet Cute</b>. They will get progressively more difficult to rationalize.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">1) DOES THE PAST CHANGE OR NOT?</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The automatic first reaction here is yes, of course it can change, because partway through the movie, Sheila creates a timeline where Gary has a different personality. Owing to altering events in his past. It's a key plot point about personal trauma, and whether/how we allow someone else to address it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There's also the fact that their date plays out somewhat differently as the movie unfolds, each time based on Sheila's new actions. So of course the past changes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Except the movie isn't consistent about that.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLAMphU2J_XsWqXA7WLtrxxnKrFkmxBzE5Yja2kbZ4mPpIlYF1KY8At3AL77AyGEAPWAiaDQwuYYZp18nfukDt0gWPBNIvqFoWk2wXPm5I4gtk979A5JQzeqlYtfU6M5ca_TliMQQMWoKBPfH9jiKG21dosY1zNu-cbrEDI6B1Iamrz92k9Wa4bg0iXNw/s500/ChangeOrNot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLAMphU2J_XsWqXA7WLtrxxnKrFkmxBzE5Yja2kbZ4mPpIlYF1KY8At3AL77AyGEAPWAiaDQwuYYZp18nfukDt0gWPBNIvqFoWk2wXPm5I4gtk979A5JQzeqlYtfU6M5ca_TliMQQMWoKBPfH9jiKG21dosY1zNu-cbrEDI6B1Iamrz92k9Wa4bg0iXNw/s320/ChangeOrNot.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The glaring issue is, near the start, Sheila talks about the TV repairman in her past. And we later learn that event HADN'T happened yet, it's due to later time travel that we see on screen. So how can she possibly know about it already?</span></p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I suppose one could argue it did always happen, and then after the time travel it happened differently. Or that she's tied into the time machine somehow, seeing future events. But the movie didn't set us up for that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Add to that question the one about the time machine itself.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">June says was bought by their manager, and then they tried to return it (ie- never buy it) when they discovered it was only good for 24 hour travel. Except they were somehow unable to change that, hence the time machine is still there... and the matter is dropped.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So, was the time machine being there unchangeable?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Granted, we have a rather unreliable narrator here in Sheila, but </span><span>which is it? Are events destined to happen, or can they be changed, the way she claims she dealt with someone worse than Hitler. The movie leans one way but tries to have both.</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">2) KILLING HERSELF DOESN'T WORK</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Interestingly, this isn't even the suicide part. This is where we see Sheila hit herself with the car so that she can take her past self's place.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It doesn't work AT ALL for the simple reason that Sheila makes multiple trips. Over 300, in fact, to that same day. This would be fine if she only mentally jumps into herself, or if going to the past wipes out her prior trip into that day, but both those possibilities are refuted.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For one, we definitely see two of her. They even show the hit-and-run three different ways.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>For the other, if </span><span>going to the past were to replace/wipe out her earlier trip actions, she would simply have to sit and do nothing to restore Gary's own timeline after she messes with it. Not literally have to knock out her "neighbour" persona from the prior trip.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Seriously, how are there not ultimately 300+ versions of Sheila who need to fight it out for this one date?</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeaoYnhxKHd-nFolL-aXSVBf3i6pc6QTNpagJ3eErwuUAkqeUUBWD51xFcqmqfPHJnH-dCswnSmrLmhMdiOwfdvxWa-fjjDzPyuSbKPsTiC98D605Sd5I7Em3-3SZbjxYetiwGFAfJe43zXmpkcL290uA5TerIrLiyJZBko6cPtBgI9Xx9AZVSi1YwlT4/s750/endless.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="750" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeaoYnhxKHd-nFolL-aXSVBf3i6pc6QTNpagJ3eErwuUAkqeUUBWD51xFcqmqfPHJnH-dCswnSmrLmhMdiOwfdvxWa-fjjDzPyuSbKPsTiC98D605Sd5I7Em3-3SZbjxYetiwGFAfJe43zXmpkcL290uA5TerIrLiyJZBko6cPtBgI9Xx9AZVSi1YwlT4/s320/endless.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I know what you're thinking.</span></p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's not due to a time loop either, don't even try with that. Sheila is literally making the decision herself to go back and revisit the day every time, as opposed to quantum forces resetting things back. She could stop, she doesn't want to (again that whole personal trauma angle).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've give the move this, it IS an interesting mental locked-in-the-head version of the time loop genre. But we know she's physically jumping. Not jumping back into her mind. And doing it 300+ times.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>And yet now it gets worse. Because h</span><span>er past self dying even ONE time presents an even greater issue.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">First, what does Sheila even remember, both being hit AND continuing on and living out the date as her future self? From the point above, if she remembers the TV Repairman in her past which hadn't yet happened yet, surely she remembers getting hit by a car in her past which also hasn't yet happened. (Or has it?)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Worse, if she returns to the present after 24 hours is up, as seems to be the case (again, see her messing in Gary's past), how is she not dead upon her arrival?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">You go into the past, then return to your present-day self.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But her present-day body was killed in the past by her time shifting self. There is no Sheila to return to. Sheila is in a trunk somewhere.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So what we have here is the movie claiming she kills herself, and replaces herself, but <i>somehow</i> it only happens the one time (the first time) and then there's no repercussions or trauma for literally two of her body now existing (one coming out of the time machine and one in a trunk).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This doesn't hold up in any respect.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">3) THE ENDING IS PROBLEMATIC</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now we get to the suicide part.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What if Sheila had died at the end? When her 24 hours are up, would not her dead body return to the present, and be dead in the machine in the salon?! That kind of negates her whole "clean death" thing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And if it HADN'T happened that way, if instead her drowned self was indeed never found, we're STILL left with her OTHER dead body in the trunk of her car. Presumably murdered. Again, definitely not a "clean death".</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Alternatively, maybe her drowned self AND her dead past self turn up? Two dead bodies is definitely its own issue.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Seriously, who thought of literally killing her past self? It's a massive problem.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And was this also somehow the fate of the salon owner who bought the machine in the first place, one of them died in the past and so they never returned? (That's a loose end.)</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFnYiaL-mxgEZxJnCAAxb2DTW95zX1arOpO03j5D-4BpcfkJu4oLzydcnWjFizFEC4isrArl9BqLkfPkDgaErj7ObRCM66v_CAV5K5nv4Big2gpIRQWFss5z6L-mJMgTApCDKoUel1Ssow9AeYdVqEqS0t9MLBwnyLcCZ0Bs__HXlUtlCkrpKn73DfZew/s750/WaitFixd.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="750" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFnYiaL-mxgEZxJnCAAxb2DTW95zX1arOpO03j5D-4BpcfkJu4oLzydcnWjFizFEC4isrArl9BqLkfPkDgaErj7ObRCM66v_CAV5K5nv4Big2gpIRQWFss5z6L-mJMgTApCDKoUel1Ssow9AeYdVqEqS0t9MLBwnyLcCZ0Bs__HXlUtlCkrpKn73DfZew/s320/WaitFixd.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><p>Of course, Sheila didn't kill herself. So, happy end, right? Hold on.</p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">First (SPOILER!), shortly after Gary saves Sheila's life, she should still wink out of existence later, after the sun rises. Returning to present day in the salon, her 24 hour trip complete. Assuming her body exists (see above) they now need to find each other again.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That itself is not terrible (and perhaps it happens after the credits roll) but trying to explain that away raises an additional problem.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">First, what does June experience in the salon, assuming she even cares?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Let's say the date of Sheila and Gary's date is June 1st. Thus the morning of June 2nd, Sheila travels back to the prior morning. She returns to June 2nd when the 24 hours are up, and then immediately loops herself back because she doesn't want to live forwards. She does this for... well 300 times at 300 seconds is still 5 minutes, and we know it's more times than that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet then how does she turn up at the end, outside the salon, and say she's not taking the trip?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If she's not still ON the trip, which see above for disappearing with the sun, she should come out of the back of the salon here. Right?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe we explain this away as her body doesn't return to the salon. She returns somewhere else. Or maybe she was always looping back a short while before she ever took the trip in the first place (as that would also fix the 300 Sheilas issue from the prior temporal issue, yay).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That doesn't work either, because of Gary.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Gary goes into the salon after midnight, it's June 2nd, and it's deserted. He travels back, and he returns <i>to the salon</i>. In fact... the salon is now busy with customers? How much time DOES pass while a person is in the past? (Better question, what are the business hours of this salon? It's almost morning when Gary catches up to Sheila, and he wasn't chasing her all night.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The time machine seems to have different rules for Sheila and Gary.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And connected to ALL of this, here's the kicker. If Sheila dies, could Gary not simply travel back to try again? Presumably he'd have the sense to negotiate with his prior self as opposed to resorting to murder, making this possible.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This means the ending has NO dramatic tension. I suppose you could say that Gary was going to let Sheila kill herself if she was really serious, but I was half expecting him to legit be crossing the bridge so that he would have a more convincing story to tell next loop.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">CONCLUSION</span></h2><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In brief, Meet Cute as a movie is very confusing from a temporal AND spatial perspective, only making sense on the relationship, and possibly psychological side. (And even that requires Gary to know her suicide place in the last loop. Did she talk about it that particular date? Granted, kudos for establishing that some facts bleed through, like him knowing her story before she told it.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To be clear, much like the anime Erased, the problems don't make the movie unwatchable. There's even some cute Easter Eggs, such as the book Young Gary holds, called "The Right Hand of Lightness". This is a spoof on Ursula K Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness", and sneaking in a Le Guin reference is (almost) always appreciated.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But for me, someone well versed in temporal mechanics, it really doesn't hold up. What do you think?</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirOUEsZaGSHM0XS1emoKjACCagT_LS7noTgmYUG6aWFsEgzyertKP0KU0fx_17SRJDgVpvo4zIqUq5lBmyTwzO1GAHd5ag4l5ynwMAG4BP0rpy9xPSAd1z--fA5S-r4PXKppcM7f0DbqWjrta00X3CDCQsjxzKGT9JslBaWqDBIfvdO6odLhGjqoSnL8A/s659/ParodyQL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="659" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirOUEsZaGSHM0XS1emoKjACCagT_LS7noTgmYUG6aWFsEgzyertKP0KU0fx_17SRJDgVpvo4zIqUq5lBmyTwzO1GAHd5ag4l5ynwMAG4BP0rpy9xPSAd1z--fA5S-r4PXKppcM7f0DbqWjrta00X3CDCQsjxzKGT9JslBaWqDBIfvdO6odLhGjqoSnL8A/s320/ParodyQL.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><p>As always, thanks for reading, and consider dropping me a comment if you agree, disagree, or have other thoughts.</p></span><p></p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-13391326794722153522023-04-27T09:13:00.001-07:002024-03-17T19:59:06.941-07:00My Top Yuri SciFi Manga<!--<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yesterday was Lesbian Visibility Day (not to be confused with International Lesbian Day on October 8th). Then today (coincidentally, I assume) is my birthday. Combine them, and you're getting a gift of a new post here.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Because I read a lot of yuri. Meaning sapphic stories. I also like to read manga in general for visuals, as it gives me a sense of what the authors had originally envisioned for their characters.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>But while-->
I read yuri of all genres; when I get a chance to read books in general, I trend towards science fiction and fantasy stories. <span>So when the two combine, that's a bonus.</span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I figure, if your tastes are similar, you might like some of these recommendations. If you're not similar, FYI, when I refer to "hard sci-fi" below, I mean the book itself refers to some of the science of what's going on (and that it's plausible), not that the sci-fi is hard to read.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Caveat: These are the opinions of a cis guy, who admittedly has some personality traits that trend towards female and includes lesbians in his own writing. So I may not be picking up on certain nuances, feel free to educate me. I also like puns, as far as humour is concerned.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkwTHMNANpenXIhAW6ePHAGmOWbvcKiJhRdLn2CYSqaZJ1p-qEqmb0QfO0Be9JUz8X_rC5MoJQv73F0Lj5hv5QPnVk7wBTe1OVt9bPSjhESX2ZQsRlL0ApnJTMr7d8hu8Vg77UjjwkXqHFaEd3LGaFIl7xRL-wyid6y4iksWjtYe8WJwErFyJvh7_O/s1200/YuriDemotivate_ValkyrieXY_E6wSokPX0AMCmPu.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="An image of Yuri and Monika from DokiDoki Literature Club. It's a pun." border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkwTHMNANpenXIhAW6ePHAGmOWbvcKiJhRdLn2CYSqaZJ1p-qEqmb0QfO0Be9JUz8X_rC5MoJQv73F0Lj5hv5QPnVk7wBTe1OVt9bPSjhESX2ZQsRlL0ApnJTMr7d8hu8Vg77UjjwkXqHFaEd3LGaFIl7xRL-wyid6y4iksWjtYe8WJwErFyJvh7_O/w400-h320/YuriDemotivate_ValkyrieXY_E6wSokPX0AMCmPu.jpeg" title="You either recognize this clever pun, or you do not." width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>You either recognize this is a clever pun, or you do not.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Usual other caveats also apply, in that your mileage may vary in terms of the ranking of my choices, plus I'm only listing ones I've actually read. I also tend to focus more on story than art, unless something really stands out for me. (Again, I like manga for the artist's take, I am pretty flexible on their individual style choices.) I've included some scans to give you a sense of the styles if that's a deal breaker for you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">With that out of the way, here's MY TOP SCIENCE-FICTION THEMED YURI MANGA for you to look into.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Have you heard of some others that I don't know about? Then maybe we can swap titles!</span></p>
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5) FRAGTIME</span></h2><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Story and Art by Sato.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Originally published in Japan 2014 by Akita Publishing Co Ltd.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">English Translation: <a href="https://sevenseasentertainment.com/series/fragtime-omnibus/" target="_blank">Seven Seas Entertainment, 2020</a>.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Format: Volumes 1 & 2 published as a single book.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">My Rating: 4/10</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><u>Cover Summary</u>:</span><br /><span><i>Moritani Misuzu is a quiet high school girl with a very unusual power: for three minutes a day she can freeze time. When Moritani uses her ability to peek up a classmate's skirt, she gets the shock of her life when she's caught in the act! It turns out her classmate - the beautiful Murakami Haruka - is the only person immune to Moritani's power! Bound together by this strange fact, the two girls grow closer. Can they make the most of their stolen moments together?</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Good:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The time stopping is a clever notion, it's what drew me to initially check the story out. Moritani's ability to stop time then happens for shorter periods as the story goes on, generating tension. The personality conflicts are largely believable. It is hard to predict what they're going to do next.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Less Good:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Part of the predicting difficulty comes from Murakami's exhibitionist issues. Actually, she has a lot of issues, but that one in particular gets rather "male-gazy" - and I don't tend to consciously notice that kind of thing. So it's pretty obvious here.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyVlb9KVqhEVFR6pKnGY5Mr6PQJDj02y4BgizvagefBRC3tTdNqbGSvrV2M7i1C6NcOCL6RmFXPDLAiLYWV5iaAh5z0KaFh2KCX1T7Ug9LfDv-hHkeawGMqxHFmsJQ8TWW1xyLXLc_ofk65J4bzwqH1xHE6bTLhThqqlcEGbMNqoMySq1ciqKKDW0q/s772/FragTime_pg256.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="772" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyVlb9KVqhEVFR6pKnGY5Mr6PQJDj02y4BgizvagefBRC3tTdNqbGSvrV2M7i1C6NcOCL6RmFXPDLAiLYWV5iaAh5z0KaFh2KCX1T7Ug9LfDv-hHkeawGMqxHFmsJQ8TWW1xyLXLc_ofk65J4bzwqH1xHE6bTLhThqqlcEGbMNqoMySq1ciqKKDW0q/w259-h400/FragTime_pg256.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There's also the aspect of sexual impropriety, and no real attempt to explain the time stopping ability, aside from childhood issues and personality quirks. So if you were hoping for hard sci-fi, you're out of luck. Very little of the story is memorable for me months later.</span></p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Conclusion</u>:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Pretty fluff reading with a sci-fi angle. Below "average", but there isn't a lot of yuri sci-fi out there that I can tell, so this is nice if you enjoy that sort of thing and/or want to fill time. It also got the anime OVA treatment in 2019, if you prefer watching an anime.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
4) THE WHOLE OF HUMANITY HAS GONE YURI EXCEPT FOR ME</span></h2><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Story and Art by Hiromi Haruse.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Originally published in Japan 2019 by Kadokawa Corporation.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">English Translation: <a href="https://yenpress.com/titles/9781975322489-the-whole-of-humanity-has-gone-yuri-except-for-me" target="_blank">2021 by Yen Press LLC</a></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Format: Volumes 1 & 2 published as a single book.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">My Rating: 7/10</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Cover Summary</u>:<br /><i>Marika Uruuno is just a normal girl in a normal world. She'll fall in love normally, get married normally, and have a normal family - or that was the plan anyway. But when she suddenly wakes up in a version of reality filled only with women, she finds herself questioning what exactly "normal" means and why it's so important to her. And as Marika discovers something even more precious, she's faced with a choice - will she find a way back to her previous life... or will she stay in this strange new world?</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Good:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We are thrown right into the all-female world at the outset, and Lily Kazami becomes our/Marika's guide. Lily has an interest in Quantum Physics and Parallel Universes, while Marika is in this reality along with her backpack that contains a World History textbook... which has no mention of the virus that caused males to become extinct around the 1920s.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As implied by the Quantum Physics, this is a story that has some backstory and harder sci-fi to it, with fun wrinkles like Marika's little brother now being (always having been) a nosy little sister. And Marika's own diary soon offers clues as to how this was more a reality swap than a rewritten history. There's even an antagonist keeping watch on Marika, and some suspenseful scenes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Meanwhile, there is some delightful yuri. For instance, at one point Marika and Lily get in trouble, and Marika needs to get them to safety. They end up taking shelter at a love hotel. Where they separately shower, then stare at each other awkwardly before suggesting discussing the clues to date. D'aw. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7QCmlXWlMpX0VcJz4Ix2eIwkQ4WrkS1S1mP0HyDqbAAAthWC0gT-RtfvH1i3eZwFcpN5gIryK0NDzix3RNg9qFquz7rewJ3EbqwTJq3qx934ibscUn13Q6KaFdaPwdY1SUUKGGArFXz9dO2E-FYqU2SkfVJsdGW4cMQxWxqdIje4I4RP6I80xAnXV/s841/HumanityYuri_pg219.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="841" data-original-width="550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7QCmlXWlMpX0VcJz4Ix2eIwkQ4WrkS1S1mP0HyDqbAAAthWC0gT-RtfvH1i3eZwFcpN5gIryK0NDzix3RNg9qFquz7rewJ3EbqwTJq3qx934ibscUn13Q6KaFdaPwdY1SUUKGGArFXz9dO2E-FYqU2SkfVJsdGW4cMQxWxqdIje4I4RP6I80xAnXV/w261-h400/HumanityYuri_pg219.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Less Good:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There is some nudity, which to me feels awkward with the two still in high school (and, again in my opinion, they're drawn to seem younger than that). Don't get me wrong, no sex and it's tied to the plot, but to me it was edging close to a line. They could have skipped over it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Also, while the conclusion is heartfelt and satisfying, to me it felt like it wrapped things up rather quick. And there's a few things left up to interpretation. But maybe you like drawing your own conclusions? Eye of the beholder and all that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Conclusion</u>:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Mixed bag, overall above average. Leans heavily on "cute" romance for yuri, and succeeds, though the plot has elements of danger to it too. Definitely worth a look if you're fond of the concept of parallel universes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>-->
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3) STRAWBERRY FIELDS ONCE AGAIN</span></h2><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Story and Art by Kazura Kinosaki.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Originally published in Japan 2017 by Kadokawa Corporation.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">English Translation: <a href="https://yenpress.com/series/strawberry-fields-once-again" target="_blank">2020 by Yen Press LLC</a></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Format: 3 Volumes, published separately.</span><br />
<!--<span style="font-size: medium;">My Rating: 9/10</span>-->
</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Cover Summary</u>:<br /><i>"I am your future amore - your lover!" With these words, Pure Sakurasaka crashes into Akira Kouno's life. As if it wasn't wild enough that she says she's come from six years in the future, Pure insists that in her time, she and Akira are engaged to be married! It's an impossible claim, especially since Akira has sworn off 3D romance, content to immerse herself in 2D dating games. Besides which, why would someone as cute as Pure be interested in a loner like her...?</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Good:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The summary is a massive red herring. We have Pure, a twenty-four year old who has mind-leapt back into her seventeen-year old younger self. And she's popular and strong and (despite her mental age) naive, while Akira resists the idea that they could be dating in the future. And Pure tries to get Akira the strawberries she likes (title drop), and screws up, but in an adorable way, and they start to grow closer... so this is a standard romance?</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeR_3qaQZmTijnpgP3p0vbHegumPV6np017D9-Q5mh347c31hs9JGDFWB7h_SH518uCKWuvKz8O_bWK-P33mhwsubReeVCxuh3V-kBRq-yWFgyMjyACekrXuJkfOtm6eTGM7PmeMOkFLCHqkXE-Qf-BYG7WDvB2CESukRlYg_Jh9w_Nzw-MZTrSysI/s777/StrawFieldsVol2_pg29.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="777" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeR_3qaQZmTijnpgP3p0vbHegumPV6np017D9-Q5mh347c31hs9JGDFWB7h_SH518uCKWuvKz8O_bWK-P33mhwsubReeVCxuh3V-kBRq-yWFgyMjyACekrXuJkfOtm6eTGM7PmeMOkFLCHqkXE-Qf-BYG7WDvB2CESukRlYg_Jh9w_Nzw-MZTrSysI/w258-h400/StrawFieldsVol2_pg29.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Actually, no. Subtly, we get the clues.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Pure is changing history. ("My high school last time around was an all-girls school.") Akira's got relationship issues. ("When my Mom was in the hospital, she told me my father had another family.") Akira also has a brother, Ruri Kouno, who is a shut-in. ("Don't you sometimes think we should have never been born? ...Kidding.")</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And then the question, is Pure's memory even reliable? CAN it be reliable, if this past is being "repainted"? (Remember, in the original history, they never MET in high school.) And perhaps, is Pure is not ALONE in making changes to the past/present??</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The story takes a SERIOUS left turn at the halfway mark (partway into Volume 2). There is DRAMA here. Plus the author said they'd read some books on quantum mechanics, and it's evident they did their research.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The yuri itself also morphs, from largely one-sided adoration by Pure (with grudging acceptance by Akira), to Akira trying to separate romantic love from dependence. Even as Pure begins to fear that their love was one-sided from the start (ie- in her future). And yes, I see all this as a plus.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The final Volume lets us see into Pure's future/past. Oh boy. Um, spoilers, but trigger warning for physical handicaps, as well as a scene where a jerk tries to roofie a lady. Again, I see such realism as a plus, but a casual reader may get so focussed on the lovey-dovey female romance that they're not ready for the dramatic shift. Which brings me to...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Less Good:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The summary is a massive red herring. Those who are into the girls' love angle may be put off by the temporal plot stampeding in at the halfway point, while those who are into science fiction elements may have tossed this story aside after Volume 1 as a fluff piece, without going further. (Fortunately, I enjoy both things.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There's also the fact that this story is presented chronologically from Pure's initial arrival in the past. Meaning if someone jumps back in time to make changes, we don't know exactly what they did, we only see the results of those changes playing out from the present going forwards. To borrow the story's own "repainting" metaphor, the fact that the fence paint is now red when you can see it was green in the previous panel might bother some readers. (To be clear, the manga isn't in colour.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Me, I love this sort of thing. But I can easily see how for others, it might be less good, hence placing it here. Also, Volume 3 has less yuri overall, though there's a nice payoff for the patient reader.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXDaoxxXw9oumBCGjP3KhzCySaLXM6QV4zwmPOPm6imSVrAF1Eu_7h_xVTKhUHhj-mBYOssNnSUjvAEbcHofS3pUqK5jqg3VwucW2Cu0BXvAfyuP1FB4-ArtrTLph6EEfS-u9K0DReAa90rOF-4DMOumCj6MzmN5b2pJi1IgcpieIxadA47PRZ7pKf/s780/StrawFieldsVol3_pg41.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXDaoxxXw9oumBCGjP3KhzCySaLXM6QV4zwmPOPm6imSVrAF1Eu_7h_xVTKhUHhj-mBYOssNnSUjvAEbcHofS3pUqK5jqg3VwucW2Cu0BXvAfyuP1FB4-ArtrTLph6EEfS-u9K0DReAa90rOF-4DMOumCj6MzmN5b2pJi1IgcpieIxadA47PRZ7pKf/w256-h400/StrawFieldsVol3_pg41.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At the end of the whole story, the author does present the Timeline of Time-Reversal-Related Events, and I was mostly nodding my head. And staring at it in awe. But again, if that's not something you're interested in, this is probably more of a negative.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Conclusion</u>:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A must read for anyone who loves yuri and time travel. The only reason this doesn't rank at a 10 (aside from the red herring/balance issue) is because I was kind of disappointed it only lasted three volumes. There was a lot of potential... though at the same time, it couldn't really have continued in the same way. It ended at the right time. But I wanted more.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Speaking of, there is a spin-off by the author that features in the first two volumes, "Yurimi-san ga Miteru" (Yurimi-san is watching). It's from the perspective of a classmate who enjoys watching yuri couples, and has no sci-fi elements that I can see. Enjoyable enough, if you like that sort of thing? I don't think it had its own separate release.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
2) SUPERWOMEN IN LOVE! HONEY TRAP & RAPID RABBIT</span></h2><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Story and Art by sometime.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Originally published in Japan 2019 by Ichijinsha Inc.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">English Translation: <a href="https://sevenseasentertainment.com/series/superwomen-in-love-honey-trap-and-rapid-rabbit/" target="_blank">Seven Seas Entertainment, 2021</a></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Format: ONGOING, currently 4 separate Volumes.</span><br />
<!--<span style="font-size: medium;">My Rating: 9.5/10</span>-->
</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Cover Summary</u>:<br /><i>When the villainess Honey Trap defeats the superheroine Rapid Rabbit, she sees her nemesis' face for the first time... and falls head over heels in love! Refusing to kill Rapid Rabbit, Honey Trap is cast out of Antinoid, an evil organization with plans for world domination. Luckily, a kind soul takes her in: Rapid Rabbit herself! Now Honey Trap and Rapid Rabbit have teamed up to take on Antinoid. Can Honey Trap defeat her old colleagues and seduce the heroine at the same time?</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Good:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Right off the bat, Honjo Hayate (aka Rapid Rabbit) is NOT a high school girl, she works Emcee gigs at Superhero shows. Good. She's also the innocent in the romance department, while comparatively, Honey tries not to be lecherous. (She says Hayate is "too pure for this world".) So that's already a nice duo, and it's a (somewhat) older couple.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But along WITH that, there's the evil Mad Scientist Melt Out, who has a thing for evil Captain Suigetsu Kyoka (revealed as an otaku). And evil Executive Officer Cool Down is a yuri fan, who lets some things slide in battle because of that, and... basically the whole evil organization has massive lesbian vibes. So this is yuri squared or cubed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The writing (when it's not romance) also manages to dance wonderfully along this line between humour and terror, without becoming a farce or a tragedy. (Though, uh, a child does die at one point. If that's over the line for you.) Meaning it's a roller coaster of emotions with a little something for everyone.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo6cJiVPDVn-Hkp-SLpScqvia4AvNrLXdmjUK6GQaiarUCc-qX6iPsw-Gt6_5UDFK9pFDrbq8vXOn3We_cfBG7lcxzOpuADe9c2sRkdtDOhJiZfnVE_6NaOekf_qbDr24NWCYLnTp535EHUJ8PRNJbsWOYMbUDMbvCw4GCEL6vxeCxaYTbMSHQA1AV/s734/SuperwomanVol1_pg144.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="734" data-original-width="501" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo6cJiVPDVn-Hkp-SLpScqvia4AvNrLXdmjUK6GQaiarUCc-qX6iPsw-Gt6_5UDFK9pFDrbq8vXOn3We_cfBG7lcxzOpuADe9c2sRkdtDOhJiZfnVE_6NaOekf_qbDr24NWCYLnTp535EHUJ8PRNJbsWOYMbUDMbvCw4GCEL6vxeCxaYTbMSHQA1AV/w273-h400/SuperwomanVol1_pg144.jpg" width="273" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But there's more. Two things really elevate it to being a massive powerhouse, at least for me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Firstly, the dimension tools and transformations.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The sci-fi element, basically, and I'm a sucker for this kind of tech stuff. (It's why I enjoy the entire Nanoha anime series.) And somehow, they pull it off in manga form. "Transform Up" & "Transform On" depending on bracelet or Antinoid power gun, and then they're in their powered suits. Though some panels with minimal shading can still show facial expressions beneath.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There's even little explanation comics at the end of the volumes for how the devices work.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And as you continue, there's power-ups to "Cross Connection" and "Hyper Transform Up" and "Final Step", and there's another hero transformation device that gets found, expanding the cast... and soon even the Ultimate Evil, Antinoid Leader "X" gets in on the action.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh yes, another plus, the Biggest Bad comes out herself around the HALFWAY point (in Volume 3) to battle the heroines, basically sick of the interference to the point of taking things on herself. Realism! And (mild spoiler) X is a formidable foe, despite appearances to the contrary early on. Which brings me to my other powerhouse point.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The clever misdirection and foreshadowing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Honey Trap tries to clue Hayate in early on about the evil organization, and despite that, what we eventually see of them is not what one might expect. Leader X is also seen as a bit silly, though it becomes clear later on that she's like this because she can afford to be. Misdirection. Make fun of her at your peril.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I won't go in depth so you can experience it yourself, but as a specific example, early in Volume One we're told how Hayate became a super heroine: She found her bracelet "<i>at the shopping mall in the next town over by complete coincidence</i>". And that's played for laughs. But much later we learn why and how the bracelet was there, and it's DARK.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Honey also complains early on about the terrible Antinoid working conditions. Which we find out are PLOT RELEVANT.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There is absolute method to what seems like madness on the part of Antinoid. Plus everything is obviously building, as yet another "monster of the week" is found to be a carefully crafted data gathering mission by X.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And YET, through ALL of this, there are still those quiet times when Honey and Rabbit have heart-to-hearts as they try to figure out their feelings. Because Hayate isn't accustomed to dating, let alone another woman, and Honey isn't sure how to confess. So there you go, it's this a lovely sci-fi/yuri fusion.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh, wait, one final point, I can't stop myself, the love child of the mad scientist and evil captain, who is named Re:boot Rabbit (in Volume 4) has twintails and her transformation involves a microphone. I'm a fan there too.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0u1IeewSh1j35xtR_bOqnbLyRHjP29rEFWGsJWuRvPCUnfklgTTjF7D3B-TuiGDNk2TuuQ9TvJmex_12RYygfXl6Y3Ui9jEbXWTrdpMyQjtGiRhoLkmRizxF4NddqIH6zaASs1zjGHZFhrIlQXGiAdIsPagOHlQoEZpvLMCxyFqe0ob_WbC6gt0X3/s769/SuperwomenVol4_pg12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0u1IeewSh1j35xtR_bOqnbLyRHjP29rEFWGsJWuRvPCUnfklgTTjF7D3B-TuiGDNk2TuuQ9TvJmex_12RYygfXl6Y3Ui9jEbXWTrdpMyQjtGiRhoLkmRizxF4NddqIH6zaASs1zjGHZFhrIlQXGiAdIsPagOHlQoEZpvLMCxyFqe0ob_WbC6gt0X3/w260-h400/SuperwomenVol4_pg12.jpg" width="260" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Less Good:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">While I enjoyed the mix of comedy and serious, I imagine it's not for everyone. There's talk of panties. There's psychological trauma. There's buffers between those things, fortunately, but is that enough? It usually works for me, is all I can offer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I also found some of the battle sequences hard to follow. Like who is where now, who just got hit? That could definitely be on me, but occasionally I have to re-read a couple pages to be sure I know what happened during an action sequence. That's something that probably works better in animation, or maybe in colour?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Finally, guys don't seem to exist in this universe. I mean, they must, because otherwise "yuri" would simply be "love" (much like in Whole of Humanity above). But I don't think we even see men as background characters. That pulls me a bit out of the story, albeit after the fact.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Conclusion</u>:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">About the only reason THIS doesn't rank higher (aside from my quibble with the battle sequences) is because Volume 5 (which I believe is the ending) hasn't been translated to English yet, and there's always the chance they don't stick the landing. It's due out later this year. Meaning you have time to catch up!</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And with that, we get to the top of the chart, with the only thing that could ever really be here...</span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
1) I'M IN LOVE WITH THE VILLAINESS</span></h2><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Story by Inori.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Character design by Hanagata, Art by Aonoshimo</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Originally published in Japan 2021 by Ichijinsha Inc.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">English Translation: <a href="https://sevenseasentertainment.com/series/im-in-love-with-the-villainess-manga/" target="_blank">Seven Seas Entertainment 2021</a></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Format: ONGOING. Based on a Light Novel Series.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">My Rating: 10/10</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, this manga is based on a Light Novel from 2019. I'm cheating. Hear me out, thank me later.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Cover Summary</u>:<br /><i>When corporate worker Rei Ohashi finds herself reborn as the protagonist of her favourite dating sim, it's the perfect opportunity to do what she's always wanted - seduce the villainess! In her previous life, Rei had no interest in the princes the game had to offer. She only had eyes for Claire Francois, her nemesis. Now, armed with her extensive knowledge of the game, and her undying love for Claire, will Rei finally be able to win over the woman of her dreams?</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Good:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">You're going to have to trust me on this one where the sci-fi is concerned, because I've read the five Volume light novel series. Yes, it looks like an isekai ("other world"), and plots like an isekai, and sounds like an isekai, and all of this is happening in a completely different magical world based on an Otome Game... right up until (INCOMING SPOILER!) the point when an Artificial Intelligence unit turns up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So, it's also science fiction. But the tipping point from the light novels may not occur until Volume 20+ of the manga, so you really are going to have to take this one on faith for now.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Don't get me wrong, there IS some foreshadowing, much like in Strawberry Fields above. But it's not obvious, and if you don't like magic users, you won't enjoy this selection the way I did. (Fortunately, I like fantasy as much as I like science fiction.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">With the delayed gratification issue out there (where I see subverting expectations as good), trust me also when I say that this story has everything.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The protagonist (Rae Taylor) has her seemingly one sided romance with the Villainess, who has a tragic backstory. The three princes, supposedly the love interests of the game, then have their own plots that run independent... and one of THOSE involves a yuri, for absolutely not the reason you might expect. More expectations subverted.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In fact this story twists around on it's axis so much that you'll want to re-read earlier passages, that you'll see in an entirely new light later on. It's partly why for me the manga is so fun, I'm like OH RIGHT that was a thing back then, so clever.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgByqoiFElwKyTqSME5f33eRdXoAh6oZEstLR2PzBWQF2i_T7AArs63PDpgOaOyq2TseJFgSi3grSe_AXno0Z1v5QOifi-RPe-0UGmBDicCfkLdFKulr2D-EesYV2hAUbs8DEhzz6BLIeOOWqFMQ4UnStRTd3ilbEDOGUobrichjHxMGO7UKFSz3IzB/s824/VillainessVol1_pg30.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgByqoiFElwKyTqSME5f33eRdXoAh6oZEstLR2PzBWQF2i_T7AArs63PDpgOaOyq2TseJFgSi3grSe_AXno0Z1v5QOifi-RPe-0UGmBDicCfkLdFKulr2D-EesYV2hAUbs8DEhzz6BLIeOOWqFMQ4UnStRTd3ilbEDOGUobrichjHxMGO7UKFSz3IzB/w268-h400/VillainessVol1_pg30.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And before you say "oh, another villainess story"? Yes, I know, the manga market is becoming saturated with those to the point of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3W74CBzTYM" target="_blank">being its own genre</a>. But this one is a cut above. Seriously, had this story come out just a couple years prior, it probably would have been able to stand alone. Only bad timing is burying it among the others.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Regarding the title, there is an actual villain of the piece, and Claire isn't it. And while we build to that revelation, the characters also use down time to reflect on things like gender roles, and what it means to be LGBTQ+. Including Rae recalling what things were like in her "past life". (And it wasn't all good for her friends, so trigger warning there too.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Once the story fully hits its stride, we see the plot of this whole *civilization* is tied up in Rae's yuri romance, with a kingdom rising up against an unjust aristocracy (of which Claire is a part) and a neighbouring kingdom having issues too. And there are repercussions, and there are elements Rae does NOT recognize from her dating sim, and that's the first hint that there's more going on than this being a simple isekai.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet another nice point is that the Rae-Claire romance angle doesn't get dragged out forever... INCOMING SPOILER, but Rae and Claire DO end up together by the end of Book 2 (in the Light Novels). So it's not a forever will they/won't they thing. I know I can get tired of those after a while; not so in this case. Another plus.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Instead, Book 3 throws some new characters and new situations in the way of Rae and Claire. And the NEW situations are EQUALLY as interesting. There's parenting issues, and even a transgender thread with a minor character later on, albeit it's handled in a magical manner.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And through it all, the story doesn't lose its humour. For instance, Volume Four of the Light Novel, has an entire section <i>devoted to a parody of Iron Chef</i> with incredibly high stakes. I cannot wait to see what the manga does with that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As I said, this story has everything.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Less Good:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As I said above, if magic isekai stories are not your thing, you won't like this. Because that's what the story IS, up until it's not.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Likewise, if you're some kinda billionaire who is not keen on peasants rising up against aristocrats, or you're not keen on princes who actually care about their subjects rather than squeezing them for every last dime, you won't like this. (Though, if that's you, how are you even on my blog?)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There's also the fact that the manga adaptation cannot possibly go beat-for-beat with what the light novel did (even with the light novel occasionally shifting its first person perspective). The original novel DID need to take its time to build with introspection, using spacing and pacing. And that can become an issue as the manga unfolds, because a couple pages of Rae simply thinking to herself about the situation probably won't fly.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVHIL42wG37Bfhxpg8jaTvVFlPreZFUUA-PjB4-GjfyLZeHZ5YwKFiRKV_dIaXpsftg5kauh9LuO5y5PH1GllcMFAXVdnz1jjQ4f_VLCBxmJzjE8-c7wRiQ2ZU1FNP7VWz8JFFndBEBnhHhxh-DiL47_XYcOGTD8a7OJB3y9WXGcCOWgpXAE2U1GDa/s810/VillainessVol2_pg51.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="525" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVHIL42wG37Bfhxpg8jaTvVFlPreZFUUA-PjB4-GjfyLZeHZ5YwKFiRKV_dIaXpsftg5kauh9LuO5y5PH1GllcMFAXVdnz1jjQ4f_VLCBxmJzjE8-c7wRiQ2ZU1FNP7VWz8JFFndBEBnhHhxh-DiL47_XYcOGTD8a7OJB3y9WXGcCOWgpXAE2U1GDa/w259-h400/VillainessVol2_pg51.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Honestly, given the choice, I *would* <a href="https://sevenseasentertainment.com/series/im-in-love-with-the-villainess-light-novel/" target="_blank">go with the light novel first</a>, if you can. And then, the manga has side-stories written by the original author, Inori, that expand on the universe! Which is really another point for the Good section above. (I've even heard that we might get an anime? Be still my heart!)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The only other possible issues are these trigger warnings: for suicide, mild incest, and parental death. Which for me was added realism, but could be a hard line for someone else.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Conclusion</u>:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Read it if at all possible. Assuming you're down with fantasy sci-fi, and yuri not only as the main thread, but also popping up away from the protagonist, where you may least expect it. (Seriously, those princes! And Manaria! And...)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">*****</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">
So there's my recommendations. As I said off the top, have you heard of some others that I don't know about? Then maybe we can swap titles! Or have you already read some of the above, and have a different take, or an objection? Let me know!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To be clear, there's lots of OTHER great yuri out there, which doesn't have any science fiction or fantasy elements. (Quick shout-out to the mangas <b>Kase-san</b>, which got an OVA in 2018, and <b>Yuri Is My Job</b>, which just got the anime treatment this month.) So feel free to let me know if you've read anything else good in the genre.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For now, I've gone on long enough. Thanks for reading this post, happy lesbian visibility, and take care out there.</span></p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-2777086149673453802023-03-19T18:13:00.000-07:002023-03-19T18:13:28.704-07:00TORG Eulogy: Avril Carroll<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFVWVhhKxrx7Qsnwzy_-zASUwga3RUQ8uCaXFIRXItRnPbY-35DBreoazU6-4B12pmLwxMsbWjQI2qvlBlxmspd1hdeyUISiaF7KSLKC0Zi7nFE-jlx43-uFRi___1nDw7QT_dBeCNyR4dL7pxPPInUjlNk8Uk0BU8sHt2pqe1OOENJHiSOR9cZOY/s1185/TorgChar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1185" data-original-width="522" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFVWVhhKxrx7Qsnwzy_-zASUwga3RUQ8uCaXFIRXItRnPbY-35DBreoazU6-4B12pmLwxMsbWjQI2qvlBlxmspd1hdeyUISiaF7KSLKC0Zi7nFE-jlx43-uFRi___1nDw7QT_dBeCNyR4dL7pxPPInUjlNk8Uk0BU8sHt2pqe1OOENJHiSOR9cZOY/s320/TorgChar.jpg" width="141" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">It is with a heavy heart that Ben Asim gets up to the microphone at the podium. He shuffles his notes and glances momentarily off to the side at the photographs on the nearby table.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There is no casket here. Because there is no body.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There are only the photographs of her, the other items of memorabilia, and the tributes left by her friends, family and colleagues.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben then looks out at those who have gathered in the small room. Only her relatives and the close friends with the proper clearance are present. Given the former, Ben knows he won't be able to discuss exact details, but he wanted them to know how it happened. Because without a body, you're always wondering, unless you hear it right from the source.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He looks back at his notes. They were approved reading.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After a moment, he sets them aside.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He knows he has some latitude, and besides, he isn't liable to go into detail on key aspects of her missions. Better to focus on the positives in her life, rather than how the cosms are continuing to alter reality, despite Avril's astounding selfless action.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben finally clears his throat. "Avril Carroll," he begins. "We all know her. In as much as any one person can. Could. Can." Damn it. He plunges onward. "She was a lot of things to different people. And so, I want to take my few moments here to pull those threads together. Forgive me if, at some point, you feel I'm stating the obvious as I review her life."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He briefly scanned over those gathered once again, then stepped out from behind the podium, completely away from his notes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Avril was a native resident of Earth. Fascinated by magic at an early age, and captivated by the animation style that made girls magical, she gravitated towards studies in the performing arts. Wanting to learn sleight of hand and methods of entertainment. Her ability to Detect Magic meant that she could even tell the charlatans from the real deal, though this was an unconscious ability at first. Much like her telepathy."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben was pretty sure that everyone in the room was someone that Avril had previously communicated with mentally, and even if that wasn't the case, they deserved to know. Indeed, no one was looking surprised, though her mother looked a bit confused.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"By that, I meant she wasn't always aware she could use telepathy on her own," Ben clarified. "Because of course, magic was her passion, with perhaps a side interest in hypnosis. Psionics was secondary. Though as I found out, there was at least one person in her circle of friends as she was growing up who had a similar ability. Meaning that this power was always a part of her life. Possibly even a source of silent mischief making in her teens."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Mrs. Carroll's face cleared as she nodded. Ben's eyes went over towards Elspeth Fletcher, one of the people he'd spoken with while compiling Avril's biography.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The dark haired woman hinted at a smile back at him, and he felt her mind brush against his own with a hint of laughter. She was what people called a canny lass, that one. Ben coughed and quickly looked away, beginning to pace across the front of the room as he continued.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Avril's moment of crisis, when she was first recruited to the cause, came when her magic mentor, Lewis, was attacked during what became his final show. It was a gospog attack, designed to be a distraction from events happening nearby. As such, there was one Storm Knight dispatched to help clear out civilians, but Lewis was knocked unconscious on the stage."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben's eyes went towards his teammates. At this point, he was pretty sure everyone who had been close to Avril back then had known about this incident, but he wasn't sure if she had spoken about it to anyone more recently. Perhaps, but Hotspur, Gaja, Murmur, Sam, Symon, Zephyr, Edmund... they all were listening attentively.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Standing backstage, Avril acted to save Lewis. After calling out to bring the creature into range, she dropped a fly bar onto it. Some lights exploded, starting a small fire. The gospog was defeated, and she got Lewis to safety."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben realized he was still pacing back and forth, and made himself stop.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Lewis retired from showmanship after that, while Avril became aware of her full potential. And perhaps more importantly, she became aware of ways that actual magic existed out in the various cosms. Perhaps that, more than anything, is what led her to become a Storm Knight."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben found his gaze drawn back to the large picture of Avril by the table.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7fCsUa3NxP3C0UJ5njYBKlsGHKFBcUkFKWFntUk-Di1ls8dSYIHFR19R7AJpAoGJeNTUi8lQv1v-r7Yl69hNUyWDRZFxhK11xgmUI08w7lQzyDU9jRp9m5r1du0vS0n22T14cvARz4m4IpGfcV_vx2FOU6HX1UFhxVwSjeQVZWemQrXRslpmeJOND/s1930/MagicWoman2_Shutter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1288" data-original-width="1930" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7fCsUa3NxP3C0UJ5njYBKlsGHKFBcUkFKWFntUk-Di1ls8dSYIHFR19R7AJpAoGJeNTUi8lQv1v-r7Yl69hNUyWDRZFxhK11xgmUI08w7lQzyDU9jRp9m5r1du0vS0n22T14cvARz4m4IpGfcV_vx2FOU6HX1UFhxVwSjeQVZWemQrXRslpmeJOND/w400-h268/MagicWoman2_Shutter.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"She loved magic. She loved learning that some of what she'd once performed had been actual magic. In a way, she was magic incarnate..."</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Swallowing the lump forming in his throat, Ben pulled his attention back to everyone in the room.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Ahem. Her magic sensor scrambler ability was helpful in an early mission when visiting Pan Pacifica. That may have been when her psionics were fully awoken as well, for after that, she began to develop them in tandem with her spells. It was shortly after that when I had occasion to meet her, in the Living Lands."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben belatedly wondered whether he'd mentioned specific cosms in his approved speech. Maybe? If not, surely it wasn't a problem to mention them. And if it was, screw it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"We were on a mission together. Despite her telepathy being of use, I wondered about her assignment to this cosm, which had low social ability and an even lower magic rating. As I recall, her response was something to the effect of 'That's why they won't see me coming'."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Someone in the audience chuckled.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"And though she was still perfecting it back then, this was when I learned about Avril's signature move," Ben added. "And it wasn't one that required her wand."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He reached into his pocket, pulling out the loonie he had brought. A one dollar coin. He held it between his thumb and index finger as he extended his arm out in front of him, and sighted down it, as if lining up a shot.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It was a pale imitation of the original, but it would serve to spark everyone's imagination. Because they knew what he was doing. If you knew Avril, you knew.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, Ben couldn't fire off a magic bullet here, even if he had the capability. The hall was rented.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">With his thumb, he instead flicked the coin into the air, caught it, and put it back into his pocket. Mrs. Carroll blew her nose. Ben wondered if she'd visualized her daughter in that moment.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPo5VNOmtp8Bb3KZk_unFYa_MVNEU1icMzjM5rusvvgN74PYc6WgIG4V4AvSsCK2kp3io2aNnWwhESJ5CubutGiW7R9usfR78mV1txzpxQarQC445k5mozKtINiEyvYUtA13QGxP3-k1MMsugJY_vfbbZCQXyeWNe-7yf8DQbUcyZybeQil6cWwvSU/s640/toaru-kagaku-no-railgun-t-misaka-mikoto.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="640" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPo5VNOmtp8Bb3KZk_unFYa_MVNEU1icMzjM5rusvvgN74PYc6WgIG4V4AvSsCK2kp3io2aNnWwhESJ5CubutGiW7R9usfR78mV1txzpxQarQC445k5mozKtINiEyvYUtA13QGxP3-k1MMsugJY_vfbbZCQXyeWNe-7yf8DQbUcyZybeQil6cWwvSU/s320/toaru-kagaku-no-railgun-t-misaka-mikoto.gif" width="320" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"I never thought much about Avril after that mission," Ben admitted. "Until she took my place."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Nile Empire mission. The beginning of her end.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"She had levelled up by then, of course," Ben continued. "Having become a spell slinger, capable of dodging through her apportation ability. And she could broadcast confusion and fear in equal measures, depending on the situation, while refining her clarity of mind, to dispel any mental affects."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He had, of course, also gained new skills in that time, of the Weird Science variety. Life was weird.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Part of her reassignment to the team was my concern that I'd become a liability visiting my home cosm. I also wanted to pursue a certain scientific investigation. So Avril went with Mayhem Unlimited --" At the moniker, Ben gave a brief sidelong glance to Hotspur. "-- while I remained in the labs."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben hesitated then, and found his gaze being drawn down to the floor. "That mission was, fortunately, a rousing success. Though I was told that, when faced with a nine headed demonic being, Avril's first instinct was to attempt a form of telepathic reassurance. Which went about as well as you might expect."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"The luck on that battle was much better than anyone had expected," someone murmured.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben looked up, but instead of seeking out the voice, his gaze went right to the ceiling. "It had been my intention to return to the field after those events. But it was thought that telepathy would be handy for the mission to Akasha. So... Avril volunteered again."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Oops. He probably shouldn't have said Akasha. But whatever. He could pretend it had been a sneeze.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"I didn't insist on going myself," Ben admitted. "I didn't speak up in her place."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When he should have. It should have been him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"I merely scienced up an unbreakable shield for her to use. And possibly leaned a bit on the supply chain to get her a Rainbow Moonstone Crystal. She hadn't been granted one on the prior mission."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He stared again at the floor. Of course, if it had been him on the mission, it might have failed. As he wouldn't have been able to act as she had, since he didn't have telepathy. But he should have done more for her. Somehow. Why hadn't he?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"And from what I've read in the reports," Ben continued, his voice starting to shake, "and heard in discussions after the fact, she handled herself admirably. Right up until the end. And even then, her sacrifice was... was admirable..."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben's palms curled into fists. No. He couldn't do this. Why had he insisted on doing this? He hadn't even had the foresight to take her DNA to create a clone of her or anything. No, Avril was simply GONE, and HE had been the one to send her to her death, and she was NEVER coming back, EVER...</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDpr7il1VjTOxD8s-GrnVBNhsXKcc8_qm1QomYIqWl_Qtj3EufRcE_sEgjqPpfCFQT-YAeKDBe7KMnJptC_xtispg9C3t_OAhhNHI62cmVJ_UChK7jANs2c7aJ3NtAjSkkTDeYKzmoWjiF38_i4GUfNhHXUWAn5qWqNUfWhzpGChd2soDOQm2hnJWN/s570/MARTYR_Screenshot%202023-01-08%20at%208.18.04%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="406" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDpr7il1VjTOxD8s-GrnVBNhsXKcc8_qm1QomYIqWl_Qtj3EufRcE_sEgjqPpfCFQT-YAeKDBe7KMnJptC_xtispg9C3t_OAhhNHI62cmVJ_UChK7jANs2c7aJ3NtAjSkkTDeYKzmoWjiF38_i4GUfNhHXUWAn5qWqNUfWhzpGChd2soDOQm2hnJWN/s320/MARTYR_Screenshot%202023-01-08%20at%208.18.04%20PM.png" width="228" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">'HEY.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben jerked his gaze back up and over to Elspeth.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">'Look at us,' her voice rang out in his mind. 'Look, and you'll see that no one here blames you. Her life, her choice. You couldn't have stopped Avril Carroll. We ALL know that there was no stopping that woman once she set her mind to something. All that remains here is to honour her. Right?'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Startled, Ben once more swept his gaze back over the group who had assembled. And of course, Elspeth was right. Everyone was merely looking at him expectantly. There was no hint of any form of accusation.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Granted, it was a little disconcerting that Avril's childhood friend had decided to read his thoughts right then.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">'Try guilt written all over your face,' her voice came again. 'I mean, okay, ever since your talk of our childhood antics, you basically let me in. Still, get a grip, and I'll get gone again. Okay?'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben cleared his throat. "Sorry, I... yes, sorry. Give me a second."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He jumped back towards the podium, pushing off with a bit more force than was necessary. The amulet of Isis glowed faintly beneath his shirt as a small shower of sparkles glittered on the carpet where he'd formerly stood.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben quickly reached back for his prepared speech, but even as he took it in his hands, and fumbled with the sheets to find his place, he shook his head. He folded it up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Avril handled herself admirably," Ben resumed. "As she always did. And I suppose her involvement was inevitable, after she tapped into the Possibility Chalice. She was, perhaps, the only one among us who could."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This time, he made a point of looking at everyone as he spoke.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"On her last mission, she helped to keep her assigned soldier alive, Ana Graham. Not to mention my old friend Pascale Petit, who had been kidnapped to use as a pawn. She survived an attack by a centuries old vampire. She resisted corruption. And she used her bullet attack to bring down a large view screen on the head of their greatest foe, when damage would be maximized. Just before a Maelstrom occurred to seal the deal."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He smiled at the thought of it. She had been a resourceful woman. In much the same way he was.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"And through it all, somehow, Avril never found occasion to use my shield. She used her wits and cunning to pursue the mission instead. And then, at the end, when the Akashan crown telepathically told her there was a way to keep the Gaunt Man imprisoned for years? That's when she made the split second decision."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This last bit REALLY hadn't been in his prepared notes. He was so fired.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"She made him pay. She accomplished something that few could ever dream of accomplishing. In fact, I was told that Avril's last words were to him, and I quote: 'I know this won't be permanent for you. But when you return, they'll be even stronger.'"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben took in a deep breath.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"So, going forwards, we'll be doing all we can to live up to her promise. For my part, I know that every time my unbreakable shield functions to save a life, it will be because Avril saved those charges for someone else to use. Thank you all for your time, and --" Ben turned to look at the photograph one last time. "-- thank you Avril. Godspeed."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He hurriedly moved to sit down, as a musical selection began to play... <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJowxUTRy5s" target="_blank">Magic Sunday</a>. <i><I will be with you, now and forever></i>... weirdly poignant.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It took several seconds for Ben's heart rate to resume a more normal pace.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqJ2jfWSs5x8d4y05bWmOsZo0tUAFgXd9K6XSiMJT4_kYcTRHHOU6rrSFYH19zw-uujuC-KqsgAZFIPMKclVpRS4VzJqVh1QQs8sVBTialy9j0z94tQz5KS4I73d0OsUScuO6gX36-ioZXd5zaeqL7uNCVxdMYEKJTyaCrcRmELO0Q9thKYqLk2eQf/s1456/Avril_RIP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1456" data-original-width="1150" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqJ2jfWSs5x8d4y05bWmOsZo0tUAFgXd9K6XSiMJT4_kYcTRHHOU6rrSFYH19zw-uujuC-KqsgAZFIPMKclVpRS4VzJqVh1QQs8sVBTialy9j0z94tQz5KS4I73d0OsUScuO6gX36-ioZXd5zaeqL7uNCVxdMYEKJTyaCrcRmELO0Q9thKYqLk2eQf/w506-h640/Avril_RIP.jpg" width="506" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">'Pssst.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben didn't even turn this time, just reaching up to rub his forehead. 'What now, Elspeth?' he thought back. The music played on.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">'Just a good news/bad news kind of deal. Any preference for the first?'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben gestured vaguely in the air, certain that she could see him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">'Fine. Good news, I'm pretty sure everyone without the proper clearance didn't QUITE catch the naughty bits there, because of some phantom coughing in the back of the room. Courtesy me. Meaning your job is secure.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">'Oh. Thanks.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">'Don't mention it. Wouldn't have been a proper eulogy without those parts, really, so thank you for being so straightforward. Avril would be pleased, I think. You did right by her.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben smiled, despite himself. 'Thanks again. Truly.' He looked towards Avril's photograph once more. She seemed to smile back. 'Then what's the bad news?'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">'Ah, yes, that would be the circumstances under which your team now has an opening for a telepathic Storm Knight. I will apologize in advance there? I don't have the magic skills of my friend.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ben began to gesture vaguely again, when the full weight of what Elspeth had just broadcast fell upon him. He spun in his chair at that point to regard the dark haired woman once more, now seeing her in a completely new light.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Elspeth Fletcher merely returned his look with another quiet smile.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(RIP Avril Carroll, Jan 2021 - Jan 2023)</span></p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-8474578600273939472023-02-28T17:05:00.000-08:002023-02-28T17:05:31.576-08:00Word Games 3: Not Wordles?<p><span style="font-size: medium;">This post is the third (and last) in the series looking at my scores for "Wordle" and it's spinoffs. You can find the first post, where I look at the basic idea of having 6 attempts to guess a five letter word <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2023/02/word-games-1-normal-wordles.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>. You can find the second post, where I look at solving multiple wordles at once (or varying word length) with their distributions getting less normal <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2023/02/word-games-2-abnormal-wordles.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I call this last entry "not wordles" in part because the objective is no longer to guess the words, but instead to fill a grid, as well as because there's actual math spinoffs. In fact, what follows are the six games that I'm still playing, having set aside most of the other ones in the interests of time over the past year.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Aside: While the previous two posts were mostly written in August 2022, this one was mostly written in February 2023, with stats to reflect that. Also, do consider supporting the creators.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://nerdlegame.com/" target="_blank">MATH WORDLE</a></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The oldest one I still play daily is Nerdle, where you have 8 spaces to fill in a math equation, complete with the equals sign, and still only six guesses. Sound hard? Thing is, the way I play, it's honestly not. But that's due to finding some good seed "words" (equations) once again. I've been doing this one for over a year now.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The site has grown big enough that there are variations, such as less spaces, two to do at once (like dordle), and the ability to have squaring or brackets take up a space. I've dabbled, but really don't have the time, given some of the other games I want to get to in a 24 hour period. Maybe one day I'll devise good seeds for them and do more.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For standard Nerdle, my "seed" guess is a straightforward subtraction that knocks out six numbers, and gives me a sense of the equals sign location. My second guess is almost always a multiply/add combo to knock out the other four numbers, and can take two forms, depending on the equals sign result from the first guess. (Keeps the equals in place if it's right, shift it right if it's not.) If you really want to know the specifics, ask away.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">All that means is, after two guesses, I know every number used (though I only have a vague sense of duplicates), I know where the equals sign is (it's always in one of three locations, so if the first two were wrong, it's in the last), and I have a fair sense of the operations to use (including division, as the only thing not yet input). From there, two more guesses can work it out most times.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSd9a-EJ6nrlBGs-RBrSJXDLJIVKvk9ejK1oaCAOf0hnUyyzKuEbh-MZJLPjepHGtUhbJrCiQW-ftxmhuyMW9SQs5edT_8NfWtkiR9yxcsuKy7ZAV0FH2lUVwuVZsME-aTxH-d7s81Jpz1lEKc_6FCraaMAQPZeCOb4wo34Wr5WDn3uCRmXhv5qdqz/s760/Nerdle100_Screen%20Shot%202022-05-09%20at%209.22.39%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="730" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSd9a-EJ6nrlBGs-RBrSJXDLJIVKvk9ejK1oaCAOf0hnUyyzKuEbh-MZJLPjepHGtUhbJrCiQW-ftxmhuyMW9SQs5edT_8NfWtkiR9yxcsuKy7ZAV0FH2lUVwuVZsME-aTxH-d7s81Jpz1lEKc_6FCraaMAQPZeCOb4wo34Wr5WDn3uCRmXhv5qdqz/s320/Nerdle100_Screen%20Shot%202022-05-09%20at%209.22.39%20PM.png" width="307" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There's the statistics for it, above from when I reached game 100, then below current to late February 2023. Above, we see the average number of guesses is 3.43, with a spread (standard deviation) of 0.682.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6cHwrHSCi9-EB7iLGW0RFS6leLhLI3zH2KIrduDiKeeMVhNjTcLwGcaYg0AWYsviHaFC0PzlmzBpe-5JBKnJ2uFV902cSty0yHROCDNmcZEj9gqNFP7yQbNq_kaSQ0mMECUiT_KgKn8l0i6_fBs82UYTwTkAz7Tm62_ChH6cg0oi0FwiNdbhq5wqW/s768/Ne388Shot_Screenshot%202023-02-25%20at%203.05.02%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="746" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6cHwrHSCi9-EB7iLGW0RFS6leLhLI3zH2KIrduDiKeeMVhNjTcLwGcaYg0AWYsviHaFC0PzlmzBpe-5JBKnJ2uFV902cSty0yHROCDNmcZEj9gqNFP7yQbNq_kaSQ0mMECUiT_KgKn8l0i6_fBs82UYTwTkAz7Tm62_ChH6cg0oi0FwiNdbhq5wqW/s320/Ne388Shot_Screenshot%202023-02-25%20at%203.05.02%20PM.png" width="311" /></a></div><span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">By this point we have whittled the average down to 3.38 guesses with a spread of 0.637... not a HUGE decrease over 288 additional games, largely because it's basically impossible to nail it in 1, and given my gameplay, 2 is equally unlikely. So we have this hugely skewed distribution from 3. Granted, I did manage to increase my 3-game-wins from 55% of all games to 61% of all games.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The thing that really blows my mind about this game overall is that they can detect commutativity. Meaning if you enter 8*9, but the real answer is 9*8, the tiles will spin and it will still be accepted. (You can shut that off, I don't.) That wasn't always a thing, but it was implemented fairly early on.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Note that entering 14+1=15 is still wrong if it's really 11+4=15 though. (As it should be, but still, sigh.)</span></div></span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There were also some other math game sites out there that I dabbled with a year ago, but I neglected to track them. Feel free to discuss options in the comments.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://wafflegame.net/" target="_blank">WAFFLE</a></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Waffle is the best game, and I'm not just saying that because I'm on an amazing streak, coming up on just shy of a full year. (Technically I won one more than is listed, because I don't think the Canuckle team-up ended up counting overall.) This board is shaped like a waffle, it's 5x5 with 6 words (three horizontal and three vertical) sharing letters. But the letters are jumbled.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To play, you simply have to swap the tiles into a correct (green) location, and every game is winnable in 10 moves. But you get an additional 5 moves (totalling 15) because it's nigh impossible to get every swap right every game (there's that +5 again!).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Then as you play, you get stars, so there's a pretty easy score to track. Also, the sentences at the end are funny, take the time to read the definitions. Also also... Jiminy Jillikers? Sure, why not.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Noteworthy, because of the whole swapping issue, is that there's nothing I can look up in the dictionary. I mean, I suppose I could (you always get the four corners of the waffle, thus start/end letters) but it would be shots in the dark instead of simply, y'know, solving it. I haven't lost yet, though it's been close a few times, notably at the start.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The best trick with the waffle, I've found, is NOT to (for instance) swap an "A" one up into it's logical position... but rather to swap in the "A" from the other side of the board. At best, you get a two-for-one green, and at worst, you get more information about the tile you swapped out for the "A". Because now that it's elsewhere, even if it doesn't go yellow, at least you're narrowing down the words where it could be.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is what that scoring looks like. You want to talk skewed distributions? There you go.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe2spdXtGxJRWOOjgmYYXQPzOjVRjFp6S8Ly4_eEMpU1dLD6lkwviitC4NJW2f9C1ITaZQAnku0airyh--opu87_G6i7K3DZM6CD8lPZfF8NVgQ0NmiyqdhD43MS9COZa3N76Qy21kTLp-FEZEQdfOzEgVKUpvBmKmrV4U_c4M4bjqaDx5oYci0kdB/s942/Waff347_Screenshot%202023-02-26%20at%2011.32.21%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="890" data-original-width="942" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe2spdXtGxJRWOOjgmYYXQPzOjVRjFp6S8Ly4_eEMpU1dLD6lkwviitC4NJW2f9C1ITaZQAnku0airyh--opu87_G6i7K3DZM6CD8lPZfF8NVgQ0NmiyqdhD43MS9COZa3N76Qy21kTLp-FEZEQdfOzEgVKUpvBmKmrV4U_c4M4bjqaDx5oYci0kdB/s320/Waff347_Screenshot%202023-02-26%20at%2011.32.21%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At 100 games back in June, I had 389 stars, and 0-3-4-8-14-28-43. That meant 43% of games were perfect, with the average star ranking being 3.89 (spread of 1.31). Given the 347 games we're at now, we see 41% of games were perfect, so that's a decrease. But I haven't fallen to zero stars in these subsequent 247 games, with my star ranking increasing slightly to 3.99 on average (spread of 1.10).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I trend towards four star games, essentially, with low spread. (The percentage for 4 OR 5 stars went up from 71% to 72%.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of late, there's also "Deluxe" waffles weekly, which is a 7x7 grid of 8 words. You get 25 moves, but these are much more tricky, because you don't have the corners. I have, on occasion, looked something up there if I have enough known letters (in wrong positions) to figure things out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't think deluxe scores are tracked, but there I MIGHT have closer to a normal distribution. Because I have very few 5 star wins, and at least once I've only won on the final swap. Anyone else is welcome to chime in with their observations.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://squareword.org/" target="_blank">SQUAREWORD</a></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is my last long runner. It's like wordle, in that you make a guess, and you learn whether you have correct letters in the right location... for five stacked words. But it's a 5x5 grid, and while you guess horizontally, valid words exist vertically as well. Which can provide clues for missing letters. You still get the info about whether letters exist but are in the wrong positions, but again just horizontally... they'll fill in vertically everywhere they align with the guess.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYQFgHl02bUFj0PIfkfzhc1egtytmI5EJZQAtSH9BMgIplqZ7jz4QrGe23gH9xc7jXni0prlljUzHkl6n4fTRfA4WgnXJTDW1CBgbXMd9xnGD3z42u40VjK_ySNLmKWMfqCy-rE4xq_HacAbZ-aDqxKnQJssbF6cy__4H7JgOuouphCmp8ASgDNQpd/s311/2ReciSheet.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="277" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYQFgHl02bUFj0PIfkfzhc1egtytmI5EJZQAtSH9BMgIplqZ7jz4QrGe23gH9xc7jXni0prlljUzHkl6n4fTRfA4WgnXJTDW1CBgbXMd9xnGD3z42u40VjK_ySNLmKWMfqCy-rE4xq_HacAbZ-aDqxKnQJssbF6cy__4H7JgOuouphCmp8ASgDNQpd/s1600/2ReciSheet.jpg" width="277" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">The trick with a game like this (as I alluded to <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2023/02/word-games-2-abnormal-wordles.html" target="_blank">last post</a> with kilordle) is to guess words that fill in the missing holes, rather than guessing the words themselves. Which can make for an extra challenge. For instance, if you've got **ICK, and you realize it's STICK, you should guess instead STEAL, because the ST will still complete the necessary word and now you have additional information from the EAL part for the other words. The challenge being picking a word that provides additional USEFUL information.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've beaten this one in five. It was not with the five words on the board.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My seed word every time (which I determined after a number of weeks) is "STARE". If that doesn't seem to go anywhere, my follow-up word is "DOING". By that point I generally have something I can reason out, or possibly look up in a dictionary. Yes, look up, as some words aren't common, it's not easy to make a 5x5 grid.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Playing this way on December 29th revealed one word **ARE and another ST**E. Giving me a chance. But that last one could be STONE or STYLE, while the first could have been any number of things. Still, an 'L' was likely given two vertical Ts, so I actually took the time to work out the most likely outcome based on all the rest of the grid. (For instance, HORSE seemed likely at the bottom.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Thus for my second word I went with FLONG. What's that? Dunno. (A bad fling?) It was accepted as a word, giving me both FLARE and STONE. That's exactly what I mean by not guessing the words themselves. And once I had that, I was able to enter the other three words, including the HORSE. (Had FLONG not worked, I would have tried to permute in/out the letters from the other words instead.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The final scoring here is green tiles for guesses 1-5, yellow for 6-10, orange for 10-15, and red for any guesses 16 or above. I've never had to move into the orange tile range on this one, though I've had some 10s. Here's the current stats for 240 games.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiCfICpC6VBMvukfyhR0m09gh5zL8EAvJL3qSK4KwjBn2ToPOJouWL7zzMMc2I0FR4pKZBGMxybeKjz5DgSaxySJiOvX805yoPNVkgD5RckxBlA5-XKtXaAEBvqWNjPSfjqu-k8YCph-eVE8MdItr3Zm1DCMP1pVUrxI2EUXftUfnKLj1nrYulAIha/s1158/SqaW240_Screenshot%202023-02-28%20at%206.56.21%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="1158" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiCfICpC6VBMvukfyhR0m09gh5zL8EAvJL3qSK4KwjBn2ToPOJouWL7zzMMc2I0FR4pKZBGMxybeKjz5DgSaxySJiOvX805yoPNVkgD5RckxBlA5-XKtXaAEBvqWNjPSfjqu-k8YCph-eVE8MdItr3Zm1DCMP1pVUrxI2EUXftUfnKLj1nrYulAIha/s320/SqaW240_Screenshot%202023-02-28%20at%206.56.21%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">The average is <i>exactly</i> 7.6 guesses to completion, with a spread of 0.965. Again it's a skew, which is reversed from the Waffle. Since there you want to end high, while here you want to end low.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There is another variation of this game out there, "Squardle" (not to be confused with the one below having an "e"). It has a waffle grid but is to be filled with guesses, not swaps. When I last played, words would fill in both horizontally and vertically simultaneously. You have a limited number of guesses, but by correctly getting a word, the guess doesn't count (ie- total is increased by 1, unless it was last guess). There was also a weekly board which looks like the squareword, but again limited guesses.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFUWtzXhYmK4qswETsRKnWTEFT3jg8yrAefPVo6eLvHciOqHqUvW_rxXTW9eVpEKWs9hf-v1C2HVxYdiEuWGRti5DeidIrNfu7zTMohMmsmp2l0Gga6lA3wb7QHx6g3COks-PkCN2RZcWC_CF7KnZUUs7QeN8Ip8F4OMLE3MsWywut35u-Oeae5EQU/s926/Squrdle_Screen%20Shot%202022-07-09%20at%203.07.01%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="926" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFUWtzXhYmK4qswETsRKnWTEFT3jg8yrAefPVo6eLvHciOqHqUvW_rxXTW9eVpEKWs9hf-v1C2HVxYdiEuWGRti5DeidIrNfu7zTMohMmsmp2l0Gga6lA3wb7QHx6g3COks-PkCN2RZcWC_CF7KnZUUs7QeN8Ip8F4OMLE3MsWywut35u-Oeae5EQU/s320/Squrdle_Screen%20Shot%202022-07-09%20at%203.07.01%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That game had some loading glitches in late May 2022, and I haven't made the time to return to it. I think I prefer the games where you can keep going past failure, takes the pressure off.</span></p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I will say that showing you which letters had to exist in a vertical or horizontal direction was a clever feature only in this game. As I recall, my first seed word was usually PEACH, my second was LIONS or LOINS (depending), and the third was RUGBY (if there's a Y, it's usually lower right corner). Then I'd play from there.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://squaredle.app/" target="_blank">SQUAREDLE</a></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Not to be confused with the one that has no "e" (above), or with Squaredle UK. That last involves swapping, much like waffle, but in a full 5x5 gird like squareword. And you could only swap along the horizontal/vertical, not diagonally. It started by scoring with maximums for time and swaps, then changed around when I stopped playing (I only played for a couple weeks long ago).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">No, this Squaredle has a board of letters which could be 3x3 for easy, 5x5 for more difficult, or simply a curiously patterned board of letters. It changes by the day. You move through the board like a queen does in chess, picking up letters to form words. I ended up trying it in summer 2022, starting to play more seriously in late August. Though a freebie paid weekend let me delve into the archive and play missing pieces all the way to August 1st for a longer streak.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The only thing is, it doesn't have a cumulative score, aside from the streak. Though there may be more features when you pay in. (They have a weekly puzzle for subscribers, for instance.) All you really get as stats looks like this:</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqXY_Hvx_1lnUeBESVeTL17M0PBZpAnPWDXd6hlOtD4X_Miblz8QAj0hhuydxTReoyRlEs39o1TZ7dRha9uDVVxMq2MyWkHJEnq-uwpNa7tOBPrwwtS_Hmj5A4HEc8K3P8bgF7gSAetknjHpVVTTLtUFOMEnFg_fE2pZ6-2XLrgctUyecef6AGlfJ/s1216/Square212_Screenshot%202023-02-28%20at%207.56.06%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="1216" height="91" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqXY_Hvx_1lnUeBESVeTL17M0PBZpAnPWDXd6hlOtD4X_Miblz8QAj0hhuydxTReoyRlEs39o1TZ7dRha9uDVVxMq2MyWkHJEnq-uwpNa7tOBPrwwtS_Hmj5A4HEc8K3P8bgF7gSAetknjHpVVTTLtUFOMEnFg_fE2pZ6-2XLrgctUyecef6AGlfJ/w448-h91/Square212_Screenshot%202023-02-28%20at%207.56.06%20PM.png" width="448" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>It gives </span><i>either</i><span> the percentage of accuracy (right/wrong guesses), percentage time (finish faster) or percentage bonus words (according to dictionaries), whichever is lower. All relative to the other players. Meaning the percentage can somewhat improve (or get worse) later in the day, once more have played. There are some little achievements you can win along the way too, as well as Special Puzzles like for holidays or the like (separate from the weekly paid one).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's very different than all the games I've mentioned before, and is something I can kind of have on in the background. I always try to get the Featured Bonus Word too, because it often provides interesting trivia (like about mach as a unitless measure) or background information on the puzzle's creation (which can hint at other words, like anniversary or something).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At this point, with a streak of 212, it has perpetual motion for me, much like the following game.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.andrewt.net/puzzles/cell-tower/" target="_blank">CELL TOWER</a></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I haven't found too many playing this one, but it's another fun one for which I cannot use a dictionary. In the same vein as Squaredle, you have a grid, but it's always 7 by 12. You need to divide the grid into regions of 4 to 8 letters, that read as english words from left-to-right going top-to-bottom. This last is interesting if there are "holes" due to other words... there is a connection to Tetris, almost. The goal is to use every single letter in the grid.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The scoring is a series of arrows, moving you to the right if you have a correct word in the correct place. A wrong sequence of letters will move you up instead; removing it moves you back down. I found this one early, and have been playing since Game #2, currently at #300. A few have given me trouble, but I haven't used the hint feature yet.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuoukmM7-PsQgqFqZwRd4eBhFINiJNSNf_STEwD2AH188Pz3OTeu0-wUDWWlAf33gGHwLVtx4QfGoHkeAt5v2A4TAkzQoBkSH1C8q9ZZdbaK4_M0U4Ytk0wqseAIav-bTvKfLBQ-B-6VhIQ0BW8QYf1VFyjmjbaf9aqFQKuNrRdYCRawsPEpvBcwe1/s1122/CellT_Screen%20Shot%202022-06-16%20at%208.40.20%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1122" data-original-width="646" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuoukmM7-PsQgqFqZwRd4eBhFINiJNSNf_STEwD2AH188Pz3OTeu0-wUDWWlAf33gGHwLVtx4QfGoHkeAt5v2A4TAkzQoBkSH1C8q9ZZdbaK4_M0U4Ytk0wqseAIav-bTvKfLBQ-B-6VhIQ0BW8QYf1VFyjmjbaf9aqFQKuNrRdYCRawsPEpvBcwe1/s320/CellT_Screen%20Shot%202022-06-16%20at%208.40.20%20PM.png" width="184" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">There was a typical end result, and again like Squaredle, there is no analysis comparing all prior games. I suppose I've been informally tracking the number of grids that I got correct on the first try, like that one. There's 30 out of almost 300 games, meaning I can do it about 10% of the time.</span><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://polygonle.com/" target="_blank">POLYGONLE</a></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Here is the last one I play regularly these days. This one replaces letters with different shapes and colours, where the words can be 6, 7 or 8 letters long... and there is always at least one double letter. (Often more than one.) So that's the goal as you guess words, use ones that have the double letter in the given position. You can guess without any repeats too, you'll just be wrong.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If I can think of a word with the required letter doubling, I'll try it. If not, or I'm in a hurry, I'll generally use FREIGHT or FREIGHTS to knock out letters. Followed by BLACKOUT if that first didn't produce much. (That's obviously 8 letters... the 6 letter case I can usually come up with a word, the 7 letter second guess tends to vary.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This time we're back to a regular scoring system of how many guesses does it take. Again, I don't go right to six guesses, largely because of my tendency to NOT play hard mode, and attempt words that give me information about missing letters.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At 100 games, the distribution was 0-26-47-24-3-0. Which is not far off a normal distribution, really! That data gives an average of 3.04 guesses, spread/deviation of 0.79. Now, 65 games later, we're starting to look a bit more skewed:</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLS3NDETX0XW7TJjFR9NDYwv44PGVg9wA_wUer8vQvJlLrO93mQPbt6qq0Oi4Sjvz3gyUeHs3XPM7mxQQBtxiH7P4HdCBWCL539FMPLTRonM3h0EMHcu9tJeurVZS6S7LvEahDlqVbVsJ5O0cFwGotaUTj0QSt0LRVFPQsvpZygHx-3_FS-jSSRXFD/s738/PolyShot_Screenshot%202023-02-25%20at%2011.56.31%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="738" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLS3NDETX0XW7TJjFR9NDYwv44PGVg9wA_wUer8vQvJlLrO93mQPbt6qq0Oi4Sjvz3gyUeHs3XPM7mxQQBtxiH7P4HdCBWCL539FMPLTRonM3h0EMHcu9tJeurVZS6S7LvEahDlqVbVsJ5O0cFwGotaUTj0QSt0LRVFPQsvpZygHx-3_FS-jSSRXFD/s320/PolyShot_Screenshot%202023-02-25%20at%2011.56.31%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The scores there an average of 2.95 guesses, and a spread/deviation of 0.800046 (so very slightly higher, even as my average decreased).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">You'll notice it is possible to achieve a score in 1 guess, perhaps more so than any other game. Still, it may be harder than you think, once you realize how many words have doubled letters in the same place. It was after thinking for a while, and playing around with suffixes that CLUELESS was the first one I scored on right away. Feel free to ask about the second if you're real curious.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At this point, we started the post talking about actual math, and here we are with mathematical shapes standing in for letters. A good place to end off.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">WRAP-UP</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There hasn't been as much generic mathematical analysis this time around, in part because of the different scoring systems used in every game. Of more interest might be comparing your game play to mine... and I'm curious about that, so feel free to let me know what you do in the comments.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Is your system better? Do you have a system? Do you want to adapt mine?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I guess the other thing this post has been doing is explaining is where some of my time has gone, as opposed to doing more blog posts or working much on "Time Untied", the Work-In-Progress sequel (which admittedly is over 225k words). The rest of the time being pandemic teaching and parenting, to be clear.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">These puzzle games are fun though, and easy to do in the background as I'm handling something else, which is harder to manage writing-wise.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That's everything then. Thanks for reading, comment if you have thoughts, see you in the next post. Whenever that is. (You can always check out my serial site, <a href="https://mathtans.wordpress.com/catalogue/misc-index/#SMoon" target="_blank">currently running "Marmalade Mercury"</a>, while you wait! That still updates regularly.) Take care out there.</span></p><div><br /></div>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-16980875995172635522023-02-26T20:02:00.001-08:002023-02-27T14:22:40.249-08:00Word Games 2: Abnormal Wordles<p><span style="font-size: medium;">This post is the second in the series looking at my scores for "Wordle", or more accurately, it's spinoffs. You can find the first post, where I look at the basic idea of having 6 attempts to guess a five letter word <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2023/02/word-games-1-normal-wordles.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>. There, many of the statistics followed a normal distribution. Now, our guess distributions will start looking abnormal. In fact, quite skewed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When I left off, we were going to look at Byrdle, the themed version that uses Music. The twist is, on May 3, 2022, they shifted from five letter words to six letter words.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BYRDLE</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The Byrdle was a curious one for a few reasons. It started with a massive skew, as I nailed my first puzzle in two, and by 10 had 0-3-3-2-1-1 for the guess distribution. After that I would only play it occasionally, until I'd started playing the others regularly, and decided to go for a longer streak.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So after 10 plays, my average word guess length (central tendency) to reach success was 3.4 with a standard deviation (spread) of 1.281 guesses.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After 31 plays, I was a perfect normal distribution. My average word guess length to reach success was 4.00 with a standard deviation of 1.164 guesses. So I saved it, and right after that happens to be <i>exactly</i> when they shifted to six letters, so I have a record both ways.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyKL_cGLyWcpoITqQUBXy8sas3GXUvlyvVZFOc2N5E6d0Nbw5YNQUVyAHp6Iu84xdevKMEDWcS_vg2yZouDm8pB6KN8WWTNV_nqKhWtvKK55EDyR2THg4q1jiZdxM1cTqutcmrga-CSI-2WncWERLzxV-Sf0L3i3Lyawu4tY5OuuYvbsyN7YFd4wPF/s861/ByrdEnd5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="605" data-original-width="861" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyKL_cGLyWcpoITqQUBXy8sas3GXUvlyvVZFOc2N5E6d0Nbw5YNQUVyAHp6Iu84xdevKMEDWcS_vg2yZouDm8pB6KN8WWTNV_nqKhWtvKK55EDyR2THg4q1jiZdxM1cTqutcmrga-CSI-2WncWERLzxV-Sf0L3i3Lyawu4tY5OuuYvbsyN7YFd4wPF/s320/ByrdEnd5.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Seed spoiler: My original seed word was TENOR, then it became CHORUS.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Once we were at six letters, the scoring also shifted to seven guesses. I never needed more than the original six guesses. More on why that was the case shortly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After 65 plays, my average word guess length to reach success was 3.94 with a standard deviation of 1.006 guesses. If we eliminate the five-letter run, after 34 six-letter plays, my average word guess length to reach success was 3.88 with a standard deviation of 0.832 guesses. Much better than the initial run.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After 100 plays (in early July), my average word guess length to reach success was 3.98 with a standard deviation of 1.049 guesses. If we eliminate the five-letter run, after 69 six-letter plays, my average word guess length to reach success was 3.97 with a standard deviation of 0.992 guesses. Almost normal again.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5kidLu_hRcB2xKUony31MCzGjjKzh30_m3hMfFZLdv5rzApBstt6ruBEbPl9nEPpWTYd74HzD4HovmFYuvsqknrKr5S6Ymcz8NkZ-aVVWacgcVtvq-45lgGrQRmd-667VpB6NZxEqGU5kX33xHxn30ZBYvut8Ozuag6AMCH4FCDNa0j3Eb6Xw3NC3/s904/Byrd100.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="904" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5kidLu_hRcB2xKUony31MCzGjjKzh30_m3hMfFZLdv5rzApBstt6ruBEbPl9nEPpWTYd74HzD4HovmFYuvsqknrKr5S6Ymcz8NkZ-aVVWacgcVtvq-45lgGrQRmd-667VpB6NZxEqGU5kX33xHxn30ZBYvut8Ozuag6AMCH4FCDNa0j3Eb6Xw3NC3/s320/Byrd100.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I stopped this one around then, certainly by end of summer... I don't recall any specific reason.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But here's the thing about giving the extra seventh guess, having more letters in a word doesn't make the game HARDER. It actually makes it EASIER.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If you go in with 5 letters and 6 guesses, it's 5*6=30 letters guessed in total, only slightly more than the alphabet itself. Yet if you have 6 letters and 7 guesses, it's 6*7=42 letters guessed in total, over 1.5 times the number in the English alphabet.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, every guess does have to be a word, but you can still exhaust letters faster. Then once you have them, you can jumble them around until you get what you need, often without needing that seventh guess. This is true even if the word is a composer's name.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I feel like the creators of the game didn't consider this mathematical analysis with the shift to seven guesses. I mean, this is all meant to be for fun, so why would they. Or possibly they were considering hard mode? Either way, a different game <i>did</i> consider it.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">WORD HURDLE</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This one's worth a mention, as I played it for a short while when it was six guesses for a six letter word.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It ran twice daily, and ultimately I found it annoying to have to make sure I played in the mornings to preserve the streak (not lots of time then) plus they were starting to vary the website with lots of other games they wanted me to play, and allowing for different length words, so I simply stopped the Hurdle way before I stopped any of the others.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My seed words were PLACES, then FRIGHT, knocking out almost half the alphabet. (Though you can bet I facepalmed the day the word was FLIGHT.)</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlW-EJYsirtag5V6CIn_pKA4DsLBlCV2lCBCrOx8GvxbXLYOPIahgY_dpBLptsc1Lg78BLwMy-2YHsFG4LIa2m5FZXjL86ZIkIfHpzQUL0fQimSpp_l3p2Dq-dxasKmLSlgI2thiVjaGoL28gCkPkjOAJ3wlTh3CukTsB4oH1bsTuJiiMnhnd9n-4I/s1090/Rare2_7Screen%20Shot%202022-04-16%20at%208.11.21%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="1090" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlW-EJYsirtag5V6CIn_pKA4DsLBlCV2lCBCrOx8GvxbXLYOPIahgY_dpBLptsc1Lg78BLwMy-2YHsFG4LIa2m5FZXjL86ZIkIfHpzQUL0fQimSpp_l3p2Dq-dxasKmLSlgI2thiVjaGoL28gCkPkjOAJ3wlTh3CukTsB4oH1bsTuJiiMnhnd9n-4I/s320/Rare2_7Screen%20Shot%202022-04-16%20at%208.11.21%20PM.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After 54 plays, my average word guess length (central tendency) to reach success was 3.80 with a standard deviation (spread) of 0.755 guesses. Yes, well under 0.8, WAY more consistent than the prior games.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Because again, with the extra letter of information you're afforded with each guess, you can work the whole thing out sooner, reducing the spread of your guesses.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">EXTRA GUESS GAMES</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now let's get into <i>why</i> the original Wordle gave you six guesses. Why not five or seven?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To answer this, let's consider the "extra word" spinoffs, which did increase the number of guesses. First, the ones that went in powers of two, another interesting mathematical connection.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There's the <a href="https://zaratustra.itch.io/dordle" target="_blank">Dordle</a> (two words, seven guesses), <a href="https://www.quordle.com/" target="_blank">Quordle</a> (four words, nine guesses), <a href="https://octordle.com/" target="_blank">Octordle</a> (eight words, 13 guesses), <a href="https://www.sedecordle.com/" target="_blank">Sedecordle</a> (sixteen words, 21 guesses), <a href="https://duotrigordle.com/" target="_blank">Duotrigordle</a> (32 words, 37 guesses) and <a href="https://64ordle.au/" target="_blank">Sexaginta-quattuordle</a> (64 words, 70 guesses).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To be clear, in these games, every guess counts for ALL words... so on the bright side, lots of information on a single guess, but on the down side, if you spend six guesses on the first word in dordle, you have only ONE guess left for the second word. (I would often shift back and forth. When I didn't, it tended to end badly.)</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqNXWuZ1HvA9VYx3mQV858w4TesJSkxH0qn2EAPm53eQ3aPfjG1MMtIQjhZb4uvxM9uPPWhKSLuyLBlXEP_MkVQqTJ3cDE7olf95ETfcnfGlCoI-1UJewLJNievRTp3ivkIO8R85Orvy3ClcnSbi_bVzuqoY2r4fr6JxtYKvVnuv0cY8Pu9hxJtnY7/s1158/Dord_Screen%20Shot%202022-05-27%20at%206.58.23%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1158" data-original-width="1124" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqNXWuZ1HvA9VYx3mQV858w4TesJSkxH0qn2EAPm53eQ3aPfjG1MMtIQjhZb4uvxM9uPPWhKSLuyLBlXEP_MkVQqTJ3cDE7olf95ETfcnfGlCoI-1UJewLJNievRTp3ivkIO8R85Orvy3ClcnSbi_bVzuqoY2r4fr6JxtYKvVnuv0cY8Pu9hxJtnY7/s320/Dord_Screen%20Shot%202022-05-27%20at%206.58.23%20PM.png" width="311" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><p>More to the point, you'll notice the number of words to guess is <b>always five more</b> than the number of total words. (Less the 64-dle, but if they did it you'd have 69, har har.) Even the ones that <i>aren't</i> powers of two follow this, the <a href="https://engaging-data.com/tridle/" target="_blank">Tridle</a> is three words in eight guesses and the <a href="https://jonesnxt.github.io/kilordle/" target="_blank">Kilordle</a> is a thousand words at once with 1005 guesses.</p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, with that last, you'll never reach 1005 guesses. Once you have green correct in all five places it starts automatically marking words as completed for you, and you'd probably have to make an effort to end with over 200 guesses. So why bother with saying there's 1005?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Think about it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The five "extra" words, times five extra letters each, is 25. Effectively an alphabet.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Remember how they used to test a typewriter/font? "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", which is a short sentence to get you a full alphabet, A-Z. (A bit faster is "Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz", and you're welcome to look up other pangrams out there.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Thus for five letter games, to try and get in the alphabet, you can use STOCK, FIELD, BURQA, NYMPH... and then gjvwxz can fight it out for what to have in fifth place left. (GOWNS? VIXEN?) My point being you can probably have a <i>sense</i> of ALL the letters needed per word by the time you reach your last guess.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, double letters are their own issue, so it's not quite cut and dried, but you get my point.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Thus when you have these guesses being filled into locations 2, 4, 8, even 64 times, you're getting a real good sense of what all the necessary words are. Any <i>more</i> than five extra guesses, and it's not going to be much of a challenge. Duotrigordle (32 words) even shows this number (the +5) remaining under guesses used. Likewise, much <i>less</i> than five words, and you begin to have a greater chance of losing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So, as I mentioned last post, I've tended to start every quordle with SPACE-ORBIT-HUNKY and then fill in the rest from there. (I omit the third word if I have a sense of what one will be already, ideally with a U.) The only times I tend to go wrong with these are when I decide to zone in on a word, and screw it up, though there are exceptions below.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Incidentally, in terms of the English root words... duo=2, tri=3, quad=4, oct=8, dec=10, and both sec and ginta can refer to 6. Now you can parse sexaginta-quattuordle. More mathematics mixed in with our English.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As to the fact that the popular games increase in powers of two... I suspect that's to make the display boards look nice? Unless anyone else knows of another reason not to have 50 somewhere? Let me know.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For now, let's conclude this post with a quick look at some of the multi-guess games I've played the most. By the way, these are all run by volunteer coders, you should support them if you can, the buttons are on each site.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">DORDLE</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This game resulted in my most initial losses, at three. I think only one was ACTUALLY unbeatable given my gameplay, the other two were me making either rash or foolish guesses, deviating from my normal play. </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>(You can see one of them above. Note the lack of ORBIT.)</span><span> </span><span>This is also the only game where I've occasionally done my own practice gaming, rather than only the new daily, which shows in the stats.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I have the results here at 100 games (from mid-June 2022), when I had 2 losses (based on the visible total of 98). I counted those as "8 guesses".</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Means an average guess length of 5.62, with a standard deviation of 0.936. That's a slightly higher spread than regular Wordle, reflected in a normal distribution having 95% of guesses (2 stddev right/left) in the range 3.75 to 7.49... and with 7 guesses max, this is toeing the line of not solving. </span><span>(Note: The bars on the right was the 20 practice/free games I tried.)</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9c9eHRFYbtlZYlm-yIpRBlXJUeisKAiC8zJwOyeisETRPhvmgQ53gBt0KqwFJB9JfDhGapbu4jnkWnSQfb9izRTTt_XaQh_NS4MMiCNL_218nCrDYzSdEbboywkYa-lNTazxuUCc4LJBXKb13Bax-mIiZqA3jEa5NAfe6yqjaldNyKKSSKKSNpirM/s1170/Dor100_Screen%20Shot%202022-06-14%20at%207.18.08%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="1170" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9c9eHRFYbtlZYlm-yIpRBlXJUeisKAiC8zJwOyeisETRPhvmgQ53gBt0KqwFJB9JfDhGapbu4jnkWnSQfb9izRTTt_XaQh_NS4MMiCNL_218nCrDYzSdEbboywkYa-lNTazxuUCc4LJBXKb13Bax-mIiZqA3jEa5NAfe6yqjaldNyKKSSKKSNpirM/s320/Dor100_Screen%20Shot%202022-06-14%20at%207.18.08%20AM.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So is this a normal distribution? It's starting to look a bit skewed, in that "4" is rare, "5" is the highest, trailing off towards a loss.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I gave this one up in late July, as I was going to be taking that trip to Europe and thus scaled back on the games I was playing. It didn't help that my current streak at the time was still less than half my earlier max streak... or maybe I'd just had a fourth loss? Not sure.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I should add that my final records from that time were definitely looking more normal, with the bars (starting from 4 guesses) for 142 games being 23-47-47-22 (and 3 losses).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">QUORDLE</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This game gave me my first ever loss, early on, and then one subsequently. But it's the one I kept coming back to, feeling like it's enough of a challenge, without taking too long. (Turns out there may be a mathematical reason.) There were different awards you could win too, which was clever. N</span><span style="font-size: medium;">ot just for number of games, but for instance, having played a game which had a triple letter like MELEE.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Alas, this game also acted weird when I did the time-zone change, not resetting my streak, but the counter just froze in place for two days... as if I hadn't played at all. I'd considered giving it up along with Wordle, but on the third day everything returned to normal.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So I kept going until September 10, 2022. When I lost my third time, at more than half the way back to my max streak, and decided that after over 200 games, that was a sign. Here's the final stats.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ-_ND_cy3MrEwroOMRuF2EivjfKgzpHIRBpleb6Ayd6Epr4u6632WD55L2DFiZXamBiRf1MWXpukS4cv-7leUtY6f3MqOeuMuyftADZPmFRwclNlslUCe-6vzlBte3Yu9FLXKlCbj_8eTpAGSE0H4OLGH7tfh7sRQ68dWTfqLMbYVQjraCuzME3FJ/s1126/QUoLOSS_PagerPaper_Screen%20Shot%202022-09-10%20at%209.05.48%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1126" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ-_ND_cy3MrEwroOMRuF2EivjfKgzpHIRBpleb6Ayd6Epr4u6632WD55L2DFiZXamBiRf1MWXpukS4cv-7leUtY6f3MqOeuMuyftADZPmFRwclNlslUCe-6vzlBte3Yu9FLXKlCbj_8eTpAGSE0H4OLGH7tfh7sRQ68dWTfqLMbYVQjraCuzME3FJ/s320/QUoLOSS_PagerPaper_Screen%20Shot%202022-09-10%20at%209.05.48%20PM.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">We can again see more of a skew happening with this one, oddly reversed from the Dordle in that the peak is much later. Meaning the skew is due to running out of guesses. (A bar at "10" would have more of a bell shape.)</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Average guess length was 7.87 with a standard deviation of 0.889 guesses... so this time the 95% spread was 6.10 through to 9.65, landing firmly in the "10 guess loss" area. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">I think that's why it felt like more of a challenge. To be sure, at least a couple of wins in 9 guesses were a 50-50 shot where I happened to succeed.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So are these games all basically normal, only going abnormal when you run out of space for guesses? Well, no.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">64-DLE</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm jumping to the one one that I started playing regularly, in large part to see if it was really possible to lose, if you had careful enough gameplay, given the sheer number of words. Consider that you have a LOT more to work with here. Meaning if the first guess doesn't have letters that appear in the first 20 words, try the remaining 44.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After 101 games, I never even ran into an instance of needing the 70th guess... which recall WAS one more than the +5 ("69, dudes"). And in fact I got two perfect games.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, 'SPACE' turned out to be a seed word twice, at which point I had to tread very carefully to fill in everything else without error. The first time (June 1st) I was very much in the moment (and cross-checking EVERYTHING in the dictionary, to make sure there wasn't an alternative word out there that I wasn't thinking of). The second time (June 29th) I scribbled a note.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">SPACE was followed by a word having 'H' (possibly SHAPE?), then I had a 33% chance on S*ASH. (Slash/Smash/Swash.) Fortunately, I guessed right, and then had enough consonants to progress flawlessly. Some of this IS luck. For that matter, I remember the word APACE coming up first at least twice before SPACE was a successful seed, vaguely annoying.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Anyway, here's the final results after the 100 games.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1_m7GhhzZguKJZIUE2bN1bmE0iWBDGL3ZCFBo_gR7y5QOliMNiAd_iYefpltD-5w9v40UIiAQaYCfvA-E85ezxU9KjqbNJkoNiqYj51bJC0xICGIWAT2M5os5qeDpLyyh_W7diJVrNJbCzwglhVsqLyha3-9mT_pvKWL9jMOnaO7KvP0KDv--dNFh/s986/100_64sScreen%20Shot%202022-07-23%20at%207.25.45%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="986" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1_m7GhhzZguKJZIUE2bN1bmE0iWBDGL3ZCFBo_gR7y5QOliMNiAd_iYefpltD-5w9v40UIiAQaYCfvA-E85ezxU9KjqbNJkoNiqYj51bJC0xICGIWAT2M5os5qeDpLyyh_W7diJVrNJbCzwglhVsqLyha3-9mT_pvKWL9jMOnaO7KvP0KDv--dNFh/s320/100_64sScreen%20Shot%202022-07-23%20at%207.25.45%20AM.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The average guess length was 66.37, with a standard deviation of 1.055. That spread of over 1 seems quite high compared to the others, until you notice the lower relative average. 99.7% of the time (three std devs left/right) we get a result of 63.2 (which is impossible) to 69.54 (which is within the 70 allotted). Meaning that - experimentally at least - every 64-dle game is winnable.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">But the real point here is that this is definitely NOT a normal distribution. It is heavily skewed on the right, with a majority of guesses being a low number, trailing off towards a loss. The difference from the earlier dordle being the loss never arrives... we have enough guesses.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Hold on, you say, is the issue just that I didn't play enough games? As with the dordle, which started to go more normal again, maybe this would after another 50 games? I suppose it's possible, but I don't think so.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">It's the sheer volume of words, really. After SPACE and ORBIT, I could usually pick out the 64 words through constant scrolling up and down for the most likely candidate. Sometimes I'd guess a wrong one, or assume only one word was possible when there was another, or even make an error in entry (as there was no auto-complete when I did this). But as long as I was careful, I'd always come in under 70. And I can't think of a reason why I'd suddenly start getting more 68s & 67s as opposed to 66s.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>I stopped playing after 101 games, in late July. I did check back in at one point, and it seems like they implemented an auto-complete much like Kilordle. Have you tried it, does it help?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">A last quick shout-out to their clever scoring system, that used colour coding to represent the words you got early on, versus the later ones (which interestingly kicked in at word 3, using special icons for 1 and 2, acknowledging how rare it is to nail those).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">THE OTHERS</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The ones between 4 and 64? I played them a bit. I do remember Octordle had fun with puzzle 88, though when I came back later it seemed to have wiped it's memory at some point, showing me with 0 games. They also developed a scoring system, which I never looked into. If you have some information about that, let me know, I'm curious.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Once you get through to Kilordle though, with the 1000 five-letter words, you can totally game the system. The board is constantly rearranging to show you the more plausible words you can get near the top. So if you see some entry that HAS to be, say, "FUNNY" (because almost all letters were right from BUNNY, and you know there's an F in there too)... you don't guess "FUNNY". You guess "FLORA".</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This means you've guessed an 'F' in first position, so you automatically get 'Funny' anyway (via auto-complete), while at the same time you've tossed some other letters onto the boards to help with your other guesses. Maybe "Flora" is even a word, or you get more than one auto-complete, hence bonus. Here was my best Kilordle, at 63:</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAnPuLyzSXAUxYzWGSvICzyFL0di9RmWwxoavkZjjx3EjgnWx2yV3mAh6kVxBM7oFv-NAfAC0qQ30D2xTdn0bByrURqnO1tKZTN_QXOBQW4L-BFNe4DDGhEFlis_r_MUMjxok5le5RBrZB-aZ1yoQ9gyzqYWX-7JT2dXyY2v1YWbdf8wpChA_zqYlg/s1186/Kilo63_Screen%20Shot%202022-08-24%20at%2010.17.58%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="716" data-original-width="1186" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAnPuLyzSXAUxYzWGSvICzyFL0di9RmWwxoavkZjjx3EjgnWx2yV3mAh6kVxBM7oFv-NAfAC0qQ30D2xTdn0bByrURqnO1tKZTN_QXOBQW4L-BFNe4DDGhEFlis_r_MUMjxok5le5RBrZB-aZ1yoQ9gyzqYWX-7JT2dXyY2v1YWbdf8wpChA_zqYlg/s320/Kilo63_Screen%20Shot%202022-08-24%20at%2010.17.58%20PM.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">So yes, it was literally possible to beat 1000 faster than you can beat a 64-dle.</span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now, with all of that covered, what else could possibly remain for what I forecasted would be a last post in this series? </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Why, it's the word puzzles that use grids which are cross sections, of course. Because an effective strategy for things <a href="https://squareword.org/" target="_blank">like squareword</a> is again, to NOT exactly guess the words. But rather, to guess words that share letters in the right positions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So we'll get into that... after I talk about Nerdle and the math spinoffs too.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Thanks for reading, comment if you have thoughts, see you in the next/last post.</span></p></div>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-44721975981435934652023-02-24T18:58:00.003-08:002023-02-27T19:40:33.806-08:00Word Games 1: Normal Wordles<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Spoilers for how I play the games, with some of my key successes and failures, if that matters to you. The majority of this post was also written in August 2022, way before the New York Times Wordle boycott of December 8th.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Title Explanation: "Normal" refers to the <i>normal distribution</i>, and "Wordle" to... well, you know those games where you have to guess letters? I'm going to do a mathematical analysis that looks at how I play those, from the basic game through the many variations. It will take three posts.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BACKGROUND</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For reference, the basic wordle was created and developed by Josh Wardle, as a guessing game to play with his partner. It was released publicly in October 2021 and exploded into social media. I resolved I would try playing at the end of January 2022, after the insanity of teaching in the Week-On-Week-Off Semester system was done. Though I ended up starting a couple weeks early with #212.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Basic Wordle, you have 6 attempts to guess a five letter word, with clues as you go: Whether something is in the correct position (green), whether something is correct but wrongly positioned (yellow), and whether something should not be there at all (grey). A bit like MasterMind.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZu4fWCTIsO4TKdWZq4eTaD3oKSrnzMERKSnDiLOthH6B3WuGHTc0V_k5NjIRCPEvIzHIYca7b4ucEgVaRnuiQtlndnk0GGkFQ39A3Bd0o0WNAegBiEUW5ymtLDRIJZrracrOP1g01tbJF_tZiq5hfHQYCVEYCc5Z4JCFN13nIBfuruD1namVB69n8/s770/W342_Screen%20Shot%202022-05-27%20at%207.32.20%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="770" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZu4fWCTIsO4TKdWZq4eTaD3oKSrnzMERKSnDiLOthH6B3WuGHTc0V_k5NjIRCPEvIzHIYca7b4ucEgVaRnuiQtlndnk0GGkFQ39A3Bd0o0WNAegBiEUW5ymtLDRIJZrracrOP1g01tbJF_tZiq5hfHQYCVEYCc5Z4JCFN13nIBfuruD1namVB69n8/s320/W342_Screen%20Shot%202022-05-27%20at%207.32.20%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><p>Hey, remember MasterMind?</p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There it was four pegs and six colours (leading to 6*6*6*6=6^4 or 1296 different patterns). In 1977, Donald Knuth demonstrated that such a pattern can be solved in five moves or fewer. However, to find an algorithm that would perform better on average (ie- not maxing out most of the time), later analysis by other mathematicians found a way with six turns as a worst case scenario.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">With Wordle, we have 26 letters and five positions, which implies 26^5 or 11,881,376 possibilities. Of course EEEEE isn't really a word. So the true number is apparently a little over 2,300... not quite double what it would be for MasterMind.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But what does this mean in terms of finding an algorithm?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm not investigating that deep, but this brings us to how I play the game. (Or used to, as I've since shifted to other, similar games.) There's three points to bear in mind as you read the later analysis.</span></p><h4><span style="font-size: medium;">KEY GAMEPLAY NOTES</span></h4><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b>(1) I don't play hard mode.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Hard mode is where a correct guess locks you into position. Your first guess shows the correct word starts ends with T and has an A somewhere? Then you can only guess words that end with T and contain A.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The main reason I don't play like that is because hard mode is so challenging as to make games impossible to win in the required six guesses. A quick example:</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> VIGOR locks in R, CLEAR locks in EAR, giving AFEAR, SMEAR (locking S), SPEAR, SHEAR and too bad, the word was SWEAR. (Pronunciation can be an annoyance, btw.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe there's a better impossible example from an actual Wordle out there, feel free to drop it in the comments, but you get the idea.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The way I would play that game (assuming I got to SMEAR) would be to use my second last guess as WHIPS. This immediately tells me I need a 'W', not an 'P' or 'H', meaning my last guess must be the correct word. Can't do that in hard mode.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This potentially skews me away from five-guess wins, but we'll see it hadn't come up often enough in 200 games to be a huge issue. It also adds the slight challenge of trying to find a word containing all of W-P-H partway through.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Well, semi-challenge... here's where I admit...</span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b>(2) I use a dictionary.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Time and stubbornness are big issues for me. I'm too stubborn to throw away guesses to get to the answer, but I don't necessarily have the 15 minutes needed to puzzle through all the variations on words that contain certain letters in certain locations. (It ends in O but is not NACHO or BINGO or HYDRO so wtf else is there... start the timer?)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Come on, I am teaching during a pandemic, and am the father to a three (now four) year old.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtysUNNv52N63N_NB1_w-uMKuyYuUAyA_XzkLcvBu7j0-d7TNJcL4PQgmFxnEiQX-XrhaPJ6lm2bpXz9OuMBW3F7DquHkhm6n-Qh2nyWzgbINF2niJbZt2kO9wm29Q77-NSmwv7HTT6lX5WDjcMR_m1FcI0yo4gZlJZ2kxCxyjBLk3XPEQ8_mUBdAx/s640/Haruhi_Suzumiya_Internet_demotivational.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="640" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtysUNNv52N63N_NB1_w-uMKuyYuUAyA_XzkLcvBu7j0-d7TNJcL4PQgmFxnEiQX-XrhaPJ6lm2bpXz9OuMBW3F7DquHkhm6n-Qh2nyWzgbINF2niJbZt2kO9wm29Q77-NSmwv7HTT6lX5WDjcMR_m1FcI0yo4gZlJZ2kxCxyjBLk3XPEQ8_mUBdAx/w320-h212/Haruhi_Suzumiya_Internet_demotivational.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">So, once I've narrowed things down, I will sometimes electronically look up all words that (for example) end in 'O', or start with 'S' and contain 'EA', et cetera. Sometimes I use the search further, to eliminate letters I know aren't in there too, to save even more time. Depends on if I need to start grading those unit quizzes.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Note that a search works MUCH better if I know the start or end of the target word by then. So while some may consider this cheating, so I consider it a reward for early good guesses. YMMV.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now, I also sometimes look up if a word exists having W-P-H (for the reason specified above), AND occasionally I'll look up my next guesses in advance. For instance, back to SMEAR, I'll do a web search on S*EAR... and see what it spits back. Do I truly have enough guesses left? Did I forget a possible word?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That last I don't do much with Wordle, but I'm pretty sure it is the only reason I've outright won a 64-dle in 64 guesses. More on that comes in my second post.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And finally...</span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b>(3) I don't vary my seed word.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's the same first word every time. And it's not 'ADIEU' or 'AUDIO', because I find that too restrictive. Sure, you've got a sense of the vowels now, but you need consonants to have a good chance of getting a result in two.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is a bit like that earlier idea of Knuth's algorithm only needing five guesses maximum... but probably five guesses minimum as well. I want a better chance of a win in two.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Want to know my seed?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Last chance to turn away.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Pretty much every Quordle started the same way: SPACE. ORBIT. HUNKY.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDN2WNFEhBChi3tWX6cykmitxtKK4DFtY1U1txTIW9wwJ5L5Vb0H5f52eaSI5jglC4OMUATyQ5WtFMe3ytxMmjTcSyUes1yX1upY0yDSMrpOdczd_Q9_m-V8ETRkuj8sSye3in5hQxJBdKK6qmf2U1qYnv8F_J9OUkhrseCGthWZbLLXVOhk2PVBBU/s864/SEED3_Screen%20Shot%202022-08-13%20at%207.17.52%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="864" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDN2WNFEhBChi3tWX6cykmitxtKK4DFtY1U1txTIW9wwJ5L5Vb0H5f52eaSI5jglC4OMUATyQ5WtFMe3ytxMmjTcSyUes1yX1upY0yDSMrpOdczd_Q9_m-V8ETRkuj8sSye3in5hQxJBdKK6qmf2U1qYnv8F_J9OUkhrseCGthWZbLLXVOhk2PVBBU/s320/SEED3_Screen%20Shot%202022-08-13%20at%207.17.52%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><p>The themed Wordles (see below) have a different seed, but it is still the same every time. A nice mix of vowels and consonants.</p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't know to what extent that affects my game play, if it all. But it at least means that if 'SPACE' is ever the word, I won't be sitting there going 'Damn it, the ONE day I didn't start with that word...'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And so that's my strategy. Let's get to the analysis and see how it played out.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">STANDARD WORDLE</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After 75 plays, my average word guess length (central tendency) to reach success was 3.973 with a standard deviation (spread) of 0.979 guesses. After 150 plays, my average word guess length to reach success was 3.913 with a standard deviation of 0.959 guesses.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After 200 plays, my average word guess length to reach success was 3.965 with a standard deviation of 0.924 guesses. So as time progressed, the average game was about as long as ever, but with my spread always decreasing.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5FC0K3gUdHVGRP8ZeG9sCmnr8h0Xi4OR0JyV9m64s2iWuRM8KBsxtrsgj74VxZT6a3uXwxhcZpqfvZzCz_-os2p6_jUQxTj0rnOA0PzXkC19aPRN1R3eDR5sYM84Hf7eKwqs-uOKhX3XK0JlJ2wL6Xp72PQr4EPNYcTL193pohWcjUuyM2SMdETPT/s870/200_Screen%20Shot%202022-08-06%20at%208.05.05%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="870" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5FC0K3gUdHVGRP8ZeG9sCmnr8h0Xi4OR0JyV9m64s2iWuRM8KBsxtrsgj74VxZT6a3uXwxhcZpqfvZzCz_-os2p6_jUQxTj0rnOA0PzXkC19aPRN1R3eDR5sYM84Hf7eKwqs-uOKhX3XK0JlJ2wL6Xp72PQr4EPNYcTL193pohWcjUuyM2SMdETPT/s320/200_Screen%20Shot%202022-08-06%20at%208.05.05%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We can see a roughly normal distribution in the end, if anything skewed towards faster guesses. I know, I know, the data is discrete, not continuous, but let's roll with it.</span></p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For a normal distribution at 200, 2 stddev left to right (95% of guesses) gives a range of 2.04 to 5.89 guesses, which seems about right.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If we go 3 stddev left to right (99.7% of guesses) gives a range of 1.082 guesses to 6.848 guesses. Meaning it wouldn't be completely out of the question to get it in 1 (except the word is never SPACE) or to need 7 guesses (but I try never to get trapped).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I finally stopped playing in August 2022. My streak broke, not due to a loss, but strangely because I changed time zones. I was in Europe, played there, flew back to North America, checked that the thing hadn't refreshed yet, and went to bed. When I got up, I guessed the new word... and it said my streak was "1" day.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I wasn't about to run another 212 days. There was talk that the NYT might monetize it anyway. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">I did play a couple more days to see if there was a glitch that would reset, but nope. So I was out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Still, back to the analysis: what are we to compare this to? Well, there are a lot of popular spinoffs, where the five letter words must relate to a particular theme.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">CANUCKLE</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Here the theme is Canada. Seed spoiler: I started this one with 'DONUT', until that was actually the word, when I shifted to 'PRIDE' (since it was June).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That game actually ended on July 1, 2022, after 142 words, so here were my final stats:</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG3cCNgixmgF4W_dpR-wX2vB8NwAfvG8W_HHi2l-rT-uzCuiQ3Zib5qlNPlxSt3HJoVv8m4X0WWDl-4jgPEW2dPeWmrsqeuvLtlQ1pWy9ZciMEon1wSqB499CFaLEk-npnP7TWa_SJ5LiaKGc1D0PyK48GyDrzBc0XNpm7XLC2NsIPC5yPBFtGI6FQ/s902/CANEND_Screen%20Shot%202022-07-01%20at%207.09.58%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="642" data-original-width="902" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG3cCNgixmgF4W_dpR-wX2vB8NwAfvG8W_HHi2l-rT-uzCuiQ3Zib5qlNPlxSt3HJoVv8m4X0WWDl-4jgPEW2dPeWmrsqeuvLtlQ1pWy9ZciMEon1wSqB499CFaLEk-npnP7TWa_SJ5LiaKGc1D0PyK48GyDrzBc0XNpm7XLC2NsIPC5yPBFtGI6FQ/s320/CANEND_Screen%20Shot%202022-07-01%20at%207.09.58%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><p>I know. *I KNOW*, streak of 99. If only I hadn't missed that one day near the start of finding the game, when I had a lot going on. Anyway.</p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After 12 plays, my average word guess length (central tendency) to reach success was 4.00 with a standard deviation (spread) of 0.913 guesses. After 55 plays, my average word guess length to reach success was 3.85 with a standard deviation of 0.799 guesses.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After those 119 plays, my average word guess length to reach success was 3.85 with a standard deviation of 0.885 guesses. I'm honestly surprised that, despite finally getting some 1s and 2s in the latter half, my mean didn't change... though of course those increased my spread.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Addendum post-Aug 2022: Funny enough, this game came BACK. Had to start up a new streak there, but I did reach 100 last month. Currently at 143 and still interested in playing it.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGagRGusudPGm5LHcTn9U2761zZBLJg6kf-9vPZkD5bZMvVEKFz8MnTFG1BSO5mLSZKHAguSL3rNViCoEs_9QlLG3mX-HEqkGJUMxsXPS8kRcIRuomNc3U3wutbLOKXcIdFRCslI3tQV2vlTRDyirEjvxFe2PzLf5bfTME8vIxJUDNXxWsG2902Kbk/s952/Canuk100_Screenshot%202023-01-13%20at%207.48.22%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="952" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGagRGusudPGm5LHcTn9U2761zZBLJg6kf-9vPZkD5bZMvVEKFz8MnTFG1BSO5mLSZKHAguSL3rNViCoEs_9QlLG3mX-HEqkGJUMxsXPS8kRcIRuomNc3U3wutbLOKXcIdFRCslI3tQV2vlTRDyirEjvxFe2PzLf5bfTME8vIxJUDNXxWsG2902Kbk/s320/Canuk100_Screenshot%202023-01-13%20at%207.48.22%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">STARDLE</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This theme is Astronomy. I started this one with 'COMET', until that was actually the word, when I shifted to 'PLUTO'.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This game can take credit for handing me my first loss. See below.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After 25 plays, my average word guess length (central tendency) to reach success was 4.2 with a standard deviation (spread) of 1.058 guesses. After 60 plays, my average word guess length to reach success was 4.13 with a standard deviation of 1.008 guesses. This was still before my first loss, but perhaps the larger values implied a loss would be inevitable.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Part of the tricky nature of Stardle (and later Byrdle) is the use of proper names, for astronomers and constellations. This means that my dictionary is of limited use, and sometimes I have simply had to spend the five minutes typing in a series of words to see which one is ACTUALLY a word (ideally correct) and not five random letters.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So maybe this is proof I could do this without the dictionary, given enough time to think?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, this means it can take longer to guess, as I first exhaust actual dictionary words, and we'll see I started with a much greater average, even though it all rounds to "4" in the end.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I lost on June 20th, 2022: COMET-PALED-WANES-EAVES-BRIEF-GAZES and the word was GASES. Ended the run of 78 wins. I've entered this as a '7 guess' to my spreadsheets, since I'd have had it then.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The very next day, June 21st, COMET was the correct seed word. How very normal.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After 130 plays, my average word guess length to reach success was 3.98 with a standard deviation of 0.953 guesses. I feel like part of me kept playing this one to reach better stats. In the end, the time-zone shifting broke Stardle the same as Wordle, and so I gave it up then too.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6yZNRO65IvwQWyfLsh0y9hlbd18wpNRwmxISveC-jHbD_7XrJhYVlqpi5Ryod1xYs0ZH_eoFi3xuNbe2lb02Hk1SpGytHgT4_2TCucpet4Xea5kl2ckG5Hp5-_U3dl2WwBRdH7T8qoLrnbQzNSzqSgm5Wn13fTPnUJ7BeGFW4FUmXJQu4yvNMnPSc/s862/StarDead_Screen%20Shot%202022-08-17%20at%206.10.02%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="862" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6yZNRO65IvwQWyfLsh0y9hlbd18wpNRwmxISveC-jHbD_7XrJhYVlqpi5Ryod1xYs0ZH_eoFi3xuNbe2lb02Hk1SpGytHgT4_2TCucpet4Xea5kl2ckG5Hp5-_U3dl2WwBRdH7T8qoLrnbQzNSzqSgm5Wn13fTPnUJ7BeGFW4FUmXJQu4yvNMnPSc/s320/StarDead_Screen%20Shot%202022-08-17%20at%206.10.02%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The only other <i>themed </i>game I've frequented is Byrdle, where the theme is Music. But I'll need to analyze that in the next post (along with dordle, quordle, etc) because at one point the Byrdle shifted from FIVE letter words to SIX letters!</span></p></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Goodness. Can that be normal? Well, we'll see.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Thanks for reading, comment if you have thoughts, see you <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2023/02/word-games-2-abnormal-wordles.html">in the next post</a>.</span></p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-6871252616618288172022-05-28T18:20:00.001-07:002022-05-28T18:31:24.326-07:00R.I.P. ONTARIO EDUCATION<p>Re-electing Doug Ford this week will be a disaster for public education. An absolute disaster. Not many are talking about this specifically, so here I am.</p><p>In case you were considering not bothering to vote.</p><p>Granted, part of the reason education is not being discussed more in the media is because climate change and healthcare privatization have been more front and centre. And those are important issues too. But when Ford holds up Lecce as the "best Education Minister ever" (Ontario debate, May 16), a LOT of scrutiny should follow.</p><p>It's not like Lecce's even sent out a perfunctory congratulatory tweet during Ontario education week. In fact in 2020, he sent out a hate tweet that week, saying educators were doing everything all wrong, and to get synchronous during the pandemic.</p><p>That's far from being the best.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ2EOOU41jFVeDOA-qFzNik-I_08kdFj6rYWtp7IdjdR7-uvFrQ9F7rZu2MIBHG8GsjS4fm6VW2xAUPSEakOQzDH73jqbYp_6i9p74C7y85kgqwCxmTnJvRsFoXPFV4u07nwy1cR5EbVeixC6eGY9c1L2MV1vq36oG-rRjEilIqMfqQBmbrYRmYeem/s1686/FordConsults_74171900_3021071144572954_1496003590995574784_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="1686" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ2EOOU41jFVeDOA-qFzNik-I_08kdFj6rYWtp7IdjdR7-uvFrQ9F7rZu2MIBHG8GsjS4fm6VW2xAUPSEakOQzDH73jqbYp_6i9p74C7y85kgqwCxmTnJvRsFoXPFV4u07nwy1cR5EbVeixC6eGY9c1L2MV1vq36oG-rRjEilIqMfqQBmbrYRmYeem/w400-h299/FordConsults_74171900_3021071144572954_1496003590995574784_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Political Cartoon by Steve Nease, 2019</i></div><p>I will also point out that another part of the reason for this silence on education is because Doug Ford convened an emergency debate session of the Legislature in June 2021, to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/notwithstanding-clause-vote-ontario-1.6064952" target="_blank">invoke the notwithstanding clause</a>. Overriding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This ensured unions and workers wouldn't be able to spend much money talking about the provincial government (because only political parties with a vested interest in winning can do that).</p><p>He was the first Ontario premier to ever use the clause, and no one seems to be talking about that either.</p><p>But I digress.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">ABOUT EDUCATION</h4><p>For those who don't know, Ontario is heading into a negotiations year in Sept 2022 for new education contracts. Across all the various school boards. In the prior negotiation, the Ford government was at best completely apathetic towards teachers and children, and at worst openly hostile.</p><p>You might have noticed how Ford's crew only ever bargain in the media, with high ranked officials (in any walk of life) literally only finding things out at the same time as the general public.</p><p>Do you even remember the prior negotiation, in Sept 2019? With all the job action that followed? No, no, it wasn't merely about salaries, perhaps you were listening to the propaganda.</p><p>Let's quickly have a look back at how bad things have become under Ford, through that lens, and where they're likely to go. And I'm not even talking about the Covid-19 measures here, though you are welcome to check out <a href="https://www.hereforstudents.ca/timeline" target="_blank">The Covid-19 Education Timeline</a> for more information, it's quite comprehensive.</p><p>I now present my top three reasons why Ontario Public Education is Doomed under Ford.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">3) Remote Learning Continues</h3><p>Ford and Lecce have made e-Learning courses a requirement for high school. They tried to have FOUR courses, presented through asynchronous learning, that were MANDATORY. (Spinning it as "we're in a digital age, you need to work with computers" or the like.)</p><p>The strike actions caused the government to walk it back to TWO courses, that parents could OPT OUT of (rather than opt into).</p><p>Here's the thing. The eLearning courses come with a funding cut, and even if all students opt out, the funding cut is baked into the requirement. So public schools get less money, and on top of that, we have no guarantee as to who is even teaching the online courses.</p><p>And yet, because of the pandemic, we've SEEN the difficulties involved with having to take courses online. Hell, big parts of the Ontario Conservative talking points have been "doing synchronous classes from home, not asynchronous" and "getting kids back into schools" which is precisely the OPPOSITE of what they're touting with their mandatory online courses.</p><p>Because all they care about are the funding cuts, and having less qualified teachers in classrooms.</p><p>On top of this, they're now shifting standardized testing to be online as well.</p><p>Hey, remember when Doug Ford made chairing the EQAO board that administers standardized testing <a href="https://www.ontariondp.ca/news/ford-creates-full-time-eqao-job-failed-tory-candidate" target="_blank">a full-time $140,000 per year position</a>? (As opposed to a part time position, less than $5,000 per year, under the Liberals.) That was back in 2019, after which the chairman did ZILCH for years because we couldn't run this stuff during the pandemic. And the chair is Cameron Montgomery, a failed Conservative candidate from Ottawa-Orleans.</p><p>Even RIGHT NOW, May 2022, they're trying to run the latest EQAO online for elementary students, and it's crashing. And hanging. And not saving student data. And so they're <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/eqao-paused-technical-issues-1.6468839" target="_blank">putting a pause on it to fix stuff</a>, messing up school timetables. All for $140,000 per year (plus expenses?).</p><p>The NDP and the Liberals have <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8822568/ontario-liberals-ndp-eqao-testing/" target="_blank">pledged to overhaul this system</a>, by the way.</p><p>Oh, as did Doug Ford in 2018, saying he would "fix the current EQAO testing regime"! Yeah, he's sure fixed it, hasn't he.</p><p><u>PROJECTION:</u></p><p>-Ford will return to his requirement of FOUR mandatory courses. Very possibly two you can opt out of, and two you cannot.</p><p>-Ford will increase the salary for the EQAO chair, because of all the difficulties involved in implementing the online testing. (Doing things online is difficult? You don't say?) Taking more money out of actual schools.</p><p>When the education sector protests, he will say that it's all complaints about the 1% wage cap, not remote learning or EQAO testing.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">2) Class Sizes</h3><p>In 2018, Ford and Lecce attempted to raise the average class size from 22:1 to 28:1.</p><p>Should I explain that one again, in case you forgot about 2018? "Average" class size means if a class of 30 students runs, a class of 14 can run also, balancing the average to 22. The smaller class likely being a less popular elective course, like arts or technology or special education.</p><p>By increasing the average, if a class of 30 students runs, a class of *26* is needed to balance the average, so many elective courses are GONE, because they don't have the numbers. Hell, many computer labs only have 20-25 computers in them, and you can't have 20 students all using the lathe at the same time.</p><p>The alternative is running a class of *40* students so that your class of *16* can run. Which did start happening as the school boards tried to navigate this horror show.</p><p>The strike actions and the union were able to <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6625163/ontario-schools-class-sizes-e-learning/" target="_blank">keep that increase at 23:1</a>.</p><p>This still increased class sizes *during a pandemic*. Part of the problem being class collapse funding, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVG3P8riZbM">explained in this video</a>.</p><p>Oh, Ford didn't know the pandemic was coming?</p><p>Well, NDP Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath put forth a motion to force the <a href="https://kitchener.citynews.ca/local-news/ndp-motion-to-force-class-size-cap-fails-2722006" target="_blank">Ford Government to cap class sizes at 15</a>, in September 2020, because of Covid-19. The Ford government itself had just cut back social gathering limits to 10 people indoors (from 50 people).</p><p>Ford's majority government easily defeated it. Because... the experts at SickKids were <a href="https://niagaraatlarge.com/2020/09/18/ford-conservatives-vote-no-to-ndp-motion-to-cap-classes-at-15-students/" target="_blank">wrong in their recommendation</a>? Schools... aren't indoor gathering places? How dare we... care about children? I don't know.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Fl1q644AnlVcYWLoNTqsw_QOl21FFaPG4P4osJZUpmL2xY7Kuo8UERxSY8adC6YYXapu8Ls4YqzaLwrDxZ2fIaBMFFrMhsMUGT553RcoQkFEuSTOvv08uC7k8zdCGaVxI5mzg2pwdJcjNP3maT-vak9EECE76iuEJ3z2eIK08tfWqInu2fJof9o6/s1654/TMoudakis_FJfF0IXWQAAVZIU.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1603" data-original-width="1654" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Fl1q644AnlVcYWLoNTqsw_QOl21FFaPG4P4osJZUpmL2xY7Kuo8UERxSY8adC6YYXapu8Ls4YqzaLwrDxZ2fIaBMFFrMhsMUGT553RcoQkFEuSTOvv08uC7k8zdCGaVxI5mzg2pwdJcjNP3maT-vak9EECE76iuEJ3z2eIK08tfWqInu2fJof9o6/s320/TMoudakis_FJfF0IXWQAAVZIU.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Political Cartoon by Theo Moudakis</i></div><p>Wrapped up in all this, of course, is the fact that larger class sizes means fewer teachers are necessary. (Now that we're running a single class of 40 instead of two classes of 20, right?) And which teachers are most likely to lose out, in such a scheme?</p><p>It's not just teachers, either. Several HUNDRED jobs in the education section <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/several-hundred-jobs-for-ontario-education-workers-are-set-to-be-eliminated-after-the-election/" target="_blank">will be eliminated after the June election</a>, because the "temporary" education funding, provided during the pandemic, will be gone. This is mostly education assistants and early childhood educators.</p><p>And on the topic of funding, Ford has also rolled the federal child care program into his budget, so that he can claim he's "spending $1.5 billion more" on education, when NONE of that money is going to K-12 education. Projections are currently on track for the education system to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-education-spending-gap-1.6047233" target="_blank">see a 12.3 billion dollar shortfall</a> over the next decade.</p><p><u>PROJECTION:</u></p><p>-Ford will return to his average requirement of 28:1. Because "the pandemic is over" and "23:1 didn't cause severe damage, did it". He will then back off to 25:1 because of "how kind and generous he is" (but that's still a clusterf*ck).</p><p>-Ford will tout these larger class requirements as necessary because of the teacher shortage. (And what the hell do you think caused that, Ford? ... Never mind, he'll blame the pandemic.)</p><p>-Ford will continue to underfund education until he can say it's a failure, and privatize it, as he is already in the works to do with health care.</p><p>When the education sector protests, he will say that it's all complaints about the 1% wage cap, not class sizes or teacher/student working conditions.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1) Destreaming Horror Show</h3><p>We want destreaming. But not like this. (Seriously, who wished on the monkey paw?)</p><p>The idea of "streaming" is to offer different sequences of core courses (generally being english, science and math) at different ability levels. Arguments in favour are that students with different aptitudes should take different level courses, while arguments against are that it limits the pathways too soon, usually for students already facing challenges (whether racial, economic, or otherwise).</p><p>Think that limiting wasn't happening in Ontario? <a href="https://peopleforeducation.ca/our-work/how-ontario-can-get-de-streaming-right/">Think again.</a> Streaming in fact existed in Ontario long ago, under the levels Basic/General/Advanced. (eg. MAT1B, MAT1G, MAT1A.)</p><p>But the BGA system was overhauled in the 1990s. Bob Rae and the NDP came to power in 1990, and <a href="http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~icec/policytrends.pdf" target="_blank">in June 1992 announced destreaming of Grade 9,</a> with a "Common Curriculum", integrating special education students in the regular classroom. This destreaming had already begun by/in 1994 (I'm hazy on timelines, I was finishing high school myself then).</p><p>Mike Harris was elected in 1995. His Conservatives endorsed the NDP plans to make high school four years instead of five (Ontario used to have OAC) but cut the operating grants for all school boards (as you do when you're Conservative). They also established the EQAO and OCT, and precipitated huge teacher strikes in 1997.</p><p>Oh yeah, in 1995 the education minister (John Snobelen) was caught on tape saying they wanted to "create a crisis in education" to "gain public support for reform". Makes me wonder again about Doug Ford's mandate letters <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8847943/supreme-court-doug-ford-mandate-letters/" target="_blank">that he refuses to release</a>. Anyway.</p><p>Then, in 1998, Mike Harris announced *re-streaming* the curriculum into Applied/Academic, for implementation in Sept 1999. This would phase up through the years to Grade 12, at which point a "double cohort" would graduate in 2003 (both Grade 12 and Grade 13), after which Grade 13 would be gone.</p><p>The Grade 9 re-streaming program was only released in mid-Summer 1999, a month before it's implementation. (Well, that sounds familiar.) The Applied/Academic system still exists today, even with the Liberals having come to power in 2003, and putting out a revised curriculum in 2005.</p><p>We all clear on the history now?</p><p>Destreaming has, in fact, been a point of discussion even in the later Liberal years in Ontario, with the notion of inequality being on the rise (rightly so).</p><p>The destreaming of Grade 9 math <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/destreaming-plan-sept-2021-1.5643740" target="_blank">was announced in early July 2020</a>, just as educators had completed three months of difficult remote learning at the start of the pandemic. Also released around the same time (June 24, 2020) was a completely new Mathematics Curriculum for Grades 1-8. "The system is broken, and we're fixing it," Ford said.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiH8Tepx939CEf97wt5fsMh0vI3lnieTkVQwlzCzzOPU4M-XpfrQMhvtl2VwpKef-54jAvsp1j2a9UXApazqWLsMW6fQop4uSQJzpsG6uMVS5C1fUFx87DaLLSNU-Dy3wuBVMtRoQTWQNwksXa4pwr6f_K3SM63PVtOqcrIticjYBR2JmyWEYL40C1/s417/GraemeMacKay_Feb192020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="417" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiH8Tepx939CEf97wt5fsMh0vI3lnieTkVQwlzCzzOPU4M-XpfrQMhvtl2VwpKef-54jAvsp1j2a9UXApazqWLsMW6fQop4uSQJzpsG6uMVS5C1fUFx87DaLLSNU-Dy3wuBVMtRoQTWQNwksXa4pwr6f_K3SM63PVtOqcrIticjYBR2JmyWEYL40C1/s320/GraemeMacKay_Feb192020.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Political Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Feb 2020</i></div><p>The elementary curriculum was to be implemented for that September 2020, even as some parents had chosen to stay with remote learning, an added complication. Also, concepts and examples were not part of the June 2020 unveiling, they would be added "over the summer and throughout the school year".</p><p>The new grade nine curriculum was to be implemented in September 2021, and was unveiled in June 2021. At that time, the Ministry of Education did not say whether students and parents should expect a removal of streaming in other courses or grades. They saved that announcement for March 2022, closer to the election - it's affecting science, english, geography and french.</p><p>Let me clarify the problem.</p><p>During a global pandemic. The Ford government unveils completely new curriculums. In June. For implementation in September. Repeatedly.</p><p>And I have no doubt that this was in the works from when they first came to power in 2018. The problem is twofold:</p><p>1) <b>The complete lack of any course correction in light of the pandemic</b>, which stressed teachers almost to the breaking point already. Not merely over health concerns and trying to teach with your own children in the other room, but the need to pivot back and forth with in person and online learning, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q035f-CZco4" target="_blank">and more</a>.</p><p>2) <b>The complete lack of any support for destreaming</b> in the form of proper funding or class sizing (see my point #2 above), which is even <i>worse than you think</i>.</p><p>Because Applied classes, as a rule, were generally SMALLER than Academic classes. Because these were seen as the students who needed more support. More one-on-one time with the teacher. Some boards even have that in their contract agreements, actual hard class size caps based on the level of the course.</p><p>Of note, there's also Open level classes in the system, generally elective courses, which have a mix of students, and the class cap there is generally somewhere in the middle.</p><p>These new destreamed courses? Do not have this requirement for smaller sizes.</p><p>For example, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has mandated that for Grade 10 in September, no Applied Math course will be run. Grade 9 was destreamed, so everyone will go into the Grade 10 Academic course. (They can still choose a pathway in Grade 11.)</p><p>Sounds good on paper, but given the class size for Academic is even higher than that of an Open course, you're going to end up with students who CANNOT get the supports they need from the teacher. Because even assuming said teacher still has the energy to provide it, they don't have the time in a class of 32 students.</p><p>They'll also be so busy grading 32 papers (instead of 24, literally 25% less) that they won't have much time left over to actually create better materials for the new curriculum itself.</p><p>And now this same kind of scenario is going to play out in Grade 9 science, english, geography and french.</p><p>To get destreaming right, we DESPERATELY need MORE TIME and SMALLER CLASSES. And there is no way in hell that we're getting that under an Ontario Conservative Government. Only another government can fix this.</p><p>I anticipate a massive backlash in Sept/Oct of 2023, when the first Grade 9 destreamed math students hit the Grade 11 curriculum. If it doesn't happen sooner, owing to Grade 10 students unable to even achieve the necessary Grade 10 prerequisite to get to a College level course.</p><p><u>PROJECTION:</u></p><p>-Ford will declare that the failure in destreaming is in the educators, not in the lack of resources. He will use this as further proof that the system is broken, and in need of privatization.</p><p>-Ford will continue to state that he's doing everything he can for equity, conveniently forgetting he <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/ontario-government-cancels-summer-work-updating-k-12-indigenous-curricula/" target="_blank">cancelled work on updating the indigenous curriculum in 2018</a> and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8031201/doug-ford-math-curriculum-racism-removal/" target="_blank">removed language about racism and colonialism</a> from his own government's new math curriculum in 2021.</p><p>I mean, at this point, we all know Ford can just make up stuff, as he did during the May 16th Leaders' Debate. Like saying nurses got a "7% salary increase through a bonus", which is not what a bonus does, was subject to qualifications, and even it if WAS true would barely above what inflation is ANYWAY (it's over 6.5% now).</p><p>Or like saying Lecce is the "best Education Minister ever".</p><p>When he's not. At all.</p><p>Except maybe to the private schools <a href="https://twitter.com/i/events/1513176076683517954?lang=en" target="_blank">who got RAT tests when the general public was pleading for them</a>, but I said I wasn't going to talk directly about Covid-19 and this column is already getting too long.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">IN CONCLUSION</h4><p>I've already written way too much about how Doug Ford is not fit to be the premier of the province (feel free <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2022/05/ford-is-wrong-choice.html" target="_blank">to check that out</a>), and now about the education sector in specific. So what can we do about it?</p><p>First of all, vote. <b>VOTE</b>. Ignore the polls, and have your voice be heard.</p><p>As <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/which-party-leader-do-you-trust-most-plus-rick-mercer-takes-your-calls-1.5282301/make-your-opinions-known-rick-mercer-says-andrew-scheer-needs-to-make-his-same-sex-marriage-views-clear-1.5284709" target="_blank">Rick Mercer has said</a>: <b>"If your choice is a kick in the head, a punch in the head, or a slap in the head - you've still got to think about it and go, 'I'm going with a slap in the head'."</b> Otherwise, everyone else will decide you get kicked in the head instead, and that's on you.</p><p>But second, and I honestly hate to say this, we may <a href="https://votewell.ca/" target="_blank">have to vote strategically in certain ridings</a>. I say that because Lisa MacLeod is still leading somehow in Ottawa West/Nepean.</p><p>Lisa MacLeod, who had parents <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5289235/lisa-macleod-ontario-autism-consultations/" target="_blank">calling for her resignation in May 2019</a>, when she was Minister of Children, Community and Social Services. Because of what was done to the autism program, which Ford and company said they would fix. Instead, as of now, the wait list has gone from 23,000 to 53,000 children.</p><p>Lisa MacLeod, who made news earlier this month when it became known that she had received an <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/nepean-riding-association-gave-mpp-lisa-macleod-a-44000-mpp-allowance" target="_blank">additional $44,000 dollars as an MPP allowance</a>. On top of her regular six figure salary as a cabinet minister (now with Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries), and on top of her monthly housing allowance.</p><p>That Lisa MacLeod has 31% of the polling vote, versus 29% for Liberal and 26% for NDP in her riding. Conservatives like her are sleepwalking into victory, and they need some form of a wake-up call. Along with Ford himself, who has told PCs not to attend debates, didn't even release a platform (just a budget that hasn't yet passed) and who isn't bothering to campaign the weekend before the election.</p><p>But then, there's a reason Ford worked to <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ford-government-moves-to-scrap-ranked-ballot-elections-for-ontario-municipalities-1.5153197" target="_blank">revoke the power granted to Ontario municipalities to hold ranked ballot</a> votes. (London, Ontario did ranked voting in 2018.)</p><p>Please vote this June 2 (<a href="https://votewell.ca/" target="_blank">strategically</a>?), to provide the necessary wake-up call.</p><p>Otherwise, this post is going to serve as my sad "I told you so" in September, when Ford does everything he can to prevent fair, collective bargaining of education contracts. Again.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBOhiCu2E9kh--MQH214qI640xN1UrTmixzKH4R_CYC07-Lggi-SqVMS0eMVof3M0pLfEbwaU6YLdih0zS2OAVJ6FtlD2iYvN9AUG04EORp2GSjRn_igVm1X-nn7csOu8XzGuz_B_z_3GrP_UnBa660_3EcNpdFjT3_bkK20qXOny6s6uC9z0sh2FM/s1200/TMoudakis_FPhnfC2XoBAaf3V.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1134" data-original-width="1200" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBOhiCu2E9kh--MQH214qI640xN1UrTmixzKH4R_CYC07-Lggi-SqVMS0eMVof3M0pLfEbwaU6YLdih0zS2OAVJ6FtlD2iYvN9AUG04EORp2GSjRn_igVm1X-nn7csOu8XzGuz_B_z_3GrP_UnBa660_3EcNpdFjT3_bkK20qXOny6s6uC9z0sh2FM/s320/TMoudakis_FPhnfC2XoBAaf3V.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Political Cartoon by Theo Moudakis, April 2022</i></div><p><i>(Thank you for reading to the end, with additional thanks to my wife for spending extra time with the little one today so that I could complete my research and get this out. As always, take care out there.)</i></p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-18128334852493934282022-05-09T20:15:00.000-07:002022-05-09T20:15:09.385-07:00Ford is the Wrong Choice<p>Doug Ford is a nice enough guy, but he is a bad provincial leader.</p><p>Possibly a controversial take, as some liberals won't agree with the first part, while some conservatives won't agree with the end of that sentence. So stick around to find out why I said that.</p><p>For those who don't know, Doug Ford is currently the leader of the Conservative Party of Ontario. He was elected premier with a majority government in June 2018, after fifteen years of Liberal government (under McGuinty and Wynne).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-67V52nHGP6yKRZybc1wGXFbeIQkoNBOB6M3er2jpu9b-RjN3eN2t4CewvQHfLrIw09LDquMQ79hCZtxv7NELq-cvMTWvT0NWJansbtEZkYBauvldGj0nfVuNOB3jRy69-yr5C8r7jnjOmGSB_wq8wErCANNCRI6G4OpLvJUJv9v_5vXKsUohNsWs/s2048/FordJan2_2022.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1289" data-original-width="2048" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-67V52nHGP6yKRZybc1wGXFbeIQkoNBOB6M3er2jpu9b-RjN3eN2t4CewvQHfLrIw09LDquMQ79hCZtxv7NELq-cvMTWvT0NWJansbtEZkYBauvldGj0nfVuNOB3jRy69-yr5C8r7jnjOmGSB_wq8wErCANNCRI6G4OpLvJUJv9v_5vXKsUohNsWs/w400-h251/FordJan2_2022.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Pictured: Doug Ford, January 2022</i></div><p>For those who DO know, and who have already made your decision for June 2022, I doubt I'm going to change it here. Some people are staunch conservatives, some always lean liberal, and this article isn't likely to convince you otherwise.</p><p>But for those who are undecided? Please read on.</p><p><b>Please, PLEASE use this summary as part of your decision making.</b></p><p>Heck, even if you have decided, I would encourage you to stick around too. Maybe there is something in here that you have forgotten. It may deepen your convictions, or help you to understand the dire circumstance that many believe Ontario is in as a province right now.</p><p>I now present my top three reasons why Doug Ford is a bad provincial leader.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">3) FORD IS A BULLY</h3><p>Being a bully is not necessarily a bad quality to have in a leadership position. True, one could argue that it's better for a leader to persuade others, rather than intimidate or coerce them into action. But if stuff has gotta get done, in particular during a pandemic, "do this or else" is a pretty solid take.</p><p>Some have accused Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister of Canada) of using similar methods.</p><p>For an example, in 2019, Ford capped the wage increases of provincial employees, including nurses and teachers, at 1% per year (below inflation). That's Bill 124. The Ontario Nurses' Association met with Ford <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/premier-ford-health-minister-ontario-nurses-meeting-thursday-1.6339603" target="_blank">as recently as February 2022</a> (considering the pandemic, staff shortages, and everything since the bill went into effect), but he's not budging.</p><p>Alternatively, in mid-April 2021, Ford closed all outdoor spaces, including playground and golf courses. While he did reverse course on playgrounds, <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ford-to-keep-golf-courses-closed-amid-cries-for-outdoor-activities-to-return-1.5426868" target="_blank">golf courses remained closed</a> right through May, despite criticism that outdoor activities posed a lower risk than indoor ones. Despite that, Ford was convinced this was the right call.</p><p>As long as Ford thinks something is worth doing, he'll make sure it gets done.</p><p>The problem is, Ford's motivations are often not in the best interests of the people living in the province.</p><p>For instance, part of the reason you haven't heard much from the Ontario Liberals in the last four years (other than the fact that the NDP is the official opposition) is that they are <i>NOT OFFICIALLY A PARTY</i>.</p><p>The 2018 election was so bad for them that they won only 7 seats; they needed 8 to <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/the-ontario-liberals-have-lost-official-party-status-but-what-does-that-mean-1.3966028" target="_blank">have official party status</a>. Meaning they don't get funding for staff salaries, they're excluded from debates, and basically must operate as independents.</p><p>The Liberals asked the PC government to grant them some accommodations. This is not unheard of; the NDP received some funding from the Liberals themselves back in 2003, when they failed to achieve party status.</p><p>Doug Ford's response was to not only keep funding away, but to <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/ontario-government-to-raise-threshold-for-official-party-status-1.4175699" target="_blank">RAISE THE SEAT THRESHOLD</a>, so that the Liberals would need 12 seats in this next election, rather than 8. The claim was that 10% of seats was necessary after the size of the legislature increased.</p><p>Anyone can come up with a good reason for the things that they do, but the optics of the situation remain. Why is it better for Ontario to have only two official parties?</p><p>And speaking of elections, remember the 2018 Toronto mayoral election?</p><p>Registration for candidates closed at the end of July 2018. (Doug Ford, former city councillor and runner-up in the 2014 election, had planned to challenge the office but then sought the provincial leadership instead.) In August, Ford passed legislation to cut the size of Toronto's council down to 25 wards, instead of 47.</p><p>Sure. In the middle of an election, let's have almost half the wards, doubling the size of the territories, making candidates campaign in areas of the city where it hadn't previously been necessary.</p><p>A judge said that was unconstitutional. Doug Ford said the hell it is, I'll invoke the Constitution's notwithstanding clause if I have to. He called an emergency session, and the public gallery had to be cleared of spectators when he tried to revive the bill. The NDP banged on their desks to try and drown out the reading, and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4443280/doug-ford-toronto-council-democracy/" target="_blank">they were kicked out of the House</a>.</p><p>Ford didn't care, Toronto stayed at 25 wards, and he took this one all the way to the Supreme Court. Where, to be fair, he won in a 5-4 split decision that said <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-supreme-court-ward-ruling-1.6194241">he did not violate the Constitution</a>. And he didn't invoke the clause (that time).</p><p>But how was any of that in the best interests of democracy? What was so pressing, so urgent about the size of Toronto's council that a local election HAD to be disrupted?</p><p>The final decision was also close, perhaps could even have gone the other way, so let's quickly revisit a more famous judicial loss.</p><p>Under the Liberals, Ontario enacted a cap-and-trade program in January 2017, to attempt to achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. Doug Ford <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-officially-ends-cap-and-trade-1.4885872" target="_blank">killed that as soon as he could</a>, but Justin Trudeau (the federal Prime Minister) had said there would be a federal carbon tax for provinces without their own carbon pricing system.</p><p>That came into effect in April 2019, in Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. It meant a cost increase of gasoline (and propane), but with a rebate at tax time, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tasker-federal-carbon-tax-explainer-1.5077445" target="_blank">making this tax revenue-neutral</a> (though some Canadians would pay more in taxes than they would gain from rebates).</p><p>Doug Ford's response? Well, you can't bully a bully. He required all gas pumps to show a sticker saying <i>"The Federal Carbon Tax will cost you"</i>, which showed a poorly scaled graph, with no mention of the rebates. He then fined gas stations $10,000 per day if they didn't comply. (A judge would lower that penalty to $150 per day.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKgD3_dNlMOZ4UCTGmTje-uOB1mwIXoLnTMnkozYiknQf_yiLkGzXR5-ZweYTmaW_N6hHHYQkA4gxYfsxCPnBibQC8ar_BHGMUaWYL30MFvcRNIzk9NvJNL0kbHjug84x4EvGOohj_-LXDojzxMvBadLq2TA8YpoHCmHZgdCI8REUmvfiEqMN_1aBd/s1640/gps-final-print-en.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1640" data-original-width="1270" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKgD3_dNlMOZ4UCTGmTje-uOB1mwIXoLnTMnkozYiknQf_yiLkGzXR5-ZweYTmaW_N6hHHYQkA4gxYfsxCPnBibQC8ar_BHGMUaWYL30MFvcRNIzk9NvJNL0kbHjug84x4EvGOohj_-LXDojzxMvBadLq2TA8YpoHCmHZgdCI8REUmvfiEqMN_1aBd/s320/gps-final-print-en.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>This sticker is very unhelpful</i></div><p>An Ontario Superior Court judge ultimately <a href="https://www.cp24.com/news/ford-government-s-anti-carbon-tax-sticker-law-unconstitutional-ontario-court-finds-1.5093283" target="_blank">struck this down as unconstitutional</a>, saying that while a government can call out another tier of government for their actions, they cannot legislate that private retailers do the same.</p><p>The Ford government's response to this was to say the stickers could be left up or taken down, whatever. Meaning by the law of inertia, many of them stayed up. With the stickers themselves and the court challenge coming out of taxpayer dollars.</p><p>Another unnecessary fight that has not benefited the people of Ontario in any way.</p><p>The Supreme Court ultimately ruled 6-3 that the federal government <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/supreme-court-federal-carbon-tax-constitutional-case-1.5962687" target="_blank">was in their rights to impose nationwide pricing standards</a>, considering the great threat of climate change.</p><p>But the problems with Ford go beyond bullying those at various levels of government.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">2) FORD DOESN'T LISTEN WELL</h3><p>I mean, he DOES listen. To everybody. In fact, one of the great selling points of Doug Ford is that he takes calls from the common person, theoretically at all times of day. Isn't that great? To have a premier who will listen to YOU personally? Who will take the time to talk directly to YOU?</p><p>This is part of why I said that Doug Ford is a nice enough guy in my entry statement. Even if he IS a bully, well, if you had been hurt by Somebody, wouldn't you want a guy like Ford in your corner? A guy who could tell Somebody to stay the hell away from you or else?</p><p>Two major problems with Ford's "everybody" philosophy.</p><p>The first problem is that anecdotes are not data. Just because one person is doing well, doesn't mean everybody is, and conversely just because one person is doing poorly, doesn't mean the whole province needs an overhaul.</p><p>The second problem is that the opinion of experts <i>should really carry more weight</i> than that of Joe Somebody who lives down the block. In much the same way that we have experts build bridges, and not Joe Somebody (unless he's an engineer, I guess).</p><p>See, a leader MUST determine WHO they should be listening to and WHEN, rather than opening the floor <i>to everyone</i> in every case. Because that leads to picking key moments of random conversations as lynchpins for provincial policy. And then we get grade schoolers revamping the education system.</p><p>Remember that?</p><p>To start June 2021, Doug Ford trotted out a story of a kid named Arthur who dropped off a letter at his house. Ford went to visit him, where Arthur explained how he'd rather go back to class in June instead of summer camp. (Context: Ontario schools had been shifted remote since the "April Break". The 2021 mid-month week off of school, which Ford had previously shifted out of March, because... reasons.)</p><p>Doug Ford negotiated (bullied?) his way towards Arthur wanting a graduation day instead of a return to classes. A graduation for all grades, not just Grade 8 and Grade 12.</p><p>Ford then <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/who-is-arthur-how-a-boy-from-etobicoke-helped-the-ontario-premier-with-education-policy" target="_blank">trotted this out as a policy the following day</a>, outdoor graduation ceremonies for all students in the province. Stated at the start of June. Without any consideration for the time it would take to organize that amid a pandemic, with the variability of weather and other logistics like cohorting, crowding and expenses.</p><p>I suppose to be fair, Doug Ford has never listened to anyone in the teaching sector. (Unless you count the anecdotes he spouts of teachers who are "fed up with their union".) So this wasn't much of a change. He didn't even listen to the NDP official opposition, when they tried to cap class sizes at 15 in September 2020 on account of the pandemic.</p><p>I mean, Ford also halted the implementation of Indigenous curriculum almost as soon as he was Premier, without consultation. There was then no discussion over forcing students to do online classes (before the pandemic). No consulting about policies (like who gets RAT tests during the pandemic), or about his making the EQAO Chair <a href="https://www.ontariondp.ca/news/ford-creates-full-time-eqao-job-failed-tory-candidate" target="_blank">a full time position</a> (that's the agency doing standardized testing in Ontario, which subsequently did squat because testing couldn't run in the pandemic), or about closures... I could go on, but it seems I digress. Sorry.</p><p>My point was experts should dictate policy, not random conversations had by Doug Ford.</p><p>(For full transparency, there has been some question over whether Arthur actually exists. I suspect he does, because I don't think Ford has that much imagination, plus we can then give him SOME credit for changing the name of a minor. Though if Arthur doesn't exist, we are then left with the question of who is giving Ford advice that sounds like it came from a grade schooler.)</p><p>Let's now look at another time when Ford didn't consult with experts.</p><p>Ontario white licence plates have used the slogan "Yours to Discover" since 1982. In April 2019, less than a year after the June 2018 election, Ford announced new plates. The new tagline would be "A Place to Grow" (though commercial plates could use "Open for Business"), and the plates would be blue, coincidentally the same colour as used the PC Party.</p><p>Oh, right... Americans? In Canada, Liberals use red and Conservatives use blue. In fact, pretty sure that's the standard in most of the world. Just saying. Anyway.</p><p>It was stated that by February 2020, ALL new licence plates issued would use the new plate design, and Ontarians could voluntarily purchase them. I have no idea who was calling for this, but the standard joke is that Ford met someone in a Tim Hortons.</p><p>Problems began almost immediately that February. With the plates, I mean.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJT4eQrLv4sMuh_FX1hqY8yDJoQSpk3n1CbNu3STA5lyTdWQO62ifK1E4K5pJPmhFoOr35_JO0CeX57HGTuHZlvGxE3ArbjmHR0goVNA1nG_H0ovfCyIM8Ch8yGBDZ_xKNOVx96YuiVvhO7aNsjUl5qJfzx7AuDKUKwhEwW0N4WUjLBBR7lSj0c5jc/s417/GraemeMacKay_Feb192020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="417" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJT4eQrLv4sMuh_FX1hqY8yDJoQSpk3n1CbNu3STA5lyTdWQO62ifK1E4K5pJPmhFoOr35_JO0CeX57HGTuHZlvGxE3ArbjmHR0goVNA1nG_H0ovfCyIM8Ch8yGBDZ_xKNOVx96YuiVvhO7aNsjUl5qJfzx7AuDKUKwhEwW0N4WUjLBBR7lSj0c5jc/w400-h400/GraemeMacKay_Feb192020.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Political Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Feb 2020</i></div><p>A police sergeant in Kingston tweeted out that the plates are virtually unreadable at night. CTV backed this up <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/18/807133008/ontarios-new-license-plates-have-a-problem-you-can-t-read-them" target="_blank">with a comparison lighting test</a>, using a prototype they'd received in 2019. The government insisted the prototype had been improved upon.</p><p>But there's more. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-licence-plate-foi-findings-1.6154105" target="_blank">Canadian border officials weren't even sent a demo</a> plate until after the rollout. The OPP and RCMP did receive plates to test, but still got complaints from their officers (for instance, handheld scanners couldn't read the new plates). The 407 ETR (toll highway around Toronto) had to adjust camera angles to catch the plates.</p><p>It was a mess, and ultimately the Ontario government <a href="https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/ontario-license-plate-debacle-ends-doug-ford-173435519.html" target="_blank">discontinued the plates in May 2020</a>, during the first wave of the pandemic. A disheartened Ford told reporters, "I'm just not ready to put any more resources towards this."</p><p>I feel like maybe more resources should have been put in place prior to the rollout. (They did earmark half a million dollars for plate consultation in the 2019 budget.) Again, assuming this is even something that needed to be done in the first place.</p><p>Part of me even wonders if Ford recently scrapped the cost on licence plate stickers, giving everyone a refund in March 2022, not because he wanted to bribe everyone with money (that could have been better spent on heath care). But rather, because he wanted a search on "ontario licence plates" to turn up THAT, and not the plate-gate from 2020. Too cynical?</p><p>One last anecdote, again to try and show that this lack of listening to the right people is a pattern of behaviour, and not simply a fluke.</p><p>The Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table was formed in July 2020. It's been described as "a group of volunteer scientists who have provided independent advice", and was overseen by a school of public health out of the University of Toronto.</p><p>Dr. Peter Juni, the director of the table and a physician and epidemiologist, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.5993254/this-doctor-almost-quit-ontario-s-covid-19-scientific-advisory-table-over-ford-s-response-1.5993370" target="_blank">almost quit the table in April of 2021</a>. That was over the Ford government's pandemic response.</p><p>The Advisory Table had advocated for things like paid sick days for front-line workers. Doug Ford instead gave that mid-April announcement I mentioned much earlier, shutting down golf courses, while giving police sweeping new powers to stop people at random and demand to know why they were not at home.</p><p>Oh, right. <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-gives-police-authority-to-stop-people-vehicles-ask-purpose-of-travel-1.5390805" target="_blank">That police stuff</a> was walked back a day later, when several police services said they would not do random stops (Waterloo, Peterborough, Guelph, London and Ottawa), plus the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) said they were preparing to go to court. In case you're wondering why that never became bigger news.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0qG76Ztq3Nm0q9n3uFTyCfxNSw5hkw1LjmlCinUgGA-AiVA2_t8O3jZK4Ulz0MY61NmNdpfE-ylOQNuN6fuyi1THi0krEuh-k-PVkgfW0etf_d6VC8teumY6oggg2BYc9A0X_MjCd-mIOH_rQ8nV8flEWfPUtpCB6ZikIcW_GHWkclDgf7j6SI5mG/s1855/TorStar_April2021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1766" data-original-width="1855" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0qG76Ztq3Nm0q9n3uFTyCfxNSw5hkw1LjmlCinUgGA-AiVA2_t8O3jZK4Ulz0MY61NmNdpfE-ylOQNuN6fuyi1THi0krEuh-k-PVkgfW0etf_d6VC8teumY6oggg2BYc9A0X_MjCd-mIOH_rQ8nV8flEWfPUtpCB6ZikIcW_GHWkclDgf7j6SI5mG/w400-h381/TorStar_April2021.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Political Cartoon by Theo Moudakis, March 2021</i></div><p>My point again, however, is why not listen to an Advisory Table of Experts, rather than whomever wanted to chat with you that day?</p><p>Related, in March 2022, when mask mandates were lifted after March Break, there was talk of the Ontario government <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8669659/doug-ford-comments-easing-ontario-mask-mandate/" target="_blank">again not listening to the Science Advisory Table</a>. Ford stated that he was instead following the advice of chief medical officer Dr. Kieran Moore... and Moore was consulting with the science table. Was he? He certainly wasn't consulting CHEO, who wanted masks to stay on in schools <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/masks-should-stay-on-in-school-cheo-chief-of-staff" target="_blank">for at least another couple weeks</a>.</p><p>As to Dr. Peter Juni, he stayed on through 2021, stating that leaving "would make things even worse because that would be a vacuum". He ultimately did step down as director in mid-March of 2022, to be closer to family in Europe. Having stated earlier that month that it was too soon to tell whether it was safe to end masking in Ontario after March Break.</p><p>Before the end of March 2022, <a href="https://www.cp24.com/news/science-table-to-be-folded-into-arms-length-government-agency-1.5843357" target="_blank">Public Health Ontario assumed control of the table</a>.</p><p>I feel like that's not a coincidence. If you don't want to listen to the experts, maybe instead you can bully the experts into listening to you? This brings me to my final point.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1) FORD BELIEVES HE IS ABOVE THE LAW</h3><p>Even as a bully, if you bow to a higher authority figure, there is hope. Even if you don't listen properly, if you can use your other senses, there is hope.</p><p>We don't have that here.</p><p>Ford thinks that he is the authority. And as far as self-education goes, among other things, he unfortunately <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5qaq/doug-ford-is-holed-up-alone-learning-how-to-use-a-computer-report" target="_blank">seems to be technologically incompetent</a>.</p><p>Again, this doesn't necessarily make Ford a bad guy. Sometimes you need to buck the system in the name of the greater good... once you've learned what the greater good is.</p><p>For instance, right now, the law in Ontario says you don't need masks except in hospitals, long-term care homes and public transit. Some <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/two-more-ontario-boards-to-revive-debate-over-masking-at-schools" target="_blank">are saying hell with that</a>. Hamilton-Wentworth board temporarily re-imposed masks after the Break, and Ottawa-Carleton board brought them back in April.</p><p>To venture into an even more controversial topic that's active right now, ectopic pregnancies are fatal for all involved. You need an abortion to save the mother. So again, hell with anyone who says you can't abort in such cases to save a life.</p><p>To be clear, I'm not saying the reverse - like saying hell with the law and NOT wearing a mask where you SHOULD - is something to celebrate. It's again that aspect of greater good, and listening to experts. (No, watching that one guy on YouTube does not make YOU an expert. Sorry.)</p><p>For one last abrupt tonal shift, Batman is seen as being above the law, and he's a good guy. But let's be clear, Doug Ford is no Batman.</p><p>Let's start with Ford's mandate letters. All premiers use them to lay out the orders for his/her ministers once they take office. They used to be secret, but have generally been made public since 2014, at all levels of government. Ford's government has now been fighting to keep them hidden for four years.</p><p>Some believe that there's great secrets inside them. Others believe they're embarrassingly short, given how few things Ford actually committed to in the 2018 election. I rather think Ford just doesn't like the idea of being challenged.</p><p>How DARE you want to see the orders I give my ministers. You shall not be allowed to criticize. Away with you.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFsTKAJeN2tOeQty3KdLny4up7qFR34C75WsznkjH1xmoilQ9-o5Vw9Zm-bxee-JX1vMb23c75ZZ3P2gm4rBWESUxlSUI2uPknjK_IuNX7tVOHU8Gw4RZAaw6bwXEugAgl-xXyx_OX1lL_Nn5t63wOaQgew3cFi5psw05yXjx13VqaiQH_yg7my3h8/s1686/Ford33344858_2146924005321010_6331631502043906048_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="1686" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFsTKAJeN2tOeQty3KdLny4up7qFR34C75WsznkjH1xmoilQ9-o5Vw9Zm-bxee-JX1vMb23c75ZZ3P2gm4rBWESUxlSUI2uPknjK_IuNX7tVOHU8Gw4RZAaw6bwXEugAgl-xXyx_OX1lL_Nn5t63wOaQgew3cFi5psw05yXjx13VqaiQH_yg7my3h8/w400-h299/Ford33344858_2146924005321010_6331631502043906048_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Political Cartoon by Steve Nease, 2018</i></div><p>Ontario's former information and privacy commissioner (IPC) ordered Ford to disclose the letters. By request, the Divisional Court reviewed the case and, in September 2020, upheld the decision. Then in a 2-1 decision that took until January 2022, the Ontario Court of Appeal <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-government-loses-mandate-letters-appeal-ontario-top-court-1.6329832" target="_blank">found the IPC's decision was reasonable</a>.</p><p>At that, the Ford government waited the maximum length of time, 60 days, before filing an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in March. Which basically assures there's no chance of us seeing these mandate letters until after the election (assuming the Supreme Court rules the same way as everyone else).</p><p>But why?</p><p>As this former Liberal MPP writes, <a href="https://www.therecord.com/opinion/contributors/2022/04/05/whats-doug-ford-got-to-hide-in-his-mandate-letters.html" target="_blank">the whole thing is strange</a>. At this point, there's been new mandate letters anyway (as recently as Fall 2021). But maybe it's less strange when you think Ford simply doesn't like being challenged? He certainly doesn't like being criticized.</p><p>"It's like listening to nails on a chalkboard, listening to you," Doug Ford <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-nails-chalkboard-andrea-horwath-1.5917013" target="_blank">said to Andrea Horwath in February 2021</a>. Because how dare she criticize him in her role as Opposition leader, where that's literally her job. No apology given there either, because how could Ford be wrong in any statement he makes?</p><p>To add credence to this holier-than-thou attitude, Ford's government has <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-government-court-cases-lost-doug-ford-1.6168318" target="_blank">already lost more than a dozen court cases</a>. From trying to get post-secondary students to opt out of paying for "non-essential" services (read: unions), to scrapping the incentive program for purchasing electric cars, the Ford government is having taxpayers foot a lot of legal bills.</p><p>Because Ford MUST be right in the end, yes?</p><p>Granted, the press secretary has said the Ontario government is involved in thousands of lawsuits each year, not just those few. But shouldn't there come a time when you stop appealing the decisions? This seems really costly.</p><p>And while we're on the subject of money, there's the fact that Ontario <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/audit-finds-ontario-failed-to-track-4-4b-in-covid-19-pandemic-relief-spending-1.5424949" target="_blank">failed to track over 4.4 billion dollars</a> in Covid-19 pandemic relief spending, from March to June 2020. That's $4,400,000,000 dollars. Because ministries were unable to track when front-line workers actually began to receive pandemic pay.</p><p>Fast forward to January 2021, and Ontario was sitting on more pandemic-relief funds than any other province, at 6.4 billion still unspent. That's $6,400,000,000 dollars. And a report in late 2021 found that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-money-not-spent-fao-1.6176650" target="_blank">Ontario did not spend any funds</a> from a new $2.7 billion dollar Covid-19 response program in that first quarter of 2021, during the third wave. That's $2,700,000,000 dollars.</p><p>Is seems Doug Ford does not like spending money, even if it would save lives... unless it's on court cases? (I know, that's a false equivalence, the money for the pandemic is NOT being used in the courts. But it DOES call into question his ability to budget, doesn't it?)</p><p>Let's take a quick look at the trucker blockades too.</p><p>For three weeks in February 2022 (starting Friday, January 28th), Canadians(?) opposed to lockdowns and vaccine mandates occupied downtown Ottawa. The "Freedom Convoy" protesters set up a hot tub, a bouncy castle, put way too much propane in one place contravening fire codes, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katebubacz/ottawa-protest-photos" target="_blank">even roasted a pig</a>. They blared truck horns at all hours in residential areas, prompting a 21-year-old to <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/convoy-class-action-claim-increased-to-306m-as-downtown-restaurateurs-join-lawsuit" target="_blank">file a class action lawsuit</a> against the occupiers.</p><p>On February 4th, Doug Ford said the Ottawa situation was <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/doug-ford-makes-statement-ahead-of-toronto-convoy-protest-calls-ottawa-situation-an-occupation-1.5768519" target="_blank">"not a protest anymore, it's become an occupation"</a>, when speaking about protestors planning to arrive in Toronto. He then <a href="https://ottawa.citynews.ca/local-news/ford-admits-to-snowmobiling-at-cottage-while-ottawa-under-siege-5055411" target="_blank">went snowmobiling at his cottage</a>. (Uh, timing?) On February 11th, Ford finally called for a state of emergency in Ontario, <a href="https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ontario-premier-says-ottawa-under-siege-declares-state-of-emergency-1.5777051" target="_blank">calling Ottawa "a siege"</a>. This only after a new blockade in Windsor at the Ambassador Bridge began to impact the Canada-US border economy.</p><p>On February 15th, Ford admitted his own daughter (Krista Haynes, nee Ford) <a href="https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/family-rifts-ford-says-own-daughter-supports-freedom-convoy" target="_blank">supported the Freedom Convoy</a>. Which <a href="https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/doug-ford-daughter-krista-haynes-attended-freedom-convoy" target="_blank">was a surprise to nobody</a>. Police finally cleared Ottawa streets during a three day operation that ended on February 19th.</p><p>I'm not sure on this one. Was Doug Ford merely pleased to see others fighting against the federal government too? Or was there some family friction that contributed to his apparent "your laws don't apply to me and my friends" attitude?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8RolboRaFYfwpqCiZQ9csRRlnOQT5kOO0wb8eCqNLrmhEZ3zpPTCYAQYWWvhrF4FAYgYF7LtY9k6wDGTUznRhiWDAA79S3KdNT597IP5OrasFWN2U7VoesnMbjnsywvl8oag8lyk18P2OhlYDsc34B3hOM7Us98Ic-xEpEI_Spj8RzMDf2_3pnRTd/s1200/TheoMoudakis_March2021.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1149" data-original-width="1200" height="383" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8RolboRaFYfwpqCiZQ9csRRlnOQT5kOO0wb8eCqNLrmhEZ3zpPTCYAQYWWvhrF4FAYgYF7LtY9k6wDGTUznRhiWDAA79S3KdNT597IP5OrasFWN2U7VoesnMbjnsywvl8oag8lyk18P2OhlYDsc34B3hOM7Us98Ic-xEpEI_Spj8RzMDf2_3pnRTd/w400-h383/TheoMoudakis_March2021.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Political Cartoon by Theo Moudakis, March 2021</i></div><p>Perhaps capitulating to the protestors, Ford then announced on March 9th that <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8669659/doug-ford-comments-easing-ontario-mask-mandate/" target="_blank">mask mandates would be lifted</a> across Ontario. But that <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ford-will-keep-his-mask-on-in-the-legislature-for-first-few-days-post-mandate-1.5820130" target="_blank">he would keep his mask on</a> "for the first few days" after, in the legislature. Yet that school boards <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-school-boards-masks-1.6381366" target="_blank">better stick to the decision to drop mandatory masks</a> because "they aren't medical experts". But that it's okay for private schools to keep masks.</p><p>Again, rules for you, not for me.</p><p>Which finally brings me to the notwithstanding clause.</p><p>Honestly, I feel like <b>this alone should be enough to deem Doug Ford unfit to be a leader.</b></p><p>The clause, aka <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-notwithstanding-explainer-1.6065686" target="_blank">Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms</a>, gives provincial legislatures or Parliament the ability to override certain portions of itself for a five year term. The five year term is to <b>ensure the public has the chance to challenge a government's decision to use the clause in a general election before it can be renewed</b>.</p><p>This is what's allowed Quebec to prohibit public sector workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols.</p><p>Doug Ford is the first ever Ontario premier to invoke the clause. He did it to ensure third parties can only spend $600,000 in the 12 months before an election is called. He said it was necessary to protect elections from outside influence.</p><p>But wait, this gets stupider.</p><p>Third parties were ALREADY prohibited from spending more than $600,000 in the six months preceding an election writ. All the Ontario legislature did (in February 2021) was double the time period, to 12 months. Then an Ontario Superior Court Justice decided (in June 2021, after a court challenge) that it was unconstitutional for Ford to double the period while keeping the spending limit the same.</p><p>Doug Ford lost his cool.</p><p>The legislature had risen for their summer break on June 3rd, with a planned return of Sept 13th. Doug Ford called everyone back for an emergency weekend debate on election finance law on June 11th. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/notwithstanding-clause-vote-ontario-1.6064952" target="_blank">They pushed through Bill 307, using the clause.</a> It passed on June 14th, reinstating the 12 month framework, even as the NDP attempted to introduce some pandemic-related issues. Then the legislature went back on break.</p><p>Until October 4th. Because Doug Ford prorogued everyone until after the Fall federal election. Incidentally, also his first prorogation.</p><p>So in September, when health care workers were dealing with the fourth wave of the pandemic, when schools were returning and dealing with yet another new curriculum put out by the Ford government, when that report about the lack of spending for Covid-19 release in early 2021 came out... no legislature.</p><p>But when you need to extend third party spending limits from six months to twelve? All in, to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.</p><p>I just... WHY? Because Ford wanted to stick it to one particular judge who thought Ford was in the wrong? How was Bill 307 more urgent than, I mean, literally anything else going on in 2021?</p><p>I cannot believe more people are not talking about that.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">SUMMARY</h3><p>It's been said that Ontario's election <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-election-day-1-analysis-1.6440289" target="_blank">"will be a referendum on Doug Ford"</a>. A lot of polls also show the Conservatives poised <b>to take government again</b>, possibly even with another majority. In fact there's a better than two-thirds chance of that.</p><p>That's scary. I do not think the province will survive another Doug Ford majority.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNLWOp8Jjx5a27pgI1BHq3yKkLGmJx38_UXhE0NX5nD4iqxio148rzxyelU-Gsi_aClNk44qJMOPkBgMezCm8fqPSxBcugWBsCkOB0t5drvWjDpWBVPdDC4nLJVkuBqdSgi1g8p3Fo0dH9L6JASeqVOUoaVG5hboScZ6BNtkRlQ6OJ243yGFi5PbxW/s1199/ONPollsFSVdR72XoAAillg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="1199" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNLWOp8Jjx5a27pgI1BHq3yKkLGmJx38_UXhE0NX5nD4iqxio148rzxyelU-Gsi_aClNk44qJMOPkBgMezCm8fqPSxBcugWBsCkOB0t5drvWjDpWBVPdDC4nLJVkuBqdSgi1g8p3Fo0dH9L6JASeqVOUoaVG5hboScZ6BNtkRlQ6OJ243yGFi5PbxW/w400-h231/ONPollsFSVdR72XoAAillg.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Early Polling. Find more at <a href="https://338canada.com/ontario/">https://338canada.com/ontario/</a></i></div><p>I mean, I think it would be bad under Conservatives anyway, but Doug Ford?</p><p>Yes, Doug Ford is a nice guy who listens to the common man. But he is also a bully, who does not listen well, believing he knows best, even if the law tells him otherwise.</p><p>That's not good leadership.</p><p>Remember, Doug Ford himself only won the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2018 by 51% over Christine Elliot... who had actually won the popular vote. (<a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2018/06/ontario-election-2018.html" target="_blank">I blogged about that previously...</a>) How soon we forget?</p><p>I wonder if, because Ford lacked the popular vote, he is trying to leave behind some sort of legacy now. So what do we want that to be? At present, it amounts to navigating us through the pandemic, perhaps introducing destreaming to education, and activating the notwithstanding clause. That's not terrible.</p><p>After all, in ten years, many people won't remember the empty promises, the waitlist for children with autism doubling, the hidden costs of the new Highway 413, and so forth. Because one presumes the next government will fix a lot of that.</p><p>Except if Ford gets another four years? I think his legacy will be so much worse.</p><p>He may be the guy who privatized healthcare. The guy who invoked the notwithstanding clause twice, to really stick it to the unions (and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-minimum-wage-1.6409124" target="_blank">keep the minimum wage low</a>). The guy who made a trillion dollars vanish, while giving the common Ontarian money back for their latest passport photo.</p><p>I mean, if you actually DO want those legacies for your man Ford... I'm pretty sure you're not still reading.</p><p>And the thing is, as much as you might want to vote for the Conservative in your individual riding, and as much as some of them are pretty great (Michael Chong, looking at you)... that is also a vote for Doug Ford. And they cannot control him. No one can... except maybe us. The general public.</p><p>Now.</p><p>AND <u>ONLY</u> NOW.</p><p>Doug Ford is the wrong choice. He is the wrong leader. And yet he's not going anywhere.</p><p>I'm worried about that. And you should be too.</p><p>Please, vote accordingly in June 2022.</p><p>*</p><p>Thank you for getting all the way to the end. Additional thanks to my wife and mother-in-law for entertaining the little one for a full day, giving me the time to write this.</p><p>If you prefer some lighter fare after all that, I've been <a href="https://mathtans.wordpress.com/catalogue/misc-index/#Parody" target="_blank">reposting math pun stories over on my other blog</a>, like "Quantum Loop". Yay!</p><p>Please take care of yourselves, and of each other.</p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-90648982614761292392022-03-31T19:39:00.001-07:002022-04-03T10:11:44.836-07:00Summer's End 2021<p> It's the 8th annual "Year End" recap post. (<a href="http://mathiex.blogspot.ca/2013/09/tch-summers-end-2013.html" target="_blank">Started in 2013</a>, did not run in 2016 as that's the year I wasn't teaching.) As I've said before, the end of August is the true end of the year, no matter what the Gregorian Calendar claims. That's teaching life.</p><p>Now, the fact that I'm posting this in MARCH 2022 instead of Sept 2021 is probably an indication of how next year's wrap-up is going to go. Though I did have the first part of this post done August 23rd. Anyway.</p><p>On the parenting side, daycare ran smoothly from Sept 2020 to Dec, then little one shifted to Preschool from Jan to "present"... being end of August 2021. Less some days for over half a dozen Covid tests. All negative, and all just runny noses for symptoms except in one case. (Which I still think was Roseola but we never saw a doctor in person on the rash, just CHEO during the fever stage.)</p><p>So that gave me some time. Mostly for work.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>WORK RELATED</b></span></p><p>All the June schedules were retooled in Sept 2020 as students went virtual (effectively it's own separate school), changing the number of school sections. I ended up with MBF 3C, a course I hadn't taught in six years. Had to update the finance, among other things. (Wait, Canada Savings Bonds ended in 2017?)</p><p>We also had no semesters, but quadmesters of two courses (so four sets of P/T interviews), alternating weeks. This meant my prep time was full weeks in Sept to Nov and Feb to Apr. Otherwise (eg. Apr to June), NO prep time, ALL teaching.</p><p>First quadmester was all in person, second was split (fully virtual in January), third was in person but with the loss of March Break messing with scheduling, and the fourth was fully virtual in April (I thought we'd go back in June, nope). So even though I taught 3M and Data twice, it was different circumstances each time.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpKZ5_qejxfXZTYKWZpIZg_FzrtKSS1U8Re4JLOWRUxqYA4KkMKQC0DOWTdMGRPe8slvAMGmAe4nNbe_G2hN5UUT3OvAbFzJr8njZFGDe0qxyXdvO5K6LolPY7Vmu3KQyL-F-WHKraV944p7e5HY_wrrmFfZkMahkOTGQTaJMk7o1j-cwFYPq44Vkm/s2048/OntarioTeach2021.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpKZ5_qejxfXZTYKWZpIZg_FzrtKSS1U8Re4JLOWRUxqYA4KkMKQC0DOWTdMGRPe8slvAMGmAe4nNbe_G2hN5UUT3OvAbFzJr8njZFGDe0qxyXdvO5K6LolPY7Vmu3KQyL-F-WHKraV944p7e5HY_wrrmFfZkMahkOTGQTaJMk7o1j-cwFYPq44Vkm/s320/OntarioTeach2021.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p>Learned Google Classroom. Also Google Meet. And learned about online software that could read SmartBoard files (thank you tech help). In the end, while remote, I had to upload the files from my computer, write on them using my Chromebook stylus during the Meet, download the written files in PDF, and reupload to Classroom. Still faster and easier than trying to figure out another way of teaching from home.</p><p>And of course, every day I taught remotely I had to drive to school, drop off my daughter, drive home to teach, then repeat the process at the end of the day. So I bought gas twice as often.</p><p>A bunch of otherwise normal items were retooled when things went online, including the evaluations, where I gave multiple options for some questions to catch the dishonest. (For example, choose 3% or 4% to answer this question... if strange answers match and choices too, well...) And much like last June, there was a massive such dishonesty case in June 2021. (This time it was in 4U Data, not 3U, but I guess it's the same cohort?)</p><p>Exams were nixed, of course, with classes those days instead, weirding the timelines. (Can't have anything due the last day, no time to grade it.) Did my best to pull people to credits wherever possible.</p><p>Shadowed the Virtual School's anime club (run by a teacher who shifted to virtual but of course still had to come to the building). It was often running when I was teaching, but occasionally I was there if it was prep week. That's about all I managed outside curriculum, aside from math contests. (Time factor, not an in person limitation.)</p><p>"This" month (Aug 2021), I put in for a reduction to 67% which was granted by mutual consent. Because I have a new course (MHF 4U), and 3C is back, and I already had one breakdown at the end of June over both of them existing at once. I strongly suspect I won't make it through the next few months without being part time. (Update: I was very much correct.)</p><p>I did get to a couple OAME 2021 sessions in May. I'm still the COMA secretary. My Cubic Formula song is just over 8,000 views in March 2022. I did write a new parody to end the summer that I haven't been able to put online yet. I'm sick of teaching. Let's move on.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>HOBBY RELATED</b></span></p><p>As I said, there hasn't been much time for this. So I'm moving the yuri up here instead of leaving it for Miscellaneous as it's become something of a hobby. As in something I can read on my 10 or 20 minute runs.</p><p>The manga and light novels included "Adachi and Shimamura" (through book 4), "Fragtime" (in Nov 2020), "Strawberry Fields" (3 book series) and "I'm in Love with the Villainess" (started April 2021, only just started book 3 in late August). Also watched the Kase-San movie that I got back in April to end off the summer/year here.</p><p>I read some time comics too, "Life is Strange" and the BTTF/Transformers crossover. Also free comics, handed out earlier this month (in August) this past year. Bank Street had them outside, the weather was good. The only book I managed to read was "How to be an Antiracist" (Ibram X. Kendi) which was part of our book club at school. I'm so behind in webcomics and everything else.</p><p>I managed to keep up biweekly with writing "Epsilon Project" and their pandemic storyline, which had started in May 2020 and continued into April 2021. Ever since April, that blog has been about posting reruns (from old mathNEWS), many posts queued up months in advance.</p><p>Before "Epsilon" ended, I'd joined the 2021 Serial April Fools Swap in mid-March (when someone else dropped out and I was asked if I wanted to fill the gap). Somehow managed to read and write an entry for someone else, without having a March Break. And of course, now that I go to link to "Lemongrass: The Chaotic Life of Meadow Song" I find it's 404ed. (I know the author took a break later that April...)</p><p>I also not only wrote but recorded the 10th Annual Christmath Parody, <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/tpolys/specials/048-singalong-solving-for-unknowns" target="_blank">"Solving for Unknowns"</a> as a video for the school announcements (no Xmas assembly, of course). And I got my 2019 math parodies online at last, in April 2021 (the "new March Break"), with art: "Only When We Train" (Aug 2019) and "I Graph The Line" (Oct 2019).</p><p>Nothing else for personified math, except in summer 2021 I had to convert all the old Google Sites Personified Serial Entries to the new Google format. (That took time, the images were never placed right after conversion.) The new song I wrote in August 2021 is about logs, no clue when I'll get that up.</p><p>And of course, the big one in writing is "Time Untied" (my serial sequel).</p><p>Was at about 82,000 words in August 2019, about 127,000 words in August 2020, and this year saw more writing in November (for NaNo). Finally got it to the climax... the first one. With over 25,000 more words. That was after I'd done some October edits, in light of the weird "week of prep" quadmester schedule. Meaning more edits were done in February and March.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi63WoPKxRkX45FrPeYVR9Fu6nwM89Lk6VY25dR6LoIr-pGeJXWlDBGegcKheBHGcsWAGS5MtXu639L_UVwkoz7T7Bu4r5UfVQWUR3Wm25d1QCru6k_GbncrPAzbkzmNr5C7tl-M4gpcVDldkM3jafzVmjYOgmW7h2zgcmjmm-5v_HNxnYLecLSX6e7/s2965/UntiedTriangle.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2965" data-original-width="2282" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi63WoPKxRkX45FrPeYVR9Fu6nwM89Lk6VY25dR6LoIr-pGeJXWlDBGegcKheBHGcsWAGS5MtXu639L_UVwkoz7T7Bu4r5UfVQWUR3Wm25d1QCru6k_GbncrPAzbkzmNr5C7tl-M4gpcVDldkM3jafzVmjYOgmW7h2zgcmjmm-5v_HNxnYLecLSX6e7/s320/UntiedTriangle.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>Since 150,000 words and still going means this needs to be two books, I split it after 10 parts, and later reformatted the start of the subsequent "Time Denied" book for the Ink & Insights competition at the end of June 2021. I figure feedback is good, under the circumstances. I continued the writing in July, with the last edits being August 8th to file "L". (A to J being the full "Untied" book.)<p></p><p>In December 2020 I finalized Alexandra's story translations and photos, in time for Christmas. I also managed to make some more videos of her, including Circle Time in March and a couple for her June birthday (in July). Also compilations for Year 3 which I hadn't been sure about doing but decided yeah.</p><p>In August 2021 I was able to post to the blog about some PD sessions, having not posted since November 2020. (Not counting the parenting summaries, which I no longer post but still do offline.)</p><p>On the role-play side, Tom started up another TORG campaign, so Ben Asim (from 2017) got dusted off and updated for some play in September/October 2020. Then came a follow-up campaign in January 2021, where a backup Avril Carroll was created, but Ben was the one used for gaming in February, March, July and August.</p><p>Through it all, I had several temporary breakdowns. My stress levels were consistently over 5. I'm not sure if that counts as a hobby, but it's what was happening in my spare time. Anyway.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>UPKEEP RELATED</b></span></p><p>The garage door broke in April 2021, and the chain mechanism had to be replaced. The fridge filter broke in July 2021, and is still broken (in March 2022). I got a Pfizer shot in mid-May (a little before the presumed Roseola rash with little one) and a Moderna shot in July (earlier than originally scheduled, that being the start of September, which would have been not entirely useful).</p><p>The vaccinating meant we felt safe enough taking a trip in late July to visit my parents (and little one's cousins). Followed by a trip to the Piquard Cottage in August. The car air conditioning had failed before that, but was still under warranty from last year, so yay. The perpetually broken kitchen faucet also got replaced in late August, so yay water at more than a trickle.</p><p>The property outside is still something of a mess. I've given up on grass, never had time to clean the deck, and the driveway is starting to fracture from the roots underneath. It is what it is. The interior looks pretty good.</p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">MISCELLANEOUS</span></b></p><p>What else goes here? Well, CBC finished their "Element of Surprise" this past month (August 2021), that was a fun thing to listen to on Tuesdays. Me and Anne-Lise actually went out for our Anniversary in the month too, since the France grandparents could mind the little one (ordered from Pelican Grill and went to park).</p><p>Other than that, phone's fine. Pedometer's fine but the online tracking ends for it when 2021 ends. Yeah, life is pretty much school, parenting, and trying to carve out time for hobbies around those.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>WHERE TO NEXT</b></span></p><p>The units/lessons for the new MHF 4U course need to be put together, pretty sure this isn't the last time I'll see that course (now that Grade 9 and 10 are getting disrupted). Updating the personified math banner should happen.</p><p>I think parts A to J of "Time Untied" will just need to sit there now, until I work through "Time Denied" to the point where everything hooks back into needing to update "Untied". One hopes I have time. Publicizing any of my stuff remains pretty much a non-event.</p><p>Something exactly the same as in 2020, little one could fall ill or need a pickup at any point. Family stress is real. This pandemic is not going away, and needs to be dealt with more seriously. (But no, instead let's have a federal election during which Ford vanishes in the province, right.)</p><p>I don't know. At this point I'm half a year behind even publishing this, so let's just reiterate more from 2020 as we call it a day:</p><p><i>Things happened. It wasn't great, it sure could have been worse. As I said last time, if you have any particular questions about teaching or parenting, I'll see what I can do? Thanks for reading my mental rambling.</i></p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-3693473669860660932021-08-28T17:15:00.001-07:002021-08-28T17:15:10.790-07:00OAME 2021 Summary<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Welcome to a math teacher blogging about life in a pandemic. That's about all you'll get on this blog these days. (I still do weekly journalling, but see no point posting it.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is the second of two PD posts; the first was <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2021/08/subject-pd-2021.html" target="_blank">Boardwide PD of April 23, 2021</a>. This time I will discuss the OAME Math Conference, during the week of May 17th, 2021. The current pandemic meant that both events were fully remote (in fact all teaching in Ontario was remote following the "April Break", moved from March).</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwwjJDOfpavKiUfKHO2ZpHboZEnVpz66pyV-zJNfqZkwQGH7cv8d13iDTo1iHqYpnkt6DX9NP_5NhUVuHXDoSPKk5eyK4urKShGb19a7dRpHw_JmSyvjDTapfgyu61p1Hp7x2kna_4i1k/s2048/RBerry_Keynote.jpg" style="font-size: large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1411" data-original-width="2048" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwwjJDOfpavKiUfKHO2ZpHboZEnVpz66pyV-zJNfqZkwQGH7cv8d13iDTo1iHqYpnkt6DX9NP_5NhUVuHXDoSPKk5eyK4urKShGb19a7dRpHw_JmSyvjDTapfgyu61p1Hp7x2kna_4i1k/w400-h275/RBerry_Keynote.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Screenshot from Wednesday the 19th</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Earlier in 2021 I'd hesitated on signing up at all (and <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2020/10/oame-2020-summary.html" target="_blank">see last year's OAME post</a> for how I hadn't planned on going to 2020) but since the virtual conference hours were 4-9pm, with a session at 8pm (after the little one had gone to bed), I decided to at least take in evening sessions. Perhaps the blinders were on in late March?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">For the record, OAME 2021 had sessions at 4pm, 6pm and 8pm, with their virtual trade show running in between. This was every day, Monday through Friday, though I stuck with 8pm (mostly). By then I was also teaching a full course load (3U & Data) without a prep (due to quadmesters) so there was a lot going on.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">OAME: MON & TUES</span></h3><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The sessions were: M8.08, <b>"Changing a Math Class Culture"</b>, presented by Alice Aspinall and Cesare Cetra. And T08.07, <b>"Blurring Lines between Math and Art"</b>, presented by Karyn Hepburn.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The changing culture aspect was largely focused on the Thinking Classroom of Peter Liljedahl and his 14 practices (which I've blogged about elsewhere). This generation of students have different types of learners, with social media and more IEPs; don't start with course information, start with a problem together. Reduces pushback for problem solving in groups later on and sets classroom norms.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Verbal instructions where possible (careful of IEPs) and avoid writing, as it's something for them to fall back on. One marker per group, break down social barriers. Noted many aspects are more difficult during the pandemic and with remote teaching. Consistency through a department is nice.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Chat mentioned the use of Jamboards during online work for collaboration, and there was talk of growth versus fixed mindset along with Peter L's new book "Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics” (2020) and Jo Boaler's "Limitless Mind" (Going beyond mathematics).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Their favourite line: "You know more than you think you do." Connect to things already known, and 3-Act math problems. Making mistakes is very important, though kids don't want to hear it (worrying about a negative sign means you lose the process). Most common question is getting students to buy in.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Interestingly the last thing they did before going home for the pandemic in March 2020 was third annual school wide pi day math celebration. Overall it was a fine session - but mostly it reiterated points I've heard a lot elsewhere.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">For Math and Art, the school combined the math/art program for Grades 9 and 10, allowing for completion of electives. The math curriculum was spiralled to revisit topics from three perspectives: Art concepts/graphs, Real life phenomena, and Algebraic representations. Allowing more time to absorb concepts in both subjects, and more productivity.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrDyKdbx0r5vdXma7TZSCAdB4QwbjuXa3S3wfLY0R86_zTUh8-d9VyyVOsjJf22XsS9OIOAtuRwqd1tjbrnss5qj2CfyDCk1bn63Dd8_tC284dD6VmoUAlO7R0hkrJHvcpRJ4N9hmnihY/s1804/ART_Screen+Shot+2021-08-27+at+12.14.47+PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="1804" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrDyKdbx0r5vdXma7TZSCAdB4QwbjuXa3S3wfLY0R86_zTUh8-d9VyyVOsjJf22XsS9OIOAtuRwqd1tjbrnss5qj2CfyDCk1bn63Dd8_tC284dD6VmoUAlO7R0hkrJHvcpRJ4N9hmnihY/w400-h220/ART_Screen+Shot+2021-08-27+at+12.14.47+PM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Experimental Probability: Random Art Types #1-4</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />First assignment was parabolas & texture (not Desmos, though that's another idea), then exponentials & fractals, then lines & patterns (find slope to create good symmetry), then design & 3D printing (for surface area and trigonometry). Photography can also link with trigonometry and contrast. Of note, 10P and 11C have perspective drawing in the course.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">There was also a 3C Greeting Card Survey Reflection for statistics (survey the school for things like should there be snow, how many star layers). Once the cards were made from the data, they were signed and given to volunteers. Printmaking can also link to manipulating graphs, so they seem misleading.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">During quarantine last year, statistics was instead make art where something can be marked in, such as tree trunks where their location can be plotted with quartiles (also goes to composition).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Karyn then put us in random breakouts, and I was with two other teachers, one from Toronto; we talked a bit about getting administration on side (low cost startup) but I also had to check on the little one who was having more trouble falling asleep (or possibly it was some other interruption around 8:30). To conclude the session, there was a Probability Art activity.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">You chose four textures, then would randomly generate numbers from 1 to 4. Creating 8 results versus 32 results leads to experimental vs theoretical, make some predictions and calculate final results. I put in a graphic above.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Rather clever on the overall, and I only realized once it started that I know the presenter themselves. Some of the individual activities (such as that last one) might be ones to take advantage of on a smaller scale.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">OAME: WEDNESDAY</span></h3><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I (mostly) went to the 6pm Keynote on this day (rather late) because the 8pm session was a follow-up. Both sessions were <b>"Mathematics, Social Justice & Actions"</b> by Robert Q Berry III. (Past president of NCTM. I put one graphic at the top of the post.) Alas, there was some confusion in the household, so I missed the first half of the keynote itself.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">When I arrived, Robert was talking about using data and information to provoke questions. Such as a link between cigarette smoking and income, and whether advertisers are targeting a certain group. Or the idea of gerrymandering, and weaponizing in order to advantage some while disadvantaging others.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">There was a look at a Social Justice Math Lesson Framework, a seven step plan. What matters: Content (learning goals, relevant issues, analysis tools) and Context (purpose, allies, building identity/agency). Also WHEN matters (current events, contributing to a goal) and HOW matters (strategies, student/parent reactions, how to assess). The Zoom chat mentioned "Skew the Script" and "Math that Matters".</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Six elements of a Social Justice Mathematics Lesson Framework were shown. Robert concluded by questioning how Social Justice could be infused in math and what work must be done to prepare. With a reminder that social justice need not always come from a trauma perspective, but can also have a celebratory point of view. Acknowledging those who are not always seen (hidden figures) or shining a light on activism.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">This was continued in session W8.02, with a look at three tasks. For reference, there was his book "High School Math to Explore, Understand and Respond to Social Injustice".</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Two gender/sexuality graphs were provided, and what do you notice? ("Listen to GLSEN") Data can be organized into a matrix, and can be collected from their own school based on what they've learned. That was more statistical, the second task was finance related.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Culturally relevant income inequality. Complete the following sentence, "before I read, I thought that <i>***</i> but now I know that <i>***</i>". Students were to research an article on their own, then do reporting. Connect to race, with the greatest change from 1967 to 2014. Noted students can represent the data, then discuss rate of change, and make sense of that (it may or may not be linear).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Questions to ask: What is the injustice here? How can I make sense of it and mathematize it? What is the action that students will take in learning from this? (Maybe understanding historical significance of how wealth is built, blacks could not own homes or access loans the same, "red line".)</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwn8fIKcFYqqeey_Ub0Bh4pLkWqdKDda64pq4g3QcKMSw4DGPD_JsIDg1qVZsO9qhOrrN_CJNldKNgP3NB1p3N1N4pyIEyoKJUbV1IW_6ifCNGDDDl4Cia1ruCxObAsxA-cf2iCMFqfwg/s2048/RB_Screen+Shot+2021-05-19+at+8.37.39+PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="2048" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwn8fIKcFYqqeey_Ub0Bh4pLkWqdKDda64pq4g3QcKMSw4DGPD_JsIDg1qVZsO9qhOrrN_CJNldKNgP3NB1p3N1N4pyIEyoKJUbV1IW_6ifCNGDDDl4Cia1ruCxObAsxA-cf2iCMFqfwg/w400-h250/RB_Screen+Shot+2021-05-19+at+8.37.39+PM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Screenshot from Wednesday the 19th<br /><br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The third lesson was "A False Positive" on drug testing. Robert also mentioned gerrymandering again (from the keynote), along with a plan for Creating Your Own Lessons. Noted that book chapters are broken up by content (Stats, Geometry, Numbers...)</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Consider even COVID cases by County in 2020, from the NYTimes. Why more towards the east? Population density? How do we mathematize it, relative magnitude? Proportionality? Or racial disparity in major sports leagues, players to head coaches. How to mathematize? How to assess not only the math goal but the social justice goal, what will they take away?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">There were a few other references, and Robert also took questions in the chat. I posed about pushback from parents or administrators, and Robert says you have to *do the work* to understand the community. How where kids live intersect with standards to teach, meaning use the community as a resource. Might be a lack of understanding and potential of resources.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The social justice should not feel like an add-on or drop-in. You might only do it once or twice every 6-9 weeks, it's a matter of being COHERENT.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">OAME: THU & FRI</span></h3><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The sessions were R8.09, <b>"Creating a Spiralled Course"</b>, by Natalie Robinson, and</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> F8.07 <b>"</b></span><span><b>Gender Equity: Promoting Female Presence in STEM fields"</b>, by Atinuke Adeyemi.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Personally, I figure spiralling is worth it, my attendance was more to get a sense of how it's best/being implemented. First offered, a "spiral" definition: a combination of laying a foundation of skills/concepts, and building upon these with continuous revisiting. Her department made spiralling a priority in both pathways (academic/applied) so a student who transitions is not losing anything.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">To get started, find a friend (two is great to start), prioritize goals, then use previous lessons with revisions on the fly. Look sideways as well as up and down. Seasoned teachers are better with priorities, while new teachers are better with flexibility. Nathalie and colleague started with Grade 9 Applied.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">They had FOUR cycles (loops through). Every strand represented in the cycles, which ran 24, 24, 20 and 9... the last was shorter owing to it being consolidating (eg solving for dimensions). It's never perfect on the first try (assemblies, interruptions, EQAO time...) but students were not confused by "jumping around".</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Science of successful learning “Making it Stick” book, read around the same time. (Chat: By the Heath Brothers? Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger, and Mark A. McDaniel?) If you don't have a colleague you ARE going to find it overwhelming.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Assessment has to complement the process. Two part HW assignments, due Wed & Fri. Reinforces all concepts are “fair game” at any time. (Pre-teach and repeat options.) You might have taught algebra but the HW is geometry. Will be linking them. Evaluations occur to finish a cycle.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Wanted mobility of 1D/1P (where 1D has the extra strand), so would take framework of 1P and modify it. Analytic Geometry very blank in cycle 1; Numeracy/Algebra very blank in cycle 4. Wanted Grade 11 Mixed. FIVE cycles; cycle 1 had nothing specific to strands (properties of functions, notations, solving equations) then cycle 2 gets more technical (factoring, exponent rules) then in later cycles get transformations and finance.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">11U was also accomplished (8 units became 5 cycles), where it takes LESS time to get through curriculum (even with assessments and some review, still a few leftover days). But be flexible and kind to yourself, even the second time teaching might not be quite right; there's so many moving parts.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The last cycle is always a compilation of all ideas, so you revisit everything (no new concepts just old ideas in new ways), meaning need only a day or two for exam review after.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Teachers from different schools have collaborated on Grade 10 and 11C (Natalie had to do 11C virtually due to pandemic, using those notes, and it was working). If your school has teaching pockets, that's hard on the kids; worst thing is having kids in a successful environment then get thrown into a traditional way next time, there's data on this.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Pros: Many lessons the same, students see links, confidence and understanding improve. Cons: Many other lessons useless, need to build all new tests, feels like new teaching.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">You’re only *learning* when you’re a bit uncomfortable. Your brain is not growing and making connections unless it’s straining. Hence quizzes where anything comes up. Could do test and a task over two days. Progress tends to be a reverse bell. (Starts better, then they have to push through a bit, but they end the course UP. So no stress at the end.)</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">No textbook used, continued through COVID, only truly misplaced students struggle. “I could give you my outlines, but they’re based on our dept priorities, so they might not match your thinking.” Try to make the end of each cycle more an Application/Thinking item (rather than thinking early cycles are Knowledge and later ones are Thinking).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">There were some other questions at the end which Natalie said she'd address later, and of course I never got around to revisiting the files. Something else I'd wanted to get around to was watching Friday's 6pm speaker; I only caught the last ten minutes or so of Eugenia Cheng's session. More on that below.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">For Friday's 8pm session, Atinuke introduced herself and referenced life experiences influencing her research interest. Arriving in Canada, she noticed low female participation in mathematics despite government interventions. In her country it's reversed, 20 students in a class would have only 4 males.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3xKMBRfg6pgVqZfDg1UMFIk8K0ZnoUNdakmKhs2_8JEFSEHhTfk03OIqyiym4R5dYJey0DOPNwaeUN2mOAooSKVe0NVDDc3zhajkzuI8peLY2GUl2cm555EzUUZZbseX05aH6s6Au3Ac/s2048/Atinuke_OAME2021.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1474" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3xKMBRfg6pgVqZfDg1UMFIk8K0ZnoUNdakmKhs2_8JEFSEHhTfk03OIqyiym4R5dYJey0DOPNwaeUN2mOAooSKVe0NVDDc3zhajkzuI8peLY2GUl2cm555EzUUZZbseX05aH6s6Au3Ac/w400-h288/Atinuke_OAME2021.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">She asked us for what words we might associate with STEM. A field where we need female contribution and innovation. Context: Concerns in the 1960s, several national publications drew national awareness in 1990s, and despite "improvement" in 2000s, it did not translate to careers in STEM fields.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">34% dropped out (66% remained) from 2010 to 2015 within undergraduates. And females were twice as likely (23% vs 12%) to switch into health care/psychology fields instead. Here are some reasons for low participation:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">1) <u>Psychological factors</u> (& math anxiety). Women may worry about impressing (or pleasing) others, and have incorrect self-perceived ability.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">2) <u>Biological factors</u>. Researchers argue that males’ brains have neurological qualities to allow them to perform better. But female achievement scores refute this argument (2002). </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">3) <u>Attitude and Beliefs</u>. Confidence (as from middle grades, females are less confident so they become uninterested or unmotivated). Usefulness (when girls value STEM as highly useful, it leads to career choices). Attribution style (females are more likely to attribute success to luck or effort and failure to ‘low ability’).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">4) <u>Social Factors</u>. From parents and teachers, encouragement and support. Parents socioeconomic status and education plays in. Teachers with stereotypical remarks or who themselves possess levels of maths anxiety too. (And equality vs equity – discard the equality.) Peers and peer pressure as well, though from the outset, what do we let them play with?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">She showed a video here of how <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWu44AqF0iI" target="_blank">dressing a baby girl as a boy and vice versa</a>, an adult gravitated towards different toy selections. I'd recommend checking it out (from 2017) as well as this other video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF1j22x-yU8" target="_blank">gender role expectations</a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">There was also #</span><span style="font-size: large;">5) </span><u style="font-size: large;">Societal Belief and Cultural Milieu</u><span style="font-size: large;">. (Media portrayal: Big Bang Theory vs Numb3rs. Girls who are “nerds” or not social in the former.) Also, employment trends, few role models. In a qualitative study on math and physics students, the major obstacles were seen as inadequate teaching methods (unappealing lectures), lack of social interaction and solitary feelings.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">There had been an activity planned here but we were down to five minutes left, so she gave final recommendations: *Stimulate and increase female interest through exposure from a younger age, then ensure they're aware of some professions. *Organize more outreach programs. Talk about great women in math. *And higher education should accept more women into ranks to serve as role models.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">As a general rule, be careful of assumptions. Particularly related to gender.</span></div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">CONCLUSIONS</span></h4><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The sessions were kept online for a couple weeks after the conference concluded, along with other pre-recorded sessions. I decided I was too busy with my full time remote teaching to take advantage... I had at least seen more than I managed to in 2020. One quick shoutout to the Friday keynote here, which I'd hoped to see more of.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh98nY50Jup9QkUxIh6vn5X_sxG7b0Kj6wxJJE2ahhoeYNEYKKC7K1gRjU_bkovrl6K2FmslCU41arxaYyCLKUbAQgAETEKoXYwGVvoa2WeS8dE_I9MzkwxAo7OwEACH_rGq_pA2xYXfi4/s2048/EC_Screen+Shot+2021-05-21+at+6.49.03+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="2048" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh98nY50Jup9QkUxIh6vn5X_sxG7b0Kj6wxJJE2ahhoeYNEYKKC7K1gRjU_bkovrl6K2FmslCU41arxaYyCLKUbAQgAETEKoXYwGVvoa2WeS8dE_I9MzkwxAo7OwEACH_rGq_pA2xYXfi4/w400-h250/EC_Screen+Shot+2021-05-21+at+6.49.03+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Eugenia Cheng was the speaker. ("Inclusion/Exclusion in mathematics", somewhat related to my other Friday session.) She noted that if you teach how to do standardized tests, then that's what students learn, which will not help them later. Need to change from <i>ingression</i> behaviour (to be powerful, we must put down others) to <i>congressional</i> (pursuit of depth and cultural awareness).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Her conclusion referenced how many different possible answers would be a wonderful way to make things more congressive at all ages (like "which one doesn't belong", shoutout to Christopher Daniels). "We don't defeat math by learning it, we make it bigger by learning it".</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In the overall, like I said in my prior post about the April Subject PD, there were elements here to reaffirm some of the things I was already aware of (albeit not necessarily doing). The class culture and spiralling aspects fit there, along with a few items like gerrymandering (which fit into my Data class).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">There were also things I could consider incorporating, once I have more time to think about them. That being the art aspects, and going deeper with social justice. And of course the gender issue is something to keep in mind, extending even more to my three year old daughter and not wanting to fit her into some societal norm.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">If you're wondering about previous OAME conferences I went to, you can have a look at <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2013/05/mat-oame-2013-day-1-key-notes.html" target="_blank">2013</a>, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2014/06/oame-2014-days-1-2.html" target="_blank">2014</a>, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2015/08/oame-2015-days-1-2.html" target="_blank">2015</a>, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2017/02/oame-2016-summary.html" target="_blank">2016</a>, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2018/10/oame-2018-day-1.html" target="_blank">2018</a>, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2019/10/oame-2019-summary.html">2019</a> and <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2020/10/oame-2020-summary.html" target="_blank">2020</a>. (In 2017 the sessions were full before I realized registration was open.)</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Alternatively, feel free to drop a comment here. Did you learn something, or have any thoughts about the mathematics? Or the teaching, or applications? Please let me and other readers know. As always, thanks for reading through to the end.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">(Note: For a <a href="https://mathtans.wordpress.com/catalogue/misc-index/#Parody" target="_blank">more frequently updated blog</a>, go to that link, where I've started rerunning "Quantum Loop" and other math parody serials.)</span></div><div><br /></div></div>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-80039365277708928362021-08-26T17:23:00.004-07:002021-08-28T17:15:29.147-07:00Subject PD 2021<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Welcome to a math teacher blogging about life in a pandemic. That's about all you'll get on this blog these days. (I still do weekly journalling, but see no point posting it.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There will be two posts on Professional Development this month, the Boardwide PD of April 23, 2021 and the OAME Math Conference during the week of May 17th, 2021. The boardwide is subject specific info, rather than how to use Personal Protective Equipment and the like. (Why would I bore you with that anyway?)</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizLQLTFSawg9ri9V90h_WHftAWRpWos1KiWXxubh5hCqDfqwkLMtipo_BU-7Yn1rpSYQlQcQPJuftD2m8EO6F7VVKA1cWlzz6_tjgDsdxtUoRBVaj23vAD8tqW99ilhRo4P67hCEiCqno/s2048/OntarioTeach2021.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizLQLTFSawg9ri9V90h_WHftAWRpWos1KiWXxubh5hCqDfqwkLMtipo_BU-7Yn1rpSYQlQcQPJuftD2m8EO6F7VVKA1cWlzz6_tjgDsdxtUoRBVaj23vAD8tqW99ilhRo4P67hCEiCqno/s320/OntarioTeach2021.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The current pandemic meant that both events were fully remote (in fact all teaching in Ontario was remote following the "April Break", moved from March).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For the board wide, this meant it was possible to sign up for any of the subject area online sessions. I took advantage of that to include "Comics in the Classroom", listed under the "Canadian and World Studies" subject header. The other two sessions were within mathematics, and the overall plenary speaker at the start.</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">PLENARY</span></h3><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The plenary session was speaker Mante Molepo. You should go <a href="https://www.mantemolepo.com/" target="_blank">check out her story yourself</a>; she's a black lawyer who co-founded Parents for Diversity. She presented through YouTube but there were links for audience interaction. Some of the early items I jotted down related to things caucasian individuals (such as myself) take for granted, like "flesh coloured" bandages, default emojis or non-dark tights (which can be a barrier to dance).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Also included were how Inuit names were forced to be changed for identification (their names otherwise evolve through life, a problem for the church), how Pullman Sleep Car Porters were (are?) referred to as "George" (after George Pullman himself, working "for him" as a callback to slavery), and how in fiction people of colour can be relegated to "token" characters who are without substance (tell a joke then fade into the background). Been trying not to do the latter myself.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There's also been repurposing by caucasians, like the image of a fist up. In the legal context, does requiring french remove indigenous options (as a second language)? This talk was, of course, prior to Mary Simon becoming the first Indigenous governor general in Canada, on July 26, 2021.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The analogy is antiracists trying to move up a down escalator. (I was reminded of "How to be an Antiracist" by Ibram X Kendi, which we were then reading for an optional book study at school.) There was also a rather good video about still being in practice (not being perfect).</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">TRANSITION WORKSHOP A</span></h3><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My first workshop session after this was "A35: Panel discussion to address concerns about transitioning to University in the time of COVID". It was put on by Monica Nevins, Steven Desjardins and Joseph Khoury out of the University of Ottawa, Dept of Math & Statistics.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Even then, at the end of April, the assumption was Fall 2021 would be online. Some downsides of remote are no casual connections/calibrations, more anxiety, it's easier to disengage (watch recordings on the weekend instead), and the necessity of mastering technology platforms.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Some upsides are setting of one's own pace, more resources at hand, equalization (with overseas students not on campus), better focus (no distractions by people in class and/or teacher interrupting themselves for such distractions) and more personalized help/feedback.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What was already noticed in Fall 2020 was unprecedented levels of anxiety, especially before midterms, and a harder time managing deadlines. By happy coincidence, U.Ottawa had planned (pre-pandemic) for different calculus streamed courses in 2020 (one stream having an extra 1.5 hrs of lecture per week for more depth/review) and many took the option. They were hoping to also have a BrightSpace calculus readiness assessment tool in place for Aug 2021 (in both languages), including skill building modules.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After the initial discussion, some polls were posted by the host, including what material may have been dropped from Gr 12 courses, what student skills stand out as better/deficient, and how much work students are completing (almost unanimous result was work is "less because there is less time"). The poll about technology platforms didn't even HAVE "Google Classroom/Meet" as an OPTION, showing a bit of a disconnect there (86% answered Other)... this session was through Zoom.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKrVKr5EaNtgTqd1-XgCQ0tAu0shSHdC-bJ6opiolk3YicvcZSfrusxTO2ey5w6TVZdA6ZeG_8Vk_uLYjYgocIoM2RX2Y2rm1qMt-VVQr089h7n-hUhpPu9y_-6JNBaGNqJEYs0dsVOis/s1035/Apr23PD1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="702" data-original-width="1035" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKrVKr5EaNtgTqd1-XgCQ0tAu0shSHdC-bJ6opiolk3YicvcZSfrusxTO2ey5w6TVZdA6ZeG_8Vk_uLYjYgocIoM2RX2Y2rm1qMt-VVQr089h7n-hUhpPu9y_-6JNBaGNqJEYs0dsVOis/w400-h271/Apr23PD1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In some back and forth, it was advised that if you have to leave something out in 4U (non-Data), it should be the linear algebra. They're not cutting any post-secondary material on their end and have not noticed a difference in marks (there ARE issues but not in respect to overall marks).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Some discussion of cheating (academic integrity) also occurred. Use of "photo math" to check if students match, or in advance pose a question that would give a horrible answer if solved in a way that had not yet been taught. Steve remarked "[cheating] was nowhere as bad as I thought it could be". It was also noted that University professors are not allowed to speak to parents or guardians about academic work/program without written consent; they're adults, no longer minors.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Biggest advice for students: Use available supports, be proactive, and time management is stress management. Also, students like anonymous zoom polls.</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">COMICS PD</span></h3><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My second workshop session was, as referenced earlier, "B4. Comics in the Classroom". Put on by Hugh Goldring & Nicole Burton (of <a href="https://adastracomix.com/">https://adastracomix.com/</a>) with host Stephen Hoogenraad.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There are various roles involved in making comics, from concept to script to drawing to publicity to publishing. Comics use is growing faster than books, but it was noted that's maybe because they're starting from very little use. For benefits, you can be in space, in time, or concepts personified as superheroes. For challenges, not all kids can draw (or it takes them time).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">One can start with character concepts/design. (I mentioned xkcd format in the online chat.) There is also thinking creatively and staging a dialogue (meaning the student gets to play two sides of a conversation), and related, wiping speech bubbles out of comics to allow kids to write in their own.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Detournement (from the french) is taking a text and subverting it's intended meaning, making it political. One example was in the UK reimagining Tintin as someone organizing a union (and it's noted that Tintin has almost no women in it). Some kids do this already, pencilling commentary into textbooks. You can move into propaganda posters, where you're not just drawing in speech, you also need to consider the original art in context.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Some anecdotes included mention of Art Spigelman, "Maus" (which has MetaMaus like a teacher's guide), Oxford University Press (Gr 5-12, with teacher resources in back), and "Enemy Alien" (internment camp). You can also get into conversations that are difficult as a group (some feel vulnerable, others want to joke) where you immerse yourself in another character/storyline. Topics like racism, sexism, mental health and micro-aggressions.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglEAFn5iIFn3RWqLzHpJoLS15md0y_7RecSXcVlpO6qQVqH42nP-6ooQdtMwWRmNMa3HBT3C8cpntENI8Z6Lc5zF-YUwjv0NzulnX5-28cWzgZ1UYaKIKmejZFMzeBzQ0EeXoDu_rM_9o/s1975/Apr23PD2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1111" data-original-width="1975" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglEAFn5iIFn3RWqLzHpJoLS15md0y_7RecSXcVlpO6qQVqH42nP-6ooQdtMwWRmNMa3HBT3C8cpntENI8Z6Lc5zF-YUwjv0NzulnX5-28cWzgZ1UYaKIKmejZFMzeBzQ0EeXoDu_rM_9o/w400-h225/Apr23PD2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We did a sample exercise on a Jamboard (there were about 58 people present but we didn't all participate; one shared and there was discussion). One of the panels is shown above - what might you include? (Did you automatically assume there was a racial component?)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For creating whole comics, "BitStrips" has closed down, "Canva" can be used and "Comic Life" used to have board support (no more).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Superhero comics can be an analogy to Greek Mythology and many kids already have related conversations (like who fights crime the most effectively, and what does that mean). "The Nib" online mentioned for comics journalism, more current events. Tags on instagram. I asked about manga, and someone mentioned "Barefoot Gen" (atomic bomb, not for the faint of heart).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In conclusion, there's really comics for everything.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">SUMMARY</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To conclude in general, the day helped to reaffirm some of the things I was already doing. Such as trying to be more aware of racial/societal barriers (more on that with OAME), using Meet polls, and giving a summary evaluation at the end of my Data course. (We were mandated to not have exams or summatives, but I put in strand revisits so that we could cover the expectations a second time, and seems post-secondary exams aren't going anywhere... I tried to make it low stakes including a help sheet.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As far as the comic use goes, maybe personified math helps? I wonder what would happen if I used one of my own comics as a prompt with their dialogue balloons. That might be something to consider. Did you have any thoughts, from reading this?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Obviously there's ways to take all of this further than I already am, but in the midst of a pandemic, sometimes it's nice to know that I'm not completely crashing and burning. What with having to re-imagine courses for the quadmester format. Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for another post about OAME 2021.</span></p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-67950158169044201142020-12-31T16:55:00.002-08:002021-01-03T06:25:46.919-08:00Pandemic Parenting: Dec 2020<p><u>Week 128</u></p><div style="text-align: left;">-Little one 12:30-1:30am; dreamt^ to 3am. Awake with little one 5:40am; trade off as she wakes up an hour later. Took some time to organize my day, brief family time 8am then over an hour Dad time. Shopping after 9:30am, which took 1.5 hrs; put items away, all had yogurts, then Dad time downstairs. Lunch after 12:00, Mom handles snooze as I attempt reference letter, other school, and then snooze itself after an hour of goofing. From 2-3pm I do NaNo, because. Then Dad time for not quite an hour and actual school work on 3M for an hour. Phone home. Dad time, then cooking and plotting out some 3M. Bed by 10:30pm.<br />-Up 5am; handle 3M test and quiz. Some NaNo, then 6:30am with little one. Mom time after 7am, some emails. School to tidy up the first of the 3Ms; finish the unit. Then monitor a 3C test in another room, creating solution sets. Lunch by 2pm, finalize items, run, then pickup in rain. Home, some emails. Play downstairs, some tidying before dinner. Nail clipping, dinner, finalize ref letter then NaNo crawl. More writing. Bed before 11:30pm.<br />-Up a bit in night, then from 6:15am. Prep/scan letter, help with dressing, eventually out. Run; forget mask in car. Teach 3M lessons with new set of 16. Emails, quick lunch, quiz correcting, staff meeting. Runs to after 4pm, quick pickup. Home, send letter, then almost 1.5 hr little one as Mom head hurts. Losing my mind before 7pm, eventually back in to handle missing quizzes and other emails. Finish quizzes after 10:15pm (brief break for RDA), then prep. Briefly cook.<br />-Bed 12:30am. Up by 6am, sled in circles in light snow before departing. First 3M test, many questions. Try to prep remote lesson. Trig continues, then grading quizzes and answering emails. NO staff mtg, brief relax including at home. Dad time 45 min involves cleaning. After 8pm, with dinner, back into quiz corrections until after 10:30pm. Finish remote lesson; decompress.<br />-Some interruptions. Morning to check messages, share yogurts. 3M test again, set up regression solutions and files. Then into trig. Lunch is a book club for Ibram X (distanced). Emails and calculator disinfecting (needed 7), run, and home. Mixed time includes sadness over island cleaning. Cooking, break, don't get to work until near 10pm on lesson planning. Up later than I wanted.<br />-Mom up 6am, Dad time 6:30am, school prep and tidying after 7am. Back to a regular teaching day. Put together rest of quads unit. Shopping trip, then notified maybe preschool in a month. Home, Mom time, then Dad time for half an hour, pick up food then back and forth. Dishes. Break, then talk about Xmas. In bed before 10pm.<br />-Dreamt^^. With little one 6am, Mom takes over 6:30am; over an hour to finalize Alexandra's story translation/photos. Dad time 8-10am, including blowing up beachball and wearing boots. 10am, parent email and video creation. 11am, some grading; 11:30 soup for lunch. By 1pm Mom snoozing, TGIO NaNo wrap party online. After 2pm, grading. 3pm Dad time for an hour; 4pm some grading then nap. 5pm phoning; eventual bath and bed. Grading 8pm, assist with bed before 9pm. Buy gas, milk, bit more grading then classifying photos to 11:30pm.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>===</div><div>Item counts to Saturday (Dec 5):</div><div><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 51,200</div><div>-Trying to finish “Girl + Algebra” while baffled by darkness.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 62,300 (14 stars)</div><div>-Home life seems busier than work, wondering about my serotonin, RRL end.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 68,650 (10 stars)</div><div>-Tears in the night became cold too, MDM surveys, last "Time Untied" words for yr.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 75,850 (13 stars)</div><div>-Xmas lights, Santa photo, clear words, cut my finger; hospital, Jughead review.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 56,400. 11 stars.</div><div>SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 179 New (60 sent)</div><div>We have completed DAY 68. Now taught for 39 days vs. quarantine only nine. (3 overlap)</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 9 (Blaster Mode, Full Power)</div><div><br /></div><div>=======</div><div><u>Week 129</u></div><div>-Dreamt*. Up 5:30am, more photo sorting. With little one 6am for two hours (first 30 min asleep). After 8am, start calendar sorting and do more grading (including online course setup). After 11am, outside with Alexandra to park. Back noon, cook lunch; after 12:30pm head to snooze. Asleep after an hour; more grading (one set down). Nap myself for over 45 min. More grading after 3:30pm (near completion). Depart after 4:30pm with Tatie for Kanata Lights. (40 min wait from 5pm opening.) Home 6:30pm; little one out of sorts. Quick emails. Bed after 7:30pm; 8pm into prepping of Monday 3C Quiz/Review. Bed by midnight.</div><div>-With Alexandra before 6am. Break to queue up posts (and download images) at 6:30am. Regular day, two lessons and review, during which I can write out solutions. After lunch, put together finance assignment with solutions. Quickly out to buy card. Home with back and forth crashing until together after 6:30pm. Evening of trying to finalize finance and handle Geometry in a lesson. Breakdown. Bed by 11pm.</div><div>-Up from 5:30am, with little one from 6:15am. Regular day (cycled back to finance) with some missing students. Graded remote quizzes after lunch. Home, managed dishes then family time then Dad time; eventually take 10 min. Dinner, send emails about missing quizzes, prepare new quiz and geometry sheet. RDA while finalizing and queueing post, bed after 11:30pm.</div><div>-Up after 5:30am but all quiet. Finish sorting all photos, bit of sled in new snow. Test at school, finalize finance lesson, teach geometry (barely staying ahead). No quizzes?? Catch up with emails and some prep work, quick shopping trip. Home, and they read book online which lets me do one quiz and lie down. Then Dad time for 30+ minutes, her dinner 7pm which lasts a while. Start sending 'missing' emails before 8pm, takes half an hour. Time for dinner, eventually something in by 10pm; to bed by 10:30pm.</div><div>-Awake before 5:30am; trying to deal with emails. With Alexandra from 6:15 to 7am, then trying to complete quiz marking. Time outside, to work -- forget my drive. Anne-Lise emails me needed files. Alexandra sticker for going in the preschool door. Me two evaluations that day, won't see them again in 2020, exhausting. Finalize Friday tests. Run, home and an hour of grading probability quizzes; rejoin at 5:30pm for family and Father time. Bed after fall at 7pm; cook then 8pm Exec Social. Before 9pm, doing work, no energy to grade. To bed before 10:30pm.</div><div>-Up 5:30am. Do prep work for next week until 7am. Head out to another testing day, not as intense; have time to adjust Trig lessons. Then we start trig, and I find a video to show as things go fast. After lunch, draw up solutions and finalize more of next week; student doesn't show for Meet. Send emails about Assignment. Run, home, some back and forth and a half hour Dad time. After bed, I largely take the evening off; my bed after midnight.</div><div>-Up 6am. Start dealing with Holiday Parody. Dad time for 1.5 hrs from 6:40am; time away to figure out shopping. Tatie's after 9am, shopping to 10am, dealing with related items to 11am. Back to song parody. Drop-off at noon, more parody during snooze (with brief interruption to help); dishes once it's complete. Dad time half hour, then 2 hrs of grading along with some family time inserted; Dad time again 6:30pm. Bed after 7:30pm, dinner, wrapping gifts to mail, and more grading. Bed after 11:30pm.</div><div><br /></div><div>===</div><div>Item counts to Saturday (Dec 12):</div><div><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 58,600</div><div>-Groaned about holidays breaking routine, tried to get ahead.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 67,000 (14 stars)</div><div>-Too busy before the holidays, Cappies mentoring, tried new phone.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 76,000 (12 stars)</div><div>-6 hrs sleep decided as standard, Similac Stage 2 & solid food, laughter video.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 71,700 (14 stars)</div><div>-Alexandra bandaid, Cappies mentor show, to Aunt Alyssa's, breakdown.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 56,950. 11 stars.</div><div>SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 137 New (60 sent)</div><div>We have completed DAY 73. Now taught for 44 days vs. quarantine only nine. (3 overlap)</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 9 (Blaster Mode, Full Power)</div><div><br /></div><div>=======</div><div><u>Week 130</u></div><div>-Up 6:30am. Sort photos, check messages. Family time 8:15am, getting out the tree and assorted garland, ladder, etc. Dad time 9:15am, then before 10am dealing with wrapping gifts and sorting boxes. Breakdown by 11am. Out to post office before 11:30; drop by store to look for replacement bottle (broke at Sat snooze). Home by 12:30pm, doing snooze before lunch. She's asleep after an hour, before 2pm... trying not to freak over still no grading today. Also considering ppt creation. Finally to work 3:45pm for 1.5 hrs, then phoning home, family time and dinner. Bath, cooking, back to work 8:30pm. Finish that after 10:30pm; dinner and put together powerpoint. Sleep after 12:30am.</div><div>-Dreamt*. With Alexandra from 6:45am; dresses with Mom after 7am. Teaching is back to 3M, the quieter class(?). Quads and Sins, then grading remains of 3C, emails, and handling probability. Home for more emails and grading; Dad time outside before 6pm for over half an hour, pulling sled in new snow. After dinner, the cooking and finish grading then getting midterm marks into the system during RDA; finish about 10:30pm. Then aim to record Holiday Song after 11pm. Trial run; attempt #1 slides do not advance; attempt #2 my computer shuts off despite power; attempt #3 the chromebook glitches audio; attempt #4 is hopefully fine, to bed before 12:30am.</div><div>-Up by 5:30am with little one. 6:30am, verify the vid audio and fix remote attendance. Then family, and head out. Teach the class I've seen 3 times; manage to grade a quiz on break. Once done, quick lunch, then Meet a student for 15 min, then enter all the Low Grades data (~45 min) then finalize and copy test. Now after 3pm, still need to start quizzes; send apology to stream. Quick shopping. Then emails & quizzes for over 1.5 hrs at home; Dad time before 6:30pm (Mom tapped out). Still more quizzes after she's asleep before 8pm, finally done 10pm. Consider dinner. Bit of prep, in bed by 11:30pm.</div><div>-Up after 6am. Dad time including her out of sack by herself; to work, still cold yet do my run early again. Hand out OSSTF magazines. Test (for finalizing next review), then finish quadratics. Handle parent emails (absences, midterms), student emails, quiz feedbacks, photocopying, attendance, probably more things; leave after 3:30pm (oops). Home for more quizzes and emails. Dad time for 45 min before 6pm, dinner, then lie down 15 min. After bed, quizzes and doing dishes. More emails. Bed by 11:30pm at least.</div><div>-Asleep after 1am; dreams included watching a small plane crash and I have no phone. Up 6:30am. Pull together Daycare articles, handle remote attendance. Needed 7:15am to dress in PJs. Morning announcements have my song; second test day, after review. Parent email, then Book Club. Quick lunch, then quiz corrections. Pickup after 4pm, home as Mom arrives. Brief staff gather 5pm (whoever's left from 4pm), then more quizzes. Dad time 6-7pm, quick break. More quizzes/emails before 8pm. Cooking, then printing at 9:30pm. Dinner 10pm, then de-stressing, then need to prep final lesson; bed after midnight.</div><div>-Awake by 6am; dreamt^. Dad time, and she likes the elastic with the Santa on it. To work, last test of 2020, I manage to sort my emails. Intro trig. Get Daycare message/photo about Santa's visit, despite my internal stress it didn't go well anyway. ("Gone.") By 1pm, 50/50 draw then contact tracing binders in, lunch (and I'm the Holiday poet from trivia?). Email student who was away and the one not returning in Jan. Write down the road map for both courses before I forget. Depart 3pm, do shopping, run, pickup. Start laundry, realize we need diapers so run out again before 5:30pm (also get printer ink). Dad time for 45 min after 6pm, then sushis. Asleep by 8pm, I square away some things, BNL live concert at 9pm. I'm wiped out by 10pm, bed.</div><div>-Decent night, up by 6:30am, start Epsilon story work and sort photos. Family after 8am, Dad time for an hour including sticker art from 8:30am; lie down for half an hour. Couple items, then outside 10:45am for family time. Small car to park with slides and swing; home solo after 11:30am. Lunch, then Mom takes snooze while I deal with Xmas lights; the extension cord has one prong too wide so need to deal with duct tape around door, takes an hour. Run, wake others 3pm to start laundry and do measure - she's ~93 cm. Dad time for an hour, then I need to deal with pedometer, check messages, lie down for half an hour. Back in and it's Dad time for almost an hour (including downstairs), then dinner on my lap. Vector to sleep is almost 8pm, then cooking and decompressing and I forgot to deal with photos and dishes and still have a list a mile long, fml bed 10pm.</div><div><br /></div><div>===</div><div>Item counts to Saturday (Dec 19):</div><div><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 46,500</div><div>-Was meeting deadlines amid chaos.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 70,900 (14 stars)</div><div>-Car repair issue, caught a cold, secret santa art sketches.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 79,800 (10 stars)</div><div>-Holiday gatherings, visited school, into size 2 diapers, Timeless movie.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 77,100 (12 stars)</div><div>-Craft show, put up tree, unwraps own book, school protests and upload of files.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 60,350. 10 stars.</div><div>SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 245 New (105 sent)</div><div> Removed 57 sent Placemat exports</div><div>We have completed DAY 78. Now taught for 49 days vs. quarantine only nine. (3 overlap)</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 10 (Barrier Burst)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div> (I wonder if that's harsh then remember I broke down in front of the little one dealing with shipping and had to handle "midterm" marks and song recording and Jan work for a student and all the quizzes and theme days and Xmas light extension cord and fml.)</div><div><br /></div><div>=======</div><div><u>Week 131</u></div><div>-Dreamt*. Up 6am to write, with little one from 6:45am to near 8am. Break to clear camera and write, then 9am shoot holiday video for family. Dad time before 9:30 for over an hour towards family time outside. Home 11am to cook and finalize her story. Family from 11:45 including lunch, then vector to snooze. Asleep by 1pm; then I sleep (dream of someone short driving my car who can't reach pedals, somehow I help from in back?). Mom time after 2:30pm, write. Depart after an hour to Piquards; depart there 5:30pm, phone grandparents. Dinner after 6:30pm, bath, asleep after 8pm. Discuss calendar photos. Dinner, then dishes, asleep after midnight.</div></div><div><div>-Awake 6am with little one; relieved by 6:45am, Mom's glasses missing. To Daycare and Back to start self-clean oven and finish Epsilon Entry. Buy new battery for pedometer (fails to update properly?) and scones. Card for ECEs. To mall for ornament and new camera card. Home for lunch as lockdown's delayed. Buy gift certificates en route, pick up and right to Chapel. Play there, home after 6pm picking up food, eventually she sleeps as I shift to Photo Issues, then Calendar Issues. School email says do the impossible about impending lockdown (mesh the class with cohorts in different places). Some RDA also. Bed by 11:30, moving so slow.</div><div>-Awake 5:20am for relief duties. After 6am, more calendar work. 6:45am Dad time, but Mom must dress so handle breakfast and recycling. Brief sled play, Daycare. Finish calendar from 8:30-11:30am. Return a call, deal with dishes. Quick shopping, then bookstore, run and haircut 3pm (appointment yesterday morn). Second bookstore and novelties store to complete shopping. Pickup, exterior lights on by 4:30pm return. Then go pick up calendars; 5pm quiet time. 5:30-6:30pm back and forth, little one lacks energy, dinner was included... bed routine before 7pm. Half hour reduce before 8pm. Then into Xmas video rendering. Also break time. Bed about 10:30pm.</div><div>-Up 2:30-4:30; allowed to sleep past 7am. Update photos, social media, family time 8am (Dad focussed). Nose runs a bit; cold? Depart before 10am to Chapel, Alexandra grandparent time; I finish video rendering and print her story. Then mail calendar to Mom (G'ma) and final shopping, slip and skin my knees on ice. Lunch, then upload to Taylor Xmas and do gift wrapping. (Also Toddler room switchover, but I still want songs.) Depart 4pm for pickup and tea, return 5:30pm. I deal with emails and full photo card. Dad time 6pm, dinner after 6:30pm, asleep by 8pm. Cooking, some videos, finish 'Adachi/Shimamura' then 9:15pm into sketches. Bed 11pm. She definitely has a cold.</div><div>-Up 6am, tidy these files; 6:35am Dad time for 1.5 hrs including holiday outfit. Break for 1.5 hrs includes inking sketches. Dad time as Mom cooks chocolate; eventual lunch. Snooze attempt, I do dishes, tidy, finish wrapping... need to help finish sleep. After 1:30pm I complete channel edits to 10th Annual Parody and some colouring of scans... snooze extended to 4pm. Some family time, then I lie down for 45 minutes. Arrivals start 5:30pm. Little one gifts after 6pm. Dinner 8pm with her in PJs (after stocking) and me spending time by mattress - as she doesn't want to miss out but is tired. Eventually she helps carry gifts to people. Actual sleep after 10:30pm (she insists on book again), alone after 11pm. I finish scan colouring and prep work, bed 12:30am.</div><div>-Awake after 7am; little one up 7:45am. Out for stocking 8:30am by which point my video is online. Santa stuff. Call parents but they have snow (we have rain), so breakfast. Called back before 11am, an hour of remote gifts. Lunch, snooze attempt before 1pm succeeds before 2pm. I get my blog post online (and research chocolate). Lie down half an hour, back up 3:30pm. Potty talk. Depart before 4:30pm to Chapel; family dinner there and cleaning supplies. Depart 7pm, bath, bed 8pm but I take over 9pm, no success until 9:45pm. Do my run, we tidy up living room. 11pm break time. Bed after midnight.</div><div>-Awake after 7am; Dad time from 7:30am. Starting to feel like a cold. Mom from 8:15am as I fold up rug for a potty train day. Then do dishes. Some back and forth, family time outside after 10am. Dad time in park, then she gets small shovel; back inside 11:30am. Take time for inking, lunch, then shopping. Home before 2pm, more Banner work. Dad time for 1.5 hrs from 3:45pm including floor accident. About 5:30pm lie down and finish banner colouring. Before 7pm dinner, then Mom finishes truffles; bed before 8pm. Needed before 9pm. Asleep before 9:30pm. Banner completed, goof off online to 1am.</div><div>-Lotus Prince "Dino Crisis 2" (from Nov) #1-5 & AT4W</div><div><br /></div><div>===</div><div>Item counts to Saturday (Dec 26):</div><div><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 36,000</div><div>-Was sick, but pleased by my writing of 2016.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 55,400 (19 stars)</div><div>-Getting over being sick, did art and writing, busy but not stressed.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 56,400 (10 stars)</div><div>-Dealing with gifts, long drive on Boxing Day, musical sleeps, 10 subs on Tapas.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 52,500 (7 stars)</div><div>-Sick, parody & calendar work, new car seat, driving and hospital (her then me).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 58,150. 10 stars.</div><div>SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 10 New (3 sent)</div><div>We are holding at DAY 78. Taught for 49 days vs. quarantine only 9. (3 overlap)</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 8 (Starlight Breaker, Extension)</div><div><br /></div><div>=======</div><div>Week 132</div><div>-Awake 6am after being up earlier; Mom takes over, me Tylenol, bit more sleep. Post banner, family time 8am. Dad centred from 8:30am; lie down again after 9:30 (one success and 10 min later one accident). Organize photos. Dad time reading by 10:15, then depart in car to get in-laws. 11-12:30am including brunch (and I email photos). Snooze attempt from 1pm, and I lie down, she's up after an hour. Rejoin 4pm, after another success. Phone grandparents 5pm, then videos. Lie down 6pm, back for dinner, aborted by shark in bath. Asleep after 8pm. Update some files, still sick, bed 10pm; actually read some Potty Train book chapter first to after 10:30pm.</div><div>-Awake 6:30am, Dad time 7am including paints. Outside with family after 8:15am for shovel and sled. I come in 9:15am to finish sorting photos. Rejoin 10:30am, Dad time until Mark H phones. Dad time again after laundry but losing patience; making lunch before noon. Grading from 12:30-4:30pm (during snooze and books), then back outside for 45 min. Family time, brief grading 6pm but then yoga. Health fading from 7pm, soon bed routine; cook, more grading, decompress (some RDA) and to bed 11pm.</div><div>-In A's room a lot with micro sleeps. (Like Reuben suddenly comes in says 'oh you're still here' then I'm awake.) Mom takes over 6:45am, micro sleeps. (Like we're setting up RP and I need to pick a bunny avatar; also we're around a table with a Gold account?) Join 8:15am, Dad centred time 8:30am. Family time before 9am, depart before 10am to Chapel. Once home, handle dishes and tidying, get online Archies, finish grading more tests, move humidifier. Drop-off 4pm, home for tallying tests. Chapel dinner after 6pm; depart before 7:30pm. Last things, I finish test tallies after 9pm. Bit more tidying, videos time. Bed after 10:30pm.</div><div>-Relief from 5:15am; awake 7:15am (micro sleeps). Dad time to 8am, grading 8:15am. Dad time 9:30am, cleaning begins 10am. Depart for store/bills (and book), return by 11:15am. Dad time, briefly outside (nice snow, but ice). Lunch, then snooze 12:30pm, goes quick. More book reading. Lie down 45 min, awakened 2:30pm. Resume grading, through another set by 4:15pm. Dad time including self-awareness and outside for 45 min; inside for rest after 6pm. Some grading before 6:30pm, rejoin 6:45pm. Dinner etc after 7pm; cook, bit more grading, sort photos, break, bed from 10pm.</div><div>-Dreams**. 7am deal with photos, finish grading tallies. 8am family time, Dad time for an hour after pants issue. Depart by 10am for Chapel. Home 10:45am, break, then grading online regressions. Still not done after 3pm; do run anyway. Pickup after 4pm, grading after 4:45pm. After 6pm DONE with 3M (3C remains). Dad time 40 min with much cleaning. Dinner, bed, record Daycare screen video. Family arrives before 9pm (watch little one videos); dinner after 10pm. Crackers at midnight. Bed after 12:30am.</div><div>-Awake before 7am, Dad time for 75 min including books. Sort through email then start grading. By 9:45am, back with others and Dad time to 11am. Family time, including call to Great Aunt. Dad time, then lunch. Then need to tidy kitchen, put things away; some grading before 2pm possible. 3pm Dad time, then depart for Chapel. Return before 4:30pm, grading (and Commencement view). Return 5:30pm for family dinner; arrive home 7:45pm (circled back for giraffe). Grading again after 8pm, needed to help sleep, grading after 9pm. Doctor Who special from 9:30pm, then 11pm needed potty (that was unexpected). Send emails, bed from midnight.</div><div>-Dreamt&. They're up 7:15am. I catch up with some non-school things. Join 8:15am, Dad time from 8:30am with lots of reading. Back to work 9:45am, also try to convert MOV to be visible by old FinalCut (VLC allows saving as wmv/asf but not without watermark?). After 11am out to shovel as family. Brief Dad time then noon potty including new book. Lunch after 12:30, snooze 1pm, asleep 2pm and I can read more on training (including Daycare section). Up 3:30pm, I attempt file render then off to Chapel for scheduled swim. Photos, mark tallies, back home for an hour of Dad time including tree ornaments. Break for email (and file render died), dinner and bath. Finish grading, then bath fault. Bed before 8pm; potty again before 9pm. After re-recording and cooking, quick run, read new yuri. Bed after 11pm.</div><div>-Lotus Prince "Dino Crisis 2" #6 (end) & Drakengard 3 pieces</div><div><br /></div><div>===</div><div>Item counts to Saturday (Jan 2):</div><div><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: 52,000</div><div>-Roundup posts, finally started tackling item backlog post-writing.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 56,300 (14 stars)</div><div>-Sick AGAIN, so was either moping or very busy doing things.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 64,750 (8 stars)</div><div>-"Doctor Who" special, movie, sorting "Time Untied", vaccinations & standing</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #ea9999;">Step Count 2020</span>: Over 39,500 (5 stars)</div><div>-Hospital and driving, SO sick alone in basement, "Frozen II" & "Star Wars".</div><div><br /></div><div><b>STEP COUNT 2020/21</b>: Over 53,150. 11 stars.</div><div>SCHOOL EMAIL 2020/21: 15 New (3 sent)</div><div>We are holding at DAY 78. Taught for 49 days vs. quarantine only 9. (3 overlap)</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 7 (Starlight Breaker)</div><div><br /></div><div>*****</div><div><i>CONSTANT TO-DO LIST:</i></div><div> -Sketches for 2019 holiday parody</div><div> -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias</div><div> -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement</div><div> -Catching up with web serials/comics (from ~August 2018)</div><div> -Read some of the books sitting at my desk</div></div>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-84185982876426037982020-11-30T04:24:00.006-08:002021-01-02T07:17:49.382-08:00Pandemic Parenting: Nov 2020<p><u>Week 124</u></p><div style="text-align: left;">-Time change went surprisingly well. Awake 5:50 (6:50), with her in chair until 6:30 (7:30); then it's Mom and I go to categorize all the photos. Done 8am. Breakfast, then Dad time from 8:30am. Over 1.5 hr including park trip. Once back, I work out cooking pumpkin seeds; others get France call. Start lunch 11am (noon) of soups. Seeds also a success. Towards snooze by noon (1pm), asleep 12:40pm with me. Awake 2:15pm, so change, and then I do a NaNo WriteIn from 3-4pm. Dad time, then record video for relatives, then phone home 5pm (6pm). Snacks, dinner, eventually bath and bed; needs me to help. Done after 8pm, quick shopping trip (replaced ceramic pumpkin on sale), video edits and then more NaNo items. Bed, midnight, after writing.<br />-With little one by 6:30am, croissants. Run before school, support day, manage to finalize last unit with tests including in-class. Start grading, also emails. Shopping trip, back home. Family time, Dad time, including yoga mat fun. Signs of tired by 6pm, bed before 7pm but needs help. NaNo Discord by 7:45pm, whole mess of fire engines. 9pm switch to RDA, finish many items (new post, pay Daycare, tidy car, etc). Bed before midnight.<br />-Terrible night, most sleep was on floor of her room. Spacy morning; eventually corrected all in-class and totalled, also started writing in solutions for stats. Staff meeting (online) before 3pm. Pickup and home, crash for 20 min. Family time & Dad time (including mouse play and dinner), getting tired. NaNo words from after 7:30-9pm, then dinner. Bed by 10:30pm.<br />-Up with little one from 6am (awake with Mom before that). Break after 7am, head out to Traffic Duty for ~40 minutes before 8:15am. Check USA updates, finish marking scheme and start sorting handouts and old tests into my 3M/3C. (Attempted questions in Gr 9 Meet flop.) Do some writing through lunch. Leave for pickup 3pm, bring car in for tires (some new) 3:30pm, home via scones. Clean up, back out 4:30pm to pick up car. By 5pm Dad time for 75 min including park trip, dinner. Brief break to 6:30pm. Tidy kitchen, vector to bed, deal with cooking. By 8pm, NaNo words. 9pm, dinner break. Social media, bed 11:30pm.<br />-Over 1.5 hr on floor but some sleep&. Half hour checking medias, to school. Morning starts with writing, then attempt Gr 9 Meet Qs, handle emails. Anime Club (VLE) during Music Support (no sound). Then lunch and grading. Meet, quick shopping (for Fri lunch), home. Brief break, family time after 5pm for an hour of park. Then Dad time including dinner to before 7pm; bed routine. By 8pm, NaNo words. 9pm, dinner break. Before 10pm, little one crisis; Mom takes over before 10:30pm, pass out.<br />-Up with Alexandra 5:30am; out of chair an hour later; tidy for cleaners. Mom joins after 7am. Pullups talk at Daycare (seems no). Last support day at work; no one in Meets, I get grading caught up (some items still outstanding). Staff gather 1pm outside with cookies. Home, 5pm I clean ladders and put away Halloween items, then family to park. Pick up food, still 30 min park, home for dinner. Dad time under 30 min, bath and bed. By 8pm, NaNo words. 9pm, dinner break. Bed by 10:30pm.<br />-Some dreams*, partially awake 5am with her, fully awake 6:20am with her. From 7am, working with Untied blog. Out 9am, Dad time for 3 hours from 9:20am; indoors a bit of everywhere. After lunch, Mom takes snooze, I do Music WriteIn 1pm. Also tidy. They talk to France after 3:30pm, I lie down, end up asleep for 40 min. We all go out by 5pm to parks, home over an hour later, Dad time includes dinner. To bed after 7pm, asleep by 8pm, I do emails, photos and social media. Then finish Untied blog post. Bed midnight.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />===<br />Item counts to Saturday (Nov 7):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 52,000<br />-ALL the writing, including considerations for restored math comic.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 60,250 (15 stars)<br />-Board messed with me as I returned to work. Marking for reports.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 68,800 (10 stars)<br />-Grading in car with little one, sicknesses and mostly downstairs sleeping.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 73,400 (16 stars)<br />-Haircut, Big School Fight, OSSTF 100 yr with balloons. All Day Writein.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 57,250. 10 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 132 New (54 sent)<br /> Removed 15 evidence exports and 17 Gr 9 Meet msgs<br />We have completed DAY 48. Now taught for 19 days vs. quarantine only six.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 6 (Break Shoot)</div></div><p style="text-align: left;">=======</p><p><u>Week 125</u></p><div style="text-align: left;">-Dreamt^. Up before 6:30am, Dad time before 7am for 1.5 hrs including sausages and park. Family time outside, then I do dishes and have a quick lie down. Then some back and forth (I tidy files), basement time, lunch and snooze. An hour to fall asleep, I do 35 minutes of NaNo, then lie down. Awakened nearly an hour later. Family time 45 minutes, then Dad time out at both parks and phoning grandparents. 5:45pm I deal with school emails, then it's dinner, final video view, bath and bed. From 8pm, some social media and some writing. Bed 10:30pm.<br />-Dreamt of teachings; giraffe tossed at 3am is wanted at 5am. Scanning medias before 6am. All having yogurts after 7am. Final week of Data concludes three lessons; parent email and others. Shopping after school. Home, some back and forth before family dinner after 6pm. Towards bed 7pm; NaNo writing from 7:30-9pm. Dinner and RDA afterwards, bed before 11pm.<br />-Vivid but fleeting dreams; awake before 6am as Mom still next door. With little one from 6:30am. Finish main teaching with other Cohort. Update test and stream, messages, quick shopping. Do Car Wash on way home, which goes very badly; pick up Mom en route and then home routine. Some back and forth time. Bed towards 7:30pm, I'm on NaNo Zoom writing by 8pm. Dinner after 9pm, bed before 11pm.<br />-Some time from 6:30am to tidy writing. Poppy for Alexandra, Remembrance Day Ceremony at work, not much in terms of teaching so catch up (temporarily) in grading. Gift from student is nice. Photocopier issues, preview tomorrow's videos, Anime post. Pickup and home, out before 5pm to put away hose (water off) and enjoy last evening over 10 degrees. Park, and looking at stars. Corn for supper. She's asleep before 8pm, I deal with school quizzes then NaNo Writing. Break for a run (forgot pedometer to school), finish after 10pm. Then grade tests. To bed after midnight.<br />-With little one from 6:30am. Cereal sharing. Does not want to leave; cries en route. Finish grading tests, then last in-class test. During which I set up marking scheme, new Classrooms and send Math Contest msg. An hour to finish course, then Dept Meeting over lunch. Break, set up library test and briefly talk with other Dad Teachers. Then finish Fragtime during after school run (been reading it then, in bits since finishing Life's Strange). Home, quick turnaround as Mom has appointment. 45+ min with little one, then 45+ min to lie down/clean out garage. Dinner, towards bed; I'm into NaNo writing before 8pm. After 9pm, dinner. By 10pm, grading papers. After 11pm, finalizing Smoke writing. Photo sort. Bed midnight.<br />-With little one after 5:30am; break before 6:30am. Fall 7am, family time. Last day of Quadmester 1, final test (again) during which I catch up grading and arrange next cohort. Later need to check IEPs, reprint seating plans, send Class invites, etc. Leave 3:30pm, quick shop to avoid cooking, home. Mom time 45 min, Family time 30 min, Dad time 45 min, then dinner. Bath, bed by 8pm, I'm dreading everything. Do some NaNo. Manage some grading. Bed after 11pm.<br />-Dreamt&. Up 5:30am; take over with Alexandra 6am. She falls asleep after 6:30am so I grade papers for half an hour. Dad time from 7:30am to after 9am (with brief family breakfast), bit more grading, Dad time for half an hour. NaNo AllDay from 10-12, then cook lunch. An hour to find snooze, I log back in at 2pm for half an hour. Rest half an hour. Some Dad time, NaNo from 3:30pm for an hour. (Over 2500 words total.) Dad time from 4:30-5:30pm, family time, Dad time for 20 min, family time, eventually bed after 7pm. Depart 8:15pm to get NaNo Baggie and Do Shopping. Home by 10pm, dinner and dishes. Back into grading papers after 11:30pm, whee.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />===</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Item counts to Saturday (Nov 14):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 57,300<br />-Went to a staff gathering. Started putting NaNo work on Wattpad.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 61,400 (14 stars)<br />-Full work week. NaNo at 23k, first TTNexus article, last fertility injection.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 72,000 (11 stars)</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Forgot food Nov 11, car alignment broke, lost mind, AllDayWriteIn.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 66,800 (13 stars)<br />-Colleague funeral, flu shot, 3-flow bottle, book from Group.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 54,700+. 10 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 172 New (59 sent)<br />We have completed DAY 53. Now taught for 24 days vs. quarantine only six.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 8 (Starlight Breaker, Extension)</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">=======</div><p><u>Week 126</u></p><div style="text-align: left;">-Grading to after 1am (when monitor dies). Up twice during night. Decompress for 1.5 hrs in morning, minimal work; after 8am, Dad time for an hour (including briefly outside). Then Mom time for 1.5 hr, mostly finish in-class grading and do emails. Dad time for an hour before 11am. During snooze, a run, grade tallies and no NaNo (need 'flix). Dad time for an hour from 2:20pm, then start to crash. Lie down, then back to restart Parabola Lesson and categorize media works. Dad time before 5pm, phone home 5:15pm. Order out; go pick up food 6:15-6:45pm, dinner, bath, bed. 8pm decide to do writing. 9:30pm back to work (finish lesson, more grading). Bed midnight, downstairs.<br />-Five hrs sleep, too much on my mind. Do some writing, get breakfast, Dad time from 6:30am. After 7am, send placemat updates. Near breakdown over waffles. Keep it together, new class at school, juggling seating and remote learning Meet and parabolas. Take lunch, grade medias. Continue that at home; then family time (out to park but dark). Some Dad time, eventually asleep 7:30pm, again grading. NaNo from 8:40-9:20pm, grading. Collapsed before 11pm, though little one 11:30pm.<br />-Mom takes over before 3am; I'm in before 6am for half an hour. Then finalizing media assigns and sending emails to students wondering about missing work. Not out until after 7:15am; slower morning. Arrive 8:15am, again snippy before class, but re-run of Monday goes okay. Lunch, then handle attendance, uploads, etc... as I finish after 2pm, call from RH. Pick up little one, fever. Scramble to get math contest and messaging dealt with. Home after 3:15pm, clean up, brief relief for Mom. 4:15-5:15pm I'm assembling the work to leave with a sub, then FINALLY half an hour of Stats Grading. Then Dad time. Then emailing around to figure out what Thurs looks like. Eventual bed, order pizza, and delivery guy drives on the lawn next door (whaaat?) then gets upset at me "for overreacting". I get back into grading, also a run. About 10:30pm, online to NaNo in class sprint. Bed before midnight.<br />-Six hrs sleep, Dad time for 1.5 hr from 6:45am (first 30 min asleep). Then 3 hrs of finishing all grading and tallying final marks (during Mom time). An hour to go to Doctor, Covid test (with sticker & mask) then return. After lunch, snooze time (which goes well) and I finish all report cards with comments. Also emails. Lie down 20 min, then Dad time continues to total 4 hrs (1.5 asleep). Teacher AGM 4:30pm! Over 1.5 hr later, Dad time for 30 min; dinner. Towards bed after 7pm, I'm in after 8pm for 30 min. NaNo brief write-in at 8:45pm, then my dinner; after 10pm join Discord for another writing session. Falling asleep after 11pm.<br />-Up a few times in night; in morning learn that no math teacher is able to cover. Then breakdown as I can't sort through the day. Eventually with Alexandra around 1.5 hrs, then 1.5 hrs to put together solutions for 3M lessons and post. Lunch, then tidy up the place; snooze does not go well with Mom. Work on tomorrow's lessons, wake them 3:30pm for ~3 hrs including trip outside and phoning grandparents. Break, also check messages. Family time from 7pm. Eventual bed; I help after 8pm. NaNo write to 9pm. Dinner; deal with text questions and start doing lesson solutions. 10:45pm brief NaNo. Still working past midnight.<br />-Bed 1am after emailing remote work. Dad time from 6:45am for an hour (mostly in bed), then queue up posts and remote attendance. Do dishes. Dad time from after 8:30am for 1.5 hrs to house cleaning. Break for 1.5 hrs to tidy and adjust background info for Untied. Briefly in Meet for own class, then lunch and snooze (~45 min to sleep). Handle emails, then do OSSTF vote, lie down briefly. Then subdued Dad time for 1.5 hrs, and (with negative test in) I head out shopping. Return in under an hour (they went out), then family time. Food pickup and freezer delivery. Bumpy sleep, I manage some NaNo writing in between. Dinner after 9pm with Szabo stream. Online play; bed before midnight.<br />-Decent night, morning shower. Family time from 8am, to Tatie's before 9am. Home, I do my run and retweak my writing. By 11am, out to buy boots and neck warmer for little one; stop at bookstore for her too. Home and lunch. Mom takes snooze, I do NaNo Roll20 Write-In until after 3pm. Then family time from 3:30pm, including trip to see boats that barely has any, and park - Dad time by then - where I have trouble with snowsuit and swings. Home after 5:30pm, I start dinner and take a brief break. Then more family time for over 30 min including chair climbing. Eventually vector to bed before 7:30pm. TWO HOURS to fall asleep. A bit of NaNo writing before first shift to me, then I'm so exhausted. To bed before dinner, before 10pm.</div><p>===</p><div style="text-align: left;">Item counts to Saturday (Nov 21):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: 59,800</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Lamented my regular schedule of posts that no one seemed to notice.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 60,500 (14 stars)<br />-Resuming regular teaching and writing. Discovered Lotus Prince.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 69,000 (10 stars)<br />-Math contests, movie, put up outside lights and parents in w/ gifts.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 67,100 (11 stars)<br />-BTTF Nexus column set, packed day incl Chrome training, snooze shenanigan.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 63,100. 15 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 156 New (56 sent)<br />Not including 15 Placemat Exports Sent<br />We have completed DAY 58. Now taught for 29 days vs. quarantine only nine. (3 overlap)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 10 (Barrier Burst)</div><div style="text-align: center;"> (When I break down crying in front of my daughter, it's over a 10.)</div></div><p style="text-align: left;">=======</p><p><u>Week 127</u></p><div style="text-align: left;">-Awake 5:30am, so over 7 hrs sleep. An hour fixing up my NaNo writing with the fixed plot idea from yesterday. Dad time for 1 hr+ before 7am, including bacon, full breakfast with Mom after 8am. Start pulling schoolwork together 8:45am, also unraking/storing leaves. After 2+ hr, Dad time for an hour including first aid to bee-bear. Lunch, then snooze attempt. Some writing 1:45-2:15pm. Dozed, up 3pm. Managed some work (revising review) before 4:30pm, then Dad time outside in snow. Tiny car to park, last slide (last swing was Sat). Home before 5:30pm, phoned parents. Break to finalize quiz at 6:15pm, then dinner and bed. Cooking, then photo sorting, food, then handling emails of the week. Bed by midnight, after run.<br />-Cannot escape little one's room for less than 45 min after 2:30am. At 6:30am need to shovel snow (and snowman). Some family time, depart 7:30am because snowy roads; manage to deal with math contests before 8:30am. Teaching?! Check books, emails, attendance, try to assemble a new slide for Wednesday. Home, and math meeting from 5-6pm. Family time. Do NaNo write-in from 8-9pm despite mental warnings about catching up on work; then RDA. Bed by 10:30pm.<br />-With little one from 6am for an hour (half while in crib). Brief shovel of ice; depart before 8am solo ^o^. Run before school, class was a repeat of Monday (mostly). Finalize test and get some prep done, then mark on time quizzes and send emails to missing quizzes. Depart 3pm, quick shop, home. Depart home 4pm to get to where family is. (Little one fell in snow, got flu shot, didn't nap until stroller and then was having allergy tests.) Pickup and return by 5pm; Dad time with books and family time until sushis. Once I can, I finalize test. Brief NaNo break, finalize exponential handout. Then work through Car Project until after 12:30am.<br />-Bumps in night; tired. Bumps getting out in morning; goes okay (tree at Daycare!). During morning test, finalize a lesson on finance for 11:30am. After teaching need to deal with emails, sending seating plans, math contest invoice, emails to parents... no lesson prep time. Home, outside after 5pm for fun with sled for an hour. Misbehaving at dinner before 7pm. Eventually brief NaNo and get to work. Mandatory stuff done, complete collapse by 10:30pm.<br />-Awake after 5am; queue up email and relieve next door 6am. Up with little one 6:15am, dog car, dress, empty dishwasher, breakfast, after 7am find Mom. Quick quiz correction, sled outside in front until 7:55am. Regular school, course cohorts drifting out of synch. Manage quick shop, home and join others at sled about 5pm. Home 5:30pm, Dad time for half an hour includes photos. Dinner, last things, bed; I do Zoom NaNo for 45 mins, then dinner, then back to work prepping finance. Bed after 11pm.<br />-Up 5:45am with little one, swap out 6:30am to prep posts and an email. Regular school including no batteries and co-ordinating a student writing next week thanks to dept head; finish with song again. Finish typing minutes and send them out; take a look at 3M for next week. Break by 3:30pm for half an hour, home, break for 15 min, family time at 5pm but still collapse by 5:15pm. Back in after 5:45pm for an hour, family at dinner, eventually doing NaNo from 8-9pm. Dinner, then manage some grading. Distracted, bed before 1am.<br />-Up 6am with little one but we both sleep almost another hour in room. Dressed by 7:45am, Mom does breakfast, I do 30 min grading. Alexandra time for an hour, briefly together, then I grade and prep until 11:30am. Lunch prep, take snooze; goes well? Quick run, sort photos, then snooze myself. Up before 2:30pm, to Tatie's by 3pm. Home, and I start grading tallies/levels, then we go buy some presents for little one. To Tatie's by 5:30pm, hang around for half an hour. Once home, finish tallies and probability work; dinner then to bed. Dishes then cook dinner. NaNo Writing from 9pm; interrupted 11pm, bed not long thereafter.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />===<br />Item counts to Saturday (Nov 28):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 55,230<br />-Had responses to my lament of posts that no one seemed to notice.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 67,400 (16 stars)<br />-WriteIns, musical rehearsal, procrastination on grading/review writing.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 72,000 (10 stars)<br />-Little one photo & protest, cut self cleaning dishes, first use of aspirator.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 71,850 (14 stars)<br />-Mall stroller walk, have colds (downstairs), nail clipping awake.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 62,650. 10 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 137 New (72 sent)<br />We have completed DAY 63. Now taught for 34 days vs. quarantine only nine. (3 overlap)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 9 (Blaster Mode, Full Power)</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;">*****</div><div><i>CONSTANT TO-DO LIST:</i></div><div> -Sketches for 2019 holiday parody</div><div> -2020 Banner for TPolys</div><div> -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias</div><div> -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement</div><div> -Catching up with web serials/comics (from ~August 2018)</div><div> -Read some of the books sitting at my desk</div></div>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-52316631246582347022020-11-02T15:06:00.004-08:002020-11-07T20:21:13.233-08:00Top Pandemic 2020 Changes<p> What if you woke up one morning, and everything about the way you did your job had completely changed? You still have to go into work, physically, but your PC is now a Mac (or vice versa), half your project team is in the room while the other half isn't (and they're all working at different paces), and you're the one in charge of disinfecting and monitoring correct pandemic procedures in the area (on top of your regular job, naturally).</p><p>I mean, some of that could apply, no matter what your profession? Let me know. I can only speak about teaching.</p><p>Oh, and for those of us in Ontario, the government has additionally completely changed curriculum, with virtually no training, AND there's going to be online standardized testing for the first time ever (assuming we don't count the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/online-literacy-test-glitch-1.3813479" target="_blank">fiasco of the OSSLT in 2016)</a> AND math destreaming is coming next year. What pandemic, don't be lazy. Anyway.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNIXzYcSO7IHeICWzi_M_bkTxxTSqN2RsuAyOjvvlq42qaGlujgCkAHZt3qeNPRgaOENuy9dqn8uG5ja8GBR6LI_0kPpWU2hVlmtndMBwYNfUCXpxES6bUS_QfqjzAepimdsEtZHJQHmE/s647/change-only-constant-change-demotivational-poster-1287637066.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNIXzYcSO7IHeICWzi_M_bkTxxTSqN2RsuAyOjvvlq42qaGlujgCkAHZt3qeNPRgaOENuy9dqn8uG5ja8GBR6LI_0kPpWU2hVlmtndMBwYNfUCXpxES6bUS_QfqjzAepimdsEtZHJQHmE/s320/change-only-constant-change-demotivational-poster-1287637066.jpg" /></a></div><p>There's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q035f-CZco4" target="_blank">a really good video here</a> that gets at what teaching is like in 2020, at numerous levels, indicating how burnout will be a real thing.</p><p>I thought I'd take a moment to quickly highlight what seem to be three of the biggest changes from my point of view, as a window into one educator's struggles.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">3) Everything comes home every night. Everything.</h4><p>At first glance, this is not much different from a teacher's usual routine. Always bringing grading and prep work home. But I do mean everything. The attendance notes, the curriculum documents, the chromebook WITH its power cable, ev-ery-thing. Only to bring it all right back in the next morning.</p><p>Because there might not be a next morning.</p><p>This even happened to me once. My young daughter got a runny nose in the evening. We abruptly had to self isolate. I'd left my marking scheme (handwritten for an online test) on my desk. Whoops! Gone. (Fortunately no other symptoms presented themselves, I was back within 36 hours.)</p><p>But even for educators without young children, maybe you get cold symptoms yourself. Or you get a call that there was a case in your class, and you have to stay home. Or Doug Ford (our premier) just randomly decides to close schools with under 24 hours notice, the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/restaurants-fined-covid-19-directions-lacking-ottawa-1.5782548" target="_blank">same notice he gave for shutting down restaurant dine-ins</a>, you don't know.</p><p></p><p>Everything comes home. Then bring your family portrait, potted plant and charging cables right back in the next day.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5mWltJD-xqbSbCd14ff1n38aRIcCiw_TsFr4uvNBJUr1apeJOi5KUWivMI0USPsM8MMDQlO_7q83JubxlAm7NgWLX38ckp9pC1hcPtBwITtEyc0U6BKDxXA5rYHD7CvzJmf6d0CAsFU8/s270/FileTransfer-Ragtag-270x151.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="151" data-original-width="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5mWltJD-xqbSbCd14ff1n38aRIcCiw_TsFr4uvNBJUr1apeJOi5KUWivMI0USPsM8MMDQlO_7q83JubxlAm7NgWLX38ckp9pC1hcPtBwITtEyc0U6BKDxXA5rYHD7CvzJmf6d0CAsFU8/s0/FileTransfer-Ragtag-270x151.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>It doesn't help with the work/home balance. I feel it's a lot more blurry.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">2) Teaching three courses? Nope, six.</h4><p>Where I am, we're teaching in a hybrid model; we see half a class on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and the other half the class Tuesday/Thursday. The days when they're not in class, they're working from home. (There's a whole virtual support system in place with other teachers on remote days, I won't get into it here.)</p><p>I set up a Google Classroom. Another teacher I'm supporting set up 2 Classrooms, one for their CohortA and one for CohortB. I think they had the right idea.</p><p>Because the problem is, your cohorts get out of synch. The way the schedule runs, at the end of a month, you've seen A for six periods (M/W/F) and B for only four (T/Th). Yes, a full month because there's another class they're doing on alternate weeks.</p><p>Meaning, if you wanted to do a test on Day 3, for A that's on a Friday, for B that's on a Tuesday after 12 days of not being in class with you. Slight difference in concept retention. Also likely needs a second version of the evaluation.</p><p>And yes, there are ways of working around this like synchronizing lessons on a Wednesday (remote + in-class) which might make sense if you have a (virtual) guest speaker anyway. But we're also not supposed to record Online Meets that contain students (privacy) so how do you get the information out to students who couldn't attend?</p><p>The mechanics of it all are... problematic. Meaning you're not teaching the same course twice, you're teaching two of the same course simultaneously.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQtWp9oJ-KtRa7yMxQAj17dPLdAGouAqLgna9ZlXm4VuohaardJnN1jXwijcH8vajoCmTXroEYEtnIrzO6vsXvjbzHfoTzrsHLH4jG4ULakLYTc1ye4k-sOFvt514N2iWFwOsy7hVGq34/s640/AlgebraMyGoddess.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQtWp9oJ-KtRa7yMxQAj17dPLdAGouAqLgna9ZlXm4VuohaardJnN1jXwijcH8vajoCmTXroEYEtnIrzO6vsXvjbzHfoTzrsHLH4jG4ULakLYTc1ye4k-sOFvt514N2iWFwOsy7hVGq34/s320/AlgebraMyGoddess.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Me, I've been flagging messages "Cohort A" and "Cohort B". Having two classrooms removes that issue, but creates the issue of now having two separate Google Meets for each Cohort.<p></p><p>And if you have two courses, still double, so you're running four classes... with no prep time to speak of, on top of that.</p><p>This is on top of teachers already potentially teaching courses they haven't taught in years. (I have a 3C class coming up, my notes on auto sales are 6 years out of date.) On account of the virtual teaching problem. (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVG3P8riZbM" target="_blank">Another video, if you were unaware of that.</a>)</p><p>So, that's a thing. But it's not the number one thing in my list.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">1) No handouts/Revise group work</h4><p>The previous items have been mostly about the mechanics of teaching. The trouble is, the format has changed too. "No handouts" may have some flexibility, but part of what prompted this post was the fact that I used the photocopier for the first time (since March) on October 28th.</p><p>My Data textbook was published in 2003. (There have been subsequent revisions, education is not being funded to the point of affording them.) I normally supplement with handouts rather frequently.</p><p>Those handouts and worksheets are now online. (If students are having printer problems, I'd potentially still need to print them.) I had to track down an online textbook too.</p><p>My quizzes had to be converted to an online format as well, along with automated feedback so they can be done on a remote day (maximizing face to face time). And I put a number of evaluations online too, for the same reason.</p><p>I've lost track of the number of times I've shaken my fist at my Chromebook for not highlighting the correct section that I want to comment on.</p><p>(I need to remember the stylus. I tend to forget about the touch screen, until I go to wipe off a bit of eraser dust, and suddenly close five tabs on my browser. Can't blow the dust off, you're wearing a mask, silly.)</p><p>Activities also need revision, you can't pair students off by giving one of them a graph and another one an equation, or not in the same way. You can't create a work group of those who had similar errors, unless it's a breakout room in a Google Meet when you're remote, which is also new technology and my brain hurts.</p><p>I will say this last isn't even as much of a problem for me as it is for other teachers. I teach more U level courses, I don't have tons of group activities... I tended to create desk pods of three and go from there. (Also not an option, fwiw.)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUwR4npioXzG29arpBoWOaT9VMh2pfGL0t4k484Pd1_m3H1OrnK0xi2_lhi_2JGrCVVxuLZWT7Cd-9SxihrkMhDH60Fn7skMpPS7br7gzzuBkuoXgnWvdfpj2Rgl0XtMI2ezsUo4OYRfE/s245/BuffyBecoming.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="156" data-original-width="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUwR4npioXzG29arpBoWOaT9VMh2pfGL0t4k484Pd1_m3H1OrnK0xi2_lhi_2JGrCVVxuLZWT7Cd-9SxihrkMhDH60Fn7skMpPS7br7gzzuBkuoXgnWvdfpj2Rgl0XtMI2ezsUo4OYRfE/s0/BuffyBecoming.gif" /></a></div><br />And all of this is simply for me, a teacher at the secondary level. For elementary teachers? (Who are also grappling with that new curriculum, thanks to Doug Ford and friends?) I can only imagine it's even more of a challenge, given what little I know.<p></p><p>Then there's also the custodians, the office staff, teacher librarians and more.</p><p>Everything's changed.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">CONCLUSION</h4><p>That's it - because really this is all I have time for. In fact I don't have time for this, I just wanted to get that downloaded out of my mind. Teaching is not the same, perhaps in ways you hadn't realized.</p><p>Or perhaps it was in ways you had realized? Perhaps you're an educator yourself? Do you have any thoughts or comments on what I put in the post? Feel free to drop a comment down below.</p><p>Note that I also put up a previous post about <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2020/08/pandemic-teaching-stress-statistics.html">Stress Statistics back in August</a>, for further reading. Thanks for getting to the end, we'll keep doing our best out here, enjoy your day.</p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-10971034571857654722020-10-31T19:00:00.007-07:002020-11-02T19:36:46.130-08:00Pandemic Parenting: Oct 2020<div style="text-align: left;"><u>Week 119<br /></u>-Downstairs, 7 hrs straight sleep?^ A bit of quiz work. Dad time after 7am for an hour, with cereal. Mom time as I finish making online quiz. All out before 9am for time in park during ultrasound (change in car), then Edinburgh park until 11:30am. Lunch and snooze; finish other parts of quiz then. Phone home, then time to fill out MinOfEd survey and complete grading before releasing. Dad time 4pm for near an hour, then all out to park and for ice cream. Brief 6pm break, dinner, bath, etc. TORG role-play 7:30 until after 10pm. Final online details.<br />-Messy night*. Queue up posts, then family time 7:15am; depart, regular school day (still no projector). Run out for lunch and see Custodian Greg, quick chat. Get lessons on and look at emails/quizzes, stop at store, pickup and home. Clean up, then Dad time for 75 min including two parks. Tidy after dinner (recycling), bit more school to handle, dinner et al by 8:30pm. Downstairs by 10pm.<br />-Near 7 hrs sleep, posted info to Classroom after 6am, Dad time from 6:45am (reluctant rising). Wanted to see baby video before leaving after 7:30am. Prepped class, saw B for first time in nearly two weeks to finish stats. Song. After lunch, online co-ordinators talk Jamboard and collaboration. Pay bills, shop (milk) and pickup. Brief downtime, then Dad time for 45 min downstairs. Bedtime routine, more downtime (online) then finalizing quiz and test for tomorrow. Bed after 11pm.<br />-Dreamt&. Posted tests/quizzes online, some family time. Finished 2Var stats review while class worked, then into Probability. Managed remote Google Meet myself at same time. Fielded emails, checked through quizzes, lunch and then more prep. Quick run in rain(bow) after 3pm, bought gas, home. Family time including downstairs and park in splash suit; she wipes down the slides (and doesn't use them). After dinner, quick trip to shop and get DQ for AL as Sept ends. Dinner, finish putting together new test, down time from 9pm. Bed upstairs.<br />-Decent sleep, Dad time. Oct 1st so saw Cohort B for only 4th time since start of school, went through all 2Var with still an hour to work; remote Google Meet with self again. Got probability files updated early (still no projector), emails and managing of quizzes and assignment checkins. Brief look at Farmer's Market after school, home (with lawn sign). They return home as I go out, prompting back to parking for balances. Brief Dad time, after bed I find files and note my texts; Mom dinner. Online until 11pm.<br />-One wakeup, queue up last test set before 7am. Family time, now she's okay with waffles. School for 6th time with Cohort A (halfway to end), and a fire drill (done in stages). Again manage quizzes, also make phone calls for textbook liabilities from June. (Phone feels like a new horror.) Chat with colleague, quick store for bread, home. Pickup food, Dad time for half an hour until dinner. Bath after 6:30pm for near half an hour, bed by 8pm. Unproductive evening, bed 10:30pm.<br />-Awake 6am with queasy stomach. Still Dad time for over 75 minutes after 6:45am. Lie down after, better before 9am to Tatie. Morning of dishes and doing Epsilon writing. Lunch, then during snooze some re-reading, more writing, quick lie down. France reading after 3:30pm, 2+ hrs of Dad time after 4pm including park and rock throwing in pool. Try on snowsuit after 6pm. Half hour to self (bit more writing), half hour family time (downstairs bunnies), dinner before 7:30pm. Takes both to get her asleep about 9pm. Complete Epsilon writing before midnight.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />===<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Item counts to Saturday (Oct 3):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 55,800<br />-Writing motivation stalled, car broke down, went to AFEMO french math conference.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 60,000 (16 stars)<br />-School ratcheted my stress to 8, in Ink & Insights Top 10, took a plane home.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 62,250 (11 stars)<br />-Passport photo, Cappies stuff, on train with Alexandra for Thanksgiving.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 76,000 (15 stars)<br />-Little one Doctor, climbed slide herself, I felt ill but was busy.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 66,550. 10 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 141 New (70 sent)<br /> 22 sent were "score released"<br />We have completed DAY 24. Now taught for ten days vs. quarantine only five.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 7 (Starlight Breaker)</div><br />=======<br /><u>Week 120<br /></u>-Up in night; awake 7am. Final scan and post of Epsilon. Dad time for an hour after 8:15am, then Family time for an hour outside. Come home 10:30am to cook lunch and check school email. Back out 11:15 to park; depart house by 11:45 to get boots for noon opening of store. Home for lunch before 12:30pm, then into snooze, asleep 1:30pm. Awake 3pm; I get some down time soon after. Phone my parents 4:15pm, Dad time from 5:15pm including trip to see ducks in light rain. Home for dinner, much tidying during bath. Story 7:30pm then online Torg gaming to 10:30pm. More down time, bed an hour later.<br />-Awake before 6am, check updated Covid questionnaire. Dad time for half hour with waffles, video then off. First true Support Day, many in Gr 9 Meet, two bath breaks, handled emails during Music replacement, lunch, no one in Gr 11 Meet. Got through quizzes and short part of tests. Bit of down time after 3pm, pickup and home. Family time from 5pm, mostly Dad time for last half hour to dinner after 6:30pm (Mom reads on training). Realize need quick grocery run, bed routine 7:15pm. Cooking, dishes, recycling; done 9pm. Minor work on OAME recap, some RDA, bed before 11pm.<br />-Decent night, awake by 6:30am, email students with missing tests. I need to be the one dressing, then cereal. Computer died at school, sang in Gr 9 Meet, managed to get tests done for one Cohort including while monitoring music. End of day staff meeting, immediate pickup 4pm. Dad time for over an hour after 5pm, park and smol car around house. Brief rest after dinner, cooking during bath, bed before 8pm. Not very productive, though did put together Untied cast list for possible post. Bed by 11pm.<br />-Awake before 5am, little one may be congested. Had dreamt, can't sleep^. Set up away emails, go in after 6:30am. Confirmation by 7am. Some back and forth, then Dad time for 2 hrs from 8:30am. An hour to handle emails and collapse for a bit, then make lunch. 2.5 hrs (during snooze) to contact parents, handle Google Meet, realize I didn't put grading in my bag. Dad time for 2.5+ hrs including outside, calling grandma (got new book), pours and more. Start dinner 6pm then half hour of down time. After dinner, family goofing with bed, then over half an hour to find sleep (she wanted me in specific). From 8:30pm can mostly finalize OAME post and prep Untied edits. Bed 11pm.<br />-Night disruptions, still dreamt*. Check msgs, again the one to dress, family time. Drop-off and rescue of all my items; check in with virtual anime upstairs too. Grading, Meet, textbook forms, relief, grading, music support. Lunch, grading, Meet and then meet tech guy. Projector is not supported, new projector needs new mount, but at least steal computer from prep room so I have something. Phone parent, leave later than usual. Pickup 4pm, home to clean, then out to shop (lost time). Back by 6pm as they arrive from park after a fall off ladder (slippery mittens). Cuddles, over 30 min of Dad time including videos. Bath & bed go well, I tidy, do dishes, dinner, start assembling review. Finally break 9pm; to bed after 10pm.<br />-Quiet night, awake after 6am. Dad time including animal play, nose seems better. At work finish grading, Meet has auto-attendance, prep next unit, given mobile projector for class. After lunch, Meet, upload files and info. Some time for jogging, notice little one rejected lunch for first time (holiday turkey). Pickup after 4pm, tears as another father had been there just before (not me). Mixed emotions, Dad time after 5pm for over half an hour, 30 min break, family time. Bed resistance 7pm, wanted Dad before 8pm. Evening of checking BTTF info, starting "Untied" edits.<br />-One disruption, dreamt but gone. Little one up by 7am, I take 75 min to do more "Untied" edits. Family time, Dad time of an hour, more edits 10:30am. Make lunch after 11:30am, start snooze an hour later (Mom out). Asleep after an hour. I'm asleep an hour after that. Up 3:30pm, I go for a run after 4pm. Meet at park 5pm, family play. Dad time by 5:45pm outside and basement. Dinner. Use of potty at 7pm, bath. Back into "Untied" edits; call for Dad after 8pm, half an hour there. Complete edits on File1, oy. Bed 11pm.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">===<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Item counts to Saturday (Oct 10):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 59,600<br />-Bought cheap calculators, in-laws in town, lacked clear direction.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 63,300 (14 stars)<br />-Pregnancy news, but school had made me dead inside plus no blog buffer.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 67,100 (10 stars)<br />-Read Alexandra first story, first Thursday group, progress reports & CanCon.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 65,450 (16 stars)<br />-Tired, grading before progress reports, flight and Thanksgiving Saturday.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 60,100. 11 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 149 New (87 sent)<br /> Removed 16 Sent Evidence Exports from count.<br />We have completed DAY 29. Now taught for ten days vs. quarantine only six.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 7 (Starlight Breaker)</div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">=======<br /><u>Week 121</u><br />-Dreamt&, up before 6am, "Untied" edits. Dad time from 6:50am for 1.5 hours including paints and going out in new boots. Family time to 9am, break for more edits. Dad & Mom time back and forth for half hours, until lunch. Mom takes snooze, go shopping for more milk, corn and next week's cake. Home 2pm, more edits. Awaken others before 3pm, bit of Dad time then family out to parks again. Home before 4:30pm for lie down, then Dad time before 5pm. Ice cream requests lead to phoning grandparents first, then trying to finalize prep for sirloin tip roast. Thanksgiving-ish dinner with corn. Family time play has a slip and minor lip blood. Dad time for half an hour to past 7pm. Bed; finalize Thanksgiving dinner. More edits, nearly to end of second file, oy. Bed 11pm.<br />-Dreamt^. Some wakeups, with her from 5:50am for 2.5 hours. First 45 min chair and back, then play and raspberries. Rest after 8:20am, including some Untied edits; after two hours, Dad time again. Out to park. After an hour, home to prepare lunch. Handled snooze, up by 3pm. Saw online card, then Zoom/Meet with Family for an hour from 3:30pm. More card after, email break for me 5pm. Dad time 5:30pm includes early dinner? No ice cream. Then trip to bridge. Family time before 6:30pm, bath 7pm, call for me to help sleep as I do dishes. Asleep 8:30pm, finish in kitchen and with photos by 9:30pm, dinner and a bit more editing (only into C file).<br />-Dreamt*, awake 5am, 25 min later provide little one relief. Let her sleep a bit past 7am, she wants waffles. Finish probability teaching, department meeting, emails (including survey). Pickup (still in rain), home. Briefly together, then 45 min crash. Dad time for half an hour, then dinner. Power out as we finish (6:55); half hour to disconnect alarm and look up outage info. Last things, bedtime. Power back half hour later (8:25), still don't cook; do "Untied" edits. RDA, reconnect alarm 10pm, bed 11pm.<br />-Dreamt in pieces (including bus trip on bridge, fear of heights). In chair before 6am. Send emails by 7am. Family time (nose seems fixed), to work. See student cohort in person for first time in 13 days, probability. Check handouts, finalize work on probability test sheet. Home, brief crash, Dad time then family time to park (w/ big stick). Dinner 6:45pm, bath, I start dinner, tidy masks, vacuum, do more school (including virtual anime). Break after 9pm. Brief edits, bed after 11pm.<br />-Wake 5am hearing the others, never fully back to sleep. With little one from 6am until lights on after 6:30am. Manage out door before 7:30am, drop Mom at appointment, on to Daycare. Teaching, including quiz only half of cohort completed. Update grades. Shopping after 3pm, pickup, home. Back and forth parenting time, including walking in rain suit. DQ trip before weekend closure. Email break before 7pm. Needed to help with bed at 8pm. Release all scores and do emails, then a bit of time for other things. Edits complete on File3.<br />-Never quite asleep again after 5am; queue up test. Gourds for little one. Through probability for Cohort B; am very tired. Handle emails and files after lunch. Back and forth at home (mostly Mom); extra star sometimes happens when upon arrival at far park, we want the near one instead. Dad time 30 min until 7pm dinner. Bed routine as I make cake. No energy to ice. Manage more edits, collapse 10:30pm.<br />-Dreamt of photo of someone running before nuclear explosion; awake before 6am but decent sleep. 1.5 hrs of Dad time from before 7am. Some family time, then near 2 hrs to handle some email, drive to bookstore, and prep dinner in slow cooker. Dad time 45 min, Mom takes over to go to park so lunch, then Zoom I'd help set up two weeks ago at noon. Birthday zoom, with cake and present. Handle snooze before 1pm, Mom trip out. She wakes us, more gifts, out to park until 5:30pm. DQ en route back, I do quick run then Dad time half an hour. Dinner, bed vector 7pm. Very rough sleeping; I'm in after 8pm but cannot lift, cries, Mom until near 9pm. I do attempt more edits, but not dishes, and bed before midnight.<br /><br />===<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Item counts to Saturday (Oct 17):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 53,450<br />-Dealt with figuring out benefits, and found my writing groove. Simpler times.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 61,600 (15 stars)<br />-Implosion from teaching CS, everything is off, there is no joy.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 79,000 (8 stars)<br />-AL birthday, interviews extend normal half day, some passing out downstairs.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 70,300 (13 stars)<br />-Wrote comic review and about voting, AL birthday amid lack of sleep.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 68,300. 13 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 134 New (63 sent)<br /> 13 sent were 'score released'.<br />We have completed DAY 33. Now taught for 14 days vs. quarantine only six.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 8 (Starlight Breaker Extension)</div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">=======<br /><u>Week 122</u><br />-Decent night, awake 6:30am. 1.5 hrs of edits (finishing file 4) during Mom time, then 1.5 hrs of Dad time (including cereal and many books). Dishes, as little one gets story. Brief down time, then we let Mom cook lunch. More edits during snooze, also catching up photos and lying down. Laundry after snooze, then outside into leaves. Dad time for an hour at parks; home to call grandparents after 5pm. Pick up food during Mom time. Dinner, long bath, bed. Back into my edits, collapse before 11pm.<br />-Dreamt&. Dad time from 6:30am, family time then to work in the rain. Support day, full Meet on factoring, managed to get through all tests that were submitted on time and update files too. Testing centre now open next door. Home, 10 min Dad, not quite an hour Math Zoom, 20 min Dad, dinner, more Dad time. Spent after 7pm, dinner and not much else to 10pm. Minor edits.<br />-Dreamt we had to change school buildings. Awake before 6:30am again. More minor edits, then family time amid recycling; nearly forget pedometer. P/T Interview software has changed with fast turnaround. Support day, manage to design next evaluation and finalize all grades. Pick new route for run. Home, grab daycare photos, then Family time to park after 5pm and Dad time later. Bath 7pm, try to deal with fridge spill. 7:45pm total breakdown. Don't really cook after that, also discover the file I'm editing is an incorrect version. Brief RDA, bed 10:30pm.<br />-Wake in night, then at 6am. Dad time with waffles but forget temperature. Work manages to be productive in setting remaining tests, less so in other ways. Quick shopping, home routine. Family time 5pm, trade breaks; Dad time through 7pm then dinner and bed. Dishes, dinner, and finally manage to finish edits on File5. No energy after 10pm.<br />-Awake before 6:30am, get things together. Depart before 7:30am, drop Mom at appointment. At work, call about tires, get appointment news, grade Assumptions. Meets, Support, and create solutions for Probability Test. Emails over lunch, Meet, finish lunch. Pickup and home for 5 P/T interviews on phone before 6:30. Break in middle, little one wants photos. Run out at end to parking, then park, home 7pm for dinner; wants waffles. No cooking, but dishes. Also wants to be held before 10pm. Watch DNoble videos, bed before midnight.<br />-Up 6am, dreamt of skiing and catching fish? Dad time by 6:30am. Catch up on new items and get Project feedback done by 12:30pm; Board having issues with math contests. Finally look ahead at 3M & 3C, make refinements. Messaged about flu vaccine in area, go after work - 1.5 hr wait no good. Daycare round trip home, back to wait for an hour, home after 6pm. Finished 'Strange' comic set in that time. Dad time for near an hour including dinner. Bath, dealing with emails, bed, needed for half an hour before 9pm. No cooking. Tired, some edits.<br />-Up 5:30am w/ little one (after more odd dreams). After 6:30am, some file sorting. Dad time 8-10am, including out at park. Math Social from 10-11:15am. Family time into snooze at noon; asleep 1pm. I'm out soon after. Awake before 3pm, get nearly 1.5 hrs for some edits. Dad time for 1.5 hrs (including slip and fall), eventually into dinner. Get 10 min from 7pm then bed routine. Cook, some RDA Tech and edits... chair time before 11pm. Stubbornly continue edits for 1.5 hrs, past midnight.<br /><br />===<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Item counts to Saturday (Oct 24):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 48,300<br />-Finished T&T mostly. Put away hose, etc. outside.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 61,600 (14 stars)<br />-Went on anti-anxiety/depression pills, reading book doctor recommended.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 69,750 (10 stars)<br />-Saline runs for cold, level 2 flow bottle, sleep troubles all around.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 72,700 (12 stars)<br />-Grandparents Video and Visit, voting, smoke alarm, video edits... walking!<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 51,250. 9 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 116 New (102 sent)<br /> The sent include 16 Evidence Exports & 16 Parent Forwards<br />We have completed DAY 38. Now taught for 14 days vs. quarantine only six.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 8 (Starlight Breaker Extension)</div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">=======<br /><u>Week 123</u><br />-Awake about 6am, they're in chair. Take over by 6:30am, 1.5 hrs Dad time including fall against table. Then 1 hr of edits, rejoin, briefly lie down, yard work. To park 10:15am, Dad time included some sweeps and leaves too. Cooking lunch. They head to snooze after noon, I do brief edits then shopping and an hour of eavestrough cleaning. (She explains how she can't walk under kitchen island any more!) From 3:30pm, 45 min family time then shifts. Brief park after 5pm, home when parents can take call. Dinner, sad bath, bed; I cook and finish edits on File Six. Dishes. Little else.<br />-One wakeup; dreamt of infiltrating a building, a bomb and elevators? (Also job applicants?) Some school work and quizzes before 6:30am to 7am. Family time (briefly downstairs), then car, deer runs across road at airport. Regular teaching, student emails, lunch, etc. At home parent back-and-forth time, I have readings and tea. Dinner 7pm, tangent to bed; I put up decorations, clean fruit, cook dinner, more messages, done 9pm. Some Szabo, some edits, some RDA Halloween. To 1am, oops.<br />-Chair until nearly 2am. Awake 6:30am. Dad time, discovers decorations. Regular teaching, questions, setting up Math Contest Meet, then going through documentations to sign off. Gas en route, at home likes skull kitty. No outside so eventual half hour trade-offs. Order in, grade probability tests watching Szabo Q&A. Bed from 10:30pm.<br />-Multiple wakeups including 5:30am on; finalize some grading before 7am. To school, one lesson only and finish grading as they work (also fire drill). Finish take-ups, tweak assignments and use photocopier. Pay bills en route. Family time for 30 min then I collapse for an hour. Dad time after dinner. Grading once she's asleep, break for dinner after 9pm. Then actually post OAME and do some edits until after 11pm, oops.<br />-Dreamt&. Quiet night; Mom up 6am, I do quick grading and take over after half an hour. Dad time includes breakfast, then more quick work as they arrange coffees. To school, find old z-scores, first in class test (which needs more time). During which I work out math contests and start 3M quizzes. Lesson, fire drill, copies, lunch, Meet with student. Grading, shopping, home. Light up pumpkin dropped by little one. Surreal evening; includes more grading and edits. Bed before 11pm.<br />-Bumpy night. Microdreams**. Mostly awake from 3:30am, more grading 6:45am. Cute pumpkin shirt; to school for a copy of Thurs. During test I manage emails and a possible blog post. Lunch, store all tests, register for math contest, do a run. Pickup with treats bag. Brief family time with her art, then sharing (I collapse for a while). After bath/bed, I manage lots of edits, little else, until midnight.<br /><div>-Take over from 5:30am after rough night. Chair, then up 7:10am (delay due to damn time change upcoming). An hour later (2.5 hr) switch to Mom. After over an hour (including emails), dishes. Then Dad time, including using bag to clean surfaces and pumpkin carving after 11am. Lunch, Mom takes snooze. More edits and light yard work. After 3:30pm, quick rest during online book, then before 4:30pm we all go out to look at spooky houses. One has candies in separate bowls available, Alexandra chooses. Home, Dad time including basement, then costume time. Pumpkin out. Eventually sushis. After dinner, notice a rash/hives? Must be allergy (shellfish?). 8pm still in bed routine. I get done Untied edits through 8th file, 9th is current. Sign in for NaNo.</div><div>-Halloween at -1. (No one due to pandemic; got candy at the house with separated bowls for Alexandra.)</div><div><br /></div>===<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Item counts to Saturday (Oct 31):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 56,900<br />-Felt good about writing, perused NaNo forums, sent zero emails.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: Over 54,800 (15 stars)<br />-On medical leave, SOAP reunion, poor Halloween showing.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 71,100 (12 stars)<br />-Long day before Halloween (33 visitors), tried bedtime 7:30pm, NaNo start.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 71,250 (13 stars)<br />-Kanata visit, Halloween costumes, daycare dropoffs, NaNo write-in, lip bleed.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 62,550. 10 stars.<div>SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 204 New (83 sent)</div><div>We have completed DAY 43. Now taught for 19 days vs. quarantine only six.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 7 (Starlight Breaker)</div><br /><i>*****<br />CONSTANT TO-DO LIST</i>:<br /> -Sketches for 2019 holiday parody<br /> -2020 Banner for TPolys<br /> -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias<br /> -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement<br /> -Catching up with web serials/comics (from ~August 2018)<br /> -Read some of the books sitting at my desk</div>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-9348167685371089732020-10-28T19:32:00.001-07:002020-10-28T19:32:15.090-07:00OAME 2020 Summary<p>I had no plans to attend OAME 2020 (the annual conference for the Ontario Association for Mathematics Education), as it would be in Oshawa, near Toronto... and I'm the only one able to drive our little one to Daycare. Not to mention I've never been away from her for that long. (Even <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2019/07/anime-north-2019.html" target="_blank">Anime North 2019</a> had my wife and her at the same hotel, meeting up with relatives during the day.) <a href="https://sites.google.com/oame.on.ca/oame2020/home" target="_blank">Said OAME conference</a> would have been Thurs May 7 & Fri May 8.</p><p><a href="https://sites.google.com/oame.on.ca/oame2020/home" target="_blank"></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-TnP1p_nClmq2ud4V6Cvui-lJz4eh5exQSSvVbaCVyt0lw9idMZwqgCjwF1qxOQ04Yd_X2HKSuvJyNJzHErpEmXSXqncD668fSehLFXP9rZ670Q9sIqNjG5LwuKam3OsxJipg1LRGCc/s583/LynPDBoards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="583" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-TnP1p_nClmq2ud4V6Cvui-lJz4eh5exQSSvVbaCVyt0lw9idMZwqgCjwF1qxOQ04Yd_X2HKSuvJyNJzHErpEmXSXqncD668fSehLFXP9rZ670Q9sIqNjG5LwuKam3OsxJipg1LRGCc/w200-h150/LynPDBoards.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Then there was a pandemic in March.<p></p><p>So OAME 2020: In Focus <a href="https://sites.google.com/oame.on.ca/oame2020/virtual-oame" target="_blank">got shifted virtually</a> for Wed May 6th right through Sat May 9th. For free, and including evening sessions, meaning no need to try and split my time between being a Dad and a Teacher.</p><p>Granted, my life from April through June consisted of only balancing those things, which is a large part of why I only angled for two live sessions.</p><p>There were also pre-recorded sessions available; I did not find the time to partake. I did check out the slides for one other session after the fact. Here we go with a recap.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">MDM 4U as Data Science Using RStudio</h4><p>Session by Chris Papalia, at 1pm on Thurs May 7th. I was able to attend then as my daughter was doing nap time.</p><p><i>Preamble includes: It is time that we start integrating our Data Management and AP Statistics classes with the fields of Data Science and Computing. ... You will be surprised how frictionless the initial set up is using RStudio Cloud and how easily students learn how to produce visualization and manage data in the RStudio Cloud IDE. Bring your laptop to participate in this interactive workshop that will inspire you to use this in your next class. ...</i></p><p>I had heard of 'RStudio' before, but hadn't (and haven't) found any time to consider playing around with R programming. I'll admit I came as much to see the data sets as to see more about the program... but I'll also admit I downloaded a version of RStudio that morning, as a reminder.</p><p>Chris admitted he's also new-ish to R, which helps as an entry for the layman.</p><p>He started by considering the meaning of Data Science, along with R. He later noted how it's easier to create a histogram in R than in Excel. (Truth, spreadsheets just botch histograms, in my experience. Chris added Fathom is great but costs now, Desmos/Geogebra are okay with limited capability.) And there are a number of datasets that are available in R, including from sports and Gapminder.</p><p>R coding is challenging (sort of) but always reproducible. There was also mention of the Philosophy of Data Exploration, which includes a loop of Exploration. A number of graphs were available in the slides (and even some Covid-19 data).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXHd78iC1t2HAIljQ9MrVxk6nvIYYEgXL_8-cRvHVojg1C8M20PTELNWk1F8TIrXiQCOXHGQowB9hHSsRY2cTCAYjPdaSOjmMG9I_DKPw-9Dx-CC_9qZJimSOa2kZiITF66gkRQOdsCA/s2048/OAME2020_May7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1336" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXHd78iC1t2HAIljQ9MrVxk6nvIYYEgXL_8-cRvHVojg1C8M20PTELNWk1F8TIrXiQCOXHGQowB9hHSsRY2cTCAYjPdaSOjmMG9I_DKPw-9Dx-CC_9qZJimSOa2kZiITF66gkRQOdsCA/s320/OAME2020_May7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Later on, Chris included a section on challenges and solutions, including technical background and finding data. There are support resources. And as a sidebar, Chris managed really well when a troll started posting nonsense in the stream too; the OAME crew installed an extra password layer in future presentations.</p><p>If nothing else, this was a valuable session for keeping me engaged with the Data Management course. I suspect it will take another session (or some other sort of push) to get me into the programming, in part because I don't have a lot of time to spare, but we'll see... I wasn't able to latch onto Desmos histograms right away, now they're almost a go-to.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Harnessing Student Curiosity</h4><p>Session by Joel Bezaire and Shauna Hedgepeth, at 8pm on Fri May 8th. My daughter was in bed.</p><p><i>Preamble includes: Students have an innate curiosity about the world around them; what if we could harness that curiosity to power our math lessons? Students want to make sense of the world, as well; that motivation can serve to drive student engagement in math class. In this session, teachers will engage with lesson samples from a Middle School Statistics classroom to see how some purposeful planning, tech tools, meaningful decision-making, and clever "teacher moves" can take a "normal" lesson and turn it into one where students are begging for more new mathematical content.</i></p><p>They began by questioning 'Why Data Analysis?' in terms of the hook. Well, meaningful data works different, acts as preparation, and we need students to be critical consumers given how much data is in the news.</p><p>The steps for harnessing curiosity were 1) Examine; 2) Expose (a need); 3) Learn; 4) Revisit; 5) Finalize. Step 3 in the middle is for the teaching, it's the other four where we need a focus.</p><p>They did an Examine & Expose regarding 'War on Drugs' data. (With sketched images on account of possible copyright given the virtual conference.) Major League Baseball put in a drug policy, and the question was whether there would be a significant decline in offensive numbers.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpnrRoUh8wsar5oaCvoqKk0Y6YTgsJcJoFHY-6urd2BvTyyzMOJ9ITos0GuYKKIA31ELKlV4Sp_NnAxQaggtzTb-NTxnH80Wqor7aP-2wekHuZ9twnuDfXyG_xymyQLOkhWoBKtuRcXVE/s2048/OAME2020_May8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1413" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpnrRoUh8wsar5oaCvoqKk0Y6YTgsJcJoFHY-6urd2BvTyyzMOJ9ITos0GuYKKIA31ELKlV4Sp_NnAxQaggtzTb-NTxnH80Wqor7aP-2wekHuZ9twnuDfXyG_xymyQLOkhWoBKtuRcXVE/s320/OAME2020_May8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>The Revisit & Finalize (after talking about difference of means) was seen using student work samples. The class found (among other things) that hits didn't show a meaningful decrease but runs showed a difference. And then there's the fact that "War on Drugs" has something else come up in search engines.</p><p>There was then some talk of other areas (like Climate Change data) and questions were addressed (I had one, but no longer recall). I was actually recognized by name in the stream as I made a couple comments (and puns). ^.^</p><p>Some good perspective here, and I know there are other resources out there that can be brought in for particular topics. It's another one of those things for which I may try to do more, once I have the time (and the sanity) to do it "properly" (as I define it).</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Desmos: Focus on Graphing and Data Analysis</h4><p>Session by Michael Lieff, at noon on Sat. May 9th. I wasn't able to attend live, but did have a look at the slides when they were posted up (at the end of the conference).</p><p><i>Preamble: Come learn how to use the features of this must-have graphing calculator app (and web site) to put the power of dynamic graphing and data analysis into your students' hands!</i></p><p>Mostly I wanted to see if there were key items I'd been missing, as I only recently got the whole Histogram/Box Plot situation worked out. (My holdup: Info doesn't always paste depending on the source.) Michael started with the basics of an account and the Desmos library.</p><p>Items included domain restrictions, image insertion, a hands on activity, converting equations to tables (THAT one was new for me), regressions, and graphs (like box plots as referenced earlier).</p><p>And that's pretty much all I had a chance to take in, both at the time, and in putting this post together five months later. Teaching in 2020 has been nuts.</p><p>I'm glad I did make the time. I also don't think I could have handled more than I did.</p><p>*</p><p>If you're wondering about previous OAME conferences I went to, you can have a look at <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2013/05/mat-oame-2013-day-1-key-notes.html" target="_blank">2013</a>, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2014/06/oame-2014-days-1-2.html" target="_blank">2014</a>, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2015/08/oame-2015-days-1-2.html" target="_blank">2015</a>, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2017/02/oame-2016-summary.html" target="_blank">2016</a>, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2018/10/oame-2018-day-1.html" target="_blank">2018</a> and <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2019/10/oame-2019-summary.html" target="_blank">2019</a>. (In 2017 the sessions were full before I realized registration was open.)</p><p>Alternatively, feel free to drop a comment here. Did you learn something, or have any thoughts about the mathematics? Or the teaching, or applications? Please let me and other readers know. As always, thanks for reading through to the end.</p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-51692388543023405552020-09-29T19:51:00.006-07:002020-09-29T19:51:50.887-07:00Pandemic Parenting: Sept 2020<div style="text-align: left;"><u>Week 115</u><br />-Wake-ups every couple hours (at 12:15am was told 'done'). Hour break before family time 8am; trip to far slides on velo. Brunch with friends at 10am, home for snooze before noon. Over 75 min to get there; I snooze too. Up before 3pm, basekemtn, remote story-time with Jose. Laundry, trip in stroller to both ponds (geese are back!?), caught in rain at end. Dinner after 6pm, bath after 7pm. Prepared car and files.<br />-Dreamt*, brief Dad time from 7am, joined for breakfast, departed after 7:45am. Drop-off, parking next door. Training system doesn't work with everyone online; I organize room. Dept trip outside for 15 min. Visit with teachers, copy files. Lunch. Dept together for mental health online, then I complete training by 3:30pm. Home 4:30pm and rinse, family time from 5pm with far slides... headfirst, plus hanging for over 30 sec! Trouble falling asleep, out 9pm. No work done.<br />-Awake 6:30am, recycling during wakeup, not much breakfast time and out. New training on student mental health and online resources, I do more sites setup. Out to pick up Tupperware & batteries, back for more videos. Racism training. Pickup routine, family time again at far slides - she loses footing and bites her lip. Carries on, we do ice cream later. Bed after 7pm; no work done. RDA with Bill & Ted.<br />-She's awake before 6:30am so I go in 6:40am. Slow to emerge from crib, Dad time and sausages. Bullying video and some room reorganizing. Classify data files for past year. Quick slides before rain, then first real pee on potty. Indoor reading and play. Dishes done, little else.<br />-Somewhat late rise but things work out. Parking lot's available; I forget to change shoes. Clean class desk and arrange desks, staff meeting. After lunch, clean prep desk and WHMIS training. Shopping, pickup, play downstairs with stuffed animals from neighbour (out of quarantine). Solo trip to both slides for an hour, dinner, shredding documents. Set up video crops, then relax.<br />-Dreamt of trip to 'Murder She Wrote' museum? Dad time before 7am, ball. Morning dept meeting for vague planning, and when courses are finalized, start to set up own data course. Staff meeting, VLE Online Meet, and get June's plagiarism into office. Arrive home and go pick up food while others go to slides; sudden rain. Inside time includes downstairs. Books include "green" and "purple"! Bath, bed from 7:30pm. Some silly writing only.<br />-Writing some "Epsilon". Family time from 7:15am, park, Dad time trip to duck ponds. Home before 10am, writing break, depart 11am for mall. Get shoes, pants, sushis. Lunch, during snooze from 1:30pm I pick up parcel and camera (repaired), also quick shopping. Home after 3pm, tired; Mom time from 4:30-5:30pm. Phone home for an hour. Dinner and downstairs play with Dad; bedtime after 7:30pm. Bit more "Epsilon" writing.<br />-Mharz "Life is Strange" LIVE (#16-18) & Dom starts Twilight.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">===</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Item counts to Saturday (Sept 5):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 49,000<br />-CanCon 2015 posts, as CanCon 2016 began.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: About 69,800 (14 stars)<br />-Returned to work, spent most evenings dealing with CompSci.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 72,700 (10 stars)<br />-First bus ride, car battery death, cemetery movie.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 81,500 (14 stars)<br />-RIP Godzilla, Playgroup, Manor Park Festival, in-laws, watched "Primer".<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 83,200. 13 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 115 New (9 sent)<br /> 21 Daycares. We have completed DAY 5. 3 PD, and 2 No students.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 5 (ACS Standby)</div><br />=======<br /><u>Week 116</u><br />-Dreamt.* Dad time from 6:50am, family time for an hour from 7:20, both parks. Tidying and laundry solo, then Dad time downstairs. Quiet time to finish Epsilon entry (1.5 hr), noon lunch and snooze (still takes 45 min to start). All sleep, awake 3pm, go to Edinburgh park for over an hour. Mom discovers sun shield is actually two(!). Quick shopping, then Dad time to near park (encounter Aubrey's family). Home before 7pm, dinner troubles. Queue up Epsilon post, handle some other items (new shoes for star run).<br />-Restless sleep. Family time from 7:30am (sausages) becomes crash during rain outside. Dad time after 10am, downstairs hugging bears, until France Remote Reading after 11am. After lunch, manage to finish drawing 2019 'tans banner, and search for 3C binder. Family time at both parks. Playdoh before 7pm, bath, bed after 8pm. Photos organized. Some RDA.<br />-Awake 6am after little one already up for half an hour. Dad time, downstairs. Quick food, no trouble with school arrival. Briefly monitor link class, then prep slides for all Data and initial course info and sheets for Sem1. Label desks after lunch. Pickup in rain, inside time until it clears. Also half hour downstairs. Unproductive evening.<br />-Awake about 6am with little one, swap 6:30am. Worked on slides for 3M (more or less) and 3C (less; also sought more resources). Downloaded 3M text for site. Left 3pm for corn and gas, pickup, rain at home again. Books, crashed 15 min. Corn peel and dinner managed to go half an hour. Evening of assembling missing 4U text using Windows ME downstairs, dishes, cooking, tidying. Bed after 11:30pm.<br />-Dad time from 6:45am, bit stressed trying to go around 7:30am. Hall duty, more puzzling on Sites/Classroom, went through all video links for Data, emails, more hall, invited students to Classroom App, two student emails. Shopping. Home stress, so with Alexandra to both parks then dinner. Cooked, talked, finished PDF work. Bed after 10pm.<br />-Dreamt&. Extended PJs until departure. Hall duty, posting to Classroom, verifying two variable sheet, creating teacher location and seating chart files. New face shield. More hall, emails, laminating attempt. Laundry, trip out includes DQ, picking up fallen tree sticks, bubbles. After dinner, kitchen play. Quick shopping during bath. Took another evening off.<br />-Dad time from 7am, waffles not a hit. An hour to check school and organize photos. Prep to go out and buy boots (fire boots, wore out of store) then to new park. Home, lunch, more Summer's End file sorting during snooze. Some play, then off to boats; I hurry back to mow lawn for 6pm. Dinner, bed, and again too tired to have a useful evening, ugh.<br />-Mharz "Life is Strange" LIVE (#19) & Daily Show.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">===<br />Item counts to Saturday (Sept 12):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 76,300<br />-Went to BC with Anne-Lise. Considered making posts into a newsletter.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: About 69,000 (19 stars)<br />-Many meetings, network fail as part of the CS horror show. CTP VIP.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 74,900 (12 stars)<br />-Long days with dinners, hot water heater issue, updated OS for laptop.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 68,300 (13 stars)<br />-Long days again, laptop charger broke, signing "more", Sat dinner out.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br />STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 73,100. 14 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 93 New (17 sent)<br />We have completed DAY 9. 3 PD, 2 No students.<br /> 7 Daycare msg. I haven't actually taught yet.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 5 (ACS Standby)</div>=======</div><div style="text-align: left;"><u>Week 117</u><br />-Awake 6am getting little one to sleep. Some course prep. 8am dishes. 9am Dad time for almost 2 hrs including out between rains. Break during story, cook lunch, snooze. Out in under half an hour, do run. Some TORG reading, attempt nap. Up 2:30pm, out to park 3pm. Home, want ice creams. Then 45 min break, Family time from 5pm with phone call (no Distributel?). Vector to bath before 7pm. 7;30 gaming just after story... need to go in myself after 8:30pm, rough finding sleep. Gamin ends 11pm, check messages (supervision up) and bed 11:30pm.<br />-Dreamt*, up after 6am. Little one up soon after, switch from 6:30am. First Day Teaching, and projector goes out (huge dark spot) so make due with boards and site uploads. Need to remember, attendance twice. Starting putting together Data Assignments; break before pickup. Cleanse, one story, then math meeting 5-6:30pm. Dad time to 7pm, then evening to crash, mostly. Some RDA again, tough all around.<br />-Up 6am with little one; swap and I cue up morning post. Sneak cereal, family time after 7am (mostly Mom). Second half of class (9 vs 7), still no projector but better paced. Devise summary unit sheet for self, upload whiteboard files, finalize graph assignment. Shopping at Cdn Superstore and pickup of laminated circle. Little one aware she's tired so comes home, but refuses to eat enough dinner for ice creams; story done 6:30pm. Had to take over, asleep before 8pm. Minimal work managed.<br />-Much awake early on, then dreamt&, up 6:30am. Mom took over. Extended PJs, then onesie with snaps (for last time). Statistics teaching for 4 hours. Lunch, went live with first assignment. Email issues, staff meeting + OSSTF for an hour. Pickup 4pm, home and crash for an hour. Then Dad Time of an hour going to parks and around house. Dinner after 7pm, to sleep; emails, cook dinner, devise quiz, dishes and restart 'Life is Strange' comic. Bed after midnight.<br />-Dreamt^, woken by alarm 6:30am. Dad time. Police pulled me over on parkway (83 in 60 zone, I hadn't been watching speed). Still able to schedule online quiz after 8am, then second run teaching statistics. New student seems not to be. Learned more of our 'support period' (our school handling things well). Finally initiated some emails. Zoned out in car after 3pm. Pickup, yogurt snack, some time running down hills at park. I take over partway into bath, and put little one to sleep for first time in recent memory. Eventual shopping to get more fruit. Home before 10pm, dinner, bed after 11:30pm.<br />-Queued post, family time (more Mom), to Daycare which is dwindling due to runny noses, eep. 3 Distributions lessons, connecting up with GMeet teachers for next week, verifying how to handle assignments on Classroom, talking with colleagues. No park trip; some chalks. Her nose starts running, sleepy time gets rough. Insert humidifier. Finally finish damn math minutes, minor breakdown. Bed 11:30pm again.<br />-Slept downstairs almost 6 hours straight. Dad time from before 7am. Little one still runny nose, so we head to testing centre by 9am; told they're already at capacity for the day. Return home, break to email school, tidy, do laundry, finish my Summer post. Dad time from 11am downstairs, active running. Lunch, she's out for snooze pretty fast in our room. Satellite testing site opens, we head out 3pm to Kanata, she's tested and we're home by 6pm. With sushis, so she's happy. Bath 7pm, less runny nose but more congestion. Online chat, bed before 10pm though many wakeups to come.<br />-Mharz "Life is Strange" LIVE (#20 & 21 Finale) & Daily Show.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">===<br />Item counts to Saturday (Sept 19):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 67,900<br />-Felt like I’d be busy until end of year. But with writing, etc. not teaching.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: About 61,500 (14 stars)<br />-Daily injections, cutting back on everything to deal with tech, stress level 8+.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 57,200 (10 stars)<br />-Step counter bracket broke, cut little one doing nails, tornado in town.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 64,500 (14 stars)<br />-Guernsey package in, busy school (library on Sat), solo little one to sleep.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 67,050. 11 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 150 New (52 sent)<br />We have completed DAY 14. 3 PD, 2 No Students.<br /> +9 Daycare emails</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 8 (Starlight Breaker Extension)</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />=======<br /><u>Week 118</u><br />-After being in her room 1-3am and another wakeup, time after 7am to send email updates and finalize posts. Join after an hour, some back and forth, found smol cow and cat puzzle, none of us feeling great. More self time during story at 10am. Dad time for half an hour from 11am, then during snooze, which takes an hour to achieve. Check school messages, out for an hour myself. Phone g'parents. Self time to organize photos and prep emails. Dad time including running around house and velo in driveway. Family time after dinner, need saline for sleep. Each over 45 min to get crib. Email daycare. Bed downstairs before 11pm.<br />-Awake 6am, verify school messages, tidy kitchen, start some writing. Dad time from 7am, break 8am, then from 8:30am through to 3pm; no outside time, some downstairs, nap just over two hours. During nap, able to organize emails. From 3-4pm, worked on Quiz. Then Dad time including car around the house to 6pm. Quick tidy and dinner, family time in basement. Tidied and dishes during bath and sleep; down time starts 9pm. Bit of RDA, bed like before upstairs.<br />-One wakeup, decent sleep, dreamt of university classes but also a boat? (As part of curriculum?) Some Dad time until 7am, then writing time. Dad time from 8-10am (enjoyed teether), then prepped lesson files (from broken projector) until 11:30am. Made lunch. Sorted photos and finalized lessons until 2:30pm when phone woke from snooze. Dad time for an hour (reading), then all out for adult Covid Tests (drive thru). More Dad time, over 1.5 hr (water table, coffee sorting), half hour to finish schoolwork. Family time including dance, dinner. Moved phone to living room. She's asleep before 8pm, so worked out grocery orders and did some writing before 11pm.<br />-Awake 6am again (downstairs), more writing. Dad time 7am, family time, Dad time until 10am (she found fish ball). Finalized more lessons and found handouts, started quiz corrections. Family time noon, Dad time (with snooze) 12:30pm to 3:15pm. Finished quiz corrections on snooze; until 5:30pm did emails and finalized Epsilon10 to post. (They did Q-tip art!) Dad time 45 min outside, she wants to pick up sticks. (Negative results in.) Family time until after 7pm, bath. (Emailing all about negative results.) Back and forth, not asleep until 9pm. Too exhausted for much, bed before 11pm.<br />-One wakeup, decent sleep. Bought remote groceries for over 30 min, then Dad time for two hours (including cereals). From 10:30am, finalized Data projects and emails. Cooked lunch, then out to get groceries in trunk. Downstairs run (for once) then connected with Math in GMeet for grading support (video answers?). Dad time after 3pm for 2.5 hours including call to grandparents. Brief rest. Cook dinner (corns), last things. Still sleep troubles drag on until 9pm again. See Wednesday.<br />-Downstairs. Restless overnight all around; spooky dream*. Up before 5:30am to queue posts in Classroom. Upstairs to take over 6:30am, Dad time to near 8am, phone France. Quick release of Data Quizzes, then Dad time to 10:15am including gluing leaves and new paint (also she got me to mow). Corrected 1/3 of Data Assignments (others found pencil crayons). Lunch, then an hour to find snooze. Brief Dad time, then correct rest of Data Assignments. At 5:30pm, go to park, hell with it; Mom joins 6pm. Home 7pm for routine; need help again for getting to sleep before 9pm. Check messages, do dishes, oy.<br />-Awake from 4:30am basically. Rest from 7am; family time before going out to Tatie's. 2.5 hours of cleaning pantry (bags, flour, her area), vacuum carseat, lightbulb, etc. Have a run. After pickup, go shopping during snooze. Hour of Dad time, hour to lie down, then family time to park. Some Dad time with water table before 6pm. Wants sleep by 6:30pm but not asleep until after 8pm. Some videos, emails, checking for old tests. More "Life is Strange" comic, bed 11pm.<br />-AT4W catchup & Daily Show.<br /><br />===<br />Item counts to Saturday (Sept 26):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About About 62,500<br />-Had an eye appointment, queued T&T for all Oct, started playing Sakura Dungeon.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: About 65,500 (14 stars)<br />-School reprieve, sort of mending; became Time Travel Nexus writer, bought pants.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 63,500 (10 stars)<br />-Assembled playpen, little one rolling onto front, resumed some RP.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 68,900 (13 stars)<br />-School meets & math social approach breakdown, grading during Group w/ mom.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 53,550. 4 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 104 New (37 sent)<br />We have completed DAY 19. I've taught for five days (3 of them unique).<br /> (Some sent were Daycare; removed daycare from inbox)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 7 (Starlight Breaker)</div><br />*****<br />CONSTANT TO-DO LIST:<br /> -Recap for OAME 2020<br /> -Sketches for 2019 holiday parody<br /> -2020 Banner for TPolys<br /> -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias<br /> -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement<br /> -Catching up with web serials/comics (from ~August 2018)<br /> -Read some of the books sitting at my desk</div>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-37641392185630005222020-09-20T05:12:00.003-07:002020-09-20T07:16:22.360-07:00Summer's End 2020<p> It's the 7th annual "Year End" recap post. (<a href="http://mathiex.blogspot.ca/2013/09/tch-summers-end-2013.html">Started in 2013</a>, did not run in 2016 as that's the year I wasn't teaching.) Again, the end of August is the true end of the year, no matter what the Gregorian Calendar claims. That's teaching life.</p><p>If you want to see <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2019/09/summers-end-2019.html">my thoughts on 2019</a> (for comparison or whatever), you can find them here. But this post is largely for me, to celebrate the stuff that I actually got done.</p><p>The main thing over the past year has continued to be raising a daughter, who has turned two years old. A close second has been the crazy fallout from <span style="color: red;">the pandemic</span>.</p><p>Thank goodness Daycare resumed near the start of July, both for the sake of my own sanity (I didn't have any days off from April through to June, no weekends since that's when my wife could be with little one), and for the sake of her socializing with other kids her age (not to mention doing different art projects each week instead of the same old, same old).</p><p>Of course, we also lost our initial Daycare in February (with a month of advance warning) so those were some gymnastics done there to find a replacement during exam time in January. She went from being in a home daycare near our house (Sept-Jan) to being in the Daycare attached to my school (Feb, Mar, July, Aug). At least it worked out.</p><p>I put together my videos for her again last month... but now I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's do the usual categories.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">WORK RELATED</h4><p>At the start of last year (again, September 2019), I decided I would revamp my MDM4U Statistics course. To have it start with more Statistics and deal with the hardest Probability counting later on. THANK. GOD.</p><p>If I had waited to do that until January/February, it would have meant that I was still juggling units in the middle of the pandemic. As it was, that course could run (mostly) smoothly by then, giving me time to try and jam the MCR 3U course into a timeline that made covering all the expectations literally impossible.</p><p>(For those not in Ontario, we were only allowed to assign three hours of work per week from April onwards, all inclusive for lessons/practice/evaluation. Which makes sense, but ugh.)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifqCETry98L6FZkdtzCgU7xyIysN67VgiIsCIuUiAbYzeFF-O66GgBU_r_kARJ_KVIuV6LcBsvzBD503_5ALJBvlOZdcAH2-gvQyypmS-3aJGJEfg7Q2rNPc5VfIYfSeBGVFwVfXu_MM4/s960/LaForge_Curve.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifqCETry98L6FZkdtzCgU7xyIysN67VgiIsCIuUiAbYzeFF-O66GgBU_r_kARJ_KVIuV6LcBsvzBD503_5ALJBvlOZdcAH2-gvQyypmS-3aJGJEfg7Q2rNPc5VfIYfSeBGVFwVfXu_MM4/s320/LaForge_Curve.jpg" /></a></div>So the Data course is looking good, though I'll want to continue to update certain items, perhaps with some eye towards Covid (as "flattening the curve" ties in directly).<p></p><p>At the same time, I was teaching MAP 4C in September, a course I hadn't taught in a few years. So I needed to update the materials for that as well. New assignments to go with the tests, in particular. Hence most of my Semester One efforts were geared towards that, and towards the Data... my 3U class was a bit more by-the-numbers as a result (until second semester).</p><p>What I thought would be one of the major school events was the time I helped to break up a gang war, in November. Seriously, I saw two students going at it outside my window and ran out. Tunnel vision prevented me from seeing another half dozen students further back in the parking lot. Fortunately there were a few other teachers, and then police arrived. I got to see everything on the surveillance cameras in the following weeks.</p><p>There was also a funeral for a colleague that month, cancer sucks.</p><p>Then the pandemic arrived in March.</p><p>For MDM, the powerpoint I made on account of the consecutive snow days in January 2019 was useful to end off the pandemic over a year later, and the Culminating Project (usually running surveys in the school and doing an analysis of result) became a Probability Project (retooled from a couple years ago, investigating a question).</p><p>That cleared the board, except for the fact that my not-yet-two daughter was home. As I started to come to grips with how I'd handle the 3U, I retooled all my slides from first semester to be more like "Discussions" between a teacher and an imaginary student, supplementing with anime graphics.</p><p>I feel like it took less time (and was more effective) than trying to shoot videos in the evenings after little one was asleep, but maybe it was just because I enjoyed doing it more. I did shoot two short videos (holes in graphs, and ambiguous case) and found YouTube links that already existed to supplement other topics.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEX8865hnAA3ATVut3ydaNtU2Vf0r0ReTgcydH2Nt96jP9hRkguQa3wjZAHaC4t9H7OdHOOFIuE3Ql-HVbOlAP3GeNXXrTHFGAWKPDWC36zOLISYJ8ZeLm_9NAGa23wzGChapko1VitDM/s800/3USlideOnTrig.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEX8865hnAA3ATVut3ydaNtU2Vf0r0ReTgcydH2Nt96jP9hRkguQa3wjZAHaC4t9H7OdHOOFIuE3Ql-HVbOlAP3GeNXXrTHFGAWKPDWC36zOLISYJ8ZeLm_9NAGa23wzGChapko1VitDM/w400-h320/3USlideOnTrig.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>What about events outside the curriculum?</p><p>There was the Strike action, that started late in 2019, because our Conservative Provincial government is trying to increase class sizes and force online learning for no good reason (aside from getting rid of a bunch of teachers, I guess). We settled after the pandemic hit, having moved the government slightly from their hard line.</p><p>There was only the one school musical, "Hunchback of Notre Dame", and while I put together some materials near the start, I didn't help much in person until February. The show went ahead in early March, a week before everything got shut down. Most other Cappies schools were not as lucky, so there was no voting and a virtual celebration.</p><p>Related, I did have to be a Review Cappies Critic in December, for Ashbury's "Avenue Q". (And much like in Dec 2017, I almost became Editor instead, but as then, it didn't happen.) Fortunately the location was convenient.</p><p>OAME 2020 wasn't going to be a consideration (in part because without me, the only family member who can drive, my daughter now cannot get to Daycare). But then it went virtual, so I did attend a couple of sessions (that I eventually hope to recap) in late May.</p><p>Related, I'm still the COMA secretary... except now we're O34ME and lots of rebranding has been done since Sept 2019. I didn't attend the retreats, where the minutes formatting got updated too.</p><p>Last thing I'll mention - since my Cubic Formula song was at 5,643 views last year - is that now it's reached 6,678. I should maybe get to answering comments, but my priority tends to be my blogs. I did manage a couple new song parodies, but now we're getting into Hobbies.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">HOBBY RELATED</h4><p>I did not get to CanCon 2019 and Anime North 2020 was cancelled... though I did briefly join the "Momiji's Online Experience" (MOE) livestream in late July. Watched a bit of 404s, D20 Live (ironically prerecorded) and added commentary to their channel.</p><p>The "Comic Tea Party" Discord channel and asynchronous chat officially closed its doors at the start of August. I participated briefly in November, and then through July... possibly one or two other times. I'm very behind in all my comic and serial readings but I'm glad I got back to it a bit.</p><p>I still did writing in 2019 for the "Time Travel Nexus", namely the "Sandglass of Summer Colours" anime OAV (two columns), the "BTTF: Tales from the Time Train" comic review, and the "Jughead's Time Police" revamp recap under the Archie Forever title umbrella. These efforts also necessitating doing screen caps and scans.</p><p>Then in December I got sick, in 2020 we lost our Daycare, and the world hit a pandemic, so I haven't gotten back to it.</p><p>For more on time travel, I saw "Primer" in Sept 2019 (when the rest of the family went on a weekend trip) which was mind bending as promised. And I watched "Steins;Gate 0" in August 2020 once Alexandra was back in Daycare. I'd received it for my birthday in April, and figured it might be my last chance to have a couple weeks free... I even did a Series Scan set of posts about it.</p><p>"Time Untied" (my serial sequel) was at about 82,000 words this time last year. November's NaNoWriMo added another 33,000. This was followed by 12,000 more in July's NaNo Camp. So we've reached about 127,000 and we're almost at the climax... but I think my next task has to be edits, as I need to assemble the timeline properly for continuing.</p><p>Also, said climax is only technically the halfway point, so obviously that effort will be "two books" the same way "Time & Tied" was split.</p><p></p>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31PGz9zrmjLhKSMLCUK_CWeukDrSDi4i9sZwGFZKgyjkud67e2S9wn2EnBPdzH-GNhfLzAXYqREyeqocAg787I7ufYS7rJMo8XpGacBC02p7if75RuIQe5bZqY2DsufU5LFm3hF6E4DU/s2048/jenny+colors.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31PGz9zrmjLhKSMLCUK_CWeukDrSDi4i9sZwGFZKgyjkud67e2S9wn2EnBPdzH-GNhfLzAXYqREyeqocAg787I7ufYS7rJMo8XpGacBC02p7if75RuIQe5bZqY2DsufU5LFm3hF6E4DU/s320/jenny+colors.jpg" /></a></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: start;">JENNY IRVING</em><br />
<em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: start;">Commission <a href="http://mharz.com/commissions/" style="color: #990066; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">from Mharz</a></em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Related, I requested new commission art from Mharz at the end of August, of the Irving sisters, which basically assembles a full cast now (minus Carey). Might post about that.<p></p><p>No work on the "Any ~Qs" webcomic. I managed a holiday parody, though at school I did a "Frozen" reprise as nothing was finished in time for the assembly. I still need to get through the 2019 banner (though I did rough it out in late March). Trying to work with the tablet just seems to be a roadblock, I don't have the time for art these days.</p><p>I still want to have something for the two new parodies though, one written in late August (generic about training), and one written in mid-October (for lines). Also perhaps a banner for this year. But now I'm simply waxing nostalgic.</p><p>On my serial website, "Balancing Act" with Melissa Virga continued posting every two weeks, running through Act 4, Act 5 and Act 6. I only managed <a href="https://mathtans.wordpress.com/2020/02/16/summary-of-2019/">a Summary of 2019 post</a> in February, regarding stats and 2019 coins. The serial then finished at the end of April (and I managed a "Behind the Scenes" post too).</p><p>It's been followed by a <a href="https://mathtans.wordpress.com/2020/05/16/smoke-with-mirrors-index/">new Epsilon: Smoke With Mirrors</a>. There's a dimensional pandemic, because I was doing some research on those anyway (go figure). We're at eight entries so far, still clawing to get up to five votes. I've been posting to "Tuesday Serial" but continue to struggle with views.</p><p>On THIS blog, I wrote a <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2019/10/considering-not-voting-read.html">political column to Vote</a> before the Federal Election in 2019, and posted OAME and Professional Development summaries last October 2019. Yeah, summer and September is really the only time I have for this sort of writing (and September is kind of out this year, what with the chaos of the virtual school changing courses around).</p><p>I guess there's also been my Parenting Posts, running monthly, as I update my life. I posted the <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2020/08/series-scan-steinsgate-zero-1.html">Steins;Gate Zero series scan</a>. And I was able to post <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2020/08/pandemic-teaching-stress-statistics.html">about my stress meter</a> at last (started writing it to begin July, completed it almost 8 weeks later). This is post 525.</p><p>Other minor things, I continue to take many photographs of my daughter, and as I mentioned above I put together a video for her Second Year (in early July) and of her Second Birthday (same time). She seems to like watching the second one. There's also a couple of quick videos related to her dancing and speaking words. The new camera I got for Christmas has been lovely.</p><p>Her origins book has been written as of late August, but needs translation and more photos to be assembled before it could locally be printed. (I really wanted it for her second birthday, but no free time with the pandemic made that impossible.)</p><p>For Role-play, never got around to meeting up with people in person, but I did a bit of gaming through Roll20.net with someone I know locally. (Star Trek and Cthulhu.) There was also a write-in game on the system in July for Camp NaNo. System says I've played there for about 13 hours.</p><p>Not sure how I feel about all this. I wanted more, but see no way to have fit it in, short of watching fewer online videos which was kind of my sanity branch.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">UPKEEP RELATED</h4><p>Had to repair the Air Conditioning in the car, to the tune of $2,000. Taking long trips with the little one to see grandparents, etc in a hot August.</p><p>I planted grass seed in April, in a patch of dirt that is rather shaded by a tree in late summer. Watered it carefully, and the little one enjoyed reminding me to keep it watered. Got some nice grass by May. Very distracted in June. By the end of July, it was all gone. Not dead (ie brown), gone, probably a combination of heat, shade and less water. Sigh.</p><p>The cedars are still dead. The kitchen faucet has been busted for over a year now (terrible water pressure), I managed to contact the plumber we used four years ago in late August but we're no longer in his area.</p><p>My wife switched us off Rogers in the summer. Our internet went out in the midst of the pandemic, and I had to <i>drive to the library</i> to connect up with my students. We were given a timeline of a week to fix, then maybe more, then it ended up being a week, but then they charged us for not returning the broken modem. Also our TV hasn't worked properly for over a year. Screw Rogers.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicKoWaeQQdvL6MTJdKvZPa3VEeRjx1frriN8AjIqp0wXAmgep7LrgY_F8fSWMOO0Ad6nHNR8PprGAkrD4cH6dqvyIpJcHr1Q493-Rg6DQ80LsR9jemweBnsD-bKUodtqPf7m-Kj5ar0RM/s583/161_637147881440861964SteinsGate0Small_hq.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Steins;Gate Zero Image" border="0" data-original-height="583" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicKoWaeQQdvL6MTJdKvZPa3VEeRjx1frriN8AjIqp0wXAmgep7LrgY_F8fSWMOO0Ad6nHNR8PprGAkrD4cH6dqvyIpJcHr1Q493-Rg6DQ80LsR9jemweBnsD-bKUodtqPf7m-Kj5ar0RM/w219-h320/161_637147881440861964SteinsGate0Small_hq.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>The last movie I saw in theatres was 'Frozen II' in early January, just before I had to pick up early from Daycare on account of a cold. The last movie I saw with other people was Star Wars' "Rise of Skywalker". There's been a couple meetings with friends (on patios with masks) in the summer but I think that's done with school resuming.<p></p><p>I watched both "Doctor Who" and "Picard" in early 2020 (until the end in March). Those were good. Is this still Upkeep? I don't know any more.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">MISCELLANEOUS</h4><p>I now have a smart phone, because my flip-phone went missing a little before the pandemic (noticed it wasn't in the car one day during Strike action, so no idea). It's also not on Bell, so both big phone companies are gone, I guess. I need a phone, to be able to pick up Alexandra within 30 minutes if she shows symptoms of anything. It's also useful for not bringing my personal laptop to school.</p><p>My pedometer's fine. I read a Star Trek crossover book regarding time travel ("No Time Like The Past") from end of July through August (rather than reading many books on my desk). I've also been reading more yuri manga (largely while waiting for a COVID-19 test, and one morning while waiting to get a blood test). Still "Kase-san" and "Yuri is my Job" (new entries), "After Hours" (three and done), other misc.</p><p>I bought more comic anthologies for "Life is Strange" but haven't had a chance to read those yet. My alarm clock died, it's likely the power cable. I won a free movie pass by buying Wonder Women Doritoes, which fortunately doesn't expire, because pandemic.</p><p>I was part of a "Super Dads" workshop that began in January, went on hiatus two sessions away from ending on account of the pandemic, and now I dunno (it was free though). There's also been online Dad sessions I've attended put on by Dove+. I seem to be handling the Dad thing okay?</p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">WHERE TO NEXT</h4><p>I'd like to at least post up the 2019 song stuff, but that necessitates some sketches, in my mind. Fixing the math-tans banners would be good too. Alexandra's Story is much closer to being done, and should probably be a priority.</p><p>Beyond that, there's dealing with "Time Untied", as per usual, except with edits, as I said. Except I also need to handle teaching in a way I've never done it before... with plans changing all the time as our incompetent Minister of Education can't make a decision other than 'do everything like normal'. (And Ford touts Lecce as doing a great job.)</p><p>And my little one could fall ill or need a pickup at any point. Family stress is real. I think the Fall is going to be a mess. Count myself lucky if I get through any of what I just said.</p><p>I have zip-all clues about what 2021 is going to look like, so no point planning that far.</p><p>I guess we'll call it there. Things happened. It wasn't great, it sure could have been worse. As I said last time, if you have any particular questions about teaching or parenting, I'll see what I can do? Thanks for reading my mental rambling.</p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-87382640357491578282020-08-30T20:25:00.008-07:002020-09-20T07:26:40.683-07:00Pandemic Parenting: August 2020<p><u>Week 111</u></p><div style="text-align: left;">-Rough night, up ~2-4am, then awake 6am. To African Lion Safari 8:30am, in rain.<br />-Stroller hijinks for half an hour until opening 10am. Car to 11am. Walk to 11:30am.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Asleep in car, 11:50-12:30pm (I stay with) then in to Aunt's. Cousin bonding.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Depart 2:45pm, home, I take 1+ hour recovery. Then water table and puzzles.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Mini dinner 6:30pm, asleep before 7:30pm. Mini dinner, I bow out 9:30pm.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Up before 6:30am; I organize photos, join 7:30am. Morning play outside (videos!).</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Leave after 10am for water mat and play structure. Much fun, home for noon lunch.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Storms during snooze, I help with computers, etc. Mostly inside play from 3pm.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Gift book. Buy gas. More play. More photos. Dinner and bath; asleep after 8pm.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Finish photos, some RDA. Bed by 11:30pm. Quiet night, Dad morning, pack.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Breakfast, dancing, finish loading car. Depart before 10am, I'm emotional.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Animals at Apple before noon; no snooze, stop against after 1pm. Finally sleep.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Unhappy from 2:30pm to home at 4pm (bad traffic); not physical? Empty car.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-2 hrs of back and forth play/books during rain. Bed before 7pm. CTP Discord ends.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Wed: Dropoff then big shopping. Laundry, tidying, little else. Slide fun.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Social medias, bed 11pm. Morning trucks and zoom call. Minor shopping, writing.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Drive AL to meeting. Pickup (w/ art) and pool after waiting. Fall in pool.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Inconsolable until ice cream. Rough evening but quiet night. New internet setup.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Energetic morning, downstairs. Finished Epsilon that day. Almost paints; slides.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Evening Board game. Dad time in morning*, mostly crib to start. Tatie's for Zoom.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Brunch with friends; returned Rogers items. Rough nap, mostly mowed lawn.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Downstairs play, phoning grandparents, slides, rough to bed. Tech Q&A.</div><div style="text-align: left;">-Mharz "Life is Strange" LIVE (#8)</div><p>===</p><div style="text-align: left;">Item counts to Saturday (Aug 8):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 50,700<br />-Shelved Math Comic, wrote new T&T Book 4 passages, saw “Sailor Moon Crystal”.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: About 60,200 (26 stars)<br />-LOTS on the creativity including RRL, Tapastic and Series’ Scans.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 72,900 (9 stars)<br />-First major baby monitor use, "Thank You" shower cards, more writing.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 76,200. (17 stars.)<br />-Aquarium, rough return to Canada, AC unit broken, much reading/edits.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br />STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 58,800. 8 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 24 New (1 sent)<br /> 5 were Daycare posts</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 2 (Divine Buster)</div></div><p style="text-align: left;">=======</p><p><u>Week 112</u></p><div>-Dad time from ~8am, including playground ~9am and duck pond ~10am. Tidied lawn.<br />-(She helped.) Ice creams. Brief break, then snooze; back in bed with Giraffe#1.<br />-Anniversary cards. Departed after 2:30pm to sister's. Pool time & early dinner.<br />-Home 7pm, towards bed. Online 7:30pm, RP before 8pm until ~10pm. Tidied files.<br />-Still wanted Mom from 8am. Daycare, shopping, tidying. Chauffeur for blood test.<br />-Dishes, laundry sorting. Pickup in thunderstorm. Early dinner; long play in room.<br />-Morning Dad time included reading in sack. Drop-off, roughed out her story.<br />-Started Steins;Gate 0. Pickup, play in house during rain. Video of words. RDA.<br />-Quiet night. Wet slides. More Steins viewing. Slides, pool, ice creams, bed. <br />-Dad time Thurs, paints to downstairs. "Blue" added (after "Come" on Mon).<br />-Leaving giraffe upstairs has been working great, like the trading in her room.<br />-Steins and cleaning up. Drop-off for meds, some reading, return home.<br />-Over 10 min on swings, liked "high" (I was getting dizzy); didn't want to go.<br />-Bed after 7:30pm. Finish tidying before midnight. Photo sort in morning.<br />-More Steins and extended shopping. Get corn, gas, pickup and solo until 6+pm.<br />-Only swings, no slides; drops corn in. Quiet evening again. Princess dreams*.<br />-Dad time for an hour, she's sleepy. Brief break, play, then go to buy boots.<br />-She's over size 5; home 11am+. Phone and cooking... she wants nap before noon.<br />-Watch some Steins, disc has bad sector, eat. Lunch after 2pm, I'm out of sorts.<br />-Dad time 3-4pm, then family time out to see boats & planes. Buy ice creams.<br />-No desire for dinner. (What do I do with this corn?) Board plan not approved.<br />-Fireworks 9pm running. Dinner 10pm. File sorting. Bed 11:30pm. Peculiar dreams.<br />-Mharz "Life is Strange" LIVE (#9-11) & Daily Shows</div><div><br />===<br />Item counts to Saturday (Aug 15):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 55,700<br />-I was pleased not to feel rushed on all the things on my To Do list. (Whelp.)</div><div><br /><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: About 57,000 (23 stars)<br />-Marmalade Week, completing a fanfic from viewings; reading without coding.</div><div><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 69,250 (8 stars)<br />-Cedar trim, many outings for little one, some recap writing (to 2am feed).</div><div><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 58,350 (12 stars)<br />-Reviewed Steins;Gate movie, outings, scraped her nose, many comics caught up</div><div><br /><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 62,750. 12 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 43 New (2 sent)<br /> 9 were Daycare posts</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 2 (Divine Buster)</div><div style="text-align: center;"> [Minister of Ed Lecce is an ass. What's the next manufactured crisis to be?]</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div>=======<br /><p style="text-align: left;"><u>Week 113</u></p>-File catchups. Family time including slides. Dad trip to other park; hanging out.<br />-Home before noon, brief lunch, snooze. Some file tidying. 2:30pm break for Steins.<br />-3:30pm Dad time; rain as we try to go out. Downstairs instead. Phone parents.<br />-More inside time including magnets. Bath and bed after 7pm. File/Photo sorting.<br />-Dreamt I was teaching, then realized no one had masks. Cursed ministry, woke up.<br />-Dad time, gravitates to Mom. Shopping, Steins 0, dishes and misc. Slides.<br />-Inside for rain, hiding of trucks game. Math meeting 7:30pm; RDA 9pm.<br />-Dad time downstairs from 8:20am (Mom appt), day of Steins and dance video.<br />-Sunshower during slides. Unproductive evening, bed 11pm. Weird dreams*=*.<br />-Dad time with drowsy girl, shopping, Steins Disc 3 ends. Some writing.<br />-Road issues coming home. Other park trip, with impressive hang time. Bed.<br />-Character sheet work, closing tabs. Quiet night. Morning slides. Steins 0.<br />-Work phone tree. Assembling Her Book w/ photos. Trip to far slides again...<br />-15 min of swings. Insist on ice cream AFTER dinner. Camera flash breaks.<br />-Share Her Book later. Another schoolish dream**. Fri morn with toast and shapes.<br />-Finished Steins 0 after drop-off (to ep 23). Dad seminar after noon (schools).<br />-Caught up with emails, packed, hygiene, dishes. Mistimed. Gas after pickup.<br />-Swing by house for milk also. Renfrew after 6:30pm. Dorset about 9:45pm.<br />-Half hour of setup, eventual chatting to after 11pm. One wakeup. Morning write.<br />-Time with tiles, running around rooms, pingpong. Read more Trek novel.<br />-Lunch during snooze, jog. Fertility surprise call. Boat time, sand time.<br />-I take a rest time. More play, dinner includes corn. Bed routine starts <8pm.<br />-Cheese, some relative TV. Write to complete Epsilon draft, bed 11pm.<br />-Mharz "Life is Strange" LIVE (#12-13) & Daily Show Convention Coverage</div><div><br />==<br />Item counts to Saturday (Aug 22):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 51,250<br />-Kept editing T&T instead of doing convention recaps. No school upcoming.</div><div><br /><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: About 61,500 (24 stars)<br />-Sudden medical/fertility, met tech dept head, and cracked into 2016 school box.</div><div><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 57,400 (7 stars)<br />-Got keys, COMA messages, new baby pillow, date night. More recaps finished.</div><div><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 63,500 (20 stars)<br />-Daycare Transition, got school keys, bought comics, chair fall, Skype Interview.</div><div><br /><b>STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 55,650. 9 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 49 New (6 sent)<br /> 18 were Daycare (4 sent)</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 1 (Evasion: Flier Fin)</div><div style="text-align: center;"> [Whatever, I don't even know what I'm teaching any more.]</div></div><div><br />=======<br /><p style="text-align: left;">Week 114</p>-Peculiar dreams*-*; Alexandra joined in bed 3:30am. Dad time from 7am, Cynthia joins after 8am for sandcastles. Go for jog after 9am, breakfast. Dad time after 10am, between rooms. Out in boat 11am, not for that long. Break for writing. Swim after noon; take for snooze before 1pm. ('Wheels on Bus' trumps usual books.) Awake after 2:30pm for lunch. Some Dad time until rain; I organize computer files during their soccer. More Dad time after 4pm at beach, on and off to early dinner at 5:45pm. Gift, ice cream, asleep in room by 7pm. Finish 'Trek' XOver book. Play Mansion game, dinner 8:30pm. Bed after 11pm.<br />-Quiet night. After breakfast, water pours with Dad by lake. Depart before 9am; stop at Kawartha Dairy. Home 1:30pm (after nap), lunch. Then Dad time for bike, slides and water table. Toilet pee? Shopping, return for grandparents call. Dinner, unpack somewhat (first as Dad, then again). Clinic message printing. Some RDA.<br />-Dad time for breakfast, then swings. Drive for AL blood work. Finish Steins;Gate 0 with the OVA, and research and the companion book with interviews (esp Glossary). Subdued after pickup but then to far slides. Troubles getting to sleep. Started queuing up Steins posts with images.<br />-Awake by 6am so finished queuing up Steins posts. Family time at slides. Blood work for clinic; two hours of catching up with yuri. Home around noon (hearing about more education changes on radio). Date lunch at 12:30pm. Home before 2pm, for finance call. Online sketching for first time since March, before commission. Slides, then pool, then dinner and laundry carrying. Much photo organizing.<br />-Teaching dreams again (lesson prep at a school?). Dad morning in rain, she eats more than one sausage. Drop off camera for flash fix, shopping. Dishes, 1pm staff meeting to learn no one knows anything (seriously, re-timetabling) and who knows where masks are. Random writing. Brief slides, sushis, then dress-up downstairs (until slip on sweater). Had to chase neighbourhood kids after 9:30pm for constant doorbell ringing (mercifully she slept through it). Some writing for blog.<br />-Before 2:20am, dreamt of saving her from people (or forest dwellers?). After 3:15am, dreamt of helping students in theatre by playing a role. Awake before 6am, tired. Family time included quick swings; bought masks en route home, then clinic appointment. Prep blog post on stress, 1pm car oil change squeezed in, some weeding, attempt at drawing (2019 banner) first time since March. Pickup (as well as shirts), early dinner in order to have ice cream sooner. Swings/Slides, starting to think "baby" is an invisible friend the way she points at other swing/slide for them (instead of leaving it free for a baby who might come). Running in park, and then downstairs too. Bath with nail trim, story 7:30pm. More doorbell, finalized stress post.<br />-Dreamt of two RP groups those characters were fighting until they realized they were on the same side? Awake 6:30am, queued post, Dad time from 7am. Much rain. Back and forth until trip to boats at 10:30am. Home for lunch; shopping during snooze (cards, etc). Rain again, phoned home. Dinner 6pm, play in basement. Bed after 7:30pm. Unproductive video evening.<br />-Mharz "Life is Strange" LIVE (#14-15) & Daily Show Convention Coverage</div><div><br />==<br />Item counts to Saturday (Aug 29):<br /><span style="background-color: #04ff00;">Step Count 2016</span>: About 57,550<br />-Posted ConBravo 2016 recaps, continued T&T rewrites, read and walked.</div><div><br /><span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Step Count 2017</span>: About 68,000 (20 stars)<br />-Spent 4 of 5 days dealing with teaching issues, launched on Tapas.</div><div><br /><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Step Count 2018</span>: Over 59,100 (10 stars)<br />-More interest in mobile, vaccinations, to Hawkesbury, bassinet in crib.</div><div><br /><span style="background-color: #ffa400;">Step Count 2019</span>: Over 84,800 (24 stars)<br />-Humidifier, last Alexandra week issues, trip to Dorset, song parody.</div><div><b><br />STEP COUNT 2020</b>: Over 66,500. 12 stars.<br />SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 66 New (2 sent)<br /> 13 were Daycare</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">RH Stress Level: 4 (Accel Shooter)</div><div><br /></div><br />*****<br />CONSTANT TO-DO LIST:<br /> -Recap for OAME 2020<br /> -2019 Banner for TPolys<br /> -Sketches for 2019 holiday parody<br /> -2020 Banner for TPolys<br /> -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias<br /> -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement<br /> -Catching up with web serials/comics (from ~August 2018)<br /> -Read some of the books sitting at my desk</div>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-39592442975258741212020-08-29T12:00:00.073-07:002020-08-30T20:37:09.402-07:00Pandemic Teaching: Stress Statistics<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Picture it: You've done the best job you can under difficult conditions. You've reached a week that is recognized as an annual event to celebrate your profession. It's at the end of this week, meant to acknowledge education, when the Provincial Minister says you've been doing things all wrong.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Welcome to being a teacher in Ontario 2020. Please pardon a brief divergence.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">You can tell I'm still bitter that, at the end of Education Week (the first week in May), Stephen Lecce came out and said all teachers were supposed to do "synchronous learning". It raised my workload as I had to explain the state of things through email to at least one parent. Raised my stress levels too. So my expectations for this September are low.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQ5PnD0molxORJ938w9STeRir3Es5lyQJ4vP5uU94EWG6yYneFLGNQ-LRssW6ZfUSnva1x9oCvMAmw1QXcE1eJsvhMVKBKWPdyN3n_JBGoF23IrAkVMWpxD4wrNB9uubTeApkxAyCRVA/s1686/FordConsults_74171900_3021071144572954_1496003590995574784_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="1686" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQ5PnD0molxORJ938w9STeRir3Es5lyQJ4vP5uU94EWG6yYneFLGNQ-LRssW6ZfUSnva1x9oCvMAmw1QXcE1eJsvhMVKBKWPdyN3n_JBGoF23IrAkVMWpxD4wrNB9uubTeApkxAyCRVA/w400-h299/FordConsults_74171900_3021071144572954_1496003590995574784_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><div><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>For context, Lecce's comments were an additional slam as part of the mandated "only three hours per week of work" for individual secondary courses, where many students had already been polled about online learning preferences, and employers were having students work during the school day even though they're not supposed to do that, et cetera, et cetera. Some of it makes sense, but some things cannot co-exist for everyone.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">No check-in as to teachers' mental health, by the way. Then or now.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For even more context, I have a young daughter who only recently turned two. I was fortunate in that my wife and I were able to put together a schedule where I would work weekends while she had the majority of time with the little one, whereas I would spend time on Monday/Friday (while still working) with her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, this means I didn't get a day off from April through to July. But by all means, Education Minister, do go on this August about how educators never stayed an extra minute past any mandated time during the whole "working from home" phase. That phase where we apparently didn't do things the way you wanted, with your private education background.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">With that rant out of the way, you're (presumably) here for some interesting statistics. Let's set that up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">UNIQUE TRACKING</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I took a year off of teaching in 2016-2017.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I decided to track my emails at that time, to see if I'd get substantially less versus at the times when I was teaching. After all, there were still tons of items (daily attendance, field trip notifications, Board items) coming through my inbox that weren't relevant since I was off... but, of course, nothing to me from students or parents.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For whatever reason, I've kept that up now for four years without doing any analysis. So we can do that now, as well as compare pre-pandemic to what happened in 2020.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The other thing I decided to track was my average Stress Level during a week. (Perhaps not coincidentally, the week after I was told I'd be doing computer science in September 2017, the month of my return.) I rank Stress on a scale of 0 through 10.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It doesn't quite correspond to the graphic here (for example, I feel like their "4" is closer to my "5"), but that helps to give an idea, right?</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl3Nn0Zrn8WsDVc_GYt-X5K4LBXD4CfaECEDBiZ0BGWoH0TAUelLWwUxgLqyvgN_0WHwul9Ug9F5p-vJzE_Chpi-GFmVVCQcEIeFOUBWGB8YhE6vzol5AOqsFCFqulVcr3LtBOE3k_m9k/s992/MentalHealthScale_EeNqbNSXoAc3HDU.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="992" data-original-width="567" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl3Nn0Zrn8WsDVc_GYt-X5K4LBXD4CfaECEDBiZ0BGWoH0TAUelLWwUxgLqyvgN_0WHwul9Ug9F5p-vJzE_Chpi-GFmVVCQcEIeFOUBWGB8YhE6vzol5AOqsFCFqulVcr3LtBOE3k_m9k/s640/MentalHealthScale_EeNqbNSXoAc3HDU.png" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've been a "Zero" exactly once, the end of July 2017. I've been a "Ten" exactly twice, both of them involving hospital visits (in Oct 2017 and Dec 2019). Let's see how that all shakes out now.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A few final caveats before we (finally) get into it... these are personal statistics, and thus anecdotal. I decided to run a "year" from July to June, corresponding to a school year (in large part because I started tracking stress in July), and NOT starting in January.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Further, in 2017-18, I ended up on a reduced schedule for first semester for medical reasons starting in November (you <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2017/10/my-curious-history-with-computer-science.html" target="_blank">can read this post</a> if you want to know more). While in 2018-19, I was on a voluntary reduced schedule for first semester because my daughter had just been born. So that would have influenced both email and stress.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm now realizing that means I haven't had a normal teaching year since 2015-2016. Huh. Anyway. Statistics.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">EMAIL NUMBERS</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Mean emails received</b> from Sept-June in 2016-17 (my year off) was 58 in one week. Mean emails received from Sept-June in 2017-18 (my year back) was 100 in one week. So definitely more... and the subsequent year (2018-19) was 97 in one week. The medians were roughly the same.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If we include the full year (starting July, not Sept), mean emails for 2017-18 is reduced to 85 (median still 93) and mean emails for 2018-19 is reduced to 82 (median still 96). That's where the median is probably more representative, given the lack of emails in the summer weeks. It might also be worth pointing out that there's a massive dip for two weeks at the end of December too.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Pandemic Year (2019-20) had a mean (and median) of <b>123 emails per week received</b> from Sept-June. Which is around a 20% increase. If we go from July to June, the mean and median both drop to about 104. Interestingly, a much less substantial increase.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't know how that compares to other occupations, but then, other occupations are very different from teaching, so make of it what you will.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, if we split it into Semester One (average of 109 emails per week) and Semester Two (average of 136 emails per week) we can better see the effect of the pandemic.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Mean emails sent</b> from Sept-June in 2016-17 (my year off) was 3 per week. (I was still on a math committee.) Mean emails sent from Sept-June in 2017-18 (my year back) was 16 per week. That increase only makes sense, and the subsequent year (2018-19) was 20 per week. The medians (again) were roughly the same.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If we include the full year (starting July, not Sept), mean sent emails for 2017-18 is reduced to 13 per week and mean emails for 2018-19 is reduced to 17 per week. The medians were only slightly higher.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Pandemic Year (2019-20) had a mean of <b>37 emails sent in a week</b>. The median was 20 emails sent. That's NOT including the automated messages that went out to send mark updates from the software, or Google Meet invitations. (It *is* including the almost 80 tests I had to scan in from early March and send off before a May revisit, that was a heck of a week.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So over a 100% increase. If we go July to June 2019-20, we only drop to 30 emails sent per week (median of 17 per week).</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9xLsGSnFPdmqXkEWfhYNcXHGcEuOY6PbUxJ2VPRRUqnD82Q-uMjxKkXh0rdpkfSuU27iDu99e4XnNgUkNFDKRN9IzGS5fbTlyqQ8mdVQpwaBzfan_7PK8er_mMUlHKqoFH6NgxK1H88Q/s1347/SentMsgTotals.png" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1347" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9xLsGSnFPdmqXkEWfhYNcXHGcEuOY6PbUxJ2VPRRUqnD82Q-uMjxKkXh0rdpkfSuU27iDu99e4XnNgUkNFDKRN9IzGS5fbTlyqQ8mdVQpwaBzfan_7PK8er_mMUlHKqoFH6NgxK1H88Q/w400-h240/SentMsgTotals.png" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Some of that was replies to student email questions, some was replies to parent inquiries, some was networking with other teachers, some was initiated towards students I hadn't heard from recently, et cetera. None of it was personal.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Incidentally, almost none of these emails are related to the OSSTF union either, those are routed through a separate personal account too. (There may have been the occasional reminder message from our President to check said personal account, plus I was serving in Teachers Council and Communications roles through those years, which is why I say "almost" none.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">STRESS NUMBERS</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Medians are pretty close to the mean in this case, so I'm simply going to say "average".</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Average Weekly Stress</b> during my first year back (2017-18) was about 5, from Sept-June. If we include the summer, we drop to about 4.5 on any given week.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Average Weekly Stress from Sept-June in 2018-19 was about 5.5, and if we include the prior summer, we drop to about 5. Recall that this was my daughter's first year of life, so home life was a bit more stressful even as I worked less in first semester. Feels reasonable.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Average Weekly Stress from Sept-June in 2019-20 was 7. (And the median is about the same, so half the time <b>I was equal or higher than that</b>.) If we include the prior summer, we drop to about 6.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If we look only at Semester One (to Jan 31) it was about 6.2 (I did have three courses to prep), and if we look only at Semester Two (during the pandemic) it was about <b>7.2 EVERY week</b>. (Some weeks were worse, the ones in late March were marginally better.)</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Again, aside from at the school level, there was no check-in about our mental health. In fact, the Ontario Government (and Lecce in particular) actively made the job HARDER during the pandemic. I'm sorry to go on about it, but they do not seem to care.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And we're already at it again, Doug Ford wanting teachers to "Step Up", as if we weren't already taxed near our limits at the same time everyone else was. In fact we now have to learn how to identify Covid-19 cases as if we were medical professionals WHILE dealing with a NEW MATH CURRICULUM.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Did you hear? Without any warning, the Ontario Conservatives revised the Grades 1-8 math curriculum in the middle of this pandemic, with minimal to no consultation with actual teachers unions. So I'm not sure why I was expecting even the minimum of common decency from them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sorry, where was I?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I thought I'd conclude the "Stress" section by mentioning that my gut feeling has always been that January is the worst month for stress, what with having to transition between semesters while doing report cards with almost no time available. The numbers (pre-pandemic) do not back that up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">June is more stressful (a weekly average of between 7 and 8.5 regardless of year). By contrast, January is only between a 6.4 to 7.8 on the stress scale. The other report card times are November (about a 5.5 stress) and April (in theory also 5.5, though during the pandemic it was 7, like everything else). October is also high up there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The lowest months are July and August (duh, an average of about 3) and March (about a 4.5, which I suppose makes sense given the week long break). A stress level of 5 is about standard, which to me makes sense.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So there's some data. What do we make of my mental health? Good question, and not one I feel qualified to answer. What do you think?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">SUMMARY</span></h4><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There is a terrible double standard when it comes to teaching. Teachers must diversify instruction for students... and yet are told "this is the way you should diversify", implying teachers themselves must do things the same.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Then teachers must check in with students during emergencies to make sure they're okay... when no one is checking in on us (except other teachers, maybe a couple parents).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE-zAzU8RTG75LNbL_sXOyfeZzu9NjSMQcZWG2_17-zfDtu2mHFbYzdGYcZFGaH05HQc98_qx4AAWP2mhXt8KFOCCiUAfNRJbHYSDlZpsq1IsRPJvvGyODRB4D8aYtfV0XYaoUh91xFEQ/s417/QTLink.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="348" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE-zAzU8RTG75LNbL_sXOyfeZzu9NjSMQcZWG2_17-zfDtu2mHFbYzdGYcZFGaH05HQc98_qx4AAWP2mhXt8KFOCCiUAfNRJbHYSDlZpsq1IsRPJvvGyODRB4D8aYtfV0XYaoUh91xFEQ/w167-h200/QTLink.jpg" width="167" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">To be clear, I have no problem doing everything I can for students. But this Ontario Education Ministry not only seems to not give a damn about us, it's like they're now actively trying to kill us by not listening to medical professionals (while blaming unions, to get the public on their side).</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Or maybe they're simply trying to kill public education, and killing us is... what, a fringe benefit?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At any rate, I shudder to think of what my graphics will look like after the coming insanity. Returning to schools without even knowing what we're teaching yet, on account of needing a central "virtual school" for the Board that re-timetables everybody. (About 22% of secondary students/parents opted not to enter schools, and I cannot blame them.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm fortunate in that my daughter resumed Daycare in early July, which has been clear sailing, and has given me some time to mentally regroup. Others are not so fortunate.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Incidentally, I give us three weeks before everything has to be shut down... maybe seven weeks, since if schools doesn't do it, a complacent Thanksgiving at the start of October is liable to make things unsafe beyond reasonable limits.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The government will blame educators, of course... or worse, ECEs, office staff, custodians and others who tend not to get their due when people think about school buildings. And on we go.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Thank you for reading, and I wish you all the best. We'll keep trying our hardest.</span></p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-53602670808615242882020-08-28T12:00:00.249-07:002020-08-28T12:34:11.069-07:00Series Scan: Steins;Gate Zero 4<p><i>I am a SLOW binge-watcher (and reader). Two hours is about my limit, after which I need processing time. At the same time, I enjoy watching online reviewers, and reactions to things that I’ve previously watched, to see if they’re similar to my own. So, why not take the time during a slow binge to chronicle my own reactions and speculations?</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwc6HFCtaXPVkA_vytTuENQYBhSRibIPC9-PDJ2h0VS7v9OCMKUg7KeWZ-f8ZTltN4yMcClc12P26AtTv1XDEXhUL9FhJanvavGn1MW8_LJXUuYj-lpyTwQSPbvmulJUJDCyCKoezV8ig/s1800/MathTansSScan.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="1800" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwc6HFCtaXPVkA_vytTuENQYBhSRibIPC9-PDJ2h0VS7v9OCMKUg7KeWZ-f8ZTltN4yMcClc12P26AtTv1XDEXhUL9FhJanvavGn1MW8_LJXUuYj-lpyTwQSPbvmulJUJDCyCKoezV8ig/w400-h100/MathTansSScan.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>We're continuing our look at <b>Steins;Gate 0</b>. (If you wanted the original show, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2017/05/mt-series-scan-steinsgate-1.html">I did that as well</a>.) Spoilers for that original Steins;Gate anime are inevitable, and I discuss the time travel theory, so don't read any further if you don't want to be spoiled about that.</p><p><a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2020/08/series-scan-steinsgate-zero-1.html">Disc 1 analysis was here</a>. Here's Disc 4, the last one. I've been watching about two episodes per day, having started August 11th, with an end date of August 25th (the day I posted Part 1).</p><p>I'm not sure if some of the things I've worked out (eg, why we kicked into the alpha timeline) will be explicitly explained, because a number of elements of the show are quite subtle.</p><p>We now know Alexis Leskinen is a mad scientist, but he was only feeding info while acting as an independent. Also the characters will revisit July 7th somehow (I mean, date stamps, and the Daru message we never saw). The actual war is behind the scenes, which makes sense as the whole show is built up as a character piece (again).</p><p>Of course, no matter what happens we'll need to go another 14 years into the future in order to generate the ending of the original show... but maybe there are more messages from said future? (Like Daru's?) The time machine is C203 instead of C204, so maybe that's allowed. Also Okabe needs to realize about "fooling himself/others" and maybe July 7th is what does that. (The time machine wasn't really destroyed? Or they make it seem that way?) Though Mayuri's past reaction needs to change too, based on her present self, so eeeh?</p><p>Again, I feel I simply need to watch. I suspect there's still some twists coming, and at present, I don't have the data to predict then. Note that at the end of this post, I will do a bit of research to tie things together.</p><p>There are two sections below, "Stream of Consciousness" which is typed as I watch the episode, and "Thoughts and Theories" which is written after the episode ends (before I watch the next one). Feel free to skip the former if you want my analysis more than my reactions (or vice versa).</p><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 19 - TimeLeap Machine</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Terrorist Attack... pretty much. "You saw it"... but can you believe your eyes? There's the 48 hours note. Aw, poor Maho. Yeah, Daru nails it, Okabe was the one against it, that's why they're behind. Maho brings up a good point, stay focussed. "What did she need", yeah. Music swells.</i></p><p><i>-So there's SERN black holes and compressing memory to 36 bytes (ohhh yeah, guess they didn't know). The CRT (electron gun?). Braun has good questions; Okabe is on the clock, 48 hours to learn enough. "Something so far off", yeah, but not so much. No dead civilians? Someone did cleanup. (Where'd Leskinen end up? He must be pissed after all his work.)</i></p><p><i>-The lab crew are back, oh even with Moeka. Daru's making progress, Maho's unsure. Oh right, they have no way to verify it works... and she's not Kurisu. Amadeus' message, good call. WHOA, she's back? WOW Daru, finding Amadeus TOO? (He IS a super hacker.) Aw, her hair looks a bit red, eh?</i></p><p><i>-July 9, 4pm. The message helped them, yeah, for identifying Alexis. Aw, LabMem. "I will never give up", the Okabe we know. Kagari too, good point. Made it back to July 7, 3pm on the nose. (So, around when phones went out. Darn.) They have to delete the Amadeus data? (You don't think he backed it up?) "I don't have time to explain" -- I was gonna say, at least mention SERN, but they have other hacking to do.</i></p><p><i>-He doesn't know exact times, yeah. (We know it's 5:06pm for Kagari... actually, can he save Jenny?) His PTSD is kinda coming back. (Maybe don't get shot in the leg this time?) 4:19pm. He cuts to the chase. Fair point to Suzuha... she still wants to go though? Operation Arclight. (Oh, hold up - did SHE see Daru's whole message? No, it hasn't come yet.) Aug 21st, but I don't think Mayuri can convince him alone.</i></p><p><i>-Tender moment. He allows it? (I thought he'd do his mad science routine.) Uhoh, Jenny Reyes. They don't know it's her (again, reveal for audience though). NOW it's Kagari, yeah... huh, so she'd been programmed to kill Reyes? Or Alexis has accelerated the timetable (and he seems to know DURPA too). So he WASN'T completely an independent. 5:15pm, some additional reveals now?</i></p><p><i>-No, Okabe escaped. The time machine destruction a convergence, like Mayuri? Interesting thought. Oh, a fast forward without trying to get more info, didn't call that (is this another endless loop episode?). Maho's on board. Leaping July 8th at midnight now, so... oh, the clock just spins weird and the episode is over. That went fast.</i></p><p><i>-Post-Credits scene? July 6th, midnight... and my monitor cracks, cute. Next, the actual war, fighting, clocks, gun pulled on Okabe.</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*So "Operation Arclight" needs to be retooled, in whatever way Daru from the future thinks it'll work. It will have something to do with perceptions fooling everyone. Also, Alexis was working with DURPA (probably deceiving them, killing Reyes was his plan, apparently) and the only reason they won last time was because Kagari switched sides. So why feed info to StratFor? (Are Russians even involved yet?)</p><p>*It makes total sense for the time machine to be destroyed here, no matter what. Otherwise one of them WOULD go back to try and convince Okabe, rather than have Okabe himself sending video D-mails to do it (as in the original show). Right? So maybe it's only Mayuri's death that fools with perceptions. (I suppose the alternative is fuel gets depleted.)</p><p>*The main thing is, they cannot let Alexis know they're onto him, otherwise he pulls the trigger. And they can't win without Kagari. (Can they fool his perceptions into thinking he's won? He doesn't know the ship's almost out of fuel, maybe they can use that.) If they get Amadeus on board with the plan, that would have a chance. Trouble is, there's only so much you can do in 48 hours... really less than 24 hours, given the time to complete the machine.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 20 - Promised Rinascimento</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-(Rinascimento is apparently a store for ladies apparel? Okay, it's Italian for "renaissance" aka "rebirth"... Kyouma coming back?) WOW, nice shot of everyone in the lab at once (Steins;Gate?). The 65,536th round table meeting? O.o It's so lifeless? Nice imagery with the clock (doomsday clock?). I take it this is the OP too, given the credits. And the logo.</i></p><p><i>-Someone has an IV? It's Okabe? (Reading Steiner?) Daru calling. Huh, he was in mid-time leap, weird... OH CRUD. Maybe they made the device WRONG this time? Throwing him into the future?! Well, that can't be good. (How FAR into the future? Dystopia of years? Only a few months?) Suzuha's there so... well, that can't be good. She doesn't know Okabe? (Was he brain dead or something?)</i></p><p><i>-Moe moe, bang bang, nice codewords. Gotta be Daru. He's fatter, yet overall slimmer, heh. It's already 2036, wow okay. "In 2025, I'm supposed to..." (oh right, die). Daru said Okabe was dead... not technically a lie? The leap machine failed (wheee, called it)... so they lost their 48 hour window. (Wait, it didn't throw him forwards, oh well.) Why does Okabe forget?</i></p><p><i>-"Operation" Valkyrie, began their war with the world, which was desperate for the theory. Then in 2025, Okabe was trapped by Stratfor. Tortured there. And braindead (can I get a called it there too?)... is that Faris saving him? Aw. Only his body functioned, but they didn't want everyone to keep fighting over him. Yeah, 11 years, did someone cut his hair? Apparently so.</i></p><p><i>-Overwrite his brain with memory data from 2011, WOW, I did NOT anticipate that possibility... data from an old PC. "Deceiving the world", and there's the seed. (So Rebirth not only of Okarin but of Steins;Gate. Kinda glad I didn't waste time on a lot of theories, I don't see how this could have been anticipated.)</i></p><p><i>-Cheshire Cat, hahaha. (And Ruka is 'Warrior', oy.) So THEY cut Okabe's hair. Uhoh, their mission was a setup? Ruka's sharp. Okabe going, for real? Okay then. Ruka with the sword, daaamn. I feel like this cannot end well. (I guess in the end Ruka knew about everything too, huh?) He's still standing? Oh, not for long. The Seihin Zanma sword fighting style, awwww, so sad. "Worthy enough". Of course you were from the start. (Yup, first time this series got me crying.)</i></p><p><i>-Hi Maho. Heh, about looking like a kid. "Being calm"... because so many have died, yeah. "I thought I knew", hubris. Only running from the truth, yeah. Didn't understand. Said the same thing 11 years ago, huh. "Nothing is meaningless, even if it seems that way", nice addition. Get the time leap machine ready? Oh hell, that's right... the 48 hour limit is only BECAUSE OF THE BRAIN CHANGING TOO MUCH. His HAS NOT. So can they? Next: Scenes in future and past.</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*My journey is the same as Okabe's. I thought I knew where the series was going, I thought I understood, and they pulled the rug out from under me, yet again. Oh, kudos.</p><p>*Will it be possible that they do this AGAIN? Like, whenever the time leap machine fails next, he can prevent Ruka's death in the future, get more intel and go back again? Effectively being like Alexis and conspiring with his "future self"? That's marvellously insane, if so.</p><p>*This future is not the same future that Suzuha came from initially. Because there's no Mayuri, hence no Kagari going back, hence the war cannot start... so there IS a paradox of some sort here. Yet they're all still in the beta line? I don't know how they're going to address that. Must be related to Operation Arclight. Does Okabe tell Daru to send that message from ep 17? (Or was it simply a final message to them before vanishing?)</p><p>*This might be a closed loop within a closed loop, ie- this future will be wiped out but still "existed" as it sends a message back. Then the new future of "Zero" as we know also sends its message back, wiping itself out and leaving Steins;Gate. Intertwining threads indeed.</p><p>*The show is very good at allowing two possibilities (eg. the time machine has to blow up versus it's simply useless with no fuel... or people working alone versus in league...) and then holding its cards close. But then it's always been good at that.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2i76Pev4yfhHK3Dgc64thYV2zB0NVFT5svFbUZPH6NoM3cWrZAQ4g-lL63Z4ppF0HODPVH5HY2NfxfFKAy5WebN5HFC3CqhUJRqb7bwAJr3xLsmH2Uj-MsgqSoyPl7OzfefVySnNTc1U/s583/161_637147881440861964SteinsGate0Small_hq.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="583" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2i76Pev4yfhHK3Dgc64thYV2zB0NVFT5svFbUZPH6NoM3cWrZAQ4g-lL63Z4ppF0HODPVH5HY2NfxfFKAy5WebN5HFC3CqhUJRqb7bwAJr3xLsmH2Uj-MsgqSoyPl7OzfefVySnNTc1U/s0/161_637147881440861964SteinsGate0Small_hq.jpg" /></a></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 21 - Return of Phoenix</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Maho narrates (again we're not getting an OP then). Oh, they can leap two weeks. Meaning to go back a year, they're leaping 20 times. (Thing is, eventually you're back so far that the tech doesn't exist, or you don't have your phone to receive, so...) 3,000 leaps planned?! Machine's C-203 still. (So IS this the future that Daru sends the message from? It must be, it's changed, no Mayuri. But then where's C-204?)</i></p><p><i>-Oh, hi Amadeus! Monitored his vitals, eh? "Time is irrelevant", heh. His companion? Oh, well then. So this *IS* only a one time thing. Mayuri's kindness became his excuse? (For it not being up to him?) It wasn't forced on him, he wants to carry the burden along with the others, nice. Hee hee, I like how the microwave is hooked up to other computers for the extended time. Backing up to July 10th, 2036...</i></p><p><i>-"Curse you, five hours from now me", cute memory. A favour? Yay, Ruka's alive. "I guess this means you'll be having this same conversation over and over" - pretty much. "No such thing as a fixed future", a veiled warning? (I thought he'd call her LabMem 006.) And June 26th, 2036. 1:29pm seems almost academic. "Two weeks before today, you're not even here", yeah, I wondered. Heh, "take a call".</i></p><p><i>-Fortunate he was only captured for two weeks, I guess? (336 hrs) Be proud, awww. Hm, she cannot modify the machine now, otherwise the current situation might be ruined since their future is his past, good point. OH WOW, Yuki's there with Suzuha?! Back again. So it's just before his capture. He told them he gets caught? Oh, because 2025.</i></p><p><i>-Interesting how the "world line convergence" could have worked in his favour before. Give Amadeus 10 minutes? (Ooooh, I like this music. Right, it's from ep 23 of the original.) Memorize this map? Uninstall her? Because she steers him wrong. Oh, just run for the time leap machine HIMSELF, huh. Trusting in the others, well that's sensible. "Ignore the rest of Valkyrie"... hm, is that Alexis back there?</i></p><p><i>-Multiple Okabes? He hears them like in the lab memory. Now he's running through 2024, 2021, warp star field (kinda), nice visual. Mar 3rd, 2017, GOOD LORD, and immediately right back through to... July 7th, 2011, 3:25pm. Unbelievable. (Did he bring back the knowledge of how to do a two week mind leap instead of two days?)</i></p><p><i>-Punch him? Dude, you just got back from 2036, I think you've suffered sufficiently. Wow, I didn't think he'd really do it. (Like, if Okabe's unconscious, that's a problem.) It's our mad scientist back?! Yeah, Maho doesn't get it. Daru loves it. Heck of a Kyouma laugh. Nice posing. Missing the coat.</i></p><p><i>-The Loli Girl, uh, really? (He's definitely in character.) It's a +1 lab coat. "He's back to our leader". Nice eyebrow twitch, animators. (Don't call me that, seriously.) Aw, she gets to be Lab Member 009, I'd kind of hoped for that. (Kuuuuu, OMG that pronunciation.) Hiyajo Safina?! (Maho = Safina how?) New operation. (Red star?) Operation Vega.</i></p><p><i>-"The Organization", yeah, that's... not inaccurate. They'll reply on pay phones? Okay, this is somehow hilarious, the pretending to talk to his phone. He wants to ensure the others get to the past? (I really didn't think that was possible, but...) El Psy Congroo, alrighty. They'll get Braun's help, makes sense.</i></p><p><i>-The vital mission to support the members. Rukako IS a treasure. (Hee, Maho sees why they like Okarin.) Good job, Daru. It's 5:06pm. Hmmm, in ep 17 that's when Kagari saw Mayuri and switched sides. (Shouldn't they have left by then? But no, Reyes would stop them.) Right, there is it, it played out as it would have without Okabe.</i></p><p><i>-Alexis knows about the Valkyrie thing. He's posturing now. Hmph, offering brainwashing over death, mad scientist to the end. OHH, there was so much conveyed in that single LOOK, wow. WHOAAAAA, Moeka?! WHOAAAAAAA, Braun already got her. WOW. WOOOOOW. (No ED for this ep either then, damn. Wait, the opening music? And still two eps so...??) Hee hee hee, so focussed on Okabe that he misses a taser.</i></p><p><i>-"I time leaped to come here" but yeah, from kinda FAR. So here it goes. 5:17pm. "It's too early", so there's some piece that he's missing. Boom. Next, things are very melancholy. (It really does make sense that Arclight cannot succeed, so what can they do?)</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*That was a lovely and dramatic failure. (I mean, not completely, they saved Kagari.) You kind of hate to see it overwritten, except it has to be, since Mayuri needs to live in the overall future. This has been a bizarre two episode diversion. And even with the future knowledge Okabe has, it still didn't work? (Is there a double cross happening behind Leskinen? We saw Reyes briefly.)</p><p>*So we had a one episode diversion into alpha, and then another into the future. But something's missing. (Will Okabe still be able to jump back two weeks? If so they have some time to work it out.) At the same time, we know Arclight isn't how things lead into the original series - so how do we make this a dramatic win with Mayuri surviving? Or is it possible to bring both timelines to a satisfactory conclusion, just Steins;Gate is better? (Daru did say that Suzuha and Mayuri had found another route.)</p><p>*Okabe deceived the world with his death, and he knows this. Is there some way to deceive the world about the time machine destruction? (Doubt it. It needs to go.) Some way to deceive the world about Mayuri's death? (Probably. Which would lead into finding a way to send himself the message.) The trouble is, they can take down Alexis (which was really satisfying, gotta say) but there's too many other moving parts. Both DURPA and Stratfor seem involved. (Weirdly Alexis was calling for DURPA in the past but we saw him with Stratfor in the future, and they were the ones he was informing.)</p><p>*Part of me muses that C203 to C204 might be because of the invention of an extra gadget in the interim (the device that lets you D-mail a whole video file instead of 36 bytes?). But the numbering was never that rigorous anyway.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 22 - Project Amadeus</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-From July 8th, 6:32pm, back to the 6th, same time. (I guess after all his travels, they can get the mind leap machine working faster.) Okabe sees Mayuri's umbrella. So a while after she heard them talking (why is he walking upstairs, no Mayuri talk yet?). We've just given up on the OP now. (I mean, the music was just the ED.)</i></p><p><i>-Daru suggests just saving them. "That makes things unpredictable." It is a major element for starting WWIII, so might be a convergence (I think so). He told them about the future leaps too? But not details. And they never saw Kyouma in this timeline. Maho brings Amadeus, since it's a day earlier. "As long as the chance isn't zero, giving up is not an option." SERIES TITLE DROP.</i></p><p><i>-The lab members never change? Kyouma is back, Maho is confused. "It's like the Organization", heh. Hee hee, Christina. Aw, so he is embarrassed? "Okarin is so obnoxious, arguing and delusional, which is why is absurd logic works." Well, Daru's mind hasn't changed. Their reactions are so good to Kyouma. They let them board the time machine? (What, since it'll be destroyed?)</i></p><p><i>-They know how to foil Stratfor and Leskinen, as well as DURPA. Leaving foreign interference. "Can't you come up with a single plan of your own", heh. Maho says look into the WHY and WHAT. Goes on tiptoes - I don't get their reaction. I DO get her hitting them for that. :) (Books are good.) So how do the Russians know?</i></p><p><i>-"World line convergence" would correct for Leskinen's actions? (Tried to use to his advantage, much like Okabe did his death.) Where *did* DURPA get their info? "Same country", ehhh, I dunno. A thought? They find the clip about Nakabachi's stolen paper not being burned up (riiiight, they need that AND they didn't think to make the connection to Russia yet, DUH).</i></p><p><i>-If Russia had completed one, there wouldn't be conflict? They had wanted to destroy Kurisu's PC, to keep others away until their work could be done. Her knowledge... they want to destroy Amadeus? (But we see her in the future?) When Amadeus was taken over, the world line changed. Before Russians are involved?? (Spring of last year was when they got the data. Yeah, that was before the first PhoneWave. And D-Mail just results in SERN.)</i></p><p><i>-D-RINE? A sendable message over RINE? But the system was only in beta a year ago; only Daru had it then. He needs to protect Kurisu's data... not enough? A huge nation, they can make copies. They have to wipe her out? (Kurisu is serious about the suiciding.) Now Okabe wanders off and finds Mayuri. (I guess due to convergence, he has the same conversation?)</i></p><p><i>-Maho tells Amadeus there's a reason they can't do it. Okabe continues wandering. Talk with Amadeus? A view. At night. Very advanced AI. A final walk? (I still don't think this will work though.) Callback to prior ep... heh, and funny voice. Everything has reason and purpose, otherwise it's erased, interesting perspective of an AI. (Suzuha cutaway? Oh yeah, Daru's device.) The world is chaotic. The jumble allows miracles.</i></p><p><i>-Happy that he's sentimental, but there is a world line where they can be saved. "I killed the original you". (Literally. Not confessing to that though.) "I gave up" is what kind of killed her, fair. "My pride won't allow a sacrifice to be made for me." Like you never existed, no one will remember. Except him? 3,000 leaps of regret to get here.</i></p><p><i>-Not much joy in existing as the start of WWIII, fair. But within her power to save the original, if that's the reason she exists? Aw, that's actually nice. They've been up all night. July 7th, 7:15am, before Daru goes to see Suzuha. They can compress an attachment, that makes sense. (I guess Daru spent the night fixing the PhoneWave? Though it was already producing gels.)</i></p><p><i>-'Break into servers', with Maho's key. "Der Alte, wurfelt nicht". ED as we do emergency mode. "The possibilities are endless", final words of encouragement. Okabe also has words, "on that promised day where time intersects ... we will meet again". There they go, new ending music... oh, nice shattering effect for Amadeus. **1.123581** That's new. Next time? Looks like another attempt, which I think still fails.</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*They're still in beta, with WWIII, they just don't have Amadeus. (Would I be thinking this plan works, if it weren't for the original series? Maybe.) Yet instead of 1.097 (closer to alpha) putting us in 1.13 (the start of the show) we're in 1.1236... in between. But closer? I guess? (The closer you get to 1.2, the further you get from Kurisu Makise.) It also means that the future Okabe came from is definitively gone, since it included Amadeus.</p><p>*This is a BIZARRE wrinkle. On the one hand, it shows how their actions in the closed time loop can affect things outside... in the Steins;Gate line now, there will be no connection to Maho (aw, have we lost LabMem 009?). But even if they don't have Kurisu, have they eliminated the mind-to-data THEORY? Like, Leskinen might still be able to brainwash in the future (if perhaps not as effectively), and if Kagari's presence in the teaser is any indication, he does.</p><p>*So how does this help? They've likely also lost Maho... oh NO, without her I think they lose the Mind Leap machine too! Hell, everything to this point has been in the wrong world line, and there's only one episode to tidy all this up. (I guess we'll never know why Steiner activated in ep 5?) I don't see any way to predict what will happen. All I can think is Daru's future message somehow.</p><p>*Incidentally, RINE is a social messaging application that replaces emails (I guess like texts, or Facebook messenger?). In the visual novel game, it's how Okabe's been communicating with everyone, instead of through email. Aha, based on real-world "LINE" (similar logo and all), which was released March 2012 (huh, nice timing).</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 23 - Arclight of the Sky</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Actually, Maho's still there. Okay. (I guess Leskinen still did want to be close to Okabe.) "Given up talking funny", so some of yesterday still took place? 7:39am. Met for different reasons (I am glad she's still there). Jump to 2:32pm. Mayuri's call to him about Suzuha leaving. (I'd forgotten.) He answers the same way, huh.</i></p><p><i>-3:21pm, no time, no kidding. "Can't even find out and confirm what exactly has changed", you and me both. (Orihime shout-out again.) They won't leave, dude... there's still convergence. OH, this time he sees Kagari? (And Moeka sees him?) Leskinen conversation as before... but Kagari escaped this time? Huh. Insufficient brainwashing (I somehow called that).</i></p><p><i>-Delay tactic. Go Moeka... crud, he's SHOT? (In the leg still, huh.) LabMem 005. Kagari kills Reyes, so that played out like that... and this time it wasn't word of God, it was all about meeting Mommy (riiiight). Kagari vs Suzuha, yowza. Mayuri needs to... WHOA, that was kinda badass. "That was scary", yeah. "Nothing good will come of it", fair point to Kagari (though I guess they could lie low, and just pop up after their past selves leave).</i></p><p><i>-Okarin has the power to change the future... no, everyone has it inside them (nice messaging there). Okarin is the guide, Mayuri gives Hikoboshi the push. Kagari come too? Mayuri's nice. "Do it for me too". He gives them the warning. "When I'm all pathetic, slap." Whoops, they're coming. Kagari asks him for advice about being Mommy. Awwww, precious hostage, nice callback. She'll help now. "I'm trusting you", sweet. (Tearing up a little.)</i></p><p><i>-Leskinen is making the call, damn him. This instant? The missile is enveloped by the machine?? Still an explosion, so it looks like it was destroyed. "1 new RINE message", hmmm. "Listen well, you fools," heh. He tells them it went through space-time? (Seems like a poor plan, why not let them think they succeeded.) </i></p><p><i>-Aug 21st, 2010, 5:55pm. There's TWO time machines. (I seriously did NOT THINK THIS WOULD WORK.) A message to Mayuri from herself? And then the second machine is gone?? "Do you love Hououin Kyouma", he will have failed. So confront him and open his eyes. Talking in stereo, wow. "Thirty seconds left" (until they vanish? daaamn). Remember when Kyouma was born. "Feelings spanning 26 years and one more are entrusted to you." (Er, Okabe never said how far in the future he came from, technically.)</i></p><p><i>-Does Steins;Gate exist... I'm sure it does. The second machine is gone? (I guess that was the original two leaving, not them coming back?? So countdown was the time they had for a cloaked call.) The shards around them... they had to jump to avoid a paradox, and no fuel. Thrown to some random era? (Um, wait, so Mayuri really is gone for good, she can't hide out? Daaamn again.)</i></p><p><i>-Jealous of being able to remember world line changes, ehhhh, maybe you shouldn't be. Stardust handshake. Oooh, wow, travelling hundreds and thousands of hours like light from a star. NICE metaphor, she's so good at those. "Waiting for you"... in Steins;Gate. And now the return.</i></p><p><i>-Phone message on Okabe's phone (which they have, right). 6:12pm, turn on news. So they do get this info now, because this particular future will have Okabe send back that message. So this is the original show. Damn. And so here it comes. The slap that woke Steins;Gate. And the original show music. (Title "Milky-way Crossing"??) So this message from the future wasn't coming from anything in this series after all. (And we can see around him, the people of the future in this new timeline, that's nice. Aw, even Kagari.) "It doesn't really mean anything."</i></p><p><i>-Maho's there too, wheee. Talking with Daru. The 2010 Okabe being embarrassed? (I guess she did meet him after the message was received.) Deceive the world. Heh, Faris was recording. And Daru's message goes to Suzuha-chan in 2011?? Hold up. (I guess Mayuri at some point spoke about the message from her other self??)</i></p><p><i>-Maho says Okabe's testing? It's 2025, before he dies, that makes more sense than 2036 (and explains young Suzuha). "He doesn't die, he leaves from space-time", some crazy positive thinking. True enough. The world can be deceived. WHAT?!? He's going to FIND THEM? The Kerr black hole tracer, oh my God. Kagari says return the Oopa to Mommy, awwww. But this twist of people existing outside the closed loop, DAMN.</i></p><p><i>-So Steins;Gate exists, and it's going to overwrite their own, the same way the overwriting was... ow. Operation Altair. He makes the impossible into possible, yeah. A new song again. OHO, Maho is narrating the original opening information, that's a CLEVER twist. Again. Huh. So. Yeah. ("Gate of Steiner", which song was that? This one?)</i></p><p><i>-ACK, STILL GOING?! BC 18,000. Suzuha sees nothing outside but a big sand storm. And then a plume of light. Kyouma walking out of it. I can't even. "Sorry to keep you waiting", that's a hell of a closing line. Pan up to the stars, logo, bam. Little tear from me. (Next time: The OVA hijinks, I'm surprised they did one of these for that.)</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*That was a very clever ending (the first one, though the after credits one was good too). I see I was approaching the series wrong; I saw it as a tale of disillusioned Okabe until he sends the message, but of course that's completely WRONG for how time travel works on the show. He sends the message because he received it, that was never in question. The question is why DIDN'T he send it, and the answer is Mayuri didn't slap him. In the end, she's as much the path to Steins;Gate as him.</p><p>*I do question the execution of that plot, simply in terms of the number of lost threads. Why was Fubuki's Reading Steiner and Leskinen's tests on her never addressed? (Begs the question of how common it is.) Were the misdirection cutaways to Yuki's clumsy injuries necessary? (It sabotaged her character in a sense.) How was DURPA connected to all this? (Same country is a hand waving explanation... did they have Amadeus access?) Was there a reason for Mozart codes (aside from the name Amadeus)? The Russians being less involved on account of no Amadeus also needs to be interpreted by the viewer (particularly since they were probably still on the ball for destroying the PC).</p><p>*Again, don't get me wrong, I like that they weren't explicitly explaining everything. (Like the cloaking of the ship for the phone call, it took a moment to deduce that.) And the return of Kyouma was great. But too much felt unclear, in the end. At the same time, I guess this clarifies the start of Episode 12 in the original series? Mayuri seemed to be in a desert. I guess that's this ending. So they had to have this in mind initially, somehow (was it in the original video game?).</p><p>*I think another issue is it felt rushed. They were cutting out the opening and ending in order to do plot over the credits. Most of the time travel happened towards the end... which makes sense, but why only start the end at episode 17? I mean, the alpha episode was nice, and the Daru dating episode was a character piece, but in retrospect the show seemed to be dragging its feet early on. Particularly with Kagari. Even the Amadeus departure episode seemed dragged out. Maybe it was an adaptation issue, I'll have to look into how the original visual novel played out.</p><p>*23 eps is also kind of weird (not counting Ep 23Beta at the start, or the OVA). Had they planned on 24? Though I guess "Episode 23" has resonance. Ruka's death actually was the biggest emotional punch for me overall (even more than the end), so I'm glad we saw the future (even though it wasn't really the future). Capt Janeway's quote comes to mind... <i>'The future is the past, the past is the future. It all gives me a headache'</i>. Anyway. One ep to finish up.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZY0DtwJ2qxEmTaiKZa9EFWbuduH5Tk9riF_8wSFmQ7eJkO0KarUQSiSJ8_c43d-nKB_noNENyTYFFTN-vHesmEW5sHluujG7tvkHLB8oL_d0nFIM_Dnksfhmsw9huMrXTc3Xv080CNSk/s2000/SteinRoadON.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZY0DtwJ2qxEmTaiKZa9EFWbuduH5Tk9riF_8wSFmQ7eJkO0KarUQSiSJ8_c43d-nKB_noNENyTYFFTN-vHesmEW5sHluujG7tvkHLB8oL_d0nFIM_Dnksfhmsw9huMrXTc3Xv080CNSk/w400-h266/SteinRoadON.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">OVA Episode (Ep 24) - Bittersweet Intermedio</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-The Leskinen wants Oden poster again. This is just after New Years... so in the middle of Episode 11? Alexis has a silly pistol. Yeah, they're packing. Reyes, will you get a line? (Nope.) Looking at February. Hey, the OP, it's been a while. Oh, the OLD OP, Okabe in long sleeves.</i></p><p><i>-Working for Braun. Kagari's not used to being paid I guess. There it is. Valentine's Day event starts Feb 3rd. Right, in Japan it's about women giving chocolate to men (generally speaking). Amadeus wants Maho to give some to Okabe. -.- (Who convinces Maho in the path without Amadeus, only Leskinen?) Oooh, flashback.</i></p><p><i>-Nice way to convey the cultural differences there. Her quote, eh hehe. And turnabout is fair play. (They run away after losing arguments?) Nice philosophy; I liked that scene. Oh, Faris is eavesdropping. "Eye of the sky God, Horus"... I've kind of missed Faris' weird conspiracy things. Hahaha, Moeka's there the whole time. Moe-meow. ^^ (It's for FB, I guess?)</i></p><p><i>-Some Nae time. WTF Suzuha, what weird soap opera are you involved in?! (Of course, Kagari is the oldest, despite appearances.) Okabe finally appears. No attackers lead, checking in. Mayuri says pick out a phone. (Ahh, the chocolate's for Mayuri. Or Ruka?) WTF Suzuha, are you taking the wrong pills?</i></p><p><i>-Cosplay girls, sans Yuki. NO! Wrong fan service, oy oy. >.< Mayuri makes a good point, Fubuki's kinda fun (and this is the second time she's hitting on Mayuri). Faris is everything a scheme? Commercial. Aaaand she's pulling a Kyouma. With all the ladies. (Nice group shot, actually.) Suzuha's insecure? Wants to see Yuki though. ^.^ Montage? (Fubuki, you are fun.) Faris has a planned scheme.</i></p><p><i>-Maho is very much doing science. Kaede is apparently not a cook (but is spacy). Moeka put foil in the microwave?! Mayuri's having trouble too, this is backfiring on Faris. HAHAHA, "you'd expect someone to know what they're doing". Yuki and Ruka. An anime within an anime? Oh, it's Daru's game. Peaceful, unless you're at Faris'.</i></p><p><i>-Aw, praise from Mom. Oil? Oh no, the cosplay girls. NO! Wrong fan service, oy oy. >.< (Big sis did this to Big bro, indeed.) Um, did Braun make chocolates? Keep in the fridge, sure. Faris knows the animators. Ahhh, that's why they brought Nae. >.< Suzuha talked to DARU about Kagari and Okabe? Really? (I mean, I know the original was a harem anime, but seriously?) And yeah, weird relationship joke.</i></p><p><i>-I wouldn't worry about paradox until you know, like seriously. May Queen Nyan^2 event people, sure. Very trying for Faris. So Braun did make some for Nae. Um, did the cosplay girls exchange? (Can I ship Fubuki and Kaede??) Aww, Moeka to the butler. Yuki and Daru makes sense.</i></p><p><i>-So Kagari WAS for Okabe, but with the message to get along with Mommy. Ohhh, and Ruka, and Daru. "With the things Kagari left behind"... also Ruka, her Dad, Mayuri, Braun... ohhh, because she's gone now. Riiiight, we've time skipped past ep 13. Final thought from Suzuha. Hmmm, and the SECOND closing, that's clever. (Wait, what about Maho, who left?)</i></p><p><i>-Okay, good, closure for Maho. Gave it out? Bit late? Oh my God, Kurisu gave her some last year? It's... in the Radio building. With an apology. Way to sucker punch me for more tears, anime. (Incidentally, just noticing now that the DVDs don't seem to have the extra features. BluRay only?)</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*The episode probably works best after episode 13, before the massive time skip. Though given the final 60 seconds, it can work here, knowing what we know now about Maho and Kurisu's relationship... and I *did* like the flashback scenes. Pity there weren't more of those during the run of the show.</p><p>*I feel like maybe the whole anime would have worked better if I'd had slightly different expectations going in. Then I wouldn't be waiting for events that never pay off (like doubt over Okabe knowing Kurisu in such a short time, related to the jasmine tea... or some other shoe with the cosplay girls which was a long string of background...). The final payoff was good, but I think in the end I do prefer the original.</p><p>*Starting research. Someone points out that even though Okabe 2025 is "overwritten" by Steins;Gate, he still exists until Suzuha leaves in the future, which is why he can kick out of the closed loop into the far past, the way that Mayuri and Suzuha did. Leaves the question of how is Okabe gloating after the two of them travel back, maybe?</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">VISUAL NOVEL</h4><p>*Quick research on the visual novel to see about the adapting... took inspiration from light novels "Epigraph Trilogy" (not an adaptation). "If you can't save the one you love, how can you save humanity" is a clever tagline (not sure if it's official). I like the opening; now I see why there were snowflakes in the first OP.</p><p>*Hm, apparently Yuki gets replaced by Kagari for the lab, in a Leskinen plot somewhere? (Yuki sent to Europe.) There's a branching decision to end the first chapter, not sure if that plays into it.</p><p>*Kagari varies wildly (personality) in the visual novel branches, interesting. Trying to research that and I'm getting info on some attack in a parking garage on Dec 15th... also maybe Kagari IS in the biker outfit instead of Reyes in a branch? Anyway.</p><p>*The Yuki fake-out is apparently something pursued by Okabe in a branch; a commenter points out that if Anime Yuki had any subconscious skills, they would have come out when Suzuha jumped her at the Christmas Party earlier. That is a good subtle detail. Yuki's just a massive clutz.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4H1akp-C2FZ1Njf0rzk3oe2YuGuGVXAPfiSEyYf4lSDJuKJhcwZGD_9NdawbtX2t1nauH2IZtkTkvjpFVQctDJNdMqkJjd_8WfIeSOFj4UeVmm5BTCdc6Bre5KFc3L5Xha_hQ6Er5f2I/s432/SG0storyflowchart.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="340" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4H1akp-C2FZ1Njf0rzk3oe2YuGuGVXAPfiSEyYf4lSDJuKJhcwZGD_9NdawbtX2t1nauH2IZtkTkvjpFVQctDJNdMqkJjd_8WfIeSOFj4UeVmm5BTCdc6Bre5KFc3L5Xha_hQ6Er5f2I/w252-h320/SG0storyflowchart.jpg" width="252" /></a></div>*Six endings... with routes that can branch to form a zero when mapped? Apparently to access the "true ending" you need to complete one of the main paths forking from the end of chapter one, before trying the other. (Due to a D-RINE message.) And most key gameplay is Amadeus and phone calls, not the RINE app.<p></p><p>*For the curious, the endings are categorized as: Bad/Leskinen Ending ; Kagari Ending ; Kurisu Ending ; Maho Ending ; Mayuri/VegaAltair Ending ; Milky-Way Crossing End.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">REFERENCE;CODE BETA</h4><p>This is the small (translated) book which came with the Elite version of Steins;Gate 0. It has a Glossary, animations/illustrations, and cast/staff interviews.</p><p>The Glossary is interesting, going in depth about terms, as they come up in a linear way through the episodes. This includes:</p><p>* A mention that while Leskinen fed info to Stratfor, Jenny Reyes was employed by DURPA... so that explains some things. (Like the throwaway line about them being in the same country. Try same University.) I guess they tried to convey this by having that DURPA guy call Kagari "Reyes", but it was never clear she wasn't somehow working for Leskinen. (Him killing her could have been a double cross, not a rival organization thing.)</p><p>* There's also an explanation of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair) as depicted in Tanabata folklore, only able to meet once a year (separated by the Milky Way River). So that connects, and saves looking it up.</p><p>* Okabe's final time machine in 2025 is C193. And it makes sense that the future HQ of the resistance was at the Radio Building, they're not traveling in space.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>That concludes my thoughts on the Disc 4 episodes and some supplemental materials. I guess there were definite challenges in doing the adapting, as it wasn't as linear. So that could explain some of my earlier complaints. Even some of the cosplay girls are playable in the visual novel as you swap around to get more character pieces, so that gives them more agency. (I swear Fubuki is, if not a lesbian, in love with Mayuri.)</p><p>Kudos for the anime creators making it work in the end, I was impressed by the time travel aspects. In particular the conclusion not simply being the end of the original... going to 2025 and having another time travel trip was very smart.</p><p>If you want to read someone else's opinions about the whole Steins;Gate 0 anime, <a href="https://www.destructoid.com/stories/review-steins-gate-0-399167.phtml" target="_blank">here's a review by Dennis Carden</a> and <a href="https://kotaku.com/steins-gate-0-is-a-dark-time-travel-tale-1763451550" target="_blank">here's a review by Richard Elsenbeis</a> (both from 2016).</p><p>Thank you for reading, and if you have any thoughts about my reactions, or the series itself, please do comment! (At this point, I don't think we need to worry about spoilers.)</p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-83872635232130109342020-08-27T12:00:00.122-07:002020-08-28T12:32:02.471-07:00Series Scan: Steins;Gate Zero 3<p><i>I am a SLOW binge-watcher (and reader). Two hours is about my limit, after which I need processing time. At the same time, I enjoy watching online reviewers, and reactions to things that I’ve previously watched, to see if they’re similar to my own. So, why not take the time during a slow binge to chronicle my own reactions and speculations?</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwc6HFCtaXPVkA_vytTuENQYBhSRibIPC9-PDJ2h0VS7v9OCMKUg7KeWZ-f8ZTltN4yMcClc12P26AtTv1XDEXhUL9FhJanvavGn1MW8_LJXUuYj-lpyTwQSPbvmulJUJDCyCKoezV8ig/s1800/MathTansSScan.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="1800" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwc6HFCtaXPVkA_vytTuENQYBhSRibIPC9-PDJ2h0VS7v9OCMKUg7KeWZ-f8ZTltN4yMcClc12P26AtTv1XDEXhUL9FhJanvavGn1MW8_LJXUuYj-lpyTwQSPbvmulJUJDCyCKoezV8ig/w400-h100/MathTansSScan.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>We're continuing our look at <b>Steins;Gate 0</b>. (If you wanted the original show, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2017/05/mt-series-scan-steinsgate-1.html">I did that as well</a>.) Spoilers for that original Steins;Gate show are inevitable, and I discuss the time travel theory, so don't read any further if you don't want to be spoiled about that.</p><p><a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2020/08/series-scan-steinsgate-zero-1.html">Disc 1 analysis was here</a>. We're into Disc 3 now, and it's questions all the way down.</p><p>New character Qs: How was Yuki conscripted into working with an American agency? How is it that Fubuki has Reading Steiner along with Okabe (and will they talk about it)? What's with Maho's creepy mother, and how is she connected to the attempted theft of Amadeus?</p><p>Plot Qs: What Russian change to the past had the present being in a war (ep 4), and how was it reversed? (Related, the alpha ep.) Why is the American agency using Mozart codes, and apparently has been for the last 15 years? (Also, animal brains?) I guess they know Kagari isn't Kurisu after all. How did they track Kurisu's computer and how does this become about saving Kurisu, rather than stopping Nakabachi? </p><p>Current Qs: How did a song that never exists bring Kaguri and Mayuri together? Why did Kagari react to the car in that commercial? How will this lead to bringing Maho back into things? I feel like Ruka will have some things to say before we get into any of that. I also feel like I don't have enough data to really speculate on anything, being as out of the loop as Okabe.</p><p>Something I'm only fully taking note of as I open the second box, I like how the cardboard sleeve and the disc package are different images on the front (for both packages). I've also learned the listed titles are just the "short" English conclusions for the full titles. So there's something to look into, if you're curious.</p><p>There are two sections below, "Stream of Consciousness" which is typed as I watch the episode, and "Thoughts and Theories" which is written after the episode ends (before I watch the next one). Feel free to skip the former if you want my analysis more than my reactions (or vice versa).</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 13 - Diffraction Mother Goose</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-As anticipated, Ruka's there. Mayuri's doing her best here, with a daughter who is older than she is. Daru, don't say it... ack, you said it. Suzu to the roof? OP, I still love those clock noises. Daru makes a point about sanity. Six years old when adopted (so together for four years). I do like the graphic.</i></p><p><i>-Working together is now awkward too. WHOA, Mom and Dad slapdown. She remembers then. Suzuha does kind of fly off the handle, here. Uh-oh, different memories?! Braun bad timing. Different memory...? Okabe ponders. Calling it now, Kagari has Reading Steiner. She remembers the original history. When they made the Y2K change, Suzuha remembers different. Maybe Fubuki was her original mom? (too much?)</i></p><p><i>-Causes of memory loss and convenience. Artificial? They could have had Kagari remember things the wrong way too with brainwashing, yeah. Why is there a Mozart van driving around? O.o Moeka's still with Faris, uhhmmm is my yuri ship alive here? A building that shouldn't be there, hm.</i></p><p><i>-Envies Kagari not remembering? I can see it, but on the other hand, Suzuha DID lose her memory in the original show and it destroyed her completely. (I can't believe I didn't connect that already.) Not good at apologies, eh? Okay, Mozart van is SUSPICIOUS. Kagari knows Mayuri's habits, eh heh. Mayuri is good at bringing people together.</i></p><p><i>-I vaguely recall their last drive together, to track Braun. Uhmm, has DARU been brainwashed by Nae? Oh, Moeka does still drive crazy. Kagari, where are you going? Huh, they found it. Used recently?? New fragments, whoaaa. Abandoned when Kurisu died, perhaps? Yeah, I don't like the Mozart van. (Back up, was that Alexis?) PTSD... but WAS it for that? Or were the Americans PLANTING THINGS IN HER HEAD? To retrieve in the past? Because THEY HAVE AMADEUS? (Data into memories...) Oh. Once again, I'm 5 seconds ahead of the plot.</i></p><p><i>-So the Mozart music connection relates to the Amadeus of the future. (The van must be driving around to try and trigger Kagami. She was triggered last ep, from the radio station.) Explains why they can't let AMADEUS get out in the future either. (But then how would they tell their past selves? They'd need a phone microwave.) "Voice of God" wtf? So brainwashing.</i></p><p><i>-Important events over the closing music, I guess. Okabe's late too, I figured no signal. Hidden passage... American base? HOLY CRUD. She was kept in that room?! That's SO EERIE. Phone signal back, onwards. Next, they search, and return of Amadeus, it seems.</i></p><p><u>Thoughts and Theories</u>:</p><p>*We started in 1.129848... but then the Americans decided that to battle the Russians, they would have to input time travel info into someone (using Amadeus, hence why Kurisu must be kept alive, to keep the wraps on it). Someone that would end up in the past. Hence the shift to 1.097302, when Kagari was put in the past, a person with ties to Okabe who was tied to Kurisu. They then have her triggered with Mozart, and from 1998 learned way too much even before 2010. (So did they send themselves a message about her, or was the trigger enough for her to go to the Americans?) But they must have been missing a piece, since they didn't get the jump on Russia... or they couldn't act until Kurisu's death/Amadeus was born.</p><p>*That feels pretty solid. So they'll get Maho back in because of the data-to-brain connection (which doesn't exist yet) and find the mole in her lab (probably her Mom) who's been trying to get Kagari back before she spills the beans. New question: How does Okabe realize that sending himself the message in the past will set things right? And how does he lock it to after Okabe's time jump? (It also means he'll have to reinvent the PhoneWave... unless he uses someone else's?)</p><p>*I now wonder if I'm too far ahead of the plot, or right where they figured I would be by showing us the 'Amadeus' thing "for PTSD". Actually, maybe the Americans have a COPY of Amadeus?? That would also explain the frantic "help me" call, as they tried to rewrite her software, resulting in a world line shift. (Also, "Voice of God" being Mozart, in the OP "there is no God" means no more AmaDEUS, so new world?)</p><p>*Seem to have gone from 'questions all the way down' to 'oh that makes sense' pretty fast. As far as the characters working things out, I think it'll have to be through exposing Yuki. (And just noticed now that Suzu and Yuki have the same voice actress.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZY0DtwJ2qxEmTaiKZa9EFWbuduH5Tk9riF_8wSFmQ7eJkO0KarUQSiSJ8_c43d-nKB_noNENyTYFFTN-vHesmEW5sHluujG7tvkHLB8oL_d0nFIM_Dnksfhmsw9huMrXTc3Xv080CNSk/s2000/SteinRoadON.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZY0DtwJ2qxEmTaiKZa9EFWbuduH5Tk9riF_8wSFmQ7eJkO0KarUQSiSJ8_c43d-nKB_noNENyTYFFTN-vHesmEW5sHluujG7tvkHLB8oL_d0nFIM_Dnksfhmsw9huMrXTc3Xv080CNSk/w400-h266/SteinRoadON.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 14 - Presage or Recognize</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Okabe has an emoji? SEVERAL MONTHS? Well damn. WHOA, WHOA, new intro graphics?! I love the spinning zero effect. Sung differently? They all look a bit different, but it's a similar graphic (oooh, with Jenny). And red blood? Aw, no snowflakes. The running part is the same. But now there's time travel? And replacing people? Okaaaaay.</i></p><p><i>-Maho is in another time zone. They want the time leap machine? So they'll need Amadeus' knowledge I guess... or Salieri's. Aw, it's a no? Neither world line is good. ^_^ Daru still has his hope, that's good. Fubuki in the hospital? (Steiner?) A worldline variant without Suzu would be interesting, though wouldn't that mean no Kagari too? They wanted her back... they're not trying to monkey with Fubuki's memory too, are they??</i></p><p><i>-Alexis is there? Wanting private rooms? "Third Einstein", heh, oh Okabe's transferring in September? (Goal, at least. Hah, of unspecified year.) Heh, he asks about Maho. Still, that was all VERY suspicious. Maho's doing the research, nervously, that's nice. Had Maho forgotten about his question? Now asking time machine again. Hesitation confirmed, but of course she would do it.</i></p><p><i>-Kagari was there? Uhoh, evil afoot... they're looking for Kagari, I imagine. Suzu, you are GOOD. Yeah, it's not a practical outfit, but I doubt... oh, wait, seriously? They got her that bad? Ahh, she's back for her gift. She has crazy skills due to the brainwashing. But Mayuri is still the key. Suzu with hair down, that's a different look... and she's serious. So she got away.</i></p><p><i>-"Voice of God" mystery confirmed. But secrets, because yeah, too many people are looking at Okabe. Evil Future Professor, eh? Daru, your 'imagination' funnies may not be the best time. Maho is troubled by the very AI that's helping her. ^^ She needs to find a similar path, good for her. New ED too... new MUSIC for this one. Still English? Euuuuh. I'm not sure I like this. Yeah, I don't think so, but maybe it'll grow on me. Next, more on Suzu, Evil Professor, and maybe Yuki.</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*The time skip, new sequences... we've fully moved into the second half. I've seen nothing to disprove my theories from last time. I'm not sure how the mind leap machine is going to play a role (will they get it to work without hacking SERN?). I doubt they'll prevent Kagari from getting re-abducted, in fact I don't think they'll jump backwards past Maho's return, so we'll have to wait and see there.</p><p>*The brainwashing isn't perfect, Mayuri seems able to get through. Probably why Kagari went back to the lab, and then had to return again for her gift. But that was to kickstart the plot, I think they'll have to track her down now. My money's on Alexis Leskinen being the evil Professor, but probably due to Jenny's influence (she's now in the OP behind him).</p><p>*Bigger question - why hasn't Russia done more experiments? Cold war with America now that they both have somewhat useable devices? Or just lying low to avoid provoking Okabe, until they're sure they have the upper hand? (Some combination?) Or maybe the Russians want to get Kagari back before proceeding... their earlier experiments might have coincided with Kagari escaping.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 15 - Recognize Asymptote</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-A week left? Until what? Ohh, Suzuha also has a treasure from her mother. Heh, Maho behind the luggage. Hm, helping the Professor is a good cover story. Suzu's worried about matchmaking, seriously? "Meet her more often", sheesh, you still exist, dontcha? (Though maybe this'll reveal Yuki's secrets.) Yeah, I'm with Daru here. ... Huh. Dropping "Back to the Future", interesting.</i></p><p><i>-"No future awaits those who refuse to take action" may be a valid point. Nice that it's his own advice. A-Are they trying to set him up on a date? Oh no, they are. Confidence boosts. (Faris says... hold on, did Suzuha DOCTOR that photo?? I wouldn't put it past her.) Confess? I wasn't a fan of the "Ruka Date" ep in the original series.</i></p><p><i>-A report for Okabe's classes...? (Why is Suzuha calling on Maho too?!) Mayuri to Okabe, probably symptomatic of something larger. Well, Daru WOULD listen to Faris. Moeka's on point. Maho, I can't believe this either. OHH, but PLOT here, "sleep learning" is getting closer to "brainwashing".</i></p><p><i>-SIGH. Idiots, Daru's not acting like usual, that's likely more of a turnoff. This is WORSE than the Okabe/Ruka date. Is Suzuha getting a clue? Yuki escapes, that's good at least. Ahh, Faris doctored the photo. Uh, uh, SUCH TRAUMA. Okay, Suzuha, it's not QUITE your fault like that future time (that was an accident, this was deliberate).</i></p><p><i>-Well, nice character piece for Suzuha at least, and she learned to apologize. Daru KNEW? But he wanted a push. So they were both a little selfish. Daru is a pretty awesome guy, behind all the perversions. Oh, a proper date. With a Moe scream? Oookay. So Suzuha is learning. And Okabe is drifting from Mayuri. Nice family photo. And Kagari's watching (likely thinking of her family?). Next, Mayuri leaves? (Or is taken by Kagari?)</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*Very conflicted about this episode. It's Suzuha centred, possibly my favourite character, with good character pieces for her and Daru... but it's SO LAME. Results kind of telegraphed from the start. And it doesn't get us closer to Yuki's connection (unless maybe she confesses it to Daru later or something). For that matter, WHAT asymptote are they approaching?</p><p>*Ya know, staring to wonder if they want Okabe to transfer so that they have him under their thumb and not able to be drafted by Russians. He may snap out of it next ep. Or Kagari may have to save her mom from wandering somewhere she shouldn't, as she looks for him.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 16 - Vega and Altair</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Braun? Whoops, fail. Yeah, lab's a pretty unassuming place. Mayuri? "Antinomic paradox" (law conflict paradox) in OP is only now registering. Also, the cosplay girls are headshots instead of a scene, huh. Oh, she was waiting for Okabe... and they want to meet Daru? (Yeah, Alexis et al are trying to get the Lab under their thumbs.)</i></p><p><i>-Does Okabe want to do it for Amadeus or for Maho? Um, if Daru leaves too, Mayuri has no Lab, think about it. Heh, Suzu in cosplay. Oh, Kurisu's lab coat? Okabe's moving on? You're making her unhappy, dude. Bad timing for a RINE message. Hm, Mayuri's remembering Episode 23B? Ruka needs an umbrella, hee hee. A Tanabata decoration like in the OP? She wished to be Orihime-sama? (Now I have Bleach on the brain.)</i></p><p><i>-Mayuri is his support, but it's true she's not connected like Makise or Maho. Ruka is a grounding force in all this. Heh, they locked the lab on him. Eroge, oh no, don't tell me this happens sometimes. -.- "Quit it with the illegal stuff", heh. Yeah, other concerns. Um, why is the banana a tell? Ohh, rumours of the Chiba facility on @channel, clever.</i></p><p><i>-'Chestnut Rice and Sage', yeah, wait, what? Is Amadeus online? (Did he start typing 'Salieri's...'?) Okabe's pretty shrewd... or is he just reminiscing? Oh. They have some of those gels. Oh dear. 'Phone Microwave (Temporary Name) Unit 02'. Yeah, this isn't a game to Okabe any more. Daru makes a VERY good point though, about this very timeline, they DO need a first step.</i></p><p><i>-Nice little recap for hidden Maho there. Okabe is kind of the idiot (claims to have moved on but not really) but Maho needs more clothes. Device is "terribly named", hee hee. Ohh, now I get it, they'll need to leap back here to where Kurisu's death is within reach of the machine (which we know isn't what happens, but still). OH NO, MAYURI NO.</i></p><p><i>-Okabe, you're obsessing, it doesn't mean that yet... Amadeus herself said she'd make it but possibly not use it. Daru, good job. Maho's not a murderer. They're trying to work within a framework, not play around the way it was before, yes. Okabe himself seems to realize this, good. (And then they'll find Mayuri's umbrella...) Daru being gentle, fair point. (Hiii umbrella, called it again.)</i></p><p><i>-Roof talk. "This world's law"? (antinomic?) Certain events converge as if orchestrated by God (or Amadeus?). Interesting discussion of science versus God, what laws are there. Yeah, if it's dictated by Fate, the idea of choices becomes a problem. (Not all things?) It's a nice image, with the reflected sky. "Tell me what can be changed", nice argument by Maho.</i></p><p><i>-Solve the formula of the world? The Steins;Gate formula, nice. Infinite possibilities, look again. Maho is awesome, along with the music. Yeah, the emotional side is harder. Oooh, failing over and over next to Kurisu, NICE one. I feel like they're getting through to him, it will take Mayuri. Maho sees herself in him, interesting.</i></p><p><i>-Here's the Mayuri bit. Times before Daru? Yeah, it's not the same. Less fun? She partially remembers, like before? Again, the impossible choice. He stopped coming because of her in both timelines? "All is well", no, saying that doesn't make it so, dude. Suffering in his eyes. Stars. Vega is the Arclight of the Sky? (I don't know that phrase.) Title drop. Next time: Progress? And Suzuha leaves.</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*We're getting somewhere. From one of the weakest episodes to one of the best ones. Interesting messages about failure. Not much there in the global time travel arena, making me think Kagari is the only twist they have. (Though it occurs that if they're trying to get Okabe and Daru away, they might be trying to see if Fubuki can be a backup Reading Steiner for them if they fail. Or they're implanting her with basic commands, that will stick even if timelines shift.)</p><p>*Hold on, maybe they're also brainwashing Yuki. She could be acting against the Lab and then have no memory of those events... which could even explain why she's closer to them now in this reality than she might be in the Steins;Gate reality? <i>Embarrassing</i> how it took me a while to suggest that. She could have even been a pilot project from 1998, if they know she's Suzuha's mom.</p><p>*Mayuri is an interesting case study. I can see why she's thinking about her actions from Chapter 23B, since "saving" Okabe there only seems to be haunting him and giving him more grief, versus actually saving both of them. Not sure how Mayuri will change her own actions to align with Steins;Gate though?</p><p>*Meanwhile Okabe does have the blinders on, in terms of wanting to believe everything's okay, and not recognizing that the beta timeline is it's own problem, where time machines still exist. Isn't it better for them to have the capability to alter events to keep themselves alive long enough to send Suzu back? (I think so, and Daru always has solid arguments, I notice.) I think he must come around next episode, the question is whether it takes more trauma.</p><p>*Also, Kurisu's channel name. I legit forgot about it until I rescanned my notes above. They did that on purpose, good job sneaking it in. Is it Amadeus? (Possibly the copy of Amadeus that I suspect the Americans have?) And if Suzuha leaves... to where? She has a year, max. We don't see her in the past, unless she's behind the scenes. And why not go to the future the long way?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMWr7lwr_ANe7L2_kSVnZ6ZItEF5Zk8W4-hApShSa4CCwnb2IFbzUyO1a9ZwXjakalu8nuoakcGPUqDsZ_DowFpl48NsuQgkyFEcNVEEZtU5HTx2Xti2WJdofH1CqVlDIvVVdXEM5f3sE/s1280/Steins0_maxresdefault.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMWr7lwr_ANe7L2_kSVnZ6ZItEF5Zk8W4-hApShSa4CCwnb2IFbzUyO1a9ZwXjakalu8nuoakcGPUqDsZ_DowFpl48NsuQgkyFEcNVEEZtU5HTx2Xti2WJdofH1CqVlDIvVVdXEM5f3sE/w400-h225/Steins0_maxresdefault.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 17 - Beltrami Pseudosphere</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Funny, Daru. Makes sense that she can't say much due to paradox. Daru was spying? Suzu is too happy, so she has to leave. Mayuri doesn't come here much, I take it. Ahh, she's not fully aware of future details. Date stamp?? July 7. 2011, 7:39am. Something is starting (well, the OP, but you know).</i></p><p><i>-Fast forward to 11:15am. Message about Einstein and Fizeau's basis. Maho might offer logic given her rough idea, okay. Mayuri used to be afraid of the future? But doesn't want a regret, yes. Good point about the world line mental changes. Nice graphics for the alpha and beta talk (series is always good about that). Interesting that we hear this talk too.</i></p><p><i>-Blames herself for stopping him (in 23B)? Reading Steiner, retaining the memories damages the heart, fair point. Suzuha's grateful? "If my Hikoboshi had come back to life" (and Kagari's there, WAS she in ep 1??). Sweets that Suzuha likes. When she returns to the past... who knows? (So true.) World line convergence? And that's that.</i></p><p><i>-Mayuri calls Okabe... and all he does is get upset at her for learning about the time machines?! Damn it, Okabe. No signal? (That worries me... why.) Daru has another good point, why send Suzuha back 25 years to this era (he's HERE, he knows how it turns out). Ah, to see the world before it was changed. What can Mayuri do? (She can be herself.)</i></p><p><i>-Oooh, she wants him to be himself, are they going to mind leap Mayuri back?? She does love him... ooh, even more than Kurisu, it's just unrequited. Can definitely feel the emotion here. And loves Hououin Kyouma even more?? Huh, didn't think of that. 2:45pm. She'll "stop being a hostage", wow, callback. (Overwriting this day would be bad... we need this Mayuri.)</i></p><p><i>-3:16pm. ALL the phones are out?! (Orihime station shout-out, cute.) Disruption only in Akihabara. Occult board got hacked?! ("Attention Salieri's Neighbor", that must be to Okabe.) "We twins will be temporarily driven from the place we belong", uh? About the second Amadeus? (Sacred Domains... cannot lie to Father, oh no, Nakabachi? Secrets of manipulating time.... eeesh.) "You were the person I always strove to be, and you... are the true Amadeus" to Maho, well that's nice.</i></p><p><i>-Try to access without phone. Data's missing? They broke deep protection? Daru knows something more?! Oh, about Suzuha, right. So Mayuri will delay her, that helps. And Mayuri is confident. Okabe is FAST. Um, talk about the time machine seal? Not just Mayuri? (I mean, I get it, emotion, but...) Suzuha's a good shot.</i></p><p><i>-"Let's not pretend some things never happened", oooh. Past the rain clouds, the stars are still there, that's a lovely metaphor. Wait, what just happened? (Bleeding biker girl? With another biker girl?) Okabe's inside. So it's possible that they'll run out of fuel and vanish? Oh, a message. ('Barrel Titor', nice one.) D-Mail from 2025?!</i></p><p><i>-Suzuha and Mayuri found another way to Steins;Gate? But it altered the world line. So Daru's not from her future, he's from another worldline (!!). "Operation Arclight"... and no details, because gunmen are here for the time machine. Lovely. Even Suzuha knows when she's outgunned. Biometric lock on the time machine? Yeeeah, well, she is from a dystopian future. Crud, is Mayuri hit?</i></p><p><i>-Well, that brought things to a halt. Kagari?! (She's not with them, I imagine. But shooting her mother?) 5:06pm? Trickle of blood, like in the OP. The end credits say 'DURPA Soldiers', so I guess we know who the organization is. ^_^ Next: More arrive... Mayuri's okay, and taking the time machine??</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*Back up. What did Suzuha call the time machine? (I didn't even bother to write it during the ep.) C203. Oh, that's DAMN subtle... it should be C204 (instead of Future Gadget 204 in alpha). Just went back to Ep 1 also, and Kagari WAS there, but the World Line WAS closer to 1.13. So, okay. In all my musings, I neglected how Okabe has to reset the world lines back to "true beta"... whatever that is. Hold on.</p><p>*So 203Daru sends Suzuha and Kagari back. Kagari is triggered in 1998 by Mozart to spill to the Americans about Amadeus in her head, and they learn of some of what is to come. They brainwash Yuki, as a way to get close to Daru, so that they're able to learn enough to ensure Kagari does go back.</p><p>*The Russians get time travel working. We get Okabe in a terrible future (that time he's on the roof) but it's quickly reset by the Americans, because their version of Kagari in that world line let them anticipate it (or if they had no Steiner, they were simply working against it anyway). The Russians try something more dire (namely saving Kurisu, so there is no Amadeus) but that results in alpha and SERN... Okabe and Makise themselves nix that. By this point we've diverged into 1.097.</p><p>*Now there's a message from 204Daru, which is still in the beta attractor field. (I just looked up Steins;Gate worldlines to see what was in the original show, and apparently there's a lot more beta than I thought. Oy, never mind.) 204Daru's presumably sent back 204Suzu, but also sends the message to July 7, 2011... 204Suzu never exists for it, but 203Suzu does get it. This is the same tech that 204Okabe uses, seen in the original show. The message isn't visible unless the world lines align close enough.</p><p>*The Americans are now trying to get the upper hand (using their future knowledge and stealing Amadeus), and the only way to stop them is Kurisu being alive... without alpha (which has SERN instead). Hence the plot. But how are Okabe/Daru able to send the later D-mail messages, and what do they know?</p><p>*Is Mayuri about to go back and talk to herself? Then hide out somewhere, as things play out slightly differently? (But isn't that a time loop, that will simply result in infinite Mayuris giving herself advice and hiding out? Uh. Unless Daru's message plays in full next time?) She can't be dead (she's Kagari's mom in the future)... but I guess she could be in a coma. Not sure how this gets us closer to C204. They need to not send Kagari back, I think? But how will they realize that? I need more info to answer any of that.</p><p>*I do think the sight of Mayuri "dead" will shock Kagari back to their side, unless she was just winging Mayuri to keep her out of danger in the first place (maybe she even mind leapt into herself, who knows). OH. Or maybe Mayuri dies, but the teaser shows a new Mayuri ARRIVING in the time machine? I can't see that working, but it'd be a twist.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 18 - Translational Symmetry</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Okabe puts lots of faith in world lines (again, comas, maybe). Alexis? I wondered when he would show his hand. (I guess the Americans think they've won, hence turning up now. Not sure why I decided to be on a first name basis with him.) Reyes? OHHHH, so the quick flash before was Kagari having killed Jenny Reyes, to take over, to protect Mayuri. (I assume.) You made her deadly, guys. Deal.</i></p><p><i>-Eep, did they get her? (Is Kagari expendable for them?) "Who gave you the big hint", heh, he doesn't know about the Suzuha connection? Just about the machine? Ohhh, the professor who created the system is father and God... NOT Nakabachi, that's the OTHER father. Interesting, duelling fathers (American and Russian). Guy can't know everything, presuming to kill Okabe here.</i></p><p><i>-"Strategic Focus"? Oh, StratFor (but then why did the credits say DURPA soldiers)? They escalate the conflict on this day... they needed convergence. Good point, how does Alexis know (and I guess he's in no way a patsy), put it together Okabe. With help, sure. Kagari is a force. And a distraction! Okabe's still shot in the leg though. Uh, you forgot the gun.</i></p><p><i>-So Kagari dies here, and Mayuri goes back to prevent it. Damn, that's some impressive brainwashing. Alexis is back... a joint effort by him and him, yeah, makes sense. C'mon Suzu, you referenced a future Professor. Oh no, Daru and Maho are backup prisoners. "Destined to happen", so he's living out his fantasy here. Kagari knew his phone number and spoke of "future you", fair.</i></p><p><i>-'Countless young girls and boys to act as spies', future Professor was a jerk. Present Professor is overconfident because of it, believing he cannot die, even revealing the music, geez. Good reaction by Maho. Shape the ways of this world as his own... yet he'll still need to become his future self, right? (Is not wanting to do that his downfall?) Experiment and observe, well that's fair, he has no guarantee he can rewrite things from here. "Time paradox".</i></p><p><i>-"If the world breaks ... I'd like to see it", well, that's scientific curiosity taken to an extreme. "Mad scientist", good call. ^_^ He even laughs. This place will be a battlefield? The machine is destroyed, then won't exist for 25 years, hmmm. "What if they faked its destruction and went into the past", oh, this guy is an INDEPENDENT, I'm only just picking up on that.</i></p><p><i>-Kagari, OMG, seriously. SUZUHA, BEST GIRL. Nice punch. Over the deep end now though. Daru, you the man. Yeah, don't be the same as him. ^_^ (Why did it come to this? Because you kinda avoided thinking about the future, man.) Helicopter. O.o Oh my, two of them. Mayuri has a good point, use the machine. "Is that DURPA?" Wait, BOTH American teams are fighting each OTHER?</i></p><p><i>-Okabe's too far away, Mayuri will get the win. "Operation Arclight"... she's the mad scientist, I love it. Timing? Uh... did it work? No? Crud. Yeah, he's having a PTSD flashback here, the thing won't work yet. (And yet, Mayuri must live to become Kagari's mommy so...??) New closing credit song.</i></p><p><i>-Might have been built on Kurisu's sacrifice, but you knew about WWIII. Mayuri message? What, now that the phones are working? "I hid him", not weight of the future on him but a worldline to find together, mmm. (These lyrics are literally her theme song, aren't they, they're on point.) Lab Member 002, awwww. Hououin Kyouma. But Okabe even more. ^.^ Mayuri goes badass. (It'll be like deja vu, heh.) Ruka sees Mayuri's message, nice end. Next time, the fallout.</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*Well played, they did manage to put in a twist... Alexis wasn't working for the Americans at all, he was playing his OWN game (admittedly feeding them some information). Mad scientist indeed (and Jenny died offscreen now that she's in the credits, geez).</p><p>*Unfortunately none of them know about Daru's message to Suzuha (also "Operation Arclight", so... it's from this weird 1.097 timeline, he likely named it after Mayuri). You kind of want to see it succeed just for Mayuri being so proactive. But how? So many are dead or missing. The war has started already. (And by the way, were they deliberately faking us out with Yuki, and it was Jenny Reyes all along? I'd wondered, but thought it was subtle enough to be a setup rather than a misdirect...)</p><p>*Can they get a mind leap machine working within 48 hours? (Without Amadeus, uhh, can Maho manage it? And will they need to hack SERN?) But Alexis knew how things would happen, and it didn't help him. How could it help Okabe? (If they get Mayuri to the past after all?)</p><p>*Or maybe the time machine threw Mayuri somewhere and she and Suzuha have been able to act behind the scenes... but I doubt it. Okabe's the protagonist and needs to make the connection. Actually, was the buildup worth it to this point, or a bit too much delay?</p><p>*All I can think is there's a fast forward to where they can do a better mind leap machine (it's managed in the non-canon movie, leaping back more than two days). Recall that the limitation was your brain wave patterns being too different, maybe Maho's knowledge can adjust for that?</p><p>*The C203 vs C204 thing is bothering me. That *is* subtle enough to be a setup. But I don't see how it applies yet either.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>That concludes my thoughts on the Disc 3 episodes. I'll provide a brief summary at the start of the next (and last) post, which is <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2020/08/series-scan-steinsgate-zero-4.html">a look at Steins;Gate 0, Disc 4</a>. Thank you for reading, and if you have any thoughts about my reactions, or the series itself, please do comment! (Just avoid spoilers, for the sake of any other readers.)</p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2109150351375891279.post-62429776397444344772020-08-26T12:00:00.003-07:002020-08-28T12:31:23.907-07:00Series Scan: Steins;Gate Zero 2<p><i>I am a SLOW binge-watcher (and reader). Two hours is about my limit, after which I need processing time. At the same time, I enjoy watching online reviewers, and reactions to things that I’ve previously watched, to see if they’re similar to my own. So, why not take the time during a slow binge to chronicle my own reactions and speculations?</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwc6HFCtaXPVkA_vytTuENQYBhSRibIPC9-PDJ2h0VS7v9OCMKUg7KeWZ-f8ZTltN4yMcClc12P26AtTv1XDEXhUL9FhJanvavGn1MW8_LJXUuYj-lpyTwQSPbvmulJUJDCyCKoezV8ig/s1800/MathTansSScan.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="1800" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwc6HFCtaXPVkA_vytTuENQYBhSRibIPC9-PDJ2h0VS7v9OCMKUg7KeWZ-f8ZTltN4yMcClc12P26AtTv1XDEXhUL9FhJanvavGn1MW8_LJXUuYj-lpyTwQSPbvmulJUJDCyCKoezV8ig/w400-h100/MathTansSScan.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>We're continuing our look at <b>Steins;Gate 0</b>. (If you wanted the original show, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2017/05/mt-series-scan-steinsgate-1.html">I did that as well</a>.) Spoilers for that original Steins;Gate show are inevitable, and I discuss the time travel theory, so don't read any further if you don't want to be spoiled about that.</p><p><a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2020/08/series-scan-steinsgate-zero-1.html">Disc 1 analysis was here</a>. We're into Disc 2 now, having set up Amadeus as Deus-Ex-Kurisu, Maho as a new character (and the shady people around her), the Cosplay Girls (including Yuki), and Kagari from the future. Some people seem to want her. My money's on Maho's mom, Reyes, but she may have ensnared the Rounders or something too. When will the next Reading Steiner Horrific Present take place? Maybe after this is cleared up.</p><p>There are two sections, "Stream of Consciousness" which is typed as I watch the episode, and "Thoughts and Theories" which is written after the episode ends (before I watch the next one). Feel free to skip the former if you want my analysis more than my reactions (or vice versa).</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 07 - Vibronic Transition</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-The lady's in a helmet, of course... I don't think it's Moeka? Too obvious, given the IBN 5100 history. "K-6205" implies a weird numbering system. Mr. Braun?! Didn't call that. Well played. Good point about that being weird with the alpha line (they just calling him Tennoji now?). Daru's a good friend.</i></p><p><i>-Alexis is missing? Maybe Jenny got to him, maybe he's in on it. Defences at the shrine is good. (El Psy Congroo is back?) Ruka is on the ball with Suzu's names. Aw, now feel bad for him being out of the loop. Interesting, Ruka is a grounding factor? The suspicious music helps the Okabe scene again. OH DAMN, so the FB IS a thing? Aw, Nae gets anime. Ooh, could they get the Rounders on their side??</i></p><p><i>-A cosplay girls scene? Weird. Yuki's arm is hurt?! (No. NOOOOOOOO, that's too weird.) But scene back, so why cut away otherwise? I'm surprised this history played out the same, even though there's no SERN gel people in the past. Okabe is playing the conversation very well. Ooh, not sure about the daughter card though. Suzu? Hmmm. Interesting result.</i></p><p><i>-Sensible talk for the others. More Russian earthquakes in the background, yikes. Phonetic military code? Kaede pulling in Kochel numbering for Mozart, that HAS to link with Amadeus. 620 is the Magic Flute? Last opera, Masonic symbolism? Okabe's on the ball again with Maho... WHAT? Is it a cry for help call? Yup. And there's the Russians doing more time travel. Oh, there's an Ending Clip? Is the lab GONE? Oh FFS, did NOT anticipate.</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*Well played. Did not expect that in any way. Okabe needs to create his world lines device sooner rather than later. (Mostly to see if there's large changes or small ones, it wouldn't help anyone else. I guess it irks me that WE have no reference.)</p><p>*This must be a world line without Suzu or Kagari? But that doesn't necessarily make it good. Maybe Maho is gone too? Crud, or MAYURI? Though Okabe can now ask Kurisu things about Maho, which would be handy for when the lines shift back. Though since the shifting isn't under his control, I wonder why they would shift? (It'll probably happen right before some revelation that we now cannot get.)</p><p>*Crazy theory, SERN somehow made this shift to try and keep the Russians from progressing further; if Kurisu is alive, it means they never got the report, or not in the same way. Though hold on - wouldn't a Russian need to have a Reading Steiner to know that they're not on top of the situation anymore? Otherwise how can an arms race even happen here? (Will there be a way to identify such people?)</p><p>*Alternate theory, Russians (or someone) are trying to prevent the launch of Amadeus, so that no one else can access time travel, but it backfired on them. No Amadeus simply means Kurisu is around... unless the plan is to now capture HER? Oy oy. (And maybe there's a hit out for anyone who looks like her.)</p><p>*Yuki would seem to be the person "on the inside" of the lab, the question is for how long someone's been using her to spy... I notice she wasn't at the debrief later either. Could it be blackmail? (Worked with Braun, essentially.) And what's with using Mozart codes? (It makes Maho's login of 'Salieri' extra amusing in hindsight.) This is the hardest nut to crack because the focus isn't there, it's background. I guess we'll move on.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 08 - Antinomic Dual</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Okabe never comes to the lab in this reality either? (Because Mayuri? YUP, CONFIRMED.) Is this the ALPHA line?? Okabe asks now too, I love we're on the same wavelength. So the Phone Microwave DID exist here, huh. But death was a heart attack? Right, because this world line was somehow poison to her. TRAUMA! Connect the dots, man, someone else.</i></p><p><i>-Oh, hey, Fubuki's working there! (Did she crush on Mayuri?) Daru is his conscience again here. "Echelon's data" and they shut it down. This is a crazy revisit. Naturally Kurisu knows... because of where he sat? Clever. Wait, mystery GPS now? WHOA, Phone Microwave (Revised), daaaamn. He can use it to return? (Wait, where is even their Okabe right now?) So... he'll warn about Amadeus being taken? Except it doesn't exist? I'm confused.)</i></p><p><i>-"This time I did nothing at all", put that together, *I*. Hm, and he can't kill her again, well, that makes sense too. Heh, he's wearing the same clothes in both world lines. He brings up the AI, cool. Glad they're having that conversation and ruling Amadeus out in a direct way. Maho is rude and stubborn and clumsy, eh? Jasmine tea, I think that will come back later.</i></p><p><i>-Oooh, grave matter. So Okabe reacted the same way that Mayuri did when her grandmother died, huh? That's poetic. "The feeling doesn't change" only the person, yeeeeah, impossible choice. Hououin Kyouma, aw. And a stardust handshake. PATHOS. "Do it, even if you can't", yeah hey, no problem. >.< Oh, interesting point, only completed the theory after meeting Okabe; perhaps Nakabachi had to fill in some piece himself. Dangerous to interact, HUH.</i></p><p><i>-Message: Don't come in. (Where's he sending that?) Hmm, so in this alpha line they DIDN'T meet at the talk outside the seminar room... makes sense, actually. AWWWWW. That's a heck of a note to go out on there. So she sort of kills herself this time. And we have credits running so... weird. Nice song though. (OHH, he's sending it to her, before she... right. Except wait, she ignores it? So... what, delay of a few seconds helps?)</i></p><p><i>-"1.097302"... that is NOT what the tracker said to start Episode 1. We're only slightly tipped over into beta now (not 1.13). Next episode, Maho's back and why are shots fired?</i></p><p><u>Thoughts and Theories</u>:</p><p>*This is entangling fast. Even so, this episode felt like mostly filler plot wise, it was a nice revisit... that set up even more pieces for later (like tea). But how did sending this message rewrite things from alpha back to beta? From the audio, Kurisu still went in. Was it a delay? Did it entangle with something Russians did? Feels like this would be a 'tweak' to someone else's change.</p><p>*I don't think we'll be back in alpha? They hyped it like an event with its own ending song, credits and everything. (But I don't know any more.) It was nice to see explicitly how Mayuri dying wouldn't have solved anything. Interesting how Fubu-nyan showed up (versus no Yuki to speak of). Also interesting that the PhoneWave was created, like in alpha you can't change that the machines exist anyways, I guess.</p><p>*Looked up GPS. Fully operational in 1993, with civilian uses in mind... cell phones got it in 1999 (in Europe)... new satellites were launched in 2010 and 2011. Not sure what the mystery was there. Distinguishing from our timeline? Foreshadowing some sort of tracking for people using Amadeus?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZY0DtwJ2qxEmTaiKZa9EFWbuduH5Tk9riF_8wSFmQ7eJkO0KarUQSiSJ8_c43d-nKB_noNENyTYFFTN-vHesmEW5sHluujG7tvkHLB8oL_d0nFIM_Dnksfhmsw9huMrXTc3Xv080CNSk/s2000/SteinRoadON.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZY0DtwJ2qxEmTaiKZa9EFWbuduH5Tk9riF_8wSFmQ7eJkO0KarUQSiSJ8_c43d-nKB_noNENyTYFFTN-vHesmEW5sHluujG7tvkHLB8oL_d0nFIM_Dnksfhmsw9huMrXTc3Xv080CNSk/w400-h266/SteinRoadON.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 09 - Pandora's Box</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-He's in hospital? First thought is for Mayuri, of course. Back to plot? So Nakase collapsed too... who was that. Amadeus takeover attempt?? Someone broke into Maho's place and they can't get back into Wako, hm. Wait, wait, Nakase was Fubuki? (Encephalitis is a nice callback to early news, but...) Can SHE Reading Steiner? So hold on, was Fubu-nyan ALSO experiencing Mayuri's death for the first time??</i></p><p><i>-Considers it a dream, interesting. I wonder if they can track down more people who collapsed?? (Was THAT why "they" did it, to ID Steiners?) Okabe now has the dream excuse. (Russia's testing *something*, yeah.) Daru talks with Suzu, hm. Moeka's checking things for them, makes sense. HAHA, she's still doing the Shining Fingers. With emojis. Hee hee. I don't know if he can do this without time machines.</i></p><p><i>-Oh, stay with Faris/Rumi, that makes sense. I can see Suzu not being big with small talk. Wow, gun, she's a little unhinged? He thinks they're in the same one... okay, he gives details. Good. Now we're into the time competition (it's with America, huh?). She's forcing him to do the wrong thing though. Yeah, the impossible choice is back (nice visuals). WOW, she SHOT him. They're both traumatized here.</i></p><p><i>-Okabe summarizes the insanity; 1.097302 comes up again, so what was with Ep 1? Okabe raises a good point, they could make it worse, they don't know. Daru is smart. He's also got the research angle. Awww, "do as your father says" with music. Poor Suzuha, she had a very one track mind. Okabe hears Makise in his head now, huh?</i></p><p><i>-Which organizations use codes then, and are private or innocent sounding. DURPA? (Defense Ultimate Research Projects Agency.) From American DoD. Oh, he's doing comparisons... Stratfor, shadow CIA against terrorism. *RIGHT* so they'd be looking for Kurisu and not know she was DEAD, damn. Or possibly they knew Kagari was a traveller somehow? Lots of unknown.</i></p><p><i>-The Waco explosion is related then? Okabe's ahead of me for once. Daru talks of Hououin Kyouma being reborn, which makes sense as Okabe does the schtick in 15 years to send the message back. A letter is a nice thought. Daru's being deliberately silly now. Oh, so Suzu WAS the ghost looking for Kagari, they had more fuel this time somehow. A huge battery couldn't power it, damn. Half a year, once or twice? Could be worse. At least if it falls into the wrong hands they can hardly use it too. Nice scene.</i></p><p><i>-Maho's organization does spill all over quickly then. He tells her, but again they're assuming CLAIMING not having data is enough to prevent an attack. Maybe he's not ahead of me. (Dywabook?) Next is a comedy episode?? Amadeus is back at least.</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*I didn't realize Suzuha had actually been time jumping, that seems rather irresponsible. She is just a young girl in the end though, traumatized too. (And illogical, how would maiming Okabe help?) Forgiven. Daru's responsible side shines through even more, goes beyond being a good friend. I can see this as a shifting of gears for her, and it's good the Russian/American plot is out.</p><p>*Fubuki has Reading Steiner; she and Okabe do need to talk. Perhaps to find out what they have in common regarding that (so they can find more people? hospital records might work too). Perhaps simply because she's USED to changes happening that she is NOT PART OF, whereas for Okabe that's a new thing. Though wait, I guess technically she's not? What does she remember of alpha, if anything?</p><p>*I still think that the Americans are trying to get Kurisu and don't know that Kagari is someone different (I mean, there's the amnesia angle). They're trying for Amadeus at the same time (recall that IS an American system). The Russians are ahead of them though in implementation, right? So they must be making the changes... to distract the Americans? Or to foil them? (And what's with the world line not being what it was at the start? Probably only I picked up on that, since I had to write it down to realize.) Still feel thrown that SERN remains a secret organization with Braun.</p><p>*Maybe Moeka will turn up something, but too late, and they'll need to use Suzu's time machine to give themselves time to create their own time machine? (Looks like it can be done within six months, at least for texting.) Ruka and Faris have returned to the background again too, but it's not blatant, decent use of their characters. Not sure what to make of the next episode's lighter tone.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 10 - Forbidden Cubicle</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Oh, Mozart backstory proves very relevant. K-331, Kurisu was a fan? "Death means not getting to listen to Mozart anymore," attributed to Einstein? (He was a fan too?) July 28 was the date. Maho's not giving herself enough credit, maybe. Perhaps this is her episode. (Oh yeah, Moeka was looking at Maho in the OP, hmmm.)</i></p><p><i>-Alexis quotes himself, sure. Amadeus returns, still matchmaking. (1) Moeka is with her now?? (2) Poor butler. I can see Moeka as a bodyguard though. Mayuri brings... Nae? Is Sergeant Clean? ^_^ (For a moment I thought it was Fubuki.) Smileybear?? Yeah, but Kurisu was doing the research for her father either way. Okabe doesn't know Salieri? Ah, he's seen the movie. ^^;; (Not quite accurate, that movie.)</i></p><p><i>-Retrieving laptop from locker for analysis? (Seeing if she got hacked, maybe?) Room's too clean, I can understand that. No boys allowed for Cinderella Girls? Uhhh. Okay, outfits are HILARIOUS. Moe-meow? Oh lordy, the fan service. *^^* Faris is getting some juice, sure. Ooh, a Moeka novel? I like this pep talk reversal... don't compare to others. Oh lordy, Faris with her hair down (is she bi?).</i></p><p><i>-Maho likes electronics, eh? Well, there's some bonding at least. @channel character, eh heheh. With the same reaction as the original show, I think (subtitled as best as they could... fansubs had All Your Base? Original was about null pointers?). Awww, Okabe. That was nice. Wait, plush was burned in the FIRE? (What fire?) Paused to see that Maho's in top racing spot, by more than double the 2nd place person.</i></p><p><i>-Radio tower will be rebuilt? Interesting. (Guess that's why it wasn't too hard to rent out the top floors.) Rough memories here. Door's closed, space and time being unified but different in movement, true enough. "Even if you returned to the same time axis", Okabe has that perspective. White lie. "How long it could have been" to know her, yeah, I was wondering if that would come up.</i></p><p><i>-Will he say it? Hm, no. She understands though, it's hard, and he's sad. "Regretting some choice", aye. Impossible choice. Wasn't going to tell? </i>Whoa, whoa, "skipping over damaged area"?!<i> (TECH LOSS @ 1:34:23 to 1:35:40!) Sigh. Most of that loss was the ED, but right before a revelation? Next time... has Yuki caught Maho? Someone's locked out of the system.</i></p><p><i>-Found a version with no sound. Okabe reacts with horror. Says something to her and she reacts with horror. Okay then. (Another search, seems like Maho dropped Kurisu's laptop off... for DasH from Robotics;Notes? Then Okabe references WWIII.)</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*This makes sense, in retrospect. Suzu's mission wasn't to keep the papers from getting to Nakabachi, it was to save Kurisu. My focus was kind of in the wrong place. Saving Kurisu means no one has to get into her computer, and the Americans aren't after her, solving the problem even if Russia is involved (though not giving them time powers either is an important bonus). Basically, no one looking for her research.</p><p>*They're kind of trying to make Maho a new love interest for Okabe? Which is sensible given the "harem" of the original game, but I don't see that working out. Can't "settle" for Salieri when eye is on Mozart, though interesting how they brought that in. Yay for music. Also, making me want to ship Faris/Moeka. *^^*</p><p>*Long term plot thoughts? Lots still out there... Kagari and Amadeus theft which seems to tie to Americans, plus the Mozart code, Yuki being motorcycle lady (also tied into that?), Fubuki having Reading Steiner which seems relevant. But right now we're still bringing Maho in. Maybe Okabe's reluctance means her talking to Amadeus sparks a problem? Actually, maybe Amadeus was restored but with a ghost backdoor, and Americans are watching now.</p><p>*Short term, maybe the laptop password was 'Salieri', that'd be clever. Could mean someone already got files without Maho knowing?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8mIbdKg_SnSMP0aSEoDIuv0GkP0E47t_A4qc468tfwaqzMToQgQN4XCwoBXF-HRWMBE8Y6HZCKU2095gAhfiekKp30xTBUW1KQh7Oa58w3otGi1s8_ozTXTAcqY5vIubVDwjDhDKH8lY/s1366/SteinsSleepover_y2fk4aC.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8mIbdKg_SnSMP0aSEoDIuv0GkP0E47t_A4qc468tfwaqzMToQgQN4XCwoBXF-HRWMBE8Y6HZCKU2095gAhfiekKp30xTBUW1KQh7Oa58w3otGi1s8_ozTXTAcqY5vIubVDwjDhDKH8lY/w400-h225/SteinsSleepover_y2fk4aC.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 11 - Sealed Reliquary</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Daru has a second job, of course. (Explains DaSH being 'Daru the Super Hacker' - apparently with Nae? Anyway. Though if Daru has laptop, my thought of it in other hands is off base...) Does it make sense Daru's set up in the capsule toy store with "cosplay media"?</i></p><p><i>-Three more days. Daru thinks this is Okabe's delusions? "Shouldn't you just tell her", yeah probably, I think this will end badly. Oh, he is going to come clean... though says they can't save Kurisu. Okabe isn't joining the others then. Kagari seems to zone in on a particular car? Well, this GPS stuff is suspicious.</i></p><p><i>-So sending the D-mail and time leap machine explained. Linked to Suzuha because Maho's smart. "The mere possibility it exists is enough"... true, but you know the Russians have something functional too. Her legacy? Disgracing the dead? Both have good points. (They'll shut it down, but possibly regret it later.) Destroy? Wow. (An eroge, seriously?) Uhoh, the GPS was the computer, not Kagari.</i></p><p><i>-Daru has things planned. But they're tracking well. Uhoh. (He knows the password, or is that a bluff?) Oh, interesting... they can't die there, because there's been no Steiner and Suzu's future still exists... valid gamble? New hostage. (I mean, he could end up blind or something.) WHOA, a rival gang? (Dressed similarly?) Crazy. Computer down (for now? could exist in a different worldline).</i></p><p><i>-Maho's tensed up. A shard? Oh good, new trauma. Hm, second team was the Russians - so they have someone on the inside? (Assuming Okabe's right.) Dying?? Faris, seriously. Weird fanservice. Electrode stab, interesting phrase. So there is a possible relationship forming, via Kurisu. More Salieri? To an obsession? Okabe has good points about true feelings. So she knows about the repeating period. ("Were you"... what, lovers?)</i></p><p><i>-Professor Alexis seems worried. Oh wow, they're LEAVING? (Didn't click that Viktor Chondria U was only in America.) Interesting that Fubuki and cosplay came along with Mayuri. Yuki is injured again, so this HAS to be a tell for the audience... why tease us?? "We've avoided the clash"? NO WAY, I can see why Suzu doesn't buy it. Oh, so Amadeus is going too? Tsundere, heh heh. Awwwww, the computer hopes he can laugh.</i></p><p><i>-This is like the ending that's not the ending. (Are we going into a time skip?) Time moves on without repeating. (Maybe.) Oooh, the suspicious Jenny (also injured?). So that's it. (Until history's rewritten, seriously guys.) Feels like a Mozart piece. Mayuri ep next?</i></p><p><u><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thoughts and Theories</span></u>:</p><p>*Well, everything's wrapped up, show's over. Except for all those threads I talked about last episode. (Add to that how they tagged the computer, and the car thing with Kagari. Oh, and those animal deaths without brains from earlier?)</p><p>*Okabe's logic of Suzuha's presence is slightly flawed... maybe him getting killed shifts the world line and Suzu vanishes as well? Or as I said above, he could be limping for life or something. (Also, that jump where he was being questioned in ep 4, that still feels very relevant... maybe the Americans had him, and the Russians reset things? Either way it means bets are off for him surviving.)</p><p>*I can't tell if we're going to go into a full-on time-skip (we do have another 14 years to get to the future phone message) or if we're going to go into a Rewritten History that somehow forces them to start a time travel (bringing us back here). Feels more like the former? I don't buy Okabe going to America though, the rest of the cast is local, I think something brings Maho back.</p><p><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Episode 12 - Recursive Mother Goose</h4><p><u>Stream of Consciousness</u>:</p><p><i>-Kagari in a hospital? A "treatment"? (I feel like drugs are making her see Mayuri when it's not her.) Nevermind, this is a memory of the future. (Still, did people change her appearance to be like Kurisu?) They met from a song? "Someday you'll meet somebody precious..." I feel like that's Mayuri knowing history rather than one day falling in love. Searching for one thing (will there be a Mozart connection?).</i></p><p><i>-Prof Izaki, we finally meet. Seems nice. At the lab, is that safe? (Is she on break from working downstairs?) The song is back... so maybe it's not a message to the past? So it HAS been a time skip. Never knew her real parents? Memories will probably return at the worst time. Only half a month skip then (mid-January?). Yuki has to be suspicious, and a klutz (to try and hide the injury reasons?).</i></p><p><i>-A Suzuha song? So it hasn't been invented, explaining why she hadn't heard it before. (Isn't Suzu working for Braun too?) Returning to the future?? Or to spicy food, 'k. Yuki sang (will sing?) it, huh. (Haha, telephone game.) Kagari's on the ball. "Somewhere to be"... secret dating?? (Away from Suzuha?) Heeheehee, spotted. So she bakes. Sung by a student who's much older.</i></p><p><i>-Wait, Okabe's MOM?!? (I thought it was Maho's mom being funny for a moment.) But no, they run a Green Grocer. Akemi. She learned it from him in middle school?? (Related to his sickness and Reading Steiner??) Revisiting the past. Mayuri, will it really an introduction? -.- Pathetic fallacy rain? Mozart on radio, maybe? Yikes. Back to hospitals. Aaaand, this will be awkward. New ending again.</i></p><p><i>-OHH. So that explains Okabe knowing, he heard her sing it then... it's the song with no origin! Haha, paradox! Wait, Runaway K-6205? They were tracking her even back then?? Ominous music and I guess more with Kagari including Moeka's help, coming next.</i></p><p><u>Thoughts and Theories</u>:</p><p>*I feel like we're spinning our wheels. They're trying to plant that Yuki isn't behind things, but I don't buy it. Then we still don't have an explanation for so much, and add the SONG on top of that. (How did it bring Mayuri and Kagari together?) But with Kagari's memories, maybe the plot will advance soon? Not much to say I haven't already said.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>That concludes my thoughts on the Disc 2 episodes, and 'Part 1' of the series. I'll provide a brief summary at the start of the next post, <a href="https://mathiex.blogspot.com/2020/08/series-scan-steinsgate-zero-3.html">a look at Steins;Gate 0, Disc 3</a>... the start of the second half. Thank you for reading, and if you have any thoughts about my reactions, or the series itself, please do comment! (Just avoid spoilers, for the sake of any other readers.)</p>Gregory Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06547180132612659893noreply@blogger.com0