Butterfly House

The county fair is in town, and I picked up a couple of weeks' work at the Butterfly House. It was a really fun environment. It's nice to work with the public when the public is happy and having a special treat on a special day as a family. My personality is such that customer service is easy for me when the person feels stressed that they won't get a bed for the night, or has a fit because it made them mad to imagine that my hispanic manager is monolingual, but it was so unstressful to facilitate families having a nice time at the Butterfly House. I spent half my time working the front, controlling how many people went in at one time and explaining what to expect, and the other half working the exit, answering questions and taking butterflies off people. 

 I sat right next to this monarch chrysalis display and I only saw two monarchs actually emerge!

 This particular company, Butterfly Adventures, lets people feed a butterfly with a q-tip dipped in nectar. The nectar bowls had plastic beads in them to stop the butterflies from drowning, and people had no end of trouble intuiting this.

Since I worked half-days, I would go a little early or stay a little late and check out just one or two things at the fair. I got to sketch the livestock, the rides, and the Hall of Flowers. I also got to visit the entries in domestic arts, fine arts, and crafts- there was way too much to take in in one session. I like taking things in slowly, like when I lived in DC and everyone around me was in a rush to work or keep their tourist family of children engaged and out of harm's way, but I just sat in the free museums and worked on watercolors.

Substitute Teaching

Should I become a substitute teacher? I can't decide. I think I would like the work and the hours fine, but the requirements are so frustrating. I attended a 2-hour sub orientation yesterday and made a note of the different requirements. Everyone I live with is completely tired of hearing about the hoops and how much I hate them, so I will put this little write-up here. Below, I have marked requirements with an X if I think they should obviously be stricken from the substitute teaching requirements, or if they are plausible, an O. 

[X] $60* CBEST

This test lets BA or BS holders prove they are educated to a middle school level.

[X] $90 2xFingerprinting

I can see that it would be negligent to let folks who are or have been criminals of any sort run a classroom for a day. But if the state thinks you are cleared to be around children, the district doesn't need to prove it also. 

[?] $25 TB test

  I don't know, does anyone ever get TB? Is it not a required vaccination for children? Is there no vaccine? Can children with TB attend school? I think the tip-off that this is not necessary is that you can be infected with anything else in the whole world.

[X] $40 county processing fee

The county needs to figure out how to pay to process applications. Obviously. Everyone has to process their own job applications unless it's a program that's for the benefit of the applicants.

[O] $40 Classroom management course

Okay, yes. This is relevant to the actual job. 

[X] $60 Medical Exam

I can't believe this is legal. I think super flexible 6 hour days where you just don't schedule a shift  if you are having a flare up/bad symptoms is completely ideal for people with disabilities or who are getting on in years. The medical exam form does say it's checking for disabilities "on the basis of functions which will be required of the applicant upon employment," but it asks specifically about arthritis, asthma, MS, and affected vision, speech, and hearing.

[O] $72 30-day sub permit license

Sure. It is appropriate to pay for licenses. It's silly that the one year period starts when the application is received, instead of when the license is granted, but an academic year is shorter than a calendar year, so it doesn't matter. 

[O] $30 2xcollege transcripts

Even with all that, I still haven't decided against applying. I do want to teach, although not in a California public school (I've been). 

*This would have been $40 had I registered on time, but on the other hand it would be $100 if I wanted to take the computer-based version. 

Here is some found poetry I generated

Preface"

{ 

Preface: O 

Preface: O

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 Preface: I am ;

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Preface" 

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Preface: I am leae

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Preface: O 

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Preface: O

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 Pr

 Pe

 Preface: I aml

 : 

Preface: O 

Preface: I am learning to tu 

Preface: I am learning to tup

 PrefaceL 

Pteface: I amm 

Preface: I am ; 

Pred

 Preface: I am

 ;

 Predac 

Prefacd a

 Preface: I am ;ea

 { 

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PJ

 Preface: I am learninf

 Preface: I am ; 

Preface: I am learning to tu

 PrefaceL

 { 

Preface: O 

Preface: I am ;ear

 ap

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Preface: O

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PJ 

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 Preface: I am learning to type. 

And use mu 

And use my ;ef

And use my left sji 

And use myleft shifrk 

Anf 

And i 

And use my left shift key.

Typing in Japanese

Japanese people can all read roman letters, butthe romanization systems for showing Japanese words are a bit cumbersome and so students learn hiragana, the syllabary, as soon as they get started studying. So I have been able to write in hiragana for years of course, without learning to type. After a year's worth of false starts, I learned to type in Japanese in an afternoon.
Here is all I actually had to do:
1.Activate the Windows Japanese Input mode
      This step is really easy to find out how to do. Control Panel ->Region and Language -> Keyboards and Languages -> Change Keyboards -> Add -> Japanese -> Apply, and then in the task bar switch between EN and JP at will.
2. Label the keyboard
       I just pressed every key and wrote down what it rendered.
3. type the gojuon/syllabary in order
      Realize the keyboard is not actually a confusing mess of characters.

So here is the gojuon, which is the alphabet analogue. It's arranged by vowels across and consonants down. 

Here is how it applies to the qwerty keyboard. It is mostly clusters with a bunch of outliers, I do not know why. Also, just a note if you are reading this and fairly detail oriented but haven't studied japanese: chi and tsu are in the t category, shi is in the s category, and fu is in the h category. I don't know the reason for most of those, but fu is because the japanese h is like an h/f hybrid. 

My two workarounds before I learned to type yesterday were to use my phone, or type in English into google translate and then copy/paste. The phone keypad is actually perfect for the gojuon. It works like the T9 system in English. Multiple taps take you across the columns of the gojuon, and there is one key per row. 

Micro Landscapes and Personal Gallery

This is my new, tiny series. It is made by framing scraps of acrylic paint peeled from my palette. 

 I think gluing them to bails for necklaces and waterproofing them with resin is the way to go if I want anyone else to wear them. For myself, I had fun experimenting with attaching them with spirit gum. I probably wouldn't wear this out because in my experience people can't really be cool about things like that. I would just hear, "What's that?" as many times as there are people.

Alameda Towne Centre bronze sculpture

The shopping center in my hometown got a ton of nice art with its last redevelopment. This is my favorite piece. It's a mandala sort of wheel made of animals and fruits and things. I usually wouldn't post such an unsuccessful photo but I have honestly spent hours googling:
 "Alameda Towne Centre bronze sculpture"
"alameda town center bronze sculpture"
"southshore redevelopment public art"
"south shore redevelopment public art"
"alameda town center metal sculpture"
"public artists alameda towne centre"
trying to find a picture of it. So now here it is. I still don't know the artist's name.

Swimming Hole

At the local river there is a remarkable jumping-off tree. It looks purpose-built. Non-swimmers can't fall off of it because it is on the far bank from the beach. You climb up to the tree from the river via soft, silty pocket steps in clay, then balance on horizontal branches worn smooth by feet. These are so sturdy that they are where the jumping-off line forms. And they are enveloped in glowing green leaves. You can jump from either of two low hanging branches. A rope hung from a higher branch can help prolong your fall. I had a lot of time to memorize everything and enjoy it because I was much too frightened to jump. I guess it was fear, but it felt resolute. I was just certain that jumping was the wrong thing to do, as I told the children who stuck around for ages to encourage me. I was up there a really long time. I think it is out of fashion to call feelings primal, but it was a primal fear of dark water.  I have always been able to count on not being afraid of heights or other physical things. But, I am a bit glad I've experienced it. It had better not be ongoing.

Update:

I jumped off it and it was okay. I remembered to wear my contacts, so I think that helped. Also, I made these photos by swimming my camera across the river.