Country Living Challenges: Internet

Posted on March 6, 2014 by spulsfort

When you live five miles down a country road, your internet doesn’t come through a cable. Maybe it comes through the telephone line accompanied by an anachronistic serenade every time you dial-up, or maybe it comes from… OUTER SPACE. We have satellite internet. If we had smart phones, bless our hearts, we wouldn’t have smart phone internet, cuz that doesn’t work here either. We have satellite internet. Usually it is just like normal internet. You snuggle up with your honey, watch 5 hours of That 70’s Show on Netflix, and then, just as you need to use the internet for the next three weeks for school work, you notice that your videos don’t stream, at all. It feels like 56k again. Sometimes you have time to sing yourself the little modem song as your .gif loads. We have a 10 gb data allowance for the month. We get a grace period between midnight and five in the morning, during which our usage doesn’t count against us. It is about as likely for us to be up before five than after twelve, but on some Saturday nights we binge on Netflix until our heavy lids slump down over our red-from-staring-at-a-screen-for-too-long eyelids.

When we do run out of internet, we can pay for more like the junkies we are. Ten bucks a gigabyte for additional internet. If there is a new season of Downton out, this is a must.

The other issue is weather. Sometimes when it rains really hard and we are worried that a tornado might come crashing through our cardboard walls, there is no internet to be found. It also goes out in the increasingly common Arkansas blizzards. Last time we were out of internet for two whole weeks while we waited for the satellite folks to come out from Memphis and fix the dish. They were even nice enough not to charge us the standard service charge after I spent some time on hold and then with customer service, explaining how we don’t need the short end of the stick.

It is another cost of living in the country. And it’s worth it. Plus we don’t spend all of our time watching Red make Eric’s ass into a hat. We have to save some for Fresh Prince, delivered fresh on DVD.

Snow Day

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Keely

The plastic blew off of our garden in the night. Poor baby greens are under an inch of ice. Goodbye, spring salad.

As predicted, the daffodils were hit hard by the ice storm. They’re beautiful as they are now, a lesson in impermanence and a study in fragility.

We went for a hike in the woods this morning. Our house was cold, and we knew we’d have to leave the country until our power is back on, so we decided to take advantage of the day off and spend some time out in the woods. We don’t get to enjoy our back yard often, and during the last ice storm, we had to settle for driving through the sparkling forest on our way to and from school. It was painful, spending our days indoors and watching the sun set behind the frozen tree sculptures all week. By Saturday, the ice was gone.
Sean and I bundled up in long underwear and layers of sweaters and jackets. I put on two pairs of socks to wear under my sneakers. We don’t really have winter attire here in Arkansas.

The yellow dock leaves were frozen so solid that when we kicked them, they shattered. The ice in the trees tinkled like crystal.

The grass was frozen solid, and the hill was slick. There was a huge part of me that didn’t believe that we’d actually get the sleds to move. I sat on a saucer, not expecting much, and then suddenly I was bumping down the hill, crackling the ice and shredding my gloves on the frozen grass.

We took our daffodils to town with us to remind everyone that it is, in fact, springtime.

Ice Lightning

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Keely

Our house totally just got struck by lightning. There was a flash of light and a crack in the kitchen, and then a shock of thunder that rattled the glass in the windows. That is not cool at all. The power’s still on and hopefully it will stay that way.

We went to town for a while to coldproof the plant babies in the greenhouse at Lee and to do laundry at our friends’ house (our washer froze solid a week or two ago, then busted). On the way home, we dodged downed limbs and listened to the rattle of sleet falling on the roof of the car. There was a message on the machine when we came in: no school tomorrow. I did a kitchen dance.

Today has been all about getting ready for the storm. I put on my mud shoes this morning and made sure the chickens had plenty of food and water, then turned on the lamp in the coop. I cut daffodils from the woods and brought them in so that we can enjoy them a little longer. After warming up for a while, Sean and I went out together into the nearly-freezing rain and covered a row of our garden with a sheet of plastic to help keep the fragile baby greens alive. Hopefully the wind won’t tear the cover right off like it has in the past.

In the greenhouse at school, Sean and his students have planted flats of flowers and veggies for spring gardens. Last cold snap the soil froze solid, and, though the plants survived, we decided to take steps to prevent it from happening again. We used some sheets of styrofoam and constructed a sort of insulated box on the ground for the flats. We had boiled a quart of water and wrapped it in a jacket to keep the heat in, and this we tucked into the insulated box to help moderate the temperature.

I’m ready for spring, but I love storms, and I’m looking forward to having a day off to walk in the ice-chandeliers of our woods.

Juggling Young Adults

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Keely

My fourth period Algebra today was incredible: They were having these discussions where I could cold-call on anyone to “agree/disagree and why” and they would run with it. They were doing gymnastic contortions to look like they were still sitting in their desks when they were actually jumping up to raise their hands as high as possible. It was awesome. They earned a record 8 class points, and they can really get their FOIL on.
Fifth period was an unmitigated disaster. I wasn’t well-prepared and I have a table-group that thinks they’re all that. I needed their patience, and they weren’t feeling it. It became a spitting contest, and nobody wins a spitting contest. Everyone just gets spit on.
Mood swings are a way of life at school. I went into my lunch break blue from fifth period and came out juggling oranges. I went in to my 7th period optimistic and came out pensive. Teaching is unpredictable and it takes all of my energy to maintain my equilibrium.

Positive Dailies:

I got this email from a mom today

“I just wanted to touch base with you, T was excited about some new math that yall are doing. She came home saying she understood it. She worked with her brother on math last night. I love to see her excited about learning something new.”

C got out of ISS and came back to our one-on-one class with just as much enthusiasm as he had before he got in trouble. I mostly let him do his own thing, but when I looked up and saw him looking sideways at his paper, I said “Talk to me, C”
“It’s nothing. I just caught myself making a mistake” He talked me through it and explained how he could fix it. That was a dream come true. Every day with C is a dream come true.
Some of my goofy boys were playing charades in my room during lunch. My favorite was the rock-climbing mime. They were mostly ninjas.
“Ms. O, we imagined the ideal top predator today: a flying turtle-cheetah with a lion’s roar and the intelligence of a human!”
“I’ll try to remember my yoga britches for yoga club tomorrow”
I had Algebra grading their own work.
Ms O: What do I expect you to do while you grade your own work?
Students: Not cheat! Be truthful!
Ms. O: That’s the second most important thing, but what’s even more important than that?
Students: …
Ms. O: Where are we right now?
Students: math class?
Ms. O: bigger picture.
Students: School.
Ms. O: What happens at school?
Students: We Sit? Work hard? Be bored?
Ms. O: Uhhh.. In an ideal world?
Students: We learn.
Ms O: yeah. So what should you be doing while you’re grading your work?
Students: Learning?
Ms. O: Yeah! Learn from your own mistakes!
Cue lightbulb. Facepalm. We talked about this yesterday.

Yesterday’s Jokes:

Why don’t you play cards in the jungle?
It’s full of cheetahs!

A lion and a cheetah were having a race.
The lion says to the cheetah “I don’t wanna race you, you’re a cheetah”
The cheetah says to the lion “You lion!”