PMS and poetry: Children's poetry archive****

WARNING: DO NOT WATCH THIS WITH CHILDREN.



Yes, I know this is a kiddie blog. At least it is a blog where kids can click safely on images. So maybe it is not a good idea to have this video here: it contains Violence.

But on the other hand, it is not the kids who are reading this. I hope.

Ok, here is the compromise. Go watch that video -over at Parallel/Alternate before you read further.

This one, on the other hand, you can safely click on now -




I know, there are tons of related cartoons and videos; I have posted more or less the first couple that I found on google, because it is really late, and I have to get started somehow.

And the reason I wanted to grab and hang on to your attention was actually this - I was reading up something about PMS, and came across some theories about the cause of PMS. PMS, or pre-menstrual syndrome, is a name used to refer to a collection of symptoms including and laying stress on, emotional and mental ones, which occur up to two weeks before the menstrual periods and resolve subsequently. As about 80-90% of women in US (and presumably a similar even if lesser proportion worldwide) report some degree of emotional or physical symptoms pre-menstrually, it is actually more in the nature of a norm rather than deviation. About 3-8%, however, experience a more severe form known as PMDD.

The exact cause of PMS is, as yet, unknown. Each female body is subjected to a cyclical ebb and flow of the hormones estrogen and progesterone, but why some should react differently than others is not known, as is the mechanism for many of these changes. We know some correlations, but not enough yet. We will get there, of course, but in the meantime, there are several other theories - and I am talking of theories which are more or less accepted by psychologists and psychiatrists, not the exotic ideas of your neighbourhood eccentric.

"The psychosocial theory hypothesizes that PMDD or PMS is a conscious manifestation of a woman's unconscious conflict about femininity and motherhood. Psychoanalysts proposed that premenstrual physical changes reminded the woman that she was not pregnant and, therefore, was not fulfilling her traditional feminine role. Obviously, proving this theory through scientific evidence is quite difficult.

The cognitive and social learning theory hypothesizes that the onset of menses is an aversive psychological event for women susceptible to PMDD. Moreover, these women might have had negative and extreme thoughts that further reinforce the aversiveness of premenstrual symptoms. They then develop maladaptive coping strategies, such as lability of mood, absence from school or work, and overeating in an attempt to reduce the immediate stress. The immediate reduction of stress acts as a reinforcement, leading to the regular recurrence of symptoms during the premenstrual period.

The sociocultural theory hypothesizes that PMDD is a manifestation of the conflict between the societal expectation of the dual role of women as both productive workers and child-rearing mothers. PMDD is postulated to be a cultural expression of women's discontent with the traditional role of women in the society."

I have quoted from eMedicine, and that is almost like a pure medical text, so first I must clearly state that this is not really meant for laypersons but for medical professionals. Also, all these are valid and useful approaches, both of looking at psychological diagnoses and of treating them. And finally, one line summaries do not do justice to the whole concept which may be wider and more inclusive than this would lead us to believe.

Nevertheless, I found them funny, in a sad kind of way. Here is why -

As far as I can see, all of these link up the symptoms to something that is happening before: an awareness of the impending menstrual period. That is to say that according to psychoanalysts, the woman is aware - at some level if not consciously - that she is not pregnant; the cognitive and social theorists propose that women are troubled by pre-menstrual symptoms, and cope with the wrong strategies, which becomes learned behaviour after repeated reinforcements; and the socio-cultural theory generalizes this even further as discontent with women's role in society at large, but without explaining the cyclicity of it, presumably just because periods remind them of their being female. To really reduce this to basics, all are implying that a woman knows she is going to get periods, and so she becomes moody, for whatever underlying cause (lets not discuss that at this time).

Obviously all women know they are going to have periods - more or less regularly, but does any woman constantly live with awareness inside? An average woman, not the one who is really looking for conception, or looking to avoid it - but an average woman does not count the number of days left till the next one, does not think about it all the time, does not, in fact, have it on her mind. It happens, you live, what is there to think about? Yet these theorists claim that we all are counting down in our secret hearts all the time. Isn't that slightly ridiculous to assume? Further, pregnancy is always a possibility in a sexually active female, and is not discounted till the periods occur - so why should a woman get upset at not being pregnant in the pre-menstrual time? On the contrary, it should be the onset of periods which should induce depression or anxiety or whatever.

Not meaning any disrespect to psychologists, isn't this way too generalized, far too vague, and rather - conveniently trivialized thinking - to explain everything so? Oh, I grant there is likely an element of truth in them, much the same as in vino veritas. But just as you wouldn't ply wine to get a confession in the court of law, you shouldn't just define PMS so. It disturbs me faintly, this so easy clubbing of PMS into such cliched reasons...

And now, to business.

Over at the Papertigers blog today, I was introduced to this poem by Spike Milligan -

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all so BOO!
There's a Nong Nang ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mouse go Clang
What a noise place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!



How can anyone not be moved by this little poem? Call it nonsense verse if you will, but poetry for children does start off with nursery rhymes and limericks and nonsense rhythms before it becomes real, before -

...From their gross Matter she abstracts the forms,
And draws a kind of Quintessence from things,
Which to her proper nature she transforms
To bear them light on her celestial wings.
This doth She when from things particular
She doth abstract the Universal kinds....

So today's featured site is all about poetry - the Children's Poetry Archive.

This cute looking site is based on the premise that it is better to listen to poetry than to simply read it by yourself. Accordingly it features audio files, usually read by the poets themselves. There is some information about each poet as well. Necessarily only those poems are available for which there is an audio file available, but even that is a good enough introduction to poetry for children. Also necessarily, the older poets are not represented, but on the other hand, the new ones, the ones still living, whom even we might not know of, are.

The site also sells audio cd books of poems if you wish to buy more :

The url - http://www.poetryarchive.org/childrensarchive/home.do

P.S. Incredible stuff you sometimes come across. Viz -



That is an umbrella skirt: a skirt made from an umbrella. Do you really want to wear something so uncomfortable - with spikes and shafts? Looks good, but why not a simple umbrella skirt: you know, the cut? Do follow the link to see the more uncomfortable versions!



Or this, people are paying up for this, in auctions, no less. Limited edition and what not. Piece of wood with a hook - if its done by you and me, it would be dismissed as jugaad, but if it is designer, wow, watch out! And that - seriously - is that a designer baniain, a highbrow version of the humble ganji or what? Isn't this some kind of a joke he is having on us?

(If you look around at his website, you might like the drum disguised as a seat - don't we all know of trunks covered to make diwans, of tins made into stools? Necessity it seems, is not as glamorous as political correctness.)

P.P.S. Indian boyhood by Spike Milligan (he was born in India) -

What happened to the boy I was?
Why did he run away?
And leave me old and thinking, like
There'd been no yesterday?
What happened then?
Was I that boy?
Who laughed and swam in the bund
Is there no going back?
No recompense?
Is there nothing?
No refund?

Beginnings, and Bonte games***

"...the aftermath of confidences is embarrassment."

Beginnings. Have been on my mind lately.

A kaleidoscopic vision, no less. Beginnings in terms of relationships, projects, life, books, work, whatnots. Beginnings as difficult, as easy, as complicated, as natural, as piecemeal, as small, as grand, as fresh, as endings. Beginnings. A word of many flavours, many explorations. For now, it will remain - kaleidoscopic, but one day maybe the colours will shift into a pattern I will know as the one I have been waiting for. I am in no hurry. It is enough to have an idea, to be tantalized by the possibilities, to have, something new in the palm of my mind.

But in the meantime, there is this, that started it all.

Agatha Christie's novel 'The mystery of the blue train'. Its heroine: Katherine Grey, with quiet gray eyes, a sense of humour, and a fortune from the last old lady she had been a companion of. Its hero: A murder in a train. Assorted supporting characters in Riviera, her destination, and in St. Mary Mead, her origin. And the threads which get tangled with hers following the murder - the good-for-nothing devilish and handsome gambler, Derek Kettering; his multimillionaire heiress wife Ruth; her ruthless, Midas like father; the dancer Mirabelle, lending the exotic touch of depravity to Derek's existene; the hard working secretary who falls in love with Katherine.

The story opens - 'It was close on midnight when a man crossed the Place de la Concorde', and you know it is a mystery novel, out and out. The late night clandestine sale of - something small but highly expensive, which goons are after. But it might have started anywhere - any place in the first few chapters could have done for a beginning. It could have started with the dancer Mirelle upbraiding Derek for his pusillanimity in obtaining money or divorce from his wife. It could have started with Ruth Kettering reading love letters from her highly inappropriate paramour, or her father remonstrating with her for doing so. It could have started with Katherine Grey in the lawyer's chambers, learning of the extent of the inheritance she has just come into. Or in the Blue train, Ruth Kettering talking to Katherine Grey - "I am in trouble and don't know what to do." Or even from the sentence Katherine thinks to herself at the end of this conversation - "the aftermath of confidences is embarrassment.' I wonder if I could do it - start from this sentence and rework the opening chapters while keeping the rest of the novel intact, not changing its purpose or nature. It is an interesting, and idle, speculation, but the idea itself is fascinating - that there can be a multitude of openings, given the same book. A fun idea because there are so many possibilities.

Do possibilities excite you too? New beginnings, new ideas?

Talking of new things, here is something new again - something I didn't expect to be showcasing so soon. But, what the heck, it is all the rage with my kiddo, so who am I to quarrel with destiny? Although I must admit, I have tried my best to switch back to the staple diet of our educative and fun games suitable for young 'uns, as opposed to these new and attractive snacks, some of which would classify as junk perhaps. I know I found them, and some of them are quite useful for developing logic and reasoning - yet, I am uneasy at some level, preferring that the sounds from the computer belong to cute and cuddly animals or alphabet and numerals. Read on and see what you think.



Bonte games are the creation of the Belgian games designer Bart Bonte. Some are point and click games (a term I learned after I found these; it means a game in which you look for clues in a given scenario, and find helpful objects needed to complete a task in hand, usually some sort of escape) like Bonte room or Free the bird. Others involve pure logical reasoning - something like the questions in aptitude and IQ tests. The most recent addition is a word game, a kind of variation on scrabble in that you have to make words from falling letters as quick as you can. If you have a pre-teen or a teenager, they are wonderful I think. Heck, it is easy to get addicted to them yourself (but mercifully its a short addiction). But for a kindergarten kid? And yet, would you believe it, for the last month mine has been asking for just these, in particular Loose the Moose, another of those point and click games!



The game is simple, once you get the hang of it. Though I must admit I never had the patience to work it out, and instead relied on the ubiquitous walkthroughs for all such games. (A walkthrough is a step by step solution kindly provided by some smart person for lazy ones like me!) I suppose I could justify it by the need of the hour - show something new quickly to the kid or else this meal opportunity is lost! But truly, I am lazy too! Ok, about the game - collect things from around the room, get the mouse out and get him to do your bidding so as to find the key out of the room. I made the moves the first time, but from then onwards, I am just required in an advisory role. You'd think that once or twice would have been enough, but no, kiddo here wants it all the time. I don't know whether the facination is from the mouse making screeching noises as it jumps, or the Moose head from which the game gets its name, but there you are! Its become so annoying that I have had to ban it outright!



On the other hand, I have tried to encourage Factory balls or Factory balls 2 - both of which are excellent logic games, involving the use of common sense and a bit of logic to decorate balls in a given fashion. I thought it would help in developing rational thinking. Perhaps I am wrong about that - perhaps it is too difficult for my child, hardly four, in that the moves are getting memorized rather than reasoned. But at three and a half, the answer to the conundrum about grass/goat/tiger/man with one boat and a river to cross had come in easily, so I did think that this would not be too hard... I would recommend it wholeheartedly to you though, and older kids. My only regret at the end of these games is that they are so short!



Duck - think outside the flock is the first of the Bonte games I had encountered, and saved it up because it looked so cute and was all about reasoning. To begin with, you are encouraged to click on the ducks to figure out what they may be required to do and it is very simple. Simple enough for pre-schoolers with a hand on the mouse. The higher levels get progressively difficult, and I am invariably called in after a while. But while it lasts, it is fun, and I am hoping that with time, more levels will be within the grasp of that mind.



I am not, purposely, featuring all the games on this site - that is for you to explore if you find it interesting. So Doggnation, which involves planning out sequences in advance, and some quick (but not too fast) mouse flicks, is a wonderful end to this post. It is a game for teens, or pre-teens at the earliest - I had to play it all by myself just to show the built up castle at the end - but wow, it is fun! There are dogs standing, with some building blocks. And there are dogs moving through whose job is to take the blocks according to the order mentioned at each level. Sometimes they can take one, other time, more; there are no limits to retrials, and at the end you have the satisfaction of having successfully sorted out the kind of puzzles you thought left behind with grade school. Unless you are a computer geek of course, in which case it is right down your alley :)

Be sure to remember that not being a kiddie site, there are ads all over, and you have to supervise to prevent the wrong clicks. Also, as Mr. Bonte also shows, blog fashion, the latest games he has found over the web, sometimes you can find yourself in alien lands which had looked promising but are way over the head for your pre-schooler. Bookmark the site, for there are surely going to be new additions from time to time.

The urls -
Bonte games - http://www.bontegames.com/
Factory balls 2 -http://www.bartbonte.com/factoryballs2
Duck - think outside the flock - http://www.bartbonte.com/duck
Doggnation - http://www.doggnation.com/
Loose the Moose - http://home.scarlet.be/~bbonte/loosethemoose.html

P.S. The aftermath of confidences is embarrassment. I wonder. It is true that sometimes the very atmosphere of confidential exchanges makes you share stuff you wouldn't otherwise, and then follows the inevitable self questioning - how much did I reveal? What did I make myself look like? Should I have said this or that about another person? And you might then want to hide, to wish away this person you opened up to. But isn't it also true that you might, after being confidential, discover a friend, a deeper respect than ever before?

An award neglected. A Sprout** and some.

This one is for Rhymes and More, in lieu of the award she so generously awarded me, and which I find myself unable to pass on, because -

Just because.

Just one word to cover too many. Internet connection down. Phone company strikes. Maids who don't come on time. Cooks who leave. Summer which is too hot. Child who falls sick often and then some. Simple words like papa ill. Difficult words like cancer of the brain; emergency surgery; radiotherapy and chemotherapy; a median life span of 14 months after full treatment. And then, school restarting, homework and projects.

In the middle of everything, there hasn't been any time for myself. Occasionally reading up my favourites, but writing? When no one ever reads me anyway? What difference does it make?

But. Someone somewhere thought this worth reading. Someone liked this enough to pass on an award, to let others know - and that is what I write for, after all, for letting others know. Unlike the other kiddie blogs I read, mine is not current: this is no voyage of discovery I am charting in real time. This is a treasure chest I want to share, stuff I have found and saved, for what else can I do with it? So, thanks R&M, for bringing me back to life.

So, in keeping up with that mood, here is today's game all about restoration of life, about germination and propagation - Sprout. Created by Jeff Nusz, a flash and web programmer, this is a pretty simple game calling for some persistence, some logic and knowledge, and some intuition. It is not really a kiddie game, designed or featured on a kid website, but nowadays it is 'in' at our house, so I have no choice but to include it here :)



The game features a single bean shaped seed which has to travel from an island on the sea to an oak grove, across varying landscapes including hills, a village, a desert and a mountain. How does it travel? Simple. It converses with various other plants it meets on the way, and imbibes their character, magically transforming into a coconut, a dandelion or an apple (and others), as per the need of the hour. Your task is to choose the right plant or tree for the seed to sprout into, so as to get it to its destination.



Those of you who are familiar with the world of gaming will no doubt find the technique rather old, but to me, so far only surviving on the kind of kiddie games meant for pre-schoolers, it was almost a revelation. The landscapes are beautiful, pastel or crayon like, the animation simple and elegant, the music and background score very appropriate and soothing, and the idea great fun! My only complaint is that it is too short, and perhaps a little short of educational content - which is unfair considering that it wasn't meant to teach! But I still used it to convey the differences in plants, shrubs, vines and trees, and to talk of the various ways of propagating seeds :)

Jeff Nusz has a website called Custom-logic, which led me to the following cool links as well - all designed by him -

Cloth simulation: a piece of cloth, whose size and other parameters you can change, billows in the wind. You can anchor its points if you wish, and it behaves pretty realistically. A very simple illustration actually - not a game, but I am thinking it shall come in fairly handy in physics lessons sometime in the future. And it took up some minutes to explore anyway, which is all I needed to get the dal in :)



Rigid body simulation, complete with gravity and bounce and damping - another useful little tool or distraction.



And the Kaleidoscopic reef, in which you get the chance to rebuild a destroyed reef from scratch, with the help of some eco-savvy fishes of course. This game, however colourful, was still too difficult for a pre-schooler, and I have not the patience to sit and play all levels, just in order to demonstrate how it works... So, reluctanctly I have shelved it, and not explored further regarding its possible usage in an ecology lessson about pollution and oil spills and the like.



There are also other games listed, of which I found the Webworm game promising, but I couldn't find the actual link either at the website or the site of New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, whose campaign to combat the GypsyMoth this had been a part of. The others are not suitable for the very young, or even the young ones but teens no doubt will like to fight zombies and explore imaginary wonder lands with Anika.

Be warned that although the links I have given for individual games are ok for kids, the sites themselves are not designed to be kid friendly and parental supervision is required at all times to prevent the wrong ads or links from being clicked.

The urls -

Sprout - http://casualgameplay.com/cgdc2/?puzzleID=8
Custom-logic - http://www.custom-logic.com/
Cloth simulation - http://www.custom-logic.com/exp/cloth/cloth.html
Rigid body simulation - http://www.custom-logic.com/exp/rigidbody/rigidbody.html
Kaleidoscopic reef - http://www.kaleidoscopereef.com

P.S. Here is a little poem I liked from Nathalie, at 'Word of the day!' She posts a new word each day, and with it, a little rhyme or some phrase or sentence to illustrate its meaning. Such a lovely way to meet new words. (It could be argued of course that I am just footling, reading blogs, but it is still fun!)

Twitter faces, Twitter faces
Why do you footle so?
My prose can’t be that fascinating
Why can’t you just let go?

Should I declare myself charmed
By the attention, the following
When I truly suspect other motives
Behind your cloned proffered fascination?

Twitter faces, Twitter faces
Why do you footle so?
My prose can’t be that fascinating
Why can’t you just let go?

I think I’d better let you know:
While I am sure you could be human
Maybe, perhaps, and not really a spambot
Don’t ever expect me to follow.

Twitter faces, Twitter faces
Why do you footle so?
My prose can’t be that fascinating
Why can’t you just let go?

And now, adios! See you soon I hope.

Odds, ends and Hulala girls**

They are drilling holes in kitchen walls for the piped natural gas connections we had applied for aeons ago it seems. Three of them. Men, not gas connections. One to actually hold the power drill, another to stand besides him and twiddle his thumbs, and a third to stand in the balcony and shout to a fourth (also a fifth?) for a tape measure. Red brick dust is all over the kitchen, and it is taken for granted that I will be the one cleaning up. And I still have to make lunch. Oh well, as long as their drill doesn't blow a fuse and leave me computer-less, I shall scribble.

Here, in no particular order, are various promises I made to myself or others.

Papertigers blog is running a cute project called 'Around the world in 100 bookshelves', in which they feature kid bookshelves - ours is here. Check out the others following the tag at the bottom of the post. Isn't this a fun idea? I would love to see yours too: write to Corinne with a photo and a few lines about the bookshelf to get featured. 'By submitting a photo you will be automatically entered in a drawing to win a selection of 5 age-appropriate books to add to your little one’s bookshelf! First winner will be announced on May 15, and drawings will happen every other month, on the 15th, from then on.' Come on, go take a photo!

Behold our sock monkey! I had two pairs of those flesh toned toe-socks so essential for Delhi winters, particularly if you want happy feet and prefer chappals to anything else. Both pairs were torn in more or less the same place, and so useless for any other purpose - that, and Vivianne Schwarz resulted in the creation of this monkey -

Notice the funny face, so unlike a real sock monkey? That is where I improvised in view of the impoverished condition of my socks. And the clothes came about because of the colour of the socks too - the first time I ever stitched something like a garment I think.

There, the hole is made, and two have slunk out of the house. I think I will send the third one packing too. It is somewhat annoying to have him carrying on conversations with his mates from my balcony, wiping his dusty hands on my clean clothes if you please. But they still have to come back and put the pipes in. Wonder how long will that take, and could I start lunch in the meantime? Surely they will turn up the minute I start; sigh.

Do you know about the Melanie Stokes Mothers Act? If you are American, you may know about it already. But in case you don't, it is time you did. Check out this blog - Postpartum progress. In addition to the act, it is a great informative blog for all new mums. And dads.

It is now the next day, and the gas pipe people are back again, indignant and annoyed that I dared ask them - again - how long it will take. They had turned up about three hours later yesterday, with a mass of heavy pipes, just at the time we were getting ready for the afternoon nap, and claimed that it would take merely an hour. Claimed, mind you, who knows how long they might have taken, or will take today. So, that is the update for now.

I was tentatively exploring Hulala Girls yesterday, a site which says (in a cute girly voice) - 'girls, gaming for a green planet!' and I think we'll stick to it. It is a site new for us too, although it has been bookmarked for a while. I see the reason why of course - it requires registration, which is very well for tweens or teens perhaps, but it has been enough of a deterrent for us, with the impatience of the very young with a delay getting the games started once you've opened a site, and my own reluctance to remember yet another password. So I spent an hour or so getting things sorted out on that front, and am ready to explore today. Here goes -



Hulala girls are a creation of Christy Hui, who I suppose also owns or runs Kokomo O'global which owns the copyright here. And what exactly are they? They are three surfers with super powers, on the imaginary island of Cowlanai, with witch doctors, an amazingly young looking granny and the mandatory ululele playing uncle Billy, some mermaids, a monkey and a turtle for company among others. I am not sure if this online community, with avatars to dress up and interact etc. etc. was the first, or whether the plush dolls or videos came first, but they are interconnected, and aimed at girls in the 6-12 years bracket. If you hover on the home page, you'll find various links in the image, some of which do not appear on the menu bar at the top (friends bay for example, but it is still under construction, as it were). When you do follow a link, be warned that there is no way to just go back - it is flash based, and will load each time you click on home. At any rate, the games, which you can access only after logging on, are here -



The first two - modelicious and mermaidtastic, are dressing up games with only a slight difference in the er, doll. Cute in their own way, and while nothing exceptional, I don't suppose it is positively harmful either. Or is it? How different is a little girl dressing up a doll, or herself, in mom's finery from one doing it online?



The third game on this theme - dress up game, is more interesting. Five seconds to memorize a doll, which means hair, eye colour, and a two piece dress, and then choose the correct fit from the options given. If you are not paying attention, it does get difficult, and it is a variation from the usual memory match up games anyway.



Hulala rip it and coconut slalom are two games related to surfing, both involving use of the arrow keys for manouevring a character as it moves through the waves.



Banana boat is similar but also involves four of the number keys, to hand over items to characters on the shore -



Camp captain is the recycling game - click on a piece of trash to make a girl move to it, click again to choose which bag to put it in. Having seen a couple of these already - for example the great one at UpToTen, I found it slightly unhelpful for those who are not aware of the colour coding, because the labeling is too small to be helpful, if at all it is meant for that purpose. Still, it is good, and it will, like the other games, earn you 'shell points'.



The moosic studio is for the little ones: click to make an instrument sing. Some information about each instrument at the bottom of the page would have helped give it a distinct identity. As it is, Peep still wins in this category. Or the new ABC, or even the old one - there are quite a few games of this sort. But the one game here which I haven't found anywhere else so far is the Wiggle station. Now here is something truly original in concept - even though it is the same maze with hazards. Wiggle station is a compost pile, and the poor little worm has to survive and grow by eating the right foods and avoiding the bad ones, and so on. Each time you win or lose, there is a bit of info about composting. And the worm inching this way and that is really charming. I have had to play this one for my little one, just because it was such a hit! Wish there was a simpler just maze version also for the younger kids who are not dexterous enough to play this...



In addition, there are videos, a few downloads of wallpaper and the like, a toy shop, a board for discussions, and of course, place to dress up your avatar. My opinion of this site is somewhat hypothetical, since I have not yet reached that stage where it will be useful - but I found it slightly wearying to see another of these bikini clad dolls with super large round heads and eyes... The games were well crafted, and there are no ads. Take a look and decide.

The url - https://hulalagirls.com/

P.S. The pipes were duly installed in an hour or so - truly a miracle. And now we just have to get rid of the paint splatters, and get the electrical point moved because of the gas pipes' proximity to it. More work, darn.

P.P.S. Here is another forwarded email which made me laugh. (Especially the very last bit, now so much in vogue.)

"Keeping up with the Joneses" -

After digging to a depth of 100 meters last year, Russian scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1000 years, and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network one thousand years ago.

So, not to be outdone, in the weeks that followed, American scientists dug 200 meters and the headlines in the US papers read: 'US scientists have found traces of 2000 year old optical fibers, and have concluded that their ancestors already had advanced high-tech digital telephone 1000 years earlier than the Russians.'

One week later, Indian daily newspapers reported the following: 'After digging as deep as 500 meters, Indian scientists have found absolutely nothing. They have concluded that 5000 years ago, their ancestors were already using Bluetooth and Wireless technology.'

"JAI HO"

P.P.P.S. If you see some funny colour combinations just above, its not me, its blogger.

Tears and Spirographs

.
From Amy Tan's 'The Joy Luck Club' -

"An-Mei," she whispered, "have you seen the little turtle that lives in the pond?" I nodded. This was a pond in our courtyard and I often poled a stick in the still water to make the turtle swim out from underneath the rocks.

"I also knew that turtle when I was a small child," said my mother. "I used to sit by the pond and watch him swimming to the surface, biting the air with his little beak. He is a very old turtle."

I could see that turtle in my mind and I knew my mother was seeing the same one.

"This turtle feeds on our thoughts," said my mother. "I learned this one day, when I was your age, and Popo said I could no longer be a child. She said I could not shout, or sun, or sit on the ground to catch crickets. I could not cry if I was disappointed. I had to be silent and listen to my elders. And if I did not do this, Popo said she would cut off my hair and send me to a place where Buddhist nuns lived.

"That night, after Popo told me this, I sat by the pond, looking into the water. And because I was weak, I began to cry. Then I saw this turtle swimming to the top and his beak was eating my tears as soon as they touched the water. He ate them quickly, five, six, seven tears, then climbed out of the pond, crawled onto a smooth rock and began to speak.

"The turtle said, 'I have eaten your tears, and this is why I know your misery. But I must warn you. If you cry, your life will always be sad.'

"Then the turtle opened his beak and out poured five, six, seven pearly eggs. The eggs broke open and from them emerged seven birds, who immediately began to chatter and sing. I knew from their snow-white bellies and pretty voices that they were magpies, birds of joy. These birds bent their beaks to the pond and began to drink greedily. And when I reached out my hand to capture one, they all rose up, beat their black wings in my face, and flew up into the air, laughing.

"Now you see,' said the turtle, drifting back into the pond, 'why it is useless to cry. Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else's joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.' "

Is that true? Is it true that tears don't wash away our sorrows? What of the days you are so tired, your body speaks in the language of tears without enough reason? And when you have put everything you have in the making of a relationship or a pudding, which still goes sour? Those tears of frustration, and anger, don't they help bring healing? And I remember those grieving tears, for death, for the loss and acceptance of that void. Tears which don't ever fill that empty space but allow you to move on.

But there are tears of hopelessness as well, of impotence in the face of life's vicissitudes, or failure and dejection, of humiliation and rejection. And pain. Pain of third degree burns, of broken bones, of compressed nerves, of cramps which don't stop. Pain of the burnt heart, of broken spirit, of soul squeezed too tight into little jails. What of these? Who do you share these with? And when you do, who amongst the handful of names you have clutched so tightly in your fist will not be a magpie, feasting, feeding, gorging?

But enough of this. Move on now to Spirographs (is that patented, do you know?), those little wheels with holes within wheel with big hole. In the days of yore, when my childhood was long past, but I still roamed free this earth, unencumbered by thoughts of impending extinction akin to the Ankylosauraus, I used to see these with roadside vendors and be tempted to buy them. It seemed like a chidish thing to do, twiddling with colours and circles, so I didn't. Now I think I should have; at least I should like to play again, just fiddle with shapes and colours and the possibilities, and who know what might result? And so, one day, I googled for online spirographs, and here are a few that I saved for you to play too -

Lynn's spirograph is an applet which will allow you to 'use multiple pens and colors at once. If you stop the drawing you can restart it with or without clearing it. You can change the pen colors or select a new disk when the drawing is stopped. Note that when you change disks or click the one (in the disk selection pane) that was being used in the drawing, it will rotate to match the one in the drawing.' Simple and fun, most like what we have seen as children.



The spirograph at Thinks.com has more controls, viz the radii of the two circles and their offset, a complete colour choice, light or dark background, whether a continuous line or not, and what is called revolutions, meaning I suppose the number of revolutions because the line gets thicker when I choose 500... And oh, I almost forgot to tell you that the drawings are more or less instanteous, so the fun is in choosing the numbers :)



David Little's spirograph was the one most liked at our place. It pops out in a new square window, looking more like a game I suppose. But more fun was the finding of new shapes by positioning the smaller circle outside the bigger one. In addition to the control over circle radii and offset, there is also the speed and resolution of rendition, which makes it easy to show the exact path being taken. The page has basic math explanation behind the game, so it is a must read for parents who want to at least know what their kids know...



And over at AFLAX, the java library for Adobe Flash platform, I found this cute little one, attributed to Jim Bumgardner -



The size of the inner disc and its pen hole position is all that you can change, and the thickness of the pen. It keeps moving by itself in rainbow colours, its tail end fading while the leading point moves on...

And finally, there is this spirograph by numbers, which only provides an image after you punch in the required numbers; must for budding mathematicians, but kind of wasted on the young 'uns, and their rushed parents :)

Here are the urls -

Lynn's applet - http://perl.guru.org/lynn/apps/index.html

Spiro online Thinks.com - http://thinks.com/java/spiro/spiro.htm

David Little (maths deptt. Penn State Univ.) - http://www.math.psu.edu/dlittle/java/parametricequations/spirograph/index.html

AFLAX library - http://www.aflax.org/examples/spirograph/spirograph.html

Spirograph by numbers - http://michelle.esfm.ipn.mx/~mrspock/spiro2/

Edit 16th June 2009 - just found another of these flash toys at Chew on glass (http://www.chewonglass.com/games/Wheels) The example below has three wheels, but if you need use only two for the classic spirograph pics. Even if the maths is a bit different, which, being totally sleepy right now, am not even going to figure out :)



Note : Unlike other games, I have not, this time, looked into the backgrounds of each page, so if you wish you may explore further, or not :)

P.S. This post has been nearly a week in the making. For the first few days, unfortunately I alone shall have to take the blame, but for these last three - I am happy to announce a guilty albeit totally unconscious partner: Vivianne Schwarz, author, illustrator and maker of sock monkeys, whose blog has kept me occupied whenever I have had a few moments to spare... Here is a gem I am copying from her 22nd November 2008 post. In entirety. I rather think it may become a chorus line over here, at my blog, where apparently I am doing time lapse bloggography (another little gem I have picked from elsewhere, but more on that some other time. Thanks Pete! And a thousand apologies for calling you Mike earlier.)

La de da doo dum dee da da da... da deee... dum da dooo... da da... don't bother holding the line, try calling back next week... doo doo...

And oh, did I mention we made a sock monkey yesterday?

Eggs over white***

After this long hiatus then, something new we have just found, via the blog of artist/illustrator Julian Hector. Eggs over white, by Meryl Erlanger, another kid book author. (Edit 9th March 2009 - her Eggs over white books, of which I have learnt a bit more since I wrote this, are illustrated by Adam Gordon.)



It is of course, a flash based site, but not too greedy for bandwidth. The long strips you see here will change into a menu when you hover over each section. This is the whole page you see here; no ads and sidebars and other such tiny print.



Choose activities, and you get this. This and all the activities are also full page, and so, more attractive to the little ones. There is a lovely selection of music, which changes with each click through, and I almost didn't want to move on for this reason! The little penguin holding the back placard will help you get back from each page. (Except the journey when it gets all muddled up and will lead to next or just a change in the music sometimes.)



Tic-tac-toe is fun as usual, with a penguin and an egg instead of the usual crosses and naughts. Check out the levels given: I liked the naming of level four!



Drawing with Dobe is standard three sized brushes, and sixteen colours - but - no eraser! And that gets annoying because starting over is not the correct option to offer a child who has just spent half an hour in one 'serious' doodle.



The memory game has no levels, but is fairly easy. The only problem is that the graphics are mostly white or light coloured on white background, and the young kids find it slightly tough to figure out what they are looking at even though the cards don't turn over very fast.

Willard's word search is a game for the older ones - around seven to ten I should say, because the letter grid has small letters in a large number. As the rest of the site seems to be geared towards a younger audience, I think a simpler level with perhaps simple words in the left to right orientation would have been pretty useful. According to the website, the penguins and walruses were inspired and partly drawn by Julian Hector, but whether they are part of a book or a tv series or something else altogether, I don't know at all. The 'webisodes' included are patchy, as if including every third page or so of a book, but don't tell me more. There is something called the journey too, but that too is non-informative unless you know what it is all about. The introduction to the characters is okay, but doesn't really help, unless ditto. So, if you know what I am blabbering about, please do inform me!

My opinion - good as far as it goes, but can be made better. But I sure wonder what it is all about!

The url - http://www.eggsoverwhite.com/

P.S. I don't forward emails and smses usually, unless it is something really fancy, on the grounds that something going round would likely have reached my friends before I send it anyway, but sometimes I am compelled to do so. Here is one sms I received lately which I must share with you -

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Aise kya dekh rahen hai? Aapke liye garam garam jalebiyan bheji hain! Aaj ka meetha meri taraf se!

(What are you gazing at? I have sent hot jalebis for you! Today's dessert is on me!

P.P.S. Never before have I had to add something about a site so soon after posting it! After I sent a message to the author using their contact form, the site informed me that I could visit more games at Wild and Happy, which it turns out, is the main site for Meryl Erlanger, featuring other characters from her books. Darn, I missed all these! On the other hand, more to showcase some other time!

Blah-rah and GameGoo***

Ok, peeves for today - mouse which gets stuck from time to time, Photoshop which crashes, impending no-maid weeks, my crankiness, lack of time for anything. To counter: sunshine, light breeze, one more holiday tomorrow, child at home, opportunities for sharing, books ready. One would think these are enough, but no, I am cranky and need to sleeeeeeeeeeeep, and won't, because equally I need to day-dream, think, imagine, read, be stimulated, create, feed inner hunger. And sleep. Still sleep wins, is the best antidote to crankiness, and still I ignore it. Sometimes I remember that robot from this movie - must be 10-20 years old, which I saw drifting around on HBO maybe 7 years back - the one that super-flipped through huge phone books, chanting 'Input, input, input' all the while. I feel that hunger: constant, gnawing, never satiated...

In accordance with the wishes of the mouse that sticks, I was going to feature a one game site, but then I found this, and didn't remember what it was, and clicked it, and - how can I not share it now? It has been ages since we played these, so hopefully I myself will remember to click through on this next meal time :) Game goo is an educational game site with the catch phrase 'learning that sticks' created by Earobics, which I think is a part of Houghton Miffin Harcourt. They make educational software, so this would be just a showcase for them, hence the lack of adverts or other distractions.



The index page and all the games are on a deep purple background, which I might not have chosen myself, but it works! The home page is laid out according to level, which is pretty useful. But if your kid is anything like mine, there need to be at least three times these many for each level! Hover over each game to hear a funny little sound, and to read a mini description at the top of the game board. (If you want a detailed description of the game and the level, try the 'description' or the 'educational standard' page.)



The beginner level has five games. You can try to arrange the bears in right alphabetical order, which reinforces both the correct order as well as the pronunciation. Or you could connect lost baby kangaroos with their parents by choosing the correct lower case - upper case combination (kangaroo confusion).



You could follow Teena's directions to collect bugs - simple directions like 'check under the bridge and behind the trees'. Or you could play Teena's make believe or real game, which asks children to differentiate between two scenarios, only one of which is real.



Sassy seals will feed and collect the fish whose spoken word starts with the same letter as the word said aloud by papa seal.



Of the middle level games, two are nearly the same, both involving clicking on the components of the given component - space trash and letter bugs. The words are not always very clear to our Indian ears, and the letters fly too fast for someone just learning. Which is probably why it is not the beginner level :) Monkey business is even more complicated, involving laying down the various parts of sentences in correct order.

We haven't tried the advanced levels at all, giving up at this point! But, there is also the fun goo page (from the right lower corner link). It has links to game previews (games coming soon), screen savers and wallpapers. Colouring goo has printables, so no good for us :( Goo tunes has tiny little tunes that play when you click and drag a coin on the left to the 'tune' machine. Not a very fulfilling game as the tunes are neither child friendly simple ones, nor complete in themselves. And finally are the gooey games! There are half a dozen games I think, each opening in a separate window.



Catch a piggie is a cute little maze game, with no time limit, but the piggie keeps running away, and you have to master the trick of moving to another part of the maze to find him. Interesting idea for children to grasp.



Some of the other games are creative but not so cute - create a Frankenstein for example, but they will do fine. There is even a musical game. Compose a goo has seven of these - goos - in a row, and according to the goo face you click in the top row, they will either sing proper notes (do-re-mi) or something really silly, using which you can record and playback your composition. You can't change the kind of notes midway though - not from do-re-mi to ah-oh-ouch for example.

Overall, a site I would recommend especially to teachers! And oh, although this too is flash, it doesn't take any time to load at all!

The url - http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/gooeylo.html

P.S. I think sleep is vastly underrated as a healing tool. Witness poor Beetle -

Questions! And Crickweb****

How much difference a little child's minor illness can make to an entire family's daily life, even if it is just a bit of viral cold! All schedules disrupted, planned activities abandoned, 'me' time gone, blog posts missed... Let us therefore move back to track, with apologies assumed to be stated and accepted, shall we?

When I started this blog, I had expected that as I cataloged and classified my site collection, I would be using them more efficiently and frequently. But I find that the reverse is true. Our computer time has gone down; many meal times are accompanied by movie cds or books, and definitely the sites I showcase are not being utilized to the full. It may be coincidental, or it may be due to the fact that I invariably have other tabs open to 'follow' other blogs, and so wish to avoid heavy flash usage which might crash the laptop. But there has to be some other more satisfactory explanation. What do you think?

In keeping with this theme of underutilization, therefore I am today talking about a site which we have probably never opened a second time after its discovery. Crickweb is a lovely site developed by V2V Training Ltd. of UK, a joint venture of Dan and David Bunker. A tip right in the beginning - if you are using IE 7, you may have some trouble with their pages: check out the FAQ section for advice. Also the ads on the left are pretty prominent, and can't be left alone with children even though they seem to be content appropriate :)

Crickweb was designed to be an educational aid for teachers and parents in UK, and has interactive activities for foundation stage, key stages 1 and 2 according to the British system, covering "Maths, English, Science, History, Geography, R.E., D.T., I.C.T, French and Spanish." The one area I have explored is early years (screenshot above), which is for primary school kids. The index page gives a brief description as well as instructions to play. Clicking on the thumbnail or name causes the game to open in a new tab/window.

The game window size is satisfactorily large, but the height could be reduced just a wee bit to avoid having to scroll up and down on a smaller screen (mine is 17 inch - I think! Too late at night to go measuring it up now!). The games are well conceived, so even if the cartoon quality is not quite Antzy, or even Tom and Jerryish, they are still capable of holding your child's attention. Some games, such as counting the number of balloons (shown here), are fairly simple, while others, like the number game below this one, which is about matching the number names to numerals, are for slightly older children.





Some games are self correcting. For instance, a correct answer is highlighted in green above. Others are open ended, such as the simple weighing game below -

There are, of course, other games, and even some of the older group activities can be used for young ones with due modifications. But that is for you to personalize. As a teaching resource, it is a truly excellent site.

There are also some games which are not educational in content - click on the games section in the top menu for more fun games like this parachuting baby below :) As it involves simple mouse movement, it is excellent for toddlers just beginning to handle the mouse. The tiny little cough when clouds get in the way is too cute for kids to want to avoid though!



Normally I skip mentioning the links pages, because dedicated site surfers would find it themselves anyway, and for the others, it is simply too much information. But you must take a look at the link section here, for there are games with thumbnails, same as the rest of the site, so it is so easy to decide on which link to click. Some of these linked sites we have already covered (BBC, Uptoten, Spot) while others will be covered in due course of time. In the meantime, explore and have fun!

The url - http://www.crickweb.co.uk/

P.S. I have been wondering about who said that it was easy to love the world - it was your neighbour that was the problem? Why should it be so? Why are our souls moved by adversity at a distance, but when it is the neighbour, the colleague, the relative, the employee, there are sundry other considerations which prevent us from being as compassionate as we may be? Why do we judge those near us; judge and are judged, for why else would we blog away about our deepest feelings, yet shirk from using our real names lest those we know read it?

I know no answers yet, nor have I given sufficient thought to tease and analyze this, so I leave you with two links to the reason why I asked them instead - Nino's mum at The Nino Effect talking of the the sisterhood of the traveling word, and Mercedes at Desert Candy talking about her mom's recently diagnosed brain cancer. I wish I could talk about these posts, but I can't. You will just have to read them yourself.

P.P.S. Thanks to Desert Candy, I now know how to put up an index of all sites covered - in another blog of course! Someday soon, I will do it!