Be whatever you want to be and Antbee*

Of all the inspiring posts I have been reading lately, barely registering their meaning in the rush between one sleepy blink and another, this is not what I would have chosen to respond to. Of all the wonderful posts by Swistle, some thought provoking, some inspiring, some entertaining, this is not what I would have chosen to write about. Yet, here I am, trying to sort out my thoughts, trying not to make a mess of things by making a short comment which will be - well, a mess.

Basically (if you haven't yet been to read the post after all the links I gave you), Swistle takes exception to the ever optimistic tone of children's tv programs, which promise -

1. You can be anything.
2. You should always be yourself.
3. If you are unsuccessful, unhappy, or unliked, it is because you're not believing in yourself and/or being yourself.

Now, I haven't watched these programs, I don't have as much child rearing experience as Swistle does, and I do not share the same background as her. Yet, I do see what she is getting at; probably you do too if you have read her post (and also at least some of hers before, to get an idea of the kind of person she is). It is an unrealistic and oversimplified picture of the real world; there are disappointments in real life, and it is not always possible to be what you want to be.

But I also, very easily, see the other side of the picture. All of us need inspiration; at the times when all seems dark, it surely helps to know that light is possible, and that it can be within our reach if we try. As new as children are, very early they learn to limit themselves by what they have been told, what they see, what they are taught. So they also have to be told about the endless possibilities in this world. When Nadia dazzled the world with her perfect tens, I was but a child, in a place where there were no gyms, no gymnastics. I still dreamed that I could be like her one day. That I am instead just an overweight sedentary lazy book reader does not in any way take away from the beauty of the dream, nor its possibility. Had I tried to find a teacher, had my dream been less of a daydream to while away time, and more of a burning passion, I could have been at least a fitter person today even if I did not win Olympic golds!

I did have a passion though, something which didn't materialize, and which I ultimately folded and kept away in the attic of the past. Many reasons led to that point in time when I gave up that dream; some were solely my responsibility, others were beyond my control. Does that mean I should not have believed in that dream, shouldn't have followed it to a point where it was all my life? That I should have been told, very early on, that it was not possible for 98% of people to become what I wanted to be? Of course not. Throughout our lives we make choices, choosing at each crossroads the best we can, given our circumstances and level of knowing at that point. Some of mine were wrong, and I could yet have reached the happy isles, if I had known about them - then. But this knowledge, this knowing of self, I have only achieved through traveling the one way road we call life. There is no going back, no backspacing and re-writing. If I were living again, I would likely be making the same mistakes, taking the same road, without the benefit of this retrospective analysis. But, truly, who knows? It may be so, or not. But if I had started out being told, and repeatedly, that the chances of success were low indeed, that would have set me up for failure, and not only that, but for blaming everyone else except myself for so failing. Don't get me wrong - even blaming self is not quite the right attitude: blame is the guilty word here. But, at least, when I have tried and failed, I can take pride in knowing that I did my best, thinking that it was possible. Believing I was setting up to fail, I might not have tried so hard, shrugged the failure away as 'chances were poor anyway', absolved myself, learnt no lessons.

Yes, I am able to see that it is entirely possible to enter an arena knowing your odds, fight against them and win - simply because you care enough to defeat those odds. Or that it is possible, even recommended, to start a business venture with realistic expectations, expecting to fail, to lose money and time, and so win through to the end, to succeed. Yes, it is true of me as well - I can handle the chances and still put in my best. But that is now. Not when I was a child, nor even a young adult. Children need hope, encouragement, endless possibility; they need dreams.

And also, they need reality checks, need to be shown the road ahead, complete with thorns and potholes. That too is our job, as parents and teachers.

But television? It is not really a job for tv programs, (watched by thousands of children, each different from the other), is it? Would you really like your child to be told that it is not possible to be anything you want to be, that it is better to be a hypocrite, that lies serve, after all, better than the truth? There are two parts to it: about being told that you can be anything you want,



...save a komodo dragon, and that it is best to be true to yourself. I am not sure about the first part, but about the latter, I know that some parents would actually like that. The kind of parents who teach their children to bully, to cheat and lie, to bribe and be corrupt - because in their words, 'it is a cut-throat world, so get ahead however you can'. I am afraid I have no empathy with them, none at all. Not as parents, but as people.

But I am afraid I digress. The programs we see on tv are like books we read - we have a choice in the matter regarding what we choose. Unlike books, however, tv is more pervasive and has far fewer choices. I do agree that programming should be responsible, avoid stereotypes, encourage without being overly simplistic. Yet, given a choice between a program which encourages my children to dream of becoming whatever they want to be, and one which cautions to the contrary, I know I would choose the former.

After all, I am there to teach the rest of it.

"Let the truth of Jack and the Beanstalk enter her mind
Equally true with the location of the post office
Because a beanstalk whereon a washerwoman's son
May climb above the clouds,
Is so impossible, it will train her soul
For the great impossibilities..."

Carl Sandburg, in "Prayer for the child Margaret who is six"

And because it has been some time now since we have had stories here, today we have AntBee, a small site owned by AntBee, Inc. of USA. As far as I can make out, the site is still in the process of being 'finished', but I can't be sure how long this has been going one, for I don't think I have seen many changes in the past six months or more since I bookmarked it. Of course, we would have visited it maybe once or twice in this duration, so take my impressions with a grain of salt please!



The site layout is simple with no ads except one tiny one, maybe. The written material occupies only the left part of your screen, roughly as a square. Home is where you are, and more stories is the only other link except for parent's corner.



The stories are in the form of simple illustrations with one or two sentences to accompany each, with no multi-media content or flash animation, which makes it easy for dial ups. The page numbers are listed on the right, which is what you use to move to the next one. There is a 'what do you think' page too, which you can use if you wish.



There are nine stories in all, but they are not all visible on the 'more stories' page. Rather, you will have to click the drop down menu there to find them. As far as stories go, they are ok I think, but then literature is always such a subjective matter that I daren't comment more. Plus, I can never resist a story, no matter what!

The parent's corner has their privacy policy, and contact information, and a some links, of which quite a few are broken. There is also a survey which you could fill and help them in making the site something you'd like.

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

P.S. Sour grapes? Or living the real life?

Wow, that is pretty!
It is a purse.
A purse? Really?
Wish I had it! How much is it?
Whoa! Guess, for a work of art that is an ok price, but I sure wish I could make it myself.
*
*
*
Wonder if it is washable though. Those little crinkles will gather dust like anything...

Purses and other everyday art objects made from polymer clay at artist Kathleen Dustin's site.

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!

The Over Coffee idea fairy

About a week back, I read 'Coloring a Pencil Drawing in Painter X', at Over Coffee, Barb Hartsook's blog. Two questions, or rather one question and one statement, almost off handedly made, caught my heart. This post is about them.

I carried my pencils and large drawing pad into the newly-formed “Sketching Sessions” class five minutes late and was told to sit anywhere and draw something.... Big arm movements, he instructed. Hand and arm off the table, he said.... I ended up standing most of the two hours. (Have you ever tried to draw big arm movements sitting down?)

Have you? Are you an artist, or perhaps aspiring to be one? Or maybe you have nothing to do with art whatsoever, but like to look at it? Or, even, mayhaps you don't like to look at 'ART'? Nevertheless, I still challenge you to pin up a paper, a large paper on the wall and draw, moving with your arms, not fingers. The very idea of it frightens me, for I know how circumscribed my doodles are: on tiny little margins, squeezed against phone numbers and sundry information on notepads. Whatever drawing I did was basic school grade, and I do mean basic, and although I have dabbled in photo-art since, it is not the same. If I was given a piece of canvas, and the sudden unconstrained ability to draw, I would still be making small sketches, finely detailed but - restricted. The idea of drawing from my shoulder rather than the wrist seems uplifting and freeing, utterly fascinating, and frightful, like the prospect of vast skies may seem to the caged budgie. But that is what art is about - about letting our restrictions go, about freeing ourselves from the boundaries we have created. But do you know the most terrible thing about these boundaries? When they are left unchallenged, they shrink with age, constrict us even more. Even a decade ago, perhaps, given a large paper, I would have had grander visions than I do now. On the rare occassions I have set up a proper painting session for my little one, I have been surprised at the free shoulder movements, the easy mid-brush grip like of a painter, the strength of the brush marks. And when I try? Trite little landscape scenes, or maybe faces, or cartoonish illustrations. Till I read this post of Barb's, I was at a loss to explain, even recognize my own caging, but that one little question at once showed me what was happening here, and the solution. It is as simple as a paper on the wall....

Part II

Thanks so much for stopping by. If you’d like to comment and leave a link to your work, I’d love to see it. Or maybe you’re taking a life-learning class of some kind. Please tell us about what you’re learning.

A life -learning class! Aren't we all taking one, all the time? Such a beautiful way of thinking about the lessons we learn from our life day after day. Each exam we take strengthens us for the next; there are revisions and new lesson plans; there are rewards and promotions, even failures. It is just that it never ends, this learning. And isn't that a great thing? That it is possible to keep on learning as long as you live - and perhaps beyond? That learning doesn't have to end just because you are out of school, of college, or vocational refresher courses? That learning is not all book bound, not at all limited to what others can show you in one way or another... The class doesn't end, ever, at any time: there is no limit to the amount you can grow. You still have to work at it though...

So, what have I learnt? What is my life-learning class now?

There are so many that I hardly know where to begin. Today, this moment, stolen from my baby's sleep time, I remember the lesson I was taught yesterday, when the weight of cleaning, cooking, washing, dusting, bathing, feeding, and folding, and such tasks took me so far away from my child that there were many teary requests for hugs when I couldn't take the time for them. And so, in the evening, came the retaliation when visiting grandparents - "I want to live here! I don't want to go back!" Of course, even mummy must stay, but the point was clear. A clean house is great to look at, but a fun house is better, and a loving house the best. Point taken, little darling! And yet, I still need many revisions before I am fit for the exams...

P.S.I would like to make this a tag game, the Over Coffee tag, but because I don't have many readers, and even fewer readers who comment, and because I don't like to tag someone not knowing if they are interested or not, I would like to make it open ended. Ponder and post if you wish, or just ponder. But it would be lovely if you were to post about it further and let us know :)

P.P.S. Where do you get your ideas from? Richard Bach in his novel, One, talks of the idea fairy who makes these huge blocks in her factory, of crystal clearer than daylight, stronger than steel, its planes and angles hardly visible save for the 'sparkling fascination'. And within, ideas made visible, each connection, each ramification there for you to follow should you have the inclination.Whether or not you agree with him, or love or hate his ideology, there is no denying that this is such a lovely way of looking at ideas. I love the idea of a cute as a button, ever charming idea fairy nudging us in the supermarket checkout queue, whispering in our ears as we struggle towards consciousness in those early coffee-less hours of the morning, banging on our heads through some blog we read...

P.P.P.S. Nap time is over, and my lap is in demand. The second part of this post - the 'real' one, shall have to wait, sorry!

A real P.S. this time - do check out the beautiful painting on Barb's post: click on it to see a full size image for full viewing pleasure!

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 -

The new ABC playground*****

Drum roll please! And trumpets! And much fanfare and cheering! Am finally starting on the Australia Broadcasting Corporation playground - the new site! (The old one is featured here - ABC kids playground.) It is a huge site, with many show related features, so those you will have to explore yourself, or wait till I feature them one by one. But what is great is that someone(s) at ABC loves kids very much, so the 'playground' is especially designed for children, without reference to any of the shows. Unless of course the playground itself is a show I am unaware of? But I must admit, it is beautiful. Both the visuals and the music are quite attractive. However - and that is a bit of a downer - the site is so heavy on flash, indeed it is all flash, that it can take eons to load up, and if your net connection if faulty or gets interrupted in between, say goodbye to games here. Also, if by chance your laptop is behaving like ours and shuts down without warning whenever made to play flash based sites for longer than five minutes (with no recollection of doing so on restarting either), you'll never be able to use it. (A fact which will hopefully explain this inordinate delay!)

Starting from the ABC kids page which we don't usually use, because we jump straight to the children's playground. It has a simple layout without any cluttering. Three main links to the playground, rollercoaster (an area for older children and teens), and ABC parenting site. Three other buttons - kids tv guide, program list and Kazam, which I figure is a featured game/show which changes, but which we haven't explored further.



Click through to the playground page, and you find this -



A beautiful, colourful page with nice big pictures and bits of descriptions to help you choose. There is a bit of overlap though, eg. the games and activities button right below that treasure chest - see that? The same is also linked by the teddy bear sitting at the bottom of the page. Or the links to 'five minutes more' and 'in the night garden' in the second row as well as the third. In any case, the treasure chest is the link to the playground I spoke of earlier. Beneath that, the games and activities link will take you here -



which is a great page showing exactly what games you can expect to play with which character. As they put it, there are 'pictures to colour, party packs to make and computer goodies for you to enjoy', and you can know at a glance where you want to go. Apart from BBC (cbeebies) and Uptoten, this is the only site I have come across which has such a viewer friendly index.

If you wish to choose from the default page, you will find the third row showing all the tv shows' games, and below that the tv schedule themselves. Scroll a bit lower for the playground radio which works just dandy if you have a high bandwidth, and has a cute appearance as well as nice selection of songs to hear. See that song - 'It's starting to rain', by Justine Clark? I loved it even more than my kid!



Or you could just leave off exploring for another day and click through to the playground itself.



Now this is nearly a full window, and the graphics are well designed to be smooth, just right for viewing. The accompanying music is light and melodious. To begin with, you could try taking Ruby's tour, in which she accompanies you to various other lands, where you may play their games if you wish or continue. I suggest that you first finish the tour because there is no way to do so if you click on a game instead. When we first found this site, we chose to click on each character in turn and find out by ourselves though.



Incidentally, the graphics when loading are also very cute!



Each of the characters has three or four games, some of which are quite unique. Artie above, for instance, has this draw and dance game where whatever you draw on the canvas will dance in time to the music along with her! Which is why you see my doodle of a flower merrily dancinghanging over the sand without any canvas to support it :)

In all the games, the flag with query icon at the right lower corner will always help you with information about the game should you forget it midway. The sound icon is for switching sound on and off. The little booklet lists all the games with each of the characters, and you can change without going back to the main page at all. The only problem is that these icons, in black and white, and with a nut in their centre, aren't all that self explanatory. But the advantage is that if you use this route, it will not ask if you really want to quit the game, which it would otherwise.



I will not mention each and every game on the site: let there be some surprise awaiting you! But the games are truly designed for the pre-schoolers, easy on the finger and the mind. Here you see the 'follow the pattern' memory game, which is like most others and rewards the correct pattern with a bouncy dance. But Kurl will anyway gyrate to the music, so it is even more attractive for the little ones! And do try out their songtime for the theme music. That is addictive, that tune is!



There is music associated with many of the games here. Even Spana, when she has finished making a robot, likes to make it dance. Or at least, my tiny one does, after each robot!



And here you see Zip (the smaller figure) and Rollo on a special see-saw to catch and eat the cotton candy clouds, where you help by clicking on the right coloured button, at the right time.

The url for the first three pages, in that order - http://www.abc.net.au/abckids/, http://www.abc.net.au/children/default.htm and http://www.abc.net.au/children/playground.html

Go on, have fun!

P.S. Of all the other links not explored here, here is one that I did want to include - boardgame. It has one of the characters, Ruby, I think, as a board game pawn, which you have to move by rolling your dice. Each turn of the dice will lead to one brief game from the playground. Carry it out correctly to make the next move. However, as my firefox crashed twice when attempting to play it, I am going to just leave you with the link if you so desire - http://www.abc.net.au/children/boardgame/

A discovery and a memory

Every once in a while, some little nugget of information makes the penny drop for an Eureka moment. 'Every once in a while, some neuron finally fires in our brains and we have a huge realization.' Good old Hilary Price gets it right everytime!

Today I had one such moment of discovery.

Not being a literature major, my reading has been entirely my own, so I had not been exposed to Coleridge's Kubla Khan -

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea...

till I read Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. The entire book is based on this one poem composed in 1798, with inputs from 'The Rime of the ancient mariner' as well. If you haven't read the book, I will not spoil the mystery, but suffice it to say that it is so well meshed with the plot that I still can't read this poem without remembering that story as the true meaning. Its not a poem that is easy to understand, and I often wondered how it was that Adams took so many liberties with it, insinuating meanings where surely there were none? The lines

...Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !...

translate as description of an alien spacecraft, where each movement of life is changed to music! He also depicts Coleridge as having been drugged when he wrote this poem, something which I wasn't sure could be right. Surely anyone would realize that Adams would not have written this without making sure of his facts? Or that if there has not been any uproar about the book's factual inaccuracy, then it is not, in fact, wrong? Not me. I wondered and wondered, and still could not decipher the poem, entangled as it was with Dirk Gently in my mind. So when I read this introductory note to the poem, written by Coleridge himself, it was one Eureka moment: no wonder I couldn't understand it! He was likely under the effect of opium at that time, and the whole thing was actually 'a vision in a dream' and not some fancy way of saying something else. Duh.

I daresay this little discovery of mine means nothing to you; those among you who were in the know all the time will even find it a little - dumb to say the least. But I am still bemused by it, so do pardon my indulgence today!

P.S. I would like to end by quoting another author's reinterpretation of an earlier rhyme, which makes this post kind of long, so am splitting it in two parts again today. The section on ABC is to follow :)

Here is J R R Tolkien's version of the rhyme 'The cat and the fiddle' which I really enjoy reading ever since I first found his books. What a beautiful way to explain the nonsensical verse!

The man in the moon stayed up too late

There is an inn a merry old inn
beneath an old grey hill,
And there they brew a beer so brown
That the Man in the Moon himself came down
one night to drink his fill

The ostler has a tipsy cat
that plays a five-stringed fiddle;
And up and down he draws his bow,
Now squeaking high, now purring low,
now sawing in the middle.

The landlord keeps a little dog
that is mighty fond of jokes;
When there's good cheer among the guests,
He cocks an ear at all the jests and laughs until he chokes.

They also keep a horn-ed cow
as proud as any queen;
But music turns her head like ale,
And makes her wave her tufted tail
and dance upon the green.

And O! the rows of silver dishes
and the store of silver spoons!
For Sunday there's a special pair,
And these they polish up with care
on saturday afternoons.

The Man in the Moon was drinking deep,
and the cat began to wail;
A dish and a spoon on the table danced,
The cow in the garden madly pranced,
and the little dog chased its tail.

The Man in the Moon took another mug,
and then rolled beneath his chair;
And there he dozed and dreamed of ale,
Till in the sky the stars were pale
and dawn was in the air.

Then the ostler said to his tipsy cat:
"The white horses of the Moon,
They neigh and champ their silver bits;
But their master's been and drowned his wits,
and the sun'll be rising soon!"

So the cat on his fiddle played hey-diddle-diddle,
a jig that would wake the dead:
He squeaked and sawed and quickened the tune,
While the landlord shook the Man in the Moon
"It's after three!" he said

They rolled the man slowly up the hill
and bundled him into the moon,
While his horses galloped up in rear,
And the cow came capering like a deer,
and a dish ran up with the spoon.

Now quicker the fiddle went deedle-dum-diddle;
the dog began to roar,
The cow and the horses stood on their heads;
the guests all bounded from their beds
and danced upon the floor

With a ping and a pong the fiddle strings broke!
the cow jumped over the moon,
And the little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the Saturday dish went off at a run
With the silver Sunday spoon.

The round Moon rolled behind the hill,
as the sun raised up her head.
She hardly believed her fiery eyes;
For though it was day, to her surprise
They all went back to bed!

He also wrote another poem to explain the nursery rhyme 'The man in the moon', which I discovered just today -

Why the man in the moon came down too soon

The Man in the Moon had silver shoon
And his beard was of silver thread;
He was girt with pure gold and inaureoled
With gold about his head.
Clad in silken robe in his great white globe
He opened an ivory door
With a crystal key, and in secrecy
He stole o'er a shadowy floor;

Down a filigree stair of spidery hair
He slipped in gleaming haste,
And laughing with glee to be merry and free
He swiftly earthward raced.
He was tired of his pearls and diamond twirls;
Of his pallid minaret
Dizzy and white at its lunar height
In a world of silver set;

And adventured this peril for ruby and beryl
And emerald and sapphire,
And all lustrous gems for new diadems,
Or to blazon his pale attire.
He was lonely too with nothing to do
But to stare at the golden world,
Or to strain at the hum that would distantly come
As it gaily past him whirled;

And at plenilune in his argent moon
He had wearily longed for Fire-
Not the limpid lights of wan selenites,
But a red terrestrial pyre
With impurpurate glows of crimson and rose
And leaping orange tongue;
For great seas of blues and the passionate hues
When a dancing dawn is young;

For the meadowy ways like chrysophrase
By winding Yare and Nen.
How he longed for the mirth of the populous Earth
And the sanguine blood of men;
And coveted song and laughter long
And viands hot and wine,
Eating pearly cakes of light snowflakes
And drinking thin moonshine.

He twinkled his feet as he thought of the meat,
Of the punch and the peppery brew,
Till he tripped unaware on his slanting stair,
And fell like meteors do;
As the whickering sparks in splashing arcs
Of stars blown down like rain
From his laddery path took a foaming bath
In the ocean of Almain;

And began to think, lest he melt and stink,
What in the moon to do,
When a Yarmouth boat found him far afloat,
To the mazement of the crew
Caught in their net all shimmering wet
In a phosphorescent sheen
Of bluey whites and opal lights
And delicate liquid green

With the morning fish - 'twas his regal wish -
They packed him to Norwich town,
To get warm on gin in a Norfolk inn,
And dry his watery gown.
Though St. Peter's knell waked many a bell
In the city's ringing towers
To shout the news of his lunatic cruise
In the early morning hours,

No hearths were laid, not a breakfast made,
And no one would sell him gems;
He found ashes for fire, and his gay desire
For choruses and brave anthems
Met snores instead with all Norfolk abed,
And his round heart nearly broke,
More empty and cold than above of old,
Till he bartered his fairy cloak

With a half waked cook for a kitchen nook,
And his belt of gold for a smile,
And a priceless jewel for a bowl of gruel,
A sample cold and vile
Of the proud plum porridge of Anglian Norwich -
He arrived much too soon
For unusual guests on adventurous quests
From the Mountains of the Moon.

Someday I hope to share these gems with my children, and have a quiet chuckle about Tolkien's wonderful world...