Brand Recognition : 7th self

Remember when you were friends with people just because you had the same blogspot theme? Hi MadHat! Hi Kittenpie! Hi Mary P! Oh those were the polkdot olden days. Who would do that in real life? That kinda 'who wears it better'? But digitally it worked; finding a kindred in a sea of electronic loneliness.

Swimming the evolution and realignment in our digital vocabularies both blog and brand needs a field guide these days, it must grow in language to be understood. I started a blog for my Girl Friday's school this week and it is not going well. They feel a blog is a personal artifact and not a handy web-authoring tool. And, fundamentally those who show for in-person meetings and sit on parent execs are a group that do not (necessarily, as our ilk) exist digitally. But me... I feel irresponsible that a school would not be so public as to reach out with news, and information in a non-print, digital way in colour.

I hear it said a lot. They are jetson kids in a flinstone universe @school. At work I hold fast, dutifully pooh-poohing it. Desperately wanting my girl to excel with paper and pencil deeply intellectual, poverty-pure cleverness like a young girly Bob Crachit. Wise but denied. How stupid is that? #igiveup

It is what I call the Obama effect. In all the choice we had I went with the most unfancy for Miss Fancy I could. Local school. Telling myself if she could excel in the that environment she could make it anywhere. Oooh, boy was I right. You know like how fancy was Obama's elementary school in Indonesia; not much eh? And he turned out all right, eh? Well like Barack's popularity I guess opinions shift.

Am I eating my words.. not quite... but some. I have to admit that she is not putting her life 'in public' to maximum reward because even in Grade 1 I can see she'll not apply herself to the sitting and the scribbles when the world beyond the school yard is technicolor (tm).

There is a balance to be had but I am reversing on my prior snobbery about the rules of engagement. I'll admit it give me some customizations!!!

Do you remember the luxury of the shifts for your blogging selves. Those sunny days in 2006 when templates got more free, custom designers rose to the fore that you could personalize or at least up the aesthetic over the worksheet forms of our original selves. Tell me which elements of our blog speak to who you really are. I have under my tutelage at the moment two twitter feeds and four blogs. The are all very very different and none of them really include pictures of my actual self; so is that a 7th self? Don't ask me for the best feed on that, I suggest you watch this space

For example anybody recognize the image I choose for twitteer #1? Really just the p-man fetish for murderous starlets! Sure. I love an apt avatar; the succinctitude in an image as gorgeous as a 70char tweet of distinction.

And, how are you? What is your blog longevity? And, what changes with digital aging? I AM looking at you MadHat who has moved to personal, protected tweet only with the professional blog sidecar. Kittenpie how many blogs you got now? What about the incorporate identities of GGC, beauty in its own wrap. What is our reflection on the juniper brand schism of '06, jdg is in O magazine this month!??? And, you nonlinear? like a good 1992 switch to hand-crafted beer; #smallisbeautiful. No chance I'll ignore the publica grandmaster philosopher who I feel must be the source of this embed code in me, HBM. Mesdames, what can we say of digital demand and dual-diagnosis. Who are we in our digital selves and, especially at school, should the chillun's have as much or be on recess instead?

And, you know if it's all about the content tell me that too -- like the lovely and radiant L. who in her written life is excrutiatingly compact, goddamnit! (also lookin' at you Clara and earnestgirl)

Will you blog forever? Not me -- at some point, soon, I will need to write some newsletters and leave it to the writers, I expect.

Clingy

I reach for the blackberry on my passenger seat like I reach for his hand. A moment at a stop light to see what he's thinking, p-man.. wherever he is. I realize as I drop it again...two hand on the wheel. It'll keep. Hey, It's me! I'm the clingy one! Me.

My kids had clingy periods sure but mostly they are independent. I remember the day my Ma shot at me 'you just don't want her to be independent'. Who me? of all people? Independence impeder. NEVER. But sometimes you have to wonder....

I am struggling with my daughter's aloofness these days. Aloofness at best; arrogance at worst. Her overly social nature getting the better of her in grade one. Leading the pack and too much independence. Not falling in with the class or abiding the teacher. It's been very hard*** how she is getting bigger and wanting her own way is gonna make trouble. She is demanding too much at times and not good at being flexible or kind when she's not getting it.

My daughter is a friendly kid but when her best friend moved away last year she hasn't found a replacement. I tried not to fuss about it. But I am a fusser into attachment. I realize I am the clingy one. I want to know where everyone is and how they're doing. It is a mystery to me that my daughter is not me in this regard. Ah, well I learn.

In celebration of our 15th wedding anniversary this year my beloved declared himself like a barnacle.. Finds what he likes and sticks to it. So she's not him exactly either. So we have to be the open ones helping her become her while knowing her the best of everyone. We want her to be open.

We all do think about what might be out there, don't we, smirk:





*** in the why I don't blog anymore catalogue... is this sort of sin of the family unbloggable. is it against some law of the parent blog... I think so and won't talk about it too much in my last 30 posts before this blog is closed.

Manufacturing Uniqueness

Those who know me, and this blog, know I hate making decisions. I am seriously the most anti-choice, pro-choice chick you will ever meet. The onslaught of choices for us since that first day of school sign up January has been the torture I should have expected. It all ran to today when I sat down to cry over the betrayal of the quality and rarity of my first-born girl in our ultimate decision.

My daughter is special... to me. She can read and draw the most beautiful pictures. She is a good sister and friend and she tells amazing stories. She does one of the best blowfish impressions I have ever seen. And, she's pretty.

In registering her for school I have had to take her specialness and plunk it into a system and I hate it. Part of it is my pointless railing against the dual identity I have for myself as a working mom; part of it is the angst and inescapable politics of choosing among the 100 plus schools I work with just one FOR ME! For HER!

It has been the longest first day of school in the history of motherhood. I broke down today with the weeps like so many before us as we watched them disappear behind a heavy bright red door. It was today and not in September that I felt the... Klunk, and the tweed tartan jumper is gone. Slam, and the pastel pink jeans take off at the behest of two keds. Swish and a pair of corduroys pad off into kindergarten land.

Into the an unknown.

I turned it all over a hundred times in a futile effort to make this unknown a known. More often than not we tried to make it what we knew, no matter how dissatisfied we'd been with our schools. We tried and we lost. It's like the feeling when you have to sneeze; when you have to sneeze and you're driving. You know that at some point you will involuntarily close your eyes and it will be over but there is both risk and culpability in that moment. God, I hope no one sees me.

This was the first time we were so fully on course to screwing up our kids. To seeing nothing in their future but an adaptation of our own past. We want to find a place in a system to ... wait for it ... nurture.... you had to know it was coming... nurture their uniqueness. It was hard for p-man and I not to 'emphasise academics' -- even at this young age. While we bear the academic unremarkableness of persons you might think had other cloaks, we don't really. We reflect on our own smart(ass) statuses as an insurance plan we need against society. Why not her? And, him?

Our kids are smart enough but they are also very friendly and pretty and all much that makes it likely for them to fit in in a way we know nothing about. The world is their oyster it seems by virtue of their being or their age don't ask me. All you can ask me is why the hell would you make choice for them based on your own experiences. Because that's something we really must answer for.

I telephoned this morning the second fancy school and said no thanks. The decision has been made, in September we will go to the local school. We will walk with neighbours and maybe we'll sign her up for Chinese school on Fridays. She will go to a plain child care program there run by the Y. She won't speak French or learn under much method. The child care doesn't have any leather furniture and it doesn't make its own paper. It will be plain.

And, she'll still be special, maybe more so.

ps. I think I have a fun post tomorrow

Clueless and Unilingual

We bored ourselves all week with the wrangling for credibility on the subject of school. We've betrayed our country and turned down the French Immersion option. We've wandered from our cozy East side home to consider the bright lights of l'ecole cote d'ouest. We love the Montessori? We were offered a surprise quality new option in the neighbourhood last week.

Yay, back to the Olympic matrimonial sport... consensus.

I believe the last salient words in the decision-making process was "That's just crap. That's just a race for authenticity." Tell me how many parents do you think make a decision about what school to choose by flipping a coin?

New Digital Learning and Teaching

A few weeks ago I attended a brilliant presentation by Dr. Jason Ohler. Dr Ohler presented to us on the topic of new digital narratives and schooling in general. It was fantastic both professionally and personally.

The content was wide ranging but the core information was built around the place of storytelling in learning and the general delights of using technology to bring the stories home. Well, now don't we all know about that.

You can read all about the movement to banish the book reports and all other manner of reports in favor of the narrative at Dr. Ohler's site. But I will highlight the one video we have been watching over and over at our house that makes the best case for it. Hannah and the Fox is a 6 minute presentation by a 4th grader that she wrote and performed. These new artifacts of digital learning are not about the ability to demonstrate you can indent in Powerpoint, nope, you have to be able to write, compose, illustrate and expand information.

I think of this stuff and really feel I should be enjoying our transition to the school years a lot more.



How to animate a rolling ball is pretty awesome too. And, it's my means of celebrating Pi Day.