July-August 2019

TRAVELS

In July we travelled to Canada, and also west to Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah.

On our first trip we visited Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. We loved the town. The lakefront has a beautiful park by the river. We took a boat tour which we enjoyed very much, and also found informative about this part of the world and its historical challenges. We also visited a trading fort whose dimensions amazed us all. The food was better and cheaper than the US, but the gas was higher. On this trip I learned two things: 1) even if your travels prevent you from checking in your hotel on the first date of your itinerary, you need to call the hotel or you risk your booking being cancelled, and 2) not all border crossings with Canada are opened 24 hours. So when traveling plan ahead.

We also visited Duluth and Bemidji in Minnesota. Both are charming gems hidden far far away from anything huge. The kids were for two weeks at a language camp in MN. They want to go back again.

Our trip west was to Glacier NP and Yellowstone. Glacier is an amazing place and everyone should see it multiple times. Yellowstone is huge but so are the crowds, which robs from the serenity I look forward to in such trips. We camped at the St.Mary KOA on the west side of Glacier and we found it to be a great starting place for many key destinations in the park, mainly anything west of Logan Pass, Two Medicine and Many Glacier. The visitor center at St.Mary is fantastic. The boat tour is not so great. Landing in Kalispell was a challenge for B, but landing in Idaho Falls was perfectly fine. Go visit Glacier, it is amazing. We loved all hikes we did- Avalanche Lake, Hidden Lake, St.Mary and Virginia Falls, Grenell Lake, and Iceberg Lake. AtYellowstone we loved Mystic Falls, we did the entire loop starting from the left heading directly to the falls along the flat path; climbing the falls and descending from there to the parking lot was a bit strenuous. We did not like Fairy Falls because it was too crowded. We also did not like Beaver Ponds because it was not an interesting hike, but we loved that the hike begins in one state, stays for a while in another state, before going back to the first state - basically we were in Wyoming and Idaho during the hike. In Yellowstone we loved Lamar Valley because there were so many animals to observe and listen to. We also spent a day at West Yellowstone in the Bear and Wolf Center which offers a two-day admission, with unlimited comings and goings. The town was a ghost town in the middle of the day which was a lovely observation to make.

READINGS

Me: Surviving Hitler, Animal Farm
S: Red scarf girl, Tangerine
B: Usborne: Life of Napoleon, and Who was Napoleon; Nick and Tesla-Solar Powered
PG: Vovo de no Pe

Read Aloud: We need to finish Narnia and Two Miserable Presidents. At the moment we are cutting through with Usborne's short book on Alexander the Great.


SCHOOL

We are a day away from school starting. We are not ready. Our sleeping schedules are off. We are also mentally not there given the thrill of our travels. I am not ready. Fourth grader is returning full time, if things are not working out with him, I will try to pull him out as a part-time student. Sixth grader is a floater at the moment. She is very dedicated to her instruments and with the unnecessary intensity and stress of school she may be conflicted, so I am leaning towards homeschooling full-time, but we will try to get her to attend part-time for Science, Social Science and English. The rules they have are crazy in these schools. Taking a kid from school for a trip is full of hurdles, but after that the kid itself has to go through loops to make up all the missed stuff. They have made it too complicated, way too early. Give kids a break, you are not making them Nobel laureates at 11. She wants to play basketball and play in the orchestra, but who, in their right mind, would ever ask kids to play music at 7am? Kids should be sleeping at 7am, and school should not be rolling until at least 8:30am. Middle schoolers need a lot of sleep. My middle schooler sleeps all the time because her body is changing by the minute. Administrators seam to forget that they were kids once going through the same metamorphosis. It is really puzzling what collective human stupidity looks like. Also optimizing as is done is wrong - they kill all creativity and hunger to learn, and to be curious; they create robots and this is shameful. I wish I had understood the fallacy of the "excellent school".

Picture Books are Back

Do not, do not underestimate the power of the best form of literature for children. Picture Books!

Yes, they are simple, they have pictures, but remember how a picture can be a thousand words. Yes. Picture Books are a bonanza. And the market is full of fabulous books. Of real books, about real issues and real people, that can invoke the critical thinker in your children from early on.

We live in a world that we cannot allow our children to grow blind. We cannot turn a blind eye and pretend life is not happening. That life is all roses and games. Life can be great, but life can be shitty. We need to tune our children into reality, away from naivety, in a way they can understand. Picture books are a fabulous tool to that end. For toddlers, preschoolers, elementary school children, middle school children, high school children, college students, adults, grandparents, etc. For all.

So let's begin:


The cruelty of the trans-atlantic slave trade: 

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The cruelty of working your life underground, often dying young because of disease; the horror of your children inevitably following your foots steps. If you think this is unpleasant, then amplify this by the suffering of the native Americans in central and south America who died em masse in mines, weeks on end, until their last breath, without sun, without food, without proper air.

Relate this to how limited the naturally occurring resources in the crust are.

It's easy to say that Muslims are bad. As it has been easy to say that Jews are bad. Lets remember that Muslims and Jews were equally hated by christians and equally prosecuted by christians. The cruelty that christians exercised towards the jews and the muslims in the occupied lands is coming back to haunt them. Christians are criminals. So please tell your children that christianity in the past has been the single source of suffering, pain, disease and despicable deaths and tortures.

Nature is our home. If you pay attention in bio class, even if it is Bi-1 in Caltech, you will hear that in nature everything is in balance, and when deviating from the balance, works to go back to the balance, or to a completely new balance. But the drive towards balance, and predictability in nature is a real thing. Nature is finite. The resources in nature are finite. We must manage and plan accordingly. We also should not withhold essential resources, such as water and food, in attempt to subordinate, dehumanize and control people.

People may be different than you. That's not a reason for you to bully them. Let's face it if they are different from you, you are different fro them. 

What if the tables were turned? 

People with physical disabilities are talented and capable. Sick people are capable. Immigrants are capable. A new person is capable.

There is no reason you can determine someones is less than you, whatever that may mean, just by looking at them. What hidden talents does the person have? How can he surprise you? 

People are full of life stories and experiences that are different than yours. You can always learn from them. Taking advantage of someone's disability in order to enrich yourself and to hurt the person is a crime. It's a moral crime.

Why should you be stuck in the comfort of routine? Routine is good and predictable, but routine makes you a human-hater, makes you fearful of everything that is outside of your routine. We as people need to embrace diversity, embrace opportunities to learn, and not fear lack of knowledge and skill, but seek to grow the same. We need to live in comfortable discomfort with our own completeness. Only this way we can meet with open arms others. Only this way we can relate, we can extend a hand, we can understand. Especially, the US, a country of immigrants, is swimming in material reminders that we all came from somewhere else or we don't know where we come from.

Olympics

We spent another week at Portuguese Family camp, Mar e Floresta, in Bemidji, MN. It was lovely. A bit cold, but lovely. I met Sophia who is a professor of portuguese language and Sivana who is a brasilian teaching portuguese. I learned about brasilian folclore. I had read some brasilian folkstories but they did not make sense to me. Bulgarian, Russian folclore is straight forward because I am familiar with these cultures. Brasilian folclore also makes sense once some historic background is provided. I was very happy to learn what I did. My kids had a blast. On the way to camp we went to the Mall of America, we visited Todd and Tory. On the way back we went to lake Itasca, met with Minneapolis friends and went to a water park. At camp the kids learned a good deal, even the little guy spoke. The food was fantastic too. The counselors were very helpful, friendly and nice. All the activities were entertaining and engaging. I recommend this camp. I wish more families would participate because it is more enjoyable with more people. I envy my girl now because in her camp there are many kids. She is having a blast. I wish day camp were offered so that the little man would have taken advantage as well. Next year!

Our trip to Minnesota led us to a synegogue which was hosting an exhibit. The theme of the exhibit is what spiked my curiosity. The exhibit had as objective to highlight the strength of civil disobedience demonstrated by the bulgarians during the last days of WWII; actions which, as the exhibit was attempting to protray, were responsible for the saved lives of at least 40,000 jewish bulgarians.

I was disappointed because I have never been present at an exhibit which proves the anti-thesis of its claim. The summary is that under pressure from the third reich, the bulgarian authorities implemented laws which stripped all jewish bulgarians of their civil, political and social rights. Many were sent to labour camps, others were expelled from the larger cities into villages where they had to live in schools, friends' or stranger's homes, and had to rely on hand-downs because they were denied the right to work. Upon further pressure from the reich, towards the end of the war, even after germany began its demise, the bulgarian authorities carried out laws that put all jewish residents from the annexed territories (Macedonia and Thracia) on to trains to the death camps.Towards the very, very end, when the intelligentia most likely did not expect serious repruccusions did it assmble ralleys and demonstrations. A bit too late to be hailed as heros of freedom. Nothing on the scale of rescue effort carried in Northern Europe.

Since the topic came to us, I slowly eased my children into it. We read The Harmonica, The Greatest Ice Skating Race, Baseball Saved Us, and as a counterpoint to the generalization that all japanese were bad, we also read Passage to Freedom which illustrates the true events which took place in the Japanese embassy in Lithuania right at the beginning of the war, and the efforts of the japanese embassador, despite the disapproval of Japan, to rescue hundreds of refugees by issuing them papers which permitted them to travel west, away from the war.

The olympics in Brasil are right around the corner and this is extra motivation to revisit the origin of the games, their revival, talk about some great athletes, and some memorable olympic games. We already read Living in Brasil, which I found quite nice-a beautiful overview of information my kids already knew.

We are going to read about some exceptional athletes that inspire us to reach out, rise from obscurity, dream big and work hard to achieve. We are going to read about Wilma Rudolph, and Jesse Owens. While not related directly to the olympic games which are televised, Emanuel's dream is related to the paraolympic games, which are inspiration in their own right. This year we have been reading very inspirational stories: Ada's violin and the Boy who harnessed the wind, among them. I am inspired to continue finding books that lift the human spirit and human ambition. The book on Jesse Owen is a bit more detailed than what I would prefer, so we will read some and skip some, but we will tie it to Hitler Germany. In addition, I will tell the kids the story of the Boys in the Boat because it is remarkable. I will tell them about WWI, The Great Depression, and the fall out of Germany due to reparation payments to tie it to the rise of Hitler's extreme nationalism in the 30s.






Voices in the park is an interesting book that I found. I was reading Wonder which reminded me of Faulkner's Sound and the Fury. I wondered if there is a picture book which illustrates the literary structure of retelling a story from many different view points. I think this is a very interesting technique. It helps capture what is interesting to each character, and gives deep insight into the character's being. I am very pleased with how the concept is developed and revealed in this tiny picture book. I recommend it.

In portuguese we are currently reading Juca Brasileiro e a Mata Atlantica. I think we will finish and talk about reciclagem before moving on to a story book. There are a few Ruthe Rocha books that I would like to read to the kids before the end of the month. Portuguese is going well. Ballet girl is in camp, is having a great time and is making friends. Sunlight boy is right across the camp with his grandparents. He is in Bulgarian camp in which only two other people speak bulgaria-the grandparents!




The following are my readings for this month. I am very passionate about the election. I think that the country is in a pivotal spot in its evolution and can tip over. Unfortunately the options are not good. Saving Capitalism is an interesting reading, detailing some of the misconceptions of how the economy works and how it is controlled and by whom, The free market, the hallmark of capitalism, is a game whose rules are designed and enforced by the government. When rich people with powerful interests invest in the government to stir into  desired direction, we have corruption. The modern word is rigged, but it is corruption.

The interest of the few is observed at the cost of the well-being of the many. I also enrolled, late, in the local library's reading program for the summer. The topic is sprots related. I am reading Goldfish towards that goal. So far I find the book funny.  I am also reading Night Divided, which was given to me by a friend. This is a book about the Berlin wall. It is quite interesting because it speaks a lot of things I know for certain occurred behind the iron curtain. I do not like the voice, the "I can defeat them", "I can go against the regime" voice. It did not exist. Even one's thoughts were not harbor such bravery because the thoughts were read and interpreted as well. I am not buying the authenticity in the voice of the book. I will finish and wrap up my criticism.


While the kids are away in portuguese camp, I have been busy with picking up the violin and moving forward with piano. I am also reading more portuguese books that we have at home. I am also preparing for some of the science units that I would like to cover this year: Hydrolics, Microscopes, Simple Machines and Solar Energy. I am hoping that we can use any of these as the basis for science fair project. I feel like I am making progress and this is good.

Update: July 25, 2016

 Ali is a nice biography. It offers plenty of historical and personal references to bring the story into context. I do not like boxing, I find this discipline inappropriate as an olympic sport in the current understanding of the term Olympics, which envokes the notion of respect and comraderie. Boxing is violent. I, as a result of these preconceptions, read the biography out of curiosity, mainly driven by the fact the Ali passed away this year, the both the traditional medua channels and social media went overboard in recognizing him and his convictions. After reading the biography. I have a better understanding of some aspects of US history that I never knew-the Nation of Islaam, MalcomX, the Vietnam war and the resistence to it. I also did not know that the guy who talks about Idea, the ad, is the same formidable George Forman that Ali faced. I never knew, but always wondered, what sort of TV personality was this George ad man. Now, I know. I also respect Ali a little bit more, although I believe his behavior was narcisisstic, arrogant and disrespectful. Reading, I recalled back in the late 80s when Lady Tatcher, the prime minister in UK resigned, I heard someone say: "this is a smark woman. she knows when to step down-at the pinnacle of her performance". The precise opposite happened to Ali. I enjoyed the reading, but I will not cover it in our read-akoud sessions because it touches on too many, too complex issues which at this moment are inaccessible to either child.

This is a beautifully written story about Nadia Kumaneci from Romanian, the first gymnist to score perfect 10 in international competition. The story is well narrated, the illustrations are captivating. Few important historical moments and behaviors are outlined, making this book a great conversation starter for the meaning and the attitude towards the olympics in the last century. We will be reading this book very soon.

This was my Sunday, by the pool reading choice. Clearly, I picked the wrong spot. I find this book rather depressing. It depicts times in history which are feorcious and dirty, hummiliating and revolting. More than that, the story touches on some fundamental elements which make such atrocities possible. In particular, people tend to be naive, and with respect to the likelihood of bad events believe that it will not happen to them. In addition people still, after thousands of years of evolution, and especially a 300 rapid period of knowledge gathering, believe in fictional make-believes, tales dictated by men for some men's goals; tales that should long be irrelevant and yet are, by our collective mentality to believe in something simple, something superior, something perfect. I see it as nothing more than a convenient excuse. Oh, this happened. Well, clearly this was the wish of my god, what can I do. In this regard I have to say that I believe that we bulgarians have the best folklore. Nevolyo!

Simple Hydraulics machines has been our focus during the last two days. From the projects that are displayed we built two-the box and the bridge. Our bridge is two-sided.Before the kids returned from camp I built a hydraulic crane. We will talk about pressure and force in describing the machines. I will use these two projects to intorduce them to some scientific vocabulary. I will also encourage the kids to look around for situations or real machines where hydraulic implementations are possible.
From Hydraulics we will jump into solar energy and electricity. The associated activities are for next month. This month activities thus far have been a success!

Unwinding with a purpose

Vacation time this year will bring us closer to nature.

We will go on a ski trip once the temperature on the weekends is reasonable. The destination for our 1-day trip will be Galena, IL.

I have signed us to spend a week in June at Concordia College in Minnestoa speaking only Portuguese. We are also going to spend a weekend in July at a mom and kids camp in Michigan.

I and the kids want to get to Saint Louis this summer as well. We were there in January but the weather prevented us from sightseeing.

On my to-do list are: The Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore and Niagra falls but there is no rush. When we get to them, we get to them.