I don’t recall who this kitchen belongs to, but I loved the owl carvings.
Week 32 – The Odd Life of Timothy Green Results
Virtual school went well this week. Dragon answered some questions about the days of the week and the months of the year and seasons.
She wrote words starting with the letter “W”. She says she likes that letter.
She had lots of fun dancing along with the music in class.
Math was learning how to read a pictogram. Dragon enjoyed that.
They were split into small groups to “play” after that, and Dragon’s group played music, at her suggestion.
Homeschool went well this week.
Dance
She did ballet 2 times this week.
Music
Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. No lesson.
We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google mini, with a variety of artists.
Crochet
We did not do any crochet this week.
Basic Information
We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.
When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she responds in complete sentences.
Printing words
Printing went very well this week.
Counting objects/math-type activities
She had no problems with the counting worksheet. We counted by 10s to 100 and counted up to 100 a couple times.
Math was easy for her this week. We also talked about counting by fives and how to draw it out.
Storytime
We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.
We watched Raiponce in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!
Activity
Build a house mood board – Despite getting distracted by the toys, she did very well at picking out things that she liked that she would put in her house.
Plant beans – She pre-planted beans and zucchini for our garden. She enjoyed it.
Write personality characteristics – Apparently we did this in Soul, so instead, we did an online Personality test. I was curious to see how she did (very good at answering the questions…no hesitation).
Dear Pegasus – First Puke Night
Dear Pegasus,
Last night you woke up and puked large un-chewed chunks of zucchini and little tiny seafood. It wasn’t fun for anyone. (Dragon didn’t wake up, so not bad for her.)
Two baths, three sheets, four pyjamas, and lots of sad looks later, you fell asleep.
You were so afraid of lying down that you insisted on sitting up in my lap. Every time you nodded off, you had this look of worry on your face.
At one point, close to 3:20, you settled into my arm, looked up at me, sighed deeply, and said, “Papa.” It was so soft and sad. You settled into sleep not long after and you insisted on being held while you slept.
A hard night and lots of worry, but you’re fine now and it’s hopefully not going to be a new trend.
I hate not being able to do anything to make it better, but hopefully holding you helped make you feel more comfortable falling asleep. You seem okay now and are happily playing.
Not looking forward to tonight. Hopefully you won’t associate puking with sleep. I also hope this isn’t a new habit.
Love you!
Papa
Captain America: The First Avenger – JenEric Movie Review
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2011 film Captain America: The First Avenger.
Story
The story is extremely simple and a perfect transition from the simpler superhero movies of the 2000’s to the more complex ones after.
It’s amazing that they managed to have a movie set in WWII that had only 3 Nazis.
The villain is scary smart if over-the-top and the story is wonderfully soothing.
As much as I love the romance between Cap and Carter, the convoluted obstacles are tiresome and unnecessary.
I would also would have liked more nuances on the concept of patriotism, but that would come with the future movies.
Score: 0.5
Characters
This movie was extremely well cast and all the actors play their roles wonderfully. Again I think Red Skull was a little much, but all the others are fantastic.
Score: 1
Dialogue
This movie, more than Iron-Man or Avengers, sets the bar for Marvel dialogue. It’s clever, quotable, and has fantastic depth.
Score: 1
Visuals and Music
The movie’s special effects still look amazing a decade later and visually this movie is a treat.
The music is fantastic and works perfectly for the movie.
Score: 1
Fun
Our Blu-ray has a bug where the dynamic range (loudest vs softest sounds) is huge, making me spend most of the movie changing the volume or not being able to understand the words. This is actually pretty common for Marvel movies and really pisses me off.
That being said, the movie kept the attention of the entire family and made me want to re-watch all the Marvel movies.
Score: 1
Overall
The unambiguity of the movie is its strength, bolstered by its fantastic dialogue and acting. It was the last before Avengers changed the landscape and set the bar for storytelling. It is by far the best Marvel Phase 1 film (Arguably Phase 2 also).
Final Score: 4.5
Books, stories, edits, and Emus
Hello Readers,
I’m working on a lot of thinks right now.
- Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers is being beta-read and sensitivity edited currently.
- Stories between the ‘Verses is being edited by me and should be going to typesetting soon, to be published by Renaissance Press in the Fall.
- I’m working on two different projects for clients. Both fantastic authors. I’ll share here when they’re available.
- Stories! Unexpected Collection 1 (Working title) is shockingly at 15 stories and 3 novellas.
- Mystery of the Dancing Lights (Elizabeth 4) is at just over 37000 and halfway through the story.
- The Copper Tarnish (Formerly Paragenesis) has been edited and is at 32000 words which means that it’s 60% done.
I hope you’re having good productive weeks. I’m still not feeling great, but it’s getting better. I should probably get back to some of those now.
Two of my current projects involve sentient alien Emus so here’s a smiling Emu.
Stay safe and be kind,
Éric
Week 33 – Brave
When I think about mothers in movies, Queen Eleanor is the first person who springs to mind. I love this movie and haven’t seen it in quite a while, and look forward to sharing it with Dragon. Hopefully she’ll neve turn me into a bear.
Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (Please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| Watch movie | elements of a fairy tale | bake Spell Cake | learn about bears | Flex |
Summary of the week
Daily details:
Dance
Ballet and martial arts on alternate days
Music
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano
Crochet
The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
In download materials
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type – in download materials
Addition and pattern – worksheet in download materials
Storytime
Activity
Elements of a Fairy Tale – sheet found in download materials
Bake Spell Cake – link to recipes
Learn about bears – link to references, link to video
Next week – Matilda
Week 31 – Boxtrolls Results
Virtual school started out a bit rough – Dragon was unfocussed and not able to listen well for the regular morning routine. But then they did an exercise video, which Dragon adores, and she was much more focussed after that.
Then they did printing words that begin with the letter ‘G’ and she did very well.
After recess, they did a short reading, and then the teacher had set up a powerpoint with images that the students used to “read” a sentence. There were some very funny sentences made. My favourite was “Le Tyranosaur mange les enfants.” Dragon’s was “Le docteur pleur parce qu’il a pincé le doigt.”
After lunch, they were split into groups to talk in French. I don’t think that it went particularly well, because the kids don’t know what to talk about with each other AND they don’t know much French. When it was led by the teacher, it went okay, but when she left, not so much. Maybe if they had a goal like doing math like last week…
They did not do math because too many kids were tired.
Homeschool was very busy this week.
Dance
She did ballet 2 times this week.
Music
Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. They started with finger exercises and the practicing showed, she was doing well even with the hard one. She did lessons 4 and 5 were almost perfect, and then they did lesson 6, and she did such a good job. Then they started lesson 7 and she did the first row very well (other than mixing up D and F on her right hand). Then they did chopsticks, and it’s going well, so she was introduced to the next part. She focussed and tried hard and did really well.
We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google mini, with a variety of artists.
Crochet
We did not do any crochet this week.
Basic Information
We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.
When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she responds in complete sentences.
Printing words
Printing went very well this week.
Counting objects/math-type activities
She had no problems with the counting worksheet. We counted by 10s to 100 and counted up to 70.
Math went well this week with no tears.
Storytime
We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.
We watched Raiponce in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!
Activity
Make a movie – We put together the last prop and then set up for taking pictures. Dragon did an excellent job in directing me to move the characters. She used the storyboard she had drawn to help keep us on track. This movie, we decided to record her voice, rather than do it in the Silent Movie style that we did for the other one. We did include the dialogue in the background of the movie. She recorded the music for the movie as well.
Learn how to draw a 3-D box – This went super well. I queued up the video and we watched it, and then we went through the video slowly, pausing after each step for her to draw it. She needed a little bit of help with one or two lines and about which lines to erase, but she did all the work. I was very impressed.
Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy
Hello My Imaginary Friends,
Stand aside Mos Eisley Spaceport, you’ve got some competition. Yes, I mean Facebook, although the internet at large is quite bad.
Please, no advice is required.
Over the past week I’ve been procrastinating taking breaks from editing by reading my news feed. Here’s a short list of things that I’ve read that have made me wonder if Ultron was being too generous:
- Defending a celebrity who’s been accused of sexual assault with the incel call to arms, “Innocent until proven guilty.”
- Same person and same post then doing self promotion for their product.
- People telling disabled people to call ahead or just wait outside because it’s too expensive to make things accessible. (I personally think there should be a government subsidy to make these things accessible and not bankrupt businesses, but I’m a deluded socialist.)
- That there’s some sort of shame in watching films with Closed Captioning. (I took media communications and I had 4 separate professors; film, music, feminism, and advertising encourage us to use CC as often as possible to catch all the details of what was happening and intended.)
- Someone posting a poem on a writers group comparing men to vagabond ships and women to the anchors that keep them from straying. (This devolved into him saying I was too argumentative and was headed for divorce, followed by being called a fairy, and being told I was going to hell.)
And that’s not even mentioning all the Anti-vaxx pro-plague comments on every Covid-19 post.
So this week I’ve been called:
- Anti-Business
- Communist (Starting to think this isn’t an insult.)
- Fairy (Definitely not an insult. Fear my sparkling wrath.)
- Unable to love
- Headed for divorce (my wife laughed at this. She practically guffawed. It was adorable.)
- Going to hell
- Child abuser (because I want my kids immunized)
- Snowflake
- Tru-anon cultist
- MeToo Groupie
- Anti-law
- Pitchfork carrying mob
- A Shill (BTW Big-Pharma, Liberal Party, NDP, Big-Agriculture, #MeToo, and disabled community, I’m still waiting on those e-transfers.)
I’m not saying I’m perfect and always right, but I try to follow simple rules. Listen to the victims, listen to those affected/minorities, listen to science, and listen credible sources.
I’ve been called on internalized toxic opinions and I’m trying to grow.
If your first reaction is to get defensive when someone asks for help, you should maybe check why and re-evaluate your opinion.
It might be time to lessen my social media scrolling for a while and find another way to procrastinate take breaks from editing.
Stay safe and stay kind,
Éric
Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century – JenEric Movie Review
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 1999 film Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century.
Story
At it’s core, this story is one that Disney and countless others have done a million times before and since, painted with a shiny sci-fi veneer.
It includes my most hated trope, parents who don’t believe their children.
Score: 0
Characters
The parents are frustrating and made me yell at the TV, but I enjoyed Zenon herself. She was confident, smart, amazingly lucky, and competent. Despite the overuse, I do like the competent child trope.
Score: 0.5
Dialogue
The dialogue is both fascinating and cringe-worthy. The made up slang mixed with turn of the millenium slang just really interests me. I like that they made sure to have seperate styles of slang for earth vs the space station. A lot more thought went into this than I would have thought.
Score: 1
Visuals and Music
The special effects were okay for the time period despite some major misunderstandings of physics. The costuming was clever and the music was ok.
Score: 0.5
Fun
The parents and adults being about as smart as rocks took some of the fun out of it for me. I enjoyed the main character and the other kids.
Score: 0.5
Overall
The movie is a fascinating time capsule of retro sci-fi that has a wonderful main character. Unfortunately, the entire story is overly dependent on the aggressive stupidity of the adults and them not believing her.
Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5