Playing with the Cats

     Before the cats come back and hog the desk top, I'm going to type my next observation regarding harmless addictions. Speaking of cats, this summer, I downloaded a few "apps for cats" on my iPad 2 (put in quotation marks because that's how I searched for them in the App Store). I tried them out on my cat-away-from-home cat (a friend's cat that I play with while I'm on vacation). She played a little bit with one of the apps, called Fun and Games for Cats, but she wasn't really that interested in any of them (I have six such apps for cats). I did think that maybe my cats would not be interested in them because my c-a-f-h cat didn't really care for them. However, one of my cats is not yet two years old, and I knew that she would take a liking to at least one of the games. Was I ever right about that!
     My youngest cat, Bella, loves the apps that have been made specifically for cats. Her favorite happens to be the one that my c-a-f-h cat didn't really get a kick out of: Fun and Games for Cats. The app has three activities for cats: PiCATso Paint App, Catch Games, and Cat Music App. Catch Games has four different critters to catch or chase: mouse, fish, spider, and butterfly. Bella likes the mouse the best because it squeaks as it scurries about the iPad screen. It's set to look like it's running off the screen and then on again. Watching Bella watch and then try to catch the mouse is truly entertaining. Especially amusing is watching her try to find the mouse behind or under my iPad. I have videotaped her several times. The video below is the latest.

 

     Other cat-apps I have are: Catch the Mouse, Game for Cats (this one has three catching games of mouse, butterfly, and laser dot), Kitty's Toys (balloons, birds, fish, Critter Bop, twinkly stars, and a bouncing ball), Cat Toys (mouse, rat, ping pong ball, frog, and spider), and Cat Toys Lite (the free version of Cat Toys has only the mouse). Bella likes the ping pong ball and spider in Cat Toys. 

     I've discovered that I cannot open my iPad if Bella is nearby. When I do, she looks imploringly at the iPad and expects me to turn it on and open up the mouse game so she can play. Tonight, for example, I turned on the iPad and opened up Words with Friends. Bella, sitting on top of my computer desk, immediately came over to me and looked, wide-eyed, at the screen. Determined to play my game, I told her she had to wait. Generally, cats wait for no one. I was persistent, and Bella finally conceded, patiently waiting for me to finish my game. Eventually, she got tired of waiting and left the room. Later, when she returns, I'll let her play the mouse game.

     Playing with the cats is truly a harmless addiction and a healthy one, as well. According to Life with Cats (http://www.lifewithcats.tv/2011/03/26/health-benefits-of-cat-ownership/), owning a cat can benefit humans in the following ways: reduced cardiovascular disease risk, lower cholesterol, reduced stroke risk, fewer trips to the doctor, and longer life spans. From experience, having cats around me helps me feel relaxed. When I'm not feeling well (sometimes that happens even though I have cats), a cat lying on me actually makes me feel better. I call Gypsy my feline heating pad, and her purring is simply therapeutic for both her and me.

     I have almost always had cats ever since I was a child. For a brief period in my life, I didn't have cats, and during that time I experienced a few health problems related to stress. In 1999, a friend of mine gave me a kitten, and that reignited my love of and for cats. I now have four cats, aged 13 (Moky), 12 (Gypsy), 5 (Stormy), and a little over a year and a half (Bella). I cherish every moment I have with them. I enjoy playing with them and watching them play with each other (I'm not too crazy about their fighting, which sometimes happens in a multi-cat household). Playing with the cats makes me laugh, and everyone knows that "laughter is the best medicine."

Blog-Surfing

     I just spent several hours surfing the Internet, primarily other bloggers' blogs. It started harmlessly enough when I went to my iGoogle news page to read the news from the various news outlets I put on there. I noticed that Wiccan Moonsong had a post about the blue moon that is filling the sky tonight. I clicked on the post, read it, and started on my annual blog-surfing journey.
      Just so you know, Wiccan Moonsong is not a news outlet. I put her blog on my iGoogle news page because that is where I always am when I get on the Internet. I added her blog to iGoogle without taking into consideration what section I was in. I'm glad I put that blog on that particular page because I have been reading her posts on a more regular basis.
     After I read WM's blue moon post, I clicked on Next Blog because I know that it will take me to a random blog, which is what I want to do. I'm not sure I can call blog-surfing a harmless addiction - or an addiction at all - because I don't do it all the time. It doesn't consume my life. I am hoping that having Wiccan Moonsong on my iGoogle page will spur more blog-surfing moments.
      Blog-surfing "guilts" me into writing in my blog, so maybe blog-surfing is helpful. Perhaps, it will get me into my blog more often. During my blog-surfing journey, I often come across blogs that have not been updated very often and some that have been abandoned. A few have moved (and I happily went to their new abodes). Blog-surfing is good because it is a form of reading. Maybe I will pass on that tidbit of advice to my students. Generally, most of them either hate to read or don't make the time to read. Many of them think that reading makes them sleepy. I tell them that they are probably already sleepy and that reading relaxes them so that they can sleep. Reading is a cure for mind-racing. I've discovered that prayer works the same way.
      I like stumbling onto the random blogs. A great deal of ordinary people write blogs. Myriad topics are covered. Tonight, I perused a lot of family blogs and looked at a lot of family photographs. I suppose that will eventually guilt me into posting family pics on my Facebook profile page. For now, however, those photos will remain in my camera until I get my work done.
      Blog-surfing, actually, leads to other activities I have put off for one reason or another. Unfortunately, blog-surfing helps me to procrastinate on getting my work done; I have one more syllabus to edit before my Sunday afternoon writing class begins. Fortunately, I'm almost done with it.
      I can honestly say that blog-surfing has become a hobby even if it is not necessarily a harmless addiction.

Crafting

     I love doing arts and crafts, but often I don't make the time to engage in this particular activity. My latest endeavor is to turn my downstairs bathroom into a butterfly room. I have already started on this project. I started by buying wall decals from amazon.com and applying them to the sink and counter. I have even put some of the butterfly decals on the sloping ceiling above the back wall.

   

      I was at Target the other day, and I saw a beautiful metal butterflies wall hanging. Naturally, I bought it. It now hangs in my bathroom. Previous owners of my humble abode left small nails in various places, and rather than removing them, I'm going to make butterflies from various materials and hang them from those nails.

     Currently, I'm copying and pasting butterfly images from the Internet onto PowerPoint slides. Later, I will print those slides and use them as templates. Some of the images are photographs, and some are butterfly templates (all from Google images).
     I bought a package of 6x9" foam sheets and a few squares of fabric (in myriad colors and designs). I also bought a butterfly magnet kit that contains 5 different sizes of butterflies - for template use. The kit contains a paint set, so when I'm done using them for tracing purposes, I'll be painting them and putting them on my fridge.
     Hopefully, I'll be able to post some photos of the finished project. I do already have some pictures of the bathroom butterflies (see above). Perhaps, I will take pictures of the work in progress and post those, as well.
     I moved recently, and I now have the opportunity and space to work on crafts. I'm still, however, unpacking and organizing (a seemingly endless task), but I'm pretty sure I can "craft" in the reading room or the living room. I'll know for sure once all boxes are unpacked.
      I love the wall decals. I have a flowering tree decal on my wall above my computer desk. I put fish decals on the tub walls, sink, and counter in the master bathroom. I do have other fish-themed items that I can hang in that bathroom, but they are still boxed.

 [For this picture, I had to turn it upside-down and then upload it to this page. I have no idea why this particular picture appeared upside-down during the first attempt of uploading it. The picture that shows the sloping ceiling and wall first came out sideways (from right to left). I had to make a copy of the photo and rotate it so that it was sideways (from left to right) and then upload it so that it appeared right side up. Go figure. Why didn't I have problems with the others?]

     Right now, most of my time is spent getting the boxes unpacked. I will try to sneak in a little crafting time - maybe as unpacking breaks. Hmmm . . . That's an idea!

Harmless Addiction Number 2

     My second harmless addiction is teaching. I love it! I love working with my students. I love contriving new ways to help them learn. I'm not too crazy about the grading portion of my job, but once I get started, I find that I have a difficult time stopping.

     I love telling my students everything I know about what I teach (reading comprehension and writing skills). I especially love when my students take the initiative to look up information on their own. I tell them that "knowledge (really) is power." I tell them to research any information if they are confused about any topic or skill they have read about in their textbooks. I even tell them to look up information just for the sake of knowing more about a certain skill or concept.

     Like most harmless addictions, this one does not come without its problems. Toward the end of the semester, I find that I have less patience with students who have putzed around all semester only to discover that if they don't get the work turned in by the deadline, they will fail. Then, a student or two will ask for an extension. I deny extensions because, at the beginning of the semester, all the students get a course schedule that lists all the due dates for the required homework and project assignments, as well as dates for tests and presentations. Really, there is no excuse for not getting the work done in my class. I even have a deadline for all work (required and extra credit) that is included on the course schedule. I am reminded of the saying, "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail." I do not know who wrote that, but that is right on the money, and it's especially fitting for those students who are scrambling, at the last minute, to get their work turned in.

     Every semester, I start with an adamant rule: no test make-ups. However, because I'm a sucker for a sob story, I tend to give in and allow test make-ups if the student's reason for missing a test is because of circumstances beyond his or her control. A colleague of mine shared her idea regarding test make-ups: give each student a test make-up coupon at the beginning of the semester. The students can make-up only one test in the semester, and if they don't utilize the coupon at all, they can use it to re-do a test on which they scored poorly. Wow! That is a great idea! She told me that I could use her idea, so I think that is what I'm going to do next semester. Allowing test make-ups is very stressful for me because I have a lot of students and keeping track of who missed what test and when weighs heavily on me.

     I also allow students to turn in work late, but I deduct 20% from the grade of each assignment. On the first class day, I tell them that this is one discount that they do not want to take advantage of. For those students who wait until the end of the semester to turn in most of their work, I do have a deadline - usually about two weeks before the semester's end. These two rules work well for me.

     In a nutshell, teaching is not just a job for me; it is a passion. Yes, problems sometimes arise, but, for the most part, teaching is, and always will be, a career that I love.

Harmless Addiction Number 1 and 1a

I've come to the realization that I am addicted to Facebook. Fortunately, I know I'm not the only person to ever say, write, or think that. I consider it a harmless addiction because I am not on Facebook all of the time. So far, I frequent the site late at night. An addiction within this addiction is game-playing in Facebook. Yes, I am a frequent-farmer of such games as Farm Town (my all-time favorite), FarmVille, Island Paradise, My Vineyard, Island Life, CountryLife, and CountryLife lite (my 2nd/3rd favorites). I also play some of the non-farming games: Treasure Isle, FrontierVille, and Cafe World (Dang, that Zynga!).

The only problem I have with this addiction is that I'm not engaging in other hobbies: TV watching (which is a good thing, right?) and reading. Okay, I love to read, so when game-playing takes precedence over that, I know I have a problem. On Sunday nights, I plant long-growth crops in as many games as I can so that I don't spend every single night of the week playing these games. This way I can make time for other tasks: housecleaning, grading, lesson-planning, and yes, reading and watching a little television.

I feel so much better now that I've gotten that out of my head. I'd love to write more, but I have some farming to do . . . er, I mean reading . . . lol!!!