My Thoughts on the LeapFrog Tag

One of the kids I was coloring with today had a well stocked backpack full of picture books and games. Good for him, I thought, well-prepared for waiting rooms and errands. It turned out his books were specially made by LeapFrog, a company specializing in high-tech learning devices for preschool-elementary school-age kids. They came with a stylus reading instrument called Tag, which reads special LeapFrog books aloud (you can store 5 books on the Tag at a time). It can pause, stop, and re-read individual words.

It sounded pretty cool, and the kid showed me his Tag-compatible book "T. Rex's Mighty Roar." After two pages, he went back to watching TV. I told his mother that I hadn't seen anything like the Tag before. She gushed about how wonderful it was and asked me if I had any kids. No, I said, but it felt touching to be taken for a possible fellow mother.

Certainly there were clear advantages to this Tag thing. Its ability to sound out individual words could help a child struggling with new words, without compromising a busy parent's schedule. On the other hand, the limit on the number of books that can be stored on Tag at a time does not allow much flexibility. Not that the Tag-friendly library is very large; LeapFrog has "over 20" books and games for the Tag according to the website, and each book costs 14 dollars (as opposed to 7 to 12 dollars for a coventional children's book). The Tag system costs 50 dollars. Seems a little overpriced.

Part of my ambivalence about the concept may be based on the truth that education technology in my generation was limited to PBS, simple computer games (like Oregon Trail), and books on tap. As a result the LeapFrog products seem like light years ahead in terms of complexity and their target audience (preschool-grade 2 children). It will be interesting to see where these types of learning tools by the time I have kids (around 5 years from now).

Albums that Have Stuck With Me (a shorter list)

Rubber Soul - My main association with Rubber Soul is listening to it with my brother when I was in second grade. Since he was in 12th grade and moved away shortly thereafter, it was one of our few common childhood experiences. Fighting over potato chips at lunch and Easter candy (back when we got Easter baskets) were the others, and since my brother was much bigger and quicker, they were obviously less pleasant memories.

A Day Without Rain - When I originally got this album for my birthday in middle school, the music was soothing and relaxing. Later, when one of my best friends and I used it as comfort music after our childhood cats had died, I began to associate it with losing pets. Not a pleasant association, but one that persisted for quite a long time.

Moulin Rouge soundtrack - One of the few cases in which I heard a movie soundtrack before seeing the movie. After seeing the movie, I was swept up in the music, the costumes, and the story. Being an idealistic 14-year-old, the romance of the "bohemian revolution" seemed very attractive, even though the artist's lifestyle is very, very hard. Having grown up (somewhat), what remains attractive is the connection between music and emotion, particularly love.

Books that Have Stuck With Me (and why)

1. The Book of Ruth - While I value the Bible as a whole text, the story of Ruth is one of the few that speaks to me on a personal level. Not just because Ruth, like me, converted to Judaism, but the nature of her conversion. It manages to demonstrate, at all once, her personal loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi, her joining the Jewish people, and her connection to G-d. In addition to the conversion aspect, Ruth's story is one of forging a new path in life at the earthly level (in marrying Boaz).

2. A Pigeon and a Boy - Part of my experience reading the novel was shaped by seeing its author, Meir Shalev, speak at Brandeis about his writing. Without giving away the story, one of my favorite things about this book was how it weaved the past and present — few authors can do that well, and Shalev made it feel like an unveiling rather than switching back and forth. 

3. So Far from the Bamboo Grove - One of the only books I read in middle school that was worth reading; it's a memoir of the author's childhood in Korea during WWII. It managed to meaningfully illustrate a civilian's experience of war in a way that was accessible; not so hard to read that you end up shutting down, but painful enough to shock you into awareness.

4. My Sister's Keeper - Explores both the familial and medical ethics of the sisters' struggles beautifully and makes ethics feel much more real than any theoretical ethics text could.

5. The Red Tent - Recently I have found myself disgusted by the idea of retelling Dinah's rape as a misunderstood love story, but if you look it as Biblical-era fiction, Diamant's imagination of Dinah's life after Schehem is quite interesting.

6. Maus - Aside from the striking art, I found that Maus effectively showed the immediate and long-term experiences of survivors and their children without compromising either.

7. The Chosen - A great coming-of-age novel, without the cheesiness that seems to infest many coming-of-age novels and films.

8. The Screaming Room - A mother's memoir of her son Peter's losing battle with AIDS in the 1980s. If you weren't aware of how AIDS was viewed back then, read this. It is an (appropriately) agonizing read. First, it makes you weep. Then, it makes you angry. Angry because, despite the advances in treating AIDS and preventing HIV infection, in most of the world, people are still suffering and dying from AIDS the way Peter did over 20 years ago.

9. The Book of Psalms - What I have grown to love about psalms is that you can find a psalm for almost any situation. When you are overflowing with praise, weighed down with sadness, or searching for answers, you can open a book of psalms and find the words to talk to G-d about it.

10. Night

11. Ethan Frome - Probably the worst book I have ever read; each overdrawn metaphor felt worse than the last. The fact that it has been part of the standard American high school canon didn't make it any better.

12. The Tipping Point - In addition to the overall concept of the book, it was a lot of (educational!) fun to read the supporting examples, like the comparison of how Sesame Street and Blue's Clues approach children's learning styles.

13. Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity

14. Nickled and Dimed - Breaks any illusions you had about minimum-wage jobs being compatible with current living expenses and social realities.

15. Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources - Wonderful French revenge/forgiveness tale. Breaks any illusions you had about "rural" values or the romanticism of farming as well, but in a very matter-of-fact, yet eloquent way.

Memorial Day Gardening

This morning, my mom took me out to a local garden store as part of a mission to revive the gardening areas around our house. We planned on getting some tomato plants, sugar snap peas, and snapdragons, and also ended up getting an exotic-looking orange-pink impatiens flower, two sweet potato vines, two kinds of mint plants, and two strawberry plants to replace the long-dead one. However, in between was a lot of casual meandering about the greenhouse, and constantly pointing out (and smelling) familiar and exotic plants. 

Since my maternal grandmother used to have a very, very extensive flower and vegetable garden, I was expecting my mom to break out into family stories behind certain plants. Instead, she pointed to things that she had no luck growing in the past, flowers she was thinking about, and at the same time figuring out which plants could do well in our yard. The sappiest thing she said was, "I like introducing my children to new hobbies."

Six hours of digging, weeding, planting and watering later, it's looks like I've been more than introduced to a new hobby.

10 Summer Goals, in no particular order

1. Get through Chemistry I and II.

2. Refine my inner mother voice at the clinic (the one that tells kids to stop climbing on chairs).

3. Finish weeding the front/back yards and plant tomatoes, peas and flowers (probably snapdragons).

4. Spend time drawing on non-construction paper. Perhaps get some crayons/pastels.

5. Go out and take pictures of the pretty flowers.

6. Get basic kitchen  and cleaning supplies/vacuum/pretty lights for future college apartment.

7. Learn how to cook stuff that isn't pasta or brisket.

8. Have quality time with friends, which I had so little of last summer.

9. Read at least 1 book/week.

10. Continue re-learning to ride a bike.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Sewing

Since I'm 5' 2", one of my mom's major sewing lessons was how to hem pants. Last summer, though, I decided to try sewing an actual garment (with a pattern). I started a spring dress with a white and pink leaf print for the body of the dress and a rose print for the yoke, hem, and sleeve trims. I still have to attach the sleeves. It's cute, even though it will have to be ironed a lot (it's made of quilting cotton).

I would like to continue sewing clothes in the future, since it's hard to find cute, petite-sized clothes that are a) age-appropriate and b) not cut for 12-year-olds. While it isn't hard to find such patterns, I've found that the sewing books targeted at teenagers/college students are mostly focused on sewing crafts (like making/decorating pillowcases) or making T-shirts into purses/skimpier shirts. Since ready-to-wear clothes are much cheaper than 50 years ago, even for students (you can get a $15 skirt at H&M), I can understand why there are fewer resources for learning to sew clothes.

But what about people who want to individualize their garments? I'm not just thinking about adjusting patterns (for non-average heights and/or body types), but customizing fabric choices and embellishments. There's also the appeal of making novelty garments, like Halloween costumes (since the ready-to-buy versions often look like industrial accidents). The decline in choices of fabric and fabric stores is also annoying - it's tough to find good selections of fabric that isn't quilting cotton or Polar Fleece.

Perhaps things might change for sewing. After all, knitting transformed very suddenly from being associated with stereotypical old ladies to a rather popular hobby among young women. And who knows, eventually the T-shirt chopping ladies might decide to construct garments from scratch.

Wii and Fitness

About a month ago, my supervisor at the pediatric clinic where I volunteer told me that a Wii system had been donated to the clinic. My first thought was that there would be fights over it in the waiting room and that no one would want to play at the art table again. On the other hand, some of the kids clearly need to get up and move around more. I had heard about nursing homes and rehabilitation centers that used Wii games to get people to engage in low-impact exercise and improve their coordination.

The Wii arrived last week and was just approved for electrical safety. It's housed in a rolling unit with a TV and preloaded with about 15 games. Apparently these units are specially made by Nintendo and the Starlight Foundation for hospitals and clinics. After figuring out how it worked in the break room, I took it into the waiting room. 

When there weren't any patients in the waiting room, I tried Wii Sports. Despite P.E. being one of my least favorite classes in school, and not being a fan of sports games, I really enjoyed it. Boxing was the only sport on it that I would recommend for intense exercise, but for a lot of people I think pretend tennis and bowling would be a positive step forward in terms of physical activity. The ability to play pretend sports with friends is also a major advantage over the at-home fitness innovation of the late 80s, the exercise tape, in which the people you follow may be intimidating in how fit they are or, in the case of Carmen Electra*, their apparent ability to exercise without messing up their hair.

* = Yes, she makes exercise videos. Last year my hall had an exercise event and used one of her videos. While we were working out we couldn't stop talking about how ridiculous we looked compared to her.