Its blossom time in the valley.
Your nose is going to run.
The trees along the road are in various stages of bloom.
In my front yard the bloom cycle is somewhat predictable. The first trees to bloom are the pluots. They are nearing the end of their cycle. The bees have hit them hard. Next come the peaches. They are a little more reluctant to be covered with masses of blossoms. The first week just a few pink blossoms show and before that just little hot pink tips show on a light white knob are evident.
We are now at the next stage. The peach trees are fully bloomed. Its a a little different show even in full bloom from the pluots. The pluots have blossoms that completely cover the the branches of the trees. The peaches on the other hand have just well positioned blossoms on the tips of the branches and down the arms in well separated spacing. The smell coming from these trees is as strong as they have ever been. The bees completely nailed the pluots when they came out. The peach trees seem to attract fewer bees. It may be that the bees were responded to the pluots because they were in the fields of the almond trees waiting for blossom days. Now that the almond blossoms are out, they bees are staying close to home and doing what they were intended to do... pollinate the almond trees.
During this time of the year, bee keepers from all over the United States bring in their hives and have contracts to commercially pollinate the huges fields of almonds around Merced, Modesto and Madera. They come from the Dakotas and further east. California has its own bee keepers but they cannot keep up with the demand required by so many nut farmers.
I saw the first signs of blossoms from the apricot tree in the backyard this morning. The apricots are the last in the string of stone fruit to bloom. The oranges will bloom around Easter. The pomegranate shrubs will bloom in June. The kumquat tree will bloom whenever it wants to..
: ) Pat
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Bilingual Education
There are some interesting projects coming out of UC Merced.
Check this one out from the press corps of the University.
Born
in Nebraska to a Persian mother and a father whose military duty took
the family to Europe for much of her childhood, Kandice Soraya Grote
grew up speaking English, German and Farsi.
Upon returning to the United States, her parents worried she would
have trouble speaking and understanding English when it was time for her
to attend school. So when Grote was about 6 years old, they stopped
talking to her in other languages. Now, at 28, she still speaks some
Farsi, but her ability to speak German is gone.
Grote understands her parents did what they thought was best for her at the time.
Today, as a UC Merced doctoral candidate researching the cognitive benefits of bilingualism in children, she still encounters that mindset.
"That mentality has not changed in 25 years," said Grote, a researcher in the cognitive development lab of Professor Michelle M. Chouinard. "Many non-native-speaking parents believe that children will pick up English faster if they stop speaking to them in their native language. It's a horrible myth."
Grote's personal experience, combined with a love of working with children, led her to this field. Her research interests are in the realms of bilingualism, bilingual education, early cognitive development and cross-cultural differences.
"People forget how much you can learn from children," Grote said. "They force you to think about the world in a different way."
Research done in Chouinard's lab examines how children learn and the role language plays in the learning process. Grote is studying the nonlinguistic cognitive benefits of speaking more than one language.
When a person speaks two languages, Grote explained, he or she is able to inhibit one language while using the other. Similarly, when those individuals perform problem-solving tasks, they use the same mechanism to inhibit and filter out distracting information unrelated to the task at hand. Studies also indicate that bilingualism can help improve memory, as well as enhance creativity and imagination.
"Understanding how early these benefits develop may provide evidence for supporting non-native English speakers' first language and introducing a second language at an earlier age, rather than at the high school level," Grote said.
She cites Canada's dual immersion education programs as an example of successful bilingual education models. She hopes her research can help change negative attitudes about bilingual education in California and beyond.
"We can learn a lot from people whose first language is not English," said Grote, who attended Fresno's Edison High School and earned her undergraduate degree in psychology from UC Davis in 2005. "My belief is that non-native English speakers are the solution to successful bilingual education, not the problem. They can teach us and we can teach them, together in a dual-language learning environment."
Getting to work with a diverse population is one of the reasons Grote chose UC Merced for her doctoral degree, along with being part of the campus' first group of graduate students in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts.
Since joining UC Merced in 2006, Grote has worked with local Head Start and preschool programs in Merced, Atwater, Delhi, Livingston and Los Banos, and has given presentations related to her research at several conferences. Grote expects to earn her Ph.D. in Social and Cognitive Sciences this year.
Her long-range plan is to open a preschool or learning center that emphasizes diversity and language. Meanwhile, she relishes the challenge of "finding ways to take the research that we're doing and apply it to the communities we live in."
Check this one out from the press corps of the University.
Graduate Student’s Research Examines Cognitive Benefits of Bilingualism
February 24, 2012
Doctoral candidate Kandice Soraya Grote is researching the cognitive benefits of bilingualism in children.
Grote understands her parents did what they thought was best for her at the time.
Today, as a UC Merced doctoral candidate researching the cognitive benefits of bilingualism in children, she still encounters that mindset.
"That mentality has not changed in 25 years," said Grote, a researcher in the cognitive development lab of Professor Michelle M. Chouinard. "Many non-native-speaking parents believe that children will pick up English faster if they stop speaking to them in their native language. It's a horrible myth."
Grote's personal experience, combined with a love of working with children, led her to this field. Her research interests are in the realms of bilingualism, bilingual education, early cognitive development and cross-cultural differences.
"People forget how much you can learn from children," Grote said. "They force you to think about the world in a different way."
Research done in Chouinard's lab examines how children learn and the role language plays in the learning process. Grote is studying the nonlinguistic cognitive benefits of speaking more than one language.
When a person speaks two languages, Grote explained, he or she is able to inhibit one language while using the other. Similarly, when those individuals perform problem-solving tasks, they use the same mechanism to inhibit and filter out distracting information unrelated to the task at hand. Studies also indicate that bilingualism can help improve memory, as well as enhance creativity and imagination.
"Understanding how early these benefits develop may provide evidence for supporting non-native English speakers' first language and introducing a second language at an earlier age, rather than at the high school level," Grote said.
She cites Canada's dual immersion education programs as an example of successful bilingual education models. She hopes her research can help change negative attitudes about bilingual education in California and beyond.
"We can learn a lot from people whose first language is not English," said Grote, who attended Fresno's Edison High School and earned her undergraduate degree in psychology from UC Davis in 2005. "My belief is that non-native English speakers are the solution to successful bilingual education, not the problem. They can teach us and we can teach them, together in a dual-language learning environment."
Getting to work with a diverse population is one of the reasons Grote chose UC Merced for her doctoral degree, along with being part of the campus' first group of graduate students in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts.
Since joining UC Merced in 2006, Grote has worked with local Head Start and preschool programs in Merced, Atwater, Delhi, Livingston and Los Banos, and has given presentations related to her research at several conferences. Grote expects to earn her Ph.D. in Social and Cognitive Sciences this year.
Her long-range plan is to open a preschool or learning center that emphasizes diversity and language. Meanwhile, she relishes the challenge of "finding ways to take the research that we're doing and apply it to the communities we live in."
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Ash Wednesday
My Starbucks is near the catholic church.
There was this person that showed up there to day with what was looking like hair covering their spots on their forehead. I thought to myself, its seems like an easy solution.. go see the dermatologist and have them remove this black on their forehead. It shouldn't be too hard. Then a man came in with a suit that had a little more pronounced soot stain upon his forehead.
Then it hit me. Yep, its Ash Wednesday.
Its the first day of lent.. 42 days before Easter.
My handy wiki said that this is a symbol on the forehead of an ashed cross is representative of the days that Jesus fasted before Easter. Its supposed to be made from the ashes of the the palm leaves from the palm Sunday of the year before.
To me this day is of particular interest. I was called into the office of the first teaching job I had in Colorado and basically dismissed. They gave me two weeks to clear out of town. It happened on Ash Wednesday.
In retrospect it was the best thing that happened. At the time I felt that I was persecuted and worthless.
We relocated to Turlock CA. I began graduate school under an instate status and thus began the 39 year adventure I had with Speech Therapy. Heather my first daughter was born and we endured a recession without jobs and a meet and gasoline shortage. I think that I my success to the support that my family provided me for another chance.
The change started on Ash Wednesday,1973.
There was this person that showed up there to day with what was looking like hair covering their spots on their forehead. I thought to myself, its seems like an easy solution.. go see the dermatologist and have them remove this black on their forehead. It shouldn't be too hard. Then a man came in with a suit that had a little more pronounced soot stain upon his forehead.
Then it hit me. Yep, its Ash Wednesday.
Its the first day of lent.. 42 days before Easter.
My handy wiki said that this is a symbol on the forehead of an ashed cross is representative of the days that Jesus fasted before Easter. Its supposed to be made from the ashes of the the palm leaves from the palm Sunday of the year before.
To me this day is of particular interest. I was called into the office of the first teaching job I had in Colorado and basically dismissed. They gave me two weeks to clear out of town. It happened on Ash Wednesday.
In retrospect it was the best thing that happened. At the time I felt that I was persecuted and worthless.
We relocated to Turlock CA. I began graduate school under an instate status and thus began the 39 year adventure I had with Speech Therapy. Heather my first daughter was born and we endured a recession without jobs and a meet and gasoline shortage. I think that I my success to the support that my family provided me for another chance.
The change started on Ash Wednesday,1973.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
The New Phone
Its been over two years since I bought an Iphone. It was a Iphone Gs with 32 gb. I knew that I would need the next bigger memory one than what comes standard. 16 gbs was just not gong to be enough. My music interests are very diverse. Its been a great phone up until recently when it started to have some issues.
The headphone jack had come loose or modified to the point where only certain headphones would work on it. I had to go the the more expensive Vmoda.. a very good headphone none the less, but even recently on the my walks, I had to jiggle the jack into place and hope it stayed in place as I walked.
Most people would not buy a phone because it has music capabilities. It is one of those things that in the past you carried both a phone and an ipod. Or now just an iphone. My phone is also the one most likely to be used in the car as we travel... so a set of mutually agreeable tunes need to be on it.. namely Carpenters, Beatles, and Croce. My tastes are not always down those rather restrictive channels.
The Iphone Gs was a big improvement over the first Iphones It speed was much improved and the camera was better.
My first iphone, an Iphone GS, before my wife got was used to look up words and concepts from her reading books as much as making phone calls. Other tasks completed with iphones was a much better text messaging system then my previous cell phones. We all had motorola razors before getting Iphones. It was a genuinely tough job to jump through the multiple keystrokes to get the proper letter that would be made into words for a text message. The touch glass key pad, while a little strange in the beginning, became very utilitarian over the time.
My first iphone GS came with almost an insurmountable problem. All of the menu items and commands were in Danish. Needless to say Danish is not a romance language.. so finding the roots to the words made even getting back to the settings on the home base difficult. I figured it out and since that time it had no interest in living in Copenhagen.
The new Iphone 4 S is a slick little wonder. Its thinner and faster than the last one. And alas, the music does work. Integrated into it is Siri. I called mom and dad the other day on my walk with just a voice command. When asked how far it was from Merced to Modesto, it picked out the power chair service number and stated to me that it had no address for it and therefore could not comply with a point to point mileage number.... so okay it does have some limitations.. but there were only limitations due to my not having all the info it needed to draw that conclusion.
I had saved the previous Iphone's info to the cloud. The cloud is a new renewed concept in devices. The previous settings from the cloud were transferable when the old chip from the Iphone GS was disabled. I guess my sim chip had changed significantly in design between the last model and the latest model. So the info in the cloud saved my about 30 minutes at the Apple store in transferring my contacts and links to my apps. When I got home and plugged it into my computer it transferred the actual apps I had purchased on to the new phone.
So what have I used the Iphone for besides making calls and listening to music? When we had a tire blowout on the big highway 99, I used the AAA app to call a tow truck. We use it to check to see where the movies are playing and what time they start. The new Iphone collects both email accounts and I am able to check them out during my walk. I play a brain fitness game periodical to keep the processing going with the brain. I use the flickr app to show people photos of my latest paintings. I use the photography app to take photos. The new Iphone allows you to take photos of yourself without have to turn the camera around on you. I have a spell checker program. Sue checks out the latest Huff stories. I check out the sports on the ESPN scoreboard app. We have found a Chevron station using the Chevron gas station app.. even in the middle of running down the freeway in LA.
And then there is facebook. Its nice to catch up on the doings of your friends and family through facebook. We can figure out what the family in Pennsylvania are doing as well as the Colorado family. The daughters often post there whereabouts and activities on facebook. Its nice nice to have access to that info available off the phone as we travel down the road.
So its been good to have an assistant in the form of technology all sitting in the form a cell phone. Its all because instead of just replicating what a cell phone was when Apple got into them.. they invented once again a new genre.
The headphone jack had come loose or modified to the point where only certain headphones would work on it. I had to go the the more expensive Vmoda.. a very good headphone none the less, but even recently on the my walks, I had to jiggle the jack into place and hope it stayed in place as I walked.
Most people would not buy a phone because it has music capabilities. It is one of those things that in the past you carried both a phone and an ipod. Or now just an iphone. My phone is also the one most likely to be used in the car as we travel... so a set of mutually agreeable tunes need to be on it.. namely Carpenters, Beatles, and Croce. My tastes are not always down those rather restrictive channels.
The Iphone Gs was a big improvement over the first Iphones It speed was much improved and the camera was better.
My first iphone, an Iphone GS, before my wife got was used to look up words and concepts from her reading books as much as making phone calls. Other tasks completed with iphones was a much better text messaging system then my previous cell phones. We all had motorola razors before getting Iphones. It was a genuinely tough job to jump through the multiple keystrokes to get the proper letter that would be made into words for a text message. The touch glass key pad, while a little strange in the beginning, became very utilitarian over the time.
My first iphone GS came with almost an insurmountable problem. All of the menu items and commands were in Danish. Needless to say Danish is not a romance language.. so finding the roots to the words made even getting back to the settings on the home base difficult. I figured it out and since that time it had no interest in living in Copenhagen.
The new Iphone 4 S is a slick little wonder. Its thinner and faster than the last one. And alas, the music does work. Integrated into it is Siri. I called mom and dad the other day on my walk with just a voice command. When asked how far it was from Merced to Modesto, it picked out the power chair service number and stated to me that it had no address for it and therefore could not comply with a point to point mileage number.... so okay it does have some limitations.. but there were only limitations due to my not having all the info it needed to draw that conclusion.
I had saved the previous Iphone's info to the cloud. The cloud is a new renewed concept in devices. The previous settings from the cloud were transferable when the old chip from the Iphone GS was disabled. I guess my sim chip had changed significantly in design between the last model and the latest model. So the info in the cloud saved my about 30 minutes at the Apple store in transferring my contacts and links to my apps. When I got home and plugged it into my computer it transferred the actual apps I had purchased on to the new phone.
So what have I used the Iphone for besides making calls and listening to music? When we had a tire blowout on the big highway 99, I used the AAA app to call a tow truck. We use it to check to see where the movies are playing and what time they start. The new Iphone collects both email accounts and I am able to check them out during my walk. I play a brain fitness game periodical to keep the processing going with the brain. I use the flickr app to show people photos of my latest paintings. I use the photography app to take photos. The new Iphone allows you to take photos of yourself without have to turn the camera around on you. I have a spell checker program. Sue checks out the latest Huff stories. I check out the sports on the ESPN scoreboard app. We have found a Chevron station using the Chevron gas station app.. even in the middle of running down the freeway in LA.
And then there is facebook. Its nice to catch up on the doings of your friends and family through facebook. We can figure out what the family in Pennsylvania are doing as well as the Colorado family. The daughters often post there whereabouts and activities on facebook. Its nice nice to have access to that info available off the phone as we travel down the road.
So its been good to have an assistant in the form of technology all sitting in the form a cell phone. Its all because instead of just replicating what a cell phone was when Apple got into them.. they invented once again a new genre.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Reviewing Weekly Fun
Its great to think about all the cool stuff that happened in the week. We mostly were at home because of Sue's procedure.
But for fun.. I got some really cool pens via ebay for drawing in the moleskine. They are from Japan and have a tiny brush in them instead of a point. The ink coming out is totally waterproof and it comes in several colors. The brand is Sakura. They are designed for controlled brushstrokes. They have 8 different colors and there is even a set for each of my artsy sisters.. One of my artsy sisters is doing a drawing every day to keep up her drawing skills. The other is a moleskine travel artist that journals and paints as she travels.
I has a chance to catch one of my favorite romantic movies on TV this week. The Adjustment Bureau. Its got a little sci fi mixed in but it is a wonderful story of finding your destiny in romance. Damon pulls a wonderful role as the New York politician that discovers the doors that short cut travel of the "desiny providers."
I also finished a "free" book that I downloaded for the kindle. Its Susan Denney's book Snarky and Sweet: A Romantic Comedy about Twins, Texas and a Big Red Diamond. Its a sweet romantic novel with sex written about a couple of identical twins. One becomes a teacher in Texas, and the other marries a multimillionaire from San Jose. Its a great little read and a fascinating story that you can pick up on her blog about how she gave away for two days a huge amount of her stories and exclusivity to Amazon in exchange for getting her novel read and a readership for its sequel. Read all about it from her blog Snarky and Sweet. This author has an interesting hobby of collecting vintage patterns for sewing. While the novel was free for me since I hit the two day inclusion, the novel is now available for $2.99. Its still a great bargain for a quick read.
As I noted before my dear sweet wife had her second epidermal this week. She was much less fearful of the procedure since she had her first 2 weeks ago and she knew what to expect for this one. The biggest issue is getting the Iv installed. For this one the Dr hit is right away so there was no bruising.. just momentary stinging.
I have completed the pruning required to keep my apricot tree in the back from getting too tall. It took 3 90 gallon plastic totes.. garbage cans really to contain most of the trimmings. the city comes by once a week to haul them off to the landfills compost pile. They have a huge machine that chops everone's lawn clippings, leaves, and branches into compost. They sell it back by the pickup load to gardeners and ranchers that need soil enhancement materials.
I saw two movies in the netflix this week. Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris has some wonderful post card like images for the first 4 minutes of the movie. The sci fi connection with the classic authors and their times was kind of unexpected since the previews really didn't highlight that angle of the movie. It was benign. You can really feel the rhythm of Wood Allen in the director's seat, but the movie was not overstated beyond the obvious strange connections with present day Paris to the legendary Paris of Picasso and Hemingway.
The other movie that I watched was called Flypaper. Essentially it tried to be a comedy where two bank robber teams descended upon the same bank to rob it. The comedy part didn't come off right and the movie could barely get out from under its own premise to play.
The superbowl is on tap tomorrow. It should be a good game. I am cheering for the Pat's. Brady, the patriot's quarterback is from San Mateo and there is a local angle in that one of the defense lineman lives in the off season in Mariposa.
I just found out the one of my friends that retired in my class, Jan, has a brother that played in a couple of superbowls for the 49ers. He was part of that goal line stand in 1981 that kept the Cincinnati Bengals from scoring. Its a bit ironic since but Jan and her grew up in Ohio..
I was sad to learn that my sister's black and white cat passed over the rainbow this week. He was a smart cat that learned to talk on my sister's direction. Like all black and white cats a keen eye was required to keep him in line. He was with her for a very long time. He was always a good companion to her..
So in retrospect this was a pretty mixed bag of a week. We are now in February.. so its got to be good!
: ) Pat
But for fun.. I got some really cool pens via ebay for drawing in the moleskine. They are from Japan and have a tiny brush in them instead of a point. The ink coming out is totally waterproof and it comes in several colors. The brand is Sakura. They are designed for controlled brushstrokes. They have 8 different colors and there is even a set for each of my artsy sisters.. One of my artsy sisters is doing a drawing every day to keep up her drawing skills. The other is a moleskine travel artist that journals and paints as she travels.
I has a chance to catch one of my favorite romantic movies on TV this week. The Adjustment Bureau. Its got a little sci fi mixed in but it is a wonderful story of finding your destiny in romance. Damon pulls a wonderful role as the New York politician that discovers the doors that short cut travel of the "desiny providers."
I also finished a "free" book that I downloaded for the kindle. Its Susan Denney's book Snarky and Sweet: A Romantic Comedy about Twins, Texas and a Big Red Diamond. Its a sweet romantic novel with sex written about a couple of identical twins. One becomes a teacher in Texas, and the other marries a multimillionaire from San Jose. Its a great little read and a fascinating story that you can pick up on her blog about how she gave away for two days a huge amount of her stories and exclusivity to Amazon in exchange for getting her novel read and a readership for its sequel. Read all about it from her blog Snarky and Sweet. This author has an interesting hobby of collecting vintage patterns for sewing. While the novel was free for me since I hit the two day inclusion, the novel is now available for $2.99. Its still a great bargain for a quick read.
As I noted before my dear sweet wife had her second epidermal this week. She was much less fearful of the procedure since she had her first 2 weeks ago and she knew what to expect for this one. The biggest issue is getting the Iv installed. For this one the Dr hit is right away so there was no bruising.. just momentary stinging.
I have completed the pruning required to keep my apricot tree in the back from getting too tall. It took 3 90 gallon plastic totes.. garbage cans really to contain most of the trimmings. the city comes by once a week to haul them off to the landfills compost pile. They have a huge machine that chops everone's lawn clippings, leaves, and branches into compost. They sell it back by the pickup load to gardeners and ranchers that need soil enhancement materials.
I saw two movies in the netflix this week. Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris has some wonderful post card like images for the first 4 minutes of the movie. The sci fi connection with the classic authors and their times was kind of unexpected since the previews really didn't highlight that angle of the movie. It was benign. You can really feel the rhythm of Wood Allen in the director's seat, but the movie was not overstated beyond the obvious strange connections with present day Paris to the legendary Paris of Picasso and Hemingway.
The other movie that I watched was called Flypaper. Essentially it tried to be a comedy where two bank robber teams descended upon the same bank to rob it. The comedy part didn't come off right and the movie could barely get out from under its own premise to play.
The superbowl is on tap tomorrow. It should be a good game. I am cheering for the Pat's. Brady, the patriot's quarterback is from San Mateo and there is a local angle in that one of the defense lineman lives in the off season in Mariposa.
I just found out the one of my friends that retired in my class, Jan, has a brother that played in a couple of superbowls for the 49ers. He was part of that goal line stand in 1981 that kept the Cincinnati Bengals from scoring. Its a bit ironic since but Jan and her grew up in Ohio..
I was sad to learn that my sister's black and white cat passed over the rainbow this week. He was a smart cat that learned to talk on my sister's direction. Like all black and white cats a keen eye was required to keep him in line. He was with her for a very long time. He was always a good companion to her..
So in retrospect this was a pretty mixed bag of a week. We are now in February.. so its got to be good!
: ) Pat