in the morningas i leave for work:i start the car,back out of the garage,close the garage door,and put on my seat belt in that order i’m annoyed by the nagging chimereminding me to put on my seatbeltbut it’s part of the routine if i don’t hear it,i will wonder(halfway to work)if i left the garage…
Author: Clio
once upon a time
back in the dayswhen i was an alien(before i’d crawled into the fleshthat now calls itself me): i was free to soaramong the stars this is the freedomi seek to find againhidden deep in the labyrinthof my soul inside the husk of humanityi pretend to inhabitthere is a mei used to beuntil i decided it…
monsters and jigsaws
sixth grade: i hid my monstersin the closetat the back of the trailerthat was our classroom it had once been a bathroom,when the trailer had once been a home,but now it was a storage areafilled with stacks of papersand booksand the sort of office suppliesthat only teachers kept i was wedged in that closethiding from…
Sarcophagus / Cocoon
the woman who was the motherto the son i used to beis now a shellfilled with venom and bile her ancient skin is a sarcophagusmine is a cocoonhousing a frightened butterfly and i cannot stay mooredto her millstonefor i am to take flightand fly away 03.30.24
Are You With Me? (Diary 3/29)
Last night we went to see Cowboy Mouth at The Magic Bag in Ferndale. It inspired a lot of thoughts in my head. Cowboy Mouth is about letting anxiety go and just having fun. That’s not really how my brain works, but it’s a solid message. I know I cling too much to things. That’s…
On the “cis” controversy
In my parent’s generation, being left-handed was seen as wrong and actively suppressed. Even as a child, I was often looked at skeptically. I was a “Southpaw”, a term I can now go years without hearing. As a teacher, some of my immigrant students have looked askance at me, but other than that, it’s just…
“Answer”
I see or hear some variation of this often from mathematics teachers: “The answer to 4+5 is 9.” “So if we’re given (5+3)/2, that means we add five and three, then divide the result by two, and that gives us the answer.” In regular plain English, answers are coupled with questions. Expressions, though, aren’t questions,…
On the Proper Pronunciation of Non-English Words
Lacroix, Detroit, axolotl, karaoke: All of these are pronounced differently in English than in the languages of their origin. I used to get quite pedantic about “karaoke”. Our pronunciation originates from a place of linguistic indifference (at best) or racism (at worst): We had a tendency to take Japanese words and give them a childish,…
Squaring Two-Digit Numbers (Redux)
If you want to square a two-digit number, you could just use a calculator, or you could use the traditional algorithm. I’m going to talk about a different method here, but not because I think this is a particularly useful method. The point of this discussion is to look at how numbers are interrelated; if…
Squaring Two Digit Numbers
Math fun: If you want to square any two digit number more quickly than the traditional algorithm, here’s a strategy. It does require you to know the squares of all the single-digit numbers, as well as a bit of mental juggling. First, if the number ends in a zero, square the first digit and put…