Friday, March 1
Mar. 2nd, 2024 01:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Middling cold (-15 C), but no wind, so it felt okay. Sunny and clear.
I felt like I got a lot of sleep, and though I woke up once from a kind of crappy dream that I made myself forget, I got determined to try again, and I got a better dream of there being an interesting old house on our property (besides the one we're living in) that we would maybe be able to renovate and rent out or something. Don't ask my why my brain thought we needed ANOTHER house to fix up, but it felt positive. It was a cool house.
I went to see River today, and he was up in the regular feeding area instead of hiding in the bush, so that made it easier.
I gave R some money as a deposit on a clinic she is hosting at the barn this summer. Hopefully that's fun and worthwhile.
The girl with some health challenges didn't have a lesson today, so R worked with Quidley while I worked with River.
River did pretty well with our Liberty/groundwork. I worked on keeping him at a better distance from me in the circles.
Then we rode, and I felt that he did pretty well. We're getting better most of the time at making good smaller circles at the walk and trot with just the neck rope, and keeping a decent rhythm instead of speeding up/slowing down. Some really good halts from the canter.
It did indeed still feel repetitive, but we are refining our work.
Then I came home, and my husband had taken the truck to work today, because he took the snow blower to be repaired on his way to work.
Somehow, because he had the truck, he ended up bringing home a big blanket chest from someone at work who was moving and couldn't take it with him.
It's an okay item, not an antique, it looks like something you'd get from Ikea. We don't need it AT ALL. I think what we probably need to do is to load it right back into the truck and either sell it or donate it.
It's not that it isn't nice enough, but my husband likes to bring home big things like this, and it has to stop somewhere. Not long ago he brought home a big chair from his parents that also doesn't fit anywhere and we don't need. It's an okay chair, but that's not enough reason to take it home, it has to be either replacing something we have to make room for it, or be something we NEED.
He took the chair from his parents purely from guilt, feeling like he would make them feel bad if he didn't take it. He takes home stuff from them every time he visits because they want to give him something, and half the time we end up getting rid of it later because we really never needed it in the first place.
Anyhow, once at home, we made supper, and I had a phone conversation with D from pottery, about what I see happening with the beginner's class. The call took way too long, and we hashed over things way too much, but it did help to clarify a few things.
A) I have to be able to answer: "why do I care? it's not my class time, and not my job to worry about what other people are doing".
I care that the new people to pottery get a good experience, because I know how much it matters to me to be able to make pottery. I care that if their first experience sucks, they might leave and never have another chance to try to do something they might have otherwise really enjoyed.
I also want these people to get the skills and the confidence to move on to work independently, so that if we get some of these people in our class, they aren't confused about how to do basic things, or mess up our glazes, or leave messes behind because they don't know how to clean up after themselves.
I also don't want our craft center to get into trouble with the building we lease the space from if there are people working in the hallway, and it might be a violation of fire code.
B) Do I have a solution?
I have potential solutions. Start moving people who are competent to other classes so that Thursday isn't so crowded.
Limit the number of new students, or split that class into two groups, but there needs to be a second instructor so that everything doesn't have to be the job of that one person.
Have some kind of idea of what skills the new students need to be "good citizens" so they are ready to move on to working independently.
C) Who do I talk to about these things?
Probably the President of the Craft Center, so it can be brought up at a meeting, and whoever is our class representative.
Moving on.
We watched another episode of "Succession". I still don't really care about any of these characters.
Kyrgyzstan is another of the many "Stans" of Central Asia.
It is right beside the other "Stans". All of the "Stans" are in a big clump in the middle.
"Stan" means "place of". So, Kyrgyzstan is "place belonging to the Kyrgyz people" or something.
Very long history of many ruling nations that came and went, was once ruled by Turkish nomads, as well as the Mongolian empire.
"1876, Kyrgyzstan became part of the Russian Empire, and in 1936, the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was formed to become a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. Following Mikhail Gorbachev's democratic reforms in the USSR, in 1990 pro-independence candidate Askar Akayev was elected president. On 31 August 1991, Kyrgyzstan declared independence from the USSR and a democratic government was established. Kyrgyzstan attained sovereignty as a nation state after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991."
So these days there is a President, but there is pretty much just fighting and fighting, and more fighting. I don't even know what it's about. Just more fighting. People are angry at government corruption, but of course, who do you have instead, or what system?
Kyrgyzstan is a land-locked country that is mostly covered in the Tian Shen mountain range. All of the rivers flow into lakes, and none of the fresh water ever reaches the ocean, it stays right there.
Since so much of the land is mountainous, or suffers severe annual flooding, there is very little arable land available for agriculture.
There are deposits of gold and rare earth minerals.
"Kyrgyzstan contains seven terrestrial ecosystems: Tian Shan montane conifer forests, Alai-Western Tian Shan steppe, Gissaro-Alai open woodlands, Tian Shan foothill arid steppe, Pamir alpine desert and tundra, Tian Shan montane steppe and meadows, and Central Asian northern desert.[64] It had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.86/10, ranking it 13th globally out of 172 countries.[65]"
The glaciers that form in the mountains are currently melting at an accelerated rate due to climate change, and the country is experiencing weather extremes leading to droughts or flooding.
It's another very poor country that has struggled greatly since the fall of the U.S.S.R. (though it was still poor then, too).
In spite of there not being much land suited for growing food, agriculture is still pretty much their biggest source of income. There is a lot of land suited to grazing, so they have a lot of meat and wool.
They also produce and export hydroelectric energy, as well as the mining.
There is a fair amount of tourism, mainly at this one very big and beautiful lake: Issyk Kul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issyk-Kul
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrgyzstan
Another great, short video from Mr. History: https://youtu.be/eE-p4ySG-nk?si=w47wjW8VFNVn_k77
Middling cold (-15 C), but no wind, so it felt okay. Sunny and clear.
I felt like I got a lot of sleep, and though I woke up once from a kind of crappy dream that I made myself forget, I got determined to try again, and I got a better dream of there being an interesting old house on our property (besides the one we're living in) that we would maybe be able to renovate and rent out or something. Don't ask my why my brain thought we needed ANOTHER house to fix up, but it felt positive. It was a cool house.
I went to see River today, and he was up in the regular feeding area instead of hiding in the bush, so that made it easier.
I gave R some money as a deposit on a clinic she is hosting at the barn this summer. Hopefully that's fun and worthwhile.
The girl with some health challenges didn't have a lesson today, so R worked with Quidley while I worked with River.
River did pretty well with our Liberty/groundwork. I worked on keeping him at a better distance from me in the circles.
Then we rode, and I felt that he did pretty well. We're getting better most of the time at making good smaller circles at the walk and trot with just the neck rope, and keeping a decent rhythm instead of speeding up/slowing down. Some really good halts from the canter.
It did indeed still feel repetitive, but we are refining our work.
Then I came home, and my husband had taken the truck to work today, because he took the snow blower to be repaired on his way to work.
Somehow, because he had the truck, he ended up bringing home a big blanket chest from someone at work who was moving and couldn't take it with him.
It's an okay item, not an antique, it looks like something you'd get from Ikea. We don't need it AT ALL. I think what we probably need to do is to load it right back into the truck and either sell it or donate it.
It's not that it isn't nice enough, but my husband likes to bring home big things like this, and it has to stop somewhere. Not long ago he brought home a big chair from his parents that also doesn't fit anywhere and we don't need. It's an okay chair, but that's not enough reason to take it home, it has to be either replacing something we have to make room for it, or be something we NEED.
He took the chair from his parents purely from guilt, feeling like he would make them feel bad if he didn't take it. He takes home stuff from them every time he visits because they want to give him something, and half the time we end up getting rid of it later because we really never needed it in the first place.
Anyhow, once at home, we made supper, and I had a phone conversation with D from pottery, about what I see happening with the beginner's class. The call took way too long, and we hashed over things way too much, but it did help to clarify a few things.
A) I have to be able to answer: "why do I care? it's not my class time, and not my job to worry about what other people are doing".
I care that the new people to pottery get a good experience, because I know how much it matters to me to be able to make pottery. I care that if their first experience sucks, they might leave and never have another chance to try to do something they might have otherwise really enjoyed.
I also want these people to get the skills and the confidence to move on to work independently, so that if we get some of these people in our class, they aren't confused about how to do basic things, or mess up our glazes, or leave messes behind because they don't know how to clean up after themselves.
I also don't want our craft center to get into trouble with the building we lease the space from if there are people working in the hallway, and it might be a violation of fire code.
B) Do I have a solution?
I have potential solutions. Start moving people who are competent to other classes so that Thursday isn't so crowded.
Limit the number of new students, or split that class into two groups, but there needs to be a second instructor so that everything doesn't have to be the job of that one person.
Have some kind of idea of what skills the new students need to be "good citizens" so they are ready to move on to working independently.
C) Who do I talk to about these things?
Probably the President of the Craft Center, so it can be brought up at a meeting, and whoever is our class representative.
Moving on.
We watched another episode of "Succession". I still don't really care about any of these characters.
Kyrgyzstan is another of the many "Stans" of Central Asia.
It is right beside the other "Stans". All of the "Stans" are in a big clump in the middle.
"Stan" means "place of". So, Kyrgyzstan is "place belonging to the Kyrgyz people" or something.
Very long history of many ruling nations that came and went, was once ruled by Turkish nomads, as well as the Mongolian empire.
"1876, Kyrgyzstan became part of the Russian Empire, and in 1936, the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was formed to become a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. Following Mikhail Gorbachev's democratic reforms in the USSR, in 1990 pro-independence candidate Askar Akayev was elected president. On 31 August 1991, Kyrgyzstan declared independence from the USSR and a democratic government was established. Kyrgyzstan attained sovereignty as a nation state after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991."
So these days there is a President, but there is pretty much just fighting and fighting, and more fighting. I don't even know what it's about. Just more fighting. People are angry at government corruption, but of course, who do you have instead, or what system?
Kyrgyzstan is a land-locked country that is mostly covered in the Tian Shen mountain range. All of the rivers flow into lakes, and none of the fresh water ever reaches the ocean, it stays right there.
Since so much of the land is mountainous, or suffers severe annual flooding, there is very little arable land available for agriculture.
There are deposits of gold and rare earth minerals.
"Kyrgyzstan contains seven terrestrial ecosystems: Tian Shan montane conifer forests, Alai-Western Tian Shan steppe, Gissaro-Alai open woodlands, Tian Shan foothill arid steppe, Pamir alpine desert and tundra, Tian Shan montane steppe and meadows, and Central Asian northern desert.[64] It had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.86/10, ranking it 13th globally out of 172 countries.[65]"
The glaciers that form in the mountains are currently melting at an accelerated rate due to climate change, and the country is experiencing weather extremes leading to droughts or flooding.
It's another very poor country that has struggled greatly since the fall of the U.S.S.R. (though it was still poor then, too).
In spite of there not being much land suited for growing food, agriculture is still pretty much their biggest source of income. There is a lot of land suited to grazing, so they have a lot of meat and wool.
They also produce and export hydroelectric energy, as well as the mining.
There is a fair amount of tourism, mainly at this one very big and beautiful lake: Issyk Kul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issyk-Kul
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrgyzstan
Another great, short video from Mr. History: https://youtu.be/eE-p4ySG-nk?si=w47wjW8VFNVn_k77
no subject
Date: 2024-03-03 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-03 08:11 am (UTC)I really don't know what purpose they serve, because it's not like I don't already examine my fears or weaknesses during my waking hours.
You'd think that dreams could do more to be "problem-solving", or help us figure out what we might like to try next, or show us that we actually have a talent we haven't explored. Or at best, escapist fun.
I do have fun dreams sometimes too, but the less nice ones kind of start my day off badly.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-04 07:44 am (UTC)