The Wordsmith's Forge

Now available in Tennessee.

( Read more... )

Various tools can help vision-impaired people explore astronomy.

One method turns telescope data into sound, which can reveal interesting patterns. 

Tactile maps also let people feel how stars, moons, and planets are arranged or shaped.

This poem came out of the September 4, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from janetmiles , alexseanchai , dialecticdreamer , erulisse , chanter_greenie, and rix_scaedu. It also fills the "opportunity" square in my 9-1-18 card for the Cottoncandy Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the Shiv thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It follows "Uncovering the Complete Truth," so read that first or this won't make much sense.

( Read more... )

This poem is spillover from the December 5, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from alexseanchai and Merle. It also fills the "a strange friend" square in my 12-3-17 card for the genprompt_bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette. It belongs to the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem features intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes new adults aged out of the foster system, attachment issues, loneliness, unhappiness, extensive sexual abuse, assorted other abuse, broken families, orphans, gender-based rejection, missing skills, medical malpractice, faking success, negative coping skills, crying, not knowing what safety feels like, vulgar language, sex/gender issues, impaired consent, minor self-injury, gizmotronic baby dolls with problems, involuntary separation, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before moving onward.

( Read more... )

Here are the character and location notes for "Uncovering the Complete Truth."

( Read more... )

 Yoga and mindfulness reduce student anxiety.  

Coping skills are good.  However, it would be better to reduce stress that destroys children's health in the first place, and give them a more positive educational environment.  Children are biologically designed for learn, and to ensure that, it's hooked to the reward circuit.  If you're turning that into anxiety somehow, you are seriously fucking up the process.

This poem is spillover from the May 1, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from janetmiles, dialecticdreamer, and zeeth_kyrah. It also fills the "trust" square in my 5-1-18 card for the Pro Wrestling Bingo Fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with daisiesrockalot and curiosity. It belongs to the Shiv thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem contains some touchy topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It features the inside of Shiv's head, which is always kind of a mess, and here he's stressing over situations that are not-quite-like school. It also has touch sensitivity, rude language, references to past abuse, age issues, Shiv is twedgy about math, and school in general, because his teachers were assholes, visual and tactile learning modes, low self-esteem, self-recrimination, tactile sensory-seeking, safety discussions, the importance of slightly damaged things in learning how to handle items carefully, emotional overload, discussion of educational abuse, Shiv finally tells Dr. G some of the bad schools he attended, anxiety, dissociation, relationship bank accounts, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

( Read more... )

So much fun.  :D 

I am reminded of the Cheela invention of counting, which uses a very similar method but ends up in base 12 instead of base 6.

I've been talking with friends about how to improve various aspects of foreign language use.

If you feel like you're fumbling your way through it, that pretty much requires that you level-grind your way to comfort. :/

If you feel like you have to oversimplify things, however, that has a faster fix. You can identify topics that you use often or want to use, and beef up your vocabulary for them so you don't have to reduce your ideas to your current vocabulary.  This is where people get things like "Business Spanish" classes to build their performance in a bilingual workplace.

Or you can pick a more rarefied topic and learn some vocabulary words for it. There are plenty of museums with Hispanic art, for instance. Why not look up Spanish words for a wider range of colors, shapes, symbolism, names of painters, art concepts, and so forth? Then go out to a museum and talk about those things in Spanish. Often you can find places that have a self-tour with a Spanish track, which is another way to practice.

Spanish art vocabulary:

https://foxhugh.com/spanish/126-art/

http://babel-linguistics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Glossary-Art2.pdf

https://www.brighthubeducation.com/spanish-lesson-plans/35442-art-activity-with-painting-vocabulary-and-phrases/

Here is an awesome video lesson in Spanish art vocabulary. I was surprised and delighted that I could understand almost all of it, despite never having studied it. :D (Yes, I just blew 20 minutes on Spanish art because it sounded fun.) The Spanish comes first, then you get the translation a few seconds later, so see how much you can figure out.  It's a little slice of Terramagne.  This kind of stuff is all over T-America, encouraging people to use their spare languages.  Museums will pitch art language for whatever cultures they have art from.  Zoos often choose Greek or Latin (because of the scientific names) or languages relating to the animals' country of origin.

It's not oversimplifying if you can learn to talk about sophisticated topics. Pick something that sounds cool to you and try it out. If you explore one new topic a month, at the end of a year you'll be conversant in a dozen interesting themes. \o/

Our theme for this session was "neurodiversity." I wrote from 12:45 PM to 3:45 AM, so about 13 hours accounting for breaks. I wrote 11 poems on Tuesday and another 5 later.

Participation was enthusiastic, with 19 on LiveJournal and another 97 on Dreamwidth. A total of 27 people sent prompts. Please welcome new prompter torc87, whom you can thank for the second freebie.


Read Some Poetry!
The following poems from the May 1, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:
"A Brief History of Stimming"
"Dreaming Idiots and Trusting Fools"
"Let It Fly Away"
"The Softness of the Sounds"
"Sparrows and Penguins"
"To Think What Nobody Has Thought"
"What Kind of Difference" (sponsored, not posted yet)

"Nascent Wisdom" (April 3, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl, standalone)
"The Currency of Leadership" (April 3, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl, Polychrome Heroics: Aquariana)


Most of the currently sponsored poems have been posted. This month's sponsors include: erulisse, kengr, janetmiles, Anthony & Shirley Barrette.

The Poetry Fishbowl made its $200 goal, so "The Currency of Leadership" is the free epic. It also made the $250 goal, so that's three tallies toward a bonus fishbowl, which will be on Tuesday, May 15.


The Poetry Fishbowl project also has a permanent landing page.