I think my brain is cross eyed

Or, at least that's how it feels trying to do this:

Look at the image. Is the dancer spinning clockwise or counter clockwise?

Now, concentrate and make her spin the OTHER way. Then try changing back again once you do it.

I can do it if I focus on her planted foot, but it's really hard to change between directions!

Go to this link http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22556281-661,00.html for the original article, complete with brief descriptions of right brained (clockwise viewers) vs left brained (counterclockwise) dominant thinkers. (Although I'm still not quite convinced of one "side" of the brain being dominant over another and wonder if this specific effect -in this moving image) isn't due more to handedness, although we'll leave discussion of that for another day.

My favourite almost 7 year old

One of the disadvantages of living so far away from family is that I don't get to see family members doing this very often:



Thankfully, my niece is the only one who clambers around her grandparents' walls like this.
I'll let you know if her grammy tries it when I'm home at Christmas this year!

Acknowledging my inner stickler

I needed some scrap paper last night and found myself rummaging through an overflowing recyling bin during my hunt. I came across a newsletter published by town council a few months ago. The town has since switched to an electronic format (although they have yet to enable the internet link) so I can't enjoy the free monthly newsletters in quite the same way. ManNorth shook his head in astonishment when he found the newsletter shortly after it had arrived in our postal box and after I'd read it. And edited it. Profusely.

I couldn't help myself! I felt ready to march over to town hall and volunteer my editing services, if only to keep some sanity. Doesn't the mayor know what a run-on sentence is it looks like this and doesn't he know when to add proper punctuation and proper use of capitals or breaks between sentences or paragraphs and why oh why didn't anyone think to proof the newspaper before it was printed? I didn't volunteer my editing services of course, but bad grammar, spelling and run-on sentences drive me a bit nutty sometimes and usually when the writer should know better. This isn't to say that my writing is without error, as I know it certainly isn't and I've found both grammar and spelling mistakes in this very blog, but in a newsletter representing the people governing my town, I expect a wee bit better, and I don't think that this is asking too much.

I used ManNorth's handy scanner-printer-photocopier-in one (!) to scan the front page of the newsletter with my edits intact for this post but found them hard to read so I redid most of them on my computer. (Yes, there were more than I'll be showing and I had to just circle mistakes instead of actually correcting them in order to save space.) I admit that seeing the page dripping in figurative red ink on my screen brought tears to my eyes (figurative, not literal) and no small sense of accomplishment. Now, I'm not a mean person, and I think it more important that there is communication between the town council and the town's residents, but proper grammar, makes it better communication, with less potential for misunderstanding. (Hence, IMHO, my abhorrence of the current fad of texting and reducing everything to abbreviations and shortform. LOL! Sometimes NAOLPKT we've no idea what they are saying. NRN!)

It's been some time since I was employed as a teaching assistant and marked essays and exams and in a small way, I miss the tiny boost to the ego that correcting papers can give. (Aren't I horrible?) I once completely emptied two red pens while marking a batch of undergraduate essays and although I felt a bit badly as the essays became rather aesthetically unappealing in appearance -owing in small part to my horrid penmanship and use of rollerball pens, I felt that I'd done my students a service and one that was my duty. And it was fun.

Today I add to my blogroll a few links to blogs written by others with an inner stickler, as Lynne Truss so aptly explained it in her book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. (I must thank my mother who knows me well enough to have bought me two of Lynne's books which I've gratefully added to my library as both comic relief and handy reference.) I'm not about to start an entire blog to fulfil the needs of my inner stickler but I'll happily visit such blogs now and again when I feel the need. I've sent a copy of the newsletter to Red Pen, Inc but don't know if the grammarphile will use it for her blog fodder, hence this post. I don't know if The Grammar Vandal actually advocates carrying around a permanent marker for impromptu corrections, but one might wish they would. Apostrophe Abuse is a fun, if distressing, read. Those apostrophe's just show up anywhere people 'think' they might want to 'hang! (Yes, those were all intentional apostrophe mistakes just now!) Finally, one might pay a virtual visit to Literally, A Web Log if they, like me, are bothered when others literally use the term literally when they mean figuratively. I mean, I just literally have a cow when others do that. Don't you?

A final word: although obvious grammar mistakes do bother me in published work, such as in books, articles and advertising, I really don't mind when encountering grammar mistakes in casual writing, such as in friendly email or in blog comments. I'm certainly more interested in what the author of such writing has to say than whether it is grammatically correct or not. (So please, keep commenting and writing me email without fear of offending my inner stickler!)

Without further ado, with the intention of comic relief, I present the front page of the newsletter, redacted (click to enlarge):

Another first!

The ManNorth is currently fending off blows at a defensive tactics training course and I'm watching in the growing darkness (the sun's down and it's just 5PM) as a woman slowly maneouvres around a nearby parking lot on her snow mobile, presumably for the entertainment of the toddler seated in front of her. Other snow mobiles have been zipping up and down on the snow covered gravel shoulders of mainstreet and I can hear the buzz from other machines that are racing along the nearby river. I have yet to see anyone wearing a helmet, although their use is required by law in town for anyone riding an ATV or snow mobile. Outside of town, helmet use isn't legislated and users typically move at much greater speed than the 40km/hr limit in town. Ah well, 'tis their noggins at risk and not mine!

Yesterday, I was pleased to see a novel (to me) use of a snow mobile: for training sled dogs! We were on a cross country skiing excursion along the river when a couple with a team of dogs raced up to us and we could see that the dogs were pulling a snow mobile instead of a sled. As we watched, the team slowed down and made a U-turn through a set of posts driven into the river ice and dashed back the way they came, passing between another pair of posts as they went. The ManNorth managed a few photos before they disappeared downriver.

I was rather pleased as this was the first dog team I've seen in action since we moved here and I've been anticipating them all summer and fall, particularly when hearing or seeing the local dogs yipping and barking from their kennels. We turned down an offer of free puppies a few weeks ago and will wait until we have a house and space to accomodate a few dogs. -Or perhaps a sled dog team of our own.

Cue oldies song: "DreeeeEEEEEeeeam, dream, dream, dream ...."

In the photo above, the team has just passed between the posts and are beginning their turn. The female passenger has jumped off and out of view on the right to replace a post that was knocked over.

Above, both people are back on the snow mobile and the team is racing back to the next set of markers.

They're a wee bit faster than me on my skis!

I'm at least moving on the ice, unlike this beached hulk, abandoned long ago on the shore.

A few hours later, we'd changed out of our drenched clothing (we'd worn a few too many layers for the mild -10C that it was) and were rehydrating with hot chocolate as we enjoyed a day old newspaper, flown in on the afternoon jet. (Hurray for the Globe and Mail!)