Brain fudge level, OFF THE SCALE and that’s just me.
The high point (🤯🤯🤯) of the week has to be poor Hawklad having to stay in the exam room for an extra hour after the first exam had finished while IT tried to fix a misbehaving printer. National rules state that if you use a computer to complete an exam then the student has to stay in the exam room until each typed sheet has been signed and dated. The teachers were really apologetic but they had to follow the rules.
The other highlight has to be me printing out what was a highly rated article on ASPERGERS and then sat scratching my head why the article appeared to be a cooking recipe. I did find out how to make ASPARAGUS creamy parcels.
Not one of the local farming communities newer tractors…
Not yet had a Dream about a tractor…. YET.
One of the few pieces of information I can remember from University is that recurring themes in adult sleep dreams are likely to indicate unfulfilled need, a missing element or an unresolved trauma. I got that gem not from lectures (I was mainly asleep in those) but from an Irish girl who lived in the same student accommodation block as me. She shared this piece of wisdom while beating me at Darts in the Student Union Bar. Quite odd really as she was studying Robotics and usually only talked about stuff more akin to a Terminator script. However she did seem to know her DREAM stuff in that moment. I also remember that she had recurring dreams involving exploring a non existent cave system back in her Irish hometown of Wexford. Before I could ponder the deep meaning behind those dreams she pointed out that she was a keen POT HOLER and didn’t find this passion until she moved from home – kinda explains things……
Strange how you remember these odd events and yet almost instantly forget important things like names.
Anyway I also have recurring dreams. One is about my football team winning a trophy, I’ve had those for over 40 years. I think that is just down to me being a permanently delusional optimist.
But I do have another recurring dream theme. Don’t worry it doesn’t involve anything as racy as sticks of rhubarb, ferrets, Cricket Balls and other Yorkshire stuff. But it is a dream that is recurring more with passing time. In the dreams I’m usually back in my mid twenties and either in college or at work. The dream starts with just some routine work or day, something mundane but it always ends up with a group of friends having a nice restaurant meal together. Nothing exciting ever happens just that meal with friends. When I do wake up, always during the dream meal, I feel melancholy. I’m pretty sure this dream is pointing to how things that once kept me socially connected have over time dwindled away or just maybe it’s actually that I regret not having more opportunities to do these things in life. The last sit down meal I had was a family one back in 2016 and that was funeral related. I can’t even remember the last restaurant meal with friends. But looking further back, what is abundantly clear is that I really didn’t do much of this socialising ever. I didn’t realise this back then, I do now. I probably don’t need my dreams to point this out to me.
It’s less than a week before Hawklad’s first exam starts. It’s starting to feel very real now. Very rushed. Very unnerving. Not feeling planned, feeling very out of control. Not controlling direction, much more being bounced and pushed around.
No exam revision breakthrough yet but he is trying. The problem is that this statutory process suits the system, certainly not Hawklad. He works best when he can focus on one topic and then go deep on that. Switching between topics disrupts his thinking, his learning, unsettles him. So randomly sitting 20 exams, across 6 subjects, over just a few weeks is so counterproductive to him. To him it feels like any progress made is then largely lost as he switches to a completely different topic.
The last few weeks he has also been trying to build rapport with a Teaching Assistant he has worked well with previously at school. If he needed to use a scribe in the exam then this seemed like a good option. The Student and Scribe need to develop that understanding and confidence for the best chance of success. With Asperger’s this is even more important. But now the Exam Board has ruled out using this Teaching Assistant in his exams. New regulations prevent scribes having a direct teaching link with the student. The Teaching Assistant has been providing some one to one English help as part of the weekly school sessions. Back to square one on this, any scribe would now be a stranger to Hawklad, he won’t have time to build up a rapport with a new potential person. A scribe is now not an option. So he is committed to reading and typing up his exams without help. With the grammar and spelling assistants turned off – he losses marks for using these.
The garden is still largely bereft of colour. Thankfully a couple of colourful characters are trying to buck the trend.
I was musing over a concert next year which happens to be nearby. Three old Rock Bands from my youth. Judas Priest, Saxon and Uriah Heep. One I managed to see a few decades back, the other two, it would be my first time. Maybe this time.
Following much friendly winding up from Hawklad, I worked out that the current combined age of those 3 bands was in excess of a 1000 years. Following on from his maths revision, Hawklad estimated that adding me into the mix takes the number closer to 2000 years. 2000 years ago the Romans hadn’t even got round to invading England yet. There’s a thought…
Another thought is that the first exam is less than 2 weeks away. Less than 2 weeks and some of the subjects are still teaching, still trying to get through the set curriculum. Hawklad ain’t getting through everything as it is, never mind adding to it. As Hawklad put it
Next week would be bad enough just trying to learn 25 love poems for English Literaturewhich might as well haven been written in Vulcan, but I’m also supposed to revise six other subjects and all this new stuff. Actually I could do with being a Vulcan like Spock.
Deep sigh.
Is it time to go to my prehistoric heavy metal concert yet…..
Stood in the middle of the road, in the middle of the North Yorkshire Moors. It’s rush hour….
Who can spot the vital national security establishment which they haven’t really bothered hiding….. how did they get planning permission for that. Us mere mortals living in these parts struggle to get permission to build even a small coal bunker these days.
Coal bunkers, I remember them. As a child our outside toilet was built next to the coal bunker. The toilet always had a faint hit of black soot covering the seat, the floor, the walls and the toilet paper. Probably not the only things covered as well…
So Hawklad’s exams are fast approaching. In Maths, History and English Literature we have just about made it to the revision stage. For the other subjects sadly we are still scrambling about trying to complete as much of the syllabus as possible. Just need to keep reminding Hawklad that each day, more progress is made. Even if sometimes it just feels like one small step, it’s still helps, it’s still moving forward, it all adds up.
There is so much additional stress and anxiety that’s why it’s so important that Hawklad gets a chance to breathe, to enjoy some of each day. And that’s why we found ourselves stood on an empty Moors road . He fancied a trip out to somewhere quiet, miles from anywhere, miles from the EXAMS.
The Farmer has been busy. The Farmer in a seriously thick jumper. The Farmer who was complaining to me about it being so cold for Spring. The village has an annual walk to the Bluebell Wood usually this last weekend in April. This year it is currently on hold as even the bluebells have decided it’s TOO COLD to make an appearance.
Don’t blame them….
The Farmer reckons the plants are at least a month behind where they should be. Hawklad with just a tad of irony, said that he’d would happily settle for just being a month behind schedule. I know what he means.
Hawklad is ploughing on with his exam revision, mostly sat by the fire. So much to do and not enough time. Probably only in one subject, History, will he fully complete the course before the exams. The other subjects he will be playing catch up right until the exams. But he’s still giving it a go, he is trying. So proud of him.
Do you think I would get away with this in my garden as a bit of a water feature. You don’t think that it might be a tad pretentious. My current water feature is me walking about with a watering can….. Imagine the fun Captain Chaos would have with this.
We were in the garden (without a water feature) playing table tennis and trying to lift Hawklad’s spirits after a demoralising couple of hours revising. He was frustrated and dispirited because we had picked up that he had been using the wrong method to calculate something in mathematics. He’d apparently been doing it the wrong way for a couple of years but as the teacher hasn’t been looking at his submitted maths work, it wasn’t picked up until we spotted it.
He had an Easter Egg, I had a coffee with a BUTTY.
I came from a family that survived on Butties… Dad would always say only POSH people called them sandwiches. Most items could be placed between two slabs of bread for a tasty meal. Family favourites included
Fish Finger butties
Chip butties (My favourite)
Crisp butties (Mum’s favourite)
Baked Beans butties (don’t wear a white shirt eating this one)
Sausage butties
Yorkshire Pudding and Gravy butties (a particularly messy one)
Mushy Peas and Vinegar butties
Fried Egg and Tomato Ketchup butties
Last nights Pizza butties
Pork Pie butties (Dad’s favourite)
At one stage I even started having Pot Noddle butties
All things butties. I even once remember a debate about whether a slice of bread sandwiched between two other slices of bread counted as a Bread Butty or just three Slices of Bread. Whatever the answer to this philosophical point, we had so many butties as a family for one good reason. Bread was cheap, it was a cheap way of padding out our meals.
Now a thought has crossed my mind. Sitting in our garden, it’s summer, after the exams, next to that giant water feature, having a butty. That works…
Welcome to Yorkshire, apparently it is SPRING.. That stream is the road.
And yes we still have a hosepipe ban in place.
Funnily enough Hawklad had just been revising the effects of flooding for his Geography exam. Geography is a bit of a issue at present. The first exam is 4 weeks away and we are still waiting clarification on what areas Hawklad needs to work on in terms of the field study trips that he didn’t go on. There will be a number of questions on the exams about these trips. Hawklad doesn’t even know where the trips went and what was looked at. Any time soon School would help…..
Apparently the teacher is away and we won’t get an answer until next week now.
Having said that, Hawklad has more than enough other subjects to keep him busy.
Shame one of the field trips wasn’t about flooding, we could no that one.
Barmy Brexit or down to a few inclement weather days in Spain. For whatever the reason, many of Britain’s supermarkets have quite a few gaps on the shelves these days and what products are there has become way more expensive.
This week I was plodding around our local store, a store that was looking even more barren than usual. Hardly any gluten free cereal, no cough medicine, hardly any fresh veg, no eggs, no ……
That kinda thing.
But I was ok, humming away to the store’s choice of music this fine day. Beatles, Rolling Stones, Al Stewart. If stuff isn’t there then chill out. We have soup. We have chocolate. We have crisps. We have sausages.
Then it all changed.
Mood darkened.
Then it was definitely NOT OK.
Remember The Simpsons Movie and what finally set off the urban powder keg.
We’re OUT OF COFFEE…..
I was stood in the coffee isle. It was an empty as my so called football teams trophy cabinet. The only pods they had for my coffee machine was Chocolate and Ovaltine…. Come on the secret is in the product name, it’s a COFFEE MACHINE. George Clooney certainly won’t be happy as well as his brand’s section was was completely empty. I heard one equally desperate shopper ask a manager who reassuringly informed him that there had been no coffee stock in the delivery lorries in over a week now. So even going caffeine old school isn’t looking good as well. A few jars of cheap decaf on the shelves and that was it. Definitely NO ESPRESSO. My Blood Caffeine levels are already dropping dangerously low.
We’re OUT OF COFFEE……
Suddenly the store blasting out the Beach Boys is seriously the last thing I want to hear. The only ‘good vibrations’ here is me rapidly entering cold coffee turkey.
I know coffee isn’t good for me. I felt much healthier when I gave the stuff up for 6 months. But currently it’s helping me keep going on not enough sleep. Let’s get Hawklad through his exams and the stress levels should subside. Maybe then I can come off the caffeine but NOT right now. So until Amazon delivers emergency supplies then it’s plan b. Shed loads of chocolate. Thankfully the store had plenty of Cadbury products to load up the trolley with.
The Poor Daffs are taking a right weather pounding and yet they are still going strong. Definitely hardy souls. A varied learning/revision day for Hawklad.
Vectors,
UK River Landscapes,
Romeo and Juliet,
Cell Specialisation,
The 1846 Mormon Migration (Revision)
All in just over TWO HOURS…. If you read the blurb that school sends out, Hawklad should be doing a minimum 4 hours revision on every school day and a minimum 7 hours on a non school day.
****some parents might disagree with the next bit****
Learning and revision surely needs to be tailored around the individual needs and characteristics of the pupil. Some might suit the 7 hours of academia each day, others not so. The homeschooling of Hawklad over the last few years has revealed many things, one of which is…
Hawklad has a sweet spot for learning of up to 3 hours a day. Up to 3 hours and things go in, but quickly after that and his learning potential drops off a cliff. He gets rapidly tired and frustrated. His anxiety levels begin to spike. Connections aren’t made, facts don’t go in and they certainly don’t stay in. He even starts to struggle and get confused with the information he had earlier learnt so well.
7 hours of revision slog would just be counterproductive for him.
So we made a decision, Hawklad works for 3 hours max each day. Yes it limits what we can cover but surely quality is so much more important than quantity. Surely his well-being has to be paramount. Exams cannot be everything.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 