(no subject)

The meeting last night about the STEAM program at Cordelia's school made it sound like a good option for middle school. The room was packed, standing room only. I don't think they expected so many people, particularly so many people from other schools. Scott taped the whole thing. Assuming it came out right, he'll probably put it on YouTube for people who wanted to attend but couldn't.

They're going to put a strong emphasis on hands on projects and group work. They said that middle schoolers will have access to all of the same class work as they would at the middle school, but they still didn't answer the question about instrumental music. (I have, as an aside, heard that the orchestra and band teachers at the middle school aren't really great. They treat casual musicians, which Cordelia is, badly and only want to deal with kids who want to make a career out of music. They don't sound like people I want Cordelia around.)

Cordelia is adamant that she wants to go wherever her best friend goes. I'm not sure she realizes how little she'd be likely to see of her friend at the middle school. If we're having to make special arrangements for them to get together anyway, it may not matter if they're at the same school. Then again, the friend's parents still haven't made up their minds about what to do.

I worked bagel Friday today. When we got the cash box, we discovered that all of the ones held over from last week for change, $25 worth, were missing. The mother in charge of bagel Friday made inquiries and discovered that roughly $300 is missing from the various PTO cash boxes kept in the office. A good chunk of that $300 is bagel Friday money from last week. This week, the mother in charge of bagel Friday took all the money home with her. We can't afford to lose that money-- This is all going toward sending the fifth graders to camp without asking parents to pay for it, and that money has to pay for all of the bagels, juice and cream cheese that we sold as well. This hurts.

(no subject)

I've been playing a couple of hidden object games from Big Fish Games. I've played Mystery Trackers: Raincliff's Phantoms Collector's Edition, European Mystery: The Faces of Envy Collector's Edition and Dark Parables: Jack and the Sky Kingdom Collector's Edition.

It's interesting to see what's the same and what's different between the games. In Jack and the Sky Kingdom, for example, the hidden object challenges are different-- Instead of giving a list of objects to find, it provides pictures of the objects, and the objects go together to make an object. The game also had a problem; the mini-games were poorly explained. Most of the time, I couldn't figure out what I needed to do to solve them. I couldn't even start.

Raincliff's Phantoms had the easiest navigation. That is, when I asked for a hint, the program would offer to take me straight to the location where there was something I needed to do. The other two games would lead me, step by step, through the map to where I needed to be.

In all three games, the point of view character is addressed as 'detective' with gender carefully never specified. Jack and the Sky Kingdom had the most actual hidden object challenges (as opposed to finding tools and using them and pieces of things and putting them where they belong).

I'm not sure how many of these games I'll end up playing. They seem to be hard on my right hand, and they cost $10-$20 each for five or ten hours of play. That's not a horrible use of my entertainment money, but it's not something I can afford to fill all my time with. Plus, when I'm playing, I'm not writing.

(no subject)

I tried the peach blossom oolong this afternoon. I tried it with honey so as not to confuse myself about how it tastes. I quite liked it.

Wednesday, I tried the white tea with honey. I was wrong about the flavor of it-- It's not vanilla bean; it's vanilla coconut. It smells a little like it would taste funny, but with honey, it didn't have that same weird taste. I still didn't love it.

Sunday or Monday, I'll try the peach blossom oolong with stevia and see how it tastes. The stevia seemed to be fine with the red zinger, but the flavor of red zinger may have been strong enough to mask the stevia. I figure trying it with the oolong will tell me whether the problem is the stevia or if it's an interaction between the stevia and the vanilla coconut white tea.

I still have a chai that I bought at Whole Foods last week yet to try. I'm putting that off for a while, though. It does occur to me, though, that if I need a strongly flavored tea to deal with the stevia, a chai might be the way to go.