February 2006 Archives

On the radio this morning I heard civil servant Donna Howard utter this phrase; "The vast majority of school administrators do their jobs extraordinarily well." If the vast majority of administrators are doing it, then it is, by definition, ordinary.

This self-contradicting statement cannot be allowed in public discourse.

For the first time in my life, this afternoon I was subjected to music from Pirates of Penzance. One minute into it, I was ready into grab the wheel and swerve into oncoming traffic just to make it stop. I can't believe my daughters like that.

Last night we told Zoe what the Super Bowl is. We compared it to Texas winning the Rose Bowl to show they are the best college team in the country. Zoe said, "So the Super Bowl is like the Rose Bosl for grown ups".

I taught Zoe her first piano lesson today. It was simple. I told her the first and most important thing to learn in piano lessons is how to have fun playing the piano. If she doesn't enjoy playing piano, she shouldn't do it.

I've hesitated to teach her piano because I don't want to force it on her too young, but I can't delay it any longer. She is begging to learn how to read music. She figured out where middle C was because it is marked with a "c3" on our keyboard. Then she played a crude version of "The Wind Cries Mary" (midi) for me. She didn't know what she was playing, but it happened to be on the music stand at the time, and she was excited to have any music to play.

Her hand is too small to learn correct fingering. I'm not sure whether to teach her fingering at all or just let her be happy to pick out melodies with her index fingers.