Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Random thoughts

Blogging is a choice, is a gift to the world. (I don’t mean to imply that every blog is a quality gift. Some are the Internet equivalent of that plaster ostrich lamp that Aunt Gladys sent you for Christmas – well-intentioned but otherwise worthless.)
I fear that because of time limitations previously mentioned, I have been slipping out of the blogging habit. I resolve to amend that. For those of you that consider Isis to be a plaster ostrich, too bad!

Random thoughts:
Watching a chipmunk cavorting in the back yard made me a little late for work today. So be it.

I’m worried that my Niece’s Mother, having gotten back an ADHD diagnosis on Her, now intends to put the child on Ritalin. I have ADHD and I have learned to live with it, without doping myself up with drugs. I need to sit down with Her and try the art of gentle persuasion.

I spent a couple hours last weekend sorting through about 50 pounds of old newspaper clippings and it feels so good to see that pile GONE! They filled up an entire garbage bag when I was done.

It rained on Sunday. We needed it so badly. I hope that my sycamore sapling will survive. Of all the wilting, suffering plants in my yard, it seemed to fare the worst. The mayapple, trillium and bloodroot inside the woods have also withered but they are ephemereals anyway, so I’m not too worried. At least I had the brains to plant Mr. Jack in the Pulpit on the edge of a seep in the forest that didn’t go completely dry in spite of lack of rain, so it is doing fine.

I was told in a local online forum today that the person wished that “I was a teacher rather than a PR man, speaking as a taxpayer.” I laughed for a few minutes, trying to decide whether this was meant as a gentle insult or a compliment.

What do teeth reveal about evolution? Mammalian canines betray a carnivorous past = they are stabbing teeth. They have a sharp, pointed edge and are used with the incisors to bite into food and or to kill prey. The tusks of many animals such as elephants are modified canines. They are missing in rodents and most large herbivores (Perissodactyls and Artiodactyls). The gap where the canines would have been is often enlarged and is called a 'diastema'. That last sentence seems to indicate that mammalian herbivores evolved from carnivorous ancestors.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think your blog is the Internet equivalent of a nice and sweet present wrapped in pink paper with silvery little sparkles.

Eastcoastdweller said...

How sweet of you, Trisia, to say that. Thank you.

Janice Thomson said...

It's your blog ECD - you don't owe any explanations at all - you post when you want to post. Living life is so much more important.
I love the fact that a chipmunk made you late for work. If we can't take time to stop and 'smell the roses' life isn't really worth living :)
Hope you get rain soon...

Chase March said...

I get in trouble for this sometimes but I don't believe in ADHD as a condition.

I think that everyone has trouble focusing and paying attention sometimes.

I believe that teachers need to find ways to reach the kids in their class by planning creative lessons. The atmosphere of the classroom has a huge role in this. And teachers have all the power to create a healthy one.

Parents need to help too. Children need role models. But I truly believe that they do not need drugs for this. I agree with you on this ECD.

BraveHeart said...

I believe that condition like this exists. Everything complexed below and above the set norm is named and categorized.
I believe that diagnosis takes a long time by professional with many years of experience.

Some of the people that have it, use it as permission to act on it, because they were told they can not stop themselves and they start to believe that they can't stop and they are 'special' and 'allowed'.
And yes, for a while I can understand that they can not, but after a while, just like you said EC, we all can live and manage our conditions, whatever our conditions are. It takes time and time we have.

Great idea to try to persuade the mother. Especially by someone who has experience in it, other the experts maybe fresh out of the school

Good day to all

Eastcoastdweller said...

Janice: There are some cultures still on this planet that refuse to conform to the rigid Western model, who are not slaves to clocks and the almighty dollar. Sigh.

Chase: Of course they had no word for it when I was growing up, so nobody treated me any differently than anyone else. Which is fine with me because I was therefore not able to use it as an excuse. But I do believe the condition exists, just as manic depressives exists, not as widespread as some claim, though.

Eastcoastdweller said...

Ela: What bothers me is when ADHD is treated like a disease. I believe it is just a different way of the brain being organized, going back to some of the earliest history of humankind. Some people with ADHD are intensely creative, thinking constantly outside the box as it were.