allison82mckinley's Xanga

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:14:27 GMT

I’m baaa-aack! We’ve been home for a while but busy, busy, busy. I’ll check in in a few days with some pictures. How’s everybody doing?

This is my favourite poem:

COCOON

Allison February McKinley

Within all things, the hidden states:

beyond this stage, a path awaits...

Just where it leads, not your concern;

and all who passed,

from first to last,

this way did not return.

Live your life so that the last day of your life will be the best day of your life.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:30:12 GMT

A WEEK TO HOLIDAY

I must tell you that the adage ‘cheaper by the dozen’ applies only to doughnuts and biscuits. It has no bearing whatsoever upon raising a family. In fact, in making our holiday plans for twelve these past few weeks, I began to feel like some sort of underfinanced, overly-fertile freak.

Whilst attempting to hire a houseboat to cruise Lock Ness, everything went well until I mentioned we were twelve, three adult couples and six children.

Now, when you consider this, six adults with six children should seem unusually excessive probably only in modern-day, child-monitored China. Nevertheless, the biggest boat we could find anywhere slept only ten, and I believe that included four floating about on a life raft as nocturnal Nessie-bait.

Perhaps we should have been seeking a junk for a holiday in Victoria Harbour.

As we discovered no single vessel to accommodate our throng, we finally experienced an epiphany: Why not hire two boats? After securing the biggest boat offered, we hired a smaller vessel containing one huge double-bed cabin.

This new agenda comes with a tremendous bonus: Each adult couple can abscond alone for two nights! Woohoo! If this boat is rockin’, don’t come… Well, you know.

The bigger boat will house a more-than-adequate mix of four adults and six children for games and ghost stories round the campfire (so to speak).

Oh, and another big plus is that we will now have four loos, three showers and two galleys!

By day we will split up as we see fit, or float side-by-side (bow-to-stern whilst in the locks between the lochs, of course).

The entire return trip from Inverness* is 120 miles.

For part of the holiday, we shall dock to camp and bathe, and for the last four days of the third week we have hired a chalet where the aunts will join us for a few nights.

Our holiday begins on the first day of summer, and we are so excited.

My query letter is on its merry way to London, and I shan't think another thing about it or my writing for three weeks.

TTFN!

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Loch Ness was once attached to the sea at Inverness, and probably at Fort William as well. Thus, the idea of an ancient sea monster prowling the lake gains greater credibility.

I can understand why a creature might choose to swap the shivering, sub-arctic seawaters for a shot at lounging in the lukewarm lengths of a lazy land-locked loch.

Lock Ness’s nearly eight-hundred foot depth was carved by a glacier in the previous ice age, and runs straight as an arrow on a line that parallels the landmasses of Sweden and Norway.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:43:54 GMT

I love Friday the Thirteenth...

We enjoyed a rainy day together. Nothing unlucky happened.

My query letter to my (prospective) agent should be half way to London by now, as I posted it this morning.

Now we are going to do our favourite thing... gather in the parlour by the fire to eat popcorn and tell impromptu ghost stories. Tonight is the first night that our three little girls get to stay up late and participate.

Marcail, Lacy and Elle are soon to be 4 years old. They think they are adults.

Enjoy a lovely weekend!!!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:04:05 GMT

My query letter to my agent goes out tomorrow.

I thought Friday the 13th would be a fantastically lucky day to post it!

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:03:50 GMT

How much would you pay for a new car?

Hello, Everybody!

I trust everyone managed to get through the week in one piece. This was our first week out of school and we had a smashing time. We've been to the cinema twice for matinees, and we spent yesterday riding. I'm sore!

For their ‘graduation’ this year, we bought the three older children IPod Nanos.

If a new car were priced per pound at the price of an Ipod Nano per pound, the average British car would cost more than £3 million; the average American car more than $7 million!

In a few minutes we're off for a picnic. We're counting the days. We leave for Loch Ness on 21 June.

I've got to run for now. I hope everyone is enjoying a fantastic weekend!

Allison

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:22:21 GMT

Boat for sale: 35-foot Chris Craft

We sold our boat! The man who bought it is a fisherman from Hartlepool, a harbour town north of Scarborough. He isn’t going to use the boat for fishing, however, but for pleasure. I’m happy because that is what my grandfather would have wanted.

Hartlepool is a lovely seaside village. Sarah and I visited when we holidayed in Scarborough. The Anglo-Saxons established a monastery there in 640 A.D. That was 600 years after the Roman invasion.

The coolest thing: They are one of the few boroughs in the UK to elect their own mayor by direct vote. In the 2002 election, the mascot of Hartlepool United (the local football club) won over the Labour opposition.

‘H’Angus (hang-gus) the Monkey has held the position since, winning again in 2005 with 10,000 votes more than his opposition. The population of the entire area is only 90,000.

Hartlepudlians are called ‘monkey hangers’; thus the moniker made up of ‘hang’ and the county name of ‘Angus’. We English are a clever lot, are we not? And Americans think our sense of humour is dry, or at best droll. Ha!

During the Napoleonic War(s), a French ship sunk off the coast near Hartlepool. The only survivor (so the story goes) was a little monkey dressed in a miniature French sailor uniform. Since he would not answer the questions of his inquisitors, he was hanged.

Poor monkey. I hope the story is not true.

Allison

Be the world you want to see.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:43:35 GMT

ABOUT OUR SCHOOL

To answer the questions of several Xangans, Sarah and I founded our own school after our little boy Robbie turned three. Sedge had come to live with us that year also.

Each year, we added a new group of kids who start in our 3-4 class. So far, we have maintained all the children from our previous classes, thus growing each year by 15 students.

We maintain our student/teacher ratio at five to one.

One of Sarah’s doctoral theses defined a new programme of alternative education for gifted children. Her theories have proved quite successful.

For instance, we have shown that ‘sounding out’—teaching a child to read by stumbling over each letter of the alphabet—actually impedes the child’s ability to read and to learn.

We have demonstrated that a child actually can read ANY monosyllabic word with equal ease, be it CAT or THROUGH or SCRAUNCHED (the longest monosyllabic word in English). Children read faster and retain more when taught to read by word-recognition.

This means that when our first-year students leave for the summer at four years of age, they can already read this sentence and most anything else with ease:

The rough grass grew round the scraunched trees and through the gnarled hedge.

To be considered for enrolment in our school, a child must be

three years old at the beginning of the school year,

thoroughly potty trained, and

of happy disposition and bright intellect.

This requirement is really that of the parents; they must be wealthy enough to afford the tuition. We are by far the most expensive private school in the UK.

We do not budge on our first three rules ever. We have often bent on the last rule for the privilege of being able to help in the development of a bright mind.

Further, all levels above 3-4 are required to participate in the teaching of the younger classes.

After being graduated from our 13-14 level, at 14 years of age our students will have passed their IGCSE and A-levels and begun a university-level programme.

So, having started five years ago and adding fifteen students and three teachers per year, we will face the new school year in September with 75 students and 15 teachers.

This has been quite an endeavour, but well worth the effort.

Allison

To paraphrase Albert Einstein:

Education without love is lame; love without education is blind.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:09:43 GMT

Summertime is here!

School is out! We enjoyed a restful recovery weekend. That means that Sarah and I, Jofranka and Blaine, Rosemary and Libby (teachers), and Robbie, Sedge, Millie, Lacy, Elle and Marcail (students) are FREEEEE! At least for the summer.

We have already signed 15 contracts for our new students, who will begin in our 3-4 level starting in September; and, we have five children on the waiting list, so things look good. So, we will begin next year with 75 students and 15 teachers (one teacher to every five students--a ratio we always maintain).

Apparently I have been spammed by Xanga! With simultaneous notice to my Yahoo mail account, but no advance notification, an advert now appears on my site.

Hey, Xanga! How about the courtesy of a little notice?

So, as a protest, I am not renewing my premium. At least not right away. I have been a member for over four years, so I think Xanga might show a little respect.

Gay marriage has been approved in California by the Supreme Court! That is good news.

We are going to spend this week confirming our holiday plans for the summer. We have decided to sell our boat and hire one instead.

Live your life so that the last day of your life will be the best day of your life.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Sat, 24 May 2008 19:57:03 GMT

dead seed planted

The title of this post is from the first line of a poem by a poet I greatly admire. How can one say so much—possibly even create a controversy of interpretation—in only three words?

Thank you, Donna.

Writing is sorcery of a sort, a convoluted art wherein the magician arranges black ink-blobs on paper in hopes of creating colourful images in the mind of the ink-blob interpreter.

Knowing what images actually will arise in the mind of the beholder is problematic for the writer at best, because words are no less subject to interpretation than blotches in a Rorschach Test. Even the best of writers cannot hope to paint the same picture for everyone.

Nevertheless, writers DO hope to create vision of some sort; and, as opposed to the longwinded denizens of prose-land (like me!), poets attempt to do so in the fewest words or syllables.

Believe it or not, old windy me appreciates those attempts. Below I list a few.

Here is a favourite from Japanese haiku:

old pond

a frog jumps

the sound of water

Given this definition of writing, that it must create an image, I would say that the following word, by itself, constitutes a poem:

Wheat.

Did you see an image?

Further, I would say that the following, the shortest verse in the bible, constitutes a story:

Jesus wept.

In my opinion, the award in modern literature for best flash fiction must go to Ernest Hemingway, who created this clever short story in response to a challenge:

For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.

Inspired by this, the BBC recently asked people to respond with their own interpretation of life using but six words. The following stories are the result of that challenge.

Enjoy your weekend!

Love,

Allison

PS: Live your life so that the last day of your life will be the best day of your life.

YYY

If only I had turned left.

Apple leads to eviction of two.

Age crept up and mugged me.

Still looking around for the reins.

Laughed out loud; cried in silence.

Ditched the map; found better route.

Aged child actress still seeking fame.

Knight on white charger never showed.

Climbed Mt. Everest; married a Sherpa.

Wrong era, Wrong Class, Wrong Gender.

Unravelled career reknitted as baby blankets.

Aspirations compromised by procrastination, then children.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Fri, 23 May 2008 19:13:59 GMT

School countdown: five days remaining!

8:00 Friday evening. Ah; we have arrived at the weekend.

My Uncle Barry in California sent me two pictures, one in response to my previous query (about 4 posts back) as to the name of a west coast dairy. Our newest student, an American boy from Oregon, said there was a dairy there called ‘Titty-Milk’. Well, he was close (see billboard).

This second picture is, like the first, of a billboard in Los Angeles. My uncle said not only is Spanish widely spoken in the area, but in Korea Town, their second language of choice is Spanish, not English.

How cool is that?

I wish everyone a loving, friendly weekend! And remember: When it comes to improving the world:

Only I can be

the change I hope to see.

Love,

Allison