Monday, February 29, 2016

Headspace in the LB World


This week I've been thinking a bit more about Headspace.

What is Headspace?

Headspace to me means the vantage point my mind looks upon everything around of it and relates to it in real time, being a felt, experienced and physical thing I interact with that ties in your sense of you in time and space.

People can have differing senses of head space not least of you're a Middle or Little because you may have, depending on your own development a more adult sense of what you do and how you'd see your role as well as a younger one where in effect you go back to those things and ways of looking at life that you may recall from your childhood.

The way people may move from one to another depends on the individual and their circumstances such as you may have a triggering thing such as a particularly activity that from the second you start to interact with it, you subconsciously move to that side of you.

For example I used to find being in schools often brought out the more Junior side of me so much so if I was left their for long enough on my own I'd 'drop' into being that child or playing with say toy cars just does.

It may be also that how you are attired does and with me putting on my school clothes like what I'm wearing right now typing this 'throws the switch'.

I think one thing a good number of us find useful is where we can meet up because it enables us to interactive not just with our own person sense of being a Middle or Little in such a headspace but also with others as if we were over at other folks houses playing which I think is something many of us did as children and it's that kind of feeling we're recreating.

When looking at recreating there is a question to be asked about the extent to which it is or can be complete replication simply because the nature being a child and the 'play' has itself changed over the decades.

The modern child has electronic play devices and quite often access to say a Tablet Computer which may be used to play games on or join sites like Club Penguin or use to write or draw things on. A computer may be part of your Little/Middle headspace.

How much of that we may do when we're together is something that we'll need to work through in the same way thoughtful parents do with their own children and for similar reasons because it is easy-too easy perhaps-to have a situation where we're all huddled together but staring into our own screens so while individually we're having fun the one thing we aren't doing is interacting with each other. That is a genuine concern.

The other area with that and the all pervasive Smartphone is handling Adult related things such as any requirements an individual may have to check emails and the like from 'work' which whatever your personal thoughts on the rights and wrongs of  (and I think it has for some gotten too intrusive in folks free time) such things are part of their working conditions they are expected to comply with when outside work such as at such meets.

I feel it needs to be done in way that doesn't disturb the Middle/Little space of other people attending which may involve say the use of your own private space or a designated area and certainly the associate electrical gubbins like chargers need to out of peoples way when sitting or walking about.

For some of us, though this isn't necessarily the biggest threat to that very headspace at all and while I won't speak for everybody one reason I do like being in that Middle/Little space is to be free from adult level intrusions not least those I have functional difficulties with.

When we were younger the Grown Ups, knew it mattered that while the Big World went on around us, it was wrong for that to dominate Our World so some conversations and topics were 'not for young ones ears' because playing talking through our thoughts and ideas mattered more for us.

That's why it does matter to some of us the sense of leaving things like political, religious and 'adult matters' out of where we are playing, talking or even sleeping and it may be sensible to check with any Little or Middle if they wish to be involved in or ideally leave that to as something in another room people may do.

Personally I have no inclination at all to engage in discussion around those areas simply because it's not part of Middle me that comes to meets apart from experiences in other groups that had allowed it lead to enmities between folk whose reason for being together had had nothing to do with these topics.

To me then to the extent one cannot and would not want to restrict what people can talk about not least that of any groan ups/Caregivers present, there's something to be said for holding back it until after little bed time  or perhaps of having that in just one area of a meet you'd make a deliberate point  of entering.

That way it's managed but those of us who are either playing or just resting have our needs respected so we can enjoy ourselves in our younger headspace freely.
To conclude being in it to me is the mark of being a middle or little. It is us.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Chris and the steam train


Trains while not the mainstay of my interests were a boyhood fascination, not least steam ones going on many preserved steam railways, having a model steam train of my very own and loving the Ivor the Engine animated cartoon heaps.

I like to go on trips as often as I can to experience live steam traction.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Teen beat XX- The Electric Light Orchestra & some Rollermania

The Electric Light Orchestra and I go back in time buying the 45's as they came out in the 1970's and early 80's a good number in their colourful picture sleeves, playing them at school and home and later on getting a good number of their albums on cd having borrowed  them from either brothers, friends or the public library.

The Elo, were a band that defied the single or album orientation bias  many back then had issuing worthwhile albums and many memorable singles such as Telephone Line, All Over The World, Mr. Blue Sky, Don't Let Me Down and Rock and Roll Is King.

That can make having a compilation quite desirable however there's been a good number starting from 1979's Greatest Hits that in some ways is remains the perfect summary of the 1973-77 singles and double or even triple cd sets.

The one I remember getting in December 1997 was Light Years, a mid price British double issued on cd, cassette and mini disc which was jam packed full of material including edited versions from singles and an EP, in no particular order and suffered from being too consistently loud and bright so I relented and got the original Greatest Hits album on a cheap cd. 

I did briefly get 1991's Greatest Hits Vol II but that sounded very thin although the selection was very good so I got rid of it.

That did leave missing a selection of the later hits as most miss off anything from the  Zanadu soundtrack that gave us three hit singles and to which the title song had been re-recorded in 1991 for the Flashback cd  box set that was criticized for chopping off the very start and ends of a number of tracks.

The one pictured above most would consider the best of the bunch having most of the essential tracks including the very early tracks and was very well mastered by Vic Anesini in 1995 who did excellent work on a number of Columbia projects like the Simon & Garfunkel remasters.


It was only issued in North America and recently I obtained a copy to fill those gaps and having the European Zanadu soundtrack on cd that came out in 1998, the missing tracks from it aren't so much of an issue with me. 

It sounds really good with the extra resolution from using good tapes and taking extra care about how you make each track sounds.  


 Another band I liked rather a lot in my tweens to the point of having posters of Woody and screaming all the way through every song they performed on tv were the Bay City Rollers.
I recently got this, a kind of cd replacement for my boyhood original lps covering the first five essential albums from 1974 to 1977 that were played to death back then in card sleeves that have the front and back covers. 
The original lps had  'gatefolds' but for this slim box set they've left them off
I could quote the lyrics to "Give a Little Love" and sing along to Rock n' Roll Love Letter" for  more times than anything by the Beatles and think "Summerlove Sensation" is the best ever pop record, period.

Monday, February 8, 2016

More LB studying


Goodness, it's raining hard today!

On Saturday in English, I've been looking at the second bain of my written life the one below spelling which I'm officially lousy at and above structure, namely paragraphing.

You know I never really knew what they were for and this section left me thinking for like ages I'd thought a paragraph was the exact same thing as a sentence but seemingly they are not.

A paragraph apparently is a group of sentences talking about the same thing or follow on from each other and at least over in the UK in handwritten work you do indent the first sentence of a new paragraph whereas in typing classes I was taught not to!

The benefit of using paragraphs are that they show clearly you're writing about something new. It may be a new point in an essay, when you talk about new person or they speak if it's a story, if you're talking about a new place or a different time when people read your written work.

The section also looked  at how you link sentences together too.

I got 100% on the end test for that which included writing three paragraphs of a story to demonstrate your ability  to use them well although needless to say some of my linking words show older words not so prevalent today. 

As well, I looked at punctuation,something a person I know who helps  people stay on track but who also does private English tuition recognizes is a weakness of mine with the work covering capitalization, clauses  and phrases amongst many things.

Sunday saw the return of Math dealing with the efficient use of calculators and what the keys really do, like I didn't know what the +/- key was for(!), working out formulas which was very hard and  ordering Decimals which isn't like the Hallway Monitor bellowing at you if you're going to fast or not in line, which is something that sure happened at my school.

I got 100% in the first and last areas and just 66% with formulas but even getting that was a minor miracle compared  to how I used to be and shows just much changing how I'm treated and at the same time giving me proper support, guidance and firm discipline can help.


Monday, February 1, 2016

Final January LB studying weekend

If you looked around of Friday and nothing seemed to have changed, that's okay cos I didn't make a optional late week entry.

Anyway, this Saturday saw me working at English looking at different styles of writing, formal and informal, the sort of language, sentence structure and introductions, concluding paragraphs and the way you sign letters.

Writing I learned can be about many things thing, such as stories, essays, informing, explaining ,advising and persuading people by argument and how each has their own needs to be effective.

As well, I learned about the importance of planning what you write, setting the topic, the points or when it comes to stories, the plot, seeing it through to a conclusion that leads to the reader understanding fully what you were saying.

It's very tempting to just plow on with an idea very much as it comes to you without really making sure at the end you've fully covered everything that's relevant to it and while it's possible in the age of the text writing program to change things, it's still more time consuming to rework everything compared to just setting down and making a plan.

Structuring matters especially to ending a piece of writing, which has never been my strong point as while I did lean how to write a decent business letter at college a good number of years back, everything we did was very business orientated including how to compose telegrams.

The other area of English I did was around Reading, looking at descriptions and how authors compare and contrast characters answering questions on extracts including quoting to back up the points in my answers.

I got 100% in one test and 70% in the second, which for someone with my disabilities is pretty good going.

On Sunday because I'm better now, I had math work to get on with such as looking at using and calculating Ratios, working out Units and Money (the making sense of that I really struggle with in shops).

That sort of thing can help if you're trying to figure what's the best offer in the shops, what the total cost of things are and how much change should have cos as embarrassing as it is it's all stuff that adds to the other aspects of being out, shopping emotionally that soon takes me into very negative oppositional behaviour.

In addition I have Long Multiplication and Division to work at which I struggle with, being warned of consequences if I flat out refuse to try get to grips with them cos I'm like that at times.

I did the tests on this and I got them all right just using paw, pencil and paper.

My friend suggested trying a Times Table cd to help me learn my Times Tables as I struggle with them so I got one, copied it and it lives on a portable player so I can both learn and keep them them fresh in my head.

Knowing my times tables helped me especially with long division  which I think was the big problem at school - taking to take me to more advanced work without really grasping the basic things - so I just dug my heels in.