My Learning Log

Blog

  • learning to communicate with my son

    I think it’s too early to say whether my talking with Fabian is helping. I made it a goal to sit for a few minutes every day before night before school and go over how things are going, how he is behaving, and set some expectations. Eventually, if this is going to work out, I think I’m going to hear great stories on what he did, how the teacher react and so on.

    So far, I think it is working. It is brining me together with him. And it opened a level of communication that I never really had since I started going to work early. Doing it every night works well too.

  • daily meetings

    I am learning that my son Fabian is opening up to me at the table. He’s talking to me like I’ve never seen him before. And he was good in school on Tuesday. I am a bit worried that he might be immature, that he might be acting childish, that he might not be able to be the top performer. But I don’t control that. He does. And I can help him stay on track. 

    I gave him a challenge. I asked him to ask a question or two in school tomorrow. I want him to open up. I want him to not be shy, afraid. If he can do that, I think that’s going to be a big improvement. 

    I need him to focus, to keep wanting to learn. I change his way in how he approaches learning. I want to help him.

    I talk to him daily during the week. I will set the expecations for him. I am going to try to motivate him. I hope this will work. This is a new thing I’m doing with him. Something new I learned and I hope will work.

  • talking to fabian

    My son had an incident yesterday. The teacher said he’s acting immature or doesn’t know what’s going on. My wife called me and told me about it. That got me worried. I don’t want my son to be labeled “slow” or “immature” or “so so.” It also got me thinking that we might need to leave him for another year.

    So I came home and I acted calm. As if nothing happened. Then, when Fabian wanted to play downstairs. I told him I want to talk to him. I took him upstairs and we sat at the big dining table. And we talked. He was explaining his situation as it happened. It doesn’t appear that anything big happened. Just minor miscommunication, perhaps. I told him my expecations. I told him this behaviour is unnacceptable. I told him to ask questions. Fabian took it well, I said we will talk every day.

    I learned that by talking and getting into other’s point of view, I can get my message across. Hitting and yelling is probably not the way to go.

  • keep in touch

    One of the lessons I learned in the past few days, is that I have to keep in touch with family and with friends. If I don’t, I can go on for weeks without talking to anybody. I cannot allow that to happen. I need to develop friendship with a few friends. Plus, staying in touch, knowing what happened, asking if they need help. It’s all fundamental person-person relationship. That’s why I am going to make it my life goal.

    Yes, I am not going to have Rules for Life, but rather Goals for Life. I think it makes it much clearer that’s it’s what I aspire to. Should I read one of those books?

  • love working on consumer products

    I am learning that I enjoy working on consumer facing products. I like to make tweaks to make the experience better. I get sucked in to make those little changes that improve things. It motivates me. Yesterday, I added a section to one of my babies, reports, and it felt really good to do it. 

    So if things don’t work out in the current position. And it is somewhat cloudy. Then I shall look for an opportunity that allows me to work on those products. I love that.

  • my memory

    I didn’t learn that my memory was bad, yesterday. I knew that. It’s making things hard for me. But I can deal with that. I have to. 

    I am also finding out that I am orally impaired. I can’t talk clearly. I mix things up constantly. Am I going to fast? Am I trying to be to fancy? Since I don’t think fast, perhaps I should slow down? Perhaps I should be in-synch with my brain when I talk. That will not make me as exciting, but it will make the words that come out more meaningful. I think I have to go that route.

    I wished I had better memory. I wished I could talk and explain thing more clearly. But I have my other “talents,” and not everybody can do everything. Still, I don’t like to feel that way.

  • doing more at work

    Yesterday I learned that focusing on gardening stuff at work… takes a lot of time. I should avoid doing that when I start. It just takes too much time. It’s really cool, but if anything I should be doing that at home.

    I come to this point a lot, but my goal at work is to be a plorific worker. My goal is to improve my dev skills. My goal is to feel valuable at work. My work is to contribute the best I can.

    I have also learned that my desire to change landscaping is… not waning. 🙂 I think it must be a combination of the crazy 75% sale at Lowes on shrubs and me learning about them recently. I don’t know what else. I am cheap. I am frugal. But that’s just who I am. I am a sucker for steals. Can’t help it.

  • dealing with kids

    I hope our kids learned a lesson yesterday. 

    We took them to church and the way they behaved is not acceptable. So I think I learned, just as I have to tell them my expectations before Fabian goes to school — I only do it when I have to, since I leave before for work — I have to tell them my expecations and penalties for breaking it.

    Yesterday, they paid the price. And it was a costly one. We told them that we’re going to take them to a zoo. But they behaved really bad. Well, not really bad. Fabian was talking, Victor was talking “not quietly” several times. Fabian didn’t wan’t to sit by me. So overall that was unacceptable and I’m not goint to put up with that type of behaviour.

    So we told them we’re not going to the zoo. Fabian got really upset. He even hit Marta. She cried. He cried. He felt bad. I hope he learns. And I hope to be strict with them and pay them after they learn. This is an ongoing issue with them.

  • lessons learned

    I am going to change the focus of this blog a bit. I am going to focus on things I have learned. I got the idea from a repeated calendar email. That I should be writing the lessons I learned. That should result in a higher quality content. And more motivation to re-read my blog. And that was my lesson that I learned.

  • few things

    Winter time is coming. Am I ready for it? Are we ready for it? Who knows. I feel good about the project I completed last year: insulating the attick. Well, not so happy, since I missed a big part, the living room. I’m thinking of redoing some of it. I could get in there and blow some more.

    Other than that, I think I’m good. Basement is cold, but there is not much I can do. It will most likely stay cold. Back yard looks great. We’ve done a lot of work and it shows. Grass improved throughout the property. Only bad spot is the hill, but to save that I need to overlay it with a nice layer of topsoil. Thinking I will do it next year.