Daniel attended his first promotion test for Taekwondo last weekend. Here are some of the pictures.
There were about 100 preschoolers at the Panther level taking their promotion tests, and maybe a dozen in Daniel’s position of taking their first ever.  This kind of event is quite a challenge to organize, being both boring and nerve-wracking for the young ones, but the instructors have a good system for success.  There were about ten black belts in attendance, and still more at lower levels, all watching the children to maintain order.  Some kids misbehaved, others finked, push-ups were enforced.

For the most part, the children sat in the far back awaiting their turn to demonstrate various skills.  The examiner told the kids he would call their names twice only, and they had to jump up, respond, and run to their positions.  Of course, this was an overwhelming situation for many of the little ones, with their names called in an accent over a mic in a huge do jang arena surrounded by a crowd of onlookers – each kid was helped by about six adults every time he or she was called!  It was pretty cute.
Panther patterns were first, and Daniel’s group the first of those.  Above, Daniel is performing Panther Pattern #1, three punches walking to the front, turn, three punches walking to the back, turn and stand.  The main challenge of this pattern is independent obedience, since the tester instructs them what to do, but then stands and watches them do it.  Most of the kids look to the tester for further guidance, and if they don’t find it at the front of the class, they look to each other.

In the past, the result has been that once the kids finally all begin walking and punching, they continued onward to the wall.  In Daniel’s test, many of the kids did it right, but EXTREMELY SLOWLY.
Break time! Daniel and I rejoined Husband and Alex at the far back of the do jang for snacks and pep talks.  Husband filled me in on some of the kids’ antics. I tried to solve the problem of blurry photography. Unsuccessfully, by the way, sorry.
Next up: 3-step non-contact sparring.  The exercise puts Pattern #1 into action, with one kid stepping and punching first, and the other kid shuffling backward to avoid being hit.  Again, the kids defer outward for instructions, and if an adult refuses, they look to their peers.  After one deadly slow pass at sparring technique, the examiner called on two black belts to demonstrate the intended speed and energy of the exercise, and made the students try again. “Faster this time. You must go FASTER.” Of course, the kids still consulted with each other when the time came.
Last, and most exciting: breaking technique.  The kids lined up, and when their turn came, attempted what was for most of them their first board-breaking.  I’m pretty sure most of the kids at Daniel’s level didn’t understand that the board was supposed to break at all, since they had always practiced on a punching pad. I’m also fairly certain the teachers holding the board were trying to assist in the break by holding the board in a strained way – but I can’t be certain of that.

Daniel was one of the smallest students testing, and out of his group, and his board wasn’t breaking.  His instructor took over holding the board, made him kihap (shout) several times to rev him up (make him angry at the board?), and then he suddenly did it.  The whole arena broke out into applause!   I asked Husband later, and he said you could hear that kihap all the way at the back of the do jang. I got a little emotional.
Celebration! Daniel asked, “Can I keep the board?” Everyone lined up for their teachers to sign them.
We won’t know the results of the promotion test for a few days, but apparently Daniel did well.  Now, we go to a new class, in which Daniel will probably start learning Panther Pattern #2.

© 2008 Three Bright Stars | All rights reserved. Copyright for republished writing or artwork belongs to the original writer or artist, as noted. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

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I have never received that abusive anonymous online criticism you hear so much about, probably because I’m so small and, well, AWESOME. Like anyone, I was nervous to start blogging in case I attracted the worst of the net, but that didn’t happen. With WordPress’s comment system and a little forethought to create separate email accounts for specific online needs, I felt pretty secure that I wouldn’t get shanghaied with unwarranted abuse.

In fact, I noticed the opposite was often true: small time bloggers such as myself generally receive more support and praise than anyone could expect from people we haven’t met in person, even if we feel guiltily undeserving at specific moments in our blogs. I think this is because even though most of us are “anonymous” in the sense that we don’t publish our names directly on our blogs, we are known to our real life friends and families, who form the bulk of our readership.

In addition, our online identities, however anonymous, are developed over time, and our credibility is linked to our consistent positive contribution to the online world through blog posts, other media, and interaction with other bloggers. Even if you don’t know who I am in the real world, you’d connect my comment to my blog – which IS my online identity. If I absolutely must post a negative comment on a blog, I have to think about the online friends I may lose by being hostile at that moment – as in real life.

Of course, I could attempt to dissociate my negative comment from any of my known identities, and post something truly anonymously. The comment would appear out of the blue, and could not be traced back to my real name or my online alias. The comment would have only its own weight, and would not also carry the weight of my real-life or online credibility, but if I only want to hurt someone, what the hell, right? At that point, it’s just about name-calling.

Since I started blogging in 2007, I have only received one such comment. You can read it here.

A negative comment this lengthy and involved is unprecedented on my blog. I can remember how surreal it was at the time.  Who THE HELL wrote this comment? Mrs. Trellis? I DON’T KNOW ANY TRELLISES.

I clicked through to my comment database, which records all kinds of interesting data about the comment, thinking – swear words, mostly. “I’ll write a comment on HER blog, see how SHE likes it!”

I found the data, and was shocked to see my dad’s information there, right next to the alias “Mrs. Trellis” and the comment. My dad. Thinks my blog sucks. Thinks I’m stupid and fat.

Ouchy ouch. I’m over it.

But how should I proceed?

I figure that if someone really feels that way, I’m fine with the comment, but not with the anonymity. Dear readers: I will publish your comments, even if they hurt my feelings, because I stand behind my words here on this blog. I write banal stuff about life. I write silly things, having no way to confirm whether I amuse or annoy. I write about food you have probably cooked. And sometimes, I use my IMMENSE BRAIN.

But I will maintain some integrity in the comments. Do your worst, but name yourself, or your online identity, or I’ll do it for you. This is my website. You can’t put on a mask here and then call me names. I exist, you exist: let’s be grown-ups about it. If I can’t identify you, I won’t publish your comment.

Constructive criticism will be carefully considered. Abusive negative comments will reflect badly on the commenter.

© 2008 Three Bright Stars | All rights reserved. Copyright for republished writing or artwork belongs to the original writer or artist, as noted. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

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Husband and I have been watching old Doctor Who series’s, downloading economically priced 4 and 6-episode stories from iTunes. We’ve run out of credits in the iTunes store, and I took this as an opportunity to start watching the new Doctor Who episodes again from Season 2, when David Tennant takes the role of Doctor. I’ve seen the Tennant episodes 3 or 4 times, but this is Husband’s first viewing. It’s a little nerve-wracking for me, since I have fallen in love with Tennant’s Doctor half a dozen times, and want things to go well between him and Husband.

To ensure initial success, I set down some groundwork by explaining that these kinds of shows always start a little rough. Then, I showed Husband a flattering picture of Billie Piper, who has played Rose Tyler, the Doctor’s faithful companion, since the new series’s began.  Billie Piper NEVER looks like this in her role as Rose Tyler, but I think the proven potential lends to the suspension of disbelief. Piper ultimately surpasses her photo career with a compelling emotional performance that makes me love her almost as much as I love the new Doctor. Don’t believe me? That’s okay. Look at the picture. It just keeps on giving.

The Christmas Invasion

The Doctor is in mid-transformation during an invasion by the ugly and powerful Sycorax, who have been drawn to the Earth by energy that escapes the Doctor when he sighs in his sleep. The Doctor eventually awakes to save the whole world, but it is never clearly restated that he was the beacon that originally drew the aliens’ attention.

Perhaps the writers were distracted by their “anti-war message,” which took the thematic lead in the second half of the episode. The end is confusing because although the Doctor brought the aliens to Earth, when he sends them off with a message of peace and deterrence, he implies that humans are attracting attention because they are “noisy,” sending out probes like “Guinevere One,” which the Sycorax stumbled across once they were in the solar system. He then becomes unreasonably angry with Prime Minister Harriet Jones after she authorizes a military response to destroy and silence the Sycorax, thereby keeping news of the Earth from spreading. The Doctor takes a final high-handed step of destroying Jones’s career by implying that she has health concerns that render her incapable as a world leader.

Wasn’t Harriet Jones cleaning up a mess brought upon the Earth, in this case, entirely by the Doctor? And why should the Doctor have sole discretion in when and how humanity begins interacting with alien life?

Anyway, the Doctor’s purity of goodness and heart are put into question throughout the next few series’s, so I am happy to let this slide for the time being.

© 2008 Three Bright Stars | All rights reserved. Copyright for republished writing or artwork belongs to the original writer or artist, as noted. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

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Life has been crazy and difficult for the past year since Grandma died. Her death triggered a whole series of decisions that have been mainly hurtful and destructive within my extended family, starting from the funeral and ending with the sale of her house, final yesterday. Some criticism of this blog, which I maintain as an amusement, and not as an intellectual showcase of any kind, caused me to reduce blogging frequency even before Grandma died. Now that it’s all over, I feel I should put fingers to keys and blog about whatever the hell I want to blog about.

I’d LOVE to write the story of how completely insane my birth family has turned out to be, not including my brother, who is awesome, but everyone else. Out of habit, I feel I should be vague, although I’ll probably be more and more explicit the more alienated I feel from the people involved. I’ll write it like a novel, with the disclaimer, “Any resemblance to real individuals and events is YOUR OWN FAULT.”

I have other topics that may interest you, though, such as technology (iMac), TV series (Mad Men), cooking (SOUP), renovation and design (glass and tile), events (it’s my birfday!), and the incredible and ongoing cuteness of both kids (Daniel: 4, Alex: 2). Oh, and I’m still married and have a great in-law family, we have a house and cats, a van, electricity, you know, the basics. Nothing THAT BAD.

You’ll have to excuse the lack of images on occasion – they take a long time to find, edit, post in various sizes, etc, and this blog can’t aim at perfection in that way. I hope I can get some things down, and I hope a few people come on back to read it. Hopefully not Mrs. Trellis, though.

© 2008 Three Bright Stars | All rights reserved. Copyright for republished writing or artwork belongs to the original writer or artist, as noted. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

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3. The Great Train Cake

This is what a mom wants to see: her kids having some super fun outside, crashing into each other, laughing and happy. I let them play like this for a few more minutes, until I noticed they were bumping into things a little too vigorously, endangering some of the infrastructure I care about. Then, when Daniel came inside (when I dragged him past the toy he melodramatically couldn’t step over), he was a little pink in the face – sunscreen FAIL. The kids fought like snarling little puppies as I prepped them for naps and put them all snuggy in their beddies, where they both nevertheless collapsed and have been quiet ever since. It seems that you can’t have the fun without the tears! For your viewing pleasure, I have preserved only the fun:

Also, I love the Plasma Car video! Check it out.

© 2008 Three Bright Stars | All rights reserved. Copyright for republished writing or artwork belongs to the original writer or artist, as noted. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

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Ignoring mediocre reviews, I finally downloaded and listened to Time’s Eye, Book 1 of the Time Odyssey by Arther C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Time’s Eye is a scientific mystery told through a historical and futuristic adventure story encompassing the human journey from the birth of humanity to the beginnings of our self-concept as intelligent life in the universe – “epic.” Science fiction has turned into such a pansy activist genre that reviewers felt this somehow “missed the mark”.

Which part of the battle between Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great was “boring and predictable”? Was it the part when the power-grabbing female astronaut joined the evil Khan to take control of the entire new world? Or the part where a British peacekeeper – also female – set up a triage and trained a squeamish young Rudyard Kipling to sort and treat iron age battle wounds? Maybe it was the mysterious “time balls,” unexplained imperturbable shiny spheres that seemed to observe human activity, especially during the climactic battle scene?

People wish they thought to put Genghis Khan up against Alexander the Great. It’s the kind of great idea that feels so right to everyone after they have seen someone else do it – like the wheel, or putting fries in the lid of your hamburger box. The idea feels like it had a gravity of its own, like it was so simple and so right that it would have emerged spontaneously – and therefore, when Clarke and Baxter rendered such a beautifully elegant concept in their novel, it was “predictable.”

I blame the cultural elevation of the science fiction genre.  It still annoys me that academic science fiction fans have fallen to quibbling over the meaning of the “S” and the “F” in “SF” – which stands for “science fiction,” by the way.  It’s not “speculative fiction,” “science fantasy,” “speculative fantasy,” or any other random “s” and “f” words. There shouldn’t be a huge chasm between what is termed “hard” and “soft” science fiction, where one is interesting and populist while the other is moral and elite, either.

Check out Time’s Eye and see what I mean. There’s a lot to that novel. It shouldn’t have been disparaged in reviews.

© 2008 Three Bright Stars | All rights reserved. Copyright for republished writing or artwork belongs to the original writer or artist, as noted. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

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We, in Alberta, try to be tough about the cold. We learn from an early age that so long as you layer undergarments beneath light cotton beneath woolens beneath cardigans, and then add sweaters, scarves, toques, mittens, and top with high-tech or goose-down-filled gear, you can venture outside in almost any weather and survive – nay – enjoy it.

Then sometime in April we SURGE, like daffodils, into the newly non-lethal cool spring sunshine, willing to overlook scattered heaps of melting snow, because LOOK! Grass! Buds on the trees! Bunnies are turning from white to brown! We take a collective sigh of relief, because really, that was a hard winter. We can admit it now that it’s over.

We know there’s usually a Snow Coda in April, just when you were planning your garden, maybe even watching your petunias emerge in the greenhouse. We have patience with this winter’s last gasp, and don’t whine about it much.

But this… this abomination. This is too much.

@ColbyCosh commented:

Daniel wailed, “Oh!! Snow!! It snowed AGAIN!! It’s all snowy!”

Brace yourself. This depressing footage will give you Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

I need input on titles, subtitles, or tag-lines for this video. Current ideas are admittedly lame:

• It MAY Snow In Alberta
• WTF Mother Earth!? Happy Mother’s Day To You Too!!
• Snow Day In May? Hurray!

Add your ideas in comments below, and I’ll express my gratitude somehow. Lame comedy warmly accepted.

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A little while ago, we had the mics set up with one of Husband’s fancy sound devices. The kids LOVE to play with these toys, banging the mics, chirping, barking, coughing, and making all kinds of experimental sounds. When Husband turned on the pitch correction, they finally decided it was amusing to sing!! Here are some of the most melodic sounds from our two- and four-year-olds.

© 2008 Three Bright Stars | All rights reserved. Copyright for republished writing or artwork belongs to the original writer or artist, as noted. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

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The fourth birthday is the first birthday that a kid really cares about.  It’s also the first birthday that he could possibly recall in later years.  I knew I had to provide a great cake for the event, but my own expertise is – well, lacking, okay?  I spent some time looking for options, and found this cake maker: Over The Top Cakes.

The most spectacular designs usually serve about 20 people, and my party was nowhere near that big, so I opted for a smaller round cake with Daniel’s favorite theme: Thomas the Tank Engine.  Here is what we got.

The colorful fondant icing is easy to cut through, revealing the delicious chocolate layer cake underneath. I asked for a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, but other flavors are available. The cake was firm, but moist and delicious. The icing tasted good too, and didn’t have the waxy taste or feel of a store-bought cake. Even the fondant tastes good – the kids went after the black tunnel and the rail ties – although it’s more for decoration than for eating.

The little Thomas train was a rice crispy model decorated in the colorful fondant icing. Daniel chewed on it for a while, and when he was finished, I cut it in half to show the rice crispy innards. Mmmm!

I recommend Over The Top Cakes to anyone who needs a special cake, whether it’s for a birthday, a wedding, or any other event. They make a splash on display and on the plate!

Disclaimer: I paid for my cake. This is not an advertisement.

© 2008 Three Bright Stars | All rights reserved. Copyright for republished writing or artwork belongs to the original writer or artist, as noted. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

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We had Daniel’s family party on the weekend. I did a quick Internet consult, and landed on a good recipe for chicken Florentine. It’s simple, you can make it ahead, and it’s a big hit. Here’s how I did it:

1. Defrost 2 packs of frozen spinach. I do this the day before to prevent myself from standing at the counter staring angrily at blocks of ice.  The heat of my gaze does NOT actually defrost veggies. Press out the excess spinach juice.
2. Precook about 7-8 chicken breasts. I used the Foreman grill, 7 minutes at 375. They come out juicy and delicious. Give one to the cat. He’s going to steal it anyway.
3. In a skillet, cook some pressed garlic in some butter.  Add 1 tbsp of butter, mixing vigorously until smooth.  Add some crushed fresh or dried herbs – I used oregano and rosemary, but basil and thyme would be LOVELY.  Pour in 1/4 cup of cream, still mixing vigorously.  Allow this mixture to thicken for a few minutes, and then add all the spinach.  Stir and mix well, and let the spinach wilt – you’ll see a difference.
4. Place the cooked spinach mixture in the bottom of a large casserole dish.  Cut the cooked chicken into presentable slices and arrange them on top of the spinach.
5. In a saucepan, melt 3 tbsp of butter.  Add 3 tbsp of flour, mixing vigorously until the paste is smooth.  Add 3/4 cup of cream, whisking all the while.  Then, add 3/4 cup of chicken broth (alternative: substitute a nice dry white wine).  Allow the sauce to thicken, stirring or whisking constantly, not letting it catch on the bottom.  When you like the thickness, season to taste with salt and pepper, and any other flavors you’d like.
6. KILLER TIP:  Cut some ham slices into strips and add to the white sauce.
7. Ladle the white sauce over the chicken casserole so it is evenly coated.  Garnish with a cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. DONE!

You can make this the night before an event, and then cook it 30 minutes before serving time.  Put it in a 400 oven for 20 minutes, leaving the lid off so the Parmesan takes a nice browning. Serve with some brown and wild rice, and steamed veggies of your choice.  Mmmmm….

© 2008 Three Bright Stars | All rights reserved. Copyright for republished writing or artwork belongs to the original writer or artist, as noted. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

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