#three years old

[linskywords]

Okay WHAT is happening with Get a Torch? Did it get recced somewhere, or are you all just getting very enthusiastic about mcmattdrai this week?

[mik3stuff]

POV: you are the best Monster High characters

Art by: @wwchaos (btw hope you don't mind me reposting)

[belovedrival]

Jonas’s first day of preschool was yesterday. He literally RAN out the back door to the car when I said it was time to go, chatted happily all the way over there, and…immediately shut down when we got out of the car at school. He walked in between Mister and I, totally shy.

By the time we left he was crying, sitting at one of the tables in his classroom, while the assistant was coaxing him to build a house with her (he LOVES those play magnets). There were at least 3 other kids in his classroom that were crying, too.

He was smiling when I picked him up after school. So obviously, he survived. 😊

It’s a new chapter. And I’m starting a new job this week, too. Allllllll the new things. 😊

[thefoodarchivist]

Cosima’s third birthday cake 🎂 It had to be chocolate because she’s obsessed with the stuff! It also had to be dairy free because mummy was NOT missing out!

You really wouldn’t know it was dairy free; I just used some lovely dark chocolate which happens to be dairy free as I find it much better (and more richly chocolatey) than the ‘free-from chocolate’ you can buy.

I wanted to make it really tall, to make it more special, with a good few layers. Cosima was delighted with it 🥰

We cut it straight out of the fridge because I forgot to take it out a few hours previously, as I’d intended to, but it still tasted really good. It freezes really well so I’ll be cutting this into slices and stashing it for the coming months!

[ladytee918]

Today is my niece third birthday ever since she was born she just looked over it 😂😂😂

[owlf45]

babes check the dates on whatever fics you feel entitled to critiquing, because boy are you gonna be hella embarrassed when I tell you I already know all your “advice” because it’s two years old and I’ve grown as a writer

[killianmesmalls]

It’s been four hours and I’m still so upset about what Dean said about Jack, the fact that Jack heard it, and that conversation in the car. 

[firelord-frowny]

see also: all the private students I’ve had who do excellent work in their lessons with me, making all the right changes to their posture and technique, 

and then the next week, they’re back to doing everything wrong, and they tell me it’s because ~their school orchestra teacher said to do it like this.~ 

i had this one student who was SUPER talented, like, she had SUCH a wonderful innate understanding of tonality, and she was super teachable in that she was quick to understand the physical changes she needed to make in her posture. 

but she had tapes on her fingerboard. Which like, unlike guitars, violins have ~fretless~ fingerboards, which means there’s nothing to physically indicate where to place the fingers for each note. So it’s common for teachers* to put tapes on the instruments of beginners to help them place their fingers in the right spots. 

The fucking problem with this is that 1) MANY teachers who use this method are not actually any good at violin, and so are prone to placing the tapes incorrectly, and 2) intonation on string instruments is actually not at all black-and-white, and use of tapes doesn’t allow for the nuances that perfect intonation actually requires, and they will INEVITABLY hinder a student’s progress. This is why decent, knowledgable teachers will remove a student’s tapes as soon as they demonstrate comfort with good posture and spacing. 

This student was WELL BEYOND the point of needing tapes, and her intonation was actually suffering from the tapes since she was now playing stuff in keys other than just plain old G or C major. 

So I took the tapes off. Her intonation almost IMMEDIATELY improved. She was using her ear to determine where, EXACTLY, each note was, and she was more confident and gutsy now that she didn’t have to worry about whether or not her fingers were exactly on the tapes. 

The next week, the tapes were back. her orchestra teacher took her instrument and put the tapes back on, despite the girl explaining that her private teacher took them off because she was ready to progress beyond them. 

And I just??? lmao i hate i HATE that so many alleged professionals spend their entire careers sabotaging their students, and then feeling proud about it.