Art and Science and other news

Earlier when I didn't have time to post this, I was geared up for a good rant but I seem to have talked myself down or lost the energy. My original point was going to be that children who are seen as "creative" are often steered into artistic things and there are people out there who think that you're either talented or you're not and the element of learning a craft and hard work doesn't really enter into it. The same people may bemoan that they played clarinet in junior high band for a year but just "weren't good at it." Of course I'm sure that anyone reading this journal is much smarter than that and knows that any artistic discipline takes lots of hard work and learning things like fingerings on a musical instrument, perspective drawing, and so forth, isn't just using "talent." But there are people out there that think that chorus and art are where you put the dumb kids or kids that need a break from their real classes to do something fun. They don't need to learn anything. The scary thing is there are people who teach like this too.Then, math and science classes are all about learning facts and logic but usually not using creative thinking. I was always terrible at math and not too great at science. If I could go back in time and mentor the child that I was, I would tell her to pay more attention in math and science and that they could be used creatively too. I would tell her that someday she could use her creativity in researching and inventing, in designing solutions to problems. Now, I'm aware that people have different abilities and learning styles and I'm not going to claim that if I had a better education, I'd be coming up with cures for cancer or discovering new clean energy sources, but I suspect that if I'd understood much earlier that science could be creative too, I might have bothered to work harder.So all that to say, why not teach art more like a science and science more like an art?In other news, the weather is great and I've been spending more time on the new patio we just had built. The feral kittens we've been feeding will come within three feet of us if we're out there and have a bowl of food for them. I've named them Shasta 1, Shasta 2 (white with blue eyes and grey ears and tail, difficult to tell apart), Peaches, and Slinky. The adult cats hover and won't come near when we are out. I've been in touch with Indy Feral and am hoping to get these cats spayed and neutered. If we didn't have two elderly cats indoors, I would have been willing to try to capture a kitten or two and bring them in to tame, but I fear they may be too old for this now.Our own cats are retired and do not need to be subjected to being pounced upon by youngsters. Varda isn't crazy about her treatment where she gets fluids under the skin, but E. comes over to help and she puts up with it. She still bats at her own tail and is a perfect little teddy bear. Athena is still the queen of all she sees.