Tuesday, April 11, 2006
22:01
Today was the first day of classroom observation after taking a week off for Spring Break. I got a lot of solutions written during that week, but it's good to have the interaction with students again.
Today was also my first day doing a tutoring job with a couple of homeschoolers. They are doing a highschool/college transition program called Running Start, and I today we went over an algebra placement test. They know how to solve linear equations, but need practice with them. A new concept for them was weighted averages. We also got on a rabbit trail about sums of infinite series when one of them asked what the sigma symbol on my calculator meant.
This evening I went to a Bible study. The church has two midweek studies, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. I figured the Tuesday one would work better because I've already got stuff going on that day. It's nice to have other days in the week with nothing specific to do but write solutions, because there's a certain amount of acceleration time when I start writing them. Once I get up to speed, I like to stay in the groove for the long haul, to mix a few metaphors. I rode to the study by bicycle (four miles into town, and one more to get back out of town in the other direction), but got a ride back because I don't have a reflective thingy to wear yet and because the back went flat on the way there. The study is right at the end of Galatians; tonight we talked about 6:6-9. I just looked up what the verses were in the little green Gideon New Testament/Psalms/Proverbs that was sitting on my desk, and was reminded again just how non-user friendly those things are. It's a pain to flip through the pages or hold open in a particular spot, and the positioning of Psalms and Proverbs *after* Revelation (plus the absence of all the other books) means that when I open to a spot that ought to be near Galations, I find myself in the middle of Psalms instead. The study was good, and the group is small enough that I'll be able to get to know people. It's kind of weird, trying to transition into being in the "adult" crowd rather than part of a "college group". Although, judging from the makeup of the congregation, I'll probably end up helping with the high schoolers.
Seeing how I've got so much stuff happening on Tuesdays, I think I'll start riding the bike in on Tuesday mornings, leaving it at the house where I tutor, then picking it up again later. That way if I have anything to do in town I can do it at that time, before riding back. It's too bad I can't take my job with me when I leave the house. In a lot of ways it's like doing homework for a living, but this is homework that has to be typed and illustrated.
Word for the day: Octothorp. And what is an octothorp, you ask? It's this: # The name comes from the eight points around the perimeter.
Fact for the day: If there were mile markers between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, placed every 10,000 miles, there are enough ants on our planet that you could place one ant on every mile marker, if you didn't mind using them all up.
Today was also my first day doing a tutoring job with a couple of homeschoolers. They are doing a highschool/college transition program called Running Start, and I today we went over an algebra placement test. They know how to solve linear equations, but need practice with them. A new concept for them was weighted averages. We also got on a rabbit trail about sums of infinite series when one of them asked what the sigma symbol on my calculator meant.
This evening I went to a Bible study. The church has two midweek studies, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. I figured the Tuesday one would work better because I've already got stuff going on that day. It's nice to have other days in the week with nothing specific to do but write solutions, because there's a certain amount of acceleration time when I start writing them. Once I get up to speed, I like to stay in the groove for the long haul, to mix a few metaphors. I rode to the study by bicycle (four miles into town, and one more to get back out of town in the other direction), but got a ride back because I don't have a reflective thingy to wear yet and because the back went flat on the way there. The study is right at the end of Galatians; tonight we talked about 6:6-9. I just looked up what the verses were in the little green Gideon New Testament/Psalms/Proverbs that was sitting on my desk, and was reminded again just how non-user friendly those things are. It's a pain to flip through the pages or hold open in a particular spot, and the positioning of Psalms and Proverbs *after* Revelation (plus the absence of all the other books) means that when I open to a spot that ought to be near Galations, I find myself in the middle of Psalms instead. The study was good, and the group is small enough that I'll be able to get to know people. It's kind of weird, trying to transition into being in the "adult" crowd rather than part of a "college group". Although, judging from the makeup of the congregation, I'll probably end up helping with the high schoolers.
Seeing how I've got so much stuff happening on Tuesdays, I think I'll start riding the bike in on Tuesday mornings, leaving it at the house where I tutor, then picking it up again later. That way if I have anything to do in town I can do it at that time, before riding back. It's too bad I can't take my job with me when I leave the house. In a lot of ways it's like doing homework for a living, but this is homework that has to be typed and illustrated.
Word for the day: Octothorp. And what is an octothorp, you ask? It's this: # The name comes from the eight points around the perimeter.
Fact for the day: If there were mile markers between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, placed every 10,000 miles, there are enough ants on our planet that you could place one ant on every mile marker, if you didn't mind using them all up.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
22:55
I have a working bicycle that I can ride now. Pedaling four miles is a bit more than I'm used to doing, despite all the hiking up in the hills I've been doing lately. Riding against a headwind doesn't help any. It'll take some time before I can maintain the 12 mph necessary to make the trip in just 20 minutes, or the 16 mph necessary to do it in 15 minutes. At any rate, this will make it easier for me to attend a mid-week Bible study and that sort of thing.
