I read it somewhere on the Internet...
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| The Medieval Bestseller I read it somewhere on the Internet... |
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Monday, May 19, 2008
Oh. My. Goodness. Today I am teaching the sixth graders again. The regular sixth grade teacher has been bogged down with meetings, so the school is nice enough to ask me to fill in for her. Last week for math I reviewed lesson 8-3 with them (perimeter and area of a triangle) and taught them lesson 8-4 (areas of other figures, like trapezoids and adding areas of combined shapes). Today I had the option of either continuing on with lesson 8-5 (circumference and area of a circle) or with doing review. I decided that I'd review with them for the first few minutes by putting some questions from the book on the board and having them work on them for 10 minutes and then move on to lesson 8-5. It quickly became apparent that the students didn't know how to do the questions from either lesson. SO frustrating. One of the questions was to find the area of a square if the total perimeter equalled x. That might as well have made their brains explode. Somehow I don't think this is the first time that they've encountered 'x' in place of a number but, if they encountered it before, it went in one ear and out the other. The most curious thing is that I'd say, "Well if the perimeter of the square is x, then what is the length of one side?" They'd say these random answers like "2." And I'd say something like, "Where is that number coming from? It's not in the equation. The 'number' you have is 'x.'" And then they'd say something like, "Well, it looks like 2." And then I'd respond with, "But you can't just make up numbers." Ah, the joys of trying to explain that in algebraic equations sometimes you won't have any numbers, only letters. In other news, this weekend I went to Ojai again with Gavin to celebrate his parents' 40th wedding anniversary. Saturday we just sort of hung out in the heat and then went out for dinner at the Ranch House where, I swear, every waiter of the 15 we had seemed totally frightened of us even though we were perfectly nice. It was so odd. Nonetheless, the meal was very nice and the ambiance of dining on a tiered patio amidst bamboo was neat. Sunday we all (minus Gavin's dad) went to see Iron Man, which reminds me that I forgot to mention a helpful tip my dad gave to me the other day. My dad happens to greatly dislike lawyers. In fact, I don't know if anyone in my family necessarily has a high view of lawyers. I don't think it's that anyone has had a bad run-in with lawyers, per se, but because they're generally seen as being unhelpful to greater society, like by suing people over frivolous things and such. Despite the fact that Gavin is very nice and likes to take pictures of tame things like kittens, it has not been super great to my dad that Gavin is a lawyer. What does this have to do with Iron Man, you wonder? Well, the other day I was minding my own business and my dad said to me, "You know, I've been thinking about Gavin. No one likes lawyers." "Uh huh," I cautiously replied. So he continued on, "So I've been thinking that Gavin, to preserve his image, should call himself a crime fighter because everyone likes crime fighters." You see my dad has worked out that as a federal prosecutor pursuing people who don't pay their taxes, Gavin is, in a sense, fighting crime. It only helps Gavin's crime fighting image that he keeps his suits in his office and changes into them there... - Jenny, 5/19/2008 10:23:00 AM Thursday, May 15, 2008 Not much time to post. Lately I've been learning that life simply is not easy, for me and for others. Which is a bummer. But I guess they say knowing is half the battle. This weekend I'll be heading up to Ojai again with Gavin. It's his parents' anniversary and the last weekend Kendra will be here for awhile. Unfortunately this means I will be missing the Crippler's confirmation, as well as a meeting at church on Sunday morning. Which is a bummer. But hopefully I'll find time to blog while I'm up there, as I suppose I'll probably take my computer with me this time. Hope you all have a good weekend and, if it's hot where you are like it's hot here, will also be good to keep cool. - Jenny, 5/15/2008 10:41:00 PM Wednesday, May 14, 2008 For someone who is unemployed, I sure am busy. Sometimes so busy that it comes to be the end of my day and I think to myself, "I cannot possibly have enough time to blog." Indeed, I am thinking that tonight, but since I really didn't blog yesterday (except with the great news of finishing the Color book), that I ought to apply myself. So I will give you some highlights: a.) John entered Kendra's photo in a caption contest! I think it's so cool. I forwarded the information along to Gavin & Kendra. I haven't heard from Kendra, but Gavin thought it was a cool idea. If you think it's a cool idea, too, go and participate! [LOL! John's caption for the 6th of May is HILARIOUS!] b.) I still haven't done any pose from that Yoga article about how to help painful backs. But every time my back is in pain, I sure do think about how I should get to it. c.) Today I was asked to do another guest preaching gig at the end of June! d.) I watched Mystic River today with Jenn. The movie is only 2:35 hours long, but I swear it must have taken us 4 hours to complete. It's a really good movie (as can be surmised by all of the awards it received) but is super complicated and has all sorts of possibilities up in the air. I was telling Jenn that I'm glad it was a movie I didn't see in the theatre not because it wouldn't have been worth it, but because it was helpful to stop the movie and talk about all of the ins and outs. The movie, if you haven't seen it, is a sort of murder mystery. You would not understand that from the title at all--I'm not exactly sure, even, why they named it that. There's this part at the end where I think that maybe when they're talking about a certain river (named Mystic, but it doesn't figure much in the story) that they could be talking of baptism, atonement and redemption, but...then again, maybe not. It's a good movie. If you haven't seen it, consider it. I just have seen on Wikipedia that it's also a book. Perhaps I'll add it on my Goodreads queue so that I'll remember to read it someday! e.) My inbox is spiraling out of control. I was keeping it at a (somewhat) clean 20 messages but now I'm one shy of 40! - Jenny, 5/14/2008 10:58:00 PM Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Finished! Finally finished Color: A Natural History of the Palette, after reading it for the past year. If you click on that link quick enough, you will see my review of it at the top. I ended up giving it 2/5 stars and am surprised how many people have given the book 4 or 5 stars. - Jenny, 5/13/2008 01:41:00 PM Monday, May 12, 2008 This weekend was busy. Friday I picked Gavin up from work (FYI, it is a difficult feat to pick someone up in downtown LA) and we drove down to San Diego for my friend Amberle's graduation/pinning from Point Loma Nazarene University. She was graduating on Saturday morning, having completed her BS in Nursing but there was a special pinning ceremony for the nurses on Friday afternoon to be pinned, so Gavin and I went to see that happen. It was a really cool service. Similar to a graduation, yet smaller, and the way the school arranged it allowed for each student to have a personal statement (about a paragraph's length) read and pictures displayed via PowerPoint while each one was being pinned. So it was a lot more interesting than an average graduation. After the pinning ceremony, we took advantage of being in San Diego and went to my aunt Sally's for dinner. This was the first time Aunt Sally, Uncle Roger and their little girls, Keana & Leila, met Gavin. All went well and it was a nice night, but a late one. We didn't end up leaving San Diego until after 9p, so we didn't get back until 11-ish. The next morning we drove up to Ojai to hang out with Gavin's parents and sister Kendra for the rest of the weekend, but I was kinda miserable because I couldn't fall asleep until after 3a (and I think I got up around 8a). Fortunately it was fairly chill--eating, playing some board games and general hanging out (I'm sure at some point Gavin will have pictures up), but I was tired. I ended up taking a nap in the mid-afternoon and that helped me to feel much better. Then we had dinner, played more games and then Gavin and I watched an episode of Heroes Season 2 on Netflix. (An aside: it's neat that you can watch it directly off of their website...too bad the second season is nowhere as good as the first...I'm just getting confused trying to keep the timeline in mind, as well as figuring out the overall point of the series.) Sunday Gavin and I took a walk with Gavin's mom Bonnie into town and went to the Ojai Farmers' Market, which was fun for me because I love going to farmers' markets. Then we came back and had a late breakfast. This included Gavin and I playing several rounds of Fluxx. Fluxx is a card game where the rules continually change as you play. We have played many times before and Gavin magically wins every time (read: he cheats, in my opinion); I can count the number of times I've won on one hand. Anyway, we were playing it on Sunday morning (after I won on Saturday night) and he won time after time, taking a victory dance around the kitchen with each win. Quite a humble man. So the one time I win the game on Sunday morning, Gavin insisted I take a victory lap and, while he was "showing" me how to take a victory lap, he hit his foot pretty hard on an open cabinet. Gavin's dad and I claim that shows why one should be humble, but Gavin seems to think that the lesson to be learned was not that but, instead, to be more careful when taking a victory lap. Sunday afternoon we just hung out. I helped Kendra out with her Mac. Gavin and his mom took passport photos. Then Gavin, Kendra and I went over to their friends' house and played Rock Band for quite awhile. Instead of playing my classic vocals, I gave the bass a try for awhile. Doing so reminded me further that I have absolutely no rhythm. At the end I did the vocals for awhile and even scored 100% (on Medium) for Dani, California and Wonderwall, which beats my previous record of Black Sabbath's Paranoid at 99%. We finished off the night with pizza and salad back at Gavin's parents' house. Got home from Ojai at around 11 or 11:30p on Sunday night and found my inbox full of email. Answered a few and then went to bed, only to wake up a few hours later at 6:30a in order to go and substitute teach for the 6th graders today. This is what I look like when I try to discipline the students. Maybe that's why they keep on talking. I helped one of the students with his persuasive essay on why there should be less homework at school. One of my favorite parts of his essay is as follows (edits not included): The homework at New Heights can be very stressful. When I'm stressed I become forgetful. With a lot of complicated homework it’s easy to get stressed, which makes it a lot easier to forget. Stress can make you make mountains out of moull hills. For example if a kid didn’t pass on a test so he breaks his binder. Last but not least stress can kill you early.A little dramatic. And now it's already midnight and I need to get up at 6:30a again tomorrow to sub for the 6th graders again. Most of them seem to tolerate (or even like me), except for the two who I regularly discipline because they are constant talkers. The mere sound of those two talking is akin to shredding my eyeballs. However before I go to bed I want to try out these yoga poses that I found in a yoga magazine found at Gavin's parents' house that are intended to help sore backs. My lower back has been sore lately and I am hoping yoga will help me strengthen it and help the pain to subside. I'd just like to say that I love this quote and my dad and I quote it to each other quite often (often in reference to Carrie & Joey). We've also been quoting the bit lately where he says "You're... you're crazy man. I like you, but you're crazy." My friend Karen is having a baby (she finds out the sex tomorrow, if all goes well!) and lately I've been playing with this site (rediscovered by me from a few years before) and I just think it's so cool. - Jenny, 5/12/2008 11:01:00 PM |
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