Sunday, October 26, 2008

Aphorism

"A positive attitude may not solve all of your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."
- Herm Albright

Friday, October 24, 2008

It's NEVER too early for reindeer pants.

And I mean early in terms of both time of day and month. I love pajamas and long underwear: reindeer and everything. Not everyone agrees with me on when to wear them, it seems, as I was told I "sit on a throne of bad fashion." Thanks. It doesn't take the reindeer pants to know that. As a side note, if you ever don't know what to get me for Christmas, long johns (the waffle-print kind) are always welcome.

Yesterday, I had a real ethics-bomb dropped on me. (Someone must've taken intro to philosophy - twice.)
Would you rather be stuck on a desert island with a boatbuilder or a supermodel?
Here are the parameters we clarified:
1. Supermodel can be either gender.
2. The supermodel does not know how to build boats, conversely, the boatbuilder is not a supermodel.
3. The boatbuilder does not have with him all the items necessary to make a boat. The island does have trees.

The only real decision made was that the boys would not want to be stuck with me on a desert island. But really, I don't want to be stuck on a desert island either, so I'm happy not to be there when they get deserted.

This is from freshman year... But seriously, if those hadn't been girls ages 8-10, really would've bought them.

Monday, October 20, 2008

How much is too much?

I had a "FIRE-UP!" conference for student-teachers today. I went to a number of sessions - it's pretty easy to tell what I'm interested in from the sessions. I attended "Connecting with kids in Crisis", "Urban Education", "Students of Poverty as Diverse Learners" and then a froofy one about your 'true colors' (a personality test). (Dad, I think you and I are gold.) I say froofy because it doesn't seem like a personality test if they ask you to look at the typical description and place yourself in it.
But I really valued it because I needed a reminder that it's okay to care about people. In fact, I have some questions about life that I'd like to hear your thoughts about. I know that, as a teacher, I will not reach everybody and get everybody to succeed in math or even get everybody to understand that I actually care about them, or potentially, I probably won't care about everybody like I should. As a naive little teacher, I have that as a goal of mine: not just to care about everybody, but to attempt to show them.
How much is too much in caring for the students? Am I setting my goals too high? Not high enough? How do I stop from becoming complacent? Or is complacency not always a bad thing (am I using a poor word choice here?) I would love to know your thoughts or advice.

Random update: first swim meet on Saturday! It's a girls-only meet against St. Mary's at Notre Dame's pool. Which can only mean two things:
1. Awesome pool experience.
2. Hot seat (i.e. mushy engagement stories) with the coaches over the bus microphone.


Too much math on the brain... This happens to me. Every night.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Marathons and polygons

With swimming going on, it's been quite busy for me the past few weeks. Taking naps so that I can practice from 8-10pm and then still wake up at 5:30 to be prepared for school every day... Lifting, remembering to eat dinner... But, I'm still having fun and I'm about halfway through the semester, which is weird.

I went to Chicago this weekend. Ran in the Chicago marathon! (Keep reading, please.) To get to the brown line, we had to cross the runners' path, which meant running at a diagonal so that we didn't intrude on anyone's running space. Diana, I didn't see any hot dog costumes or barefoot people. (Morgan, I didn't even see any creative anniversary shirts. Toronto must have been better.)
Josh and I were heading to see his family friends (the mom swam for Michigan, actually!). The two girls were very cute - and Ayla, who would duck her head under the table if Josh so much as made eye contact with her, wanted me to hold her and sat on my lap eating french fries at lunch. Also, she wanted to show me her elephant costume. (See below.)



She's in the middle of putting her arm up to be an elephant trunk, which is apparently the noise an elephant makes.

Lastly, this Wednesday I'm playing with Geogebra.org with the classes. If you're ever bored, you should go play around with it... Especially the people reading this who like math. You can make all sorts of polygons and slide points around and stuff. Lots of technology-laden geometry.

And, I'm still wasting my time splendidly looking at graphjam.com and failblog.org. Here's one from each as a little teaser:
English class, anyone?

And, yes, there are some people who know that I'm making fun of them with this one.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Get Smart

I saw Get Smart yesterday - turns out, it's a pretty good movie. I recommend it! There are some pretty funny quotes by Steve Carell. I then spent a while this morning eating my banana-chocolate chip muffins and watching SNL versions of the debate and bailout crisis, which also provided some good quotes. Next I'll be looking for recaps on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I feel a little fake reading up on the political news because my motivation for watching the debate was so that I could get all the jokes on SNL...

And in fun news, I'm going to Waco for Thanksgiving! We found tickets to Dallas that are not that expensive, so Mom, Mark, and I are going to see Kristi and Dan (and SAMMIE!!!!) over Thanksgiving. The unhappy part means that I won't see the rest of you until Thanksgiving, but we do have a meet in Detroit November 15 that Dad usually comes to; and another meet Saturday, December 6 at Eastern Michigan that Dad usually comes to. So if you want to come there... it's just as bad as my high school meets. I apologize in advance. Kristi's already sent me various things we can do - visit the ex-cult site, go to a winery, see the Bush house, the Homestead Craft Fair, and do something with World Hunger Relief.

Another funny site is graphjam.com. They put up new graphs quite often. If you've heard of being rickrolled, that graph is funny. Otherwise, it might not be.

song chart memes

Also, I went to a tea party hosted by some of my friends a few weeks ago. Here's a photo of Allison and I in our best tea party costumes.



The other girls forgot to clarify which type of tea party we were having... They apparently assumed a classical music and pearls- type of tea party.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

If I had just ONE more angle, and ONE more side - Life would be more interesting.

How I anticipate feeling tomorrow morning as I have my first early morning practice after 2 drylands, 2 lifting sessions, and 3 swim practices: I think "awesome - I ran with diana and friends this summer; I'm in GREAT shape." And then I bend down to pick up papers - or stand up from my bed - or try to put my arms in streamline, and I think OW. Ow ow ow.

Or, perhaps this video more accurately sums it up after Saturday (haha, get it, sums it up?) Skip to 2:15. That's where it comes in. Enough of my fake whining - I love feeling sore.

I had my first surprise observation today by my professor, and I think everything went well. The class was quiet and figuring out interior angle sums. I brought them back to kindergarten and read "The Greedy Triangle" to them as an introduction. I received a smattering of applause in two of the three classes for my dramatic reading of the triangle who wanted 'just ONE more angle and ONE more side.' It either had a moral of being happy with yourself, or that triangles are the best shape ever. Not sure which.

Last thing of the day is conversation I overheard from some little swimmers in the locker room, verbatim. Enjoy. Learn something, maybe.

Girl 1: Did you know that everything you've EVER dranken was pee?
Girl 2: Gross! Even fridge water?
Girl 1: Yes, even fridge water. It's, like, evaporation or something.
Girl 2: Is fridge water still pee?
Girl 1: No, it's not pee anymore! Sheesh.

At this point, I'd done so many confused/ half-laughs/ raised eyebrows that I have nothing left to do but go swim in a giant pool of water (water?) that these girls just got out of.