Wednesday, September 23, 2009

backpack + pink lunchbox - naptime + developing humans - some understanding = first day of grad school

Things I learned today:
  • I like factor analysis. There are some matrices (w00t! math!) and the professor made a few jokes in class. I'm already reveling in the lecture notes where everything is organized into nice rows and columns and all inter-related... Oh, the life of made-up data!
  • I can be doing a lot more with the world. Being at a school as diverse and large as Ohio State, and working with Somali immigrants in my practicum (Columbus has the second-largest population of Somali refugees in the U.S. to Minneapolis) will force me to step outside my comfort level. I am looking for ways to - and for strength to - rotate my focuses (foci? foxen?) in life so that I am going to the widow, the orphan, the exile - the disadvantaged, the unwanted - with long-term help and with the love of God. I've pretty much got that down pat.
Not!
  • Where Somalia is.
  • Where Korea is.
  • (Over the course of the summer) - That eating less meat requires more than just eating fruits and veggies. And that taking care of my eyes means more than taking out contacts when they make my eyes cry. However, for those of you who actually took me up on eating less meat - which lots of famous people are doing, although not per my recommendation - make sure you get your omega-3s. Or else you get poor tear quality.
And you know things are bad when even your tear quality is poor. But on the plus side - tomorrow I can wear my contacts for SIX hours! Cornea = not inflamed.
  • I didn't just learn this today, but to sum up the other courses you'll inevitably be reading about, I am also enrolled in Family Development, a seminar for all new HDFS students, and Research Processes and Analysis.
  • Lastly, I learned a great joke.
A snail went to a car shop and wanted to buy a red sports car. But he had one request for the salesperson - "Can you please paint s's all over it?" The salesperson said, "Well, sure but why do you want that?"
The snail said, "So that people can say "Look at that S-car go!"

I'm interested to know what kinds of things you readers are interested in - what "breaks your heart." By reading my blog, you probably start to have an idea of what breaks mine - what breaks yours? Don't feel like it has to lead to any action, because mine rarely comes to fruition too. I'm just interested to know.
What makes your heart cringe?

Sunday, September 20, 2009

hey, I "twied"

goliatHulk - pick a man, @SaulsServants - if he takes me down, you can rule@PhilistineFans... my win, we rule you. anyone in? 41 days ago

IsraeliteSoldier not me. @JessesOldest? @Abinadab01? @ShammahShema? @SaulsServants? @KngSaul? 41 days ago

JessesOldest not it. 41 days ago

Abinadab01 have you SEEN @goliatHulk? 41 days ago

ShammahShema shaking in my armor. 41 days ago

SaulsServants dismayed. 41 days ago

KngSaul terrified. 41 days ago

KngSaul wealth, my daughter, tax exemption ... any takers? 40 days ago

JustaShepherd @davyboy bring some food to your brothers. no tweets from them for a while now! about 18 hours ago

davyboy camp looks deserted. about 4 hours ago

goliatHulk - @davyboy boo. about 4 hours ago

davyboy giant JERK over there. lol. about 3 hours ago

JessesOldest go home to your sheep, @davyboy. about 3 hours ago

davyboy can't hardly speak in here. #GRR. about 3 hours ago

davyboy @KngSaul i'll take on @goliatHulk! about 3 hours ago

KngSaul @davyboy rofl, munchkin. about 3 hours ago

davyboy the lord looks at the heart, not the height. anybody know where a good rockbed is? about 2 hours ago

johnaSon @davyboy down on the other side of the valley. about 2 hours ago

KngSaul little boys think they can do everything. fending lions and bears not equal to@goliatHulk! schwatever. about 1 hour ago

goliatHulk 40 days and you send me this n00b as your god's representative? lolz. 50 minutes ago

davyboy @YHWH - you sent me this grandn00b for you to deliver us? not even a challenge. plz. my @YHWH saves, fights, and wins. 48 minutes ago

davyboy FTW!!!!!!!! 46 minutes ago

PhilistineFans takin' off. know any good hiding spots? 45 minutes ago

KngSaul w00t. 45 minutes ago

IsrealiteArmors attacking. @YHWH delivered! 43 minutes ago

JessesOldest speechless. newfound respect for @davyboy and @YHWH 31 minutes ago

davyboy ndb. 4 minutes ago

KngSaul hail @YHWH! and @davyboy, son of @JustaShepherd. but only a little. 1 minute ago

Friday, September 11, 2009

What I've been doing - the visual version

1. Listening to Ingrid Michaelson (I really like her. You might want to listen to normal songs, because the one below is a fun version.)



2. Moving


As you can see, "decorating" is not included under "moving."

3. Cooking (failblog-worthy, for most of the endeavors.) But I did make some apple-dentures the other day. After realizing it's a tasty combination, I tried to get more creative and threw in raisins for missing front teeth. We didn't have any golden raisins, or I could've had some crowns. Or bling. And when I did it with green apples, it looked like Shrek's mouth.
4. Becoming a Buckeye! Went to the Navy game last Saturday. Almost got to have a blog post entitled "O-H-I- Uh oh..." Unfortunately, now I had to stick my horrid pun in the text of the post, since we did win. Classes start the 23rd.


4b. Also includes continuing research on dropout prevention. I'm seeing starkingly alarming rates on minority and low-income students and school engagement. My previous math education knowledge taught me about the international TIMMS study - where the US ranked pretty low in academic achievement for math (and science, but I really only have the math information.)

Truth: In math, the average scores of eighth grade students in twenty nations were statistically higher than those obtained by the U.S.

Truth: If we took the top 10 percent of students from all nations, five percent of U.S. students would be chosen in mathematics, significantly less than Singapore or Japan, two top-scoring countries.

New possible finding (that I only read about, not actually read yet): The Post-American World says that the top-achieving two-thirds of American students are very competitive internationally. It's the bottom third that the U.S. is failing to adequately educate.

Just thought it was interesting.