Monday, May 28, 2012

"because 26.3 would be crazy!"

I recently went to a conference for teaching AP calculus (which I'll be doing next year - hurray!) and learned some new tricks on factoring. I learned that I need to learn the "hand trick" for knowing trig values of the unit circle, but I haven't done that yet. Not sure what it is...

 The conference inspired some artwork out of me.

Memorial Day weekend, I went to the Bayshore marathon in Traverse City. It was beautiful... let's vacation there, please. The marathon itself finished on the college campus' track with everyone cheering you on. I had a PR of 3:38.11. Thanks to the random people that I ended up running with! And to whomever had pretzel rods at mile 20. I think I fell in love. No thanks to whomever handed me the peanut M&M: yes, it tasted absolutely fantastic... but only once. The second time: not so much.
 The course is an out-and-back up the peninsula over the East Bay. The photo below is the view from the house that I stayed in (actually, it's the view that I woke up to.) It's a little cloudy, great for a marathon, but you can see the peninsula that we run up on the left side of the photo.
 Then, the next morning, I woke up a little stiff but fantastic because of this view out the screened in porch. Watch the succession of photos - good thing the marathon was Saturday and not Sunday. This is maybe 6:00ish. (I need to learn to sleep in, I know.)
 Then at 6:30ish, the clouds started rolling over the peninsula (again, that's where the course was.) Look at that amazing storm!
 And then the clouds came over the East bay, darkened the sky, and it stormed/ down-poured/ etc. from 8 - 3. I love storms. Absolutely love them. I watched this one until I finished reading a book, then drove around to the Grand Traverse Resort, a winery, and the downtown.

I have other news... Like the fact that there's nine days of school left... I made soft pretzels with students... I went to a cottage house with the freshmen girls... I saw The Addams Family musical (and recommend it, surprisingly)... Track is over and that was fun... I want to go swimming... but I'll end with a beautiful thought. Someone asked me, about 30 minutes after I finished, what my next one was going to be. Me: "Are you crazy? I can't do another one yet." Apparently, there's a running quote out there about needing to forget the last marathon before doing the next. Like Mark Twain says,

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.

1 comment:

Diana W said...

Congrats on the PR - great photos, too!