Right As Usual

I'm not a huge fan of "cute" animal acts, but the video of this bird blew me away. Found on Steal The Bandwagon

Up, down. Up, down. Up, down. No, that isn't stage directions for a performance of Oh, Calcutta ! That's my The Truth Laid Bear stats in the last week or so. I've moved from Large Mammal (hey, I know it was a fluke, but it felt GOOOOOD!), down the evolutionary scale all the way to Adorable Rodent. Then back up to Marauding Marsupial. I'm not sure, but I think the entire Blogosphere has been experiencing the tumultuous upheaval in the same period of time. Heck, even Glenn Reynolds lost ground! I'm going to lay down and try to recover from the whiplashing I have received. If a few Mimosas don't do the trick, I'm going to look for a Velociraptor of an attorney. Surely, in a world that punishes pharmaceuticals companies for NOT causing someone's death, I can collect a nice wad of money for all my mental anguish. It's the least our "justice" system can do for me.

I was catching up on my goofing off research - yeah, that's it, research, when I happened upon a blog I hadn't read in a while. I wonder why - he's very good. Today, he is holding forth on people who tell you more about themselves than you wanted to know: But nowadays the media barrage of all titillation all the time leaves very little that goes without saying, and more’s the pity, I think, since so much of this sort of thing could go without saying and we’d all be the better for it. For a long time in this country you didn’t have to convince people of the virtues of reticence, that private lives are best left private, but the past is another country, as they say—they do things differently there. As with so many other things I loathe, I blame the 1960’s and Sigmund Freud for all of this. Somehow or other Freud got into his head that spilling your psychological guts all over the floor without a mop nearby was somehow or other conducive to promoting good mental health. Thi...

I assumed that I'd come out as Myrna Loy, or one of those "Good Wife" types. Katharine Hepburn You scored 23% grit, 23% wit, 38% flair, and 28% class! You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women. Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the Classic Leading Man Test . My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender : You scored higher than 42% on grit You scored ...

I've been working hard - the next person that teases me about the short day of a teacher, I'm going to thrash to within an inch centimeter of his/her life. I was able to leave on Thursday evening with a clear desk. Not last night, however. I didn't worry - on Monday, I have a workshop day in my room, so I'll get there early and tidy up. The bigger issue was scurrying around getting the sub lesson plans ready. It's so much trouble to be absent, I seldom am. But, Monday's absence is mandatory. It should be a good day, since I'll be working with the other Physical Science teachers. We'll have time to coordinate our plans for the rest of the semester. For some reason, my laptop doesn't want to recognize the shift key (sometimes). So, I find myself seeing that a particular character doesn't show up capitalized, and I have to backtrack, delete, and use the Caps Lock to get it right. Yet, othertimes, like now, it works fine. I hate intermitt...

i started a post today. it was going well. i even remembered to save periodically. but, i encountered a problem. can you guess what it was? i can't always (or mostly) get the caps to work. if anyone can figure out the problem, let me know. it's the laptop, so i'm hoping it's not a hardware issue (although it probably is). I'm fine sometimes. Which makes me suspect that i have to try cleaning out the keyboard. Hope that helps.

I've been preparing for an examination next month, so I don't have a lot of time to blog. I just set up the laptop on the dining room table. I found out why I was getting lousy Internet service. Candy moved the router under the desk. When I moved it to the desktop, it worked fine. I'm finally posting again. I put a lot of pictures on the family blog, and have begun posting on the Technology in Teaching blog again (now that I'm back to work). I'm going to try to remember to take more pictures of the area I'm living in, and post about once a week.

I'm not setting' on the veranda (I really don't know what a veranda is), but I'm disconnected from the main computer. I've gotten back my wireless (and I did it myself this time). I'm so proud of myself. I just returned from yoga. It was an introductory class; don't know if I'll continue. I'll have to wait until I try to get out of bed tomorrow - if I start clenching my teeth in agony, I may try to find some other way to get in shape. But, it was relaxing, and fun. I'm at the end of my first week in teaching for a while. It was mostly good, some excellent, and only one truly hairy moment. Tomorrow is the football game, my first in town. I understand that the games are a big thing, so I'll try to go to at least a few. My major time efforts for the next month will be spent preparing for the Praxis II. Since I'm new to SC, and I never took it, I have to pass the Physics, Chemistry, and General Science test - 120 questions. Another ...

I've sort of settled in, and am beginning to feel at home (as much as I can without my husband and family). Although the weather is REALLY hot (in the 90s most days - apparently, there's something called the heat index, which acts like an inverse chill factor), my asthma has markedly improved. I'm also eating less junk food, and walking more, so my clothes are fitting looser. I'm enjoying teaching again. Even without all my stuff and equipment, I've been improvising, and get a real kick out of making science concepts clear to the kids. Today, it was density - I used kitty litter and rice as the materials we tested. Tomorrow, I'll have them test salt water and fresh water. I'm going to be very busy over the next month. I have to take the PRAXIS test in Chemistry, Physics, and General Science in the middle of September. I've heard that the test is a bear. I'm just going to hunker down, review as much as I can, and try to shore up my weak spots (...

I'm here in South Carolina, working at a local high school, finally teaching science full-time for the first time in a while. The weather has been stormy, which has kept it cooler (still pretty hot and muggy for a Yankee girl), and keeps the bugs from driving me crazy. The people have been very welcoming, and I'm cautiously optimistic. On the other hand, I miss my husband and family very much. I arrive Tuesday night, after driving for almost 11 hours. The storms followed me from WV, all the way down. I spent today driving to the nearest big city, to buy school supplies and a few personal items. Viewed from inside an air-conditioned car, it's a beautiful state. I'm in the section called the Lowlands, which means don't even THINK about digging a basement. Some friends have been generous with their house, and I'm temporarily settled in. I'll be looking for a more permanent place over the next month. It can be small, because my husband may not be able to...

I'm babysitting today. I'm using my SIL's computer, and the keyboard space bar sometimes sticks. You have to hit hard when it does. So, if I type somethingthatlookslikethis, you'll know what it is. The kids are great - the youngest is 5 months, and learning to crawl (I think that's the one where they hoist their butts in the air, but only use their forearms in front - it makes him look like combat infantry). The wild one (2 1/2) is watching SpongeBob. The oldest one is pretty self-sufficient. In fact, he's a big help with the others. I should be hearing from SC today. Once I do, I can begin making decisions. Just in case, I haven't unpacked my suitcase. I also made a list of things I need to round up. I'm very ambivalent about the notion of moving. The uncertainty is the worst.

I finally arrived late last night in Cleveland. The flight was long enough that my legs had started their restless dance beneath my seat. It's a combination of twitchy muscles, fluid rentention due to immobility for long hours, and an increasingly desperate urge to pee. I had fun waiting for my daughter to pick us up. You see, there are often drivers who linger in the no loitering, pick-up only lane. They sit in their car for LONG periods of time, rather than do what the considerate people do - cruise slowly, looking for their people, and, if they are not right at curbside, leaving and circling around to scan again. If you stop, you're taking up scarce spots, and forcing others to double-park. It jams up the whole process, and makes accidents likely. During the day, the cops enforce the no stopping policy. They generally fine the cabs who try it. But this was night, and no cops in sight. So I got creative. I used my digital camera to take pictures of the license plate...

I must confess, it isn't currently late here in Salt Lake City, but I've been mulling around about this topic since the pre-dawn hours last night. My family is quirky. Not my present family (my children might strenuously disagree), but my birth family. My mother seems, to me, to have been the only reasonably normal one in the group. True, she was given to bursting into pop songs of the 40's and 50's at the drop of a hat, and she did have a fondness for hot pink and fuschia, but, altogether, she was on the sane side of the psychiatrist's couch. My dad, an Appalachian who escaped small-town life as soon as he was able, was passionately interested in a variety of topics - true crime of the 30's, astronomy, politics, alternative origin theories, etc. He was tremendously UN-interested in primetime TV, lawn care, barbeques, and sports. He fought a lifelong battle with serious depression, a battle my mother's lighthearted nature was an effective counter-balanc...

Life is good: The weather is cooler here in Utah than it was in Cleveland the week before we left My son-in-law called, and he has a contract job, starting Monday My breathing continues to be good - the change in medication has apparently been just the thing my asthma needed. This working vacation has been incredible - the workshops are interesting, and the change in scenery has been refreshing and, best of all, I'm online again! The only thing that is bothering me is that I generally don't have time to see a paper or catch the news. So, I'm really out of touch. I only found out today that Bolton got a recess appointment.

Here is the view from Salt Lake City, Utah Posted by Picasa Click on the title link to see more pictures of our trip.

The weather is intermittently rainy, the altitude is causing a certain amount of fatigue, and the beds are in the dorm, and predictably lumpy - but I'm having a wonderful time. Yesterday, I built a number of devices to use in the classroom (Make & Take workshop). Today, I learned a method of quickly checking student understanding of concepts (Ranking Tasks in Physics). The food is good, and I'm getting a lot of exercise walking around a very large campus. Let's hope I can maintain my weight loss - some years it's difficult.