This week

So on Monday, I was supposed to give a test to my physical science class. I forgot. We had to write our 3rd quarter exams, to turn in on Monday morning, and I was up very late finishing them. So rather than do the test, we ended up going over balancing chemical equations, which they needed to learn anyway, since there were questions about it in the book and no explanations. I guess it worked out OK, since the science fair will be worth 3 test grades anyway. Monday night i was up pretty late, although i don't remember why. I am sure there was a reason.

To make things even more fun, this week we have to write year long plans for distribution of days on chapters in each book. I have to do 5. We are supposed to do 1 per day, and I have done none. I gotta get some of them done tonight. I, as you can imagine, don't want to. Sure it sounds simple, you just have to divide the book into 180 days. Except, i only get 4 days per week for most classes, not 5. Also, Algebra 2 is on a different 4 days than the rest. to complicate things further, Health is 2 days a week. Now this may still sound easy, but consider that when we have a holiday on Monday or Friday, I lose a day on some classes and not others. The only day i have all my classes is Tuesday, and we have never had a holiday on Tuesday.

My heart is a hate-filled pineapple. Grrr

Last sabbath was potluck, and this sabbath will be Church potluck. Last sabbath, I made a dish with some Indian curry paste. It tasted incomplete without naan. Also, although I thought it was very mild, everyone treated it with a great deal of trepidation. I guess I have a bit of a reputation. It was pretty good when i had it for breakfast on sunday morning with some bread.

The whole science fair thing is leaving me pretty drained. I think that I have accomplished nearly everything that is necessary for it. I am a little annoyed that Phil hasn't really put in the work that I have. He kinda only reminded his students about it this week, whereas I started putting in some groundwork 2nd quarter. I hope that my students enjoy the end product.

Didn't bother with the weapon master angle. It is very focused on critical hits and both in the Mask of the Betrayer and the Original Campaign, critical hits are completely useless. Whether it's undead or Telthor, you just can't get them with crits. I downloaded a character editor, and i think that I am going to see if i can edit in a feat that allows my characters to score critical hits on undead and telthors. Then maybe i could do Swashy! Started a sorcerer in the OC, and a ranger in MotB. Rangers kinda suck, but it is fun having SERIOUS damage on my favored enemy. Plus, they get all the cool dual-wielding feats. Maybe I'll edit that into another character.

Whelp, back to work

Then Later

Last week, on wednesday, Dalai came up to me and asked me to preach for his church on Sabbath. I said sure. In retrospect, I should have started my sermon of Wednesday, but I didn't. I waited until friday afternoon to get to it. Fortunately, dad gave me some very good advice, and that was to take a chapter of the Great Controversy and summarize it into a sermon. It worked out very well, all things considered. The main problems were that it is extremely hard to maintain a contiguous train of thought while stopping every few words for translation, and Dalai was translating, so I could never be totally sure that he's actually repeating what I said. His english isn't really that good.

I had promised my students that I would give them a demonstration of my project, so that they would have an example of a presentation. I didn't get that done. It was supposed to be done on Thursday, and I didn't have the materials by then. I got them on Monday, and never got around to the experiment, so for Tuesday morning, I just created data, so that they could have a presentation. It worked out, but I want to try to actually do it this weekend. I want to present it at the science fair.

Anyway, since I didn't have my presentation for Thursday, we watched the Leidenfrost Experiment on mythbusters' "mini myth mayhem." They enjoyed that, so i guess job done.

Shortly after last Post

Several weeks ago I had vespers to do. I got the idea to do a talk about the majesty of the universe, and equate it to the power that Jesus gave up to come down to us. Did some quick research to top off the plans and I had a pretty good talk ready to go.

Two things escaped my attention. 1st, is the fact that the majority, if not all of the people at vespers couldn't begin to grasp the magnitude of the numbers that we were talking about. To be entirely fair, I don't think that any one can perfectly. I am afraid that some of the numerical stuff went over everyones' heads. None the less, it worked out all right.

I have kept experimenting with different ways of teaching and grading, and I find that if I stay in the school building instead of coming back to my room on breaks, I tend to get much more work done. The bad thing is that every time I want to move my computer, I have to shut it down. The battery still doesn't charge on it, and that means that I essentially have an underpowered, light desktop computer. Kinda inconvenient. Still, I have gotten a lot more work done that way.

I have also been working on Great Controversy. I really enjoy the historical stuff, and I appreciate a new perspective on it all. After all, the majority of history from that time is told from the perspective of the Catholic Church. As they say, the winners are the ones who get to write the histories.

Physical science is leaving the pure, fascinating world of physics and moving into the less fun world of chemistry. oh well, i guess the intro-chem stuff is kinda interesting, before everything gets lame. Having 3 classes of Physical Science all moving at different paces kinda confuses things. I am not keeping up with any of them as I should.

We had a girl here from Australia for 2 weeks, which was really fun. She helped Annie out with ESL, and was a HUGE hit with the dorm kids. She was a neat girl. Then, one of the AFM workers from up north came down to the city with her bosses for some meetings. It was nice to see her, and we got to go to a restaurant over near the river for some very expensive food. The chocolate milk was worth it though.

Oh Nights

Shoot. This has been neglected for a long time poor little blog. OK

Here we go

So, had some good times. Gonna break things up for you all