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

pictures of Senior Survival

I ran out of batteries after these. So sad

Onward

I can't believe how fast this week went. I was feeling a little lonely after my family took off, but on Tuesday, I went to the post office to pick up a package that has been waiting there for me for a while, and what sight does greet my eyes but not just one, yes two christmas packages from Union. I opened them as soon as I got home, and found many wonderful things.

There were candies and socks, candies and newspapers, candies and frychick, candies and the peanut gallery, and candies and fake jerky! Oh there was some candy corn too.

It was just what I needed. I was thrilled just to get something from my friends at school, but there was so much awesome in there that it went beyond just thrilled. I had a wonderful time sorting through it all, and then putting it away.

Speaking of candies, i couldn't eat many because I am still sick. Got it pretty much down to a stuffy nose now, and am hopeful that i will be able to skip the coughing phase. Apparently the other symptom is inane segues.

So I kinda thought that the other sm's didn't get me anything for christmas since they keep putting off us having our little christmas. I tried to give them my presents, but was assured that this will indeed happen at some point. I guess i'll just wait.

I never did post much about senior survival. It was really cool. Most of the stuff was ropes courses, but there was also the ever dreaded "giant shoes" where you have to try to walk on boards with 10 other people. The worst part had to be the tiny tiny ladders they had. The ladders were just rebar pounded into the tree trunk, and in some places the trunk had grown out so far that they rebar was too close to the trunk to hook your fingers through. They sucked. The rest was fairly awesome though. There was this tree trunk you had to walk up barefoot, it was a balance thing, and I did pretty good. There was a climbing wall with slick wooden handholds which I failed pretty hard at. I even strained my grip muscles trying to hold on. With my weight, it was all but impossible to get off the ground. Even that was fun to watch, and I got to climb up a much shorter wall which did have normal handholds on it. We did the planks and stumps, and we had a rope for reasons i never did understand. We did the inevitable spiders web without having to start over. There was this one activity where we had to get a box out of the middle of a large circle with just a rope and a plank. We had to do it like 4 ways, and only 2 of them could we use the trees in the circle. The most fun ones were the giant swing, the leap of faith, the swinging bridge, and the stairway to heaven.

The stairway to heaven was one of those twisty ladders that look kind of like a hammock, every time you try to go up a rung it tries to flip you over... I made it first try, which was thrilling for me.

The swinging bridge was, creatively enough a swinging bridge. The complications were dual. First, the slats of the bridge were at odd intervals and angles. There were a couple with more than a meter between slats, and there were some which intersected the guidewires at 45 degree angles. The second was you were tethered, so you had to keep dragging a pulley with you which would trip you up if you tried to take a big step without it right overhead.

The leap of faith, they called the gibbon swing. After climbing the tall, pathetic excuse for a ladder, you jumped off a platform some 19 meters in the air for a bar about a meter and a half away. Then they let you down. It was very fun. I got the bar.

The giant swing, they called the butterfly swing. Shockingly, it was a giant swing. Creative nomenclature. You are harnessed in, and a team of people pull you up into the tops of the trees. You then pull a quick-release ( a screw that is pushing on your harness, very high tech) and plummet about 7 stories down and back, swing up to the peak of the next period and fall again. Very very fun.

I had an extremely good time getting to know the seniors better, and enjoyed them without energy drinks. Call me stuffy if you wish, but kids don't need those. Even kids older than me don't need those.

Olga had her birthday party, which was pasta and raviolis. They were really good. Potluck came and I mad a dish which got... sorta eaten. Maybe less spicy next time. I thought it was good.

Listening to Final Fantasy Advent Children theme right now while i play Neverwinter Nights 2. Gonna have to start over. I found out that the swashbuckler's insightful strike doesn't work on undead, and undead are pretty much the whole original campaign... too bad, because Swashbuckler is a very cool class. Probably go back to fighter, which is always fun, although I might try a weapon master prestige class

SICK!!!

Hey all,

These last weeks have been awesome. Pure, unadulterated awesome. First, the family was here, and then there was senior survival. You will receive pictures from both occurrences, but for the time being i will be sleeping. I know this has been fairly devoid of posts for a while now, and I will change that.

Good night