WE OWN A HOUSE!
and I found this great coffee shop near where I work. The other day I decided to try the advertised summer special of an "Iced Rose White Mocha". It was very unique. It reminded me a bit (not in taste but taste uniqueness) of a chai with espresso. I rather enjoyed it even though I'm not a big fan of white mochas. While there, I noticed this cake called "Chocolate Chambord" which involves grabbed my attention because Chocolate, well that's obvious but Chambord is a black raspberry liquer that I am a big fan of, especially in margaritas :-). This cake was quite tasty.
What is up with high school math teachers/textbooks lowering the standards for Standard Form of an Equation. I'm starting to see PUBLISHED definitions and teacher's lessons with simply teaching it as ax + by = c WITHOUT specifying that a, b, and c must be integers and a > 0!!!! Really, I've even seen examples using fractional or decimal coefficients. It came up when I was putting together the answer key for one our new workbooks at work today. and I'm going to fix it in the lessons. (after getting an okay from the editor---I don't feel comfortable exhibiting too much editorial reign over other people's work yet...) I thought about telling the editor that I as a teacher would not purchase/adopt any textbook/workbook for my class that taught standard form so loosely. But I wasn't sure it would come across the right way.
Drivers in this area....have some interesting quirks. There isn't much speeding (but those who do go way more than 10 mph over and aren't afraid to zip in and out of cars or cut in front of people or fly into an exit ramp) but yet many drivers do not use blinkers--even for actual turns--or respect stop signs and stop lights.
Oh, and there is no courtesy--especially with merges. For example, the other day I was trying to enter the interstate off a ramp that was jammed up because of an accident/broke-down vehicle obstructing the left lane just a few yards past the ramp. so three lanes are trying to merge into one. Now, any real city person could probably tell you that it works nicely if each car let's one person in--if done right traffic keeps moving, albeit slightly more slowly. But no....people in this situation were intentionally speeding up to close gaps so that other people could NOT merge.... I had to angle my car into the lane to force someone to let me in.. Even worse, the car right in front of me forced his way in before the guy in front of him (a large white van) had merged into traffic because no one would let the white van in. The guy in front of me after forcing his way into traffic, even yet wouldn't let the white van that had been in front of him in. Even after getting into the moving lane....it was slow-going because people would rubber-neck and drop their speed down to near stopping to gawk at the Muslim women stranded next to their vehicle...(there was an officer talking to someone and a tow truck preparing to load up the car) Also on the topic of courtesy, there is no respect for the left lane as a passing lane and the lane for faster vehicles. Yes, people will drive 5-10 mph UNDER the speed limit in the left lane--even when not passing another car. I've also noticed that drivers seem to have trouble keeping their vehicles IN their lane...especially the large vehicles. The main problem seems to be the on the slightly sloped curves through the downtown area...but if you careful and not speeding it's not hard to stay in the lane. I've had some unnerving moments being next to vehicles who were edging awfully close.
Enough ranting on that though. Keep us in prayers as we get moved in and settled and take on the responsibility of owning a home. Especially because I can't do any heavy lifting due to a pinced nerve in my lower back. I've been going to a chiropractor for it...and it's getting better, but I slipped in the shower the other day so the area has worsened inflammation where the only comfortable position involves lying down.
Posted by Anna at August 13, 2008 05:26 PM | TrackBack