Mathematics Factorial

A Thought

I was driving back from our Math/Sci Meet on my way home, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest that has plagued me all day long, when I heard some sirens. I didn't think anything of it as I began to stop and than saw a cop angle a bit in the intersection. I realized it was a police escort stopping traffic for a funeral procession. I felt the silence and the honor of things being stilled for a few moments, enough to turn off my radio and take part in the absolute silent stillness in memoriam to somebody, old or young I don't know. That's one of the things I like about Texas...drivers are expected to stop and pull to the left for a funeral procession and I never realized quite the extent of what it means until today.

Good tears, Bad Tears

Good tears: a student (she's a dear) made me a card claiming me to be the "World's Best Algebra Teacher" and wrote a sweet thank-you note inside.

Bad tears: frustration. I nearly blacked out during my last class today. I waited to see if it would pass...and it did, slowly and thus didn't get a teacher to cover for me. But I did have my b.p. checked by the nurse after school--about 45 minutes later and it was way high. So I went to the doctor. and spend an hour and a half sitting and waiting and explaining my history. Apparently my EKG was slightly off--Winckebach degree 1, which is usually no symptoms. and I was feeling better...not perfect...in the doctors office so I wasn't surprised.

But. it means that the heart doctor trips start again.... Oh, and the doctor, well, p.a., ordered me to go to the ER if I have any such symptoms again.--even if they stop. *sigh* I guess he picked up on the fact that I'm one of the ones who'll ride things out unless I'm unconscious....at least, if it means having to sit in an ER or just sit at home and quietly wait for an episode to pass.

Tomorrow we have another math/science meet. and we at P.T. are hosting. (deer in headlight look)

The Miserables

If you want to see Les Mis on November 11th for $7, please let me know ASAP so I can purchase tickets for you at school. The musical is being put on by PT High School and they have a good theatre dept. from what I've heard. So far I have tickets for myself and Josh, plus Toad & Mollie. Randy--I'm going to get you a ticket. The rest of you....leave a comment!

The Weekend...

Since Friday, where we had an emergency meeting five minutes before school started due to this.

Saturday I didn't sleep in and rode a school bus for the first time in a lot of years for a math/science competition in middle of nowhere Atlanta, TX. Our team lost b two points. But they made GREAT improvement since last year's scores. Saturday evening was another fabulous performance by the Longview Symphony Orchestra and a fun after-meal at Applebee's with far better company.

Sunday we slept in. rather I slept in and had lunch and than had wonderful dinner due to the Mrs. and Miss Garner. Oh, and we killed two more mice.

Today was a decent Monday at school. although there ended up not being an assembly and it threw my morning class schedules off by 30 minutes.... Thankfully, the kids weren't talking about it too much...don't know if they just hadn't all heard yet or what.

Waiting...

So we had all expected Baby Olson to be here by now. But as of yet, we have no news of my older brother's little boy or girl arriving. Apparently Baby is patient to enter the world. (Not that I can blame him or her sometimes). So, if you have a moment, keep my older brother and sister-in-law, especially her :-) in prayers. They plan on having a midwife....

But he had to die!

The mouse that is. After Josh saw the mouse scurry across our hall and under his desk, and and then I saw the mouse twice again in the living room and moving across the floor (thus causing me to scream into the phone as I was talking to my mom), I declared yet again that Josh must set the traps so that the mouse would die. I did not want to find more mouse poop or find any chewed wires, nor did I want him to startle any guests, or chew into my food, or run across the kitchen floor while I was washing the dishes.

That, and I just generally do not hold to keeping mice around as pets. You see, my father used to raise mice to sell to pet stores and snake handlers as food. I watched them die in the microwave and be gassed. I remember them getting loose and my older brother shocking them as they ran across the carport. and finding dead mice all over the yard. I had to help clean the stinky cages and feed them dog food and fill their water bottles. I remember the trips to Houston and Jacksonville transporting mice and the SMELL!!!! I remember that at Thanksgiving when the cousins and aunts and uncles went around sharing their praises, I thanked God that my dad got rid of the mice business.

Thus, I'm not very partial to the idea of having a mouse around. and if Joe had decided that there was room enough to share....

Anyways. Joe died the night we set the traps with peanut butter. I have included pictures for those who odd folk who want to see the mouse in all his dead glory, and see Josh and Murray weeping over the dead mouse in my very small kitchen (which is clean by the way...Those dishes were from Saturday afternoon and were cleaned on Sunday afternoon.)

Trapped mouse. I used the shark you see to pull the trap from underneath the counter that I may not have to get close to it.

This is Josh and Murray and their memorial service. Just long enough to take a picture.

Pictures

Run! Hide! Anna has a camera:

Josh's first day of work:




Night Before Rita:



(I liked the effect of my sadly not so steady hands)


The Day of Rita:








Melissa & Paul's Wedding:

(just a few of the best ones....)

Another Post!

Well, the last few days have been a bit more interesting.

It was a fairly good week with my classes. I'm not allowing myself to dare to hope that this is a good sign for things to come....there are any number of variables.

Yesterday some kids in my talkative class were discussing God and gynecologists among other things. I had to bite my lip because I cannot say ANYTHING unless a specific question is asked of me when regarding religious discussions. The most they asked me was "Are you a Baptist?" The female doctor was a different discussion. I'm not even sure how it got started. All I know is I told them to all get back to work. Sometimes all I can do is shake my head.

Among other things, an air conditioning vent grate fell on my head the other night. My husband was kindly installing some vent filters to try and weed out the smoke from upstairs and other rotten smells. I was sitting on the couch grading and he was standing on the couch next to me trying to get the grate off...because it would look tacky just to cover the outside of the vents with the filters. Next thing I know, I'm wacked in the forhead, I see a scratch form on my glasses, white paint flecks are on my sure and a vent grate is resting on my arm. Now I have a Harry Potter mark on my forehead and bruises down my arm.

Today I'm attending the wedding of a long-time friend. It brings all sorts of memories to mind, and all sorts of hurts too. It's amazing to see how lives go in different directions, and why I know God has different plans for everyone, how much it hurts. It was fun to eat dinner with them last night and see how happy they were and remember my own fun weekend five months ago! And then Ashley, who was also there and another dear friend of the same about to be bride, started bringing up some of the pictures she found..... I dread seeing some of them.

The friendship started around 5th or 6th grade. Melissa started to attend the church that Ashley and I did and Ashley and I had become friends by that point. There were some other girls involved in our little group too. That was quite a first year of friendship we went through....an interesting AWANA year, and some entertaining slumber parties. A lot of our activities centered around AWANA since that was the only time we were all together except for Sunday School, which I think may have also been a unique experience for all of us that year. In the Spring we went to a quiz meet and won, and had a slumber party to celebrate. The next two years we entered the youth group and continued on. Being pre-teen girls, there were all sorts of ups and downs amongst members. By ninth grade, the group was sort of really down to Ashley, Mel, myself, and Melissa's brother. (someone of that time please correct me if my memory fails me) This was my last full year in Longview, the year Melissa and her brother, my then boyfriend, started attending a private school after being home-schooled while Ashley and I started high school, and the year our home-church really started to disintegrate. Ashley, Mel, and I had stuck through JV Awana and a bit of Varsity Awana together which was one reason we became a very close trio. We had quite the times.

I moved away after they threw me a somewhat surprise morning going-away bash at the New-Year's Eve lock-in (one of the best nights of my life and the most fun). I came back and visited the next August, the next May for Chad's graduation, and the next New-Year's Eve. That was an interesting visit... and finally back again in February for Heritage weekend. Melissa and Chad had started at LeTourneau that year and I stayed with Melissa. Melissa worked for my mom in Colorado and lived with us the next summer. .We then came back to Longview for me to start school and I was living in the same suite as Melissa. Here I shall end my story though with simply saying how much I discovered our lives had gone in different directions. Ashley was still a long-distance contact as she was in school at NWern LA. but Mel and Chad and I had really parted ways--and it was a hard experience for me with starting college. A lot of things had happened that I had not realized. Suffice it to say, when you have problems with a friend and you have hurts, talk them over. Some people are very good at hiding things (I'm better than some of you would guess), yet those same people may not realize what their closest friends hide from them too.

The friendship didn't go away...it just became a lot less, more acquaintance-ish. The Plankeye song, "Goodbye" brought tears to my eyes a lot that year everytime I heard it. It's hard going from a close friendship to the occasional hello. However, things did get a little bit better as we each had our own circle of friends and we put the hard past behind us. She celebrated at my wedding with me and I shall do the same at hers today. and two others of the JrHigh circle of friends shall be there today also. So it'll be very very interesting.

I'm going to start doing more than tear up in a moment here, so I shall end my post. to those people my freshman year who held me up, and to Ashley too for always being a listening ear during some of the hardest time that first year of college, Thank-you. You all taught me a lot about friendship and being God's arms and ears that year--John, the BAB's, Sunny, ....thanks. and While some of us have already started to go separate ways, let's please never lose touch. Thank you Lindsay! (oh yeah, I need to do that update)

Oh yeah....

Whew, does time seem to fly by these days....

I'm still catching up on grading....even with the relief offered by Benchmark testing..... if it weren't for all those slackers turning in assignments late---after I've graded the rest....

The Open House was fine. I talked with a total of 3 parents. Yup. Out of 60 or so students, I saw three parents.

I played tug of war in the last pep rally. I've been sick with a sinus infection (for which I went and got antibiotics yesterday...even though Murphy hates me and I had a perfect temperature and everything at the drs office...funny how that works)

We went to a meeting for No Texas Teacher Left Behind...a new group forming to organize a vote to revamp the legislature. It was interesting. Learned a bit about school finance.

Umm. for those who don't know--okay probably everybody---Benchmark Testing, which I've been doing for two days is a way of measuring a student's progress and trying to figure out strengths and weaknesses related to TAKs testing. From the hand-scoring I've done, most of my students haven't done horrible (depending on how you define horrible) and some even did fairly well. The questions covered the same content I've taught the last seven or eight weeks, but were asked at a higher level of thought sometimes.

Hmm. I don't have any interesting stories that I can remember. Classroom climate has been pretty good the last few days. and I'm making a few buckle down on various threats of after school detention and such...

That's all for now. I'll try to post if I think or remember anything else. *sigh* I get so little spare time it seems...