While I’m Thinking About It

I’ve been terribly neglectful of my blog in the past couple of weeks.  Finals are almost here, and deadlines are looming.  I’m not a procrastinator, by any means, so it’s not like I’m scrambling around trying to get huge projects or papers done at the last moment.  But the end of the semester always seems so frantic and hectic and chaotic, and all of those other not-nice -tic words.  And taking 15 hours, when I’m used to 12 or 13 makes a difference too. 

I’m supposed to be “off” today, but I’m only pretending.  Finals begin on Tuesday, and I have bookoo reading to do.  So, today is a reading day.  I’m not actually doing homework, so I still consider it a partial day off, at least.  I still wanted to get caught up on my internet readings, especially since I didn’t do any last weekend, and since I’m at the computer I might as well update this ‘ol blog.  And…updating made me realize that I haven’t mentioned this summer or next fall yet. 

So, just to get us all on the same page, when I’ve finished this semester (which will happen in less than a week!), I will have nine classes left to finish my BA in math.  Nine.  That’s an actual, countable number!  The feelings I have when I think about that are nearly indescribable.  Excited, yes, but nervous too.  And anxious.  And proud.  And…I can’t say what else, it’s all so mixed up.  So, to facilitate a graduation date that is sooner rather than later, I’m really going to stretch myself for the next couple of semesters.  My goal, as I’ve been saying for nearly a year, is to graduate in December 2008.  That’s this year.  Eight months away.  In order to graduate this December, I have to fit all nine of those classes into this summer and next fall.  I have signed up for four classes this summer, five in the fall.  I’m not worried about the fall semester, but this summer may be the straw that breaks me.  🙂  However, as bad as 4 classes over the summer may sound, I’ll only actually be taking 3 of the 4 at any given time.  Two of my classes run from June to August.  A third class goes from June to the first half of July.  The fourth class goes from the second half of July to August.  The most I’ve ever done over a summer session was two online classes plus 20 hours a week as an on-campus work-study.  That was…not a fun summer, but we really needed the money so it was worth it.

Here’s the line-up for the summer.

Fundamentals of Informal Geometry and Statistical Analysis: This class is one of the two that will go all summer, and as bad as the title sounds, it’s actually a pretty basic math class for me at this point.  It’s a class designed for the junior high generalists, not necessarily for math majors who just so happen to want to teach.  Therefore, it’s not going to be too terribly difficult.  Work, yes, but not hard.  And, my academic advisor is teaching it (he’s teaching my problem solving class this semester, as well), so it should be fun.  The added benefit is that, if I decide to teach high school, where the majority of open teaching positions are available, I will have had a recent review of geometry – which I have not studied since 10th grade.  As a high school math teacher with the hours I have in math, I could be placed in anything from an algebra class to a pre-calculus class.  I need to make sure that I have the skills necessary to handle the stuff in between.

History of Mathematics: This is the other class that runs all summer.  It’s not entirely a “numbers-based” math class, which is exactly how the title makes it sound.  We should be studying some of the pioneers of the mathematical sciences, as well as the theorems and equations that they discovered.  Frankly, I’m rather excited to take this class.  I really do love learning about the history of things.  And, the greatest benefit is that this class counts as a senior-level math, which will count towards the hours my degree requires in upper-level math.  It is, in fact, the last upper-level math class that I need to take.  Everything else can be junior level, and much, much easier.

Survey of Exceptionalities: This is one of the two education classes I’m taking, and will only run for the first half of the summer.  Personally, I am against universal inclusion in the public schools, and believe that everyone suffers for it, but I also acknowledge that most of the local school districts do not agree and that I will have to learn to deal with the situation.  Regardless of who has been included in my future classroom, I have to know how to 1) deal with their disability, and 2) teach them fairly and equitably.  There should be a lot of good information for the pedagogy certification exam I’ll eventually have to take to complete my certification as a teacher in the state of Texas, which is a benefit, as well.  Unfortunately, school of ed. classes tend to be overwhelmingly filled with valueless busy work, and the teachers that teach these shorter, five-week classes don’t know how to cut back on the course work to accomodate a shortened time frame.  So, in five weeks, I’ll not only Iearn the same amount of material as I would in a 15 week session (with this, I have NO problems), but I’ll also have the same number of assignments to do (with this, I have HUGE problems).  Le sigh.  Such is life.

Reading in Content Subjects:  This is the second education class of the summer and it covers the second half of the session.  My commentary on the time frame and work load for this class are the same as above.  My interest in this class is more personal, though.  I’m sure there will be some pedagogical ideas that I will be able to carry with me into that certification exam, but not like the Exceptionalities class.  Literacy on multiple levels is a personal interest of mine.  I’m not sure what drew me to it, but I am.  After taking Survey of Reading this semester, I realized that it’s not only the mechanics of reading and literacy I’m interested in, but also the various levels and types of literacy people should possess to function academically.  As a simplistic example, let me ask you a question to give you an idea of what I’m concerned with.  Do you read “Harry Potter” the same way you read a math textbook?  I’ll leave you to think on that.

 

So, that’s my summer in a nutshell.  Be prepared to hear me complain bitterly about how much work I’m doing and how little time I have.  And then promptly ignore me and my whiney ways, because we all know that two weeks after finishing, I’ll have forgotten what it was like.  And in December, I’ll graduate, making it all worth it.  Anyway, I also have my fall schedule done.  Apparently UHCL does summer and fall registration at the same time.  Unlike LC, which delayed fall registration until the end of the summer.

Algebra Through Technology: Look, ma!  I get to take College Algebra again!  Yes, it’s true.  Even the textbook is a College Algebra textbook.  But this time with calculators!  Heh!  This is the last class I’ll take with my academic advisor as the teacher.  I’m pretty sure he’ll be sick of seeing me by the time next fall gets here.  This class is purely an elective for me, but I really wanted to take it – especially once I realized that it was College Algebra all over again.  I took College Algebra over a summer, as a 9-week class, with no teacher.  I passed with an A, but there are certain items that I never really understood well, and only learned to work the problems correctly.  I’m really looking forward to this class.

Linear Algebra: For anyone who knows algebra, you should remember that solving a system of equations can be made easier by using a matrix.  I naively thought that there was the one type of matrix, and that’s it.  I should have known better, because in math, there’s never just one.  Linear Algebra is an entire semester of learning about the other kinds of matrices.  This is the last required class on my degree plan.  Everything else this semester is purely elective.  So very nice.  I double-checked my old junior college’s degree plan for the AS in math, science & computer engineering, and Linear Algebra is the last class I need for it, as well.  So, at the end of next fall term, I should be able to send my UHCL transcript to LC, and have an additional associate’s degree conferred on me. 

On a side note, I am gluttinous about degrees lately.  After reading the requirements for the AS Math degree, I flipped over to the AS Natural Science degree to see if I could get that one, as well as the AA Teaching.  I will be one natural science class short of being able to get the science degree.  I have an abundance of science classes, but they’re not in the right areas, nor at the right levels to work for that degree.  I know how much work I’d need to do to finish one more upper-level chemistry or physics class, and I’m just not willing.  I also have only one class missing for the teaching degree.  Survey of Exceptionalities might be accepted in its place, but I won’t know until I’ve taken it and have requested LC to consider exchanging the credit for a non-equivalent course.  I might be willing do go to the trouble, but then again, by the time next fall finishes, I may decide it’s a waste of my time.  I’m definitely getting the AS in Math, though.

School and Community:  This is an education class, if you couldn’t tell by the title.  It covers the history of the educational system and the foundations of it.  Bor-ing.  But an easy elective credit.  And, you never know what information might be imparted that I mgiht need for the pedagogy test.

Creating Positive Learning Environments:  This is probably going to be the most practically useful education class I’ll ever take.  I’ll learn how to do a real lesson plan, techniques on managing my classroom, discipline, pacing of your curriculum, you name it.  This is where I’m going to learn it.  And, the teacher that teaches this class every semester is a good contact and reference to have when job-seeking.  I cannot WAIT to get into this class!

Web Development:  I’m actually taking this class online, so I expect to have lots of problems with it.  It is exactly what it’s called, and that’s why I’m taking it.  I want to learn how to set up classroom websites that my students can help contribute to.  I don’t want the site to be on a blog-based server, like this one, but rather a real, honest-to-goodness website with it’s own url and all.  My students can earn extra credit by designing artwork that I can include, or by finding cool, interesting, math-based websites to list as fun links.  It can be a place where parents can go to find out about what their child is learning in my class.  Another class I cannot wait to get into.

Well, that’s it.  My summer and fall are spoken for, thank you, and I can already feel the weight of the homework I’m going to have to do, but I’ll have a degree in December…neener, neener!  🙂  I think I’ll go read some Astronomy now.

 

A meme

I “borrowed” this from one of my favorite teachers.  Any tagging ends here, as I never send these things on.  However, if it piques your interest, feel free to copy and paste to your own site.  🙂 

The 123 Book Meme

1. Pick up the nearest book
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag five people and acknowledge who tagged you

 

Unfortunately, for you poor people, the book nearest to me was not nearly as interesting as Mrs. Chili’s.  Being in the midst of preparing for finals means that all the books around me are for school.  For your pleasure, I’ve placed my hand on Chaisson/McMillan’s “Astronomy Today” textbook, sixth edition.  Just be glad it wasn’t a math textbook. 

Okay, page 123 lies in chapter 5, which discusses telescopes and other tools of astronomy.  Interestingly, it is a chapter we skipped in class, probably because it involves too much math for those poor elementary education majors to handle.  The sixth, seventh, and eighth sentences are as follows:

“The 2.4-m mirror in the Hubble Space Telescope has a (blue-light) diffraction limit of only 0.05″, giving astronomers a view of the universe as much as 20 times sharper than that normally available from even much larger ground-based instruments.”

“The latest techniques for producing ultrasharp images take the ideas of computer control and image processing several stages further.  By analyzing the image formed by a telescope while the light is still being collected, it is now possible to adjust the telescope from moment to moment to avoid or compensate for the effects of mirror distortion, temperature changes in the dome, and even atmospheric turbulence.”

So, there you have it.  A little light reading for this Friday.

 

Homework and lying and headaches, oh my!

I have really impressed myself today with all the work I got done.  Homework for three classes – done.  I still have reading for Astronomy to do and problems in Differential Equations to work on, but for tonight I’m done.  Thank God.

The husband’s car conked out on him tonight while he was driving home from work.  We don’t know what’s wrong with it yet, but we know it has something to do with the fuel not getting to where it needs to go.  Could be the fuel pump, could not.  We had it towed to the shop we like (thank you AAA), which was just a few blocks from where he broke down.  Please pray that the repair is relatively inexpensive.  Money is tight right now.

We’ve been dealing with honesty issues around here lately.  One certain teenager-shaped boy-child has gotten into the habit of lying before the truth is even thought of, and it’s gotten him into quite a bit of trouble.  I’m not sure if it’s a phase he’s going through – trying to assert independence and test what we’re willing to let him get away with – but he’d better get out of it soon or he may not make it to adulthood.  One of the bigger issues with his dishonesty is that he’s pinning the blame on someone else for something he’s done.  Sometimes just in part, sometimes completely.  But he tries to blame other adults – the cafeteria workers, his teachers, and today it was his friend’s mother.  It’s a good thing I know that his first tendency is to lie lately, otherwise there would have been some embarrassing confrontations happening recently.  I’m so frustrated with him because he just keeps doing it, even though he’s getting into more and more trouble.  Grrr!

Really, he makes me dislike teenagers.

Well, I’m off to bed.  Homework and lies have succeeded in giving me a headache.  Tomorrow it’s a grocery store run, laundry, dinner, and perhaps some differential equation problems.  Maybe I’ll find a 5 minute break and vacuum.  Imagine!

 

Lazy day

Ahhh….my day off.  I’m so glad it’s finally here.  This has been a busy week, as usual, but it has also been nicely productive.  Let’s see…I got my Differential Equations test back from last week.  I made an 86, which is great considering how badly I’d thought I’d done.  I made an A on the first test, and with this B, I know how I want to approach the final here.  If I had done worse on both tests, I would be pushing for a B or a C on the final.  But since I’m scoring much higher than that, now I want to finish the class with an A.  I want an A on the final, and an A for the class.  Asking too much, maybe?  Nah.  I can do it.

Tuesday was insanity because I had a test in Survey of Reading immediately followed by a test in Astronomy.  The Reading test I was fine with, mostly.  She always has a couple of questions that ask about the most minute of details from the reading.  Sometimes the answer is something I actually remember, sometimes it’s not.  I don’t worry about it because she curves the grades, making the highest earned score her “100” and then curving everyone else up accordingly.  For the past 2 tests, my grade has been one of the ones that set the curve.  I don’t think I was the only one who made the top score, but it’s nice to know I was among the top scorers both times.  Reading is a 3 hour class, and the teacher isn’t going to waste precious instructional time.  The tests only take about an hour, and she expects us to come back for the last 2 hours so that she can lecture.  Many students leave, but I can’t bring myself to.  She often takes the last 2 minutes of class to give us bonus assignments that are super-simple to do, or to give us extra assignments, or even to alter the assignments we’ve already been given.  So, yeah, I come back for class.  The problem on Tuesday was that she wasn’t watching the clock very closely and let us out really, really late.  The school schedules classes so that there are 10 minutes between sessions.  By the time Mrs. D let us out, the next class session had already started.

So, I’m flying upstairs to get to Astronomy, and when I get there, the test has already started.  We aren’t allowed to take our books to our seat.  We can only take what we need for the test – scantron, pencils, erasers, and occasionally a calculator.  I’m up at the front of the class, trying to be quiet getting my stuff out, digging for the homework that I have to turn in before he’ll give me the test, and Dr. F is cramming into my already full hands the homework that was turned in last time.  And he’s pissed at me on top of that.  When I was finally able to get settled at a seat with a test, I’m so flustered and completely not thinking about Astronomy, and when I start to read the questions, my mind is drawing total blanks.  I was so flustered that I actually skipped answering one of the questions.  You’re never supposed to do this on multiple choice tests.  It’s better to guess and have a chance of getting it right than to leave it blank and guarantee that you get it wrong.  Now that I think of it, if I had answered that question and gotten it right, I would have made an A.  Damn.  Instead, I broke my streak and made an 86.  Looking back, I should have realized that it never takes me more than about 20 minutes to take these tests.  Knowing that I was already late, I should have stopped for five minutes to compose myself and get my brain out of Reading and into Astronomy by scanning over my notes for the test.  Those questions that I had no clue on the answer would have been fresh in my mind and everything would have been fine.  Of course, I still made a high B, so I don’t know why I’m agonizing over this. 

Anyway, the hubby is waiting for me to get ready to go, so go I must.

 

Straining at invisible chains…

I can really tell that the end of the semester is coming.  I have NO time!

Monday through Thursday I get to school early.  Every day.  Even on Wednesday, when I don’t have class until 5:30pm, I get there at noon.  I don’t have much down time while I’m there, either.  I’m in a study group, doing homework, working in the computer lab (NOT surfing the web, either), … the list goes on.  Sure, I have moments when I can sit back and shoot the bull with some friends, but those moments are short and far between.

On Fridays, I make myself stop school for a while so that I can rest.  I need this physically, but more mentally.  This is when you can actually find me on the couch watching TV.  Of course, if you ask me what I’ve been watching, I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but I’m looking in the general direction of the television, and it happens to be on, so I must be watching something.  I don’t really watch that much TV on Fridays, to be honest.  I try to remember that there are things I would like to do on my computer so that I will pry myself off the couch and get them done.  It’s stuff like catching up on blog reading, checking out the latest lolcat on www.icanhascheezburger.com, reading the past week’s comics on www.comics.com, paying a bill or two (maybe), and things like that.  I don’t do any of this during the week now, so on Friday it takes me all day to get it all done.  And this doesn’t include any housework that ought to get done on Friday, either.  Not that I did any to speak of yesterday…  And the carpets are gross, so I should have done them, at the very least.

Saturday and Sunday, it’s back to the grindstone for me.  I ran out of energy and time yesterday and didn’t get around to balancing my checkbook and paying bills, so I did that over morning coffee (yay.).  Then, I fixed breakfast for me and Mom and moved on to homework.  And here I’ve been ever since.  Thank goodness Mom fixed dinner tonight!  Before I started, I made a list of what I needed (and I use that term loosely) to get done this weekend.  Most of the work to be done was in the two classes I have tests in next week: Astronomy and Reading.  I did get most of the work I needed to do done.  I still have a chapter in Reading that I need to outline.  That’ll take me a couple of hours tomorrow.  I also have quite a bit of reading that needs to be done for Astronomy.  This, potentially, could take me HOURS.  I may just skip it and hope for the best.

I would love it if I had time tomorrow to get to Computer Use.  I have one assignment left before the “group” work, and I really, REALLY want to get it done.  That way, maybe next week I’ll get some time to get started on the group assignment and next weekend, get it FINISHED!!!  That’s my goal.  To finish Computer Use before the end of the semester.  It would also be nice to be able to get started on the homework for Problem Solving.  I don’t know, though.  That’s asking an awful lot of my time on a day that I can’t stay up til all hours getting work done.  I mean, I can stay up late tonight if I felt the need to keep working – and I might just yet so that I can finish the Reading work – but I can’t do that tomorrow.  Hmmm…I’ll have to think about this.

It sure would be nice to be able to mark out everything on my list for a change.

I have discovered that, as much as I love and adore Rush, I really don’t like their “Grace Under Pressure” album all that much.  Distant Early Warning and Red Sector A are good, but I don’t like Kid Gloves, The Body Electric, or Red Lenses.  And that’s really strange for me to admit.  For years, I’ve maintained steadfast devotion to my precious trio, claiming that I’ve never heard anything done by Rush that I didn’t like.  Well, here ya go.  I don’t like those three songs.  And, to listen to the majority of the “2112” album, I really have to be in the mood for it.  There are more albums, of course, that I like practically every song.  Presto.  Counterparts.  Roll The Bones.  Moving Pictures.  Definitely Power Windows.  My favorite album vacillates between Presto and Power Windows, depending on my mood that day.  But I could do without “Grace.”  Go figure.

Actually, now that I think about it, I have a tendency to skip around the “Snakes and Arrows” album.  The middle songs all start to sound alike to me.  I don’t have the two albums before “Snakes,” so I don’t know if they’ve just fallen into some kind rut, or what.  I’m not diggin’ current Rush much.  And that makes me incredibly sad to say.  With “Snakes and Arrows” I’ve made myself listen to it to, I don’t know, make it grow on me?  But it’s become like so much white noise, masking the sounds of the road and traffic.  I miss enjoying their music, I think.  The only problem is that most of the albums I love the most, I still own only on tape.  I really need to do something about that…