I feel pretty

Found a gorgeous red dress for the Ball that I’m going to in December!

Teaching Thursdays #103

Today may have been my favorite day of the semester so far.  And it’s funny because I was nervous about today.

One of the requirements for the course that I’m teaching is that we teach the students skills in estimation.  When my colleagues and I had meetings earlier in the semester to discuss what estimation looks like, one of them asked a good question, “What math are they learning by making educated guesses?”  I still don’t have a good answer to that.  My best answer is that they are learning “number sense” which is part of the K-12 standards but not something we talk about much in college education.  And how do you teach number sense?  So I put off talking about estimation until the last unit, and even then, I didn’t finalize my plans for the day until this morning.  And then I just crossed my fingers.

I told the students that estimation is squishy, convenient math.  We don’t worry too much about precision (“it’s just an estimate”) and we don’t get too serious about the facts.  We round things to even numbers and make a lot of assumptions.  A few of my students resisted this loudly — often saying “…but how am I supposed to know where to start?!” — but most of them jumped on board the estimation bandwagon and had fun with it!  And the main reason this was one of my favorite days was because some of the students who are kind of struggling this semester had a lot of fun today and were able to contribute a lot to their group’s work during class.  This wasn’t a day about how well you can apply formulas, it was a day to explore and guess and pull on real world knowledge.  I had them estimate how many times their heart beats in a year, how long it would take to drive to California, and how much a movie theater makes on one Friday night.  And at the end of class, they got to turn in one problem for extra credit.  They love extra credit!

So it was a day of good cheer, a day to have some fun with numbers without being too serious about it, and a day when everyone was on a level playing field in many ways.  It was a good day.

Trip Photos, Part IV: Lost in DC

Way back in April, I went to DC and though I shared several sets of photos back then, there was one more story with pictures that I wanted to share.

The first day of my conference, I took the subway by myself to get back to the hotel.  It was 4:30 p.m., the beginning of rush hour, and the subways were crazy busy.  I was getting off at one of the busiest places in DC — Union Station — someplace I hadn’t been yet on the trip, though it was supposedly close to my hotel.  When I got off the subway, there were signs pointing to certain escalators leading to certain streets, but I didn’t know street names and just got swept up in the crowd of people.  I got outside and had no clue where I was!  And I was set to meet up with friends to head up into Maryland for dinner, so time was of the essence.

Ever the photographer, and quite impressed with Union Station, I stopped in my lostness and took these pictures.

I wandered across a street and found a real cherry blossom tree (not the “other” pink trees, which someone has since suggested were dogwood).

I finally spotted the Capitol Dome, and from there, I could find my way back to the hotel.  This was my view when I was safely back at the hotel.  I still can’t believe we were this close to the Capitol Building for all those days.  Amazing times!

And when Julie picked me up at the hotel for dinner, and we walked to Union Station, I found out it really was only two blocks away, if you know where you’re going — not the many block hike that I had taken by myself earlier.

Duck, Duck…

One of my highlights of my month so far was playing Duck Duck Goose with my cousin’s 4 year old.  Except we didn’t just play Duck Duck Goose, we got fancy with it.  One ought not be restricted to just two animals, you know!

I was the first to expand our horizons by saying, “Duck, Duck, Giraffe, Hippo, Duck, GOOSE!” and we went flying around my parents’ house!

Then, he one-upped me, further branching out with “Potato, Tomato, Duck, T-Rex, Giraffe, Hippo, Duck, Salad, GOOSE!” and we went flying around my parents’ house again.

It’s fun to be four.

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate

It was around this time in 1996 that my endocrinologist shook his head and said to me, “You’re going to end up in the hospital for Christmas if we don’t change something.”

Things were bad with my hydration disorder, a disorder that is caused by vasopressin deficiency (and basically means my body has no natural ability to regulate my hydration).  I was on treatment at that point, but it was just barely keeping me out of the hospital.  He increased my dose of medicine and said I needed to keep records so we knew how much fluid I was losing.  Much to his absolute horror, the records showed that I was losing over a liter of fluids through urination first thing in the morning.  I didn’t know any different and didn’t know that’s how much you’re supposed to lose in a full day, not in one trip to the bathroom!  It was an education for all of us.

The increased dose of medicine was not enough to keep me out of the ER (the day after Christmas) but we increased and increased and increased my dose, and lo and behold, my entire health improved in a month’s time!  A year later, I was in school and the rest is history.

Things had been very, very stable since about 1999 until last November, when a very strange incident at church landed me in the ER.  My blood pressure crashed and did not recover when I laid down.  I hadn’t had an episode like that for quite a long time and it seemed to be unprovoked, and the ER doc said my sodium was in the normal range, but when I asked what the number was, it was a number that I knew was a sign of trouble.  Three more sets of labs over the next few months showed things were just getting worse — it’s a slippery slope when things get out of control, and we didn’t seem to be getting a handle on things.  We increased my medicine dose last spring, and my labs a month ago (before I got sick) were worse than ever.  No surprise that a fairly low grade fever (topping out at 100.7) caused me to need IV fluids last month, when a fever of close to 103 a few years ago caused no such need.

I saw my endocrinologist today, and we talked for quite a long time about what’s going on.  I told him I don’t understand why things are getting bad again, and he said it happens and that he never promised me things would be stable on the same dose forever.  True, that.  But getting me stable again is going to require the same kind of record keeping that informed us back in 1996, and probably several adjustments in dosage of medicine.  He’s confident that we’ll figure out what my body needs but it will take time.

Made for dancing

When I was cleaning yesterday and listening to one fabulous CD after another, and occassionally dancing, I realized how incredibly much I’ve missed my dance class this fall.  I miss learning new steps, I miss my teacher, I miss my classmates and the silliness.  I miss doing something so lovely and healthy with my body.  That class cheered me up during the hardest of days last winter.  Pure joy!

They are going to try to offer another session of the dance class starting in January.  If it doesn’t run, I’m going to need to find some other dance class to take because these feet were made for dancing.

Do dah do dah do, Inspector Gadget

My mission this weekend, should I choose to accept it (and I really have no choice), is to get my apartment ready for the city inspector coming on Tuesday.  *runs away and hides!*

I know they aren’t coming to inspect my housekeeping abilities, but given that I’ve been sick for 7 of the last 9 weeks, my apartment is a little, umm, … disheveled.  I would honestly be embarrassed to have a stranger see it at this point.  And I have a couple of small city code violations, including a cable cord strung across a room (which is a tripping hazard) and cardboard boxes right up against walls in my closet (which I suspect are a violation because of mold risk??).  Mostly, I’m using the inspection as a good reason to get things cleaned up around here and put away summer stuff, etc., etc.  It will be good to have this done before the holidays!

I will carefully select five high energy and cheerful CDs to put in my CD player today, and I’ll clean, clean, clean.  I’m hoping to get the bathroom, bedroom, and walk-in closet done today.  Tomorrow and Monday, I’ll tackle the living space and kitchen.

With any luck, I’ll have a sparkling clean apartment on Monday!  And I’ll be smiling from listening to great music all weekend!   What is it that I always say?  Music is the very best part of cleaning! 

Modern wonders

I’m at the university right now, doing some work on my laptop.  When I got here, I remembered that I didn’t take the West Wing DVD, which I had been watching last night, out of my laptop DVD drive.  And it occurred to me that I could watch West Wing on my computer while I ate lunch!  That seemed like such an entirely novel thing to me!

Think about that in relation to what would have been possible 30 years ago.  No laptop, no way to record things off TV (well, maybe some early VCRs by that point but still…).  And now I can watch a TV show without a TV, years after it was actually on TV, and on a computer that isn’t even hooked up to electricity at this moment.

Maybe I’m just in a mood to be awed today, but I just find that really remarkable what a change has occurred in my lifetime.

Teaching Thursdays #102

My students and I got into an interesting discussion last week that I hadn’t anticipated when we were talking about percents.  Because of that discussion, I added this question to their exam review packet today:

Suppose you are buying something for $1,000.  It is on sale for 6% less than the original price, and tax on the item is also 6%.  Is the final price $1,000?  Explain.

So that’s your homework. 

(P.S.  The “Explain” part is the important piece of this problem.  At this point in the semester, my students are sooooo tired of my “Explain” questions but that’s what this course is all about!)

Life in the fastlane

I am thinking about upgrading (from dial-up) to a faster internet connection at home.  (And yes, the world may be coming to an end — I’ve resisted this for a long time!)

I absolutely do NOT want to use my cable provider for internet service — I don’t even want to use them for my TV but I don’t have choices (other than to cancel cable altogether, which I may do if I can get my two favorite cable shows over the internet instead).  I also don’t think I want to use my current ISP for a faster connection, though that is certainly an option (it just requires more equipment).

My preference at the moment would be to use the phone company’s service.  (The phone company starts with an A and has some T’s in it.  You know the one!)  They are offering high-speed internet service for free for three months right now (I like free!), and though I’m sure there are strings attached to the freeness (like you have to sign up for their service for 100 years), I was thinking of using them anyway, so free is just the icing.

Do any of you use the phone company for your internet service?  Any thoughts or warnings?