Someone who understands

There is a story about a little boy with a limp who goes to pick out a new puppy, and he picks the puppy who also has a limp and says that puppy will need someone who understands.  It’s a sweet story.

I was thinking about that story when I was at church this morning, seated next to someone who had a clear disability probably caused by a stroke or bells palsy.  I wanted so badly to ask about her story, partly because I am curious and always appreciate connecting with people who have had significant medical problems.  But, I wanted to talk with her mostly because until someone speaks to her, her obvious disability is like a giant elephant in the room that nobody talks about.  As I stood next to her singing, I imagined how the conversation would go, with me saying I’m not sure I should ask but I was wondering what caused her problem, and then telling her that I, too, have been through the mill medically.  And I imagined wishing that I could show her my pituitary gland (in my head) that doesn’t work right or the six inch scar on my abdomen.  We’ve all got these things about us, whether they are medical problems or insecurities or other skeletons in the closet.  And sometimes I think it’s a shame that we don’t talk to each other more often because everyone needs to know that they are not alone and that their difference isn’t so big or intrusive that it has to stop communication or friendships.  I know I always feel safer in the world when I realize that other people understand.

Of computers and patienthood

These days, I feel like I eat, sleep, and breathe teaching.  And I could come up with 33 blog topics a week about teaching, but it feels like I ought to be able to write about something that isn’t teaching or TV related.  But, what would that be…?  When my first thoughts of the day are how to better explain the conceptual idea of standard deviation to my students, it’s hard to think about much else!  But here goes the other highlights of my week…

I was drooling over an Apple iBook today.  I am a PC girl (which is really, really weird in the math world), but I have dreamed for a long time about buying an Apple just to use to edit videos.  That’s it.  Edit videos.  Not that I have anyone to take videos of or the equipment to do it, but I am fascinated with the process!  A practical dream, yes?  Then, I was thinking that, in all likelihood, I’m going to need to be carrying a laptop to school next fall.  (I’m not sure that 20th century student behaviors — like writing…with a pencil – are going to fly anymore.)  And those iBooks are so lightweight and cute and thin and pretty.  And did I mention cute??  So, these are the things I’m dreaming off.  Cute computers.

I had a curiously frustrating conversation with a nurse at one of my doctors’ offices on Monday.  Too long and boring to get into, but my number one complaint about being a patient with rare medical conditions is how frustrating it is to deal with staff who know nothing about my case when I actually have a need to get some care or medicine in the near future.  It would be about six thousand times easier if I could e-mail the doc directly.  Half the time, I end up writing a letter and dropping it off for the doctor in person to make sure that the message or concern gets relayed accurately, and then I tell them my schedule so they know when they can reach me at home by phone.  That works OK, but it seems like the same thing could be accomplished a lot easier via e-mail (I e-mail them, they call me) but their practices are against “practicing medicine via e-mail.”  To which I say, “How is it ‘practicing medicine’ if it’s just the patients sending the e-mail and then the docs calling back?”  Seriously.  That’s all I want.

I feel like I blinked and September went by.  How about you?

Teaching Thursdays #50

This is First Exam Week for most of my students, so we spent our class periods earlier this week doing some review and I gave exams last night and will do so again this afternoon.  100 exams from the same 100 students who turned in projects last week.  More grading!!  But I can grade an exam in 2-3 minutes (about 5 hours total for 100 exams), whereas the projects took quite a lot longer than that to grade.

With so many students, I expected the usual epidemic of cars breaking down and grandparents dying would be huge, but in fact, only two students out of 70 were unable to make it to the exam last night.  And so far, no e-mails from today’s students.  Sometime, just once, I’d like a student to e-mail that they “have the measles and the mumps, a rash, a gash and purple bumps!”  Remember that poem?  It’s one of my favorites.

I told my students that if they are likely to fret about their exam scores, they can e-mail me after 12 noon on Friday about their scores.  One asked, “If I e-mail you at 12:01, can I expect a response at 12:02?”  Ha!  Another asked privately if there’s anyway he could get his score before then, as he might not be able to sleep, and I told him to try e-mailing me today.  So, sure enough, I had an e-mail from him at 8 a.m.!  His exam will be graded shortly.

Smitten

Dancing with the Stars started this week.  I’ll miss quite a lot of it through the season because of my teaching schedule, but I did catch most of the men’s competition last night.  And I am completely smitten with the race car driver named Helio!  Is he not the cutest thing there ever was?!  He smiled through the whole dance and looked graceful and just delightful.  Wow!

Is there a doctor in the House?

I only watch a couple of scripted TV shows at this point, but I’m pretty excited about the new season for both shows!

The fourth season of House begins tonight.  *squeals*  I absolutely love that show.  It surprises me and makes me laugh, and it’s well-written and well acted.  Love it!  The second season of Brothers & Sisters starts on Sunday.  Another great show that I fell in love with in its first season — totally different from House (boy, is that an understatement!) but a great character- and family-driven show.  And that’s it!  But it’s enough, along with my dancing and cooking reality shows.  Oh, and that Don’t Forget the Lyrics program which totally makes me laugh because I mess up lyrics like a pro, so I am hilariously bad at that show!  Have you seen it?

In Brief

The papers are all graded.  Yay!

My lesson plans are complete for this week and part of next week.  Yay!

The weather was absolutely gorgeous here today.  Yay!

A week from tomorrow is October.  Yay!

It took me close to 45 minutes to get home from my parents’ house this evening (and they live only 5.5 miles away).  Don’t ask!

A word to the wise

If you assign 100 of your students a project that involves a written paper, and the projects are all due the same week, you probably should make darn sure that the topic of the paper is something that you’d be quite willing to read about 100 times in one weekend.

A long and windy road

I am now registered for a kind of Open House event at the school where I hope to be enrolled next year as a doctoral student.  The event is in a few weeks.  I’ll have an opportunity to talk with faculty and students in the program and attend seminars about the application process and funding.  I am looking forward to it and glad to have this opportunity before my application is due.

I had hoped to finalize my admissions essays this summer, but that didn’t happen.  I find myself with too much to say.  I need to draft a purpose statement type of essay, which is actually the easier of the two.  The other essay is basically a personal statement about how I ended up at this point where I want to be in this degree program at this university at this point in my life.  All I can think is that it was a long and windy road that involved an original career goal to be a photojournalist, a turn of events that was sparked (in part) by seeing the movie Good Will Hunting, and a dream of being a Math Goodwill Ambassador to the world!  It’s a crazy story if you look at it all as a whole and not as a road that opened naturally with some fortunate but subtle turns that got me to this place.  And as much as I love to write, it’s hard to put this all into words on paper where someone can’t see the light in my eyes and hear me talking so fast with such excitement about this that I can hardly breathe. 

Teaching Thursdays #49

I am having one of those weeks.  It hasn’t been a bad week — in fact, last night I left class feeling quite joyful! — but it’s the kind of week that I’m glad nobody is closely observing how I do this job.

Three of my classes hit difficult topics this week, and my lesson plans for the week were incomplete.  So, I ended up scrambling to come up with extra stuff to do mid-week, which is never a good thing because it’s rarely as successful as something that was planned out more carefully.  And one really shouldn’t be planning stuff to just “fill up the time”, but that’s kind of where I’m at with one of my classes in particular.  Out of desperation, I arranged for them to spend a day in the computer lab, which seemed like a brilliant idea until I realized I needed to then come up with an activity for them to do there!  It’s not like the computer lab gives its own lessons.  *laughs*  And I’ve never taught in the computer lab before, so maybe that wasn’t the best idea that I’ve ever had.  I’ll find out in a few hours.

So, it’s just one of those weeks.  I think every week was like this during my first year of teaching and that was a big part of the stress of that year.  Fortunately, these weeks are rare in Year Four.

Singles

This is apparently National Unmarried and Single Americans Week…or something like that anyway!  Who knew?  Yahoo knew.  At least that’s how I found out.  And they have a Top Ten list for great things about being single, one of which is that you get to hang on to the remote control.  At this very moment, the remote control is about half an inch away from me, so yes, this is indeed true!  I would probably mark the best thing about being single as being able to change your life course completely without having to consider the impact on anyone else.  It’s nice to have that freedom.

I have very few complaints about being single.  And, the women in my family who have remained unmarried have been far from the stereotype of a maiden aunt who talks to her cats (is that how the story goes?!), as they are well-traveled and very involved in life and they thoroughly spoil their nieces and nephews.  So, there has never been any doubt in my mind that one can enjoy a life well lived as a single person.

Someone I know refers to Valentine’s Day as Singles Awareness Day, which I find both sad and amusing.  But I’m glad there is a National Singles Week (a whole entire week!) where we can celebrate the good side of the single life!