Pre-October (mostly)

Hmmm... not much has happened this week. I graded my first set of Math257 tests (Geometry and Stats for Elementary Teachers). I was reasonably pleased. For one thing, the tests were about the right length. I'm never sure about that in a class I've never taught before. I was afraid they were too short, but two people hung on until the very end, and most people took about an hour (class is 75 minutes). No one bombed it, either, which is a first for me as a teacher. Of course, this is also the first math class I've taught that had Calculus as a prereq. This stuff is largely easier than Calculus.

In Math025, we had a graphing lab on Friday. Only one of my students showed up (but that section has only 5 or 6 students total). Several of the other instructor's did. My class had just finished the graphing chapter, so I figured that I could just hand out the worksheet and let them work on it, and be around to answer questions. Turns out the other class had only GOTTEN TO the graphing chapter the day before. So I gave a brief synopsis of all the topics, at ten minute intervals, to give them time to work before giving them anything else new.

On Saturday, I got to give everyone a report from the Ben Lo workshop, since I was the only one who made it down there. And I THINK Don thought I'd jumped a level in push hands. Or at least I may be on the verge of jumping a level. I was getting away from some of his attacks that used to catch me all the time. Mark was still pushing me out with some oldies, though. So I still have work to do.

And today, I finally put up some of my shelves. There will be two others opposite the window, but I only got one up before running out of wall-anchors for the screws.


Here is the east wall, with my candle-ledge, which is as close as I'm ever likely to have to a fireplace in this house. The scroll came from a Japanese paper shop in Estes Park that, alas, seems to be defunct now. The plaque was on sale at Fred Meyer. There are matching ones with different characters, but Fred Meyer is currently out of all but Serenity. *shrugs*


Last, a picture of the door. I realized that, while it's impossible to get a decent shot of it from the hallway, I CAN get it from inside the room. You can also see the beaded curtain I put up to divide the hallway from the kitchen. The large, right-side-up symbol on the door is an "om", from the Sanskrit alphabet. The rest are up-side-down Chinese characters.



Incidentally, any comments about red/white boundaries needing touchups will be ignored. Yes, they do. No, it's not going to happen right now.