Last Day of my First Year: the Day

They saluted and said thanks.

I had spent some time getting ready for the last day of being a Learning Buddy for the first time. Upon greeting the kids that last day, it was immediately apparent they knew it was the second last day of school this year, as well as the last time we'd be meeting together. One of them, the first to arrive, fist-bumped me. And then he saluted, humming the Star-Spangled Banner. The four of us spoke briefly about this being our last time together and I said I'd like to give each of them a special puzzle to work on. Not necessarily math but brain exercisers. They thought this fine.

I gave each of them a sheet with his puzzle, got them separate spaces in which to sit/work, and left them be.

"I can't do this!" almost immediately from Fred ( name changed ), about the logic puzzle. I took him off to a corner, we chatted, he understood what the puzzle's question is, but had no idea whatever how to solve it. I gave him a clue and a light bulb seemed to go on. He began working on his "documentation" while I went to check on the other two boys.

They were struggling, too. I gave them permission to work with each
other … which didn't seem to change very much behavior. Neither of them clearly asked for help from the other and then explained his problem. Pretty soon Fred came … eager to share his solution with everyone.

Jumping on this opportunity for order, I suggested we all work on Fred's problem. Everyone agreed. "Whew!" I gave a copy of the problem to the other two boys, and all three of them read it together. Chaos ensued almost immediately, everyone both talking and wanting to write on the white board at once.

Eventually we had a reasonable facsimile of the problem on the whiteboard; everyone was puzzled. "Can I give them the solution?" Fred asked.

"Not yet … be patient," I said.

I eventually gave the same clue to the boy who was my SPIFF pal this year as I had given to Fred. A similar light seemed to go on over his head and he gave voice to a solution. Fred either didn't have the exact solution or was unable to verbalize it completely … my failure to not know which. He agreed, though, that the just-verbalized solution would work.

We worked together, rather quickly and perhaps too quickly, through the other two problems and it was bordering on time to let them go. "Just a moment," I said. "I have something more." I got out three envelopes with carefully lettered names on them, each envelope containing a hand-written note.

"Oh, cards," one of them said, excitedly ( though maybe I imagined that part ).

I gave each his card, told them that, although we had had a few rough patches, I very much enjoyed working with them this year, and it was time for them to go. They saluted and said thanks; my SPIFF pal hugged me, saying "Maybe I'll see you in a store around here."

Doubting it, as I do not live in the immediate vicinity, I said, "Yes, maybe. I'd be with my wife and I'd like her to meet you."

The other two warmly shook my hand and they all returned to the classroom.

The teacher came to shake my hand and say thanks. "Did the boys keep their Continental Math League booklets?" I had not given them the booklets.

"No," I replied, "I kept them between our meetings and had not gotten them out this time."

"I think they might like that," he said.

"Well, sure."

Before I finished my reply, it seemed, the three boys were swarming in search of their booklets. I gave them to them, and they returned to the classroom. I noted they left behind all the sheets I had so carefully prepared with today's problems and solutions.

I gathered that material up, put away the white board and its markers and eraser, and slowly left the area. Melancholy accompanied me to the office. It was with me still as I arrived home.

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Waking Up on the Floor... Again

Almost two years after the last time I woke up on the bathroom floor, I find myself there once more. Last time I ended up there it was the result of seeing quite a bit of my own blood.  I fainted.  At least I think that's how I ended up there.

About a year before that, I bumped my knee while taking a seat at McDonald's.  It might seem like quite a different experience, but it felt very much the same.  I felt light headed, dizzy, and sick to my stomach.  In addition, I also felt prickly all over, and became a sweaty ball of mess by the time the feeling had passed, maybe 20 minutes later.

Yesterday, I bumped my knee again.  This time it was while taking off a pair of pants to take a shower.  It wasn't even powerful enough to leave a bruise.  I tried to put the pants back on so I could go lie down, and the next thing I knew I was waking up on the floor.  I woke up, and successfully made my way to my bed this time.

I really didn't want to go to a hospital, but it would be crazy to ignore a problem that leaves me passed out on the floor once in a while.  I did a quick search, and came up with Vasovagal Syncope.  It's medical jargon for people who faint easily when their blood pressure drops.  Often this can be caused by the site of something that makes them squeamish.  But bumping a funny bone, causes a drop in blood pressure too.

So the short answer is, I'm just a fainter.  If I feel that way in the future, I need to sit down, or lay down, before I fall down.

Last Day of my First Year: the Plan

"This sounds great.  See you Wednesday!"

As the school year approached its end, I approached the end of my first year of being a DARTs Learning Buddy. ( For background, see Me, a Reading Buddy?, Becoming a Reading Buddy, My First Learning Buddy Assignment and My First Day with my Students. ) I had developed a real affection for my three students and I was fairly sure they had similar feelings for me. The big question, then, "What are we going to do on the last day?" I am rather old-school, all about rules and such, and, left to my own devices I most likely would have anticipated the last day being like any other day ( in terms of activity ), but more emotional.

Several people in my life spoke about this, but in a way I would say was "sideways," suggesting I might want to do something out of the ordinary, but only suggesting and being vague. A grad student, Irene, who had been observing me with the boys and whom I was planning on having there on the last day asked, "So maybe you would like to be alone with your students on that last day … No? If so, that would not hurt my feelings and I'll be done as of this week." Bless her heart.

Of course I had wanted to make the last day memorable … that thought had been rolling around, rather unformed, for some time. It included giving a good-bye card to each of the boys but it bounced against my "of course we'll have our regular math agenda" instinct. Irene's suggestion focused the question for me … and I took her up on that offer, thanking her for both focusing the question and being willing to leave me alone with my students that day. All that was left, then, was the hard part: figuring out what to do.

As is my custom, I took these ruminations to prayer and was rewarded with an inspiration. I was reminded of three puzzles ( logic, math, trick ) that I could take to the last class and somehow work with my students. These puzzles are old ones, possibly over the head of my kids, but, I thought, it would still be fun to work on them with my kids. As a group, the puzzles were only loosely related to what we had been doing, but it did work the brain and I thought it would be all right for our last time together.

"Don't you think you should clear that with your teacher?" my wife asked me.

"No, I'm sure I'm on solid ground." As sure as that answer sounded, her question worked on me.

I found each of the puzzles on the internet, sparing my having to create the text to set up the problem. I sent an email to the teacher, including the URL of each puzzle, so he could check them out if he wished. I told him my plan and asked both if that conflicted with his plans for that time and if he had any other thoughts. He responded very quickly, "This sounds great.  See you Wednesday!"

I was more relieved than I want to admit that he thought this a good idea. My plan evolved: I would make three copies of each puzzle, three copies of each solution, give each boy one of the puzzles and have him work on it, alone for a while. Then I'd allow them to work with each other, freestyle, on the puzzle of whichever boy was able to get the most help. Then I'd work with them. We'd talk about the puzzle and its meaning. And its solution. Eventually I'd give all boys all three puzzles and their solutions. I looked forward to the class.

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Ouch

A letter from m' bro
arrived today.
Quite unusual
arrived today.
Neither holiday nor birthday
arrived today.

My fingers trembled
suppressing fears.
I saw three typed pages
suppressing fears.
'My wife's got cancer'
validating fears.

Oh, and a broken hip
a gut punch.
Replacement surgery
a gut punch.
An afterthought, 'hope you're good'
a gut punch.

Not seeming much
to care
about us
or our life,
still;
he spent
three pages telling his story,
nine words hoping we're fine.
Ouch.

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Japanese is not Easy #5

It's so very not easy!  I've given up.

At the beginning of February, I was so engrossed in Japanese language an culture.  Learning about it didn't take commitment.  It's what I wanted to be doing.  So I went for it.  I studied everyday for like ten weeks.  And then my enthusiasm fizzled out.

So it was time to commit, and push myself to obtain what I wanted.  But I just couldn't.  In my ten weeks, I felt like I was accomplishing so much, because it was so different, and so hard to do.  But in reality, I learned so little.  And like I knew from the start, learning Japanese doesn't have a huge payoff.  It is only spoken in one country.

So if I'm going to push myself to learn a new language, it should be Spanish.  That's a language that would be useful.  And I already know so much more Spanish than Japanese, despite all of my hard work.  I already know their alphabet, for example.  And I can count to 100.  So I bought Rosetta Stone for Spanish, and it's waiting for me in the mailbox.

As for my trip to Japan, I think it's off.  Japan would cost over $1,000 to get to.  I'm thinking I'll want to try my Spanish somewhere instead.  When I went to Costa Rica, it was because Colombia looked dangerous to me.  Now I've been around a bit, and I feel a little more confident.  Colombia's murder rate is only about twice that of Minneapolis, and even less so if I stick to a tourist area like Medellín.

I told my cousin this, and he thinks I can get tickets to Japan in the $500 range if I wait til we're 3 months out.  I told him I'm still in if that's true.  I don't think it is.

The Wasteland Calls!

It was the winter of 2015 that I played Fallout 4.  Can you believe it?  I loved the game, but there were issues here and there.  When I put it away, part of me was really looking forward to playing it again years later after mods have fixed those issues.  Is today the day?  These were my issues:

1. Let's call my first issue "baggage"
This is the first game in the series where you were handed a character with a whole life.  That's a problem with an immersive game that centers on you playing your role, your way.  It was even voice acted.

Now, I could have removed the voice acting, but I went a different way.  Start Me Up is a mod that changes your roll.  You are now some neighbor of the murdered parent, and kidnapped boy.  Just not telling us we're the spouse, and swapping in some, "A baby boy..." lines, instead of, "My son..."  It's really just that easy.  And so many more motivations make sense.  I am free to be who I want to be.  Who knows?  Maybe I won't hate Shawn with a passion this time around.

2. Companions Go Home
The title of this mod says it all.  It broke my heart every time Piper walked by saying, "Nice day.  Where we headed?"  All our helpers languishing at our settlements when they have lives to lead.  This mod simply lets you dismiss them back to those lives.

3. Needy settlers.
So the easy one is No Offscreen Settlement Attacks.  You obviously can't know about them if you're not there.  And it's too much to drop everything to run to them every time.  I'm using a couple of others, but they've been hit and miss so far.  One fun one adds an Immersive Fast Travel option.  It's balanced with costs, and you do need to build it in advance.  But it lets you move between settlements in much the same way you can travel between town in Skyrim with carriages.

4. Carry Weight
It just doesn't make sense to haul several typewriters into battle.  I'm on the new Survival option this time, and have a limited carry weight.  Not a real life limit, but something close enough to see reality off in the distance somewhere.  Salvage Beacons helps with this.  With it, you can assign a settler to coordinate supplies.  Then when you drop a craftable salvage beacon in a container, he will send someone to pick it up.  Also one to add backpacks, for esthetic roll playing purposes.

5. Survival
So survival mode isn't a mod, but it was added since I played the first time.  It add a huge element of immersion when you actually need to survive the wasteland.  However, I did need to tweak it.  Smokeable Cigarets lets me save between fights, and gives me a reasonable cost for doing so.  And I did need to add the console back to fix errors.

Theological Skepticism #7

I like Penn Jillette's biweekly podcast.  He's full of interesting ideas.  To be clear, they're not always good ideas.  He has a ton of interesting anecdotes, stories, and metaphors.  So I end up bringing him up in conversation from time to time.

This annoys one friend quite a bit.  He finds Penn to be an arrogant #$@&%*!.  Now, I don't see how he can be considered either of those things, but it's the arrogant part that really confuses me.  This is a guy who wrote a best selling book on how he lost over a hundred pounds, and spent the entire foreword explaining how stupid you would have to be take advice from a juggler on anything; casually equating a Las Vegas headliner with some juggler.  And it doesn't end there.  He's constantly joking about the mistakes he's made, and highlighting what he got wrong.

But it doesn't confound me like it would have years ago.  In my old age I've realized that most people expect everyone to give certain ideas the same respect they would a person.  Those ideas are religion.  He absolutely doesn't do that.  He has actually stated several times that you must respect people, but you can't respect ideas.

This is probably the one thing he's said consistently that I would agree with the most.  I have never heard him elaborate on that, on why it might be true.  But isn't it obvious?  Some idea are goods, and some are bad.  If you respect an idea, you can't criticize it.  You can't tell which are which.  I don't believe in censoring bad ideas.  I believe in discerning them from the good ones.

As for me, I walk the line.  As important as I think it is to move us all toward enlightenment, I also value friendship.  I offend my friends a little with my criticism of religion, but try not to offend them a lot.  That means showing religion more respect than any idea should get, but much less than they think it should get.  You might say giving this respect is a disservice to my friends.  But would they even be friends otherwise?  And aren't they better off having my halfhearted dissenting view because of it?