sunshine and solve for x

Good thing that riding a bike is like riding a bike. The weather has turned wonderfully springlike and melted all the cranky snow and ice. I was happily back to bicycle commuting this week. Another week down and closer to actual spring. 

Yesterday, I read/scribed another test for Thor, the completely blind math student. He was less nervous this time, but that's not to say he aced his test. He did gradute from high school, but this class he's currently in is a developmental math class. It's meant to prepare him for college level math as his placement scores showed he's not quite there yet. It's basically high school algebra.

As we worked along, he mentioned how these tests are harder than when he was in high school. I'd been curious so I asked him,

ME:  How did you do math tests in high school?

THOR:  Well, my teacher would read the test to me and, I would choose from two answer choices. So I had a 50/50 chance of getting each question right.

ME:  Hmm...

THOR:   Plus she would "review" the test with me the day before the actual test, so I pretty much got all the answers right because the review was the same questions as the actual test

ME:  *snicker* *giggle* *bahahaHAHAHA*

I felt okay laughing with him at this, because the way he shared indicated that he knew it was lame and that he didn't really need to learn the material to "pass". He also laughed about it.

THOR: Was that what you expected to hear?

ME: I really had no idea.

We continued, and at one problem I asked, "Is that your final answer?", and he replied that it was.

ME: Okay, then. That's a wrap.

THOR: "That's a wrap"? HA, I haven't heard that in a while.

ME: "That's a wrap"? Really?

THOR:  Yeah, I think that's something my grandma sometimes says.

ME: (internally) oh, Jeezus

Thor was given 3 hours to complete the test, and he took just over 2 and a half hours. At one point he asked for a bathroom break. I escorted him down the hall to the All Gender bathroom. He's very chatty and talked the whole way and was still talking when I got him into the bathroom. I had to interrupt him ask him to wait for me to close the door as he was seemingly going to keep on a-chatting while whipping things out.

I mean, I've worked in a nursing home where things would get whipped out and require assistance to be resecured and what not. But this is a college, and I'm just the scribe!

Just prior to Thor's exam, I had a tutoring sesh. And afterwards, I had about an hour to work in the testing center.

When I got home, Magnum asked if I wanted to join him to walk the dogs. I pondered a moment and realized that I wanted to walk one dog, not walk two dogs and a human.

I sent him on ahead with Merlin, and Penny and I headed out a little while later. That was nice. Just me and an easy-to-please dog, requiring no conversation.

Penny for my thoughts.

polar vortex and stirring the pot at the library

"I'm so dumb, I think I'm smart"

A student made that remark about himself last week. We chuckled a bit, but I was thinking, "well... he's not wrong..." I don't think he realizes how far in over his head he is. 

Meanwhile, I asked the Mom/ wife/ student tutee how her day "off" with the kids went. Not well. She took them to the library, thinking she'd get in some study time, but EVERYBODY took their kids to the library that day, since there was no school and it was fffffrrrrrreeeeezing outside. 

"Do you just not sleep?", I asked her.

"Well, no, I guess", she answered, "since I have to get all this done and still have time to fight with my husband!" 

Priorities.

I worked today at the testing center since my turn came up for Saturday rotation. I worked with Kitty. Remember Kitty? Coworker of last summer's shotgun wedding?

Kitty had her baby a few months ago, and came back to work in January. Kitty is a fun, rather laid back coworker. Almost too laid back sometimes, as she's not the hardest worker, but she holds her own okay. 

She's so laid back, I wondered how she'd be at home with a baby, requiring much upkeep. Thankfully, she seems to really be thriving in her new familial role. She mentioned that she and her husband are enjoying parenthood so much, they're sort of  toying with the idea of having another baby. She's in her late 30's, so I was assuming she'd be a one-and-done, but hey, who knows?

Meanwhile, the college library - which also functions as part of the city library system - is renovating its bathrooms. Going all-gender with locking stalls. I'm sure it will ruffle some feathers, already has actually. In  the meantime, they've set up a temporary bathroom outside of the library, so of course, I had to check it out and reflect. 

It sits out back, next to the observatory

Honestly, the experience was not too shabby. I mean, it's not Buc-ee's but I've certainly inhabited worse facilities. The loo was about twice the size of a typical passenger airline bathroom, which isn't saying much. But it was heated and very clean and well stocked  - I'm guessing because hardly anyone uses it since there are other buildings where one can have such needs met

Meanwhile, we finally emerged from the latest polar vortex. I walked home while it was in the upper 40's, and it felt downright hot after the past several days. 

The cat got his sunbeam back and doesn't look to be giving it up anytime soon.

busy people

I just got a text from one of my tutees. 

I wonder when this woman sleeps. She's got a husband who works full-time and two kids in elementary school, plus she's a full-time college student studying engineering. 

Sheesh, when I was an undergrad, the only person I had to look after was myself. Good thing.

I remember one of my classmates, way back then in the ancient times, had a baby (surprise!) during our college years. She made it to graduation, just barely. These two examples reinforce my leaning that such things work better when done in series, not parallel. 

I admire my tutee, however. She works hard and advocates for herself. I have no idea what my college professors would've said if I told them I needed a work around  because my kids had the day off from school. But then, work is a state college and not a university, so probably more lenient.

Then I answered an email regarding more tests for the blind guy. He needs a better blog name since he may show up here again. Let's call him Thor. 

Whew, all this working on the weekend *sarcasm*

I was at a PEO meeting yesterday when a snowstorm rolled in. Going home was sloppy, but doable. We have yet to need to test our fun-mobile we purchased last fall to get around in heavy snow or our version of off-roading, and I'm not complaining. It sat pristine in the garage while I scooted around in our capable Honda. 

Still, I'm ready for spring.

Monday blahs and a blind man

Interesting week, this was. 

• It started off nice with a good time with the PEOs, wrapping up another year. 

• On Wednesday, Party Girl called me at home to vent about some testing center drama. 

I agree with her rantings, but I've somewhat distanced myself from it. I removed myself to only working a couple of shifts per week, and now Party Girl has done that too. 

When she called, it sounded to me like she'd been drinking, which is likely true. I think she drinks daily after work, stepping it up on the weekends. It's not somethig she hides. She'd also told me that she thinks alcohol makes her "feisty". She was dealing with a lawsuit for much of last year, so she quit the sauce to be clear headed for the proceedings. A bit to her surprise, she found she didn't care about the outcome of the lawsuit after stopping the booze. Ha!

Bottom line, she and I used to work Mondays together. After I removed myself from the Monday schedule in order to do more tutoring, she was left with our newest staffer. Let's call him Buzz. Buzz is an okay guy, but... uhm... incompetent. Basically, he doesn't do much of anything.

So she ranted to Boss and Grandboss, got nowhere, then decided to take the cut in pay and also remove herself from Mondays. It was worth it for her mental health, she says. 

This coming Monday should be interesting.

• On Thursday, I was tasked with reading and scribing a math test for a student who is totally blind. That was a learn-as-we-go experience if there ever was one. It was slow and stumbly, much repeating required. He eventually got through the test, going way over the time he was alotted. Normally, we would've stopped when time was up, but we figured we'd just see how this first one goes. It was a physically draining experience.

He and I had never met before, and he was nervous with general test anxiety at first, and he also has some learning delays. After a bit (and some mystery pill that he popped), he calmed down, and we developed a good rapport. 

He'd told me he's interested in "computers and music" and I googled his name afterward to see if he had any online presence. The only thing I found was a news story from about 24 years ago when he was an infant. 

The news story was about a child care worker, sentenced for 16 years in prison and ordered to pay $500,000, for violently shaking a baby in her care.

"When [student] was shaken, he suffered brain damage, a detached retina in his left eye and bleeding in both eyes..."

 Yup. The baby grew up to be my blind tester. He was a healthy, sighted 4-month old when it happened. 

Talk about draining. 

Well, shoot, I don't want to leave this post on such a sad note! I will say that the student seems  be dealing with those lemons well enough. I'll probably be his designated reader/scriber for the semester, and I know he has a lot of other support in his "network". 

lights, camera...

 Dear neglected blog... you are not alone.

Woo, it's been a hot minute since I visited this space. Well, the start of the spring semester at the college  ramped right up, including the fun meetings, scheduling new tutor students, blah blah. I'm supporting an additional class this semester for tutoring, so getting up to speed and doing plenty of meth math. Also, February is end of year/ start of year for PEO, and I've committed to a second year (but no more!) as chapter prez.

When not doing meetings, math, and other things, I haven't felt like sitting on the computer - hence the blog neglect. BUT things have somewhat settled down to a gentle routine, now, hopefully.

In the midst, I replaced my old cranky phone. It hadn't died yet, but was giving the signs, so I did a pre-emptive strike and upgraded. Nothing fancy, of course. The weather at the time of phone procurement was crap, so I took a couple of mundane photos around the house of other neglected things.

My bicycles, looking at me in harsh judgement, because I have not ridden them since winter decided to get wintry. 

I will say that the city does a nice job of clearing the bike paths in a timely manner. However, there is no clearing of a good portion of streets - just main roads - so getting TO the bike paths is a real challenge.

Then there was pooch Penny, giving this critical evaluation of my dog companion skills during the latest snow storm. I tried telling her that she would hate being out there on a walk, but she wasn't buying it.

The weather's warmer now, so we're in the cycle of melt, refreeze, melt, refreeze, creating much crusty crappy. I'm ready for spring.

A couple of evenings ago, I was home minding my own business, when I suddenly heard what sounded like someone driving by with their car stereo blasting. Except, it seemed to be an unmoving source. Also, the music wasn't the typical thug music coming from a bass blasting car stereo. It almost sounded like... an ice cream truck? With a tricked out sound system??

Laziness Curiosity got to me, and I hit the live feed on the ring camera. Recall our friendly across-the-street neighbors? Now with his 'n' hers Teslas? They were having a Tesla Light Show, which we've since learned is a thing.  Other Tesla friends in attendance. I only managed to capture the tail end.

I'll see if our little skillets can hold a candle.

mystery booms, cooking, keeping up

Like many others, we're in the deep freeze. I'm looking forward to Tuesday, where we're forecast to be in the balmy 30's again.

This past week was rather busy as the college is getting ready for students to return for spring semester. I was supposed to work on Saturday, but the snow shut that down. I wasn't disappointed. Campus is also closed tomorrow for the same reason. Classes were off for the holiday anyway, so, again, not disappointed.

• One night last week, there were these mystery booms that woke us up around 2:30am. They weren't particularly loud. To me, they sounded eerily like someone was gently tapping on our sliding glass door *tap-tap-tap (pause) tap-tap-tap...* 

Magnum jumped up after hearing them. He thought it was our water pipes about to burst, so went to put all the faucets on drip. Funny how two people can interpret the same weird noise.

Anyway, it was neither of those things. Later, our Ring® notifications were full of people talking about the strange noise - gunshots? fireworks? - heard for miles around. They remain a mystery.

• Recently, I bought a cute 6-inch cast iron skillet for whipping up quick, healthy snacks and meals after coming home from work (2nd lunch?)

I like cooking with cast iron anyway, and it works nicely with our induction stove we purchased last year. Plus, maybe I'm rather partial to cartoon weaponry? 

Anyway, Magnum noticed the merits of the mini skillet. But alas, one of its virtues is that it serves as both cooking vessel AND serving dish. As such, I was monopolizing the cookware whenever I used it, which is often.

So we went wild and bought a second one.

I mention this only because of our neighbors across the street. They're a friendly couple - late 30's, I'd guess. Both professionals. No kids. 

A couple of years ago, Wife bought a Tesla Model Y. This week, she bought another one, and Husband got the hand-me-down. Now they've got his 'n' hers Teslas.

The skillets are our way of keeping up with the Jones's.

Totally the same thing.

granny and square

I was stressed out in kindergarten. 

I still feel the anxiety from it, 55 years after the fact. The cause? I didn't know how to tie my shoes. 

I knew that learning to tie shoes was on the kindergarten syllabus. However, I didn't realize that a lot of my classmates would already know how to accomplish this feat. This was in the ancient times - before velcro shoes. 

So there I was. Behind the curve. 

We were each provided a flat cardboard "shoe" - adorned with our name - with actual laces so as to learn by doing. Once we accomplished the task successfully, our shoes were pinned to the bulletin board of fame.

I watched in apprehension as a good number of classmates made their neat little bows, and their honorific shoes were pinned. Meanwhile, I struggled. Eventually, I tied an ugly but functional bow, and my shoe made the bulletin board at last.

Just recently, only about a month ago, I learned I've been doing it wrong this whole time. Who knew?!

"Square knot" is the correct way, and I've been doing "Granny knot" this whole time. 

In short, if your first knot is right over left, your "bunny ears" knot should be left over right or vice versa. The knots should be opposite direction, never right - right or left - left. 

This link provides a quick demo:

https://youtube.com/shorts/sCEaXpOLFlo?si=Dsf8i1dg0JuItOJV

All these years, I'd been a right-righter. But no more! And no more having to double tie! So freeing.

*******************************************************

This week was grey and cold here, but we can't complain while watching what's going on in LA.  My Father-in-law and his wife evacuated from their home in Pasadena to stay with Step-mother-in-law's daughter, not that far away. Apparently, they've been cleared to return home.

And today is sunny and clear here. I went out for a pleasant escapist run this morning - shoes expertly tied. 

We get an average of 300 days of sunshine per year here, so we're spoiled and get whiney on overcast days. I was so enjoying the sun, I stopped to get a pic of this horse's ass.