Test Ready

Integrated math 2. (Read: geometry or 10th grade math.) It was test day and we were on block schedule. They had an hour of review followed by an hour for the test.

During the testing hour, a boy called me over. He had a question about one of the test questions...

This was not the exact test question, but it is a good example of what the test question was like.

"How do you find that angle?"

Me: "Uh huh. Yeah. That's what the question is asking."

"But how do you do it?"

During the review hour, they had a test review packet to complete. They were given 10 minutes to work on a page, then the teacher (it was a co-teaching situation, so I took the support role) demonstrated the questions via the projector. And there was more than one example of this type of problem on the review.

How had the boy missed it? Well...

During that first hour, I ended up stationed at his table. I was trying (unsuccessfully) to get them to put away a phone. They wouldn't. They wanted to watch a baseball game. "We know the material. We're ready for the test. We all have As and Bs in this class."

Apparently they weren't as ready as they thought they were.

And I took a certain amount of satisfaction from the fact that the boy was going to miss that question. Does that make me a bad person?

(In case you're wondering, it's a sine/cosine/tangent question. Take the ratio of two sides, look up that decimal on a table that they had, and voila. If you want more details, I'll explain in the comments.)

Allergic

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements. 😉

What if you discovered you had a mild allergy to one of your favorite foods (like a persistent cough or a small rash developed after you ate it)?

Knitting Hedgehogs, a Stink Bomb, and a Wild Goose Chase

I've been doing the A to Z Challenge since 2013. It's a fun little blogging game for April. How can I make my usual blog post fit the letter of the day?

As for completing the challenge, I normally write five blog posts a week. Blogging all month isn't the challenge. Doing the blog hop and keeping up with comments--that's the challenge.

I've said all this before (in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017). If you want to read that again, I'd suggest 2016's reflections post. It's definitely my favorite title. So, rather that rehash the same ol', I'm just going to hit a few highlights:

• Hardest post to get to fit the letter of the day: Room Swap. For the longest time I tried to get that into Q. That week was just hard for some reason. 
• Post that made me laugh the hardest: You're Not a Train. 
• Post with my favorite title: Otherwhere.
• Post with the most comments (tie): Doubled Name & Zilch.
• Post with the most views: Earvin Strikes Again.
• X cheat: X-tra.
• My favorite post for April: Listening Skills. 

For the hop portion of the challenge, I was #510 on the master list. As in previous years, I started visiting at the blog just after mine (#511), and continued until I was able to comment on five other blogs. (I "hopped" about five days a week.) 

By the end of the challenge, I had made it to #26 on the master list. Yep, I managed to get to the end of the list and start over. This has been a dream of mine since 2013... 

A (very small) sampling of the blogs I visited: 

• The View from the Top of the Ladder profiled jobs Jane Austen (via her action doll) could have done (example: Smokejumper). 
• Iain Kelly wrote stories that took place in 26 cities in the EU (example: Talinn, Estonia).
• Part-Time Working Hockey Mom told us about different visited cities (example: Irvine). 
• Time and Tide had an eclectic collection (example: Malapropism). 
• Heather Erickson wrote about writing (example: Up the Stakes) and at Facing Cancer with Grace wrote about caregiving (example: Advance Care Directive). 
• Doesn't Speak Klingon also had an eclectic collection (example: Jedi Wisdom). 
• The BOMB's blog I stumbled across near the end of the challenge. Also eclectic (example: Xyst). 

I like doing the blog hop to find new-to-me bloggers. That's the whole point, isn't it? So, that makes this year more of a success than last year. But I am glad that April only happens once a year.

Gaming

It was Friday at the continuation high school. Computer aided drafting. They had an assignment.

But it was Friday, 2nd period complained. They didn't do work on Fridays...

Apparently, they played games on Fridays. (Which I don't believe. But at a certain point, all I'm going to end up doing is arguing with them. So, I can spend the period arguing with them getting no work done. Or I can spend the period watching them get no work done. Some days the aggravation isn't worth it. I just make a note of it and let their teacher deal with them upon his return.)

Of course, they had to play the game of the moment, Fortnite.

My job puts me in the position of hearing what the most popular stuff of the moment is. Right now, it's a game. Everybody is playing it. I hear about the game at least once a day, but most of the time more. That includes days where the kiddos are actually on task.

So, if you have a teenager around you, slip the name into conversation. I bet they're playing. If not, they've heard of it.

As I'd given up on arguing that they should work. I was just listening in to the conversation...

They were taking offense at a fellow player's screen name. Toesucker*** (I can't remember what the number after it was). They were wigged out by the name.

"Who does that? Why would you even want to touch someone's foot...?"

I wisely kept my mouth shut. Ah, the innocence of youth.

If only they spent their time doing their work.

Lei'd, Part 2

I mentioned the passing out of the leis yesterday. For 3rd period, I got a bunch of them. So, once I had started the class on their assignment and taken roll, I went about distributing them.

The first student to get one was Tyson.

I've had Tyson in class several times. He has not made the blog before as he's not a troublemaker. He's one of the students in the middle--he generally does what he needs to do.

I checked the seating chart to find out where he was. As I approached, I called out his name. He verified that he was Tyson. I reached out to hand him the certificate...

"That's not mine."

Uh oh. Did I have the wrong student? I thought it was Tyson. I turned the certificate towards him, showing his name, to make sure it was the right Tyson. (Not that there was another Tyson in class, but sometimes I misread names and students let me know that the student listed is over there.)

"Are you Tyson?"

"Yeah, but..."

And that's when I got it. So...

"This is yours. Congratulations."

I had three more red leis, two yellow leis, and one multicolored lei to pass out. Then I sat down and got into my class mode.

Tyson's certificate and lei sat at the edge of his desk. He wasn't touching them.

Tyson wasn't expecting a lei. His GPA was 3.0. (It said so on his certificate.) This may have been the first time he'd hit that threshold. Well, it's likely. His surprise at receiving a lei tells me this. It had not occurred to him that he'd made the honor roll.

He did take the certificate and lei with him when he left class. I didn't see him put the lei on. I assume he was adjusting to this new concept.

So, congrats, Tyson. You earned it. You deserve it.

Lei'd

The honor roll certificates for the third quarter of the school year were distributed last Monday. Plus, the students received leis to celebrate their accomplishment. (The leis had fabric flowers, so the school could afford to buy them in bulk.)

Students who earned a GPA of 3.0-3.5 got a red lei. GPAs of 3.5-4.0 got a yellow lei. And those students who earned a GPA above 4.0 got a multicolored lei.

4th period. Honors integrated math 3. This is the math class directly before math analysis in the sequence (also known as precalculus). And the honors students are likely going to complete the sequence.

As they walked in, I noted that most of them sported multicolored leis. Not surprising, really. These are the overachievers.

I overheard a conversation they had. One girl hadn't gotten her lei until 3rd period. So, when her friends got theirs in 2nd, they ribbed her for it. How come she wasn't getting a lei? Was she hiding her red lei?

I pointed out that getting a red lei was also an accomplishment. There were plenty of kiddos who didn't get a lei at all.

She didn't see it that way. (And she knew what her GPA was as report cards went out a couple weeks ago.) Nor did the kiddos in her social circle.

Grade snobbery is alive and well. I rarely get to see it, but it's there.

Killer Mind

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements.😉

Birgit's response to last week's question prompted this week's...

What if you gained the memories of a serial killer? 

There are various sci-fi ways this could happen, such as uploading them to your brain via a computer of some sort. I'm not going to specify the how.

However, you are aware that these are not your memories, and you yourself are not altered in any way. These memories are in addition to what you have already experienced.

Assuming you did not have a choice in gaining these memories (happened via accident) or you voluntarily received them for some purpose (like as a psychiatrist studying behavior), what do you think you'd do with them? Do you think they would turn you into a killer? Might you take the lessons of the killer and use them for your own purposes?