Thursday, March 04, 2010

Odds and Ends Thursday 45

I can’t wait til tomorrow. The Friday night/ Saturday morning sleep keeps the entire week in balance. It’s the lynchpin, the keystone. When it’s taken away, like it was last Friday during the big tsunami evacuation, its absence echoes throughout the rest of the week, wreaking havoc and dragging me down. Whereas in this spot last week I wrote about how things are beginning to pick up speed, this week crawled by. And so tomorrow night, I will sleep long and good. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:
  • Sara from home, let me speak for all Bay Area baseball fans, A’s and Giants alike, when I say BLEHHHHHHHHHH! To even refer to yourself as a “part-time Red Sox fan” breaks my heart.
  • On the other hand, thanks for reminding me about the “Sweet Caroline” Red Sox affiliation. I almost taught that song to my kids. Think of that. How could I have lived with myself?
  • For better or for worse, I suggested Koa teach it to his kids.
  • Today was my first day teaching science. I started the class by saying, “My name is Matthew, and I’m your new science teacher.” And I heard one girl in the back go, “Yessssss.” I’m giving her an A.
  • The cat’s recovering fine. She was very unfriendly on Tuesday night, but she’s been extra-friendly ever since. This little respite is giving my perpetual scratches time to heal.
  • A girl from the National University of Samoa came to me for help with a math problem last week, and I completely failed. Here’s the problem:
      Given the equations below, what values of k will yield a single solution? No solution at all? An infinite number of solutions?

      xy = 3
      2x – 2y = k
  • GRE vocabulary! Pied: multicolored, usually in blotches: The Pied Piper of Hamlin was so called because of his multicolored coat.
  • The maumaga, the plantation and tsunami evacuation point, has so many mosquitoes. Once it became clear we were heading up that way, I doused myself in repellent. My family was running all over the house packing up their livelihood while I was took an aerosol shower in the kitchen. And those bloodsuckers still got me! I had a couple bites on my back where I’d been bitten through my shirt.
  • And they took forever to go away because I almost never get bites back there.
  • The “cute puppy” in the picture at the top of Tuesday’s post pooped in his sleep. Even the vets referred to him as “The Poopy Dog”.
  • We all got this news emailed to us on Tuesday. “Volunteers are going to start getting more money. Just not you.” Thanks.
  • The new computer teacher seems okay. Pretty mellow. I told him to meet me in the computer lab after school, and when he walked in I was playing “Tangrams,” which was slightly embarrassing. It’s more difficult than it initially looks, but at first glance it looks like me making a duck out of shapes. Like a 4-year-old.
  • Koa, Phil, and I got into a small argument about who could best draw a map of the Americas. I said Phil’s Baja looked like a turkey wattle, and Phil and Koa both lambasted my depiction of Canada. There was a lot of downtime at the meeting.
  • I’d never heard of a “German bun” until today. I’ve eaten them, but I never knew the name. In my science class, we are studying food science, and so I asked the kids to generate a list of foods they typically eat. One girl raised her hand and said, “German bun.” And, over-annunciating to clarify, I asked, “GERMAN BUN?” For some reason, the entire found this hilarious. It was all I could do to keep them from falling out of their chairs. I don’t get it.
That’s all I got for this week. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.


The road is paved! I swear, this intersection, upwind from my school, has been gravel for the past 6 months or so. The blows would blow over and it was all kinds of nasty. But now it's paved. Hooray!


Paved!


Rugby game at Lei'ifiifi this afternoon with good clouds.


Out with Blakey last night.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

German Bun
= remnant from the German rule over Samoa.
Derived from the famous 'Berlin Donuts' that were originally filled with jam but obviously jam was not a common product then so caramelised coconut was used as a substitute....hence German Bun....yumyum

Mom said...

Doesn't k have to equal 6 to give infinite solutions? Any other value of k will have no solution. No value of k will lead to a unique solution given the parameters: x-y = 3
2x-2y=k, 2(x-y)=k, 2(3) =6. What's wrong with my thinking?