It's a Sickness

I'm tutoring the little girl down the street in PreCalc and they're on the Trig section.

They've had a teacher problem, as in something happened to their PreCalc teacher in November, and suddenly an Alg II teacher was told, "OK, you're teaching this now."

PreCalc is just Alg II on steroids, but she didn't have the luxury of having the summer to know the book and develop her own lesson plan with her own examples, so she's literally one step ahead of the class.

The good thing about having taught a class before is you know what problems to assign and what problems... not to.

So Monday she assigned the homework, the girl is totally lost, I went over and helped explain, but the VERY FIRST problem assigned (which was actually #26)... was something weird and immediately I knew... it was bad.

I said to her, "Look, we're going to skip this one. I can tell this one is ugly. Let's skip this, I'll go over it at home, and when I know what the answer is, I'll have you do it and I'll keep you on track."

So last night I came home and spent a good hour working on this one problem, catching various Alg mistakes because it was late and it was... a long problem.

She went to class today and her teacher apologized and said she had no idea it was so nasty, she promised nothing would be on the test like that, and she held up the piece of paper full of her calculations.

A paper that probably looked very much like this:

I give the teacher BIG credit for doing all the homework. My issue is with the textbook company.

Really? I don't know one Junior in HS that could pull this out of their hat. OK, maybe ONE, but that's one kid out of a lot of kids I know.

This is nuts...

But really, what does it say about me, that I had no qualms sitting there doing it until I knew I had it right? My eldest shook his head and said, "Mom, I can't believe it..."

However, I sent it to reader Peggy U, and she COMPLETELY gets it.

We're both sick...

When I was a Kid...

... It wasn't so hard to be one.

T is a freshman. This weekend has been spent memorizing Romeo's little speech. Why did I think it started with "Hark!"? Evidently it doesn't. So as my son comes to me, book in hand, to check his recitation, I always start with "Hark!" and he shakes his head and say, 'But soft!'

Some little girl is currently at home learning Juliette's schpiel.

Tomorrow, she will sit on a ladder, T will stand below, and they will pair off reciting from memory this favorite scene.

Said I to T, "So, are you going to get all Drama and act like you're in love?" to which he replied, "Yup. I get extra credit..."

There is so much to make one laugh when thinking of this. First, Mr. T is the antithesis of drama. He is the King of Downplay. Second, Mr. T does not have the sound of a great orator. His voice is very flat; there is literally no intonation. And it's deep. So it's deep and flat. And third, he kid is in the gangly stage. Fortunately he's not self conscious.

So I'm picturing him at the base of this ladder reciting this and trying to be all drama and I think it's really dang funny.

Meanwhile, in Biology, he has been working on his Chimera Project. He was giving a strand of DNA and from there he creates his RNA, something about mRNA and tRNA and then something about amino acids and then looking them up on this Amino Acid Trait chart to determin the traits of his animal.

This weekend was spent building his animal with his teammate. I think is it is going to look like a long fuzzy piece of poop with a long nose and bird legs. Crazy.

This is not his Mother's Biology. Seriously. No wonder I had to hire him a tutor...

Too Young

In 1995, I was pregnant with my first son. After church, I said to my husband I wanted pancakes. The local iHOP was the only place we could think of, Northern Palm Beach County not being that built up and breakfast places not being in great abundance.

We sat at our booth and ordered, my husband's back sitting to the back the the restaurant. I faced the back of the restaurant.

Along the back, the staff had placed two long tables end to end to sit one family. They had just come from church and the dad was in a suit, with the mother dressed in hose and heels. The entire family was dressed as if they'd just come from church, treating it with the Sunday Best. There were teenaged children and boyfriends/girlfriends. In all, I think there were probably 10 people.

I kept looking back until finally my husband said, "What's up?"

And I replied, "That guy in the back, I'm trying to place him. I know I work with him at Company X. I'm going department to department. I've ruled out Warranty, Provisioning, and I think Finance. I don't think he's in Finance. I'm trying to think if he's in Project or Contracts..."

My husband turned and looked, rolled his eyes and said, "Hunhead. You don't know him. That's GARY CARTER, the catcher from the Mets. You saw him play a few years ago when we went to Shea Stadium..."

He just seemed so comfortable and so happy with his family, and we weren't at some big fancy restaurant; we were at iHOP.

I've seen him around town since. He lived just a few miles from us and I'd see him at the gas station pumping gas. I never said anything of course, because I may have THOUGHT I knew him, but I didn't.

He was such a regular guy. I hear stories of his kindness.

And when I think of Gary Carter, I think of the guy, smiling, laughing, and loving his family at iHOP... 17 years ago.

Fifty seven years old is too young to die.