more freebies

Does anyone need a small portable tape recorder with an AC adapter? I have one I'm going to take to Goodwill if no one wants it...

Roy Blount, Jr. on Talk of the Nation

I enjoyed hearing Roy Blount, Jr., on Talk of the Nation last Thursday. I like to listen to Roy anytime, but this was especially good, as Neal Conan is a very good interviewer and gave Roy lots of opportunity to just be himself. Click on the title above for a link to the show.

National Breastfeeding Week...

...in Britain! And why can't we do that here in the USA?! (Click on the title above for more info)

Mother's Day

Having a slow, take-it-easy kind of day... I've been meaning to write a new post but other things, like packing and helping people understand math have taken precedence. Time flies...
I've been finding a lot of interesting things while packing. Also am managing to unload some of my books -- yay! Let me know if you want any of them... Here's a partial list:
Green Dolphin Street (Hardcover),Towers in the Mist, and The Bird in the Tree, all by Elizabeth Goudge
Bring Me a Unicorn, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Growing Up Happy, by Bob Keeshan ("Captain Kangaroo", whom I used to watch on TV every morning when I was a kid)
Legends of our Time, by Elie Wiesel
Understanding Media and The Medium is the Massage, by Marshall McLuhan
Compulsory Mis-Education and the Community of Scholars, by Paul Goodman
C. G. Jung, by Anthony Storr
A Bag of Marbles, by Joseph Joffo
On Learning to Read, by Briuno Bettelheim and Karen Zelan
The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
I'd Rather Laugh, by Linda Richman (mother-in-law of Mike Myers)
Ellen Foster, by Kaye Gibbons
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, by Maria Augusta Trapp
Father Joe, by Tony Hendra
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
Irons in the Fire, by John McPhee
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon
Dancing at the Rascal Fair, by Ivan Doig
Neither Here nor There, travels in Europe, by Bill Bryson
Flying Visits, an irresistible guided tour of just about everywhere, by Clive James

...and various math textbooks...

Anyway, I'm making some progress, but every time I look in the boxes of books I have second thoughts, so I'm going to put the lids on these boxes until I hear from people that want the books therein... I won't be getting rid of these (and hopefully they will be joined by many more!) until mid-June or so. Let me know if you want any...

Joshua Bell, street musician...

I know some of my readers are big Joshua Bell fans, and I love to hear him anytime, too. Anyway, just in case you missed this article about him, here's the link... It's a must-read!

Changing domicile - for sure!

Just a quick post to let those of you who have been following my quest for a place to buy that I signed the contract on a condo (the one I found Monday) this morning! The closing will be June 8 and I'll move the last week of June. I'm so excited! Thanks to all for your support through this process!

rain

Tonight it's been raining all evening, one of those steady rains that soaks the ground and helps to make this city such a lush and green environment...

As usual, it's also "raining" good news stories... this morning's Charlotte Talks was an excellent discussion about how people are working to effect change in the local public schools... I heard that there was going to be a segment this morning on NPR's Morning Edition about breastfeeding, but I haven't gone to their site and listened to it yet (I was tied up during M.E. time)... even the comedians on Fresh Air today were funny and interesting.
Anybody else out there heard any good radio lately??

speaking out against torture and war

Frs. John Dear, Steve Kelly, Louis Vitale and many, many others continue to speak out as Christians against the practice of torture and against the war and weapons of all sorts. Go to this site and read about their efforts to stop torture and war and to raise the consciousness of all about what is really going on in this country w.r.t. war, torture, weapons, etc. The lack of outcry about the inhumanity of all this is beyond comprehension.

More radio...

I caught the last part of this interview with Jonathan Cohn on yesterday's Fresh Air on the replay of the show last night. This was the clearest analysis of the problems with health care in this country that I have ever heard.

Polar Bears

This comic would be more amusing if it didn't ring so true!

Random gleanings from lots of radio listening...

I've been listening to the radio a lot lately, and came across a few things that were interesting and enlightening enough to spread around:

A fascinating story about physics that was on NPR's All Things Considered tonight. I was fascinated by it -- the way they told the story, as well as the story itself - it made me feel like I was right there. I'm sure a lot of people I know, some of whom read this blog, will not consider this story "news", but it was the first I'd heard of it and it sounded pretty cool. My favorite bit was the response of German safety engineer Christoph Schaefer (sic) when he was asked, "What would happen if [the 200-ton magnet] were to fall on your foot?"

One of our local morning programs, Charlotte Talks, fortunately has an encore in the evening when I am usually able to tune in. Today's guest was Dr. Phil Goscienski, a proponent of a "Stone Age Diet". I had not heard of this before, and it was intriguing, though I wasn't converted. I agreed with a lot of what he said, like eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, and lots of them, is important, and that physical exercise is one of the best things we can do to avoid health problems in general and diabetes in particular. But one of the oddest things I heard was about a restaurant in Washington, DC. (The reference to the restaurant is near the end of the article. I'm sorry to report that it sounds as though it is long gone...) This info was sent in by a listener in response to Dr. G's prediction that the next generation will find a certain kind of creature to be common on restaurant menus.
Anyway, the talk got a little weird at times, but lots of what was said was right on the mark.

Here's something I didn't learn on the radio, but just researched on the web and found out about: it is possible to recycle styrofoam coolers and the styrofoam pieces that are used to package electronics securely. These types of styrofoam, which are really Expanded PolyStyrene or EPS, are recycled all over the country. I found this website that lists all the places in the US to take EPS for recycling. Check it out! (I might head out to Cherryville to take a load one day this week...)

Those are all the stories I remember right now, but I hope to put up some more links soon to some other interesting things I have heard about or read about.

Links of interest...

...some found serendipitously, some searched for...

Carolina moon photos

Jeff Elder's column today in the Charlotte Observer (esp. for Jenny and Curtis)

the making of some really great chocolate

Room to Read

Just touching base briefly between trips... Tomorrow is the State Mathcounts Competition so I'll be heading up that way this afternoon, and I still have one client coming in less than 15 minutes so I'll have to make this short.

I've been reading Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, by John Wood -- a very exciting book! Please check out their website and give this wonderful cause some serious attention... If you are reading this blog, you are very privileged, not because my blog is so special, but because you had the opportunity to learn to read. This opportunity is denied to many millions of our planet's present inhabitants! For years I have been reading about how reducing illiteracy helps to solve a lot of other problems in poor countries, but I have never seen an organization until now that works so hard, with such great results, to eradicate illiteracy. Please let me know if you are interested in helping me to sponsor a school, a library, or a girl's scholarship. I am seriously considering making the effort to do this, hopefully with help from my friends, family, and clients. The only thing that remains is to figure out how to go about it -- I'm going to read the pertinent info on the Room to Read website as soon as I get back from Durham and hopefully that will get me started.

Please wear your seat belt!!

Yesterday my daughter, Emily, was a passenger in a car that was broad-sided and flipped over. I realized, as she was telling me late last night about how it happened and how she got out of the car, that wearing her seatbelt definitely saved her life. She was apparently injured the worst of the four people involved in the accident. As it was, she has some lacerations on the bridge of her nose, a swollen forehead, and a terrific headache, but x-rays turned up no broken bones in her neck and elsewhere. I am so grateful she wasn't more badly hurt, and I am ever so grateful that she and the others in the car had the good sense to wear their seatbelts!
Please keep Emily and the others involved that wreck in your prayers as they heal and rest up from the trauma of the experience. And never be in too much of a rush to fasten your seatbelt!

Another post about the wreck is here

wanting to post...

...but not having the energy, or any great ideas. The photo linked above almost makes me want to see Italy someday. It is not (and has never been) on the top of my list, though -- Scandinavia (especially the fjords and the aurora borealis) has had that honor for years. Scotland and Greece are way up there, too, and talking with S.K. about her upcoming trip to Africa makes me want to see Africa, too.

Anyway, in this fried state I just don't think I can write more. I'll do what I always do when the Feb.-March crunch hits: keep on putting one foot in front of the other, and take each day as it comes, finding pleasure in the little things. And I'll try to write about some of those later....

I hope it snows a little in Evanston next weekend!

being back home feels so good....

It's great to be home, and such nice weather, too!!! Usually I don't like to have spring so soon, but after yesterday's rain it's great to have the deep blue sky and warm temps.

Click here to find out how the team did this weekend! (We won the Computer Programming contest, and had an individual who placed 2nd in Level 3 and a team that placed 2nd in Level 3.)

On the other hand, it seems like there is no end of students who are having trouble with math.... Can we add a few more hours to the day? My schedule is sooo full....

I'll try to post more later...in the meantime, check out Daily Dose of Imagery -- he's had some great snow photos lately, like this one...

Charleston

Things have been so crazy lately I almost forgot I had a blog! One of these days I'll get back to writing on it. I miss reading everybody else's blogs, too.

I don't have any big news to report, but I did give up coffee again. It just really does awful things to my body... I'm trying hard to stay away from sugar, too. So far so good. I feel a lot better already.

Also, I figured out how to make my RealPlayer play random selections from my library of music (a "Playlist"), so I've been enjoying good music while making up worksheets to prep the Mathcounts team and replying to e-mails from Charleston contest participants.... I will be so glad to have this weekend behind me. Preparations have not gone smoothly.

Blessings!

Math counts, but it's only part of the equation...

The past month has been so packed full of things happening, building to a crescendo of sorts. I've been posting regularly through the past few months, and I know I haven't mentioned anything catastrophic, but it's the little things that add up, as well as the more personal stuff that I don't write about here (there's been a lot of that!) So today's a stay-at-home-in-my-nightgown day, at least until I leave for Mass this evening. I need time to process all the stuff that's been going on.

The latest event in the series of recent happenings was yesterday's CHEA team win in our Mathcounts Chapter Competition. The team came in first and we had the first place individual, and as if that wasn't good enough, the team had a perfect score on the team round!! I'm reasonably sure this is the first time a team I've coached has had a perfect team score in competition. Anyway, this means the team goes on to the State competition on March 23rd in Durham (yes, it's a Friday, that isn't a typo.) It's kind of like Groundhog Day all over again: I saw my shadow yesterday and there will be seven more weeks of practice. :-) But I'm very happy to work with this exceptional team -- they are great kids, and obviously work very well together -- so that will make the workload lighter.

Call for Help

You just never know where websurfing will take you. I was checking out one of my favorite websites, daily dose of imagery, and because of a photo there eventually linked to the site for the TV show Call for Help. Looks interesting. I thought some of my readers (do I have any readers?) might be interested, especially in this segment, which is sort of musical. I didn't actually watch the segment, but I read about it and it sounds interesting. Another link off Call for Help: with all the current interest in climate change and what we can do about it, the Carbon Zero Calculator can be a real eye-opener.
Okay, now I leave you-all to your own websurfing... I've got to quit putting off the office organizing job...

SNOW DAY!!!

Those of you who don't live in the South might not really appreciate the power of the phrase "Snow Day" in the hearts and minds of our local residents -- children and adults alike! All day yesterday as the snow predictions became further, my students' faces lit up with excitement at the mention of snow. Adults I talked with either rejoiced at the prospect of a snow day or pooh-poohed the idea as a real long shot -- but the latter had a wistful tone in their voices. And now it is a reality. The snow is still coming down, although it is gradually getting finer and finer, and will change to sleet. I didn't need to turn on my radio or open the blinds this morning to know whether it had really snowed or not -- the joyous shrieks of the three little kids who live in the nearby apartments woke me up. Not that I am complaining -- it was music to my ears!

I was looking forward to having a snow day so I would have time to organize and clean up my apartment, but I think first I will have to go for a walk in the snow :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

9:37 am UPDATE: The snow is coming down in really big flakes now!
1:54 pm UPDATE: I guess we're going to have to rename it a "SLUSH Day"...