Science Fair

February begins the science fair season here in Arkansas. I start my students off in October with numerous deadlines along the way. I give detailed instructions, as this student noted, and I provide all sorts of assistance; staying after school, making phone calls, placing orders, and many other things. I encourage, badger, and plain harass students to do their best. Witnessing their faces when they win prizes is so worth all the headache. At least I think so most of the time.

February 5th, 2009

Waxing Gibbous, others in my PLN have photographed the moon and posted their pictures of the day. Today I finally took one that suits me. This post is published late because, I left my computer at school so that I would get caught up on recording grades as midquarters go out next week. I did and was in the bed by 8:30 p.m. I slept all night and awakened feeling refreshed. Now, I wonder what kind of hit my karma took over at Plurk.??????

Science Coaches

Today, we had the next to the last meeting of the science coaches class that I have been taking for the last two years. Normally, we have pedagogy material in the morning and content in the afternoon. Today, however, we did content in both the morning and afternoon sessions. The morning session was on static electricity and the afternoon session on energy from the biochemical vantage point. I enjoyed the static electricity session ended with a turn at the Van De Graff generator. I was foolish and not thinking when I reached my freehand out to the instructor and got quite a shock. Lesson Learned!

Scars

As I was selecting the photo for the day, I began to feel philosophical.

After suffering through the recent ice storm with the loss of power, and losing parts of the trees we fought so hard to save during the time of construction, I have been thinking about the kind of scars that will be left upon the citizens on northern Arkansas.

Within myself each time I noticed other street lights on around me, I felt less and less significant to those making the decisions. I felt as though I was living in a second rate neighborhood that didn't matter to anyone but me and the 30 or so other people living in my neighborhood. Those making the decisions said they were making decisions based on need. The rank was hospitals, nursing homes, police, fire and the high risk people; the ones with life threatening medical needs. Then simple tasks were done because they could be completed quickly. Next came the repairing of lines and finally replacing poles. But as they moved into the neighborhoods it became obvious to me that power was being restored to the "country club" set before others. This seems counter to population density and thus my reasoning that we (me and the neighbors) are not as important to those making the decisions.

Let's return to the title of the post "Scars" and the reason I have a picture of a tree. You can tell that this tree has been through @%$$ but yet it contiues to stretch its arms heavenward and its roots reach deep into the soil. Despite the many traumas it has seen, it contiues to perservere. As time passes we Arkansans will heal; we will continue to maintain our roots and our faith in the Lord. Our scars will not be visible but we will remember them and hopefully those decision makers will reevaluate their doling out of the work force.

1st Dentist Visit

Today was my little guy's first visit to the dentist. I can't even begin to tell how proud I was of the little guy. He let the dental hygienist clean and floss his teeth followed by this shot of the dentist checking him over good. No cavities. Advice given was floss the back teeth and limit starchy snacks. I was also very impressed with the way both the hygienist and dentist worked with my little guy. I think this is going to be a good fit.

Oh and even more awesome...we have power!!!!!!! I know I should have made the bed before I took the picture but I was too happy to think about it. And I don't make my bed most of the time anyway.

January's Collage

Pictures posted during the month of January. It was fun compiling the collage and yes I blantantly copied the idea from members of my PLN. Great idea guys. Thanks.

Clean UP

Let the clean up begin! From the trees in my front yard we have about 10 branches to cut and remove. Unfortunately, there are still several broken and hanging from their respective trees. One set of branches fell into the azalea bed, but it looks as though only one azalea will be a loss. That is a small blessing considering the amount of work we put into the bed. The pines on the neighboring vacant lot seem to have taken the biggest hit as one would expect. No great loss there. We have wanted to cut them for several years now, because their pollen gives hubby and son fits in the spring.
Other pictures include the azalea bed mess and some of the limbs from the pines. I haven't had the heart to walk through the back of the property yet. I can see numerous limbs down from the deck and it is sickening. I certainly hope that groundhog forecasts an early spring tomorrow!