FO: Toddler Tubies

Project Page: Toddler Tubies
Pattern: N/A
Yarn: Loops & Threads Woolike in Mauve
Made for: Joy House

 

Once More unto the Breach

You may have noticed it’s been rather quiet here at STK for the past year. And then suddenly…posts again!

This past year was my first year teaching. I had three courses (Calculus, Physics, and a PLTW Engineering course) and five sections, plus the 7th Grade study hall from hell. Did I mention that I was basically inventing my own Physics curriculum (with no lab equipment), and working with extremely questionable Calc and Engineering curricula?

Basically I was lucky if I had enough energy to drive myself home at the end of the day.

So that’s why things have been quiet. Between preparing for, somehow surviving, and then recovering from all of that, I didn’t exactly have a lot of energy to put towards blogging. I have still been active on Tumblr, but 98% of that is reblogs.

I officially (discounting two weeks of training and the meetings I’ve already had) go back to work tomorrow, although school doesn’t start for another three weeks. This year I will be teaching four courses (Precalc, Physics, and two different Engineering courses) and six sections, but minus the study hall from hell (so help me if they try to give me a supervision during my lone prep hour…). For those of you keeping score, that’s an increase of one course and one section from last year – plus two of the courses are brand-new to me. Most of my sections will be bigger, too.

So yes, this year is looking to be even more discombobulating than last year. BUT because I finally found a little bit of energy here at the beginning of August, I am going to try to keep STK updating a bit this year. I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it up, but I have posts queued for the rest of the month and material through September.

Don’t expect to see a lot about my work here; I’ve decided that (aside from some ranting on tumblr) it’s best to keep my professional and fan life separate, to the degree possible. This is not a Teacher Blog and I don’t intend to make it one. That being said, there will be the occasional mention of teacherly things since that is approximately 95% of what I think about during the school year. (Which is part of the impetus behind blogging again; trying to keep myself sane by switching mental gears every now and again. And demonstrating to myself that I am more than the person struggling to find ways to keep her students occupied each day.)

THE PLAN:

Alternating Mondays: The Hugo Project. Yes, it lives! #29 went up last week, and we’ll have some supplemental stuff on the 17th and 31st. In September we get to Asimov’s Foundation-verse, and boy howdy do I have some thoughts on that…

Fridays: FO Fridays, as long as I have something to post. I have a backlog of finished objects from the past year as I’ve been trying to decrease my number of WIPs. Also, if I ever get around to actually framing them, cross stitch from the past couple of years.

At random times: Possibly some other stuff. I’d love to say that I’m going to get around to publishing patterns or finally hanging the art in my room or whatever, but let’s be honest: I have no idea when or if I’ll get around to anything else.

So…if you like pretty knitted things and me yelling and (primarily) white male authors from the 20th century…stay tuned!

And keep me in your thoughts as I attempt to survive the coming year…

 

THP Supplemental: The Rama Sequilogy

In spite of Clarke’s insistence that he never intended for there to be anything more to the story from Rendezvous with Rama, more there is. So much more. I’ve made it through the trilogy of sequels Clarke penned with Gentry Lee, so that’s our topic for this week’s supplemental edition of The Hugo Project.

—–

Rama II
The Garden of Rama
Rama Revealed

Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee
published in 1989, 1991, and 1993

—–

Warning! Spoilers ahead!

—–

 

Month in Review: May 2013

Now that we’re halfway into June, I thought it might be nice to finally do May’s month-in-review post…

—–

After all of the excitement of April, May was actually rather calm, or at least as calm as things ever are around STK. So, basically, I was still super-busy but it was mostly routine-ish stuff. Like final projects o’ doom. Anybody need a unit plan on Newton’s law of universal gravitation? Or ideas on how to adapt your lesson plans for autistic students*? Because I’m now an expert totally not an expert in such things, but at least I know slightly more than the average bear.

Oh yeah, and I got straight As this semester. BOOM. (We will not discuss grade inflation at the graduate level, kthxbai.)

Of course, the real fun was to be had on my one weekend off from classes:

 

Now Give Me My Flowers

AKA Month in Review: April 2013

As you might guess, it rained rather a lot here in April, which put a bit of a damper on things (BOOM double entendre take that Shakespeare). Still, there were many exciting doings here at STK! So we’ll start out with a fantastic announcement: WE GOT DEMO!!!

Okay, so it’s not the most exciting graphic in the world. It’s still an incredible honor, and a testament to how much hard work the kids and the staff (including yours truly) have put in to making the program successful and getting our kids prepared for college. Which is all kinds of awesome.

 

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Slightly Less Vicious Lion

AKA Month in Review: March 2013

March was a special, special month. A month of midterms, performances, and many comings and goings. And stress. Oh so much stress.

It was also a month of firsts! My first drug test! My first panic attack! My first code for the copy machine!

…one of those was decidedly less fun than the others. I’ll let you guess which one.

 

Month in Review: February 2013

FEBRUARY IS OVER. And there was much rejoicing.

For such a short month, Feb. sure does know how to pile on the busy. I’m going to start out with the busy-making/stressful/crummy stuff and move on to the good stuff 😀

• Two weekends of performance for the play I was directing, followed by an intense authoritarian takeover of the communal office. THERE WILL BE ORDER BECAUSE I DEMAND IT. Even if all the re-arranging threw out my back for a good week.
• Then there was that other week I spent in bed with a fever. Good times.
• Classes continue, now with weekly papers and midterms approaching.
• Practicum also continues; I take over class from the substitute, with mixed results.
• Work also continues, with tensions rising as we get closer and closer to achieving demonstration status. Oh, and one of my supervisors just left…

 

Mijos

You know you love it.

Valentine’s Day has always been a rather ‘meh’ holiday for me. My family isn’t big on it (my father, the professor, once famously scheduled an evening exam on February 14th) and the one year I actually had an SO on Valentine’s day, we were on different continents. Timing, I excel at it.

Anyway. When I think of Valentine’s day, if I think of it at all, I tend to think of it as a day to recognize the people in my life that I love. Not the One Person I Love Above All Others With An All-Consuming Passion That Is Totally Healthy (Sarcasm), but the people who make my world a little warmer. The people who inspire fiercest emotions in me.

This year, and today, especially, after work, I am thinking about my students.

 

Month in Review: January 2013

Oh hey, happy Imbolc (what’s left of it). Life has been kicking my little behind, so it’s two days late, but I have decided to start doing a monthly-review thingy. Onwards!

This month I started private tutoring, which means more money for yarn textbooks! Yes, textbooks. I started school again to get my WI state teaching certification in physics (and eventually my master’s degree in teaching). I had a week or so of angst as I tried to decide which school to attend, but I have settled on E. So I will be staying in lovely, bitterly cold Madtown for the next 16 months at least. Hooray! I’ve also started my practicum assignment, working in physics classrooms in the same school where I work for AVID, which is awesome.

Which reminds me, I need to brag a little. In the senior-level physics class, there are 15 students. 6 of them (40%) are AVID students. Considering that AVID students make up maybe 10% of the student body at this school…YOU GUYS THIS IS SO AWESOME MY KIDS ARE TAKING ADVANCED PHYSICS COURSES THEY ARE GOING TO ROCK IN COLLEGE AND AT LIFE!!!!!!!!!

 

Welcome to Crazyville – Population: Me

So I had my first day of graduate school classes at E. today. Which was fine. Education classes are, as always, 50% useful and 50% nonsense, but my classmates are nice and it’s a comfortable, safe learning environment. And I love the program’s emphasis on multicultural pedagogy.

BUT

Four days ago, I learned that the other school I applied to, V., the one that’s much better-known and cost three times as much, accepted me into their masters/teaching certificate program. And I would kind of love to move to a new city and not live with my parents and try something fun and different. Plus, you know, the school’s great reputation.

BUT

V.’s curriculum does not appear to include anything on multiculturalism, which is kind of a Big Deal for me after working with the AVID program the past year and a half. Plus E. is in my home state, which has more difficult qualifications for teacher certification than most, so a certification from E. is probably better in the long run than a certification from V. – even if a Master’s degree from V. is more impressive than a Master’s from E. (I’m doing both. Shut up, we already know I’m crazy).

BUT