3/7/16 Monday Meeting and FHE

     Today was a typical Monday. I met with a client then finished prep for school tomorrow. 

     This evening we had family home evening. Heidi did the object lesson about repentance. The one where you put food coloring in water to represent sin and then bleach to indicate repentance. Only this time the bleach didn't make the food coloring disappear. It did make it fade and the kids got the point. Just heads up before you try that one. Better test to make sure it works. Heidi and I are trying to do lessons to help Sarah get ready to be baptized next month. She's excited. She's already been planning what her birthday party will be like. Fun kid. 

3/6/16 Sunday in Quarantine

     That's how today felt. Heidi, David, Rebecca, Sarah, Joseph and Peter are all sick. Only TJ and I have been spared so far. Hopefully he and I can dodge this one. We all stayed home since Heidi wasn't feeling well enough to tend to that many sick people. She and some of the kids seem to be feeling better this evening. Rebecca is not out of the woods yet.
     This afternoon I went with one of my home teachers to give my Dad a blessing. He has been sick for the past week and has been having trouble sleeping. We gave him a Priesthood blessing. I feel confident that he'll be mended soon with Heavenly Father's help.
     Later on Doug came to our house to help me give Rebecca and Peter a blessing. The other sick folk were feeling well enough that they passed on getting a blessing. I'm glad at least some people are feeling improved.
      Another nice thing that happened today was that my tech assistant for Adobe got to help set a projector without me. I've been trying to teach people to use him instead of me since I'm over all three buildings and he is specifically for our ward but it's been a slow transition. This will help let people know that I'm not the only one in the ward who can set a projector up.

3/5/16 Eagles, Battleships and Bugs

    This morning Samuel Phelps had his Eagle project. Those of us who are well went to help. Heidi is now sick. She almost never gets sick and when she does she can usually soldier through. This time she went to bed early. She needed to rest most of the day.

      David, Sarah and TJ helped with the Eagle project. Rebecca stayed home and helped her mom with Peter and Joseph. At the project we tied fleece blankets and fancified some flip flops. I didn't catch who they're being donated to but that's what's happening with them. All the kids were big helpers. 

      David helped me prep for my math class by writing a Battleship style computer game that uses trig to aim the guns. It's pretty cool and David made most of it. I just taught him the trig part he needed. Here is the link (you need to be on a computer with Flash for this to work):



https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/100588047/

3/4/16 Temple Night

     Today I spent much of the day studying polar coordinates so that I can find a simple way to explain what they are and why we should care about them. They really are used a lot in our high tech world but most of the applications are fairly advanced for what we're learning in class. There are a lot of electrical engineering applications like designing circuit boards. 

     This evening Heidi got to go to ward temple night. She's been working hard and taking care of Joseph and Peter who have both been sick.

3/3/16 Wax Museum at Entz

    Today Rebecca's grade at Entz hosted what they call the Wax Museum. The kids dress up and famous Arizonans and sit still until someone swipes a pretend credit card on the table next them. Then they would "come to life" like an animatronic at Disneyland and recite facts about that person. At the end they go back to being frozen until another person swipes their card. Rebecca was Nellie Cashman. She owned several mines and restaurants, she was also a nurse. She became famous when she lead a rescue party to save 17 miners trapped in a winter storm. She lived in Tombstone at the same time as Wyatt Earp and got the town to cancel an event planned at a hanging because she felt no loss of life should be celebrated. Anyone Rebecca did a great job reciting her lines from memory. Some kids read off of a card but she had hers down. 

     Today at Heritage things went much better today. Earl Taylor, the principal, spoke to my second period class. I also apologized for not listening better when they had concerns. The behavior today was much better. It's not clear yet that we're out of the woods but this was the best behaved this class has been and we've had good days before. They asked me to please give real world applications and to not go so fast over some of the material. Now I just need to do that and hope we can stay this friendly the rest of the semester. 

3/2/16 Working With Heidi

      Today was a day at the Valiant office. Heidi has been working hard and learning many new excel skills. She keeps impressing me with the new things she's learned since my last day in the office. It really is a treat to be able to work from home with people that I love. 

3/1/16 Tough Day at School

      I've heard lots of teachers talk about how hard their first year teaching was. Some talk about crying regularly. I've had some tough days before now but none have been as trying as today. I gave a test that, in hindsight, was too hard. At first I felt the fault was with my students for not doing the homework. When I  talked with my students I felt initially that I had been fair and did not want to bend on how I graded the exam. Gradually the class got more and more angry until teaching became impossible. Gratefully that only happened in one class but it seriously shook my day. I went to the principal. He helped me see that my exam and my expectations of the students were too high. In hindsight I began to see several places I went wrong. I hope I can learn from them because I'd just as soon skip another day like today.