Grocery Store

The grocery store was crowded, but the lines to check out were short. The first one I looked at just had one person, and the next line was empty. I pulled up my cart and recieved a friendly greeting from the cashier. After a moment I returned the courtesy, "how are you doing today?" I then asked her when her shift started and she replied, "just now." After scanning my last item she asked me if I wouldn't mind handing her a couple items that had been placed at the end of the aisle. (It saved her the trip around the counter to get them.) Then she said, "I'll even give you a $10 off coupon for helping me." She added, "I can't make you work. I'll give you the coupon anyway just for being my first customer of the day." As I handed her the two small items I briefly wondered how I might redeem my coupon. Almost as fast as I had the thought I watched her scan it in right there off my groceries. She just took $10 off. I'm not sure why she did that for me, but I think it was a wonderful gesture. I guess it pays to be friendly and courteous. Today it paid me $10. I feel like I just won the lottery.

One of my favorite student quotes

I had a girl come in for tutoring Wednesday to work on factoring. She took a phone call a little after 3pm. I heard her say, "Mom, I can't go home now I'm in math tutoring." Then she responded to her mother with the following beautiful quote, "Until I understand it."

Wow. How great is that?
"How long are you going to be in tutoring?"
"Until I get it."

I bet you wish you had this kid in your class. (You do. She's great.)

Lent

One of my girls today told me for Lent she was going to do her math homework for my class for the next 40 days. It is supposed to be giving something up. So I guess she's giving up days of not doing her homework. It is also about improving yourself. I like her choice. Cute kid.

One type of kid

I got into an argument with a coworker at lunch today. We both had valid points, but I was a little disturbed by his lack of compassion.

He had a student blow up at him in a verbal episode two weeks ago. Her actions were inappropriate, and she was suspended for the incident.

She is a foster child.

My position was simply that we need to recognize that kids coming from that situation may have some psychological issues. His position was that that isn't his problem. I said if they are in our classes then it is our problem. He retorted that by saying, "then those kids should not be in my class."

He then added that dealing with these kids is one of my attributes, and that is not an attribute that he has (nor desires to have).

After the discussion our positions didn't change.

The aforementioned girl happens to like math, therefore may already have some biases that are in my favor. With that said she is a good kid in my class, and I hope I can encourage her and help her become a more well-adjusted person in all aspects of her life.

Missing Wisdom Teeth

Last month I got my bottom two wisdom teeth removed. They were impacted and growing in sideways. However, ever since the surgery I've been getting little pieces of food stuck behind my last tooth. This didn't happen before; I find it quite annoying.

Chat with Kristina

My 9-year-old niece, Kristi, just contacted me via g-chat. Yes, she's only nine. The rest of the details will be in the chat itself:

Kristina: Hi Kevin! I caught you on the computer!!!!!You can send back to me whenever you get this message.
me: Hi Kristi
how are you?
Kristina: Good. This is the first chat I've ever done in my life!
me: oh, congrats.
I'm glad I could be a part of it if you've never done this before, how did you know you could?
Kristina: Have you been visiting my blog (used to be my dad's)Are you still on the computer?!?!?!
me: no, I haven't checked out the bloglately
what is the url?
Kristina: When did you get on the computer? Is this your first chat too?
me: no, I've done this many times
how did you know you could do this?
Kristina: Yes but when did you get on the computer?
me: i've been on about 20 minutes I think
Kristina: I just got on the computer like when we started this chat because I was hoping my friend would have emaied me back. We just traded emails today.
me: yeah, I'm on gmail pretty often
you can look for me
I'm not on mondays and tuesday anymore cause I started going to school after work but other days I'm on
Kristina: Then how come you haven't emailed me in forever? Is your chat box small with a blue bar at the top that says Kristina Burrill with a green dot next to it? Please answer both questions in one reply.
me: I don't know why I haven't e-mailed you in a while. I didn't know we had anything we needed to e-mail about.
And yes.
Sent at 5:50 PM on Thursday
Kristina: We don't need to email! We just want to email! I was absent from school yesterday because I had pink eye. Kind of a bad case too!
me: did you go today?
Kristina: Yes.
me: I think you can go once you get on the drugs
you took the medicine?
Kristina: Yes. It's this horrible ointment that you actally have to put on your eyeball Sent at 5:53 PM on Thursday
me: oh
wow
I would be good at that though, because I wear contacts every day
Kristina: I absolutely hate it!! And just cause it says Kristina is typing, doesn't mean you have to wait till i'm done typing for you to type because i'm a slow typer
me: haha
you'll get faster
have you taken any typing classes? Sent at 5:55 PM on Thursday
Kristina: No. We used to have to practise typing during computer class, but now we have choices.
I spelled practice wrong.
me: that's okay
do you type properly? Sent at 5:57 PM on Thursday
Kristina: No. But I can type really fast if I know what I want to type and it's not layed out in front of me. I still look at my fingers but that doesn't mean I'm slow
Laid, not layed
Hey anybody out there! Hello you have to type dude!!!!

me: (doing two things at once)and don't call me dude
Kristina: Okay. You can reply faster than you are, though.

me: I'm expert at touching my own eyes
and also at taking pills
Kristina: Wierd!!!!!! Isn't it wierd that when you're having a conversation that one thing can lead to another?
me: yeah, that totally happens
so do you have any other friends on-line right now on the list or just me? Sent at 6:03 PM on Thursday
Kristina: No. My only friend is that one I told you about. I have other friends but she's the only one I have on email. Everyone else is family. Plus even if my friend was online, I wouldn't be able to chat with her because she's not on gmail. She's comcast or something like that me: yeah, this is just gmail people
me: I have like 40 friends with gmail Sent at 6:07 PM on Thursday
Kristina: That's cause you're a grown-up and I'm a kid. I'm 9! I have way less friends total than you have on gmail! Maybe not way less, but probably 10-40 friends. It would take me too long to count them all me: yeah
Kristina: which probably means 10=40
me: I've lived a little longher than you
and probably lots of your friends don't even have e-mail
what is the url of your blog
I will check it out
Kristina: 10 does not=40! longher? What's a url?
me: a url is another way to say web address
what is the website?
Kristina: than why isn't it wa?
me: http://www.ibuildcabinet.blogspot.com/ or what is it?
URL stands for something; I don't remeber what
your mom probably knows Sent at 6:12 PM on Thursday
Kristina: No. My mom's not here. And it's http://www.itaintallaboutthecabinets.blogspot.com/

But you were close
me: okay, I'm going to go make some dinner now
I'll check out your blog later
it was good chattin' with you

Kristina: Bye
me: bye bye

Job Postings

Last week one of my friends (who also teaches math) was surfing the net during our night class. I looked over at her screen and saw that she was looking at job postings.

"Rough day at work today?"

Cashing Out

So my gambling site has always been good to me. They've offered some great promos that gave me some money for nothing. Now, when it comes to cashing out they told me it would cost me $45 for a check, and $20 to put my money on a visa card thing. I think it is ridiculous they are going to charge me $20 or more to get $200. I talked to 2 representatives via chat and one on the phone to express my frustration. I even told one guy that I would be cashing out part of my money for free and continuing to gamble on the site or cashing out all of it and looking for a new site. He told me I needed to pay the fee. Here is my final conversation to get my pin to complete the withdrawal:


gutshot7: can I have my pin e-mailed to me
Anne: Welcome to Customer Service. How may I help you today?
gutshot7: oops
gutshot7: I jumped the gun I guess
gutshot7: can I have my pin e-mailed to me
Anne: I can give it to you right here
gutshot7: ok
gutshot7: great
Anne: May I ask for your security question, What is your mother's maiden name?
gutshot7: Petrov
Anne: thank you, PIN: 1262293
gutshot7: can you give me $20
gutshot7: cause I'm leaving the site angry
(short pause)
gutshot7: ok
gutshot7: nobody else cared either
gutshot7: have a good night
Anne: I'm sorry but we can't do that
Anne: Thank you for chatting. If you have other concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us again. Customer Support is available 24/7. Good Luck!

Missing Report Cards: Case Solved

We just finished our first semester this month. So far this year we've sent home three progress report cards in the mail. In addition several teachers (including myself) occasionally send home printed grade reports with the students. This week the mother of one of my students came by the school to ask why she hasn't received any grade reports all year for her daughter. She added she was particularly surpised by this mistake because her she has been getting the report cards for her son.

When the girl got to my class I said to her:

I spoke to your mom this morning for quite a while. I told her you've been better about doing your work the last two weeks, but that you were not last semester. Also, I don't want you to intercept the reports cards that come home in the mail even if your grades low.

She just nodded and said "okay." I was expecting some kind of argument of ignorance. Nope.

Bob Costas

What happened? I thought we only rolled him out every other year for the olympics. Now he is on my TV all the time.

Superbowl Sunday

I love that I just saw a girl in the grocery store before 10am wearing a Steelers jersey.