Yesterday while taking my car in to get fixed, I overheard 2 employees (right there in the front room with me, and knew I was there) talking to each other about another car:
Employee 1: So we need to give this guy a discount or something so he feels like he's getting a good deal and will come back. Employee 2: So what do you want to do? Employee 1: How much do we normally charge for this? Employee 2: About $360. So how low do you want to go then? Employee 1: I don't know. We can't do much lower. Lets just raise the price in the computer to $400 and give him 10% off to make it $360 so he feels like he's getting a deal. Employee 2: You can do that? Employee 1: Yeah, it's easy, here I'll show you...
I'm not surprised at all that this happened. I actually don't really care either. That's business. That's exactly what "sales" are. It's called the anchoring effect. I was just surprised that they just talked about it right there with me listening to every word.
To their credit, we're actually repeat customers to this place now because there's another guy there who seems very trustworthy, who's worked on our car both times. And in contrast to the story I just told you, he actually told me there would be no charge for what he did yesterday, when I was fully expecting to pay him something.
It's been an incredibly long week. Student led conferences (glorified parent/teacher conferences) are finally over. I wrote a pretty lengthy journal entry on some of my feelings about parenting and education, but I thought I'd try to summarize what I've been thinking about here.
Teachers are human - we do not have an extrasensory ability to know when or why a student is not doing well. We are not computers that can track 200+ kids grades at any moment.
Most teachers have several students that are doing worse than yours - try to remember that when you're freaking out about your student having a C.
Talk to the teacher before the crisis happens - knowing what you expect can help teachers know how to best help your child. It's also good to talk to the teacher first instead of going straight to the principal for some petty problem - I'm an adult... I can fix things without needing to be told by my boss.
It's harder to succeed in public schools than some alternatives for a variety of reasons. We have limited funds, huge class sizes (about 1:32 in my case), and large enrollments (~1500 kids at my school).
Teachers' biggest problem is finding time - it's impossible for me to get everything graded, future lessons planned, presentations made, worksheets and tests written, and notes prepared all within a 45 min. preparation time (it takes me 5 of those minutes just to take a breath and go to the restroom). I spend hours after school trying to get the necessities done. I wish I had time to check everyone's grade and make a plan for helping individual students - but I don't. I pick the ones that are hurting the most and that's the best I can do.
If it comes between believing your 14 year-old and 10 adult educators... please believe the educators - are you really going to believe that every teacher in the school has it out for your kid instead of thinking, maybe my child has (or is) a problem?
It seems like students these days are academically irresponsible. A surprising number of them won't do homework and don't study - they'll happily admit it, and then wonder why they're failing. I have had several students ask me why their grade is low and when I say it's because of homework and tests they look shocked.
While I think they're academically lazy, it's not because they aren't busily doing something. A lot of them are so overloaded with "EXTRA-curricular" activities that they "don't have time" to study - and if they really are doing karate, lacrosse, music lessons, church, and a part-time job, then I don't blame them. Are parents not stressing that school should be their focus?
Teenagers cannot be expected to be adults - they need supervision and external motivation sometimes.
Just to make it a nice round number.
Most of this rant stems from a discussion I had with a parent yesterday about her son who I only have in my TA (homeroom) class. In TA they read and I check their grades once a week (I don't necessarily have them for science class). This parent had some major issues with why I didn't do anything about her son who had transient Ds and an F earlier this quarter, but who now has 4 As and 3 Cs. I explained that our policy is only to refer those students with 2 or more Fs to discuss on Friday's. Unfortunately, we usually have a full schedule of these multi-failing kids, and don't have time to discuss the others that are close, but not quite. She felt like the "system" had failed her son, and that his teachers were not paying close enough attention to him - so she's going to pull him out to do online school. She did not seem to grasp that the reason why grades are not updated at optimal speed is because we each have about 200 kids, and if we do something every day (which I certainly try to do), then that means grading 1000 worksheets a week... um not going to happen. She also did not grasp that while it's not great that her kid has Cs, my first concern is for the 2 kids that I have in my TA class that are failing all 7 classes. When I say this, she replies, "Well that tells me something about this school then, doesn't it..." Huh? Two freshmen in high school choosing to fail all of their classes is the school's fault? BARGGGGGG!!!!
I could go on, and probably offend some more people, but I'll stop there. I know I'm no expert... I don't have kids (well... not quite). But I've interacted with over 400 kids at school (and I'm only in my 2nd year), and have seen a lot of patterns. The main thing I've learned is...
I'm staying HOME while my kids are in school (if at all possible) - I'm pretty sure that would solve 95% of the problems I see in students these days.
The fact that we're about to have a baby is definitely becoming more real (hard to ignore those punches, kicks, and squirms these days). It's crazy to me that we'll have a new life to care for for the rest of... forever. Understandably, we're nervous and super excited at the same time. I'm trying to fill out the paper work for getting maternity leave for school (along with finding a long-term sub and trying to write lesson plans), and Brett's trying to figure out exactly what happens with his job when I do go in to labor. Pretty exciting stuff!
Here's a picture of my belly at 30+ weeks... funny how pregnancy makes you stick your rear end out...
For Valentine's Day Brett gave me a bag of Double Stuf Oreos and peanut M&Ms. He also fashioned some pretty impressive white roses out of toilet paper and some greenery that I had thrown away. Then he made a cute note "Two tickets to that thing you love!" (Referencing this Old Spice commercial).So we're going to "Tale of Two Cities" at the Hale next month - yay! All I had for him was dinner, which I made rather quickly and which didn't taste superb in my opinion (how do you mess up spaghetti?)... but he's a good sport and "liked it anyway"
As for the dog...
In the "What's to Expect" book, it says that you have to prep the pets for the new addition to the family as well. Although he's 61 in dog years, Reggie is something of a child himself. He can be very needy for attention, and pretty much wants to be in your lap no matter what you're doing. He doesn't understand that he can't type of the computer, why he can't sit at the table with everyone else, or why humans don't really enjoy being breathed on when you haven't brushed your teeth... ever.
First off, I really didn't start writing this with the intent to complain. I'm very glad to serve in the church, but I write this for future reference so that I can look back and say, "What was I talking about? Life is sooooo much busier now!" Plus it's always good to write about what's happening now for journaling purposes... so here goes.
Since we got married, Brett and I have had pretty tame church callings - activities committee members at Wymount? Sure! No real time commitment there.
In Cedar Hills we were primary teachers, which wasn't too bad (especially when we were both able to be there). Usually I'd read the lesson the Saturday night before, and then make my brief lesson plan Sunday morning before church. So long as there was coloring involved, the lessons usually went pretty smoothly.
Now...
I'm a Beehive advisor. Luckily I only have to teach about once a month since we swap lessons around. But it does take me a lot more time to get these lessons ready than it did for Primary - about as long as it takes me to think of stuff to do for school! I spent a few hours yesterday prepping for my 35min. lesson today. I typed up and printed some handouts, had to glue them onto cuter paper (because that's what you do in YW), got stuff put together for some object lessons, etc. I do this on Saturday because that's the only day I have off of school really - thankfully I don't have any screaming children (yet), because then it would have taken me three times as long to get it done.
Secondly, I'm the unofficial choir pianist. Apparently it's not a calling. But once I moved home, the choir director called me the next week and asked if I could play every once in a while when the usual pianist was gone. "Sure!" Then that turned in to... "pick the songs you want to play, about every other month (plus half the Christmas songs)." I actually really enjoy playing, and don't mind doing it for ward choir, but it's just one more hour used up on Sundays plus the practice time.
Ever feel a little overwhelmed?
Brett also has double duty. I feel so bad for him - not because of his callings, but because he's often coming to church off of a night shift and sometimes has to go back Sunday night. Today for example... he came home from work around 7:15am, took a 30 minute nap, and then headed out to church to set up a broadcast of our meetings for a homebound member of our ward. His official calling is something like "Ward Audio Visual Specialist." Then he valiantly stayed awake during all 3 hours of church setting up and taking down the AV equipment he uses. He didn't get to bed until about 12:45pm and will sleep until about 4:30pm before going off to work another 12 hour night shift. So with the little nap in the morning he'll have gotten about 4.5 hours of sleep in a 30 hour time period. Poor Bert.
He has also been called as the Sunday School Secretary - he's in charge of the rolls. We found out today though, that apparently he's the guy people call when they get sick or needs substitutes. We had a bit of a run around today to try to figure out what to do with a class of about 14 teenagers whose teacher got sick. Fortunately a brave sister from the ward who taught the next age group up (of about 10 kids) was fine with teaching both classes in a larger room. Brett thought about just "winging it" and teaching the class himself, which I'm sure would have been kind of funny in his sleepless stupor (actually for going without sleep he was pretty lucid). Surprisingly, the rolls have been somewhat painful to take care of themselves. I never knew, but apparently once a month the secretary has to write a report to the Bishop about who's attending Sunday School and who's not - so those rolls are actually kind of important. Our roll printouts are horribly unorganized, however, so it was nigh impossible to figure out who's in what class. He has to take into account missionaries, primary teachers, infants, etc. that appear on rolls, but are out taking care of their callings. It's hard to describe the paperwork craziness involved, but Brett's had many a headache with it. There is light at the end of this tunnel, however, because he came up with a plan that we think will work to get it fixed relatively easily (he's such a genius - maybe that's why the Lord called him to this job. He knew Brett could figure out a better way).
I've found that Sunday's are often no longer the day of rest that they used to be... its almost like we have to be grown ups or something.
Katie and I went to Hawaii to visit her parents. And hey, it's Hawaii... Who can turn that opportunity down?
We justified the trip for a few reasons:
This is the last time we would be able to go on a trip without having to juggle a kid.
We wanted to visit Katie's parents anyway.
It's Hawaii.
Katie was off of school for the Christmas break, and Katie's parents didn't have a whole lot to do that week too because their students were also off for the Christmas break.
No housing/car costs for while we were there. As Katie says, everyone needs to have parents who live in a tropical paradise to go visit.
We wanted to.
Because I know I usually ignore/skim everyone's excessively wordy blog posts, I'm going to let pictures and captions do most of the describing here.
12.25.2010
Departure.
Christmas day was extended 3 hours because of the change in time zones. The Borens gave us some nice Christmas gifts, the most memorable of which was probably the pink girly Hawaii baby clothes, telling us that we are in fact having a girl (We mailed them the ultrasound telling the gender without seeing it ourselves beforehand).
12.26.2010
I worked Christmas eve night for a 12-hour night shift. After staying awake for most of that day on airplanes, I had the best night of sleep in the world that night.
Church in the AM. The branch was severely depleted in numbers for the Christmas break. Katie was nominated piano player.
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, or "Punchbowl national cemetery." I missed the origins of that name/nickname. Regardless, it's a memorial cemetery for military personnel, notably those involved in the Pearl Harbor bombings. Sobering.
We took a drive up in the mountains and jungle around Honolulu. Fun plants. I want a yard with a jungle in it. And not just because you don't have to mow it...
Phil and Reesa Boren's apartment, where we were, is in the building at the end of the arrow here, on the other side.
We went for a walk along the beach.
And yes, they decorate for Christmas, complete with "let it snow" signs, snowmen figurines, and snowflakes. I didn't see a bit of the actual stuff there.
12.27.2010
We went to Pearl Harbor. I'll let the pictures (see slide show above) tell the story.
That night, we did Family Home Evening with the Boren's institute group. We made home-made pizza.
12.28.2010
Up to the North side of the island. We went to the Laie temple, and then to the Polynesian Cultural Center. Tasty food. Good show.
This was kind of fun: There were shops and such set up for people to walk through to get to the show. Katie grabbed one of these shells and blew in to it. There was a near immediate swarm of kids to both tables with these shells on them as people tried to figure out how to blow in them to make it make a sound.
Earlier at the PCC, we tried our hands at something called "Poi balls." I'm posting the videos here of our attempts, and of people there who actually knew what they were doing.
Example one: What it should be like:
Example two: Finally a bit of success when we were able to accomplish one little move:
12.29.2010
We went to the "Swap meet" in Honolulu: Essentially a tourist trap place where vendors set up stands outside of a stadium, and sell you touristish things. I thought this was kind of fun actually.
We then went back to the PCC.
12.30.2010
We had planned on going to Hanauma Bay. When we got there, they had closed it because it was full, so we drove on and decided to do a nice lil' hike we had read about. We were under the impression that this was going to be a simple walk down a 1 1/4 mile path to see a pretty waterfall and walk back, and that's it. Wow. We were so, so wrong. Katie is the only one of us who even thought to bring a water-bottle. The hike took 4 hours because it was incredibly muddy, slippery, and obstacle-ish. I didn't bring my cell phone because, again, I thought it was a simple walk in the park. There we were: a type 1 diabetic, a pregnant lady, a man with two hips and a knee replacement (with the other knee in very bad shape) and his actually very healthy wife. I was worried that we were going to have to leave via medical helicopter, but then again, I didn't even have a cell phone to call one... It's a hike that was actually a very pretty and interesting jungle type hike. The plant life was great! The waterfall at the end was fun, with people jumping from both sides of the canyon into the waterfall pool. I was even swinging from large tree vines at one point. Would I ever do that again in our circumstances? Absolutely not. Besides mom and dad Boren, the people who were down there were almost all young, healthy mid twenties type people. I'm glad we made it out of there with little to report or repair.
We relaxed that evening.
12.31.2010
We woke up early this day to do Hanauma bay so that we wouldn't get turned away again. We saved about $30 by going early too. Nobody was asking us for money, and we found out that if you go there before 7 am, you don't have to pay.
The pictures pretty much tell this story too. We saw hundreds of colorful tropical fish, and sea-turtle sightings too. I had 4 sea-turtle sightings. I'm not sure how many of those were the same one, but it was fun. We couldn't touch it, but it wasn't really afraid of people looking at it as it ate algae off of the rocks.
Afterward, the group appeased me as I went body-surfing for a while. Fun stuff! I could spend hours upon hours doing that. It also reminds you of how weak you are when the ocean is throwing you around underneath a wave, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.
We ate at Duke's restaurant in Waikiki with the Boren's missionary people. If there's tasty food, count me in.
1.1.2010
We drove to the West side of the island to do some whale watching. We saw one whale out there, and a couple of "maybe" whales. Katie saw one that none of us saw, so it doesn't count :).
We left this night on an overnight flight from Honolulu. We didn't get much sleep on the airplane, but Katie got a bit in Las Vegas on the floor of the airport.
Very fun trip. A huge thanks to the Borens for letting us come hang out with them for a week.
Actually, the baby looks a lot more like a baby than it has before - nothing too incredibly alien about it.
It's a...
Actually we're not absolutely certain if it's a boy or a girl yet. The first thing I said to the ultrasound tech was, "We want to know, but we don't want to know right now..." The plan was to have the tech write the gender on one of the pictures without us watching and then we'd send it off to Hawaii. Since my mom isn't going to be here for the birth, I thought it would be a fun to have her find out first and then buy me something pink/blue to open when we go see them on Christmas Day.
So that's what we did. I pre-stamped and addressed an envelope to my parents the night before and had it waiting in the car to put into the mailbox ASAP. We have a pretty good guess what it is from being there for the whole thing, but we won't know for sure until Christmas. Since we're going to Hawaii, we decided not buy presents, so this will be the perfect thing to open!
Here are a few more pictures of the alien... baby. And one of "the bump" since that's what prego people are supposed to do these days.
I just thought this one was so cute with the crossed legs (knees to feet - left to right)
Cute little finters (fingers, for you non-Boren folk)
What cool technology we have these days - 3D ultrasound! I love how the baby put its hands in front of its face. "Hey! I'm sleeping in here!"
For those of you who don't use PUs as an acronym for Parental Units... now is the time to start.
My parents are off in Hawaii serving a CES mission and Brett and I are living in their house to make sure it doesn't blow away. They were also concerned about the dog and about the yard. So here are some photos (mostly for their benefit), in order to convince them that we have it all under control.
First, pictures of the yard and miscellaneous Halloween stuff. (To view the slide show at your own pace, click the pause button then use the arrows).
Then some shots of the dog doing what he does best - eating bread.
