ice day

Today I got a call from my school at 6:25 a.m. No school today — roads are too icy! It wasn’t really snowing out, but we had some dangerous freezing rain, which occurs when rain falls and then immediately turns into ice, thus turning the roads into skating rinks. We did have a fun day planned, but hopefully kids like starting Winter Break early, too!

In other news, I let my Advanced Math kids write their own functions test questions, then I compiled it. Each kid got one of their questions to appear on the test, so everybody got to participate. We had some interesting word problems — I never in my life expected to hear this, but some kids walked out of the test saying, “That was fun!” Here are two favorites, both of which I made bonus problems:

1. Simon Bun was strolling along gumdrop road, which was 3 meters above jello-sea level. The Duke of Duds along with the Tyrant of Twizzlers, were conspiring a booby trap to humiliate Simon Bun. Completely oblivious, Simon Bun continued ambling along the gumdrop road 3 meters above jello sea level for 54 seconds. At that immediate moment, Simon Bun tumbled and bumbled for about 5 seconds down the slickened marmalade road. He ended up 3 meters below jello-sea level. Needless to say, he was disemboweled by the Tyrant of Twizzler’s evil candy aquatic accomplice, Larry the Cucumber. Sketch a graph of Simon Bun’s ultimate demise, labeling appropriate x and y axes. It would be nice if you could include a sketch of his death. . . prizes will be awarded.
2. Fuffles the Auklet was eating an exceptionally large waffle for breakfast. This waffle was a square made up of smaller squares in a 7×7 table arrangement. Fuffles puts a blueberry on the square in the center of the bottom row. Then he places a blueberry on each square that is directly diagonal from the first square. That is the first cycle. He continues on, doing this for each square that has a blueberry on it. A cycle ends when Fuffles has added blueberries diagonal from all the occupied squares from the previous cycle, ignoring newly placed blueberries. On what cycle with the last possible square have a blueberry placed in it? What is the number of cycles it will take if the waffle is made up of n x n squares? Note. Fuffles knows the answer. He ate the waffle after solving the math problem.

Also, as another bonus homework assignment, I had kids write a secret code, with an answer key and an explanation of how to decipher it. Here’s one that a brilliant seventh grader came up with:

1. Number the letters A-Z 1-26, with A as 1, B as 2, C as 3, and so on, with Z being 26.
2. Change the numbers to binary.
3. Reverse the order of the digits in each number and discard leading zeroes. (Ex. 11010 becomes 1011).
4. Multiply each reverse-order number by the original values for the numbers immediately before and after it. Below Z is A, above A is Z. Example: K’s reversed order value, 13, is multiplied by original values for J (10) and L (12) for two final products of 130 and 156.
5. Now you have 2 values for each number. Order these values from least to greatest. Note that if more than one letter has a certain value, you write that value however many times it appears.
6. Assign new letters to each number, the first number being lowercase and the last one being uppercase Z. The first 26 letters are lowercase a-z, the last 26 letters are uppercase A-Z.
7. Match the new letters to the original letters they share values with. Example: Original letter F has two values, 15 and 21, so it is matched with the new letters to these values, k (15), l (15), and o (21). Some new letters will be shared among original letters.
8. Take the new letters from the coded message and match them with their original letters on the key. Write down the original letters to get the message in plain English. Some letters you will have to guess from the context if they share values with other letters. wLMe rVjJ!

Coded Message: tKqnEyBwX.

Yq gbQn cqjAend CgpE ULVK krbBqC AX STnsqnXT. VErnTX WMS fpB mHLOn CM VX DhbC…

LMmT, ZKLBw EVIcnK. A EhLVthD CgAT YbX brlhp jqBDbVHy.

DECODED Message (highlight text to read) Greetings.

Oops. Wrong number. I thought this was Alpha Centauri.

best year in my life

Sixth grader: Wow, it’s already December. This year is going by really fast.
Me: Yup. Time flies when you’re having fun.
Sixth grader: Then this must be the best year of my life!

AMC 8

Guess what! My students took the AMC 8 this fall, and we did really well! 11 Achievement Awards (top 40% in nation, <= 6th grade, Score >= 12), and 3 Honors (top 5% in nation, Score >= 19). I’m so proud of them! I decided to bake cookies to enjoy while we have a little award ceremony. We’ll find out how we did on a national level in February, so more to come on that.

This weekend was fun. Any weekend where I get to watch tons of Star Trek is always good. Also, we had a staff holiday party on Saturday, which was great. We always have a gift exchange. This year I received a gift card to Panera and some chocolate. Good things come in small packages!

freezing update

I overextended my shoulder while doing yoga this week. It’s kind of sore, but I think it’s getting better. I’d go running outside, but it being a high of 15 degrees after wind chill today, that sounded kind of unwise. Maybe when it gets up to the 30s or 40s again.

Thanksgiving weekend was fun. We had dinner at Kevin’s parents’ house. His mom is an amazing cook. Friday we went on a day hike, and played with milkweed in a prairie. We walked by a frozen lake, and I accidentally threw my glove on it. Saturday we hanged out with Joey and Shan. They seem well.

MathCounts season has started again. That was fast — last I checked, we just came back from state, and then it’s already 8 months later. I’m very excited about this year’s team; they’re a very enthusiastic group and that’s the kind of attitude we need right now.

Speaking of geekiness, I found someone who is as Star Wars obsessed as I! Kevin and I watched Episodes IV and V with some grad students, and a guy knew all the minor characters and the entire script, also! “Here comes the part where E-3PO cusses out C-3PO.” “The Tale of IG-88! Best short story, ever!” It was like coming home.

I’ve been kind of inarticulate lately, probably because I’m feeling scattered. There’s so much I want to do; so many places to be, it’s overwhelming at times. Is this part of life, or is this being young? I’ve been feeling restless, but I don’t know what I want. But I do know that life is good.

I broke a compact florescent light bulb last night. Maybe the mercury is making me crazy, like the Mad Hatter.