test

This is a test. Please disregard. I'll delete it shortly.

But, while you're here... did you know? You can call me free from anywhere in the U.S. by clicking on the "call me" button on the right-hand nav. When you click it, it will ask for your phone number. Your phone will ring, and when you pick-up, you'll hear my phone ringing. Free. It's very cool.

And also... if you're still reading this by actually coming to my blog, why? You should get Google Reader. It's a much quicker way to stay current on all your favorite blogs and sites without having to remember a bunch of sites.

Go to http://reader.google.com/ and click on "Add new subscription" and paste in

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TvjamesXBlog

(I'll repeat this as a legitimate post soon complete with photos so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.)

Progress Report

First Semester:

Jamie** has really made an effort to control unnecessary and inappropriate talking, and I am really pleased with the results. He has improved so much in that area since September. He is pleasant and fun to work with most of the time now.

Jamie is exceptionally bright and is a good student; however, lately he has become rather careless in math. He is working neither as fast nor as accurately as he used to. I know Jamie is a strong math student and I would like to see him return to the excellent-quality work that he is capable of producing.

I am having fun with Jamie in class and especially enjoy his "grown-up" sense of humor.

Sincerely, /s/ Jeanne Smith

Second Semester:

Jamie has made strong progress in all areas of his school work this year. *He is now capable of doing excellent printing when he wants to take the time, but usually his papers are not as neat as they could be. However, he is very creative, and would guess that expressing his ideas is just much more important to him than worrying about a tidy product. (And I agree! But I hope that he'll decide to work just a bit more on neatness in 2nd. grade.)

James has been great fun this year! He is a neat child!

Sincerely, J. Smith

* On the reverse, next to "Uses good letter form" she writes "can*"

** As I was known in first grade. Thanks, mom and dad.

What gets me about these are they describe an outgoing (ok, disruptive), engaging child who was able to easily interact with his peers. So what happened? What brought me to this point today where I am socially awkward, really poor at interacting, and almost completely unable to carry on a two-sided conversation with someone?

Since I like me, I'm going to put all the blame on the school. Instead of identifying my difficulties and working on a positive solution to re-channel them, they instead bribed/punished it out of me to the extreme the opposite direction.

Lori suggests that we can probably expect some of the same kinds of notes and conferences coming home -- though the letter from the district sent to my parents in fifth grade outlining steps that I, my parents, and my teachers must make, now that's a little scary and I must ask my parents for more details (there is also a weekly journal from gifted class where I write that gifted class is punishment and then the journal entries abruptly stop). I only hope that if Rachel does take after me, that we are able (maybe by receiving these momentos now and studying them) can prevent her from the same path. Because she is incredibly engaging and active -- and a little bossy. I've encouraged her at every opportunity to interact with people of all ages, pushed her a little perhaps, because I didn't want her to end up like me. Perhaps this is a push she doesn't need.

Progress Report

First semester:

A person needs many words to describe Jamie*: intelligent, talkative, inquisitive, appealing, friendly, talkative, imaginative, determined, talkative and hundreds more. When he has an assignment he doesn't want to do he is the best time waster I have ever seen. On the other hand, he is the best listener in the class. He adds a lot of "life" to our discussions and our classroom in general. I'm glad he is in my room.

/s/ Mark Reiger

Second semester:

Jamie has often resisted doing his math assignments in a prompt, neat, accurate manner. I have no doubt that he understands all the concepts we studied. Jamie has continued to exhibit those positive qualities which make him a unique child. Being his teacher has been an experience.

/s/ Mark Reiger

*As I was known in second grade. I'm told that Mr. Reiger, then in his first year of teaching, described me as a "hoot" to my parents during a parent-teacher conference. I also suspect he never told them that I spent an entire week in a separate classroom (Mr. Reiger had two classrooms, separated by folding walls) -- one day joined by my trouble-maker friends -- because I refused to do a math worksheet. By the time I turned it in, it was full of pencil holes, very crumpled, had shoe prints on it, and if I had had access to matches, would have probably also been burned. Mr. Reiger was a cool guy. It was thinking back to incidents like this which eventually swayed me out of pursuing a career as a teacher.

Worthless

So, Media Conglomerates, which is it... worthless or worth a lot?
Caution: Strong (but mostly bleeped language).

Crayon Physics

Wow... this is pretty cool.



Download the game here.

Still Hate Unions

And still think way too much TV is complete garbage kept on the air by the six Neilsen families who live in Flyover who don't know any better, but am now fully in the writer's camp on this.

Here's a great video. Not the thing that helped me make up my mind, but pretty good for anyone still on the fence, or siding with the big companies. Also, great quote in the recent Entertainment Weekly where an unnamed exec (at GE?) who said GE would be more worried about a light-bulb assembly plant strike.

The Assignment Of A Lifetime

GOLFDIGEST.COM -- When I called Golf World Editor-in-Chief Geoff Russell and told him Betsy King, a Hall-of-Famer and one of the tour's all-time greats, was going to take some LPGA players to Africa his reply was simple. "See if you can go with them," he said. I threw the idea out to Betsy and then waited an agonizingly long five weeks before I found out I would be allowed to accompany them, no doubt while Betsy received the permission needed from World Vision, the Christian relief organization through which Golf Fore Africa donates its money. More...