Poll: Solution to Back Packs

It’s Thursday night, and I’ve decided that Thursday is question day (largely because my Thursdays when school is in session are so crazy that it’s better to let my readers do some of the work by providing information to other readers.)

So.  Please answer the poll, and then… if you have additional thoughts, please leave a comment.

Personalized Extra Help

I’m a great believer in extra help.  Pity so few kids take advantage of it by coming during office hours.

BUT!

There’s help.  Thanks to Jing, and the class wiki, I can “push” extra help at individual students.  Here’s three videos I made this morning, all for the same student.  They’re not only here; they’re also on the student’s user page on the wiki.  So if they’re checking their own user page regularly, they’ll see the extra help they need to get.

And getting the extra help to the student, in a timely fashion and in a form that they can remember, is probably half the battle.

Vacation

Apologies for not updating over the last few days.  It was exam week, and then I had to write a comment for every student I teach, and turn in grades.  And then I had a doctor’s appointment.

I haven’t spoken much here about my daily yoga practice.  About a year ago, I undertook to do about 15-20 minutes of yoga, stretching and meditation every morning when I first rolled out of bed.  It’s been highly useful to my stress levels, which have gone way down as a result, and given me a lot more mental confidence and focus.

It’s also made me taller.

My doctor came bustling into the examination room, and took out my chart. “I think our medical assistant made a mistake,” she said.  “You’re an inch and a half taller than last time you were here.”

“No mistake,” I said.  “Yoga.” And I explained my routine to her.

“Well, it’s working.  Your blood pressure is 116 over 74.  Do you eat red meat?”

“Not before 6pm,” and I explained about Mark Bittman’s Vegetarian until dinner guideline, which I’ve been trying to follow.

She humphed. “Which means that even if you are eating red meat, you’re eating two-thirds less than most of my patients. I’d like your weight down a lot more, but you’re doing so much else right.  And your blood pressure is great.”

I told her I was worried about getting enough sleep.  She said, “You’ve got vacation coming up, right.  So get some extra sleep.  Take a few days of serious rest.  You deserve it.”

So there you are.  Doctor’s Orders: take a vacation.

So I did.