Student Life Update (The Backlog!)

Shane talks about not fitting in places. Some of it is perception (he's thin-skinned). Some is social skills (lecturing instead of listening, not learning names). Some is Shane just belongs to a different crowd (there were lots of hunters and baseball fans at Scottsville Elementary). 

But I think Shane's starting to feel like he fits in more with the youth group. He still can't tell me lots of names, but it's clear most people know his name!

I try to grill Shane on what happened when he hops in the car. He's told me he enjoyed playing "Body, body!" or that there was a kid who'd pushed him in school that showed up in group and looked embarrassed about it, etc. 

It's been a positive experience. 

There were two events this week: The normal Wednesday, and a "bonfire" Friday that moved inside due to rain.

Shane was playing Mario Kart when I came in to check on him. He's terrible, but he had a good attitude (very important for making other people enjoy playing with you!). If Mario Kart ever went on sale, I might pick it up for him to practice at home! My sibs and I all enjoyed Mario Kart.

When it was time to go, Shane hopped into a Twister game. After it was deadlocked between Shane and a girl for so long, I declared a tie. It was time to go!

I plan to make Shane stick with StudentLife all year, so he can be a veteran next year. I might double-dip and have him try the Youth Group at First Street Baptist, as well, but I'm mildly concerned he'd make comparisons out-loud and constantly! I'm hoping he'll get better at screening his opinions before voicing them as he matures, ha!

The Pet Update (The Backlog!)

 Loki likes to use the barn as "base" to get away from Kila. She normally refuses to go in at all!

But that could be changing.

She's bigger than the cats now.

Max is the smallest of our cats, but she's frequently available as a reference point.

Happy still weighs more than her (Happy loves to eat..).

Happy is the second most likely cat to interact with Kila after Max. 

They get along great. I've seen Happy attempt to groom Kila, but the pup is normally too full of energy to allow it.

Kila's gaining on Loki.

Some angles make them look closer in size than the really are. She's still under half his weight.

Which is probably a good thing since she puts her weight on him all the time!

Kila has progressed to where she will drink from the communal water bowl. I never expected that to be a problem. She's a chicken about anything new. She refused to enter or exit the house through the laundry and garage area (She's sure something in there is going to eat her!).

As a guard animal, she's a total failure. She rarely barks and if anything frightens her like a loud noise, she books it for the front porch. Since she won't go in the barn with me for chores, I frequently collect her from there when I'm done. It freaked me out the first time she disappeared.

Running is Kila's strength. She overflows with energy! She might be faster than Loki already. 

I've taken her out with Loki to run the fence. I was more afraid of young Loki running under the fence than her. She runs off when a car honks and the grass is high. 

Obviously, I still watch. While Kila's not good about coming when called, she is good at stopping when I correct her. If I can't get her to come to me, I plan to at least make poking her head under the fence something memorable enough she doesn't want to do it again!

The cars terrified Kila at first, but she wants to run and be near Loki.

My hope was that she would learn the activity and the appropriate boundaries from him. It seems to have worked.

While Kila isn't great about coming when I call, I can call Loki. He'll run up to me and she'll chase after in his wake!

Kila's loves to rough up Loki, but it's playful not aggressive. She's gentle (if not afraid) of all the other animals (Though she loves to lick their butts and eat their poop....).

Loki likes her most of the time. Sometimes, though, after she's taken his fetch toy or done something else he just looks at me like "Why?"

Somehow, I ended up being available to take her to her second set of shots.

She cowered in my lap the whole time.

The flea comb was traumatizing!

But aside from the nightmares, Kila made it out with a clean bill of health. She's up to date on all her shots!

Ki-pee has been a great addition to the family. Getting a dog was Carrie's bribe for me to accept a farm. Now we have two. Kila's been a great addition to the family and we love her just as much as we love Loki!

Some Oldies, but Goodies (The Backlog!)

Over the past several months, I've introduced Shane to some older anime. It started with Dragon Ball Z.

DBZ was huge in the 90s. It's still popular worldwide and influenced tons of series that followed it. Is it deep? No. Unpredictable? Uh-uh. But is it fun? Yes. As time goes on, I feel like the series tries to stretch things out too long and there's not much new, but in the beginning it's just plain fun. A great starter shonen. Goku is in meme and referenced all over the place, so I thought it would be fun to watch the first arc with Shane. If he's interested, we could watch the Frieza saga, too, but I'd be happy to pop in and out of the room every 3 or 4 episodes on that one!

I enjoyed Flame of Recca in high school. It was always called a Yu Yu Hakusho clone, and I remembered a couple of things in the beginning where I thought Yu Yu Hakusho would be more kid friendly. It was, but there were still a couple of early jokes that didn't translate well (Easily covered by a cough...oops).

Shane watched for a while, but didn't get to the tournament arc it's famous for. Maybe he'll go back to it eventually, but I was happy to introduce him to something new.

Trigun is one of my favorite animes of all time. It's atypical in that it's a space western written by a Japanese Catholic and was more popular outside of Japan than in. It starts goofy, but the ending is extremely serious. 

I'd intended to just watch the beginning with Shane, but we got most of the way through before I said, "We'll call it here." There's a major death near the end that's crucial to the story and I don't think Shane's mature enough to appreciate why it happens. 

There is a remake happening next year, but I'm not sure if I should be hopeful or not. The original didn't have the best animation or music, but the story and characters carried it for me. The remake is leaving out one I really liked.

The anime that Shane asked about is Naruto. It's on Netflix and he'd heard about it at school. It's one of the most popular (and longest running) series out there.

Shane liked it enough he went through several seasons. We have access to more, but he seems to have had his fill.

I found it meh. It was easy to wander off and do other things while Shane had it on in the background. I read some of the manga as a teen and moved on. There are some cool characters and great moments, but the abilities don't always combine in ways that I think make much sense. It felt like the kind of show that if you watched it when you were younger and it was your first shonen style anime it would blow your mind. Then nostalgia would power it to stay on your all-time favorites list. Shows like Flame of Recca already claimed the nostalgia bit for me, so Naruto didn't stick (Though I will give a shout-out for the Rock vs Gaara fight!).

Speaking of nostalgia, Shane was trying to explain a game to me he played on Robolox. It sounded like a bad implementation of Worms or Tanks. Worms was $2.24 on Steam, so I impulse bought it and showed it to him!

Ironically, there's a 'kamikaze' attack in Worms and the night I showed the game to Shane was the day he got in trouble for saying it. I'd thought the game taught it to him, but I bought it afterwards (Still odd timing!).

Post Down! (The Backlog!)

I was out with the dogs when a package arrived. I signed for it and watched as the delivery van drove straight into our gate's control post.

Whoops. 

The driver was lucky I was the one outside instead of Carrie. She would have flipped! I got his information, called the supervisor, and he said he'd talk to their insurance about getting it replaced. 

Naturally, this happened right before their claims department would be closing for the day, so Carrie was upset that people wouldn't be able to come and go from our farm, etc. 

I moved the sprayer by the post to make sure no one drove over it. I keyed in the code and the gate opened fine, so none of the electronics were hurt. It was just going to be a little annoyance until it was fixed (assuming it was...).

Carrie recommended Jesse to the DHL supervisor as someone who could replace the post. He came over the weekend and sank in a new one without fuss.

BONUS: Carrie "fixed" the gate to help it swing easier. It would sometimes bounce and catch on the ground, but not more!

Crop Duster Day (The Backlog!)

 Twice a year, we get buzzed.

Watching for it becomes a game. It was Kila's first crop dusting and she was terrified.

Not so the rest of us.

Shane tries to be noticed while Carrie and I try to get the best pictures we can.

Loki treats the plane as he would any big bird.

Carrie was mad when we first moved in, because it took her completely by surprise and she'd thought it would scare the horses. 

Now that we've seen the horses don't care, it's just another thing about living on a farm!

I uploaded a short video of one of the many flyovers. The spectacle goes on far longer than our attention spans.

Soccer, but with Carrie in tow! (The Backlog!)

 Another week, another game. 

But this time, Carrie came along!

We sat in the car to watch the game and talk. Shane played well and was thrilled Carrie was there to see it.

Afterward, we went to the library to return books.

We ended up staying a while, because Shane got social with some little kids who were there!

We headed to Lumpkins for lunch afterward. It was a family focused morning out!

There was family bonding later in the barn, too, but Shane got in trouble there! He'd coated himself and the dogs in gravel dust while building "tripping hazards for horses!"

You can tell from our attire, the weather is still nice. The trees are all still green, but we're officially in Fall now. Cooler weather is on the horizon.

Marvel Champions

Fantasy Flight announced a contest to make a custom Marvel Champions campaign. Five winners would be selected and earn a copy of Mutant Genesis, the new expansion that included X-Men for the first time!

I was excited. 

1) I enjoy Marvel Champions (when I can get someone to play it with me).

2) I enjoyed the X-Men way more than the Avengers growing up. 

3) I like making things.

There was a strict rule about only one entry allowed per email, or I may have made multiple entries. I asked Carrie if I could use hers, but later decided to stick to the spirit of the rule...mostly because of time! It's not quick to make something!

I had a couple ideas, but I went with the one that seemed the easiest to write up (because time!). I mailed in my Google links and waited impatiently.

Rules:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mX6bFEVgntM3x6__8pio-5f4WEY2AvxAW3RaVMUPyqE/edit?usp=sharing

Campaign Log:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15ypvSa2RADI3PHDZLyt3wNT-8gMlOi_bdRRRJC1ptEo/edit?usp=sharing

I spent the next couple of weeks reading up on the new X-Men expansion and checking my email. I want more stuff for the game, but I keep myself in check by refusing to buy new things until I use what I've already bought. Earning something through a contest was a loophole in that plan, and I was doing math to see how much it would cost to buy the Cyclops, Wolverine, and Storm packs to go along with Mutant Genesis if I won...

Honestly, I got carried away. I knew the chances were slim, but I wanted to win. What if there weren't a lot of entries? Growing up, the twins would enter contests saying, "Someone's got to win! Maybe it'll be us!" Could that be me?

Not that I heard anything. A couple of weeks later I got an polite email saying, "We can't do Google docs. It's PDF's or nothing."

I quickly reformatted my entry and sent it back in.

And waited some more. 

The reveal for the winners was on a live stream. I knew the date, but not the time. 

Which was good, because I didn't win. I hadn't gotten an email (even after checking the Spam folder!), so I was pretty sure that was the case. I did want to click through the stream to see what kind of campaigns one. 

Whereas I'd made my campaign quickly and focused on a mechanic, multiple winners had apparently scanned parts of comic books and gone deep on the fluff and story part alongside their rules. What I made was fine, but based on who FFG selected as winners I don't think I was ever in the running!

But it was fun. I enjoyed making the campaign. I enjoyed wondering if I might've won and if FFG runs another contest I may enter again just because.

School Stuff (The Backlog!)

 As a math teacher, the calories per bar on this box annoys me.

This year, I'm teaching three sections of Geometry and three sections of Computer Science.

For Geometry, two of my sections are Honors (21 and 23 kids) and the last one is 'Advanced' (13 kids). I don't have a co-teacher which is sad (I like to be social), but the kids are less 'needy' (which necessitate a co-teacher!).

For Computer Science, I teach two sections of CS 101 (20 and 24 kids). We're still using CS Academy, so the beginning of the course has been almost entirely on it. I tweaked the pacing from last year to expect more at the beginning of the year. I was too lenient last year in the beginning and expected too little. We only made it to Unit 7 last year and most kids didn't finish the Unit. This year, I pushed the early progress faster. As of Winter Break, a little under half of the kids have finished Unit 4. There's still three weeks after break (assuming no snow), so I hope more students will hit that milestone. 

I did more with warm-ups last year, and I started with them this year. However, I quickly fell behind on grading the paper quizzes and by 2nd Quarter I gave up and focused on the coding. We tried the test for Unit 1, too, but I haven't done it for any other units. The kids are way too spread out. There's a large cadre that's charging ahead and then some holdouts who won't do anything without me forcing them along. Some of those kids struggle with reading and typing which make coding difficult, to say the least. 

I have one student who I work with exclusively in Spanish. A month or so in, I figured out there was a Spanish version of the course I transferred him over to. The computer doesn't care about human language. It translates it all into numbers anyway! There are some funny words that are close like "border" and "borde" where I'm sure an English speaking kid or two have typo'd and coded in Spanish by mistake, ha!

My final section is Computer Science 2 (15 kids). Scott taught it last year, and was scheduled to do it again this year until Lisa B accepted a job at Albemarle as an Athletic Director. Lisa had been going to pick up some Calculus blocks from Scott. Instead, he got more Calculus and they gave me his Computer Science 2. 

There wasn't a curriculum. Scott said he used CS Academy last year, but he didn't feel like it scaled well (and his kids were coming off  CS 1 from the Virtual School year. Most weren't the strongest with the material). 

So I've had to make it all up as I go. The kids are mostly enthusiastic, so it's been a totally different feel than many classes! I can let them talk and goof off more, but sometimes they come up with questions that challenge me! 

That said, there are variable familiarity levels. I had most of the kids last year, but several took CS1 a couple years ago. Two never got halfway through the Unit 1 material and another transferred from a different high school. 

Therefore, the 1st Quarter has been a crash course through all of CS 1. We've done a rough coverage of everything from all 11 units for CS 1. I wanted to encourage kids to take the initiative in their own thinking so we programmed a few games from one of Scott's math game books.

I thought it was fun, but there are definitely parts that seem easy until you try to code them! Reading original student code for bigger programs is more akin to reading essays than short math word problems. It's a different skill set that I'm still improving at.

2nd Q we'll break into CS 2 on CS Academy. I'm hoping to do something involving mobile phone programming 3rd Q (probably Android), and then using 4th Q to make cool (and hopefully useful) stuff. I don't know how much theory we'll hit, but I hope to at least improve everyone's coding skills. I don't know if there's going to be an AP CS next year or even what the curriculum would be for it if there was. Since I don't have a Master's Degree in CS, I wouldn't be allowed to teach it.

Overall, my schedule this year is way better than last year's. I have planning blocks 4A and 3B. I love having 4th block off. I'd rather show up and hit the ground running than have 1st block off. Kids feel the squirrel-iest at the end of the day, and with wrestling it helps to have a break before practice. 

Plus, there's a homeroom period at the start of the day. Since all of my homeroom kids are seniors, only a couple show up each morning. It's like having a 1st block off! I'll probably be given a group of freshman next year to cycle through with, so I plan to enjoy it while I can!

And that's the big school update. Things are going well enough. There are work completion and student management issues, but they're par for the course with a public high school.