Saturday, June 23, 2007

Saturday Afternoon

This afternoon I --

- virtually brought my daughter to tears with a brief discussion of variables in algebra, meaning ignoring her protests that she doesn't have to take the SATs for two years (true, but she could next year, and wouldn't that be a good thing?)

- bought a new bike. Trial rode it in the store parking lot. Getting off, I fell off. Scraped the hell out of my left knee.

--baked Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies.

--shaved off most of my beard.

--took the bike out for a spin after dinner. Almost tripped getting off. Personal note: in future, always get off right next to something I can lean on.

--read part of the first chapter of Warped Passages, and the first chapter of The Audacity of Hope.


I think I'll relax now.

2 comments:

Angie said...

I would also encourage your daughter to take the SAT next year, although she should take the PSAT as well. The PSAT will provide adequate preparation for the SAT, but its primary benefit is to start receiving promotional information (junk mail) from colleges and qualifying for the National Merit scholarship program when taken as a junior.

I have to admit that I was disappointed in the approximately 1100 I got when I took the SAT in eighth grade--despite my mother's repeated reassurances that my scores would increase when I actually took high school classes--but by the time I took the SAT as a high school junior/senior I had almost no nerves about it and attribute much of my success on that test to the fact that I wasn't nervous. :)

Cerulean Bill said...

I was pretty surprised when she was freaked -- what got her going was a sample question like this: if the symbol $ means 3X/4Y, then what does 12 $ 7 mean, where 12 is x and 7 is y? To me, that was pretty obvious, but she insisted, virtually with tears in her eyes, that she had NO idea how to do it. Well, I said, 3X means -- and she said I KNOW that...so I said 3X means 3 times 12, or 36...and she said I KNOW THAT! Then I said well, 3X over 4Y means...and she said I KNOW that... so I said, well, I guess I don't see the problem, and she said I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT!!!

She doesn't know it, but we're going to spend about twenty minutes this weekend, doing these....