Average high temperature for the month of September is 94 degrees. Last Tuesday, the high temperature was 103 degrees. Next Tuesday, the high is forecast to be 75 degrees. I got to watch a bit of lightning while I was out shopping today. 'Tis the season.
This last week was the week of meeting random people. On Friday night, I met up with a guy I know from the online poker world. We played 4/8 hold'em at the Venetian for a few hours (made $141 playing less than ideal poker), then chatted for maybe another hour or so. He's a nice guy - a stay at home dad of three young boys taking his first "get out of the house and away from the kids" vacation since the first one was born. It's always fun to meet these people because a lot of them have interesting stories. Apparently, he used to do some sort retail management that kept him on the road a lot with an erratic schedule, and he decided that it was more important to spend time with his kids than make money. (It helps that his wife is a corporate attorney, so that he could actually afford to quit his job.) So we talked about life choices and picking our priorities and that sort of stuff for a while, interspersed with some poker talk.
On Sunday night, two people from San Diego came into town for a conference on human trafficking that I guess was held at Central Christian Church. I didn't have quite as much of a chance to chat with them, but one of them works for a non-profit in San Diego that I guess is like a safe home for victims of trafficking, and the other is looking to start up a non-profit focused on helping churches and organizations network with each other (or something like that).
Insert smooth transition sentence...
Next week is week 7 of the semester, which means we're approaching the semester midpoint. In a sense, the midpoint is closer to the beginning of the semester because of the many days off we have in the second half of the semester (Nevada Day, Veterans Day, and Thanksgiving weekend).
I'm a little concerned for my pre-algebra class. One of them has a lot of younger students who aren't going to make it through the midterm. At least, the evidence up to this point is that they simply do not have the requisite arithmetic ability to survive. (When it takes 10 seconds to answer the question "What is 56 divided by 8?" and still get it wrong, it's not a good sign.) It's really obvious to me who works and who doesn't, there are other students in the class who came in with the same struggles but are now adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing with relative ease. If you don't do the work, you shouldn't expect to get better.
What is unfortunate is that some of these students are going to be squeeze by (as they always do) with a low C. The rest of the class is a lot of symbol pushing, which is something that the schools out here train them to do. So they average an F with a B and happen to come out at just about 70% final grade. And then they will go on to take Math 097 and probably not pass, and then eventually drop out. At least, that's a very common route for students to take.
But hopefully, things will change when we implement the new math program. I have heard from the President that the Board of Regents has been made aware of the pilot, so I guess that means that a lot of eyes are going to be peeking into this thing. I also got a presentation accepted to the national math meetings in January, so I'll give a 20 minute preliminary presentation there. This will be my first presentation at the national meetings. It sounds like a big deal, and I guess it is sort of a big deal, but it's really only going to be a presentation in front of 20-30 people. At this point, there is nothing so hugely exciting that it will bring in people for my 20 minute talk (that's mixed in with something like 6-7 hours' worth of talks on the same topic).
When I was helping to clean out the children's classrooms at church a few weeks ago, we found a copy of the "What Would Jesus Do?" board game.
"This group discussion game challenges you to look at the role of Jesus in your life as you explore over 600 thought-provoking questions. Each question deals with life's everyday dilemmas and provides answers on how you might want to respond to them. Would you take the easy route in these situations or ask the ultimate question - What Would Jesus Do?"
The game is spectacular, in the sense that a car crash can be described by that word. Most notably, the game doesn't actually revolve around what Jesus would do, but rather what the person making the decision would do (or more precisely, what that person claims he would do). In other words, the game is really "What Would You Do?". Then there are also these "Reflection" questions which basically ask you to give a mini-sermon on some topic. And if you get stuck, there is a "Spiritual Guide" to help you (a mini topical concordance).
The game is supposed to work by spurring you to think carefully about real life dilemmas and difficult choices, but it's really hard to take it seriously when it's asking you about your mentally retarded, sexually active daughter who is pregnant (again). There's a copy of this game on eBay for $6, and it's almost worth it just for that card alone. Also, while we were playing, I got a reflection card that asked me to speak about how Jesus' teachings on premarital sex highlight the importance of purity. I wonder what Bible they used when coming up with that question.
I spent some time googling this game, just to see if anyone has written a review or commentary about the game. I couldn't find anything along those lines, but I did find something else: The What Would Jesus Do Family Board Game! Jesus must be spinning in his grave.
Church stuff rolls on. Our small group continues to get bigger, the kids/youth ministries are getting organized and working together for a Fall Festival, and I'm still wearing a t-shirt to church.
