Dorkin' Out Over Here

About a month ago, I showed up a few minutes early to collect Thing One from a school soccer practice and met the school's 7th and 8th grade science teacher, who also has a child on the team.  I mentioned that I thought his curriculum was great (I reviewed it last fall in my school board capacity) and we got to chatting about the subject material he covers. When he found out that my professional background is in cancer research his eyes lit up, since his eighth graders do a cancer unit: before I knew it I had agreed to come in and teach a class for all three sections of his eighth graders.

Their cancer unit is pretty basic: what is the disease, what causes it, how the standard treatments (surgery, chemo, radiation) work.  I borrowed a textbook so I could get a sense of what they will know by the time I get in there and at what level of detail.  The really awesome thing is that I get to take the next step from their book, and explain how all the newer targeted anticancer therapies work: the vaccines, the biologicals, the gene therapy, etc.  I only have a 43-minute class period for each section and I have NO idea how to condense even a superficial view of the massive coolness that is this subject area into that limited amount of time at an 8th grade level, but my goal is to figure it out this weekend.

Love this stuff.  Science is just so damned fascinating...I was lucky enough to have biology teachers in my freshman and junior years of high school who lit a fire under me, and I'll be ridiculously happy if I can do that for even one kid myself.  Call it karmic payback!

  

Whiplash

Thing Two has always been my wild-card child, the one with definite opinions as to How The World Should Be that don't necessarily conform to convention, shall we say.  As an example of this, for the past year he has adamantly and categorically forbidden me to accompany his school classes on any field trips.  Stings a little, but at least the other two still want me along, and some battles just aren't worth fighting. I suspect he feels that if I come along it would be to 'help' him in some capacity, and he's a proud child who's had it up to his ears with help.  I can respect that. So it came as a bit of a shock to me last week when he broke down in tears on the morning of a class trip because I was NOT going to be accompanying them.  Go figure.

Yesterday, he came home with the permission form for yet another trip.  He took it out of his backpack, handed it to me and told me that he wanted me to be sure to come along this time. I have no idea whatsoever what caused his thinking on this subject to change so dramatically, but I'll take it: Things For Which I Am Grateful, #2.

And For The Low, Low Price Of Only $50...

You could have bought this outfit for Halloween.  It's called the Delicious Women's Phd Darling Sexy Costume.

Apparently "Delicious" is the name of the company that makes it and not an attribute of the costume, although you could be forgiven the assumption...looks like it might be stocked next to the edible underwear at Frederick's!  Bet I'd have earned my Ph.D. a lot quicker if I had one of those, but at least I know how to capitalize and punctuate the abbreviation...some small consolation.  ☺️

If you want a few minutes of entertaining reading, click through to the link above...some of the reviews are really funny.  I'm too tired tonight to go off on a rant about the objectification of women in Halloween costumes in general and this one in particular, so I'm choosing to be amused instead...please take the rant as stipulated!

It's Official...

Three more years. The votes are in, and I have been reelected to our school board.  The results weren't close, for which I am both humbled and grateful.  Taking that as a vote of confidence going into term #2!  Never saw myself as the politico type (quite the reverse, actually), so it's odd to see my name on the same ballot as senatorial candidates' names and be vying for an elected office.  There's no personal power or glory in being on a school board but the opportunity to make a difference for the kids is front and center every day, and I'll proudly take my oath again come January.

Things For Which I Am Grateful #1

Thought about doing the NaBloPoMo thing again this year but decided against it.  Don't feel like having to write something every day just for the sake of writing every day.  That said, it is November, the month in which we traditionally give thanks for the people and things in our lives that make us happy, and since I can be a cantankerous, crabby old buzzard, I figure it can't hurt me to focus on my blessings for a month or so.

Without further ado, I give you blessing #1: Thing One, my sweet, beloved space cadet of a son, has finally pulled his socks up and taken responsibility for his own schoolwork this year.  His grades (test, quiz, homework, the whole shebang) are all available online through the school's parent network now that he's in middle school.  Once I realized that, very early in the year, I called him over to my iPad, showed him what I can see and asked him to please not make me micromanage him.  His grades are good, his teachers are happy, he's bringing the right stuff to and from school, and I have absolutely nothing to do with any of that...I'm so far from helicoptering him that I'm not even at the same airport!  With two younger ones who still need lots of help and attention, having the eldest well on the road to self-sufficiency is a big deal indeed.

Holy Crap On A Cracker

Thing Two SCORED A GOAL today.  He hasn't scored in a game since he left his Rec soccer team for the travel team last December, y'all.  This is huge.

Left to the head coach's devices, the kid would play goalie for the whole game, every game.  Given that this coach is himself a goalie, this could be construed as a compliment, and it probably is.  Kid is pretty good and he gets better with every week's training.  That said, as parents we aren't thrilled with the idea of a nine year-old getting compartmentalized so early, so we've asked the coach to play him in other positions as well, which unfortunately in practice means that he plays a half in goal and then another quarter on defense...tough positions from which to score.  God love the child, but defense is not his strong suit...even his nonprofessional Rec coaches alternated him between goalie and forward.  I have no idea why the current trainer/coach thinks he should be a defender but neither of the assistant coaches see it either...they sneak him in at forward for a few minutes whenever the head guy misses a game!

Anyway, today he had a good first half in goal and it was tied 0-0 at halftime.  By the time the fourth quarter was winding down, they'd scored twice on our backup goalie and we'd scored once.  I looked up from my watch and Thing Two was coming back into the game as a forward...I noted in disbelief that the head coach was still there.  Then I watched with my mouth open as Thing Two took a pass from a teammate, dribbled it coolly and methodically a third of the way down the field and then jammed it into the net for the tying goal!

The end-of-game whistle blew within 30 seconds of that shot, no joke.  Kid walked off that field with a smile as big as I've ever seen plastered across his mug and if I could have cartwheeled with joy, I would have.

Best Kind Of Day

45 degrees and raining sideways.  Yeah, really!

All our activities for today were cancelled.  At 5PM, I took my shower for the day, changing from one set of pajamas into another set of pajamas.  Fire in the fireplace, chicken and dumplings for dinner.  Love it!  Now settling down on the big sofa to watch the ND-Navy game in peace and quiet.