I graded memory quizzes recently and was amused at the misspellings of the sixth graders. I’m still struggling to know how much I can expect from them. They clearly aren’t seventh graders, but I want to hold them to some kind of standard. I’ve been teaching seventh and eighth grade for thirteen years now. Maybe in another thirteen years I’ll have sixth grade figured out.
Anyway, our latest memory quiz included a blank space that was to be filled with the word “Jesus”. Here’s what two of them wrote:
Hehe… I think in both cases, their brains were going faster than their hands. It was a nice grin in the middle of a grim time – a time of grading.
I had my birthday physical at the doctors office yesterday. I was so excited. Would there be many tests? Would I have something bizarre wrong with me? No and no. I was a little disappointed. But that’s okay. The end of the school year is so busy, it might have been hard to schedule a whole battery of tests.
One thing I wanted to ask about was getting another echocardiogram to check for HCM. My last one was in 2002 or 2003. If I do another one now, I’ll get set on the ten-year plan, and do another when I’m 50. He wrote me a referral.
Another thing I wanted to ask about was my back. Over time, the pain sensations have been changing, and I’ve been wondering what that means. The doctor gave me a referral for an MRI and a visit to a back person. He said she could give me some long-range expectations. I also asked about how to get reliable information regarding exercise for back pain people. He didn’t have any specific suggestions.
The doctor was particularly interested that my sinus cavity was swollen. He asked if it has been bothering me. No. He asked if I wanted to do anything about it. No. Since I made an off-handed remark about falling asleep during the day, he wondered if I was having sleep apnea and gave me prescriptions for allergy medicines and asked me many questions about my nose and throat and sleep. He stopped short of having me do a sleep study, but he did send me for an x-ray of my head and chest.
Things I learned about myself yesterday: I’ve gained eight pounds since last summer. My lungs hold five liters of air.
We’ve been watching a video series at church as part of our Bible study class. It’s a series about the development of the Christian church service. In the video, the presenter is Arthur Just, a professor from Concordia Seminary in Fort Wayne. I’ve enjoyed the content a lot. But I noticed the most astounding thing a few weeks ago: On this recorded lecture, where he is standing in front of a church and talking for hours about church history, he never says: “Um”. When I first noticed, I thought I must be wrong, so I started watching for it. Nope.
So I decided I’d try it. Can I drop the word “Um” from my vocabulary? I’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks now. It’s going pretty well. It means there are moments of silence during my lectures or explanations in the classroom, but I don’t think they are any more distracting than um’s would be.
Then I noticed I was doing something else: I frequently start sentences with “Okay!” I say: “Okay! Turn to page fifty-two.” or “Okay! Everybody sit down.” or “Okay! Let’s stop dragging Tyler across the floor.” So I want to get rid of “Okay” as an exclamation. It’s harder, but I’m making progress. Telling my students that I’m trying to stop has helped.
How fun it is to mess with vocabulary and speech patterns! Maybe some day soon I will be “um free” and “okay restrained”. If I ever get there, I wonder what to try next. An accent? Adding made-up words?
I’m not usually much on opening the Bible at random and saying that whatever you read is God’s special message to you that day. My Bible reading is usually more methodical or more intentional. For Lent, I’ve decided that I will read one Psalm per night. I read the psalm, then read the Study Bible notes, then read the psalm again. I’ve been really sleepy some nights, but I haven’t missed a night. Last night was Psalm 39.
Yesterday I did my taxes. I hate doing taxes. For reasons I won’t explain here, I’m in the “self-employed” category, and must take out my own taxes. Because I don’t pay quarterly like I’m supposed to, I always owe thousands. I wish every person in America did taxes this way. No one would ever say again that “…the government does so much good” or “…it could be worse” or “…look at all the money I got from the government on my tax return” It’s your money, people!
Sorry for the rant. But I had to record how I was feeling last night when I read Psalm 39. And then I got to verse six.
In the end, money doesn’t really matter. Thanks for the reminder, God. But I’m still not going to vote for people who want to take more of my money. I think the Church is a lot better at helping people with it than the government is.
I got an Orange Jasmine (Murraya paniculata) in October. It’s been sitting in my classroom window all winter, and I’ve been lovingly admiring its shiny leaves. I didn’t buy it for its leaves though. The catalog said its flowers smell like orange blossoms and that it’s an everbloomer. How could I NOT buy a plant with that description?
It’s been growing all winter, but lately it’s been putting out new leaves at a faster rate. And I just noticed this:
It’s got FLOWER BUDS! Woo hoo! I can hardly wait for them to open. It’ll probably be several weeks at least. Flower buds always seem to take a longer time to open that I expect. When these flowers do open, I’ll be smelling them like a crazy person! Mmm… orange blossom smell… I can’t imagine a better smelling flower. Unless there was something called a Bacon Flower. That would be awesome.
