Okay, now who here hasn’t wanted to have someone push them on those carts?
Love this library. Absolutely love it. And the “commercials” lately are just hilarious.
There’s even a news release about this video. How awesome are BYU students!
And you’ll just have to wait to see if I take a victory lap when I turn in my next paper.
The Prime Time Emmy nominations came out last week. I apparently don’t watch good television. I went through the whole list and this was what I’ve seen:
I know The Office was nominated in more categories, but the episode nominated for those two awards is the only one I could honestly say I’ve watched.
It would appear I don’t watch enough cable television or reality shows. But I think I’m okay with that. Only one of the categories I’ve seen something in was one of the “big” ones for the announcements. I’m betting most of these categories won’t make it to the on-air show portion. I’ll just have to remember to check the next day to see if anything I watch actually won.
The rabbit ears on our TV seem to be a little droopy.
After last week’s Random Sampler, and then thoughts about how this blog is called “Random Giggles” and then with some random thoughts going through my head, I’ve decided I should do more Random Samplers. But it can’t happen regularly, because then it wouldn’t be random.
I was recently made aware of PolitiFact. And I think I really like it. It’s making sure that the exaggerations that are so common in politics are called exactly that. I read a LOT of research and it’s gotten me in the habit of always wanting to know the source for claims and then seeing how those claims were actually made (for instance, a study about how bad reusable grocery bags are funded by the plastic bag industry, I’m not going to put much stock in those findings).
I’ve decided that there are far too many Google Doodles that I’m missing. You can look back through all of them from around the world at this link – Google Logos. I’ve also decided that if Google is celebrating the holiday, I can consider adding it to my list of holidays too. I think I need to add the Chinese Lantern Festival to start with.
My mom said she needed a tractor smilie. Do tractors smile? And it needed to be a John Deere tractor. I figured while I was doing that one I could do a few others too. So now there’s a :tractor: and a :cow: and an :owl: . We’ll have to see where they show up. Does anyone else need some smilies?
I think I am taking a little too much pleasure in killing the box elder bugs in our yard. I know everything says they aren’t a pest because they don’t bite and they don’t lay eggs inside and they don’t really do much damage to plants. But considering how many of them there are and how little grass we have, I wouldn’t doubt that they’re making it hard to get new grass growing in the bare holes. So… Die Bugs! Die!! :angry:
It’s a good thing we both like leftovers. I purposefully make too much food when we cook dinner so that there’s enough left over to eat for lunch the next day. Brett goes out for lunch once a week and so the night before we eat a dinner that won’t have leftovers for the next day (generally the left over batter from waffles on Sunday). When we put leftovers away, we keep lunch in mind. So left overs usually get put in lunch sized containers rather than in one big container (so we seem to always be out of the mid-sized containers). I recently found Bento containers online. Wouldn’t they be great to pack leftovers for lunch in and then grab the next morning? And with the multiple containers you could easily get some variety going to.
Since cutting my hair last month, it is now short enough that I can pull it up with my duck beaks from Brasil. Yea! It’s too short for a bun now, but when it was that long, it was too long for the duck beaks. So yes, my hair is still generally all pulled back and up. But it was 102 outside yesterday. Supposed to be 106 tomorrow. And the low gets below 80 if we’re lucky (which isn’t a “low” if you ask me, still too hot to sleep). So my hair gets pulled up. The rains need to start soon. Real soon.
And we’ve been married 8 months today. Aw! How sweet. :love: :heart:
Ours is not to reason why.
Just invert and multiply.
That’s the jingle some teachers use to teach students how divide fractions. The emphasis is on doing it right and no thought or care is given to why or how it works, you simply invert and move on with your life.
As I’ve learned more about how to teach math, I’ve realize just how bad a teaching strategy this is. Sure a student might memorize the tricks a teacher shares long enough to take a test, but they won’t know how to use them correctly, they won’t remember years later how they work. And they’ll leave thinking math is something you just have to memorize and some people just aren’t good at it.
A better way to teach math is to explore how things work, to construct the algorithms rather than simply memorize them, to understand why things work the way they do. When math is taught that way, scores, understanding, and retention over the long term all increase. It just takes a bit longer at the beginning, certainly longer than teaching a two line jingle.
It is our right to reason why when we are learning.
And it is also our right to reason why and ask questions of what we believe.
There are those who suggest that to question what you believe can only lead to unbelief. But if that were so, we would not be told in the scriptures to ask, seek, and knock.
It was while reading those verses in James that Joseph Smith was inspired to ask God for help with the questions he was having. He asked. He set the example. And God answered. It is for us to ask. We should ask the whats. We should ask the hows. We should ask the whys. And we should expect an answer, if we ask in faith. I have learned that answers do not always come easily, speedily, or as I expect them. But the answers have come in my life.
Recently I was in a lesson and the teacher asked, “Why should we be like Christ?” I had never heard the question put quite that way. Generally we hear, “How should we be like Christ?” The teacher moved quickly past that question on to another, but it has stuck with me. How we are like Christ is by following His example of service, charity, love, and obedience. I wish we had discussed the why in the class. But it is now a question I am asking and looking for the answer on my own.
In another lesson it was asked, “Why do men have the priesthood?” Unfortunately that one is often answered, but the answer given does not seem a good one to me. Many say that it is to help men learn to serve others, because they are not naturally kind and serviceable. This degrades not only men, but also the priesthood of God. Christ held the priesthood, and He did not need help to be kind and serviceable. Men are not given the priesthood because they are bad and mean, but because they are already good and kind. And the other common answer also does not seem right to me that men have the priesthood while women give birth. What of women who never give birth? What do they have then? The priesthood is given to mankind to save mankind. Children are born to men and women to be raised by them together. Currently the only answer that has seemed good to me is that it is this way because it is the way God intended. But there is nothing wrong with me trying to understand God’s intentions further.
There are many “Why?” questions in my life. Some have been answered. Some of the answers have been that I will need to wait longer to fully understand. The only danger I see in these questions is in not asking them, in not looking for a deeper understanding that will stay with me past the end of chapter exam. I am trying to take the longer time to construct the meaning in my life that will be retained through the good and the bad.
Ask and ye shall find.
Ours is to reason why.
We’ve had some adventures with our “Map Man” recently. After he tried to take us from Arizona to Utah via California and Nevada (sounds like some airline flights I’ve taken), we started to laugh at him even more. And we have a few suggestions.
We finally figured out that if we told him to take us the fastest route via Panguitch that he actually ended up with the most efficient route. Which is our first suggestion. I can choose between fast (which we think means speed limit rather than time), short, avoiding freeways, walking, bicycle, or limited speed. But I cannot choose efficient. There should be an efficient option.
One thing we do like, he doesn’t announce when he has to re-plan the route because we didn’t follow his suggestion. Last summer we were using a GPS that said “recalculating” a lot. And when we didn’t get on the closed freeway she actually said, “There is a more efficient route.” She sounded really put off by it too. But perhaps with that model we could pick efficiency as one of our options. When we were stuck in LA traffic he kept reassuring us that we were still on the fastest route, despite the fact that we were going 5 miles per hour.
There’s also the possibility of different voices. We chose a male voice for ours, can’t remember exactly why now. And it’s fun to listen to how he says different city and street names. He really gets into the Spanish accent on Los Angeles. And in Salt Lake he liked to say “3-3-0-0- So!”
You can get “celebrity” voices. But wouldn’t it be great if they had the “old lady back seat driver” voice? Instead of saying “recalculating” she’d say, “Well now we’re lost!” in a real exasperated voice. And as you approach a turn she’d say something like, “It’s a left turn ahead. You need to be turning left up here. Can you hear me? Turn left. Left! Left! Left!” Not that I’d leave it on that voice for a while, but it would certainly be good entertainment for at least one trip.
Just in case you are having trouble reading those things called “books” now that we’ve moved on to e-reader things. Books are so old fashioned! (And so am I. I love books.)
The manual in particular cracks me up.
Independence comes in many forms. We gain independence when we learn to walk, when we get a driver’s license, when we earn money, when we learn new skills and information. Gaining independence is a continual process. Independence can also gradually be lost through debt, addiction, and many other small means. This is true of nations just as much as it is of individuals.
As we celebrate the start of our nation’s independence today, I pray we will continue to fight for our independence rather than give it away to the lowest bidder.
And enjoy the fireworks!
I am an educator and PhD. I quilt, belly dance, run, read, and try to grow things. I am a Mormon. I am infertile. I am a daughter, sister, aunt, grand-daughter, friend, wife, and mom.
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