Student answers that make you go "hmmmm"

SS's tales of student answers never fail to make me laugh. Given that the school where I'm teaching is supposedly populated with "high functioning" students selected for their intellectual prowess (or whatever), I was curious as to what types of answers I would see. Here's one from the stats exam I am currently grading:

"I don't have the formula on my notecard, so here's a picture of a mommy elephant and her baby." And yes, there's a picture of a mommy elephant and her baby.

The hubby says I should give this student an A+.

Reunions, Retreats, Conferences and Collaborations

'Tis the time to start thinking about next year (It's not too early, in fact, I may have already screwed up my two best conferences [see below]).

For many many reasons, I want to see more of you more often (I miss having in person friends. I figure the next best thing to having in person friends in town would be to be in the same town as dear friends).

Here are some potential opportunities [with my comments] (and my likelihood of being there).

Groundhog Party Weatherford, OK, early February (I will be there).

GBDK RETREAT (?) Weatherford, OK. Please come bake pies, knit and hang out. If we plan in advance, we could find cheap airfares here from Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City and probably Nebraska, Utah, Ohio and California (not so sure about PA, NY, TN and HI). I would love to have you. February? April?

GBDK Mini-Reunion Late March, Lawrence. (I'll be in Lawrence for the Society of Self Fellowship Meeting {ACK! I'll be President} SalSis might host something if we ask nicely).

Case Study Teaching Workshop May, Buffalo NY [I received an award from my previous institution to go this past May, but didn't as I was moving. Would like to go, don't know if I can get funding or time. There is also a shorter conference in September each year.]

Party Formerly Known as Wallystock North of Lawrence, KS Memorial Day Weekend [I'm in no way in charge, but this party has become a great tradition. K and T often come from Michigan and SalSis goes.] (I intend to be there.)

ABLE Conference New Mexico June {Association of Biology Laboratory Education} [my university is big into sending people to ABLE, which is apparently a small, very friendly conference of biology educators and is very useful. My dept. is sending a van loadful down to New Mexico] (I will probably be in Hawaii instead).

BOTANY 2011 St. Louis July 9-13 {Society for Economic Botany and Botanical Society of America} [Part of me is very excited to have all sorts of plant nerds together at once, part of me is sad that I can't go to my little SEB conference where I actually know people.] (I may be there, I may have just committed to doing high school teacher workshops in Weatherford then).

AP Bio Grading June 9-15 Kansas City [I've always wanted to do this with Beth and Jennifer. The pay is great for a week of intense work.] (I'll probably be in Hawaii and I've never applied).

ESA Austin, TX Aug. 7-12 (I did not like the ESA conference the one time I went, but good friends could change my mind) (We just missed the Ecology and Education summit. Drat.)

Gerber: A contest behind the contest!

So I entered Andrew in the Gerber baby cuteness contest. I did this because a woman here (out of the blue) said her neighbor's kid was a winner and Andrew was 'So cuuute,' and because a Friend in Kansas entered her adorable baby for August and I thought, 'Great! I enter for September and we're not competing against each other.'

I finally read the fine print today.

We're not competing for the MONTHLY prize (a HD video camera that WOULD be sweet to have!), but we ARE competing for the grand prize of a $25,000 college scholarship that would be stupendous to have and also a slot in a TV ad (of questionable value, though doubtless an interesting experience). Sorry Friend in Kansas.

The contest didn't really add up from the get-go, though. Whoever can rally the most votes from friends and family wins the prize. I never understood how this guaranteed Gerber the cutest little star for their ad. Nevertheless, I voted daily for the adorable baby of Friend in Kansas, hoping to win them a scholarship.

After reading the fine print, I feel scammed. Turns out my votes had nothing to do with the scholarship. Voting by friends and family only goes toward the (admittedly SWEET) monthly prize of a HD DVD camera. Buried in the fine print is a little bit about how a panel of Gerber personnel select the grand prize winner. I would be totally psyched if the winner were either my cute one or Friend in Kansas's adorable baby. With almost 15,000 submissions (and counting), though, I hardly feel like we're directly competing (even though our 2 are the cutest, of course!).

Anyway, if you're motivated to vote for us to receive the SWEET HD video camera, you can vote at: http://www.gerber.com/photo/#/login/
You will need to register once. Each time you vote, they email you a link to click on to complete the vote. You can vote once per day for a given email address and for a given computer.

(Those of you on FB know how much I would LOVE a better video camera!!)

CHICAGO

A four day weekend to visit Beth in Chicago in the middle of the semester seemed like a good idea back in August. Now that I am here it still seems like a good idea :), though it is a bit stressful with school work.

Anyway - will post pictures, if Beth can find the camera.

Cheers
Jennifer

I made a student cry today

She was up at the board and I was having her draw out one of the graphs for exponential population growth rates (dN/dt vs N)… she had the picture right, but didn’t label the axes and couldn’t explain it correctly. I kept pushing her (and giving her BIG hints) until I noticed the tears welling up in her eyes…I think she was scared to be in front of the class and didn’t really know what was going on.

Has this ever happened to you? What did you if so?

A kick upside the head . . . and chest, and back and lots of other places

I tried to stop feeding Dianthus breastmilk as of Friday night (after a rough start last year, breastfeeding has gone very well. Since July we've been doing it just at night and first thing in the morning.)
Saturday was awful. Super-painful engorged boobs. Achey back. And crying constantly. Not because of anything in particular, but because well, because I felt like crying. I had heard of there being hormonal weirdness with weaning, but I was completely unprepared for the equivalent of the worst PMS ever to happen instantaneously.
Sunday I learned that maybe it wasn't just the weaning.
It turns out that things other than not breastfeeding cause PMS-like symptoms.
Oh, obvious solutions. How often we overlook you.

Stressed.

Sorry for the lack of postings. My life is rather busy at the moment. Two new preps including ecology and application for tenure in 13 days (not that I'm counting).

So to help my procrastination while editing, compiling and making things look pretty, I'd like a better plan than Facebook. I seem to need to check that way too much these days.

Can I get some stress relief ideas and/or productivity enhancement ideas?