We got Christian a sports jacket, some shirts, and a couple of suits for his PhD interviews. He is picking them up from the tailor this morning.
Year: 2014 Page 10 of 13
Day 913 of 1000
Kelly and Christian have each received verbal commitments for funded PhD’s from top-tier universities–actually Christian has the received formal acceptance at one of the schools. They each applied at six schools and each of them have also been rejected by two schools. The website at Kelly’s current top opportunity says 15 candidates are accepted out of a pool of about 500 who apply. Christian was one of 15 out of a pool of 303 applicants who was invited to a recruiting event. He has been offered plane tickets to fly out to two schools so far. It took a little bit of finagling, but he is going to visit both schools.
The funny deal is the kids had personal and/or email contact with professors at most of the schools before they applied, but none for their current top choices. In both cases, a specific professor identified something he liked about their applications and made direct contact. I think that is probably the big key to this whole thing: to have something specific you want to do backed up with experience, classes, and skills that allows you to hit the ground running. There are still visits and communications and a bunch of other things to do before either Kelly or Christian will be ready to commit, but at least now they have a choice.
Betty Blonde #76 – 10/30/2008
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Day 912 of 1000
I am writing this post for fellow Math aficionado, Math educator, and Sonlight blogger, Luke Holzmann. I am not sure if he has seen it yet, but Kelly found a great article on math and math learning titled How I Faced My Fears and Learned to be Good at Math by a guy named Matt Waite. It makes many of us sad when we hear people say they hate math. The article is by and about one of those guys. The difference is that he had an epiphany as a professor of Journalism in his mid-thirties and started over with Intermediate Algebra. He is now in the middle of his first Calculus class. Here is his epiphany:
The only advantage I have over my classmates? I know exactly how to fail at math: Don’t put any effort in. Blow it off. Do something else. A glass of wine and a rerun of Big Bang Theory kicks the crap out of applications of extrema using derivatives, even if you hate wine and loathe Big Bang Theory.
But that’s the lesson I’ve learned: The difference between good at math and bad at math is hard work. It’s trying. It’s trying hard. It’s trying harder than you’ve ever tried before. That’s it.
It is all true. There is a price to pay if you want to learn math, but it is worth it. You can feel the joy of his accomplishment in the article. If you are a math hater please read the article.
Other posts about our math experience:
- Why we switched from Singapore Math to Teaching Textbooks
- Precalculus: Teaching Textbooks or Thinkwell?
- Our Homeschool Story: What Kind of Homeschool Did We Want to Be? (5.5) Math
- Math Help: What to do when Thinkwell and Teaching Textbooks explanations are not enough
Betty Blonde #75 – 10/29/2008
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I bought access to the internet on the flight from Charlotte to Phoenix today. This is a novelty for me. It is actually not too bad. I needed to download some files so I could work on the airplane. It is, of course, way to expensive, but every now and then it will almost certainly be worth it.
Day 911 of 1000
Living in Raleigh and working in Prescott is not an easy proposition. I have been doing it for over a year now and am not excited about leaving the family behind and getting on an airplane this afternoon to head back to work. Living out of a suitcase and eating out all the time is not so good for the health either. It takes a lot of discipline to eat right and exercise on the road, especially when there are work deadlines to hit. We are getting closer to hitting the first product delivery, but it feels like it is always just three months away. Of course this is all normal so I should not complain. I have been through it before.
Betty Blonde #74 – 10/28/2008
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Day 910 of 1000
President’s Day is celebrated in the United States today. We have the day off from my work. In typical start-up fashion, the technical staff and most of the management plans to work today, me included. We are closing in on our first product, but it requires a ton of minute details to be wrestled to completion. So that is what I am doing today. It is not a holiday for the kids at NCSU. Maybe Lorena and I will run down to KFC for some grilled chicken at lunch to celebrate.
Betty Blonde #73 – 10/27/2008
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Day 909 of 1000
The last several weeks have tried our patience. The early graduate school communications have started. There is both joy and disappointment. There are emails, phone calls, and letters flowing between the kids and potential professors, those professors’ graduate students, and school administrators. We have seen the great importance of talking to current and past graduate students. Both kids have great opportunities–not just pretty good, but great.
It is interesting that their graduate school opportunities are NOT what they might have expected when they started the process. Everyone told them that the school they attend is important, but not even remotely as important as the professor they get. That has been true in spades. It looks like both kids will have choices to make both in the location and content of their graduate degree.
The decisions will almost certainly be made well before the end of April. I am dying to say something about it all, but even though hard offers have been extended, we are still in the middle of the process. …tribulation worketh patience
Betty Blonde #72 – 10/24/2008
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In my normal read through the Bible, I just happened to be on I Corinthians 13 the day after Valentine’s Day. It talks about charity or love and is some of the most profound prose ever written or translated into the English language. It is nice to be reminded that there are different kinds of love. The love in this chapter is not romantic love. The Greek word agápe is translated to the English word “charity” in the King James Version of the Bible and refers to the unconditional love of God. It is good for me to be reminded of this frequently. There is nothing more important.
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Day 908 of 1000
Who knew homeschool would lead to something like this? My Dad bought me two brand new suits when I was about 30. I needed them when I moved from an engineering function to a sales function in my first “real” job that was something that more than just a way to earn money to get by. Neither he nor I could afford it at the time, but he did it anyway. Now, I get to return the favor.
Christian is heading out to two interviews at University of California at San Diego and Arizona State University. Both schools are considering him for full fellowships (not Teaching nor Research Assistantships, full blown fellowships). He needs to look his best. Lorena took him down to the Men’s Warehouse and they bought two suits, a blazer, and two, 100% cotton, white dress shirts. 
I am dying to see how he looks, but the suits are currently with the tailor and will not be available until I leave on my next trip to Arizona.
The Men’s Warehouse gave him a $50 gift certificate for the stuff that he bought. If we spend another $5-10, they will give him a second $50 gift certificate. I did not like the ties and socks they picked out for him so he and I are going to run down there again tomorrow to spend the extra $100. We might even add some clips (collar, tie, and money), a belt and some cologne. I do not want Lorena to have all the fun. The problem with Lorena is that she leans toward effiminate European style suits and they just will not do for an interview suit in the United States. Christian needs a man’s suit!
I would love to buy some of this same stuff for myself, but I am still holding on to the illusion that I might lose some weight some day before too long. Well, that and the fact that I do not have any mone left after making all these big expenditures. I called my Dad and had a nice talk with him about it. I do not think he even remembered that he had done it nor how much it meant to me. He just always did whatever he could to help us. I really hope that Christian gets to do this for one or two of his own sons someday.
Betty Blonde #71 – 10/23/2008
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We were all stuck in the house over the last several days, but that did not stop us from finding a way to celebrate Valentine’s Day eating fattening stuff! Actually this was quite nice. We sat on the couch and ate it all.
Day 907 of 1000
I have a great appreciation for cinnamon rolls, but Lorena likes to make them whenever we have a snow day. When it snows in most of the places we have lived, there is not infrastructure in place to remove the snow quickly (not enough snow plows) so we end up stuck in the house for two or three days. It is a perfect storm (no pun intended) of really fatting foods combined with no access to exercise equipment nor any good way to even go for a walk outside. This is a very bad combination. I think I am going to have to buy new pants.
Betty Blonde #70 – 10/22/2008
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Day 906 of 1000
We laughed ourselves sick when we saw this because these people are us. Notice the commentary below the picture. That is us, too.
Betty Blonde #69 – 10/21/2008
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Both Kelly and Christian had tests postponed today due to the snow storm. It is coming down hard and it is very beautiful. I love the snow, but we do not think the kids will get back to school until Monday. This is the view out our front door as it continues to come down hard:
This is brilliant. h.t. Chicks on the Right
Day 905 of 1000
There is a totally fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal today about how Sweden has legislated themselves into a corner with respect to how they raise their children. It is against the law to spank children in Sweden now and the attitude that goes along with that appears to be bearing fruit against which the adults in the country are starting rebel. Swedish psychiatrist David Eberhard wrote a book about it whose title translates to How Children Took Power. I think this is definitely happening here in the United States, too. Sweden is prospering economicly because they have started to dump some of their liberal economic ideas. Here is hoping they start dumping their liberal social obsessions, too. Maybe there is still hope for Sweden.
Betty Blonde #68 – 10/20/2008
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Day 904 of 1000
I did not know it until I started reading a little, but the relative benefits of barefoot running can be quite a controversial subject. There are many things barefoot running claims to help. The one that caught my eye was the claim that it helps against shin splints. If that is true, I surely want to try it. Our friend, Daniel was talking to us about how it helped him get back into running after a twenty years hiatus because of knee trouble. I am kind of a fan of the Tarhumara Indians of Brarrancas del Cobre in North Mexico. They are they barefoot runners who, as part of their culture, run hundreds of miles at a crazy pace.
I think I will get the book pictured in this post, read about how to do this and try it out. Daniel says the most important thing is to start very, very slowly–minutes per day–and build up to where you want to be. That is good advise. If it helps me with my shin splints and gets me running again, it will be worth it.
Betty Blonde #68 – 10/20/2008
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Day 903 of 1000
I just finished reading a great article titled The Secular Religion of the Left. It is worth your while to read the whole thing. It articulates some of the things we have seen in the downward spiral of our society. An amazing connection is made between the culture malaise we see in parts of our own family who have immigrated here to the United States from Mexico and the idea that “Organic” food is somehow morally superior. The premise of the article is that the religion of the secular left is materialism. Here is the comment about immigrants that rings so true in light of our own personal experience:
Those most in need of the moral system of materialism are the descendants of the displaced, whether by immigration to the United States or migration within the United States from rural to urban areas, who have become detached from a large extended family structure that once sustained them.
Their grandparents had already loosened their grip on religion and as the family disintegrated, materialism took its place. Their grandparents worked hard to provide for their children, but the children no longer saw maintaining the family as a moral activity. Sometimes they didn’t even bother with a family. They became lonely individuals looking for a collective. A virtual political family.
Liberalism fills the missing space once inhabited by religion and the family. It provides a moral and ethical system as religion did and the accompanying sense of purpose and its state institutions replace and supplant the family. It does both of these things destructively and badly as its institutions forever try to patch social problems created by the disintegration of the family and its ideas provide too few people with a sense of purpose of a meaningful life.
Amazingly, the author, Daniel Greenfield, ties all this to the culture and religion of those who buy their organic food at Whole Foods. And it is a coherent connection. Whole Foods is a pretentious place. Here is a snippet about that connection:
Organic, a category with a debatable meaning, doesn’t really provide that much more value. And environmental labels are worth very little. And yet the average product at Whole Foods is covered in so many “ethical liberal” labels that it’s hard to figure out what it even is.
He finishes the post with this brilliant gem:
The left can’t replace family or religion. Its social solutions are alien and artificial. They fix nothing and damage everything. Their appeal is to those who are arrogant and starved for meaning, who want religion without religion and family without family only to discover that they are not enough.
The quotes above are great, but do not come close to doing justice to the entire piece. Read it. I am adding Greenfield’s blog to my daily reading list.
Betty Blonde #67 – 10/17/2008
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My buddy Frank sent me an image of the birdbaths in his yards. They are not only cool because they were made from random springs and farm implement discs, but because they have ten inches of snow on them. I knew Oregon got hit hard, but that amount of snow in that part of Oregon is unprecedented.
Day 902 of 1000
Christian went to the job fair to look for a summer internship. He walked away with a lot of free stuff–a Microsoft t-shirt, a pen and a memory stick from Sharp, and a water bottle!
Kelly, on the other hand, went to the job fair to work for her employer, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. They not only paid her but gave her the free promotional stuff given to them by NCSU–An NCSU clipboard with NCSU logo note paper, an NCSU thermal coffee cup, and an NCSU leather portfolio!
Betty Blonde #66 – 10/16/2008
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Lorena, Kelly, and Christian ran in what is probably their last Krispy Kreme run. I use the term “run” very loosely in this case. They might come back some time in the future, but it will likely not be this decade as they should all be out West soon.
