Two straight lines are great!
While it's still early for graduate admissions departments to make decisions on their incoming students, three of my five possibilities have contacted me. The universities haven't neccessarily made decisions, but my application has peaked their interests. I don't want to say too much more at this point, except that my first paid, departmental visit comes at the end of this week. My research has sparked some interest, too, and I've been asked to give a presentation over my MS thesis work when I visit school-number-one this week.
The presentation deadline could not have come at a better time. I'm just now organizing and analyzing my data in order to start writing my thesis. Having spent numerous extra hours mining my dataset, a few *amazing* correlations have become apparant within the urban streams I study. One sloping, straight line is a very good thing. Two sloping, straight lines is a great thing! Furthermore, the statistics are reasonable and interpretable! Please pray for me I as I become more familiar with the chemistry theory behind the results I see in my data. Please pray for me as I give a practice presentation on Tuesday and the real thing on Friday.
The week ended in the home of a math professor, where Kindel and I babysat his three children. Being my first babysitting experience, it started a little akward for me. After dinner, though, we all seemed much more comfortable around each other - comfortable enough for the kids to tie us (mainly Kindel) up countless times and to countless household objects. Our last event with kids was a rousing game of Battleship. The oldest son, at 5 years old, and I used an iron-tuff defense to confuse the enemy (Kindel and the two other children), leading to their defeat! Their parents arrived home at the end of our game, refreshed from what may have been the "best meal they have had in Champaign-Urbana, and maybe the best meal they have ever had." Praise God!
Kindel starts student teaching at Urbana High School this week. She has four classes, I think, two sophomore and two senior. Please pray for her (and I) as she begins teaching.
Blessings...
posted by PB&K @ 6:02 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Hello Paul! Thanks for the comment!
The boys are 11, 6, and nearly 4. Braden is as tall as Mrs. Griffo (ack!) and wears the same size shoe as me.
How did that happen?! Soon he'll be shaving and driving. I don't know what I'm going to do then.
Awhh, sounds like wonderful things are going on in your life. Keep in touch. Don't forget to remember us little people along the way.
very best,
j9
Tell her not to worry too much about the student teaching- Urbana High is a pretty awesome school (I went there, and I subbed there last year), and there are a lot of resources there to help her out :) What department will she be teaching in?
-One of the redheads from church :)
Thanks, I'm sure she'll appreciate your comment. To date, teaching in the English program has gone very, very well for her. She excels in the gifts needed to be an amazing teacher. I look forward to being with her along this journey - it's just sooo exciting to see her living out God's calling on her life.
English... Aha! :D Well, I don't know for sure, but I suspect Ms. Gingold is a Christian- she is certainly very compassionate and kind, though the kids run all over her.
And Ms. Meng is an excellent teacher who could probably teach Kindel a lot about classroom management- she used to teach the AP English classes, which I loved a lot. Of course, things are different now than they were when I was in high school (with the NCLB guidelines)- and some of my favorite teachers are gone, but... those two are definite standouts from the highschool years.
If she has the chance, you can tell her to tell them that Beth Ferrell says hi (I know Ms. Gingold will remember me since I subbed for her last year, but Ms. Meng hasn't seen me in a while)- that might at least help break the ice if she's having a rough time :)
If she's hanging around much outside of the English department, some of the truly excellent teachers that I remember that are still around (though I didn't necessarily have all of them) were Ms. Hanna in social science, Mr. Beuschlein and Mr. Bechtel in the math/science departments, Ms. Yarber and Mr. Blackman in P.E., Ms. Bequette and Ms. Zwilling in Foreign Language, and Ms. Fell in special ed (she's in the English hallway).
But I don't know if she'll have time to meet or observe all of them. However, they're all great teachers in their subjects, and certainly captured the attention of the students they had back when I was in high school, so I'm sure if she has the opportunity even to talk with any of them that they'll be very ... educational? :D...
I'll come bug her on Sunday to see how it's going :)
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