While tutoring a student this evening at a local coffee shop, an older gentleman sitting at the table right behind me was tutoring a kid in chess (yes, chess), both of us surely overhearing the other for much of the hour.

We both got done at the same time, and while packing up, we had a brief conversation that went something like:

Him: Another tutor, huh? Was that math?
Me: Yup. Chess?
Him: Mmm hmm.
Me: You know, chess is one of those things I wish I had gotten into at a younger age…
Him: [Turns quickly at me and shakes his head] No, this stuff is only useful for future politicians and aspiring lawmakers. Math is much more practical.

lol

I had my first bad day of the year on Thursday.1

It actually was not even a bad day, per se, rather one bad class period. But as any teacher will tell you, that’s all it takes.2

The bitter taste I had for most of the day took me back to my first year, when I remember having to struggle with this sort of thing a bit more often:

When you teach on a block schedule,3 and you have a bad day, you have to wait TWO days before you get a chance to redeem yourself with that same group of kids. And if that bad day happens on a Thursday — as yesterday did — then you have to endure that foul taste in your mouth for the next four days — all the way through the weekend until the following Monday.

And that stinks.4 5

1. Considering that it took until week 6, perhaps that’s not that bad. [↩]
2. And actually… as any teacher will tell you – it takes far less than an entire class. [↩]
3. “Block” schedule, meaning: Four 90-minute classes each day, with alternating days for 8 periods total. [↩]
4. But just to be clear, this is just one negative aspect of block scheduling — there are numerous reasons for which I MUCH prefer 90-minute block periods to traditional 50-minute classes. [↩]
5. Also by the way: the rest of this week was wonderful. But it only takes one hour. It’s sadly true: Negativity has so much dominating power. [↩]

I woke up on Monday thinking, “If this week is anything like last, it will end me.”

We are past hump-day and it has not ended me.

Thankful.

Today1 was the “Burgers and Boxplots” lesson. I love this one, for obvious reasons. 2

It made me happy to know that a much larger proportion of my students are now familiar with Carls Jr.3 and In-N-Out than in previous years. :)

The Mega Tamago gets ’em every time, though:4

Mmmmm hmmmmm. 5

Oh, the point of the lesson was to analyze the distribution of fat grams in a number of fast-food burgers, and to identify the median / quartiles / 5-number summary, run the 1.5IQR outlier test, and sketch a modified box plot.6 7

When I stop to think — and breathe — it blows my mind a bit when I realize that we’re already in week 6. I know, it’s early, but… the overwhelming feeling I have is that the rest of this year is going to go by far too quickly.

1. and yesterday, for A-day [↩]
2. Because I’m a burger freak. Now you know. [↩]
3. The Double Western: 63 grams of fat! [↩]
4. 65 grams of fat! [↩]
5. Of course, we needed to point out that as with any McDonald’s burger, the picture makes it look WAY bigger — and nicer — than the actual thing. I told them to use Google to look for real pictures of the thing just for kicks. [↩]
6. Incidentally, the Wendy’s Baconator Triple has 81 grams of fat. That might be an outlier… [↩]
7. A student asked me today if I was familiar with the Gourdough’s Burger. I had to explain that this was a wonderful creation that unfortunately came into existence too late in my life… sigh. [↩]

This is one of those weeks that I’m gonna look back on and have no idea how I actually made it through.

Just for reference, the “Breaking Bad” marathon is currently in the midst of season 4… the “You Got Me (WW)” episode is starting as I type this. Looking forward to the finale this Sunday.