Shopping?

On Friday I went shopping. First I wnet to Carson's because they had coupons for 20% off on sale merchandise. This happens every week because there is a sale every week. The first thing I noticed that the store wasn' t very crowded, and it was picked up and looked neat. This is also unusual because when there are sales here, the place looks disheveled. I ended buying two item left over from last summer on yellow dot clearance for $19. each, interesting since the original price was well over $100 for each one.
Then I got my car washed at the dealer for free. The rain washed most of the salt off a week age, but another snow event required the village to salt again, so it was beginning to accumulate. The car is clean for now but since it snowed yesterday, not for long.
Since I was near Kohl's I decided to stop in and check out their big weekly sale. It was also empty. I bought two pairs of gloves since I lost one of my good gloves and needed some to get me through the season. One pair was $1 and the other was $6.
Since this recession started, shopping isn't as much fun anymore.
I'm leaving soon to go the the gym for a yoga class.

repetition works

Sometimes I think that my students get sick of my repeating the same thing over and over again. For instance--how do you find the topic of a paragraph? or How do you find the main idea of a paragraph?
Well the answer is that repetition is one of the foundations of pedagogy. Today they call it revisit or review. Another reason I repeat is that sometimes my students don't get the concept the first--or second time I go over it.
One thing I remember well is the Suzuki Method of teaching music. Repetition plays a huge part in this style of musical instruction. Two quick sayings from Suzuki--

"Dr Suzuki says never be lazy
Practice and Practice until you go crazy"

"If you really want to learn something, repeat it one thousand times."

Monday

Valentine's day was great. We went to a party at our friends and had a wonderful goumet home cooked dinner with great wine pairings. We had so much fun that we didn't get home until 2am. Very late for old folks like us.

Now What?

The salt is off my car. The weather is cold--the wind is blowing. I had to wear gloves. Snow is forcast for tomorrow.

It might as well be spring...

For only a few days. The snow is gone. The weather is warm. It is raining. Hopefully the rain will wash off the crusted ice from my car.

Happy today

In my mailbox today were the student evaluations from last semester. Reading them made me very happy.

Major Purchases

We're doing out best to get the economy out of its slump. Yesterday, we bought a cooktop and a double oven for the kitchen. The old cooktop, which we installed when we moved in in 1993--has 3 working burners and several corroded parts. It is dying. The oven must have been original to the house-- 1976. It still works, but the self clean died several years ago, which makes for a disgusting oven. On Wednesday, we will have some new stuff. A five burner cooktop, and the oven has one convection oven and one conventional oven. I have no idea what a convection oven does, but it is newer technology than what we have now.