Encouraging Sign

Today I was working with a student on a problem that started out looking like this:

z=(3+4i)^3

and in the middle it looked something like this:

z=[5(cos53+isin53]^3

and at the end it was nice and tidy, like this:

z= -117+45i 

He finished up the work, and then stared at it and said, "Wow! A few months ago I would never have believed I could look at that and even have an idea what to do with it! Now I can work it and see how it might turn out to be useful in electronics or something."

I smiled and I said, "Never underestimate your capacity to learn."
My student looked at me in amazement and exclaimed, "That's Beautiful! You should write it on the board so everyone can see it. Put it over there on the left so it doesn't get erased!" To humor him, I did.

Then I got thinking, and I decided to make a pretty poster of it for my classroom. So now I have a pretty poster up, and I decided to post it here.

Stairs

During our recent trip, we stayed on the third floor of a hotel for a week.  I consciously chose to take the stairs whenever I went up and down. During the week I think my legs got stronger.

Then I came home and got sick and collapsed, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the stairs.  I need motivation to get moving and build up my strength again.

Two flights up, two steps back...

I write like James Joyce!

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

James Joyce?

From Wikipedia:
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominently the stream of consciousness technique he perfected.

That's probably what it is: that stream of consciousness technique. I took all the paragraphs from my last few blog posts, just sort of streaming my thoughts out there.

My other blog is analyzed as reading like Cory Doctorow, and I've never heard of him! Neither have I ever read James Joyce.  In fact, when I saw the name I thought immediately of trees..."I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree."  (That's actually Joyce Kilmer--and I'm relieved I don't sound like that, though I do love trees!)

Anyway, it's just good fun, so if you would like to see who your writing resembles, go ahead and play with it!

I Believe!

Today I am again featuring Donetta's work.  She made one of these little pillows for each girl and leader in our Young Women group.  They are all different, all hand-embroidered.

If you want to know what I Believe click on this link.