I've Been Tagged!

Most of you bloggers know the variety of ways you can be tagged. They all require you to do something (usually answering some questions that tell something about yourself), and then pass it on. Melissa, a friend, neighbor, and fellow teacher, tagged me with this one:

Here are the Rules of the Tag:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next five sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Sadly, I didn’t get Melissa’s tag when I was enjoying my week off of school and doing some reading for fun. I’m back to reading for school (which, of course, was the nearest book). So, I’m back to being boring again! On the other hand, a lot of my blog readers are also educators, so you may actually like it. Or not. Here goes…

My book:
Psychology of Learning for Instruction

My five sentences:
By 1978, Ausubel had adopted the label assimilation theory to describe the meaningful learning processes of subsumption, superordinate learning, and combinatorial learning. In earlier versions of the theory, assimilation referred primarily to the process of retention, whereby new information tends to be reduced to (or assimilated by) the meaning of the stable, more established anchoring idea. Although Ausubel’s notions of what happens in retention changed little, which will be discussed in the next section, he came to use the concept of assimilation more broadly. Taking together learning and retention, “The result of the interaction that takes place between the new material to be learned and the existing cognitive structure is an assimilation of old and new meanings to form a more highly differentiated cognitive structure.”

SHEESH! That’s only four sentences! Someone needs to work on being a little more concise in their writing! Did you get all of that? That’s the end of that section, so I won’t torture you with a fifth sentence. We’ll call it good there.

I tag Kristin, Laurel, Martina, Cindy, and Blake (since you were excited to visit my blog to see my 1987 picture, anyway). PLEASE find more entertaining books than mine! I’ll get Melissa back when the next tagging game comes around. :)

My Week "Off"

Several of you have teased me about how I spent my week off of school. I had a class that ended last Sunday, and I start a new one tomorrow. I still had to work every day, but without homework in the evenings, I made the most of my time. Here’s what I did in the evenings and over the weekend this week (in no particular order): painted the master bathroom, did my taxes, had dinner with my parents, had my piano tuned, conducted a new student orientation, helped Ryan with a report on bald eagles, helped Ryan prepare a talk for Primary, watched a couple of movies, read a couple of books (not school books!), watched two Jazz games, listened to one BYU game, went to one BYU game, got my hair cut, had dinner and visited with my former roommate, spent some time with other good friends, attended a baptism, went shopping at Cabela’s, planted about 50 bulbs in my front yard (BEFORE the three new inches of snow), and got a massage.

If I weren’t so close to being done with school, I’d be tempted to take more weeks off! I could get used to this “free time” stuff! Alas, back to the grindstone.

Leap Day

I’ve been told that when you have a “leap day,” you should use it wisely. The suggestion is often made that you do things that you wouldn’t normally do, since February 29 only happens once every four years. (Apparently, traditionally women also propose to men on leap day. I didn’t include that in my day.)

I actually did something today that has happened even less than every four years. I saw a good friend that I haven’t seen in person for a very long time. Angela and I were roommates and best friends at BYU for three years. Looking through my photo albums from those three years, almost every picture that I’m in, Angela is in. Here is one of my favorite pictures. This was taken October 17, 1987. Yes, you read that right…20 years ago! Our roommate, Nannette, is on the left, me in the middle, Angela on the right.
Angela came for the wedding of her youngest sister – the sister that was BORN when we were roommates! That’s hard to believe. Angela and her family live in Maryland. Her husband, son, and daughter all came for the wedding, but then her husband and daughter went back home. Angela and her son have stayed a little longer to visit with family and friends. Ryan and I were able to have dinner and spend some time visiting with Angela and her son, Dalton, tonight. Although we e-mail, exchange Christmas letters, and now stay up-to-date with each other’s blogs, there is just nothing like being together in person. It almost felt like nothing had changed. Well, except that we had a 2 ½ year old and an almost-8-year-old year old contributing to the conversation.

Thanks for a great evening, Ang! I love you!

Not-so-closet Rocker

My friend Rick calls me a “closet rocker.” There is nothing “closet,” however, when Ryan “rocks out” (except, maybe, that’s where his clothes are when he does it).

A couple of mornings ago, I was making his lunch for school when he came sliding into the kitchen in his underwear and socks and started singing and playing his little electronic rock guitar. (He has obviously never seen “Risky Business,” but he sure did look like Tom Cruise when he came sliding in like that.) I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. Of course, I immediately grabbed my camera. I’m a little hesitant to post the pictures, but since he has fairly modest boxer-briefs, I’m going to because they’re so darn funny! (Also note the temporary tattoo on his right arm. Every rocker needs a tattoo, right?)

Mighty Putty

With the only male in my house being 7 years old, there are obviously some “guy things” that I just don’t understand, such as the obsession with tools. Well, my little guy is starting to get into some of those things. You all know that he goes to the Home Depot class every month. That is great. I love that he is making so many cool things there, and learning how to use and take care of all of the tools. He now has a tool “wish list.” It keeps growing. Is this just the beginning?

The most hilarious recent fascination, however, is Mighty Putty. Does everyone but me know what Mighty Putty is? Ry has seen the commercial for it on TV, and has become obsessed! The commercial shows all of the things that you can fix with Mighty Putty – interestingly, many things that need to be fixed around our house. Every time the commercial comes on, he yells at me to come and watch it. He then outlines all of the points shown on the commercial where we could also use Mighty Putty. It’s hysterical!
So, if you come to our house and find gobs of green goo holding our house together, I’ve given in to the demand for Mighty Putty.

AWESOME Game!

Saturday after all of the graduation festivities, Ryan, Rara, Papa & I headed to Provo for the BYU – UNLV basketball game. We HAD to go – it was my Alma Mater vs. my former employer! We knew it would also likely be the best game of the season so far. BYU is currently first in the MWC (19-5, 8-1) with UNLV second 19-5, 8-2). Last month, UNLV beat BYU in Las Vegas 70-41, so there was some avenging to be done.

It ended up to be a great game! BYU led by as many as 29 points, with the final score being 74-48. That pushed the Cougars’ home court winning streak to 44 games! The Marriott Center was packed with 22,580 in attendance.
Ryan loved the game (with the exception of the one time that I forgot to warn him that I was going to whistle, and made him cry it was so loud. I need to remember to provide him with a warning). We were able to meet some of the basketball players at the tailgate party before the homecoming football game a few months ago. He has their autographs on his “growl towel,” so he always enjoys watching for the players he met.

The greatest part of the game for me was watching my mom, who has two degrees from the U of U and has also taught classes there, singing “Rise and Shout.” Now if we can get her to do that on Wednesday when BYU plays the U, we’ll have her converted!

My Favorite Week

Last week was one of my favorite weeks of the year. All WGU faculty came to Salt Lake City from all over the country for our semi-annual faculty meetings and graduation. Even though it’s always a hectic week, I love being able to see all of my friends! President Bob Mendenhall told us that there are now 98 Teachers College faculty mentors, and 191 total faculty mentors! Considering that when I joined WGU, the Teachers College faculty numbered in the 20s, we’ve obviously grown!

Scarlette, Debra, Blake and I enjoyed hanging out together, but we missed Cindy! We can hardly wait for July! And we were good. Tom only said, “Don’t stir the pot” a couple of times. (Tom used to refer to Scarlette, Debra, and me as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. I'm not sure if he thought we knew everything, or if he thought we thought we knew everything.) Here we are at the Provost’s Welcome Dinner on Wednesday night.

And here we are in our sombreros at the fiesta lunch on Thursday.
Scarlette and Debra both presented on Friday, and did great. We were proud of Scarlette for being nice. ;) She didn’t even need Ryan’s Darth Vader mask! (But definitely keep the avatar.)

As we were sitting in our meetings on Friday (during Debra’s session, actually), several deer were foraging for food in the open area just outside the window. Two deer came right up to the window. All 50 people in the session grabbed their cameras and ran over to the windows to take pictures. Debra and her co-presenters lost all control! I had just had 7 deer in my backyard that morning, which is a regular occurrence (there are six in my yard right now as I write this). But it was hilarious to see so many faculty members so distracted from the presentation by the deer. Debra and her co-facilitators were great to let everyone take their pictures, and then get us all back on track.
Graduation on Saturday was held at the Salt Palace. I think we all agreed that we like Abravanel Hall better. Hopefully we’ll be back there next time. There were a total of 611 graduates from 48 states, but only a fraction of them made the trip to SLC to attend. The rest were able to watch the live feed on the WGU website. I had a total of 8 graduates, but only one attended. Jaton (and her mom) came from Cincinnati, Ohio. It’s always fun to meet my students for the first time as they graduate!And, always my favorite of the week's pictures - me, Scarlette, Debra, and Blake in our "full academic regalia." :)