Carpe Diem!

    Today G_d reminded me of my leash.  A sharp pain came into my side left where my many former years of Mittelschmerz would torture me.  I have no ovaries to hurt me anymore---not after my BRCA1 surgeries. Vital organs are all I dare keep after being told 9 years ago that I was going to die from a tumor that grew to the size of a large dill pickle in 7 months.  
    So what was it causing the pain?  Had peritoneal carcinoma finally found its way to me per my geneticist's prediction?  Did G_d finally decided that I'd endured and conquered enough?
    This week is the 9-year anniversary of my tumor being benign!  I remember that I requested for an emergency surgery done before my birthday.  I wanted to know if I was really going to die or live on my birthday.  Well, tomorrow is my birthday again.  I've had nine birthdays since my surgery, since being told that I was going to die.
    Today though I struggled with the thought that maybe it was my time now.  My tears tried to leak from my eyes at what I'd miss in my children's lives should my time be up.  I realized how selfish it was of me to want to trade places with the young mother of two who died of cancer this week.  The thought of her children not knowing her was jarring.  My children knew me and were on their own now, but they will need me here and there through their lives.   It was for them that I chose life and did the double mastectomies and oophorectomies to keep the inevitable cancer from reaching to me and our hearts. 
     Though that misunderstood choice to do the BRCA1 surgeries in 2005 cost me my marriage, though it projected me into a life of self-reliant struggle from a life of emotionally abused leisure, that choice brought me to live each day living, "Carpe Diem!"  Through that choice, I've met amazing, eccentric people on the fringes of popular society.  Eccentric people that form the silent infrastructure of the civilized world.  I've been the confidant to those who will only talk to others who have eyes that have seen great tragedy, yet have raised their chin with the last of their strength, dried the tears that leaked from the corner of their eyes, and kept dreaming and forging and creating  and loving and hoping.
     We hope that the world would be a peaceful, loving place, and we keep trying to find a means to this goal, but the path flits out of arm's reach like a hummingbird.  My chasing this elusive hummingbird has brought me to see amazing sunsets, devotion from one who is not devoted to anyone but himself, exploring the world, living a life of adventure, dancing at the HaKotel like King David.  
     Maybe it was just dancing again.  Maybe it was just the pure joy of hearing the Rieger Klaus grand piano play---a piano that I had handmade in Yugoslavia for my mother.  It played once again after one move too many made it unplayable.  My joy evolved to dancing and maybe I just did one dance move too many.  Maybe the sharp pain in my left side was only a dance muscle that was caught by surprise from being forgotten.  Maybe I was only given a reminder of my short leash, my gift of overtime in this world.  Maybe I was nudged by G_d to remember to laugh, to dance, to bless a beautiful sight, to hug a friend, to count my blessings, to live each day with love and peace.  
     Carpe diem!

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

Online Dating Hazards

   Today I was explaining to my students about online dating hazards.  Now most were not 18 yet; however, there was a girl at my son's high school that ran off with some child molester that she met online.  So just as high school students dabble in drugs, alcohol, and sex---adult behaviors---they dabble in online sites, and they dabble much more than the less-wired older generation.
    So today's lesson to my Computer Aided Design class was about online dating hazards.  First I explained how I always copy everything that every prospective suitor writes into a file under his name.  Then I check facts at my leisure.
    My students were astounded, "You really do that?"
    "Absolutely.  When I was just getting a divorce and my two children were still at home with me,  I was falling in love with another man and did a Boolean search using his name and any facts that he gave me.  It ended up that he was implicated in a child pornography scandal!"
    "Today there are many fake people online, so you have to check the facts.  I just caught one of those fake people.  He used a famous name so it made my Boolean searches difficult.  For three weeks I kept trying to find this person's background by putting his name in and any facts that he gave me and got absolutely nothing.  For a former corporate spy like myself this is a major flag.  Everyone has an internet trail.
     "He was portraying a  petroleum engineer and moved oil rig locations from Buna, Texas to the Falkland Islands, but he kept being available to chat at the same time everyday, even though he changed time zones and should have been asleep.  The kicker was that he asked me for money.  Never give anyone who you're corresponding with online money."
     Hopefully, I covered the facts well enough, so none of my computer savvy students will let their hearts and minds go astray to an online predator.  There are so many of them.

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!
   

 

The Difference Between Relationships with the Zodiac and G_d

    Today I finally finished my first read of a very intense, information-filled book about the spiritual realm, "Inner Space" by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan.  It was so informative that I will have to read it again and hope that I can absorb more the next read.   It ended with an interesting and potent note about the difference between the relationship with the Zodiac (astrology) and G_d.  Now I had always been taught that one should not have any relationship with astrology, because it is putting faith into something that is not G_d.  Rabbi Kaplan explains it in a way that I'd never experienced.
    First we must note Ezekiel's visions prior to the destruction of the First Temple and the end to the prophetic era.  In both visions he similarly describes the Chayot, living creatures that receive the life-force from the highest spiritual dimension and transmit it.  The Chayot have four faces.  In Ezekiel's first vision the faces were that of an ox, lion, eagle, and man.  In the second vision Ezekiel did not wish to have the ox represented, since it was a reminder of the Golden Calf, the darkest hour of idolatry of Israel.  He prayed and the face of the ox became a Cherub, the face of the man as a child.
    Each face of the Chayot represented a tribe of Israel:  the ox represented Joseph or Ephraim, the lion represented Judah, the eagle with a snake-like tail represented Dan, and the man represented Reuben.  Each of these tribes were located on different sides of the Tabernacle.  To the south was Reuben with Gad and Simeon, to the West was Ephraim with Menashe and Benjamin, to the North was Dan with Asher and Naphtali, and to the East was Judah with Issachar and Zebulun.
    So what is the correlation with the Zodiac?  The twelve signs of the Zodiac can also be grouped in quadrants and related to the four faces of the Chayot:  Aries-Taurus(ox)-Gemini, Cancer-Leo(lion)-Virgo, Libra_Scorpio(Eagle)-Sagittarius, and Capricorn-Aquarius(man)-Pisces.  We know that the Potiphar's wife was told by an astrologer that her line and Joseph's line would create a great nation which is why she kept trying to seduce him.  It was Potiphar's wife's daughter though that would marry Joseph and create this great nation.  Therefore, the Torah does give some validity to astrology.  So why do we not put any faith in astrology then?
     Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan answers this:  "It is important to realize that although the tribes follow the signs of the zodiac, the Jewish people as a whole were lifted above the level of the Mazalot (constellations) by virtue of their receiving the Torah.  The concept of Mazalot is essentially a physical concept.  It is a channel through which spiritual forces come down to the terrestrial.  The more a person can establish direct contact with the spiritual dimension, on the other hand, he can bypass the influence of the stars to a great extent.  This is done primarily through prayer.
    "We are thus allowed to do character analyses through astrology, but predictions are forbidden to us.  The source for this prohibition is the Biblical verse: 'You shall be perfect with the Lord your G_d' Deuteronomy 18:13.  In other words, the more we perfect our relationship with the spiritual dimension, the more G_d is going to do for us to change the natural course of events, thus making any action based on astrological predictions superfluous."

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

Reclaiming My Sacred Ground

   Sacred ground can be so many things.  Mine is water.  That's where I first met G_d at 12 when I was drowning at the bottom of the American River.   I'd screamed out all my air when I found myself pulled down into all this algae under a boulder.  My body no longer was moving, but my life jacket slowly pulled me upward to the light.  I felt my soul stretch out to it ahead of my body.  That light gave me hope that I'd breathe again.
   When I breached the surface, I gasped desperately for air and was again able to move my body.  Once I reached dry ground, I noticed that it was a cloudy day.  That light wasn't the sun as I thought.  It was G_d.
    We had an understanding that day that He wasn't going to let me die any time soon, because there was something that I was going to do for Him.  So I started taking risks that normal people wouldn't take.  Cats would be jealous with all my lives.  I guess being buried in a snow cave was one of the craziest near deaths, but my mountaineering teacher finally found our cave entrance after numerous digs and liberated us to the air again.
    I was just telling a friend about being given a sign of fish while kayak fishing in the La Jolla Cove.  That sign told me that I wasn't going to die like the doctors thought from this tumor that had grown much too quickly inside of me.
    My favorite time that G_d loved me on the water was right after a great white shark attack in Solana Beach.  I stayed off the ocean for a few days, but I had to kayak.  So as I was driving to the beach to launch my kayak, I asked G_d to keep me safe.  As I paddled north a large pod of dolphins came and swam all around me for an hour.  Dolphins attack great white sharks, so I had body guards of the sea! When I turned around a different pod of dolphins joined me on my way back.  It was remarkable enough that I connected with one pod of dolphins, but two different pods was G_d's work.
    After I moved to Sacramento for work, I prayed for my Adam.  I met him on Lake Natoma while I was kayaking.  It was just him and me on the lake that day.  I even remember the exact spot where I caught up to him and said, "Hello." Unfortunately, he was my Adam, my first.  He was not my last.          He could never make a decision and stick with it, so I've stayed off the lake until today.  I didn't want him to try to talk to me and try to revive our relationship or relieve his guilt from having ended the 2.5 year long relationship in a text while I was sleeping.
    Today I returned to Lake Natoma and reclaimed it.  Today I taught my friend from my nursery school days how to kayak there.  We're both teachers, so she insisted that I teach her.  It was quite fun, and she got an "A."  I explained how I've not been back to the lake and why and she said, "Will just keep taking me, and I'll keep him away from you!"  So I've reclaimed my sacred ground---water.
 

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

My Grandnephew's Second Birthday

   As I got ready for my Grandnephew's 2nd birthday party, I was looking forward to seeing the family and dreading it at the same time.  There's been so much pain, especially with my brother-in-law dying last Memorial Day of a grueling, slow cancer that ate this amazing athlete alive.  On top of that one of my sister's disowned me right when I was laid off from my JobCorps teaching job due to the government sequestering.  (Thanks Congress!)  That was the first time in all my careers to ever be laid off.  It was not easy and then to be rejected by my middle sister like that was horrific.
    It ended up that she saw some childhood films that my dad had taken of the boys and I hiking.  She didn't see any films of her.  She actually never hiked with us, so why would there be films of her?  She didn't see it that way.  She saw it that I was Dad's favorite.  My middle sister was always a queen bee, so if she's not the favorite, the favorite shall die!  That's really why I was disowned by her.  I reversed it on her and told her that I wouldn't talk to her until she finished rehab, since she's an active alcoholic.
    So I wanted to see my family, but knew that people were going to be mad at me for heading for Tahoe to get away from all the pain and leaving everyone without the intention of returning.  G_d had other plans for me.  So He returned me back to the Low Landers, as the Mountain People refer to the valley folks.
    As I walked into my niece's new home for the first time, I was greeted by her with a warm hug.  That certainly took some of the edge off.  I saw my oldest sister, who lost her husband, and she looked at me with a distant, hurt look and continued talking to the person next to her.  I walked over to her son, and he gave me a hug.  He caught me up on the mother of his son's new life.  She has three children from three different men and got married for once, so is off welfare finally!  We were horrified by this girlfriend of his.  It's such a blessing that she is gone.
    Finally, I asked my sister if I could hug her she agreed, and we hugged.  Later while we were talking she told me who her real family was.  It was her friends from church mostly.  It wasn't me according to her.  I just smiled and wondered why she felt that that was a godly thing to say to her blood sister who just had a fiance leave her and really needed one of her two sisters.
    So I decided a beer would be good and took a swig and tried to find out how my sister has been doing during her first year without her husband, despite her tense mouth when she spoke to me.  It took awhile, but eventually she started loosening up.  Then my dad and his girlfriend arrived.  It didn't take more than a few seconds for her to excuse herself outside.  She hated our dad.  It was such a shame.  Dad had trained her in her profession in his medical office and gave her the seed money to start Laughs Unlimited, but there was no gratitude toward him---just hate.  Dad didn't save her house from going to the bank when her son defaulted on his student loan, so according to my oldest sister, he deserved only hate.
     Her hatred toward my dad just scares me.  It violates one of the most important of the 10 Suggestions---"Honor your father and mother."  If you can't honor your earthly mother and father, G_d doesn't find you worthy to honor Him and turns His back on you.  That's one suggestion that seems so innocuous, but is so important.
     My middle sister didn't show up.  I knew she hadn't died of alcoholism, but that was all I knew.  I didn't dare asked about her.  I had no idea what turmoil would explode upon me, if I even mentioned her name.  Had she appeared the discomfort that she would have wreaked upon me would have surely made me leave early, as it has in the past.
     After spending time with my grandnephews and inlaws, the room seemed to warm up toward me.  My grandnephew really liked the paint and playdough that I got him for his birthday.  My niece was wondering where exactly was her son going to be painting, "My house?" lol  Blood family is like no other.  You can't choose your blood family, but they are very similar to yourself which creates a strong bond.

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

The Barriers of G_d

    Today I was savoring the end of a great book, "Inner Space" by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan.  It is a great book for understanding the prophets and what levels of prophecy they attained and what levels of prophecy exist.  When one seeks to be more prophetic via meditation or prayer or just a natural ability to immediately be connected to G_d while carrying on everyday life, one discovers more and more about G_d.  Many, however, give up on G_d, because they have no evidence of Him.  G_d's barrier leaves no indication of Him to them.  No matter how much a person who is spiritually connected to G_d shares, these people remain blind to Him, because each person has to find his own way to G_d in G_d's time.

    Here is an excerpt from "Inner Space" that explains the purpose of this blindness:

"We know that no outside force can hold G_d back.  Thus, if a barrier does exist that can restrain G_d, it is something that He Himself created for a purpose.  We know that G_d wants us to have a separate identity and the free choice that goes along with it.  Therefore, in order to allow us to exist, He has to create barriers and hold Himself back.  It is only once we are separated from G_d  that our returning to Him can be the source of the greatest possible pleasure.  G_d wanted man to discover Him and come close to Him.  This is the real purpose of creation.  When a person discovers G_d behind all the barriers and achieves this by his own efforts, there can be no greater pleasure."

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

    

A Visit From Korean School Administrators in My High School Shops

    At my new teaching job I have many shops---the robotics PC lab, wood shop, metal shop, and AutoCAD Apple lab.  Today a group of Korean school administrators came to visit our American high school.  When they visited my class, I showed them the things that the students make in wood shop---cabinets, boxes, chests, tables, goblets, bowls, chessboards, cutting boards, etc.  They couldn't believe that the students could make all these items at this age.
    One of my gifted robotics students lent me his robot, so I showed the administrators how the pre-programmed robot moves.  The new tasks that the students had to have their robot perform were for the robot to be able to maneuver the course while stopping at each turn, blinking the LED to signal a turn on that side, beep when backing up, and playing a victory song at the finish.  This robot played "Yankee Doodle Dandy" which I thought was appropriate for demonstrating the greatness of American ingenuity!  The administrators were very impressed and wondered where the remote for the robot was. lol  I explained that it was all programmed in PBASIC and downloaded into the robot's memory.
    When I took them to the metal shop, I showed them the car that one of my students is rebuilding, the TIG welding stations, the metal sanders, painting booth, metal lathe, and plasma cutter which cut out oak trees drawn on AutoCAD.  I showed them the pen that we were trying to get to scribe into the metal, but so far it is cutting through.   They were very impressed by this, as well.
     At the end of my tour I asked if they had any questions.  The one administrator who spoke the best English and translated for the others asked, "How many girls do you have in this program?"
     Of course I was thinking, "NOT AGAIN!"  That was the same question that the Federal ROP overseer asked me.  I answered, "Well, we have a few girls in each class, but when the girls at the school saw a female shop teacher, more joined my classes."
     Then the administrator asked, "Aren't the girls not strong enough to do these things?  How do they lift heavy things?"
      Of course I was thinking, "NOT AGAIN!"  Here I'd been a pioneer for women in engineering when I was running a million dollar Japanese/American project that lasted 9 months.  My boss and I didn't let the Japanese know that I was a woman, since they only had female engineers serve coffee.  At the end of the project that my team finished on time and within budget, which was unheard of for American engineers, I finally let my boss tell them that I was a woman, and they were in utter disbelief!  Now I had to find a way to gently tell this Korean administrator about the greatness of women in creating things from thought, if they're given a chance.
      Without missing a beat, I pointed at the strong teenage men in the metal shop and said, "We have all these strong young men to help move the heavy things.  When I worked as a mechanical engineer, I had many people who worked for me."  I pointed to my head and added, "I was paid for my thoughts and delegated to others the details of creating my designs," and left it at that.  The female Korean administrator smiled at me in acknowledgement of what I do every day to truly emancipate women to be free to discover and pursue their talents.  Not many of our dad's taught us how to use tools, so I'm stepping in and giving the young ladies and men a chance to discover the joy of shaping their own worlds with awesome power tools!

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

A Warm Holiday of Skiing With My Children

    After 5 years of only a distant adult relationship with my daughter due to a combination of my own errors and my ex-husband's parental alienation, we had a break through on July 7th of this year.  She finally "friended" me on Facebook.  She had "friended" my sisters, my step mom, her new step mom, and just about everyone but me.  It was a painful issue to deal with and caused me many a tearful night of prayers for reconciliation.  The day of being "friended" came though.  It came on my day when all is reconstructed for me, July 7th.
    To keep positive momentum going in our healing relationship, I invited my daughter with her fiance and my son with his girlfriend to Tahoe over the December break to snow ski.  My son insisted that instead of paying for lessons that I actually teach all of them how to ski.  That seemed quite daunting.  Memories of my friends with bloody lips from me taking them on slopes that were too hard came to my mind.   Memories of my brothers getting on both sides of me and skiing me off a cliff in retribution for me trying to teach my ex-husband how to jump a cornice when he was only an intermediate skier came to my mind.  Being an expert skier after starting to ski at 7 years old makes one forget what is scary and what is difficult.
     However, now I'm a high school teacher who knows how to teach.  I just didn't know where to begin.  So early in December I started asking ski instructors that I rode with on chairlifts how to teach beginners, so I wouldn't inadvertently upset, hurt, and scare my children!  The first step to learn how to ski is walking on skis.  How simple!
     It's simple in theory, but if a person has never used an edge to stop a snowboard or an ice skate, walking on skis is completely foreign.  My son's girlfriend had never seen snow before she arrived at my Tahoe home.  So she was quite a challenge to teach.  In contrast, my daughter and son both learned to snow board when they were children, so walking on skis wasn't such a problem once I showed them side stepping and V-stepping to climb up a hill.
     Since I learned to ski at Boreal Ski Resort, I chose that resort to teach my adult children.  When I learned how to ski there with my dad, he'd push me down the hill, and he'd push me back up the hill by the lodge.  Later, I progressed to the rope tow, and finally the beginner chair.  I remember not being able to get off one chair lift there, so the chair operator had to take my skis off and have me fall into his arms.
     Boreal Ski Resort now has an amazing set up for beginner skiers!  They have mowed down the hill where my dad had pushed me, so beginners could easily walk on their skis to their runs.  There are two escalators that the skier just steps onto and it takes them up a very mild incline, so they can learn how to stop and turn.  The escalators are much easier to ride than a rope tow or chair.  That was such a blessing for our start.
     Once my daughter got off the escalator she was having a hard time fighting her fear of not being able to stop.  She remembered how to turn, but she immediately fell to stop herself when she started moving too fast.  Her fiance and I were there and she said, "I don't want to ski!  I can't do this!" and her bottom lip went out like it did when she was a little girl, though now she is graduating the top of her class in nursing school.  Immediately, I got uphill from her and did a mommy coo, "It's going to be all right.  Just let me ski you down the hill so you get a feel for it."  I wrapped my skis and self around my daughter who was 4 inches taller than me and hugged her closely to me and guided her skis with mine down the hill to the bottom of the escalator without incident.
     Without any prodding she got back onto the escalator and tried again.  She slowly snow plowed down the gentle slope and made large turns until she was at the bottom of the escalator again.  Over and over again she tried and tried and became better and better as I skied behind her and encouraged and coached her as my teacher self, a person that she did not know.
     My son's girlfriend also skied with me wrapped around her, but it took her much longer to figure out how to slow herself and stop.   Sometimes I  just had her move a ski back and forth on the snow and slide it and then grab an edge, so she could have some understanding of what edges do.  Eventually, she was able to turn, but would crash into the safety fence and rest awhile.
    My son, on the other hand, was doing quite well with little help.  My daughter's fiance was enjoying the moment, but he wrestled demons from his last ski trip when he was badly hurt.  Once his demons were pinned down his advanced-intermediate-skier self got bored.  Then he tried to do what all more advanced skiers do to less advanced skiers---get them to go on a more interesting run though they might not be ready. I started to see him act as I once did, which earned me a warning from all who skied with me to all who wanted to ski with me, "Beware!"  So I took him away to explore some more advanced runs while everyone practiced.
     We had a lovely time getting to know each other.  It ended up that he was the one that insisted that my daughter "friend" me on Facebook.  He told her that that was just mean. He also had to pay his own way through college, and I paid for my daughter's while working four to five jobs, so he felt that that was especially mean.  I really like my son-in-law to be!
     After days of me teaching my kids and their significant others how to ski, we had a lot of successes.  My son ended up skiing at my same speed, albeit a bit frightening for me to watch, since he lacked some control.  He lovingly told me in his own words that his goal is to ski with me so that I don't have to continue my 40 years of calling out "Single!" to find another person to ride an expert ski chair with me.  My son-in-law to be and I really enjoyed skiing and exploring the mountain together and perhaps he'll insist that I teach the grandchildren how to ski on their family ski vacations!  My daughter became an intermediate skier and started reminding me of my mother.  She has my mom's graceful, but tentative style.  My son's girlfriend may or may not ski again, though she did learn to use her edges and stop eventually.  What wonderful skiing memories we made all together!


P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

Girls in ROP

    When I started my new teaching job, the ROP chair told me that a Federal ROP Oversight Observer would be visiting my class.  She add, "But don't worry.  I'll prep you on all the questions."
     So I prepared all my robotics students that the Feds were coming on Friday.  We made the robotic track tape in red, white, and blue, and the students were actively trying to get their Boe Bot programmed to properly run the course without touching the tape.  The students also knew to be on their best behavior.
     Friday came and no one had prepped me on the questions, so I wondered if the Feds were coming after all.  Then while I was wandering around with my laptop in hand taking roll, I turned around and there they were.  The observer was a woman of my age---a 1980's technical professional.  She immediately asked me a few questions about how I've set up my program.
     I explained, "Well, the first day of this class I had to move the student computers from another classroom to this one.  Most of the computers had been very beaten up, so each student had to rebuild their own computer with extra boards that we had lying around.  The keyboards were ruined, so one student's dad donated keyboards from Sac State.
     Most of the students were able to get their computers running again, and that was their first grade.  Then they had to get the old Parallax Boe Bots working again, so we learned how to trouble shoot to find which part didn't work by trading out parts one part at a time.  Finally, they programmed the robots using PBASIC and are getting graded on if their robot can follow the track.
     She was very impressed.  Then she asked, "How many girls do you have in the program?"  Now when I arrived at this high school I was very disturbed by how few girls were in my classes, so I took a moment to answer.  Then I explained, "I have one girl in this class and a few in the other classes.  However, when a few girls saw that a female was teaching the ROP classes, they transferred in to my classes.  They were met with some resistance, but I separated them from the boys causing the resistance and started training the girls on basic woodworking skills.  Some of the boys also needed to learn these skills, so they came over with me.  Then some of the advanced boys started helping the girls learn their skills, as well."
     "At my last school a girl came into my class kicking and screaming and told me that she didn't want to be there, but had no other place to go.  By the time that I left that school, she loved engineering.  She even wrote me a letter saying that she wanted to be just like me!"
     The federal observer smiled at that and we agreed that boys didn't come born knowing how to use tools, some one showed them how to use them, so boys and girls both had the capability to be good with tools.  I mentioned, "My dad gave me a lot of great tools for my dowry, but it backfired on him, because I ended up being the one who used the tools!"  and we all laughed.  I added, "I always tell my classes when they asked if they should call me Miss or Mrs. that I have never gone by either.  I've always gone by Ms., because I'm not defined by my marital status, but by my own accomplishments."  We also bonded over shared experiences in the technical industry in the 1980s.
     I'll never forget being a speaker at San Jose State's ASME meeting in the latter 1980's.  The young men were so disappointed that I was a woman.  There wasn't a single female engineering student in the room either.  Then I gave a speech about being a manufacturing engineer in order to become a better design engineer.  In manufacturing an engineer sees all the design mistakes and design strategies.  Armed with that knowledge, one can become a great design engineer!  By the end of the speech, I'd won them over and hopefully left an impression about women being competent engineers.
     Apparently, I left a great impression on this federal ROP observer, because my principal came in to my next classes to personally tell me that our high school ROP program passed and was saved!

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

What I've Learned While I Was Away

      What I've learned while I was away: "Even my favorite place in this world did not bring me the peace and respite for which I was hoping. True peace and respite is only found when your reactions from the onslaught of issues that this world slings is peaceful due to a purely defensive and not offensive reaction, and you rely upon your G-d-given wisdom for navigation and upon G_d to ultimately right the situation."
      Trust me---it takes a lot of practice to not be offensive, but purely defensive.  It may take a lifetime of practice.  Just as it takes a lifetime of practice to purely rely upon G_d.  We have to trust when logically there is no way to deal with an issue that the manna will come.   We have to know that Amalek, evil, will attack every generation.  We have to know that our troubles are honing us and moving us along our divine path.  
      We have to be vessels to emit the light in the darkness that was created by G_d.  The darkness is not evil.  The darkness was the only way that we could exist without being overwhelmed by G_d's light, so that G_d could bestow good upon us here in the darkness.   Each one of us is capable of connecting to G_d and connecting the light of our neshamah, spiritual soul, to G_d.  When we do that we create a ray of light.  Imagine if we all created that ray of light!  We would all be at peace and it would be like being in the Garden of Eden again.

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!

I'm Back!

       I've been away for a very good reason.  I didn't want you to know what I was doing for the last 2.5 years.  When I finally write the third book of "My Anatomy of a Midlife Crisis Series,"  I want you to be surprised.
       I have been kayaking, but nothing as awesome as my San Diego times---no kayak surfing.  I have been teaching, but now I teach high school engineering more than math.  Teaching engineering is so much more fun and much easier, since it is the ultimate of Common Core practices.  Love has found me, but I can't tell you how that ends yet.
      What I will tell you is that I plan to write again.  My books are just about bursting from me and will write themselves, if I don't sit down and finish my series of memoirs.  This summer I've decided to not teach summer school, and I'm just going to write.
       Here's a fun little video of my engineering students testing their CO2 cars that they made.   I had a special population student start the race.  He really enjoyed his job!   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76DlZrBEAcI&feature=youtu.be

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!