July 2007 »

Author: J. K. Rowling
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Rating:
Buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Amazon.com

The book was lying on my doorstep when I came home from running errands last Saturday. I heaved the book onto my stack of groceries, garden supplies, mail, and knitting, walked up the stairs to my apartment, and settled down for a read. It seems that in doing this, I failed to shut and lock the front door to the house properly, which will become important in a minute.

Other than a break to bake and eat a frozen pizza (no time for cooking when there is Harry Potter to be read) and to have the following phone conversation with my mom,

Me: Hello?
Mom: What are you doing?
Me: Reading Harry Potter…
Mom: *heavy sigh* Everyone is reading Harry Potter!

I read straight through until I was done, at about 4am. And then I fell asleep. It was at this time that some Bible thumper decided it was entirely appropriate to take advantage of the unlocked door and just waltz into the house uninvited, only to be chased back out by my landlady.

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Bathroom. Back to sleep.
Back pain. Back to sleep.
Nightmare. Back to sleep.
Thunderstorm. Back to sleep.
Remembered that I left all the windows open so the rain is coming in. Back to sleep.
Windows closed now, so it’s too hot. Back to sleep.
AC has made the room too cold. Back to sleep.
Weird pressure point under my shoulder. Back to sleep.
Kicked off blankets. Freezing. Back to sleep.
Garbage truck. Back to sleep.
Neighbor using a leaf blower under my bedroom window after I’ve finally, FINALLY started to sleep well. AAAAAUUUUUGHHH!

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Commenter Hoosier alerted me to another video from the Where’s the Math people. This one is from a professor of atmospheric sciences, possibly the professor mentioned in the previous film, adding to the pile-on.

But first, I think some clarification is in order. This video, and most people, use the terms “standards-based,” “reform,” and “constructivist” interchangeably. However, as I mentioned in the previous post, these terms aren’t quite interchangeable.

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