Just throwing out ideas. Could use physical things. Building blocks? Could you find a toy pie with slices to help explain fractions. ("Here is a pie. Here is half a pie".) Maybe you could use a real pie - heck of a motivator. Food in general might a be a good way to explain math to the math resistant - at least elementary stuff like addition and fractions.

Jilli, by and large, what I'm hearing seems to affect mostly fiction. But the Reader's Digest version is this:

- Simon & Schuster has eliminated 35 positions.

- It also announced that the head of its children’s group, Rick Richter will leave the company at the end of the week. Rubin Pfeffer, senior v-p and publisher of the children’s group is also leaving.

- Random House has been reorganized, including disbanding Doubleday. President and publisher of the Bantam Dell group Irwyn Applebaum is leaving the company after 25 years. Publisher's Lunch says, "Knopf will absorb the Doubleday and Nan A. Talese lines, while the Crown group will incorporate Broadway, Doubleday Business, Doubleday Religion and WaterBrook Multnomah," and that "the newly formed publishing groups will continue to bid independently in auctions," though there are now three of them instead of five.

- Thomas Nelson has eliminated 54 positions, after an earlier round of cuts in September.

- The publisher of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's adult trade division, Becky Saletan, has resigned

The Random House reorg is the one that has me sort of chewing my nails. It's been a much-needed reorg because they had so many imprints that overlapped and in some cases, even their editorial boards had joint meetings, so you couldn't necessarily submit to multiple imprints-- in the long run, it's going to be a good thing that it's more streamlined, but it does take away the (admittedly somewhat mythical) safety net of "Well, if Imprint A doesn't take it, maybe Imprint B at the same house will be interested."

Huh. Thanks, Barb. So no word on HarperCollins?

Hil, even though I don't necessarily understand the math, I have the same issues when I am trying to teach students about making a pattern. Since it involves flat shapes that become three dimensional, and I tend to so it with instinct and not math,

What I'm doing here really doesn't involve much math, at least for the beginning part. It's different methods for measuring volume, where, essentially, you're cutting the object into smaller pieces and measuring the volume of each piece, and then adding them up. But in order to get to the part where you find an expression for the volume of each piece, you first have to look at the numerical description of the object and figure out what it will look like physically, and then you have to look at that and figure out what the pieces you cut it into will look like. Some of my students are having trouble with those two steps. (And then there are some who just refuse to do them, and want to go right from the numerical description of the object to writing down the answer, which you just can't do, because without the picture, you can't tell which parts of the numerical description correspond to which parts of the object, and just about always end up doing something like switching the top and the bottom, or having the whole thing sideways, or just having the wrong object altogether.)

Huh. Thanks, Barb. So no word on HarperCollins?

Nothing that I've seen and I've been getting the updates from Pub Marketplace and Publisher's Weekly all day.

Our company had lay-offs this morning.

I had to come in at 8 to break the news to half of my awesome team. Saying goodbye to two people whom I've come to adore and who worked their asses off for this company's success. Merry fucking Christmas. It's just me and Ricardo left in my department. 20% cut across the company.

It's been a really shitty day.

We had another stupid staff meeting today, so I had to be to work at 9am on my day off.

Y'all are talking about not knowing how to teach math students things, and some just. Do. Not. Get. It. The house manager at my main location... she just does not get the concept that how we react to the residents' behaviors can either reinforce those behaviors or lead to extinguishing them. I have had several conversations with her over the months, explaining this. I have done my best to model for her how to react professionally, keeping the emotional charge out of it. She cannot or will not do it. And today when the topic of how certain residents' have episodes of incontinence that are more behaviorally motivated than they are actual "accidents" came up, and I pointed out that was why it is so important not to freak out on them and lecture and rant and rave, because that is the reward that person is looking for - bosslady came back with, "Well, I do not agree that we should just ignore this type of behavior."

OMFG.

It was clearly pointed at me.

From now on, while she is in the middle of ranting and raving at someone for nose picking, I will never again bother to quietly hand the individual a kleenex and calmly prompt to wash hands. ETA: And she can clean up all the other messes from the first issue.

Javachik, how rotten for you, and how awful for them.

Ouch, javachik. I'm so sorry for the loss of your work family.

-ma for Daisy Jane.

I saw a deer/car accident on the way home tonight. Deer was alive but having some problems, couldn't tell what kind. I hope it'll be ok or at least won't suffer pain for too long.

Hil- I guess I have actually the opposite issue. Basically in pattern making you are taking something that has volume, and making it flat. So, if you have a cone, what does the pattern look like if you were to cut the cone out of a pice of paper and then fold it into the cone. But with more complicated shapes. If you are in mass market, production pattern making, you basically deal with volumes that are created for you, but theatrical pattern is custom, so every person's unique measurements change the volume.

Also, Windsparrow, that sucks.