My teacher (the chair of the Math department) told me if I wanted to give up the Art degree I'd make a fine mathematician, and I promptly forgot everything I knew beyond long division in horror.

Carnegie Mellon has a degree called Bachelor of Science and Arts where the students pick an art concentration -- architecture, art, design, drama, or music -- and a science concentration -- biology, chemistry, physics, or math. The science and math courses required, beyond the basics, are the ones that relate more to the art stuff, and it looks like the art classes required are some of the more sciency ones. Someone I worked with a few summers ago was concentrating in art and math, and some of the stuff she was working on looked pretty cool -- she was working on a drawing that included a bunch of figures that show up in math applications.

Cash, I like the first photo, myself.

My mother graduated college about a year and a half ago. It took ten years, but she did it.

Sing it. I didn't get my degree until I was 43 (18 years of school!) It's never too late.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth there was no such thing as AP classes. We had "college track" and "non-college track" courses. I took college track, so I ended up with Pre-Calc and Physics as a junior, which was virtually unheard of. They didn't offer Calculus in high school. What many kids did, instead of AP classes, was take college courses while they were in high school, then you could even graduate early. A couple of kids graduated as juniors.

My high school had geometry for freshman year, trig for sophomore year, pre-calc for junior and calc for senior, but only required three years of math. So, I skipped senior year due to hating math with a passion. I took pre-calc again in college and then took "business calc," which was much easier than engineering calc, for my two semesters of required math.

InotschoolN, I went to my diet doctor today for my first weekly checkup. Lost two pounds this week (considering I had a lot of sweets and did no exercising whatsoever, I was pretty happy with that result), and then there was the saga of the blood pressure. Last week's was 150/92 (too high for the diet medication that they prescribe), so they gave me water pills and did another reading today. First reading was 140/110, which I just knew was waaaay off. Second reading (different nurse, other arm) was 162/70, which was again waaaaay off, so they had me sit in the waiting room for ten minutes and relax a bit. Third reading? 140/70. Much bettter!! I'm still borderline for the medication, but they started me on it anyway and the doctor told them to have me come back next week for another reading. I think I'll be going there weekly for at least the next month so they can see if it goes down any.

So, this week will be no more sweets and some minimal exercising. My goal is to lose three pounds/week for the rest of the year, which will get me back down to what I was at for my sister's weddding by the end of July and down to my summer 2000 weight by the end of the year.

Cash, I really liked that My Turn as it reminded me of my kidlets.

I was wondering (what with the extra-curricular town programs they have now) whether they still do PE in school.

Yes. Pet Peeve of mine is a lack of understanding about this. In elementary, kids are supposed to have PE for at least 3 times a week an hour at a shot. In CA Ed code, in middle school, kids are required to have a year's worth of PE, one class a day for each year. 9th grade, kids are required to have a year's worth of PE for one day. If you don't pass the Physical Fitness in CA, you will not be able to graduate.

Most elems don't have their own PE teacher. If an elem school is lucky they have an itinerant one.

PE looks different depending on the school. But in Los Angeles, PE classes generally have between 60-80 kids PER CLASS, per teacher. So they do a variety of stuff. At a middle school where I used to work, they had a fitness lab with a lot of cardio equipment (stationary bikes and elliptical trainers) + a couple of dance dance revolution machines.

Cash, I think only the fourth one won't end up too foreshortened. I can photoshop you a bit.

Thanks, Ginger! That would be great!

Yikes, I hope I'm not too late to say: Happy birthday, tommyrot! (And if I am, er, happy day after!)

We had some kind of G&T program in elementary school. I think it mostly involved trooping down to some other room for.. one afternoon a week? Maybe two? I know there was one year when we each got to write a "book" I still have somewhere, and did a puppet show. And I think maybe we did a school newspaper one year? In retrospect, that setup seems more equitable since presumably the other students got more of the teacher's time/attention while we were gone. But obviously I don't know if that's true since I wasn't there. At the time, it didn't seem terribly different from "sometimes people leave the regular class for a while because they're in a special program for music/Spanish/ESOL/sports/god knows what."

But all of this was in Montgomery County, which is not exactly an typical school district. And my memories are all pretty blurry.

Would it be weird if I put inquiry letter at the two next door houses to the one I think I'm seriously consider (and probably the house I saw a momish person and toddler go into) saying something like "I'm interested in this house. If so inclined, could you call me and tell me a little about your impressions of the street and living and working on these kind of houses? Thanks for your time!" with my name & number & email???

I don't think it would be weird, sarameg, but in all honesty I'm not sure I'd call if I got that kind of note. I'm busy and sometimes thoughtless that way. I just wouldn't want you to get a bad impression of the neighbors if they didn't reply.

Cash: could someone make this into a headshot for you?