That messes with people's heads all the time. :)

Digressing a little, but I really hate the 93-86-79 scale. It just encourages grade-grubbing, perfectionism, and going for every. single. freaking. point. Honestly I'd rather see a much more difficult exam with a far more lenient grading scale. (Please note, I know you can't stop the schools from using them. I'm just whining. :) )

Jacquelyn is right.

Yes. Just calculate his GPA with those credits excluded, but still show him having earned 7.5

There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing Alg 1 in 9th if the student is struggling. JMO. That being said, though, another route you could consider is starting Alg 1 at a slow pace with plenty of review in 8th and finishing in 9th. Depends on how your dd will feel at redoing Pre-Algebra or not. If she expresses relief at the idea of redoing Pre-Alg, I'd absolutely do it.

You should be able to look at the barn, the cow, see how he milks and how he keeps it sanitary, and ask about his disease prevention program. If the cow's healthy and it's sanitary, we've never had a problem. People used to get TB and brucellosis from unpasteurized milk (which is why pasteurization was such a godsend at the time), but there are tests for these and other diseases. All of our cows are tested negative for all this stuff.

Maybe it just means we both have awesome taste :D

Hey! :D

I have a copy of this book: http://www.amazon.com/Just-Algebra-Trigonometry-Students-Calculus/dp/0201669749 I have not used it but I have read through it and liked it ... Also it's really cheap used :D

I didn't actually notice he had a cup of coffee until now. That's an awesome photo :D BTW, I happen to think my avatar is already awesomely hilarious :D

And this is why we have prospective math majors in tears because they can't get their math GPA over the 2.5 needed for certification saying 'but I have As in all of my education courses!'

Because if it were anything other than 1, the law of exponents that says a^m times a^n = a^(m+n) would be inconsistent. You can come up with many examples where you can see that it must be so. Anything where m+n = 0 (so negative exponents), or anything where n = 0 ...

Awesome :D It's always easier to get them to do something when THEY see the necessity. I remember the first time I called my mother and said 'you know mom, I realized that if I just do a few minutes of housecleaning every day it stays so much cleaner.' She said 'NO! HOW DID YOU FIGURE THAT OUT? I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF SUCH A THING AND CERTAINLY NEVER TOLD YOU THAT!'

That is a really nice story :) I like FB for maintaining connections. :P

Haha :D So you better get started on the next one now for when they come out with K math :D

Glad to hear it came out well ... and now you know how to make a roux :D

Depends on the art and the instructor. Since he doesn't appear to be teaching a recognized style, nobody really knows except for him.

I got some fun results for 'sheep are' -- stupid, dumb, very dim, etc :D

MamaSheep is 100% right. I asked SO (he's in computers) about this a while ago, so I'll duplicate his response. As well as the competition being stiff, the pay stinks and the hours are tremendously long, because if you don't want to work long hours for very low pay, there are 100 more who will. Also, according to him, the first year of his computer science degree (in the UK) was just full of people who wanted to do video game design and were bombing out because they couldn't handle the mathematics, but just loved to play video games. There's nothing wrong with following your dream -- but I wouldn't do video game design as a major, but rather computer science, with coursework both in video game design and in something more marketable. If he IS serious about this, he needs to make sure he's working very hard in math, and doing as much programming as he can. There is a surprising amount of math involved.

Yours sounds yummy :D A variation I really like is to use chopped onions and a bit of garlic in the fat. This went exceptionally well when I used bacon fat instead of butter, too. Of course, now we're talking heart-attack-in-a-bowl, but hey, it was delicious :D

If you haven't made a roux before, it may take some more time but it's a *very* worthwhile skill to learn for yummy cheap cooking. Many of my dinners are a white sauce (also starts with a roux) with whatever I have in the kitchen chopped into it and served over rice. Here's a step-by-step tutorial with photos: http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/culinaryfundamentals/ss/roux.htm For cheese: I use Cabot's seriously sharp, but any sharpish cheddar will work -- if you use too mild of a cheese, the mac and cheese will be super-bland.

This is very close to the way I make it, and I find it delicious: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/homemade-mac-and-cheese/detail.aspx I don't like bread crumbs on top, so I skip that part. If you're not a vegetarian, it's even yummier if you chop in some precooked ham/bacon.

I'd think that it's awesome that I found out that wasn't a good home for the kitty before it's too late :P

I have had pre-service teachers tell me they didn't need to know 'all that math' because they were 'just going to teach pre-algebra and algebra'. I have had them tell me they were 'good at math' in high school and didn't understand 'all this advanced stuff' but were continuing with a math ed major because they didn't know what else to do. But I really think the roots are further down, where we have pre-service elementary school teachers who are making comments such as 'I don't need to know advanced stuff like fractions, because I only want to teach kindergarten.'

I voted 'suck it up' but my real vote is 'suck it up, get it done, then treat yourself to some chocolate for all that hard work' :P