Fibonacci Numbers, Triskaidekaphobia, and the Mayan Calendar

Yesterday, we watched a lecture from "The Joy of Thinking: The Beauty and Power of Classical Mathematical Ideas" on Fibonacci numbers. Fibonacci numbers, or nature’s numbers, are numbers that are created by adding together the two previous numbers in the series starting with 1 and 1: The sum of one and one is two, one plus two is three, two plus three is five, three plus five is eight… The Fibonacci sequence is 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144…

Anyway, the lecture was really interesting and Professor Edward B. Burger, Ph.D., explained how these numbers were revealed in nature. He demonstrated this by counting the seed-spirals of a sunflower, the tiny floret-spirals in the face of the daisy, and the spirals created by the bumps on the exterior of a pineapple and pine cone. Counting the clockwise spirals and then counting the counter-clockwise spirals gave us different numbers, but all of those numbers were Fibonacci numbers.

Vi Hart has a wonderful doodle video, "Doodling in Math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant [1 of 3]" demonstrating this in a much more entertaining and visual way:



The next lectures in our The Joy of Thinking course will continue on with Fibonacci numbers, the Golden Triangle and the Golden Ratio, so I probably should have waited until we watched those lectures to share this information with you, but I couldn’t resist. The lecture inspired me to look for these patterns in nature, but I was noticing them this morning as I prepared breakfast in my kitchen. As I cut open an apple, I noticed five seed sections that created a five pointed star, and I counted eight sections in the orange, and three seed-sections in a banana. Hey, we are a family of five! I guess we are a Fibonacci family. (Well, we are a household of four now that one has moved away to college, but I will be taking him ONE box of goodies THIS week-end.)

Anyway, the Fibonacci numbers got me thinking of this Friday the thirteenth. I was thinking how silly it would be to suffer from triskaidekaphobia, because not only is the number 13 a beautiful prime and sexy Fibonacci number, but the Mayans believed the number thirteen to be sacred.

This Friday 13th has Fibonacci all over it. Friday is the 5th (work) day of the week, the 13th day of the first (numero uno) month in our calendar year, a year whose digits add up to five… January is the first month of the year after our calendar rolled over to begin the new year, much like the Mayan calendar might simply roll over and start anew on December 12, 2012. End of World in 2012? Maya "Doomsday" Calendar Explained

Do we fear the world will end each New Year ’s Eve?

Jolly Rancher Vodka (gift idea)

Speaking of trying to be more healthy...

I am made a few batches of Jolly Rancher Vodka for a few of our lucky friends and family members.



Of course, my batch doesn't look that fancy because I used the small 12 oz. mason jars. I added about 20 Jolly Ranchers to each jar, so we will see if my guessculation was accurate:



For directions on how to make your own Jolly Rancher Vodka and other fun infusions, visit and browse Mix that Drink's website: Jolly Rancher Vodka Tutorial.

If our attempts fail and for some reason we are embarrassed to give away our Jolly Rancher Vodka as gifts, I hope to have a girls' night out where we dispose of it all appropriately. =P

...I'm sure I am secretly making a few jars for me and hubby. ;) ;) ;)

Jump Start on New Year's Resolution

I thought that I had decided on a New Year's Resolution. A few family members and I had toyed with the idea of taking "The Vegan Challenge.” The Vegan Challenge is to eat vegan for a whole month. No meat. No eggs. No milk. No cheese. No YUM!

A New Year's Resolution that would only last one month? Sounded good.

The Vegan Challenge - the new year - would start off with a trip out of town to a store that I have never heard of in search of products and brands that have never resided in my pantry.

With a picky family of five, I decided that going vegan, even for one month, would be too much of a challenge for me THIS YEAR.

I searched for a NEW New Year’s Resolution. I found a site that shared one famhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifily's challenge to eat non-processed foods for one-hundred days, 100 Days of Real Food. This site has a Facebook page where fans can take the ten day pledge. Ten days? That's less than one month! I figured I could do that before the New Year! It’s never too early to eat healthy, right?http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

The Facebook page featured a yummy looking breakfast/brunch recipe, Whole-Wheat Crepes. No special trips for this recipe or challenge. All of the ingredients were familiar.

Avoiding processed foods for ten days is still challenging, but much easier than totally going vegan for a whole month. Baby-steps…

I announced to my house that we would eat a healthy breakfast. I explained the benefits of avoiding processed foods. I decided to make crepes to prove how delicious healthy can be.

There was one moan.

I opened my refrigerator to retrieve the milk and eggs to prepare our healthy breakfast when I found a surprise. Hubby had picked up McDonald’s on his way home from working nights.

One person was ecstatic.




The End




Additional Thoughts: I think it would be very hard to be vegan in America. Most of our food products contain ingredients derived from animals, even foods you wouldn’t suspect. For example, marshmallows are not vegan friendly. You would think that an innocent white-as-snow marshmallow would be safe for everyone, including vegans, but the common popular brands use some type of ingredient derived from PIGs. “The squishy parts” as a Facebook friend explained it. This renders marshmallows not only off limits for vegans, but off limits to people trying to eat kosher or vegetarian!

I haven't given up on Veganism. I am thinking of adding a Vegan Night, right along with Italian Night or Mexican Night. I will have to plan Vegan Night for the evenings when hubby is working nights.

Fireworks in Port O'Connor July 2, 2011

Yesterday, we went to my grandpa's beach house in Port O'Connor to watch POC's annual Independence Day fireworks display. I took three gallons of Red Diamond sweet tea and two huge watermelons. My Grandma-Ethel had already purchased two gallons of Red Diamond ice tea, so the sweet tea tooth must run in the family!

Many interesting conversations took place last night. My grandpa told us the many ways to test a watermelon to determine sweetness. They were all new to me. He even told us that if you pick a watermelon and place the stem in sugar water, the watermelon will absorb the liquid and will taste extra sweet! Since I pick my watermelon from the big box in HEB, I have to use my favorite technique: I play the watermelon like a drum and if it sounds hollow, I will purchase it.

Another topic of conversation was reincarnation. I explained to one of my cousins that our most recent pet tragedy prompted me to share the concept of reincarnation with my nine year old. "Reincarnation is the belief that even when a body dies, the spirit continues to live. When a spirit leaves the body, it goes into another body. In fact, if we go to the pet store and buy another hamster, there is a small chance that..." My cousin immediately took the baton and finished my thought, "...the hamster you buy will be the same hamster as the one that died!"

;)

Anyway, we sat out on the porch talking and eating hotdogs and drinking tea until the sun went down. Then we walked to the beach and found a place to sit so that we could get a better view of the fireworks.

After the city's display was over, the people in the beach houses started their own shows! There was screaming and smoke...

As we were leaving, we got to see people being arrested. Everyone must have had a good time!

Anyway, here is a short clip of the end of the POC fireworks display:





I still have two huge watermelons. Where to go?

Another boring post.

Yesterday, the whole family worked on the landscaping around this house. We are thinking that we might just stay here, but we are going to fix this house up the way we like it and not wait until we are putting it on the market. That was the mistake we made with the Tanglewood house. When we put the Tanglewood house up for sale, we finally did all the updates and improvements that we had put off for the ten plus years we had lived there. The things we wouldn't do for ourselves. We tiled the floors, replaced the gold double ovens with stainless steel double ovens, changed out all the kitchen appliances, replaced the gold kitchen counter-tops with tile, and even put texture and fresh paint over the walls that still had paneling. Wait, there's more! We replaced the shop doors, re-textured the entryway, replaced light fixtures, and even - REPAINTED THE OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE! Let's just say that I didn't want to leave after that.

The one thing we DID do for ourselves while we were there was gut and update the master bath. It had the fanciest 12 x 12 tiled shower in town! Unfortunately, it had the fanciest tiled LEAKY shower, and we fixed that before we left too. We also let the kids pick out the paint color for their rooms and we had to paint over that. I don't know who would want a house with crazy room colors. One bedroom had two walls painted red and two walls painted blue and another bedroom had two walls painted purple and two walls painted green. That's what you get when kids pick the color: indecision. My room was painted orange - UT orange - and we painted over that, too. I miss my orange room! When my reading lamp was on I felt I was surrounded by soft candlelight.

While hubby and I were doing yard work, we found a doggie septic system in our back yard. Yeah. I didn't know that such a thing existed.

Catching Up

We are going to look at a house we can't afford today. It has some acreage and my mom would like to put some of her horses on it. That means she might help us buy it. We don't need that much land.

The house only has three bedrooms, but Matthan is going off to school next year to major is Psychology/Psychiatry. We could afford to send a kid to Victoria College, but our house hunting turned to downsizing once we understood how much his college would be... Psychiatrist = medical school.

Did I mention I need a job? Yeah. Because I have travel plans! Hubby and I are coming up on our twenty year wedding anniversary and we are dragging the whole family with us on a cruise to Jamaica, Cozumel, and ... somewhere else. We are leaving out of Florida.

After *planning* a trip for five to England and France, the top of the line cruise seems affordable. (Did I mention that *planning* is my favorite part of vacationing, schooling, cooking...) Planning is dreaming. I love dreaming.

I figure if I work part-time and put everything into an account, we can travel more and consider it SCHOOL. I don't want the kids to think that THIS - Victoria, Texas - is it. Recently, my daughter (14) had some jealous-teen drama and I reminded her, "You are about to be on a cruise with rich boys from around the world. Do you really want a boyfriend? Tell the boys that you want to remain single because when you travel, you want to be free..." It's advice I wish I could have been given, but I was stuck in the country in an even smaller town, just trying to get out.

We took the kids to The Oak Room for the first time the other evening. My daughter said, "I will never eat at McDonald's again!" The duck was everyone's favorite. I can't wait to go back!



Trips for FOUR will be more reasonable. Which is why I want to travel more. I was going to write a whole post on WORLD SCHOOLING the other day, but I got too busy. I'm still working on a recipe for itisi.

Land. **BEGIN DREAM** Maybe I can train horses again... Teach horseback riding lessons! Have a FREE SCHOOL in the country that revolves around equine management or training, breeding, and showing horses. **END DREAM**

I would like to substitute-teach because I do not want a full-time job. I already have a part-time job: parenting and housewifen' (yeah, it's really only a part time job if you do it right... or wrong, however you want to look at it). As far as homeschooling, the kids are old enough to read the instructions, work the sample, and complete the work on their own. I only have to plan, motivate, and check.

Hubby tore his calf muscle playing basketball with the homeschool high school boys. This, after declaring that he "didn't feel old," though he had just turned forty. I guess if I ever want to do P90X again I better not skip the Yoga. Now I understand why Yoga is important... S T R E T C H without breaking.

My friend's husband passed away. I spent the night at her house the first night and I've been spending much time with her. I think she's going to be looking for a house soon, too. She also wants to travel. Hopefully, when our girls graduate high school, we can plan a senior trip - for the girls, not us - to Paris. Our girls are the same age. That's what I want to do when Kelsey graduates high school - big trip. It's what Matthan did when he graduated.

I hope she keeps up with her French! I gave up. Information tends to leave my brain, and new information doesn't tend to stay.

The kids' passports are on their way! Then we will all have passports! YEAH! I hope it serves as valid ID for PSAT... I had to get a Texas State ID for Matthan when he took his PSAT.

Good Idea: Gradeless schools!

We gripe about what all is wrong with our schools and forget to point out when a community tries to do something right.

Here is an article about a school that focuses on a student's ability instead of focusing on age or grade level.

School Teaches by Ability, not Grade Level

It makes sense to focus on ability instead of age. We know that children are different and develop at different rates in different academic areas. A child might be ready to move ahead in one area while still needing improvement in another. A gifted math student might be delayed in reading. This type of approach allows a child to soar where he is gifted while receiving remediation where improvement is needed. Students are not passed on to the next grade with "gaps" in their learning. Focusing on ability allows a more "individualized" education - an education tailored to fit each child.

There is a local homeschool support group, Tailor Made, which offers support for parents who are trying to give their child a unique or "tailored" education. The founder explained, "You wouldn't buy one-size-fits-all clothing for your child; you would find the clothing that fits him best and alter it when needed." I'm sure she did a better job of explaining it.

I think focusing on individual development instead of age or grade level is a good idea! Grade-less schools deserve an A.

P.S. When I saw the mention of the boy who wasn't sure what grade he was in, I thought that usually it's the homeschoolers who aren't sure what grade they are in. My fourth or fifth grader gets a deer in the headlights look when he's asked what grade he is in. "You are in third grade in reading and sixth grade in math, so I guess that makes you about fourth or fifth grade." Most of the learning materials that I use in my home are not designed for a specific grade level.

Our testing culture is like...

...manipulating symptoms to diagnose a disease and then blaming the doctor for the disease.






Here is a rant (meaning I don't expect anyone to read it) that just goes on and on:

I think our testing culture is ruining education. Education should be child-centered, especially childhood education, and not test-driven. I think we give our state mandated tests too early, too often, and that we depend on them too much.

Is the goal of these yearly tests really to improve education? No, the purpose is to judge teachers and punish schools. Since the tests are not able to improve education, and can actually harm it, think of all the time spent learning test taking skills, why do we support the tests? Do educators create these tests? No, the people who create the tests are making six figures while the teachers who are judged by those tests are not. Testing has become a multi-million dollar industry while our small schools are being closed and teachers are being "contract not renewed." Are public schools just about supporting the testing industry? The politicians who push these tests and the people who make the money from these tests, usually didn't attend public school and do not send their own children to the same schools where these tests are administered. I think the community should protest these tests.

I don't know if this is true for Texas, but in some states, tests are given three times a year - a practice for the practice test - and sometimes the tests take six hours to complete. Could the test be measuring a child's attention span? I think in Texas we just have the one mid-year practice TAKS. That's a lot of time spent not learning. Whose education is it? I think students should protest.

I understand the need for tests, like the PSAT for scholarships or the SAT or ACT for college admission, or subject SATs for credit, but for tests like the TAKS to actually control and shape our educational system - insane. The test is driving the curriculum and publishing companies. Our dependance on these tests are making the very thing we focus on, obsolete.

Tests are not an accurate measure of what a child knows. It's a measure of how well the child takes tests - a measure of test taking skills which can be taught - and a measure of attention span. Is the purpose of schooling to prepare students for tests? Is that the goal of public education? To produce good test takers?

There are all kinds of factors that affect a child's performance on a test, knowledge of basic skills is a factor, but not the only one. Sleep, anxiety, culture, and nutrition - attention span - can affect a child's score and then a teacher is judged or a school is judged by those factors? Factors that are out of a teacher's control.

Used correctly, tests could help a teacher determine a student's strengths, and could give an educator a hint as to how to tweak teaching methods to help the child. But, these tests are not to help students, they are to compare, track, punish, and pit schools against schools and even countries against countries.

I think we give the state mandated test too early. We teach kids more and more earlier and earlier hoping that they will be ready for the test by third grade. The test is driving our scope and sequence. Late readers cause alarm instead of being allowed more time to mature, physiologically, which is not an indicator of intelligence or knowledge. We want the physiological development to speed up for these tests. Not all children develop at the same rate.

I'm for a test maybe right before Junior High, maybe before high school, and before college. But testing all year long every year as if the goal of schooling is really testing - is insane!

But, I'm sure, as usual, I am the one who is really insane. I don't think that things should be done just because "that's the way it is done."

I would provide links and edit this, but I have so much more on my plate today. I think we are leaving for College Station tomorrow and we might watch a baseball game while there...

Let go my EVO

It was wild taking all the drama of the VicAd comment section with me to my nine year old's soccer game this morning. I imagined all the fights happening in the bottom of my purse. Yes, I finally got one of dem der fancy phone-a-ma-jigs. I'm still in the explore-tweak-play phase, so bear with me. I'm finding it hard to type in complete sentences or to keep a thought in my head for very long. Also, the keyboard on this laptop seems gigantic now that I have grown accustomed to typing on the display screen of my phone.

My husband and I both upgraded to the HTC EVO from phones that were so old we were laughed at by everyone in the store. How old were they? My phone had an antenna. (My daughter upgraded to a Samsung Triumph.)

I love the EVO because it is similar to my iPod Touch, which I liked, and which made me doubt that I would like any phone but the iPhone. I have to admit that I love my EVO! The apps that enjoyed on my iPod, I now have on my EVO.

The negatives are that it's not holding a charge as long as my old phone. I can't stick my new phone on my iPod dock. (I love listening to Pandora Radio through those speakers.) The EVO won't replace the iPod in that regards. Also, the EVO is pretty big and won't fit into my phone holder that I strap on my arm when I go walking. Ok, I only go walking three times a month... I secretly want an iPad, but it ain't going to happen on my salary. =P

I can't find anyone to Skype with and no one to stalk on Latitude, because everyone here is now addicted to Angry Birds. My husband and my nine year old have been playing day and night (one night and one day) since we bought the phones. I even downloaded Google Chrome so we could install Angry Birds on my laptop. That kept the nine year old off of my EVO.

Here are two pictures that I took with my laptop of me with my phone taking a picture of me:









That sounded really narcissistic...



Now I have to follow hubby to Port Lavaca so that he can pick up the van that he will drive to fire school. I'll use my EVO like a Garmin on the drive there and back - just because I can.