April 29, 2015

Just got a homework assignment emailed from a French 2 student.  I'm beginning to think that having them submit homework digitally, allowing me to make corrections/comments immediately, might be the way to go - I can squeeze a whole lot more correction into a document this way, and if I go the next step and have them correct to submit again, some of them might benefit from the revision.  Have to try this with an assignment or two before the end of the year, maybe?

First lawn-mow of the season yesterday - only did the curbside parts (what do I even call these - easements? They're not berms, shoot - I should have a word for them) since Barb had pointed out pointedly that they were getting pretty shaggy.  The only really grassy grass in the yard is there, so...
Mower started, surprisingly, on the first pull.  Hoorah.  Didn't really mind a bit, but it was disappointing that the new audio book I had just loaded on the phone (Dorothy Sayers' Unnatural Death) had a volume setting too low to hear over the mower.  Listened to WWW instead.  Nothing serious to report from that one.  It's been a long time since I read/listened to a Wimsey novel, and listening to it on the way in to school this morning was a most pleasant reminder of how much I like her prose and Lord Peter's character.

Been considering getting a cordless electric lawnmower (like Mad and Joe have) and so far, this is the one I think I like best:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-20-in-40-Volt-Lithium-ion-Brushless-Cordless-Walk-Behind-Electric-Lawn-Mower-Battery-and-Charger-Not-Included-RY40107A/205336359?N=5yc1vZc5arZ1z0ylm1  Need to discuss this with Barb.  Now I just wish (although I haven't, to be fair, looked yet) that I could find a cordless tiller with any power.

Oh, thank you Mallory Ortberg/The Toast.  Basically any day you post something about
Art History I learn something new (and laugh intellectually), and this one is just out of the park (since I learned a tidy little story about Aristotle that I have never ever heard before, but must have been enough of a Renaissance thing that there were pictures and paintings made of it.)
http://the-toast.net/2015/04/29/here-are-some-paintings-of-a-woman-riding-aristotle-like-a-pony/

One of my favorites...




Did a blank map of Europe exercise with the French 2s today, and they were quite involved.  This made me think of another similar thing I could do, which in turn let me learn a thing.  I've casually wondered before how to generate a poster-style print for blowups of smaller images, and a quick search brought me to http://www.blockposters.com/create/ , which allows you to customize documents by size and number of pages to make a blow up.  The map it made for me (four sheets across and four down) will actually also be a puzzle to put up, since they're disassociated sections of the full map.  Then they can tape them up to the board and label the countries (EN FRANCAIS, S'IL VOUS PLAIT!)  Whoo hoo, new stuff.