I can’t believe it, but I actually forgot to post a link to the wedding website. So, here it is. I am honestly very excited about marrying my favorite person in the whole world. With Becca, everything is brighter and more fun. What else can I say…
My great uncle Bill passed way on Tuesday, and I’ve been really stressed out about it. He was more like my grandpa than an uncle, so I’ve taken it hard.
Once again, Becca has proven why she’s the girl I should marry and no one else. She literally ditched three classes and skipped a test so she could come get me through this difficult time. I would like to thank her so much.
What do I mean when I say formatting cells in Excel? To format a cell means to change how what’s in the cell looks. Formatting a cell does not change what’s in the cell, only how it looks. This is a very important thing to remember.
You already know (I hope) how to use the Big Three of formatting: bold, italics, and underline. In case you forgot, you can manipulate those using these three buttons:
You can change the colors of your text and background in Excel very easily. To change the text color, you can highlight the cell you want to change the color of and click on the 
button. Clicking on the 
will give you a list of colors to choose from. The bar under the “A” will always show the currently selected color. To change the background color of a cell, click on the 
button. Again, clicking on the will give you a list of colors.
In Excel, we work with all kinds of data. Data are simply pieces of information. Some different kinds of data are regular numbers (i.e. 1, 2 13, 233, and so on), dates, currency (i.e. how much was your electric bill), ZIP codes, a list of names, and so on. Excel can format your data in dozens of ways. For example, if you type
>> Important Information: To format a cell to hold a certain type of data, right-click on the cell and select Format Cells… tthen click on the Number tab. <<
General: This is used if you’re not really sure what kind of data is going into a cell. This is the default value. (A default value is the one that is selected when you start a new spreadsheet.)
Remember, formatting a date to look a certain way does not change the actual date.
Time: Use this category if you’re going to store a time (i.e.
Percentage: Use this setting if you’re going to have percentages in your cell. It adds a percent sign and you can set the number of decimal places.
>> Important Information: You must enter your percentages in decimal form even if you format a cell as a percentage. For example, if you have formatted your cell as a Percentage and want your cell to show 50%, you must enter .5 in the cell. If you try to enter 50, Excel will show 5000% <<
Fraction: Use this setting if you want decimal numbers to be shown in a fractional format. If you format a cell as a fraction and enter .5 in the cell, it will appear as 1/2. This is very useful for converting fractions to decimals and vice versa.
>> Important Information: The best setting for the Fraction category is Up to Three Digits. This will give you the most accurate fractional representation of your decimal numbers. <<
Scientific: This is used to display numbers in scientific notation. We won’t be using it in our class, but I would like you to know that it’s there. If you really want to know what scientific notation is, visit: http://www.nyu.edu/pages/mathmol/textbook/scinot.html or you can ask me.
Text: Use this setting if you want Excel to interpret anything you put in the cell as text. If you set the format to text, if you put 1 in a cell and 2 in a cell, you won’t be able to do any math on those numbers: Excel will treat them the same way as the letter “A” or the word “Hello!”
Special: This is a really neat category. It has settings for all the following kinds of information:
Custom: The custom category is very powerful but beyond the scope of this class. See me after class if you would like to know more about how to use it!
Something I haven’t actually said in awhile was that tonight’s Apprentice was fun to watch. This season’s cast of characters is diverse and much more interesting than those of the last couple seasons. The best thing is that they all seem business savvy. There isn’t a nutjob (despite the fact that everyone thinks Brent is nuts). I actually think Brent has something several of the others lack: fire. He’s willing to fight for his right to be there, and Trump has shown numerous times that he admires this quality. If Brent can use his crazy energy come up with some really good idea that wins, I think he’ll be around for awhile.
I really like it that there are three foreign competitors so far. The Brittish guy has a huge advantage over the rest of the competitors because he is so freakin’ smooth and eloquent. Sometimes, I really wish I was Brittish.
I found a very interesting article on why people hate the MS Office paperclip character known as Clippy. The article was an honors thesis by a Stanford graduate named Luke Swartz.
It seems quite odd to say, but February has felt very long, despite being the shortest month in the year. I finished my second KTIP observation on the 16th. It went very well and I’m that much closer to being a bonafide teacher who doesn’t have to answer to the newbie watchers anymore. It’s odd that I’m doing all this rookie stuff, since I was actually a newbie last year. The powers that be, though, will see me as a newbie until this internship is over.
Looking at the straight up theory, teaching is not a hard thing to do. The basic sequence goes something like this:
The only part that is really hard is step number 5. Why? Because it involves 1 billion2 factors that are entirely beyond my control. Some days, all students want to work and, for whatever reason, put forth more effort. Other days, though, nobody wants to work and I have to get really nasty to make people do anything. I hate those days. I come home feeling bad about the whole process and the kids usually end up having harsh feelings toward the material. On the average day, 60-80% of the students will work, while the remainder refuse to do anything. The suckiest thing is that despite what I would like to believe, the quality of your lesson plans are in no way related to what type of day the kids are going to have. A good lesson plan can minimize a sour day, but it in no way prevents any of it. But alas, teaching is very rewarding. When you see a light-bulb go off and a kid walks away with a skill they didn’t have before they saw you that day, it’s all worth it.
One thing is for sure, the moon does play a big factor in how the kids act and perform. During a full moon, they are more restless and more easily distracted. I know, I know. That’s voodoo and you have no proof. One of these days, I’m going to chart overall student behavior for about six months and correlate that with the phases of the moon. I almost guarantee there will be some correlation.
I am no longer a Hardee’s taco salad addict. I have been able to succesfully eat a couple other foods…yay!
I love you, Becca. 
You make me happier than I thought possible. I can finally be myself. God answers prayers after all. If we had forever, I would still wish for forever and a day.
When I get home, I’m going to install Mac OS X 10.4.3 on my old iBook. I have the bare minimum hardware requirements, so I am a bit nervous about how things are going to run. One thing’s for sure, I can’t stand the lack of support for OS X 10.1.2.
For the last two weeks, I have been playing with Ubuntu Linux 5.10 for PowerPC. I really like Ubunu. All the included apps are very useful and everything is very well integrated. The biggest problem is that the video drivers are unaccelerated, which leaves video playback at a crawl. So, I broke down and bought the officially sanctioned Apple solution. Only time will tell.
This is the message that the Pacific Palisades High School (California) Staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine. This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children’s absences and missing homework.
The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children’s failing grades changed to passing grades even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes.
This is the actual answering machine message for the school:
"Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting the right staff member, please listen to all your options before making a selection:
"To lie about why your child is absent – Press 1
"To make excuses for why your child did not do his work- Press 2
"To complain about what we do – Press 3
"To swear at staff members – Press 4
"To ask why you didn’t get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several flyers mailed to you – Press 5
"If you want us to raise your child – Press 6
"If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone – Press 7
"To request another teacher for the third time this year- Press 8
"To complain about bus transportation – Press 9
"To complain about school lunches – Press 0
"If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable and responsible for his/her own behavior, class work, homework, and that it’s not the teachers’ fault for your child’s lack of effort: Hang up and have a nice day!"
Check out our wedding matchbooks! The only trick is that they are not really matches at all! They are little booklets of paper. We have matching pens that our guests can use to write in them until their hearts delight! Besides, would we actually be crazy enough to turn our families loose with live flames during our wedding? Absolutely not! 
