So, on Friday, I took 12 students to Columbia for the state Math League meet. It was kind of silly because Columbia is 4-5 hours away, so we had to leave the day before, get a hotel in Jefferson City, and have a long drive the way back, while the Kansas state competition is in Overland Park, Kansas which is right in the Kansas City area (aka 2 hours away tops). Oh, there is the rule that you have to attend the state meet of the state you're in, so I'm chalking this up to new experiences.
The drive there was rather uneventful. The roads were fine although it got dark right as we were leaving Concordia (where we stopped for dinner). I got a little lost when we got to Jefferson City but I was able to keep my bearings, find a gas station and backtrack to the hotel. (What had happened was that Google Maps told me it was "2 minutes" between getting on a certain road and turning right to the road that led to the hotel when it was more like 20 seconds and it was just a tiny green sign with no real street lamp or light source nearby. The hotel (Candlewood Suites) was amazing! Each room was a studio room so there was a mini kitchen (which was equipped with cookware, silverware, cutlery, etc), some business chairs by a nice desk and of course, good beds with a big TV (which included its own DVD player and there was a big DVD collection you could check out for free at the front desk). Of course, being on a math team trip, I took a little bit to relax and connect to the Internet and then worked with some students and reviewed some abstract algebra concepts that could simplify problems at the competition.
I wish I could say that we left right on schedule and made it to the competition with plenty of time to spare... but I do work with high school students. We were a little late checking out and since the hotel had kitchens in the room, they didn't have a continental breakfast like I had been banking on... kind of a good thing though because as we were driving to the McDonalds, two students realize they forgot their pillows at the hotel. Fortunately, we were able to quickly swing back after everyone got breakfast and then carry on our way. The competition was on Mizzou campus which was pretty simple to navigate, given the directions I got from the site coordinator. We were even able to make it in the nick of time.
I ended up proctoring in one of the rooms with two other schools (since you obviously wouldn't have a coach proctor the tests for their own team), and I took the lead since the other coach was a substitute who was at her first math competition of any sort. This kind of reminded me of when I was at the Springfield competition in February but each time, there was very helpful information with the packet of answer sheets/pencils/stopwatch/etc. Our room was a little behind schedule because we were waiting for a school which was a no show, but things were decent (don't you love how riveting my story is?). There was one question that talked about a island tribe called the Zebu or something like that where an individual has a 33 1/3% of dying in a 30-day period and one of the students in the room was just laughing for about 5 minutes straight. He later said that he was laughing because "the problem is about his tribe that's just dying off" and then commented about that he would never drink caffeine again ever... and I thought it was the funny name.
My students did pretty well. It was definitely a tough competition, with fierce adversaries and the questions were more difficult as well. We ended up finishing 9th out of 21 schools in the large school division which seems pretty good. One of my students even placed 5th place overall for one round (for all the large school students, he got 4th when it was just all the 11th grade large school students) and qualified for nationals! It's funny because nationals are in Kansas City, but I hope he goes because it would be a great experience for him! It would have been nice to see more students getting awards, but hey, there's always next year (and 11 of the 12 students I took are 11th graders now so they will be back for more if all goes well).
During the day, I found out that the Academy was under a tornado watch and I saw pictures/videos later that showed a tornado that was halfway to touching down. Crazy. While we were inside taking the tests, a downpour started (the morning was really nice and there were people out for a race and highway cleanup) so everyone got soaked going to the van to get lunch, getting lunch, going from the van to the award ceremony, and back. At least when we ran back to the parking garage, we weren't the only team running around, and we even had a moment where I felt like the mother duck leading my younglings along a raised cement border rather than through the huge puddles. We were put under a severe thunderstorm warning as we left campus and a really freaky/weird moment happened when a flash flood warning was issued for three random towns right as we were approaching the exit for two of those towns. (Once we were on the road, I kept thinking "I'm glad I fueled up right in town".) The worse part was that even though the van was warm and dry an hour in or so, my socks were soaked the entire freaking time. When I got back to campus, I felt like a blob and people later commented that I looked "mopey and sad". (Of course, once I returned the van and went to my apartment, I prescribed myself a hot shower and dinner... which was nice to say the least.)
Now, random change of subject... my camera (a Canon PowerShot A540) has been on the fritz since August or so. I even went so far as to get a new watch battery and it would still say "change the batteries". I'm pretty sure it's all because of a crack in the flipping part of the battery terminal, so... since it's been out of commission for so long, it's dead to me.
Bad News: not having a camera is bad. having a camera that doesn't work (and being in a habit of taking a self-portrait everyday back when) sucks.
Good News: I was sorting through old emails and I found my ebay receipt for the camera, which was only for $80. Eighty bucks for a camera, media card, watch battery, battery charger (for the AAs) is a pretty sweet deal, even though the camera lasted 2 years. (I can't remember if the bundle also included a USB cable to transfer the photos to my computer or not but I know I didn't have to spend any money on it.)
As for the camera I'm looking for... it doesn't have to be too fancy, I'd want it to be portable, have good battery life, have a good response time, and some various modes for me to mess around with (the A540 had black & white, sepia, and a color select mode where you would select a color and everything not that color would go black and white... and then a color select mode where you chose two colors and it would swap those colors)... oh, and a camera that doesn't make using a tripod a joke. (Here's a picture of the top of the camera. The spot for a tripod was underneath the "wer" of PowerShot on the left, while the two AA batteries and part of the camera you have to push to make it work is on the far right of the camera...)
So... any recommendations for a good camera I should look at?
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