Yesterday Ian began running a fever of 103.4, necessitating instant nursing (“Drink lots of water; here, have some more Tylenol”) as well as a quick phone call to Mr. Olfert to rearrange math summer school classes. School involved frantic questions from crazy-eyed students who suddenly have realized that they have to be finished with all 12 chapters of their math books by Friday, and that they’ve put off taking certain unwanted tests for too long. Thus I spent the first half of my day dashing from student to student, trying to explain how to factor x^2 + 5x + 6 … or why x^2 – 121 isn’t factorable as (x + 11)(x + 11) … or how do you solve this: “Flora wants to buy at least 8 plants, and she’s only buying ferns and ivy. If she spends $15 total, and ferns cost $2 while ivy costs $1, what does the graph of the solution set look like?”

The next half of the day became my recent favorite activity-avoidance technique, sleeping.

– KF –