ASAP
- Make 20 copies of the 2 church camp photo CDs for this Sunday.
- Set up/Design a site for my church before I leave.
- Design 4 other sites before I leave.
- Proofread Papa’s new essays and PDF them.
- Go to the US Embassy downtown next week to get a Social Security number.

Teaching Stuff
- Make class schedules and curriculum for 20 classes for the next year.
- Read all the books the children have to read for the next year and make vocabulary lists of the words they have to learn.
- Make a list of all the books Berek will need to order for those classes.
- Make a list of all students’ names, parents’ names, phone #s.
- Record and make audio CDs of 1 John, Proverbs 31, Lord’s Prayer, Apostle’s, Nicene, Chalcedonian, Athanasian Creeds, Belgic Confession for the kids.

Trip Related
- Finish blogging about it.
- Make a photo album of it.
- Write thank you notes to LOTS of people we visited. Still haven’t done it.
- Burn CDs/DVDs of the pics from the trip and send them to more than 20 people.
- Research newest DVD burners and choose one. Grit teeth, buy it.

Miscellaneous
- Finish cataloguing my books (Title, Author, Publisher, Pub. Date, ISBN, LC info, Binding, Date Acquired). So far, I’ve finished 100. Only about 1400 more to go.
- Catalogue 400 CDs.
- Take apart my old computer and send some parts to my cousin Ian.
- Backup all my data using new DVD burner.
- Redo the navigation system for the berith.com site.
- Answer the 30+ e-mails in my drafts folder.
- Choose which/what books, CDs, software, hardware, clothes to pack.
- Redo Berek’s template and move his blog over to MT.
- Ditto for my own blog.
- Update my blogroll.
- Set up a photoblog so the little kids here won’t forget me.
- Finish a year’s worth of college courses before the end of this year (that includes 5,000 math problems and a bunch of math tests … snakes are starting to grow on my head already).
- Prepare for the GRE.
- Read a book a week (HAH! … yeah, right).
- Get myself on a regular sleeping schedule … uhhhh.

I know there’s a lot more but I can’t remember what else right now.

Another thing that’s very different about Berek before and after Philly: he can eat a lot now. A couple years ago, when we went out to a nice (i.e. expensive) buffet restaurant, he ate as much as he could (which wasn’t very much at all), and as soon as we were done eating, went to the bathroom and threw it all up. I was paying that night and was really upset … not because he got sick, of course, but because he lost all that good food. Poor guy. His face turned bluish white and he looked wiped out for the rest of the evening.

I was poking around my computer last night and found an e-mail I wrote to my cousin Christopher years and years ago, when I was doing Saxon’s Advanced Mathematics. (Yes, I knew that ALL CAPS meant I was shouting.)

Ooooh, my dearest coz,

Permit me to break my No-E-Mail-During-This-Month rule, and rant and rave for a while.

I HATE math. A few years ago, I would have said it bores me to tears, but I’m past the point of crying. Every time I have to open my math book and try to work at it, I get boiling MAD. If I see the words “quadratic” or “equation” or “formula” or “sinusoid” or “triangulate” or “cofactor” or “theorem” or “polynomial” again, I think I’ll scream my head off and go insane. Will you tell me WHY I must spend so much time doing this? CAN you tell me why? Tell me!! According to Papa, I should do math so I can “learn self-discipline” and “how to think through things logically step-by-step.” Huh! There’s GOT to be a way to learn discipline and logical thinking OTHER than doing mathematics. It is so MEANINGLESS to juggle around numbers in different ways. They don’t mean anything to me, and simply put, I just DON’T CARE about how numbers should be moved around. The “numbers” that don’t exist should be exactly that … they shouldn’t exist.

For me, advanced math is a total waste of time, because
- I won’t be able to DO anything with it,
- I don’t see how it should be applied to my life or future (other than the fact that if I want to go to a certified school, I have to know it), and
- I have a feeling I’m not learning much in the way of self-discipline or logical thinking.

Writing this makes me feel so stupid. I’m not really stupid … am I? Tell me, am I stupid or not? It seems like only people who aren’t intelligent say they don’t like math. Everybody I know who is smart ENJOYS mathematics, but I ABSOLUTELY can’t see HOW it relates to ME or my LIFE. Oh, of course, I should learn some basic arithmetic, but I don’t see WHY I need to know more than that. Just the thought of calculus makes me want to lie down and die.

By the time I’m done with my math for the day, I’ve turned into Medusa with PMS to the millionth power. People scurry out of my way, before I kill them with my murderous glance.

You want to come to Japan and share my pain? Oooh, please take it away.

Your crazy cousin,
Emeth

I’ve been with Berek all day. His time with the Garvers has made him a lot more talkative and outgoing than before. Now I want to go to Philadelphia! I want to play with Claire! I want to meet Joel and Laurel! I wanna … I wanna ….

Stuckuppityness (stuk-UP-i-ti-nes)
n. — The quality or state of being proud; inordinate self-esteem; an unreasonable conceit and confidence in one’s own superiority in intelligence, eloquence, etc., which manifests itself in lofty airs, distance, and often in contempt of others; a philosophical attitude.

Variant of stuffuppityness.

On top of everything else, it’s happened again. Again! The more I think about it, the more upsetting it is. *tries not to hyperventilate*

Why is it that when some parents try to deal with the wrong things their children do, they forbid them from doing good, productive things?! I’ve seen it several times in the few years and every time, it just about kills me. Condemning a child to confinement in a room, or forbidding a child to study what he’s good at as punishment for lying, or cheating, whatever, is unthinkably absurd.

I understand that sin must be punished. I’m not advocating the “let’s-just-forget-what-you-did-and-feel-good-instead” kind of parenting. But the punishment must befit the sin. What good does it do to forbid everything, both good and bad? Unless the child is extraordinary to begin with (in which case he would not be getting into trouble), that just fosters a more rebellious attitude.

Spank, assign more housework, take away privileges temporarily, do what’s necessary, but isolation from Christian friends and confinement at home is not good for anyone.