Monday, April 11, 2016

Post date: Apr 11, 2016 8:35:17 PM

I'm so distracted. My daughter Kendra is due any day with our fourth grandchild, and I swear I can concentrate on anything but the phone ringing.

In Literature 9 we discussed the chapter commonly entitled "Courage in Action." Mrs. Dubose is a mean, spiteful old woman. However, she had a set of convictions that she lived by, and regardless she was going to die "beholden to nothing and nobody." Regardless of her political views, you had to admire the courage it took to get clean. We discussed courage and its various definition. We took a check over Chapter 11, and we also finished part of the Idioms worksheet.

In English 10 we finished our discussion of Act II, Scene 3. We will need to pick up the pace and finish Scene 3-4 this week. We defined the various forms of irony in our Act II notes. We also looked over the questions related to Act II, Scene 3. A big part of our class period was taken with subject/verb agreement. Hopefully we can call this good soon and move on.

In American Government it was all about gerrymandering, Congressional benefits, and Congressional representation. We watched Crash Course's explanation for gerrymandering. He talks sooooo fast, but I like his explanation of how each district represents 700,000 people, but the Senate isn't near that even. Since every state receives two Senators, depending on the population, a Senator can represent 1.5 million people [Iowa] or 26 million [Texas]. Somehow this doesn't seem equitable. We finished discussing the benefits of Congress, the delegates from DC, Guam, Samoa, and Virgin Islands, the commissioner from Puerto Rico, and finally how Congress does not reflect demographically the population of the United States. If it did, half of Congress would be women, there would be a homeless member of Congress, etc. Quiz on Wednesday.

In Law we discussed the articles we brought regarding the trials that are presently in the news. We discussed the indictment stage, the grand jury, the arraignment, and finally the trial itself. We then quickly reviewed principals, accomplices, accessories, and withdrawl. I really enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of this course.

All in all a great day...could be greater if a baby decides to come soon!