So what did we do?

What did we do on our recent Disneyland vacation? Well, we

• Escaped the Temple of the Forbidden Eye
• Helped defeat the Evil Emperor Zurg
• Dined on the bayous of Louisiana
• Watched top chefs make chowder
• Went on daring adventures with Pinocchio
• Rode a bobsled down the Matterhorn
• Explored Sleeping Beauty's castle
• Ate wonderful Mediterranean food
• Went on the happiest cruise that ever sailed
• Took the grand circle tour, including stops at the Grand Canyon and a primeval world
• Learned to draw Tigger
• Took a steamboat down the rivers of America
• Played midway games hosted by toys
• Sampled dishes from a food and wine festival
• Visited 999 happy haunts
• Had a scary adventure with Snow White
• Spun out in Toon Town
• Watched Aladdin triumph in a musical
• Soared over California
• Took a wild ride with Mr. Toad
• Shared bakery goods with birds in the morning
• Cruised through mysterious jungles
• Munched Louisiana cuisine on a terrace while a steamboat went by
• Toured the moon of Endor and battled the Death Star
• Found Nemo
• Toured the house of tomorrow
• Ate wonderful Mexican food
• Rode to the top of Mickey's Fun Wheel
• Heard birds sing words and flowers croon in the Tiki Room
• Sailed with pirates in the Caribbean
• Raced through Monstropolis on a rescue
• Learned that it's tough to be a bug
• Took a plethora of pictures
• Got shrunk, then blown up
• Had many adventures with Winnie the Pooh
• Took a monorail to Tomorrow
• Experienced advanced Muppet technology
• Had a lovely meal in Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen (complete with live Jazz)
• Rode a mine train through a southwestern mining mountain
• Went to Wonderland
• Experienced an exquisite four course meal with lovely paired wines
• Visited the Blue Sky and saw the future
• Stayed at a Pier in Paradise
• Generally had a blast.

Now the only question is how to top it.

Following up on entering Disney

I wrote in my previous post about the release I felt on first entering the Disney resort we stayed at last time. I wanted to follow up on that, because I've been reading Designing Disney: Imagineering and the Art of the Show by John Hench. In a section where he talks about the importance of play (for both children and adults) and the necessary ritual to enter a spirit of play, I found the following:

Imagineers create a feeling of ritual at the park's entrance. Many guests have saved up for a long time and traveled great distances to come to their chosen park. The lushly planted berm identifies and separates the park from the outside world; the entranceway to the park is the gateway to playtime. The tunnel entrance to Disneyland is a door through a warm-gray stone wall, an archway that gives guests the feeling that they are entering a special place on the other side. It still amazes me that such simple features of landscape and architecture work so well to transport guests from their everyday lives to the specially sanctioned playtime that the park alone offers. As guests traverse the tunnel, they leave behind the everyday routine of working, maintaining shelter, obeying rules; they enter a space where they can play voluntarily, and where, we know they will have the opportunity to feel more alive.

Yes; this is very much akin to what I experienced. I entered a different world, and in it's own way, it was carefully demarcated from the ordinary world. I note also that the tunnel entrance to the park is captioned with a plaque that reads:

Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy.

What marked the transition when I entered the hotel? I think it was clearly the moment I saw Goofy in the lobby. The whole presentation was a unified (and beautiful) whole, but Goofy is what alerted me, "You're at Disney now, and that means you can quit worrying and have fun."

Why Disney

I went on a trip to DisneyLand a few weeks ago with my other half. I spent a day or two before we left organizing and packing everything: reservations, confirmation numbers, itineraries, clothes and neccesities. What's needed and what's not? We drove from here to Pittsburgh (about two hours), parked in long-term, took a bus to the terminal, got through security, took two long plane trips with a several hour layover and arrived at LAX. Then we had to find ground transportation, which (eventually) got us to the hotel.

I booked a Disney resort hotel this time (Paradise Pier) because we got a great deal on it. (The whole trip was a great deal; there is a real upside to a bad economy if you can afford to take advantage of it.) We trudged into the lobby, which was bright and cheerful, with Goofy holding a surfboard in the midst of it, and a cheery gentleman at the front desk (at close to midnight).



And I just relaxed. All the stress I'd felt in getting everything set up and getting there was just... gone. Released. Everything was OK; I was in Disney's capable hands from this point onward. I was finally on vacation and (until I had to leave), I was free to be happy. And I smiled.

So there is something to be said for staying at a Disney resort.

Where are the Jelly Beans?

So I went on my annual cut rate Easter candy run today, and found that most places have been rather ravaged. And I consider myself something of an expert on the status of post-Easter candy stocks. What happened this year? I was particularly disappointed to find that Target (usually a treasure-trove of all sorts of unique and interesting goodies), was heavily picked over already, and in fact had nothing but chocolate in some various guises. (Mind you, I liked the look of some of that chocolate, and I got plenty of course.) I commented to the woman who checked me out on the slim pickings, and she told me they actually got hit harder than usual the day before Easter.

I made my usual perusal from store to store this year, and found only two (of six) that had any jelly beans at all. What's up with that? Is there a great jelly bean shortage this year for some reason? Was the crop damaged in the flooding? (OK, so while I'm a city boy, I'm not really that much of a city boy. But when I was little I did think beans were manufactured. I used to wonder about how they got wrapped up in those tiny little skins.)

I was idly wondering if the problem might be related to tough economic times, but wouldn't that mean people buying less candy? Or maybe manufacturers made less expecting people would buy less? Or maybe everyone waited until the last minute hoping for a sale? Or maybe I'm pulling these theories straight out of my a--Hey, Hey, Kids!

Two things did occur to me on the trip this time. One is that the hunt is almost as much fun to me as getting the candy itself. I get excited running around hunting for the good deals from store to store. The second thing I realized is that the strangest part of the trip this time was the fact that I set out specifically to buy a ton of discounted candy, and ended up buying a bottle of grapefruit juice as an impulse buy because it looked so tasty. Seriously, who does that?

Networked Copier

Good things about being able to send documents directly to the copier:

• I can make a set of handouts from my office without having to stand and wait for the copier to finish in the office.
• I don't even have to stand and wait for the copier to warm up if it's been shut down!

Bad things about being able to send documents directly to the copier:

• Occasionally I make 35 copies of my class roster or something by mistake. On the printer rather than the copier. I have not yet accidentally done this with a 40 page paper or anything, but I still have plenty of time.
• I also end up looking for things in the printer that I actually sent to the copier by mistake.
• Sometimes I forget to pick up the class handouts that I made the night before. And sometimes I forget on the way down to the office. That may just be a sign of creeping senility, 'though.

Cookies!

I'm glad the coordinator of the research seminar is such a health conscious individual. If I were running a seminar and brought cookies, I'd take the left over cookies home and eat them. I might even place the cookies over a wild hyena during the seminar talk to discourage people from eating too many of them. Our fearless research leader on the other hand leaves the extras in the office for other people to eat. So I go into the office after everyone else goes home and say, "Hey, look--cookies!" (I wait for other people to leave so that at least I might look like I am also health conscious. In reality, I channel Homer Simpson every time I see cookies.)

So right now I'm eating cookies while I prepare a quiz for my calc students and grade a quiz from my precalc. And I'm trying not to laugh too hard at the answers on the precalc quiz.

*munch* *munch*... mmmm.... cookies...

Precalculus Despair

So this semester I'm teaching precalculus. Supposedly the students are already reasonably proficient in algebra.

Good parts of the semester include the fact that I found a book that I like. I really, really like it. It's beautifully focused. It feels like every time I start a new exercise, I think, "Yes--this is exactly what I wish my calculus students understood." And it's beautifully structured, spiraling through topics, adding layers of subtlety with each turn. I'm very happy about having such a good book in part because pretty much every semester I have been here so far, I've used books other people picked out or which were "typical" for a course at the university, and I've pretty much universally despised those books. I've stopped trusting anyone's recommendations.

I also like the way I have structured the semester, with lots of "mini" tests, which are cumulative, rather than two or three "big" tests that students cram for. It keeps the students up with the material, and it also keeps me apprised of where my students are. But this means I really do know how my students are doing, and I'm not feeling as happy about this at the moment. After the second quiz, I know there are many things that many of them cannot do. Many fairly simple things that many of them cannot do. Including things we have done repeatedly since the second day of class.

Part of the problem comes from previous deficits. Many of the students have trouble solving simple equations. Several need to be reminded repeatedly that there are real numbers between 2 and 3. Some are not sure what you might get if you were to square the square root of 5, or that -3 < -2, or whether a squared real number might be negative, or whether one might be allowed to take the square root of zero. (It's zero, by the way.) When students are struggling with these issues, it makes it difficult for them to learn about the domain and range of a function, and what the rate of change of a function on an interval might be, and how to sketch a piecewise defined function. How did these students end up in precalculus? Are they really expected to be able to complete calculus next semester?

So I have many failing students now. And tomorrow I must chide them to get the help they need if they wish to pass. There is still time, but the time to catch up is running out rapidly. And for so many of them, there is so much to catch up on.