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| The remains of a Hotel on the old Lindis Pass road |
Our Stake President, Jared Ormsby, made lunch for all the stake presidency and their families on the afternoon of stake conference. I was very impressed. His wife was away in Australia with their three children.
Mothers' day weekend in Cromwell area
The following weekend, Mark and I had our annual trip away to a rogaine in Central Otago. We left about mid-day and got to Cromwell at about 7:00pm. We have started taking 30 minute turns driving, which has saved me from feeling carsick. It is also helping me to maintain my confidence in driving on the open road, especially at night on winding roads with sleet falling. I enjoy the trips much more now. We stayed in the same motel as last time, in Cromwell, and it was a nice feeling to be in a familiar place. I love Cromwell. It is soooo beautiful. It is breathtakingly beautiful on a crisp autumn morning with the golden hills surrounding and the autumn leaves and the rocky outcrops, topped by newly fallen snow. It is my current “happy place”.We had a lazy day on the Friday, playing Agricola, napping, eating and visiting a goldfields exhibit, which looked much more exciting from a distance than it was in reality. Oddly we got really tired walking around the hills there for about an hour, which didn’t bode well for the following day. I think it was because we had just had a large lunch.
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| The entrance of the Kawarau Gorge looking toward Cromwell across the 'Goldfields' reserve on Gees Flat |
On the Saturday we went on our first 12 hour rogaine, as we have only done 6 hours or shorter to date. We were a bit late picking up our map as we didn’t really intend to stay out for the full 12 hours. However we got caught up in it all and stayed out for eleven hours. It was more fun than six hours, for me, as we didn’t run out of light before we ran out of steam. The rogaine was really well set out and on two well-tended farms. At the start they said the electric fences were not on on the farm we were on. I believed them, and on the first fence got a nasty shock as I joined a live wire to a nearby wire with part of my hand in between. It was pretty painful, but happily wore off after an hour. It was an interesting pain – not a burn or a cut or a bruise, and I worked out later that it was a cramp.
At one point in the rogaine we were up on top of a spur and could see in all directions, with a light snow covering and a clear blue sky. It doesn’t get much better than that. We have good gear, which adds to our comfort. We mostly stick to tracks, but made the mistake of climbing up one really steep place after a mark, and then didn’t want to come down and went a long way and still had to come down in a tricky place. We always make one or two bad decisions. At the end, we had time to spare so we walked 3km up the road in the dark and back to get some more points. What was that all about?
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| On top of the world at Timburn Station |
The next day we took our time and drove back to Christchurch, stopping at a couple of places on interest and at the top of the Lindis Pass – another tear-inducingly beautiful place. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful country, and to have a car to take us places. All in all it was a perfect 4 days. Great weather, scenery, activities, food and company. The car behaved, we had nice accommodation and no injuries. You can’t ask for more than that.
Jonathan the Jazz Man
Jonathan is doing great at CPIT. We have decide to give up on one subject that is beyond him and we will withdraw nearer the end of the year, as he is still getting a lot out of the lectures and tutorials. I love going to his piano lessons with Darren Pickering, who is a very nice man. Darren is pleased with the way Jonathan listens to his comments, internalises them and, puts them into practice right away. I love watching them doing “trading” where they take turns to play solos for a few bars each. It is a combination of a duel, a dance, and a conversation where listen to each other and build on what the other is doing. Jonathan loves it, and I think that is what he likes best about music. I don’t think Jonathan loves music for itself. He likes that way it connects him to other people – Darren, his ensemble, and the audience. Interesting.
We had a visit in Christchurch from Lloyd Newell, who is the voice of “Music and the Spoken Word”, a weekly programme involving the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He also is the announcer at the beginning of General Conference broadcasts. Jonathan was asked to put together a medley for a fireside with Brother Newell. Jonathan did a magnificent job as usual. He was pretty excited to meet Br Newell as well. I’d spoken to Br Newell earlier in the day as he was in the Ward I was visiting, so he knew a bit about Jonathan beforehand.
That same weekend we had two Ward Conferences. This meant that I went out visiting with one RS president on the Saturday afternoon, and the other on Saturday evening. Then I went to two three-hour blocks, and spoke at both sacrament meetings. I also taught Gospel Doctrine class as no one had turned up, and I like doing that sort of thing. By the end of the weekend I was worn out. I have great respect for what the Stake Presidency do. Bishops and Ward Relief Society Presidents even more so. A lot of people in our church do a lot of work.
Jessica had a three week trip to Utah, which went really well, and she came back happy to be home here. She is feeling much better now and looking forward to her impending motherhood.
The seminary teacher is away for a month so I am filling in for her for three weeks, then someone else is doing the last week. They are great kids and it is easy for me as I have a lot of experience and resources. Still it is pretty relentless every evening to be preparing, and every morning to be getting up early and teaching.
Business news
The business highlight was that I had three gigs presenting my materials and providing professional development to teachers. Two were a week apart in Auckland, and then a third a week later in Wellington. It has been really worthwhile and interesting to talk to teachers about our resources. I have a booking for Christchurch too, in July. I talk about how to teach report-writing, as this is difficult for maths teachers who haven’t been trained to do this. I also reassure them that they are not to be blamed for feeling less than adequate, as it is not their fault, and I give them some strategies.
People ask me what my business is about, so I will tell you here.
I am a director of Statistics Learning Centre, which you can access at www.statslc.com. We produce on-line resources to help teachers and students of Year 13 statistics in New Zealand Schools. There are about 20,000 such students in New Zealand, and about 700 teachers. The resources include videos, that are available on YouTube, quizzes, activities and notes. Students can sign up for $28.50 for the year to get access to resources to help them learn the material in their Year 13 course. Teachers are allowed on for free, for now anyway. In addition we are now offering a school deal, that costs $10 each if the students sign up through the school. This is to help get the name out. As this is the first year of teaching a new curriculum in statistics at this level, and much of the material is new, the teachers are pretty desperate for good resources. The textbooks are behind as they didn’t have enough information about the new curriculum at the time they went to print.
The teachers who have found my materials rave about them. This is gratifying, but we are trying to turn this into money as well. Some have suggested we write practice exams, which I think we will. There is much to do. In the last two weeks I have been ringing schools to talk to the heads of maths about signing up, with mixed success – which is better than no success. I also write a blog about teaching and learning statistics, which had over 10,000 views in May. That is pretty gratifying. I like that people comment on the blog too. It seems a bit daunting, having to think up something to say each week, but I have managed 72 posts so far, and still have plenty of ideas.
Mark is really supportive and encouraging, and is sacrificing by working longer hours so we don’t run out of money too soon. It is a pretty fun venture, and will be more so when the money is coming in.
Watch this space!
Nicola, Mark, Jonathan, William, Jessica and “Bruce”.
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| Some of the Clay Cliffs near Omarama |
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| In a canyon |
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| Looking out from the canyon |
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| We liked the wording |
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