Civic Duty

I have the day off today, so I decided to use some of my time to initiate my civic duty. I decided to write my representative and senators. It may be futile, but it makes me feel better to know that I tried something.

Dear Senators Hatch, Bennett, and Congressman Cannon

As one of your constituents, I feel strongly that I need to send a message to you to vote AGAINST any sort of bailout plan. I am a hard working Utahn. I am a high school math teacher. I am a very average American. I feel strongly that this bailout is NOT in the best interest of the majority of the American people.

Thank you for your time,
Haley Q. Binggeli
West Valley City, Utah

Is the cover better? - part 6

It's been a while since we had a cover contest. I don't want to sway you or anything. John Mayer is very talented, but there really is no contest here. Comment away . . . what do you like? (By the way, what do you think of Mr. Stinger's jumpsuit?)

It must be fall

After church today, James decided to go back to sleep and catch up on some much needed rest. I had some schoolwork that I knew would wait until later, so I decided to take a book outside and read on the swing. It was a very pleasant day today, but then after a while I started to shiver. I wanted to stay outside, but I actually had to go in a grab a jacket to do so. I haven't worn a jacket since probably April. The summer is officially over according to the calendar and the weather must have gotten the message, too. Plus, now it is only 7:45, but it is already too dark to read. Oh well. I kind of like the fall and the sweater weather it brings.

Geometry Charades and Financial Planning

I had an interesting afternoon today! Would you like to hear about it?

First of all, I had an appointment with a financial advisor dude. You see, this is another benefit of Murray School District that I did not realize earlier. Murray uses an investment service called AXA (I think it is ike Fidelity and other similar investment companies). I met with this nice guy named Andy who is the representative for my school and about 30 others. Although he has a whole bunch of schools, he tries to meet individually with "new" teachers and explain their benefits and investment options. Pretty cool, huh?

I am fairly ignorant to a lot of this retirement planning stuff, so it was actaully all very interesting! I have a 401k, but as of today, I also have a 403B. And, if I choose to open a ROTH IRA in the near future, Andy can fix us up with that, also

Andy also spoke Spanish . . .

This came in quite handy. While he was there, a student of mine who is from Spain had come in to take a test. She has only been in the U.S. for about a month and her English is improving, but the vocabulary on a geometry test was quite challenging. Andy interpreted a couple of times for her. We were both much appreciative. After he left, though, we began charades. "At least," "contains," "measure," "wins and losses," "season," . . . Have you ever tried to define these terms to someone? She was good with the geometry terms - parallel, perpendicular, line, segment, etc. - because she's been practicing those. What about all the other words on the test? Yikes!

She is a very nice girl and we were both laughing by the time the test was finished at all of our weird hand gestures and sign language to one another, but the test is done!

Yummy!

I tasted these today and they were quite delumscious!
Thanks for inviting us to dinner, Annie and Ross!