So, I figure that if people are actually going to call me a teacher, I’d better actually give out some testing material at some point to prove that my guys are learning what I say they are. With that in mind, I decided that I would give a test or quiz every Sunday morning; the first day of classes for the week.
I knew that my lack of a dedicated translator of the written word would be an impediment to my ability to write a real test, so I settled on a picture-matching quiz that I gave them on Sunday (after I only caught a few hours of sleep from getting back from Petra!). Nothing complex, just matching between English names and pictures of the components that we’d learned about in class. Jeff told me that he could see them frantically studying, outside my classroom, an hour before classes began. Of course, 3 of them were still late and 2 didn’t show, but that’s to be expected here.
I’ve saved a copy here, if you’d like to see it. It’s in PDF form. Give it a try, let me know how you think you did!
In other news…it hasn’t been a good week for cats in my life. Nancy told me this Monday afternoon that Sheraton the cat, who had unfortunately become sick in the middle of last week and was unable to hold any food down, had just died on her lap in the morning. The doctors had told Philip and her that the poor little guy had Distemper, which, once it’s taken root, is certainly fatal. They buried the tiny kitten under a huge pine tree in Winkie’s backyard. It’s extremely sad; even though we only knew him for a couple weeks, he was a playful, friendly addition to our house.
My dad just let me know yesterday that our cat back at home, Wallace Wilson Heise, had just passed away as well. He was 13 years old, but he aged very gracefully compared with our previous cat, Wilbur. His death came as a little bit of a shock for me, being on the other side of the world and unable to picture any sort of decline in his health from friendly old fellow.
Here’s a picture from my brother’s collection from a few years ago. He was a chubby guy with big front canine teeth, but he was as gentle as could be and wouldn’t hurt a fly (too lazy to try, perhaps). We nicknamed him Walrus; it fit well with his physical characteristics.
R.I.P. Sheraton and Wallace – one of you had to leave the world almost as soon as you had entered it, and the other brought years of pleasure and companionship to our family.
So sorry about Wally– your dad told me about his passing yesterday. He also told me you’d tried calling to tell us about your latest posts. I listened to your message, but the satellite transmission caused an echo in our answering machine and some of it I couldn’t understand. But I loved reading about your visit to Petra, and thought the video clips really added to the atmosphere of your narrative. The Siq looks a great deal like areas of slickrock in Utah, such as Capitol Reef National Park, a place I visited on my own and loved. I’m also thoroughly enjoying the school saga and look forward to every entry. I’m really sorry to hear about Sheraton’s demise, too; he looked like Katrina must have when she was a kitten and I’d looked forward to seeing more photos of him as he grew. I can’t imagine Jordan has an extensive network of pet veterinarians. Keep adventuring, keep writing! We love you too! I aced your quiz, BTW.