When I got out of Bikram this morning, I promptly called the monument guy in Hilo about Mike's gravestone and got an appointment for 2 pm. On the way home, I stopped in at Target and bought two six-packs of Hersey's Chocolate bars with whole almonds, a plug-in for charging the phone in the car, and a hairdryer. When I got home, I worked on cutting down more of the old hibiscus shrub. I did as much as I could with the clipper. Then I sprayed the whole front yard with one gallon of vinegar to kill the weeds. This stuff is amazing. It reduces the number of weeds I have to kill every week.
I showered and left for Hilo at 12:30. There are several ways to get to the other side of the island. You can go north and around to the east, south and around to the east, or go by Saddle Road, which passes between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. This is the fastest route if you can tolerate getting your ears plugged up from the altitude changes. Going this way, I pass the access road to Mauna Kea. The demonstrators were camped there, protesting the large new telescope installation. The police had set up a portable traffic light. There was something on the order of 50 tents. I didn't do an exact count. The number may be fake news, but I thought there was an impressive number of people there.
While I am not demonstrating, I sympathize with the demonstrators. The designated caretakers of the mountain had nothing but disregard for the Hawaiian people's concerns, who consider the mountain sacred. My understanding is that they built indiscriminately and didn't remove structures that were no longer in use. This latest telescope is supposed to detect asteroids flying toward the earth and help the military deflect them. While the concern for humanity might be considerable, I can appreciate the anger people feel about the lack of concern for their humanity to not care if they cause the death of the whole human race.
Going through that stretch of road, traffic had to slow down considerably. Then, further along, I ran into rain and fog. I had left myself just enough time to make the trip and get there at the appointed time. I wound up running a bit late. I pulled over to call the monument guy to say that I would be ten minutes late. Ten minutes isn't a big deal in Hawaii, but I didn't want to come all this way and have this busy guy run out.
As I approached the place where the shop was supposed to be, I didn't see anything resembling what I anticipated. Lady Gaga, (Mike's name for the GPS voice) announced, "Your destination is on your right." I was looking for a building with elegantly displayed headstones. I called the guy and told him that I was close. I said I didn't see a sign. He said, "A car ran it down a few years ago." No hurry here. Well, he is the only provider on the whole island. He said he would wait out in front and wave me down.
I had seen the open-air shed with the metal roof as I passed and thought, "No way!" I was wrong. The place looked like a junkyard with stones laid out helter-skelter. I had to step over things to see. The shed also serves as his workspace.
I took pictures of what he had that I was interested in to send to Damon. He gave me the price, "$5,000-$7,000 plus the engraving fee." This is one expensive junkyard.
I asked him where he got the stone from. It surely wasn't from this island. There's lots of rock (It's all rock) but no granite. He said he got the stones from India and was traveling there this coming weekend. As I walked around, I got a glance out of a back door. This shed sits right on a cliff overlooking the water. Gorgeous location. He said the saltwater corroded everything. Yeah, everything metal can rust here in no time flat, and we're 1,000 feet up from sea level and a good 3 miles as the crow flies.
I stopped off in the old downtown area of Hilo to have nachos as Reuben's. I am never disappointed. I don't know how they make them so good. I could only eat half and had to other half packed up for dinner.
On the way home, I stopped off to work with S .on division and K, her younger brother, on reading. It didn't take much to help S. She showed me a format for the division that was unfamiliar. I asked E., her older brother, if he knew it. You never know, something new may have been developed that I had never heard of. When E didn't know what she was talking about, I said we would do it my way. When she got more information from her teacher, I would learn that way and help her.
K is in first or second grade now. He had problems with both visual and auditory processing. I don't know how I am going to be able to help him seeing him only occasionally. I recommended that they play the audio files I created on bandcamp.com under my full name, Elisabeth David-Ross, that models auditory processing.
When I got home, I contacted Damon to set the dates for my west coast trip. My first stop will be Portland to visit Mowgli and Lilith. Then off to Seattle to visit with David and Karin and their baby Sam. Dorothy will be visiting at the same time, so I will get a chance to spend some time with her too. After that, it's off to San Francisco to spend time with Shivani and Sidney. The last stop will be to LA to visit with Damon, Cylin, and August and then return home, my lovely home.
Musings:
All math operations are procedures; all procedures involve steps; a specific pattern of steps is a dance. Math is a form of finger dancing. I came up with this idea when I became aware that all proficient arithmeticians move their writing tool from point to point as they perform the arithmetic operation. That physical movement is not necessary, but most people do it.
When performing this 'dance,' I use the traditional format for long division.
Division is a waltz: (1),(2),(3); (1),(2),(3); (1),(2),(3);(1),(2)-(3).
3 754 with the frame around the 754. ( Sorry, I don't know how to create the division frame on the computer.
There are four sets of three waltz steps in each round of the division operation. This can be repeated indefinitely, but it is always four sets of three waltz steps.
(1) 7 divided by (2) 3 is (3) 2
(1) 2 times (2) 3 is (3) 6
(1) 6 from (2) 7 is (3)1
(1) 1 is smaller than (2) 3 (3) bring down the 6
Start again
(1) 16 divided by (2) 3 is (3) 5
(1) 5 times (2) 3 is (3) 15
(1) 15 from (2) 16 is (3) 1
(1) 1 is smaller than (2) 3 is (3) bring down the 4
Start again
(1)14 divided by (2) 3 is (3) 4
(1)4 times (2) 3 is (3) 12
(1) 12 from (2) 14 is (3) 2
(1) 2 is smaller than (2) 3 (3) There's a remainder of 1
I modeled the procedure over and over using the same problem, the same numbers. Then using the same problem, I had the student move my hand through the process. Next, the student did it on her own repeatedly until she felt secure. Once she was confident with the first problem, I changed the numbers. I had her write down the 3 times table on the side, so she didn't have to carry the extra burden of remembering multiplication facts. She could concentrate on the procedure. Once she was secure with the second problem, I stopped the lesson; what she had required a great deal of energy. It was time to rest and absorb.
I spoke to her the following Saturday. She said her teacher started using "my way" of doing division. (Smart teacher.) I have no idea what caused the student's confusion in the first place. She also said that she had passed some computer test on division. Guess that worked!
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