TODAY'S JOURNAL ENTRY

Friday, September 21, 2012
                Corey called at around 9:00 this morning to ask me if I could help him out. Bailey doesn’t have swimming because there is a meet at the Legacy Center when she would have had her practice. But; her school is going to have a carnival and Bailey was asked to help set it up a half-hour after school. She is going to stay at school for that half hour. She told her dad that she “would feel better if Grandpa was with her for that half hour.”
                I am flattered of course.
Update: I was at Bailey’s school before the bell and was waiting for her as she came out the front door. When she saw me, she grabbed my hand and led me upstairs. Part way up we met Mr. Gallegos, her main teacher. He is a very cool man with a strong grip; handshake. He assumed I was Bailey’s grandpa and we visited for a minute.
                The second level opens up to the back of the school yard. The school is on a hill.
                I finally convinced Bailey to let me put her school backpack in my van. She showed me around explaining what’s what. We bought her a $5.00 pass which was good for twenty things to do. With me in toe she went around trying out the different things like throwing balls at three pyramids of six full pop cans each. The first time she did it she hit the cans with each of her six balls. She is pretty good shot.
                I met some of her friends including “the other Bailey.” Rebecca, a cut girl with railroad tracks in her mouth who came and sat down next to us later after we tired out and bought a two hotdog meal deals each and sat down at the tables they had set up for that purpose.
                Finally Corey showed up after work but by that time Bailey (and I) were tired and wanted to leave. Later they and Judy and I met at Red Robin at the District for dinner. While we were eating, Bailey said, “Grandpa” then went on to talk about bacteria and a couple of other things. Then went on to tell us about how well she is doing in science and how she and Mr. Gallegos interchange talking about science things in general. I mentioned before about when I asked if she was going to be a math teacher and she said “If it includes science.”
                Later at dinner tonight Jayden was talking about math and the Order of Operations. Stacey and I looked at each other like, "Huh".
We didn’t have any idea of what he was talking about. Corey said that he knew about it but didn’t know how to do it. When Jayden explained it I knew what he was talking about. I just didn’t know how to do it either.

From Math.com:

When expressions have more than one operation, we have to follow rules for the order of operations:

1. First do all operations that lie inside parentheses.
2. Next, do any work with exponents or radicals.
3. Working from left to right, do all multiplication and division.
4. Finally, working from left to right, do all addition and subtraction.

Gads, I didn’t learn that until towards the end of high school not the beginning of seventh grade.