Phone calls
Listening to: Liza Minnelli at Carnegie Hall
Reading: Still working on all those magazines
Weather: 40.sunny
Trivia: Why is there no "Q" or "Z" on many telephones?
The telephone's pad of twelve buttons reflects its history. There are three letters on most buttons, except for zero, one, octothorp (#) and the star symbol (*), which have no letters. "Q" and "Z" are usually missing from the list. Why? Instead of twelve buttons, telephones used to have circular plates with ten holes numbered from zero to nine. To make phone numbers easier to remember, the phone companies assigned letters to the numbers, so people could remember mnemonics like "Charleston" for C-H instead of the first two digits of a number. Of the ten digits, zero was already used to dial the operator and one was used for internal phone company signals. That left eight numbers to which letters could be assigned. Three letters per number took care of 24 of the alphabet's 26 letters, and the least common letters "Q" and "Z" were left out, but not forever. Many telephones now show "Q" on the seven button, and "Z" on the nine button.
Cool word: asterisk [n. AS-tuh-risk]
An asterisk is a star-shaped symbol (*) that marks an omission or footnote within text. It also appears on the keypads of telephones as the "star button", where it is used to trigger special dialing functions. Literally, an asterisk is a small star, reflecting its origin from Late Latin asteriskus, from Greek asteriskos, the diminutive of aster (star).
Here are more "starry" words from Greek aster:
* aster: flower with petals radiating like a star
* asterism [n. AS-tuh-riz-um]: starlike shape, cluster of stars
* asteriated [adj. a-STEER-ee-ay-tid]: showing asterism
* asteroid: planetoid (sun-orbiting body that looks starlike)
* disaster: catastrophe, grave misfortune (once thought to be caused by ill-omens from the stars)
* astriferous (obsolete) [adj. as-TRIF-er-us]: starry
Today was a day of phone call after phone call, and not all of them were pleasant.
At work I was calling parents. Mostly angry parents who didn’t like the dates and times I was giving them for meetings, or the dates I was giving them for meetings, or anything I had to say about what will transpire at the meetings.
I know they expect me to be able to "fix" their kids, but I’m not the repair shop. I hate that they don’t realize that learning disabilities are present in their child and will never totally go away (but with luck the child will learn to compensate for them). Or that their child has a low IQ, and low ability, so as a consequence school will never be easy for them. And they may never go to Harvard.
That’s the part they really don’t want to hear.
I did get the meetings set up, but that just means that now I have a whole new list to dread in the coming weeks.
Then the vet had called when I got home. Nothing was wrong in the blood work or in any of the other lab tests that they ran. So this is good news, right?
Not necessarily.
She now thinks that it may be "inflammatory bowel syndrome". This does not sound good. The cure? Flagil or Prednesone!! Steroids for a cat? Will he beef up? Bloat? Do they come in liquid form? Believe me pills are not the way to go with this cat.
He has been semi-sick the last couple of days. Not as bad as a few weeks ago, but still not right. I’d just like to be able to find a way to make him feel better.
The final phone call was from Dee (at 11pm!!!!), she had just gotten off the phone with the chorus director. And pretty much let her have it. Not in a mean way, she just told her the truth about how the two of us were feeling and what we thought about what was going on.
Dee felt as if it was a good call, and that it was basically friendly, but that she had a chance to make some points that she needed to voice.
My feeling is that the director owes me a call, and needs to start taking charge of some things. But I doubt that she will call. I just want the chance to have my say.
They are predicting that our record of 303 days without any snow will end tomorrow. Apparently we’re in for something in the area of four to six inches. Yuck. They are saying that the mess won’t start until the afternoon commute.
Oh the joys of life.
And tomorrow is one of the days that I’ve been dreading all week. It’s the day that I’m observed for the stupid-reading-program-that-I-hate. Which means a two hour seminar that I have to attend after school.
I do NOT want to do this!
previous |
next
|
Home |
Found this fun site, all sorts of strange tests to take.
What Breed of Dog Are You?
You are most like a GOLDEN RETRIEVER. You are loved by all. Your extroverted and fun personality automatically makes you one of the coolest and most popular people around. In addition to being socially elite, you are also attractive both inside and out. You seem to have a magnetic personality that makes you the life of any party. You are probably pretty accomplished at anything you set your mind to, and have a very supportive and fun-loving social network. A Golden is a great dog to be!