Thursday, July 25, 2013

How LCC Handles Troublesome Students

LCC has a web page to offer guidance to instructors when students cause trouble.

I have never had to deal with such things.  Partly this is because I am a male with gravitas.  Partly it is because math classes are calm places, without the heated discussions that might be part of a class about politics or religion.  Partly it is because my students feel some degree of control over classroom flow: as I finish discussing one topic and get ready to start the next, I often provide my students with a choice about whether to see more example problems, attempt some problems themselves, or look at samples of how that topic appears on upcoming practice tests.

Twice during my twenty-eight terms of teaching math in Eugene a student has yelled at me and stormed out of the classroom.  But that was merely someone venting frustrations using me as an easy and safe target.  It would be a much more serious and strange thing for a to student act aggressive towards another student or deliberately hijack classroom flow.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Preventative Health Care for the Uninsured

What do folks without health insurance do for preventative health care in Eugene, Oregon?

The first step is to apply for Bridge Assistance with the local hospital and medical group PeaceHealth.  This provides a lot of free or discounted health services for up to one year.  So a healthy adult who is not behind in immunizations, blood work, etc. might want to wait until those are again "due" before applying, but should not wait until the last minute because the application turn-around time is about six weeks.

There are several physicians who have special billing plans for uninsured patients.  The most affordable is Dr. Steven Butdorf, who charges $20 per half-hour office visit plus a small monthly fee based upon patient age.

Other physicians include Dr. Justin Montoya and Dr. David Bove, who both prefer to do a lengthy new-patient appointment and thus charge a a higher initial cost (about $250).  That is a sensible approach to starting the doctor-patient relationship if you can afford it.

Oregon Medical Labs offers a discount if a patient pays in cash.  If possible, make those arrangements up front before the labwork is done.  A very complete set of labwork for an annual physical ends up costing about $100.

For children, more is available through Oregon Healthy Kids.  That was the state's first phase of universal health care, done very sensibly before the national effort at universal health care.

Finally, there is Medicaid, which in Oregon is the Oregon Health Plan.  Locally this looks like the Community Health Centers of Lane County, which offers very affordable care to uninsured patients.  For those who are eligible this can be invaluable, but the existence of those other resources hints that Medicaid is often not a complete solution to medical care for the uninsured.

Monday, July 22, 2013

The Teeth of July

Gallant got his first two-year molar (upper right) in June.

On July 5th his lower left two-year molar came through.  And last night his lower right molar arrived.

Three down, one to go!  Hopefully this means he will soon be sleeping through the night as regularly as before this bout of teething began.

A silver lining is that he is now much better about letting me brush his teeth.  I have no idea why, since he does not like having me poke at his gums when the teething is painful.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Luminosity's Smartest Colleges

It looks like Oregon State trounced University of Oregon in various Luminosity cognitive training games.

Local U-Pick Farms as a Google Map

Someone put together a list of the local u-pick farms as a Google map.  Fun!


View U-Pick Berries in a larger map


UPDATE: The Shannon who created the map is a reporter for the Eugene Weekly, and created the map for this article.

Friday, July 05, 2013

Monday, July 01, 2013

The Teeth of June

Gallant has a June birthday, and right on cue, during the evening of his birthday day, his first two-year molar came through on the upper right.

For a week before that, and a week after, his teething caused so much mucus to run down into his stomach that he had little appetite and had trouble keeping food down at night.  Fortunately those days are behind us (for now).  Sleeping soundly sure beats cleaning up vomit in the middle of the night.

No clue when his other two-year molars will arrive.  His lower left gum feels "ready" but such tactile hints can be deceiving.


Smiley also has teething news!  His lower left incisor turned slightly gray as Summer began, and last week it came out while he rested in bed during his afternoon nap/quiet time.  Then, two days later, his other lower incisor fell out at the same time of day.  A mere hint of his adult incisor is showing through the gums.  I wonder how long those take to fully arrive?