New Weird

[Dina]

Hello everyone! I am having a very long weekend. Today is the Day of our Flag, which is also the day where we honored the creator of the flag. Manuel Belgrano is someone I was always proud to say he was Argentinian. He was very clever and always compassionate. A lawyer and economist by vocation, coming from old money, who chose to became a soldier to fight for the independence, becoming a general. He did many, many things, and died very poor. Also, the country failed him. Once he received a lot of money for his services and he donated it to the State with the express provision of it was used to build 4 schools in specific rural areas. They did only one, in 1822 (2 years after his death, so it was reasonable). The other 3 were finished in 1974, 1998 and 2004.
If there is a Heaven, I hope he is happy now.

[Regenbogen]

@ Dina:
Sounds like a great man. I hope you had a wonderful day.

Today after work, I was at the river by bike. Still a lot of water. I managed to get home just before the rain started. I just needed to drive around as long as the sun was shining.

The workday was quiet and I hope it will be exactly like this tomorrow, too.

[Dina]

Hopefully so! And it seems like you enjoyed yourself.

I've a little under the weather, so I spent a lot of time playing a video game  A super quiet one, with puzzles. All lazy and comfortable.
Also, JB progress bar is in 58% now 

[Regenbogen]

I did. And thanks, I noticed the progress bar. But I am trying not to get too excited about it. I told my friend and she got excited instead, lol.

I've rediscovered Tetris and Minesweeper. Played for 2 hours one day. My husband wanted to show me something and I was like "can it wait until I've finished the level? I am playing Tetris. " and he laughed and installed it for his phone too.

BTW Tetris is turning 40 next year.

[Dina]

It is ok, I understand about the JB Bar.
That is so fun about you playing so much. And wow, 40 years.
I will admit here that I am playing a Nancy Drew mystery. Not the first even. I played this line of games for a lot of years, I do not want to even think how many.

[Dina]

Hi Weirdlets! (((((((everyone))))))))
This week is the last week of classes of the semester. We have a class for consultation and then the exam and I will be class-free for the rest of the year. It will be less stressful but I will miss it. I love teaching.

Also, I am to be in the board for choosing student AT (the entry level for teaching at my university, candidates have to be still doing the career). We (the board) are doing a few meetings to agree with the criteria (marks given for each achievement). There are a few things that are fixed by regulations, but the "fine details" are to our discretion. The actual meeting with the students won't be until after the Winter holidays, but we need to sort out several things before that.

[Regenbogen]

Cool, so you get to choose the students?

Enjoy the last week.

Today I got cherries from a friend's tree. They have to be eaten soon, because they are very ripe.

[Dina]

Yum, fresh cherries 

Every teaching position in my university is by a "concurso". I think I told you about that when it was my job that I needed to renew. In short, all the candidates are evaluated by their CV and a mock class (in this case, 15 minutes of explaining a problem) and then they are ranked according to said evaluation. The first ones got the job (in this case. 6 jobs are available). So in this case I am one of the evaluators. That is why we need to agree in the criteria, like how many points will a student get for having good grades, or for having presented a work in a scientific meeting, or for having a position in a laboratory? Things like that.

[Regenbogen]

Ah, OK,  I think I understand.

We have two interns currently. Usually we only have one. But they changed a bit of the organisation and the teaching and this is the first year of the new curriculum, so the one intern is from the old system and the second intern from the new one.
The first intern is in another department since today, so the overlap is over. The second one is still here. It was nice working with both of them, because they already were of great help. Would have been bad, if they came at the same time not knowing anything.

[Dina]

I can see the problem in training two interns at the same time. It seem you were lucky.
It's the first intern happy  with the change? I assume as you usually had one intern that intern2 won't be overwhelmed having to be the only one.

[Regenbogen]

I can see the problem in training two interns at the same time. It seem you were lucky.
It's the first intern happy  with the change? I assume as you usually had one intern that intern2 won't be overwhelmed having to be the only one.

Don't know if she is happy. The change was planned. They all go through the different departments. They need to get experience in all subjects, so they stay for 4-5 weeks in each department. Those are the ones who train to become lab technicians. I introduced number 1 to her new department on Friday. She's a bit shy.

Maybe we'll get another intern who was in another department before. The chemistry lab also had one. I guess I'll see on Monday.  This week, I don't go to work. I have two days off because I worked the weekend and I took the rest of the week off, because I need to organise and prepare stuff for Mini's confirmation.

[Dina]

Already the confirmation? She is so big! I never did it myself.

And about the intern, oh well, if everyone know they have to rotate for all the departments, I guess it is fine.

[Regenbogen]

Yes, she is almost 14 now. I don't know if I already told you, but my kids and my husband are evangelical Lutherans, while I am a Catholic. We decided that because I have a rather lose connection with the church and always hung out more with the protestant crowd so to speak, lol.
Also as a child I didn't understand the differences, because the whole wide family has always been mixed confessions, but all Christians. So it wasn't important to me, but it was important to my husband that his children would not be Catholic, so here we are.

We also had a protestant wedding but only because at first we wanted to be wed by two priests of each confession and the Catholic priest didn't want the protestant one in his church and he didn't want to be second in the protestant church himself. So I said, OK, forget it, we won't need you, just the other priest will do. Then he threatened me that I would be excluded from the holy sacraments if I went through with the wrong priest and I told him that he could keep his sacraments ... well yeah. I guess even priests are just human, and this one was ... Well, you know.
After a few years we moved anyway and there is another Catholic priest, who is more modern in his views.

And I know now that some Catholic priests do Last Rites for the dying ones even if they left the church completely like my father did. And I looked it up: Last Rites are a sacrament. I call bullshit on the weird priest.

Ok so that's the story of why the kids are not Catholic like me. 

[Dina]

I am very confused now because I assumed Mini was having the Catholic confirmation. I had not idea there was protestants have a confirmation too! (I do not know many Lutheran Protestants though. I knew evangelist, adventists but never went too deep into the differences with us.
I am a catholic too and I also have a lot of trouble with the Church because I did not actually marry the man I call hubby. He was raised a catholic (confirmed and all) but he is agnostic now. And, funny enough, I was not confirmed for several reasons.

[Regenbogen]

Maybe it's called different in English and Spanish.
We have two different words for it: catholic: Firmung (usually around the age of 16) and protestant: Konfirmation (usually around the age of 14).
The Catholic first Holy communion takes place around the age of 8 or 9. Usually in third grade of elementary school.
Protestant Konfirmation is the only ceremony there is for older kids.