The Spiders Waldo

I cannot deny it. I am a people-pleaser. Maybe I am not very good at being one, but I am one all the same. So when Serge asks where the pics of the spiders are, I cannot help but immediately begin uploading what photos I have of the hand-sized monsters we saw on the island. There are actually several stories yet untold about our trip to the island, but blogging just takes so much time, and I have so many students...

I am now more thankful than ever for the helpful comments my professors made on my papers back in high school and college. I write notes to every one of my students... and, wow. It takes forever. They obviously internalize what I say, though. I can tell especially when students misunderstand me. Example: I told one student that she needed to include a space after periods and commas. Another student overheard but misunderstood what I said; she turned in a paper into which she edited extra spaces -- before every comma and period. I have the two drafts of the letter. I can see that she consciously made this change. It makes me very conscious of my role as a teacher, and it helps me take that role very seriously in ways that I would not have expected myself to. I took Craig's advice and made a rubric by which I grade -- because I know students will compare their work, and I want to have clear reasons for having given every grade I did.

But all of this is not getting you any closer to seeing the pictures of the island spiders. These guys were hanging off of trees and chilling in lamp posts. I never had to deal with almost walking into one accidentally, but, if I had, I think I would have been ready to swim back home rather than wait for a boat. I obviously learned nothing from my geology forays, indicated by the fact that I provided no scale to allow you to see how large these spiders were. (Actually, I did think to provide scale, but I was too afraid of the consequences of getting myself or anything else near those 4" long legs and 1/2" chelicerae. I mean, I asked Serge to stand in front of them, but was he willing to sacrifice just a little bit for the noble cause of science? Noooooo....)

This spider I named Waldo.

Can you find him?

There he is!

And he has a sister, also named Waldo.