Thursday, October 29, 2009

winter already


Winter comes this way again, but first a quick visit with Autumn, then repeat the cycle, repeat the blog updates; barely there, I so thought I would blog more this year. Somehow the repetition of work is pulling my creativity down.

I kind of have the urge to travel, but not sure how or when. I like to see things, feed my brain with new ideas and places. Need new light patterns for the retinas.

In my Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) class at work I learned a new word a few weeks ago. It was "xiong mao" (xiong is pronounced like SHE-OH-NG if you don't know) which literally means "bear cat"... Are you asking what the heck a bear-cat might be? Well, it's the Chinese word for panda! Kangaroo is "bag mouse" and dolphin is "sea pig". Dang, animal words are cool in Chinese. (For the over achievers in the house, those words word be "daishu" and "haitun" respectively.) In fact, a lot of learning Chinese is fun. I never have enough time to take lessons though. Only one lesson this month. Oh well, it's just a hobby.

I finally fixed my camera, well kind of fixed it. So I have been taking billions more photos, along with some technically difficult panoramas (quite hard when I didn't have a working display) and even a nasty spider (partially pictured above) which all can be seen from the link, a total of 44 new pictures of now.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

edumacation

Sometimes I wish I was in the Lesson Planning Division. I got a fax regarding a new style lesson with "instructions" in broken English and written unrealistically, to paraphrase: "Junior English Aptitude Test are for improving the English kinder/junior/senior students. Show the mixed level class four cards. Instruct them that you will say a four short conversations. Ask the students to mark (a number in the empty boxes) in their test book the sentences that is best matching one of the cards, but not all. For example, 'Tom, what is that?' 'It's an apple mom.' Grade all tests before student go home." arrrg. There are so many things wrong with that teaching plan, I don't know where to start. Just let me be a good teacher don't give me unrealistic expectations. For example, IF the kids can understand those complicated instructions they will find the English in the 'conversation' way too easy. (Not to mention, what kind of mom doesn't know what an apple is?!) Frustrated. Sorry for the rant. You may now continue what you were doing.
 
All original content CC 2002-2012 BY NC SA - first design from dilarangmelarang altered by neonvirus and thunderbunny.