Last Weekend of March

Somehow, I've seem busier during the past couple of days...

Yesterday, I spent a good chunk of my time doing chores around the house. That included my weekly vacuuming the living room, and some cleaning. Afterwards, I spent pretty much my afternoon changing the tires on our family vehicles (with my brother and my father). We also did the semi-annual brake inspection and tire pressure check. I realized that the rear brakes in the car I drive is getting quite thin... compared to the front brakes.

I also got in a good amount of lesson planning in! I managed to finish the last booklet that I will be giving out to my students.

As for today, I spent most of my day constructing activities/worksheets. Who knew it would take this long. The hardest part perhaps was coming up with interesting activities for the diverse learners in my classroom. Hopefully these activities are fun for them!

The calendar I had custom made at Staples since I had a free coupon!

Until July Gintama!

I woke up later than I would have liked today. =( I was up at 6:30, but fell asleep and woke up at 9...

I turned on my computer and tried loading up an episode of Polar Bear Cafe, but unfortunately Crunchyroll wasn't working/loading for some reason. To keep me entertained, I went back to what I normally do on a regular day (when I have school/practicum): reading the newspaper. Iginla's trade was the headliner in the Herald today, and I had to admit it was kind of sad to see him go. However, I think he deserves to win a cup before he retires and I don't see how the Flames are able to do so in their current state. I'm no hockey guru, but it seems like to me that they don't have any long term plans at the moment.

After breakfast, I started working on constructing notes for my students. I was looking online for resources that my students can access in terms of a welcome-back activity (on lenses and mirrors). Unfortunately, a lot of sites I went to either required membership to access the demos, or that the information was too complicated for grade 8s (Snell's law and such). That really frustrated me so I ended up stopping and watching Blast of Tempest. =P

I went out for All You Can Eat in the evening for dinner. It's been a while since I last visited the AYCE restaurant on 16th. Since I haven't exercised in a while, I made sure to not overly stuff myself =P

And when I got home, I watched the last episode of Gintama's 6th season. It was quite a touching episode that featured Sadaharu! I thought it was a nice way to end off this interesting season, which consisted of half new content and half remastered reruns.

Spoiler Alert

Sadaharu fishing to help feed his newfound friend. Ah Gintama... no other show that can bring you to tears in one minute and make you laugh like silly the next.

A Sad Day =(

I started off my day with my usual episode of Polar Bear Cafe as I ate breakfast. The episode was going quite normally for a Polar Bear Cafe episode: things are all merry and bright.

Until we find out that

*spoiler alert*




Full-time Panda got transferred to another Zoo in Singapore! =0 The transfer led to quite a shock to me, and to Panda-kun. It was the first time I ever seen this main character cry in the show. I actually felt somewhat of a lump-in-my-throat myself while watching today's episode. =( It was a good thing that it ended on a happy note though! I never would have expected that they would add "realism" to a show like this, but it serves as a good reminder that nothing really stays the same in life.

After working on my teaching philosophy for a bit, I rewatched the last few episodes of Pet Girl that I had left before getting a chance to view the last two episodes. (I normally watch it off Crunchyroll via a free account, thus being a week behind. However, I had to finish the LAST episode today, so I downloaded off the site I download Gintama episodes).

Episode 23 was another episode worthy of tears. The speech was kinda cliché, thus nevertheless it was a really touching speech. And then onto the very last episode.

It was a great ending in my opinion. Nothing extremely out of the ordinary, but I felt like it really tied things off well. I have to say that I will definitely miss catching this show every Wednesday. For the past 4-5 months, it was something I really looked forward to in the middle of my week. I was extremely impressed with the character development of the show and realistic it seemed at times. It was a show about growing up, finding your own passions, making meaningful relationships, and so much more! Definitely one of the best animes I've seen in my life! I kinda wish that they will have a second season, but at the same time, I think that the ending they had was all they needed to wrap up a wonderful series.

*sniff* Goodbye Misaki-senpai, Jin, Chihiro-sensei, Dragon, Aoyoma, Sorata and Mashiro (and Rita too!). It's one of the few series that I watch that I remember all the main character names! (Sadly enough...)

An Errand's Day!

Today was a day full of errands! I got my license renewed, mailed my TQS and another letter, and a bunch of other tasks outside. When I got home, I worked on my lesson plans for a bit, and then...

got lazy. =P

I got a whole bunch of Pet Girl of Sakura Hall in and quite a bit of LoL games, though mostly against my brother.

I can't believe tomorrow is Wednesday! Break is going by too quickly!!!

A Marking Day!

I spent most of my day marking today. I'm glad to say that after 6 hours, I managed to mark 3 sets of assignments! Thank goodness for youtube, for that really helped me get through marking. It's a tedious process, but it does give me a good idea of where students are at in terms of their learning. Also, I was fortunate to be able to mark art projects, for it allows me to see an another side of the diverse students in my classroom.

Besides marking, I didn't do much else. I got through a couple episodes of Sakurasou and played a game of LoL, but that was pretty much it. I guess it didn't help that I woke up at around 9ish today. Better wake up earlier tomorrow to start lesson planning and do whatever else I need to do!

So Full...

We had our annual Spring Banquet in karate today. After a shortened white/green belt class, we had the black belt ceremony to celebrate the 6 new (5 were present today) black belts. Congratulations to them!

After the ceremony and a speech from the head instructor, we had our lunch. For $10, it's always quite the deal. There were all sorts of food ranging from spring rolls to french fries. Once again, I wasn't able to grab any of the mango dessert/drink. It'll be my goal for next year to be able to grab a full bowl of it! Even though I only went through two plates of food (and dessert), I'm still quite full!

After karate, I went home and relaxed by playing Monster Hunters on the 3DS. I grinded for an hour, and I have to say that it was a very successful grinding session. I collected the pieces needed to craft my Jaggi armor! I'm now completely "Jaggified" since I have the dual swords and complete armor set crafted from the Great Jaggi and his little minions.

Also, I started to rewatch Pet Girl of Sakura Hall. I was debating whether to start a drama series or rewatch an anime series, and I decided to do the latter after thinking for a while. It's such a great series! One of the best shows in 2012-2013 in my opinion!

And that marks the end of my spring break. Starting tomorrow, I'll have to get back to work on marking, lesson planning, essay writing, cleaning, fixing (Strike Freedom has been sitting in my glass cabinet for the past two months now practically) and whatever little chores I have to do for Spring Break.

Woo, Spring Break!

Ah, it's finally Spring Break! Time for some rest!

It's been quite an eventful week so far. I got a copy of Monster Hunters 3 Ultimate for the Wii U and for the 3DS! The reason why I have two copies is so that I can play multiplayer with my brother. The graphics aren't as great on the 3DS, but I'll live for now. I also ordered a circle pad pro for the 3DS XL on eBay, so it should make my journey a lot easier. All I can say though, is that this game is costing me quite a bit of money =/.

Wii U console + Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Wii U + Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate 3DS + Circle Pad Pro for 3DS XL. I better put in quite the number of hours into this game to make up for it!

Besides Monster Hunters, I had two days of parent teacher interviews. On Thursday evening, we had quite a number of parents come in. I had the chance to talk to a couple of parents about their children, though I felt as if my lines were scripted. Pretty much, I told them if the students/parents that the student is doing well (or not) and what they can work on. This is a skill that I will need to continue to work on. Friday morning was quite empty on the other hand. For the four hours I was there, only one student came in for an interview...

Well time for some sleep!

First Aid!

I've spent the last two days at a First Aid course at the university. Throughout the weekend, I learnt a whole whack of skills, that I hope I don't forget so easily. =/

I learnt basic CPR, wound care, splints and various types of injuries that I may see in schools. Thank goodness that the course finished early today, so I had more time marking papers! (I have about 150 assignments to go through...)

And that's that! I'm tired so it's an extremely short blog post for today.

Activity Day

Since it was activity day today, I didn't have to teach! Yay for a little break!

I went with my partner teachers and 25 students to Max Bell Arena to go skate for a couple of hours. We walked from the school to the arena. Also, we were able to rent out the "Skate Shack", which is a City of Calgary program that allows people to rent a trailer full of skates for free!

It was a bit awkward to get back on the ice, but after a couple minutes, I was able to get the hang of it once again. After skating, it was back to school for lunch. Students got the chance to make their own pizzas from scratch. After showing my partner teachers my incompetence when it comes to cooking, I learnt how to properly roll dough. 

After lunch, some students wanted to go to the gym to play badminton, so I was asked to go supervise them. It was extremely crowded in the gym (since some soccer kids were already there playing), so I ended up sitting on a bench watching them play. I got really sleepy after a while... not sure if it was due to being tired or boredom =P

That pretty much marked my day at school. Soon after I got back home, it was time to get ready to go to karate to help out with the black belt exams. There were 6 students taking the exam this time, with 1/3 of them being students that I taught when they first entered our dojo. *sniff* I think I'm on my 4th batch of students that are getting their black belts! (A batch to me are any students that are taking their black belt exams, meaning they stuck all the way to the end). 

And now marking... I should have never given my students so much work to hand in... It doesnt help that my First Aid course is this weekend as well... 

I have about 150 things to mark! Yay....

Oh and second episode of the "Star Wars" arc in Gintama! Shinpachi looks "bad-ass" for once in the preview for next week's episode!

I'm Back!

I'm back! For now anyways...

Last week was quite hectic, since I was preparing lessons, finishing up reflections/teaching philosophy paper and preparing for my CBE interview. In terms of the CBE interview... well I don't think it went as well as my Catholic board one. There were some questions that really threw a rut for me, such as "How would you like students to view you as a teacher?". Strangely, I couldn't really come up with an answer... If I remember correctly, I think I mentioned

Competency
Kindness
Relevant and a human being like my students (since I had this misconception that teacher's lived in schools when I was in elementary school).

I don't think I threw enough key buzzwords during the interview... and it doesn't help when your voice gives out near the end of the interview. I knew I was suffering from.. some kind of sickness (Laryngitis maybe?) but I didn't bring a bottle of water with me! That bottle could have saved me some embarrassment...

Anyways, what's done is done. I just have to hope for the best. =/ I couldn't really tell by the body language of my interviewer on how I've done, so I'll have to wait anxiously to May.

Besides the interview, I had the chance to go try out Rimrock yesterday. They had the Big Taste of Calgary thingy-mobobber. The restaurant was really posh, thus being quite expensive. The food wasn't quite worth the price ($35 for a 3 course meal) in my opinion, but then again... I'm pretty cheap when it comes to food. (I do prefer All You Can Eat! Sure it may not be the best tasting food, but it can sure fill me up.)

Now onto today! First day of tryouts of badminton. I also played a couple of games with the coach. Due to my lack of fitness, I couldn't sustain for more than 12 rallies. =( I guess that will be my goal for the rest of my practicum: to get into better shape!

From my dinner yesterday! I used this picture to explain refraction to my students today! =)

Crazy Snow and Good Samaritans

Crazy amounts of snow today! I was actually surprised by the amount of people that showed up to karate today. I was expecting a lot less since there was so much snow on the ground.

Coming home was a disaster. I actually was stuck on the connector between barlow and 16th ave. I couldn't get out of the snow bank (or whatever prevented me to move), but fortunately for me, 3 cars stopped and helped move my car. Thank you to those guys who helped me out today!

Pretty much for the rest of my day, I spent it on lesson planning, looking over this philosophical paper I have to write for practicum and reflections. It's going to be a busy week, so I may not be able to keep up with my blog posts this week. (Nor have I really been keeping up with it recently...)