New Year's Resolutions?

Since I never seem to be able to keep my New Year's resolutions (they tend to be the complete opposite of what I've planned to do), I have devised a simple method that hopefully address this issue! If not, at least I was able to keep my resolutions this year. =)

1) Gain 20 pounds
2) Not get a job
3) Don't graduate from school

Three main "resolutions" for this year!

Overall, 2012 has been a pretty standard year. It had its ups and downs. I had quite the number of accidents this year, but I managed to meet a bunch of new people as well! =)

Eitherway, Happy New Year! Hopefully 2013 will be awesome! =)

I used to like Winter Break more than Summer Break...

But I will have to change my mind on that matter. I used to like winter break more since I had a strong hatred for the intense sunlight at sunset during the summer. My workspace has a window that faces west, and I don't have any houses/buildings to block the incoming rays. My blinds don't do it justice either. =/

However, there isn't much I do during winter break since I can't really go out in the cold (scared of contracting frostbite again!) I've stayed home once again without doing anything exciting. I think I may get cabin fever at this rate....

Good thing tomorrow is Bro Night!

Now onto something mildly exciting. I've completed Rowling's novel today. Overall, it was a great read. Essentially, it seemed to be a tragic novel since a lot of things went horribly wrong at the end where a problem escalated to the death of two individuals. As an ironic twist though, a couple of the characters that started out miserable had a "decent" ending.

It was no Harry Potter in terms of fantasy, and I think it was a bit too pessimistic for my tastes. However, it was an intriguing story with good character development. 4/5 stars out of my self-made rating scale with nothing to compare it to!

Boxing Day 2012

I woke up too late (around 10 AM) to cash in on the deals today, but it's okay. I'm broke this month from spending too much money. =(

Once again, I began my day by reading Rowling's book. I have to say that it's getting more interesting as the story progresses, but it makes me lose hope for humanity. It's definitely a lot darker than the Harry Potter series. Everybody seems so selfish in the book!

After some LoL, I had some work to do. I couldn't finish all my work today, but I'll have time tomorrow to work on it! =)

Hmm... no picture today. Too lazy =P

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays

To those that celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas! To those that do not celebrate Christmas, Happy Holidays!

It has been quite a relaxing Christmas Day. I spent the day reading and playing Zelda, with a touch of LoL on the side. I got to level 28 today! Two more levels to go!

Here's a piano-vocal live version of My Grown Up Christmas List, sung by Ailee!

May the rest of 2012 be merry for you. =)

Week Long Break

I took a break from blogging for a while since nothing really interesting happened to me over the past couple of days. I went out a bit and had loads of time to play LoL, but that was pretty much it. Oh, and I guess I survived the "end of days" apocalypse that the Mayan's have predicted, but it turned out that it was just an end of an era! Good thing I didn't spend like crazy or do something totally out of the blue =P.

As for Christmas Eve today, I spent the day playing Zelda on my brother's 3DS. It's the first time I've played Ocarina of Time. Due to the difficulty of finding the correct viewing position, I've been playing it in "2D" instead of 3D.

I've just completed the Fire dungeon, and now onto the water dungeon!

credits: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuLSZY55KaViwtl1qbLkRFO6sgvG8hjyDDlTFkT0TE387yU2upjWGqa4TsZi8DKL1O4uOZG2-vAJYC8a7em2tmGaJ2UfiTWHDObCz0ZUA8sbjcI9yzVoXQGp5OvkrW2Zc21_D-ME_WOeqk/s1600/zelda-ocarina-of-time-3ds-box-art.jpg

Weekend Break

May those souls rest in peace. Such an event is starting to become to common place. =(

My weekend so far, has been games games and more games. Nothing really exciting, so I won't bore you readers to death. Starting tomorrow though, I'll need to go out and get some exercising in. I'm starting to feel my waistband again...

Bison Striploin at Smuggler's Inn

For Bro Night tonight, we went to Smuggler's Inn to eat. I always enjoyed going to Smugglers since they have large portions and all you can eat salad and soup!

Talking about my main meal, I had the bison Striploin. I got it medium rare, but it was a tad bit chewy still. The cranberry sauce on top though was pretty delightful; a little bit of tart, but a bit of sweetness as well.

For $40ish dollars after tips and taxes, I was quite satisfied. I made sure to eat a lot of salad, soup and bread to try and make up the price of my bison Striploin =P

New School and Musical

Yesterday, I went to go see a brand new school that opened in September since my first practicum teacher was working there. She showed me around the school when I arrived. During the tour, I noticed how this building had really wide hallways (or maybe the students were so small that the hallways seemed wide...) Either way, the school was so nice and clean. After the tour, I went into her classroom and observed students working on an interdisciplinary inquiry project. They were making Ruberg Machines (the one where one thing leads to another thing, leads to another thing... like the one where you roll a marble down the thingamobable... I think you get the drift!) They were integrating science (simple machines), math (data collection), language arts (poems about their work) and social studies (renaissance period). I was amazed at how complex some of their projects were and how they had really efficient problem solving skills. For example, one student told my first practicum teacher during his interview (they were interviewed on their project) how it took him many tries to get the marble down a spiralling ramp by making adjustments like adding a wall (so the marble doesn't fall off the ramp), or angle the spiral to slow down the ball. I remember standing there amazed that students could come up with these things! An engineer in the making I say!

I pretty much spent my entire morning observing many different projects. All were simply amazing. I couldn't think of one project that lacked some kind of "amazing factor".

As for today, I went back to my second practicum teacher's school (FFCA... even though I call it my third practicum. It's my second assigned practicum teacher). They had dress rehearsals for Wonderland... which I was supposed to play in. (Still feel slightly guilty about it). From what I remember, there are 4 different casts (2 grade 11 casts and 2 grade 12 casts). Today, I got to witness one of the grade 11 casts perform. Of course, there were some glitches but overall, I was very impressed with the musical. It's amazing how busy young students have the time to come together and practice when they have finals/diplomas coming up! The band, (consisting of the piano, drum set and bass guitars) did an excellent job accompanying the singers. I have to give props to my replacement (a student that I swear looks like somebody in my former Bio class) for learning the pieces quickly!

And that's that!

Practicum Experience at FFCA

I'll probably be busy playing LoL tonight so I better write my blog now!

It has been an enjoyable four weeks at FFCA High School campus. I have to say initially that I was scared of entering a charter school. I didn't know what to expect since I never been in a charter school before! All I knew was that the charter school didn't follow the charter/mandate/whatever-its-called that the CBE had. Also, it was a bit shocking to see everyone wearing uniforms at school. I've seen tons of teacher-based dramas that had students wearing uniforms, but this was something new in a Western society-based classroom.

Throughout the four weeks though, I've became accustomed to seeing students wearing uniforms. Sure, not all students adhered to the uniform standard, but for the most part, it became normal to me. It was odd to see students not in uniform during Casual Friday though! It was like I walked into a different high school!

Now onto the teaching/learning environment. Valley Creek Middle School was big on inquiry. FFCA on the other hand was more direct-teaching (something that I grew up with). It was very odd to be immersed back into an environment I'm so familiar with when I've been through Valley Creek and courses at the university that promoted inquiry based learning. I see the merits though at a high school level since there's so much material to cover in such a short amount of time. (There were times where I felt like I was dragging my class behind since I would explain some things in too much detail =P). It would be interesting to integrate more inquiry into a high school environment, and something that I wish I can potentially see in my last practicum. Nevertheless, I readjusted myself, and followed the direct-teaching model they had at FFCA. I made sure to apply  everything I learnt at my last practicum, and this practicum, to try and engage students in meaningful learning. That was perhaps the biggest issue I had with my four weeks to keep students engaged. My learning partner and I would try to incorporate fun activities to make learning easier, but these activities took time, which at times we did not have.

What I think I enjoyed the most was how friendly teachers were at the school. They were all very welcoming for they would introduce themselves as they see me walking around the building. I believe I had the chance to become acquainted with almost all of the science teachers and quite a few humanities teachers. There was a gym/science teacher that offered her insight on teaching with the experience she had when we student teachers were pestering her with questions during lunch one day. Other teachers would welcome us to their classrooms and encouraged us to interact with the students. Overall, it was a very warm community of teachers that really make me want to work at the school! Also, the principal took the time to introduce himself to me when I bumped into him in my first week of practicum. During PD, he even asked for our opinions on how the school was running, which really surprised me. I would have never thought that a lowly student teacher could input his opinion on a matter as large as how the school is running!

Overall, it was a pleasant experience at FFCA. I wouldn't say it was better than at Valley Creek, since I really enjoyed both practicums. I have seen two different environments and learned a lot from both of my partner teachers (and my learning partner). I've been lucky so far and had two wonderful practicums. I wonder how my last one is going to shape up...

credit: http://www.viewcalgary.com/Associations/pMacKaySchool.JPG

A picture of what the school building looks like. Since FFCA is a charter school, they can only rent school buildings; not own their own school. 

First Day of Break (Practicum experience tomorrow!)

I neglected to blog for the past couple of days since I was playing LoL. I've been playing mostly support with Soraka. It's a totally different role to what I'm normally used to since I'm usually a bruiser with Riven (or try to damage with Riven).

Today marks my first day of break. I spent the day mostly on working on my website (which the first draft is done) to playing more LoL. I also managed to listen to both moumoon's latest albums. I'm not sure what genre I would put moumoon into, but it's definitely not your main stream pop music!

YUKA (or is it simply Yuka... not sure) is the main vocalist of the duo known as moumoon. She has a soothing voice in my opinion! =)

Cowboy Cut Rib Steak at Cattle Baron

I'll talk about my practicum experience tomorrow (including interviews).

It's been a while since I've last been to the Cattle Baron. I usually don't go here often because I find it to be quite pricey. Anyways, we ordered two appetizers: calamari and short dry ribs. Both were pretty good, but nothing spectacular.

My main meal came, and it was quite huge! The vegetables I had were quite delicious. The mash potato was alright. It's texture was creamy but the taste was a bit bland. The rib steak was cooked rare (I asked for medium rare) to my eyes, but it was still quite edible for me. There was quite a bit of fat, but nonetheless it felt like the meat melted in my mouth.

For $54ish dollars for my entire meal, I was satisfied but I don't think I'll do something like this for a while...

Will blog tmmr about today! Too tired

no content

Week 4 Wednesday

Only two days (technically 1.5 since I have to leave early on Friday to present at the university) of practicum left! Today was pretty laid back since biology was mostly a work period. My partner teacher had some tricky genetics questions for the students to work on. It took me a while to figure them out myself!

Chemistry was straightforward since we finished our topic on excess and limiting reagents. During this time, my field advisor was observing me for the second time this practicum. Seems like everything went well, so I don't have anything to worry about (well website, presentation this Friday and applying for jobs...)

That's all for today! Parent Teacher Interviews tomorrow!

Fractured after all =(... Week 4 Tuesday

During biol 30, I had a phone call. Since it was in the middle of class, I did not answer. It was a good thing that my phone was on silent!

At lunch, I checked my phone and saw that it was my doctor that called me. Knowing that it meant bad news, I called back with a sense of dread. It turned out that the radiologists determined that the line that my doctor was suspicious about was indeed a fracture. Fortunately though, it is quite small so I don't need a splint. However, I'll be out for about 6 weeks. =/ (Though I don't think 6 weeks will be all that long).

I can't wait to be able to bend my fingers again! It feels so weird keeping them mostly straight for the entire day. I can only curl my fingers slightly before feeling pain. =(

Onto school! It was pretty much an ordinary day. Biology was notes (we managed to finish what we planned for today!) and chemistry had a quiz. During the quiz, we had a chance to visit a Chemistry 30 class and a phys ed.

And now my left index finger is getting tired, so that's all for now!

Hybrid Typer! Final Week Monday

Since my 3rd, 4th and 5th fingers are out of comission on my LH, I can only use my index finger to type (for that hand). My Right hand is okay, so I've been using all my digits for that hand. It is an interesting experience, since my normal typing rhythm is erratic. Things that my right hand types are moving at my normal speed while letters I type with my left hand are drastically slower. I'm prone to making more mistakes when I type like this since I'm not looking at the screen when I type, but I'm starting to get used to this!

Today marks my last Monday at FFCA. The morning starting like any other morning: prep time where I quickly go over what students need to go over in both biology and chemistry. Biology went somewhat well today. I had a mental glitch during a dihybrid test cross (and I just realized how dirty teenagers could be...) but otherwise I believe things went smoothly. I may have spent too much time on dihybrid test crosses, but I hope I was able to drill the point across. My biggest weakness I'm noticing for this practicum is my pacing. I tend to spend to much time going over detail. =(

Chemistry: things were going great! After the class though, I realized that I forgot to give them a review booklet that they can use to study for their quiz tomorrow! =(

I left school early today to go see my family doctor to get my hand assessed. After his prognosis, I was sent to get an X-ray done to see if I did fracture any bones in my hand. At the X-ray center, they gave me a CD with my my X-rays, which I then had to give to my doctor. This was wayyy after the closing time of my clinic, but I went back to his office to see if I could hand in my disc since I don't have much time during the week to make this trip (the X-ray center and his office are in the same building). Luckily for me, the receptionist opened the door and gave the disc to my doctor. My doctor then quickly checked the file on her computer and showed me the images. I have to say that my bones looked really beautiful =)

So according to my doctor's initial... observations... (the word is on the tip of my tongue), everything looks fine (besides the swelling). There may be a small fracture, but it could have just been the shadow of a blood vessel. He'll let me know if the radiologists find something though (they weren't at the X-ray center that afternoon).

So, so far so good! Also, the music teacher knows that I won't be able to play in the musical and she seemed to have found a replacement for me.

And thats all for today... my left hand is starting to feel weird from typing like this...

Bruised and Swollen 

Another hand injury! And what timing...

In Karate today, I managed to injure my hand again. This time, I took a kick to the fingers. We were doing an exercise where we were supposed to block/evade incoming kicks and then counter. This exercise was done where one person stood in the middle (as the defender) while the others formed a circle around him/her. When I played the role as the defender, the first few kicks were fine. Halfway through, I was too slow in blocking with my palm/wrist, so I ended up blocking a kick with my LH fingers...

I ended up with three fingers that I can't bend without feeling pain and with one that is quite swollen. In other words, my left hand is inoperable due to my sprained/swollen fingers. That also means that I cannot play the piano, and thus cannot play in the musical next week.

I have to admit that I feel relieved from the stress I was feeling from the time crunch, but I feel extremely bad for not being able to play. I felt like I let down the people that were counting on me to perform next week. =(

On a happier note, I went to a musical that my learning partner student teacher was in the NW. The show was based on a broadway musical called White Christmas. I was very impressed by the entire musical! The dances were spectacular and the music was lively. I can't say that it was the most original plot, but I still enjoyed the entire thing overall. I even recognized a couple of pieces, such as Blue Skys, and the Grieg Concerto opening they used in one of the pieces.

A picture of my wrapped fingers that another instructor helped me wrap up today.

A Piano Day

I spent about six hours playing the piano today. About an hour's worth of piano playing at the hospital and 5 hours to practice for the musical. I don't recall playing so much in one day! I have to say that I'm feeling pretty exhausted from all that, but I guess it's a good way to increase my stamina and concentration.

I'm starting to feel frustrated with these pieces, but I guess I can only continue to chug my way through! As long as I put in work, I can improve (even if they're just small improvements!). The Mad Hatter song is a lot more difficult than I anticipated due to the intricate rhythm. Thank goodness though that the notes are relatively simple to play. 

I'm exhausted, so off to sleep!

My neck is sore =(... Week Three Thursday

The entire day was essentially PD Day. All the different FFCA campuses congregated at the high school campus to participate in the numerous PD workshop activities. We started out with a small coffee/donut break before diving into some techniques that we could use in the classroom. The morning capped off with an activity that required us to come up with ten words that we think students need to know for each particular grade. I was in the grade 11 group so we grouped together in a classroom and worked on what we thought were the top ten words. Essentially, we used a wordle to see which word popped out the most (when we were making our list).

Lunch was next, which the school graciously provided. I had a roast beef sandwich, a small vegetable salad, fruit salad and a brownie! I was pleasantly surprised by how much food we got for lunch! 

After lunch was more group work. This time, it was to take our ten words and apply it to your area of specialization. I was working with teachers that were teaching grade 9 and 10 sciences. Even though I couldn't really participate in the discussions, I had the chance to observe how other teachers collaborated with one another as they threw out ideas and critique things that didn't fit with their beliefs. 

After a quick wrap up, PD was done... for today at least! There's one more PD tomorrow, but it'll be mostly departmental PD. There will also be a pot luck, so I'll be bringing in some sushi. (The theme was food that was compartmentalize-able. I was thinking of dumplings, but that would require me to cook them... which I sadly can't really do. =( ).

 Lunch for today! It was packed in a cardboard box, which was a pleasant surprise as well! I was expecting brown bags.

Now onto my title. Somehow, I pulled a neck muscle (if that's even possible).

Mr. Many Mistakes Maruyama --> Week 3 Wednesday

I'm not sure why, but I'm making quite a bit of mistakes over the past two days... For example today, I used the wrong gametes for my test cross. I knew it was H_ and hh but I went two heterozygous (Hh) organisms for some reason. Then in Chemistry, I mistakenly said that hydrogen phosphate ion had a charge of minus 1, when I KNEW it had a charge of minus 2 (since H3PO4 is happy, HPO4 must have a charge of -2!) I didn't correct myself until a student pointed it out! Ahhh, I guess I am human after all =/

Man I'm so sleepy. I'm heading off to bed. I think I may be biting more than I can chew... I'm not sure how I can play these fast pieces for the musical at tempo in about a week and a half...

The Mad Hatter is a Girl?!? Week Three Tuesday

I was going over my sheet music for the musical and I noticed that I don't know what the plot is for the musical! I did a quick wiki search and found out that this musical is a modern day Alice in Wonderland story. It seems like Alice has grew up and has a daughter. She, along with her daughter, moved so Alice could have some space between her and her husband. Things aren't looking good for Alice, for she sent a manuscript for a children's storybook (I believe), but it got rejected. After taking a nap, she was magically transported to Wonderland! And thats all i Remember about the plot! What surprised me though, that the Mad Hatter in the musical is a girl! She wants to become the queen of Wonderland! I always saw the Mad Hatter as a male character, so I cannot imagine how she'll be portrayed. Also, I was recently talking to a student who is taking the role of the Mad Hatter... and that student was male... I'm not sure if I'm being trolled or not, but I'll have to wait and see!

Today, I got the chance to teach a bit of biol 30 and chem 20. I'm starting to get a groove again, which is a good sign, though awfully late... (I was in the grove after my first week at Valley Creek). My guess is that not learning the students' names as quickly made me feel like I was teaching to an audience instead of a classroom. There isn't that teacher-student relationship established when I haven't got all of their names down (I'm still not able to get three students names! But I guess that's not bad since I got about 60 names down pat).

My field advisor is coming tomorrow to observe me teach! First visit, so I better make a good impression!

EDIT: Picture of the musical's promotional posters... I think that's what they're called.

What defines an Asian person? Week 3 Monday

I'm working on my website at the moment, and I am having difficulty identify what Canada constitutes as an Asian! I've been browsing through Wikipedia, but I am unable to access its sources. =( The only solid definition I have for what defines an Asian is through one of my journal articles. The problem though, is that it is an American journal article rather than a Canadian article. I hope they don't really mind if I use that definition!

As for school today, I got the chance to teach an entire Chemistry 20 class. We went over doing gravimetric stoich. To be honest, I found it difficult to explain this topic in a clear way for students to understand. I tried using the method that my own chemistry teacher taught me, with looking analytically at what the equation is telling you to do (given mass x molar mass to get mols of A x mol ratio to "cross the bridge" x molar mass of B to get grams). From my observations, I believe that a couple of students understood the process, but a lot are still in the dark. For tomorrow, I'll need to make sure and go over more practice examples. I'm not sure how else I can teach this unit! I'm open to any ideas if you guys have any!

I also got the sheet music for the musical! I went home and started practicing a couple of the pieces. I got the notes down for one of the simpler pieces and about 40% done another piece!

That's it for today! I lied about the picture... I was planning to take a picture of the sheet music I got, but I'm unable to do so at the moment... I'll stop promising to put up pictures...

Philosophical Thoughts #1: Senses

Back in the day, I had these PhD blogs, where PhD stood for "Philosophical David". I have changed the title of these blog posts to "Philosophical Thoughts" since I feel that calling them PhDs do no justice to the actual degree. I understand now how difficult it is to get a PhD. If I do ever get a PhD, I'll lay claim to that title again... maybe...

TIme for the post to start! I'm going to write for 30 minutes and see how much I get down!

I started playing the piano when I was three years old. Throughout the 15 years of study, I never really appreciated the piano since I always thought of it as a burden. I would avoid practices as if it was the plague! Why practice songs that I don't really like when I can do something else, like play video games???

And so, that was one of the main reasons on why I got hooked with video games at a young age (not so much now a days). I'm sure that most other children were hooked with gaming and I probably was no different, but in the end, it has cost me my eyesight. (-675 in my left eye and -4.25 in my right).

Just recently, I was thinking to myself, and the idea of our five senses popped into my mind. It's something that I don't usually pay attention to, but I realized how important it is to have all five senses. Take for example, piano. I never realized that why I appreciate some songs was due to the the beautiful melodies that were composed. Just a couple weeks ago, I was at the Legend of Zelda symphony, and the overture just blew my mind away. I wouldn't have been able to appreciate the music have I not trained my sense of hearing. Now I'm not saying that my sense of hearing is far superior compared to normal people. Rather, I'm suggesting that piano has helped tune my hearing to appreciate the beautiful melodies in life. It's like how artists are trained to see beauty in the world around them (which is a reason why I started photography. I'm starting to notice beauty in small, ordinary daily things).

Now that I appreciate my five senses, I wished I have taken care of them better, especially my eyes. Part of it is genetics, I'm sure, but it could have been prevented if I took my doctor's advice. I don't recall how it is like without wearing glasses, but I'm sure that plastic lenses can't truly replicate what we can see with our naked eyes. I'm still grateful though, that I haven't lost all of my eyesight.

That brings me to the classical question of if we had to give up a sense, which sense would we give up? Back in the day, I would say my sense of smell, for I wasn't really keen in smelling things. I'm not sure if some sort of karma hit me, but throughout the past couple years, my sense of smell has declined dramatically. I am no longer able to detect whiffs of odor, unless it is very strong. Due to my decreased sense of smell, I now realize how much I do miss it. I can still smell things, but it does have to be strong enough for me to detect it. To give you an idea of how sensitive my sense of smell is, I cannot really smell the different aromas when I walk into Mac Hall and I have troubles detecting smell when I eat, until I bring it literally right up to my nose. It could be due to the fact that my sinuses have been clogged up ever since university started, but I never inquired about my "malady" with my doctor.

To sum it up, our five senses are wonderful, for it allows us to interact with the beauty that surrounds us on Earth. Something so seemingly small and insignificant , I think, can greatly lead us to appreciate the small things in life, for we are all constantly so busy with daily life. At times now, whenever I feel stressed out, I try to take the time and appreciate what my senses are bringing into me, whether it is the sight of the glass cat I have in front of me, or to listen to a favorite song of mine. I never truly appreciated my senses until now.



AND THAT'S TIME! I didn't take a picture, and there isn't a picture that I can find that really fits with my topic!

It's one of those days again

It's one of those days again where it seems like I can't get any work done! I spent the entire day going over a lesson plan for Chem 20 and started a weebly site for my 501 website...

But that was it for today! =(

Sigh... laziness will be the end of me... and I probably said this before too somewhere... Ironically, laziness is this week's theme. I think I'll take a nice big picture of me being lazy.

As the saying goes, tomorrow is another day! I hope you look forward to my special blog tomorrow: senses.

Week 2 Friday

I forgot to take a picture of my meal today at Libertine Pub. I had the Jerk Chicken sandwich, which turned out to be pretty decent. I also had a mad bomber (Gin + Coca Cola), which was unique. I'm not too fond of the taste of Gin, but I guess it'll eventually grow on me. =/

As for school today, we pretty much went over the quiz/unit test that students wrote yesterday. I'm amazed at how fast my partner teacher returns back tests! I hope that I can be as quick when I start administrating my own tests in the future. =P Besides going over exams, the students in biology played a little review game to get ready for their unit exam on Monday. The unit will cover mitosis, meiosis, DNA replication, transcription and translation. I hope that we did them justice when we taught the last three concepts! They did pretty well on the quiz (on DNA replication, transcription and translation), so that's a good sign!

For the chemistry class, they went through more stoich. Starting Monday, we'll be in charge of teaching the entire Chemistry class! I'm anxious, yet excited! I guess a very positive anxious feeling if that makes any sense! For the first time, I'll be teaching for more than 45 minutes! (I'm thinking it'll be about 2 hours of teaching).

I should be doing my lesson plans, but I'll do it tomorrow. =P

Week 2 Day 4 - I'M JOINING A MUSICAL!

The biology and chemistry classes had exams today so I didn't have to teach anything. Instead, I spent block 2 (biology) to invigilate exams while block 3 was spent observing a math 20 AP class. It brings back memories of when I was in IB. There were a bunch of questions on the board and I was able to do about 40% of them. Not bad considering I haven't seen high school math for a while!

Block 4 was spent in a biology 20 classroom. It was interesting to observe another science teacher and the techniques he used in his classroom. 

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the day was when I accepted the role as a piano accompaniment for the musical that the high school is holding in a couple of weeks! I have to say that I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing since I never played in a musical before. Also, it's been a while since I last played as an accompaniment (high school jazz band). I've been listening to the music that I have to play and some of the songs sound tricky. I'll have to wait and see what the sheet music looks like tomorrow! =P

The next couple of weeks will sure be busy with the practicing that I'll need to do for the musical!

Week 2 Day 3

Practicum today was relatively quiet. I started my morning by visiting the university fair they had going on in their gymnasium. I'm impressed that they were able to recruit... I believe it was 20+ different universities to come talk to the high school students. I saw schools like UofC, UofA, MRU, and many other universities that I didn't recognize (East coast somewhere).

In biology today, they went over a review booklet that covered the unit that my learning partner and I taught. I think for the most part they got the concepts that we discussed (DNA, replication, transcription, translation and mutations). There were some confusion in terms of what was the coding strand, what was the template strand for mRNA, mRNA codon and tRNA anti-codon, but I think at least some of the students were able to understand it once we went over the concepts briefly together.

Since there are quizzes/unit finals tomorrow, a couple students came during lunch time to seek assistance. I helped this one student go over using the pH and pOH formulas during the lunch break. I hope I was able to help her!

Both chem classes started stoichiometry today. They went through a review of net ionic equations and started on learning how to use the mol ratio.

Luckily for me today, I don't have to prep anything for tomorrow since it's all quizzes and unit finals! I did end up doing nothing at home since I felt tired. However, I did put in about an hour and a half worth of LoL...

Week 2 Day 2

Class periods were shorter today due to an evacuation drill. Fortunately, we were on track in biology, so it wasn't an issue for the two of us to finish talking about translation and mutations. We had the chance to go through a translation activity, which I hoped, helped the students grasp the concept. Looking back, I wished I took a bit more time to think the activity through... I forgot to ask a couple volunteers to act as ribosomes, so I'm not sure if they got the idea of the "three" different sites.

The evacuation drill itself was relatively straight forward. We walked towards an elementary school during the drill. It was quite cold out and I didn't wear my warm jacket, so it was quite cold walking to and from the elementary school. During the walk, there were some students that were quite rowdy, including one that kept stepping on my heels and even had the nerve to push me off the sidewalk without apologizing... I should have disciplined him, but I guess I wasn't quite sure how I would discipline him since I'm not an official teacher.

Chemistry was quite straight forward today. The students went over a acids and base lab where they got to go through five different stations and test out the properties of different chemicals. It was an interesting lab and it seems like some of the students are able to make connections between the course material and the lab.

After bus supervision, we had a lengthy, but eye opening chat with our partner teacher. We learnt more about the aspects of what being a teacher is and about the difficulty that we will eventually have to go through. I have heard similar stories in my last practicum, but nevertheless, it has strengthen my resolve in becoming a teacher and being able to change, if just only one, the life(ves) of (a) student(s).

Once again, no picture... I'm getting lazy...

And it was my brother's birthday today, so I guess I could have taken a picture of the cake. =P Oh well

Week 2

Today marked the start of my second week of practicum. As always, I started off my day with prep. During this time, I went through what I was going to say for biological translation. During the lesson itself, I believe I was able to get the main point across, but I was unable to finish the entire topic. I'll have to finish that first thing tomorrow!

It's for sure a lot tougher to teach high school science compared to junior high science. There's a lot more prep work that I need to do to teach. At times, I have to ask myself how much detail that these students need to know for their grade level, since at times the material they learn is a simplified model of what actually takes place. (I can understand why my Chem prof said on the first day of 201, that everything we learnt in high school is wrong. Technically it's not really wrong, just an overly simplified model that fail to address certain points =P).

I'm still learning the names of my students! I feel ashamed that I was not able to learn everybody's name during the last week. I was able to do that in my last practicum, but I'm struggling in this practicum. =(

I lied... I'll start those special blogs next week!

Topic: Senses

Look forward to it!

Busy Saturday

Started my day with a PD workshop on wellness and interviewing skills. I was able to learn quite a bit from both topics. The interview workshop really reminded me that I need to get ready for the upcoming months! In other words... get a finalized Education-type Resume ready!

After PD, I ended up going to Market Mall to see if I could pick up an item... unfortunately they were sold out. =(

After Market, I went to Canadian Tire to pick up some paint thinners/stripers for a friend. The parking lot was quite busy today. I had to park all the way at the end of the parking lot. The store itself had a large amount of customers, more than what I'm used to seeing. I guess Christmas is around the corner, or people were going due to a one day sales event.

After delivering the cans, I talked with my friend as he worked on his project. I guess I could have helped, but I didn't want my hands to get dirty. =P

Soon, it was off to lunch (at around 3) since I didn't had a chance to eat. I had a bowl of pho at Pho Ha which was as tasty as always! Next was another trip down to Canadian Tire to grab some other equipment for my friend's project.

Finally, I went to go wash my car, since it looked like it changed colors during the previous week. There was a bit of a line up at the place where I usually get my car washed.

When I got home, I was too tired to get any work done, so I just surfed the net and played games...

Tomorrow is another day! (I really need to stop procrastinating so much...)

Also for tomorrow, I'll bring back a blog topic that I had used in the past.

And I need to get a picture for the week's theme... hunger...

I'm already a day late...

AH, disconnected thoughts....

SLEEP!

All You Can Eat BBQ at Seoul

This week, I got to pick the location for Bro Night. Since I never had the chance to go try Seoul's AYCE menu (which apparently they added quite recently) I wanted to go give it a try!

To me, it sounded too good to be true... All you can eat meat for $25 bucks? Well well well... I found out the hard way that it wasn't Reah that sweet of a deal.

The meat dishes were good; we had pretty much everything on their menu besides the pork bellies. However, we could only go for three rounds. For $30 per person, including taxes and tips, it didn't seem like we got the most bang for our buck.

Overall, it was a good experience but it'll be something that I will not be doing for a long long time. I never thought that I would grow tired of eating meat...

No picture since I was eating with my hands.

Week 1 Day 4

This week is almost over! That is crazy!!

Today, we got to teach our Biol 30 lesson. We didn't get through everything we planned to, but that's okay! (We were a little bit ambitious in terms of getting through everything).

I went over the DNA replication part, but I guess it was still confusing for students. After their quiz tomorrow, I'm going to review the process by starting with a video. I hope that this will help them understand it in greater detail!

Now back to some small planning and sleep! School is tiring, but I'm starting to get used to it again! =)

Day Three already??

It's hard to believe that day three has ended! Even though we just started practicum recently, it seems like its going by so fast! Today, my learning partner teacher and I got the chance to teach a bit in Chem 20. We both had lessons prepared for teaching pH and hydronium concentrations. She taught the first Chem 20 class while I taught the second Chem 20 class. It went alright, but I realized that there were quite a bit of things that I thought made my lesson less than ideal. As my partner teacher reminded us, we should not only look for things to improve, but also things that was done well.

As in getting my students' names... well I think I got the Chem 20 class I taught today down pat. There's two more classes of names to learn!

As for tomorrow, my learning partner teacher and I will be teaching the entire Biol 30 class! We're going to discuss the structure of DNA and DNA replication. Also, she came up with a brilliant activity for students to take part in after the lesson tomorrow!

Here's a pic of some of the materials that will be needed for the material tomorrow:

A picture of paper plates =P I'll post a picture of the results from the activity tomorrow... if I remember

Week 1 Day 2

I woke up a bit later than I expected. I planned to arrive at 7:30 today, but I ended up arriving at around 7:50... when school pretty much starts.

Yikes!

Fortunately for me, my partner teacher has a prep first thing in the morning. At FFCA, the schedules for the high school students are the same every day (except for 3 credit courses). That's an interesting system, and I can see the benefits in using that particular system. However, I don't think I'll be able to tolerate it as a student =/.

My learning partner and I spent the prep and a good chunk of block 2 (Biol 30) to come up with a lesson plan on calculating pH and hydronium concentrations. It was an interesting experience to come up with a lesson plan together, for it gave us the chance to go over concepts and correct one another if we had any misunderstandings about certain topics. It also helped me, at least, in terms of expanding a lesson with visuals that I wouldn't have thought of using, or any other teaching techniques.

I'll try to remember to implement some techniques tomorrow!

After lunch, we watched our partner teacher teach the two chemistry classes. It's amazing how both classes are on the same track! No one class is ahead/behind the other class.

After school, my partner teacher led me to the drama/music teacher's room since I was inquiring whether I could join the school's musical since they were looking for a piano player. It would be a good experience for me since I never really had a chance to play a large part in a musical. Also, it would be a good extra curricular activity for my practicum experience! =)

My car is so dirty. =( That's the trouble when you park on the street with all that slush on the ground!

Semester Three Practicum: Week 1 Day 1

I arrived bright and early at FFCA. After handing in my police check to the office, the secretary called my partner teacher to come pick me up. This was something new to me, since for the last two practicums, we were told to wait in a conference room to be debriefed by the school liaison or principal before we started our practicum. It was pretty much to the get go in this one! I didn't mind though since my partner teacher filled me in about everything I probably needed to know for the next month.

Very soon after, my partner learning teacher arrived. In this semester, most of us (I'm assuming most) were working in pairs to team teach. I'm very fortunate since my partner learning teacher (or whatever the handbook calls your partner student teacher) is quite intelligent and gifted in engaging classes from what I could tell when we had specialization together. 

After she arrived, we had a little tour around the school, since I wasn't able to meet up with my partner teacher during the school year. For an old junior high school, I thought it was pretty big! It was definitely  much bigger than my junior high school. Once the tour was over, my partner teacher printed us notes for the three classes that he (and eventually we will be) was teaching. As a little challenge for ourselves, we went to see if we could locate the copier/work room. We had no trouble finding the room, but the documents weren't received by the printer! The school was having a network issue apparently today. =/

After we got our notes, it was time for class. The first class was Biol 30. The classroom layout had desks arranged in groups of 4 (some 5). Since some groups had vacant spots, we each took a group and sat down with the students. I had to say that it was definitely different than when I sat with my 8C group back in my old practicum. The reason being was that most of them male students were at the same height or taller than me (and I'm about 5'7-5'8ish). We went over a quiz and discussed a bit about mitosis and meiosis. Once that topic was covered, we started chromosomal diseases like Down Syndrome. 

After Biol 30 was lunch. The staff room was pretty sparse, but it made the space more efficient in my opinion. Lunch was about 40 minutes in length but I swear it only seemed like we had 15 minutes to eat!

After lunch was the first Chemistry 20 class. They went over acids and bases, which I had to admit, I had troubles keeping up. I forgotten quite a bit of the material and only remembered once my partner teacher went over the concept. I guess I will need to step up my game and get reviewing on the material! There was another Chem 20 class after the one we observed. The dynamics between the two classes are different in my opinion. It'll be something that I'll investigate further throughout this week!

After class, we had bus supervision, which was pretty fast and straightforward. I think there were 18 busses waiting to pick up students today? It was the most busses I've seen lined up in a row! After bus supervision, we had a quick debrief with our partner teacher. Our first teaching assignment will be on Wednesday where we will go over calculating pH and pOH! I better pull out my MCAT books and restudy the topic! 

And now I'm pooped. I'm always tired after practicum, =P

Long, but very enjoyable days!

A picture of a hand warmer that I had in my jacket. My mom bought me new ones since the old packets I have expire soon. I'm not sure if I mentioned it on my blog before, but I got frostbite about 4 years ago that was severe enough to have caused me to get my toes amputated =(. Luckily, my skin recovered, but since then, I've been suffering from cold feet (literally) when ever the temperature dips below 10 degrees Celsius. I keep hand warmers as a precautionary measure incase I ever get stuck in the cold for extended periods of time.

The Pet Girl of Sakurasou

Today is Remembrance Day, so we observed a minute of silence in karate today. I didn't expect the younger students to be still during that minute, but they were stock still. It seems like though, that each year, Remembrance Day loses its meaning. For example, I am seeing less people wearing poppies and the situation in a school in Edmonton (I believe?) that gave students the choice of whether they wanted to observe a moment of silence in school or not. I myself forgot about the minute of silence today, even though I mentioned it at the beginning of class. I stated that we will observe the minute at exactly 11 AM, but it wasn't till around 11:10 that a student reminded me of what we needed to do.

Lest we forget all those that sacrificed their lives to give us a chance to live in a free country like Canada. 

In the afternoon, I got some work done for my remaining school projects and for my upcoming practicum. I have to say that I feel a bit nervous since I've never been inside a charter school before. It's going to be an interesting experience nevertheless! I just have to remind myself to set my alarm clocks to wake me up early tomorrow morning! 

Also this afternoon, I started a new anime series: The Pet Girl of Sakurasou. I'm about three episodes in, out of five at the moment, and I'm pretty much hooked! Its a nice romantic comedy with a touch of slice of life. I feel like I can relate to the main character, in that he's not quite sure what he wants to do with his life. I do have somewhat of a path in mind, but I feel like it may change when I grow older and experience more events in life. 

Anyways, onto episode 4!

I wish online maps would tell you about construction zones!

I went to volunteering today, after what seems to be a month. I've been busy with assignments or minor illness that prevented me from volunteering. As I walked down the stairs and saw the construction going on, I remembered that the volunteer office was moved to another location. Luckily for me, when I went back up the stairs, I saw the volunteer coordinator assistant (I believe that's his position). Otherwise, volunteering that day was like any other volunteering day.

After I got home, I got a bit of work done and spent some time relaxing. Around mid afternoon, I went to see how I would travel to my practicum school. I took 16th ave down, since that path was the recommended path on Google and Apple maps. Unfortunately, they never took into consideration of the construction zone on Bowness Road and 16th. I guess it's also my fault for not checking ahead of time since I assumed that those online maps take into consideration major construction zones. (Must be fine print somewhere that I didn't read). Anyways, after circling around a bit, I managed to find a path.

Once I found the location of the school, I wasn't able to find the school itself. There were two schools in that location, but none of them had "FFCA" on them in big letters. The junior high school though, Montgomery, was located at the exact spot that FFCA should have been, so I googled the junior high and found out that they closed down a while ago. Getting out of my car, I went to the front door and lo and behold, saw a small green sign that said "FFCA High School Campus".

What do you know? Montgomery was the new place for FFCA.

Going home was a pain in the butt, since I didn't expect so much traffic during an early Saturday evening. I guess people are already shopping for Christmas gifts. Near my house, there was a problem at the C-train station, so I had to wait about 10 minutes to turn onto the main road that leads to my house (which normally takes about a minute or so).

Despite the somewhat difficult journey, I can't wait for practicum to start! =)

All You Can Eat at Macleod Sushi and BBQ Inn

We wanted to try a different place than our usual restaurant, so we ended up going to Macleod Sushi and BBQ inn. It has slightly less variety than Ichiban in terms of nigiri sushi, but it had sashimi! I ate about a whole fish worth of sashimi!! For $29 after tips and taxes, it was a pretty fulfilling meal. The taste was very similar to ichiban.

This place also had a mango tapioca milk drink that was nice to sip on between bites.

There goes my motivation...

I just BSed my entire 507 paper. It doesn't make much sense to me, but at least the rough draft is done. I'll edit it first thing tomorrow morning.

Now onto studying for 504 final... it shouldn't be too hard if they mark like how they marked for the midterm. I just want this semester to be over with!!!

Oh and 501 website... that needs to get started soon! I'm looking forward on doing that though! =)

Now back to 504 studying...

No picture today, but it's snowing like heck outside. I better make sure I get up early to go to school tomorrow.

Almost done!

The semester of school work is finally coming to a close! I had quite a long day today, since I was at school from about 8 AM and left at around 9:30 PM. I managed to get quite a bit of stuff done today though , which is always a good thing! I got through the first chapter of 508 (such a pricey book), get about 90% done on my 504 test prep for Friday and a couple hundred more words for 507 (took about 30 minutes to write those down). And I managed to fit in some physical exercise after 501 today! =)

I cannot wait for this semester to end! I'm looking forward to my 4 week practicum at FFCA. I believe I mentioned it already, but I'm eagerly awaiting my chance to enter a charter school and see what differences exist between that type of school and a public school. For one, I know that the students wear uniforms.

That reminds me... I need to double check on the dress code for teachers at the school...

Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses

More presentations in 506 and donuts in 503! But let's quickly move on to the main highlight of my night tonight!

I have been eagerly awaiting this event for the past couple of months when I heard news of a Zelda concert coming to Calgary early September. I haven't been to a symphony in a while and this gave me the perfect opportunity to go listen to one! Plus, it had Zelda music, which has a multitude of well composed music. I'm not a huge Zelda fan since I only completed Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, but I was a fan of the music.

Lo and behold, today was the day! We got to the Jubilee with about 45 minutes to spare. The lobby was filled with people ranging from as young as elementary students to as old as people with a head full of grey hair. I could tell that Zelda, and particularly the music, was appreciated by a wide range of people. There was a lot of Link cosplays and a few Zelda ones. I also saw a Majora's mask skull kid and a Saria cosplay.

My brother bought the tickets and he treated me to nearly front row seats (Row E). As we sat down, we eagerly (or at least I was eagerly) waiting for the overture. The lights dimmed and the overture had started. I was already feeling goosebumps as they took us through the different games in the Zelda universe. There was a little bit of a shriek from the flutes, but it was nevertheless extremely well played to my ears. I was really touched by the orchestral ensemble's rendition of selected Zelda themes. After they finished playing, I was in shock, since I never could have imagined how beautiful, or how moved I was from a piece of music.

Right after the overture was a couple of small pieces, such as the Dungeon Theme, Kakariko Village Theme and the Songs of Hero. These pieces were accompanied by a video that was played on a huge white screen (I forgot to mention that the overture had a video as well). It was neat how they managed to synchronize the mood of the songs to the video on the screen. From my experiences, that is no easy task!

Right after the small pieces, we moved onto the symphony itself. The prelude was the Origin of Hyrule, which didn't seem to special to me. Afterwards, the first movement was an Ocarina of Time medley. I never played Ocarina of Time, but I recognized certain scenes since my brother finished the game. The second movement was a Wind Waker medley. For this movement, the conductor took out a baton that was fashioned to be like Link's baton in the game. =)

The Wind Waker medley started off with the intro when you first start the game (once again I never played the game, but I watched my brother play through it). I really liked the arrangement for the medley since it really felt like it captured the essence of Wind Waker: a fun, light-hearted cell-shaded Link. (I believe that's what the technique was called when they were designing the game).

After a 15 minute intermission, we moved onto the third movement (with a brief Great Fairy Theme Song/ Great Fairy Fountain intermezzo), which was a Twilight Princess medley. Since I did play Twilight, I recognized all the songs that were used in the medley. It was absolutely wonderful! It was definitely quite the change from the light hearted wind waker. Once that was done, we moved onto the final movement: a Link to the Past medley. I never played or seen anyone play that game before so it was very foreign. They had Zelda's Lullaby with this movement (or it could have been in a finale, where they had the finale connected to the last movement). I really liked the rendition of Zelda's Lullaby. It started off with the oboe playing the line, then moved onto the clarinet, then the flute and finally the entire ensemble. It was a very beautiful piece of work in my ears, even though it only lasted for about a minute and a half.

Finally, we had three encores... which were all planned of course. The first was Ballad of the Windfish, then Gerudo Village Theme and a Majora's Mask Medley. Well done to all three!

Overall, the concert was a very enjoyable experience. I didn't recognize all the songs, but they were all played quite artistically. I had three quirps about the concert though...

The first one being that Skyward Sword had no featured music in the symphony. I don't consider the small section on the Ballad of the Goddess as one! If I read things correctly, Miyamoto Shigeru stated that Skyward Sword will be the first Zelda game with orchestral music. Shouldn't they have honoured this by playing a Skyward Sword medley? In my opinion, I believe so!

Second was the amount of whistling and heckling from the fans. I understand that this isn't classical music, but a symphony isn't a rock or pop concert. Or maybe I'm just bitter because the girl sitting behind me was whistling/yelling/heckling so loudly that my ears were ringing....

Third was the couple in front of me who liked to uh... Yeah... Every couple of minutes or so...

Despite those negatives, the entire experience itself was a wonderful experience! I hope that they'll bring a Final Fantasy concert to Calgary soon! =)

Last Monday off for a while

I can't believe that its already the last week of school! Everything is coming to an end, well kind of! There is still practicum left, which I happen to be looking forward too! =)

Since it's the last week of school, today marks my last Monday that I have off. It's nice to have a three day weekend, but I preferred to have Fridays off (last semester) for some odd reason... even though if you think about it, its still three days off.

Anyways, I managed to get somewhat of an outline done for 507, finished reading the chapters and notes for 505, touch up 502 and watch a couple episodes of Sword Art Online. It's an interesting series to say the least.

I have to say that I'm quite surprised!

For my green belt class today, we focused on sparring. I think we spent a good part of an hour to just spar, which may have been a little bit too much time considering that the brown belts don't nearly get that much time to do so.

What surprised me though, is the quality of sparrers that my green belt class has! Their techniques are quite top-notch for their level! However, I will try to remember not to spend too much time on sparring since their exam is coming up... And the kata tournament as well...

Besides karate, I spent most of my day reading... a single chapter...

And not doing much... Where has the time gone?!?

Starting from tomorrow... no more computer games till the weekends! Gah, there's still quite a bit to do... >_>

No picture either. =(

My goodness...

There is just so much info for 505! I spent a good couple of hours going through most of the chapters. I don't know if I recall most of the info though... but it seems like the main idea was to express how First Nations people view the world as being interconnected. As for the details.... gah I don't know if I can remember them in time!

Now moving on to the first part of my day: today marked my first volunteering appreciation brunch! I've been volunteering at the PLC for the past 5 years but I never have been to their appreciation event. I've always gone to volunteer instead!

Big mistake!

The brunch had quite the buffet. I went and got myself two helpings of food. =P

That was probably the only positive aspect of my day. Unfortunately I am unable to claim that the rest of my day went well. LoL and SC... first time I lost every single game in a day. I'm just unable to fetch myself a win! =(

And those readings...

My picture for this week's theme:waterfalls. I was unable to find time to visit the waterfall in the NW section of the city. =(

Man, my format is messed =/ Lol oh and don't forget to roll back your clocks an hour for those who observe daylight savings time!

Hot Pot on Bro's Night!

We didn't go out to eat tonight. Instead, we had a scrumptious hot pot at one of our homes.

There was a ton of food to eat! Everything ranging from shrimp, scallops, fish balls, lamb, beef, noodles and vegetables. One of the best parts of the meal was the broth that resulted from all the juices that seeped out of the various meet dishes. It was delicious until we had to fill up the pot with more water.

For the price of a few bottles of Strongbow and grapefruit flavored cooler, it was definitely worth it! I ate so much that I felt as if my stomach would explode!

I just realized...

how difficult it is to type on my mac keyboard with "long" fingernails. And when I say long, I mean just slightly seeable if you were to look at the back of your hands. No more than about two millimeters in other words!

Since it was difficult to type, I went to trim my nails a couple minutes ago. Now I can type my blog with my normally natural curved finger technique (I think I developed this from piano... unless most people type with curved fingers?)

I woke up early morning to finish my 506 presentation jigsaw. I thought I could finish everything in a couple of hours, but unfortunately I was not able to. I left my house at 10:30, which is about 15-30 minutes later than what I usually leave since it takes about 40 minutes for me to get to school, park and walk to class. Also, I forgot to mention that my brother starts school at 11 on Thursdays...

After parking my car, I walked to my classroom as quickly as I could to get working on my jigsaw. I completed my project with about 40 minutes to spare. I wasn't in the mood to think up of a speech so I just sat there thinking about what else I had to do on the weekend.

I ended up regretting not making up some sort of speech for my presentation. I was quite nervous walking up towards the front of the class. I recall bumping into chairs and tables. =( And my impromptu speech was a bit of a gong show. Looking back, there are some stuff I forgot to mention. However, I spoke truly about what I felt and it seemed like it went alright! =)

I have to mention that I didn't expect presentations to be so interesting. We went through 18 people today I believe? And not once was I bored! Everybody had an interesting and creative way to present their topic! There were wordles, a poem, a ad-like-speech based on "I am Canadian", philosophical outlook, Mz Frizzle, epic education journey, demonstrations and so many more!

After 506, I had my first 508 meeting. It was the same like the previous initial practicum meetings. We went over the course outline and what the assignments could possibly look like. Nothing too exciting!

And that's all for today! No picture again... =(

I need to go take some interesting shots from now on with my iPhone!

Happy Belated Hallowe'en (Happy All Saint's Day!)

Wow, I didn't expect to take that much time cutting out my project for 506... At least the major cutting is done! Just to add some pictures and my text and I should be good for 13 hours from now!

My first class was cancelled today so I had time to work on the written portion of the 506 assignment. I managed to make some more edits this morning and get through half of the reading for 503.

Before 505, I went out to grab some food from the food trucks that were visiting UofC today. I forgot the name of the truck my friend and I were at, but I remembered that there was a gas fuelled heater to keep people warm as we all huddled around it. I don't remember the name of what I got, but for $10, it wasn't really worth it. =/ (I hope they used prime beef to make these things...)

As for class today
505: Life on residential schools for some aboriginal people and what they had to go through. =(
501: LGBTQQ discussion

Back to work I go! =P I'm planning to reintroduce a weekly segment starting after November 9th! In other words, after I'm done my course work at the university.

Ethical Reasoning

I woke up at 6:30 this morning due to the loud jarring sound of my alarm clock beside me, but I immediately turned off my alarm and fell back into a deep slumber.

Two hours after, I woke up again, though this time I felt fully rested. After a quick breakfast, I took time to get ready for school. Lo and behold, by the time I finished getting ready... it was already 10:25! (I needed to be at school by 11...)

I got to my 503 meeting 10 minutes late... >_> Good thing it wasn't an interview!


Onto what I learnt for the day

506: Videotaping yourself teach. There are things that I may realize that I'm doing when I shouldn't or maybe even things that I'm doing well that I'm not fully aware of!

503: More ethics... There was a tough situation today where we discuss what you would do if a terminally ill child is dying in your class and s/he has a DNR order (Do not resuscitate). I was really confused on what I would do in this situation. I want to save the child, but the parents and doctor believes that its better if the child is not saved.

Of course, it's ideal if the terminally ill child is home schooled, but in this scenario, that wasn't possible. This particular child is in your classroom and that particular teacher had to deal with the situation. I was so stumped and undecided to listen in on what happened with the real situation... =(

As for today's picture of the day

I was re-watching a Gintama arc yesterday during my lunch break. Such a touching scene during the Four Deva's arc! =;) (teary smile face)

Oh my goodness... Sometimes I am so unmotivated!

I should have done more work today...

I only got about 1/5 of my 506 assignment done. I just couldn't concentrate on homework today.

Which isn't a good sign since there's still quite a number of big assignments due in the following week. I haven't even looked at 507 yet... but I'm not too worried since it's a pass/fail course.

Oh dear me...

Why does the stress of due dates and/or assignments weighing heavily motivate me to work? It should be getting excellent-grades-by-doing-things-ahead-of-time or doing-work-for-the-sake-of-learning, or things like that to motivate me!

I guess it is something that I have to work on...

Now if you don't mind me... I'm off to go play some SC... after playing a couple hours of LoL...

oh dear...

Glad to see some sun!

For the first time this week, I think I was able to see some sunlight poking out from the normal clouds we've been having to date! Due to that, I was finally able to take my picture for today's theme!

Such a nice, laid back Sunday. Got some work done, but also had time to relax and play some SC! =P And its great that they pushed back 503 as well! It reduces the stress level, but I hope I don't end up dragging that assignment too long. =/

Sunsets =(

So far, I'm unable to take a picture for this week's theme: sunset. The past week has been full of clouds and snow. If it's still cloudy tomorrow, I will have to rely on drastic measures...

Since my finger is still slightly injured, I didn't go to volunteer. It still feels a bit awkward to apply some pressure on my right pinkie. Speaking of pressure, I've been using my ring finger to press the shift key, which initially felt weird, is the new norm for me. I'm not sure how I'm going to go back to my old method of typing (which is using my fifth finger for the shift key on the right side of the keyboard).

Today was a pretty lazy day for me. I ended up not doing any work... which I hope is not going to bite me on the butt when tomorrow comes. I'll get work done tomorrow! I actually feel quite rested from the past couple of days! =)

Hmm... picture...here's one I took last week while I was waiting for others to show up.

Shepherd's Pie at Jamesons (Brentwood) and Spicy burrito

EDIT: Grammar should be fixed now! =P

It was quite busy tonight due to the football game between the stamps and the lions.

Anyways, the shepherd's pie consisted of a mash potato top (I believe) with, what tasted like ground beef. For $17 after tax and tips, it was not really fulfilling. The food tasted alright, but I was definitely not full from that.

So what do you do when you still feel hungry? You go out and eat more! We went to Mucho Burrito by Studio 16 and got some food there. It was my first time there, so I went and got myself a "Hotter than Hell" Ghost Pepper Burrito.

It was definitely an experience I'm not going to forget for a while. A burrito loaded with jalapeños, hot salsa and what looked to be like 2 teaspoons of ghost pepper sauce.

I went through half a litre of chocolate milk and a bottle of water to eat that burrito.

It was spicy. It burned my throat. It made my body, from the chest down, numb. It made me cry. It made my nose run. And pretty much whatever else you can come up with (include shaky lips). My stomach is still burning, but it was for sure an interesting experience. For about $14 for the burrito, drinks and nachos, it was an expensive, but one of a kind meal.

Picture of my Shepherd's pie. I should have taken a picture of the burrito as well...

Nice to have a breather!

After a pretty hectic week, I managed to find some time to rest tonight! Strange, that I'm unable to sleep early tonight...

Well I handed in my lesson plan today. Overall, it was about 40 pages in length or so? It wasn't all paragraphs, but I have to say that it is my biggest single project to date so far. All in all, I had around 12000 words (8500ish for the unit plan, 3500 for assignments, and individual lesson plan and so on). Thank goodness it's finished!

Right after 506, I worked on the 507 poster with my group mates. We managed to finish the poster in just a couple of hours. Everything went quite smoothly!

Sooooo, for the first time in a while, I don't really have anything that I have to do (readings, 502 presentations, 507 paper... they can wait.)

Today's picture

Our poster!

And I was thinking of taking Ritalin...

I'm not even joking how miraculous I found this time management skill to be! My 506 prof mentioned this method to us yesterday to help us learn time management skills. I first tried this last night as I attempted to finish the rough draft of my unit plan.

The results were amazing...

I managed to get 8 pages of writing (not full paragraphs... there were some sections where I had point form points) in 125 minutes of work (5 working sessions).

So how does the method work? You work hard for 25 minutes, without letting any distractions get to you. So in other words, ignore your emails, text messages, mom yelling at you, etc. All it is, is concentrating on your work for 25 minutes

After the 25 minutes are up, you take a 5 minute break. You want to get up during this time and do something to take your mind off work. Once your 5 minutes are up, you get back to work.

This cycle repeats for 4 times. After your 4th 25 minute shift, you take an extended 30 minute break.

I call this the 25+5 minute plan.

And it has produce some serious results... (as you can probably tell, I'm writing my blog now because I'm on my extended break to 11:30!). Even today, I was able to finish two assignments and a lesson plan in 100 minutes of work time. That would normally take me more than a couple hours to get done since I would constantly check my email, go on facebook, browse websites, talk to people on msn, etc etc. I guess the shorter work periods make it a lot easier to concentrate for the entire task!

Ahhhh.... now to really enjoy my break before I try and go for another 4 shifts...

No picture for today! Too lazy to go find one =P

Night Owl Mode

I'm not sure how people can do it, but I will attempt staying up late (perhaps till 2) to work on homework. It's a skill I should try to develop, for it may be helpful later in my life when I do need to learn how to stay awake and do work. =P Anybody has some advice on staying up late? Besides napping... since if I nap now... I won't wake up till tomorrow morning.

The latest I ever stayed awake and was still mentally sharp was like... back in high school... I recall staying up till 12 to do homework, but that was mostly because I was on MSN chatting to people. And I guess 12 isn't consider to be remotely late at all...

Time for recap:

506: How to time manage well: 25 minute work sessions with 5 minute breaks. Do this 4 times in a row, and then take a 30 minute break. In this case, you can get in a solid 100 minutes of work! I'll try this tonight. =P

503: ATA code of ethics and scenarios. Some really interesting scenarios we looked at in class today! No time to elaborate though =P

Today's picture

credit: http://www.pamsclipart.com/clipart_images/cartoon_night_owl_on_a_branch_0515-0908-1500-2402_SMU.jpg

I will attempt to imitate this owl in hopes of being able to stay up late to work (I'm already feeling sleepy... the caffeine I drank a couple hours ago didn't work!). Maybe if I stare at my screen like this owl, I'll be able too...

It's like my brain just crashed on me!

I spent nearly 10 working hours on my unit plan today... and it's still not close to being done! I still have two more concepts to talk about and a second lesson plan... It's like this unit plan has no end!!!! I see the end of the tunnel, but its still so far away! =(

My brain just literally gave up! I felt like I was just rambling and that it wasn't justification about the way I'm approaching the unit anymore... more like it looking like a pile of BS. So I gave up trying to write more for the unit plan for tonight... =(

Not to mention that I need to get started on 507 paper, 503 paper and 501 website soon as well... And those readings (a whole truckload) for 505...

Just three more weeks (including this one) before semester is over! I'm starting to feel the muscle fatigue but the finish line is soooo close! This is the only way I can think of to push me through the last couple of weeks before practicum starts...

For today's picture, I didn't manage to take any nice pictures so instead, here is a picture of what I feel like right now with the unit plan...

credits: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOBQI_5OouXEMsDkUNro1SjhCzhj79FoSHmcVXJEO4jCTWjEgVScJZl0479NUNdVtkkx9KjF1BM8daD54ZZeMbNT1SJCJTHjlVJgNiEi02bd_x_sXyNmGUUc9LzXAWIK9ehtlJgsUd19E/s1600/cartoonsteam.gif

Injured Once Again!

I just realized that I never related my post to my title yesterday... I forgot to mention how cold yesterday felt, even though it didn't dip below zero. (Or so I believe). I'll make sure that my blog post today relates to my title! And that shouldn't be a problem at all =P

In karate today, I managed to injure myself when we were doing sai training. I think I got kind of lazy with my swings, that I ended up ramming the butt end of my left sai to the base of my right pinky nail. It was definitely hard not to curse out loud as I hopped on the spot, and even harder not to drop my sais (that weigh about 5 pounds each). I noticed that the base of my pinky was bleeding profusely (maybe too strong of a word, but I feel so proud that it exists in my vocabulary!) and thus I placed my sais down and rushed to the bathroom while I shake my hand to dull the pain...

It was painful rinsing the cut, more painful than normal. Once I got a close look at the damage, I noticed that I managed to skin a good chunk of skin (sounds a bit weird) and damage my cuticle. It doesn't look deep, but boy, it sure burns/stings...

Also, I was supposed to help my dad swap on winter tires on our vehicles, but with my pain-ridden right hand, I wasn't able too....

So when I got home, I just worked on my unit plan for 506. There's so much to write for it! I have about 10 pages so far, but that's only about.... 1/4 of what I need to write for the unit I believe? I hope that the other sections aren't too long... I'm getting extremely frustrated by this assignment!! (Though I do find that this exercise is useful, even though it is currently very tedious to complete).

For today's picture, I was complementing on showing the extent of my injury, but I thought of those who don't do gore, so I'll just post a picture of my hand! Don't worry, I have a bandage on top of the cut.