There's always a next time!

I had my audition and interview today at FFCA charter school where I had my 2nd/3rd (last Fall) practicum.

For my audition, I taught a Chem 20 AP class. I was extremely nervous, not only because it was an audition for a real job, but for it is my first high-academic class. After about 10 minutes into the lesson though, I felt like I calmed down a lot while I was teaching. Despite spending a lot of my time in my last practicum trying to make my classes interesting by cutting down on lecturing and having more activities, I resorted to using my old teaching way: direct teaching. I wasn't quite sure how I would incorporate activities into the lesson today since it's a high school class and there was quite a bit of material to cover, but I tried incorporating some questions to get them thinking. Of course, about 30 minutes in, students were starting to get restless and in hindsight, I guess I should have addressed that.

After my audition, I went down to the office for my interview. I was interviewed by the two assistant principals since the principal himself had a situation to deal with. The interview was pretty much like the other two I had so far, but it was far shorter than I expected. I believe I was asked about 5-6 questions before they asked if I had any questions to ask. All in all though, I thought that things went alright, far from what I wanted, but acceptable. I managed, I believe, to answer each question fully and truthfully.

And unfortunately, acceptable wasn't enough. A couple hours after I got home, I got a call from the principal stating that they decided not to hire me. I have to admit that I was depressed for a bit. To cheer me up, I played some games and watched Ted (hilarious movie by the way). Looking back though, it's a fine time to reflect on my experience today and what I can do better if I have another audition in the future. I guess I could have incorporated my activities, even for a high school class, address behaviour issues and shut them down on the spot (something I tend not to do a lot unless the situation gets out of hand). It's an experience, and even though it wasn't a success, there's much to learn from that audition/interview!

And now just to wait and see what CBE's final decision is... maybe I should give them a call soon.

G Rank in MH

My brother and I have started G Rank quests in MH about a week ago. I find it quite a leap from high rank quests. The monsters seem a lot faster and definitely hit a lot harder. Earlier this week, I took my Zinogre armor (pretty decent high rank armor) and upgraded it to as high as I could. It helped absorb some blows though it was still a lot of evading that was needed to survive.

Yesterday though, my brother helped me grind against the Brachydios so I could get my first set of G Rank armor!

Pretty decent skill set for me at the moment so I'll be using this armor set for a while! =)

And starting tomorrow, back to civilization I go! I'm almost recovered from my 3 week cold! =/

Speechless!

I don't think I mentioned it yet, but I went and purchased Dan Brown's Inferno late Saturday night. It was such a thriller that I finished the book in two days.

Despite all the criticism it has received online about historical inconsistencies or other errors, it was a great read. Of course, not being a historian helps, because I wouldn't cringe at all all these inaccuracies that are so called present in the book. (At least the Science seems accurate to my basic understanding of Science).

True, the plot is very similar to Brown's other books involving Robert Langdon: some sort of trouble erupts that requires the intelligence of the protagonist, meets up with a beautiful, intelligent woman and travel through places to save the world from disaster. However, I believe it is one of his best works. There were twists and turns that I admit, I wasn't able to predict ahead of time. And the ending! What an ending!

Week of Coughs

It has been a "fun" week... waking up multiple times a night, nightly, due to all this coughing. >_> Though I'm too stubborn to go get Nyquil or any other type of medication.

But onto happier news! Since I was mostly indoors this week, I managed to finally finish my RG Freedom yesterday. It's as close as I can get it to the original paint job that I saw online. It was certainly a pain to build! 

First off, it was difficult to paint. For example, changing the blue chest pieces into white took quite a bit of time. I had to use a lot of coats to make it as white as I possibly can. Also, I got hasty on one pieces, so there was a lot of runs on it, thus sanding and repainting. Second, a lot of single pieces had a multiple color scheme (mostly grey and white) so I had to paint those pieces multiple times after taping them up. 

Next off was marking. I bought three Gundam markers last week, but they ALL dried out after about 5 minutes of use. In my haste/disappointment, I went to Michaels and bought overpriced water-based markers that didn't run out, but ran on a whole different level. Since it was water based, it was easily smudged by my fingers, =(

Last bit was stickering. I don't recall ever spending so much time on stickering such a small kit. All in all, I think it took me about 4-5 hours to totally sticker it... and it was just stickers! No scratch on decals! (Brings back memories of Unicorn....) 

All in all though, I'm quite satisfied with the final piece. It has its flaws, but it looks quite magnificent to look at!

I didn't realize how blurry and out of position this shot was, but here it is! 

Urg....

I've been fighting a weird cold recently... I started  feeling symptoms on Monday, but I didn't think much about it. (I woke up Monday morning with my sinuses feeling stuffed/slight pain, but after clearing it up, it all went away... till the evening). Things were pretty much the same until this morning. First of all, I woke up at around 4ish since my throat started hurting, along with my sinuses. I was too lazy to get up and clear my sinuses so I laid there, half dazed, but some how I was able to fall back to sleep.

When I woke up at my usual time, I realized that my symptoms have gotten worse. My voice became all scratchy and hoarse even after trying to clear my throat multiple of times. However, it did clear up in about an hours time. =/

And now... well my voice is somewhat normal but my sinuses are starting to feel funny again. =/

I guess I need some rest and recovery for now.

As for today's picture, it was a picture I wanted to post a while back, but keep on forgetting too

This was when I took pictures of my brother's Exia gundam. Apparently facebook thought that it's knee caps resembled a face.

Busy Busy Day!

I had quite the day today!

I woke up, ate breakfast and to my utter delight, received my final practicum report from my field advisor today. I immediately scanned it and uploaded it to my CBE account so I can submit my application. Fingers crossed!

After that, I actually had lunch and got ready to drive my mom to the doctors. After the doctors, we went shopping for groceries. Its been a while since I went to T&T, so I stocked up on candy. =P

After getting home, I had some chores to do, but I tried to finish them as quickly as possible so I could get onto my Gundam building! I managed to finish the head and the rail guns today. I just need to complete its wings, weapons and shield and I'll be done building the kit. After building will be detailing, which includes nib-touch-ups, lining and stickers. I hope to be finished by next Monday (delayed a bit since my grey marker ran out for lining =(. And since I don't want to pay for parking in downtown, I'll need to wait till Monday to pick it up).

Here's what it looks so far without it's "make-up"

I learnt something new today...

... that super glue is an exothermic reaction.

I started building my RG today. Things were going quite smoothly and I was actually quite pleased at how the grey turned out on the white pieces. I was initially thinking that the grey may have been too light in color, but it was a really nice shade!

After finishing both legs, I noticed that one of the anklet bracelets was a bit weird looking. I went to remove a piece from it...

AND IT SNAPPED!

<No Worries> I thought to myself since I had a vial of super/krazy glue nearby. I went to grab my vial and sat myself down. 

I removed the cap of the glue and placed the nozzle on one of the broken pieces. 

I squeezed

Nothing was coming out

I squeezed a bit harder...

And all of a sudden, about literally 2-3 ml of super glue squirted onto my hand. Out of instinct, my fingers shut together, and I realized I had a difficult time unsticking them. Also, a good portion of my upper palm was sprayed.

I then realized how hot my hand was getting, thus making me realize that super glue is an exothermic reaction (after double checking on google).

I spent about 10 minutes in the bathroom trying to remove the glue with vaseline and a nail file. I was fortunate enough to remove the big chunks of solidified glue. Unfortunately, my hand felt rough due to all the glue. After washing my hands about 3-4 more times with soap and water, I managed to get a whole lot more glue off! As of now, I just have a couple of patches left. ^_^

So lesson of the day: Wear gloves when dealing with super glue. It's a lot easier to chuck away a glove than to spend a whole whack of time trying to get it off your skin.

Not much to report

Nothing out of the ordinary happened over the past couple of days. I started painting my RG on Thursday and finished with the final touches today. Painting took a while since I'm going for a custom paint scheme that involves pieces with multiple colors. Also, yesterday was a bit windy, so I wasn't able to finish painting everything.

Multicoloured grey/white pieces. Just have to touch them up slightly tomorrow and they should be fine!

Urg... bad habits...

Such a nice day outside, but I wasn't able to go out. =(

I can't wait to start painting my RG Freedom tomorrow! I found a custom scheme online that I really like and I'll try my best to emulate that design.

Oh... I really need to take pictures for last week's Gundam challenge...

And I need to start waking up earlier! Getting up at 10 makes me feel like my day has been wasted... Sleep early tonight and try to get up at 7 tomorrow! Scary what three hours can do!

And finally, I started a new drama today: Tonbi.

It's a family drama and I have to say that the first episode was pretty good. It's essentially about a single father who raises his only son. This guy is unique in that he's "simple-minded", like those type of guys that seem all gruff and all... yeah I can't really explain it. Here's the synopsis taken from dramawiki

"The drama is based on the best-selling same-titled novel by Shigematsu Kiyoshi. It tells the story of how a widower brought up his only son, after the death of his beloved wife. Ichikawa Yasuo, or Yasu as he is known, is a baka, with no paper qualifications to his name. However, like all normal parents, he dotes on his only son, Akira. Having grown up without his parents around, Yasu himself knows next to nothing of what parenting is about. With his wife, Misako, by his side, he had spent many happy days together with his little family.

However, when Akira was 3 years old, Misako passed away suddenly from an accident. Heart-broken, and filled with regrets, Yasu pulled himself together, in order to care for his little son. Together with the help of his friends, Yasu overcame it all, and Akira grew up to be a bright and successful young man.

"With nothing but love for his son... that's all there is" - TBS"