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| Oh, so I never commented on our Maine or DC trip (see www.xanga.com/sganpule for Sachin’s comments. DC was fun, but very hot. I had been there before with my family, but I didn’t really remember it very well, so I wanted to do some sightseeing. Not the best weather for it, but Nisha was a good sport and took me out even though it was hot, humid, and thunderstorming and random points. We saw the touristy stuff—the White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, etc. At night we went to a club called Cloud, which is apparently the hot new Indian hangout. Great. Well, it was pretty loud and the drinks cost 10 bucks (it’s a good thing I made Sachin buy the first round before I knew how much they cost) and everyone is Indian. So…it was okay. But luckily I escaped for a bit and went to the Big Hunt, which was pretty fun. Just a regular bar with regular people, regular noise level, and regularly priced drinks. Good stuff. Then we headed back to Cloud, which was pretty fun by then because of all the drunk people—good spot for people watching. Although earplugs would have been nice.
Oh, and Maine was fun. The best part was just being outside and doing outdoor activities like biking, hiking, kayaking, and running. Low point = whale watching, but at least now I can say I did it, and know not to ever go again. See Sachin’s blog for pictures.
So now I am in Ohio, en route to Maine (again). I flew to Georgia earlier, and this will be the last leg of my trip. Yay. This computer is a great way to kill time between flights.
What else. The first two days of work were good. I think I heard the word “excited” about 94 times in those two days—there is a lot of enthusiasm for the upcoming school year. Which is great. Next week we meet all the old teachers (all 10 or so of them) and start some more in depth planning. I still don’t know where my classroom will be which kind of sucks, and I might be in a room which isn’t build yet, but whatever. The question I am thinking about now (besides the curriculum stuff) is how to decorate my classroom…. | | |
| Alrighty! So, first post on the new laptop. That's right, I finally have a computer! Actually, we just got them, and now we have time to play around.
So it's the first day of my training at my new school and it's great! There are about 9 new teachers, and they are all young and nice and enthusiastic! (We'll see how long that lasts...) No, but so far things are looking good. It will take some time to get used to the Mac way of life, but I'm liking this Dashboard thingamobober.
Shoot! Gotta go. More later... | | |
| Well, it's been a while. I don't know why I decided to post again...maybe because I get an email everytime someone I'm subscribed to posts, and I really enjoy those...so then I started reading my old entries again, and it was pretty entertaining (not that they are good entries, but I had forgetten all the lame things I was thinking about just a few months ago...)
Anyhoo. So off to Maine tomorrow. I just woke up from this dream (yes, it's noon) and it was another teaching nightmare. I haven't had one in a while...I was having a lot when I first signed my contract, but since then I've been okay. But now that it's less than a month away, I guess I am nervous.
Anyways, it was the same type of thing. It was the first day of school, and I hadn't prepared what I was going to do. So the bell rings and all my students are just chatting, and they're really loud, and I'm trying to get their attention, and then once I finally do I have nothing to say and nothing for them to do. And then I wake up all panicked. Lame I know! | | |
| There's a poll in the bottom right column about CA tax money for education if you have a minute...http://www.sfgate.com/
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| Now that it's tax season, there are these two commericals on TV that, looked at together, I thought were interesting. The first is for H&R Block, and they are trying to get people to come in and have their taxes looked over. Their convincing line is about how Americans overpayed their taxes by billions of dollars last year. Then there is another commerical, run by the state of California, trying to convince people to be honest and pay their fair share of taxes. Their claim is that Californians cheat on their taxes too often, so that overall, we underpay our taxes, and our state loses out on funding that would go to education, firefighters, etc.
I don't know how to sum it up, but I feel like those two commercials use kind of opposing messages to promote what they want...
There's another pair of commericials (yes, I watch too much TV) I was thinking about--was one on TV and the other on the radio. I can't remember what the one on TV is for, but basically they ask this person all these really hard questions (like weird questions with metaphors, and obscure things about history) and the person gets them right, and then they ask this question about how good of deal you get with their product (maybe it was about the cost of Netflix or an Internet product?) and the person answers it right away. So I guess the idea is that since this really smart person thinks that this is such a great deal, you should too. The one on the radio is for some car, and they go around interviewing people, asking them questions. The first question is, "What's better for all kinds of roads? All wheel drive, or 2 wheel drive?" And the person right away answers, "all wheel drive," as if it's totally obvious. The next question is then something easy (e.g. Who's on the 1 dollar bill? or What is commonly referred to as H20?) and the person can't answer it. So basically, the selling point is that since even this idiot knows that all wheel drive is the way to go, you should too.
Again, I just thought it was interesting how they used different, sort of opposite, techniques to promote their products. | | |
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