School has been running a million mph these last few weeks and certain luxuries of excess time have taken a back seat to school and homework. Specifically the time to write this blog :-/ and the time to play on facebook . . . have you missed me Mr. Zuckerburg?
The end of the semester is in sight though. 10 weeks down, 6 more weeks to go and then only one more year until I graduate. Whoop!!!
(finally)
And the end of the semester can't get here soon enough. Anytime I actually do have a minute of free time, it seems I'm out cold. I'm beginning to worry that these long hours of studying are taking their toll OR I'm developing narcolepsy.
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| For More Information on Narcolepsy |
The last couple of weeks I've had plenty of things to write about, but no time to do it. So right now I'm stealing a couple of minutes for some down-time and to write a couple of lines.
I need to be finishing up two Lesson Plans for two different classes, and a research paper. Wa-frickin-hoo
That does actually remind me of a thought I wanted to put down in writing.
A week or so back, we (my EDCI 454 class, Curriculum for Young Children) was finishing up a Collaborative Integrated unit lesson plan . . . in short, we had to choose a subject, Weather & Climate in our case, and built a weeks worth of instruction around the topic using the course subjects to explain the topic . . . anyways, after the project was over our professor asked us if there was anything that she could have done for the project to have made more sense.
The class had some ideas as to how this project could have been easier, but the over-whelming concern from the class was that we as students had too much to do, and this project took up too much time. While I do agree that this project took up a lot of time and did become frustrating when so many of our classes were also having us write lesson plans (we cannot submit one paper to two teachers, as this is considered plagiarism); all of these students told the professor that we needed more time to complete the assignment.
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| MTV's Real World |
My question to all of these classmates was "Do you not think that once we are in the REAL WORLD that we will have to still do all of this stuff but at a real life pace?"
Sorry boys and girls, I'm afraid that it is the case. Personally, I'd rather be under the time crunch of a college course where only my grade can be affected instead of a classroom where a child's education becomes an issue.
But what do I know?
So what else was there that I wished I had had time to write about?
There have been a few times over the last few weeks that I have had to just stop and laugh :-D
The first, and I'm sure you had to be there, was a couple I saw in a loving embrace . . .
. . . I'm talking a real Kodak moment, her head tenderly on his shoulder and his arm firmly around her waist pulling her closer, very touching . . . until I followed their eyes and realized they were both watching their dog take a sh*t.
So romantic. I can just picture telling my wife that for our second anniversary we should take the dogs for a walk. 8-()
Wap-Wap-Waaaaaa, in other words FAIL!
The only explanation I could come up with was "Young Love," I mean otherwise there would have only been one of them out walking the dog. Right?!?
The second instance that made me laugh so hard I cried was leaving campus after studying. I hope I can do the story justice . . . NO PRESSURE!
So I had gone up to campus to finish a paper that was due that evening. I had just gotten on a roll when the power went out. I'm sure you can imagine the cussing I was doing. While I had managed to save the paper to the computer, I couldn't retrieve it >.< and I had no idea how long the power would be out and how much time there would be left to finish when the power actually came back on. Cussing and grinding my teeth I decided to leave campus in search of an alternative location to finish my paper.
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| traffic arm barrier |
To leave central campus you have to pass through a traffic arm barrier and in front of me was a car and then a motorcycle. Well the barrier went up for the car and the guy on the motorcycle behind it thought he would be slick and go through at the same time. The barrier had a different idea . . . thankfully the arm-barrier is pressure sensitive because it came down right on top of the guy's helmet knocking him sideways. I was already laughing pretty hard at the sight when I looked up and made eye contact with a girl who was also laughing at this poor guy and completely lost it. I was laughing so hard that I had to clear the tears from my eyes before I could do anything else.
A few other things that I want to mention now and will have to elaborate on later (or not depending on my summarizing abilities)
Out of nowhere, I got a notification that I needed to accept a scholarship I had received. After the government decided to cut-back financial aid this year and I was forced to quit my job due to scheduling conflicts, this couldn't have come at a better time. Well I guess it could have, it would have been nice to have it at the beginning of the semester, but believe me when I say "I AM NOT COMPLAINING!"
I had a long drawn out conversation with one of my professors over the need for the use of emoticons in text messages and informal emails. Smiley faces :) sad faces :( and any other text picture that is used to indicate the writer's mood have become necessary when sending text and some emails because there are times that it is difficult to infer context from the words alone.
The last topic I wanted to touch on and is probably the most likely to be revisited involves schools. Specifically grade schools. I've seen several school buses recently that have advertisements on them. Car dealerships, fast-food chains, you name it and they are starting to advertise on school buses.
So is this a good or bad thing?
With this same idea of schools operating with business sense, it occurs to me that our schools (or better yet our communities) need to think about building schools that our kids actually want to go to. I spend a tremendous amount of time on my college campus because I like to be here; I have the resources available to me to do my homework and numerous locations to sit and relax (if I do get a free minute). Our public schools need to take a page from this book and start to design schools this way. Make kids want to be at school!!! This is where the previous topic and this one meet.
I think for this to happen effectively, we are going to have to start inviting big business into the schools. Obviously there are going to have to be some limitations and stipulations involved, and I hate to admit this because I hate the store, but why not have Wal-Mart sponsor the teacher's supplies.
I don't know how or if it would work but it's something to think about.