My Corner for Education

Look at the painting. This is the reason why I have been so busy lately. In addition to the Food Drive and million other projects I have to complete before Christmas Break, I have to finish painting the backdrop for the winter musical, Snow Biz, as well. I finally finished the painting this afternoon. It took me two afternoons to finish it with the help from a friend at school. Every two years, we have a musical production for the junior students. I have been in charge of painting the backdrop for the last six years. A nickname of “Michelangelo” was given to me years ago because I always climbed up the 16-foot tall ladder to paint the backdrop. (My insurance company would not be too happy to hear about this.) The canvas is 15’ by 15’ and extremely heavy. Anyway, I decided not to risk my life this year, so the entire painting was done on the ground. I am aching all over because of the bending, kneeling and squatting for two long days. (Where is my massage therapist? Sigh…) Does the painting look all right? It was intended to look a bit cartoony.

I heard this song on the radio for so many days and it irked me so much that I could not get the name right. Well, I finally found the album today. The song is titled The Face by twin brothers Ryan Dan. I am pretty sure you would love it. Have a taste for the song.



The Face
by RyanDan



Travellers of the great divides

It’s getting to look a little bit like Christmas. We got snow last night, the first snow that stays on the ground and covers everything with fluffy white dust. This is the kind of snowy day I like. I am home and have nowhere to go and no errands to run. I can just look out my window and enjoy the beautiful snow-covered yards with a cup of hot tea in my hands. 

Can it be like this forever? No, it’s Monday tomorrow. The drive into work would be treacherous. Bummer…. 


PS, Don’t envy me just yet. Wait till I write about how heavy it is to shovel the darn thing off my driveway. I will break my bones today for sure. Where is the Bengay? Mmm…. 


To Friends, Bro and Sis, 
Do you wanna make some snowmen? You have to fly over here though and promise to help me shovel snow, hehe.

Last week I was in charge of the school spirit day and the monthly assembly. My school has a recognition assembly at the end of each month to recognize students who have shown outstanding achievement in a chosen subject area or a modeled behavior. The theme of the spirit day for the month of November was the crazy hat day. All teachers and students were encouraged to wear a crazy hat to school on that day. It was kind of funny that I was slotted to be in charge of the crazy hat day because they should have known that I would make the day become a totally crazy day. (Hahaha. For friends and family who know about my loud laugh, you can imagine that I could not stop laughing when I was writing this one. Hahaha....and even reading this blog now!)

First of all, I decided to make a morning announcement myself every day to promote the “crazy” school spirit. Junior students who know me are aware of my loud voice, special sound effects and my ability to let out my potential craziness in class but they had hardly ever heard of my voice over the PA system. (Homeroom teachers don’t usually do the morning announcements.) The primary students, who haven’t known all the teachers at school well, were simply too new to know about me and my potential craziness. Anyway, last week they finally witnessed the magic power of this crazy teacher over the PA system.

For two days, I went on the PA to tell them that they had a few days to get their crazy hats ready. I announced that I already had my crazy hat made (Note 1) and I was looking forward to seeing their (students’ and teachers’) crazy hats. Of course, my daily announcement was done with my typical twisted voice with cuckoo sound effects. Every morning, I would have a different crazy sound to start and end my message. I even incorporated the McKenzie brothers’ typical voice and sound into parts of my announcement. (Note 2) The whole point was to hype up the entire school for the prelude leading up to the school spirit day.

My announcement obviously got the children’s attentions because whenever I was on duty at recess last week, some primary students would come up to me and said, “Cuckoo, Cuckoo”. It was TOO funny! I had never seen so many cuckoo kids. Junior students usually like to act cool and they don’t usually get moved easily by crazy silly school spirit activities. Anyway, a few “cool” junior students came up to me and told me how impressed they were with my announcements. Apparently, some of their teachers mentioned to them that I used to work on a radio program and that was why I was quite good with broadcasting.

I was very touched by their comments as well as their teachers’ comments. It is easy to impress children, which I am quite good at clowning myself; however, it is a different story with adults, especially co-workers. Some of my co-workers have heard of me talking about my past experiences with radio broadcasting before. All of them are aware of my twisted sense of humour under the disguise of my seriousness. However, it was their first time to truly witness my crazy let-it-all-out type of announcement. It was quite interesting to see the smiles on their faces when I stepped out of the office after the daily morning announcement last week. I guess that I never cease to surprise them with what I can do.

Nickelback was introduced to me years ago by one of my Grade 3 students. I taught this boy for a year as well as his older brother for two years. Both of them were heavily into baseball and hockey.

One day, I asked my class about the songs and music they usually listened to at home. This student surprised me with a band that I had never heard of at the time. He told me that his brother was taking guitar lessons and Nickelback was one of the rock bands that he was into. I didn't really make an effort to check this band out until Nickelback finally got big and won a few music awards.

Check them out. I like some of their songs; however, I found some of their songs tend to have similar rhythms and styles.


Far Away

Video Premiere: Santana Teams With Chad Kroeger


The legendary guitarist, Carlos Santana, teams with the Nickelback frontman, Chad Kroeger, for a duet from the forthcoming hits package 'Ultimate Santana.'


Song Title: Into the Night

This video lasts 1 hour and 25 minutes, and it's worth every minute of it! Just have a cup of tea or coffee beside you and enjoy it.

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university on Sept. 18, 2007, before ... all » a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=362421849901825950&hl=en
I don't have time to write my feedback right away because I have a busy week ahead as well as many PT interviews this week; however, I would like to read yours if you have a few minutes to spare. (The link for the Chinese site. http://you.video.sina.com.cn/a/1326418/1/1.html)

Title : Love Will Keep Us Alive 
by Eagles  (This is lyrics from www.lyrics007.com)


I was standing
All alone against the world outside
You were searching
For a place to hide

I just read this article on CFPing's blog. It is exactly what I have preached to parents here for years. Let kids be kids to explore the outside world before putting them in any confined setting. I often see parents use TVs, video games and the computer as a babysitting tool. My words often fall to deaf ears. 

The other day when we were estimating how tall a giraffe is in class. Nine kids told me that they have never been to a zoo and they don't know how tall a giraffe really is. Sad! I bet they all have PlayStations, GameCube, or Xboxes at home. I didn't have any of those technological devices when I was growing up but I sure know how to learn to operate a computer well and do a little programming later on in life. Internet was not even invented when I was in elementary school. (Correction: OK. To be more specific, maybe it was invented already before my school age, but it was only for military use. I am not "ancient". Hahaha.) We did not learn English until we were in Grade 7, but it did not hurt our learning curve for any other foreign languages. (I also know a little Japanese and Spanish as well.)  I had a solid foundation for oral language in both dialects (Taiwanese and Mandarin) at home and thorough written Chinese at school. Children should have a solid foundation for their mother tongue before learning a new language!

I am just a nobody (hehehe) to parents in Taiwan, but here is an article from somebody who has made it big in Taiwan. Maybe his words would carry some weight to parents there. 
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If you want to read CFPing's personal comments, please go to his site. (Sorry, CFping. I couldn't copy yours because you locked the right key on your page.) http://www.wretch.cc/blog/CFPing&article_id=17353074#trackbacks

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