Fight water with fire?

I've been having a problem with one of my second year classes (16-some year olds): low energy, bad attitudes, and tardiness. I was beginning to get some bad feelings about how this class will go for the next year. I had a rough day: I forgot materials on my way to class, I tore the side of my pants on the door, and my energy levels were low... so I figured that my last class (the problematic second years) was going to be a total flop. But I tried to take the problem head on: muster all the energy I had, pop a candy bar, and run in like it was "go time"! It worked! They took a little while to warm up, but I had them interested and energized for a race game we did in class. Looks like I gotta keep that up now. I think two solid weeks of high energy classes will begin to make a good impression on the kids. Frankly, it's a pretty easy class and once I begin to challenge them more, I'm hoping to mold them into a really good class.

Movie List

Some of the titles I'm looking for...
Finding Neverland
Closer
Orgazmo
Hotel Rwanda
Team America
National Treasure
Bad Education
Step into Liquid
Ray
Eternal Sunshine...
Return of the King
Touching the Void
Spanglish

Welcome Home Hyun-joo!

Tomorrow, Hyun-joo finally comes back to Japan! (We hope... as long as the stupid immigration guys don't deport her.) She will pull into Komatsu airport around 14:00. See you when I get home from work!

Happy Birthday Adam and Sanae!

Download Quicktime Videoclip

FUK?

FUK, originally uploaded by Pod_caster.

This has to be the best Airline Baggage Tag I've seen. Talk about "flyin' the friendly skies" (sorry).

Mel's Movies

MelsMovies, originally uploaded by Pod_caster.

This is a fantastic list of movies Mel gave me, they're some of her favorites.

Hello!

I am in too! Yeahee~! :)

First Day of Classes!

Whew,
I'm feeling great this year! I feels so good to be a part of the start of a new academic year. I was totally jazzed to get going this morning. The weather has been great. A lot to feel good about.


I began the day with setting up the Multimedia Room on the first floor here at school. I had a lot of intro stuff planned. They are a great group of kids. I've taught two of them previously when I was a Practicum Student. We started off with a Human Knot icebreaker and they did a great job and we almost got through the entire knot!


I've got lunch now and my first year students this afternoon! After that, a lot of planning.


Note to self: I gotta remember to make my plane reservations today!

Hiya

This past month I've made four blogs. The first was for my podcast. Then I made one for my class. The third was a technology blog to help me keep notes on troubleshooting issues and new trends. The most recent one was for my nephews - I'm using audioblog.com to post videos there.


Now for my fifth blog, this one's for my daily life here in Kanazawa, well at least for the time being. Now I can use flickr.com's services to post images to my blogs!