According to my transcript, I went to UMD

- - - - - Beginning of Undergraduate Record - - - - -
Fall Semester 1999
University of Minnesota, Duluth
College of Sci & Engineering
Undecided Pre-Major
Attempted Earned
ART 1001 Art Today 3.00 3.00 B-
ECON 1023 Prin Econ: Micro 3.00 3.00 B-
MATH 1160 Finite, Intro Calc 5.00 5.00 D+
PE 1402 Tennis 1.00 1.00 A-
SBE 1101 Bus Environment 3.00 3.00 C
TERM GPA : 2.156 TERM TOTALS : 15.00 15.00


Everything about this is strange. My grades were horrible. Engineering? I guess to be fair, by blaming my grades on my high school, I must also give credit where it's due. Yes, that's LPGE tennis representin! ha.

Seriously, seeing the beginning of my transcript does bring back memories...of all the things I used to do instead of going to class...the homework and reading assignments that I didn't do. And it's a painful reminder of how sometimes not doing a thing will quite possibly result in...nothing. It puts in perspective how much I've changed during the past 6 years. If Senior Mark (5th year!) would have seen Freshman Mark he would have laughed and thanked the Lord for people like him...because they made him feel smart. This is one of those blogs that I might regret putting up later.

Keeping em quiet

McRae, what exactly do you do for an elementary education major? Do they have like a...wasting time class? Where they teach you different tips and techniques to make it to the bell? I am slowly learning stuff as I go. I imagine normal teachers have a book or something, so if you have any good ones let me know. My new favorite trick is to make sure that before the kids start coloring that they all have very sharp colored pencils. While this could be dangerous, coloring with crayons is just too fast. Colored pencils (sharp ones) extend the coloring session an extra five minutes. And if you point out all the little spots they missed, that's an extra five minutes. So if you have any tips on dragging stuff on, just leave them in the comment box. Of course - serious answers only!

Nara candles

Nara candles
Originally uploaded by terw0015.

Went to some festival in Nara. There were candles everywhere. Honoring the dead(I accidentally kicked over 2 candles). Saw a big dog, some temples, and some deer. Nothing too special is coming to mind. I bet mike blogs about this even though he would be breaking the "only one person can blog about each event" rule. And then he will say he didnt see mine.

Old school

Back to a Japan related blog. Two more quotes, both from the same lesson. It was the "I'm the doc, you're the patient" lesson. I had themcome up with their own problems. There were only two students in the class and they both had some killer lines. I started them off by saying something like "so what seems to be the problem?"

Guy #1 "I have a hangover. And I drank a bottle of medicine to cheer me up."
I cracked up.

Guy #2 "I broke my legs"
Me "when did this happen?"
Guy #2 "yesterday"

Again, I was laughing.

And today I had to play Uno again. Yes, I get paid to play Uno. One day this guy is going to win. I modified the rules on my side. I am no longer allowed to change the color by playing the same number - but I can still use wilds. The result of this was the longest unfinished game of Uno that I have ever played. Highlights were my student playing the wild card and then "changing" the color to the color that it already was - twice. And, playing the wild card and changing the color to a color that he didn't have - twice.

Holy Cats!

Well here is one for you Kate, I got it from the Strib:

"Study deems the Twin Cities liberal"

Twin cities? Liberal?

Deem:
To have as an opinion; judge.
To regard as; consider.

I didn't read the article. I just hope the study was funded by private donations.

Donuts aren't just for cops

Kate, your blog reminded me of my own donut story. Back in the warehouse days I used to work pretty long hours sometimes. And those days when the shifts reached the 14-16 hour mark - we would get donuts. It was always so nice to feel that our hardwork and long hours didn't go unnoticed. And they were always the good kind. I guess they weren't donut donuts, but rather rolls, with custard, twists, all that junk. The stuff fat rich people buy - as opposed to poor fat people. Well, it turned out that there was no benevolent manager. It was actually a co-worker!! How thoughtful. It would be difficult for someone to bring in 50 rolls once a week, especially on warehouse worker dollars, but he managed to do it.

Well, only a country bumkin like myself would assume that some poor fellow went out of his way to make others happy - especially at a Minneapolis warehouse. The reason we only got the donuts when we worked long hours was because it wasn't until around 5am that the neighboring gas station got their shipment and my sly coworker would go swipe a box from the truck. So yes, they were stolen, but they were still good. He did this for quite a few weeks and we all loved it...

But, all good things must come to an end. The police took his car (or his license, can't remember). Anyway, he couldn't drive.

So to make a long story short. If you are ever dropping someone off at the hospital who is suffering from multiple gunshot wounds - don't just roll them out of the car onto the sidewalk and take off. It's illegal. I am not sure why. I don't make the laws. But when the police take your car, it may be your co-workers that suffer the most. Who cares if he was "whinnin like a little baby" or "it was just a little 22." The sidewalk is for bums, not your bleeding accomplice.

Typical

A copy and paste from CNN. Found it funny...not sure why.

When asked if that was a threat of possible retaliation, Rumsfeld replied, "I don't imply threats."

Kamikochi

Originally uploaded by terw0015.

She was working on her flowers when I asked her how to get to the temple. She started pointing in every different direction and went inside. I could hear her washing her hands. I was about 90% sure that she said "just a minute." But my Japanese sucks. So I said "thank you" and started walking off. Then she said it again and came out with a tomato sliced in two and her cane. She gave me the tomato and started walking me down the street. She was very Yoda like, she had the size, the cane, and I am sure she had the wisdom too. I don't like tomatoes, but I forced myself to eat it. When I took too long of a break she would point to it as if to remind me it was still in my hand. Then I would take another bite and use my smile to reassure her that her tomatoes were excellent. She kept talking to me as if I understood Japanese, maybe because I kept nodding my head like I understood Japanese. The tomato had left its nasty residue all over my hand - nothing like ketchup or tomato soup either. I managed to choke down half of the tomato. We arrived at the temple, she turned around and waddled back. I chucked the other half of the tomato into the temple bushes. I like things with tomatoes in them, just not straight tomatoes. After the whole experience I went camping and had the typical non-blogworthy camping experience. Here's a pic.

Rant

Every now and then one of those websites pops up that is just annoying – even worse than mine! http://www.werenotafraid.com/ Two things about this site, not only is the entire thing ridiculous, but they have bracelets for sale! Enough with the stupid rubbery bracelets. Stop it! They are OK if they are the Lance Armstrong Live Strong or whatever bracelets, because those are the originals – as far as I know anyway. But all the other “let’s sell some bracelets” groups need to stop.

So the idea of this website – as reported on by the ever so popular Strib – is that people send in pictures of themselves holding up signs or with a printed text that says “were not afraid.” It is of course a message to the terrorists. Is there some secret tape somewhere of Osama or some other terrorist guy discussing their plans to scare the entire world? Where did this whole scare thing come from? I remember something about “shock and awe.” That sounds like it might have been scary. If they wanted to scare us, they would write a book like Stephen King – he gets paid for it. Or they could dress up like gremlins and go around asking for candy. While I have no direct (or even indirect – I hope) connections to any Middle Eastern terrorist groups, I am pretty sure that the bombs in London were not meant to scare people. My best guess is that they were meant to kill people – hence the trains during rush hour etc. And these websites with all these people holding up their stupid signs just weird me out. Do they feel like they are really brave because they “are not scared.” What are they trying to do? Show the world that as they sit inside of their country home, in front of their webcam that they aren’t scared? What do they have to be scared of – an audit, a computer virus,Count Chocula? Who knows. I am sure if the average Iraqi citizen had internet they would all get a good laugh. Either way, this rant has gone on long enough. Since blowing the crap out of their homes and neighboring cities doesn’t seem to deter anything, I guess there is nothing wrong with thousands of people taking pictures of themselves and putting them on a website – that should do the trick…too bad they didn’t think of that a few hundred billion dollars ago. Anyway, the site would be a lot cooler if you could rate each picture. Then you would have to have the option of looking at the highest rated pictures for each gender…just a suggestion. Oh, and you should be able to send them private messages of course.

Japanese Poetry

If you don't live in Japan, you have no idea. But the Japanese English is great. Many Westerners laugh at its strange Mad Lib style grammar and word selection. But I have come to appreciate the true beauty of what I call Japanese Poetry. Anyone can do it. All you really need is a marker, a tshirt, and a dictionary. I can not quote any off the top of my head, but I have decided that I should get into the shirt making business. My shirts would say things like:

The loving breeze flown into his hair, but his thoughts were on it.
The beautiful dance did not assist the injury.
The life lost was a sweet harmony to all.
Crying was scared to sing beauty.
Lovers never eat raw distaste
The poor man felt for your soul, but it was gone like the aura of silence.

That was like 30 seconds of randomness, but im serious, these would be best sellers. Feel free to enter your own ideas (but I may steal them)

ps. shoplifting thoughts was he did it best to win the game of blog.

ha! beat that.