From here.

It's posts like the picture above that make me want to switch over to Tumblr permanently.

In reality, I just need to work on the content of this blog. It doesn't matter which blogging platform I use - crap will still be crap on either side of the fence.

PTA and hacked

Like a $3 afternoon tea set at a seedy HK-style cafe in seedier downtown Oakland.

Apparently, Google thought my account was doing some "suspicious activity" and closed it for a while today. Boo. Now I have to go through all my stuff and reset everything.

Tonight was also my first PTA meeting. I read out names and handed out certificates of students with 600s on math and/or science CSTs. I saw parents freak out over something the math department presentation said. It triggered much stress over college admissions. It was kind of fun and kind of irritating at the same time.

Tomorrow is my Friday for the week. I say this with the deepest sincerity my heart can muster: w00t!

First Day of School Eve

Saying good-bye to summer.

The nerves are starting to make me hyper. And awake. Also, I forget to eat or hydrate. I can't be the only one that this happens to right?

Everyone has been so helpful. Thank you colleagues! You are indeed super.

Well, prepared or not, they are coming tomorrow. I've been pretty confident in my abilities so far but I never know until I'm put to the test, and the results come out, and I'm judged one way or another. Things I'm confident in:

- subject matter knowledge
- evaluating student assessments
- example-based teaching methods
- relating to students on a one-to-one basis
- organization

Things I'm not so confident in:

- mass behavior management
- time management
- stamina
- using technology in a meaningful way
- remembering names and matching them to faces

I gave away my filing cabinet to the other new math teacher. My other colleagues think I'm crazy. I might regret it later, I suppose, but I'll figure something out with storage. It was huge and in the way.

I realize I haven't been blogging much lately. It was nice to take a break from it for awhile. Well, it's back to work on that too, and I know I will have lots to write about. One of my bad habits is talking about work while outside of work too much. Not everyone wants to hear about students, or budgets, or communicating with parents. Writing about it here helps.

Testing

我　是　伍　婌　停。　我　是　一　个　老　師。
I am Wu Shu Ting. I am a teacher.


Note: Ricochet made a good point - I should translate whatever I write in Chinese on the blog. The whole point is to make my own documents in Chinese, translated from the English version, for my student's parents to read anyway. Any hey, if some one ends up learning Chinese from reading the English, I'm cool with that.


Note #2: How do I get the traditional character for "个" instead of the simplified? I like traditional characters better. I have a feeling the parents of my students will too.

Unabashed self-promotion

I'm listed here. Wow, first time to be put on one of these lists. Crazy, because a whole bunch of the other blogs listed are my regular reads that I look up to.

The weird stuff just keeps happening, doesn't it? Happy-weird, I mean.

Trying to be more positive

I've been told my writing on this blog is too negative. Which has been true - I re-read the past month's entries, and yep, it's a lot of negativity.

I apologize for that. I'll work on turning that frown upside down.

Also, in my defense, I haven't been ALL sad faces ALL the time. Although, I suppose a lot of my sarcasm can seem really cold/cruel on the screen, without facial expressions and non-verbal language to make the punch line. This needs work as well. When jokes don't translate from the page to the reader, then the writing wasn't very good to begin with.

Still, I want to keep it real too. Real. Positive. Constructive. Better writing. Goals for this blog.

Updated layout

I especially like the birds "flying" out of the trees, towards the right. Kind of funny too, because I didn't even notice the birds until I had picked the header photo and adjusted the sidebar.

Note: I sound all tech-y and professional blogger-y, but in reality Blogger just makes it really easy. Try it! It takes a little fiddling and whatnot, but the new "make as many changes as you want but it won't save until you say so" feature makes it much less painless than before.