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What Kind of World Do You Want?

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One of the messages of the Five For Fighting video “World” is that we are all connected, our actions touch everyone else, and that each person has the ability to make a profound difference.

John Ondrasik of Five For Fighting has gotten involved in a wonderful web site, www.whatkindofworlddoyouwant.com, named after his eponymous song. Go to this site and watch any video clip there and money will go to the charity listed with that video.

Going there will make a difference. These are wonderful, selfless people, and some of the videos they’ve produced will bring you to tears.

Aching Heart

Believe it or not, I have a rather scary heart condition, and I need to see a cardiologist on a regular basis for different sorts of tests. Recently I had to wear a heart monitor for 24 hours. I also needed an echocardiogram, a strange experience in which you get to see your ticker on a monitor. Kind of spooky.

Turns out the good doctor won’t be in his office tomorrow, so I need to reschedule.

I was going to have a sub.

Now I’m the sub.

And all that photocopying of worksheets I did to make the sub’s day easier. Well, guess what? It’s all going to make my day easier, and give me a chance to catch up on my grading.

Journalism Working Late

Several members of our Paw Prints staff stayed late to finish typing their articles for the first edition of the paper. We’re doing our best to meet our Thanksgiving week deadline. Be patient. We’re taking baby steps this year. My staff is new and inexperienced, so our learning curve is quite steep.

While my students were typing, I was doing my best to catch up on my grading. But don’t expect miracles. I’m working my way through a pile that would be the envy of small mountains.

1984

Some people think this is the best commercial ever to appear on American television. It’s the Apple Macintosh commercial that aired only once — during the 1984 Super Bowl. In it IBM is depicted as Big Brother, whom Steve Jobs appears to resemble as the years roll by. See for yourself.

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Pinky the Cat

Man, this is one wild cat. Go Pinky!

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Introspective Day

Today was one of those days. Teachers know what I mean by that.

It was the sort of day that might have found me sitting at a coffee house writing in my journal…if I had a journal and if I had the time to stop on the way home.

The gist of what’s bugging me can be summarized as follows: I have too many areas for improvement.

I have to finish my classroom arrangement, which I should have completed last month. My desk is still a mess with no proper place to do my grading. My lesson planning has sucked; I can’t seem to get anything up on the board. Bellwork has become a joke; I need to find a way to combine SSR with journal writes. I also need to consistently enforce the tardy policy, which in my room means that if you’re not in your seat and on task when the bell rings, you’re tardy. No excuses. Lastly, I need to monitor my students better. I’ve gotten too lazy and spend too much time behind my desk and not moving around.

What do they say about a moving target being hard to hit?

Hello Students!

Another database error has wiped out everything. Time to start over.