The Malicious Monocle

My student teaching semester is coming to close. Less than two weeks of actual student contact left. There’s still a ton of stuff to get done before the end of the semester, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve started filling out job applications and end even went out and bought a couple of new suits to look all snazzy in when interviewing.

I had a lot of fun and have learned a lot during my student teaching, but I have to say I’m glad it’s over. I have never felt so exhausted or worn out on a constant basis for so long before. I’ve been so busy I haven’t even written anything new for the Malicious Monocle story. That will change. Ideas have been percolating in the back of my head the whole time even if I wasn’t writing them down anywhere.

Well, back to work. I still have a few lectures to plan and a couple of tests to create.

  Well, so far student teaching has been incredibly relaxing. Of course, that may be because we’ve ended up with two non-contiguous snow days this week. When we were in school, I did step up and teach a lesson using the teacher’s lesson plan and had it go pretty well. The only real problem I felt I had was in going too quickly for the kids. I really need to learn the proper pacing for these Middle School kids. I don’t have my lesson plans written yet, but they are pretty well planned out in my head. I’ve also managed to make a good start on my first power point. Their regular teacher uses an overhead, but I can’t stand them. I had to copy endless notes off of overheads when I was 13. I really don’t want to now use them myself.

For my snow days I’ve spent them being pretty productive. Perhaps not as productive as I could have spent them, but I didn’t totally slack off. Today I even managed to go out and meet up with a classmate for some coffee. That was pretty nice. It was only for about an hour and a half, but at least it meant I got out for a bit. She even bought me the coffee.

I also filed my income tax today. Education credits are fun!

Before going back to my power point slides, I’ll leave this: http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/01/ipod-plus-delca.html

It’s a link to an article that has copies of both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution read aloud and available for free download.

Soon my happy fun-time will end and I will start my student teaching. Am I spending my time practicing lesson plans? Am I reading about performance assessments?

No.

I’m working on my Mûmak.

Here are some work in progress photos of my Mûmak.

The paint job is mostly a series of drybrushing so far. The base especially has a lot of work left to do on it. Next up is to finish the toenails and then start in on the tusks. After the Mûmak is finished, I’ll start work on the howdah, alternating with work on the base as the whim takes me.

Last night was the second Benchmark for the teaching program I’m in. I passed. It was actually a pretty straight-forward experience. We had to prove we were able to put together a pretty portfolio and participate in a Socratic Seminar. I looked up my GPA and was pleased to see it sitting in the neighborhood of 3.8.

I have my first informal meeting set up with my student teaching supervisor and my co-operating teachers. I’ll be going in and meeting one of the teachers tomorrow. After that will be class. Whee. At least there wasn’t any homework due for the first night of class.

Benchmark II was fun though. There were tornadoes in town and so at one point we had to huddle in a windowless classroom for a bit at one point. There was even some question if we would finish the benchmarks. We stayed. All of us just wanted to get it over with and be done.

I bought a new miniature this weekend to assemble. It’s one I’ve been drooling over for a couple of years now. It was a little easier than I had thought to assemble, but it wasn’t easy.

Here’s a picture of it mostly done.

    The semester is just about over. There are a few classes left yet, but fortunately the super big piles of homework that I’ve been having to deal with have shrunk to almost tiny piles. I have to write nearly ten pages worth of reflection for next week, but compared to the homework I’ve had to deal with I’m not even worried.

A package I’ve been waiting for showed up today in the mail. My calendar for next year, “The Lovely Mistresses of George W Bush.” Some great classic pin-up shots to brighten the next thirteen months.  Miss April is someone I know from an online forum. I’m kind of surprised that none of the girls have any ink on them, but the photographer could have easily ’shopped the ink out.

I’m off to watch some more of Tin Man  before heading off to bed. I promise some more Monocle in the coming days as well.

  I did actually take some time to relax a little this weekend, but most of the holiday weekend was spent doing homework and trying to get everything done before the end of the semester. I managed to finish out two assignments this weekend and get the nitty gritty of a third out of the way as well. So, that should leave me with approximately 3.5 assignments left to do before I’m free for a few weeks to kill off some brain cells before student teaching.

I ran into a guy I used to know from college last week as well. I found out his daughter is a student at the school I’m doing my student teaching at and she is in the right grade. I have no idea which classrooms I’ll be in though, so I couldn’t tell him if I was going to be teaching his daughter. I’ll have to see if I recognize his last name if I see it on the class roster. Considering I can’t remember what his name is currently, I figure I have a 50-50 shot of recognizing it if I see it written down.

How will I celebrate the end of the semester and the fact that I have given my current place of work notice? I will be getting together with a friend to watch the Series 3 Doctor Who episodes we missed and maybe play some Wii. I love it when girls ask me to bring my Wii over to their place to play. It just seems… titillating somehow.

Clearly I am also running into some fun insomnia with the end of the semester as it is half-past one in the morning and I’m awake.

Don’t Blink!

I have a project due in class tomorrow. My buddy Yigg is my partner and I had expected to see him at the get together on Friday night. He didn’t make it. I tried calling him yesterday and today and didn’t get any answer. I had even started working on his part of the project so I wouldn’t be caught unprepared tomorrow night. He finally called me back. A family thing had called him out of town for the weekend.

Now I can stop stressing and I can stop doing homework for the evening. I’m going to head up to Best Buy and spend some money I probably shouldn’t spend.

I have another part for the Monocle written, but I haven’t had the time to type it up yet. I’ll get it up as soon as possible. Maybe after I get back from Best Buy.

  Yesterday evening was spent at Adverb’s house having a good time. Within minutes of arriving everyone was naked and having all kinds of wild monkey-like fun. Marriage vows were spit upon and ignored willy-nilly. Wait. That’s the delusional paranoid prediction for the evening. In reality, it was a very quiet and enjoyable time.

Adverb and her husband Bone-Cracker served a nice dinner of ravioli and sausages. There was even apple pie for desert. We drank, chatted and played a couple of boardgames. Bone-Cracker and I dominated the game of 80’s Trivial Pursuit. I have to admit I almost felt pity for Adverb, Thermopylae and C (a friend of Adverb and her husband) when I looked at the board and saw our piece stuffed full of pie sections and their piece with a single, lonely piece.

I spent a good part of today driving out to Twin Lakes in order to get a couple more books for a project due Monday night. For some inexplicable reason most of the books concerning my topic are kept in Twin Lakes. I wish I hadn’t needed to run out to Twin Lakes, but at least I managed to get a number of Power Point slides planned out at the coffee shop this morning.

I taught my second lesson today. At my co-operating teacher’s  recommendation I taught the lesson three times today. In between the first and second classes I taught I tweaked my power point slides and changed up some of the organization. The only real changes between the second and third classes, I didn’t change too much at all.

The classes went pretty well. None of the classes were burning me in effigy or in open revolt. Most of the kids seemed to even get the lesson I was teaching. Some did better than others, of course, but that’s to be expected.

I should be working on my presentation for Monday, but I’m not. I’ve wasted the evening surfing the next and watching shows on my DVR. Now it’s time for booze. I’ll have a little of that and then maybe I’ll even post to the Monocle.

Today I get to teach the second of the three lessons I have to teach before student teaching starts next year. I’m teaching a combo lesson that covers both science and literacy. I have my snazzy power points ready and I’ll be printing a bunch of stuff out in just a moment. Right now my biggest concern is keeping them engaged for the class. I’ll be teaching the same lesson three times over today to get some hours in and get a bit more experience with modifying on the fly.

I ‘m sure ALL of my loyal readers, even the Orwellians, are wishing me well today.

For the first time in a while I looked up some old Sociology stuff last night. I confirmed that Isolation is one of seven methods that can be used. It doesn’t mean anything on it’s own, but if it is combined with a couple of the others it can take a very severe meaning. I like what I do and I like that I will soon be a teacher. There are still times I wish I didn’t have some of the info that exists in my head that has to be there when considered a Man. Rep.. Enough of that though.

This Friday Adverb is hosting a get together to help the class relax and kill off a brain cell or two each. It should be nice. Everyone won’t be there, but it will hopefully still be fun.

I’ve been so focused on school work I haven’t had a chance to get any scribbling done on the Monocle. That will be corrected soon.