Penn State

So I found out this morning that Joe Paterno was fired from Penn State. Even with the sexual misconduct/assault/whatever allegations, as he did not take part in this disgusting act the school had no right to fire such a well-loved person. He was on the brink of retiring after this year so there could have been the severing of ties without any reprecussions. Instead the school let him go and allowed people to riot. I think it serves the school right for this because they tarnished the legacy of a well-loved coach.

Favorite D1 Teams

I was looking over some of my word and excel documents that I rarely look at and came across my old list of favorite NCAA DI teams. Since it's about 2 years old I took a look at it and changed it to my feelings now. I will list my top 10 and my bottom 10 teams in the FBS (or D1-A as it used to be called).

Top 10:
1.Oregon
2.Alabama
3.UL-Monroe
4.Clemson
5.Iowa State
6.Ohio
7.Ohio State
8.Florida
9.Colorado State
10.Texas

Bottom 10:
10.UL-Lafayette
9.LSU
8.Oklahoma
7.Notre Dame
6.Vanderbilt
5.Temple
4.Ole Miss
3.Oregon State
2.USC
1.Auburn

Panic! at the Disco Concert

On the 28th, I went with my friend to see the Panic! at the Disco concert. It was amazing and I wish I was able to see their concert again. Panic performed with a guy named Dave Ford and the band Foxy Shazam. Dave Ford was alright, but I definitely preferred the other two bands.

Foxy Shazam is about as weird as their name. When they first got on stage and started performing, my impression was, “You know, this is quite reminiscent of Queen.” As a side note, I am NOT at all a Queen fan. There are only two songs I like by them. One is We Will Rock You and that is only when I’m at a hockey game. The other is Who Wants to Live Forever but I prefer the Breaking Benjamin cover to the original. The lead singer of Foxy Shazam moved around a lot like I’ve seen Freddie Mercury move and after pointing out that he was gay, I came to the conclusion that I was definitely watching a new version of Queen. Their set was amazing and it was quite enjoyable. The most memorable part (and definitely one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen, which is saying a lot) was near the end of the set. While explaining that he was just drunk enough to try it, he told the audience that he would stick a mic chord up his ass and have a band member yell into his mouth in the hope that the yelling would come out the speakers. This attempt failed miserably but it will be a while before the image of the singer’s pants down and ass hanging out goes away.

Panic! at the Disco was so amazing and performed a top-notch set. Brendon Urie was very engaging and did some great storytelling on the stage prior to songs. As a whole, the band was having a great time and through their energy made the crowd even more energetic too. For instance, he said that the next song had a very long name so he decided to shorten it. He said, “This song is called ‘The only difference between us is the size of our penis!’” This led to a massive crowd eruption and was probably the funniest thing I heard that night. Panic is a band that I would definitely see in concert again. My hope is that they come back to Maine soon.

The songs they played were:
From A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out:
The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage
Camisado
Time to Dance
Lying Is the Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off
I Write Sins Not Tragedies
From Pretty.Odd.:
Nine in the Afternoon
That Green Gentleman (Things Have Changed)
From Vices and Virtues:
The Ballad of Mona Lisa
Hurricane
Memories
Trade Mistakes
Ready To Go (Get Me Out Of My Mind)
Nearly Witches (Ever Since We Met…)

Deus Ex

When I bought Deus Ex, all I knew about it was that it was an RPG and that it had an awesome looking cover. After playing it, all I can say is that it is one of the most addicting games I have ever played. The game is about an ex-SWAT member Adam Jensen who now is the security chief for Sarif Industries, a leading human augmentation company. A team of scientists, including his ex-girlfriend, were apparently killed in an attack on the company and it’s Adam’s job to find out what happened.

The back story is set up in a way that someone who is unfamiliar with the Deus Ex series like me, can easily figure out what is going on. The game is a prequel to the Deus Ex games that came out on the PC about 10 years ago, so fans of the two previous games probably will have no trouble figuring out everything. For the people like me with no previous knowledge, there are many plot items that can be found throughout gameplay like newspapers to and e-books that fill you in on things.

When it comes to gameplay, it is quite impressive. There are three ways to accomplish mission goals: stealth, combat, or a mixture of the two. This way, you can decide what kind of player (ruthless, paragon, mixed) you want to be. Also, the decisions you make impact the rest of the game. For instance, if you can’t charm your way past an old friend in the police station, you have to find a way to break in to the station instead.

There is one drawback to the game. I hope this changes in the future with DLC or something, but one drawback to the game is that when you beat the game, you’re done and there’s no going back. I personally would like to do more with Adam Jensen; he is a fun character to play.

I would highly recommend this game to anybody who likes RPGs. I had to stop playing the game because it was so addicting, I would waste hours at a time playing.

Thoughts on Top 3 Republican Candidates

From what I've gathered, the top 3 candidates in the race for the Republican Party nomination are Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain. I have some basic thoughts on the 3 that I will share with the probably 1 person who reads my blog.

Romney: Romney is the only candidate that I’d be okay with at this juncture if Obama loses. His flip-flopping actually makes him seem to be a more moderate choice that won’t go “tea-party” on the country.

Perry: I still feel like he has NO idea what is going on. His attacking of Romney seems to make him look like he’s five. The debates I think are showing him to be highly incompetent.

Cain: I still don’t completely understand 9-9-9, but from what I gather, it will hurt people more than help. Also, he has no idea about foreign policy, which in my opinion is just as important as domestic policy. I would not like to see a president who doesn’t know where any countries are. However, I will take that back if he can tell me the leaders of 5 countries off the top of his head.

Thoughts On Ron Paul from Meet The Press

Yesterday, Ron Paul was on Meet the Press as part of the Meet the Candidate series. I came out of the interview quite low on Ron Paul.

Ron Paul says he will cut $1 trillion of spending if he is elected. Now, that sounds great at first glance, but he does this by cutting five government departments. These are the Department of Energy, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Commerce, Department of the Interior, and the Department of Education. Why would anybody think cutting these departments would help things at all? As a teacher, the one that really doesn’t sit well with me is cutting the Department of Education. This country has serious problems in terms of educating kids (look at the stats, I think we’re not even top 5) and I think cutting that department will push us further back.

Ron Paul had two comments on Meet the Press that were quote-worthy. One was hilarious and one was just plain stupid. The hilarious one was when Paul was talking about the difference between Obama and Romney. “We’d have to figure out which position we’re looking at with Mitt Romney, (laughs) you know, it changes.” That was very true, Romney’s main drawback is that his positions seem to flip-flop making him look at times like a liberal and at times a conservative.

The thing that made me get annoyed was when Paul was talking about making huge spending cuts. “After World War II….. finally we got over the depression, by these draconian cuts.” The depression ended BECAUSE of World War II. The country had to create jobs because men left to fight and women and the remaining men staying behind had to go to work manufacturing weapons, etc. for the combatants. This is what ended the depression, not the spending cuts made afterwards. Also, spending cuts were made because America no longer had to fight an all-out war, not just because the country was in a depression.

2012 Republican Candidates

I have been looking over the main republican candidates for the 2012 election and I have come up with some thoughts on them. I have four different things that I looked at for the candidates. My thoughts, the candidates' political culture, other stances, and Do I Want Him/Her to Get the Nomination are the four categories.

To find out more about political culture, go to http://academic.regis.edu/jriley/421elazar.htm.

Michelle Bachmann (Rep from MN)
My thoughts: Bachmann is a candidate that literally scares me. She believes climate change is not real and has said that CO2 makes up 3% of the atmosphere (actually .03%).(1) She wants to repeal “ObamaCare” and constantly invokes her faith whenever possible (there’s no problem with being religious but I believe people shouldn’t talk about it constantly, not everybody believes the same thing)

Political Culture: Minnesotan’s tend to be individualistic and she is no different. “Individualism and personal responsibility have always been the bedrock of the country”(2)

Other stances: Pro-life, Pro 2nd Amendment

Do I want her to get the nomination: Yes, but only because right now it looks like Obama would definitely win in the general election.

Newt Gingrich (Former Speaker of the House and Former Rep from GA)

My thoughts: In terms of his views, I feel as if he could be liberal enough for me to be okay with his election. He believes in creationism but says that beings could have evolved.(1) However, he does make me uneasy. If he says something that is not popular in his party, he quickly backtracks. Earlier this year on Meet the Press he said that he disagreed with the Ryan proposal. He quickly backtracked when the constituents were unhappy.

Other stances: Pro-life, Pro 2nd Amendment, Against same sex couples, homosexuality, etc., Against Unions

Political Culture: Traditional

Do I want him to get the nomination: No. He is too quick to change his story when there is a backlash and he definitely couldn’t get the nomination for the Republican Party. I am actually surprised he hasn’t bowed out yet.

Jon Huntsman (Former Gov of Utah and Ambassador to China)
My thoughts: I really don’t know much about Huntsman to make an informed decision at this moment. My impressions thus far though make me believe he could give Obama a great fight.

Political Culture: Moral

Other Stances: Immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. Pro 2nd Amendment
Do I want him to get the nomination: I don’t enough if I’d be okay with him being the next president with the lack of information I have as of now. Like I said above, he may have enough to beat Obama so I’d probably say no at this point.

Ron Paul (Rep from TX)
My Thoughts: Ron Paul is a politician that makes Michelle Bachmann look like Hillary Clinton. My hope is that he quickly bows out to ease my mind.

Political Culture:

Other Stances: Pro-life, Immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, would dissolve the DoE, Pro 2nd Amendment, Against 14th Amendment

Do I want him to get the nomination: Not even a little bit. I honestly think he scares some Republicans too.

Rick Perry (Gov. from TX)
My thoughts: George Bush was also a governor in Texas. If that isn’t enough for you, his college transcripts (especially social studies-related) were so poor it makes me think he is not smart enough to lead even a little league team. His personality seems to shout, “It’s my way, or fuck you!” I don’t even like democrats that act this way so I would definitely hate to see him get anywhere.

Political Culture: Traditional

Other Stances: Believes that “Climategate” is real (been proved to be false). (1) He believes that both intelligent design and evolution have holes and should be taught together.
Pro-life, pro states rights, pro 2nd amendment (2)

Do I Want Him To Get the Nomination: Not even a little bit. He seems like he’d easily lose to Obama but I don’t want to think about the chance that he could do well.

Mitt Romney
My thoughts: Four years ago, I didn’t care for Romney, but now I think he may be an interesting candidate. He believes in man-made climate change and that God created through evolution. (1) He has had a tendency to “flip-flop” on his positions though which could eventually be problem. Although I must say it means that he isn’t too stubborn to realize any flaws in his thought processes.

Political Culture: Moralistic

Other Stances: Pro-life, Pro 2nd amendment, against same sex couples

Do I Want Him To Get the Nomination: For a republican, I wouldn’t mind seeing him get the nomination right now.

Sites
1: http://www.lukesci.com/2011/09/06/all-of-the-2012-republican-candidates-on-climate-and-evolution/
2: http://2012.presidential-candidates.org/Bachmann/Issues.php

Tonight's Game

Because of DJ and Holly's honeymoon, I was left to manage the softball game tonight. You would think that the two would leave us to get crushed but believe it or not we had a great game; a loss, but a great game.

We started off poorly- down 8-1 going into the bottom of the third- but we got our act together and tied the game in that bottom half. After four, we were up 11-8. However, we couldn't get anything going after that inning. It was 11-9 going into the top of the seventh and I (and probably most of the team) thought the game was ours. However, it was incredibly hard to see and our defense suffered, giving up 8 runs on probably 4 or 5 errors. These errors though were caused by the darkness, not ineptitude. In the bottom of the seventh we went down 1-2-3 to lose 17-11.

I honestly believe the darkness cost us the game but our umpire didn't help us at all either. He made some bad calls that I think cost us too. Like Sam hilariously said, "His strike zone is bigger than Chewbacca." Although I walked my first time up, as the game went on it was quite obvious this quote was 100% true. After the sixth, the umpire should have called the game. Our last game was called when it was lighter out than it was for tonight's seventh inning. This is more of a bad "no-call" but whatever. Then within one minute in the seventh, the umpire made two terrible calls. First, I threw a guy out at second base and the umpire called him safe when he was out by a decent amount. Then, that player was allowed a courtesy runner when (to my knowledge) you are only allowed a courtesy runner at first base barring injury (which he wasn't).

My stats for the game
Batting: 2-3, BB, 2 R
Fielding: at 2B- 2 PO, 2 A

Season stats
Batting
12-27, BB, 2 FC, 2B, GIDP, K, RBI, 7 R

Fielding
1B: 4 PO, 1 E, 1 A
2B: 17 PO, 3 E, 2 A
SS: 1 PO, 1 A
Shortfield: 1 PO
LF: 3 PO
RCF: 1 PO

LA Noire= GTA: LA Justice

I rented LA Noire yesterday (along with Deus Ex) and so far it has been a decent rental. I bought it thinking it would be like a 40s version of CSI but it's actually like Grand Theft Auto, but on the side of justice.

There are three facets of the game that need to be looked at: Backstory and backstory of the character, driving to destinations, and the detective work.

The backstory is very realistic and historically accurate. There are zero anachronistic features that I've seen so far. The character, Cole Phelps, has a backstory that is played between every case he/you are given and it seems pretty interesting so far.

To get around, you need to drive. Driving is fairly difficult and is reminiscent of GTA with the amount of crashing into things I do. The one workaround however is that you can have your partner drive (unless the objective requires driving) so that's what I've decided to do so I don't have to hit cars and buildings constantly.


The detective work leaves a tad to be desired. Reading facial cues on suspects is quite ingenious but if you can't tell if they are lying or not, the game tells you that you were wrong. If the real world was like that, we'd need more prisons. There already has been a fair amount of shooting but the shooting is quite old school and doesn't feel realistic. Granted, that may just be because of the era I'm in.

Overall, the game is fine but I don't see myself purchasing the game when my rental is finished. I will however, keep playing until I have to bring it back. If I had to give the game a grade, it would be a C+.

Extremely Disappointing Game

In today's game the Dirty Sox came in thinking we had a decent chance of winning our first game, however we decided to not show up and were thrashed by the opposition. We came in with high hopes and ended up losing 21-0. It was the most embarrasing game I have been a part of for a long time.

First, we couldn't get anything going at the plate, we had maybe 6 or 7 hits which is pretty pathetic for slow pitch softball. Second, our fielding was atrocious. I don't think anybody avoided committing an error- maybe just our catcher and rightfielders.

Honestly, I really am too embarrassed to continue talking about this game so I'll just give my stats.

Batting: 0-2
Fielding: at 2B- 3 PO, 1 A, 1 E, 5 TC, 5 Innings

Game 2 for the Dirty Sox

Last night the Dirty Sox played the second game of our season. We played Pat's Pizza and though we greatly improved over our last game, we still lost 26-12. The game was actually a lot closer than the score says. We actually had a 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the second but we gave up 9 runs in both the second and sixth.

I think the box score ran something like this:
Dirty Sox: 1-1-0-6-0-4-0
Pat's Pizza: 0-9-1-4-1-9-x

Unlike the last game, the umpire was pretty awesome and he took the job very seriously. I hope we have him for the majority of our games. Fielding in the first game was pretty poor for our team but we really picked it up last night with some great plays. Batting was also a strong point in this game, evidenced by us increasing our run total four-fold.

As for me, I could have done better at the plate, but I had been driving all day and was just too tired to lift my shoulders up enough to do well. In the field I did well except for a ridiculous error which left me with a subdural hematoma in my thumb. :P

I know that with more practice, this team will actually finish respectably.

My stats for the game were as follows:
Batting
Game: 1-3, R
Total: 3-6, 2 R

Fielding
Game
Shortfield: 1 PO, 3 TC, 2 Innings
2B: 5 PO, 1 E, 6 TC, 4 Innings
Total
1B: 3 PO, 3 TC, 3 Innings
2B: 5 PO, 2 E, 7 TC, 5 Innings
SS: 1 PO, 1 TC, 1 Inning
Shortfield: 1 PO, 3 TC, 2 Innings

First Softball Game of The Season

It's been about 3 months since I last updated but I figure, why not keep posting like nothing's happened?

The Dirty Sox (my softball team) just finished the first game of the season and it was a complete drubbing (I think it was 26-3)! However, while the other team was CLEARLY better than us, it did not help that the umpire was pretty much a huge douchebag and in terms of balls and strikes seemed to be making calls more in favor of the other team. Even though the other team technically won with the mercy rule after five, both teams wanted to finish the last inning. However, the umpire decided to leave anyway so there was no umpire for the last inning. I mean, he already got paid, but it would still be nice if you decide to keep playing, that the umpire stays too out of courtesy.

As a team, we actually played alright. The other team had a 12-run first with like 4 homers so we were quite demoralized from the get-go. There wasn't really anything we could do better. We made some mistakes, but nothing that we can't deal with in the upcoming games and practices.

As for me, I played well on both sides and because I'm a stats guy, I'll lay out my hitting and fielding lines.

Batting
2-3, 1 R
Fielding
at 1B: 3 PO in 3 innings
at 2B: 1 E in 1 inning
at SS: 1 PO in 1 inning

Vacations

Today is my first day back to work from school vacation and I'm quite annoyed. Most people love vacations but I honestly hate vacations. Coming back to work is very difficult today because I have been away so long I'm really out of rhythm. My day-to-day routine was broken for 9 days and I've gotten used to waking up whenever I wanted and spending all day relaxing/doing whatever I please.

I personally prefer extended (3 or 4 day) weekends rather than an entire week of vacation off. After 3 or 4 days my batteries are recharged and I'm ready for the week but after 7-9 days I'm sinking into the bum mentality. Once I get yanked out of that mentality I tend to need a few days to get used to the routine again.

So, right now I'm feeling quite uncomfortable with my normal routine. I am happy though that I at least don't have to deal with another prolonged vacation until the school year ends.

Favorite Songs of All Time

Following my impactful songs list I thought I'd make a list of my favorite songs of all time. I had to seperate these into genres as comparing different genres is like comparing apples and oranges.

Top 10 Rap Songs
1. Public Enemy- Bring the Noise
2. Styles of Beyond- Subculture
3. Nelly- Air Force Ones
4. Wale- Breakdown
5. Drake- Find Your Love
6. T.I.- Swing Ya Rag
7. Sir Mix-A-Lot- Baby Got Back
8. T-Pain- Freeze
9. Drake- Miss Me
10. T-Pain- It Ain't Me

Top 20 Rock Songs
1. Breaking Benjamin- Breath
2. The Forecast- West Coast
3. Anberlin- Glass To The Arson
4. Breaking Benjamin- Wish I May
5. Letzte Instanz- Eisherz
6. The Offspring- You're Gonna Go Far, Kid
7. Letzte Instanz- Fur Dich
8. Scary Kids Scaring Kids- Empty Glasses
9. A Perfect Circle- Blue
10. A Perfect Circle- Rose
11. Goo Goo Dolls- Big Machine
12. Nickelback- How You Remind Me
13. Oomph!- Revolution
14. Pearl Jam- Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town
15. Evanescence- Bring Me To Life
16. Breaking Benjamin- Unknown Soldier
17. Default- All Is Forgiven
18. Scary Kids Scaring Kids- Pistol to My Temple
19. Epidemic- Individual
20. A Perfect Circle- 3 Libras

Top 5 "Other" Songs
1. Lady Gaga- Bad Romance
2. Panic! At the Disco- I Write Sins, Not Tragedies
3. Rise Against- Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
4. Ke$ha- We R Who We R
5. Fall Out Boy- Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet

Songs That Have Impacted My Life

It's been a while since I last posted but with the stress of my job and with little going on besides school, there has been nothing to talk about until now. There are many songs that I like; my tastes are quite varied. However there are a few songs that have really impacted or touched my life in such a way that if I did not know about them, I would be a greatly different person today. There are five songs/tracks on my list that have really been impactful in my life.

1. Snow: Informer- Now, if you listen to the song, there's nothing really impactful about it. It's just about Snow and his run-in with the law over a stabbing (at least I think so, he raps extremely fast). However, when I played the song for one class at Erskine Academy it impacted two of my students enough that when they made a goodbye video for me, they used the song. Now every time I hear Informer I think of my two students. :)

2. Taylor Mali: What Teachers Make- Anybody who is as passionate about teaching or the profession of teaching will understand why Taylor Mali would rank so high on my list. His poem is so powerful that it makes me proud to be a teacher and nothing has more affirmed my decision that this poem.

3. Bad Religion: No Control (album)- This entire album was very moving in my opinion. At this point I had not found music that really explained what I was thinking about and put life into perspective. I own all but one or two of their 15+ CDs now.

4. Tool: Die Eier Von Satan- This is the first song I ever heard in German and started my fascination with the German language. German Rock is one of my favorite genres and two of my five favorite bands are German.

5. Rise Against: Hero of War- This song is moving to anybody that has lost somebody to a war or to anyone who is a pacifist. The song talks about a young man's journey from being recruited to join the army to coming back home after his tour.

Procrastination

Procrastination. It is the thing that teachers try to teach against but is something that they personally can not escape as well. As a group, teachers tend to be the masters of procratination. When I was in practicum at UMF, my entire block (about 15 of us) were constantly drawing the ire of the professors because we were terrible procrastinators. I remember that one day Professor Overall was extremely mad at my block because she assigned homework and NONE of us did the work. None! It's amazing to think that out of 15 students (and now certified teachers) there wasn't one of us that thought it was prudent to do the work instead of putting it off for later. I am definitely not an exception to this rule. Right now, I should be creating quizzes for my classes tomorrow. However, I just can't help but to keep putting it off. I know that they will be done for tomorrow morning but the will do it is just not there right now. There are a bunch of other things that I need to in the next few days and I think I'm gonna work on them next. Or maybe I'll do it later.

Mondays

It's Monday again, and that means it is beginning of another dreaded week. You go to work or school (in my case, I work at a school) and still have fresh battle scars from the weekend to show off. Except in my case the "battle scars" are from working at Target on Saturday (I have like four cuts on my hands from that shift, I mean wtf?). If you are a student or a teacher, you just want to phone it in and just surviving the day is an accomplishment. Today, I was quite lucky in that my first block reviewed for their test all class and my other two were on Rosetta Stone. I didn't have to do any teaching and I feel great. I wish every Monday could be like this. With my luck though, something will blow up in my face during a lesson and I'll lose my otherwise sunny disposition. Let's hope that doesn't happen next week. *Knocks on wood*

Teacher Inservice Day

Today is a teacher inservice day at Bonny Eagle High School which is basically another way of saying that teachers are becoming students today. The funny thing is how quickly teachers revert back to the way they were as students. It is so hilarious to be in a conversation where everyone's talking about how they are mad that the proxies to let us use facebook and youtube are being blocked by the school. I personally used both all the time here as a sub (I mean there's nothing to do) but now that I actually have a class, it's been something I don't have time for.

Another funny thing is that everything's unblocked for today so I'm on facebook right now. One teacher commented that things are unblocked so we can use teaching tools but when we have school on Monday, some may be blocked again. I think that's just ridiculous.

At Erskine Academy, we (the teachers) were able to override a filter so we could use youtube, etc. to teach but here, it's not even a possibility without using a proxy. I hope that in the future BEHS will do this so the teachers do not have as difficult a time finding ways to teach their kids.

Maps

I'm in the teacher's room right now and above me is a map of the world. There is one major problem with it that I just can't get over. It's not the age, all countries seem to be correct; I mean, it's Russia, not the USSR for instance. It's the scale of the map that is ridiculous. We've all grown up seeing maps of the world and I bet we all have at one point thought that Antarctica stretched across the world and that Greenland was bigger than the United States. Obviously, that's not true. Why do we have to see this type of map? I realize that they do help us find where things are but it is quite misleading in telling me the size of countries. I honestly hate maps like this and I'd be happier with a globe that is actually to scale.

Lesson Planning

In preparation for starting my new position on Monday, I have been working on the lesson plans for my three classes for quite a few hours already. The sad thing is, I still probably have a couple more hours to go on it this weekend.

What most people, students and parents especially, don't realize is that lesson planning is a lot of work. Most people think that teachers show up to school, pick stuff to do 5 minutes before class, and go when class starts. Unfortunately, that is not the case. An entire class during my practicum experience at UMF was devoted to writing lesson plans. The ridiculous thing is that even though it was a bunch of work and took about an hour to plan each lesson with material in hand, we actually were only eased into the world that is lesson planning. If the material is already set up for you, to write the plan and make sure you are doing a good job explaining things takes an hour or so. If, like in my position right now, you have to come up with everything from scratch or pretty much near it, it takes at least two hours.

Another pitfall of lesson planning is the element of time. You can have the best lesson in the world planned but if you finish with 20+ minutes left in class, you're doomed. The caveat is that no matter how hard you plan, something will not go as planned. The students could be learning the material so well that you can blow right through it, or they will have no idea what's going on and you have to spend more time on the material. My high school Spanish teacher told me when I was volunteering after graduation that it is always better to overplan. The reason is that you can always cut something out, but if you're not prepared, you can't add an extra meaningful activity.

And that is another problem as well. You may have a great idea for a class activity, but if it doesn't reinforce past learning or introduce something new and meaningful to the class, then you can't really use it in the classroom. When I was student-teaching I went to a bullying/harassment seminar of some sort and the speaker had us do an activity where we used pipe cleaners to create a symbol of how we identified ourselves. I thought it was a great thing to use in the classroom, but my mentor teacher asked me how it was relevant to our unit. I realized that there was no way I could put it in context of the unit and that the activity would then cause more harm than good.

Planning lessons is an endeavor that most teachers hate to do. However, once you have planned lessons for a class, the good news is that rarely will you have to make new plans for that class again. Veteran teachers only need to worry a day or so in advance since the only preparation they need is to make sure that there are enough photocopies of assignments or other things of that nature. However, for someone like me who is new (planning-wise) to the classes I am teaching, I need about a week or two to make sure everything is set up so no foreseen problems arise the day of the lesson.

I personally can't wait until the day comes when I only have to follow my own plans instead of creating them as well.

I just finished Craig Ferguson's memoir "American on Purpose" a few minutes ago. I enjoyed the book immensely and I like Craig even more than I used to.

I first saw him on The Drew Carey Show and I thought he was funny, but never paid too much attention to him. I mean, he wasn't really the star of the show or anything. In college I started watching The Late, Late Show every once in a while because I saw him and was like, "Oh my god, he played Mr. Wick on The Drew Carey Show!"

He is so funny and is seems so real on the show that I started DVRing his show and watching it the next day. He has quickly become one of my favorite actor/comedians. In fact, when I get home I will be watching the show and enjoying myself!

First Teaching Job

Today I officially was told that pending the paperwork, I would be the long-term Spanish teacher substitute at Bonny Eagle! After almost a year of sending applications I finally have a legit teaching job to speak of. Obviously, it's not a permanent job but it will give me stability and I will get valuable experience in the classroom for when I apply for jobs for the next school year.

I'm pretty excited about the chance to have my own classroom and I can't wait to start.

Atlantis

I just finished reading a news article that says scientists may have discovered evidence of Atlantis off the the coast of Spain. This officially means that there is evidence of Atlantis being in like 5 million different places. If we include Spain, there are thoughts that Atlantis are in about 26 different places. Now I do believe Atlantis truly existed but obviously people need to come to a consensus on where Atlantis actually was. These places in the western hemisphere or far east obviously were cities like Atlantis but please don't say it was the true Atlantis described by Plato.

In my opinion the ancient city was in the Mediterranean somewhere. I mean Plato was Greek after all, why would he write about parts of the world he knew zero about? Also, when it comes to Atlantis possibly being in the Americas or the far east, the tsunami in Japan the other day just goes to show what can happen to an area when a strong enough disaster hits.

I could probably write more on my thoughts on the subject but my monday night shows are on and I'm quite distracted.

Mass Effect 2 Is Awesome!

I just beat Mass Effect 2 on the XBOX for the 6th or 7th time earlier and I just can't believe how it keeps me wanting more. Events can differ so much from one game to another that it piques my interest time after time and I don't play the same game twice (of course, unless I really wanted to). I have only one achievement left to reach; it's the only game I've ever played in the 4 or so years I've had the console that I've come this close with.

I've got another save from Mass Effect that I will be importing soon so I can play it over again!

My Annoyance With Sports Games

I have an XBOX and I aside from Mass Effect I play only sports games. I love getting my sports fix but all games I play have two major problems: the AI and the infatuation with "User Control".

I have found that the majority of games have an AI that is just plain horrible or seemingly non-existent. European football is one my favorite sports and I just can not bring myself to play FIFA. In earlier versions, FIFA was just terrible in terms of what my players would do if I wasn't controlling them. I'd give up 3 to 5 goals a game because my defenders just wouldn't move when there was a player coming right at them. It usually didn't matter though as the game's AI was so pitiful I was able to exploit it and win games around 5-4, 4-3, etc. For those who aren't aware, real football matches usually don't have more than 3 goals. There is also no strategy involved in the game. I recall seeing something on collegehumor that was showed what the game would be called if the name was the most said phrase. For FIFA, it was "That Was Absolutely Lucky! No Skill Involved." Skill/strategy is something that should be used to win games, not dumb arcade-style luck.

The thing with user-control is ridiculous as well. With the quest for full user control, they are making games 10 times more dificult to play. The reason I stopped playing MLB games was mainly because of this and it's why I am extremely frustrated (but somehow still enjoying) NHL 11. I happen to have double-jointed thumbs so it's quite difficult to do exactly what I want with the little joysticks. I can't stand that if you want to be able to use buttons instead of the sticks all the time, it makes the approach amazingly convoluted and annoying.

Right now, I play NHL 11 all the time and because of my difficulties with the sticks, I can't pass even close to where I want. I aim 5 feet towards the guy at my left and somehow it goes 15 feet diagonally to someone on the other team. I mean, what's with that? In older games you'd aim a pass near a teammate and it would just go the teammate instead of the next county.

I could ramble on more about this stuff but I just wanted to get that off my chest.

First Post

I decided to start a blog since facebook doesn't seem to let me ramble on about stuff in the way I would like. I'm not going to talk about my life unless something hilarious happens but I plan to just write my musings as I go along through life.

Comments are totally welcomed and apreciated and hopefully I'll be able to update this as much as I can!