weeds and a farewell to meat

this entry actually has nothing at all to do with teaching...

have you ever had a bunch of weeds infest your lawn or garden? it completely defies the laws of living things. you can pull them and keep pulling them, but they'll always come back. this morning, i spent a good half hour pulling weeds out of the cracks of my brick patio. without their upper parts, they shouldn't be able to photosynthesize and thus, should die shortly thereafter. nope. they keep coming back.

speaking of things that keep coming back, i must take my hat off to george lucas and whoever is making the saw trilogy (oops, i meant... saw series). after reading the reviews for the new starwars clone wars animated movie, i wanted to become a movie critic. they use such colorfully negative words to describe things. alas, mr. lucas is still a money making genius though. the average person would have quit years ago. at least our movie appetites can be sated by the seemingly endless stream of saw movies. stay tuned for saw xii "getting cut up in space"

for all the ominvores out there, like myself, we are faced with a growing problem. since so much of our corn is going into making ethanol, cow feed is beginning to cost more and more. compounded by the growing cost of fuel, cattle farmers have had to sell off huge portions of their herds to offset the growing price. the problem manifests itself when there are no more cows to sell to offset the cost of keeping them. i hope they keep the double cheeseburger on the dollar menu still.

revived! (plus a scary dream)

so i thought it was high time i started up this blog again as an account of my first year as a teacher.

so last night i had a dream that is probably one of the greatest fears any teacher could have. it was the first day of school and i had nothing prepared. no syllabi, no seating chart, and i didn't even know how to log into zangle. i was pretty screwed.

the class began with me asking my class how they would define psychology. as they answered each question, they had to say their names for the sake of me and their peers. from there, i jumped off into a lecture about the different subfields and approaches to psychology based on what they had answered previously. then to top it all off, they split into groups to begin analyzing a specific scenario based on a specific approach i gave to each group (biological, cognitive, behavioral, etc). soon, i heard the rustling of books being put away. in a furious rage, i shouted, "the bell doesn't dismiss you. i dismiss you!"

when i woke up, i decided it was either a very good or very bad sign for me as a teacher. it could be very good in that it suggests i could even teach in my sleep. not just teach, but also randomly come up with a lesson plan on the fly. it could be very bad in that it shows how my lessons involve very little thought and just sort of fall together as they go.

here's to hopefully making tenure in the future.