Daily Inspiration

The future is not a gift - it is an achievement.

- Harry Lauder

inspire daily calendar Thu 7 Jun 2012 

Fun Facts: Famous Firsts

In 1897, John J. McDermott won the first Boston Marathon - the first of its type in the United States.

In 1911, Marie Curie became the first person ever to win two Nobel Prizes. Her first was in physics (1903) and the second in chemistry.

In 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier. He piloted a Bell X-1 rocket at 670 miles per hour in level flight - faster than the speed of sound.

- www.corsinet.com

Teachers daily calendar Wed 8 Jul 2009

Winding Down...

Exactly 2 months ago I had 4 part time jobs.

• Teaching an after school course, about 1 hour 2 to 3 times a week
• Supervising students writing make-up exams, 2 hours every second week, on average
• Tutoring junior and senior high math to a couple students about 2 hours total a week
• Collecting data for the city Census, which took up the rest of my time

By this time next week I will only have 1 part time job, and by the end of the month I'm not sure if I will be tutoring as school is coming to an end for the summer.

The census job lasted only 3 weeks, that was the entire time we were given to cover our area of the city. Considering I had a few apartments that I could not get in contact with the building managers, I think I did reasonably well, not as hope for though. 

Today was the last day I was supervising the make-up exams. For the second last day where students could write, it wasn't as full as I thought. The room seats 17 comfortably. I had less than 17 students writing at any one time. The exams are a mix of time length and subject matter for high school courses, so some students are done early. The exam room is open from 5pm to 7pm, and students may write anytime during that time, so some come at 5pm, some at 6m. This means that more than 17 students may be writing comfortably, like today there were 20 students who wrote exams, and only 16 seats filled at the most. Last week, at one point, there were 21 students writing all at once, it was fun finding space for them all. I think there was a total of nearly 30 students that wrote that day too.

Tuesday will be the last day I teach the after school Lego Robotics course. I will miss the students (grade 4-6 age range). This is the second year I have taught this course and have learned a lot from last year and this year. Last year I was half designing the course as I went - having only designed the course before starting to teach it. This year I was beginning to refine it. 

Although I say by the end of the month my part time jobs will almost be gone - just the tutoring is possible for students taking summer school - in July I will actually have a full-time job.

The full-time job will be teaching Lego Robotics in a summer school. So as things wind down for the part-time paid work I have to also start winding up for the full-time paid work.

And there is also the volunteer work on top of all that. 

Most of May I was volunteering at a local theatre running the lights (see past posts). 

From a while ago and until almost September I am also "volunteering" (not sure if it classifies as volunteering) or working to get the play I wrote produced at the Edmonton Fringe in August. It is currently 5th on the waiting list, which means high probability of getting in.

Last week I got audition notices out, and have auditions on June 16. Luckily I have enough people interested to hopefully get a good cast - unlike an attempt at producing it in January. 

So as one part of life winds down, others wind up... and I hope to post a couple more on related topics soon.

Daily Inspiration

The time is always right to do what is right.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

inspire daily calendar Wed 6 Jun 2012 

School Satire

At a cafeteria-table press conference, David Pernell, age ten, "categorically denied" girl-liking allegations recently levied against him by fellow Lakeview Elementary School fourth-grader Jonathan Witt. "I do not, have not, and will not ever like girld," Pernell told the crowd of seven noys assembled at the lunchroom's back table.

"Mr. Witt's accusations are not only 100 percent false, but also slanderous, as it has always been my firm conviction that girls are totally and completely gross." Pernell went on to suggest that perhaps it is Witt who likes girls, particularly Jenny Loughlin.

- www.theonion.com

Teachers daily calendar Tue 7 Jul 2009

Daily Inspiration

We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.

- Hillary Clinton

inspire daily calendar Tue 5 Jun 2012 

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road. There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a mistake.

- C.S. Lewis

Teachers daily calendar Mon 6 Jul 2009

Daily Inspiration

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.

- Beverly Sills

inspire daily calendar Mon 4 Jun 2012 

How to Be a Kid Again

• Change into play clothes.
• Start thinking now about what you want for your next birthday.
• Ask someone if the like "see-food."

Teachers daily calendar Sat/Sun 4/5 Jul 2009

Joe Trebble and the Bio Tech Conspiracy

Back in 2006 I started a serial in a writing class. It started in part as a challenge to myself in regards to a writing warm-up.

The warm-up is to write for about 20 minutes about anything that comes to mind - no stopping, no double thinking, no editing, just writing.

Because some people were finding it difficult to start, a prompt was chosen. This was done by everyone writing a word or short phrase on a piece of paper and putting it into a hat then selecting one.

I then turned some of these prompts into the chapter titles of my serial. Since that time I have written about 13 chapters (perhaps more, but I only have 13 typed up). In 2007 I started posting them online on a dedicated blog: http://joetrebble.blogspot.ca/

In the past 5 years I haven't been consistent in posting or even writing the chapters. When I started this blog I was planning on posting a new chapter every week (which obviously didn't happen). My current goal is to post a chapter at least every month (more if I can write them).

I just posted Chapter 11: English Toffee - http://joetrebble.blogspot.ca/2012/06/btc-11-english-toffee.html
But if you haven't read any of the others before you might want to start at Chapter 1: A Hot Pink Car - http://joetrebble.blogspot.ca/2007/03/joe-trebble-and-bio-tech-conspiracy.html

Enjoy the stories and please provide feedback.
In fact, any short words or phrases you might want to see as future chapters would be greatly appreciated (it will help get more chapters written).

Daily Inspiration

Behind Every Famous Person Is a Fabulous Teacher

Actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler sill has the lucky quarter that her fourth-grade teacher Michael Zarett gave her before her very first audition. In the classroom, Mr. Zarett strives to have meaningful interactions with every student on a daily basis. "Every day you try to make a memory," he says.

- TeachersCount National Social Marketing Campaign

Teachers daily calendar Thu 2 Jul 2009

Why do I love teaching?

It's the "I get it" moments.

It's the moments when I see a kid do something really spectacular, like stand up for another kid in class.

It's the moments when I hand a kid a book and tell them I think they'd enjoy it, and they come back and tell me they loved it, and ask if I have any more like it.

And it's the kid in my class who doesn't do well in school and makes bad choices quite often, but when I sit down and help him with an assignment, he gives me a genuine thank-you.

- www.theteacherscorner.net

Teachers daily calendar Fri 3 Jul 2009

Elemental Answer & Code

Most science fiction fans know the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything."
The elemental answer is of course Molybdenum; discovered in 1781

For a while I've been thinking about writing things in code, and one code I had played with when I was younger was using the periodic table of elements. I was talking yesterday with a friend about it and wondering how hard it would be to decode. He suggested using the yet unnamed, created in a lab, elements as spaces, so that 117 would be a space instead of Uus as letters. I'm not sure if that's entirely required.

(Periodic table of elements above is from Wikipedia)


See if you can decode the following:
notes:
1) due to the nature of the periodic table, some letters come only in pairs, and some (J & Q) do not exist.
2) no punctuation is included

421622 215363758 95362287 995716 1910274 9063 957167468 228 9063 923221018568 1992992287 89 326 9063 9228236834 9560 63236839904932 5316 42

As I was typing up the above, I thought of an easier code to write, and possibly more difficult to decrypt.
The code above uses, where it can, double letter combinations, such that the phrase "I am gay" would be: 53 95 3139
An alternate would be where only the first letter of the element is used, that could give multiple codes for the same phrase. Taking "I am gay" you can choose from:
I = 49, 53 or 77
a = 13, 18, 33, 47, 79, 85, 89 or 95
m = 12, 25, 43, 101 or 109
g = 31, 32 or 64
a = 13, 18, 33, 47, 79, 85, 89 or 95 (why not choose a different number than before!?)
y = 39
Total of 2880 different possible combinations for that phrase. 24 for just "gay"

Now try this one (first letters only):


349963 741314 57531968 18 5854 7626 611787133229916 397692 763236837 3610874 7424743 3976924499 318112879 326352

Daily Inspiration

You Don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things - to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.

- Edmund Hillary

inspire daily calendar Sat/Sun 2/3 Jun 2012 

To know nothing of what happened before you were born is to remain ever a child.

- Cicero

Teachers daily calendar Wed 1 Jul 2009

Daily Inspiration

 There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet.

- William F. Halsey

inspire daily calendar Fri 1 June 2012 

The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure that each has an equal opportunity not to become equal, but to become different. 

- John Fischer

Teachers daily calendar Tue 30 Jun 2009