Pearls before breakfast

From the Washington Post.com Musician Joshua Bell dresses down and
plays violin in the washington dc area and no one stopped to listen.
Huge article. I read somewhere in Beethoven's time classical composition was a sign of intellectual thinking in his day. If you were a composer you were
a thinker.

Mental ping pong. JFK said he always preferred talking wtih someone
who had mental ping pong. I do too.

I learned alot from writing here - a non- build a teacher blog.

I think for me, it's better to think about the after hours we'll have as a
teacher than the work arena. For me, I take it on faith you guys got
it together. Relaxing might be something different for you.

Thanks, and good night and good luck.

P.S. I don't have any secrets, but music is huge. Burt Bacharach is
my secret. Especially the last album At this Time. If you have an album
to play when you go home, that's just about everything. You can just
throw the rest of the world off you and get back to yourself.

No teacher left behind...

Well, now we know that fifth graders are smarter than we are,
I'm getting worried. I hope all the teaching jobs don't
go to the kids...okay, so does anyone know who, in our class,
said something about "no teacher left behind"?

I'm pretty sure it wasn't me. I guess Id like to know, that's all.

100 goals - easy! Try this!

Okay, so when you sit down to do this, you definitely have to think
in terms of small goals. like finding a pizza place, or large - like finding a house,
or buying a new jazz c.d., or whatever. Buying a new jazz c.d. maybe
the only thing possible on your list, but once you start thinking up things,
you won't stop. A goal like spending more time with your spouse, parents
or kids - anything like that is fine too. Many of mine were next to
impossible - but if it's a dream, it's still a goal. I quit at 161 in self-help. For me, it just keeps everything in one place. Not a bad exercise.

Since this is build a teacher, I definitely put things in my list relating
to my future teaching career. (I hope...)

It really is cool to do this exercise. Try it and see.

100 Goals

Well, I was just out there surfing and I found this little
gem on a top acheivement blog--I was looking for time management
and organizers, so how I wound up there, I don't know. It's
just top acheivement.com and it has some cool articles.

I don't think I could get past the first ten even if they were
really small goals. well, writing and acheiving are two different
things...so, if you guys have time to kill over the break, here it is-
something for you to do... write 100 goals. Large and small.

my only goal is to find a great pizza place. Sounds like fun, yes?

my other blogs that I like are lifehacker and 43 folders. Great stuff,
intelligent blogs - explains computer tech and also real life stuff.
I highly suggest those for a look.

Good night.

Graphic Organizers - Life Tango

Graphic Organizers. Well, I like them just fine but they don't seem to
like me. I never can seem to keep up with mine. It really doesn't
matter if it's a calendar, an appointment book, post-it, a sheet of paper
with my daily to-do list....you name it, I really just can't. So, how about
you? Do you have any great pointers for me?

Well, I've decided just recently to keep a computer graphic system
and still use my personal organizer. So, this is for me right now - heaven
help me when I get a real teaching, like Kim (way to go Kim!) No idea
what Ill do then. I'll have to hire a secretary maybe...

So, I'll leave you with the key words and small explanation of the ones
I've found so far.

My personal favorite - Life Tango. Pretty exotic, huh? Seems like there
ought to be a guy in a tuxedo, with a vodka martini in his hand but actually
it is a basic site which in essence gives you all kinds of room to play in, so you
can set your goals. Any goals, professional, personal, travel - whatever. If
you want to email your goals, somehow other people with your same
interests will e-mail you back.

goplan - like it sounds
basecamp-individual or people projects
highrise-addresses, contacts, task lists, cases, research
campfire-personal chat room
tada lists-like tah da!
backpack it - 2 writeboards
wridea-also write/idea boards with its own blog for services
The above are good beacuse they are free of spam advertising
none that I can tell.

also I found
ezagenda.com - loaded with good stuff. Has multilple things
it keeps track of.
Then there is Zoho. Zoho office stuff and zoho email 1 g. Seems decent,
but i haven't found anything out about that--just found it a
couple of days ago and haven't had the chance to look it over.

Well, fun emails - we may as well share those too. I love jazzmusic.org
because it is reliable, spam minimal, and has access to a great jazz page.
Im growing fonder of opera email because you can also download a
browser and get a blog there. And ladies, it's nice because it's a
pretty shade of red.

Write back if you have any cool ideas, emails or graphic organizers.
I hope I'm using that term graphic organizers properly.

Good night.

psychology of music

i remember this class not because of what i learned but because of
what i didn't learn. with great expectations i show up to a classroom
theater style seating of 150 people or so and listened to the t.a.
talk about music being a new therapy and how well it worked with
the elderly and children. the rest was just stuff. no content. no
music examples. no paul, beatles, elvis, sinatra, or glenn miller.
nothing but desert....well, in a university the size of mine, no roll
was taken, so i took the syllabus, showed up for a class in the middle
to see if any changes had been made - there hadn't been, and slipped
out at the break, returning for the final. pulled a C for my efforts.
i deserved the C for my efforts, however they owed me alot more
for intentional infliction of emotional distress. taking a subject like
that without the music itself was also criminal, i think.
no great thoughts here, just some of the things i think about when i
think of college. in all fairness, i wasn't a psych major either. they
probably loved it. i just showed up for the music.

assignment calendar

i wish i had this site earlier for the research paper
but maybe it will help for the next session for you as
well. you can search this item with key words.
the university of minnesota-libraries has a site and a study aid
called assignment calculator where it has instructions
on how to divide one's time, what to study, and usually
hints or stategies explaining the assignment and providing
how to's on whatever subject you want. the highlighted
areas will also re-direct you to another library site
like the owl at purdue - indiana with the information
you want.

good luck researching and writing.