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EleCivil

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Blog Comments posted by EleCivil

  1. Conversely, an agnostic is not someone who hasn't made his mind up, or who has an open mind, but someone who believes it is not possible to know whether there is a deity out there. He holds that mystic revelation is bunk.

    Indeed - if you wanted to be technical, I would consider myself an agnostic atheist, in that I do not believe it is possible to know whether there is a God, and I currently do not believe in one. (It is equally valid to be an agnostic theist - admitting that there is no way to prove the existance of a God, but believing in one anyway.)

    But most people don't understand that, so when asked, I just say "skeptic" because it's shorter. And if they don't understand THAT, I tell them I'm a Discordian.

  2. They encouraged me to cultivate silence in which I could look at and listen to the world, and allowed me to discover that people who are constantly yammering cannot manage self-examination, much less encourage it in others.

    Silence is a virtue - when you're talking, you can't listen. When you can't listen, you can't learn.

    In general, I try to remind myself that there is something I can learn from every person I meet, provided I take the time to do so.

    As a wise man once said, "Never miss a good opportunity to shut up."

  3. I would add to Bruin's list of adjectives the simple word 'cares'. A teacher who cares about his kids, who takes the time to learn each of their names, who learns and remembers what they like and don't like, what embarrasses them and avoids that, and what he can joke with them about, becomes a magnet, a kid magnet.I doubt even cling-free washday additives would keep the kids in that school off of him.
    EXACTLY.Kids know whether or not you care, and if they don't think you do, it's trouble. This is what makes or breaks a teacher, in my opinion. I was a bit surprised to see "learn each of their names" on the list - that seems to be the absolute minimum. Heck, I know the names of every kid in my middle school and a good number of the kids in the elementary school that feeds into it. To not know the names of the kids in your classroom just seems like it would make every day difficult for everyone involved.Man, if I didn't take the time to joke around with the kids, my job would suck. Low pay, high stress, long hours with no overtime, no union...jeez.I overheard a rumor among the younger kids that I'm secretly a space alien in disguise. As such, I've started occasionally letting something slip, like...Kid: "Why were you late, today?"Me: "My shuttle wouldn't start this morning. I had to get a jump."Kid: "...Did you say shuttle?"Me: "No. I said...Chevy. My Chevy wouldn't start."Kid: *suspicious look*Me: Well, have a nice solar cycle, fellow human. *Whistles and walks away*Also, I've overheard (and encouraged) a rumor that I can melt people's faces with my eyes. Now, when a kid is acting like a knucklehead, I can simply give them a hard stare with a finger raised to my temple to make them snap back into line.
  4. Well, I ... umm, gosh. Erm ... I don't usually have a timing device to hand when I, erm ... you know. Thing.Honestly, I'd have set my bedroom up differently if I'd known I needed stopwatches and stroke meters. :hug:
    Nah, don't go through all that trouble. Just videotape the act and upload it here. We'll time it for you.'Cause, you know. We're helpful.
  5. Those things are called pins? Over this side of the pond they'd be badges. Pins are steel wire with one end sharpened and one end blunted with a tiny head like a nail. Badges have a pin inside them to push through something to fix them in place. But the round thing that's visible is a badge. Don't you colonials know anything???!!! :hug:
    Heh. Over here, their name kind of depends on who's wearing them."Badges" are for cops."Buttons" are for little kids."Pins" are for punks/moshers/hipsters (who receive one Official Punx Point for each thing attached to them via sharp piece of metal :hug: ).
  6. (You're not a Civil Engineering major are you?)
    Nope (but that's probably my most frequently asked question). Civil is just an old neighborhood nickname.
    Don't knock Michigan too much
    Don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking Michigan. I think it's pretty cool up there, actually. The town I'll be in reminds me a lot of how I pictured Curson, MI, in Laika. I'm just annoyed that I have to drive more than an hour to get there every day.
    Ele, believe it or not, you're the first guy I've seen with pins on his skull cap.
    Heh. Yeah, that's kind of my trademark hat. A lot of people who don't know my name will come to request my services at work, asking for an appointment with "That pinhead guy," referring to the hat. At least, I think they're referring to the hat...
  7. I, too, am NoNo-ing this year. I don't really have a PLAN plan, but I've got a general idea of where I want to go. You now, a beginning, middle, and one of those...whatta-ya-call-em...endings! Which is way more than I had last year or the year before.The working title is "A Whisper to the City Unspeakable", but that could change if I get a pretentious-ectumy or something.Good luck!

  8. : salute :
    Woohoo!Anyway, quick update: I accidentally wore my photo ID/name tag home from work yesterday. Seeing the opportunity, I've altered the job title section, so that instead of reading "Tutor/Proctor/Coach", it now reads "Tutor/Captain/Coach." I figure, hey, it's been a year since I've done any proctoring, but I'm the Captain right now. I wonder if anybody'll notice.
  9. Perhaps I'm being nosy, but I'm interested and would like to know. Have you now graduated? Do you have your teaching credential? A job? A classroom of your own?
    Not graduated yet, but I'm close. One more semester of classes, then one semester of student-teaching. So, by this time next year, I'll be done. Well, done with undergrad, anyway - I'll be going on to grad school after that, since my state requires that teachers get masters degrees.
    I think you'd make a perfect middle school teacher. I hope that's what you're interested in teaching.[/size][/color]
    Yep - I'm majoring in Middle Childhood Education (grades 4-9), with concentrations in language arts and science. I've done field work in 2nd grade and 11th grade classrooms, but those were both kind of dull compared to the middle grades.
  10. EleCivil, are you sure you want to be a teacher?Why not write? You sure have the ability.
    Heh, thanks, but I think I'm better at teaching than writing. But like Trab said, I can do both.
    As always, I bow before Ele, our lord and master.
    Much appreciated, but watch where you're genuflecting in here - there's a lot of junk on the floor.
  11. "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."-Viktor Frankl, from "Man's Search for Meaning""Here's to our lives being meaningless! And how beautiful it is, because freedom doesn't have a purpose."-Johnny Hobo and the Freight TrainsAny way it comes.

  12. I mean you KNOWINGLY have a textually transmitted disease (TTD) and yet you type here, and risk infecting all of us.
    Time for a telescreen confession, then. "I deliberately contracted syphilis with the intention of spreading it to other Party members..."
    You said a while ago that you were practice teaching, and loving it. When I took teacher training many years ago--training that came to nought--we had practice teaching in the last year. Yet you said you still have another year to go, so you did classroom training in either your sophomore or junior years? Is that right? That seems early to me.
    Yep, I'm still working toward a teaching degree. Middle school science and language arts.My school is set up differently than most when it comes to their education program (which is why I chose it - schools in this area tend to move applicants from my college to the top of the stack). We do field assignments every year. Two days as freshmen, two weeks as sophomores, a month as juniors, and a full semester as seniors. That way, we get to do a bunch of different grade levels (4-9), different subjects, and different school districts (urban, rural, suburban), with increasing numbers of lessons and responsibilities each time. We get to work with a lot of different teachers in a lot of different settings, with the hope that we'll be able to fit in wherever they throw us.I'll be finished with all of my theory/classroom courses at the end of this Fall, so I'll be able to do my full semester of field work/research in the spring.
  13. Does this mean, should I feel the need, I can get a quick fix of time travel any time I want by simply moving the little setting gizmo on the back of my clock to something other than what it now is? Cool!C
    Nah - in order for time travel to work, the one thing that you must have is consensus. If everyone agreed that tomorrow was December 17th, 1924, then so it would be, but if it's just you saying it...well, not so much. Unless you're completely alone. Or, you could do what a former roommate of mind did and declare your room a separate time zone. His room was fifteen minutes ahead of the rest of the house. As soon as he stepped out of his room, however, he was thrown back into the primary time-stream with the rest of us.Or, you know, a flux capacitor and one point twenty-one jiggawatts. But that can be kind of hard to get.
    If, in the fall, you move from Eastern Time to Central Time, exactly at the time it changes from Daylight Time to Standard Time, what will have happened?
    That'll open a wormhole and send you to a parallel pocket-dimension, existing entirely within the confines of Abe Vigoda's breast pocket. However, this pocket dimension is identical to ours in almost all ways ("daisies" are called "doozies", but that's about it), so you probably won't notice that anything's happened.
  14. In the spirit of the elections, I think everyone should take my lead and play with their Caucasus.
    Heheh. A friend of mine went to meet Barack Obama. He told him that he should start referring to people who vote for Hillary as "Caucus suckers". I don't think he has, yet...and I think that's why he lost OH and TX.
    You plucky little buggers appear all throughout history and classic literature.
    You know it. You'll never stop us, either...square. Not even by joining us. Because as soon as the revolution's over, we'll have to start revolting against it. That's just how we roll.To quote Evan Greer, "When the fighting's done, the revolution won, we'll burn the final flag and walk on."
  15. Hillary just won your state. :eyes:
    And so continues my record of having never voted for a winner. Even when it comes to mayoral elections. And we have the best mayoral candidates ever. Last time, we got to pick between a man who never smiles, a man known for saying/doing ridiculous things (insulting business owners until they get heart attacks, telling the deaf to move to the area near the airport, etc.), a self-proclaimed "Prophetess" whose campaign line was "I'm warning you!" and who threatened city-wide destruction if she wasn't elected, and a man who, during a debate, pulled on a pair of plastic Groucho glasses (the kind with the fake mustache) and burst into song, belting out "I gotta be meeeeeee!" (I voted for that one).
    EleCivil played dodgeball and threw a beach ball, presumably dressed as a mild-mannered student punk.
    Actually, it was during an assembly, not a dodgeball game. Heh. That beach ball "Riots of Spring" scene from Laika? Non-fiction. :hehe:
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