Future Links

One of my friends has started her own blog, and I've been checking it everyday for an update, she must be busy this week. Anyway, it's got me thinking...I'm probably going to change my layout soon and add a LINKS list on the side of my page. Another incentive for me is that I have some blogs I check all the time, one of them is ED's from Ireland, and he has links on the side of his page.

For now I'll just plug a couple by listing them here. This internet cafe is getting on my nerves, and I'll leave soon. Although this keyboard is GREAT. Anyway...

CHECK OUT

http://themuppettshow.blogspot.comThis is my friend Stephanie's blog. She lives on the central coast of California and works for the number one shipping company in the US, who shall remain nameless (I always say that and I don't know why.-It's UPS.)She's a technical specialist.

http://cube1986.blogspot.com This is Ed's blog, he's a young guy from IRELAND! (How exciting is that?) I always check in to see what he's saying lately. From there you can see his other blog "wise words" which just has quotes, that's the first page I found. I really couldn't believe that he was as young as he is. I was a drooling moron at that age. I don't think I could have strung two sentences together. His mom should be very proud of him.

There's another blog I read called Mentations of the unsettled woman...or something. I have to find that link. She's a goregeous Filippina professional blogging her daily life and observations.

So soon I might start gathering links at the side here, if I've forgotten any let me know!

I Miss Morro Bay- Phobias?

This is a Great-blue Heron photo that I stole without permission from http://morrobaybirdfestival.org/photos.htm The Morro Bay Bird Festival page. It's an easy to load page full of photos of local birds, amazing.

I don't really miss the U.S., but I have fond memories of Morro Bay. I used to go up there all the time.

I absolutely love birds. Currently I have one student who is terrified of birds, we don't know why. Usually phobias come from a bad experience, but in her case she hasn't had one that she can remember. Last night on Animal Planet there was a show about phobias, and it was very interesting. People that have suffered from phobias for years sometimes decades can be cured in hours. Basicly, it's just exposure to the object that cures the person. I have two phobias that are a bit strange, and they can't be cured because I can't be exposed to the 'objects'. I just live with it.

This is a Yellow-rumped Warbler, love the name! How could someone be afraid of this?

I'm Watching You, Girl!

I really want to swear right now, and that's another thing the devil makes me feel like doing when I bump heads with him. I'm stunned . I just found out that one of my blog entries has been linked to by three websites one of which is HANNITY DOT COM.... Yeah, as in Sean Hannity, as in the devil's shoe shiner. That guy.

What did I do to deserve this? It's a post from March 2007 about the New Bedford Immigration Raid. I made some one dimensional conservative comment, and boom. Well, in this case, it looks like illegal immigrants actually were doing jobs that citizens could be doing. BUT not all illegal immigration can be painted with the same brush. It's a whole different chunk of cheese in California.

The thing that freaks me out is I have NO WAY of knowing when someone links to my blog, I found it on accident. It's not in my editing capabilities here to see that.

I make one little right-wing observation and the devil just can't sit still. I pay for everything I do, I swear. And just so none of you are mislead by popular religious non-sense, according to the Bible, the devil would look a lot more like this than the above photo. Look at him looking so perfect in this imperfect world (evil)! Smoking cigarettes (evil), having coffee with t, probably spying on me (possibly evil) in a dress I would LOVE to have (evil)...how can you doubt his real identity? [Dave, I know that with this particular criteria you could also qualify as the devil, but don't worry.]

Cockroach Homepage

Cockroach Home page, a very good website. I had to store it, why not here.

Not sure what this is about, but interesting nonetheless.

Discover Cold Beer

Here's something from Discovery Channel's Mythbusters Message Boards.

fachimoto posted:
"Lets keep it simple. I didn't hear this from a guy who knew a guy. I did this myself in Vietnam with regular gasoline (forget the jet fuel). Take one can of beer, open, dip 2/3 of can into gas, pull out. Air hits the beer can, rapid evaporation = beer slushy in seconds. The scientific reason you tell me. I just know it worked on beer and cola. Simple, never failed"

jarhead10 posted:
"My father did the same thing in vietnam and it worked for him too. I'm wondering where they got the idea to light the gasoline on fire."

I don't really understand jarhead10 because fachimoto didn't say anything about lighting anything on fire. He might be saying that some people think the gas needs to be lighted when it doesn't. Ok. Then some third guy posted, "I don't believe it!", OK. Whatever. Some message boards are hard to follow this is one of them, BUT I thought this was an interesting post on making beer slushy!

My son and I try to catch every episode of Mythbusters whether it's a good episode or not. He learns about ideas and testing and trial and error and controls. One of the guys makes my kid laugh all the time. That's good.

On the Discovery Channel Mythbuster's page there are also links to science blogs, but I don't see anything interesting. DC Asia is different, right now we're just getting RERUNS* of American Choppers only. I think there's a new season going on and we're not a part of it here.

Does anyone know if the Mentos company changed their white Mentos? Because I want to do the soda thing with my students, and ...I tried it with a little can and it didn't really work, maybe it only works in the 2L bottles? That stuff is expensive here and I don't want to look like a dork.

[*Edit: Maybe not, last night I saw the one where they made the HP bike, and I'm pretty sure that's new!]

So, Theresa, You got jpod?

All this eluding to Douglas Coupland and the links on the side of your blog to Douglas Coupland news, what's really going on? Who is this person? What can you tell us?

Well in college I had to read Shampoo Planet for English, my introduction to the writing of D.C. We didn't discuss it much in class, and then had to write a final exam essay on it, and didn't know what the questions would be in advance. My essay kicked butt. The teacher used to teach at Stanford and holds a PhD. The college is located in a nice area, so teachers like to live there. This results in having an astounding local small college staff. Anyway, she wrote on my final, "you are the only one that really got this book."

And I did, Douglas Coupland writes for me and he reminds me of my friend Dave. He coined the now horribly misused term Generation X, that was the book title. He's an artist type that can't see things drably, even the drab he romanticizes[see Souvenir of Canada].

When my thinking gets too literal I need a Coupland antidote, or anecdote...whichever. Not that he isn't literal, but his windows have the right dressing. It's permission to be me, and there's not much media entertainment out there issuing these slips at the moment, especially to females. (Thank god for gay guys? -huh?)I need a hall pass to surreal thinking patterns that are so concrete they could be plans for a futuristic skyscraper (that doesn't scrape anything). I'm an accidental futurist so often and pained souls like me need the kindred spirits.

I'm in need of jpod and The Gum Thief, but I don't know if I can get them out here in the Phils.

BUT the reason for this post is to send readers to a very cool web page that must be played with and clicked, it's really fun and evil. Enjoy.
http://www.jpod.info/ The image of the cat is something I stole from the page ( you have to click around on there) title..."God is a Xkb state indicator"

There are also links on the page that pull up a google search for how to flip a skateboard, and one link to http://www.skateboardingis.com/ and pretty funny http://www.skateboardingsucks.com/, this is rude joke on skateboarders (commercialism) but at a quick glance and scroll and my super speed reading abilities, it looks well written, and there are probably some suckers out there that don't get it, just a guess. It's interesting, but not my sense of humor. I don't know, I don't really care if things go commercial. And certainly the people that write this website, however intelligent in their own areas of expertise, seem pretty standard in keeping with the currently misogynistic times. Even if it's parody, it's likely just reinforcing their readerbase badbrains. I'm tired of jokes at the expense of women. We're not animals, we're people.

I'm a misogynist-o-meter in that if society is currently extreme in women hating and exploitation and control, I become more of a feminist automatically, which normally I'm not.

This is the thing about Douglas Coupland, is that all his media sends me on a thinking carnival ride.

Is it wrong to look people up on MySpace?

Because, um, I've been doing it. I hope it's ok. There's one person I sent a message to and afterward I'm like, oh wait, actually that person might not like me. But they should like me. So that's what matters. ERGH. There's this other guy from highschool times that I found, and if he responds and shows up on my MySpace, my friends are going to screeeam because they probably forgot all about him, blast from the past man!
UPDATE: So he replied! His messges are so funny. I get this in my Inbox:

M***??[my maiden last name]
ARE YOU F****** KIDDING ME?
Wow.
Ok.
Huh.
Phillipines?
Myspace?
I need to catch my breath.
I can't believe it's you. When last did we speak?
15 years ago? You were in... Cali I think.
I don't believe this.
Theresa..... I'm so glad you've found me.
If you're cool with it, I'd like to add you to my account and begin a re-connect because I miss you still and want to hear your adventures.
Holy F****.
Wow.
I need a nap after this.
LaFave.

And another:
I'm going to faint.
YOU HAVE KIDS? I just found the blog... I'm staying home from work to read the entire thing. You just f***** my whole day. Thanks. I'm going to faint dead away.

I've always loved his drama. Missed him.

WANT TO GET TO KNOW YOUR FAMILY??

I can't figure out if I'm pissed right now, or what I'm feeling, but question:

Do you want to get to know your family? See if they have a MySpace page!!!

I'm on here with my friends, and one of my old friends, is like, "Hey, wow, I found your brother on here, he's grown up!"

Yeah, I keep in touch with my bro and get to Vegas when I can, but...I didn't know he had a page. Supposedly my sister has one, too. OK. So I search and search and find nothing. I do happen to know my sister's email without busting open the addressbook, so I search by email and found her page.

That's when I saw my dear bro at the bottom as a "friend" of my sister. They live together, they own a house together and are close, so if one's on MySpace, so is the other, no biggie.

I go to my brother's page and it's all tricked out! Dude! Could you shoot me an email once in awhile? What's up? And what's with the skanky chicks posting comments under his picture? Maybe that's why I didn't get an invite (ya think?) And I see this photo and don't approve of your punk ass friends-they look like punk asses to me. Come to think of it, don't even tell me that's danny in the center. I don't know. That's right, I don't know because I didn't know you had a MySpace page!

Joking aside, they don't have the urls to my pages either, so we'll have to change that. Wow family reunion. It seems like all my brother's blog entries are about breaking up with girls and how hurt he gets. He's the kind of guy that makes me think what they say might be true...women don't like nice guys. My brother is the best. But...always bad relationships.
www.myspace.com/Donovan1977
Reading his front page is like...man what a nice guy...and you know what? It's not an act, he really is. Mom wonders why her kids aren't married, but she can be proud of all three of us. We're decent people. *teary*

Mass at the Mall/ Rate Your Students

There's a sign at the mall here when you enter. Celebrate Mass here at Robinson's every Sunday.

So they have a Catholic Mass here at the mall.
That's all.
-------------------
Today on blogger blogs of note, the pick is rateyourstudents.com. I checked it out, it's pretty funny. It's just teachers venting with creative essays, you can't take it too seriously.

They get jaded with their jobs. I think that repetition makes people vent, and they've got students with the same habits every semester. This site is in response to rateyourprofessors.com and the student-as-consumer mentality.

I read it at school today for awhile, so now I'm thinking back to college and things that I did right and wrong. I'm glad that I don't resemble the students described at rateyourstudents.com...generally speaking. I wasn't an excuse maker, but I was a pain to a couple of teachers I think .

Also, I'm reminded again how favorable the dynamics are here where I'm teaching. My students are university level (and higher) who have travelled abroad to study here. Generally that translates as highly motivated. We're also not starting at rock bottom with their English skills. Typically, they can speak functional English when they arrive.

My class today, we discussed the site. They said in Korea, they have the same sites. A student told me that, indeed, with teacher evaluations, if he got a low grade, he rated the teacher low. We also talked about plagiarism. He admitted to copying things off the Internet.

My classes have no homework and exams, just attendance. *Whew*. I used to make exams here and I'm so glad I don't do that anymore.

Douglas Coupland Quote

I lifted this from another blog.
"I think cynicism is lazy thinking posing as depth and coolness." - Douglas Coupland

Hee hee.

Blog Browsing- the Inferiority-Superiority Complex

So today I'm browsing through blogs and being punished for it. What's with all the bleary eyed mother's day nonsense? I'm a mother, so what? Boring blogs.

Well, I'm either underwhelmed with the babble or intimidated by "everyone" being more clever and talented than I am. Then I hit another obligatory mother's day post and remember how awesome I am for not posting something dumb and boring about mother's day.

There's a lot of foreign language blogs on here also. Can't read them.

I love/become jealous of funny stuff on blogs. One I stumbled onto had the opening title..."chronicling the fall of western civilization with my one 'good' eye"
BWAHH. Hilarious. Then disappointment on reading, he's one of those current youth who are overly concerned that people are too nice to each other nowadays. Barf. Find a real cause, thank you. (See how I reflexively offer a 'thank you'?, More kudos to me.)

So with that superior air, I click on Next Blog. I wonder if I should stop using the capital 'I' because some pretty decent writers out there are just using i. "i had orientation today." It seems so streamlined. Nah, it would bug Me. After awhile i would hate it. I'm also reminded that I sneer at people who think they're clever for using the 'f' word. So Me, feeling clever that I don't use the f-word click 'Next Blog'...

I clicked in to this blog about "niggers". Blogger is very concerned that 'nigger crime' doesn't get enough coverage. A typical rant about how he's an oppressed minority opens it up. Oh, and Jews get a fair mention as the conspirators. I wish people like that had a sense of irony. If it weren't for crazies like him, there would never be an overly correct mistake made in the name of race equality. He's the cause of his own problem. Gee fool, dja ever wonder how the pendulum got to swingin so far? Hmm...
Again, I feel superior to be me.

I have a decent picture of my superior self I'm wanting to put up here, but it's going slow. I'm technologically challenged at this location. I feel so inferior.

Antarctica: More To Come

Antarctica: More To Come

Wow, this blog for Antarctica looks really interesting. The pictures are great.