As you all know, school has started, sending landscaping and blogging right to the backseat. I feel like I'm already behind, despite the "cold days" we had off last week. We were affected most by the rolling blackouts in central Texas this past Wednesday. Our electric went out at 7 am for about 40 minutes. Then it went again at 11...until 7 that night. This 1920's house just couldn't keep us warm, plus Cat and I had homework to do online, so we vacated and went to the Coffee Pot. Luckily, Michelle and her puppy Bana (pictured in the last post) have been staying with us one or two nights a week, since she's commuting from North Austin, so our school cancellations caused a great slumber party.
A lot has been happening lately. I am jacking my resume up on speed and Mountain Dew. (I'm not on speed or Mountain Dew, the resume is the one with addictions.) I have been helping to found a grass-roots non-profit which enforces communities, adaptive reuse, beautification and restoration to rural locales. I have been working and schooling. I made, but am yet to give, a presentation over GRACE, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, which has a mission to observe and gather data about our oceans and our planet's gravity, among other things. I feel that this will be well received, as I am finally in some upper level courses.
Now, on the other hand, I also switched my major, which suddenly leaves me with a few additional basic courses left to take. One of these is world geography, a highly interesting class. Unfortunately, I am surrounded by young'ns again. One guy said, "I'm going to sleep through this semester," while another exclaimed, "I'm only taking this class because I HAVE to." Michelle told me that a guy in her philosophy class complained that the course required, "too much thinking." This is obviously not the right attitude and they are not college material. Unfortunately, I feel that some poor kids may have the right attitude, but bring the wrong know-how. For instance, the W Geo class is calling for a forum, basically asking for posts describing which technology (used in a particular area, other than the US) your research paper will discuss. Below is an unfortunate post about...something. I desperately want to help her, but, not only do I lack the time, but some folks are just lost causes.
---And so it begins---
I choose to write my technology over something that my own mother is handelingr ight now. I have seen first hand through her eyes how hcanging electronics within such a large company can effect not just the company but all the people that work for it, that effects eventually a entire community or town.
My mother works for A and M and has been working lond hours to implement an entire new technology into her branch of one of the services A and M offers. This willl eventually effect everyones time sheets, all the man that work in the field sign in and out, and everyone within the entire A and M system. They noticed a need for this when people where not useing time wisely throughout there days. Many people were "stealing" time. Yes you wouldnt think of this as being an issue usually but, if you have ever been to College Station you can see that the college it what runs the town. With something such as time being off for all the people that work for A and M this can cost the college much more monay and essentially costing the students more in tuition. It is good for me to see this step being taken I think it will help college tuition at A and M go down eventually and maybe reach out to other colleges that are having the same problems.
Theis will help the cost for college to go down hopefully and we all know that will reach out all around America. I hope to eventually have interviews with people hire up in A and M to know there side and why and how they took these steps.
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I am not making fun of her, so much as pointing out a huge flaw in our education system. She is a high school graduate? She was accepted into a university? There is a problem here and I look forward to fixing it. When I'm a social studies teacher, I will still put a percentage of grade emphasis on grammar, spelling, and clarity. I will tutor and I will fix this problem! My poor, sweet friend Kelly is a grad student in Michigan, where she also has to teach a lower level English. I desperately hope she saves some good stories for me. Oh, and I am her maid of honor. HOOOOOT!
My paper is about biomass incinerators and I am incredibly excited about all that I have to learn. The teacher requires us to respond to at least one peer's post. Of all the discussions, mine is the only one yet to receive feedback. I'm going to take this as a good sign, maybe even a compliment.
My friend Tiny Cat just made a firetruck sound in his sleep.
I wrote everything I have to say to my Aunt Linda on paper, so there's no need to repeat it. You are missed.
First, congrats to Kelly & Aaron! And you have impeccable taste in Maids of Honor, btw! (Make sure Bethany's dress is hideous so she can blog about it later. Maybe it should have a dragon on it. Or a peasant-style bustier made of brown burlap.)
ReplyDeleteAnd secondly...Bethany, as a former English teacher, I can tell you that we LOVED our colleagues who insisted on the basics of good grammar. The ones who not only threw in essay questions, but then graded the punctuation and style of the answer, as well as the content! They were our absolute favorites; they confirmed to the students that HOW you write matters. (And not just to those persnickety old English teachers, either!)
P.S. When I was a waitress in high school, sometimes the head cook would take out the file of job applications and hoot her way through them. On occasion, she would call us over to read a particularly bad one. And this was to work in Paolo's Italian Restaurant! So, yeah, kids...it matters.