Random Quote
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
This may be the most interesting blog theme I've ever seen. http://eflgeek.com/index.php Definitely in my top 5 at least.
---- Steve Dembo
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
---- Arnold Toynbee
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
---- John Ciardi
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
ESL Stand-up Comedy
Brian Aylward is a comedian who performs at clubs around Asia.
the first 2-3 minutes is really funny - watch the video.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Nov 13, 2008 at 08:57 PM
Random_Ramblings | Video | Teaching | (0)
| 
|
A E I Love U
Readers may recall that in March I posted a music video made by local expat teachers titled Kickin it in Guemchon. Well the EV Boyz are back with another humurous look at expat life in Korea.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Oct 21, 2008 at 09:51 AM
Random_Ramblings | Video | (0)
| |
Super EX
recieved this video in my facebook and fortunately found it on youtube to embed here. From the facebook page.
A lil parody i made about ‘some’ expat men in Asia. I thought it was worth comment. Tried my hand at cartooning and I came up with this. Oh the things i do to kill time!
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Oct 20, 2008 at 07:11 AM
Random_Ramblings | Video | (0)
| |
Web Design First Client Finished
I’ve finished work on my first client’s web site, a language school based in Daegu, ILE 외국어 학원. ILE is foreign owned and operated and the owner is a strait up guy - I enjoyed working with him and am sure that his teachers are also happy there. I wrote up a more detailed report about completing the ILE site over at my web design blog.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Oct 4, 2008 at 10:03 AM
Random_Ramblings | Web Design | (0)
| |
Students Teaching English
Every semester in homework I have students telling me about how they are private tutoring other students in English. Just now I was reading homework and I had a student telling me that she is teaching English composition to high school students (she is just 1 year out of high school). The fun part of this was that her sentences were illogical, there was no paragraph structure - i.e. all sentences were written on a new line sort of like poetry.
garbage in garbage out.
100 pushups
Today is the first day of the second semester, so back to work for me. The web design business is doing pretty well, since I’ve got about 3 clients backed up.
Today will be a quick meet the students and a 4 minute level test to see how many students I can kick out of my class and move them to the advanced class. Real lessons will start from day 2 this week. In other news, my university finally got around to giving us a raise after three years, so morale is much improved.
Finally, I’ve decided to take the 100 pushup challenge. I took the strength test on Friday and I’m in column three (the most difficult). I did my pushups for day one this morning and will work on day 2, come Wednesday.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Sep 1, 2008 at 08:00 AM
Random_Ramblings | Teaching |
|
What is Web 2.0
English 360 has the answer.
Ultimate Online Slideshow Guide
I recently had a need to add a couple of powerpoint presentations to another web site I’m working on. I wanted to be able to embed the powerpoint and retain transistions and animations as well as embedded audio or video. A quick search didn’t reveal any definitive answers so I’m going to compare the options I did find. One of the keys with using powerpoint online is to remember that not everyone has powerpoint (but the viewer is free 2003 version & 2007 version and openoffice will also open powerpoint files with some loss in functionality)
I’m going to to look at a number of features across all options including: compatibility with pptx files, ease of use, privacy controls, embed, email, social network links, commenting, registration, downloading of original file, and licensing. To make the comparison equal across all options I’m using the same powerpoint file for all services and embedding it here. This is a powerpoint that I used in spring 2008 and it has several animations, transitions, video, and audio embedded. You can see the original by downloading it - I’ve included the ppt and pptx in the zip file (27.5mb). The options I’m looking at are:
- slideshare | jump link
- authorstream | jump link
- zoho show | jump link
- google docs | jump link
- 280 slides | jump link
- scribd | jump link
- Slideboom | jump link
- iSpring | jump link (free) | jump link (pro)
- slideboom & ispring integrated
- conclusion
Not all slideshow players are showing up in bloglines (and possibly other RSS readers) - visit my site to see everything.
Learn about each of these options in the extended entry.
Read the rest of this post
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Aug 10, 2008 at 12:22 PM
Random_Ramblings | useful_web_sites |
|
Moving the Fence
Infrequent blogger Fencerider is moving out of Korea after 12 years. It seems like he has recieved an excellent opportunity in the UAE, something I’ve considered doing, but haven’t. Good luck and I hope you continue your blog from there.
11 reasons to avoid TEFL
Mr. D points to a list of 11 Reason not to Stumble upon TEFL at Notes from the TEFL Graveyard, a blog I hadn’t seen before.
I’d like to add a couple more.
- Locals think you are here, because you are a loser and couldn’t make it back home
- There is absolutely no job security - you can easily be replaced by another native speaker who is younger and better looking than you. Even if they are completely incompetent cheaper is better.
Got some more? Add them in the comments.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Jul 26, 2008 at 04:12 PM
Random_Ramblings | Teaching |
|
White Man Cafe
If you are a white man and tired of teaching ESL in Asia, but don’t want to go home you could always head to Japan. Looks like there’s a market for the White Man Cafe.
Hat tip to the English Blog. Original video on CNN, but I found it on YouTube and embedded it here for your viewing convenience.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Jul 23, 2008 at 09:40 PM
Random_Ramblings | Video |
|
Help a researcher
Charles is conducting research on Korean oral literature and culture as seen by foreigners. If you live or have lived in Korea then go fill out this survey and help him out.
I’m filling it out now and have also added the link to my facebook profile.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Jul 12, 2008 at 07:59 AM
Public_Service_Announcement | Random_Ramblings |
|
Take your i-phone and…
this video is great.
original video here, but it broke the page layout so I’m using YouTube.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Jul 11, 2008 at 10:03 PM
Random_Ramblings | Video |
|
Create Sean Web Design
I’ve completed the web site for my new web design business. Currently my portfolio is rather sparse (just my teaching blog), but I’m working on a client site right now and have a second client lined up for later in the summer.
Create Sean Web Design now open for business.
Master English
Wow! if she were my french or Japanese teacher in high school, I probably would’ve paid a lot more attention in class. Watch this video - (near nudity)
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Jun 26, 2008 at 10:48 AM
Random_Ramblings | Video |
|
No More Web Design
I’ve set up a new blog where I’ll be writing all of my entries related to web design, free lancing, and setting up a small business. The point here is that I won’t be cluttering up this space with unrelated material. For the record I have a paying client and am just waiting for the deposit before starting work - I’ll post a link to the finished product once I finish it.
This blog will continue to recieve my attention and regular posts as my full-time job is still teaching and I will continue to write articles for the Korea Herald. I have two scheduled articles for July. Though like every other vacation period, posting will be light.
Just a reminder that guest authoring is still available to anyone and I am actively looking for semi-regular contributors though one off posts are also very welcome. If you have any questions please send me an email or leave a comment.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Jun 24, 2008 at 04:08 PM
Random_Ramblings | Web Design | Guest Author | web_site |
|
Summer Vacation
Summer Vacation officially began about three minutes ago when I submitted my grades and emailed off the last of the reports that I had to write. I am now free until September 1. This however does not mean I will be sitting around drinking margaritas all day - no, I’m going to be smoking busy as I launch my new career in web design and take on a bunch of extra work on the side - here’s the to do list as it stands:
- private kids class twice a week 1 hour each time. This is actually more stress than you think as I don’t really enjoy teaching kids, but the money is good.
- private company class twice a week 7:30-9:00 am. This is easy, but involves getting up early some travel and prep - but the money is good and I enjoy it.
- In august I’ll be picking up 3 extra private classes for a woman going on vacation - this will be a lot of work, but it’ll also be a huge chunk of cash that will help us pay off the house loan faster
- This semester I’ve been doing classroom research and it is now time to compile the data and write an article for publication. My co-researcher has also submitted an application to present at TESOL 2009. If we get accepted I’ll be going to Denver at the end of March.
- I’ve recently launched a new web design venture. This is essentially my career transition plan for when I move back to Canada. This involves a lot of work and learning on my part:
- Just finished redesigning this site, but it still needs a little work
- received my first confirmed client, but this client is using a software that I am unfamiliar with (wordpress). I was planning on learning it later, but I guess it’s time to dive in.
- I need to figure out how much to charge, how to receive payments, and a billing cycle
- I still need to get my portfolio site (web business) off the ground. Was going to do that next, but paying clients get priority.
- I want to redo this site, my Korean learning blog, and set up a teaching portfolio site for myself.
- design and print business cards
- Learn JavaScript (which is giving me headaches already) and Jquery.
- I have another client setting up a business site for the first time - but for this I get to use Expression Engine so will be more fun.
- Yesterday I restarted my exercise routine - 5km on the running machine, chin-ups and push-ups daily.
- I also need to upgrade my student site and the department moodle
- modify my class materials for next semester.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Jun 20, 2008 at 08:26 PM
Random_Ramblings | Teaching |
|
My editor was stabbed with a broken bottle
My editor was stabbed with a broken bottle in what appears to be a completely random without reason assault.
You’re the Geek!
Yesterday morning I was talking with one of my colleagues and I mentioned I had posted something on my blog. In a loud and surprised voice “You’re the Geek!”.
This has happened a couple of times. It’s even more fun when it’s a colleague as I’m not hiding my blog and have mentioned it several times.
R.E.M - The Hollow Man
Completely unrelated to language, but I must say that I have really been enjoying the latest R.E.M Cd since it got released. Here is one of my favorite songs via YouTube.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Jun 9, 2008 at 07:00 AM
Random_Ramblings | Video |
|
