Random Quote
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
---- Kelvin Throop III
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
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
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
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
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
---- John Ciardi
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
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
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
---- Mitch Hedberg
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
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
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
"It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'"
---- Sam Levenson
blogiversary 2
Another year has gone by. I started this blog on January 29th, 2004, wrote blogiversary 1 last year and now it is already time for blogiversary 2. Onward to some of my favorite posts from the past year.
Favorites from the last year
In Life as an ESL Teacher in Korea I discuss my thoughts on an article in the Korea Herald and responses of other bloggers.
In February 2005 I gave my first presentation on goals in the ESL Classroom. It went over very well and has convinced me to do other presnentations in the future. I also did a presentation at the national conference in October. See my three part review for details including the problems I had as a presenter. In mid-November I attended Oxford Day with good presentations by Henry Widdowson and Michael Swan.
I write on motivation in response to posts by Aaron and Autonoblogger. This post generates some interesting comments as well.
The spring semester brings a bunch of keeners to my classroom.
In response to a post by Steve Kauffman I write about Mistakes are your Friend which generates several comments that are well worth the read.
My wife is pregnantOn April 1st I annouce that my Wife is Pregnant, but it’s really an April Fools Joke. However I did fail to announce it when it really happened - yes the next little one is coming about three weeks from now.
That’s Punny doesn’t include anything original by me, but links to a great page for puns including: The eleventh pun always gets a laugh, even if no pun in ten did. also see this entry.
Next up is a post comparing Horror Stories - bad employers
I also thought about podcasting (loads of good links in this post) but then decided it isn’t for me and recently sold the domains I bought. I still think podcasting is great, but it doesn’t fit what I want to do on the internet.
A good read but no comments - (reticence in Asians)
I’m also surprised by how many people continue to use blogger when you can move to free hosted wordpress blogs and don’t forget blogsome, edublogs, learner blogs, or uniblogs.
In May I moved to a new host, Site 5 and have been incredibly satisfied. The plans have changed, for the better (now even better than that link), since I signed up and I highly recommend them, particularly if you run multiple domains - each domain (all in one account) can have a seperate control panel. Shortly after moving to Site5 I changed my domain from blinger to EFL Geek, suffered a drop in page rank and daily hits for a few months but it is almost back to where it was before the domain change. That’s not too important to me and besides I like the new domain better. However I did add forums though there isn’t much posting going on. I also added a scribble board - see it in action here. I also sold blinger.
Stick a Fork in Me, I’m done. Completed my graduate studies. some of my plans in that post of been scrapped - no wiki and no teacher resource section. But I am enjoying life much more since I finished studying.
I also wrote a 4 part review of my studies at Macquarie. review: table of contents
A rant on why Schools are not for Learning. Also Fuck Straight A’s in response to a post by AJ.
English Nicknames is definitely one of my all time favorites and is on the Classic Posts page. There are also several good comments on that entry.
Dice are good, but the Language and Culture Exchange was not as successful as expected.
I still haven’t finished the book on vocabulary acquisition that inspired this post (not to self, finish this book soon)
final thoughts
Well that is a lot of entries and it was interesting to go through the last year and see what I wrote again - some of it good, but also some not so good. I don’t have any real plans to add or change anything on this blog in the near future, but am open to suggestions for readers. In particular I would like to get some ideas on how to increase traffic and usage over on the forums.
Today is the official Lunar New Year and thus I would like to wish everyone a happy new year 세해 福 많이 받으새요!. Unfortunately for most people the three day holiday is eaten up by Saturday and Sunday.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Jan 29, 2006 at 07:37 AM
META | web_site | Random_Ramblings |
Aaron wrote 24 words on Sunday Jan 29, 2006 at 11:29 AM
May 2006 be even better! Any plans for PhD studies? I started but stopped - too much happening to stay focused for that long.
Nathan B. wrote 71 words on Tuesday Jan 31, 2006 at 09:26 PM
Congratulations! I’m very glad that you continue your very worthy blogging endeavors!
By the way, I thought what you wrote about Wordpress and Blogger was interesting, insofar as I’m surprised so many bloggers have moved from Blogger to Wordpress, given that photoblogging and total control over one’s template are so much easier with Blogger. I can’t photoblog like I used to, simply because it is so time consuming and complicated now.