Random Quote
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
---- Robert Copeland
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
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
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
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei
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
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
---- John Ciardi
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
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
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
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
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
You’ve been in TEFL too long when…
Alex Case has a MEME related to TEFL going. I’m copying it here and then adding my own to the list.
- You laminate your shopping lists
- When you have a house or family meeting, you ask people to discuss the issues in pairs first
- Two thirds of your favourite teaching books are out of print
- The worksheets at the bottom of your pile of things to try have started to decompose
- You speak to your family with Elementary level English
- Your foreign students teach you about the latest music from back home
- You even try to elicit your proposal of marriage - “What do we call it when a man and …”
- You’ve been in your host country longer than your students have been alive
- When you return to your home country it annoys you to no end that people are speaking English everywhere and you can’t tune it out
- when you return to your home country, you get reverse culture shock
- You correct everyone’s grammar, even when it’s not wrong
- you know more acronyms than anyone should ever know
- you know more than 17 different fun ways to re-seat a large group of people
- you have more non-native English speaking friends than native speaker friends
- You look at English as a means to make money, not to communicate
- you can easily explain the difference between the simple past and the present perfect
- going to work in the morning makes you want to cry.
- backpacker is a term of derision and scorn
- You actually can use the words “my privates” in a sentence without it being in a sexual context. (credit to Fencerider)
Jim wrote 12 words on Thursday Apr 10, 2008 at 08:09 AM
You put a smile on my face this morning. It’s all true!!!!
Alex Case wrote 34 words on Friday Apr 11, 2008 at 07:10 AM
Wow- I started a meme! And that without really understanding what it means!
Particularly love numbers 8, 9 and 13 above. I might have to return the compliment and borrow them for my list
fencerider wrote 71 words on Tuesday Apr 15, 2008 at 11:17 AM
i’m particularly fond of number 8…my college students are not that old but many of my private lessons are….They always look at me with this confused blank stare when I ask them in Korean…since i’ve been in Korea longer than you, am I more korean than you?
Another one you could add:
19. You actually can use the words “my privates” in a sentence without it being in a sexual context.
Sean. wrote 44 words on Tuesday Apr 15, 2008 at 11:29 AM
#8 is my personal favorite as well, mostly because I wrote it. It’s not true for me and my students (university age) yet but in a few years it will be.
I also like your #19 and will add it to the list now.