Archive for October 2003
New Front Page
Every once in a while, the two hairy guys on the Tawawa Web Development Team come up with a bright idea; not too often, mind you, but sometimes it happens. Last week, for instance, they figured they could take the first few words from the last couple of Big Tree and Zemi Note posts, then pull them to a separate page and display the result as the site's new front page, replacing the sad plain graphic that used to be there.
Here on the Executive Board we were a bit sceptical at first, but eventually we allowed them to go ahead with the plan. They were dinking with the site throughout the weekend -- at one point causing it to become temporarily inaccessible -- and spent their Monday tying up the loose ends.
The result, we think, is pretty neat: The brand new Tawawa Front Page! It allows you to see at a single glance what's happening in both the English and the Japanese section of the site; links to the last few comments are provided at the bottom of the page.
The comment links are precision-targeted: they point to the comments themselves, not any longer merely to the archive pages on which the comments are found. The same system has been adopted in the Recent Comment sidebar feature. To link to a comment yourself, simply click on the little graphic at the start of the comment byline.
We hope that these changes and additons will make Tawawa a more pleasant experience and easier to use.
Thanks go out to Bastish, who contributed a great deal of level-headed advice and a few lines of code.
Kanji test
I'm going to take a kanji test this weekend with my students.
Studying kanji makes me feel mad. How many kanji we have! Each kanji has several pronunciations and each has its meaning. If they get together, they create other meanings. Two or three simple kanji gather and make another kanji. For example, there is a kanji meaning 'tree.' When there are two 'trees,' it means 'wood,' and three 'forest.' How interesting and difficult!
Defeat
I got soundly beaten in a match of Photoshop tennis to which I recently challenged an ornithologist in Tokyo.
Egad.
E.S.S.
E.S.S. stands for English Speaking Society. Most high schools have E.S.S. and so does mine. In addition, we have Teachers' E.S.S.: I founded it with an ALT and several teachers have joined us. We are talking about our hobbies, family and so on. After that, we study necessary conversation: booking a hotel, buying tickets, customs, telling symptons. In order to make the class interesting, we'll eat out and exercize together. Sounds interesting, doesn't it?
Future Dreams
Now I'm asking my students what their dreams are. They say: a nurse, a police officer, a dress maker, and so on. And they have big difficulties, you know, their grades.
When I was an elementary school student, I wanted to be a teacher at a kindergarten. When I was a junior high school student, I had no dreams. When I was a high school student, I thought I would never be a teacher. Teacher was the last profession I would have chosen. However, I am a teacher at a high school now.
Dreams change. Choosing occupations is very interesting and very difficult.
Practice teaching is...
This September, I went to the junior high school attached to Mie University to do my practice teaching. I enjoyed the work but found it very, very exhausting.
Fellow students who went to junior high included Masami, Chie, Yukiko, Yukari, Kazuaki, Daijiro and me. I taught English to first-year students, and the other girls (Masami, Chie, Yukiko and Yukari) taught it to second-year students. The boys (Kazuaki and Daijiro) taught third-year students. We helped each other with preparing classes.
We had to go to the school at 8:15 in the morning. I went there at eight because I wanted to prepare classes and I didn't want to hurry. At 8:30, there is the time to read books. Students start reading and I also read a book. By noon, students have four classes. Lunchtime begins at 12:40. By 13:40 the students play! What surprised me was that some students go to the tennis court to play soft tennis! I sometimes taught them and we had a good time.
I have a lot of things to say... so if you have questions, please comment.
High Drama
Whatever it is you're doing, stop it right now, head over to Bastish and marvel at Monk Checks Chick Out.
Best laugh I've had in a long time. Kevin rules.