I’m going to post something for you, it has a video, but the words are what’s important.

He says the problem with teachers is, “What’s a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?”

He reminds the other dinner guests that it’s true what they say about teachers: That those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.

I decide to bite my tongue instead of his and resist the urge to remind the other dinner guests that it’s also true what they say about lawyers.

Because we’re eating, after all, and this is polite conversation.

“I mean, you’re a teacher, Taylor”
“Be honest. What do you make?”

And I wish he hadn’t done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
which is, if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional Medal of Honour
and I can make an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.

You wanna know what I make?

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence.
No, you can not work in groups.
No, you can not ask a question, so put your hand down.
Why won’t I let you go to the bathroom?
Because you’re bored and you don’t really have to go, do you?

You wanna know what I make?

I make parents tremble in fear when I call home at around dinner time:
“Hi, This is Mr. Mali, I hope I haven’t called at a bad time, I just wanted to talk to you about something your son did today.
He said, “Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don’t you?”
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.

I make parents see their children for who they are and who they can be.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely, beautiful over and over again until they will never misspell either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math.
And then hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them realize that if you got this (brains).
Then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make, you give them this (the finger).

Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a difference! What about you?

And now, if you have a minute, here’s the source video with all the things it adds to the presentation: Taylor Mali on What Do Teachers Really Make?

(warning for really large images)




.

Watched 28 Weeks Later recently. I meant to see it in theatres because I thought it would be a better experience, but as often goes ended up just watching it at home. I have to say right away that I’m a fan of the first movie in the series, 28 Days Later, it was definitely enjoyable and managed to be dramatic, entertaining and action packed all in it’s own right. It was also smart, so I had high hopes for the second one in the franchise, despite the fact that I knew Weeks had a different director.

The opening scene that introduced us once again to the world we found ourselves immersed in was instantly amazing. It relayed nearly all of the information we’d need to know as a viewer, to the point where I felt if the average person had not seen the first movie, they’d be missing details and explanations, but would certainly quickly know the setting they found themselves in. It was dramatic, intense and thrilling.

Then we were once again thrown through a time lapse which brought us to the point where England was being repopulated (if you don’t know the premise of the movies, it’s rather simple, in the first one a man wakes up in a hospital all alone, a virus had spread through England which once infected with causes the person to resort to the most basic of instincts or the desire to feed and kill). We as a viewer, of course, know that something must go terribly wrong, that the repopulation is a mistake, but hey, that doesn’t stop us from enjoying the movie. And sure enough something, everything does go wrong and instantly my complaints begin to pile up faster then I can write them down on paper. I think the majority of them can fall under the serious plot hole issues category, so if you don’t mind that too much, and can pretend to be totally oblivious to them (and you’ll have to be) then it’s not so bad… but anyway, here are just some:

( SPOILERS ABOUND, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY STOP READING HERE IF THIS IS OF SOME CONCERN )

- How does just a random caretaker of buildings have access to all the key military areas?
- Why does the only person with a disease that wiped out an entire country have 0 guards and no supervision?
- After using his keycard to get in to a bunch of locked doors, how does one get out after being infected, since the infected are totally dumb?
- A lockdown area should probably not just have an entire door in the back that’s not even closed or locked?
- The door that’s actually locked to the lockdown area should probably not break if just some people push on it.
- If the code red order, which is kill everyone is given, shouldn’t it make accommodations for those who are totally not infected?
- A helicopter does not do that, it shouldn’t do that just to get you a gore scene.
- Characters should not die just for your convenience because it’s just their time.
- Characters should not just suddenly do stupid things.
- People don’t just vanish and not respond only to suddenly reappear.
- There’s one really, really smart zombie in this movie, that and he has like the greatest tracking device ever.
- Ok, seriously now, how does 1 helicopter not get shot down just flying around, or you know, leaving the island, given that everything else alive gets killed within minutes?

…and there’s more!

( SPOILERS END HERE FOR THE MOST PART )

But if I had to summarize my complaints in point form, it’s simple. Gore scenes for the sake of gores scenes. Plot holes everywhere! Characters that die not for a real purpose, but mostly because a really convenient coincidence caused them to do so. By the way, the first movie at least didn’t kill off the most interesting and most developed characters, and didn’t leave some really annoying ones behind.

But, stop you say, you liked the beginning. Well, yes I did! It also turned out that the director of Days was entirely responsible for the filming of the first scene of the movie and then it was done by the new director from there, I think I see where the problem might be coming from here.

- Forfeited our soccer playoff game because we were one person short of the minimum amount of players. Played for fun after with 2 random guys and won =/

- Thought our first volleyball playoff game was our for fun game, lost it by one point, but it was a really fun game. It turned out to, obviously, not be our just for fun game.

- Japanese skit presentation was awesome!

- Another wall of text to follow, I’m sorry.

- I can’t believe this semester is over and it’s almost exam time.

- Lu loves to sing classical music after losing at her own card game, after insisting we need a loser must perform rule, I go undefeated for 2 hours.

- I lost just over 10lb, now, about 30 or 40 more to go, har har.

- I still hate being in pictures.

At school we used to call them Cabaret. Here in residence it’s just a village variety night, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome in my eyes. Less people showed up then I thought, but then again I guess for some reason this doesn’t have as much appeal as some other activities, oh well, we had a nice, cosy, awesome audience. I may have missed an act or a song as I was busy fighting my web browser, Firefox, after an update made it completely unusable *sigh*, I’ve been using IE for about 2 hours now and it’s already driving me crazy.

Anyway… on to the acts!

The first person up was a guy on guitar and just doing some songs. I believe I missed a part of one, but he played a very nice, and different (more acapella) rendition of Hotel California. It was on an acoustic guitar, and since I just had to spot it, I think they were using pretty much the same microphones we used at school. The placement of them was really, really odd, and since they had 2 I didn’t really get why one wasn’t used for guitar and one for his voice, but meh, it was still good!

This was followed up by another gentleman doing a series of street magic tricks. He used cards for a bunch of them to start with and they were good, although each side of the audience got their own version since otherwise we couldn’t see. He also was going to do a mindreading trick which basically uses some math properties to let him guess the number that the person ends up thinking about, but there was some kind of error in the trick or in the math done, so it didn’t work out, doesn’t matter!

Now then, the show was just getting started. I am so sorry I missed his name, but the next person that came up showed us some fantastic juggling skills. He started off with 3 balls and worked his way all the way up to 7. And he had an awesome comedic stage presence that’s hard to make up if you just don’t have it, just a very charismatic and confident person. We also got to find out that he did a year of some sort of circus program or internship. The best was to come though, oh it was definitely to come. The signal was his search for 4 chairs with square bottomed legs. The first construction was questionable (the chairs have really badly bent legs), but the second ended up in a intricate stack of 4 chairs that were half the room height in height. This found it’s way into his arms, then ontop of his head and then balance with no arms in his mouth… by this point we were too busy cheering on our legs.

A girl dressed in a very nice and colourful green dress followed him. Her routine was based on a series of jokes and a bit of a storyline. The jokes were nice and simple, or required some thought. No vulgarity here at all, just style and delivery. What do you call a sheep with no legs? A cloud! She had a hard act to follow, but she did a fantastic job of it and we all laughed, the guy from the last act laughed the most which made it so amusing because he had a hilarious laugh.

She was followed up by some excellent beatboxing. There was some freestyling along with some famous songs including…. and I just forgot it, it’s the one where it has a slower chorus and something like ‘So in love with you’ bla bla I forget, sorry (Japanese skit is getting comfortable in my brain). I think he ended up doing 3 songs and 2 freestyles, and yes it was as good as some of those YouTube clips you see, which makes it amusing, because his self introduction was “So, you know beatboxing…. seen it on YouTube?!”

He was followed by a gentleman who performed 3 songs, two by a band from Newfoundland and one which reolved around a story of the 1812 war and the burning of Washington. They were performed purely by him in vocal form with no instruments, which made it really different. I’m not sure if it’s my type of music, probably not, but it was still well done and worth enjoying.

Hey, look, it’s our host for the night along with the first guitarist! They perfomed The Scientist by Coldaplay and Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, Sergey was sad… uhm, yeah. Other then that, the music was very well done, although I still completely disagree with their positioning of those microphones, it really could have been so much better.

And we closed off with some dancing and cross dressing from the fantastic current don team. Phil in tight neon drag and Jackson sporting what can best be described as an outfit worn by a girl really comfortable with the way she looks it was already a golden performance. The fact that it was all of them dancing to S-Club 7 and that apparently Kristen my don can actually dance well and Jayas joined in made it for one memorable closing perforamnce.

There was some karaoke after, I only stuck around for one song, which I didn’t participate in… Backstreet Boys…. Show me the meaning…. yeah we know how it goes, don’t hide it, I know you know the words, just like I do >.<

Now I actually have to get more work done. My Japanese skit which we’re doing for a project is tomorrow morning, and I’ve still got things that need to get finished for it tonight. So I’m going to get to that and making sure Alice doesn’t go insane over that whole Comp-Sci thing…

…of myself. It’s been a while hasn’t it when I had two posts in one day, oh well. I made this for ResLife since they wanted a page about us to be sent in for tomorrow.

As a sidenote, I got my First Aid certification, finally. I’ve only known how to do it for a couple of years.

sergey|moo: I’m starting to get concerned
sergey|moo: I think University of Waterloo students are starting to discover my blog o.O
Schizophrenic Conversations: which means they might find mine as well <.<
sergey|moo: Ok
sergey|moo: OK
sergey|moo: NO PANICKING
sergey|moo: UNLINKED
sergey|moo: I don't know you
Schizophrenic Conversations: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
sergey|moo: PROCEED WITH PLAN D
sergey|moo: PLAN D
Schizophrenic Conversations: SUMMON!
sergey|moo: DEMOLISH AND SUMMON THE METEORS
Schizophrenic Conversations: SUMMON TEH METEROSS@!
Schizophrenic Conversations: *presents hands towards the heavens*
sergey|moo: oh
sergey|moo: this is too good
sergey|moo: blogged and posted
Schizophrenic Conversations: haha
sergey|moo: Right after I finish this one ^_^
Schizophrenic Conversations: blogface
sergey|moo: lolzpostedz
Schizophrenic Conversations: lollzersz
sergey|moo: oky

Also, apparently this is my 101st post on here.

What I just wrote felt like 10 times harder then the midterm, ouch. I’m not so sure I did badly, I don’t think I did, but that was really, really hard and I didn’t feel like I had nearly enough time for it. In fact when the assigned time ran out everyone raised their hand to ask for more, and then again after. Crazy! Mmmk, enough of being here though, I still have at least 4 or 5 pages to add to this group report and edit it within the next 4 hours.

As university students and more broadly as people we all have those moments in time where the words “just please, someone, kill me” come out of our mouths. I think this week and, realistically, the last 3 for me qualify under that category. A band Jem has this song, titled “It’s Just a Ride”, let me quote a few lines here…

Life, it’s ever so strange
It’s so full of change
Think that you’ve worked it out
Then bang!
…
It’s just a ride, it’s just a ride
No need to run, no need to hide
It’ll take you round and round
Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down
It’s just a ride, it’s just a ride

…did I mention I love music?

So, as I said, it’s been one of those rides. 3 weeks ago sucked, end of discussion. 2 weeks ago still kinda sucked, and I thought I was busy on top. I had no idea what I was last week, until this week rolled around. I didn’t leave anything until last minute intentionally. But on Monday I was faced with a grim prospect of a midterm on Wednesday, one more on Thursday, a script to be written for Tuesday in a language I am still learning, a group project that was due Wednesday, THIS WEEK (Oh yeah, did I ever think it was due next week) amongst over things. So, kill me now please?

That said I just got back from meeting with my group for that project and I’m feeling better, we’re all incredibly busy, but when you know things are tight and you still end the meeting with joking and laughing about it things are good! I’m now looking at being done that script and well on my way to being done the group project, even if we did vote to take a 2% late hit to get it done to a level where we want it to be. Sure I have a long couple of hours ahead of me studying for a midterm tomorrow, but you know what, who cares, I can totally do this and just repeat the same tomorrow for the 2nd one. Let’s do this!

Adam said to me that I might be going crazy; I thought, maybe. Now I think I’m not, I’m just feeling better. A while ago I linked an XKCD comic, you can see the post here, this is the continuation of it to make more sense, and this is how I feel now…

…I like it. I made a promise once, it was related to this, I’d like to think it’s still possible to keep, but I’m past feeling shitty about it, I don’t think I should be.

At the end here, I just want to apologize for the above being very badly tied together, some posts I just don’t like to fill in all the blanks, then I end up with novels not to be published.

I also want to say, that if you look around, The Wind, video I posted has now been on the digg and reddit homepages alone at least 7 times by my badly executed count, I should go play a lottery and predict some numbers. I was also walking through the SLC yesterday just as the rain finished completely soaking me and stopped, and there was a bird flying around inside, just one. And literally dozens of groups stopped and looked around, pointing, following it around and then waiting, how about that?

Sometimes you find videos on the Internet that just become instant saves, you know you love it before you’re even done watching it. Some, you have to watch to the end to understand and then you love them even more. This one I found on digg video section, the description was short, it said “You will replay it…”, it was totally right. Thoughts?