A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

When moving here, I said I'd never take the mountains for granted. Damn, I think I sometimes do.

Next Friday, I'll be giving the final exam to my summer class. Today, though, I'm free. What a great day to have off. It's only 6:43 but already quite warm.

The fish are staring through the plastic at me and expecting to be fed again. Actually, I always change their water on Fridays. Is it possible they can remember something for more than twelve seconds? Do you know, I'd never heard about that fishy concept until this year. I wondered why Ellen's animated character in Nemo was so flighty. Ah ha! Now it makes sense.



Today is also payday and the money was auto-deposited a bit after midnight. That should, most likely, lead to some sort of extravaganza. Perhaps, I buy a package of new underwear. Or I could find something on my computer that needs upgrading. I was considering buying a toy for the fish but they'd never remember.

Labels: pets

For this afternoon's class, I will meet my students in the lobby of the BCIT library. I'm giving a tightly-scheduled task on comparative descriptions that I've been doing for years now. It gives the chance for my students to completely explore the building. It should also prompt them to use adjectives, develop comparison criteria, and focus on paragraph organization.

Strangely, I did projects like this when I worked with children. Second graders used to enjoy creating 'language experience' stories. My present students are adults but the same concept works well with them too. It just goes to show that a good teaching activity can be adapted for nearly any situation. I still maintain that I could keep an entire ESL class busy for a whole term with just the yellow pages of a telephone book. It's the methods not the materials that make successful classrooms, isn't it?

The picture here was taken in the spring during one of these class assignments. It was raining then, but it's supposed to be great tomorrow and continue to heat up through the weekend. We've not really had warm weather yet. In fact, the quilt is still on the bed!

Labels: BCIT

There are times when I'm reminded I've another birthday rapidly approaching. I've talked about growing up analog here. Today I was reminded of that when I ran across the term carbon paper. It was in some ancient BCIT materials I discovered which talked about acceptable classroom materials. Carbon copies were not permitted. When was the last time I saw a sheet of that? For a while 3M or somebody invented those multicoloured forms but I haven't seen those for a while either as most of my paperwork has gone digital. Now the form is likely on my monitor with the instructions to tick the box to show acceptance with this or that policy.

If carbon paper is from a time long past, then yesterday, I found more proof that I have vast experience to draw upon. The movie, Car Wash, arrived on DVD. It has Richard Pryor and music which won both a Grammy and a Golden Globe Award. It was released the summer which I turned 17, which incidentally was thirty years ago. What a fun film, what a strange time, and what a lot of hair!

Labels: analog

I'm sometimes annoyed. I love the idea of social-networking websites, but people my age aren't into such services. The kids that are wired for orkut, myspace, or facebook are too immature to have anything important to share.

This reminds me of an ex-colleague who was really good at learning languages. He maintained that he spent a lot of time learning one particularly-difficult one. Then, after he had mastered the basics, he discovered that no one who spoke it had anything meaningful to say.

Please tune in tomorrow for more sweeping generalizations. Same time, same blog.

In the picture below is a mother seagull and one of her chicks.



We watch a gull family as an annual summer event. It's easy to view the roof of the Met Hotel from the balcony. Yearly, parents raise young ones there. We see the entire process from readying the nest area, to keeping the eggs safe, through flying lessons. We watch 'em leave one by one until they're all out on their own.

It's a process that's plays out with regularity. There are three chicks this year. They have grown a great deal in the last week.

Labels: balcony, flying

The dandelions are out. The tourists are here. People are barbecuing on the balconies. FraserFest weekend is on. I snapped this photo from the balcony last night at a bit after 10:00 pm.



My birthday is next weekend. Yes, I'd say summer is officially here.