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

Labels: blogging

I'm a great deal smarter than I was last month. What do I chalk this up to? During the entire month of August I've been subscribing to podcasts. The personal changes due to my purchase of an mp3 player are quite profound. I used to have a rather unsavory option of those who walked around listening to portable devices. Let me see if I can find an example. At the beginning of the summer, I said this.

It's okay to have changed my mind. In the past, I've also written things within these files, such as:

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."

-- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

It must be a sign of age when one starts repeating oneself, don't you think? Perhaps, however, I should just chalk up the inconsistencies to my increasing wisdom. Times change and so do opinions. As I said, I'm a lot smarter than I was last month!

I'd venture I help form a very strange demographic of mp3-player ownership. I seldom, if at all, listen to music on mine. Oh, I have at least a dozen albums tucked away. Yet, I have spent many hours this month listening to reports more educational than musical. I seldom walk out the front door without podcasts in my pocket. Being able to listen to in-depth NPR stories from around the globe, or commentary on the latest technology buzz is extraordinary. It's as if an additional method of input, has increased how much I can experience in a single day.

I am most probably an auditory learner and it just feels so gratifying to have found media which can provide more than a few simple soundbites. Most standard, daily news coverage just glosses over several navel-gazing topics. If one ventures out into podcastland, there's a lot of meaty information to be discovered.

Labels: Creative Zen, opinions, podcasts

In today's paper I read the sorry statistics about the lack of exercise that many of us get. It's true, I feel much better after tearing myself off the sofa or away from this office chair.

The thing is the study said that a fair proportion didn't even get the equivalent of a half hour of walking per day. Okay, my flabby arm is raised! Well, sometimes. Lately, I've taken to often walking uptown. It is only about a kilometer and a half but there's quite a substantial rise in elevation.

So as a downtown resident of New Westminster, I find a dose of extra cardio is pretty much built into any walk taken here. Luckily the increased heart beat is on the first leg of the journey as gravity helps out during the return trip.

I feel so much better after getting out. I did today. The picture to the right is Douglas College. I took the picture from the opposite side of 8th Street when walking down the hill from the library. Pretty soon lots of out-of-shape students will be walking the hill from the New Westminster SkyTrain Station up those steps.

After getting into a more healthy routine, I think I must make some sort of pledge. I have to promise myself that I'll always walk if I want to eat fast food. Doesn't walking less than a mile for a Whopper or Big Mac negate the unhealthy aspects of the meal?

Labels: New Westminster

If it's midweek then the sun simply must be out. This has been a summer with cloudy, cool, and even wet weekends. Yet, I think every single Wednesday has been fabulous. It shouldn't matter much to me as I'm not working. The sky hasn't a cloud. The sun in the spotless blue is casting rays on all objects providing them with a yellower than normal hue. From the balcony, Mt. Baker, in Washington state, sits stubbornly behind the hill still wearing a cover of white snow down to its shoulders. Ah, this has got to be considered one of those summer afternoons!

Right at the moment though, I'm waiting to hear the buzzer from down at the front door. The UPS guy should arrive shortly. Yesterday at this time, he tried but wouldn't you know, I happened to be at work. I've only gone to campus once in August; but imagine, it happened to be the exact day on which my Creative Zen replacement was to be delivered!



A note said that UPS would try again today.

Labels: Creative Zen, errands, weather

I went to the campus today in order to give placement exams. We were in the testing room from 9:30 to noon. First, a colleague and I checked in the potential, new students. We then administered the grammar and writing components. We were able to correct the multiple-choice grammar answers during the testing. It was about noon when the students had finished.

After that, my colleague and I packed all the materials and took them back to the office. Next, I spent about three hours going through 64 writings alone. They will be marked by other staff tomorrow. We use these tests for identifying proper placement into one of the four course levels. Our program used to be known as Pre-Entry Communication but is now called Professional English Language Development.



I am very proud of the fact we are able to be honest in our assessments. One advantage of working in a public institution is that we have no pressure to accept students who aren't ready for our program. In fact, there are times when a quarter, or even one third, of those we test are advised to return after they've had some additional language experience and exposure.

Turning away such large numbers of students is not possible in privately-owned, for-profit, ESL schools. Many of these institutions must accept students, even if those learners do not have the necessary skills for a course. This is one reason I have little faith in private, language schools. In addition, the teachers salaries may be substandard due to the need for strong company earnings. Although students might not be aware that the instructors are not well-paid, everybody easily understands one truly gets what one pays for.

Labels: BCIT, opinions, students

I think we've come up with a tentative itinerary for the trip that starts on September 13th.

Labels: Eurotrip 2007, travel planning

We went to Turkey on several occasions. When living in Bahrain it was a close destination served by both Gulf Air and Turkish Airlines.

My video clip of a family making flat bread is on YouTube. It was taken from the back balcony of a little, family-owned guesthouse in the city of Pamukkale. That is not a place known for it bread-making. Rather, it is famous because of the limestone hot springs. Still being able to witness real people is as much of a reason for travel as the sites one visits, don't you think?

I held off mashing-up my first YouTube clip until earlier this spring, and I'm no less hesitant today. I like the idea of my eJournal and images being able to stand alone. I'm old enough to know that things come and go. Broken links to important material will be the scourge of future historians! Alas, most of the kids actually involved in Web 2.0 are probably young enough to still have that mistaken feeling of invincibility.

Labels: Turkey, world, YouTube