A 'lil HooHaa

Today was the final day of the semester for teaching. I learned a lot this semester and really enjoyed teaching. It’s something I felt really comfortable jumping into. I had no training and kind of went on the fly as the semester went on.

I have to post my final grades by Sunday night. My plan, and hope, is to do them sometime Saturday late afternoon.

Then I can head up to the school Monday and see about getting my evaluations from the students. I won’t lie that I am looking forward to seeing these. Some of the kids took their time with them, some went rather fast. There are no names connected, so hopefully they were honest — whether in a negative or positive way. These types of things can only help me get better as a teacher.

• Some items that I really learned this semester included:
• How important lesson planning is and how to do it better
• Realizing that you can’t get through to all kids
• How to stick to your guns on certain things
• Never believe they know all the basic stuff, even with a basic class. You’ll likely be wrong

One professor told me it will take a faculty member five years to really find their style and way of teaching. I just hope I’m still doing this in five years as it’s something I really could see myself doing for a long time. If that’s the fact, then I look forward to many years of learning and finding myself as a professor. Hopefully it will also lead me, eventually, to getting my Ph.D.

In the end, the gig was good. I had the chance to test myself in a classroom setting with full control over the syllabus and book selection. I also had the opportunity to offset the lost money I got with furloughs at the main job and, at the same time, build my savings account back up — even if just a little bit.

For the most part, too, the students were a pleasure to have in class. That being said, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get through to every one of them. Sometimes they just don’t pay attention or don’t care. It’s disappointing, but the truth. That was hard for me to accept. And though I still don’t fully accept it, I realize it’s part of the college experience.

But, this was a tremendous experience and one I will cherish for a long time.

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There’s a place in town that I haven’t eaten before and had the chance to do so tonight.

The food was pretty good (I had a gouda cheese appetizer; a solid steak for the main; and a creme brulee cheesecake for dessert), but the service kind of took away from it. They seemed clueless at times and there was a total of like three people (cook included) working. How is that possible?

It’s almost a waste when you have good food, yet the service is slow. Let’s put it this way — we walked in at a little after 6 p.m. and walked out just shy of 9 p.m. For a party of five, it shouldn’t take that long. ESPECIALLY when the place wasn’t even near being packed and two of the tables that had people were already eating by the time we came in!

Overall, a decent experience. But the service irked me a little.

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So I’m home writing this today because I have a furlough. Happy holidays!

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I’m nearing the end of my Christmas shopping. Of the people I have to shop for, pretty much everyone is done. I am going to try and fill in a bunch of the blanks Saturday and then finish things off with my brother on Wednesday the 23rd. Good day to shop, eh?

I’m hoping I only need to grab one or two things because this year of shopping has been rather frustrating.

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It was anywhere from 9 degrees-18 degrees here today, depending on where you were.

I like the colder weather, but this was downright bitter. No caching for me today!

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The next several days should be fun. I have four days of work remaining before I start my vacation. During those four days, I’ll need to finish our football all-stars. Though challenging, I have most of the legwork done, so hopefully can get things rolling on time and have it ready to go.

Once those are done, it will probably be the end of my working days for 2009. Then I’ll have nine days off before having to go back to work on Jan. 1.

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I received my latest pathtag today — one from my one alma mater that I did for the Mascot Club. I thought it came out well. I need to figure how to take good photos of the tags without the glare, but here’s the blue print from it:

I look forward to trading for many other Mascot Club tags!

That’s about it for now! More later!

Before I start with this post, allow me to wish anyone Stateside a Happy Thanksgiving. Now then…

Yep, you heard right (from the title line), changes are coming.

Hopefully, you’ll (and maybe a few other readers) will enjoy these changes, too. Basically it came down to the realization that my life isn’t exciting enough to be writing on a daily basis and I know that a blog, to be somewhat successful, needs to be updated regularly and have a bit of a format.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to have a feature of some sort every day, but I am planning on doing several to mix in with my regular thoughts and life.

So, starting soon, here’s what is going to change. Certain days will have features. Othere days will have my normal stuff. But, for the most part, I plan on trying to do these on a weekly basis. I will be working on many of these over the next month and a half in anticipation of “re-launching” the blog January 3, 2010. Some of the features you read below have already started and wil continue as I’ve been doing.
Here are the features that I have already come up with. Not all have dates yet as I am trying to decide which will be equal, which will be occasional etc.

A glance at what’s in the works:

Snapshot Saturday: This day will feature a photo and (hopefully) the story behind it. It could be a photo I took, was in, or even something from the family album. If I took it, I’ll explain more of why I took it and what the situation was etc. I do have a photo blog, but this will be for more of a fun feature.

Geocachers: From your eyes: This is a feature where I’ve given other geocachers the opportunity to write up a blog post for this blog. The goal is for these cachers to tell you a bit about themselves, how they got interested in the game, what they do to keep interested, their favorite caches and hides and maybe a story about their experiences. Hopefully, this will be an entertaining feature. This won’t be an “every week” feature, but more when I find a cacher who I want to “give the keys to.”
HooHaa Spotlight: This feature will go for as long as I can find people to interview for this one. This spotlight will be people in geocaching, bloggers, photographers, social networking people (twitter etc.) or anyone else who catches my eye for some reason. The interviews will be done via e-mail and written as an article. I’ll post one of these per week. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Movie Review/Book Review: As an avid reader and a semi-avid movie watcher, I am going to try and make this a rotating basis.

TGIPCF!: For those who visit my blog, you’ve already seen this feature. This is where I share postcards I’ve received through the hobby of postcrossing.

Cache Watch: This will be an occasional feature. Basically, it will be caches — from my eyes — that I find special or amazing in one way or another. It could be an incredibly well-done micro, a great hike, a challenging puzzle etc. A cache that makes me give major props. This feature might contain spoilers, however, but I will try and keep it covered up the best I can.

Pathtag Closeup: As my pathtag collection continues to grow, I want to be able to share them a little. So, this will be a quick feature where I’ll post a photo of the tag and maybe share a story. I’ll also try and show off some other tags that I’ve had made or try and give a little more on the tags to show how some can be very meaningful.
Caching Tips: These are hopefully going to be more than the normal tips — a more in-depth look at different aspects of geocaching. This will be an occasional feature as I have time to research, write and talk to people about some of the topics I have planned.

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The features that are weekly will be on a set day. Those that are occasional will be posted when I have something to post. I will eventually set a calendar where I know what days will have which feature etc.
All of the other normal things on my blog will stay — the random posts about caching, life, thoughts, sports, the HooHaa TB race, travel and the world — and will be mixed in. There are days where I might post more than one entry.

I’m hoping those who read my blog now will enjoy the changes and I hope that new readers also enjoy what I am offering. My true hope is that this gets me blogging on a regular basis so I can at least stay busy with it.

I am also attempting to possibly change themes on the blog to make it look differently. We’ll see how that goes though as I am always worried about trying things like that.

This has been a bit of work in the making, so I hope you’ll enjoy the changes when they occur. As always feel free to leave thoughts, comments or other ideas!
More later!