Quarter Break - Part I & Weekend Preview - August 31st

Quarter Break Part I
Yes, I know that I was supposed to make a posting on Wednesday and Thursday.

But, this is quarter break and I took a couple of days off. I think next week will be better as far as blog postings go.

Burp
A lot of this posting is about food.

Food, after all, is very important to one’s life.

On Wednesday, Doug and I went to the local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for iced coffees. Actually, there are several local Coffee Beans. This one has better parking and that is significant for me. We left the Coffee Bean and drove to the local Burger King for Whoppers [large hamburgers with lettuce, tomatos, cheese, onions, and pickles] and fries. That was our lunch and it was a tasty and filling lunch.

I was not feeling like much a meal for dinner so I suggested that we have take-out from a local Mexican restaurant. I had a chicken tostado [salad in a crisp shell with lettuce, chicken, diced tomatos and onions and cilantro, sour cream, pinto beans, shredded cheese, and guacamole] and Doug had a taco combination plate.
Thursday was a continuation of eating for me.

I went to a breakfast meeting with a representative from my college fraternity. He was in town and wanted to meet me. He also wanted to ask me to make a donation to the current fund drive. This was probably one of the more expensive breakfasts that I have had in recent memory.

I did enjoy the fried eggs, hash brown potatos, fresh fruit, bagel with smoked salmon, and bacon. I think this was the first time that I have had breakfast without any hot coffee. It was a little unusual but I found that I could do well without the morning coffee.

After breakfast, I drove over to school for an in-service session; more about this later. This was a late morning to early afternoon meeting for the instructors. All of the full time instructors were supposed to be there but several of them were absent. Part time instructors, like me, were not required to attend.

We had a lunch that was catered in from a local causal dining restaurant. This was a much better selection than the usual order from the local pizza place. We had a choice of salads, pizza, bar-be-cued ribs and chicken, grilled chicken, brownies, chocolate chips cookies, and soft drinks.

That was a big spread of food and I was proud of myself in having only a cookie for dessert. I could have taken more than one and some brownies as well.

I ended up having a bowl of soup and cheese and crackers for my dinner. I was full at the end of the day.

Teaching
The in-service session at school is designed to improve our teaching ability. I picked up some new ideas and approaches of how t o make my classes better.

I also pulled one of my student’s failure out of the fire. She had forgotten to turn in some of her assignments before I turned in my grades. I spoke to the Associate Dean about whether or not a grade change was appropriate and if it could be submitted.

We discussed her situation and I expressed my belief that the student was being honest with me and that I felt she was otherwise a good student. The Dean agreed with me. Now, all I have to do is read her late submitted assignments, grade them and then recalculate her course grade, and submit a grade change request.

While I was having lunch, the Associate Dean asked me if I was interested in teaching another course. I said yes, depending on the course. He said that he was confident that I could do a great job in the course. I said I would be happy to teach the course.

The course will not be a difficult one for me to teach. The course is for students who are about to graduate. It teaches them how to prepare for a job interview and develop a resume. I don’t think I will have to spend too much time on calling students who missed class. That will be sweet for me.

Woman of the Moment
Today’s Woman of the Moment is Kang Jung. I think she is the most attractive of the three actresses from Korean serial. It is Episode 125 tonight. Unfortunately for me and the blog, she does not have many photos available on an English language web site.

Life happens.

I do like these two images though.



Vivian’s Man of the Moment
My friend Vivian and I and maybe our friend Lisa will have lunch on September 16th at the L. A. Food Show in Manhattan Beach. Actually, this is a tentative date and with Vivian, is always subject to change. I had suggested that we have lunch on the 9th but Vivian and I think Lisa will be in Toronto.

Vivian’s selection for her Man of the Moment is John Krasinski from The Office. Vivian said that she picked him because one of her girl friends has a crush on him. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.


Weekend Preview
This weekend will be devoted to odds and ends.

I plan to clean up and organize my teaching materials from the last term. I need to find my lesson plans from the two classes that I first taught when I started at the school. I don’t plan on doing any lesson plan work until next weekend.

It looks like I can catch a couple of films at the cinema. I will decide what to see when I wake up on Saturday or Monday.

Of course, I will be doing some cleaning and laundry.

I went online to Google Images to check out a potential Woman of the Moment, Tang Wei. Tang Wei is a Chinese actress who will be starring in Ang Lee’s new film, LUST, CAUTION. Unfortunately, almost all of the images are in the dwarf size, under 10 kb, and are ones from the period film set in the late 1930s.

Programming Note
The usual Weekend Update will not be posted on Sunday because of our Labor Day Holiday on Monday. The Update will appear on Monday.


Be well and stay happy.