Missing Blog Postings

Missing Blog Postings
Last week was a bad week for blog posting. I had a lot of distractions to deal with. First of all, I had final examinations and papers to read and grade in my classes and then turn in my electronic grade books.

Then, Doug called to see if I wanted to go see INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS with him on Friday up at one of the cinemas near my flat. I invited Doug to join me for lunch before the film. While at lunch, we talked about getting a new phone as an early Christmas gift and decided we could do that on Saturday since he had some free time. We also decided to try his new strip mall Mexican food place in South O. C. for lunch before phone shopping.

INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS
We went to see the film after a reasonably healthy lunch. Doug had a vegetarian pizza; he is still on his “I am not eating beef” diet. I had a turkey club sandwich.

We talked about films at lunch and, in particular, car chases in films. Personally, I have always liked the car chases from BULLET and the FRENCH CONNECTION. As a film studies major, Doug had a completely different and more expansive list. Doug and the Movie Club [Doug and four of his film friends] are working on a blog posting of some sort about car chases. He suggested that I start a list of films to buy with great car chases.

Doug said that four out of five members of the Movie Club thought DISTRICT 9 was the best film of the year. I will probably see that film this week.

INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS is a longish film at about 150 minutes. It does move along fairly swiftly though. It deserves its “R” rating for violence and language. The film is Quentin Tarantino’s alternate version of World War II; it is a Tarantino film for sure and certain. I thought the use of the Sergio Leone style of music from the spaghetti westerns was an interesting and very effective departure from what one would normally expect to hear, 1940s jazz. Somehow, I don’t think “In the Mood” would work well as a background theme as something that sounded like the theme song from A FIST FULL OF DOLLARS while Brat Pitt as craving up someone with a Bowie knife.

We can both recommend the film as worth seeing; so long as you remember that it is a violent film. Doug said he plans to see the film again with the Movie Club; he only does this with films he really likes.

Teaching and Students
I got my final teaching schedule for the coming term. I was disappointed that I will only have one class on Friday night.

I will be teaching Group Dynamics so that is a benefit and compensation for the Friday night class. I also know that I can expect to have fewer than the tentative class of 32 students show up every night. I am a good teacher but I cannot compete with Southern California on a Friday night.

Every quarter, the school holds an in-service session. This is about teacher training and providing us with new policies and procedures. I learned a long time ago that instructors get blamed for everything that goes wrong.

Such is our lot in the educational world.

On the plus side of staying at school after my Wednesday class for the in-service, I did get a very nice hug from one of the younger female instructors. Hugs are always accepted.

Then, on Thursday, as the students were finishing up the Microeconomics final examination, one of my students who has been in three other of my classes asked if I could write a letter of recommendation for him and one other student. I said that I would and that I would drop them off in their Saturday morning class. They left before I arrived at the class; I left the letters with their instructor to give to them on Monday.

I went by school on Saturday on my way out to see Doug at his mother’s house. I made my attempt at delivering the letters and completed my electronic grade books. I also killed some with the Saturday sudoku puzzle and some coffee.

Saturday was also new student orientation day. That meant donuts for me and the rest of the instructors. I passed on the Starbucks Coffee because it was not decaffeinated.

As I was leaving school, I ran into two of my former semi-favorite students. They were out and about causing confusion. They were talking with their department chair about one of the instructors in their department who, I guess, happens to be unpopular with them.

I suggested that they could come take my class on Friday night.

Esther C. and Jessie B. said, “We don’t do Friday nights.”

I tried to liven up my class by having them take it because I know they would have fun in the course and help make the class interesting.

Tea for the Princess
I stopped by the tea store to pick up some tea for the Princess and the Golfer.

I am fairly confident that they will enjoy the tea. One of the three pouches contains tea leaves from a single tea bush and the bush is probably several hundred years old. It is definitely not what they have been drinking, based on what I have sent them and it is unlikely they can get this type of tea in Seattle. The other two bags contained lightly flavored teas from the Phoenix Mountain in Guangdong Province in China.

The tea store owner said the teas would probably keep for at least a year. I don’t think they will last that long with the Princess and the Golfer. They both like tea. The owner suggested that the Princess should go to the store web site for brewing instructions. She also said that she responds to email questions and that the Princess could call her as well.

I mailed the teas along with some other stuff off to the Princess over the weekend. With any luck, she should be enjoying her new tea by the middle of the week.

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf & Tihana
I went over the local Coffee Bean on Sunday for a large ice blended coffee drink. I hadn’t been to the Coffee Bean in a couple of weeks.

Sunday was my lucky day. Tihana was working then. She made my ice blended drink and it was excellent. Tihana was also very happy because it was “clean off the top of my dresser day” where I scoop up all of the loose coins on my dresser and toss them into the tip box.. I figure there was five or six dollars in coins.

It looks like my days of having excellent ice blended drinks are numbered. Tihana is expecting; she said that she was due around November 18th. That means that I probably have about two more months, maybe less depending on her health, of looking forward to the excellent drinks.

I will miss Tihana.

But, life goes on and change must happen eventually.

Visitors
The blog visitor traffic is still on the low side compared with earlier this year. Last week, we had 148 visitors who viewed 195 unique pages.

I suppose that I could start running the Woman of the Moment feature again but I am not that interested in doing that because it was a fair amount of work to find all of the images. Besides, the Princess would probably frown on me if I did.

Programming Note
This week and next week I am off from school so I will be posting even less than I have been in the recent past. I know that is disappointing to some. I am entitled to take some time off every now and then. Furthermore, it is the end of Summer for me with Labor day right around the corner.


Be well and stay happy.