I am a little short on time as I am meeting my family to go to museums today but I wanted to post a link to pictures. This week there are going to be a lot so I am just putting them in public folders on Picasa.
http://picasaweb.google.com/dignst01/StPatrickSDayInSingapore
http://picasaweb.google.com/dignst01/BirdParkSingapore
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Missed Sunday...
Well, it has been a busy week and a half. I have basically taken over all the classes now so I have lots of planning an grading to do. Last Friday I went out to a hawker stall with Ian, his wife and two of their friends. It was a lot of fun to interact with him outside of school and get to know his wife and friends. Their friends were vegan so we went to a place that has all sorts of Chinese food made out of imitation meat. It was really tasty and I think that it is because of this place that I have started to really like the hawker stalls.
Saturday, I talked with a bunch of y'all and that was good. Just going to throw out that I miss you all and it is good to get a chance to stay in touch (hint if I have not heard from you...) Then I decided to go out on the MRT again. I hopped on the train going the opposite direction from last time. Got off eventually in China town and explored there again. Next I went to Dhoby Ghaut which is the station nearest to where my parents will be staying when they get here (they leave the twin cities today) I did not know which hotel they were staying at when I went there so I just explored and got some late lunch.
Sunday ,I got to talk with my sister which made me happy and then I went to the St. Patrick's Day parade. It was really funny. Mostly Asians dressed in green. The best was the mostly Indian bagpipe band. I could not help but laugh when I saw it. After the Parade (which it rained for) we went over to a Irish Pub where they had set up a stage and Rebbecca (daughter in my host family) participated in the Irish dancing. They were quite good. I have not had time to get pictures off my camera but I will post them when I do.
Back to teaching Monday and I have been very busy with that since. The end of the quarter is Thursday so I have to get all the grades in (making me wish I did not assigned so much...). I was observed again yesterday. I thought it went fairly well. I was reviewing the test I am giving tomorrow and so I gave out a packet of review note I had typed up, asked for questions, using the CPS and doing a short activity to find the speed of sound. The CPS software is really cool. I can put in a bunch of questions and then the kids all have remotes that they can submit answers to and then later I can look and see how they are doing and talk with them about the topics they are not getting.
Today I was mostly giving test, making sure the test for the conceptual kids is good for tomorrow and grading. When I was grading I came across some iterated answers and that lead to some interesting events but...
I am looking forward to spring break coming up and spending time doing the tourist attractions with my parents and aunt and uncle.
Saturday, I talked with a bunch of y'all and that was good. Just going to throw out that I miss you all and it is good to get a chance to stay in touch (hint if I have not heard from you...) Then I decided to go out on the MRT again. I hopped on the train going the opposite direction from last time. Got off eventually in China town and explored there again. Next I went to Dhoby Ghaut which is the station nearest to where my parents will be staying when they get here (they leave the twin cities today) I did not know which hotel they were staying at when I went there so I just explored and got some late lunch.
Sunday ,I got to talk with my sister which made me happy and then I went to the St. Patrick's Day parade. It was really funny. Mostly Asians dressed in green. The best was the mostly Indian bagpipe band. I could not help but laugh when I saw it. After the Parade (which it rained for) we went over to a Irish Pub where they had set up a stage and Rebbecca (daughter in my host family) participated in the Irish dancing. They were quite good. I have not had time to get pictures off my camera but I will post them when I do.
Back to teaching Monday and I have been very busy with that since. The end of the quarter is Thursday so I have to get all the grades in (making me wish I did not assigned so much...). I was observed again yesterday. I thought it went fairly well. I was reviewing the test I am giving tomorrow and so I gave out a packet of review note I had typed up, asked for questions, using the CPS and doing a short activity to find the speed of sound. The CPS software is really cool. I can put in a bunch of questions and then the kids all have remotes that they can submit answers to and then later I can look and see how they are doing and talk with them about the topics they are not getting.
Today I was mostly giving test, making sure the test for the conceptual kids is good for tomorrow and grading. When I was grading I came across some iterated answers and that lead to some interesting events but...
I am looking forward to spring break coming up and spending time doing the tourist attractions with my parents and aunt and uncle.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Chill week plus exploring
Well, I did not have a very exciting week. At school I continued teaching the Conceptual Physics Students and have taken over the AP Physics students but for AP I am working off of Ian's Lesson Plans until after break when I will be teaching and planning for all the classes.
Thursday was a little exciting in that I had my first observation. Rhonda (the Assistant Superintendent of human resources) came in to evaluate my performance. Initially, I was really nervous but once I got into the lesson I mostly just forgot that she was there. In the end she ended up leaving the class slightly early because the superintendent was not there and there was an earthquake in Taipei. A group of students are in Taipei for a international school cultural convention (art, speech, debate, drama...contest) so she had to make sure they were all okay (they were).
Her feed back was mostly positive; she did say that there were some students that were not listening to me but when talking with Ian, he made the point that even he had trouble with those students.
Saturday, I decided I had not used the mass transit enough so I went out exploring. First I went out walking. Instead of going straight to the MRT Station I went wondering back among the subsidized housing.They are all over the place. I cannot remember
the guy's name but the story I was told was that they were all built with the restiction that they were sold not rented to the occupents because they would treat them better in they own them. As a result Singapore has the highest percentage of residence ownership in the world. You might be able to see that out of the windows (even the high ones) people are drying there their cloths. I was told that if you want to get a housekeeper in Singapore you need to pass an exam and the majority of the questions are on how to teach your housekeeper not to fall out the window when they are hanging the wash up.
So after wandering around I got the the MRT Station. The trains are the nicest I think I have ever been on. Next time I ride one I will have to talk a picture because it is
just so unbievable how clean they are. Part of that may be that it is illegal to eat or drink (even water) on the trains or in the station or you must pay a $500-$1000 fine. I rode the train for a long time, just looking at the different things of the window. I saw a group of kids playing Ultimate Frisbee and then there was a bunch of kids standing outside of the Presbyterian high school in very straight lines (it is a boarding school) Finally, when the train switched to being underground, I started thinking about getting off. Looking at the list of stations I decided to get off that the city hall stop. From there I started wondering around. There was a large completely underground mall that I looked around in and got some lunch. Then I ended up outside near boat quay so I walked around by the river before working my way back to the station. On the way back I stopped off at the Woodlands Civic center and then caught a bus from there back up by the school and walking back from there. It was a lot of fun to look around and though I felt lost at times I was able to find my way around.
Thursday was a little exciting in that I had my first observation. Rhonda (the Assistant Superintendent of human resources) came in to evaluate my performance. Initially, I was really nervous but once I got into the lesson I mostly just forgot that she was there. In the end she ended up leaving the class slightly early because the superintendent was not there and there was an earthquake in Taipei. A group of students are in Taipei for a international school cultural convention (art, speech, debate, drama...contest) so she had to make sure they were all okay (they were).
Her feed back was mostly positive; she did say that there were some students that were not listening to me but when talking with Ian, he made the point that even he had trouble with those students.
Saturday, I decided I had not used the mass transit enough so I went out exploring. First I went out walking. Instead of going straight to the MRT Station I went wondering back among the subsidized housing.They are all over the place. I cannot remember
the guy's name but the story I was told was that they were all built with the restiction that they were sold not rented to the occupents because they would treat them better in they own them. As a result Singapore has the highest percentage of residence ownership in the world. You might be able to see that out of the windows (even the high ones) people are drying there their cloths. I was told that if you want to get a housekeeper in Singapore you need to pass an exam and the majority of the questions are on how to teach your housekeeper not to fall out the window when they are hanging the wash up.So after wandering around I got the the MRT Station. The trains are the nicest I think I have ever been on. Next time I ride one I will have to talk a picture because it is
just so unbievable how clean they are. Part of that may be that it is illegal to eat or drink (even water) on the trains or in the station or you must pay a $500-$1000 fine. I rode the train for a long time, just looking at the different things of the window. I saw a group of kids playing Ultimate Frisbee and then there was a bunch of kids standing outside of the Presbyterian high school in very straight lines (it is a boarding school) Finally, when the train switched to being underground, I started thinking about getting off. Looking at the list of stations I decided to get off that the city hall stop. From there I started wondering around. There was a large completely underground mall that I looked around in and got some lunch. Then I ended up outside near boat quay so I walked around by the river before working my way back to the station. On the way back I stopped off at the Woodlands Civic center and then caught a bus from there back up by the school and walking back from there. It was a lot of fun to look around and though I felt lost at times I was able to find my way around.
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