Another day, another post
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009My default web browser is Google Chrome. It’s fast, not too memory intensive, and it runs tabs as separate processes, so crashing one doesn’t kill the entire browser. With that said, it’s still in beta and I run into some problems here and there (especially with pop-ups and some Flash stuff). Most annoying is the fact that I can’t write blog posts in Chrome without having all the formatting go to hell, so I have to fire up FireFox (or worse yet - Internet Explorer) and do all my writing there.
Two momentous events occured this week. The first that I began teaching my course for Kaplan. The students are nice and quite bright - they catch on really quickly - and they laugh at my jokes. Always a good sign. In some ways it’s very different from the Big Questions tutorial that I led during first semester last year. There’s actual content that I have to know and then teach to my students, which means considerably more preparation time is required. I’m also up there for three and a half hours, which is quite a bit longer than I ever had to be in front of my tutorial for Big Questions.
But there are some similarities. The relationship is very similar - teaching for Kaplan is a lot like coaching a high-end sports time. Everyone wants to be there and wants to improve. As their LSAT instructor (or continuing the analog, LSAT coach) it’s my job to get the best performance possible from each of my students. As I’m discovering, this means a lot more than just teaching the classroom material - it also means supporting them when they falter and talking them through how to get where they want to be. Even though my LSAT class is smaller than my tutorial (16 for the LSAT class versus 28 for my tutorial), it feels a lot bigger and more impersonal. That may just be the benefit of hindsight giving my BQ tutorial the advantage - I’m sure that by the end of our six weeks together, I’ll feel much closer to my class.
I’m looking forward to tonight’s class, but I’m also a little scared. They got their diagnostic test results back yesterday, and I’m not sure how they’ll all react to their scores. Already I’ve had to do some crisis prevention over email, which was fine - email gives me time to think and reflect on what I’m saying. I’m not sure how I’ll handle those same emotions/questions in class. Guess we’ll find out tonight!
The second big thing that happened this week was that I signed up for Twitter. It’s destroying my attention span; I can’t do anything without twittering (tweeting?) about it. I’ve checked my account three times already during this post, and I’ve thought about updating it at least that many times with various thoughts and feelings. I’m not a fan of how quickly stuff gets lost on my twitter page either, but I do like how easy it is to update and how easy it is to stalk my friends. It’s like what Facebook was a year ago (a.k.a. “the golden age”).
In other news:
- Half-Past rehearsals continue to go swimmingly. I’m always amazed at what my cast produces, and their ability to make me laugh at the same jokes time and time again, despite the fact that I’ve heard/read them a hundred times before.
- I still don’t have a full-time job, and I’m not sure if I really want one.
- Korea is looking better and better as a job option. But that would probably mean no more teaching for Kaplan, and I’m liking teaching for them.
- I hung out with Erin yesterday. I made strawberry-banana smoothies. The conversation was excellent and the smoothies were delicious.
- Work is going full steam ahead on the McMaster Summer Performance Festival. We (we being me, Brad, and Riane, the festival producers) met with Dr. Cockett yesterday (a Theatre & Film prof at Mac) to discuss ideas and he was very interested and enthusiastic about our ideas. We’re meeting with someone from the Classics department Friday and, if all goes according to plan, we should have some really exciting stuff to announce next week.
- Back in Oakville tomorrow and part of Friday.
- My blog is the first thing that comes up if you Google “ArtSci 1B06.” Awesomeness.
- My blog is also apparently popular enough that people leave anonymous comments now. I think that’s somewhere between knowing what 4chan is and being the Star Wars Kid on the road to internet popularity.
Time to go prep more for tonight’s lesson. Peace, peeps.