Get yourself an iPod. 

I have been sitting at home for the last few days, so maybe I should get out and do something.

This is what I did this weekend.
1. Installed Ultimate Yahtzee on my notebook.
2. Played Ultimate Yahtzee for the next six hours (and lost six hours worth of games).
3. Started writing my professional growth plan and my midpoint self-evaluation for my field experience (both still in progress).
4. Removed Norton AntiVirus 2004 and MSN Messenger 6.2 to eliminate two more pieces of proprietary software that I don't need.
4a. Installed Gaim as a free, open source replacement for MSN Messenger.
5. Customized Windows XP desktop, since I can't configure FreeBSD to work properly on my computer.

Well, my university facilitator from last year found my sheets, and wrote a great letter for me. Unfortunately, he was leaving on vacation with his wife the next day, so I had to go the west end (by ETS) to pick them up on Wednesday night. I didn't mind the trip at all, it was pretty effortless, and the system does work!

I received a call from the Calgary Board of Education recently, however, I have my practicum to worry about, and hence was unavailable for their pre-screening interviews this week in Edmonton. OK, that was an excuse. I didn't listen to my answering machine early enough (and subsequently missed out), at least for now. I am happy knowing that they noticed my application, though.

I am happy that spring break has arrived, now I can create a unit plan for the Science 20 class, write my midpoint evaluation, develop a professional growth plan, decide on a whole school project, and think a little about what to do once the term has ended.

Today was a fun day (being sarcastic).

My university facilitator came to observe me, which went pretty well (of course, if everyone worked diligently, then it would have been better). Then, after class, my mentor teacher told me that he will take over the Chemistry 20 class after spring break and will pass his Science 20 class to me. That's the great thing about student teachers, they'll teach whatever you don't want to teach.

I also received an email from my university facilitator from my IPT, telling me that the stuff I left for him at USS was misplaced. Without it, he can't write my reference letter...and I gave away my original copies of my observation sheets...

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Woosh! Another week has been completed. This past Tuesday, the school hosted an open house for prospective Page students. I 'helped' out in the chemistry room. There were a few interesting demos that current Chemistry 30 students were presenting. The room was filled with smoke from the burning potassium.

I got home at 21:20 (after a nice walk in the snow) and then worked on lesson planning until 02:00. The next day I was sleeping during my prep period. Unfortunately, all of the science teachers caught me napping. This puts me on par with my fellow student teacher, Dean, who does nap periodically, but only before lunch. :)

Tomorrow is professional growth day and I will be seeing my EDSE 460/461 classmates. I have no idea what the purpose of this session is. We'll see.

Randy Ferbey's team from Alberta won the 2005 Tim Hortons Brier in Edmonton this evening with a 5-4 win over Shawn Adams' team from Nova Scotia. Interesting strategy in the ninth end, for sure.

I have added a second course to my teaching, Science 10. We're starting a new unit, and I'm planning everything from scratch (well, trying to). This means a lot of late night work and little time for sleep.

Last week was the last five-day school week for teaching until the first week of April. This Friday I have a "professional growth" day on campus, and next week is Good Friday, and that marks the beginning of spring break!

Wi-Fi has arrived at my house. I installed a wireless router by my desktop computer. It took some time to configure it because I had to update the firmware (a problem that I discovered through trial-and-error).

I was at Teachers' Convention today. It was silly because both of the morning sessions that I had planned to go to were full. So I had to scramble and find a session that was half-decent without having to walk to another building.

There are actually some teachers who will go off-topic with their questions and complain about government funding, even when the presenters are in no capacity to address their issues. It happened when I was in a session for professional development with technology, and again during a talk presented by the ATA president. It upsets me when this kind of negativity exists.

I didn't plan on meeting anybody today, but I did run into Jesse outside Sunterra (after purchasing a terriyaki chicken wrap) and we watched the presentation on muons with a few other physical science APT students. I saw my IPT mentor teacher eating lunch at the Edmonton City Centre West food court, but he appeared to be busy with someone. I saw the two math teachers from Old Scona in the mall, so I nodded to them. Finally, I saw John just as he was about to leave the conference. Purely coincidental that I didn't see anybody else that I remotely recognized today.

I conducted a lab for my Chemistry 20 class today. Straightforward procedure. Dissolve solid in water. Stir. Measure conductivity. Use litmus paper and pH strips. Observe colour of solution. Repeat for remaining five solids. Use data to figure out unknowns.

For starters, only one student out of about thirty actually did their prelabs. Oops, so there goes a mark for practically everyone. You also won't believe how many grade 11 students don't know how what a manipulated variable is, how to measure conductivity with a multimeter, or what constitutes a colour change in the litmus paper. Just unbelievable. Maybe I'm just a little too naïve, and a very optimistic student teacher, but I thought all of those were covered in Science 10, if not earlier.