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Random Confessions

hanyuufan5

✨**:。*
Medalist
Joined
May 19, 2018
On the good side, I'm not getting fired. On the bad side, I'm going to be under supervision until I start teaching according to protocol. I know it's a business and I'm supposed to follow the rules (and I am going to have to unless I want to get sacked), but it does feel bitter that my good intentions were received with complaints of "Lessons with her are too long and too difficult". Yes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I really was doing my best to teach them the language and also help them appreciate the wonderful books they were reading... Oh well, I'll just have to cut down the contextual trivia even more than I have already and stop making the kids think for themselves... (sigh)

(hugs) Try not to take it personally. Most of those kids are probably not there by choice. As someone who loathed reading as a kid, I never had a problem with the teachers, just the fact that I had to read at all. Liking the teacher was even worse, because then I felt guilty that I hated the subject (s)he taught. I could have gone to a reading class taught by Kristi Yamaguchi, and it just would have made me hate reading even more, because here's this opportunity to be with my favorite skater at the time, but I'm utterly miserable and can't enjoy it at all because of what we're doing.

That being said, I loved language classes... but if we'd had to read fiction books in the language we were learning, I'd have hated them. (Nonfiction would have been fine. Maybe. If it were a subject I liked. Possibly.)
 

TallyT

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 23, 2018
Country
Australia
Listening to the soundtrack of the original Cosmos series (music by Vangelis)... I really really would love to see Mao Asada do this one (and I'm not even in to ladies' skating! but for some reason she came straight to mind)...
 

Arriba627

TWO-TIME WORLD CHAMPION 🔥
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 2, 2014
Country
United-States
To those unfamiliar with country life, deer usually go on the move in predawn and post twilight hours after and before complete darkness. Though I have seen them many times at distance and fairly close range, I have never had an up close encounter. Last evening, driving home along my winding country road post twilight I spotted a pair leap into and scamper across the road from the right about 8 feet in front of the car; I immediately came full stop and watched them disappear into the verge at left wondering if they travelled mostly by two's or if there were more. Still looking left, I put the car in gear and started to move slowly forward (no more than 5 mph) turning my attention back to the road ahead and slammed on the brake hard!!!! Another deer, very large, ran into the road from the same spot as the other two less than a foot from the front of the car.. 99 % positive I did NOT hit it.... no thump and, checking later, no marks on the car indicating contact was made but it was a narrow escape for us both. Scared the living daylights out of me... :drama: :eeking:

Glad you're ok. Very scary. I clobbered one going 55 mph and my car was a mess. My aunt and uncle totaled their car and were lucky they weren't killed. I've grazed at least 4 deer (while in MI.) My friends say I have a deer magnet attached to my car. Mostly my adventures have taken place in MI., but I also had a deer in my driveway( in a Chicago suburban area!). Go figure -- they just seem to like me!
 

elbkup

Power without conscience is a savage weapon
Medalist
Joined
Mar 3, 2015
Country
United-States
Glad you're ok. Very scary. I clobbered one going 55 mph and my car was a mess. My aunt and uncle totaled their car and were lucky they weren't killed. I've grazed at least 4 deer (while in MI.) My friends say I have a deer magnet attached to my car. Mostly my adventures have taken place in MI., but I also had a deer in my driveway( in a suburban area!). Go figure -- they just seem to like me!

Knock wood never had that happen but my sister has had similar incidents to yours... deer
can do lots of damage accidentwise, true, awful for all concerned and heartbreaking to see such beautiful creatures lying on the road; my heart goes out to you. While I have seen them in full daylight and in complete darkness, most of my sightings were predawn and around twilight... mist fog is the worst, think it confuses them. Speed limit on that road is low and I avoid travel during those times if it is possible. Invariably a motorist will appear behind me riding my tail so I pull over and let it go past ... crazy!! Unfortunately that road lies between two major routes so motorists who don't have a clue use it as a short cut between.. This year no passing lines have been painted on the most iffy parts and new signs have been added to alert travelers to blind curves and hills.. Still, I had one pickup truck pass me in a no-pass zone yesterday... sign of the times (sigh).. and we will not speak of the ones that habitually burn rubber ... it is major cause for concern
 

iluvtodd

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 5, 2004
Country
United-States
We live near a park, so we have to watch out for deer. I know a few too many friends who have had unpleasant car encounters with them.
 

elbkup

Power without conscience is a savage weapon
Medalist
Joined
Mar 3, 2015
Country
United-States
We live near a park, so we have to watch out for deer. I know a few too many friends who have had unpleasant car encounters with them.

They are infiltrating populated areas more because their habitats are becoming endangered and they have no where else to go.. I lived just outside of NH's largest city close to the Merrimack River for many years ... due to massive building projects up north during the last decade deer from NH north country began to follow the river down to the more populated areas and became a fairly common sight in cities..it is a tragedy for wildlife, one that environmentalists are attempting to address..
 

hanyuufan5

✨**:。*
Medalist
Joined
May 19, 2018
I just realized that Team Japan has a Hanyu, a Rika, and a Satoko. Now it just needs a Mion, a Shion, and a Keiichi, and it's got the whole Higurashi no Naku Koro ni gang...
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Yes.. thsnks!! I am fine but I stressed about that deer all evening long!! Until the Men's FS.. then it was as if it had never been..:biggrin:

Moose are scary. . All you see are legs..!!

if you even see them... they come out of no where like they want to check your reflexes. normally in the dark.
 

cathlen

Team Gorgeous Cacti!
Record Breaker
Joined
May 2, 2015
Country
Poland
Yesterday I saw a guy who looks like Javi. I might have creepily stare at him for a moment. Needles to say, it was the highlight of my day :biggrin:
 

OniBan

Final Flight
Joined
May 8, 2014
Can you talk about it with someone else at work?

I did and they said to just ignore said behaviour

And on a completely different note - I just came back from a work trip where I had the opportunity to bunk with a couple of genteel and refined (in mannerism and interaction) ladies from work. Imagine my (delighted) surprise when a lot of our after-work chats in our room revolved around butts, poop, and various stomach disorders :rofl2:
 

CaroLiza_fan

EZETTIE LATUASV IVAKMHA
Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 25, 2012
Country
Northern-Ireland
I just realized that Team Japan has a Hanyu, a Rika, and a Satoko. Now it just needs a Mion, a Shion, and a Keiichi, and it's got the whole Higurashi no Naku Koro ni gang...

Never seen it, but you got me curious as to whether we could complete the gang. So I did a search for those names. And I could only get matches for one of them:

Shion KAMADA (ISU Bio, Rink Results Bio, Stats On Ice Bio, Tracings Bio)
Shion KOKUBUN (ISU Bio, Rink Results Bio, Stats On Ice Bio, Tracings Bio)

Interesting that one of them is a Men's Singles skater and the other is a Ladies Singles skater. Didn't realise that "Shion" was a unisex name.

And a Rena. :p

Found a few of them too! All girls, but none of them have ISU Bios:

Rena HARADA (Rink Results Bio, Stats On Ice Bio, Tracings Bio)
Rena NAKANISHI (Rink Results Bio, Stats On Ice Bio)
Rena OZAWA (Rink Results Bio, Stats On Ice Bio)
Rena SUZUKI (Rink Results Bio, Stats On Ice Bio)
Rena YAMANAKA (Rink Results Bio, Stats On Ice Bio)

Are we allowing Rena Inoue? Because she skated for her native Japan before switching to the USA when she teamed up with future husband John Baldwin:

Rena INOUE (ISU Bio, Stats On Ice Bio)

And here is a Singles skater that made the same switch in countries last season:

Rena IKENISHI (Rink Results Bio, Stats On Ice Bio, Tracings Bio)

Hope this helps

CaroLiza_fan
 

Ichatdelune

Long live the Queen and her successors
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 22, 2018
Country
South-Korea
*Rant alert

I'm currently reading Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli because my current favourite student (I still like Julie, but during the turbulent period of me being on the brink of getting sacked, um... let's just say I needed support from students and she wasn't one of the ones who showed that support) is going get it for her next book (=learning material) and I can't be the one to teach her if I haven't read it. I'm on chapter 26 so far, and I (bleep) HATE it. :gaah:

I'm an individualist to the core and I was never a conformist (one of the reasons I had issues during my high school years, but I digress), and I can very much say that this book irks me like no other. Like, I get the message and kudos for actually provoking me enough to be infuriated, but I'm suffering here. I don't know, maybe it's that my culture is different from the US, maybe it's that I was in 10th grade more than a decade after this book was published and things have changed, but I just can't with the in-your-face tone of it all and the character of Stargirl. Telling teenagers to be yourself and care for others is one thing, presenting a hippie maniac pixie dream girl as the ideal person is another. And please, how the everloving (bleep) am I supposed to root for a character that sings to a total stranger Happy Birthday in the cafeteria? If that happened to me, I'd run away or smash that ukulele because I'd be mortified to insanity. That is just being inconsiderate, period. No matter how I see it she's just an extremity, an idea roughly shoved into a human form to be represented in the story (which is pretty weak if you take out the message). I see the reasoning from the author's point of view, but that makes me more pissed because as an (aspiring) one I hate how heavy-handed everything is. That's just assuming the reader is dense and stupid, something no author should do. I have a million other gripes with the book, but it all boils down to this: this book is black-and-white 'be free from the crowd or you're not living properly' while also preaching 'you are okay however you are'. It conveys conflicting themes and thereby creates a massive dissonance. And it's like rubbing wet styrofoam together to both my literary senses and my beliefs, it's (bleep) awful.

I am going to get through this because I am determined to be of the best service to Min (I'm going to call her that here), but damnit she's too clear-headed and intelligent for this. If I had enough time with her I could've gotten a well-developed argument on euthanasia and hope against the odds and so on out of her last week (she was given Sadako and the thousand paper cranes), she could do so much with better books. The things she could get if she got To Kill A Mockingbid... :dbana: Aaaargh never have I hated the fact that I don't have authority over the curriculum this much, oh well here's hoping Min can get something out of this book and not suffer like I'm suffering right now...
 

Arriba627

TWO-TIME WORLD CHAMPION 🔥
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 2, 2014
Country
United-States
Gee, this sounds so awful you've made me want to read it! Personally, I think I'd prefer To Kill a Mockingbird.
 

hanyuufan5

✨**:。*
Medalist
Joined
May 19, 2018
I just looked at the Wikipedia article for Stargirl, and it literally sounds like something I would have written into a satirical story about how I hated almost everything they made us read in school. America has incredibly messed up views about nonconformity, and Stargirl sounds like it just... distills and concentrates all of them into one book. I apologize on behalf of my entire nation that innocent Koreans have to be subjected to our cultural baggage. :drama:

Can you tell the administrators that you think it sends a destructive message and try to get it substituted for something else? If you want me to give them my unfortunate experience with a classmate who was a lot like Stargirl and how that kind of black-and-white, ham-fisted message messes up kids, PM me.

Now I'm worried about that classmate and too scared to look her up and find out if... bad things happened. Ugh.

EDIT: Whew, I found a news article that mentioned her, and she appears to be okay or at the very least has a good job.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
2 weeks till Iditarod, which basically means 3 weeks till my trip to Nome. I am not physically ready, but I am SO READY for a break from my regular routine/work/home life lol Bring on the doggies!
 

Ichatdelune

Long live the Queen and her successors
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 22, 2018
Country
South-Korea
I just looked at the Wikipedia article for Stargirl, and it literally sounds like something I would have written into a satirical story about how I hated almost everything they made us read in school. America has incredibly messed up views about nonconformity, and Stargirl sounds like it just... distills and concentrates all of them into one book. I apologize on behalf of my entire nation that innocent Koreans have to be subjected to our cultural baggage. :drama:

Can you tell the administrators that you think it sends a destructive message and try to get it substituted for something else? If you want me to give them my unfortunate experience with a classmate who was a lot like Stargirl and how that kind of black-and-white, ham-fisted message messes up kids, PM me.

Now I'm worried about that classmate and too scared to look her up and find out if... bad things happened. Ugh.

EDIT: Whew, I found a news article that mentioned her, and she appears to be okay or at the very least has a good job.

I just got off supervision so I don't think I can risk something like (gasp) suggesting that there is a problem with the plan, so my poor Min will have to read that (bleep)... :no: I somehow managed to finish it, and I still have no idea why that book was so highly received in the US. Like, did the critics just decide to ignore the whole ham-fisted-ness of everything and just praise the (conflicting, but whatever) message? Gaaah if only she could get To Kill A Mockingbird or The Giver or Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth... (deep sigh)

I'm glad to hear your classmate is doing well (or at least, it seems that way).
 
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