Airship Pirate

I love Steampunk. I don't really own anything steampunk but I've been contemplating getting a few small pieces. Right now, I'm reading Steamed by Katie MacAlister. I've, also been listening to Abney Park especially the song Airship Pirate. I was walking the other day in slightly in a bad mood and was listening to it, when I pictured myself as Bloody Kell the most fearsome Airship Pirate Captain. She wasn't a nice or dashing pirate, she was, instead, a terror. She slaughtered anyone who didn't surrender and danced in their blood. She eventually retired to the Americas after amassing a giant fortune and purchasing a pardon. Upon landing she and her manservant who she rendered mute disappeared having adopting new names. She purchased large plots of land in the wild west.

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Bad Blog, Good Blog

I"m terrible at blogging because I don't stick to regular time periods, and I can't make up my mind about what I want to blog.

I might be bad at blogging but I appreciate those who are good at it. My top favorites right now are Cake Wrecks, Tomb Wrecks, and Cthulhu Crochet and Cousins. Cake Wrecks is a hilarious blog about poorly designed professional cakes. It can be found at http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/. Tomb Wrecks is slightly morbid but it matches my sence of humor. It's about odd tombstones. It can be found at http://tombwrecks.blogspot.com/. Finally there is Cthulhu Crochet and Cousins. It's written by a woman who does odd crochet and cross stitch. I wish I could make some of what she has made but I'm still a beginner at crochet. Anyhow, those are some good blogs. I'm going to keep trying.

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Milgram and Asch

I have decided to do my next speech on the Milgram Experiments. For those who might not know, the Milgram was a psychological experiment to test conformity and peoples willingness to do terrible things to other people if told to by an authority figure. It was done after WW2. During the Nazi war trials, many nazi soldiers said they did things because they were told to.

What Milgram did was he took people and told them that they were participating in a memory test. If their "learner" got the question wrong they were to give them an electric shock. This shock would start off painful and go up to deadly. The "learner" was actually an actor and the "teacher" was actually the subject. Around 80% were willing to give the fatal shock. Most people would try to stop and they didn't like it, but they would be pushed into doing it by the experimenter.

This was recently redone for a French documentary "The Game of Death" in which the subjects were told they were participating in a new game show. They wanted to test how much tv impacts our morality. The results were slightly higher than the orignal experiment.

I'm thinking about starting the speech by doing an Asch conformity test. In which I'll use peer pressure to get a student to give me the wrong answer because everyone else is giving me the wrong one.

Saint Patty's Day, Boondock Saints, and depressing speeches.

This post is a day late. I'm going to try to post two today.

Yesterday was Saint Patrick's Day. It's one of my favorite days. We always celebrate it in my family. We usually eat my favorite meal, corned beef and cabbage with red potatoes. We put the meat in the crock pot early and add in about a bottle of Guinness to the meat along with water. After many hours we add the cabbage and potatoes. I thought about making colcannon, but I was tired, also, I like the taste of cabbage and potatoes with the meaty taste of the beef. This year Dad bought a good cut of beef it was good.

I rented Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day. I'm a new fan to those movies. I saw the first one on IFC a couple of weeks ago and promptly bought it. I have to say I liked the first one best, but I enjoyed the second one as well.

Yesterday, I had Speech Class and Algebra. Speech was easy in some ways because I just had to listen to the other students give theirs. However, it seemed like almost everyone picked a sad topic. The first speech was on Preeclampsyia which is a condition that can kill pregnant mothers and their children. The next one was about the Make A Wish Foundation. Make A Wish is a great foundation but the it is sad to hear about the children who die. The next student spoke about compartment syndrome which affects people who have been in accidents, and athletes. The saddest one of all was about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The student actually broke down in tears when speaking about the death of a friend's child.

Although, I really love Saint Patrick's Day it was a long and tiring one for me.

Mtn. Grove: Anna's Country Book Store

I went to Anna's Country Book Store in Mtn. Grove MO today. It's a very nice small store. I remember waaay back when that location was used for a comic book store. That was an embarrassing number of years ago. It seems like that location just screams out for business involving the written word and the enjoyment of it. I had a small amount of money to spare and since I'm a bookaholic the first thing I thought about buying was books.

I originally went in to buy a book by Shanna Swendson, which I thought I saw in there. However, it wasn't in there but they did have a very good selection of other books. I wound up buying a few and spent about twenty dollars with tax. While shopping I enjoyed some friendly conversation with the owner. It turns out that she has daughters in college. Not the college I'm in but I still thought it was interesting.

While I did buy several books there were more I thought about buying and I plan on going back for more.

TESOL Speech

p>This is an speech I wrote for my Student Suceess Class. I don't know what grade I got, but I did get an A in the class.

Teaching English to Students of Other Languages

My career is Teacher of English to students of other languages (TESOL). It is a common misconception that I need to speak another language for this career, while useful, it’s not necessary. One of the main advantages of this career for me is the fact that I can travel all over the world and get paid to do it.
My responsibilities for this job will include, teaching children and adults basic English skills including reading, writing, listening, and conversation. I will need to prepare course outlines and goals, prepare and grade exams, assign lessons and grade homework, and make a kit of pictures, flashcards, and objects to show students the meanings of words and numbers.
Other advantages of TESOL are helping people, working in different environments, benefit packages, good wages, the ability to teach in the US or overseas, and the opportunity to teach all ages and all sorts of people. The potential disadvantages are homesickness if working overseas, long hours, lots of paperwork, and uncertain working conditions.
The earning potential for this job can average about $33.89per hour .The employment outlook is strong in areas such as California, Florida, and overseas. In other areas, the need is not as great, so I will need to be willing to relocate.
The education requirements are any bachelor’s diploma and English Second Language certification. It does help to have a BS in Education and some training in TESOL, both are offered at MSU in Springfield. In addition, some full time positions in the US will go to those who have a Masters Degree.
Other useful skills are strong speaking, listening, and writing skills, reading comprehension, and the ability to listen and understand information and ideas. I also need college math skills and possibly economics if I specialize in Business English. A weakness I will need to overcome is poor handwriting.
In conclusion, this is a good career because it provides the opportunity to travel and help people.

Essay about Blogging

In my Eng 110 class, our professor assigned us a process essay about popular culture. My last couple of essays have been kind of dark so I wanted to do something with more humor. Originally, I was thinking about doing If You Can Build a Paper Airplane, You can Blog. The idea behind that was sparked by a project I did either in middle school or high school. One of my English teachers put us in groups of two, we had to describe how to build a paper airplane without actually building one. She then showed how she wasn't able to build a single one from any of the directions.

However, I have decided I didn't like the limitations that would impose. So I'm going with If you can, you can blog. That got me thinking about my own neglected blog so I decided to do a post about it. I'm going to try to do a post every day next week about something different. I don't know how that will work out, but I'm going to give it a try.