Elementary – High School: Check
Bachelors Degree: Check
Math Competency: Check
Teaching Job: Check
Teaching Credential: In progress
Student Teaching: In progress
Beginning Teacher Program: 2006-2008

As I sit here finishing homework, I had to stop and look through everything I’ve had to do to become a teacher. Part of me doesn’t even know what it’s like to be out of school. Since I was 4, I’ve had a total of 6 months (not including summers) that I haven’t been in enrolled in school. While I haven’t enjoyed every minute of it, I know what an important road it has been.

I look forward to being a regular working person, where school is history and my job is what I do. I still have two years of a beginning teacher program (and I could complain about all the hoops teachers have to jump through), but maybe then teaching will be the only "work" on my plate.

I was bored here in my student teaching seminar, and I was very curious looking at the gmail storage calculator. It increases at an unbelievably slow rate, out to the 6th or 7th decimal place. I wanted to figure out just how much it is really increasing.

I did a simple experiment. I measured how long it took for the counter to increase .0001 megabytes, which was 26 seconds. I then found the number of seconds required for 1 megabyte: 260,000. Translated into hours, that is 72.2 hours. Into days that is almost 3 exactly. That’s right, storage is increasing at the startling rate of 1 mb per 3 days. That seems super wimpy. I then found the percent increase over an entire year and it came out to a 5% increase, which is a little more respectable sounding.

I’m a nerdy math teacher now, so I do dorky math problems for fun! Any problems with my experiment Denise? I’m making the assumption that the rate of increase is perfectly constant, which it may not be. The number of subscribers also must factor into Google’s equation at some point. I do think it’s interesting that it comes out to a 5% per year increase…sounds like a company policy. Maybe that boils down to Joe Blow installing a new terabyte blah blah blah server every month. I’ll let Angelo tackle that one.

I’m going to go watch the movie DOOM. It will probably have lots of blowing up of things, a bad story line, and I will love it all because I’m too tired too think. There are many things of which I could rant about right now: idiots burning down buildings because of a cartoon, the idiot that scratched up the "don’t pay more than this amount" sign outside the taco bell drive-thru, or how the "teacher readiness" busy work is still not over as I now begin student teaching. I am too tired to rant about any of those, so all they will warrant at this time is a mention.

Thank you to everyone that came over yesterday. The game was pretty boring, but it’s always fun to spend time with the people you care about.

I broke down last night and bought an old xbox and Mvp Ncaa Baseball 2006. I am weak. I had a $100 gift card to Target from Grandpa Garcia, so it didn’t cost an arm and a leg, just an arm. I’ve only played about 10 mins so far, but it seems pretty cool. Now I just need to run some network cable so I can have internet connection downstairs, and then I can play online.

I finished winter session on Monday and started student teaching. I haven’t had to do anything quite yet, but I need to email my "advisor" soon. Luckily teaching in my own room will reduce a lot of the work and stress, so I’m thankful for that.

I just watched our basketball teams play, and it was ugly. Boys basketball is all jungle ball. This might be due to junior high boys having zero coordination. The girls were actually more fun to watch because there is more control.

Off to eat some dinner, and then put in some quality time with the new xbox. I am weak.

Today is the last actual class for Winter Session. I have a final on Monday, but that should be cake. Then I start student teaching. I’m not sure how much work it will actually be, but teaching in my own classroom will definitly make it easier. I start that process on Monday, right before I take my final.

This dumb class has burned me out. Off to read more reviews about fantasy books.

I didn’t post about Winter Session yesterday because I was too busy writing the Clinton post. I apologize to all of you who rushed home to find out what dumb things I was learning only to find no new posts. Yesterday we started presenting our Power Point presentations (yawn). I just presented mine about classifying rational numbers (yawn). Now I’m playing on the internet while people present about the causes of WWII, HIV/Aids, and some guy is going on and on about the senate. Two more days of this madness and it’s over! Then I can start the craziness of student teaching. Does it ever end?

I’ve been reading about EA’s new baseball game that just came out called MVP ’06 NCAA Baseball. It sounds like a solid game, but it’s only out for Xbox and PS2. Seeing as I only own a Gamecube, this makes playing it difficult. At this point I refuse to buy an Xbox or PS2 now that Xbox 360 is out and PS3 is on the horizon. Unfortunately MVP ’06 doesn’t work on Xbox 360, and PS3 is not out, so it looks like I won’t be playing this anytime soon.

For Christmas I bought my brother a copy of A Game of Thrones (only $3.99!). I had told him how cool it was, but I figured if I actually gave him a copy he’d read it, and read it he did. Last night he messaged me saying he’d finished the first book and Sarah bought him the 2nd and 3rd. Finally there is someone else I can share my love of this series with (thanks bro). If you haven’t read this book, you have to give it a shot. If you think reading is a bore, this series could change your whole perspective. I’m a third of the way through book 4, and I look forward to cracking a new fantasy series.

Now a guy is babbling about Trinadad and Tobago. Yawn.

I have decided to break my hot dog eating streak. Today I only had a pretzel and will eat real food at home. The hot dog in the warming oven called out to me, but I could not bring myself to eat another. Maybe tomorrow.

Today we learned how to go on the InTErnet! We are going to lame websites and doing all sorts of retarded games. It’s totally a waste of time. I’m tired and want to go home. This dumb schedule is sapping me of all creativity and sharp wit. Less than 2 weeks to go and it will be over. Then I will be "student teaching," but I will only have class one night a week. I can’t wait for a schedule that does not include school. For one year when I was fiddling with a Masters I didn’t have a regular school schedule, but I want the real thing: for school to be OVER!

At this very moment I am beginning day 1 of 13 in an Educational Technology class. For the next three weeks, Monday-Thursday, from 4-9:30 pm, I will be here at CSULB completing the last requirement needed for student teaching. The schedule for the next three weeks is bad enough, but what I’m going to be "learning" is even worse. So far in the first couple hours we have done the following:

• We guessed how many pages of text would fit on a floppy. (it’s 1000!!!)
• The teacher said we can’t put text and pictures on a dvd, only movies. (wrong!)
• Practice saving word files, and renaming them.

I am in pain. The lobes in my brain are hurting, a lot. The teacher says we should get a flash drive to save our stuff, so at least that is fun. I’ve been looking at 1 gig drives that you can get for $50 or so. I’m sure I will be beyond bored for the next 3 weeks, so look forward to regular updates. At this rate I have a feeling they will get very violent.

P.S. – OOoh, we’re doing word art now!!!