Chronically Sleep Deprived

Dear Student, Cheating is not allowed in my class. It's wrong, it's unfair, it circumvents the learning process. . . it's just a bad thing to do. Plagiarism , copying, getting answers in advance of a quiz, these are all forms of cheating. Please don't do them. If you are going to cheat, please be subtle about it. Passing your quiz paper to your friend across the aisle from you WHILE I AM LOOKING AT YOU is not subtle. Coming into a listening quiz that's half over and scoring a 9/10 on the first half of the quiz - the part you DIDN'T HEAR - is not subtle (and no, I don't believe you are just a lucky guesser and you're still not getting the points). When I give you a writing assignment for homework, don't plagiarize the encyclopedia. Since you can't normally conjugate the past tense (of any verb), it's pretty obvious you copied when you start using words like "undulating" and "topography." It's also not a good idea to us

Or, more accurately, “cautiously navigating the narrow and crowded sois.” But “conquering the open roads” sounds better. I’ve learned to drive in Thailand. It’s strange, with the whole driving-on-the-left thing. Also because I think traffic laws in Thailand are a lot like the pirate’s code in Pirates of the Caribbean – they’re more like guidelines than actual rules. Consider the following: - If you are turning right, you yield the right-of-way to oncoming traffic. Unless you can jump the light faster than the oncoming traffic. Or unless there’s a gap of at least one meter, and you can intimidate oncoming traffic into stopping. Then you and the five cars behind you can all turn right. - Traffic in a traffic circle moves clockwise. Unless you are a motorcycle, or you don’t see any traffic coming, or you see traffic coming but *think* you can make it in and out of the traffic circle without a collision. - Turn signals and headlights are primarily for decoration. Especially headlights, alt

Yesterday Adia was lying on our bed, and Trea walked over to her and started slapping her hand. "Trea!" I said. "Don't hit Adia!" Trea looked at me with these big, innocent eyes and said, "I'm giving Adia high fives." Oh. Well. In that case, since Adia seems to think it's funny. . . .carry on.

Been really busy lately. I'm teaching part-time at two different universities, and really enjoying it most of the time. There's still the occasional student antic that drives me batty, but far fewer than the kindergarteners (who somehow are so much cuter when I say hi to them at school now, than they were when I was with them all day!). John is enjoying teaching kindergarten. Still not his dream job, but a much better fit than the fourth graders from you-know-where that he taught last year. I'm finding that I really love teaching, and I love the English language. It's fascinating to me that most people master such a complex communication system with minimal effort. I'm not a naturally gifted language teacher, but I'm ok, and I think I could be really good with experience and practice. I teach a variety of majors at KKU, but at Rajamangala I teach English majors. I prefer the English majors as a group, because they're really motivated, but I have some great s