Mike Shoening

I only sent out one email around this date.  It was to my friend in Southern California that was contemplating a trip to Mexico.  I emailed him to see what he was planning.  Mike Shoening had called me a few weeks before about a plant that eats socks.  I think that this was made up or something.  Later I sent my number to my bud in Southern California.  I suppose he was coming to the city and I of course was planning on going there too.

This Notebook Analysis is part of retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

Morphemes

I wrote a lot of Chinese in the notebook for weeks. I also wrote some basic grammar stuff too. Morphemes, homework, test, inflection and case were a bunch of words I wrote down. I wrote a bunch of stuff about parts of speech.

This Notebook Analysis is part of retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

A Social Scientist

I wrote my first notes for three classes. One is a class about how to write like a social scientist. My writing in the notebook plainly needs some work. I also wrote about the cartography class I enrolled in. We went over geometry, spatial data and levels of measurement. I remember typology was difficult. I kept notes for my intercultural communication class. I always write phone numbers in these notebooks. I also kept some notes for my second language acquisition class.

This Notebook Analysis is part of retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

The Bungalows

I wanted you to make a rez because I was working fri last week.
Please don't feel obliged.
I can't stand that place!
We could get sushi...
Take the route through redding.
395/89/44/299
There was a fire in weaverville last week.
Things are clear now though.
Faster.
I am a little busy on tue.
The KEYS will be available
I will leave them out on the floor next to the door behind my compost.
I reside in Apt. 3A at The Bungalows.
The number is 1642 "G" street next to Muddy Water's Coffee.
I want to make time to spend with you but I haven't a clue what to do.
K.

This series of email excerpts are a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

This Week for Brefast

Here is a letter out to all my peeps,
Do what you like!
I am going out with my friends on sat morning this week for brefast.
If you show up on fri nichtcome visit at Folie Douce.
If you come by though, pleez make a reservation-8-----2.
K.

This series of email excerpts are a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

I need a jw102?

Dear Tony,

I am in the process of gaining access to China in January 2002.
I think I need some help.
I can't figure out what I need in the Visa Dept.
They say that if I have student buisiness in China I need a jw102?
What is that?
Can I apply for a Visa over the Net?
Also,
I wanted to know if you can help me aquire Geography units next summer.
Are you taking students on a feild methods trip?
Can I sign up if I am already there?
My goal is to spend a continuous year in China as an HSU student.
Kevin Flaherty

This series of email excerpts are a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

I get Excited

Near the end of my time in the City, after I hung out with my Tech Friend, I went to the airport and my buddy got off a plane from South America. We went to the east bay and from there to the mountains. I sent an email to my old roommates about it. I told them that when we got to the Sierra Nevada we saw a bunch of old friends. One of them had taken a job as a driving instructor.

Here are some quotes from our weekend:
"I could tell what happened as soon as I walked in; there was blood all over the back of his pants."
"It gets bigger when I get Excited."
"Seriously?...Really?...Now don't get me...(repeat)"

My roommate is always talking about weird stuff. The last thing I heard from her was about dead flesh and worms and how she felt like she had eaten too much. I asked her if she had written those two things together on purpose.

This is series is a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

The Tech Guy

My friend, the tech guy, is a programmer at a big routing software firm. He and I went to the park with his friends and their kids some time ago. I know it may sound cliché but they are European artists. My tech friend and I spoke English with them since we don’t speak French or Portuguese. It was a cute outing.

He and I made plans a week or so after he left for Silicon Valley to hang out. I sent him some updates on the European Family and we agreed to go to a show in the City’s SOMA. I had to go to an internet café to find him when I arrived. We met up with one of my neighbors and danced to a DJ at a club.

This is series is a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

There is a Relationship

A friend emailed me the other day to say he was flying back from South America. We made plans to meet in SF. I noticed that I am always trying to use the popular lingo but I just sound like a dork. Meanwhile he seemed really happy to have bought a ticket. He was telling everyone about it months ahead of time.

On the home front I finally got a new place and have settled in. I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I make noises to all of my friends about it. I have a great location but can’t have a pet.

School has been tempering my feelings for my erstwhile girlfriend, who has driven out to Virginia and the Carolinas. However, as school wound down I started to freak out because she seemed incommunicado. Her emails during this period always mention visiting me. Meanwhile near the end of the semester missed my English class and turned in a bunch of homework late. Maybe there is a relationship.

I heard from my buddy from the ceramics lab. She said she was in central California. Our mutual art friends were all away in foreign lands—in Greece or circumnavigating the earth. Many of them lived most of the last semester in a small house on a hill next to the university. A lot of our friends would hang out there.

This is series is a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

I was slacking

My old roommate moved in with a couple of new people.  I think they had some foreign friends stay with them the other day. I told my friend traveling in foreign lands about it. He wanted to volunteer at some places but it would seem that it didn’t work out. I asked him about coming back to the states.

On day one I was slacking and missed a class because of it. I played it off with my teacher and nearly admitted my failure to her. I tried to make it sound like I was busy but it didn’t sound very convincing. I later discovered that she  wanted me to return some school equipment. It was a digital camera that I used to make a report on bridges I had visited around the county. I gave it to the lab manager to give to her later.

This is series is a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

Tetrasaurs

I have some friends that were building tetrasaurs. These are kites that are shaped like pyramids. When you stare at them for a long time in the sun they make an imprint and you can see them when you close your eyes. I got an email back from the girl I used to date that said she had seen one of those guys somewhere in the South near New Orleans. It was sort of ironic since I heard the story from two people.

About two weeks before that I went on a field trip with my class. It was another one of those trips where we used the local area as a way to explore our field methods. I had to send an email to another professor that I couldn’t make it to a meeting for our trip to China. The meeting was to get us oriented towards all of the choices we needed to make before we left. I have since realized that the teacher also needed to see us together to get a feel for how the trip would be for us. That was day one of this month. I told my professor that I was getting a passport soon.

This is series is a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

Poetic Little Bits

I tend to send emails every other day. On this day interacted with my sister about plans for meeting next Sunday when I visit the city. I told her I wouldn’t have my car but wanted to go to Tuolumne County. I commented on her newborn baby. I also sent an email to my erstwhile girlfriend. I told her that things were pretty normal here at home and that I’m going to school. I generally would send her poetic little bits and work in my daily activities. I sent a third email to my friend visiting South America to see what he was up to. I shared my academic plans—like my trip to China—and would send him updates about the ladies that I know.

This is series is a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

CBI and CALLA

Content Based language Instruction is about teaching students how to learn but content is a tricky word to describe using language.

While teaching has everything to do with the language that you are using, the CBI teacher should be interested in the fact that the student leaves the situation knowing the gist of what was said. The central theme for me in this context is—“You can do it!” If the student thinks to him/herself that they can find their way through the situation at hand—even in a tight spot—then I have accomplished my goal.

The Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach seems to hold some promise for me. A cognitive approach to anything for me involves an ongoing process of experience versus thought. As a student I tend to learn only half as well if the whole class is lecture and I am not the only one that learns to this way. I have begun noticing gestures and how they interact with language. Dance has this similar quality. An explanation is helpful but the whole world doesn’t happen over the telephone. To be shown how to do something is significantly better.

I think it is interesting how bilingual classrooms are less common and ESL pull-out is looked upon with some derision in many ESL programs. However, my class book may be going out of date if left alone. This may be inevitable as the old ways fall into disfavor and eventually new things replace them. If the teachers who designed this approach had not insisted upon being hands on it would have fallen to the wayside even before it got off of the ground.

The one aspect I like the most about both CBI and CALLA is that it is hands on. In order to learn a student must first be told that they can learn. The teacher must become a partner with their students and not an adversary. Given today’s standards and precedents this can be a hard job to do—especially in California’s cities, but given a little faith and hard work it might.

This is series is a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

Morphology

I wrote in my notebook about a volunteer project and extra units.

I was taking a class on landscape by a new teacher. She was teaching us about the foundations of geography. Morphology apparently came up a lot in class. I notice a lot of other important names. I wrote a lot of notes about this—four pages. We had a field trip to the maps archive in the library. Meanwhile my notes for my mapping science class were about what constitutes spatial data and spatial cognition.

This Notebook Analysis is part of retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.

Longshore Drift

The Lanfear-Christianson dunes are the result of a local phenomenon of longshore drift. Longshore drift is the result of wave action interacting with river deposition. As the coast erodes over time the resulting sediment becomes sorted in the ocean as a result of the particles' relative mass. Wave action then transports the sand in the direction of the acute side of the angle formed by the wave and the shore. In the case of the Lanfear-Christianson dunes, it was the mad river which brought the load of sediment down the coast.

Once the sand is sorted from the larger masses in the sediment and is brought above the water level it is then subject to atmospheric pressure: winds. Aeolian Geomorphology is the study of how the wind shapes the earth. As the disciplines' central issue, dunes are a never ending vision of change. I went to visit the Lanfear Christianson dunes on the fourth of November with the Freinds of the Dunes. While visiting, I took pictures of aspects in the landscape fundamental to any coastal setting.

This is series is a retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.