Danielle Blog

Sad

I gave a second exam last Friday and I’m back to meeting with all of the students who earned D’s and F’s.  *sigh*  It is hard, because it is difficult to know what they need to do differently to study effectively.  My latest idea is to have them write questions on a blank sheet of paper as they go through their notes. Then when they are done with their notes, to try to set their notes aside and answer the questions.  If they answer the questions on a new sheet of paper, then they can use that list of questions to prepare for the exam.

I don’t know what else to suggest.

I had a student in tears in my office the other day.  It was hard.

Do any of you have study methods that work particularly well?

Random things

2 random things today.

1.  It snowed on Sunday.  At first it was that little-bitty “is it snowing?” kind of snow that almost seems like rain.  THEN it started really snowing.  As in, LOTS of white snow coming down.

Of course, it all melted right away.  But still. It was the first snow of the season *sigh*.

2.  During the 12 years or more that I’ve been complaining to my doctors about allergies, how is it that no one ever told me there are antihistamine eye drops?  Granted, in the past my allergies have really congested my sinuses, which I guess was the doctor’s primary concern.  But I’ve been complaining about how it is mostly my eyes for at least the last 5 years or so.  It took mentioning it to my parents and my mom remembering that my grandma used to use antihistamine eye drops in order to find out about them.

They work great by the way.  I can tell a difference really quickly.  And I can also tell when they wear off 12 hrs. later.  These aren’t the visine kind either where you have to be careful how much you use them, which is great.

So You Think You Can Dance 2008 tour

I saw the 2008 tour of So You Think You Can Dance on Sunday.  It was incredible.  It is so amazing to see them on stage and realize that it is really them – the dancers from the TV show that I admired for a season.

One announcement right at the beginning was disturbing.  Katee announced that she was injured and wouldn’t be dancing.  The entire audience groaned in disappointment, of course, since she was the best female dancer of season 4.   I think we all quickly realized that the door routine and the Iraq/No Air routine wouldn’t be the same without her.  However, I was pleasantly surprised, because they had Kherington sub in for Katee on the door routine, and she was great at it.  AND the No Air routine was the one right before the finale, since it was such a key routine during the season, and Katee actually came out and danced for that one.  I was really glad that she was well enough to dance that number, because it was fantastic to see her and Joshua dancing together again.

As for the rest of the show, it started off with some great hip-hop including the escaped convicts routine with Kherington and Twitch.  Later in the night, we saw the hip-hop routine with Twitch and Comfort that premiered on the night she took Jessica’s place after Jessica was injured.  It was probably the routine of the night that most got the crowd going, because they got the crowd clapping and swaying their arms.  We also saw the detention routine with Comfort and Mark which was also very high energy.

Some of the highlights of the show were the briefcase routine with Chelsie and Mark.  The weirdo Garden routine with Mark and Courtney was very emotional.  The bed routine with Kherington and Twitch was dramatic.  The waltz with Kherington and Twitch was so graceful.  The Adam and Eve routine by Jessica and Will was just incredible and sexy.  And Will’s body!  Wow. The jive with Chelsie and someone else was terrific.  She is just amazing when it comes to most of the dances.  She really puts a lot of energy into  her kicks and  leg movements.  And of course, the swiveling of her hips.

The solos could’ve been longer.  I think the introduction of each person was longer than the actual dancing.  Some of them looked like they were putting more energy into their solos than others.  The group dances were just okay.  I actually liked the group dances from last year better.  Although the Bollywood one was pretty good.  And the other one that was good was the black and white routine where the guys have these big poles that they thump on the ground.  Mark is the center of attention for that one, and he plays it so well.

They do these little introductions of the dances or patter throughout the show.  Twitch and Courtney were the best at these.  Katee should stick to just dancing. 

And my seats were perfect this year.  I was in the 11th row, so I was able to see from the floor up this time instead of mid-calf up when I was in the 4th row last year.  Of course, I couldn’t take any photos.  Not only was I too far back and looking between people seated in front of me, but my camera wasn’t allowed.  They didn’t allow any cameras with detachable lenses (like mine) or lenses that were more than 2 inches long (like mine). However, it was good to just watch the show and not be looking at it from the perspective of “would this make a good photo”.

All in all, it was a really terrific, enjoyable event.  I’m so glad that I went!

Wordpress

I don’t know how many of you have stopped by in the past week (or more?) and found that nothing has changed AND that you can’t comment.

As it turns out, my blog basically froze up and wouldn’t let me post and the comments weren’t working either.  HB, my trusty admin, tried to fix the problem to no avail.  This led to the decision to switch from Movable Type to Wordpress.  The switch took place today (Sunday) and I’m looking forward to getting back to posting in my copious free time (ha).  No really, I think that I’ll be able to post on the weekends at least.  Hopefully weekly.  I think Flowers for Friday might be on permanent hiatus.

So, I had plans for a different design (a.k.a. theme).  But for some reason, the site with the theme I wanted was working yesterday and is totally crapped out today.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get switched to that theme or not.  It is one that wouldn’t have one of my own photos at the top. However, I like the colors better.  Orange is okay for October, but I’m not sure that I want to stay with orange forever.  Thus, if you think the colors are crappy, feel free to say so. I won’t be offended.  I’m thinking a nice purple or light blue would be better.  But, before HB puts a lot of work into fixing this theme, we’ll see if this other one comes back from the land of the lost first in the next few weeks.

In other news, I have a whole post written up about some books I’ve read recently; I fell in love with them.  But for now, I thought I’d post this general thing about the blog change.  And then I’ll get to the books in the near future.

I’m not sure what kinds of changes you will notice with commenting.  I’m hoping that it isn’t too weird.  Maybe you should mention that in your comment.

Checking

I’m having trouble with posting to my blog. So, this is to check and see if I can post or not.