Where In the World Is Matt?

The clip below is a bit old (by internet standards), but I thought it was interesting.




Post Date -
Completion Date - Sunday, October 26, 2008 12:45AM

Corona Park - Queens

Since my epal (Vpal) has been meeting at places closer to my home for our walks, I thought it was time to chosse a walking event that was closer to where he lived. I chose a walk through the park with the World's Fair symbol "The Unisphere". The walk was nice. Another epal was suppose to come with us, but his kids got sick at the last minute, he had to cancel.

I arrived at the meeting spot about 2:45PM, Vpal arrived about 10 minutes later. I was very surprised. Vpal was actually early instead of late.

The walk was okay, not bad, and not great, just nice. The weather may have helped with the walking. We basically walked in circles. There were only two interesting pictures. One picture was of the Unisphere and the other was of a statue Colossus I think. We started walking about 3PM and finished about 5:30PM. I used my train time to correct some students' papers, so I would have less to stress about.

Post Date -
Completion Date - Sunday, October 12, 2008 10:51PM

Van Courtland Park

Another wasted weekend. Yesterday, I slept the day away. I think I got out of bed about 5PM. I did managed to go food shopping ($80). I had takeout Chinese food and a pint of Haagen Daaz butter pecan. I told myself that I would rejoin the gym next week, and those foods would be the last junkfood I'll be eating in a while. I wonder how many times I've said that.

Today my plan was to do....forget the plans, by now you know I am a chronic planner, but a poor follow througher.

Today arrangements were made for a walk with Vpal (vegeterian epal[electronic pen pal]) throught Van Courtland Park. The meeting time was 3:30pm. I arrived about 3:00pm. Vpal arrived about 4pm. He got off at the wrong train station. He arrived a bit flustered. He had me worried for a minute looking flustered, stressed and repeating that he needed his medicine but wasn't going all the way home. After a few minutes, he calmed down. The walk started out a bit uncomfortable with Vpal explaining how his week did not go well. He explained his worsening medical and financial condition. Luckily, after a while Vpal started to act a bit more high spirited. Unfortunately, we had to end our walk at 5pm. I now try to stick firmly to 5pm as my stopping time. I anticipate about 2 hours of traveling time for walks that occur downtown Manhattan (or further). Since I felt bad about Vpal having to come up north to meet me, I offered a walk around a park near Shea Stadium. Unfortunately, Vpal doesn't trust buses because of one incident, so he will be traveling to downtown Brooklyn, then traveling north to Queens, then travel to the eastern edge of Queens.

Anyway, we walked back to the Metro-North station where I took the MN back home. At home, I did my laundry and cleaned my bedroom. Washing down the surfaces, sweeping the floor than mopping the floor. Now, I was about to do my homework sheet but instead I started this blog entry.

Post Date - Sunday, December 14, 2008 2:59AM
Completion Date - Sunday, October 5, 2008 10:16PM

Rosh Hashanah

Here in NYC, schools are closed for the Rosh Hashanah holiday. I'm not Jewish, but I like their holidays.

So did I make the most of my time off?

Regular readers (if there are any) know the answer to that question. I slept most of Tuesday away. I got up about 4pm. Today, I tried to be a bit productive, but I didn't accomplish much. I went to the teacher's supply store in Brooklyn. My plan was to see if they had any materials for teaching to Non-English speaking students. I have a girl who has only been in the country for about a couple of months. The catch? She can't read in her native language (Spanish). I ran out of things for her to copy. Since she can't read in Spanish, she of course can't read in English. I have to start at absolute zero with the girl. I got tired of watching her color and draw. Anyway, the teacher's store had materials for teaching Spanish (and French, and other languages), but it did not have materials for teaching English. It took me a while to figure out English is the language of instruction. So, if I wanted to teach English, I would have to start with the basics, or materials at a lower grade level. Anyway, with the plan of only buying a couple of books, in the end, I spent about $100 dollars.

After the teacher's store, I went to Wendy's restaurant. After that, I rode the train back to Manhattan. I went to visit my foster father, but before that, I stopped in Staples to buy a few more binders. Now that I have 30 students, I needed a few more binders. I like the idea of my students all having the same binders, so I bought about 25 a couple of years ago. But now with 30 students, I needed a few more.

Well, I better wrap this up. I need to prep for tomorrow.


Post Date - Saturday, December 6, 2008 10:52PM
Completion Date - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 9:08PM