Tag Archives: danoff.org

a slice of my projects

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Diary
The Afternoon of Monday, September 27th – Evening of Wednesday the 29th
Written Wednesday Evening
My Room, Mom & Dad’s, Winnetka, IL, USA

Learning a little from last week, I did a much better job recovering from a short adventure and getting back into my routine on Monday. This gave me time to go out into Winnetka.

small slice of tree city usa

I started at the library and had a really helpful exchange with a young gentleman working there, who explained the resources available to me as a patron and how I could use them to aid in my studies. Next was a deposit at my bank, complete with a pleasant chat with the banker who bailed me out of trouble in China. Finally, I stopped by Phototronics, the local photoshop, whose owner took ten minutes of his time to fix my camera, and asked for nothing in return. Normally in my life finding information, handling money and getting things fixed have been done mostly through a computer screen, or over the phone. It felt like a new experience handling them all in person, even though that’s more what humans have been doing for the past however long, it hasn’t been my reality.

Tuesday was back at the course and lucky to get out and make some cash, while there found some time that day and evening to update danoff dot org. Hoped to work again this morning, to no avail, so I came home with an afternoon free to catch up on some of my projects. Started by adding another lesson plan to the resource I’ve been building sharing all my old lessons from China.

Moved across the net over to Peer to Peer University, where my course on Collaborative Lesson Planning has moved into week three. Week two did not have as much participation as week one as I noted in my third through review, so I adjusted my gameplan and simplified this week’s homework. We’ll see how it goes.

Next I published the latest article from Hannah, the student of mine from China whom I’m currently tutoring, this one on the merits of examinations. In exciting news I published the first article from my second pupil, Kitty. She’s another junior high schooler, and her first hit is about why she should study English.

I am making progress on some of my projects, which is good, because I’m reaching a point now where it is time for this energy I have been putting in to writing and online magic to bear some fruit. Part of it is the slow ripening nature of those mediums, more is I have lacked the discipline to see projects all the way through to the end. I am wonderful at starting them and getting better, but once I hit that first plateau of stubbornness (hat tip to Chu of E.T.A. from page 115 of Infinite Jest) I often give up and start something new. Now is the time to push on through. On that new note, though …

danoff-vs-room-introduction_000030click the image or here for a video

Image: “small slice of tree city USA“, by Charles Jeffrey Danoff, CCA.

down time

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Diary
Thursday, September 10th, 2010 (Written after midnight that evening)
My Room, Mom & Dad’s Home, Winnetka, IL, USA

Following a loop and a half, dinner, a large desert, some nachos at home and a difficult-to-watch White Sox loss, I fell asleep on the couch last night. On account of not preparing for the following day I did not arrive at the course this morning till eight, and if not for some help it would have been later.

Had a lot of down time, which I used to chat with colleagues, eat, write, read and work on two of my websites: danoff dot org and Mr. Danoff’s Teaching Homepage. They are not totally ready, but I posted the works in progress tonight, which are viewable by clicking on the links. Better just to get them up there, even if they need some work – hat tip to agile development.

Over dinner, desert, mellower home snack of prosciutto, onion and vinegar and an enjoyable Saints Vikings opening NFL season game, I did not fall asleep on the couch. I tried to re-set up my phone which I lost, again, on Monday, to no avail. Was impressed with both teams and QB’s and the better team in ‘Orleans won.

And tonight I also luckily uploaded another lesson plan: Mr. Danoff’s FWE 8A Lesson 6. It’s an addition to a resource I have been building with all my lesson plans from last year in China for my own reviewal/archival purposes and for others to benefit from via re-use, modification, inspiration or ?

double dip

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China Diary: Day Forty
Monday, October 5th, 2009

I have Monday through Thursday off this week, giving me an excellent chance to travel around and see some new parts of China. I have chosen to pass on this opportunity, deciding instead to stay at home and work on my computer.

There are financial concerns, but mainly it is because I have been walking around for months now thinking about my personal homepage, teaching homepage and other websites, but have done very little work towards actually creating them. I decided investing this time into creating these things is more important than traveling at the moment.

To start my week of work off with a bang, I stayed up till almost 4 AM Sunday night surfing the web and chatting on the phone with my father, then did not wake up until after 1:30 Monday afternoon.

Managed not to get too angry at myself, and instead start simply working. Wrote a diary entry, cleaned myself up and ate a late lunch with Stuart, who’d had a very productive day.

I then headed to Linghu park, to sort through my goals, and develop a plan for the week. Stayed there processing until nightfall. For dinner Stuart and I feasted on absolutely delicious chow mein, that only cost 3.5 quai each, 30% cheaper than the previous spot we’d been going for chow mein, and more delicious to be honest.

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Got back home, sat down on my computer and set about creating my personal homepage. Ran into some difficulties, but nothing insurmountable, and by the time I laid down for sleep my first html site was up.

Picture 1

This is what it looks like now.

China Diary: Day Forty One
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

Tuesday was a nice combination of work and play.

Managed to get out of bed by 5:30, then had a nice A.M. of writing, studying Chinese, catching up on emails and lesson planning with Stuart. For lunch we went to next door noodles where we had not gone for almost a week. Stuart refers to their  dish we always eat as comfort food (likely related to the one song phenomenon] and it was comfy as always.

Aside from afternoon stop at the big supermarket, I spent the afternoon designing and uploading “Mr. Danoff’s Teaching Homepage” with far less trouble than my personal one gave me the night before. These sites have been bouncing around in my mind since at least the start of 2009. It was nice to finally get them up.

To play at night we invited Chen and Zhong over for a delicious steak and potatoes dinner cooked by Stuart while watching the terrible “Saw”. After the meal we headed to the river.

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The text of the October 5th, 2009 entry was mostly written in the morning of October 6th, 2009. The text of the October 6th, 2009 entry was mostly written in the morning of October 7th, 2009.

Images
1 the view from my linghu park seat
2 the first danoff.org
3 the effect of the saw film
4 time
5 friends
All 5 images are copyright 2009 Charles Jeffrey Danoff, all rights reserved.

a busy schoolday and a birth

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China Diary: Day Twenty Nine
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Wednesday morning one of my students asked,

“Does it get annoying to hear the same questions over and over again, like ‘do you like China?’ or ‘do you like Chinese food?’”

I simply sat and smiled, astonished at the maturity and foresight of this 13 year old girl, understanding something that countless people 3 or 4 times her age failed to grasp in both Japan and China. I smiled and said something like “yes” but “it’s OK, because they mean well, and perhaps don’t realize they are asking the same questions over and over” what I try to tell other foreigners who get annoyed by this series of questions.

This did no appease her,

“If I were a foreigner I think I would walk around with a tape recorder, and every time someone asked me one of those questions …”

–

I have been trying to make a point of going to bed by midnight, but I have been having a lot of problems. I think part of the reason are the lunch naps, but it is a viscous cycle. I cannot sleep at night because I had a nap that day, then the next day after lunch I am dead tired because I did not get a good night’s rest the previous evening, so I nap again.

–

My second class was observed by 15 teachers. Afterwards a few came up to talk, but instead of the professional feedback I was hoping for, they just wanted to take a picture with me.

–

Sixth period I made plans with another teacher to play ping pong, thinking nothing of it. Later Colin came into the office inquiring if I was serious?

“Yes.”

When I went to the teacher’s office at the appointed time, it was filled with other instructors and there was some sort of hub-bub about a gold fish, and everyone talking loudly, which is fine, but my Japanese sensibilities make me wonder why they need to raise their voices to be understood, and her declaring she was too busy to go, or something. Then Colin said we were just going to play, then finally she came, but with Colin, who acted as translator and scorekeeper. We also had some students as an audience.

–

Following dinner at “the Muslim place” Stuart and I meandered over to the choir practice we hear going on a few times per week. We were quickly welcomed in by the teachers, and asked to join in the song celebrating “Chairman Mao”, “The Long March” and “victory over the Japanese army”. I said “maybe” as I did not know what sort of ethical lines might be crossed, but enjoyed meeting new teachers and practicing with them.

The text above was mostly written on the morning of September 24th, 2009 about September 23rd, 2009. The text below was written today, on the date of publication.

I’ve been thinking about my personal homepage for months and months and months (as indicated by the long lists and commentaries I’ve made about others across the web)well after much procrastination I finally resolved to do it tonight. I downloaded the cyberduck FTP software

Image: The Cyberduck Icon

and hand wrote the HTML in TextEdit.

I don’t quite know why, but I ran into a lot of problems along the way when I’d try to view the html documents I created in TextEdit in a web browser. In any event, the website is now up and running,

http://danoff.org

I originally wanted it to be c.danoff.org, but because of a lack of knowledge I couldn’t quite figure it out. For some reason I felt it was morally wrong for me to claim danoff.org for myself, but now, I’m not so sure. What do you think readers?