Tag Archives: winnetka

en voyage

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Diary
Saturday, 28 November 2010
Written around fifteen minutes after 22:00
My Room, Folks’s Place, Land of Beautiful Trees, USA

This’ll be my last evening in Chicagoland for a while, as tomorrow morning I’m shipping out to New York City for a month to study for my Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults. Mostly packed, save my backpack I left in my buddy’s car last night, but I’ve made arrangements to solve that problem.

From when I first landed in China last August, to when I left her for Europe in July, I invested countless amounts of energy into figuring out what I would be doing in fall of 2010. I thought about Indonesia, Korea, India, Russia, ya da, ya da, ya da. The idea of coming home caddying and reffing to earn money for my CELTA occurred to me, but not as my first option.

Jacopo_Tintoretto_001

As it turned out that’s what I did, in addition to spending time writing, teaching, tutoring, temping, pondering, playing, dancing and not a small amount being lazy. Being home the past four months or so has been incredible. I have gained a deep appreciation for the area I’m from and the family/friends who’ve known and supported me for years. Given all that, I am excited for my next adventure, but also melancholy about leaving my Chicagoland life.

Within that life, ever since Jeffrey got back home on Tuesday evening, my life’s been a blur. I worked the following morning for the running store I’ve been helping, then Jeffrey’s buddy James arrived, and we headed downtown. Stopped in Evanston first with them, then to meet some old high school pals, and as Jason predicted, we met up with some people from our grade whom we hadn’t seen in years. Took the ‘L’ downtown, for a quiet evening, though I planned out a visit to Green Dolphin Street for the younger gentleman, which they turned down.

Following morning, Thanksgiving, I reffed two games then drove Jeffrey and James home for our lovely Thanksgiving meal. Highlight this year was the duck my father purchased from Sun Wah, a delectable Chinese BBQ spot. Enjoyed conversation with the aunt, cousins, grandparents and James, then took a little nap. Jeffrey woke me up to head back downtown for a quiet evening, where we watched “I’m Still Here” and “The Expendables“. The latter was fine, the former was one of the most engaging cinematic experiences I might’ve ever experienced.

Woke up again Friday to ref a pair of contests. Had lunch with the boys at Billy Goat, which strangely had a Packers schedule on their wall. Did a little Black Friday shopping, investing my earnings in America, then met up with folks for dinner at Burt’s. Jason also came, and even the sophisticated New New Yorker was impressed. Following after dinner drinks in Wilmette, Jason and I skiied our way thorough three groups of people from the past at three different locations. Then met up with an angered Jeffrey and pals around 800 West Superior, the supposed location of a party I got texted about from a club info service I e-mailed to sign-up for.

It wasn’t warm, and they hadn’t found the “sweet club” as they said in not sincere tones. Jason led the search and then found it after toiling for almost a minute. Turned out *TANTRIK* was finished by the time we’d arrived, but I was at least happy to see it existed. On our way back, I stopped the cab outside a club I’d seen long lines for before, but hadn’t previously visited. Knew it was late, but felt I owed the guys a good spot for dragging them out there, so I made an arrangement with the bouncer to get in for a last drink. I liked entering to “Firework” by Katy Perry and the aesthetics of the joint, but it was a little too small for my taste. When I dance, I enjoy mooooving.

Saturday, today, had one final ref game, cleaned the condo with Jeffrey and James, got my haircut in Evanston, dinner with Mom and Dad at the club, a catnap and now I’m trying to tie up my online life before I head out tomorrow morning.

In closing, the two young ladies I’ve been tutoring in English writing have done some fine work I hope you’d read. Hannah’s written a piece about the 2010 Asian Games and Kitty essayed on how-to give a good speech.

*Corrections & Amplifications*

  • 6 Dec 2010 01:05 USA ET – Changed the date from the incorrect 27 Nov 2010 to correct 28 Nov. Removed a space before the period in the last sentence.

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.

revised syllabus

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Saturday, September 11th, 2010
My Room, Mom & Dad’s Home, Winnetka, IL, USA

Finished publishing my blog post last night around midnight, but decided a little afterwards to screw around and then to place a call to my old Chinese teacher in Anqing, China and before I knew it, two hours had rolled off the clock. Naturally I got to the course a little later than planned this morning, but it turned out not to matter as almost no caddies worked today on account of a series of showers by mother nature.

Aside from writing, chatting, reading and napping I also used my down time to re-write the syllabus for the course I am planning on teaching this fall on Peer 2 Peer University, Collaborative Lesson Planning. It will be a course building off the talk I gave this summer at Wikimania 2010 on the topic and my own efforts at creating a resource with all my old lesson plans on Wikiversity. The idea is that teachers should publish their lesson plans online for their own archival purposes, to personally review them, to share them with others, and ultimately that the teaching community can work together to improve one another’s work. If you’re interested in more details you can visit the course homepage here. You can find the updated syllabus here, or download the PDF here .

Published the new syllabus from a cute local coffee shop following a delightful Mocha and coffee cake snack. Had an incredible Mexican dinner with Mom and Dad I was unfortunately a little too full to enjoy, then came home and finished the open book exam online for being a USA Ice Hockey referee. Tomorrow morning I’ll be driving North to attend my one day seminar so this fall and winter I can referee ice hockey.

To close the post I’ll dial in the bullpen for my reliable uploaded lesson plan. Today’s is Mr. Danoff’s FWE 7A Lesson 13, its part of that lesson plan resource I have been building I mentioned earlier, more details can be found here.

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 ?

beaten by small obstacles

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Diary
Thursday, Septmber 2nd, 2010 (Written after midnight in the early AM of Friday)
Family Room, Mom & Dad’s House, Winnetka, IL, USA

Up late Wednesday night blogging and applying for a writing opportunity, so I was out of bed even later than yesterday, around six forty. Went through my routine, hit the road and got to the course about twenty minutes before eight. Had to be careful, because the front brakes on the bike I’m using are busted, but it went fine.

Soon after arrival the rains came hard. Socialized for a bit, did some more reading of Infinite Jest, doodled around on my computer, then took a nap. By the time I woke up a couple of hours later it was still raining, but petering down. Around one pm, standing outside chatting it went from black skies and drizzling to sunny day in the course of about five minutes, which was really strange. Had a fun time caddying on the course, aside from when I tried to hustle over a rope about six inches high and failed, landing instead with my face on the grass.

Following work, had a delicious burger eating dinner with Mom and Pop, watching the Bears lose to the Browns. Jay Cutler coyly didn’t play, which was annoying, but nice as it gave a chance to see Todd Collins in action. He did pretty well and I would love to be the one to start the city wide movement for Mr. Collins to unseat Cutler as the Bears starting QB. Power to Todd!

To close, I uploaded another lesson plan to the resource I am creating, this one is part two of a two part series … Mr. Brown & Mr. Danoff’s Halloween Lesson 2. Come back soon for part 1 … da da dum!

pure wheel

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Wednesday, September 2nd, 2010 (Written after midnight)
My Room, Mom & Dad’s House, Winnetka, IL, USA

Out of bed late today around six. Went through my washing and writing morning routines, when I noticed a repetetive pitter patter coming from what seemed like the windows. I kept listening and sure enough, painstruck I lived (sans the intense bf-gf jazz) Eminem’s line:

Now you get to watch her leave out the window
Guess that’s why they call it window pane

It was raining outside, good for Chicagoland’s depleted vegitation, bad for Chicagoland caddies hoping to work. Agitated I tried going back to sleep, but after a few minutes in bed I decided I really do need to be earning cash right now and there’s a chance the rain might let up. Got on my bike and started riding, when I soon heard another repetetive sound. Stopped my bike and discovered my bike tire had gone flat. Even more agitated I rode back to pump up the tire, which proved more difficult than I imagined. Tried again to ride out, tire again gave through and by then I’d had enough. Got home and went back to sleep.

Woken up by Pop around 9:30 who then offered to transport me to Higher Gear, a local bike shop. Gentleman in there diagnosed the problem as relating to the tube, switched out and got me back riding in Tour-de-France-speed. Didn’t need it at the moment ’cause Dad dropped me off at the course, but following one and a half loops it was much appreciated as I effortlessly rode home.

And, after an unfortunate absence, the return of updates on building my lesson plan resource with: Mr. Danoff’s FWE 7B Lesson 2.

And, after an unfortunate absence, the return of updates on building my lesson plan resource with: Mr. Danoff’s FWE 7B Lesson 2.And, after an unfortunate absence, the return of updates on building my lesson plan resource with: Mr. Danoff’s FWE 7B Lesson 2.

the return of chicago charlie

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Diary
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 (Written after midnight, so on the 26th)
Family Room, Mom & Pop’s Place, Winnetka, IL, USA

For the first time in a year I caddied today. I caddied full-time in the summers of 2006 and 2007, and it was awesome to get back out on the course today. Top-ten play nominee came when standing across a bunker from a colleague. He needed the rake on my side. I was going to walk it around the bunker to him (can’t walk through the sand), instead he indicated to toss it, which I did about five feet and he caught.

It was interesting meeting people and doing things I had not done for so long, but which came back to me really naturally. People I had not thought about in some time, their names popped into my head, as well as different things about their history.

On another level it was odd, because I spent a lot of time last year writing “A Caddy Story”, a fictional short story about caddying, that was published in Issue 4 of The Uncertainty Principle (read it here starting on page 11). Doing things or observing things I wrote about fictionally was , yeah strange.

Closed the night out with a couple of beers with Jay who was passing through on an epic journey South to see his favorite band Ween. Riding my bike home from the “L” I though about how one of my favorite things to do is chat with people whom I share a history with and releate things we know about from the past to the present in a way using them as a metaphor to explain something happening now (Hopefully I’ll be able to elucidate this idea better later).

To Mariano-Rivera the post here’s today’s uploaded lesson plan (context).

defined direction

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Saturday, 21 August 2010
Family Room, Parent’s Home, Winnetka, IL, USA

Cleaning things up today my Mom remarked how “things move fast” around here. Case in point was yesterday Dad, Jeffrey and I drove from here to Meadville, PA to drop off Jeffrey and back. Eight hours each way. Jeffrey and I slept virtually the entire drive down, then I came in about halfway through the drive home.

As for me now it is late August almost two months since I finished my position in China on June 30th. I’ve had some exciting times abroad and here at home, and hopefully those’ll continue, but I do not have a paying job, or some clearly effective way I am utilizing my time. One or both of those things need to be figured out and defined soon. One thing I have been doing and plan on finishing is sharing my old lesson plans, here’s today’s: Mr. Danoff’s FWE 7A Lesson 7.

Image: “get going” starring Alex, by, Charles Jeffrey Danoff. All rights reserved.

get going

day of rest

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Diary
16 August 2010
Family Room, Parent’s House, Winnetka, IL, USA

Passed out last night shortly after I blogged, then stayed  on the couch until the following morning. Got up for gum surgery, which went as well as I could have hoped. I now have two big, blue stitches on the side of my mouth. Went back to sleep, then woke up in time for dinner where Dad and I had a couple of glasses of wine, while watching the first Monday Night Football pre-season game of the year. Hat tip to Mr. Cruz.

Back in action, today’s lesson plan.

Finally, tomorrow I’ll be taking the GRE.