Teaching

Ok ok....so I haven't written on here...in awhile. Ok ok so I fell down on the job of telling people about what is going on over here. Sorry. However I have jumped back up onto the band wagon and am going to attempt to keep this going....this time.

As some of you know I have been teaching at the aeronautical college here. Mainly I am teaching Math but I have been teaching a couple IT classes for the past year and gradually going to all IT classes. In some ways this is good, it is easier to motivate a student with a computer than to tell them to do some problems on a piece of paper, but sometimes you still have to get creative even to get a student to follow along with what you want them to learn.

"TEACHER, what I do." in deep voice of a person obviously not a native English speaker.
"Follow the directions" I respond.
"TEACHER, what this." in deep resounding voice.
"Type that table into Excel." I respond.
"Easy Teacher." comes the reply.
"Ok, then do it." from yours truly.
"TEACHER, you know I do" deep voice that also has undertones of reaching for his cell phone.
"Your last exam you didn't!" I follow up.

Our terms here are short.....REAL SHORT. Every 4 weeks we are having a midterm or final, with one group of students in midterm and the other group in finals. As an instructor it can be good and bad. If you get lucky and have the same class for both cycles you only have to do one major prep and then just maintain your notes after. I however have only once had this luxury. I have taught every class here with the exception of the English ones....which is probably a good thing (could you imagine a bunch of southern speaking Arabs?)

We are actually wrapping up yet another finals today and my set of students that I have taught for the past six months will finish IT today. We have covered the basics of a computer and made sure that if we are to have a problem then we can atleast talk to the non-native speaking tech support on the other end of the phone. We can create many types of Word documents and know where EVERYTHING in word can be found. We understand what an Excel spreadsheet is used for and can create fairly basic but useful sheets. We can create a MEAN PowerPoint presentation with everything from transitions and effects to sounds and movies. And last but not least, we can use Outlook to manage our time and to communicate with our peers. I am proud of this class, for the most part they work hard and are eager to learn. I will truly miss them next week when we start the new term.

As a closing I thought I would share this interesting graphical representation how our attitudes as educators can be if we aren’t careful. The thing to remember is that here this cycle happens on an 8 week loop. Talk about mood swings! Hope to communicate again with ya’ll soon!

Goodbye 2009

Cue lights....2009 takes bow....exits stage left.....raise the full moon.....

Yes today is the final day of 2009 and guess what it happens to be a blue moon to boot! Tonight one of those rare events that you can actually see in the sky from anywhere in the world (I hate it when they talk about some rare eclipse that you can only see in one particular part of the world), not only is tonight the final night of 2009 but it is also a new moon. Nothing really peculiar about that other than there was already a new moon this month, which makes tonight's new moon a blue moon! I know everyone has heard of the phrase "once in a blue moon" so I had to give a little history behind this saying (I am already hearing the groans and yes I know I am a nerd).

To begin this lesson we have to go way back to set the stage for the term "blue moon". To understand this meaning we have to look at how the moon aligns itself with the calendar. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII introduces the calendar we currently use to mark our days (hence the name Gregorian calendar). The need for the calendar reform was two fold: one to fix the problem caused by the leap years and for the lunar cycle to determine the date for Easter. The church was responsible for the calendar and used the complex computations to calculate the important date of Easter, which is based on the full moon. Lent falls before Easter, starting at the beginning of the Lent Moon cycle (late winter moon). The next moon is the egg moon (early spring moon), and Easter usually falls on the first Sunday after the full egg moon. Every one to three years, the Lent and egg moons would come too early. The clergy would have to tell people whether the moon was the Lent moon or a false one, which they may have called a "belewe mone" translated "betrayer moon" or "blue moon".

Another explanation that is interesting is one that comes from folklore. Full moons occur every 29.5 days, giving us roughly 12 full moons a year. In folklore each of these full moons had a name:

January - Wolf moon
February - Ice moon
March - Storm moon
April - Growing moon
May - Hare moon
June - Mead moon
July - Hay moon
August - Corn moon
September - Harvest moon
October - Hunter's moon
November - Snow moon
December - Winter moon

Seeing the moons so named we can see how we get our growing and farming seasons in the rural communities. However the years with thirteen full moons the monthly "seasons" would be expected to come too early – for example, hens would not recommence laying their eggs by the fourth full moon since it was still too cold – so the early moon was named a "blue moon". This then re-aligned the rest of the year's moons and "seasons".

The last time there two full moons was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't come again until 2028. So make sure that this New Years you go outside and enjoy the Blue Moon!

Review of Into Thin Air

A few years ago I attempted to read one of Jon Krakauer's books and never finished it. Not sure right now why I never finished that book. HOWEVER, I finished this book easily. Probably one of the best adventure books I have read in awhile. To me reading books that talk about the trials and hardships, of living on the edge, help me to set my ambitions higher, remind me of my own mortality, and give myself a better chance at success by becoming the best at something that I can possibly be. Jon Krakauer has written for Outside magazine as well as a few other magazines for almost three decades. I have read his articles off and on over the years. Mainly Krakauer writes about things he loves doing which should be anyone's dream. His articles in have, for the most part, been well received, and helped to promote the outdoors to a society who has generally lost its rugged ways. We now live in a time when the next adventure is measured by its economical value, and many aspects of that "adventure" are overlooked or attempted to be glossed over. Krakauer explores many aspects such as these in this book and gives us a VIVID look into not only the perils of adventures but also the consequences.

Growing up in the west coast, Krakauer spent his childhood in the outdoors and held aspirations as a child to actually climb Everest. However by his mid twenties Everest had lost it's grandeur due to the 'fashionable' conquest craze that had begun. Fast forward to 1996 and Krakauer is given the chance by Outside magazine to travel to base camp, essentially the staging area for climbing any of the great mountains, and write an article about the commercialization of the mountain and the abilities of paid guides. Krakauer at this point was only to go to base camp, not to attempt to climb the mountain, and write his article there. I would love to make the hike to the Nepalese base camp, don't worry it is a typical trekking hike in the Himalayas, only 17,090 feet above sea level and thousands visit there every year. However to a person like Krakauer this would be like telling Michelangelo that he could prime the Sistine Chapel ceiling but could not paint on it. After a short time Krakauer convinces Outside magazine to postpone the assignment giving him time to prepare to actually make the climb to the summit. Krakauer knew what he was getting into. Not an experienced climber in the Himalayas, but he had the alpine experiences, knowledge, and dream of making it to the top. A key note to bring up is this statistic is this: for every 5 climbers to reach the summit one dies. This dream of Krakauer is of my opinion one of the grandest and deadliest in the world.

Did you catch that ratio? 5:1 are never good odds for anything that contain a death sentence for failure. Would you go into surgery if this was your odds of survival? Would you drive a car if these were your odds (though I am beginning to wonder about that odd applying where we currently live)? Going to the top of Mt. Everest is a feat few if any of us can comprehend. There have been movies and books that tell us about the trials and hardships, but few have ever been through them. Krakauer writes his book about what happened on the deadliest single day in the history of climbing this mountain, and it isn't just a story, he actually lived it. No guns, no virus, nothing beyond man vs. Nature. Very few of us know what it is like to go against Nature at its worst. And due to mainstream populations experiences such as these, the backlash from this book astounded me. In the epilogue of the book Krakauer gave one of the worst examples of this backlash from a lawyer in Florida that that blasted Krakauer and essentially blamed him for the death of a good friend of his. We like to think that we are always humane and go beyond the call of duty for everything in our life. This book shows many points humanity and how the extremes that were faced can change the face of humanity, and many of those faces aren't pretty and don't end in the sunny sky and happy day that we like to believe in. But basicly we really don't know what we would do in a situation like the one that happened that day. We buy into this idea that we place rules and if we abide by all the rules that we won't get hurt. Every last person who makes an attempt on anything that is dangerous and dreams big has to realize that there is an element of uncertainty can end in disaster. Too many people want to achieve big things but always want the assurance that they cannot fail.

This is a great book. We are surrounded by "reality tv" like "Real World" and "Survivor" but this book really is reality. It contains more reality than any "reality show" can ever conjure or display. Childhood dreams, Man vs Nature struggles, achieving things that few people can even hope to achieve, and tragedy that even those who live with it everyday were shocked and appalled by what happened on May 10, 1996. This book contained more enlightenment and memories than many that I have read over the years. First off the day of the event also was a day that was a great milestone for me. May 10, 1996 was the day that I graduated from high school. Second was one that to me is profound is that Krakauer admits that the events still haunt him, he is not sure that he did everything humanly possible for his friends. Everyone that survived will have to live with the fact that eleven of their comrades died, and many of them far more fit and knowledgeable than themselves. We rarely will find ourselves having to rationalize things this way. This book definitely will be added to my all time favorites. I will close with my favorite quote found in this book. It is actually a quote from another book but sums up everything about this book.

'But there are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction. Usually they are not experts: their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have. Three things they all have in common: faith in themselves, great determination, and endurance.' From Everst by Walt Unsworth

Fort Al Zubarah

Located 110 kilometers from Doha in northern Qatar (25° 58' 60 N, 51° 1' 60 E) lies a small ruin that has a unique and interesting history for the Qatar nation. Built in 1938 by Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani (the third of the Al Thani Shaikh) Fort Al Zubara was actually built on the ruins of an older fort.

The original town of Al Zubarah was founded by two sections of the Bani Utub ( Al Khalifa and Al Jalahima) who migrated from Kuwait. The city became an important trading center focusing on pearling, fishing and breeding of livestock. It is believed that in 1638 the town could have held as many as 700 with more than 150 houses, not an easy feat in the desert region and time period. Due to the insecurity and rivalry between tribes, walls and eventually a fort was built to protect themselves from raiding Bedouins.

Sadly the town and original fort named Murair were destroyed long ago and all that exists is the fort that was rebuilt by Shaikh Abdullah. The current fort (one of only a few left of the rivalry raiding days of a bygone era) was used by the military until the mid 1980s when it was abandoned and restored in 1987 to be used as a the Al Zubarah Regional Museum. Inside you will find a collection of photos of the region and of the some of the pottery and tools that have been excavated from the ruins of the town that once existed there.

It wouldn't be hard for a young boy growing up in the United States watching old westerns to find this place interesting and full of childhood memories (I kept looking around waiting for Clint Eastwood to step around the corner in his poncho). The fort is square with circular towers in three corners and a rectangular tower in the fourth. Entrance to the fort is gained by a single door inset in the larger double door to the fort. Inside the fort is a cistern well that is covered with a rebar metal hatch, as well as many rooms and alcoves to explore and view. Built in the traditional Qatari style of joining coral rock and limestone with mud mortar, a gypsum-based plaster was used to protect the wall from the elements. The outside of the fort even boasts a cannon pointing out seaward toward Bahrain.

This region so famous to have been included in ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy's map of the Arab world (Al Zubarah was Qatar’s main trading port right up until the 19th century) there is little left of it. However the area could soon be as booming as the other petro towns dotting the countryside. The Arab states of Qatar and Bahrain announced in December 2008 that the Qatar-Bahrain Causeway would be built between the two. The distance between the two would be approximately 40 km (5 miles) in length making it the longest fixed link in the world. The Qatar end of the causeway will be located at Ras Ashairij approximately 5 km south of the current city of Zubarah.

Well this concludes my first real entry to this blog! Finally I got started...sorry to those who have been looking for this. Till next time!

Hello World

Since my education in college was computer science it feels as if i MUST do a "hello world" for my first entry on my blog. That said here is my shout out:



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* HELLO WORLD *

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Mainly I want to put post on here in an attempt to let my family and my friends have a place to see some thoughts about places I am currently traveling and things I am doing. As for a direction on here....I don't really want to state a direction for this blog. I want the freedom to write about anything that I am currently feeling or thinking. Thus begins the adventure.....