Friday, February 15, 2002
Well, no, really you can't, but it does look like I will soon be teaching night courses at the U. of T. for the Faculty of Information Science's Continuing Education stream. Woo-hoo!
I've been teaching a full-day course on basic HTML there for the past three years. The other teacher of the basic HTML course and I were both called in to discuss the future of the Web-related programs there. Along the way, we were asked about what type of courses would prove useful -- and be attractive -- to people wanting to get the certifications the school will be offering. I can't talk about the details here, but let's just say the program won't be yet another non-descript "Web Design" certification. (I related the following experience to my colleagues at the meeting: when I was looking to hire a "Web Graphic Artist" just under a year ago, I received a lot of resumes from people claiming "Web Design" certification or experience. More than half of these had truly atrocious-looking, dysfunctional Web sites in their portfolio, and pretty much turned me off of anyone who even claimed to have this sort of certification. I’m sure this experience is common amongst people hiring Web personnel).
The other instructor was interested in continuing to teach basic (X)HTML, but I realized that this was my chance to break new ground. So I've proposed doing a course on CSS, and perhaps one on PHP as well. I'm thinking possibly 4-6 weeks for each one, and taught one night out of the week (ideally, I'd like to teach one course straight, and when that was finished start the new course the same evening the following week). None of this would start until October, so I've got plenty of time to prepare for this.
Right now, I've got to come up with proposals for both courses. I've already got rough lesson plans done for the first few CSS classes, and then I'll tackle the PHP lesson plan.
Thing is, I'm eager to teach the CSS class in particular. I wonder if they'd be open to running it over the summer beforehand... ;-)
I am very happy with this result. It'll look good on my resume, it'll give me more teaching experience (which I enjoy) and I find that when I teach a subject, the students tend to show me different perspectives to it – this is valuable information I can then add to the books I write.
Valentine’s Day
Yesterday was also Valentine’s Day. I considering that this “holiday” has its modern origins with the florist business seeking a way to boost sales during the gloomy winter months, I tend to celebrate this day in more unconventional ways. My approach is more that Valentine’s ought to be a year-round celebration, rather than reserved for a single day centered around often forced tokens of affection.
I bought flowers for Erika last weekend – before the prices became inflated. I also promised to get Erika watch band taken care of, something she really wanted done. So I had it done for her. After my meeting at the U. of T., I ventured to the Eaton Centre and visited the Swiss Watch shop, where they readily added back a link to Erika’s gift watch from her father (I had previously had two links removed from it, but it turned out to be one-link too tight). While there I whiled away the time looking at expensive watches. Surprisingly, I found very few of them to be at all interesting-looking, and was struck by how ordinary and even drab many of these several-thousand dollar watches were.
While waiting for the work on the watch strap to be done, spending my time jotting down notes on my Palm for a prospective CSS course, I overheard a conversation between a salesperson and a potential client. He had come in looking for a “watch that was different from the crowd”. He ended up picking out a watch that was worth $43K (I didn’t catch the make of the watch). The pitch went along the lines of “it’s a chronograph”, “it features the finest craftsmanship” and apparently the clincher: “only a few hundred of these watches are produces every year by the company, so they’re very exclusive”. Ouch! ;-)
Erika was very pleased with her "Valentine’s" gift when I got it home. I also discovered that Vanessa had made a very charming card she made for us while she was at school the other day. It depicts me, Erika, Vanessa and the cat in our house, with a bunny, turtle and smiling sun outside. (“Where’s Annie?” I naturally asked. “She’s asleep in this picture” answered Vanessa. ;-)
Progress with Annie
Speaking about Annie and sleeping...
What Penelope Leach suggested seems to work – I get up and comfort Annie for a few minutes in her crib, and then she usually goes back to sleep. She no longer requires feeding (or at least, this has been significantly reduced). Problem is, while Annie often readily falls back asleep, I don’t. So I’ve been up since about 4:45am this morning. Where’s my cup of caffeine...
It’s delightful to see Annie’s growth stages. At six months, she’s beginning to babble, she’s been able to turn herself over (back to front, front to back) for a couple of weeks now, and she seems to have learned a very cute wave, where she extends her arm and rotates her hand. This is probably just a basic learned behaviour (she does this once, notices we make a fuss, and tries it again), with little cognition of the idea of saying “goodbye” behind it, but it is very charming nonetheless.
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