You can almost reach out and touch them in NS

Interesting Korean Neighbour

"China's navy has hundreds of vessels at its disposal, among them nuclear submarines and an aircraft carrier, but it still does not come close to the huge naval firepower wielded by the United States.

Chinese President Hu Jintao called Tuesday for the country's navy to "make extended preparations for military combat", further fuelling fears over Beijing's ambitions in the highly strategic maritime area that surrounds it."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/us-navy-still-eclipses-chinas-expanded-fleet-105412801.html

Backwater - Ode to Rural Nova Scotia?

Backwater
We're sailing at the edges of time
Backwater
We're drifting at the waterline
Oh we're floating in the coastal waters
You and me and the porter's daughters
Ooh what to do not a sausage to do
And the shorter of the porter's daughters
Dips her hand in the deadly waters
Ooh what to do in a tiny canoe

Black water
There were six of us but now we are five
We're all talking
To keep the conversation alive
There was a senator from Ecuador
Who talked about a meteor
That crashed on a hill in the south of Peru
And was found by a conquistador
Who took it to the emperor
And he passed it on to a Turkish guru

His daughter
Was slated for becoming divine
He taught her
He taught her how to split and define
But if you study the logistics
And heuristics of the mystics
You will find that their minds rarely move in a line
So it's much more realistic
To abandon such ballistics
And resign to be trapped on a leaf in a vine

STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

DANIEL J. COSTELLO, BA (ACADIA), MIB (UOW)

This statement of teaching philosophy is written to meet general application requirements. The discipline of international business excites me because world trade has expanded more than twenty-five fold since 1950. I believe it is a flexible area of teaching and research due to the nature of its growth and rewards my approaches to applying it in the field of education. My teaching path is permitted due to its growth.

My motivational strategy is assisted by the needs of my students. For example, Korea’s economic growth relies on an export market economy where business English skills are vital and essential to acquiring new markets and trade representatives abroad. So while I encourage students’ innate curiosity and desire to seek out international opportunities, I do not need to “sell them” on its relevancy. One of my inspirational teachers said that a man should carry his business in his briefcase. This impacts my teaching and learning role in international business and willingness to work almost anywhere. So my teaching and lessons are a form of customer designed service.

My lesson planning skills have become more refined over fifteen years and following graduate studies in international business, two key strengths have emerged. First, my experience of teaching English as a second language has been an advantage in international business teaching as a large proportion of students and researchers are English as second language learners. Second, my desire to improve my teaching skills has positively influenced my record of achievement in acquiring further postgraduate certificate education.

In my classroom, the basis of my lessons rely on students’ textbook knowledge preparation with extensive pair work and group work with teacher and student led discussions, short presentations, and brief introductions to general topics, shallow and wide in focus and scope. Over a regular semester syllabus as many as twelve core topics are covered at an introductory undergraduate level. These topics are halved in sophomore and junior level classes all designed with respect for departmental request that students be given an opportunity to speak about and gain confidence in the topic of international business. As a result, while I seek to minimize my focal role, I do give students clear direction in their tasks and classroom activities when they play listening roles. However their core group discussions and classroom discoveries are facilitator led and directed by me. Due to social upbringing, Korean and Chinese students are often challenged by cooperative small group activities and I believe this helps prepare them for the realities of the international business working world.

My learning outcomes are measured in a few simple ways. First, I design and deliver online based homework which reviews the classroom based lesson topics. Then, I give a written midterm and final exam based upon the homework. Midterm exams are reviewed in terms of areas requiring future improvement. Finally, speaking presentations are evaluated to measure students’ depth of interest in self-selected topics as well as public speaking skills with full rubrics.

While rare, I enjoy teaching smaller groups of students because I have more chances to focus on each individual learner that way. I have learned that I am a flexible teacher with good common sense approaches to student and classroom management. I have acquired this self-knowledge through time, trial and error. I encourage students to visit my office for regular visiting hours or appointment or to connect by telephone, by email or through online wiki services. I evaluate my teaching effectiveness by monitoring students’ level of participation in class as well as through general required student evaluations, suggestions, consultation and comments of my working peers.

I have learned that teaching is an evolving skill which requires consistent renewal and good humor. While further education is always helpful, witnessing my students’ successes is also affirming. For example, following one of my lessons about online sales and marketing a Chinese student set up a website selling Skype card accounts. He has since returned to China and joined the Skype China Head Office. Another graduate joined The Import Export Bank of Korea; still another started an auto export business to South East Asia. A recent graduate told me she will soon be locating to China as a regional manager of a global restaurant chain where she started ladling soup in the kitchen as a freshman. Another fellow has been posted to Chennai, India to head up an offshore trade office while yet another handles apparel orders for JC Penny. There is even one enterprising character that spent a year managing a large team on a corporate service account at a five star hotel in Florida on a study break.

While I cannot profess to a record of published research I am not incorrigible in this regard. I work and teach in isolation from my own culture and take my holidays on frequent trips around Asia and the Middle East and I value my free time. Following the high altitude of graduate studies rather than continue to a PhD program, I chose to learn the nuts and bolts of international trade and have not been idle in this regard. It is a form of practical hands on research that I have conducted. Even while a humanities undergrad my weekends and evenings were on call at a local lobster pound scaling, packing, loading, shipping and receiving live seafood for air cargo exports.

The best learning experience I have had so far is my current teaching position rewarded due to diligence and patience in my job search. Here I was kindly managed and allowed to freely grow my knowledge base and my ability to design stimulating courses for my students. But it was never my intention to live in Korea forever. So as the time comes to leave, I am confident, I will attain my next successful teaching post through further diligence and patience and be one step closer to greater mastery of my craft as I am not finished yet. ”For our pupil, a little room, a garden, table and bed, solitude, company, morning and evening; all hours shall be alike to him, and all places will be his study.” Michel de Montaigne

Bruce Cockburn - Night Train

Bruce Cockburn - Night Train

Not a knife throw from here you can hear the night train passing
That's the
sound somebody makes when they're getting away
Leaving next week's hanging
jury far behind them
Prisoner only of the choices they have
made

Night Train...
Night Train...

Ice cube in a dark drink
shines like starlight
The moon is floating somewhere out at sea
On an
island in the blur of noise and color
Alcatraz, St. Alina, Patmos and the
Chateau D'if

Night Train...
Night Train...

And everyone's an
island edged with sand
A temporary refuge where somebody else can
stand
Till the sea that binds us like the forced tie of a blood oath
Will
wear it down, dissolve it, recombine it

Anyone can die here they do it
every day
It doesn't take much effort though it goes against the
grain
And the ultimate forgetfulness of violence
Sweeps the landscape
like a headlight of a train

Night Train...

Ice cube in a dark
drink shines like starlight
Starlight shines like glass shards in dark
hair
And the mind's eye tumbles out along the steel track
Fixing every
shadow with its stare

Night Train...
Night Train...

And in the
absence of a vision there are nightmares
And in the absence of compassion
there is cancer
Whose banner waves over palaces and mean streets
And the
rhythm of the night train is a mantra

Dreams for Sale: Lehigh Acres and the Florida Foreclosure Crisis

I liked this video a lot so sharing it here.

Ain't Too Proud to Beg

Ain't Too Proud to Beg

I know you wanna leave me,
But I refuse to let you go
If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy,
I don't mind coz' you mean that much to me

Ain't too proud to beg, sweet darlin
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me, girl, don't you go

Now I heard a cryin' man,
Is half a man with no sense of pride
But if I have to cry to keep you,
I don't mind weepin' if it'll keep you by my side

Ain't to proud to beg, sweet darlin
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go

If I have to sleep on your doorstep
All night and day just to keep you from walkin' away
Let your friends laugh, even this I can stand
Because I want to keep you any way I can

Ain't too proud to beg, sweet darlin'
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go

Now I've gotta love so deep in the pit of my heart
And each day it grows more and more
I'm not ashamed to come and plead to you baby
If pleadin' keeps you from walkin' out that door

Ain't too proud to beg, you know it sweet darlin'
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Baby, baby, baby, baby (sweet darling)

Stan Rogers - Guysborough Train

Now there's no train to Guysborough,
Or so the man said,
So it might be a good place to be...
I sit in this station,
And I count up my change,
And I wait for the Guysborough train...

Now I've sat in your kitchens,
And talked about walls,
And I've sung about your withering pain,
Shattered your temples,
And I've brought on your fall,
Now I wait for the Guysborough train...

CHR: And I ride for all time, on the Guysborough line,
And I grow by the North Country rain,
And the North Shore's begun, the man I've become,
In rags, on the Guysborough train...

No train to Guysborough
Now ain't that a shame,
Though I know there will be one in time,
And the house that's alone,
It soon will be gone,
Razed for the Guysborough line

CHR: And I ride for all time, on the Guysborough line,
And I grow by the North Country rain,
And the North Shore's begun, the man I've become,
In rags, on the Guysborough train...

People are simple,
Like the rain clouds sweet,
Both grown by that North Country rain,
The Interval is clear,
Will it soon disappear,
Under the Guysborough train?

CHR: And I ride for all time, on the Guysborough line,
And I grow by the North Country rain,
And the North Shore's begun, the man I've become,
In rags, on the Guysborough train..

Happy Halloween!

Bravado

If we burn our wings
Flying too close to the sun
If the moment of glory
Is over before it's begun
If the dream is won --
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/rush/bravado_20120045.html ]
When the dust has cleared
And victory denied
A summit too lofty
River a little too wide
If we keep our pride
Though paradise is lost
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost

And if the music stops
There's only the sound of the rain
All the hope and glory,
All the sacrifice in vain
And if love remains
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost

This is the point?

KA-BREW'S Han River Boat Cruise Halloween Party 2011

Read full details here.

Friday's "Save the Weiner" Benefit

VIDEO: Grand Pre to show off views to public - Nova Scotia - CBC News

VIDEO: Grand Pre to show off views to public - Nova Scotia - CBC News

Grand Pre

Ready for the Storm

"Just a Boo-Boo"

I think I'll be playing this at The Road King in Cheongju tomorrow night?

You, Yes You, Stand Still Laddie!

When we grew up and went to school, there were certain teachers who would hurt the children anyway they could
by pouring their derision upon anything we did
exposing every weakness however carefully hidden by the kids.

But in the town it was well known that when they got home at night
their fat and psychopathic wives
Would thrash them within inches of their lives!

ooooooooooooo, oooooooo, ooooooooooo, ooooooooo, ooooooooo, ooooooooo,oooo.

We don't need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

(A bunch of kids singing) We don't need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave us kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

Spoken:
"Wrong, Guess again!
Wrong, Guess again!
If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?
You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddie!"

[Sound of many TV's coming on, all on different channels]
"The Bulls are already out there"
Pink: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!"
"This Roman Meal bakery thought you'd like to know."

I don't need no arms around me
And I dont need no drugs to calm me.
I have seen the writing on the wall.
Don't think I need anything at all.
No! Don't think I'll need anything at all.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.
All in all you were all just bricks in the wall.

Cool tune, I like it.

If you need me, I will run to you
And if you call me, out of the blue
I will run to catch you as you fall on me

And it's no surprise that you'll soon forget about me

So slow it down
And take it easy

If you want me, I will be right here
And if you love me, you will notice me here

And it's no surprise that your eyes are crying my name
And it's no surprise that my eyes are seeing the same

So slow it down
And take it easy

Joni Mitchell: Hejira - perfect for rainy days

Joni Mitchell

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today
In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed
So now I'm returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl

You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line
Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock
They're either going to thaw out or freeze
Listen...
Strains of Benny Goodman
Coming thru' the snow and the pinewood trees
I'm porous with travel fever
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones
I know - no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone

Well I looked at the granite markers
Those tribute to finality - to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality
In the church they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There's the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed thirty years
We're only particles of change I know, I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone
White flags of winter chimneys
Waving truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
>From the window of a hotel room

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
Until love sucks me back that way

Nova Scotia Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariffs

An opportunity in Nova Scotia renewable energy exists with the Nova Scotia Government’s process of implementing a Feed-in Tariff (FIT) policy. FIT policies typically increase the amount of renewable energy produced in a region by paying people a higher than the retail price for electricity they produce. On July 4th 2011, the NS Community Feed in Tariff (COMFIT) rates were announced:

• Wind Power over 50 kW: $0.139/kWh
• Wind Power under 50 kW: $0.452/kWh
• Biomass (combined heat and power): $0.156/kWh (to be reviewed regularly)
• In-stream Tidal Power under 0.5 MW: $0.652/kWh
• Run-of-the-river Hydroelectricity: $0.14/kWh

Information on Nova Scotia’s COMFIT is provided online (http://www.nsrenewables.ca/feed-tariffs/community-corporations/quick-guide) and participation in the program can be achieved through the formation of a CO-OP.

The Colchester Regional Development Association (CoRDA) is proposing to support the forestry and farming industries in Nova Scotia through a process of sector consultations and workshops that will allow foresters and farmers to participate in the COMFIT program.

If there are any questions please contact CoRDA at ewicks@corda.ca

Tracy M. Thompson

Forestry Extension Assistant

Department of Natural Resources

P.O. Box 698

Halifax NS B3J 2T9

thompstz@gov.ns.ca

Phone: (902) 722-1066

Fax: (902) 424-7735