Project Runway is my ultimate reality TV addiction right now. Thinking about the new season was the only thing that got me through the horror that was TAR:FE.

Buy my chicle!

I'm totally into Project Runway -- good times.

Apparently I don't know how to watch TV alone anymore. Are you done with dinner yet??? No, no. I'll manage. But again, I say re: 24 ---

NNNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

ETA:

Oh! So they're going after everyone who knows Jack's alive. Damn .

I so totally didn't need another new show though.

But Project Runway has THE Tim Gunn, who so needs to be my very own style guru/life coach.

I remember when I was still living in NJ and doing the reverse J-lo On the 6 to get up to the Bronx for work, I used to pass by Parsons almost every day. I saw the scads of folks outside Parsons for what, in retrospect, I think must've been a Project Runway casting for season 1. Who knew the fabulosity to come?

The Steeler/Colt game almost killed me during the second half. My heart probably stopped three times. FUN!

That was the best game I've seen all season. FUN.

I suggested having them turn in a copy each week, which they'd get back at the end to use in the final.

Huh. For me, that would definitely have me taking notes in class specifically for the consumption of the prof.

A variation: I had an English class where we were supposed to keep a notbeook like you suggest. Instead of class notes, in conjunction with the lectures, she gave us ideas for related things - shows at the art musuem, film versions of things we were reading - and we were supposed to look into these on our own time and record our reactions. The notebooks were turned in about every month, rather than weekly. Honestly, it was really valuable, in part because she wanted honest reactions - we'd read some Rita Dove poems that related to political events in Haiti. I went to an exhibit of Haitian art and basically wrote an essay on the relationship between the two. On the other hand, I watched a film of a Sam Shepard play we'd read - and turned it off after fifteen minutes. Unwatchable, which is what I said in my notebook. Which see was totally cool with.

Anyway, my point. Astronomy obviously is different than lit. But somehthing similar, that required students to think and apply things from class, would probably be excellent.

Happy Birthday, msbelle!

I'm glad book things are going well, Allyson.

Moisturizer: I use Kiss My Face Lavender and Shea Butter. While it hasn't quite lived up to its name, it does keep my skin in pretty decent condition.

I just finished several hours of book case cleaning. Now I have 6 bags of books in my car, waiting to go to the used book store tomorrow. I also have fairly clean book cases, and all the remaining books fit in them. It's very satisfying. Maybe I'll tackle the closet tomorrow. Then there'll be nothing left to organize but my sock drawer. And my life. But at the moment I'm concentrating on the physical, immediately do-able stuff.

Basically, my dad wants to get the concepts across. No amount of notes makes up for concepts, which you can suss out in exams (mind you, I'm speaking from my physics experience.) It isn't a recitation of facts, it's grasping the larger picture. I dunno. If you don't have a visceral understanding of how the phases of the moon work, it's gonna show if the question isn't phrased as "how the phases of the moon work" but in a hypothetical planet with a hypothetical orbit in a special kind of way. Or describing a method in which you could determine the world was round. I know it sounds like I'm condescending to his students, but many of them have very little background in this subject, so the leap from the literal to the hypothetical is where the test comes.

And if you, the prof, isn't getting it across to most of the students, then you know it's your teaching that needs some work.

I admit, I come from a bias where the content of astro 101 was something I knew at an alarmingly early age. Comes from keeping your dad company in the "why" stage while he's observing.

24: As soon as I saw david Fury's name I thought, somebody's gonna die.

it's gonna show if the question isn't phrased as "how the phases of the moon work" but in a hypothetical planet with a hypothetical orbit in a special kind of way.

So maybe give those as notebook questions? Or something that they do outside of class or exams that require taking what they've learned in class and applying it - which is more or less what this lit prof was doing.