Jamie Burnside's Articles In Misc » Page 4
October 26, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
Yesterday my son and I went to the flu shot clinic at the medical center in our home town. There were all sorts of people there lining up to get their shots. It was certainly the place to be! While we were there, I overheard numerous people proclaiming how they "hate needles." There were many people who were making quite the deal out of getting a little shot. I bet that it makes the nurses cringe every time they hear that (unless they're already numb to it.) I think that it is one of t...
October 18, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
I am sure that this has happened to everyone who at one point in their life has had either a stressful, or a repetitive job. You go to sleep, end up dreaming about your job, wake up, and then realize that you have to go to work. It is like working two consecutive shifts! The other day I experienced kind of a variation to that dream. For a good part of the night, I dreamt that I was having a hard time going to sleep. As soon as it seemed that I could finally get to bed, something else cam...
October 14, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
Yesterday Vicki -my student teacher- was going over a vocabulary worksheet with one of our fifth graders. It was one of those fill-in-the-blanks activities designed to help familiarize students with upcoming vocabulary. I was doing something in some other part of my classroom when I heard Vicky say this: "Listen to this. You wrote: 'My brother went on a slave trade to Mecca last year.' Is that right?" I got a real kick out of that. The original is number 2.
October 13, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
When you're a kid, every year you can expect a new professional photo of yourself.  Once school is finished, that's all done. Now that I teach at a school, I once again receive annual portraits.  Two years ago I was happy with my pictures.  Last year they weren't so good.  My pictures this year weren't so bad.  Here they are.
October 7, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
I ran into this sentence today: there is a green car and a motorcycle on harriet street Students are supposed to read it, and then correct it for errors. The correct answer is: There are a green car and a motorcycle on Harriet Street. In prescriptive grammar, this compound subject (two singular nouns linked by "and") requires a third-person plural to-be verb in order to maintain subject-verb agreement.  Most native English speakers would apply the "proximity principle"...
August 17, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
My wife and I went grocery shopping tonight.  Not knowing what to eat for tonight's dinner, we decided to have curry and rice, since we already had some rice cooked.  My wife decided to get a canned curry sauce to put on our rice.  I was a little skeptical, as I couldn't imagine that canned curry would be any good. Surprisingly enough, the curry turned out to be among the best curries that I have ever had.  I fried up a little bacon at home to mix with the sauce, and we po...
August 15, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
I dare you to knock this battery off of my shoulder.
June 28, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
So I was sitting on the couch, watching a baseball game.  My phone rings, and I pick it up. As soon as I answered, some guy with a southern accent starts ranting and raving about me stealing his newspaper.  He claims that he's my next door neighbor.  I told this guy to just come over and get the paper. Just for kicks, I argued with the guy for a few minutes.  I played along with his joke too for a while until it got too repetitive.  Then I let him go. This guy w...
May 5, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
Last night as I was driving home from work, I was thinking about dinner.  I thought about a restaurant that I used to visit in Japan named "Bronco Billy's". Bronco Billy's is a chain of reasonably low-priced steak restaurants in Japan.  At Billy's, one can order a steak with potatoes and a salad bar.  (Just like a Sizzler, a Ponderosa, or a Bonanza in the USA.)  The biggest difference between the steak house there and here is that the quality of the meat and salad is a lot...
April 23, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
In Japan, English words and phrases are used decoratively on clothing, packaging, and other things. Frequently the English that is used it a bit awkward. (I believe that this is intentional.) The use of over-prosaic, colorful, nonsensical, and oftentimes funny English is an underappreciated artform in Japan. The best source of "strange English" is children's clothing. I have read some good nonsense on clothes at the kids' store. Take my son's t-shirt for example: "Beloved: I'm glad ...
March 17, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
The other day I was at a seminar that was sponsored by the publishing company that makes the textbooks that I use at my school.  During the seminar, we had some speakers tell us how to better prepare our students to read and write.  It was a reasonably good seminar. Something struck me as funny as I was sitting through the writing workshop.  The presenter mentioned that we should teach our students how to differentiate their writing voice depending on the type of writing that t...
March 6, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
Well it is March!  The snow will soon melt, the plants will return to life, robins will return, Spring will be here before we know it, and McDonald's now has Shamrock Shakes.  This is our one chance per year to enjoy those yummy mint-flavored shakes. Sometimes a year goes by when I forget about the shakes.  Then in April or May I realize my mistake, and promise myself to "get one next year!" Fortunately, I didn't forget this year.  I went to get a shake on Thursday nigh...
March 4, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
One of my third-graders wrote a really cute closing paragraph to a paper about penguins.  He wrote:   Penguins are birds that can not fly.  They live in Antarctica.  I hope someday I can be one of them. Isn't that cute?
February 24, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
This afternoon at work (I am an elementary school teacher) I went out to the playground to gather a few of my students.  After looking around a bit, I found the kids whom I was looking for. Two of the kids that I found were playing in a rather animated group of first graders.  There were about fifteen kids picking up handfuls of freshly-fallen snow, rubbing it in their hair, and exclaiming: "Look at me!  I'm George Washington!"  (I took a picture of this, and I e-mailed it...
February 4, 2005 by Jamie Burnside
Here in Minnesota it has been quite warm this week.  Today's temperature was around 50 degrees F (~16 C). The kids at the school where I work were nice little angels in the morning, but then after recess they were off the handle.  I can understand.  I watched them out on the playground.  They were having a lot of fun running around in the snow with their coats off.  They didn't want to come inside and study. So I wrote a little song that I had my first graders sing...