TikiPrincess

Part 1. I would say that rather than sending her the money, why not use it for a round-trip ticket for yourself? Even if things don't work out between you and this girl, you still get the opportunity to be in Europe. I was fortunate enough to be able to trek around parts of Europe twice and hope to do it again since the experience was well worth it. Besides, you don't seem that infatuated with her since you're interested in some other girl. There's no guarantee that she'll use it to buy a ticket to see her cousins and you unless you send her an actual plane ticket.

 

Part 2. Most girls can tell if a guy really likes her or not, or they find out from their secret girl network what the deal is. If you want her to know without being the one hurting her, then you can tell a friend of her friend and it will eventually get back to her. Of course, half the school will also know that she likes him and he doesn't like her back, which could be a bit humiliating. Or you could be a real friend and tell her quietly and privately that the guy considers her a friend and wants to keep it that way. Either way, she's going to get hurt because rejection always hurts no matter who it comes from or how tactfully it's said.

You probably shouldn't date her for awhile after because she'll be on the rebound. She might date you to get him jealous and make him see what he's missing. Or she'll transfer her feelings for him onto you, which can get emotionally confusing, and she'll be constantly comparing you with him mentally, if not verbally. When you all hang out together, you'll wonder if she wishes she were holding hands with him instead of you, and you'll begin to doubt your relationship with her and your friendship with him and start doing little things that sabatoge your relationship with her or him or both.

So save yourself the anxiety and don't get involved until she can sort out her feelings for him. Be her friend and show her that you care just enough to be a little more than friends. If she sees you for who you are and likes you for it, great! If not, you can always fall back on a trip to Europe where you can get involved in some romantic fling that'll only last for a week or two.

Unfortunately, there is no utopian society with a classless system. There will always be people with power and people without power. There will be people with certain talents that others lack. However, those same people will lack talents that others have. And some talents will be considered more valuable than others by different societies. That's just the way of human nature. I wish it were otherwise.For example, my chosen career is teaching. I believe that it's an important job. Teacher have the potential to be one of the most influential people in your life. Of course, learning doesn't only come from positive experiences, and a bad teacher can influence you just as much as a good one. I'm sure most of you can remember at least one teacher that you disliked, even if you can't think of one that you admired.However, teaching is one of the lowest paid professions in the country. The base salary for a teaching in my area is somewhere between $30K-$40K for ten months of work. Granted it's not bad in most parts of the U.S., but in California, there's no way a person could afford to buy a house with that. In fact, some city maintenance men have a higher base salary. A job that doesn't require a degree or credentials or continual licensing to maintain your credential. But it's a job that most people don't want to do. We pay plumbers hundreds of dollars for a few hours work because we don't want our noses anywhere near the sceptic tank and so on. On the other end of the spectrum, the Los Angeles Galaxy is paying David Beckham $250 million dollars to play soccer (football for all you non-Americans). I'm sorry, but kicking around a ball does not justify being paid massive amounts of money, no matter how good at it you are.But inequality remains. No, life isn't fair. And the rich will get away with things that people in lower classes won't.

Personal favorite is definatly Madagascar, I've heard they're making Madagascar 2.

Ummm..... Madagascar is a Dreamworks film, not Disney/Pixar.

 

I don't think it was quite as good as The Incredibles though. There were a couple parts that seemed to drag a little. If they had edited it down about 15 minutes it could have been perfect.

I feel that Cars & Ratatouille has less of a general appeal as the other movies. Cars focused on the nostalgia of Americana - the open roads and a time when people were proud of this country and proud to be a part of it. And what's more "American" than NASCAR. Ratatouille, on the other hand, is set in France, which is not a very popular country with Americans both before and after the whole fiasco with Jacques Chirac. But for those who enjoy cooking, France really is the apex of the culinary world, a world that people are beginning to see with the rise of celebrity chefs like Emeril, Rachael Ray, etc. and shows like Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen.

But the deeper message beneath both movies transcends the specific setting and appeal. Cars shows people that there's so much life and beauty in this world that we're not taking time for. The journey is as important as the destination. Ratatouille tells you to follow your dream if that's what's in your heart. Be true to yourself and, again, appreciate the small moments in life rather than be critical and cynical. I think both do a very good job of sending their message.

I'm a *recovering* chronic liar, but I don't know how to get close enough to people to ask them for help...

I've read some of your other posts, and I questioned the validity of many of your statements. It seemed to me that you were just pulling random stuff out of the air to get your hosting credits back up. I mean, in one you say you've been dating a guy for 8 years and you have a house together, then you say you're just out of high school. Your story gets jumbled when you switch from first person to third person in another post.

Relationships are based on trust. If a person can't trust you, then the relationship will always be guarded and distant. If you're a chronic liar that can't keep your stories straight, then people will begin to see through all your BS and won't want to put up with it. And if a person can tell that you're lying on a forum, where it's just words without the body language and visual/auditory signals that you get from someone in person, then you don't seem to be a very good liar.

Just wondering, what steps have you taken to *recover* from your habit? Have you promised to stop lying or have you actually seen a therapist about it to discover the rationale behind your actions?

Ok, to avoid breaching Xisto Rules I have modified a game where each person says 3 words so that each person says 3 sentences.

Despite the fact that this is a No-Post Count forum, it's still subject to the rules of spam. Unfortunately, sentences can be as short as one or two words, and three sentences could probably fit on one line rather easily and could, therefore be considered spam. It's a fun idea that I've seen done on other forums, but I just don't think it will go over well on this one.

Since there don't seem to be any other dog breeders here, or even goat farmers for that matter, I do have trouble sometimes finding posts that I could contribute anything of importance to. It is a bit difficult to keep credits up, and I definatly need to do that. Starting new topics is about the same problem, if they are to be of interest to other members here. I have few computer skills and at least this summer, have been struggling to keep my business afloat, which eats up all my time.

I post about things that I find interesting whether I think other people will find them interesting or not. For example, I'm not expecting anyone to really respond to my tutorial on how to do Sudoku & Kakuro, but it's something that I know a little something about and something that I enjoy doing. I like to share my experiences, even if no one else is really interested. True, it's easier to garner more credits when you can get a discussion going about a subject, but it's not necessary. Just write about what interests you and perhaps you might spark up a heated debate where you least expected.

Since I am older than probably 99% of the other posters it is also a bit difficult to relate to some of their problems. Sometimes I hate to say anything when I could because teenagers especially think old folks don't know anything anyway, and I also hate to come off sounding like their parents, in which case they (the young 'uns) darn sure wouldn't want to hear me.

There are more than a few members than need to be taken over the knee and given a good spanking. When you're 15, you think you know everything there is to life and no one understands the world better. But perhaps one of these days, someone might see those words of advice and actually listen to it. So go ahead and sound like their parents. God knows there are plenty of parents out there who are little more than biological donors.

Since there's been a bit of malcontent with the forums, lack of activity, etc., I wondered how we could possibly get the old luster back. Plus, I've got a ton of credits that I don't foresee needing since I'm opinionated enough to find something to post on and I doubt I'll be needing a domain since I don't really use my site anyways. So I'd like to host a writing contest to test the ability of some of our members and have a little fun in the meantime. - I'll need a few judges, depending on the number of entries, but I'd like to have at least 2 others besides myself. - I'd also like to ask a few of our GFX members to volunteer some time to make a sig for a winner if he/she doesn't have a hosted account and can't accept a credit transfer. I will pay the artist a portion of the credits in lieu of the winner. - I would also like to know which thread to put this under. Because there is a specific word count for the entries to meet, I figure you don't want this to be in a post count section. I'd also like to have separate threads for the rules and the entries.Anyways, please let me know what you think of my idea and whether you would be interested in participating as support. Obviously it will take some time to make this contest as successful as I hope it becomes, but perhaps it will inspire some literacy in our members and draw out the creativity in some.

My in-laws and I have a little tradition of gathering around the kitchen table and trying to finish the crossword puzzle in the daily paper. Usually we could finish up Wednesday's, but Thursday and on got to be much harder and we all had to put our heads together to figure it out. A couple years ago, a new section in the local paper appeared next to the crossword puzzle. A nine-by-nine square with a bunch of numbers in it called SUDOKU.

At first, I was a little wary of it because it just looked a little confusing and intimidating. Basically, you have to fill in the missing numbers. Each row and column must contain the numbers 1 through 9. Additionally, each 3 x 3 section of the puzzle must also have 1 through 9. How do you even begin to solve something like that? Well, there are many different methods, but only one solution.

Let's start in the 3 x 3 section in the bottom-right corner.

There are four empty squares in this section at the bottom-right corner of the puzzle. There's a 2, an 8 and an empty square on the top row, and we're missing numbers 1, 3, 4 and 6.

We can't plug the 1 into the top row of the section because there's already a 1 in the column. We also can't put it in any of the squares on the second row of the section because there's already a 1 in that row. Therefore, the 1 has to be in the empty square at the bottom, and we only have three empty squares now!

The 3 is a little harder. We know that it can't be in the empty square in the top row because there's already a 3 in that column. This means it could be either of the two squares in the second row. You can pencil in 3 in each of the two boxes or make some sort of mark to remember that it could be there. We'll come back to that later.

Next we tackle the 4. If you look at the second row, neither of them can be a 4 because there's already a 4 in that row. So the 4 must be in the top row!

We've still got the 3 and the 6 to fill in the two remaining squares. Looking at the rows won't help us this time, we've got to look at the columns. The column for the second empty square contains a 6, so we can't put it there. That means that it must be in the first empty square, which leaves a 3 in the second one.

And we've completed the section! It should now look something like this:

Of course, there are different levels of difficulty and this method won't always work. But it's a start!

 

Now onto what some people call "Sudoku's evil older brother" - KAKURO!

Though Kakuro is a much more direct translation of crosswords into numbers, it shares a few rules with Sudoku. The numbers may only be 1 through 9 and cannot appear more than once in the same line horizontally or vertically. However, you have to plug in numbers that add up (or multiply depending on your puzzle) to the number at the top or to the left of the section.

The square with the 7\8 in the center separates the sections, so numbers can repeat below that even if they appear above it and numbers can appear to the right even if they're on the left.

So let's start at the top-left corner.

There's 16, 17 and 35 going across. Since you can only use numbers 1 through 9 in your solutions, 16 and 17 only have one solution each that will fit into the two boxes allotted to them. 16=7+9 and 17=8+9. But we can't really be sure where to put these entries until we look at how they relate to the equations going down.

There's 23 and 30 going down. 23 over three spaces equals 9+8+6. Since 6 can't be the solution to 16 because that would result in the next square being 10, and it doesn't work in 17 either for the same reason, then it must be in the third square. 8 isn't part of the solution for 16, but it does fit into the 17. This leaves 9 in the top square. So you would have 9, 8 and 6 vertically in the first column.

Now we can try to fill in some of the other numbers. 16=9+7 and 17=8+9.

Since we've got two of the four boxes filled for 30-down, why not try to solve for it? If we subtract 9 and 8 from 30, we're left with 13. We can't use 9+4 or 8+5 to solve, because there's already a 9 and 8 in the solution. So we have to use 7+6. But which one should go in which box?

We could look at the 35-across. There's already a 6 in that row, so we can't use the 6 again. So the 7 has to go in that third box and the 6 in the fourth.

And the first section is done! Now fill in whatever else you can. Remember to look for ones where the solution is limited to 2 or 3 options.

I hope you have as much fun exercising your brain with these puzzles as I do! GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN!

Well, I tried to describe what a CMOS and CCD processor was and how they worked, because reading it off of Wiki and HSW was way too confusing..

I think that's part of the problem, you were trying to explain something that you're learning off Wiki and How Stuff Works rather than something that you've experienced for yourself. Actually doing it or visuallizing it as with a classroom demonstration or educational video gives you a better understanding of the hows and whys. I firmly believe that experience is a better teacher than a textbook.

What you described is a dead-basic camera... the camera obscura. Ironic how we can still find that to be wicked cool to accomplish when we have and take for granted 35mm, digital, SLR, and other camera technologies.

The topic title states "How Do Cameras Capture Pictures." Having participated in a photography class myself and sharing my mom's experience a little more recently, I offered my understanding of how a picture is captured. While it's a simple method, it actually still works and people might be able to see how minute differences, like exposure time and the size of the aperture, really affects the outcome of the photo.

My brother started out as a game tester and worked his way up to an Associate Producer for Vivendi Games, the parent company of Sierra and Blizzard, so I'll give you my second-hand experience of what it really means to be a game tester. Sounds like a sweet deal - you get paid to play games! You got pretty decent pay: $12/hr for entry level work, which is better than what you'd usually get, even at most office jobs. But there are drawbacks. For one thing, you have to go to them. For him, that meant driving about 30-40 minutes away. Vivendi's LA base is near the airport, Activision and EA are nearby as well, though I believe that EA's base is in Northern California and they do most of their hiring from that office. And that's without traffic because his hours were really funky: 10PM-7AM or 8AM. He'd work the graveyard shift because they have people testing games pretty much 24/7. Then there's the actual testing. You have to play the same level over and over. You're not playing for fun, and you're not playing the finished product.You have to look for glitches and bugs, which means you have to do the same thing on every level several times to make sure that it does what it's supposed to every time. And then you have to do something else the same time, every time. You're doing Alpha testing on rough cuts, which could be anything from Half-Life to Barbie's latest adventure. One of the lead testers had a list on a whiteboard. If you pissed him off for some reason, you got Barbie. Then there's the crunch, working overtime and late hours to do Beta testing out a game as much as possible before it's released. It's a little more bearable because they're supposed to have worked out all the glitches and cleaned up the graphics. But every glitch you find has to be documented exactly so that they know where the coding is messed up, and you cringe every time that you find one because you don't want to be the sorry bastard that brings it up since it could be something that takes seconds or months to fix. Of course, the question of job security always looms overhead because if you mess up bad enough, there are hundreds of eager gamers out there that believe testing would be a dream job. And when they're done with that game, they may not have another one for you to test until the end of the next quarter. You might be just a contractor that comes in for the Beta testing. Luckily, my brother had a degree in Psychology with a minor in Computer Science. He was able to move up from testing into Q & A, Lead, and now into the production aspect. But he works long hours and often 7 days a week, especially with his latest project TimeShift. As I wrote about in that thread, the game has been pushed back and completely overhauled several times in the last few years. I believe he's been on it for about 2-3 years straight. After the game's released, the company will give him anywhere from a week to 3 months to recoup, having him support other stuff that's nearly ready to be released, before sticking him on another developing game. So there's a second-hand account of what life is like as a game tester. I think I'd rather be a reviewer than a tester or designer. I'd wanna work for IGN or GameSpot and play games that are already finished, or nearly so. I'm sure if I could get in good with the editor, then I would only have to review the games that I want to and stick the noobs with the crappy ones.

I definitely don't consider myself a "girlie girl" because I can't stand jewelry (it took me ages to get used to wearing my wedding ring, which is pretty much the only thing I wear most of the time), I'm not sentimental over flowers because they just die, and I never wear perfume. So my husband sometimes has trouble figuring out what to get me, and I completely understand your dilemma.

Here are some ideas of things that most girls do enjoy:

scented bath products - Even tomboys like a good bubble bath once in awhile. You can go to Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, The Body Shop, or any department store to find bath sets. Hell, I've even seen some at the local drug store. I'm sure Walmart carries something too, but I even avoid the parking lot of that awful place.

chocolate - unfortunately, some people are allergic to chocolate or even (gasp!) don't like chocolate very much, but if your girlfriend does, then find some quality chocolates to give her. Get her a giant Hershey's Kiss and send her a message.

do something special - make her dinner, give her a massage, or do something that you normally wouldn't do for her.

buy a book or movie - is there a movie that makes you think of her or a movie that's special to both of you? Does she have a copy of your favorite movie or book? The best part about books is that you can inscribe something special on the cover or the first couple pages.

personalize it - there are tons of things that you can get personalized - including M & M's. If you go to mymms.com, you can choose up to two colors, up to two messages and packaging for your own M & M's. Yeah, it kinda falls under chocolate, but it's cooler.

make something - like the others said above, a handmade gift can be small but meaningful because you actually put some time and effort into it. I wouldn't go with the friendship bracelet because that's kinda elementary school to me, so that would also rule out lanyards and anything else you would make at summer camp. My husband likes carving pumpkins every year, so he's got a bunch of patterns on looseleaf and his tools in a plastic baggie. So for his birthday this year, I bought a little portable file box where he could keep his patterns neat and separated with enough room for a roll-out canvas kit to store his tools. I think it came out to less than $10 for everything, but I also painted and decorated it with patterns from pumpkins he did before. He loved it because I thought of something that was particular to him and it didn't cost much money. You could make a mixed CD and change the titles to reflect different moments in your relationship. You could write her a poem or a short story or draw her a picture. Make a little picture album of the two of you and write captions. It doesn't have to be all fancy like a scrapbook, and you can order stuff online at places like shutterfly.com, snapfish.com, or a number of other places.

Remember, the best presents are the ones that are unexpected. After I had a seriously depressing day sitting in 3 hours of traffic, I was supposed to meet my boyfriend for a date. Needless to say, I wasn't up for anything. I just wanted to sit at home and not go anywhere, so I cancelled our date. He showed up about half an hour later with roses in one hand and a carton of my favorite ice cream in the other. This guy definitely knew the way to my heart!

Edit: Forgot to close up my list tag

OHHHEMMMGEEEEEEE! I soooooo wanna be a mod, pretty, pretty puh-leeeeeze!

 

Actually, I just want the ban stick so I can spank the spammers with it - especially the Trapper who claims to be Pure Evil! But to be honest, positions of power must be earned and not given away lightly. If you hope to become a moderator, (and I honestly have no idea why you would desire such a thing, but to each his own...) it would be best to participate actively as a good member of the community and abide by the rules and regulations.

 

I like SM's suggestion to change this into a thread about what qualities a good moderator exhibits.

I've moderated a few gaming forums and administrated a few of my own, and even within such a small frame, it's not a very easy job. Something this large in scale would be time consuming to say the least. Added to this is the fact that it's a professional forum offering a service to customers. From that aspect, you then become a representative of the company, whether you are being paid for your time or not. What you say and do reflects back on Xisto. So the qualities that a good moderator should exibit are compounded with the qualities of a good employee. Efficiency and effectiveness, courtesy and compassion, perseverance and patience, the list goes on and on.

 

If becoming a moderator is your goal, than prove your worth through your actions rather than words. Help a member out whether or not there's a mod or admin watching. Contribute quality topics and responses by putting some thought and effort into what you're writing. Use correct grammar. Read the ToS and familiarize yourself with all the aspects of the Readme. Welcome new members in the introduction forum and be sure to point out the most pertinent parts of the Readme as most members simply begin spamming away before understanding the rules of Trap.

Of course, I would rather see you do this for yourself as a member committed to improving the quality of this forum community rather than as a stepping stone to modhood, but it's a start.

Ok seriously, I've worked in a restaurant and had people walk out on a bill. You know what happened? I GOT STUCK WITH THE BILL! So instead of taking home my tips for the day, , I ended up having to pay out all of what I earned and then some to cover it. By the way, most servers get minimum wage, some even less, and have to earn enough to pay their bills and expenses from tips. So screw you people, you suck!

Well, lots of people in the US are kinda absorbed by the back to school hoopla, so once they get situated, I'm sure there will be lots more topics. I usually find at least a few topics to post on each week. It's actually not to keep up my hosting, which I don't seem to be using either, just things that I find interesting. If you're having trouble finding something to respond to, why not start your own threads on things that DO interest you. The quality of the forums is largely based on the input that the community puts into it. I've got a few topics that I want to discuss, but I just haven't really had the time to write them up. So I'm writing them out on wordpad and saving them to post whenever I get around to finishing them. There's always something new and interesting in the world to learn and discover, you just have to put in the effort to go out and find them. That's kinda the beauty of the whole forum thing. As long as you keep within the ToS, there's a multitude of things to discuss. Then again, I'm a female, so I like to talk, talk, talk about everything. On top of that, I'm an opinionated, educated woman, so I like to talk about lots of different things. But Saint_Michael seems to have a lot to say, too, so it can't be just a girl thing.

You should choose your friends a little more carefully. Of course, now I'm taking personal offense to this because I have so few friends. Now I'll just have to be all {EVIL} to you and tease you every time I see you in the shoutbox. And I'll have to pointedly exclude you from all of my parties and not send you cookies and SPAM on your birthday. Or I could be even more {EVIL} and sneak back on there without you noticing. But since I'm the most junior member of The Evil Group, I guess I'm low on the totem pole. I'll be nice and tell you to add me whenever you want. Remember, it's not the quantity of friends you have, it's the quality. Ooops, I just disqualified myself with that statement.

Walk away because if she's doing it to her current boyfriend, she'll eventually do it to you...Of course, that isn't always the case, but I'd say cool it down for now. Maintain the friendship if you want, just keep the flirting to a minimum. Try going on a group or a double date with her and her boyfriend. Then you can see what her feelings for him really are. And she can compare the two of you side by side. Yeah, it's a horrible predicament to put a girl through, but it'll make her think twice about playing with fire.

There are three words of advice I can give you: practice, practice, practice. My friend's brother had to train for a year before he was able to apply for a job as a lifeguard at the local pool because he had to be able to swim 1000 laps. Yes, that's three zeros after the one. Each day you set a limit that's just a little further than the day before. So if he could swim 10 laps on day one, then he tried to swim another lap the following day. Pretty soon, he was able to do 100 laps without even trying hard. You might also want to work on cardio and breathing exercises. Sometimes your muscles tire out because there's not enough oxygen getting to them, so learning how to regulate your breathing can help make it more efficient.

Considering it cost my insurance over $60,000 to repair my left arm, I think a cool million for a pinky isn't too bad. But if it were my thumb or any other finger, I don't think I'd do it. I remember reading something similar in Toni Morrison's Sula where the character had left her hometown and family to follow her husband to a place hundreds of miles away. When her husband left her with three kids and a hard winter approaching, she made a decision and stuck her leg on the train tracks to collect insurance. People in desperate times do desperate things.

abminara: Well, there's a lot of pressure on a first date, and not everyone is as confident as you pretend to be. So movies are a great way to keep the focus off yourself and on something else. And like I said before, it gives you something to talk about after you watch it, whether the movie was horribly bad or absolutely wonderful. Yeah, maybe it's not an effective way to get to know someone, but sitting at a cafe or a park in awkward silence isn't all that fun either. It gives you a topic of conversation for at least a good half hour or so and something to fall back on if you do slip into those awkward silences.

Welcome to your awkward teenage years. I had the unfortunate luck of getting glasses, braces, and a really bad perm all at the same time in the 6th grade.
You'll want to stick with soft foods the first couple weeks of having braces because your mouth will be sore and cut up because it's not used to all that metal. Eventually, your mouth will get used to it. Hell, I played the saxophone when I had braces. I think they have this wax stuff that you can put around your mouth to make a bit of a barrier against your braces. You should also invest in Carmex. I used to have a bunch of those little jars all over the place. It's a great lip balm, but it also cools, soothes, and heals. It's great on cold sores, which is why my friend suggested it when I got all cut of from my braces. Another piece of advice is to keep using the retainer after you get your braces off. I promptly "lost" mine a few months after I got it, and my dentist says I probably need braces again to straighten my teeth out.

mojoman, please at least read the first thread thoroughly. I explicitly stated,

Please don't say I shouldn't assign homework or schools should make every period lunch. Teachers have to teach a long list of content standards and prepare you for exit exams as well as all the new regulations caused by that No Child Left Behind monstrosity. It has such good intentions, but... well, that's another story. I would love some honest and informative input here that I could possibly implement into my lesson plans and classroom management style to make students actually want to be in my class and hopefully understand and retain the skills that I'm trying to teach them.

What I'm looking for is ways to improve the quality of the classroom. How do your English and Italian teachers make the classroom into a more relaxed atmosphere? They must assign homework like the rest of the teachers, so are their assignments less stressful or done in a different way that allows you creative expression?As for the teachers who can't teach or are older than dirt, unless they're first/second year teachers or do something really illegal, like being a pedophile, they can't be fired. Once a teacher attains tenure, which changes from district to district, they cannot be fired for what they teach. This is done because sometimes teachers feel the need to teach something controversial, like evolution, sexual education, or even religion, which can sometimes get the school board, parents, or administrators up in arms. But tenure gives teachers the freedom to expand students' minds and explore new possibilities without fear of losing their jobs. However, it also means that dinosaurs who still fight to keep their chalkboards and have taught the same way since before FDR was president will still have a job until they retire.
Anyways, I'm really interested in what to incorporate in my classroom and what I should avoid, so please, I'd like some honest and useful input here.

You see... for some reason I think that I'll be right to infer that your parents are not teenagers that don't know how to ask a girl out:)

I merely used my parents as one example of people with opposite characteristics that were able to have a relationship despite the differences between them. I think it's rather presumptuous of you to disregard a possible relationship simply on the basis that you think that she might be annoyed by your behavior. Just because she's shy and quiet in public doesn't mean that she can't have all sorts of crazy thoughts going on in her head. Ever hear of the expression "Still waters run deep"? If you want a relationship to last, then try to be as true to yourself as possible because if your posing for her/his sake, then it'll be a real shocker when they discover the real you. Yeah, so you're not going to act the same way around her as you do with your guy friends or whatever, but if you're an active person, then be active.

Interesting to see how your schools across the Atlantic work. When I was in high school (secondary or whatever), we chose our schedules at the end of the year before. The teachers knew what classes they would be teaching and what times, so we just filled out the course number of the classes that I wanted or was eligible to take, kinda like I do with college. Sometimes teachers change, but they just replace the previous teacher's schedule. But I went to a private school, so I know that my experience is different from others.

I've seen lots of threads about how school sucks and people who hate their teachers. As a future teacher myself, this saddens me because it seems that by the time students get around to my classes in high school, they're already apathetic about the education system. I'd like to change some of these preconceptions and reach out to my students to keep them involved and interested in my class.

So what do/did you like about school?

What makes/made you stay in school and keep going/finish?

How can schools make it more enjoyable?

What is your most memorable experience in class, good or bad?

Please don't say I shouldn't assign homework or schools should make every period lunch. Teachers have to teach a long list of content standards and prepare you for exit exams as well as all the new regulations caused by that No Child Left Behind monstrosity. It has such good intentions, but... well, that's another story. I would love some honest and informative input here that I could possibly implement into my lesson plans and classroom management style to make students actually want to be in my class and hopefully understand and retain the skills that I'm trying to teach them. Believe it or not, information is only a small part of education. Acquiring skills, including social skills, is a large part of the microcosm of the school environment.

ohhhh more monkeys! I love it! My husband and I have called his neice a little monkey since she was little. Even more so now that she's older and has this urge to climb everything. My sis-in-law says that if her daughter doesn't get a chance to climb trees for awhile because it's raining or whatever, then she starts climbing the walls in the hallways and stuff. BTW, Old Navy had coin banks for awhile shaped like monkeys. One was a supermonkey with a mask, cape and a banana.Anyways, welcome to Trap! Mich seems to have already given you the rundown, so I won't repeat the info. Just make sure to follow the rules and don't spam the forums. But feel free to spam comment boxes. Especially Saint_Michael's. He enjoys spam, so do it often. If you have any questions that the README doesn't answer, you're welcome to send me a PM, and I'll try to help you as much as possible or at least point you in the right direction.Welcome again, hope to see you around!