my students

Here are Sabrine (left) and Christine (right), my two Science Chicks, sitting on a bench outside of Bonefish Grill in Centreville, Virginia, while we waited for Christine's mother to come pick her daughter up:


Sabrine's off to MIT, and Christine, if she tries very, very hard, might be off to TJHSST, our local "magnet" school, and one of the top science/tech high schools in the country.

Dinner at Bonefish Grill was quite good, despite the lack of decent air conditioning. All three of us ate fish: baked salmon for me, grilled trout for Sabrine, and grilled tilapia for Christine. We talked a bit about what sort of interaction there had been between Christine and Sabrine in my absence; I was surprised to find out that tonight was the first night that Christine and Sabrine had met face-to-face. I had originally paired these two young ladies together in the hopes of kick-starting Christine's drive to study science—a requisite for studying at TJ.

During dinner, Sabrine played the Big Sis and peppered Christine with some science-related questions, asking about Christine's areas of interest (genetics and computer programming) and talking about her own areas of interest (biology, prosthetics, etc.). We also talked about what lay ahead for Sabrine as she contemplated MIT. Sabrine told me about MIT's Byzantine dorm-assignment system, which involves a series of lotteries. She also had more immediate concerns: her opera recital on Saturday, and her upcoming speech to her graduating class as its valedictorian (literally "goodbye-sayer" in Latin; vale = goodbye, and dicere = to say/tell). I have no worries for Sabrine's future; she's got a strong personality and is blessed with drive and direction. Good for her. I joked that I expected to be reading some of her published work in the years ahead.

Dessert was a massive brownie shared by the girls, while I went for my usual crème brûlée. Sabrine couldn't understand how anyone could possibly like crème brûlée; I explained my love of the textural contrast. We talked a bit about French food; Sabrine, who had been to France, wasn't all that impressed with French haute cuisine; a lot of it came off as flavorless and pretentious to her, although she enjoyed French onion soup. I'm not a fan of French onion soup, but I agreed with Sabrine in principle; my own experience with good, rib-sticking French cooking had come courtesy of my time with my buddy Dominique's family in Carquefou. Maman and Papa were proud of their jardin potager, from which came most, or all, of the vegetables that ended up on our dinner table. Their cuisine wasn't anything like hoity-toity haute cuisine; it was simple, unadorned, unpretentious, and delicious.

Eventually, conversation slowed to a halt, at which point the girls whipped out their cell phones. We adjourned to wait outside for Christine's mom; while we waited, I took the above picture, which was a second attempt: the first pic mortified Sabrine, who complained that her bangs were all over the place, thus necessitating a re-take. Christine's mom showed up; Christine's little sister hid in the back of Mom's car; I waved at her and she waved back, an amiable shadow. Christine gave me a $15 Starbucks gift card; she and I had actually met earlier at the Starbucks about an hour before our appointed 6:30PM rendezvous: Christine's sister had been engaged in a piano lesson, so Christine and her mom had nothing to do but retreat to Starbucks to get out of the 90-plus-degree heat.

Parting was sweet sorrow: I knew that the three of us would never have the opportunity to meet like this again. Sabrine will be off to MIT before we know it; Christine will spend her summer doing whatever it is that little Christines do; and if I get my dream job at a Korean university, I'll be gone from my current job by the end of the summer.

But that's life, right? Every present moment is a window into the future, a future with many branching possibilities. It felt good to see both Sabrine and Christine today—Sabrine on the cusp of moving to the much larger world of MIT and a Bostonian life, Christine perhaps on the verge of entering a prestigious magnet school. I'm older, forty-three years old, so my own horizon has narrowed and my own set of possibilities is no longer quite so limitless, but even I stare hopefully into my own future.


_

a post is forthcoming, but not right now

I normally slap up a post about test prep on Mondays, but I'm finishing up a massive proofreading project right now, so the post will have to wait. Apologies!


_

ready for the Super Bowl?

_

lazy blogging

I may be blogging very irregularly this week, given that we're between Christmas and New Year's. Just thought I'd let you know. Enjoy the holidays!


_

Merry Christmas!

A Merry Christmas to you all! If you want to get an idea of Christmas Eve shopping in South Korea, see Robert Koehler's photo essay on Christmas Eve in the downtown shopping district of Myeongdong, Seoul.


_

I'm available via Skype!

If you're new to this blog and haven't had a chance to explore the tabs underneath the banner image, you should know that I'm available via Skype if you want to talk face-to-face. My contact information for email, Skype, and Twitter is located at the bottom of the "About" page (see "About" tab!). Email me a note saying you want to talk via Skype and we'll arrange a day and time. I'll wait no more than 10 minutes, however; time is precious, so please be punctual.

I mention the Skype thing because you might be hesitant about signing up to be tutored by someone you haven't vetted. That's perfectly understandable, so if you want to chat via Skype for a bit to sound me out, I'm game.

Skype allows for long-distance tutoring, by the way: we might be thousands of miles apart, and separated by two or three time zones, but that doesn't mean I can't be your tutor. Multimedia distance learning is all the rage these days; educational paradigms are changing rapidly, and many students now prefer to learn from the comfort of their own home. Skype plays right into that scenario... and it saves you the extra cost of paying my gasoline bill! (If you've visited my rate chart, you're aware I charge extra for long drives. Sorry, but that's the economy we live in.)

So hit me with some Skype action!


_

this is too cool for words

Here's an article (with video) about a superhydrophobic coating. Do be sure to watch that video-- it's amazing, especially when the guy pours chocolate syrup on a treated shoe.

Imagine the stuff you could waterproof with that product! Imagine the ridiculous new rain gear you could create-- or the (temporary) kitchenware, like bowls, made out of materials that you'd normally never use as bowls!

This is also a good opportunity to learn some vocab: Superhydrophobic breaks down to the roots super (Latin super, exceeding/above the norm), hydro (Greek hydros, water), and phobia (Greek phobos, fear or dread). Something that's superhydrophobic, then, is abnormally "afraid" of water. Obviously, in science, inanimate or abiotic objects aren't described as being literally fearful; the idea, in this case, is that a hydrophobic surface will repel any water that comes in contact with it. According to the video, superhydrophobic materials don't merely resist water: they shoot water away from themselves.

(Soft contact lenses, meanwhile, are described as hydrophilic. The Greek philia means "love.")


_

Bonne Fête des Morts!

Have fun with these two spooky videos:

1. Big Spider Attacks Daddy


2. Le Serpent Mort (Dead Snake)
(The comments to this second video, though in French, have a very American tenor.)



_

Three Ingredients for Success

The phrase "time and effort"-- as in "Thank you for your time and effort!"-- is a fairly common one. Most of us have used it at one point or another, but I've often felt that the expression lacked something, and after a bit of thought I realized: worthy accomplishments involve more than just time and effort: they also involve focus.

Think about it: if you're learning to play a musical instrument, you need to put in the time; there's no way around this. You also can't simply sit in your practice chair for hours, doing nothing, and assume that time spent equals effort made. No: you actually need to practice. So effort counts, too. But if your effort lacks direction, if you don't have any specific goals and guidelines by which to operate, then it doesn't matter how much time and effort you put into the task-- you'll never succeed at it. Focus is the missing ingredient, here: focus refers to one's ability to strip away all the extraneous thoughts and actions and simply concentrate on doing what needs to be done. Focus is what links a person to his or her goal: it's clarity of purpose. Time and effort are linked to willpower, but willpower is never enough. You have to know what you're doing and where you're going. You have to possess direction and vision.

Time, effort, and focus. I'm not saying that these three ingredients are the only ingredients to success; there may well be others, e.g., talent, for instance. But these three ingredients seem so basic to me that it would be silly not to mention them.

So that's why the blog has the title it does. The blog's URL, "seongdo," comes from the Korean pronunciation of the characters for "attain/succeed" (Chinese 成, Korean 성, seong-- sounds a bit like the English "sung") and "Tao/the Way" (Chinese 道, Korean 도, do-- sounds a bit like the English "doe"). In China, the term originally referred to the Taoist notion of attaining and becoming one with the true Way; when Buddhism entered China, however, the term also took on the Buddhist meaning of enlightenment.

This blog is all about teaching people, but I don't want you to think I claim any enlightenment for myself. I tend to look at enlightenment the way most people view self-improvement: it's an ongoing process. Not only that, but it's cooperative: in any teacher-student relationship, the teacher is often learning as much as the student is.

In subsequent blog posts, I'll be talking more specifically about what I'm doing-- what subjects I'm hoping to teach, who my market is, and why I'm teaching. Stay tuned!


_