![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Tulsa Re-Enrollment Trip, Part the Un
Dec. 7th, 2005 10:39 amI arrived at the BSU building shortly after ten o’clock on the sixth day of the twelfth month of the two thousand and fifth year of the day of our Lord. The BSU building brought smiles to my face, sending out the good vibes. The good vibes were quickly shut off as the back door was locked. No prob, the middle door must be open. Nope. Well, let’s try the front door. Also locked, and now I began to feel the freezing cold whistling by my ears. Okay, let’s just go back to my car and call a few people. Wait, where did I put my keys? Hmmmm, oh crap, I see them on my seat for some odd reason. No panicking. Let’s go call the pirate girl intern. Hey, D2, sorry I’m up in Bartlesville right now to visit a friend. Fine. Pirate girl, you have a roommate, maybe she’s sleeping in. Huh? You happened to have a makeup test today, Snortmeister (she snorts when she laughs, it’s so funny) and you’re studying for it at the engineering building? Dang, I was supposed to meet the director at the BSU today. Hey director, what’s up? I’m ten minutes away D2, hold on. I was starting to freeze when the director’s wife LeAnn showed up not ten seconds after I hung up the call with the director. YAY!
After warming up inside the BSU, I eventually used my dad’s foolproof method to prevent myself from getting locked out to reclaim my car (can’t tell you, it’s a family secret). I returned to the BSU to play the keyboard that was recently donated to us while I was on medical leave. I had asked the Italian Stallion if it had any unusual features, but he said it was a run of the mill keyboard. So I imagined one of those fifty-six key low level keyboards. What I did not expect was an eighty-eight key instrument of high level quality. The Italian Stallion had forgot to mention the keyboard had weighted keys. Weighted keys. Um, that’s a pretty special feature. And it came with the pedal as well. Sure its timbre was pretty hollow compared to a real piano, but you’d have to get a top of the line keyboard to replicate the natural sound of a real one. Plus, I believe we got this keyboard because a string on the old piano broke. I really like this keyboard because it feels like you’re playing a real piano, but you’re granted the option to play the harpsicord or guitar if you want.
Then it was time to play Mario Kart 64 with Marcel “Da Noise” Ficklin, the prayer warrior Ryan, Dragon Commandre Sam, and the BSU director. I like to play the average characters best, so Luigi is usually my character of choice. I managed to lose most of the races, except I somehow won my least favorite map, Choco Mountain. I hate it because you can get randomly screwed on the cliff near the end. I placed a beautiful banana on Da Noise to force him to spin off the cliff to his doom.
Muahahahahaha.
Then it was lunch time. My director bought the Mario Kart guys coneys from Coney Islander. I prefer cheese coneys with everything, namely mustard, chili, and onions. It’s one of my few guilty pleasures in life, three cheese coneys with everything.
We discussed Master Life plans for next semester. I had skimmed through the lesson plan weeks and it seemed best to use the Master Life Elders to teach this time around. Intro would involve me, Da Noise, and the prayer warrior. We then needed to get off to a good start in Week 1, so I asked our director Steve to take do just that (Master Life II is his favorite part of the four part series). D2 would take up Week 2, Da Noise would preach on Week 3, the prayer warrior would share his knowledge on Week 4, the Z3 fanatic Stevo would share his expertise in Week 5, and deep voiced Jamil would wrap things up in Week 6. We also discussed how to help the pirate girl intern get through the final part, Master Life IV. Ultimately, scripture memorization.
I had to leave to meet with Dr. Buckley, but before I did so the Italian Stallion played “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” for me on the piano as per our agreement.
Then it was off to take care of re-enrollment. First I had to talk with my research advisor, Dr. Buckley. He cleared up some things about my research project and remaining hours in history. I love talking to the sagely Dr. Buckley, who has been teaching history at the University of Tulsa since the 70’s. He always has the most pertinent and interesting stories to tell. He chose to tell me about a professor that TU had for a few years. This professor was unusual in that he taught high school in New Haven, Connecticut for ten years while obtaining his masters and doctorate degree from Yale. He got his doctorate and came to teach at TU for a few years. Soon he got really great job offers from Vanderbilt, Swathmore, and UC Santa Barbara among other places. He chose Vanderbilt.
Dr. Buoye happened to step in at one point to ask our military historian, Dr. Buckley, if there was a term for the ballistic effectiveness of a cannon (i.e. how many people can it kill per shot). I felt bad because I had skipped more than half of my classes with Dr. Buoye under my depression. I went to talk with him to say sorry, but before I could open my mouth he said that I looked a lot better than I did all this semester. I guess he noticed. Well, I told him that I wanted to sign up for his Chinese Political Thought class but it was closed. He shrugged and said just to bring an add/drop form to him and have him sign it to get me into the class. Sweet. I forgot he had told me once that he had heard great things about me from the bigwig Dr. Rahe and the sagely Dr. Buckley. Thank you academic advisor and research advisor.
I had to clear the academic advising hurdle next. Mrs. Jane Thomas smiled though, as she remembered me from having gone to ask the Dean Benediktson for money to go to a conference to present my undergraduate research. She asked me what classes I wanted to take. Well, I’d need a Senior Thesis block, Chinese Political Thought, American Political Development (poly sci with the tough Dr. Lim), Foundations of Education, and Child and Adolescent Development and Learning. Okay, she would put that into the queue but I had to clear two holds. First I needed to pay off the fairly large balance on my account and secondly I needed to get some shots to verify my well being for the student health center. She then reviewed my balance sheet and pointed out to me to what slots I still needed to fill. She commented that she was very surprised that I had not filled out the very basic requirement of doing a low level ancient history requirement. Wait a minute, did I not take an honors course over the law and philosophy of ancient Greece with Dr. Rahe the very first semester I was here at TU? Yes, I am pretty sure Dr. Rahe said that would more than suffice to fulfill that requirement. LOL, looking at her flabbergasted reaction when I name dropped Dr. Rahe I might have well said in my best Italian mafia accent “Don Rahe told me that he has taken care it of already, let family take care of family and do not worry about this…small detail.” (Incidentally, Dr. Rahe was the one who insisted I watch The Godfather to better understand patronage in ancient Roman history, and boy was he ever right on the mark.) Then she claimed that I needed a minor as well. Lady, I was in electrical engineering for two and a half semesters. Can’t that count? Okay, then, you just need to finish up your block courses.
I took a short break to move up a bunch of clothes to the apartment. Mysterious Phil and guru Stu helped me out.
At four o’clock in the afternoon it was time to meet with the university’s alternative certification officer, Dr. Beals, who also served as the chair of the education department. The sagely Dr. Buckley had informed me that Dr. Beals wants the education department to shift from producing teachers to being a place of research on education. This is because she got her doctorate from Harvard, where she learned it was more practical to simply certify teachers in their subject matter areas than go through formal certification. She loved the alternative certification program and would help anyone who could come through it. She laughed and smiled a big smile when she saw me, and explained the hoops I would have to jump through to obtain my alternative certification.
First, I had to know that I would not get certified to teach history. Instead, I would be certified to teach social studies. This meant taking some political science classes (Dr. Buckley always said that political science was history without the footnotes), geography (good Lord I went to three state geography bees as a kid), and Oklahoma history (I was an Asian farmer in Oklahoma!, I think that I learned enough Oklahoma history from that Rodgers and Hammerstein musical alone). I would still have to pass the certification tests. The first one would be the OGET, i.e. the general minimum competency test. This tests stuff that you should know if you have a high school diploma. They might as well ask me to blink and breathe to show my minimum competency. The second test would be a subject matter test. Again, may I simply blink and breathe for you? The third test would be a pedagogy test. Okay, it’s time to take some education classes to hurdle that problem.
I then asked all sorts of inane question about the alternative certification. Then she started laughing. Loosen up. I am going to help you through this. Tell me why you want to be a teacher. Well, I had this one chemistry teacher junior year of high school. He pointed out that none of us in AP Chemistry wanted to be teachers. Funny, he was denigrating his own profession. He proceeded to ask us whether we wanted the top five percent or bottom five percent of our class to teach our children? Ideally, you’d want to the top five percent. But if all of your top five percent consist of smart people, they’ll choose professions that will make twice as much as a teacher. Why would any of your top five percent choose to start out at $30,000 a year when he or she could be making twice that much starting out? It takes people who go against the grain. Obviously you want your doctors and pharmacists and engineers to be smart people, but you definitely want a few smart people teaching your children. That’s what set me to think about going into teaching. Dr. Beals nodded, as if she understood that was why she was sitting there at that very moment to help me out.
Then she busted out laughing. Huh? I was pretty sure the story I told wasn’t funny at all. She stopped her laughter momentarily to tell me that I was too serious of a person. Relax, everything will end up just fine. Also, I just wanted to let you know, you’re a bright young man who will accomplish anything you set your mind to accomplish. If you’ve set your mind on being a history teacher, you are going to be an amazing history teacher. Just consider whether or not you want to make ten thousand more dollars in Texas or not. We train a lot of teachers but few stay in Oklahoma. Also I am laughing because I felt destined to help you.
After all, how could I not help a Daniel Tu who came to TU?
After warming up inside the BSU, I eventually used my dad’s foolproof method to prevent myself from getting locked out to reclaim my car (can’t tell you, it’s a family secret). I returned to the BSU to play the keyboard that was recently donated to us while I was on medical leave. I had asked the Italian Stallion if it had any unusual features, but he said it was a run of the mill keyboard. So I imagined one of those fifty-six key low level keyboards. What I did not expect was an eighty-eight key instrument of high level quality. The Italian Stallion had forgot to mention the keyboard had weighted keys. Weighted keys. Um, that’s a pretty special feature. And it came with the pedal as well. Sure its timbre was pretty hollow compared to a real piano, but you’d have to get a top of the line keyboard to replicate the natural sound of a real one. Plus, I believe we got this keyboard because a string on the old piano broke. I really like this keyboard because it feels like you’re playing a real piano, but you’re granted the option to play the harpsicord or guitar if you want.
Then it was time to play Mario Kart 64 with Marcel “Da Noise” Ficklin, the prayer warrior Ryan, Dragon Commandre Sam, and the BSU director. I like to play the average characters best, so Luigi is usually my character of choice. I managed to lose most of the races, except I somehow won my least favorite map, Choco Mountain. I hate it because you can get randomly screwed on the cliff near the end. I placed a beautiful banana on Da Noise to force him to spin off the cliff to his doom.
Muahahahahaha.
Then it was lunch time. My director bought the Mario Kart guys coneys from Coney Islander. I prefer cheese coneys with everything, namely mustard, chili, and onions. It’s one of my few guilty pleasures in life, three cheese coneys with everything.
We discussed Master Life plans for next semester. I had skimmed through the lesson plan weeks and it seemed best to use the Master Life Elders to teach this time around. Intro would involve me, Da Noise, and the prayer warrior. We then needed to get off to a good start in Week 1, so I asked our director Steve to take do just that (Master Life II is his favorite part of the four part series). D2 would take up Week 2, Da Noise would preach on Week 3, the prayer warrior would share his knowledge on Week 4, the Z3 fanatic Stevo would share his expertise in Week 5, and deep voiced Jamil would wrap things up in Week 6. We also discussed how to help the pirate girl intern get through the final part, Master Life IV. Ultimately, scripture memorization.
I had to leave to meet with Dr. Buckley, but before I did so the Italian Stallion played “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” for me on the piano as per our agreement.
Then it was off to take care of re-enrollment. First I had to talk with my research advisor, Dr. Buckley. He cleared up some things about my research project and remaining hours in history. I love talking to the sagely Dr. Buckley, who has been teaching history at the University of Tulsa since the 70’s. He always has the most pertinent and interesting stories to tell. He chose to tell me about a professor that TU had for a few years. This professor was unusual in that he taught high school in New Haven, Connecticut for ten years while obtaining his masters and doctorate degree from Yale. He got his doctorate and came to teach at TU for a few years. Soon he got really great job offers from Vanderbilt, Swathmore, and UC Santa Barbara among other places. He chose Vanderbilt.
Dr. Buoye happened to step in at one point to ask our military historian, Dr. Buckley, if there was a term for the ballistic effectiveness of a cannon (i.e. how many people can it kill per shot). I felt bad because I had skipped more than half of my classes with Dr. Buoye under my depression. I went to talk with him to say sorry, but before I could open my mouth he said that I looked a lot better than I did all this semester. I guess he noticed. Well, I told him that I wanted to sign up for his Chinese Political Thought class but it was closed. He shrugged and said just to bring an add/drop form to him and have him sign it to get me into the class. Sweet. I forgot he had told me once that he had heard great things about me from the bigwig Dr. Rahe and the sagely Dr. Buckley. Thank you academic advisor and research advisor.
I had to clear the academic advising hurdle next. Mrs. Jane Thomas smiled though, as she remembered me from having gone to ask the Dean Benediktson for money to go to a conference to present my undergraduate research. She asked me what classes I wanted to take. Well, I’d need a Senior Thesis block, Chinese Political Thought, American Political Development (poly sci with the tough Dr. Lim), Foundations of Education, and Child and Adolescent Development and Learning. Okay, she would put that into the queue but I had to clear two holds. First I needed to pay off the fairly large balance on my account and secondly I needed to get some shots to verify my well being for the student health center. She then reviewed my balance sheet and pointed out to me to what slots I still needed to fill. She commented that she was very surprised that I had not filled out the very basic requirement of doing a low level ancient history requirement. Wait a minute, did I not take an honors course over the law and philosophy of ancient Greece with Dr. Rahe the very first semester I was here at TU? Yes, I am pretty sure Dr. Rahe said that would more than suffice to fulfill that requirement. LOL, looking at her flabbergasted reaction when I name dropped Dr. Rahe I might have well said in my best Italian mafia accent “Don Rahe told me that he has taken care it of already, let family take care of family and do not worry about this…small detail.” (Incidentally, Dr. Rahe was the one who insisted I watch The Godfather to better understand patronage in ancient Roman history, and boy was he ever right on the mark.) Then she claimed that I needed a minor as well. Lady, I was in electrical engineering for two and a half semesters. Can’t that count? Okay, then, you just need to finish up your block courses.
I took a short break to move up a bunch of clothes to the apartment. Mysterious Phil and guru Stu helped me out.
At four o’clock in the afternoon it was time to meet with the university’s alternative certification officer, Dr. Beals, who also served as the chair of the education department. The sagely Dr. Buckley had informed me that Dr. Beals wants the education department to shift from producing teachers to being a place of research on education. This is because she got her doctorate from Harvard, where she learned it was more practical to simply certify teachers in their subject matter areas than go through formal certification. She loved the alternative certification program and would help anyone who could come through it. She laughed and smiled a big smile when she saw me, and explained the hoops I would have to jump through to obtain my alternative certification.
First, I had to know that I would not get certified to teach history. Instead, I would be certified to teach social studies. This meant taking some political science classes (Dr. Buckley always said that political science was history without the footnotes), geography (good Lord I went to three state geography bees as a kid), and Oklahoma history (I was an Asian farmer in Oklahoma!, I think that I learned enough Oklahoma history from that Rodgers and Hammerstein musical alone). I would still have to pass the certification tests. The first one would be the OGET, i.e. the general minimum competency test. This tests stuff that you should know if you have a high school diploma. They might as well ask me to blink and breathe to show my minimum competency. The second test would be a subject matter test. Again, may I simply blink and breathe for you? The third test would be a pedagogy test. Okay, it’s time to take some education classes to hurdle that problem.
I then asked all sorts of inane question about the alternative certification. Then she started laughing. Loosen up. I am going to help you through this. Tell me why you want to be a teacher. Well, I had this one chemistry teacher junior year of high school. He pointed out that none of us in AP Chemistry wanted to be teachers. Funny, he was denigrating his own profession. He proceeded to ask us whether we wanted the top five percent or bottom five percent of our class to teach our children? Ideally, you’d want to the top five percent. But if all of your top five percent consist of smart people, they’ll choose professions that will make twice as much as a teacher. Why would any of your top five percent choose to start out at $30,000 a year when he or she could be making twice that much starting out? It takes people who go against the grain. Obviously you want your doctors and pharmacists and engineers to be smart people, but you definitely want a few smart people teaching your children. That’s what set me to think about going into teaching. Dr. Beals nodded, as if she understood that was why she was sitting there at that very moment to help me out.
Then she busted out laughing. Huh? I was pretty sure the story I told wasn’t funny at all. She stopped her laughter momentarily to tell me that I was too serious of a person. Relax, everything will end up just fine. Also, I just wanted to let you know, you’re a bright young man who will accomplish anything you set your mind to accomplish. If you’ve set your mind on being a history teacher, you are going to be an amazing history teacher. Just consider whether or not you want to make ten thousand more dollars in Texas or not. We train a lot of teachers but few stay in Oklahoma. Also I am laughing because I felt destined to help you.
After all, how could I not help a Daniel Tu who came to TU?
