First Day of Class

I had the first meeting with my class today. I am usually pretty apprehensive before the first day of any class, and given the possible difficulties with language and culture I was even more nervous today.

There were ten students in the class, nine from various parts of Malaysia and one from Iran: six males and four females. I had fun and I hope that they did as well. It appeared to me that they followed most of what I said; they nodded their heads at the correct time and they at least appeared to recognize when I was trying to be funny (and believe me, as usual, I was very funny).

Because of the way that Malay and Chinese family names and given names are ordered, I will be known as "Dr. Mark" while I am here. I was Dr. Mark for 6 summers working with Odyssey Expeditions on the sailboat in the Caribbean so I should respond if anyone ever calls me that.

I asked them some questions about themselves and here are some of the things that I learned. (1) The average number of languages spoken is well above three which has me beat by at least two (and some might argue even more). (2) Their career goals included being a member of Korean boy band, make-up artist, language interpreter and translator, ecologist, marine biolgist, and conservation biologist. (3) Their favorite US TV shows included Malcom in the Middle, Everyody Loves Raymond, Heroes, Gray's Anatomy, Desperate Housewifes, and America's Next Top Model. About a third of them said that they didn't watch American TV at all. (4) When I asked them to tell me "one interesting thing" about themselves they told me they liked Korean music (the boyband guy), loved cats, liked to dance, could bend his fingers back util they touched his arm (I've got to check that out next time), they liked video games, liked martial arts, played the guitar, and liked to watch animals- all pretty similar to what I hear when I ask the same questions at Tech.

My class only meets once a week (you can imagine how all of this lecturing is going to wear me out) so I won't see them again for a while. I was one of those "jerk" professors that gave homework on the first day.

I have a teaching blog for the class and you are welcome to follow along.
http://umspecialtopics.blogspot.com/
It doesn't seem fair for you to get all of this "learning" for free, but when I checked with UM about how you could pay tuition it seemed too complicated. Thus, I suggest a sizeable donation to the Dr. McGinley Travel Fund instead. I promise these funds will be spread around at various dive resorts in Malaysia.