More News on Indian Tourist Visa Fiasco

Check it out - the drama continues.
Turns out David Headley was on a business visa, not a tourist visa.

The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : It takes more than visa power to stop a terrorist

The Dharma of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

“It is futile to implement ideas in the public realm if we fail to practice them in our personal lives.”

- Charles Johnson on Martin Luther King

Learning Styles

Having 24 students makes it difficult to meet everyone's needs in a cross-cultural environment.  Some get it, some don't.  Some voraciously take notes, some fall asleep in the back of a lecture. 

Here's Wikipedia Learning Styles
Thus, research on what people think about how people learn.

David Kolb (my hero) introduced a really conplicated learning model that, even after 10 years of studying it, I still don't truly understand the difference between all of the quadrants. 

I've taught the DISC method, and "What color are you?" things.
None of it really sticks, and it all seems like a cheap 'soul-searching' workshop marketed toward the same folks that fall into the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People world - that we actually have control over our environment by knowing something about it.

Makes me think of that story of the guy that gets shot with the poisoned arrow and rather than pulling it out of his chest, he starts thinking, "Who shot that arrow? What kind of duck feather is on the end of it? What type of poison was on the tip?  How big is the arrowhead?"  Like that. 

waste of time? 

Parallelism

Mary continually refers to the students' poor parallel construction.  I am learning a lot about grammar working with her. 

For example, I appreciate Mary's poise, intelligence, and sense of humor.  (this sentence is badly parallel constructed).  What I mean to say is that I appreciate Mary's poise, her intelligence, and her sense of humor.  The wikiarticle says proper parallelism gives more focus and form to each item, thus bringing more focus to the writing as a whole.

good stuff.

Candles

Transferring Merit 

When a candle is lit in a dark room, it illuminates the room to some extent, but its power is limited. But if you use the same candle to light another candle, the total brightness increases. If you continue to do this, you can fill the room with brilliant illumination. The idea of transferring merit to others is like this. If we keep our own light selfishly hidden, it will only provide a limited amount of illumination. But when we share our light with others, we do not diminish our own light. Rather, we increase the amount of light available to all. Therefore, when others light our candle, we issue forth light. When out of gratitude we use our candle to light other people’s candles, the whole room gets brighter. This is why we transfer merit to others. This kind of light is continuous and inexhaustible.

- Master Sheng Yen from "Rich Generosity" (Spring 2009)