The Flu, The Race and Brendas i Norge?!
Interesting - albeit not too eventful - day in the world today. I was just scanning the news, trying to get a little more (in the context of needing to get a lot more) caught up on the political situation in America and saw this article about flu vaccines. It sounds like they are researching alternatives to the shot, not unveiling them, but I'm all for innovation on this one.
Both the election and the topic of illness/the flu have actually been on my mind today, as quite a few people are absent with the flu (prompting me to consider getting a shot, even now). I also tried to discuss the upcoming elections with one of my Second Year classes as an introduction today. Only two people (out of 24) knew who Obama was, with a few more for Hillary Clinton. They seemed to recognize George W. Bush's name, but I didn't take a hand count on that one. That is just name recognition! Maybe I am ethnocentric... but I am shocked they aren't familiar with what is going on in America right now (at least names), but I guess I should also consider the fact that I don't know the names of all (ok any) of the members of the Japanese Imperial family, either. I will definitely be doing a (very unbaised) intro lesson on the upcoming election, and maybe another on economics (possibly development?) this spring. This could be fun!
One last little random tidbit: here is an interesting story about popular names in Norway (paa norsk... sorry guys). If anything, it's interesting to see the similarities between popular American names today and trends in Norway (Sara og Mathias were in the top spots for girls & boys this year). Since I was already looking up stuff on names, I checked out the stastics on how many "Brendas" there are in Norway for kicks and it turns out there are 63 women with my name in the country (population is about 4.5 mil) . Koedder du? I've certainly never run into any of the others and that number seems really high, but seriously, who knew?! I guess times do change; Brunhilde may be on the way out before we know it!
Both the election and the topic of illness/the flu have actually been on my mind today, as quite a few people are absent with the flu (prompting me to consider getting a shot, even now). I also tried to discuss the upcoming elections with one of my Second Year classes as an introduction today. Only two people (out of 24) knew who Obama was, with a few more for Hillary Clinton. They seemed to recognize George W. Bush's name, but I didn't take a hand count on that one. That is just name recognition! Maybe I am ethnocentric... but I am shocked they aren't familiar with what is going on in America right now (at least names), but I guess I should also consider the fact that I don't know the names of all (ok any) of the members of the Japanese Imperial family, either. I will definitely be doing a (very unbaised) intro lesson on the upcoming election, and maybe another on economics (possibly development?) this spring. This could be fun!
One last little random tidbit: here is an interesting story about popular names in Norway (paa norsk... sorry guys). If anything, it's interesting to see the similarities between popular American names today and trends in Norway (Sara og Mathias were in the top spots for girls & boys this year). Since I was already looking up stuff on names, I checked out the stastics on how many "Brendas" there are in Norway for kicks and it turns out there are 63 women with my name in the country (population is about 4.5 mil) . Koedder du? I've certainly never run into any of the others and that number seems really high, but seriously, who knew?! I guess times do change; Brunhilde may be on the way out before we know it!
posted by Brenda Ann Elizabeth McKinney @ 7:37 PM
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