The last journal

Well, finally we will finish our Composition class in a few days.

I spent a lot of time for this class which is actually the best class in ALP. Mr. Cochran, thank you for your well-organized and wonderful class. (You do not need to give me extra credit for this word)

We wrote so much. That made us progress. Even I still make a lot of mistakes in my writin, I really have the confidence about my English.

I really like the class blog. I spent a number of hours to write it and it has made me progress each week. I also like the color paper packets for assignments. They helped us distinguish the goals of each assignment and also inspired us to work. In fact, I have learned many thing from Mr. Cochran. Going back to my home-country, as a teacher, I will create the web blog and colorful assignments as Mr Cochran did.

For the dear classmates, I hope all of you begin to study your Master Degree, or Bachelor Degree from the next Spring Semester. I wish you guys success in the future. May be, some of you become my son’s teachers. My part, I will stay with ALP for 8 weeks more before return to Vietnam. I will always say loud ''Hello'' when I meet you guys.

The traffic chaos

The traffic chaos chapter in the movie Baraka remains me some experiences about the city’s life. In this chapter, we saw a density of sky towers and car traffics in the city downtown. There were a mass of people walking in the street and a huge number of people waiting for the coming train in the railway station. It is  really ’’ chaos’’.That is the urban life, very dynamic and stressful.

These scenes made me imagine if I moved from Orange County to New York or Chicago. It would be uncomfortable. I have strong memories with the similar scenes. In 2000, when I was living in Aix en Provence, a small quiet city of France, I moved to Paris. It is like moving from Newport Beach to New York. In the first few days, I was really scared. I also feel lonely as a stranger; I thought that the traffic may break me down. Honestly, I want to turn back to my small room in Aix en Provence. I also felt tired by walking in the street between the sky-towers like in Singapore. I always think about if these sky-tower fell down in to me. It was a funny thought because I finally adapted all of that.

Finally, the scenes make me think about the urbanization. 

Letter to Mom and Dad: About the children's mistakes.

It is not my situation. I wrote this letter from the ideas of my students for their parents

Dear mom and dad.

I always want to say sorry about the mistakes I made. It is not that I do not care about what you said. On the contrary, I knew your directions are often true, but sometimes in my situations, I could not do it. So please, listen to me, I will learn these mistakes.

First of all, I really agree that everything you said is good for me. If I followed it, the results would be better and you would be happier. Moreover, I will success at school, go to University, graduate from there and have a good job. Everything would fit your plan. I listened to you but sometimes,my situations could not allow me do everything you said.

Second, my mistakes might make you sad, Mom and Dad, but please, do not worry much about them. They are my lessons, and I will learn from these failures. I have actually tried to do something event though you did not like it or did not allow me to do it. I may be wrong, but I would never regret. Believe me, Mom and Dad, these mistakes train me to give my self-decision in my future.

Thirdly, I say again that I always listen to you. So please, listen to me too, I need your listening. You do not need to understand me or understand my arguments but let me talk, let me explain why I submit these mistakes. I need your listening, I need you accept my emotions although it is wrong sometimes. I need you not only to show me the directions, I also need you to support me when I fail.

Mom and dad, we are in a new era, each children grow up to be independence and self reliance. I am happy with you. I will listen to you and I need your listening. I want to make you happy by learn from my mistakes.

Journal 14: Evaluate the teacher's perfomances

Blume,  Howard. (2011, Nov, 20). Californians support making teachers'reviews public. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 21, 2011, from: http://www.latimes.com.

A new survey showed that California voters want to use students test scores as an important factor to evaluate the teacher’s performances and then show these evaluation to public. Blume (2011) reported that 58% of the voters believed that the quality of public school would be better if the public can review the evaluations,while 23% said that it make things worse. About 900 of 1500 voter wanted the test scores to be counted at least 30% of an instructor’s evaluation. Furthermore, most of them wanted to use other measures like parents feedback, classroom observation.

In Los Angeles where test scores and evaluations are the important points in contract negotiations, the LA unified school district superintendent still refuses to make the review of public. On the contrary, the teachers union and some experts opposed using test scores as a factor to rate teacher. Blume also showed that the voters complain about teacher union: "Have too much influence over public education policy and stand in the way of improving schools."

Journal 13: Argument about the US men national team

Gude, K. (2011, Nov 7). Jürgen Klinsmann: five lessons for USA. The Guardian

In this article, Gude concludes that the US  man national team is in progress and Jurgen Klinsmann is a right choice for the US soccer.

In fact, media said that hiring Klinsmann as the head coach is wrong decision. His first five games were poor and low with1 win, 1 draw and 3 defeats. With only 2 goals, medias predict that there will be more defeat in the future when the US team face with the top- world teams in the world.

However, Gude analyzes and argues that the team's progress is more important than this result. By the clear evidences, he point out that Klinsmann has stabilized the defense. In the previous period with the former coach Bradley, the US team looked particularly vulnerable at the back by the loss to Panama and the 4-2 defeat by Mexico in the 2011 Gold Cup Final. Meanwhile, in all the five matches under Klinsmann’s leadership, the U.S. team has actually started strong and controlled the play early even if they didn't often score. Furthermore, the team has been scored by only one goals in each game. This is a claim of causes which appeal reason: the team is in progress. He also appreciates the value of the team’s new playing style, which based on possession and tempo. In his opinion, the Americans should wait for a progress rather than a miracle for their soccer national team.

Journal 12:

Kim Craft, R. (2003). Using spreadsheets to conduct monte carlo experiments for teaching introductory econometrics. Southern Economic Journal, 69(3), 726.

This one helps me to organize a lecture notes being simple to understand and practice. In fact, the Monte Carlo experiments were a valuable tool in econometrics courses but students do not often perform it. The reasons are they must pay much for software like Stata or Sas and also spend a lot of time to learn it. However, this article provides a method to practice Monte Carlo stimulation with Microsoft Excel, that is actually a lot cheaper. For me, this offered an effective method for teaching the basic econometric concepts. As a teacher, I always want to simplify everything I must teach, that would inspire my students to learn and practice more.

Journal 11: Research topic.

At first, in my opinion, Wikipedia is a genius idea.  It gives us the big pictures about everything. We might totally forget the great Encarta of Microsoft. Even though many people complain that information from Internet is not believable, I really believe in Wikipedia, especially about history.

However, in term of academic, Wikipedia could not give us the details. Therefore, it is understandable that it is not a main source to learn and research. Now, when we have an account of CSUF, we should download as much as possible the articles. I usually use Jstor to download.  In Vietnam, actually, we don’t have enough money to buy the academic articles like the CSUF does.

About my research, I will start to think about the question of MonteCarlo method in this week. Research is not easy. I studied a course about Monte- Carlo method at my Master Degree (45 hours). Even I had passed but I think I knew only a little about it, and I almost forgot. A couple of month ago, I saw my ex-classmate's article about Monte Carlo method in an academic journal that she wrote with my ex-professor. I thought about it for a whole week. I wish I would write a same article like she did.

Well, this time is an opportunity that push me study more about Monte- Carlo method for Econometrics. Thus, I will try to learn more and write it down . It is not serve for the goal of publishing in a journal, but it would help me know more and be able to discuss with my ex-classmates.

Finally, I will focus on the applies of Monte Carlo methods in Econometrics.